In an effort to put the final nail the VRA’s coffin, the Supreme Court sent back to lower courts two cases that had suggested that only the Justice Department could bring enforcement actions under the law barring racial discrimination in voting. That was a 180 degree turn away from its prior holdings. Indeed, the Supreme Court has heard VRA cases brought by voters. 

If Republican voters choose democracy, they should not vote for the candidates forced upon them by the Supreme Court’s racist majority. Otherwise, they accept the brazen rigging of elections and tear up our democracy by its roots – the right to vote.

Democracy gives voters the choice of who governs them. It cannot exist if elected politicians are allowed to make that choice. But that’s what Trump’s majority just allowed.

There’s a history behind why and how the Supreme Court majority is willing to pervert the Constitution, the VRA, and America’s other core values.

Republican extremist Leonard Leo, as chairman of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, armed it with $1.6 billion to stack the Court with a majority that butchered the Constitution to turn their personal policies into law. Justice Thomas once joked (remember, humor is a vehicle for truth) that Leo was the “number 3 most powerful person in the world.”

Leo’s Supreme Court appointees — Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, and Barrett — were promoted by him and the Federalist Society to place their proxies on the Court. Holding that the Constitution and the VRA allowed states to racially gerrymander was at the top of their list.

It didn’t stop there. Leo and the Federalist Society had other priorities that his majority turned into law:

Keeping Trump in office:
• Trump’s majority gave him broad immunity and delayed his D.C. criminal trial until after the 2024 election so voters wouldn’t know if they were voting for a convicted felon.

• The majority struck down Section 4(b) of the VRA, which required states with histories of suppressing minority voting to clear voting-law changes with federal authorities. They relied on the 10th Amendment, which doesn’t mention elections. The 15th Amendment, which they hardly mentioned, expressly prohibits racial gerrymandering and gives Congress the power to enforce that prohibition. Requiring federal pre-clearance for states with a history of racial voter suppression would seem to fall directly within that power. Instead, the Court’s majority invoked the antiquated theory of equal sovereignty (“ES”), which requires the federal government to treat states equally. But ES is nowhere in the Constitution; it’s not even a law. It was originally invented to prohibit different criteria for admitting states into the Union.

Deregulation of corporations: The Supreme Court had previously held that courts should defer to the interpretations of executive agencies created and authorized by Congress to issue regulations under federal laws. The Supreme Court’s majority nixed that and transferred the authority to interpret legislation from executive agencies to the judiciary, which sorely lacks the personnel and expertise to do the job. It was the Court’s way of freeing corporations from regulations issued by executive agencies and, not surprisingly, it unleashed a slew of corporate lawsuits challenging agency interpretations. Corporations are now free to ignore regulations issued by executive agencies until the courts decide how they should be interpreted, which could take years – exactly what Leo and the Federalist Society wanted.

Overturning Roe v. Wade: That’s history too well known.

The entire majority is conflicted because it repeatedly rules in favor of the policies of Leo and the Federalist Society rather than as required by the Constitution. In Caperton v. Massey, the Supreme Court held that “every case … which would offer a temptation to the average man … not to be impartial … denies … due process of law.” Would Leo’s appointees feel beholden to the patron and his proxy who got them on the bench and be tempted to favor their agenda? You bet they would.

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The post THE CONSTITUTION GIVES VOTERS THE RIGHT TO PICK THEIR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS – IT’S NOT UP TO THE SUPREME COURT, TRUMP, OR STATE LEGISLATURES. first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Leo’s appointees — Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, and Barrett — just accommodated Leo by holding that the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act (the “VRA”) allowed Louisiana to use race in creating a district map, satisfying Leo’s hopes of denying blacks an equal opportunity to elect representatives. The holding was quickly exploited by six southern Republican state legislatures who redrew their maps to discriminate against black voters and convert minority-heavy districts into GOP seats.

In addition to rolling back anti-discrimination protections in voting, Leo’s priorities were: keeping Trump in office, deregulation of corporations, and restricting access to abortion.

His appointees complied on all fronts, even when it meant perverting the Constitution and defying the Supreme Court’s own precedent. The justices not chosen by Leo always filed strong and admonishing dissents.

Keeping Trump in office

• In Trump v. United States, Leo’s Majority gave Trump broad immunity and delayed his D.C. criminal trial until after the 2024 election so voters wouldn’t know that Trump was a convicted felon. By contrast, it took the Roberts Court just 16 days to decide Nixon wasn’t immune from prosecution and one day to make Republican George W. Bush president instead of Al Gore.
• Leo’s Majority worried that presidents would be chilled from taking bold action — a fabricated concern that other presidents’ conduct will be as egregious as Trump’s. As Justice Frankfurter held, “the process of Constitutional adjudication does not thrive on conjuring up horrible possibilities that … won’t happen again in the real world.”
• Leo’s Majority, bizarrely, remanded the case to the District Court to decide whether the January 6 attack on the Capitol was an official or unofficial act.
• That Trump, if inaugurated, could pardon himself.

States’ legislatures can racially discriminate to win elections.

• The Majority’s recent holding that state legislators can use race to gerrymander against minorities was preceded by other Constitutional violations.
• In Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP, Leo’s Majority upheld South Carolina’s Republican legislature’s right to move 60% of Black voters from their districts into a White-dominated district to ensure the election of the Republican candidate. Duh; isn’t the purpose of racial gerrymandering always to win elections?
• In Brnovich v. DNC, Leo’s Majority held that Arizona’s voting restrictions didn’t violate the VRA, which prohibits racial discrimination in elections. The law discarded votes cast in non-designated locations and prohibited third parties from collecting ballots for delivery to polling places other than family members, caregivers, or people who share the same household. But only 18% of Native Americans in rural counties receive mail at home, and most would have to travel two hours to reach a mailbox. Half don’t own cars and must rely on friends and neighbors, who are not allowed to help with transportation, which the law prohibits. Roberts admitted that Arizona’s restrictions fall more heavily on Native Americans, but that the consequences are small even though voters from the district were twice as likely as whites to have their ballots discarded. Nonetheless, Leo’s Majority decided that those disadvantages didn’t exceed “the usual burdens of voting.” To the contrary, the tossed votes exceeded the margins of victory in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
• In Shelby v. Holder, Leo’s Majority struck down Section 4(b) of the VRA, which required states with histories of suppressing minority voting to clear voting law changes with federal authorities. They relied on the 10th Amendment, which doesn’t mention elections. The 15th Amendment, which they didn’t cite, expressly prohibits racial gerrymandering and gives Congress the power to enforce that prohibition. Requiring federal pre-clearance for states with a history of racial voter suppression would seem to fall directly within that power. Shelby desperately invoked the antiquated theory of equal sovereignty (ES), which requires the federal government to treat states equally. But ES is nowhere in the Constitution; it’s not even a law. It was originally invented to prohibit different criteria in admitting states into the Union.

