The Donald Trump Score Card

That's another way of saying Big Tech now embraces Trump and is expanding the oligarchy he has created.

It's an example of how autocrats consolidate power. It's happening quickly in the U.S.

 

Opinion | Trump made a mockery of ‘back the blue’ by pardoning Jan. 6 rioters

excerpt:

"Sure, he invented a big lie about a massive conspiracy to steal the 2020 election that’s poisoned the brains of tens of millions of Americans and irreversibly damaged the integrity of the United States’ body politic. But it’s equally risible to profess that “I am a friend of police, more than any president who’s ever been in this office” shortly after pardoning or commuting the sentences of nearly everyone involved with the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

Those granted clemency by this self-proclaimed champion of law and order included the ringleaders of the attempted insurrection, rioters carrying (or wearing) Nazi and Confederate regalia and chanting their intentions to murder then-Vice President Mike Pence and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as violent criminals who savagely attacked police officers for hours."

 

Meanwhile, if a Mexican migrant assaulted a police officer, it would be all about law and order and locking up criminals to make us safe.

If you can't see how he is white nationalist, it's because you are too

 

I.C.E. Raids Loosing Steam ?

Sooner or later, the high value targets of Homeland Security will run out ; or run away.

Today, in Chicago, ICE had 10 teams out , seeking offenders w no documents. All they got were two young men.

Videos of I.C.E. cuffing "Church Ladies" or students will enliven the MSNBC media and dent Trumps popularity.

 

Rep. McCormick essentially calls kids freeloaders and wants them to work for their school lunch.


Republican Calls Kids Freeloaders for Wanting Free School Lunch

excerpts:

Representative Rich McCormick argued Tuesday against free school lunches because they give kids “incentives to stay at home and not work.”


“You’re telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, at McDonald’s during the summer should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work? I think we need to have a top-down review. Think about where kids need to actually be.”

 

Trump's tariff threat worked on Colombia, but his plans for Canada and Mexico carry higher stakes

excerpt:

“For example, 60% of oil and gas imports come from Canada,” said Oxford Economics’ Martin. “A 25% tariff would lead to higher gasoline, diesel, and petroleum product prices for households and firms, especially in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, where refineries are connected to Canada by pipeline.”

 

Trump's supporters in Texas are nervous about his new 25% tariffs that are to start Feb. 1st.


Trump’s tariffs loom and even his supporters in Texas are nervous

 

Trump's tariff threats and implementation threaten U.S. auto industry.


Trump's threat for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada is challenging the auto industry

 

Trump once again is threatening 100% tariffs on BRIC countries like he did in November 2024.

Article from November 2024.


Trump threatens 100% tariff on the BRIC bloc of nations if they act to undermine US dollar

excerpt:

"His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRIC alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining."

 

Trump's weaponization of trade and the dollar can be considered as a reason why some countries desire a currency alternate to the U.S. dollar.


Trump threatens 100% tariff on the BRIC bloc of nations if they act to undermine US dollar

excerpt:

At a summit of BRIC nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.”

“It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.”

Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners.

 

Consistent with is protectionist fears of various aspects of life such as immigration, Trump is paranoid about BRIC countries that he thinks are trying to replace the U.S. dollar with another currency.

As usual, he once again threatens tariffs as a remedy for his perceived threats from other countries that either don't exist or that are undesirable situations that might occur as a result of his unjustified weaponizations of his presidential power that he's trying to wield onto countries around the world.

 

Do IRS Agents Really Need Guns?

excerpt:

"Here's a story from the agency's official history from a more recent period. One agent was stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. Another agent was offered $10,000 to murder the wife of one of the targets. This is not green-eyeshade stuff for accountants armed with calculators, thank you very much Congressman Gaetz. Increasingly this kind of work involves the really bad guys of a globalized criminal world, including drug dealers, terrorists, money launderers, and other kinds of people that you don't want to invite home for dinner.

So here's what I say: Is it really so crazy to think that agents facing these kinds of people might need to carry guns?"

 

Trump is trying to scare the public again by making it sound like all upcoming 88,000 IRS workers over the next decade are going to be in the criminal division and all are going to be issued guns to go after innocent taxpayers.

 

Do IRS Agents Really Need Guns?

excerpt:

"When people start talking about armed agents at the IRS, what they're really talking about is the agency's Criminal Investigation division. It used to be called the Intelligence Unit, and it was created in 1919 with just six agents. They were former postal agents, including Elmer Irey, their chief."

