Category: Of Local (Quad Cities’) Interest Page 1 of 57

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Was 2024 Rigged? More Strange Days Ahead.

By Connie Wilson

On June 16, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Interviews, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

trio of Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Peter Thiel

Has it ever occurred to you that Elon Musk, with his Starlink expertise, may well have “fixed” the vote for DJT in 2024? I’m sure it has. Certain irregularities were noted in some of the swing states. Investigation of this has been ongoing and a Substack writer has assembled the article below. If I could find the writer’s name, it would appear here. I filled in the blank for being on the receiving end of further articles, but the name of the actual investigator/writer was MIA, as far as I can tell. Maybe that is for purposes of safety. You either get credit or blame. If you’ve watched “Good Night and Good Luck” that showed recently on CNN, you know that speaking truth to power is the rule to protect our democracy.

Is the article below well-researched enough to be labeled as “truth?” You can be the judge of that. I’m not vouching for it or its writer, but I am sharing it, because it confirms the suspicions that many of us harbor about the 2024 presidential race.

Again, do your own further research and—if you find the name of this Substack writer—I’ll happily give full credit (or blame?) to that individual, but I was not quite ready to sign up for $55. I was ready to consider this individual’s thoughts on what may have happened. I still am. I’m not swearing on a stack of Bibles that this is the truth, but it certainly has a lot of food for thought.

So, chew on this.

****************

A Power Cord Becomes a Backdoor

In March 2021, Leonard Leo—the judicial kingmaker behind the modern conservative legal machine—sold a quiet Chicago company by the name of Tripp Lite for $1.65 billion. The buyer: Eaton Corporation, a global power infrastructure conglomerate that just happened to have a partnership with Peter Thiel’s Palantir.

To most, Tripp Lite was just a hardware brand—battery backups, surge protectors, power strips. But in America’s elections, Tripp Lite devices were something else entirely.

They are physically connected to ES&S central tabulators and Electionware servers, and Dominion tabulators and central servers across the country. And they aren’t dumb devices. They are smart UPS units—programmable, updatable, and capable of communicating directly with the election system via USB, serial port, or Ethernet.

ES&S systems, including central tabulators and Electionware servers, rely on Tripp Lite UPS devices. ES&S’s Electionware suite runs on Windows OS, which automatically trusts connected UPS hardware.

If Eaton pushed an update to those UPS units, it could have gained root-level access to the host tabulation environment—without ever modifying certified election software.

In Dominion’s Democracy Suite 5.17, the drivers for these UPS units are listed as “optional”—meaning they can be updated remotely without triggering certification requirements or oversight. Optional means unregulated. Unregulated means invisible. And invisible means perfect for infiltration

2024 VOTE

On Monday, an investigator’s story finally hit the news cycle: Pro V&V, one of only two federally accredited testing labs, approved sweeping last-minute updates to ES&S voting machines in the months leading up to the 2024 election—without independent testing, public disclosure, or full certification review.

These changes were labeled “de minimis”—a term meant for trivial tweaks. But they touched ballot scanners, altered reporting software, and modified audit files—yet were all rubber-stamped with no oversight.

That revelation is a shock to the public.

But for those who’ve been digging into the bizarre election data since November, this isn’t the headline—it’s the final piece to the puzzle. While Pro V&V was quietly updating equipment in plain sight, a parallel operation was unfolding behind the curtain—between tech giants and Donald Trump.

And it started with a long forgotten sale.

ELECTION FRAUD?

BallotProof: The Front-End for Scrubbing Democracy

Enter the ballot scrubbing platform BallotProof. Co-created by Ethan Shaotran, a longtime employee of Elon Musk and current DOGE employee, BallotProof was pitched as a transparency solution—an app to “verify” scanned ballot images and support election integrity.

With Palantir’s AI controlling the backend, and BallotProof cleaning the front, only one thing was missing: the signal to go live.

September 2024: Eaton and Musk Make It Official

Then came the final public breadcrumb:
In September 2024, Eaton formally partnered with Elon Musk.
The stated purpose? A vague, forward-looking collaboration focused on “grid resilience” and “next-generation communications.”

But buried in the partnership documents was this line:

“Exploring integration with Starlink’s emerging low-orbit DTC infrastructure for secure operational continuity.”

The Activation: Starlink Goes Direct-to-Cell

That signal came on October 30, 2024—just days before the election, Musk activated 265 brand new low Earth orbit (LEO) V2 Mini satellites, each equipped with Direct-to-Cell (DTC) technology capable of processing, routing, and manipulating real-time data, including voting data, through his satellite network.

DTC doesn’t require routers, towers, or a traditional SIM. It connects directly from satellite to any compatible device—including embedded modems in “air-gapped” voting systems, smart UPS units, or unsecured auxiliary hardware.

From that moment on:
– Commands could be sent from orbit
– Patch delivery became invisible to domestic monitors
– Compromised devices could be triggered remotely

This groundbreaking project that should have taken two-plus years to build, was completed in just under ten months.

Elon Musk boasts endlessly about everything he’s launching, building, buying—or even just thinking about—whether it’s real or not. But he pulls off one of the largest and fastest technological feats in modern day history… and says nothing? One might think that was kind of… “weird.”

Lasers From Space

Elon Musk.

According to New York Times reporting, on October 5—just before Starlink’s DTC activation—Musk texted a confidant:

“I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight. Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.”

Then, an hour later:

“This isn’t something on the chessboard, so they’ll be quite surprised. ‘Lasers’ from space.”

This wasn’t a theory. It was a full-scale operation. A systemic digital occupation—clean, credentialed, and remote-controlled.

The Outcome

Data that makes no statistical sense. A clean sweep in all seven swing states.
The fall of the Blue Wall. Eighty-eight counties flipped red—not one flipped blue.
Every victory landed just under the threshold that would trigger an automatic recount. Donald Trump outperformed expectations in down-ballot races with margins never before seen—while Kamala Harris simultaneously underperformed in those exact same areas.