Deregulation of Corporations

• In Loper v. Raimondo, Leo’s Majority overturned Chevron v. NRDC, which held that courts should defer to an executive agency’s interpretation of ambiguous legislation — no longer. There, Leo’s Majority held that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to decide whether an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous language is correct. The holding transferred an enormous amount of policymaking from federal agencies, which require tens of thousands of workers, to the judiciary, the only unelected branch of government, which lacks the personnel to do the job. It was an indirect form of deregulation. Loper also unleashed a slew of corporate lawsuits challenging agency interpretations. The courts will now be loaded down with second-guessing agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutes.

Overturning Roe v. Wade

Leo found easy fodder in Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito. The rest is history.

Leo’s appointees were conflicted since they repeatedly ruled in favor of Leo rather than what the Constitution required. In Caperton v. Massey, the Supreme Court had held that “every case … [and] every procedure which would offer a temptation to the average man … to not be impartial … denies … the due process of law.” Would Leo’s appointees feel beholden to the patron who got them on the bench and be tempted to favor their patron’s agenda? Of course they would.

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The post THE GOP PLOT THAT STACKED THE SUPREME COURT WITH JUSTICES WHO TURNED THEIR PRIORITIES INTO THE LAW  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

He put his five casinos and the iconic New York city Plaza Hotel into bankruptcy. At least 60 lawsuits document  Trump stiffing employees who worked at his real estate ventures. There finally came a time when no U.S. bank would lend to Trump. International Treasury buyers are likely to follow suit or, at least, demand higher interest rates.

This time he’s putting the U.S. Treasury on the hook risking: a default on America’s sovereign debt, the need to cut America’s safety nets to pay debt, a recession in the next 12 months and, frightfully, Trump mismanaging it into a depression. 

A default on U.S. Treasury debt and a depression would be highly unlikely if you could assume a rational President, Republicans that have the courage to reign him in and a qualified cabinet. Tragically, not one of these assumptions can be made.

In normal times, the risk for a recession in any 12-month span is between 15% and 20%. Moody’s Analytics, however, has raised the risk to 48.6%. While other estimates range between 30% and 45%, the risk is likely to rise rapidly if the conflict in the Middle East is prolonged or becomes more severe. 

The likelihood of a recession falling into a depression is more worrisome now. It was international cooperation that prevented the Great Recession of 2008 from becoming another depression. There will be none of that next time. Trump has alienated all our allies by bombing Iran without consulting them, by launching surprise tariffs, and his allegiance to Putin threatens all of Europe. 

The international cooperation he’ll need won’t be there, just like it wasn’t there when he asked our allies to help clear the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, Trump’s not one to compromise – only his opinions have any value.

To repeat, the United States now owes more money than its economy generates. Leading up to the Great Depression of 2008, US debt held by the public was 35% of GDP. Now it’s more than 100%, so borrowing to recover from a recession will be much more challenging.

It was Presidents Bush’s and Obama’s cabinets and advisors, who helped save us from a depression in 2008. They were expert and experienced in international economic and monetary policy. Trump’s cabinet has no such expertise or experience. They are the most unqualified and dangerous cabinet in America’s history, more like school children planning mischief, and they’re there only to condone Trump’s every decision. 

When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, the US was a large creditor nation. We’re now a large debtor nation, having borrowed more money than GDP can generate. In May 2026, total U.S. debt reached $39 trillion so Congress had to raise the debt ceiling to $41 trillion to replace the tax revenues lost from Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. 

How would Trump respond to a depression? The same way he responded to the Covid pandemic. He’ll assure us that it is “going to disappear. It’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” 

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The post TRUMP’S BORROWING MORE THAN HE CAN REPAY AGAIN. THIS TIME THE U.S. TREASURY IS ON THE HOOK. first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Shoen treated superstar Saquon Barkley with callous disrespect . So, Barkley left and signed with the Giants perennial rival, the Philadelphia Eagles. He lead them to a Superbowl victory and was named Offensive Player of the Year. 

Trump, actually, had no strategy, and certainly didn’t realize that the real winner of his Iran war would be China without deploying any troops or a single weapon. That calculation was beyond Trump’s bandwidth, but would have become apparent had he consulted Congress, our allies and/or qualified experts who, sadly, don’t exist among his unqualified appointments confirmed by the Senate Republicans on his leash.

Trump’s war has weakened America’s military readiness in Southeast Asia. He moved one of five U.S. aircraft carriers and powerful missile defense systems in the Indo Pacific to the Middle East, leaving South Korea vulnerable to Chinese economic retaliation for hosting U.S. antimissile systems that were promised by the U.S. to permanently shield South Korea from an attack by North Korea. 

The repositioning sent a message to all our Asian partners that the region is not a priority for our President. Tragically, it will take decades for the broken trust to heal.

The war in Iran is also providing China with a live tutorial of the United States’ military capabilities, which Beijing can use in a future conflict over Taiwan or anywhere else. 

The alienation of our regional friends hasn’t stopped at the Indo-Pacific. Iran responded to Trump’s bombing with drone attacks on our Gulf partners, breaking their trust in the U.S. and pushing them to rely more on China. For example, the United Arab Emirates has increased its cooperation with the Chinese military. 

Moreover, unlike the United States, China has insulated itself against the disruption in oil supplies by developing sources of renewable energy and an overcapacity in coal power. Its renewables now provide more than one-third of the country’s power and accounts for the production of a third of the world’s total wind and solar capacity. Its profits from batteries and electric vehicles have surged since the beginning of Trump’s war. 

In sharp contrast, Trump’s energy policy includes the rolling back of incentives for clean energy alternatives, which is not surprising given oil and gas firms $18 billion in tax cuts and regulatory breaks for the industry – a manifestation of Trump’s choice of self over country.

If his war calms down enough, he’ll reschedule his cancelled trip to China, where he will have to negotiate from a position of self-inflicted weakness and face a formidable leader in XI who has spent years preparing for this moment of U.S. overreach. 

Then there’s the Trump’s war’s $9B a month gift to Russia triggered by Trump’s waiver of U.S. sanctions against Russian oil exports to slow the surge in oil prices. This while Russia is providing intelligence, satellite imagery, and military technology to help Iran target U.S. forces in the Middle East.  

If any U.S. president needed help with his strategy for launching a war, it’s Donald Trump. Other presidents sought the advice of Congress (including when not seeking its formal declaration of war), NATO, the UN and qualified experts. Trump chose not to ask for help from any of them. Instead he rolled the dice and they came up craps.

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The post A TESTAMENT TO TRUMP’S IRAN STRAGETY first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The fear of violence is justified. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene received  incited death threats against her and her son when she turned against Trump.Over a dozen Indiana state lawmakers who refused Trump’s request to gerrymander for more Republican seats were targeted with bomb threats.

Republicans have been swatted by Trump zealots. Swatting’s a type of harassment by falsely reporting emergencies to rush police to a person’s home. It can cause long-term damage to children’s emotional and physical health and can lead to long-term nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, emotional distress, terror and trauma. It can also turned deadly. 

The correlation between Trump’s constant invective and violence against non-accommodating Republicans is undeniable. ABC News identified over 50 criminal cases where individuals explicitly identified Trump as the reason for violent threats. 

After the January 6 Capitol riot, Republicans who criticized Trump for the rampage expressed fear for their lives.” 

A Reuters investigation identified over 30 Republican officials who faced threats tied to their refusal to support overturning the 2020 election.

Liz Cheney was the victim of repeated death threats after turning against Trump. 

Adam Kinzinger received threatening voicemails that warned: “Gonna get your wife… gonna get your kids” and “We know where your family is.”

The Raffensberger family received death threats after Trump’s surprise loss in Georgia.

Republicans’ most pernicious surrender to Trump-incited threats was their  confirmation of the most flagrantly unqualified and dangerous cabinet in America’s history. They risked Americans’ health, turned the Department of Justice and FBI into Trump’s private gestapo, removed rational thought from the decision to attack other countries and debilitated our national security. 

It’s doubtful that the threat of loosing their seats was responsible for confirming a troop of grossly unfit sycophants, especially because sitting Republicans are more likely to lose their seats to a Trump-backed primary challenger or a Democrat. But the decision becomes more difficult when one’s family is threatened.

So how can dissenting Republicans effectively oppose Trump and neutralize the threats he rouses?

Most states make threats of harm a crime punishable by jail . Victims should notify state law enforcement officials with details of threats. They  can track digital threats and subpoena records from social media platforms and Gmail logs, including IP addresses, account activity and can often identify the offender. Calls and texts can also be traced through carriers. Then Republicans can be untethered to Trump.

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The post REPUBLICANS ARE MORE AFRAID OF VIOLENT ATTACKS THAN LOOSING THEIR SEATS TO A TRUMP-BACKED CHALLENGER first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Trump warned that Iran’s “civilization will die” if it doesn’t take his deal, which includes opening the Strait of Hormuz and freezing Iran’s nuclear development. Iran rejected both conditions and accused Trump of violating their agreement. Israel is far from on board. The cease fire is disintegrating.

Oddly, Trump said Iran’s  proposal  is “workable” even though it requires passage through the Strait be coordinated with Iranian’s Military, which leaves Iran in control of its traffic. It also requires an acceptance of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which Trump blithely claims, “will be … taken care ⁠⁠of.” 

Iran has already won. The Pentagon’s addiction to expensive sophisticated weapons that take long to produce has shifted the military advantage to Iran’s drones which take much less time to produce and at a fraction of the cost of America’s Tomahawk missiles. Their drones are capable of more precision at short and long ranges. Putin has helped Iran fight until it exhausts America’s military, which is already draining our supply of precision-guided munitions.

Iran, now in the driver’s seat, won’t agree to liberate the Strait or freeze its nuclear program. Although it’s unlikely that Trump will incinerate Iran, we should remember that General Milley had to prevent Trump from resorting to our nuclear arsenal during his first term. 

The other option is to declare victory and pull out, which leaves Iran in control of the Strait to charge tolls that rebuild its infrastructure and strengthen its economy and increase its treacheries. It’s clear who won and who lost. 

Voters must replace the Republican detritus with candidates who aren’t Trump’s slaves. 

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The post WHAT THE HELL ARE REPUBLICANS WAITING FOR? first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Trump is letting Vladimir Putin  send Iran intelligence on American military movements and  give Iran technology that makes Iran’s drones more accurate and deadly. Our President is helping Iran fight until it exhausts America’s military. It’s already draining the Pentagon’s supply of precision-guided munitions designed to hit specific targets.

 Putin denied it, but Trump took his word over his administration’s own security experts, and he continues to waive oil sanctions against Russia – another pitiful accommodations to his idol. 

Ironically, Trump’s many treacheries are more the fault of sitting Republicans who, among their many oath violations, confirmed the least qualified and most dangerous cabinet in American history. Unlike sitting Republicans however, Trump can’t help himself. He checks all the boxes mental professionals use to diagnose sociopaths and narcissists. Among them:

• Narcissists focus exclusively on are their own needs and nothing else. The ugly truth is that Trump’s bombing was self-serving – to distract voters from the Epstein scandal and his punishing economy, and for leverage to declare an emergency as an excuse to deploy American troops on U.S. soil, delay the midterm elections, and prove he can do anything he wants. The attack had nothing to do with Trump’s stated goals of regime change or denuclearization. Both were lies. Preventing the latter was already accomplished by his last attack on Iran, and achieving regime change doesn’t work for the U.S. It certainly didn’t in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. 
• Both narcissists and sociopaths are delusional. Trump insisted regime change had already occurred in Iran when it’s people and  military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have consolidated around the Ayatollah. He also said the Strait will “open up naturally,” reminiscent of his promise that Covid would “disappear like a miracle.” But by the end of his first administration the U.S. accounted for just 4.2% of the world’s population but 30% of COVID  cases and 19% of COVID deaths. Whether he believes what he says or is lying, he shouldn’t be America’s President.

I blame the sitting Republican cowards for putting our country, our allies and most of the Gulf nations in this near-irreversible disaster. There are no good outcomes. Trump might take a politically motivated escape that leaves Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz and subjects the U.S. and the rest of the world in a devastating oil shock. 

Unlike every other U.S. President, Trump never consulted with our allies before bombing Iran. So we won’t be able to rely on their cooperation for decades to come, even, perhaps, if a more reliable government replaces the current one. That’s because American voters elected a rouge president and a complicit Republican majority to Congress, and our allies worry that it could happen again. 

Another unspeakable outcome is that Trump continues the war and deploys American troops in Iran which would extend the war indefinitely and ensure a more obvious U.S. loss given Iran’s rugged mountains and uninhabitable deserts.

There have been many courageous Republicans  that have done great things for our country, even saved us from several crises. We need them now more than ever to save us from this Iran train wreck  and to restore the Republican party to its respected standing at home and internationally. 

Perhaps the most difficult challenge to a new Congress will be to recapture the honor, trust and respect that sitting Republicans allowed Trump to reduce a respected global leader to a nation widely mocked, distrusted, and shunned.

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The post REPUBLICANS CAN  KEEP THEIR MAJORITIES BY VOTING IN THE PRIMARIES FOR REPUBLICANS NOT ON TRUMP’S LEASH.  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

You can add the Iran war to the list of Trump’s betrayals that were enabled and then tolerated by his subjugated Republicans in Congress. They need to be replaced by Republicans he doesn’t control. So, vote for them in the upcoming Republican primaries. 

Many Republicans have strengthened the world’s respect, trust for and cooperation with America with thoughtful and effective foreign policy:

• President Theodore Roosevelt, aided by his Republican Congress, established the United States’s right to intervene in Latin America in order to maintain stability. Unlike Trump’s war, Roosevelt’s administration  was quickly successful in reducing European interference in Latin America and the Caribbean. Roosevelt’s foreign policy was clear — to “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick,” meaning,negotiate peacefully while maintaining a powerful military. Trump launched his attack while he was pretending to negotiate.

• Arthur Vandenbergas chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee worked with Democratic President Truman to forge bipartisan support for NATO and the Marshall Plan – a plan that rebuilt Europe after World WAR II and spread American influence throughout the globe. 

• Unlike Trump, President Reagan won the cold war without military action. And while standing at the gate of the Berlin Wall, Reagan successfully admonished Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “to open the gate and tear down this wall.”

• John McCain warned the U.S. of Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons early on, and that they would be used to sponsor and provoke terrorism. He also advocated a tougher stance with North Korea, prevented Trump’s repealof Obamacare, saving21 Americans their health insurance, and was a dominant voice in building America’s global influence and strong military.

• Richard Nixon was the first President to visit China, meet with its leaders and open diplomatic relations. The improved relationship was key to counterbalancing Russia’s global influence. It also  developed in to a broader policy of détente between the major powers.

Historically, European countries have played central roles in maritime security operations of the type they denied Trump. They possess  advanced naval capabilities and have a long record of participating in securing international waterways. Indeed, Europe joined the United States in NATO-led and ad hoc missions to maintain global stability.

But Trump trashed those relations with his constant disparagement of NATO, his withdrawal from international agreements, including the Iran nuclear deal, his insults of European countries and their leaders, the surprise (and illegal) tariffs and not alerting our allies in advance of the bombings. It all exhausted Europe’s diplomatic trust in America. History shows that when the United States consults allies to align strategies before acting, they are much more willing to help.

It’s a pity because securing the Strait requires coordination with other countries, intelligence sharing, and a legitimate political purpose that Trump never had. First he told us he’s bombing Iran to achieve regime change, then switched his reason to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, all while claiming he had productive talks with Iran on the “complete and total resolution of hostilities” in the Middle East. Iran denied it.

All were lies. Preventing Iran from developing a nuclear bomb was already accomplished by his last attack on Iran. His real reasons for bombing and killing thousands were to distract voters from the Epstein scandal and his punishing economy, for leverage to declare an emergency as an excuse to deploy American troops on U.S. soil, to delay the midterm elections, and prove he can do anything he wants. Had he not trashed those relationships, the United States might have assembled a powerful multinational force and cleared the Strait. 

Sitting Republicans could have prevented this war by joining Democrats in impeaching and convicting Trump. Waiting for them to rein him in is foolish. 

Perhaps the most difficult challenge to a new Congress will be to recapture the honor, trust and respect that sitting Republicans allowed Trump to diminish a respected global leader to a nation widely mocked, distrusted, and shunned.

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The post OUR EUROPEAN ALLIES WOULD HAVE HELPED TRUMP CLEAR THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IF HE HADEN’T ALIENATED THEM  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The disaster will have consequences that American voters and even Trump’s enslaved Republicans should finally realize that Trump is a bigger threat than an advantage to keeping their Congressional seats and join the Democrats in removing him – in other words, regime change at home.

The momentum is building. The war is backed by the lowest number of Americans ever at 41%. Reuters poll has it as low as 27%. Support will continue to deteriorate as Iran increases its retaliation.

Videos showing Iran’s drones bombing a high-rise building in Bahrain, a Dubai hotel, Dubai’s airport, a Bahrain radar facility, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, and Amazon data centers in the Emirates are plentiful and convincing that Iran’s threats are real and lasting. 

So is the economic damage to the U.S. and the world at large. Iran bombed critical oil-production facilities and the UAE had to shut down one of the world’s largest oil refineries. Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz reduced oil traffic by 75%, sending oil prices soaring globally and gas prices at the pump in every state.

Clearly, America’s military is far superior to Iran’s. But in this war, the U.S. lost that advantage to Iran’s drones which are much less expensive, more rapidly produced, more scalable at a fraction of the cost, and is capable of precision at short and long ranges. The Pentagon’s addiction to too-slowly producing sophisticated and expensive weaponry is a disadvantage. It’s unclear whether the 1000 Tomahawks ordered will be delivered on time. 

The Pentagon’s Switchblade drone was deployed in Ukraine with a range of less than 60 miles and costs around $120,000 each. By contrast, Iran’s drone has a range of 940–1,240 miles and cost around $35,000 each. Ukraine, copying Iran’s drone technology, brought Russia’s offensive to a halt.

The U.S. fired around 400 Tomahawk missiles to intercept Iranian drones –about 10% of U.S. drone inventory – at a cost of around $800 million, which could buy 23,000 Iranian drones. 

Sending troops to Iran is not the act of a sane man. Yet Trump’s ill-considered decision to bomb Iran has made a land invasion possible if not likely. 

A ground war in Iran will be near-impossible to win. First, the size of the ground force could exceed the scale of Vietnam. Rugged mountains make up half of Iran’s territory, and its urban centers are inland and protected by them and by uninhabitable deserts.  

Given Iran’s much larger population than Iraq’s, it would require as many as 1.6 million troops, equaling roughly three-quarters of the U.S. military, including combat forces America doesn’t have.

Deploying ground troops would provide Moscow and Beijing with an opportunity to weaken a rival superpower that is already overextended and domestically fractured. 

In the end, Trump’s goal of inspiring an uprising won’t be reached. American bombing has yet to create fissures in the regime. Nor has it inspired Iranians to demonstrate.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard remains firmly ‌in control of Iran’s strategy and battlefield. Demolishing their infrastructure only intensifies national solidarity. 

Trump’s ignored the lessons of America’s shameful failures in similar military attempts.

America’s experience in Vietnam bears a striking similarity to what Trump’s doing in Iran.  The U.S. dropped three times more tonnage of bombs in Vietnam than in World War II. U.S. air superiority destroyed the country’s crucial military facilities seemingly vital to the Vietnam’s military, and crushed any expectation that North Vietnam could fend off America’s imminent victory. Yet, just a few months later, Vietcong and Vietnamese forces attacked America’s presence in 100 cities and towns across South Vietnam and shattered the perception that an American victory was near. The Defense Department reported that the failed war cost the U.S. military $138.9-billion — over $1 trillion in today’s dollars. 

The U.S. war in Afghanistan was also a shameful failure, costing over $2.3 trillion and more than 20,000 American lives. And it set the stage for the Taliban’s rapid return to power.

The cost to the U.S. of the Iraq war totaled more than $3 trillion including direct government expenses and its impact on the U.S. economy. It also cost 4,492American lives.

Yet Trump declared “We won … It was over in the first hour.” Remember when he claimed Covid will disappear “within a couple of days and be near to zero,”  it would “disappear like a miracle.” But by the end of his first administration the U.S. accounted for just 4.2% of the world’s population but 30% of COVID  cases and 19% of COVID deaths.

The ugliest truth is that Trump’s attack on Iran has nothing to do with his goals of regime change or denuclearization. It’s that he’s sacrificing American lives, its economy, its honor and what’s left of its financial strength in order to distract from the Epstein scandal, for leverage to declare an emergency, as an excuse to deploy American troops on U.S. soil and to try to delay the midterm elections. 

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The post REGIME CHANGE IN THE U.S. IS MORE LIKELY THAN IN IRAN. first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Turns out it was a good idea for Trump, but a disaster for the country. 

The bombing of Iran quickly supplanted news about his sexually assaulting and hitting a minor, his corruption, Constitutional violations, more brutal ICE killings, and his election rigging. He can also claim emergency powers that he’ll try to use to deploy troops against protesters, postpone the midterm elections and give Republicans something to cheer about. 

This isn’t a political accusation. It’s a string of facts. Our president raged war against a country and fired the people who protect us from its retaliation.

