'Sad But True'

I firmly believe firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be the last stop on the autocratic autobahn we’ve all been barreling down these last nine months, with a drug-addled madman behind the wheel.

His swollen foot flooring the gas pedal before a lifetime of sexual predation and a well-documented partnership with Jeffrey Epstein finally catches up with him and forces a collision he has spent the last ten years avoiding.

He can still see it creeping up in the rear view mirror and that not only makes him erratic and skittish, it makes him positively homicidal.

He thought it was all behind him long ago, especially with Barr’s involvement in Epstein’s untimely and ever-so-convenient death while in federal custody in 2019.

But his proclivities and criminal activities threaten to come to light once again - and to hell if he won’t burn the whole place down before he lets that happen. We must stand with the many brave survivors of his depravity and keep their stories front and center; hold those who continue to help him with the cover up accountable, expose his accomplices, fellow sex-traffickers and Epstein clients.

Trump knows if he can control the Federal Reserve he can wield the power to print money. He can reward those who play along with his burgeoning criminal enterprise and debank those who stand up to him or fund the political parties and organizations that oppose him.

He can also use the Federal Reserve to punish financial institutions that cooperate with investigations. Epstein had a long, sordid and symbiotic relationship with Goldman Sachs; Trump had several banks enabling his money laundering and decades of business fraud.

It’s about much more than lowering interest rates to benefit his own properties and the loans they need to stay comfortably in the black.

Imagine giving Trump the power to not only dole out massive federal loans to his crypto currency and real estate development associates but to strip away the financial structure of his competitors and perceived enemies. To not only hobble his political and business adversaries but to strip them of any financial structure in the United States. No banks, no business.

Every financial institution in this country exists at the pleasure of the Federal Reserve, at least they will if it falls into Trump’s tiny hands.

Debanking is a weapon and not just a wonkish financial abstract. Nobody knows this more than POTUS and the scoundrels in his immediate orbit, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent. If he commandeers the Federal Reserve by firing Chairman Powell you can bet George Soros and any entity receiving his money will be at the top of Trump’s enemies list. It would also give them access to virtually unlimited amounts of financial data to use against anyone and everyone who would stand in his way.

It’s no accident that after his post authorizing the ‘Secretary of War’ to use ‘Full Force’ against an imaginary organization the right like to call ‘Antifa’, he tweeted out a cartoon of himself firing Powell.

The Federal Reserve is the last piece on the chessboard he needs to capture before Trump can call checkmate on our Constitution.

If POTUS succeeds, this assault on our republic will have happened much quicker than anyone could have imagined. Or at least with an ease which seemed unimaginable only a decade ago when he enter politics by appealing to the lowest common denominator in American life, the reactionary and rabid bigots and racists that burst into the mainstream scene when DJT fused Wrestlemania optics with KKK talking points.

Paid for by anonymous billionaires and propagated by trolls and ‘Christian Nationalist’ podcasters brainwashing the mediocre to benefit the wealthiest among us.

Trump was always a Trojan horse of sorts, his venom and bile designed to distract the folks who will never be dining at the ‘Rose Garden Club’ or invited into the White House ballroom. Which by the way, will dwarf the ‘People’s House’ when it is completed - and would make Caligula blush in its audacious overcompensation.

POTUS’s speech this week in front of the United Nations General Assembly all but announced to the world that we are no longer the beacon of democracy we had once proclaimed ourselves to be; at least with our words, if not always by our deeds, it was always understood we were in full support of post WWII alliances and international agreements such as NATO and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Those days are over, at least for now. Whether that change is permanent is up to us.

I grew up around folks misguided enough to take Trump at his words when he says climate change is a hoax. We all did, if you spent anytime around the MAGA demo.

The scariest part for me is how many of these fools are raising children. I wonder what the next generation of ‘America First’ will look like and how much damage they might do to progress itself in their lifetimes. How much truth and science will they ignore as weather-related catastrophes pile up around them.

It’s no accident Trump’s administration is attempting to destroy public education and siphon off federal funds and tax dollars - and redirect them into private academies designed to indoctrinate, not educate. To harden the next generation against their own humanity and to disregard facts and science in service of reactionary dogma.

The U.S.A. will soon be viewed by much of the world as not only an anti-democratic aggressor but as the largest purveyor of the myopic, misinformed views and intellectual laziness that is killing our planet. We live in an age of absolute unaccountability when it comes to the Trump administration.

Camp Mystic is set to open again next summer with zero public officials or camp owners owning up to any responsibility for the tragic deaths of over two dozen little girls and counselors in the Texas Hill Country this past summer.

Despite being located on the banks of the Guadalupe river in an area known as ‘flash flood alley’, there were no safeguards in place at the Christian summer camp for the most innocent among us because it was an inconvenience to its wealthy neighbors.

The press conferences in the immediate aftermath were nothing more than photo-ops to lavish praise on Donald Trump and excoriate the media, before our elected officials disappeared and took no accountability for dropping the ball.

That’s not ‘Texas Tough’ - its cowardly, willful abrogation of duty - and a waste of not only public resources but the public’s trust.

Trump’s unqualified FEMA director was nowhere to be found during the flooding, preferring to keep his cellphone in a box when not on ‘office hours’ so he could spend more time with his sons. The top official for disaster response needs his ‘me time’.