If one were to accept these results at face value—Donald Trump, a 34-count convicted felon, supposedly outperformed Ronald Reagan. According to the co-founder of the Election Truth Alliance:

“These anomalies didn’t happen nationwide. They didn’t even happen across all voting methods—this just doesn’t reflect human voting behavior.”

They were concentrated.
Targeted.
Specific to swing states and Texas—and specific to Election Day voting.

And the supposed explanation? “Her policies were unpopular.”

Let’s think this through logically. We’re supposed to believe that in all the battleground states, Democratic voters were so disillusioned by Vice President Harris’s platform that they voted blue down ballot—but flipped to Trump at the top of the ticket?

Not in early voting.
Not by mail.
With exception to Nevada, only on Election Day.
And only after a certain threshold of ballots had been cast—where VP Harris’s numbers begin to diverge from her own party, and Trump’s suddenly begin to surge. As President Biden would say, “C’mon, man.”

In the world of election data analysis, there’s a term for that: vote-flipping algorithm.

Billionaires and Tech Giants Pulled Off the Crime of the Century

Why? There wasn’t just one reason—there were many.

Elon Musk himself hinted at the stakes: he faced the real possibility of a prison sentence if Trump lost. He launched his bid for Twitter—at $20 billion over market value—just 49 days after Putin invaded Ukraine. That alone should have raised every red flag. But when the ROI is $15 trillion in mineral rights tied to Ukraine losing the war and geopolitical deals Trump could green light, it wasn’t a loss—it was leverage.

It’s no secret Musk was in communication with Putin for over two years. He even granted Starlink access to Russian forces.

Then there’s Peter Thiel and the so-called “broligarchs”—tech billionaires who worship at the altar of shower-avoidant blogger Curtis Yarvin. They casually joke about “humane genocide for non-producers” and have long viewed democracy as a nuisance—an obstacle to their vision of hypercapitalism and themselves as the permanent ruling elite.

Well, what is the elimination of Medicaid if not “humane genocide”—and does anyone really wonder why his 40-year-old protégé and political rookie, JD Vance, is Vice President? With this technology in place, if the third-term legislation were to pass, it would hand Vance a minimum of twelve years at the helm of Thiel’s regime.

And of course, Donald Trump himself:
He spent a year telling his followers he didn’t need their votes—at one point stating,

“…in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”

Trump was facing eighty-eight felony indictments—he was desperate to avoid conviction and locked in a decades-long alliance with Vladimir Putin. An alliance that’s now impossible to ignore—look no further than his policy trail.

He froze aid to Ukraine and has threatened to place sanctions on them, while planning to lift sanctions off Russia. He openly campaigned for anti-EU candidates, and sided with Russia in multiple key United Nations votes related to the Ukraine conflict.

[Comments on the interview above]

(*Note that Elon testifies that DJT did not seem concerned about 2 so-called “assassination attempts,” one of which supposedly hit his ear, which, miraculously, healed almost overnight leaving no trace of such an injury.) Elon’s assertions about illegals being bussed to swing states are unverified and have no basis in fact. Conversely, Musk’s antagonistic attitude towards people of color, a product of his South African heritage, is well-documented as is that of his father before him. The purpose of “no ID to vote, says Musk, is “obviously” to influence elections when there are other viable explanations, but identification to vote has never been something that Democrats oppose. Elon lays out which 6 states need to be targeted late in the interview and note the many “obviously” affirmations, which are not “obvious” at all.

His admission that Pete Buttigieg did a good job is to his credit, but contentions that billionaires are “for sure” more in the Democratic camp are debatable. The attack on the media as biased is, again, a GOP and Russian staple. Court comments are also part of the Communist playbook. Elon worries that “everything is on the side of the Dems” and denigrates Kamala Harris’s candidacy, saying that nobody voted for her. (Kamala was part of the elected ticket in 2020.)

Late-in-the-interview comments about not becoming a one-party elite ruling class are ironic; that is exactly what Elon’s infusion of cash was intended to create. The fact that Elon Musk denigrates Harris, (who was a woman of great achievement prior to her election as VP), is also telling. He puts her down continuously while ignoring the “marionette” nature of DJT’s public remarks. Many of Trump’s public statements make no sense at all lately, so comparing the remarks of the two candidates word-for-word as to eloquence would be interesting.

Musk claims that billionaires are terrified that their support for Harris’s candidacy might come out, which seems to be simply his view, again unsupported by fact. Epstein’s name comes up late in the interview, which is interesting considering how he later announced that Trump’s name would appear on the Lolita Express rolls and that he was involved, which has been previously reported. “If Trump wins, we can do some housecleaning and shed light on things. Adhere to freedom of speech within the bounds of the law” are remarks made late in the interview, which is also ironic, as there has been little effort to stay within the bounds of the law but extreme efforts to do the opposite. Elon notes that he fears a Harris win would put “X”—which he had recently bought and which he had semi-ruined—out of business. He mentions a lawsuit against “X” regarding hiring permanent residents or citizens. He mentions a lawsuit against Space X for trying to hire asylum seekers. He also mentions Stalin’s chief enforcer, who is mentioned in the recent documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” Elon admits that he fears a Democratic majority might shut his businesses down. Obviously, he decided to back the candidate who would shine on his pursuits.

Elon’s remarks about freedom and opportunity open the door to interpretation about the freedom and opportunity that he has bought for himself and his own pursuits. Talk about “improving the liberty of Americans” ignores his future role as the DOGEfather, firing people willy-nilly with chainsaw tactics.

Musk’s remarks about over-regulation have merit, but doing away with all regulatory agencies is folly. “There are so many different regulatory agencies and so many different regulations that we won’t be able to get anything done.” Some truth in those remarks, but let’s not forget that the developer of the Titan ignored regulations in pursuit of deep-see tourism to the wreck of the “Titanic” and we all know how that ended (good documentary about it streaming now.) He also touches on vaccination. “I don’t enjoy hurting other people. I have a hard time imagining, ‘Why would someone do that?'” (This from the man who literally ruined many careers with his DOGE antics.)

“There’s a small % of Americans who have anger management issues that cause them to hurt other people. If you don’t incarcerate them, they will hurt other people.” This leads Musk to talk about empathy for the victims, rather than the perpetrators. In examining anger management issues, Musk might have looked closer to home to the man he supported who has been on an 8-year-long crusade for retribution and is now exercising his power as president to “punish” all who defied him. (The law firm where Kamala Harris’s husband worked was one target, among many).

There is an interesting Tucker Carlson reference to Minneapolis as being a nice city “pre George Floyd.” This was before Vance Boelter (on left) began systematically trying to wipe out all elected Democrats in the city in pre-dawn raids. Musk further decries the deterioration of modern American cities, which Carlson terms “ubiquitous.” Musk says, “I’ve got to lead by being compassionate” and then goes on a Trump-designated stampede to literally ruin the careers and lives of many in the sights of DOGE. (Shakes head.) Musk’s axe-murderer example is pretty far out and leads Tucker to call this “anti-civilization.” Movement to de-criminalize crime is brought up and seems to point most notably to the MAGA crowd that attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were subsequently found guilty, sentenced and then pardoned wholesale with no real attempt to pardon in any kind of reasonable, sensible, logical manner (which also seems to be true of most DOGE initiatives.)

Near the end of the interview, Musk comments on Europe, saying that the birth rate is declining (Musk has 14 kids by multiple women, one of whom is trans-gender and hates him) and that that needs to be addressed. He also rails against censorship in Europe. Those of us who reside in Austin are watching Musk’s assembling of a sort of harem of his offspring and their mothers, which isn’t going too well, so far. It is also designed to help with the housing shortage for new Tesla employees. He then begins talking about the decline of religion and the increasing secular nature of society. Work takes the place of religion, says Musk. (Someone please remind the GOP of the founding fathers wish that there be separation of church and state.) “For me, I’m culturally Christian but also went to a Hebrew pre-school. I didn’t fall for believing all of these religious stories. I try to understand as much as possible about reality. In physics you’re not supposed to believe everything absolutely. If your rocket is designed with physics in mind correctly it will get to orbit, or otherwise it will not.” (Lately, more “not” than “will”).

“We definitely went to the moon. How about Mars? It was a remarkable piece of technology for 1969 and it was an important ideological battle with Communism, because they couldn’t put a man on the moon and capitalism could.”

No Kings Protest, Davenport, Iowa 6/14/2025

By Connie Wilson

On June 14, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

Kate, a No Kings protester in Davenport, Iowa, and a former Marine

Kate, a No Kings protester in Davenport, Iowa on June 14, 2025.

Today, while dining in Iowa at an establishment known to be Trump-friendly, I witnessed parts of the Trump parade, despite my intention to ignore this $43 million DJT birthday celebration. The parade masqueraded as a celebration of the birthday of the U.S. Army, just as our rejection of centuries of Canadian friendship and alliance was attributed to the microscopically small amount of fentanyl that Donald Trump claimed was being smuggled across the Canadian border into the U.S.

Earlier in the day I attended the No Kings demonstration in Davenport, Iowa—one of hundreds of such demonstrations across the United States. There is no question that the many cities participating saw millions protesting the most destructive, divisive and disruptive presidency in history.

Kate, Marine Corporal, at No Kings protest in Davenport, Iowa

Kate, from California and Utah, served four years in the Marine Corps as a Corporal.

It was a surreal dining experience. We were bombarded with patriotic music (mostly country music) while dining, Lee Greenwood tunes cranked to the max. It was creepy, upon entering, to see a life-sized cut-out of Donald Trump.

Outside the restaurant stood a gigantic GOP elephant. A recruiting van and truck stood outside the door, urging patrons to help elect a convicted felon who doesn’t read briefings, plays more golf than any president in history, and has single-handedly visited more grief and disruption upon us, as a nation, than any of his 46 predecessors.

Davenport, Iowa, demonstrators on 6/14/2025.

And high on the list of those who have suffered the most are the farmers of this and every other Iowa county. When will minorities and those most affected wake up and see what this man is doing to them, while posing as some television version of a “manly man”? It’s absolutely bonkers to realize that those most negatively impacted by Trump have become his biggest champions. Based on what? His stint on TV as a successful businessman on “The Apprentice,” perhaps, despite his multiple bankruptcies and the truth.

Meanwhile—to add to the surreal nature of my day— while dining, a deluded Black commentator talked about how united we are as a country. W-H-A-A-T?

It was a stunning reminder of just how UNdivided we really are.

Police in L.A. were deploying flash bangs to dispel a protesting crowd.

Demonstrators in Davenport protested both the autocratic behavior of DJT and his ICE raids.

A madman in Minneapolis was shooting elected Democrats in cold blood.

Meanwhile, on Brady Street in Davenport, Iowa,—the 148^th largest metropolitan area in the United States— protesters were waving signs against Trump, while motorists sped by and honked in support (some even waving signs of their own).

Across the Mississippi River in Schweibert Park (Rock Island, Illinois), an even larger turnout from the neighboring Democratic state, protested President Trump’s more outrageous actions.

No Kings protest, Davenport, Iowa, 6/14/25

Roughly 200 Davenport (Iowa) protestors gathered on June 14, 2025 on Brady Street.

Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 census, making it Iowa’s third-most populous city, after Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.^[⁵^] It is the largest of the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a combined statistical area population of 474,019.^[⁶^]^[⁷^]

Moline, just across the Mississippi River, is the headquarters of John Deere, one of the most home-grown American companies, and one that DJT recently targeted for criticism because, like other successful American companies, it engages in outsourcing production to neighboring countries, like Canada and Mexico. My husband worked for Deere & Company for 40 years. I know this company well; I can’t think of a more “American” company, yet Trump recently lambasted it for its business practices, which mirror those of every successful modern company in America.

Lifesize DJT cut-out, Treehouse Lounge, Davenport, Iowa

At the No Kings demonstration on Brady Street I spoke with Kate, a Marine Corporal (for 4 years) who was among the youngest demonstraters present at age 35. As someone who protested at Berkeley in 1965 during the Mario Savio years, a child of the 60s, I have seen and participated in demonstrations against the Vietnam War. I stood up with my roommate as she married her Navy husband at China Lake, just prior to his being shipped off to war. As a young pregnant bride, I waited anxiously outside a draft office in Rock Island, Illinois, to see if my new husband, 1A on the draft list, was going to be sent to a war that even former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara grew to regret.