The war is catastrophic for the United States. It’s already killed dozens of school children (who the Chairman of the American Conservative Union claims are better off dead), a thousand other civilians, will kill countless more, and cause major economic disruption throughout the world.

Trump claims he wants regime change. It didn’t work in Iraq and won’t in Iran. Like in Iran, we killed Iraq’s leader, it ended in decade-long brutal civil war and increased the region’s hatred towards America. 

The attack on Iran has also heightened the risk of a nuclear event either by intention or mistake. It could originate with Trump who wanted to nuke North Korea in the last month of his first administration. But General Mark Milley was there to stop him. There’s no Milley now, only a sycophant, alcoholic, unqualified Fox News co-host shockingly confirmed by Republican Senators. 

Trump is capable of hitting the button out of his anger at something unrelated to the issue at hand. He launched his tariffs his steel tariffs upon becoming “unglued” over  Hope Hicks’ testimony about Russia’s election interference and because his chief of staff dropped his son-in-law’s security clearance. There were no meaningful consultations, research or explanations, no alert of foreign trade partners or Congress. No one at the State, Treasury or Defense Departments were notified that tariffs were about to be announced — just like he started a war with Iran without the Constitutionally required Congressional approval. 

After becoming frustrated over his staff’s inability to reach a consensus on pardoning January 6 attackers, he threw up his hands and said, “”F–k it, Release ’em all,” and he released into the streets dozens of prisoners with prior convictions or pending charges for crimes of rape, sexual abuse of a minor, manslaughter, child pornography, drug trafficking. 

If Iran nears defeat and develops the capability, it’s final retaliation could be a nuclear bomb, perhaps not on America’s homeland, but within the region.  Most Western observers view Iran’s priorities as protecting their national interest, but they’re dictated more by religious doctrine. And many clerics preach that the deployment of nuclear weapons is permissible as a last resort.

An unintended nuclear launch has always been more likely than an intentional one. Of the 24 close calls where nuclear war was narrowly avoided, only the Cuban missile crisis involved one nuclear power threatening another. The other incidents resulted from faulty technology, misinterpreted data, human error, and a Soviet false alarm. A nuclear disaster could also result from Iran missiles and drones hitting U.S. and UK nuclear facilities in as many as ten of them. 

Iran still has lethal military power. It can fire hundreds of missiles at U.S. facilities in the Middle East and awaken its regional network of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian who share Iran’s animosity toward Israel the United States. Support from Tehran enabled the Houthis to fire missiles into Israel.

Intelligence assessments indicate that Iran has active sleeper cells throughout the United States.

As hostilities escalate, Trump’s war could plunge the global economy into an inflationary crisis led by the price of oil, especially if Iran cripples shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The consequences could be Trump’s worst. But will they be bad enough for his Republican toadies to find their consciences?

The post IRAN – A GREAT IDEA FOR TRUMP, A DISASTER FOR AMERICA first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The fallout is likely to  upend the entire region, produce significant civilian casualties, cause major losses to the U.S. military and our allies in the region, result in major economic disruption in the United States and throughout the world, and leave the region destabilized for years to come.

The attack is also unlikely to lead to regime change. That and denuclearization of Iran are Trump’s stated missions. Regime change failed before – even backfired. Like Trump’s mission in Iran, the invasion of Iraq was aimed at regime change. We killed their leader and triggered a power vacuum, a brutal, decade-long civil war, regional instability a “dysfunctional kleptocracy,” and increased hatred towards America. 

Worse, the attack heightens the risk of a nuclear event, either by intention or mistake. A nuclear attack could originate right here at home with a President who wanted to nuke North Korea in the last month of his first administration. Fortunately, General Mark Milley was there to stop him. There’s no Milley now, only an alcoholic, unqualified Fox News co-host shocking confirmed by Republican Senators.

A nuclear disaster could also come in the form of Iran’s final retaliation. Most Western observers view Iran’s conduct through the lens of protecting their national interest, but its priorities are more consistent with the Mahdist religious doctrine,  which dictates that military might is central to its doctrines, and many jurists maintain that the deployment of nuclear weapons is permissibleas a last resort.

An unintended nuclear launch has always been more likely than an intentional one. Of the 24 close calls where nuclear war was narrowly avoided, only the Cuban missile crisis involved one nuclear power threatening another. The other incidents often resulted from faulty technology, misinterpreted data, human error during the Cold War and beyond, the 1983 Soviet false alarm, and the 1983 Nato military exercises. Eight of the closest calls stand out as among the most provocative of a  launch in the in the Middle East.

Iran still has lethal military power. Since last June, it has moved to rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal at what an Israeli military assessment described as “a rapid pace.” It can fire hundreds of missiles at U.S. bases and other facilities and awaken its regional network of partners and proxies, namely Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian who share Iran’s animosity toward Israel the United States and oppose the Jewish state’s existence. Support from Tehran has also enabled Yemen’s rebel Houthis to fire missiles at Israel and attack its commercial ships in the Red Sea — actions the Houthis called a show of solidarity with Hamas. 

Iran has sent missiles and drones to attack U.S. and UK facilities in Qatar,the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Iraq and Cyprus, raising the danger of bombing nuclear power plants, reactors and fuel storage facilities in many of those countries.

Each of the countries under attack indicated high levels of preparedness to retaliate for the actions of Iran.

Iran has many ways it could respond to Trump’s attack, including cyber operations. Between 2012 and 2014, Iran targeted U.S. financial institutions, Saudi Aramco oil, and the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. It could also to attack critical infrastructure. 

Intelligence assessments indicate that Iran poses a threat in the U.S. through networks believed to be operating as sleeper cells.

If hostilities continue to escalate, Trump’s war could plunge the global economy into an inflationary crisis led by the price of oil. The conflict has disrupted shipping, leaving at least five tankers damaged and around 150 ships stranded around theStrait of Hormuz. Marine insurers are cancelling war risk coverage for vessels and oil shipping rates are set to surge further.

Trump’s reasons for the attack conflict with Marco Rubio’s and are contradicted by the facts, raising suspicions as to Trump’s motives. Heightening those suspicions, just days before Trump bombed Iran, his FBI Director, Kash Patel, fired the counterintelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats from Iran and its proxies, hobbling the United States ability to detect and subvert retaliatory actions against the United States, raising suspicions as to Trump’s motives.

Truth is who the hell knows why Trump bombed Iran? His denuclearization motive is contradicted by his claim that his attacks last summer obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity, a claim he repeated during his recent State of the Union address. Regime change is fruitless – witness Iraq. He also bizarrely accused Iran of interfering in 2020, 2024 elections to try to defeat him.

Was it to give the Republican party an edge in the midterms? Or to create a state of emergency in an attempt to delay them? Or to rev up his base? You decide. 

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Bipartisanship is impossible when one party is bound by lies whether they believe them or not and are unencumbered by the truth. The Republicans’ unanimous standing ovations for Trump falsehoods demonstrates that they’re confined to them in their policymaking.    

The Republicans stood and cheered for his most blatant and pernicious lies – including his touting of policies that will upend the quality of life of nearly all Americans. For example:

Trump praised his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” as a “turnaround for the ages,” suggesting that it will spur economic growth and pay for Republicans $4.5 trillion tax cut for America’s wealthiest. The nasty truth is Republicans will replace the lost tax revenues by cutting Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance programs.