 

Trump's infamous Madison Square Garden speech the weekend before the 2024 election.


Trump more than ever mixes anger, fear and insults to stir supporters, say researchers • Colorado Newsline

excerpt:

‘They’

Using a specialized dictionary of 142 words related to violence, the pair studied Trump’s language for words like “crime,” “war,” “prosecute,” “prison,” “missile,” “death,” “massacre” and “blood.” They also scrutinized for markers of economic and populist content.

Since 2020, Trump’s negative language about “elites” has trended upward, but “the thing on which he’s most distinctive is his use of the pronoun ‘they,’ — and that he’s very high on that compared to other politicians,” Treisman said.

When the research duo expanded the parameters of comparison to various U.S. and world leaders, past and present, they found Trump’s frequency of violent language “exceeds that of any other politician in a democracy that we studied and falls just a little below the level in a selection of Fidel Castro’s May Day speeches.”

 

Trump more than ever mixes anger, fear and insults to stir supporters, say researchers • Colorado Newsline

excerpt:

Rowland said overall, Trump’s recent “lack of coherence and the negative emotions are the things that I think are most striking.”

“He never previously talked about policy in detail, but now there’s almost no discussion of policy at all. Insults have replaced it, in a way,” Rowland said.

“I juxtapose this against the most effective leaders of both parties, people like Ronald Reagan — they really made a case. Now, one could agree or disagree with it. And Barack Obama, when he was running he certainly laid out an agenda, and that’s not what I see at all (in Trump),” Rowland said. “I’ve never seen anything like it in American politics.”

 

Trump uses aircraft tragedy to promote his unsubstantiated claims about DEI causing the accident.


During a moment of national mourning, Trump chooses to attack DEI policies

excerpt:

"At a White House press briefing Thursday, he read through a more traditional speech expressing condolences, but then launched into remarks that felt more like something from a campaign rally, calling a Democratic official “a disaster,” castigating his predecessors and going after DEI — despite any evidence so far that these policies contributed to the midair collision.

“I’ve been an investigator for 35 years, investigating aircraft accidents, and when you talk about standards, what we just saw does not meet the published international standards of providing information in the wake of an accident,” Jeff Guzzetti, a former investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, told MSNBC.

“I’m not trying to be political here, but the information that came out ... it was not accurate. It undermined the honesty of the investigation,” he added. “And I’ve never seen something like this, where a government official circumvented the time-honored tradition of aircraft accident investigation. And you know, just personally, I think it’s appalling that these comments, political comments, were being made in the wake of the tragedy like this.”"

 

Trump's newly minted transportation secretary has no experience in transportation.

Duffy made (in his mind) a bold statement to the press that two aircraft colliding in mid-air is not normal.


During a moment of national mourning, Trump chooses to attack DEI policies

excerpt:

Duffy — who does not have a background in transportation but gained fame as a reality-TV star before becoming a congressman from Wisconsin — just started as transportation secretary on Wednesday. He struggled through a separate Thursday-morning press briefing, telling reporters the obvious line, “It is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”

 

Trump insults Buttigieg at press gathering about aircraft tragedy.

Buttigieg was Biden's transportation secretary throughout his term.


During a moment of national mourning, Trump chooses to attack DEI policies

excerpt:

At one point, a reporter asked Trump whether he was getting ahead of the investigation by casting blame even before the names of the victims are known.

“No, I don't think so at all. The names of the people — you mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that’s going to make a difference? They are a group of people that have lost their lives,” Trump said, adding that a list would be released soon.

Trump also took direct aim at Pete Buttigieg, who served as Biden’s transportation secretary.

“That guy’s a real winner. … He’s a disaster” Trump said, unprompted. “He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster.”

“He’s just got a good line of bulls---,” Trump added.

Buttigieg responded on X, calling Trump’s press conference “despicable.”

“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he posted. “We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,” he wrote.

 

During the press gathering, Duffy praised Trump for hiring only the best.

Duffy has no experience in transportation and is now Trump's Secretary of Transportation.


During a moment of national mourning, Trump chooses to attack DEI policies

excerpt:

Both Duffy and Hegseth backed up Trump on the diversity issue during the White House press briefing.

“You made an important point that when we deal with safety, we can only accept the best and the brightest in positions of safety that impact the lives of our loved ones, our family members,” Duffy said. “And I think you make a really important point on that, Mr. President. That is the motto of your presidency, the best and the brightest, the most intelligent coming into these spaces.”