the DON JONES INDEX…

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

1/30/25...     14,@        1/23/25...     14,907.73

     6/27/13…    15,000.00

 

(THE DOW JONES INDEX:  1/23/25... 44,@ ; 1/23/25... 44,136.33; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

LESSON for JANUARY THIRTIETH, 2025   “Eee Eye, EI-O!”

 

Jan. 21st – High Noon... Oath and Offense:

When last we looked in on Donald Trump, his flying monkeys, lying flunkeys and the weeping and, “resistence” either sitting silently in sober suits on Capitol chairs of outside on a bitterly cold January 20th, he was stepping up to the podium to take the Oath of Office making him the 45th and 47th Presidents of the United States... and already preparing to mark the day, the week and next four years with preposterous propositions...

BEFOREPLAY...

Some, but not all of the Show had obviouslybeen scripted in advance.  A little over a year ago, Donald Trump claimed he would be a “dictator”—but only for the first 24 hours of his presidency. Now, as his Jan. 20 inauguration approaches, wrote Nick Popli (Time, Jan. 13th) the President-elect’s plans for his first day in office are “becoming clearer.” 

Trump had told Republican Senators that he is preparing around 100 executive orders for the first day of his presidency, designed to strike swiftly at the heart of the Biden Administration’s legislative agenda. He has spent months teasing an ambitious list of measures he would take on Day One, including shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the Russia-Ukraine war, and pardoning Jan. 6 prisoners, among others.

“Look, I can undo almost everything Biden did, he through executive order. And on Day One, much of that will be undone,” Trump told TIME in a November interview.

Popli listed some of the main promises Trump said he would roll out on Day One of his Presidency and the DJI checked their progress through Thursday morning...

Close the border and reinstate travel bans

          Achieved, thanks to thousands of State, Local and... in a new development... Federal troops.

Pardon Jan. 6 prisoners

Over-achieved.  Trump had said that he would consider pardons “for some individuals charged with violent offenses” and that, in addition to pardoning individuals, Trump “he may establish a task force to review other cases of Jan. 6 participants still imprisoned.”  Intead, he even pardoned those convicted of the most serious assaults on Capitol Police.

End the Russia-Ukraine war

Not achieved.

End the Russia-Ukraine war

Not achieved.

End the ‘electric vehicle mandate’ and Green New Deal policies

Pending

Roll back federal regulations

Pending

Ban transgender individuals in women’s sports and the military

In Congress and, in some cases, state and local authorities might help or hinder

Cut federal funding for ‘woke’ schools

Pending… ref: debt ceiling

End CRT and DEI mandates in schools and the military and go back in time.

Uhhh... ending CRT and DEI mandates in schools and the military has reaped toxic blowback from Tuskegee University which says that deligitimization of the Tuskeegee Airmen in World War II is racist, beginning mass deportations by ending birthright citizenship necessitates going back in time to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment or a complex removal process not tried since Prohibition.  Paperwork commenced on woke mandates.  Deportations – eleven million expulsions might take a little longer.  Trump advisers have signaled plans to direct the federal government to more aggressively use 287(g) a federal program that empowers local law enforcement to carry out some immigration enforcement duties and promised new tariffs on imports from Canada (rescinded if conquered and made the 51st state), Mexico and China and save TikTok (done, at least for ninety days)

 

“Shock and awe,” Sen. John Barrasso, (R – Wy)  predicted after Republicans members of Congress received a preview of the activity to come. (See Lesson of 1/23, Attachment Seven)

 

As far as proposals most likely to face legal or legislative challenges, USA noted that Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship would seemingly have to pursue another amendment to the Constitution to repeal the entire Fourteenth (such as the repeal of Prohibition), “which would require support from two-thirds of Congress and ratification from three-fourths of state legislatures.”

But, if successful, repeal of the 14th could also open the door to bringing back slavery.  Suck on that, Tusks!

 

SWORN and FOREWARNED...

The new/old President was sworn into office at a minute past noon on Monday, MLK Day, by Chief Justice Roberts – declaiming “I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God,” gave what even critics alled one pleasant and inspring Inaugural speech in the Capitol (Attachment One) thereafter and then went outside to a preplanned rally where he gave a second, what he and many others called the “real” inaugural (Attachment Two)... squirming and oozing with the revenge and retribution he’d promised the base.

The Presidential Oath has a long and distinguished history.  As the story goes, in the summer of 1787, delegates to the federal convention in Philadelphia included in the document they were drafting a requirement that before taking office, the President should recite the following oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

So – “every president from George Washington on has recited the 35 words as a commitment to the rule of law in the face of unpredictable forces of change.”  Massimo Calabresi (Time, Jan. 19th, Attachment Three) added that: “Trump will take office in as strong a political position as ever before, buoyed by a decisive election victory and near record-high public support, a Republican Congress unified behind him, and broader backing in the business community, most notably among tech elites, who have committed this time to working with him. To many, Trump’s ascension carries the possibility of positive change for institutions that have grown stagnant or worse.

Democrats, of course, are preparing to battle over many of Trump’s policies, “as they have for the past 10 years.”

A perspective from another land, Qatar’s Al Jazeera (which not only Arab-Americans but many “woke” students at elite universities now believe to be more honest and reliable than the American media metalith) provided takeaways from the day (MLK day, at that) upon which 45 swore the oath as 47, leaving critics to swear a different sort of oath.

These included “preemptive pardons” for Gone Away Joe’s friends and family (but not for himself, as Trump snickered, perhaps presumptively), before Trump’s two addresses... pardons of his own, promises, serious or not, to conquer Panama, Canada and Greenland, stop immigration, tear up the Paris climate agreement and “drill, baby, drill”, and dispatch billionaire Elon Musk and failed, suckling challenger Vivek Ramaswamy to enforce a new breed of economy upon the bloated budget.

Some of the most notable included pardons for all of the One Six patriots/insurrectionists, including those convicted of violent attacks on Capitol police and attempting to hang Mike Pence, 78 rescindments of Gone Away Joe’s executive actions and orders, reiterations of the 2020 Election Fraud and dispatching then-unofficial envoy Steve Witkoff to the Middle East to negotiate the swap of the real hostages (Israelis and Palestinians) and so start a still-smoldering dispute over which POTUS deserves credit for the deal.

For his part, Trump could count upon supporters like Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the former and perhaps current ISIS-affiliated armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that overthrew the government of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, has congratulated Trump as he returns to the White House.

“The past decade has brought immense suffering to Syria, with the conflict devastating our nation and destabilizing the region. We are confident that he is the leader to bring peace to the Middle East and restore stability in the region,” al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said in a statement.

Other congratulants, grateful or guarded, included Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s special envoy for climate change, and a few domestic critics like blacktivist Al Sharpton (who denounced the affront to MLK), Sen. Elizebeth Warren and Gov. Gavin Newsome.

After congressional luncheon, where he and Vice President JD Vance were toasted by lawmakers, and a military ceremony, Trump boarded his limousine to join his supporters at Capitol One Arena where, after a speech by FBI designate Kash Patel and what some called a Nazi salute by Elon Musk

 

 

 

 

JAN. 20th: SELL – A – BRATION TYME...