He claimed that undocumented immigrants were criminals who are responsible for importing drugs, murder, sex trafficking, rape and other  violent crimes.  

The truth is that undocumented immigrants are arrested less than half as often as native-born citizens for drug crimes and have the lowest homicide arrest rate of all people sur, according to a 2024 study funded by the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice.

As part of his obsession to undo everything President Obama accomplished he continued to claim it was unaffordable and claimed he had a better and cheaper [undisclosed] plan. The Truth: overturning Obamacare could leave 21+ million Americans without insurance. 

Also, Republicans refused to extend the Obamacare subsidies. As a result premiums would rise from $888 in 2025 to about $1,904 in 2026.

And he claimed that his tariffs are paid “by foreign countries,” but they are paid by U.S. consumers, farmers, and businesses. Now that the Supreme Court held the tariffs to be illegal, he will have to reimburse those who paid them. Interestingly, most Republicans remained seated for his tariff lie.

Most Americans know when Trump is lying (which is almost always). It’s a safe assumption that Republicans also know. So why do they endorse his lies with standing ovations? The most common answer is the same reason they pass his policies – that they don’t want to face a primary challenger backed by Trump. So they value keeping their seats more than keeping their oaths to their constituents and all other Americans. 

Trump is incapable of reversing course. Unless the Republicans find the courage to contain him, the U.S. will suffer lasting economic and geopolitical costs for years to come. What’s most alarming is that Trump checks all the boxes that mental health professionals use to diagnose a malignant narcissist, which combines  narcissism with sadism, paranoia, and antisocial behavior. They take pleasure in harming others, are ruthlessly manipulative, and seek to destroy others to maintain power, often showing no remorse for their abusive actions. Yet the Republicans have turned him loose to destroy the leadership, influence, trust and respect America has taken seven decades to earn.

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The post MORE FRIGHTENING THAN TRUMP’S LIES first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

A majority of each party is opposed to the mid-decade redistricting  to guarantee a party’s win in midterms. An overwhelming majority of voters nationally (77%) and in Florida (76%), Texas (74%), New York (78%), Illinois (75%), and California (80%) support independent commissions to draw district lines instead of state lawmakers. 64% of Republican and independent voters want a ban on mid-decade redistricting. 

Even 60% of the voters who supported Donald Trump in 2024 want Congress to ban mid-decade redistricting. Yet he threatened Indiana that if the state Republicans didn’t pass a district map that gave the Republican House delegation a 9-0 sweep, all federal funding will be stripped from the state, roads will not be paved and major projects will stop. His warning was a brazen attempt at election interference.

The Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to place a “gun to the head” of a state by threatening massive funding losses. Those funds are not discretionary political weapons. Any threat to strip highway funding would require clear statutory authority. 

While both parties politically gerrymander, the Republicans make much more use of  it. In 2022 Congress nearly passed the Freedom to Vote Act, that included a prohibition on partisan gerrymandering. The transformative bill passed the House and had majority support in the Senate. It stalled only because the Senate failed by two Republican votes to modify the chamber’s archaic filibuster rules to allow the bill to advance to an up-or-down floor vote.

In some states, the party that wins the most votes overall doesn’t win a proportional number of seats. For example:

• Pennsylvania (2012): Democrats won roughly half the vote in House races, but Republicans won about 75% of the seats due to how the lines were drawn.
• North Carolina & Michigan: Similar representational mismatches have occurred.

The worst consequence of gerrymandering is that it frequently guaranties the election of the least qualified candidate. Take for example Jim Jordan, the 2024 Republican candidate for Ohio’s Fourth Congressional. The state Republican legislature mangled the district map to make it look like a jigsaw puzzle missing random pieces to make Jordan a sure winner even though he had the lowest score of all Republicans for legislative effectiveness, and despite that over the  800 bills he authored in 2023, none have passed and become law.

Sadly, Republicans will sail through the Supreme Court’s pro-Trump majority, even when Republicans violate the 15^th Amendment by “deny or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.”

In Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP the pro-Trump majority upheld the South Carolina Republicans’ legislature removal of 60% of Black voters from their Congressional District into a White-denominated District to ensure the election of the Republican candidate. The same majority, minus Barrett, previously held in Rucho. v. Common Cause that political gerrymandering is not the business of federal courts. The combination of these two rulings allows racial gerrymandering

because racial gerrymandering is always done to win elections.

In Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee Trump’s majority held that Arizona’s voting restrictions that allowed the tossing ballots that didn’t comply with the restrictions didn’t violate the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and 15^th Amendment prohibitions against denying or abridging the right to vote based on race or color. Although Chief Justice Roberts admitted that Arizona’s restrictions fell more heavily on Native American minorities, he hedged by claiming that the number of ballots tossed would be immaterial to the outcome of the election, even though they exceeded the margins of victory in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

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The post ANOTHER ELECTION INTERFERENCE ATTEMPT BY TRUMP first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has equated opposition by state leaders and demonstrations with domestic terrorism and insurrection.

ICE’s budget tripled and its force doubled  in 2025 and will double again in 2026. There’s little doubt that Trump pardoned and recruited the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to carry out ICE executions. Who else would willingly and handily execute innocent Americans? They will continue to kill without cause.  

Martial law means the suspension of rights, lower bars for arrests, curfews, checkpoints, restricted travel and surveillance of anybody Trump and odious Stephen Miller want to know more about. Make no mistake, both of them are basking in the chaos and savoring the outcome. Don’t default to an oh-that-will-never-happen safe harbor. Aren’t you closer that you ever thought you’d be? 

The law prohibits bringing in the military and its consequences. But, tragically, we can’t rely on the Supreme Court’s Trump-favoring majority to stop him.

Even more unlikely is that Trump will act rationally – that’s because he’s emotionally unable of being rational. He checks all the boxes that mental health professionals use to diagnose a sociopath: He’s incapable of experiencing guilt, shame, remorse, or empathy. He exhibits aggressive behavior and verbally attacks his critics and won’t admit mistakes. He intimidates and threatens to maintain control, disregards rules and laws, has difficulty controlling impulses, acts without considering the consequences and his dreams are his realities and frequently nightmares for others.

So how do we stop the carnage? We can’t count on the Republicans that Trump has enslaved. There are however solutions. Voters could replace Trump-enslaved Republicans with Republicans not tethered to him in primaries. Democrats can help here. 24 states allow them to vote in Republican primaries.  Democrats can threaten sitting Republican seats more than Trump by threatening to vote for non-Trump primary candidates (and still vote for Democrats in national elections). If sitting Republicans feel the way the wind blows, they’ll seriously consider leaving Trump’s ship.

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Trump also referred to Nazi protestors as “Very Fine People,” Mimicked the movements of a crippled reporter, said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured, and claimed he stopped several wars that never happened. The list of is long and, let’s say, not presidential.

Ty Cobb, a former member of the Trump Administration, noted Trump’s warning to Norway leaders that he could disregard peace with them because they didn’t give him the Nobel Peace Prize Cobb said, “I don’t think there’s anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.” 