My observations following the demonstrations locally in the Heartland on June 14, 2025 are these:

GOP elephant statue, Treehouse Lounge
In order to rescue our country from the complete disregard for the Constitution that Donald J. Trump represents, my children and grandchildren are going to have to pick up the torch. Those of us who demonstrated in the sixties are with you, in spirit, but it’s up to you now.
Contrary to the African American talking head on television during Donald Trump’s birthday parade, this is not a united country. The barely hidden racism, the misogyny, the anti-Semitism, the dislike of gays and transgender citizens: it’s always been there beneath the surface. Now the surface has become the new reality of the United States. Only threats from outside seem to unite us, as with 9/11. We must work to make a reality of the words of the Constitution about equality and the pursuit of happiness.
We need to right the ship of state as quickly as possible. It will take decades to undo the damage inflicted by DOGE, as it is.
MAGA truck and van

MAGA van

I am ending this report on today’s No Kings demonstration in Davenport by repeating Robert F. Kennedy’s message to the country in Indianapolis after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968.

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. … let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.“

And here are the words of Mario Savio, that are also food for thought:

Israel Bombs Iran

By Connie Wilson

On June 12, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

horizon during drive

Today is Thursday and I drove from Chicago to the Quad Cities today.

There was extensive road work near Minooka and, again, about 58 miles from the Quad Cities on Interstate 80, but the drive was relatively uneventful.

I left Chicago at 2 p.m. and arrived home at 5:30 p.m., which is exactly the time frame anticipated. We decided to order Chik’ Fil A. In the twenty minutes my husband was gone picking up those sandwiches, it was announced that Israel had launched “preemptive” strikes against Iran. It also was announced that the strikes were the first of a wave of many and that Israeli citizens could expect retaliation.

You can’t convince me—(despite Marco Rubio’s protestations to the contrary)—that the United States didn’t know full well that Benjamin Netanyahu was going to strike Iran, aiming at nuclear facilities and other nuclear-related targets. The U.S. had made some progress in forging a nuclear agreement under John Kerry, but Trump tore up that agreement. Then the Trump administration began attempting to resurrect that dead agreement.

Ironically, there were supposedly talks scheduled for Sunday about limiting Iran’s reach for nuclear weapons. Sounds like those meetings will not be taking place now. Despite the presence of deep-underground Iranian nuclear facilities that will be difficult (if not impossible) to destroy from the air, perhaps there won’t be as much left to “regulate” after Israel unleashes another wave of bombings against its adversarial antagonistic neighbor.

How much DJT really anticipated ever getting such an Iranian arms agreement, with safeguards and inspections, is anybody’s guess. As for me, I suspect that letting Israel bomb Iran right now, when Iran is weakened by the Gaza conflict and Hamas (which is Iran-backed) is in disarray was probably something—much like Ben and Donnie agreeing that they could sure make a nice hotel strip out of the Gaza beach area—the two authoritarian leaders could agree on.

The leader of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, was confirmed dead, Iranian state television reported, a significant blow to Tehran’s governing theocracy and an immediate escalation of its long-simmering conflict with Israel.The chief of staff of Iranian armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, was also confirmed dead by Iranian state television. Other top military officials and scientists were believed to have been killed. Some 200 Israeli aircraft took part in the operation, hitting about 100 targets, Israeli army chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said. Over 100 drones were launched by Iran towards Israel, which the country was intercepting and warning the country’s occupants to remain vigilant. Schools and businesses were closed and other attacks were anticipated.

So, accept the United States’ denial that we had anything to do with the attacks on Iran if you want, but realize that our close relationship with Israel, intensified by the chummy friendship between Netanyahu and Trump—means that at least tacit approval of such a bombing occurred. It would be right in line with DJT’s usual ham-handed approach to diplomacy and everything else (*Cases in point: the removal of immigrants from the U.S. and/or the separation of infants from their mothers at the border during Trump 1.0). This complicit silent approval of the bombing of Iran by Israel goes right along with the chainsaw-wielding He-Man persona Trump wants to project, [while babbling incoherently and (probably) wearing adult diapers.]

Armed troops sent in by Mayor Daley during the Chicago riots of 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

One other late-breaking news flash: Trump has been ordered to return the National Guard to the command of the Governor of California, who did not ask for the guard to be sent in in the first place. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Clinton, temporarily blocked the president from deploying thousands of guardsmen to Los Angeles. The judge said Trump had exceeded his authority (you think?). An appeal was filed immediately and the case will probably go to the Supreme Court.

The Presidency

By Connie Wilson

On June 10, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Television

Armed troops sent in by Mayor Daley during the Chicago riots of 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

In a March 29th, 1968 editorial entitled “The Presidency,” in LIFE magazine, Hugh Sidey wrote, “There remain people who are wistful over what is happening, who feel that the United States Presidency is a marble relic to be placed high on a pedestal above the daily political clamor, to be revered and protected, never buffeted or soiled. But the Presidency is refined only in the process that chooses the man for the office. The Presidency is only as strong as the men who contend for it. It is visionary and responsive to the country’s needs only when natural political forces collide freely.

In politics, as in life, struggle often breeds character—to invoke a Lyndon Johnson maxim which he got from his mother…A lot of silly things have been said about not making this fight a personal one. But it has to be. The Presidency is a personal matter. The arguments in the end come down to how that single person will think and act….What is the most important task of the President: to pass legislation, as Lyndon Johnson has done, or to lift the hearts of the people as he has not. Or to do both.”

RFK assassination (1968)

Robert F. Kennedy lies mortally wounded on the floor immediately after the shooting. Kneeling beside him is 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero, who was shaking Kennedy’s hand when Sirhan Sirhan fired the shots

Those Hugh Sidey words were written against the backdrop of a looming 1968 fight amongst the Democratic faithful, with Bobby Kennedy seeking to take the torch from the hands of the incumbent President. Johson would not announce that he would not seek nor would he accept his party’s nomination until March 31, 1968, two days after this editorial appeared.

