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ACCORDING TO LIZ - As Trump’s billionaire buddies become much, much richer, he is prepared to throw 15 million more Americans under the bus.
Congress still hasn’t acted to save millions of Americans from spiking healthcare premiums – the whole ostensible reason for the shutdown. Preventing those healthcare cost spikes would cost about $35 billion per year. Instead, Senators approved a $32 billion hike for the Pentagon, and the Republicans are jonesing to send a $900 BILLION defense policy bill as a Christmas gift for the president to the White House for signature by the end of the year.
The Trump regime’s occupations of U.S. cities from Los Angeles to Chicago and Portland to Washington are calculated to have cost taxpayers at least $473 million. And counting. Enough to fully fund Affordable Care Act subsidies for about half a million impoverished Americans.
Loss of healthcare coverage could cause 50,000 unnecessary deaths every year.
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A UC Riverside report documents increased electricity consumption, carbon emissions, water usage, and public health costs arising from air pollution due to the astronomical expansion of data centers in California.
Health impacts from pollution associated with computer processing data centers tripled from 2019 to 2023 and could rise by another 72% by 2028 with corresponding costs increasing 247% and potentially jumping to 496% above 2019 levels by 2028.
Electrical consumption by data centers increased 95% and water use 96.4% in the same period. Their demand for power could rise to 356% of 2019 levels by 2028 with water needs up 358%.
Data centers are also generating a greater percentage of the state’s total electricity-related emissions, growing from 2.21% in 2019 to 4.52% in 2023, and could easily exceed 12% by 2028, rising 348% above 2019 levels and adding almost 4,000 cases of asthma and 500 lost workdays annually to Californians.
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Washington endured the embarrassment of the Worshipper of Wealth’s cringe-worthy fawning over the despicable Crown Prince of Cruelty Mohammed bin Salman, lord of death and dismemberment and current fomenter of atrocities in Sudan.
Watch out if you are a Democrat who believes this president has gone beyond the pale. As well as getting your mug shot on a wanted poster, you could be facing the death penalty if the hanging-judge Squatter-in-the-White-House, who already has too much blood on his hands through his ICE antics and boat bombings, has his way.
After six Democratic lawmakers shone a spotlight on the questionable legality of his authorization to murder against international law, the president raged on (un)Truth Social:
“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.”
Reposts flew with the president seemingly endorsing calls from his followers to hang them and then jumping in: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
More death.
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Now Trump’s just released “America First” 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly calls for the replication of the Monroe Doctrine, for the United States to dominate the Western Hemisphere, elevating American economic interests and its access to critical supply chains, largely by making Mexico and Canada vassal states.
The called-for readjustment of the country’s global military presence to this hemisphere “and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years” is clear cause for celebration by Putin and just another flawed excuse for the administration’s “armed conflict” to “defeat cartels” in the Caribbean.
More justification for murder and mayhem.
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And who should take responsibility for the president’s undeclared war in the Caribbean?
Pete Hegseth, who has spent the last six or eight months disruptively purging senior military officials and Pentagon legal advisors, and as Signalgate begins another round in the news, stands accused of issuing the order for American soldiers to murder two survivors of the first boat bombing.
The 11 people on board were allegedly smuggling drugs to the United States which, under normal circumstances would have led the U.S. Coast Guard to stop the vessel and, and if drugs were indeed found, confiscate the contraband, and place all on board under arrest. Anyone in the water would be rescued, not terminated.
Trump’s call to “kill people that are bringing drugs into our country” has led to absolute annihilation of selected small fishing craft along the Venezuelan coast… so there could be no physical evidence to prove whether or not they were smuggling drugs.
The president’s monomaniacal obsession with Maduro’s supposed cocaine connection prompted Hegseth to give the order “to kill everybody” at the commencement of the boat-bombing campaign This despite the fact that, according to the CDC and the Border Patrol, two-thirds of American drug-related deaths are due to made-in-Mexico fentanyl from made-in-China ingredients.
Once those on the U.S. ship in the initial attack realized two passengers had survived their boat’s destruction, relying on the kill order from his boss, Admiral Bradley gave the go-ahead to murder them in cold blood to comply with Hegseth’s order.
And eliminate the danger two human beings struggling helplessly in the water for forty-five minutes after a massive explosion that killed their friends posed to the might of the great American war machine.
