OVAL OFFICE BUFFOONERY

[CCarl]

Do All Politicians Lie? Why does it feel like the Oval Office is controlled by the Mob, regardless of which party is in control? A quiet voice in my brain answers, "Because they are all Mobsters."

Here are some of Donny "Reality-TV" Trump's promises that fell well short during his first term in the Oval Office.
Promised to cut the deficit but added $8 trillion to it.
Promised to build a wall; completed only 458 miles out of 2,000, mostly repairs & only 53 miles of new wall.
Promised Mexico would pay for the wall; it didn't.
Promised a new healthcare plan; it never existed.
Promised a middle-class tax cut; primarily cut taxes for the rich only.
Promised not to play golf; taxpayers paid $150 million for 250 rounds of golf with security teams.
Promised to increase economic growth 4%; missed it.
Promised an infrastructure plan; had none.
Promised to hire "the best people"; fired 3/4 of them, then labeled them the worst.
Promised to reduce prescription drug prices; didn't happen.
Promised to win the trade war with China; it cost the US a quarter million jobs.
Promised to revive the coal industry; more coal jobs were lost during his term.
Promised the COVID vaccine was safe for us; it wasn't.

Now, here is Donny early in his second Oval Office term, by now anointed by some MAGA hats as the next coming. (Seriously MAGA hats, how slim do the pickings have to get?)

Trump's Claim: "We're Reclaiming the Panama Canal", "My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal... The Panama Canal was built by Americans, for Americans—not for others", and "China is operating the Panama Canal... we're taking it back, or something very powerful is going to happen."

Panama's President Mulino directly refuted this, stating, "Once again, President Trump is lying. The Panama Canal is not in the process of being restored, and this is certainly not the task that was even discussed... The Canal is Panamanian and will continue to be Panamanian!"

Conclusion: Trump's claim that the U.S. is "reclaiming" the Panama Canal is factually incorrect in the context of current events. The Panama Canal has been under Panamanian sovereignty since the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977, with full control transferred to Panama in 1999. The U.S. is not "taking back" the canal, nor is there any legal or operational basis for such a claim in this instance.

Trump's assertion that "China is operating the Panama Canal" is also misleading. The Panama Canal itself is managed and operated by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), an autonomous Panamanian government agency.

CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based company owned and operated the Balboa and Cristobal ports via Panama Ports Company until the recent sale to Black Rock.

Conclusion: China never owned or controlled the Panama Canal. The canal remains under Panamanian sovereignty. CK Hutchison's operation of the ports near the canal was a commercial activity, not a direct control of the canal, and its connection to China is indirect (via Hong Kong's status). Trump's framing exaggerates China's role, which Panama and experts (e.g., web result 3) have clarified as a misrepresentation.

Black Rock, a U.S.-based investment firm, led a consortium (including Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment) to acquire an 80% stake in Hutchison Ports, including the Balboa and Cristobal ports, from CK Hutchison for $22.8 billion.

However, this deal does not involve the U.S. government "taking back" the canal or its operations. It is a private-sector investment by Black Rock and its partners, not a governmental or national reclamation. The U.S. government is not profiting from Black Rock's acquisition, as the deal is a private transaction between Black Rock's consortium and CK Hutchison.

Just seven weeks into Reality-TV Donny's second term . . . and the lies are flowing. I wonder what else is a lie? Oh wait, there is his threat toward BRICS, and his yet unspoken promise to fund Musk's SpaceX trip to Mars. Stay tuned . . . .

[CCarl]

DOGE is NOT saving taxpayers $2 trillion, even tho' that is how it's promoted.

As a Democrat in '08 & '12 Musk funded Obama. Obama said thanks, & taxpayers financed Tesla, making it bigger then the next five auto manufacturers combined.

Now a Republican, Musk funded Trump in '24. Musk says his SpaceX budget to Mars is as much as $10 trillion. Trump will say thanks, & taxpayers will finance SpaceX trips to Mars.


DOGE is the scam to divert the necessary tax dollars to SpaceX. Taxpayers will never know. Do not expect to see refunds, or balanced budgets.

[CCarl]

BRICS and Bluster From the Oval Office

BRICS is an acronym that refers to the nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is a newer economic organization, formed in 2001 by those five countries, and is used to regulate international trade and investment. In 2025, it has the support of many more countries, as we see below.

Recent headlines are telling us that Trump feels threatened by BRICS. You know Trump, when he feels threatened he acts out like a spoiled eight-year old brat on the school playground. Here are a few of his arrogant comments from November 2024, repeated most recently the end of January.

"The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar, while we stand by and watch, is OVER."
"We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.
"They can go find another sucker Nation. There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, or anywhere else, and any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America".

Excuse me? How are sovereign, foreign countries organizing a new trade organization suddenly Hostile? Or a threat to the US? Or somehow subject to US jurisdiction? Who in a clear mind sees the US economy as wonderful? Or the US dollar as 'mighty'? And 'no chance'? Hey Donny boy, never say never. I wonder when diplomacy degraded into finger-pointing, whining, and threatening? Maybe when ignorance replaced intelligence as a prerequisite for an honest politician. Honest you ask? These days an honest politician is one who stays bought. But I digress.

Here is a recent backstory to those BRICS headlines:

On February 26th, 2022, the U.S., EU, UK and Canada, agreed to ban a select group of Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, aka SWIFT. The move was intended to cripple Russia's financial system in an effort to pressure Putin into ending his military operations in Ukraine. Seven Russian banks were denied access to SWIFT, initially causing somewhat of a negative impact on the Russian economy, but this move ultimately backfired on the U.S and its allies when, during a BRICS conference, the bloc of BRICS countries introduced BRICS Pay.

This is one of the biggest economic developments of our time, in spite of a spoiled brat's tantrums. For your information, Donny, it isn't limited to the now ten membership BRICS nations. It isn't a few, it is signed onto by 159 out of 195 countries who trade internationally. Read that again Donny, 159 out of 195 countries do not want the inflated and devalued US Dollar to be their only means of international exchange. And read that to include, they do not want to hold large amounts of it in their banking systems. Those 159 countries will have the ability to bypass the SWIFT system entirely, using a BRICS Pay blockchain-based payment platform. Let that sink in for a moment, Donny, more than 3/4 of the countries in the world are now be able to trade in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar.

In addition to the BRICS Pay announcement, Vladimir Putin confirmed that discussions of creating a gold-backed currency, currently named the Unit, are accelerating in an effort to replace the U.S. Dollar as the International Reserve Currency. Development of the Unit will be discussed in the next (2025) BRICS meeting.

And, of course a backstory to the backstory follows in the next post.

[CCarl]

WHAT IS ALL THE HUBBUB ABOUT A WORLD-WIDE RESERVE CURRENCY?

We have to go back to July 1944, when representatives from 44 nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. With World War II still dragging out, they arrived to hammer out an improved financial system for the global economy. Out of that meeting came the Bretton Woods Agreement that would set up the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and, most importantly, a new role for the U.S. dollar as the "international reserve currency." It became the main currency the world uses to trade and save.

The representatives came to the agreement to establish a singular gold-backed currency. At the time the US controlled approximately 60% of the world's gold. So the US Dollar was chosen to be the international reserve currency. The US pledged at Bretton Woods to fix the value of the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce. Other countries then fixed their exchange rates to the dollar, making the dollar the hub of a new investment, trade, and banking system that would closely regulate the production of their currencies to maintain fixed exchange rates between countries to easily facilitate international trade.

That was the foundation of the U.S. vision of postwar free trade, which also involved limiting and controlling tariffs and, among other things, maintaining a balance of trade that would be favorable to the emerging socialist economic system. It didn't quite work out as smoothly as planned, socialist policies never do. As the U.S. started racking up huge budget deficits and running out of its gold reserves in the 1960s, the government found it too expensive to maintain the pledges made at Bretton Woods. And so, on 15 August 1971, the Nixon ended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods Agreement to an end, and rendering the dollar a fiat currency. Shortly thereafter, many other countries' fixed currencies also became free-floating, and the subsequent era has been characterized by floating exchange rates.

Floating exchange rates mean the dollar and all other currencies that are not backed by gold or other precious metals, have their values set by a mishmash of political and economic forces, ranging from central bank decisions to the frenetic buying and selling of traders around the world. That bothers the socialist-minded countries around the world, including the US government.

The end of Bretton Woods was formally ratified by the Jamaica Accord in 1976. The accord allows the price of gold to float with respect to the U.S. dollar and other currencies, albeit within a set of agreed constraints. In practice the dollar had been floating in this way since 1971. The Jamaica Accord also made provisions for financial assistance to developing countries representing the Group of Seven (G7) member countries to compensate for lost earnings from the export of primary commodities.