Although Johnson confided to aides on several occasions that he might be forced to accept Kennedy in order to secure a victory over a moderate Republican ticket such as Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney,^[215] Kennedy supporters attempted to force the issue by running a draft movement during the New Hampshire primary.^[209] This movement gained momentum after Governor John W. King‘s endorsement and infuriated Johnson. Kennedy received 25,094 write in votes for vice president in New Hampshire, far surpassing Senator Hubert Humphrey, the eventual vice-presidential nominee.^[216] The potential need for a Johnson–Kennedy ticket was ultimately eliminated by the Republican nomination of conservative Barry Goldwater. With Goldwater as his opponent, Johnson’s choice of vice president was all but irrelevant; opinion polls had revealed that, while Kennedy was an overwhelming first choice among Democrats, any choice made less than a 2% difference in a general election that already promised to be a landslide.^[217

Surprisingly, one of Sidey’s observations in the “LIFE” piece was this: “There can be longer-range results of the upheaval. Some urban specialists predict that, because of the big political fight, the coming summer will be considerably cooler in the streets than it would have been without this legitimate outlet for dissent.” When I think back to the summer of ’68 and the condition of the streets that summer, I shake my head at the idea of “cooler in the streets.” It can be argued that the summer of ’68 was the worst summer in the streets that we have ever seen, illustrated by the Democratic convention in Chicago, which may have set the bar as low as any national event in history. Mayor Daley, too, used a heavy ham-handed approach to the protesters in Chicago’s streets. In Chicago itself, more than 48 hours of rioting left 11 Chicago citizens dead, 48 wounded by police gunfire, 90 policemen injured, and 2,150 people arrested.^[3] Three miles of East Garfield Park and West Garfield Park on West Madison Street were left in a state of rubble [Perhaps only the insurrection of January 6, 2021, ranks higher in terms of political gatherings that went horribly awry.]

March 29, 1968 “LIFE” magazine.

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST, not even a week after this Hugh Sidey opinion piece appeared. Robert F. Kennedy lived until June 6, 1968, just 39 more days after this “LIFE”editorial appeared. He was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan after a triumphant victory winning the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4th, 1968. He would be shot at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5th at 12:15 a.m. and pronounced dead 25 hours later at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.

In Indianapolis, the day MLK (April 4, 1968) was shot, candidate RFK would give this impromptu speech:

I could not agree more with the sentiments in that RFK Indianapolis speech. Indianapolis did not have riots in its streets after this impromptu speech from RFK; many attribute that to Kennedy’s words.

Riots of ’68.

I would point out that intentionally inflaming conditions in the streets of Los Angeles—something that is happening now because the current President of the United States is, as Governor Gavin Newsom of California dubbed him in a CNN interview, “The King of Chaos,” is unbecoming to the office and the opposite of what a President has historically attempted to do in times of unrest. Rather than try to calm the crowd, DJT has attempted to rile it up, using chaos and threatened violence and fully armed active Marines and National Guard soldiers. To make matters even worse, he is shown grinning gleefully while trying on a championship belt of a violent fighting exhibition he attended the very night he was sending troops in that were not requested by the Governor of California and were not necessary. One hopes that we are not about to experience another Kent State incident, since the training of some of those who were sent in, fully armed, was questionable.

There is no insurrection in the streets of L.A., except the one that DJT is trying to create. As another said, it’s like an arsonist rushing in to quell the fire he started. While it is not in the nature of this particular malignant narcissist to read or to listen to what his elders and betters may say, since he tapped RFK, Jr., to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services, (despite RFK, Jr.’s complete lack of credentials for the job), I hope he re-reads Robert F. Kennedy Sr.’s words and takes heed, “Let us dedicated ourselves to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

DJT’s Budget: “Beautiful” or “An Abomination”?

By Connie Wilson

On June 4, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

The House passed the budget bill that Donald J. Trump chooses to call the “big beautiful tax bill.” They passed it on to the Senate, which now has to decide whether to pass an unconscionable bill that will throw about 11 million people off Medicaid in order to give tax cuts to the richest percentage of the population. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “We will “move it as quickly as our rules allow us,” setting up a possible floor vote next week for Congress to cut funding for (among others) NPR, PBS and USAID.

TRUMP’S LATEST TARGET

In the bitter war over the nation’s fiscal future, President Trump and his Republican allies have united around a new foe: the economists and budget experts who have warned about the costs of the party’s tax ambitions. Republican leaders have set about trying to discredit any hint of unfavorable accounting on their signature legislation as they race to enact it before the president’s self-imposed July 4th deadline.The estimate arrived on Wednesday projected that the sprawling bill endorsed by Mr. Trump could add about $2.4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade.

The GOP faithful reserved their fiercest criticism for the Congressional Budget Office, a team of nonpartisan aides who helped to author the price check, which was issued on Wednesday. Mr. Trump and his advisers have tried to paint the budget office as historically inaccurate and overly political. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist who led the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005, characterized it this way: the GOP has opted to “shoot the messenger.”

Appearing on Fox News last week, Speaker Mike Johnson said the tax bill would deliver the “largest amount of savings in the history of government on planet Earth.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at one point likened the budget office and its methodology to the scandal-ridden, failed company Enron. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, said last month that it was a “fake budget office.”

All this in support of passing one of the most heartless budgets in recent memory, which even went after Big Bird in its pursuit of cuts, defunding such historically positive programs as “Sesame Street.” The USAID cuts not only undermined a program championed by former Republican President George W. Bush, it will directly contribute to the death of millions of children and adults in disadvantaged Third World countries which are losing programs like those aimed at curbing HIV and AIDS in African countries. The USAID program had been considered a positive success— one that did much good in the world. But doing good in the world does not seem to be a Republican priority for this administration. Quite the opposite.

BUDGET OFFICE REBUTTAL

Douglas W. Elmendorf, a Democratic economist who served as the director of the budget office from 2009 to 2015, said the nonpartisan experts were crucial for “bringing the best professional evidence to bear and laying out the consequences of policy choices to Congress as honestly as they can.”But the nature of its work — “predicting the future,” in the words of Mr. Elmendorf — also subjects the office and its peers to a fair amount of political risk.