SECOND RALLY

But if resentment at their treatment won Trump votes from working and wish-they-were-working young white males (as well as a record turnout of black and brown American-born citizens apprehensive over the armies of the south taking over their jobs because they were paid less by elite employers), he also won their more numerous parents and entire communities worried and angry over the “kitchen-table” issues – notably the cost of gas and groceries, lesser in Trump’s first administration and, under weak old Joe and crazy Kamalala, apparently headed nowhere but up while wages stagnated (or at least, as in the last month’s Index, only now beginning to rise).  Forget the plague, and evil Doctor Fauci with his mask mandates and work-from-home remedies applicable only to the cubicle parasites with their computers and AI concubines (take away his Secret Service and let private initiative do the Doc); forget the bird flu as elevated the price of eggs to fifty cents apiece; forget the wildfires attributed to reverse racism government rules.  President Trump declared that he was an intelligent man, smarter than any AI computer... he possessed Executive Intelligence; therefore any of his dictates would be Executive(ly) Intelligence Orders – no matter how confusing they might seem to the stupid peasants who’d voted for him or the lousy liberals with their cunning stunts to thwart him.

Let the EI reign... let the EIO’s flow forth!!

“We won! We won! But now the work begins.”

Trump declared that, later on Monday evening, he would begin signing pardons for the rioters arrested after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Tonight, I’m going to be signing the J6 hostages’ pardons to get them out,” Trump said. “And as soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office and we’ll be signing pardons for a lot of people.”

 

 

Sloughing off blame for the inclusionary half-hour fantasy of his Inaugural Address upon Melania and other unnamed “advisers” who wanted him to be “nice” on this, of all days... with the goddam Godless Democrats even flying the Stars and Stripes at half mast in an extended homage to that other old loser, Jimmy Carter, New 47 brought revenge and retribution back to the fore at his celebratory peckulations and pardoneerings at the Capitol One Center with a shout out to the owner, Ted Leonsis.

It was a good day for hockey, most of the revelers agreed... many of whom had been standing in line since two in the morning in the two degree windchill, only to be notified that their tickets to the main even would not be stamped.  And these weren’t bums, not by any means, they were thoughtful and earnest Americans... many of them donors (though not of the million or billion class) to the G.O.P. who shivered in silence and finally received their recognition from THEIR President, voicing THEIR aspersions and aspirations.

In differentiating between the speeches, Vox semi-editorialized, semi-prophesied that “four years of a president who uses his power to punish political enemies and reward his lawbreaking friends does not augur well for American democracy.”  But hey!... the populi had voxxed, the deed was done and it was time to party.

PARTY

In his first hours as 47, the Incoming had several official celebrations to attend.

They include the Commander in Chief Ball, where the musical group Rascal Flatts will play; the Liberty Ball, which will see performances by the Village People and Jason Aldean; and the Starlight Ball, where Trump will be serenaded by country singer Gavin DeGraw.  (Al Jazz)

Trump will also make remarks at each event, it was prophesied – and so it occurred.

 

Al jaz pink

 

 

WORK BEGINS

While the merry minions were celebrating, the Lord and Master was working... merrily in many instances, too: pardoning his loyal 2021 patriots and signing EO’s, just as promised (although not quite so fast as stated in some cases, due to the nefarious negativity of Congress, bureaucracies and, of course, lawyers while police conducted mass arrests of 234 people, including street strollers, journalists, medics and legal observers and even a few actual protesters... all of whom face felony charges, including rioting and conspiracy to riot — “serious crimes that carried the risk of decades in prison,” the Jazzies added while a delegation of the far-right Proud Boys group have marched to celebrate Trump’s inauguration in downtown Washington, DC, with a heavy police escort.

Asked by Al Jazeera about accusations that the Proud Boys is a white supremacist group, one demonstrator said: “We say, ‘F*** you.'”

 

MERCHING

“Who pays for all this?” the Jazzies asked.

The official inaugural events are financed by Trump’s inauguration committee.

That committee is chaired by longtime Trump allies Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer who is Trump’s pick to be his Middle East envoy, and Kelly Loeffler, a former US senator and Trump’s nominee to head the Small Business Administration.

The committee will be responsible for covering the costs of everything but the swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol, which is borne by taxpayers.

Trump raised a record $106.7m for his 2017 inauguration. This year, his committee has raised more than $170m, according to US media reports.

“Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to donate $1m each to the committee as have Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, have each donated $1m to the fund.

And then there was the merching.

Vendors at the rallies, on the streets, everywhere and nowhere were peddling Trump-themed merchandise around the Capital One Arena.

“That include(d) MAGA hats and T-shirts, including some featuring Trump as one of America’s founding fathers; Trump scarves; US flags and more.

“Some merchants were shouting their prices and offers to attract customers.”

 

 

 

THE REST of MLK/INAUGURATION DAY – Commentary

 

Al Jazeera solicited Mark Pfeifle, a former deputy assistant to ex-President George W Bush, who said Trump’s speech was “over the top” and was lacking themes of unity and bipartisanship.

“It was over the top – pretty classic Donald Trump, a lot of talk and colourful language,” Pfeifle said, citing Trump’s promise to take back the Panama Canal as an example of blustery rhetoric.

“I didn’t hear a lot of unity,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I didn’t hear a lot of tenor that, if I was a Democratic member of Congress or a Democratic voter, I could say, ‘OK, I could support a lot of these ideas.’ I thought that was missing.”

 

It is customary for human beings inheriting enormous power over others to show a bit of humility before exercising it. This is why presidential inaugurations include ritualistic invocations of national traditions, hallowed precedents, and divine favor,” opined Ed Kilgore in New York Magazine. (Jan. 20, Attachment Five)

Those staging the second inauguration of Donald Trump did their best to surround the man with reminders that he stands in the shadow of leaders much greater than he can rightly claim to be, and in the presence of institutions, from Congress to the courts to the armed forces sworn to defend the Constitution, that constrain his authority. “The reality that Trump doesn’t recognize any such restraints was made most evident by his reluctance to bow before the supreme authority of God Almighty, as he stood open-eyed during the invocations of the deity to bless his puny human efforts,” and even declined to rest his hand on one of the two Bibles there – perhaps out of fear (as the comedians would note that evening) that Scripture would burst into flames.

Not exactly a fan of homeboy (sort of) DJonnie, Kilgore wondered if, indeed, our recent election had been a mandate “to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom.” From this moment on, America’s decline is over, at least in the world according to Drumpf.

“Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history.” Seriously? Kilgore asked... more than Lincoln, “whose time in office started with secession and ended with assassination?After this remarkable exercise in relentless rhetorical hubris, Kilgore asked, “how can anyone be confident that the 47th president will temper his plans, withhold his wrath, respect the coequal powers of the Congress or the courts, or bend to the popular will?

“The real Liberation Day is Trump’s own; he will never again have to worry about an election, an intraparty challenge, a criminal indictment, or the subversive activities of the “deep state.” He’ll pursue his dark dreams exactly as far as he’s allowed to do by the alleged gate-keepers of the law and the Constitution.

No, spattered and splattered Lincoln, rather, Father Trump, notorious hater of boys named “Sue” just lost “a piece of his ear.”

Matt Tracy in Politics NY (Attachment Six, Jan. 20) also attacked transgender Americans and diversity, equity, and inclusion in a dark inaugural address at the Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20.  As of today, he spake, “it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” and then presumably waved his magic wand to make the wicked witches and bathroom bitches disappear in a sparkle of glitter.

The Chinese, according to Fortune, are likely to fare rather better – once New 47 realized that young people like Tik Tok and cheap stuff from the Dollar Stores, young people vote and will have to be massaged into serving into the military and accepting their status as first-step steptoads of America’s military-industrial complex.

Besides, now that the Chinese have trumped America on AI cyberwarfare, it’s time to get to know, if not love, your... well... let’s call them competitors.

So Fortune’s Jim Edwards (Jan. 20, Attachment Seven) singled out three reasons while President Xi and the Celestials were also pleased with Trump’s inauguration...

