Ronald Reagan: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman…But Anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American…This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness.”🇺🇸
THE INSANELY RIGGED ECONOMY
Yesterday, while tens of millions of families were struggling to pay for rent, food, healthcare, childcare and gas, seven of Trump's oligarchic friends became $210 billion richer. Not last week. Not over the past decade. In less than 24 hours, these 7 men, the wealthiest people on earth, became $210 billion richer.
Incredibly, since Trump was elected on November 5, 2024, these 7 men, all Big Tech Oligarchs, have become more than $1.5 trillion richer and are now collectively worth over $2.8 trillion. Meanwhile, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any other wealthy nation, young adults have a lower standard of living than their parents and over 20% of our seniors are trying to survive on an annual income of $15,000 a year or less.
Yes. We are living in an oligarchy.
A Good Day for Trump’s Friends:
Yesterday, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, got $164.8 billion richer and is now worth $1.4 trillion. He’s worth $1.1 trillion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Larry Page, the second wealthiest man in the world, gained $7.61 billion in wealth and is now worth $314 billion. He’s worth $161 billion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Sergey Brin, the third richest man in the world, got $7.01 billion richer and is now worth $292 billion. He’s worth $148 billion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Jeff Bezos, the fourth richest man in the world, gained $6.96 billion in wealth and is now worth $267 billion. He’s worth $46 billion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Larry Ellison, the fifth wealthiest man in the world, gained $8.92 billion in wealth and is now worth $247 billion. He’s worth $63 billion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Michael Dell, the sixth richest man in the world, got $5.86 billion richer and is now worth $218 billion. He’s worth $101 billion more than on Election Day.
Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg, the seventh richest man in the world, gained $9.16 billion in wealth and is now worth $211 billion. He’s worth $8 billion more than on Election Day.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”
While surrendering his expensive, imbecilic, and impulsive war with Iran that drove energy prices through the roof, @realDonaldTrump, with his cage-match ring and ballroom, is turning the White House into the White Trash House.
And *we* are paying the price.
It doesn't stop until *we* put people in Congress who will stop at nothing to impeach, convict, and remove him.
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Join us at https://t.co/odvrOJegFd.
JD Vance: “If you’re born in this country and your parents were not U.S. citizens then you should be deported.”
Grok: “There is no evidence that Usha Vance’s parents were U.S. citizens when she was born in San Diego in 1986.”
*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP*
Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
BREAKING: NOT SO FAST! Federal judge reopens Trump’s IRS case and demands to know if her court was defrauded.
Judge Kathleen Williams has had enough.
In a brief but devastating order Friday, the federal judge in Miami reopened Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS — a case Trump had voluntarily dismissed last week specifically to avoid her scrutiny — and ordered Trump's lawyers to explain by June 12th why she shouldn't find that the entire scheme was a fraud perpetrated against her court.
The judge's language was pointed and precise. She said she wanted to investigate "grievous allegations" that the deal to resolve the case was "premised on deception." She asserted that she was "empowered to investigate serious misconduct" and demanded answers to two devastating questions: was "the court the victim of a fraud," and did Trump collude with his own government to settle the case specifically "to avoid judicial scrutiny"?
The answer to both questions, based on everything that has already been reported, appears to be yes.
Judge Williams had been circling this case for weeks before Trump pulled it. She had openly questioned how Trump could sue an agency he controls, with government lawyers who answer to him, producing a settlement negotiated with officials he appointed. She ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually adversaries or secretly colluding. Trump dismissed the case the day before those briefs were due.
Then, after she closed it, the Justice Department released not one but two extraordinary agreements — a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump's allies, and a separate one-page document permanently barring the IRS from ever auditing Trump, his family, or his businesses. Agreements that had apparently been negotiated while the case was supposedly active before her court.
Judge Williams cited the New York Times report revealing that the IRS had prepared a 25-page memo outlining strong defenses against Trump's suit — defenses the Justice Department never raised in court, never filed, never mentioned.
Her order came directly in response to the filing by 35 former federal judges — appointed by presidents of both parties — who called the scheme a fraud and urged her to reopen the case.
She listened.
"We stand ready to work with the court as it investigates this matter," said Norman Eisen, who represented the former judges.
Trump tried to flip the table before she could see the cards. She just put them back on the table.
If you can’t wait to see the Justice Department try to explain itself, please like and share this post everywhere.
Too on point not to share. This is great, but too bad the Orange Felon’s enablers won’t let him see it.
This Australian's reply to #Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."
- Tony Locke