In one high-profile example, the Joint Committee on Taxation discovered after Democrats adopted their signature legislation in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act, that it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than anticipated. The discrepancy was largely due to greater demand for one of the bill’s components, a set of tax credits for electric vehicle purchases that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered on more generous terms than scorekeepers had anticipated. (Elon is said to be unhappy about the loss of this Biden-era incentive to buy electric vehicles.)

But Republicans seized on that mishap, seeing it as evidence of political bias in the budget office’s work. To wit: “If we as lawmakers have to make decisions based on C.B.O. and Joint Tax’s analysis, you betcha it better be right,” Mr. Smith charged at a hearing in February. “And it hasn’t been.”

ARGUMENTS: PRO/CON

Republicans also contend that congressional analysts fail to account for the ways that their new tax measure can unlock economic growth — and, in the process, generate higher tax revenues.By the White House’s estimation, the Republican tax proposal could raise output by as much as about 5 percent in the short term, compared with what might happen without the bill.

The White House analysis appeared to be premised in part on the bill extending a set of generous corporate tax deductions on a permanent basis, something that House Republicans did not actually propose. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Using a different metric, congressional tax analysts found that Republicans’ specific changes to the tax code would increase the average growth rate in U.S. output by only 0.03 percent annually. That mirrored findings from many outside economists, including at Penn Wharton, which projected that the output would be just 0.4 percent higher by 2034. Asked about the estimate, Mr. Miran said last month that Penn Wharton had a “track record of being wrong.”

GOP VOICES SPEAK UP

“By trying to sort-of game the referee on these questions, members of Congress are going to miss the fundamental issue of whether this bill is an appropriate response, given where we are with the deficit and debt,” said Jonathan W. Burks, the executive vice president for economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Burks previously served Republicans including former Speaker Paul Ryan.

The Budget Lab at Yale, for example, found the Republican proposal could add $2.4 trillion to the debt by 2034. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated it would raise deficits by $2.8 trillion over a 10-year period. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit public policy organization that supports deficit reduction, pegged the uncovered cost at $3.3 trillion over the next nine years.

All three organizations, which used different timelines, models and assumptions, found the bill would deliver meager gains in economic growth, which in turn would generate little in added revenues.Erica York, the vice president for federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, which generally favors lower taxes, found the Republican bill would increase the debt by more than $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

“And when all the models are in unison — yes, this will increase the deficit; no, it will not do much for growth — it really doesn’t make sense to triple down on the strategy to blame the scorekeeper,” Ms. York added. “The legislation is the problem.”

Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said revenues matched forecasts until the pandemic, later surging for reasons that included price inflation. Mr. Goldwein stressed that there was an urgent need for unbiased policy advice in Washington.“Without that,” he said, “you have chaos.”

MUSK SPEAKS ON “X”

There’s never much that I agree with Elon Musk about, but his assessment of DJT’s “big beautiful bill” is right on, for humanitarian reasons alone.

Said Musk in pronouncements on “X” (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, Musk said that the “outrageous, pork-filled” spending bill will “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt”. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” “Congress is making America bankrupt.” Musk’s subsequent posts laid out the reasoning for his opposition, suggesting that the spending and tax cuts proposed in the bill would balloon the US national debt.

“Even Elon Musk, who’s been part of the whole process, and is one of Trump’s buddies, said the bill is bad,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We can imagine how bad this bill is.”

“The Sentry” to Play at SXSW London in June

By Connie Wilson

On June 2, 2025

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Local, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

“The Sentry”

I reviewed films—long and short—at SXSW this past March, but missed “The Sentry,” from Director Jake Wachtel. “The Sentry” is going to play June 2-7 at SXSW London, followed by Raindance (6/18-6/27) and the Palm Springs Shortsfest (6/24-6/30) so, I received an offer to review this 17 minute 07 second genre-bending look at a secret agent in action in Cambodia.

JAKE WACHTEL

The director/writer of this refreshing look at the outcome of violence is American Director Jake Wachtel. Wachtel moved to Cambodia in 2015 to teach filmmaking for a year via Filmmakers Without Borders. (I’ve heard of Doctors Without Borders, but color me clueless on FWB). He now is headquartered in Phnom Penh and released a 2022 Buddhist science fiction film, “Karmalink” (1 hour and 41 minutes) that was one of the opening films for the Venice Film Festival.

Notes say that some of Wachtel’s students from his original filmmaking course appear in his films. Among his producers, are Sok Visal, who founded 802 Films and founded the record label Klap Ya Handz, part of the recovery of the arts from the days of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Also mentioned was Alan R Milligan.

Wachtel is well on his way to providing us with short and long films that I will enjoy, as I did this one. Director of Photography Erik Brondbo and company worked wonders with the visual effects of a dead guy coming back to life and giving his killer an opportunity to reflect on his actions, which is the film’s finale.

VIOLENCE ON FILM

Mixed with the usual karate-style knock-‘em sock-em scene (from roughly 2’22” until 3 minutes) comes a comedy short with a serious theme buried beneath the laughs.

I’m not really much of a fan of action flicks where people pound each other into oblivion. It’s probably why I disliked “Bullet Train.” Even Charlize Theron performing all those stunts herself couldn’t make me want to watch “Atomic Blonde.” It has always bothered me that films glorify the death(s) of multiple victims and the implication is that we should, too. The worst example of that, recently, in a feature film, was Tom Hardy’s latest foray into action films entitled “Havoc.” (May I say, “Ugh?” Yes, I may, because this is my blog, and I was turned off by the random, wanton violence of that 2025 release.)

DANIEL RAYMONT

Daniel Raymont

But I do appreciate humor. The lead of “The Sentry” has made a career out of playing dark comedic roles. Lead actor Daniel Raymont appeared as the cab driver opposite Robin Williams and Mila Kunis in the 2014 film “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn” where he portrayed an Uzbek cab driver (a speaking part). Raymont has also been in “The Mosquito Coast,” “They Came At Night,” “Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt,” “Bull,” “Rough Night” (opposite Paul W. Downs who is Jimmy on “Hacks” and co-wrote that film, which also starred Scarlett Johannson), “The Babyman,” and “Buzz Kill.”