1.  The deal that would rescue TikTok at least long enough for Incoming to work out one of his famous deals...

2.  A telephone talk between Xi and then President-elect Trump a few days ago which “reached an important consensus on the development of China-US relations,” according to a statement from the Chinese government... and

3. Billionaire diplomacy with the ChiComs as Elon Musk and Xi’s inaugural designee, Vice President Han Zheng, agreed that Tesla is willing “to deepen investment and cooperation in China and play an active role in promoting U.S.-China economic and trade exchanges.”

All of this is a complete reversal of Trump’s historic dislike of TikTok and China, according to Fortune, which added that it is well-known that Tesla’s largest production facility is in Shanghai, China,  needs the government’s approval to keep it open and Trump needs Musk and his billionaire tech bros to keep American cyber-everything from declining to about the level of Libya.

 

And topping off Jan. 20th, Reuters and Al Jazeera solicited statements from world leaders who... with a few scowling exceptions (Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Iran) expressed hope and admiration for America’s new regime...

 “We are confident that he is the leader to bring peace to the Middle East and restore stability to the region".  SYRIA'S DE FACTO LEADER AHMED AHMED AL-SHARAA

“It is my hope that under your leadership the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion.”  POPE FRANCIS  (Al-Jazz)

“President Trump prioritises bilateral negoatiations over multilateral frameworks, so we will focus on how to leverage the national interests of both countries to contribute to world peace and the global economy.”  JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER SHIGERU ISHIBA

"On behalf of the Brazilian government, I congratulate President Donald Trump on his inauguration. Relations between Brazil and the USA are marked by a history of cooperation, based on mutual respect and a historic friendship.”  LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, PRESIDENT OF BRAZIL

“I look forward to working closely together once again, to benefit both our countries, and to shape a better future for the world. Best wishes for a successful term ahead!”  INDIAN PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI (Al Jazz)

"I believe that working together again we will raise the U.S.-Israel alliance to even greater heights."  BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER

"The government will strive to further strengthen policy cooperation with the United States and promote mutual interests based on the shared value of the Korea-U.S. alliance."  SOUTH KOREA'S ACTING PRESIDENT CHOI SANG-MOK

 

“The U.S. is our closest ally and the aim of our policy is always a good transatlantic relationship. The EU, with 27 members and more than 400 million people, is a strong union."  OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR

"For centuries, the relationship between our two nations has been one of collaboration, cooperation and enduring partnership ... Together, we have defended the world from tyranny and worked towards our mutual security and prosperity."  KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

Canada and the U.S. have the world’s most successful economic partnership. We have the chance to work together again — to create more jobs and prosperity for both our nations."  JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER

"President Trump is always decisive, and the peace through strength policy he announced provides an opportunity to strengthen American leadership and achieve a long-term and just peace, which is the top priority."  VOLODYMYR ZELENSKIY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT

 

Unseen, unnoticed, uncared-for, Ex-President Joe slunk out of the Inauguration and joined Jill on a plane to Joint Base Andrews to deliver a brief farewell speech before flying to Santa Ynez, California, “where his friend and billionaire Democratic donor Joe Kiani has an estate,”  (Politico, Attachment Nine) and, thereafter, an afterlife of regrets, grand and great-grandchildren and, perhaps, his memoirs.

“Biden last traveled to Santa Ynez following his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, where he officially passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris shortly after dropping his own bid for reelection.

“At the time,” Politico recalls, “Biden had basked in the adoration of relieved Democrats grateful for his decision to step aside and newly hopeful that Harris would charge to victory. Yet instead, Trump is back in office — and Biden is leaving Washington having shouldered much of the blame from those same Democrats for paving the way to his return.”

 

 

 

1/21 to 1/26  THE REST of the WEEK

Early Tuesday morning, Newsweek reported that Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the inaugural speech had “gone viral” after she burst into laughter during his inauguration speech.

Trump had just outlined his plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico in favor of "the Gulf of America," when Clinton collapsed into a fit of giggles, her shoulders shaking visibly as she laughed openly in the audienceOne clip of the incident shared on social media site X (formerly Twitter) has been viewed more than 9 million times and d by more than 15,000 other users, Newsweek reported (Jan 21, 9:07 AM, Attachment Ten).

And everything there and thereafter tended to break down along predictably partisan lines.

An X user, a TV viewer named Scott Lacy, whose profile gave no indication of political leanings either way, said: "I'm trying to figure out why everyone is not laughing. This is a third grade policy change."

Another X user named James Knowles, whose other posts are critical of Trump, said: "Hillary Clinton couldn't contain laughing at absolute stupidity."

But others thought Clinton was disrespectful to the new president.

An X account with the name "Florida Conservative" wrote: "Hillary, once again, is sitting behind Trump as he's welcomed as President of the United States. Not a great spot to feel smug."

Another account, with the handle "JV" who identifies as an American patriot, added: "Typical condescending Democrats smirk & laugh."

 

Competing with the Inauguration was the meeting of rich people at Davos, Switzerland forcing the globe's wealthiest individuals to either attended Trump's inauguration in Washington on Monday and the glamorous balls to celebrate with the new president afterwards or hunker down in equally cold Davis to talk about their favorite subject... their money.  Musk, Zuck and the Beeze chose Trump.

To some, “the presence of the world's wealthiest represents the apex of Trump's return to power in Washington after attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joseph Biden.

“To others, it stands as a warning that the new administration's priorities in coming years will favor the most well-connected through tax, labor, trade and other policies.”  (Reuters, Jan. 21, Attachment Eleven)

Numerous other members of the Forbes Richie Richlist were in Washington as well, including lesser eight and seven-figure luminaries like LVMH  CEO Bernard Arnault (a former Number One, now dropped down to Number Five); Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who chatted up Trump during the luncheon, and Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India.

"You certainly see the obvious and overt involvement of the richest people in the world on his first day in office," said David Kass, executive director at the Americans for Tax Fairness.

 

Applauding the applauding billionaires, decabillionaires, centibillionaires (and a few old, plain multimillionaires) at the festivities, the New York (not Washington) Post Editorial Board (Jan. 21st, 9:56 AM, Attachment Twelve) gushed: “Let’s hope we — and he — can all live up to Trump’s inspiring address... it was a grand speech — optimistic, ambitious, unifying, elevating.”

As would be, by the end of the day, several hundred migrants... some probably violent criminals, some perhaps not... elevated into the skies on military jets for return to the countries of origin – the first flock to Central America.

The Post celebrated some of what they believe to be Trump’s most promising promises...

(End the) National emergency at the southern border

Defeat inflation, rapidly bring down costs and prices

Declare a national energy emergency

“Drill baby, drill!”

Establish the External Revenue Service to tax and tariff foreign countries

Establish the Department of Government Efficiency

Immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America

Bring Law and Order back to our cities

End government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into daily life.

Reinstate service members who were ejected for refusing the COVID vaccine, with full back pay

Rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Restore the name of Mount McKinley.

Take back the Panama Canal (and Canada, and Greenland!)

Plant the Stars and Stripes on planet Mars  (Make Musk Happy!)

Revoke the electric vehicle mandate (Make Musk Sad!)

Summoning up, as it does, some words... maybe even the spirit... of Martin Luther King and his dream, Trump’s speech “should not only ring in the ears of the American people, who suffered for four years under the yolk of misplaced shame (from a President who “tried to burn down” America), but also to “other Western democracies that have all but forgotten — and are in fact apologetic — about ambition, the pursuit of excellence and meritocracy for all.”  

 

And then there were the Democrats, the sad and soggy Dams-o-Crap (Ee- Ee- EI Yore) whom Time’s Philip Elliott called languishing “somewhere between discombobulation and despair”... some, like Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa) hoping to cut deals, others cutting their throats with butter knives.  What next, Phil philosophizes... “(a) more inclusive message, not just what plays well among activists and on college campuses? More spending on state parties and less on D.C.-based consultants? Serious investments in a progressive media ecosystem to rival the conservative one? A foreign policy that is as easy to explain as Republicans’ tried-and-true “Peace Through Strength?” Better polling? Less fear-mongering about the end of democracy? More podcasts?”  (Jan. 21st, Attachment Thirteen)

How about animé?

The solution... and the problem... Phil concludes, is that the donkey bench is empty.  There is no JFK wowing the masses, no charismatic Obama (so long as Michelle stays on the sidelines), not even a Slick Willie from Hope to make hope hope again.  “Few see either House Leader Hakeem Jeffries or Senate Leader Chuck Schumer—both New Yorkers—as the unifying national figure the party needs,” and outside Gotham... well Newsome is handsome but vapid.  Some actor?  Bruce Springsteen?  Dolly... as this Index recommended last year.  Walz?  Harris?

“Until Democrats anoint their next presidential nominee, the party will lack a single leader, and that is probably more than three years away.”

 

Republicans have no shortage of charismatic leaders, even if most of them are FOOP (fresh out of prison).

ABC (Jan. 21, Attachment Fifteen) reported on the first release of the American hostages, rioters if you will, to their families, friends and Fuhrer now in the Oval Office.

ABC’s morning after recap of Inauguration Day included the speeches, the parties, the merching, the billionaires, the ravening lawyers, the EO’s and a few more gristly nuggets of firsts.

An undocumented expectant mother has jumped to the head of the line of the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship litigation...

Andrew and Matthew Valentin -- two brothers from Pennsylvania arrested for assaulting law enforcement during the attacks on the Capitol -- were processed and first to leave the Central Detention Facility in DC...

Newsome, trying to be New Face, denounced withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement while showing photographs of the L.A. wildfires and saying: "If you don't believe in science, believe your own damn eyes..."

Craig (the brother of Brian Sicknick, killed by One Sixers) denounced Trump’s pardons as a "betrayal of decency."

And Melania Trump’s hat designer said that the hat sent “a powerful message.”

 

Also on Tuesday morning, Newsweek’s Hugh Cameron was inspired to contact the gambling website Polymarket to obtain odds and names of those whom Trump might pardon in his first one hundred days.  (Attachment Sixteen)

Atop the list, Polymarket gave Ross Ulbricht, creator and operator of the online black market Silk Road now doing life at a high-security penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, a 92% chance of pardon after pleadings from Elon and assorted Libertarians.  (On @, done!)

Working downward, Steve Bannon has a 54% chance of a post-incarceration pardon, then Bitcoin scammer Roger Ver (fighting extradition requests from Spain), while cryptocolleague Sam Bankman-Fried was given only a four percent shot – trailing whistleblowers Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

“Polymarket also gives rapper and producer Sean Combs, or P. Diddy, a 2 percent chance of receiving a pardon. During a 2012 episode of The Apprentice, Trump referred to Diddy, now awaiting trial for sex trafficking and racketeering, as "a good guy" and "a good friend of mine."

And NBC concluded on Tuesday by noting that, while Trump had followed through on several of his Day One promises with a flurry of executive orders, he’d “left some on the table, including imposing tariffs and ending the war in Ukraine.”  (Attachment Seventeen)

Asked in the Oval Office, Monday evening, Trump said he was considering 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, two top trading partners for the United States. Asked when tariffs would be imposed, he said, “I think we’ll do it Feb. 1st.”  Asked about Ukraine, Trump had said: “That is a war that’s dying to be settled,” during his debate with Kamala Harris.  On Tuesday, Trump said he needed to speak with Putin and teased that the conversation “could be very soon.” 

On Friday night, Trump’s controversial Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth... the former Fox News personality and rightwing commentator who’d said women should not serve in combat roles, recommended the military purge generals and faced allegations of sexual assault and alcoholism... was confirmed as secretary of defense in the Senate by a tie-breaking vote from Vice-president JD Vance.

Almost the entire Republican conference supported Hegseth’s nomination while every Senate Democrat voted against his confirmation, resulting in a 50-50 vote. Three Republican senators – Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – opposed Hegseth’s nomination.

The liberal Guardian U.K. wrote that the nominee was bedeviled by wicked Sodomites and progressives and that, in Hegseth’s hyperpartisan 2020 book, American Crusade, he wrote that he believed the US was “on course for factional violence” and claim(ed) the country faced an existential threat from the left. “You must be thinking, ‘Pete, you laid this out in pretty simple terms. Us versus them. America versus the left. Good versus evil. You’re overplaying your hand. It’s not that bad,’” writes Hegseth. “Read on, and think again.”  (Attachment Eighteen)

They also noted that Trump had also “abandoned the world’s main health agency, ditched a global treaty on the climate crisis, and told refugees already approved to fly to the US that they were not welcome and could no longer come.”  Ten more other actions they condemned included the Jan. 6th pardons, Israeli claims of “biblical rights” to the entire occupied West Bank, bringing back the death penalty, scouring and purging the Federal Government for DEI supporters and... in a “lightly veiled threat that he would go after the former president”, Trump told Fox News that Gone Away Joe “should have pardoned himself.”

 

The fired employees included inspectors-general from more than a dozen federal agencies including the departments of “State, Energy, the Interior, Defense and Transportation” (CNN, Attachment Nineteen) whom Incoming considered “disloyal” to himself, not the country.

Even Republican Senators like Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota expressed concern that the President had bypassed Congressional regulations besides, of course, the usual Collins/Murkowski axis.

“There may be good reason the IGs were fired,” Grassley said Saturday in a statement provided by his office. “We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump. Regardless, the 30 day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.”

Reuters (Attachment Twenty) did credit New 47 with ruthless speed and efficiency, “showing that even his most radical campaign promises were far from just bluster”, howsoever confused.  Trump’s allies, they claimed, compared his shock-and-awe opening foray to a special forces raid that has caught federal workers, unions, advocacy groups and even the media off-guard in its scope.

They credited the “meticulous, years-long work of conservative allies who have spent much of Trump's time out of office drafting detailed policy plans that would allow him to hit the ground running,”

"This is the beachhead team taking over the federal government," said Steve Bannon.

Trump's opponents said he was “distorting the U.S. Constitution and expanding the limits of executive power beyond its intended limit.” They also said Trump's opening moves showed he was less interested in uniting the country than on radically transforming it - and in many cases exacting vengeance.

Even Trump's foes say the last five days represent a stunning contrast to his first term, when infighting and poor preparation scuttled many of his most ambitious policy initiatives.

"In terms of just the scope of all this and the speed, his team has shown the results of extraordinary preparation," said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former director of the Nixon presidential library.

Many of Trump's policies dovetail with those advocated by "Project 2025," a consortium of conservative organizations that has spent more than two years drafting policies in anticipation of Trump's possible return.

@And the WashPost has even reported that the beast has begun to eat itself, tail up.

The DOGE purge (Attachment Twenty One @get URL) has found Elon dumping Vivek Ramaswamy... as one might have expected about a billionaire influencer and a failed candidate, no matter how voluble Viv was in his submission.

But shed no tears for the Rama Swami... he’s going to run for Governor of @OH get a22

 

The Washington Informer, another black medium based in the Capitol, counted up Trump’s broken promises as of Wednesday – the good news, for Informer fans and Trump goes alike being that many of those promises “were either unfeasible or outright illegal.”  (Attachment Twenty Three)

The Informer’s Stacy Brown noted that Trump “has actively worked to raise prescription drug prices”, but expressed passivity on ending the war in Ukraine and overturning Biden’s so-called “electric vehicle mandate,” which, Brown contends, “never existed.”

