| For months, we have warned of a drive by President Trump and his administration to undermine the 2026 election. It is unprecedented, outlandish. Now Trump himself is blaring his intent — and over the past week, the public issue has exploded. The fight for a free and fair vote is taking shape, starting on the floor of the House this week as it once again considers the SAVE Act. Make no mistake: The SAVE Act would stop millions of American citizens from voting. It would be the most restrictive voting bill ever passed by Congress. It is Trump’s power grab in legislative garb. Today, the House Rules Committee is voting to send the measure to the full House for a vote. Effectively, the bill would require Americans to produce a passport or a birth certificate to register and thus to vote. Brennan Center research shows that 21 million people lack ready access to these documents. Half of all Americans don’t have a passport, for example. And millions of married women who have changed their names might need to jump through extra hoops to vote. The measure likely will pass the House, as it did in an earlier form last year. Once again, it will be up to senators to block it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared it “dead on arrival.” But this time around, a mobilized outside drive is pushing lawmakers to restrict voting. “It must be done or democracy is dead,” instructed Elon Musk. The SAVE Act will not expire quietly, surrounded by loved ones. It’s on all of us to stand up and speak out, once again. And now we see how it fits into the broader strategy. In recent days, Trump has repeatedly demanded that Republicans “nationalize” the elections on behalf of his political party. Each time his aides try to clean up his remarks, he doubles down. “A state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” he wrongly insisted. Constitutionally, that’s upside-down land. The Constitution is unambiguous: States run elections. Presidents have no role. Congress, appropriately, can enact national legislation. It should use that power to pass national standards to protect the freedom to vote, not restrict it. Then there’s the appalling abuse of federal law enforcement. We still do not know why Kash Patel’s FBI raided election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, nearly two weeks ago. A judge has ordered that the underlying legal papers, secret until now, be released. ProPublica reports the raid may be linked to agitation by a “conservative researcher” who has peddled discredited conspiracy theories. Intelligence chief/gadfly Tulsi Gabbard showed up at the Atlanta raid. FOMO? Amid Justice Department ducking and a denial by Trump, Gabbard wrote to Congress that in fact the president ordered her to go even though her office plays no part in elections. Now it turns out that Gabbard last year obtained voting machines in Puerto Rico. And Trump’s allies in 2020 claimed that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, long dead, had masterminded a plot. This is comic opera stuff. But it’s deadly serious, too — certainly for the public servants in Fulton County. It all aims to send a message to intimidate election officials around the country. If you preside over an election and we don’t like the result, we may come after you. Steve Bannon, the Trump strategist who served prison time for defying a congressional subpoena, declared on Tuesday, “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again.” When we see how politicized and aggressive immigration forces have become, that threat becomes more than a podcaster’s bombast. Here, the law is clear: That would be a federal crime. My colleague Sean Morales-Doyle explains: “Can the president send troops or ICE agents to polling places? No — both federal and state laws explicitly prohibit the federal government from carrying out these implied threats.” It’s a federal crime to intimidate voters, too. In coming months, if we see abuses of power like this, what can we all do to ensure that voters have their voice? So far, we and others have staved off Trump’s worst impulses. After Trump signed an executive order last year purporting to unilaterally rewrite election rules, we sued the administration, and we won. And as the Trump administration continues to sue states for sensitive voter information, courts in California, Michigan, and Oregon have reaffirmed states’ right to refuse. State and local governments, too, must be ready to act to protect the polls. And voters will need to know that, despite all the noise and drama, we can make sure the 2026 elections are free, fair, secure, and, yes, uneventful. It may require voting early or by mail, for example. In an election year, voting rights advocates often ponder whether pointing to threats risks demobilizing citizens. At some point, warning about voter suppression can accidentally dampen participation. Not this year, it seems. Each time Trump declares that his goal is to “nationalize” the election — not for the greater good, but for his own political interests — the stakes become clearer. When he wrongly insists American elections are “rigged,” as he did over the weekend, it’s more than bluster. He’s saying the quiet part out loud. In 2026, the right to vote will demand a fight to vote. |
A FAST RISING, BRUTAL DICTATORSHIP
08 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Alex Pretti, An American Spring, Donald Trump, ICE Murder, Politics, Renee Good, Trauma, Trump's Gestapo
Not only has Trump ignored the US economy as it pertains to the working class, even as his actions are sending the stock market—mostly owned by multi-millionaires/billionaires—to record-breaking highs, among his worst atrocities is purposely and indifferently traumatizing small children for life.
Reading The Guardian recently, I came across an opinion piece by Moira Donegan, Republicans are the party of separating and destroying families. Never forget that.