In other words, this son of a Texas-born mother and a German/Argentinian father has been around, literally and figuratively speaking. Raymont currently splits his time between New York City and Mexico City, but has also lived in Washington, D.C., London, Maine, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. You know he’s an unusually versatile performer when the “trivia” portion of his IMDB entry says: “Daniel has a degree in Anthropology and spent time living with the Lacandon Maya in Chiapas, Mexico.” His impressive command of accents emphasizes that he is a Renaissance Man for All Seasons.

Daniel has a wild head of hair, seems too old to be killing people using the martial arts (born in 1969—but let’s not forget that Liam Neeson is still at it), but has the right comic demeanor for this part. His mastery of accents and languages is impressive. After the 3 minutes where Secret Agent Blackwood (Raymont) kills two guards at a remote Cambodian outpost, we see him gradually develop a conscience about the fact that he has just killed two guards.

CAST

One of the guards is Termite (Phang Dora), who miraculously, in a ghostlike re-emergence, comes back from the grave and negotiates a deal with his killer to quit boring Blackwood with non-stop stories about his family, in exchange for $15,000 cash to be paid to his widow. Pay Termite’s wife and he’ll leave Blackwood alone. It’s a strange plot, but, somehow, it works. I had no difficulty believing that Termite is riding on the back of Agent Blackwood’s motorcycle, boring the bejesus out of him about his sick wife, his overbearing sister-in-law, his two kids, and the ice cream jingle that is stuck in his head and theirs.

Agent Blackwood is driven to distraction by Termite’s nattering and offers Termite money to go away and leave him alone. I honestly felt that Termite quit the negotiation process too soon, or he could have extorted more money from Agent Blackwood.

TEARING DOWN VS BUILDING UP

I liked the fact that, by the end of this 17 minute film, Agent Blackwood looks like he has developed a conscience. Killing people is such a waste, just as tearing down things is much easier than building them up. When you actually take a human life, it is an act not to be glorified, but to be condemned. But the movies don’t always see it that way. And, yes, I understand that it is dramatic and those of us sitting on our couch watching a streaming service or paying our money to watch “Mission Impossible” films expect there to be violence and death.

The different thing about this short is that my point-of-view about how tearing things down (and killing people) perhaps should not be glorified is put out there for thoughtful reflection. No, we won’t go without our action fight scenes and obligatory deaths. But could a lead character once in a while experience a moment of true remorse? That won’t happen if you’re a fan of DOGE or of Steve Bannon’s philosophy articulated in “American Dharma” (check out that Errol Morris interview on Prime Video). But it’s really a shame that film, in general, doesn’t give equal time to building things up and advocate more for NOT killing fellow humans, in addition to the non-stop diet of violence we are all subjected to on a daily basis. EQUAL TIME, PEOPLE, EQUAL TIME!

I enjoyed this short and will look for more from this team.

DJT Versus Presidents of Yester-Year

By Connie Wilson

On June 1, 2025

In Editorial, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

By Charles Pierce

DJT in jail

“In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, “And we shall overcome.”

I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over.

I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City.

I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job.

They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

“And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators.

Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

DJT & Putin

“The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides.

We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

“Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents.

They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.”

Make the Department of Health & Human Services Healthy Again: RFK, Jr. Report Fails

By Connie Wilson

On May 31, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Health/Medicine, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Science and Medicine

RFK, Jr.

By Joseph Gedeon/Airmail News

Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s flagship health commission report contains citations to studies that do not exist, according to an investigation by the US publication NOTUS.

The report exposes glaring scientific failures from a health secretary who earlier this week threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals.

The 73-page “Make America Healthy Again” report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted as “gold-standard” science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized.

Two supposed studies on ADHD medication advertising simply do not exist in the journals where they are claimed to be published. Virginia Commonwealth University confirmed to NOTUS that researcher Robert L. Findling, listed as an author of one paper, never wrote such an article, while another citation leads only to the Kennedy report itself when searched online.

Harold J. Farber, a pediatric specialist supposedly behind research on asthma overprescribing, told NOTUS he never wrote the cited paper and had never worked with the other listed authors.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has not immediately responded to a Guardian request for comment.

The citation failures come as Kennedy, a noted skeptic of vaccines, criticized medical publishing this week, branding top journals The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA as “corrupt” and alleging they were controlled by pharmaceutical companies. He outlined plans for creating government-run journals instead.

Beyond the phantom studies in Kennedy’s report, NOTUS found it systematically misrepresented existing research.

For example, one paper was claimed to show that talking therapy was as effective as psychiatric medication, but the statistician Joanne McKenzie said this was impossible, as “we did not include psychotherapy” in the review.

The sleep researcher Mariana G. Figueiro also said her study was mischaracterized, with the report incorrectly stating it involved children rather than college students, and citing the wrong journal entirely.

The Trump administration asked Kennedy for the report in order to look at chronic illness causes, from pesticides to mobile phone radiation. Kennedy called it a “milestone” that provides an “evidence-based foundation” for sweeping policy changes.

A follow-up “Make Our Children Healthy Again” strategy report is due in August, raising concerns about the scientific credibility underpinning the administration’s health agenda.

We Are Living in the Time of Nero

By Connie Wilson

On May 30, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

Donald J. Trump

Written by the the highly respected Canadian journalist, Andrew Coyne:

“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, corrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

Tariff or Not-to-Tariff: That Is the Question

By Connie Wilson

On May 29, 2025

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Interviews, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

ships in LA harbor (Photo by Maggie Shannon)

From the New York Times reporters Tony Romm and Ana Swanson on 5/29/2025, comes this introduction to a day that has seen its share of pronouncements that could significantly impact the U.S. economy, with a Maggie Shannon photo of ships in harbor waiting to unload: “A head-spinning series of court rulings over President Trump’s signature tariffs left Washington, Wall Street and much of the world trying to discern the future of U.S. trade policy on Thursday, including whether import taxes would fall meaningfully or if the administration would get the legal green light to upend the global trading system.