So the original arrangement set at Bretton Woods is long dead, but the dollar still remains the de-facto international reserve currency. That allows the US to continue most of its privilege described earlier, much to the ire of other countries. Why? Because the US uses the dollar's position to establish tariffs and sanctions to control or punish other countries for actions that the US considers adverse. Sovereign people do not like being bossed by foreign countries, do they/we? That is a two-way street, Donny boy.

Donny doesn't care what the leaders of other countries think, nor does he consider what sovereign people of those countries like and dislike. Bretton Woods is dead, the dollar has been nearly inflated to death with over 35 trillion dollars in debt accrued by the US government. Yet, Donny boy believes he can manipulate 159 other countries with his threats and intimidation to keep the dollar as the international reserve currency. America has a Corporate Fascist in the Oval Office who believes the concept of 'might makes right' is more important than the consent of sovereign people.

[CCarl]

TWO AFTERTHOUGHTS ON THE BRICS BROUHAHA

Peter Schiff, who discusses economic and political topics on his podcast "The Peter Schiff Show," pushed back against Trump's threatening BRICS comment last year with this wonderfully concise retort.

"You have the relationship backwards. The BRICS nations are the suckers for accepting our fiat currency for their real consumer goods. We get actual products that make our lives better, that we lack the capacity to produce ourselves. All they get in return is our inflation."

Well said . . . did you hear that, Donny?

And if BRICS countries don't obey Trump, Americans do not get imports that make our lives better, imports of things America no longer manfacturers or grows. Trump's action will hurt Americans. Just who is the sucker nation? Just the nations we trade with?

We are also suckered, when we allow our bought politicians to subvert our free market with monopoly money called Federal Reserve Notes, print a bunch of it, then use it internationally, purposefully to cause inflation and destroy the poor and middle classes. Trump isn't serving us, he is using us.

[CCarl]

Trump Takes Civil Asset Forfeiture To a New High!!

Disguised in an EO to develop a Bitcoin et. al. Reserve. But it isn't investment in any lawful sense of the word. It amounts to theft . . . something Thugs, Politicians, and Mobsters do [take your pick]. Here is the eight and a half minute story @ Rumble.

https://rumble.com/v6qcjcu-this-is-state-sanctioned-theft-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bitcoi.html

[CCarl]

And The Oval Office Blames China

Fentanyl is a highly synthetic opioid primarily prescribed by doctors as an analgesic or pain-reliever. The US is the world's largest producer and consumer of fentanyl-based drugs, and Americans, who account for 5 percent of the world's population, consume 80 percent of the opioids, including fentanyl, in the world.

Other countries around the world have taken targeted measures to strictly control the sale and use of fentanyl and other opioids while the use of fentanyl in the US has increased and caused more deaths. Recent US administrations have either regarded fentanyl abuse as a "threat" to the US or made opioid control one of their top priorities. But the anti-drug policies introduced by the administrations have been aimed at treating the symptoms rather than removing the root cause of the problem. For example, as a country facing the most serious fentanyl problem in the world, the US has not implemented strict drug control laws or put all fentanyl-like substances under control.

In May 2023, the US Congress introduced a bill to combat the threat of fentanyl, which was intended to subject all fentanyl-related substances to control. Yet the bill failed to become an act due to political polarization. On the other hand, China imposes strict control on the use of fentanyl and fentanyl-like substances, and supports other countries, including the US, in their fight against drugs.

China ratified the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in September 1989. Since then, it has fulfilled all its obligations under the UN Drug Convention, strengthened legislation and strictly controlled the use and sale of chemicals. Under the convention's framework, China has cooperated with international organizations and other countries, including the US, in combating drug trafficking and abuse, to address the fentanyl crisis.

China and the US reached an agreement in December 2018 to strengthen cooperation in law enforcement and drug control, including the sale and use of fentanyl-related substances. In less than five months after that, that is, on May 1, 2019, China officially added all fentanyl-related substances to its list of controlled chemicals, which far exceeds the scope of 27 fentanyl-related substances under control under the UN Drug Convention.

