Trump Tariffs Leading America Toward Recession And Inflation: Stagflation!

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Today, April 2, is the day that Donald Trump will reveal the extent of his Tariff “Wars” against the world, including not only China, Mexico, and Canada, but also our NATO allies and nations we are allied with in Asia, as well.

An economic disaster is ahead, as economists have warned against such lunatic action as putting tariffs on all kinds of economic activities.

History tells us what happened when Herbert Hoover imposed tariffs in 1930, despite admonitions by hundreds of economists, signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which helped to make for the horrors of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Economists now predict that America will witness a severe recession, as more Americans lose their jobs, not only federal workers who are being fired enmasse, but also ordinary Americans who will suffer from lower economic activity, causing bankrupties of businesses and massive layoffs in many industries, as sales decline rapidly.

But also, it is predicted there will be high inflation, with the excessive increase in costs of all kinds of goods as other nations raise tariffs in reaction to our raising of tariffs.

So we are likely to have the worst possible combination of high unemployment and inflation, which is what is called “stagflation”.

This is what Donald Trump is bringing us, when he promised lower prices on “Day One”, and the stock market just had its worst quarter since the height of the COVID 19 Pandemic in 2022!

With his Rose Garden speech just concluded, Trump is causing a major decline in the stock market, which will be fully revealed on Friday!

A True National Hero: New Jersey Senator Cory Booker Breaks Personal Filibuster Record In Speech On Donald Trump Abuses Of Power!

Ronald 3 Comments

In the midst of so much tragedy being perpetrated by Donald Trump and his Cabinet Officers, we have a great national hero in New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker!

Booker just broke the personal filibuster record of then Democratic, later Republican, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 1957.

Thurmond was railing against civil rights legislation, specifically the Civil Rights Act of that year, a despicable action by a well known white supremacist in the early Civil Rights Era.

Booker was condemning the multitude of horrors being perpetrated by the most dangerous and lawless President America has ever witnessed, a totally honorable action!

The nightmare of Donald Trump was laid out over about 25 hours nonstop by Booker, working to rally his Democratic Party and non MAGA Republicans and Independents, to lead the charge against the criminal activities being perpetrated in just ten weeks of the Trump second term Presidency!

Booker will be remembered for this, and other Democrats need to pick up the mantle and conduct similar filibusters to work to prevent the worst aspects of future legislation and actions during the next months and years.

Basically, every Democrat in the Senate should commit himself or herself to similiar tactics, and they will be as much appreciated and admired as Senator Booker is right now, although he has always been a decent, caring Senator since 2013!

Delusional And Unconstitutional Ideas Of Third Term For Donald Trump!

Ronald 16 Comments

As public opinion polls make clear that Donald Trump is becoming very unpopular with his dizzying, chaotic policies after just ten weeks in office, Trump is speaking about a third term as President.

This is impossible, as the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected four times to the Presidency, limits any President to two elected terms, or if succeeding to the office, a maximum of ten years is allowed,meaning only if a Vice President comes into the Presidency with less than two years left, then he could be elected twice, for a total of up to ten years.

Already, Lyndon B. Johnson, before he dropped out of the Presidential race in 1968, could have had 9 years and two months in office, while Gerald Ford, who came in with 2 years and five months left in the term, could only be elected once, but was defeated in 1976.

To overcome this amendment would require a repeal of the 22nd Amendment, and a succession amendment that changed these limitations.

But that would require a two thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by support of 38 states out of 50 by majority vote in both houses of the state legislature.

Such is not going to happen, and certainly, not rapidly enough for 2028.

Clearly, Trump is delusional, with his idea that JD Vance might be elected with Trump as Vice President, and then would resign to allow Trump to come back to the White House.

But that would never happen, and still violates the 22nd Amendment.

Also, when Trump says he loves work, that is purely a lie, as he spends too much time golfing, and everyone who has observed him, knows he is lazy and does not like the details of the job, and hardly reads any important information more than one page in length.

This whole concept of a third term for Trump will never happen constitutionally, and is just a smoke screen for Trump to gain constant attention.

And his comment that he is the most popular Republican President in the past century shows his lack of knowledge and reality about Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, who had much higher public opinion support than Trump, who has never had the backing of a majority of the American people.