Other failures... disappointing some, relieving others... were on CRT in the military (resulting in a disastrous disrespecting of the Tuskeegee Airman who had to be restored by... go figure... Pete Hegseth!), tariffs, opioids and the Beautiful Wall which, at least, is under way again.

 

Friday night’s purge of inspectors-general was a ploy for Trump “to install his own picks for the independent watchdog roles” according to CNN (Attachment Twenty Four), interviewing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s calling the move “a chilling purge” and warning the firings could kick off “a golden age for abuse in government, and even corruption.”

 

1/27 to TODAY: THE FIRST FULLWEEK

So little time, so many EOs (with apologies to Lord of Pasaquan, if not Mar-a-Lago)... let’s open this running tab on the proclamations by category, sorted alphabetically – based on a plethora of Attachments, sorted chronologically.

The more encyclopaedic selections include the Times of London (Monday, Attachment Twenty Five@) adding reductions in grocery prices to his roster of failed promises.

Probably the most resistant to political willpower, the birds keep dying, prices on their eggs keep going up and, unless Djonald can do a Lazarus Tweak on the disease, it’s unlikely he’ll get his ducks in a row for a year or more.  Poor crop yields... affected by the mirage of climate change... have also reduced the quantity, quality and affordability of staples from corn to coffee.

Chronic Gukster (and former LabSec) Robert Reich explained how Trump’s “vengeance machine” works... via, for example, termination of security for enemies like Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, his former top aide, Brian Hook, and former national security adviser, John Bolton... all of whom have been on Iranian hit lists since early 2020.

“If you think Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, will protect them from violence, think again,” advised Reich.  “All three are on Patel’s enemies list, which is basically Trump’s enemies list.”

This is how the Trump vengeance machine works. “Trump is the mob boss who keeps his hands clean while others do his dirty work.”  And how many nutjobs does it take to physically attack someone whom Trump has deemed an enemy, Reich asks? “Just ask Paul Pelosi.”

Of course, some of Djonald’s fellow felons might more likely be extras from the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.  After the pardon spree, Jacob Chansley, dubbed the QAnon shaman as a reflection of his horned-animal headdress and body paint that day, posted on X. “NOW I AM GONNA BY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!”  (Attachment Twenty Six)

 

Now, MORE PARDONS, AIs and EOs THROUGH YESTERDAY

Here come more of Donnie’s dramatic deeds, deferential dodges and a few dreary disappointments, to date, by category...

 

ECONOMICS

The A.P.’s Christopher Rugaber questioned Trump’s pledge of “cheaper prices and lower interest rates” remains stuck within an e-con-me sort of like a sinkhole economy - transformed by Old White Joe, to be sure, but also by wars and the pandemic.  (Attachment Twenty Seven)

On Thursday during the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said he would reduce oil prices, and then “I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately, and likewise, they should be dropping all over the world.”

The Fed didn’t cooperate.

“We are in a different world,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax advisory and consulting firm. “Gone is the era of low inflation and low interest rates. In its place is a new framework featuring scarce capital and higher rates.”

Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this year’s deficit would likely reach $1.9 trillion, and grow to $2.7 trillion in a decade.  (See our Index below and do the math.)  “Trump’s proposals to extend his 2017 tax cuts, and implement new ones, such as eliminating taxes on tips, would raise deficits further,” the A.P. forecast.

“As US President Trump begins his second term, his administration announced changes that will affect climate action, the global economy and international trade”, the rich and powerful of the world were meeting in Davos and peering into the prospects for his regime (World Economic Forum, Attachment Twenty Eight) which varying delegates reacted with variable quotients of excitement or fear.

"Something new and strange is happening," said Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The fact that Trump has staged "the greatest comeback in political history" means the new US president "thinks he can do anything," he said.

The World Economic Forum specifically looked into China and the potential for tariffs, the wars in Ukraine and the MidEast and economic concerns like inflation and inequality.

“Trump’s cabinet of self-made billionaires could be just the team to tackle such issues,” according to Allison. When combined with efforts to cut regulations in areas like diversity and climate – Trump is already clearing the way for more domestic energy production, for example – many businesses are excited about a more positive growth environment.

Said environment might be bleak for the poor if, as the New York Times reported, tariff-caused inflation might be supplemented by new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, bringing in $100 billion in savings.  (Attachment Twenty Nine)  More GOPper whoppers include eliminating school lunches... a politician said children should get jobs and work for their meals, even though they are children, leading Democrats to charge that the cutoffs are all in the service of “of paying for the extension of tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.”

Medicade work requirements “would cause 600,000 people to lose coverage, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, cutting federal spending by at least $100 billion over the next decade.”

Perhaps the most controversial... inasmuch as it affects the middle class... is ending the home mortgage deduction (which would save an additional $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the budget panel document).

Also on the chopping block – perks like free meals and gym memberships for workers.

But this might collide with his popular 'no tax on tips' campaign.

President Trump, speaking from Vegas’ Circa Resort and Casino, appealed to the myriad of hospitality workers in Sin City during his speech.

"Any worker who relies on tips [as] income, your tips will be 100% yours," Trump said.  (Fox, Attachment Thirty)  Trump added that he froze hiring within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on his first day in office.

"They hired, or tried to hire, 88,000 new workers to go after you," Trump told the audience. "And we're in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them or maybe we'll move them to the border."  Perhaps he could impose an Alien Tax!

Monday’s Washington Times/AP mashup predicted that the Fed would react to the consternation and the chaos by letting interest rates remain where they are... and so it came to pass.  (Attachment Thirty One)

Trump’s comments Thursday suggest he expects to regularly second-guess the Fed in public, despite a decades-long tradition among previous presidents of taking a hands-off approach to the central bank. Former president Joe Biden reappointed Jerome Powell, rather than replacing him, in a nod to central bank independence from politics.

Djonald DisInterested threatened to fire Powell, whom he appointed in late 2017, “but he has more recently backed off such threats. Powell’s term as chair ends in May 2026, when Trump can name a replacement.”

A big unknown for the Fed this year is whether Trump will impose tariffs, how sweeping they will be, and whether they will push up prices. Mass deportation of immigrants could also force employers to pay more for workers to fill jobs, which could also lift inflation.”

 

IMMIGRATION

A dispatch from Homeland Security (Jan. 26th, Attachment Thirty Two) assessed the nascent Trump alien removal campaign as “Promises Made, Promises Kept”.

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday issued memos to repeal limits on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents imposed by former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas…ICE agents who spoke to Fox News said they believe that rescinding the Mayorkas order is going to free them up to go after more illegal immigrants.” 

ICEmen styled and profiled some of the criminal migrants swept up in their dragnet... Franz Cadet, a 43 year old Haitian doper, an attempted murderer and a child molester.

Also on Monday, Al Jazeera (Attachment Thirty Three) fact checked the Trumpian rhetoric and results and pronounced most of it successful, such as it was meant to be.

“What is particularly evident already about these actions is the confusion, fear, and uncertainty these policies are already evoking for immigrant families and their communities,” Thomas J Rachko, Jr, research manager at Georgetown University’s Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute, said.

“Trump also ended a humanitarian parole programme that let Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans come in legally and work with authorisation for at least two years. About 530,000 people came in this way during Joe Biden’s administration, Homeland Security data shows.”

Imposition of an “expedited removal” provision, immigration agents can deport people without a court hearing if those people lack a “credible” asylum case or have been living in the U.S.A. for less than two years.

Designation of cartels and “other groups” as foreign terrorist organizations under the Alien Enemies Act, “a 1798 law that lets the president quickly deport noncitizens without due process if they are from a country at war with the US.”

That means you, Sergeant Preston and all your maple syrup-sipping Canadian terrorists.  (Trump will waive birthright repeal for Mister Musk, below, unless Elon gets feisty.

Ending those millions of birthright citizenships, as noted above, will require Constitutional changes up to and perhaps including repeal of the 14th Amendment and it has, not surprisingly, attracted the attention of lawyers.

Trump signing the order on the first day is “testing the outer limits of executive branch power in the immigration sphere”, Erin Corcoran, executive director of Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, said.

And cancellation of the CBP One app has left many migrants in uncertainty. "Individuals who had appointments and saved money for that day are now in the air, not knowing what to do," said immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez.  (Fox, Attachment Thirty Four)

The Foxies plucked a passel of posies out of the first week’s INS arrests... in a frenzied assault on declared and presumed sanctuary cities, ICE Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) joined with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Homeland Security Investigations to grab "criminal aliens" off the streets and prepare them for deportation flights – bolstered by popular support welling up from passage of the Laken Riley Act responding to that murder in nearby Athens.

“Miami-based federal agents arrested at least four illegal immigrants accused of committing crimes on U.S. soil over the weekend, including a Nicaraguan jailed in Broward County for an alleged shooting.

“Boston ERO announced the arrest of a Haitian man with 17 criminal convictions in Massachusetts,” suspected gang member Wisteguens Charles, 25, had first entered the U.S. illegally in 2013 and between 2022 and 2024, “racked up 17 criminal convictions. ICE filed an immigration detainer request in 2023, but a Massachusetts jail ignored it and released him back into the community, authorities said.” 

MSNBC, CNN, liberal media figures claim Trump’s immigration policies are racist, sowing ‘cruelty’ across US,” another Fox missive (Attachment Thirty Five) declared.

The new wave of arrests, in conjunction with the Trump administration's decision to end a Biden-era guideline on "sensitive places" where ICE could not conduct enforcement, “prompted backlash from some media networks” as well as street perennials like MSNBC's Rev. Al Sharpton, who called Trump's immigration orders a civil liberties "nightmare" on Friday. He also suggested that the recent ICE raids were racist and gave leeway for agents to abuse migrants.

"When you look at the fact that there's a serious element of profiling here, that we're looking for people of a certain Black or Brown color, when we're looking at the fact that this is a president that has told law enforcement be tough on people and don't even put their heads down when you're throwing them into a police van. He's opening the doors for police brutality, so I assume that would go with ICE as well," Sharpton told "Morning Joe."

CNN political commentators Maria Cardona and Kate Bedingfield claimed that Trump's policies would do "nothing" to solve the problems and challenges of immigration.

"All of it is focused on cruelty, on division, on separating families and on inflicting as much pain as possible in communities across the country," Cardona said while Bedingfield added that "I think Trump seems to be sometimes quite gleeful in pursuing policies that are hurting young children or hurting young families."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to the latest ICE arrests as proof the administration is delivering on its promises.

"The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway," she said on X. "Promises made. Promises kept."

 

Noted e-con-mystic Paul Krugman predicted that Trump’s immigration and tariff policies would “spiral out of control”, wreck the e-con-me and e-con-you and inflict special damage on sectors like “food production and home construction” and will likely — contrary to Trump’s campaign promises — send grocery prices soaring.

“(I)mmigrants, legal and not, play a much bigger role in some industries and occupations than they do in the economy as a whole,” he said (Huffpost, Jan 27th, Attachment Thirty Six), adding that many Trump voters will be “brutally scammed” when Trump introduces tariffs on goods imported into America.

Another liberal stick in the swamp... NPR (itself perhaps on the decapitation list, should the courts and lawyers enact all of his Federal subsidy blackouts)... cited 47’s own Inaugural Address One: "I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country," and whined that THAT WORD — invasion — has become mainstream on the right when talking about immigration, in spite of objections from immigrant advocates and some Democrats. They argue the term is dehumanizing and also deeply misleading, since border crossings have fallen sharply from their record highs during the Biden administration.

Strong, even offensive language is “(t)he key for everything they're trying to do," said John Sandweg, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Obama, who now heads the cross-border risks team at the law firm Nixon Peabody – “them” being language liberals like Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and a former top immigration official during the Clinton administration who has told reporters that Trump’s “dialing up” on migrant hate “really renames [and] recategorizes immigration as a national security threat.”

 

But the majority of unwoke, unobjecting Americans just wish they’d shut up and go back to class or bother their minds with real dangers, such as mass enforcement of the Alien Enemies Act, which would give 47 emergency authority to bypass normal immigration law to quickly detain and deport noncitizens... or citizens suspected of disloyalty.

 "It's quite clear that the framers understood the term to deal with armed attacks by foreign powers," said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning nonprofit."We're talking about acts of war. We are not talking about unlawful immigration."

The relatively small number (1,500) of active duty troops now sent to the border to “support” ICA and others could become “a kind of force multiplier for the Border Patrol. That hasn't happened yet, and we'll see how that works," Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think-tank that favors lower levels of immigration.

"Will soldiers be arresting illegal aliens? That'll be an interesting question."

 

ABORTION, SEX and CULTURE WARS

With too many tanks and not enough thinkers thinking as Trump II unfolds, the devoutly religious and virtuous POTUS also signed an order Friday reinstating a policy that requires foreign nongovernmental agencies to certify that they don't provide or promote abortion if they receive U.S. federal funds for family planning assistance.

“The position, sometimes called the Mexico City Policy and referred to by opponents as the ‘global gag rule,’ was first introduced more than 40 years ago,” reported CBS (Attachment Thirty Eight) “Every Republican president has put it in effect, and every Democrat has rescinded it.”

Trump also signed an executive order Friday requiring the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts government funding for most abortions. 

The amendment was already the law of the land under the Biden administration, but the Trump administration argued "the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy."

The executive actions came on the same day as the annual March for Life in Washington. In the video address to the crowd, Mr. Trump vowed "we will again stand proudly for families and for life" in his second term and once again boasted about nominating three Supreme Court justices who helped strike down Roe v. Wade.

"I was so proud to be a participant," he said. 

Crowds also cheered Mr. Trump's decision to pardon a group of anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances

"Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes," said Veep Vance.

President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to veto a federal abortion ban, but Democrats warn there are already efforts underway to get the country closer to that point.  (Fox, Attachment Thirty Nine)

House and Senate Republicans are pushing a “see what happens” bill this week to require health care providers to try to save the life of an infant in the rare case the baby is born alive during or after an attempted abortion. 

“It’s a simple bill,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, (R-S.D.).

“Those innocent lives deserve to be protected,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wash.) stressed it is already illegal in the U.S. to intentionally kill a baby that is born alive.

But U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is pressing forward with a bill to defund (and, perhaps later, criminalize) Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

“They should not be able to get taxpayer money to do that,” Hawley said.

Politico (Attachment Forty) called Trump’s pivot a way to calm fears about anti-anti-abortion Robert F. Kennedy’s appointment to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the executive orders “a big win for babies and mothers” that “restores sanity” to the Federal Government.

2022 study by The National Academy of Sciences estimated that Trump’s anti-abortion restrictions on foreign aid led to 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries over the four years of his first administration. That’s because it slashed funding for groups like the nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices, which operates clinics that provide contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections with U.S. funds and uses separate revenue streams to provide abortions.

MSI said ahead of the policy being reinstated that it wouldn’t abide by it. This will lead to the organization losing $14 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding, an MSI spokesperson said. The organization estimates the financial loss could result in an additional 2.4 million unintended pregnancies because it would have to stop providing contraception in several countries.

International abortion-rights advocates worried that Trump would further extend the policy to organizations receiving any type of U.S. foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid — a policy the Heritage Foundation recommended in its Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term. Trump’s executive order does not do that.

“(A)nti-abortion groups that helped Trump win reelection are looking beyond these actions,” said the Fox, “and are pushing for more from the new administration, including a ban on telehealth prescription and mail delivery of abortion pills, rules forcing states to provide more detailed information on all abortions within their borders, and the repeal of Biden administration rules that expanded abortion access for some military members and veterans.

Dannenfelser (above) posted a dispatch on the SBA website stating that: “On behalf of pro-life Americans and the moms and babies that will be saved from the tragedy of abortion, thank you, President Trump.”  (Attachment Forty One)

Despite election results over 2022-4, she cited a new Marist/Knights of Columbus nationwide poll released this week which confirms seven in 10 Americans want limits on abortion. Fifty-seven percent of Americans, including 54% of women, oppose using tax dollars to fund abortion domestically (29% “strongly” oppose) and 73% oppose using tax dollars to fund abortion abroad.

The Independent U.K. via AOL reported that, on Thursday, the president had also issued pardons for 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted of illegally blocking reproductive health clinics, violating a federal law. Lauren Handy made the cut.

Handy had been serving an almost five-year prison sentence for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in 2020, when she and her associates used ropes and chains to block the entrance to a clinic in Washington, D.C. (Attachment Forty Two)

Upon pardoning the nearly two dozen anti-abortion activists, Trump said: “They should not have been prosecuted.” He added: “Many of them are elderly people. … This is a great honor to sign this. They’ll be very happy.”

Separately, last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge revived a lawsuit challenging access to mifepristone, one drug in a two-drug regimen used in medication abortions. The widely-used drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration 25 years ago, but some critics have taken issue with some of the agency’s eased restrictions around the drug in recent years, including its ability to be prescribed by telehealth providers.

The case’s new plaintiffs — Missouri, Kansas and Idaho — argued that this rule violated a law that prohibits substances “intended for producing abortion” from being mailed.

IUK’s Peanut Gallery included remarks from W. who said that “I am sorry that most people see (sex) more for pleasure than a way to have a family and enjoy life.”

 

Speaking of those dirty deeds, done cheaply or not, between same or opposite sex humans or in weird peregrinations (animals, couches, fingers, devices) Time (Jan. 27, Attachment Forty Three) dove into the... well, call it heart... of the matter by claiming that President Trump’s EO that there two and only two sexes, male and female, leaves all of those undeclared “others” at risk of criminal prosecution.

The order accused “ideologues” of denying “the biological reality of sex” and dismissed gender identity, calling it “disconnected from biological reality.” It declared that all federal agencies and employees will henceforth use the term “sex,” not “gender,” in all applicable policies and documents, and that government-issued forms of identifications would “accurately reflect the holder’s sex.” 

For a start.

Timeservers Solcyré Burga and Chantelle Lee took a time machine trip back to the Biden Administration - where citizens could update their gender markers to reflect their gender identity in a process Simone Chriss, an attorney and the Director of Transgender Rights Initiative at Southern Legal Counsel in Florida calls a more “affirming” policy of self-attestation. “That means you signed an affidavit saying ‘this is what my gender marker is,’ and you didn't need medical certification,” she says. In 2022, the Biden Administration rolled out an “X” gender marker for nonbinary, intersex, or gender nonconforming people.

Trump’s executive order denies the legal recognition of transgender and nonbinary people, barring them from updating their gender on federal documents, such as passports, visas, and Global Entry cards and, should the courts agree, invalidating many ID documents.

 Experts instead say problems will likely arise when it comes to passport renewal, which happens every 10 years for those aged 16 and up. “Many folks have 10 years before they have to worry about that, but upon renewal, it sounds like they will revert it back to the person's sex assigned to birth,” says Chriss. Still, it isn’t clear how the government would implement such a policy.

There is less confusion over the REAL ID Act, which has stricter standards for the issuance of identification cards compared to a standard license, and requests additional or supplemental documents to verify a person’s information. Starting on May 7, residents must have a REAL ID in order to fly domestically or to access certain federal facilities. “If you currently have a driver's license that says the correct gender marker, and then to become REAL ID Act compliant, you have to show your birth certificate, or passport—could that cause an issue? It's very state specific, and we're going to have to see how different states handle it,” Chriss says. 

“It’s giving people a license to discriminate because you’re immediately being marked as ‘Other’” says Imara Jones, an American political journalist and the chief executive officer of the independent news organization TransLash Media.  The Hill reported that the President is expected to sign an executive order explicitly banning trans people from military service.

 

The Latin Times (Jan. 27, Attachment Forty Four)

 

 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

 

A45 FROM TIME

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@end

 

 

 

 

 

Our Lesson: January 23 through January 29, 2025

 

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Dow:  44,565.00

President Trump throws conspiracy theorists a bone – in fact, the bones of JFK, RFK Senior and MLK by ordering declassification of their assassination documents.  Bobby Junior is all for it, but the King Family wants to examine the data before public release.  A major standoff in the making?

   There is already a standoff between the tech bros, Trump and Steve Bannon over the 500+ billion Starlink AI scheme backed by Sam Altman of Open AI and denounced by newly thrifty Elon with help from Steve Bannon – they say it’s too expensive with the debt ceiling collapsing all around.  So far, Trump is backing Altman, Elon’s sworn enemy, promising to find the money... somewhere... maybe over in Davos in among the G-7 (though he only televisits).

   Mother Nature continues to hate on America with rising Santa Ana leading to more California wildfires and snow blankets beaches fronting what is now the Gulf of America.  Snow from the Eagles’ playoff win is being sold for $5 a cup in Philadelphia.

   In the courts and Congress wins one... the Laken Reilly Act increasing penalities for killer immigrants is passed with some Democrats supporting, but Donnie’s own Supremes say that birthright citizenship cannot be repealed without repealing the entire 14th Amendment.

   Even as the fires spread, Oscar nominees are announded with prayers that the conflatrations will cease by March 2nd.  Emilia Perez garners thirteen... a record for a non-English film... followed by “Wicked” and “The Brutalist” with ten each.  Gossipators prattle about snubs and celebrate Demi Moore who gets her first nom nod at 62 for “The Substance” - a sign that horror films are being taken seriously – and the woke and sleepers argue over Karla Sofia Gascon... first trannie nominee for “Émilia Perez”.

 

Friday, January 24, 2025

Dow:  44,424.25

INS arrests 500 on the first full day of migrant crackdown... Tom Homan says the targets are supposed to be violent criminal immigrants, but they’ll round up anybody they find in the process.  The captives are sent back to Guatemala on military planes.  A Border Patrol agent is murdered... that is, a Northern Border patrol agent... but the suspects are suspected of being Vermont Americans from Bernland.

   Djonald UnBorn holds his first full rally after Restoration... telling cheering crowds at a March for Life raly that he was just joking about not enhancing abortion, contraception and maybe all sex laws.  A baby is born in a Krispy Kreme parking lot during a Gulf snowstorm.  As dirty doctors being busted for fake Botox, Trump proposes abolishing the Centers for Disease Control, putting teeth in RFK Junior’s plot to M-POGGA (Make Polio Great Again!).

   But POTUS II backtracks on an earlier threat to punish Gov. Gavin Newsome (D-Ca) by denying aid to California fire victims and a reluctant expenditure of $2.5B in fire relief is proposed after the Trump-con-mystics point out the effects of no Hollywood movie money coming in for months, even years.  A little further east, the Mob relaxes after Vegas hotel workers settle their strike for... go figure... more money.