Mark my words. When Trump is gone and the complicit Republicans in Congress are blamed for the damage he’s done, they’ll create desperate fictions to disassociate themselves from him, just like the Nazis denied anything to do whatsoever with the Holocaust. 

The Republicans let him brazenly flout our laws, violate court orders and disassemble the blueprint of our governance. As Sir Thomas More, Arch Bishop of Canterbury, warned, “This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, … And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?” All will suffer, including those you took an oath to protect. 

More’s admonishments should also be heeded by the Supreme Court’s majority who mangled the Constitution to advanced Trump’s march to dictatorship.

To paraphrase a More admonishment of a man who perjured himself, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for [a seat in Congress]?” 

Impeachment may be a drastic step, but it is a necessary one. The Republicans should join the Democrats and impeach and convict Trump to stop and repair the damage he’s caused, and restore the honor, trust and respect that Republicans helped Trump strip away from our country by reducing a once respected global leader to a nation widely mocked, distrusted, and shunned.

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The post THE WORLD WONDERS WHY AMERICA KEEPS A DIFUNCTIONAL BUFFOON AS THEIR PRESIDENT, EVEN MORE SO AFTER DAVOS  first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

An ICE agent shot and killed a 37-year-old poet and mother of three because, according to Trump, she was “disrespectful to law enforcement.” Watch an ICE agent shoots and permanently blind a 21-year protester.

It’s more than likely that ICE hired many of the 1500 January 6 criminals, like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Who else would be capable of such cruelty? Oh. I guess Republicans are because they choose not to stop it.

Republicans “Big Beautiful Bill” widens the wealth gap to a record and takes money from Medicare and Medicaid to replace the trillions lost from their $4.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest.

Trump cut 90% of foreign aid that prevented fatal diseases while HIV and tuberculosis spread unchecked across the globe. So what if 14 million die. At least Republicans won’t face Trump-backed primary challengers.

No American President ever corruptly enriched themselves. Then along came the Republicans and Trump who built his net worth from $4.3 billion in 2024 to over $7.3 billion in 2025.

If you’re convicted of perjury, tax or bank fraud, election finance crimes, an insurrection, lying to the FBI, rigging an election with foreign help or impeding a Congressional investigation, Trump will pardon you. He pardoned nearly 1,500 individuals charged with offenses at the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, many of whom had been convicted of violent crimes. Now they are probably employed by ICE. Congress could impeach him if the Republicans would keep their Constitutional oaths to their constituents and the country.

Trump didn’t like Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) weak Jobs Report, so he fired the head of the BLS and released his own data. Reliable data have made of our financial markets the world’s the most reliable. Unreliable data will send them into free fall. Only the Republicans can stop him and sustain global confidence in our markets. But protecting Republican seats is more important to them.

Given the Republicans mission to cut Medicaid and Medicare and Trump’s obsession to undo everything Obama accomplished, Republicans will let Obamacare subsidies expire and healthcare premiums will jump from $888 to $1,904 in 2026.

Trump threatens to cut billions in medical research for cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and diabetes and has gutted key parts of the Department of Health and National Institute of Health. Republicans won’t oppose the move. I guess they’re more worried about losing their seats than a family member from a disease that could have been prevented.

Trump is paving the way for Putin to invade NATO members. He’s threatened to stop most military aid to Ukraine unless Zalenski agrees to Putin’s outrageous demands including:

• No promise that Russia won’t invade NATO members.
• NATO won’t expand its membership.
• Ukraine won’t join NATO
• European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland where they’ll be easy targets for the Russian military.

• Crimea and Donbas will be recognized as Russian,
• Ukraine to hold elections enabling Putin to install a puppet government and
• Western military aid to Kyiv will be halted during a 30-day cease fire, making it open season on Ukraine.

As former US Secretaries of State and Defense, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates warned, “ If … Ukraine is defeated, Russia will almost certainly … attack NATO member countries.”

Probably most disastrous, is that Senate Republicans approved Trump’s cabinet picks who are the most unqualified and dangerous cabinet members in American history. They are threats to America’s health, security, governance, global trust, trade relations, economy and we’ve become an international laughing stock and hated at the same time.

Impeachment may be a drastic step, but it is a necessary one. Allowing the Republicans to continue to enable Trump’s treacheries is knowing homicide. Impeachment is the only meaningful way to repair the damage Trump’s wreaked and to restore the honor, trust and respect that Republicans helped Trump strip away from our country by reducing a once respected global leader to a nation widely mocked, distrusted, and increasingly shunned.

The solution: Replace the Trump-enslaved Republicans with Democrats or with Republicans that are not beholden to him. Then we can get back to the bipartisan politics that solved our problems for centuries.

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The post REMEMBER WHEN AMERICA WAS RESPECTED, ENVIED AND TRUSTED? first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Although workers in 19 states have received  an increase in their minimum wage to $15 per hour while the rest of Americans will work for a federal minimum wage of $7.25, the increases are not enough to cover middle and low income earners’ basic expenses. Prices projected to keep rising include beef, coffee, eggs, dairy and sugar.

Trump has put Stephen Miran, a close advisor of Trump, on the Fed’s board of governors. Shocking, Miran will stays in the administration as a Trump advisor while he’s a mole on the board for the President.  Trump is also trying to fire Lisa Cook, a Biden-appointed governor, claiming that she’s committed mortgage fraud, but the Supreme stopped him until it hears the case.

And if Trump’s compliant Supreme Court majority allows him to replace Cook, he’ll hold a majority on the Fed. Then Trump won’t need to pressure anyone – he’ll make interest rate decisions himself, and inflation is sure to follow. It always has when leaders exercise control over their central banks.

President Richard Nixon pressured Fed Chair Arthur Burns to keep interest rates low going into the 1972 presidential election. The Fed succumbed, the economy had a spurt, and Nixon got reelected. Predictably, four years after his presidency, inflation rates hit 15%, and the dollar lost 12 percent of its value.

It took painful interest-rate increases under new Fed Chair Paul Volker to get the inflation under control. In 1980, Volker raised rates to a record high of 20 percent. Inflation still shot up to 11.6 percent in March. High mortgage and car loan rates made homes and cars unaffordable, curtailed consumer spending and sent the economy into a severe recession. 

Argentina’s Consumer Price Index started surging in 1946 after President Juan Peron nationalized the central bank and had the banks expand the money supply and lower rates in order to accommodate aggressive public spending. The annual inflation rate reached 18.74%. By the end of 1951, the CPI surged to 50.21%. The accumulated inflation rate in just six years reached 297.57%. Clearly, the main cause of Argentina’s hyperinflation was its central bank’s enabling of political profligacy.

In January 2007, Argentina’s President Christina Kirchner, in a striking similarity to Trump, didn’t like her experts’ consumer price index numbers. So she fired them, replaced them with political appointees and threated prosecution against independent economists who published higher CPI estimates.

Turkey’s another example. Its inflation rates have been in double digits since Trump’s authoritarian idol, President Erdogan, appointed a central bank head to lower rates. Although the bank eventually raised rates, annual price gains were still around 40% as of January 2025.

These are examples of politicians seizing control over central banks for their own political gain while their countries bore the pain of higher inflation. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a House subcommittee, in referring to Volker’s increase of rates to stem rising inflation, . “No one wants to see that happen again”… except Trump.

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The post TRUMP SUES FOR LOWER RATES. WILL RAISE INFLATION AND CONSUMER PRICES first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

After all, Putin’s popularity only grows with his invasions. His ratings rose to 84 percent during the second war in Chechnya and to 88 percent after he annexed Crimea. Putin has called the Soviet collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”  The takeover of Venezuela has to evoke the “he-did-it-why-can’t-I” justification to invade NATO members that were formerly part of the USSR. 

Trump’s aggression could also give Xi implied permission to bully its neighbors around the South China Sea and fulfill its historic claim to Taiwan. China has already violated the Hague International Court’s order declaring than Vietnam had the legal right to drill there. But it had to back off citing doubt that America would come to its aid . There’s no doubt that Trump won’t now. 

 Both countries have been trying to carve the world up into their own spheres of influence with each ruled by a single dictator. Trump would like nothing more than to join them. He’s knowingly diminishing America’s status as a superpower and watching as  Putin and Xi supplant the US-dominated world order with one that will give them and Trump the power and leverage to write the rules and intimidate other countries. 

His intensions, if you believe what his declaration says, that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again” portend more aggression outside U.S. borders. Moreover, Trump’s Security Strategy puts the first priority on the Western Hemisphere, which declares the Americas and their surrounding waters as Washington’s sphere of dominance.

There’s a better way to expand Washington’s sphere of dominance in Latin America. It’s by growing US trust, trade, influence and hegemony  (dominance achieved through political and economic efforts) in the region. 

Sadly, though, it’s not in Trump’s DNA. He’s much more comfortable with cruel force and pernicious power.  But the opportunity is there for a new and rational President or for Republicans with integrity and the county’s best interests at heart. 

Venezuela’s GDP has fallen by 75% in a decade. Oil production has collapsed. Public services can barely function. In seven out of 24 Venezuelan states the food insecurity rate is 99%, and only three states are lower than 90%. Around 82.4% of households live in poverty  and around 50.5% live in extreme poverty. 

So, the better solution is to employ a small Marshal Plan in Venezuela like the US did in Europe after World War II, which built economic and political stability. Given the Venezuelans’ jubilation over Maduro’s fall, the country is likely to welcome one there and cooperate.

After the devastation of Europe in World War II, the Marshall Plan generated a resurgence of European industrialization, agricultural production, brought extensive investment into the region, expanded traded, established financial stability and stimulated the U.S. economy by developing markets for American goods.

Similarly to Europe in 1948, Venezuela’s requirements for foreign food and other essential products far exceed its ability to pay for them. So the country needs significant assistance to prosper, and the US is in a position and has the opportunity to fulfill its needs … and also the needs of the greater region, which ranks as one of the most unequal regions in the world with the poorest 50 percent only holding 0.8 percent of its wealth.

A Marshal-type plan is also necessary to supplant China’s rapidly growing influence in Latin America and Russia’s military aid to Venezuela. It sent nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela as a show of force in 2018. China ratified a “strategic partnership” with Venezuela last October to establish a platform for spreading its influence across Latin America. China also loaned more than $100 billion to the region over the last quarter-century.

But if US oil companies control  and then export Venezuela’s oil revenues instead of redirecting them back into the country, no government will be able to restore even a modicum of prosperity to the country. 

And a quick disengagement from Venezuela by the U.S. is likely to leave it fatally ungoverned, unstable, and losing people and capital. 

Tragically for Venezuela and the world’s stability, Trump is no Darth Vaderwho, after a lifetime of evil, becomes an unselfish and well-meaning.  

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The post TRUMP’S CHOICES AFTER VENEZUELA first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Never mind that Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and capture of its leader violates the Constitution, international law, the War Powers Resolution and the Geneva Conventions. 

It’s worse than that. The United States is now ruled by a President who is an unhinged, delusional renegade who has run amuck against the country he was elected to lead. 

His delusions are many. His unshakable belief that his lies are realities is most evident in his lies at the Supreme Court.  So, is Trump’s claim that Venezuela is a significant trafficker of drugs into the United States a lie or a delusion. In light of the facts, I vote for delusion. 

More than 90% of all seized fentanyl, 97% of all seized cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine came in through legal entry points. Less common methods include tunnels, drones, and the international mail system. None of the DEA reports include Caribbean boats and don’t even list the entire sea as a significant source of drugs.

Fentanyl is overwhelmingly produced in Mexico. 84% of cocaine seized in the US came from Columbia, the world’s largest producer. Today almost none of the drugs smuggled into the United States enter via the Caribbean. 

Yet, Trump has deployed the largest military buildup since the Cuban missile crisis in Venezuelan waters and forcefully captured its leader. Certainly, Venezuela pittance of drug activity, if any, doesn’t come close to justifying Trump’s military aggression … unless of course he believes that Venezuela is a major drug trafficker into the United States.

Trump also checks all the boxes that mental health professionals use to diagnose a sociopath, including that they act without considering the consequences. Let’s take a look at what they’re likely to be.

Venezuela and other Latin American countries will seek more military support from Russia and China. Russia already provides Venezuela with military cooperation and is Venezuela’s strongest geopolitical backer. China, Venezuela’s largest importer of oil, already provides it with economic support.

Both Russia and China will leverage their relationships with Venezuela and other concerned countries in South America against U.S. interests. 

Tragically the Congressional Republicans are complicit in his treachery and willing to let him shred America’s governing blueprint to avoid losing their seats to a Trump-backed challenger. They have knowingly enabled his treachery by confirming the most dangerous and unqualified cabinet in America’s history and by tolerating his too-many-to count treacheries. 

The solution is to replace them with Republicans that Trump hasn’t enslaved, or by Democrats. Then, and only then, will America regain the bipartisan cooperation  that has solved its toughest issues for centuries.

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The post TRUMP’S ATTACKS ON VENEZUELA ARE BASED ON A LIE  OR A DELUSION. THE DEA DOESN’T MENTION VENEZUELA AS A DRUG TRAFFICKER first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

10 states have primaries that allow any registered voter to vote in the other party’s primary without having to change their party registration. 

14 states currently have primaries where voters who aren’t registered with any party can vote in any primary.

Democrats can always vote their choice in a national election no matter which primary they voted in.

Adding Democrat voters to those who vote against Trump-obedient candidates in primaries will increase the odds that Trump- obedient candidates will lose their seats to a non-Trump Republican.  And plenty of independents will join them.

 Among independents, 74% disapprove of congressional Republicans. Approval of Trump’s handling of the shutdown stands at 25%, with disapproval at 75%.

 76% of independents want the tax credits for the health care marketplace to be extended. And 55% of Americans have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act. 

Of course, Democrats would need to decide whether they’re more likely to beat a non-Trump Republican than a Trump-obedient Republican in the national election.

Also, voters can vote in only one primary, so Democrats may  be less willing to give up their vote in a close Democratic primary than they would in a runaway primary. 

If Congressional Republicans can feel the way the wind blows, they’ll think seriously about leaving Trump’s ship.

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