And yet the US has imposed sanctions on Chinese companies and citizens on suspicion of manufacturing and selling fentanyl and fentanyl-related chemicals, while smearing China by claiming that it is a major producer of "precursor chemicals of fentanyl". Some US politicians have even alleged that "precursor chemicals from China flood North America and stifle international efforts" to combat the drug menace, and that "it is the Chinese chemicals for fentanyl that flow into Mexico and then into the US".

Instead of making China a scapegoat to divert domestic public opinion from the administration's failure to effectively address the fentanyl problem, the US should put its house in order, strengthen law enforcement and take targeted measures to contain the drug menace.


Pretty obvious that China is not to blame for America's Fentanyl "problem", as Trump preaches, and as the writer of this anti-drug rant makes clear. Just maybe America's approach should be up to the States, not the general government. And then, just maybe, a few States will be wise enough to recognise individual Rights and self-governance, then make all drugs legal. That way, rabid users are responsible for their own illness and death, taxpayers are not. AND if treatment is sought, it can be done without worry of criminal charges. There is the ONLY win-win solution!!

[CCarl]

And Here Is The Dodge Around DOGE!!

"The only appropriations authority for every one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of idiotic foreign aid contracts that DOGE has exposed and cancelled must by law be recycled and respent on another contract. And therefore spent on projects perhaps only slightly less stupid but in any case no less unaffordable.
We are referring to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the passel of UniParty-appointed Federal district judges waiting to pounce in favor of lawsuits claiming funds are being illegally withheld by the executive."

The Constitution delegates the power of spending to Congress, not to the Executive Office. The anti-impoundment provisions of the 1974 Act are consistent with that Constitutional Authority.  In other words, "What spending cuts?!!"

[CCarl]

What The Oval Office Mob Will Never Say . . And May Not Believe

https://neverhadaboss.com/wp-content/uploads/Trumps-Chances-for-Saving-the-US-Economy%E2%80%94Are-Zilch.pdf

A concise read on the economic realities the USA faces under Trump's lack of leadership . . .

[CCarl]

Trump's Economic Ignorance At Work

Auto tariffs will be a disaster for Americans. An auto industry analyst says, "There are very few winners," and  "Consumers will be losers because they will have reduced choice and higher prices."

See the link;  https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japanese-carmakers-face-catastrophic-profit-hit-trumps-auto-tariffs

That industry analyst has it right. The average cost of an imported car in America is now $45,000 (see the link). Tariffs will increase that price to $56,250. NICE, HUH? And of course when the foreign competition has forced higher prices, the domestic industry will raise its prices and reap what used to be called windfall profit. And all consumers suffer.

But the industry analyst avoids one point, there is a winner, and that is the Mob in Washington DC raking in all the tariff money for its self interest. Tariffs certainly aren't happening for the well being of American consumers, no matter how Trump's mouthpieces spin it!

Take a look at the first chart, the one with all the blue bars. It says that 80% of the autos that VW sells in America, are imported. So the other 20% are produced in America at facilities VW has invested in.

If I were a member of VW Board of Directors I would look closely at my company's liquidity and consider making two moves. One, stop producing and shipping autos to the US immediately, pay zero tariffs, divert the excess auto inventory to other foreign countries, and retool my facilities to produce non-American standard vehicles. In other words, say good-bye to America as a marketplace.

Two, have VW shut down production of cars made in America, and divert the resources back to Germany for other marketplaces. That would lay off almost 6400 Americans that VW employs. VW can absorb the short-term costs and say good-bye to dealing with the schoolyard bully in the White House. And let the loss of American jobs (including the loss of jobs from shipyards to auto dealerships) rest on Trump's shoulders. Because tariffs WILL result in the loss of jobs.

Whatever Mob is in D.C. does not have the answers to our economic woes because it is motivated for self preservation, and does not serve the public interest. We may as well have Kamala in the Oval Office. Her style of Communism would put variable tariffs on the auto industry so Americans could have the choice of whatever car they wanted, all at the same price! And she'd laugh at the convenience while the Kamala Mob would rake in billions for themselves, just like Trump will. IT IS JUST THE WAY GOVERNMENT WORKS, AND WE PAY THE PRICE.

What would help our economic woes? Pretty simple really, an unregulated free market. End all government control of industry and business; no tariffs, no taxes, no quotas on labor, no minimum wages, no limits on resource extraction/utilization, no import/export regulations, and no price controls. Simply put, keep government out of economic activity. A free marketplace is always self-regulating as supply seeks to satisfy demand. So easy, so basic, so much about the natural order of life . .