It is also ignoring the massive election victories of Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984, compared to the less than a majority victory of Trump in 2024 and his failure to win the popular vote in 2016, losing by 2.85 million votes!

Gutless Wonders: Profit Over Principle For Key Law Firms And Universities! :(

Ronald 5 Comments

It is stunning and shocking how major American Law firms are caving in to the intimidation of Donald Trump!

The “almighty dollar”–profit–is causing law firms to run scared, despite the good work they performed in representing clients who had decent, reasonable cases against Donald Trump and his corrupt allies.

This is worrisome, as if this mentality continues, the ability of those who are victimized by actions of the Trump Administration to have competent representation in court cases, will be decimated, undermining American democracy and the rule of law!

Universities, in order to avoid losing government funding, are also caving in to Donald Trump demands, which also undermines faith and belief in the validity of these institutions in promoting truth and knowledge!

Attack On Universities And Freedom Of Inquiry: Discrimination Against Foreign Students!

Ronald 18 Comments

The Donald Trump Administration has declared war on freedom of inquiry on college and university campuses, and have arrested and plan to deport foreign students on visas who have expressed criticism of the Israel-Gaza War, which has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, a vast majority being women and children, NOT Hamas terrorists. The government is claiming that these students expressing their views are a threat to national security.

This author and blogger agrees that Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, the greatest loss of Jewish lives since the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, which murdered close to 6 million Jews in Europe.

One can consider Hamas reprehensible, and consider the right of a strong response to that horrendous massacre nearly 18 months ago. But with the continued assault and lack of concern about the loss of innocent Palestinian lives with no sign of ending, the fact that people of conscience and principle might speak out or write against the continued tragedy, should not be grounds for arrest and deportation for expression of their freedom of speech.

If violence takes place, that is a different story, but there is no indication that foreign students who have been detained and sent to a Louisiana ICE Prison facility, have indeed been engaged in more than their constitutional rights to the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, press, and assembly, with all who are living in the United States being entitled to such rights. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had stated that such was the case.

The use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 had not been used since World War II, and has only been used three times in a situation of declarations of war, which is not the case presently.

So Secretary of State Marco Rubio has abused his power to order arrests based solely on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 during the Red Scare “McCarthyism” Era, and reinforced in updating of the law in 1988. Again, Scalia had so declared his belief that these laws went too far!

Donald Trump’s Promotion Of Return Of Racial Segregation!

Ronald 10 Comments

It is unfathomable how Donald Trump, 70 years after the unanimous Brown V Board of Education Supreme Court decision (1954) outlawed racial segregation, which promoted the Civil Rights Movement and transformed the nation, is working earnestly to reverse all of that progress, and promote the return of segregation.

In the 1960s, Alabama Governor George Wallace became a threat as a third party nominee with the same aim as Donald Trump, but he could not win the Presidency, thank goodness.

But now Trump is going full scale ahead to wipe out all of the racial progress, advocating discrimination returning as official policy, thrilling white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party supporters.

Trump is going beyond just race, but also gender, wishing to set back the vast progress of women in American life since the 1960s.

Trump has, by an extensive number of executive orders, promoted all end of DEI initiatives at all levels, including higher education institutions, corporations, federal government agencies, and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington DC and across the nation.

Trump is working to destroy all civil rights litigation, and causing growing fear that police and law enforcement will return to the era of abuse toward racial and ethnic minorities.

All references to notable African Americans, Latinos, native Americans, women, and gay, lesbian and transgender people are being scrubbed from government websites.

And Trump is trying to totally close down the Department of Education created under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, to promote equal educational opportunity and funding for low income and marginalized students.

His aim is to promote White Male Supremacy and dominance, what people who would agree with him would consider “The Good Old Days” before the 1950s and since!

All decent, fairminded people must work to resist and overcome this clearcut racism, nativism, and misogyny of Donald Trump!

The Signal Chat Leak About Yemen Attack An Unmitigated Disaster, Indicates Total Recklessness And Incompetence Of Trump!