Her first two paragraphs—next two paragraphs—are especially disturbing when we remember that Trump is just getting started, having spent most of his first year of his second term transforming America into a budding police state and an authoritarian oligarchy. And he is building, at taxpayer expense, a personal army of masked, unidentifiable, and unaccountable thugs (not unlike the Nazi Gestapo in the early to mid 20th century) that is virtually immune to brutally beating immigrants as well as US citizens—even immune to murder. He has, in his own words and actions, made it clear that cruelty, even to small children, is the point.
“Of the 3,800 children and infants taken into immigration custody between January and October of 2025, a majority – 2,600 – were detained by ICE officers. That means that the children, as young as one or two years old, were not arrested at the border or legal ports of entry, where asylum seekers frequently present themselves to border officers, but inside the country.
“That means that those children were not new arrivals seeking help; they were kids going about their daily lives in the US, often with legal status. They were children like Liam Conejo Ramos, aged five, who was snatched from his driveway after school by immigration agents while wearing a blue bunny hat to keep him warm in the Minnesota cold. They are children like one student, a 17-year-old from Liam’s school district in Minnesota, who was taken from their car, or the other child, a 10-year-old girl in the fourth grade, who was taken alongside her mother; or the two other boys, brothers in the second and fifth grades, who were delivered by school officials to an ICE detention center after their mother was arrested and taken there. She had called the school to ask them to bring her boys to her in the prison; there was no one else to take care of them.”
Every citizen, republican, independent or democrat, who has the capacity to be angry with Trump’s brutality and building an uncountable army to occupy US cities, kill immigrants and citizens, and traumatize small children for life, and who, no doubt, plans to use that army to hijack the mid-term elections, must stand up, protest every way you can, and vote blue!
PREDICTIONS
04 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in Political Predictions, Uncategorized Tags: Autocracy, bigotry, Israel will annex Gaza and the West Bank, Politics, Predictions, religion, The 2028 presidential election, The second MAGA insurrection, The US Dystopia
Years ago, I used to wonder just how the good people of Germany in the 1930s allowed Hitler to take power, an allowance that directly resulted in the deaths of ~17 million people—military and civilian men, women and children. This included six million innocent Jews for having committed the crime of being born into the Hebrew culture.
Of course, Hitler also had a strong influence on the other two Axis nations, Japan and Italy, both autocratic governments. The WW2 death toll in all was between 70 million and 85 million people, including tens of millions of military and civilian casualties on all sides. Note that Trump tends to side with dictators of other countries and against NATO and the European Union. Hmm, seems to be a pattern here.
______________________________________________________________________________
Addemdems:
Prediction No. 2, Trump will not willingly leave the White House in 2029.
Trump is going to use the massive, peaceful protest on OCTOBER 18 (which I intend to join) as an excuse to declare a national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act, and attempt to suspend, or more likely, forcefully control the mid-term elections by intimidating voters with a show of military might and possibly seize the voting machines in predominantly Democratic districts.
If the judiciary orders him to stop his autocratic power grab, he will ignore them. At that point, we can count only on commanding officers of the military to refuse to assist him by citing their pledge to the Constitution.
I expect, then, that some trumped-up (pun intended), goosestepping, heel clicking loyalist commanders whom Trump has installed will heed his call to trample, or even shoot the protesters, which he once suggested in his first term (per Mark Esper, Trump’s Secretary of Defense in his first term, during an interview with Norah O’Donnell).
We can only hope at that point that commanders of honor, true patriots, will intervene, depose Trump and (my wet dream) install Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or AOC as president (any combination of the three) and one other of the three as vice president.
This addendum will unfold, but likely in various ways. However, the core prediction—his declaration of the Insurrection Act and national emergency—will still come to pass. I’m curious to see if his SCOTUS will attempt to stop him.
PREDICTIONS:
1. I read a piece about Artificial Intelligence in “The Guardian” the other day ‘My son genuinely believed it was real’: Parents are letting little kids play with AI. Are they wrong?. It occurred to me that Trump and his loyalist appointees will team with AI billionaires to use, and likely already are using Artificial Intelligence to groom very young children and teens to love the macho manosphere—Friedrich Nietzsche’s and the evangelical dream of muscular supermen who are “meant” to rule over and use women, dominate the weak, have no empathy for those less mentally or physically or financially fortunate, (especially if they are not of anglo decent) and have no regard for whom they hurt, even the children left traumatized. Diversity, empathy, and inclusion are to be eradicated from society, and praise for “ze Leadah” is to be all we hear.
We see this growing daily now as Trump builds his MAGA army of unidentified masked thugs and urges the armed forces to use American cities to hone their battle skills by terrorizing migrants and citizens alike.
As I’ve said many times before, while most people continue to say, “it can’t happen here,” it damn well indeed is happening here, and the more we ignore it, the worse it will get. Yes, it is happening to other people right now, but it’s just getting started. The appetites of brutal, narcissistic, picture-posting leaders can never be satisfied.
So, how much are we going to give him? Our free speech is already under full assault. The free press is now caving to his demands. He ignores the Constitution with impunity because he has completely politicised the Justice Department and the Supreme Court. He has now been given approval by the SCOTUS for his army of masked thugs to terrorize the populations of a growing number of cities. He controls all three branches of government thanks to his sycophantic Republican party denying approval of constitutionally loyal democratic appointees and appointing only justices loyal only to him. The SCOTUS has effectively become an arm of the White House.
2. Trump will not willingly leave the White House in 2029. The second insurrection is already ongoing. The only caveat will be if Trump decides to pass his bloody sword over to Donald Trump Jr. The next presidential election, if it happens, will not matter even if the Democrats win the House and Senate in 2026. Trump will use his masked, MAGA Gestapo, and the military, soon to be staffed with loyalist leaders, to keep his family in power. There will be blood in 2028, or sooner.
3. There will never be a two-state solution to the Gaza-Israel debacle. The Likud Party of Netanyahu will occupy Gaza and the West Bank for a few years, then annex them and push most or all Palestinians out of their homes, confiscating their land just as they did within a few years after England and the USA appropriated Palestinian land to create the nation of Israel, sparking over three-quarters of a century of bitter hatred and bloodshed.
Rep. Clay Higgins Doesn’t Understand Irony
14 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in Acts of the Ignoble, America's shame, Political Cartoon Tags: Charlie Kirk, Christian Nationalism, Irony, Politics, Rep. Clay Higgins, Violence
From the Daily Kos:
Rep. Clay Higgins, the deeply problematic Louisiana Republican, threatened to have anyone who he says “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk” banned from social media platforms.
“If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities, armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution… those profiles must come down,” Higgins wrote in a post on X of Kirk, who was gunned down on Wednesday at a college event in Utah. “So, I’m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER.”
My comment: I do not condone violence of any kind. But Rep. Clay Higgins’ threats are as ironic as they can get, considering that such angry words actually further enflame and encourage some folks on the right to seek revenge, especially when many were already calling for “war.”
THE POST TRUTH DISUNITED FASCIST STATES OF AMERICA IS CAVING TO TREASONOUS TRUMP
23 May 2025 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: bigotry, Fascism, history, hitler, Law, Politics, religion, The Guardian, treasion, Trump
Thanks to most evangelical and fundamentalist Christian voters, the far-right propaganda “news” outlets (the main one being the White House), the oft-repeated phrase, “No one is above the law” [in the USA], is now a blatant lie! I’m sick of hearing it.
I’ve heard for years that, in a political argument, any comparison of an American president to Hitler is a loser. Yet for those who follow the political news in the US and check the facts, it should be clear enough that the verboden name “Hitler” is appropriate when referencing Donald Trump, the American Führer.
No, he has not established death camps for those he hates (e.g., liberals, immigrants and refugees of color, LGBT+ communities, the working poor, and anyone who advocates for social and economic justice [DEI] born of empathy for those less fortunate or those who oppose him in any way). His total lack of empathy, honor and truth, his increasing brutality and lawless cruelty continue to sink into the depthless abyss people usually assign to inhuman beasts. He has repeatedly and flagrantly breached the 4th Amendment (illegal search and seizure), the 5th and the 14th Amendments (due process), and Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 (oath of office) without consequence. He was convicted of 34 felony counts in a court of law, again with no punishment.
Too, since it is now clear that his sycophantic DOJ and the Republican Party prostrate themselves before him and the “justice” system lacks the means of enforcing its rulings and the ongoing replacement of commanding officers in the military with men pledging loyalty not to the Constitution, but to him, I do not rule out the possibility of death camps in our future.
FROM THE GUARDIAN, an article on our despicable lying president.
The Continuing Crucifixion of Liberty in the USA
18 Jul 2024 1 Comment
in Acts of the Ignoble, America's shame, Antipathy, Corruption in the U.S. Government, Religious Indoctrination, Right-wing Deception Tags: Animal Farm, Blaspheme, Christianity, Crucifixion, Donald Trump, Politics, religion, Republican Party, Theocracy
The Crucifixion of Liberty, created by Max T. Furr on 7/18/2024
I am reminded of a quote from George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm: “All Animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
As it turns out, Animal Farm may be the perfect allegory for the USA if the Trump-Vance team assumes the “throne” in November. Non-Christian Americans may be facing the darkest future of all—the return of inforced anti-blasphemy laws across the nation.