Never before have so many incompetent grifters had the power to harm so many, all to serve a single aim. To embolden, empower and help turn a profit for Donald Trump. To keep his supporters blind to reality and accepting of incompetence as ‘God’s will’ and coverups, as Christian fellowship.

They speak a lot of prayer while asking you not to point fingers.

Trump is the most corrupt and dangerous human being to ever hold office in the United States of America by a soggy country mile. The people who voted for him are out apple-picking and watching college football this time of year; many of them blissfully unaware of the storm that is descending upon them.

Trump’s bailout of Argentina to the tune of twenty billion dollars (to appease his mini-me chainsaw-wielding autocrat) won’t be connected to the fact their own families are likely to lose their healthcare and will watch their prescription drug costs more than double. They are too hoodwinked, too enraged and ensconced in a manufactured culture war and the ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality so adroitly exploited by awful little evil men like Stephen Miller.

When their government shuts down next week MAGA won’t hold the man in the Oval Office responsible; while 45-47 flies off to golf tournaments with his granddaughter, Kai, who is now running an influencer account and selling ‘merch’ out of the White House.

The same folks who spent years whinging about Hunter Biden trading in on his proximity to power are suddenly silent on the matter of emoluments clauses and Hatch Act violations.

History is littered with the sort of clowns we are seeing on full display in the Trump administration but the sad part is it’s always ‘We the People’ who pay the actual price - and that is no laughing matter.

It’s also not hyperbole to say we are in very dark and distressing times - and if you are still going along as if everything is normal you are missing an opportunity to fight back with your actions and consumer choices. Every waking moment should be concerned with stopping this madness because there is nothing on the other side that will give you an opportunity to do something about it.

That’s the point of his looming crackdown which has obviously already begun in earnest. Made all the more ominous by Secretary Hegseth’s summoning of the military’s top active duty leadership from around the globe to an emergency meeting in Quantico, Virginia on Tuesday. The same day the federal government may shut down. Ostensibly to lecture our top brass on the ‘warrior ethos’, but quite obviously looking to further purge from the armed services any of its senior officers not willing to go along with the remaking of our armed forces as a fighting force coopted to serve Trump’s political needs and despotic desires.

Former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment is the opening salvo in a war launched against the American rule of law - the cornerstone of freedom, liberty and justice for all.

No man on earth would rather watch his enemies suffer than Donald Trump, he said as much in the pyro-infused, taxpayer-funded ‘memorial’ for a slain acolyte of America First and the Christofascist movement. As over-the-top a spectacle as I have seen - and I worked on two Super Bowl halftime shows in that same Phoenix stadium. Katy Perry had more subtlety and she rode out on a sixteen-foot mechanical lion and danced with sharks. She also probably sold less merchandise.

There’s commemorative coin coming soon from the U.S. Mint: say what you want about Trump, he never misses an opportunity to grift and divide this nation.

‘The Donald’ is the last man who should wield any power - and he is positioning himself to be the world leader who has the most. Not just through elections but through brute force and unmitigated corruption. He has been handed a dream scenario for a personality as deviant and malignant as his, while the rest of us may quickly find ourselves living in a nightmare.

Those caught up in the ICE dragnet and abuses already are in that nightmare; masked thugs terrorizing innocent people based on racial profiling and ethnocentric dogma. Fascism wielded by fools, emboldened by a mad king who has built a cult around nationalism and toxic patriotism.

There are already over 1,250 migrant detainees missing from ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida, they were taken into a prison camp in the middle of a swamp and their whereabouts are presently unknown both to ICE officials and their families.

This should not be happening in the U.S.A. - I can only hope the rest of the world is paying close attention. Finding ways to document our government’s growing list of misdeeds and mysteries.

This is not the time to pledge fealty or make side deals out of self-interest but to stand up to the bully we have become. Uncle Sam needs friends that will tell it to him straight right now, not play nice in the hopes he will calm down - he won’t anyway.

Trump is at his core a coward, I know this from personal experience. Push back on him, it works.

Venezuela is clearly being set up for an invasion by U.S. Forces. Trump wants their oil - he is using ‘narco terrorism’ as an excuse. His three attacks on boats in the waters off the South American country’s Caribbean coast are nothing short of war crimes, meant to mollify his base and add viral clips to the toxically masculine bro-speak of ‘smoking our enemies’.

I hope JD Vance and Pete Hegseth end up on trial in the Hague. Real tough guys protect life, they don’t celebrate its extinguishing, even when called upon to do it.

That’s the difference between real soldiers and dudes in fancy socks and manicured stubble. They are both very soft men, as is their dear leader.

If Trump invades Venezuala it will be American Imperialism at it’s worst moment in modern times - and I truly believe his haranguing the U.N. this week was the most odious performance by a world leader in the organization’s history.

He made Kruschev look like Churchill.

Calling climate change a hoax and essentially announcing an assault on immigration is more than dangerous. Its a declaration of war against science and human rights on behalf of the oil and gas industry and fascism.

If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention.

This does not mean we should fall into fear. Nor should we become so angry we lose focus - that is what he wants - the avalanche of awfulness is by design.

We are still a proud and resourceful people but many of us are in need of a wake-up call.

Consider this past week a siren.

*If you enjoy reading ‘Noel’s Notes’ please consider becoming a paid subscriber. All of my content is available free of charge but your support makes it possible. Thanks for reading.