Ronald 12 Comments

A true disaster is the best way to describe the Signal Chat Leak about the attack on Yemen, which included a journalist by blunder, and revealed secret intelligence information, which could have killed military personnel involved in the military strike on the terrorist group, the Houthis.

Donald Trump refused to take any responsibility for the horrendous blundering by his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth; his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; his National Security Adviser Michael Waltz; and his CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

No one is taking the blame and being fired or resigning, but if this had happened under Joe Biden’s Presidency, Republicans would be calling for the heads of the agencies mentioned above.

Republicans incessantly went after Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 Presidential campaign, but now Donald Trump acts distantly from the controversy, calling it “a witch hunt”, his favored term to attack all critics on any issue or controversy that arises.

This controversy also undermines our foreign allies’ trust in the United States, as it is clear that Trump and his intelligence and defense leadership is incompetent, arrogant, and more interested in cozying up to dictators, rather than democracies!

The Right Wing Attack On NPR And PBS Since 1980

Ronald 4 Comments

National Public Radio (NPR), and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), created as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in 1967, nearly six decades ago, has been under constant attack by right wing forces ever since its beginning.

Ths was particularly true under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, but also a controversy under George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

And again, the funding for the Coporation for Public Broadcasting is being targeted for being cut from the US Budget.

The idea that these radio and television channels have promoted education, and equity, diversity, and inclusion, and openmindedness over the decades, irritates conservatives, who think it should not be funded by taxpayers.

But the actual funding is miniscule, only 3 percent for NPR and only 16 percent for PBS.

Right wing Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was holding hearings today in the House of Representatives, advocating the total end of public support.

Most of the funding for both NPR and PBS come from ordinary, motivated Americans, including this author and scholar, but to make an issue of public funding, which is quite low, is a total disgrace.

Hopefully, public funding will continue to survive in the end result!

Trump Use Of Executive Orders At All Time High, And Way Beyond The Norm!

Ronald 34 Comments

Donald Trump is setting records for the use of the power of Executive Orders, and the use of this tactic is seen as leading the nation toward an authoritarian dictatorship, with Congress and the Courts unable or unwilling to intervene to halt, or control the use of that tactic.

The all time record of Executive Orders is with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served longer than any other President, 12 years and 39 days, and utilized executive orders a total of 3,721 times.

Woodrow Wilson was second with 1,803, followed by Calvin Coolidge with 1,203; Theodore Roosevelt with 1,081; Herbert Hoover with 968; Harry Truman with 907; William Howard Taft with 724; Warren G. Harding with 522; Dwight D. Eisenhower with 484; and Ronald Reagan with 381, closing out the top ten.

Recent Presidents—Bill Clinton with 364; George W. Bush with 291; Barack Obama with 276; and Donald Trump first term 220.

Notice that Executive Orders have been used much more often by Republican Presidents, who, except for Theodore Roosevelt, tend to be more conservative.

So far, in two months of his second term, Donald Trump has issued at least 100 Executive Orders, the fastest clip in American history, and may end up surpassing all Presidents, except possibly FDR and Wilson, if the rate continues at the same clip!

Just today, Trump has issued an Executive Order attempting to have the President control federal elections, an abuse of the right of state and local governments to do so!

The Attack On Social Security By Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Absolutely Despicable! :(

Ronald 6 Comments

It is extremely disconcerting and highly outrageous that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick ridiculed the idea that Americans would be upset if Social Security was not paid on time monthly in the future.

Lutnick said only “fraudsters” would be upset, and that his 94 year old mother in law would not complain if Social Security missed her monthly payment, as she would consider it a mistake and wait patiently for the next month!

Of course Howard Lutnick is a multibillionaire who can easily help his mother in law, but millions of people depend on Social Security for their survival, and have worked and earned what they gain in their old age or if disabled!

Elon Musk may call Social Security “A Ponzi Scheme”, but it is anything BUT that!

A personal note here, that I knew Howard Lutnick’s father 50 years ago before his death from cancer in 1979, as he was an historian of the American Revolution at my undergraduate alma mater, Queens College of the City University of New York.

I can assert as quite likely, knowing Sol Lutnick, a good man, that he would be furious if he knew that his son was so mean spirited, so selfish, so outrageous, so cocky, so infuraiting as Howard Lutnick is!