According to an editorial today in The Guardian by Sidney Blumenthal, “Earlier this month, the Republican National Committee endorsed the party platform, a document that contained a plank pledging to create a new federal agency to defend Christian nationalism: ‘To protect Religious Liberty, Republicans support a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.’”
When far-right Christians speak of religious freedom, they do not mean religious freedom for all, because they’ve never accepted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of conscience for every citizen in matters of religion. They want Christian dominance in American society, i.e., a theocracy.
Therefore, the only way to prevent such an occurrence is for either a Democratic President to win in November or for congressional Democrats to gain a supermajority in Congress.
Catch the Poop-Train to Washington, DC
14 Nov 2018 Leave a comment
in Acts of the Ignoble, Corruption in the U.S. Government, Dishoner, family values, Politics Tags: EPA, Government Corruption, Politics, Scott Pruitt, Trump
Many folks have already read or heard about the Alabama poop train, but the whole story hasn’t been told until now and it tracks stinkingly directly to the White House. The level of corruption in our highest positions of government is truly astonishing. Who would have ever thought that our nation’s leadership would have come to this?
Watch at least this first segment of Rachel Maddow’s exposé.
Of Democratic Invertebrates and Republican Carnivorous Dicks.
23 May 2018 6 Comments
in America's shame, Dishoner, U.S. economy Tags: Economic Justice, Hoover Administration, Humor, Politics, Reaganomics, Recession, supply side economics, Trickle-down economics
Bill Mahar is spot on. Democrats, in my opinion, certainly have their problems (spinelessness possibly the most significant). But listen to Bill’s commentary on the current crop of Republicans. It goes to the heart of one of the greatest threats to the working class we’ve ever faced since the Hoover Administration. In fact, it harkens back not only to the runup to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, but to the Age of the Robber Barons Great leading up to the Great Depression that began in 1929.
While Trump continues to distract the media and the public by a flood of baseless attacks on our nation’s security departments, the Republican Congress has been deregulating the already super profitable Wall Street Banks, air quality standards, and consumer financial protections.
The sweetness of those few extra dollars per week for America’s workers will soon fade into bitterness when (not if) the next Republican Great Recession arrives.
ROOT ROT: The Cause of Corruption in Government
19 Oct 2017 2 Comments
in Acts of the Ignoble, America's shame, Antipathy, Dishoner Tags: Government-Corporate corruption, Government-Corporate greed, Money in Politics, Oligarchs, Opioid crisis, Politics
Why can’t we ever learn? FOLLOW THE FRIGGIN’ MONEY!
I’ve been making MONEY IN POLITICS my major argument for the ROOT CAUSE of virtually all that is wrong in our Government–in economics, the healthcare “debate,” gun violence control, poverty, etc, etc. .
“Our government?” NAY, our corporate government (we continue to let it happen)!
The ONLY candidate who wanted to stop it was Bernie Sanders. But all corporate America had to do was to keep their elected congressional representatives and Senators in Washington (otherwise called conservatives and blue dogs) repeating (without qualification) to the public that Sanders is a Socialist, and since most of the public has never had an education in civics or in the argumentative fallacies (critical thinking), and because we’ve been nurtured for the past century to belive that socialism is equivalent to old Soviet style communism, they run from him no matter what he says, and into the arms of our corporate congress.
But, you say, conservatives passed a bipartisan bill in 2016 that would severely cut back on the ability of corporations to keep pumping the nation full of opioids?
Yep. sure did. McConnell helped it pass. But that was only FOR SHOW to their voters. They then refused to fund the program. It’s all a dance. It’s the dance called the Side Step. Now you see me doing the right thing, but then you don’t see me refusing to let the right thing happen–tah ta tah ta tah dance dance dance, money money money!
Trump and many politicians have said a lot in favor of curbing corporate power, but how many times does Trump softly say the right things–what people WANT to hear, but then turn around and do the opposite? He is the consummate con man liar as are all who blocked the funding (probably by poison pill clauses or amendments). It would take some digging to find out, so they know they are safe and will be reelected with the financial help of the pharmaceutical corporations–otherwise called legal bribery.
And many wonder why conservatives and almost all liberals refuse to make higher education tuition free for all, as Sanders was advocating, and have the super wealthy (those who benefit from money in politics) pay for it. An educated public (in the humanities) would see these self-serving rats for who they are and could not be propagandized nearly as easily as they are now.
Donald Trump was not wrong. Hours before his nominee for “drug czar” withdrew from consideration over his part in a law limiting the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to crack down on pharmaceutical distributors feeding the US’s opioid epidemic, the president took a shot at the influence of drug companies over Congress.
Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/big-pharma-money-lobbying-us-opioid-crisis
— Max T. Furr is author of The Empathy Imperative, a philosophical novel exploring the nature justice and religious belief.
Was Descartes wrong and God was a deceiver, after all?
Consider that if the Christian Bible were true (sans contradictions), then what would that say of objective science, such as astronomy, biological evolution and medical research? Indeed, what would it say about logic and the Creator, Itself?
What would the world be like had it been created by a truly benevolent god and our primary motivating force was empathy, not self interest? How, indeed, with the human condition as it is, could we achieve such a world either via a god or by humanism?
Join humanist Professor M. Jefferson Hale as, in part II, he puts God on the witness stand in an ethereal court to answer for Its malfeasance and terrorism.
A Darkly Humorous Window into the Future of Reliable News in the U.S.
04 Jul 2017 8 Comments
in Acts of the Ignoble, Intellectual Dishonesty, propaganda Tags: Christianity, Dark Humor, Politics
NOTE: I have vetted the claims put forth in John Oliver’s segment on Sinclair Broadcasting’s greasing of the slope upon which the United States is sliding toward permanent one party rule by the wealthy and the privileged. While Oliver’s segment is presented in a humorous setting, his facts are all too true.
The following is only one part of the ongoing effort of the political, corporatist and quasi religious, conservative right to gain permanent and exclusive power, and it is likely the most frightening one. It is one that, under the guise of free speech and the ongoing deregulation of the broadcast industry, is psychologically nurturing the nation’s public to unwittingly support their efforts.
Currently, I’m working on the major events in our history that have brought us to these darkening, religio-political skies.
Max T. Furr is author of The Empathy Imperative, a novel of political intrigue featuring the factual history of the rise of the modern neoconservatives, their political philosophy and worldview.
While the storyline in part 1 is based on biblical literality, part 2 features a trial of God in The Ethereal Court of Answers.
The overall thrust of the novel is an analysis of religious cognitive dissonance where modern views come into conflict with the Old Testament’s alleged actions of God.
Is the god of the Bible amoral? Do true-believers believe that whatever their god does, he does because it is the moral and right thing to do, or are his actions right and moral because they are his actions? —A paraphrasing of a question originally posited by Socrates.
DONALD TRUMP: The Unvarnished Evangelical Christian
19 Jun 2017 2 Comments
in America's shame, Empathy v. Racial Bigotry, Faith v. Reason Tags: Evangelical Christianity, Politics, Social Justice
. . . [T]he Southern Baptist reluctance to condemn white supremacy outright may be egregious but it is not illogical. This Convention came into existence over the defense of slavery. —Daniel José Camacho
I’ve been trying to analyse a perplexing question: Why do ~80% of Christian evangelicals enthusiastically support Donald Trump, who is about as antithetical to their professed belief in, and adherence to, the preachings of Jesus as one can be? Is Trump the very model of the unvarnished, evangelical Christian? Was the failure of writer’s of the Gospels to have Jesus denounce slavery the very germ that infected the doctrine for centuries to come, including our own?
This commentary by Daniel José Camacho lays out the explanation with which I was toying, and it makes perfect sense. But while I agree with the author’s solution, I think it will take at least the better part of another millennium to happen.
Read more at . . . https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/17/powerful-church-group-southern-baptist-struggle-denounce-white-supremacy
The Darkness Within . . .
18 Apr 2017 4 Comments
in Acts of the Ignoble, courage, Empathy v. Racial Bigotry Tags: Islam, Politics, Quran, religion
–This is the very reason for our Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment–
An excellent editorial from the Dawn, a Pakistani publication:
A medieval brutality, a very cancer of the soul, has permeated this society. Not only has it pervaded the hinterland, it has also spread to places where minds are supposed to be enlightened by knowledge and learning.
Each ghastly detail of Mashal Khan’s murder on Thursday illustrates this chilling fact. The 23-year-old student at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan was lynched on campus by a mob of fellow students over allegations of blasphemy.
Read more at https://www.dawn.com/news/1327030
Bill Maher on the Magic (R)
24 Feb 2017 4 Comments
in America's shame, Con Games, Dishoner, Uncategorized Tags: Bill Maher, Conservatism, political integrity, Politics, Republicanism, Trumpism
A fascinating take on conservatism v. Trumpism and political integrity on the Right. Maher is well known for telling it like it is and adding a degree of humor even as he is being serious. He nailed this on!
An Evil Demigod in the White House 
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