 

Saturday, January 25 , 2025

Dow:  Closed

Despite accusations of misogyny, rape and alcoholism, Pete Hegsetn is confirmed as DefSec on a 50-50 vote by VP Vance.  The GOP traitors are the usual two vengeful vixens... Collins and Murkowski... joined by grumpy old Mitchy McConnell, still bitter over his treatment by MAGA during his tenure as Minority Leader.  Pete now says he will allow women to served in the armed forces – but will they believe him?

   While red tape slows release of American One Six criminals/hostages (but not Proud Boys Stewart and Tarrio who leap out of prison and starts snuggling up to legislators), Hamas and Israel trade more captives... four female Israeli soldiers for two hundred Palestinians who, however, are made to wait at the border with the rest of the refugees because Hamas wouldn’t free a fifth hostage.  Rumor mongers monger that the next swap might include an American.

   Bird flu is lifting prices of eggs to $9/dozen and hoarding means supplies will keep shrinking.  Deaths (of birds) are rising in 28 states, a 4 year old human is killed among 67 people sickened... 100,000 ducks are also euthanized.  RFJ Junior screams as raw milk is also condemned by still-functioning enemies of America like the CDC, FDA and CIA (whose new director Ratfliffe agrees that Covid was caused by China).

  Bridgestone closes Tennessee tire plant, fires 200 workers while Wendy’s is replacing more of its staff with AI robotic order-takers and fry-guise.  “It’s an assistant, not a replacement,” declares CEO Todd Penegor.

 

Sunday, January 26 , 2025

Dow:  Closed

Sunday talkshows feature Sen. Elise Slotkin (D-Mi) wonders aloud whether Commander Pete will go along with any of Trump’s illegal orders and says that former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard is not qualified “because she cozied up to Assad and Putin.”  (Even the National Revew calls her “atrocious”!)  Not so dueling Chris Christie and Preet Bharara concur that POTUS is “flooding the zone” with obviously unacceptable Eos to get the ones he wants through... Preet says he wins if he passes them and wins if he loses so he can reprise his victim role.

   Cranky old Chuck Grassley now deemed the 4th vote to reject any appointees and he denounces Trump’s “petty” withdrawal of Secret Service protection from enemies and says POTUS and Biden were both wrong in issuing pardons, while Musk biographer Walter Isaacson says Elon and Donnie have shown their proclivities for vengeance.

   ABC’s roundtablers John Sanger (Politico) says Trump is not a fluke but national defense is the one place where “things can go wrong in 24 hours”; David Sanger (NYT) predicts Little Marco will be his Big Hitman but Rachel Bade says he is burning capital on dud nominees and floats a deal – let Putin conquer Ukraine and America conquer Panama and Greenland.  Canada?

   On “Face the Nation” J.D. promises Hegseth will be a “disruptor” and dismisses the NReview as “not Relevant.”  Sara Isgur, who blames “liberal preachiness” for Trump’s election on NPR hopes he will have “mercy” for birther families while MAGA asks where the mercy is for Americans who can’t get medical aid because hospitals are “flooded with migrants”.

   A Florida man is first to be arrested for threatening to kill President Trump.

 

Monday, January 27, 2025

Dow:  44,388.08

It’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Israel and Hamas reach a deal to let Palestinians back into what’s left of their homes and communities in exchange for a fifth Israeli hostage.  Despite reports of returning migrants to Brazil being beaten and forced to sit in their shit on US warplanes, Colombia agrees to a deal to take their runaways after Trump threatens more tariffs.  On cocaine? 

   Chiefs edge Bills and Eagles blow out Commanders to set up Super Bowl as the ads (featuring, of course, the Clydesdales) begin rolling out.  Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk” wins at the B.O. and Roxanne Shante gets a Lifetime Grammy – for which she credits Nipsey Russell.

   Tuskeegee University calls MAGA removal of Airmen from  military history as DEI a racist go-back and local Rep. Ensler (D-Al) introduces a Congressional bill to restore their stolen valor.  Holocaust survivors visit Auschwitz, tell their stories to celebrities like Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and U.K.’s King Charles, warning that “we must never forget.”  One hopes that “maybe we can teach the next generation not to be so angry.”

   But, speaking at a German far-right rally, Musk said it’s time for the world to stop hating on Nazis.

 

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Dow:  44,850.35

Chinese DeepSeek AI, cheaper, better and using less electricity than Nvidia’s chips causes a tech meltdown, where they lose 600B and cause a NASDAQ plunge (curiously, lifting the Dow... perhaps as investors get out of AI and into something real.  Stargate’s Sam Altman, Musk’s bitter rival, calls this “a wake-up for America.”

   Trump’s rollout of EO’s hits 350 with no end in sight; the latest being an offer to shut down the government by encouraging two million Federal workers to resign, taking buyouts for eight months pay. Neither the immediate expense (enormous) or the outcome (chaotic) bother him even as his temporary freeze is closing day care for kids (and working moms), ending Meals on Wheels for seniors and Medicaid for everybody.  Following withdraway from the World Health Org. (Who), adding to the winter bird and human flu comes a new/old, expensive disease... tuberculosis.

   Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth marked his first day on the job by hinting that military bases renamed under the Biden administration because they referenced Confederate officers would revert to their original names, but also greenlighted the return of the Tuskegee Airmen to DoD history.  It’s a rare application of common sense. Caroline Kennedy calls cousin Bobby Junior a “predator” – RFK denies the appellation “Mister Measles”.

   As the Louvre also deteriorates, Italy demands that France give them back the “Mona Lisa”.

 

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Dow:  44,713.52

It’s Chinese New Years... and begins the Year of the Snake – and reptiles are on the move: over there, over here.

   As Trump’s Funky Freeze further “crushes” Americans (according to Rep. Pete Stauben@ (R-Pa) and the lawyers gather to feast on the American carcass, Djonald UnFrozen declares a freeze on the freeze, so long as he is given the right to send 30K migrants to Gitmo to mix and mingle with terrorists.  Off to an ordinary prison: former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) for talking turkey with Turkey in exchange for gold and cash he’d stuffed in his shoes.  In a rare bipartisan move, Congress passes and Trump signs the Laken Riley Act to lock up aliens who are real criminals.

  DoE says American students are falling down in reading and math as music teacher Adrian Maclin named Educator of the Year for his work with Tennessee choirboys and girls.  If you can’t say it, sing it!

 

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THE DON JONES INDEX

 

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

 

Gains in indices as improved are noted in GREEN.  Negative/harmful indices in RED as are their designation.  (Note – some of the indices where the total went up created a realm where their value went down... and vice versa.) See a further explanation of categories HERE

 

ECONOMIC INDICES 

 

(60%)

 

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS by PERCENTAGE

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

 

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 revised 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

LAST WEEK

THIS WEEK

THE WEEK’S CLOSING STATS...

 

Wages (hrly. Per cap)

9%

1350 points

1/16/25

+0.16%

2/25

1,547.53

1,547.53

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   30.62

 

Median Inc. (yearly)

4%

600

1/16/25

-0.07%

1/30/25

737.36

737.36

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   43,313

 

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

4%

600

1/16/25

+2.44%

2/25

556.38

556.38

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000   4.1

 

Official (DC – in mi)

2%

300

1/16/25

+0.30%

1/30/25

228.46

228.46

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      7,057

 

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

2%

300

1/16/25

+0.34%

1/30/25

260.61

260.61

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      12,177 211 243 285

 

Workforce Participation

   Number

   Percent

2%

300

1/16/25

 

-0.011%

-0.057%

1/30/25

299.05

299.05

In 161,151 Out 11,156  Total: 262,307

61.436

 

WP %  (ycharts)*

1%

150

12/2/24