Less than 24 hours after the U.S. Court of International Trade blocked steep tariffs that Mr. Trump had imposed on trading partners using emergency powers, a separate court temporarily paused that decision, sowing even more chaos on a day filled with economic uncertainty.”

The CNN headline on my afternoon “breaking news” chyron was federal appeals court restores Trump’s ability to levy tariffs with “emergency powers.” Administrative stay by the Federal Appeals Court. (Apparently the original ruling was in response to suits brought by the Attorney Generals of various states and possibly the Democratic Governors, whom Illinois Governor Pritzker has been attempting to rally as a cohesive whole.)

AZ Attorney General Kristin Mayes

The Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kristin Mayes said the first court “invalidated all of the tariffs, which are really taxes on our families. They have the capacity to crush small businesses.” Kristin was a Republican who won by only 280 votes as a Democrat. She is only the third “out” lesbian office-holder as Attorney General and changed parties from Republican to Democratic in 2019, because of Donald J. Trump. Her office indicted 18 people in connection with the attempt to install an illegal slate of presidential electors and, therefore, overturn the election of Joseph Biden in 2020.

The White House is saying “they have a work-around,” a remark delivered by Peter Navarro, whom Elon Musk denounced as “as dumb as a box of rocks.” (* Be sure to catch Elon’s Farewell Press Conference on TV tomorrow, 5/30/2025.) Said Ms. Mayes: “For the first time ever, the attorney generals of America agree with Rand Paul, who says the power rests with Congress.”

Arizona’s Attorney General said: “I believe the United States Supreme Court agrees with the rule of law and that they’re gonna’ say, ‘Look. Wait a second. This is a vast expansion of presidential powers that goes far beyond what Congress delegated to the executive branch. I think we’re going to win at the end of the day. We’re hearing, especially from our small businesses that they are having trouble ordering things like coffee from Mexico for a coffee shop. We have small businesses who don’t know how extensive the costs are going to be once the imports make it through L.A. ports. I think we’re very worried about people in Arizona and other states to gain access. This is not good for our economy; it has the potential to wreck our small businesses.”

I was hopeful that the few Republicans who seem to retain a brain and a heart would seize upon the first ruling to say (to DJT), “Well, the court says you don’t have the power to arbitrarily set tariffs, so we have to stand by that.”

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana

Right now, Senator John Kennedy of the Republican Judiciary Committee is speaking and is saying, “The only good tariff is a dead tariff.” Speaking from Madisonville, Louisiana: “If these tariffs lead to higher prices that’s gonna’ create a political problem for us in the mid-terms.” He is saying Trump represented hope versus Harris’s hurt but has just noted that the White House goes from zero to “screw everyone” in short order.

Kennedy, who was first elected in 2017, is considering the backlash from the voting public. He is saying, “We gave that authority (to enact tariffs) to the President, for better or worse.” He says he doesn’t feel that Trump has exceeded his authority. He is being asked about the “big beautiful bill” to which he said, It’s not as beautiful as it can be.” He is now endorsing tax cuts. $4.3 trillion increase in the national debt is being mentioned as bad, a very negative effect of DJT’s budget.

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.

“I want to cut spending until we run out of votes. I want to renew the tax cuts.” (John Kennedy on Trump’s tax bill.)

Trump posted a screed attacking the courts, which, of course, is detrimental. Timothy M. Reif and Leonard Leo are now in Trump’s sights and he is requesting that the Supreme Court weigh in.

Peter Navarro: “The tariffs remain in place. The courts have told us, ‘Go do it another way.’ Even if we lose, we will do it another way.” Ironically, Trump’s trade advisor commented on the lack of trust in “rogue judges,” despite the fact that Trump appointed the judge in question.

Brandon Gill (R, Texas) is the youngest Republican member of Congress at age 30.

Congressman Brandon Gill (R, Texas) immediately began talking about usurping the President’s authority, calling it “a huge problem. I don’t agree with the ruling. I agree with the President. The American public can see that we have a large problem with large trade deficits and Trump is taking action to alleviate that problem. Just a few months ago the Senate took up the question of whether the President had the authority to institute tariffs and they said he did.” (This was alluded to by Louisiana Senator John Kennedy in previous statements on CNN .) Congressman Gill also endorsed codifying the DOGE cuts that Elon Musk made, including eliminating NPR.

“It’s chaos now in the courts,” said the CNN commentator on Anderson Cooper’s 5 p.m. (CDT) program.

Nancy Gertner, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Law School, said Trump cannot keep his mouth shut. “It’s quite clear what is going on here. He wants to control Harvard and the institutions that could be the source of opposition to him. It’s an over-reach for what he is trying to do.” 149 suits have been launched against DJT in his time in office for his overreach, versus 6 for “W” and 8 for Obama in 8 years of their presidencies. John E. Jones III, President of Dickinson College, said “Trump is a lawyer’s nightmare because he can’t stop talking. His own words will give the lie to his stated objections. They turn out to be pretext for what he wants to do.”

It looks, to those of us without legal degrees (on the outside, looking in), as though the MAGA administration is shopping for courts that DJT may have stacked. If he doesn’t like the decision by one court, he moves to another and counts on delay. (Trump has a lengthy history of launching lawsuits and has recently been suing CBS over a “Sixty Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris and has been involved in a dispute with ABC—which ponied up—over a remark on George Stephanopoulus’ Sunday morning talk show.)

Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

One of the judges Trump blasted, Leonard Leo, has a long history of trying to shift the court to the right in his many years on the bench. The declaration of an emergency is the problem with the way the tariffs were enacted, says Justin Wolfers, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. “The right thing for any country to do now is to sit on their hands,” rather than negotiate, said Wolfers, noting that the bottom line is that being publicly humiliated the way Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of Britain was during his recent visit, is not a very appealing prospect for the leader of any country.

Putting a malignant narcissist who has a well-known reputation for dishonesty and corruption in office is turning out to be a not-very-good decision for the welfare of the United States economy, which seems to be in limbo at the moment.