Whether or not, as reported, Hegseth and the White House are trying to throw Bradley under the bus for following the “there will be no survivors” order, this is a prosecutable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, under federal law, and under international law.
All in the chain-of-command, from Trump and his Secretary of Defense – oops, of War – to the admiral and executioners, should be prosecuted as co-conspirators to murder, and for war crimes. Especially after, given the uproar engendered by the questionable legality of the strikes, they blithely slaughtered the crew of yet another boat.
A fish rots from the head down. Trump has specifically stated his intentions to expand the murder of people at sea suspected of drug trafficking. Killing them before an arrest, before evidence can be collected and reviewed by impartial experts, before a trial or sentencing.
How would Americans have responded to the murder of Trump for the multitudinous crimes he has clearly committed before his legal beagles – many of whom are now in positions of power – could weasel him out of true justice?
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Before Thanksgiving, the billionaire founder of Binance and promoter of Trump’s sons’ crypto enterprise, was pardoned by the Prez for federal money laundering crimes . Binance also profits from allowing its platform’s use in other crimes including drug trafficking and child sex abuse.
Now the company is being sued by hundreds of plaintiffs, victims and family members of those murdered, maimed, and taken hostage on October 7, 2023 or in subsequent terrorist activity, for facilitating the transfer of over $1 billion to the terrorist organizations directly responsible.
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Currently POTUS is pushing for the Israeli President to pardon Netanyahu in the Prime Minister’s ongoing trial on charges of graft, bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Sound familiar?
Presumably Trump will next ask South Africa and the International Criminal Court to dismiss the Israeli leader’s charges relating to the genocide in Gaza and murders on the West Bank.
Tens of thousands dead, homes and infrastructure destroyed.
Even when his disgusting sucking up to Putin isn’t on full display, his lackeys behind the scenes including “peace” envoy, Steve Witkoff, another real estate profiteer, and Daniel Driscoll, the newest American envoy to the Ukraine-Russian peace talks, persevere in toadying up to the Russian mobster-in-chief in efforts to eviscerate the leadership of Ukraine and return that country to Putin’s control.
To stop the bloodshed, we need to cut off the weapons supply – weapons that generated a record-breaking $679 BILLION worldwide profits fueled by suppliers growing rich off Gaza and Ukraine, off Somalia and Sudan and the cartels, off personal arsenals in the U.S. and on spreading the love to further build up nuclear arsenals.
The United States is by far the biggest arms dealer on Earth, responsible for 43% of all weapons exports from 2020 to 2024 with its exports growing by 21%.
In 2024, the United States spent $997 billion on defense, which is more than the next nine countries' spending combined. In comparison, China, which has the second biggest defense budget, spent only $314 billion on military expenditures.
In the two years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel. Not to mention as much as $12.07 billion on military operations in Yemen and the wider region. Fiscal year 2026 will see Pentagon and military-related spending increase 13 percent over this year, boosting its budget to over the $1 trillion mark.
In comparison, for the four years from 2020 to 2024, the entire diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budgets totaled $356 billion.
Death and destruction. People who will never come home to their families.
Fishermen in the Caribbean, scientists in Iran, children in Gaza… innocent immigrants in raids or in ICE custody in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Texas...
And now this narcissistic Commander-in-Chief is talking about invading both Venezuela and Nigeria – and possibly Canada and Mexico – on false pretexts? With total disregard for taxpayer cost and future American casualties.
In fact, reveling in lethal operations.
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And who is more responsible for the shooting of two of the National Guard troops in Washington?
The Afghan who was given a gun and taught to murder in a retaliatory war of civilian atrocities initiated by a previous Republican president whose advisors pushed for Shock-and-Awe aggression? The man who faithfully served in the U.S. military embedded in a C.I.A.-led death squad against Taliban villagers, the prior President who allowed this PTSD-addled veteran of human devastation with blood on his hands and guilt in his heart to come to the United States?
Or the Egomaniacal Egotist who ordered the National Guard to D.C.? And all Noo-Yawkers because the current occupant of the White House hails from that city?
Where does it all end? How many more must die to satisfy this administration’s blood lust?
How much more American soldiers’ blood will be shed? How many more mutilated to return to a gutted healthcare system?
How many more PTSD-afflicted survivors will end up camping on the streets of our cities?
And how many tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens will die because Trump gutted support for health services to provide the wealthiest with a bit more of a tax break?
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
