Trumpenstan


Tell On Trump

One thing we know about Donald Trump is that there are a lot of things Donald Trump doesn’t want people to know about. If you’ve reached this page, you might have information about the conduct of Donald Trump or his administration that you’d like people to know about. Here’s how you can tell us. Who are we? The SPECIAL PROJECTS DESK OF GIZMODO MEDIA GROUP. We are an investigative team that reports stories about political, cultural, financial, and technological power for GIZMODO, FUSION, DEADSPIN, JEZEBEL, JALOPNIK, KOTAKU, and the other Gizmodo Media Group web sites. SecureDrop You may send us…


Mr. President: ‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’

By Leonard Pitts Miami Herald (2/14/17) Dear Mr. So-Called President: So let me explain to you how this works. You were elected as chief executive of the United States. I won’t belabor the fact that you won with a minority of the popular vote and a little help from your friends, FBI Director James Comey and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The bottom line is, you were elected. And this does entitle you to certain things. You get your own airplane. You get free public housing. You get greeted with snappy salutes. And a band plays when you walk into the…


The Clock Is Ticking: At Best, We Have One Year To Save Our Nation & Ourselves

(Editor’s Note: If you do nothing else today, listen to the opening interview with Yale historian Timothy Snyder about the actual degree of risk we are at. When we tell ourselves that a totalitarian regime can never happen here we are, Snyder warns, ignoring history. We are not as exceptional to the reality of history as we like to think. Please, listen to this fascinating interview and then take action. – Mark L. Taylor) Once you concede on abuse of the first group you have lost everything.   Open Source WBUR (2/16/17) Should Donald Trump have spelled it out that…


The Forces Behind The Internet’s Growing Authoritarian Anti-Democracy Movement

By Rosie Gray The Atlantic (2/10/17) White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been in contact via intermediaries with Curtis Yarvin, Politico Magazine reported this week. Yarvin, a software engineer and blogger, writes under the name Mencius Moldbug. His anti-egalitarian arguments have formed the basis for a movement called “neoreaction.” The main thrust of Yarvin’s thinking is that democracy is a bust; rule by the people doesn’t work, and doesn’t lead to good governance. He has described it as an “ineffective and destructive” form of government, which he associates with “war, tyranny, destruction and poverty.” Yarvin’s ideas, along with those…


Author Of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: It was ‘farfetched’ when I wrote it — but Trump is making it real

    By Tom Boggioni The Raw Story (2/11/17) Margaret Atwood, whose dystopian 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” describes a a totalitarian theocracy that has taken over the U.S. and subjugated women for the ruling class, claims the election of Donald Trump is making her book all too real now. In an interview at Cuba’s international book fair, the Canadian-born Atwood said sales of “The Handmaid’s Tale” have jumped with the election of Trump, while admitting interest has also grown due to a remake of the 1990 film as a miniseries to be shown on Hulu. According to Reuters, Atwood…




My Dad Predicted Trump In 1984 – It’s Not Orwell, He Warned, It’s Brave New World

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.” –…


It’s Little Details That Betray The Great Defects Of A Man

Watch The Difference In How Trump & Obama Greet WW II Veteran & Former Republican Senator Bob Dole  By Walter Einenkel Daily Kos (1/23/17) Former Senator Bob Dole was instrumental in setting up the controversial phone call between president-elect Trump and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. Senator Bob Dole is a Republican. Senator Bob Dole is not beloved by Democrats. In April of 1945, a 22-year-old Bob Dole made an outrageous sacrifice for our country, losing the use of parts of his body. Now 93, Dole—wheelchair bound—was a special invitee to the inauguration “festivities.” Bob Dole’s wife, Elizabeth Dole was also a senator, in senior…


Echoes From A Dark Past: The Fascist Overtones In Trumpolini’s Inaugural Address

(The Commoner Call & Lines of Resistance cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org ) If you were looking for Trump to take the high ground in his Inaugural Address and call on “the better angels of ourselves,” you were kidding yourself.   By Matt Rothschild, Executive Director Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (1/20/17)   It was hard to listen to Trump’s Inaugural Address without hearing some not-so-faint echoes of fascism. The most obvious was his invocation of “America First” as the “new vision” that “will govern our land.” But it’s not a…


The Oaf Of Office (Again)

In putting together the Friday Inaugural Day Commoner Call I made a mistake in posting the cartoon for the day so that I could see it but nobody else could. So we are giving it another try…     (Commoner Call & Lines of Resistance cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )