America 250

Not for Sale

Donald John Trump is a corrupt businessman with a lucrative side gig as the 47^th president of these barely United States. Dominion is his drug of choice. Deception is his stock and trade. What he wants and cannot buy, he will steal.

He is addicted to acquiring and risking other people’s money. He takes the gambler’s share of endless grifts. He has made bankruptcy into a personally profitable art form. His approach to life is transactional. He is unhindered by a moral compass or compassion for anyone other than himself.

His latest and greatest scam is America.

He declares national emergencies wherever and whenever he needs to gain unfettered access to America’s prestige and power. He throws the occasion of the 250^th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence at any domestic abuse of history, custom, and simple good taste as may catch his egotistical urge to proclaim his might in and beyond his own time.

Credit. Jack Ohman

His second term in high has been a domestic and international disaster by every measurement OTHER THAN how much he, his family, and his loyalists have profited. The increase in personal wealth cannot be calculated. Too much of it is hidden, deferred, or brand dependent. And, a significant portion of funds and favors disappear between handshakes and winks. $6 billion for sure in 12 months. Why stop now?

Credit. The Washington Post

He is enjoying the power his administration has seized from a compliant congress and a complicit court.

Credit. The Week

Just Another Deal

Donny the Developer may be right. Maybe everything DOES boil down to real estate. Who owns it. Ever since the homo sapiens get-go until right now.

This thesis has only two general flaws:

1. The aspirations of the human soul exceed adverse geographical and socio-eco-politico circumstances; and,

2. The tolerance of the planet for abuse is limited and payback is a bitch. It’s not nice to (try to) fool Mother Nature.

And one immediately troublesome one. We the People do not want or accept a king. Especially one with such a poor business record.

He distracts from, and papers over, his personal foibles and policy failings by:

1. Rogue, vainglorious, diplomatically counterproductive but personally enriching interventions in regional conflicts around the globe;

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and,

2. Unprecedented, unwarranted, and completely offensive posturing domestically. He so much is like a misbehaving male puppy. What he does not mark, he diminishes in value or consumes in part or whole. Examples--other than paving over the Rose Garden, tarting up the Lincoln Bathroom, gilding the Oval Office and associated public spaces, starting construction of an Arc de Trump facing and taller than the Lincoln Memorial, and allowing a cage match viewed by 50,000 spectators on the South Lawn on the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—follow:

a. Large, multi-story banners of his scowling, imperial face hung on federal facades:

1. May 2025: US Department of Agriculture; and,

2. August 2025: Department of Labor

b. Rebranding of federal facilities:

1. October 2025: Trump Ballroom: Demolition, Expansion, and Repurposing of the East Wing of the White House; and,

2. December 2025: Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

He is a master of the shock attack. It is a singular blessing that he lacks the character and fortitude to execute kill strokes on a disabled victim of his aggression. Like any weak tyrant or strong mob boss, he delegates death.

In the instance of the renaming of the Kennedy Center. He took control of the board and operations of the facility in February of 2025.

Credit. Ann Telnaes

By the summer of 2025, subscription sales fell by 36%.

1. December 2025:

a. Rep. Joyce Beatty sued the administration, claiming that Congress must approve the renaming of federal facilities;

b. The Kennedy family went public with expressions of outrage;

c. Numerous artists cancelled scheduled appearances in protest;

2. January 2026:

a. The Washington National Opera left its 55-year venue;

Credit. Ann Telnaes

and,

b. It now will perform at the Lisner Center at George Washington University.

3. February 2026: Chairman Trump announced a two-year closure of the boycotted facility would commence on 04 July 26, in some sort of backhanded tribute to the Declaration of Independence. It well may be remembered as the second day the music died.

Losing His Superpower

The insecurities and greed of Mr. Big are causing him to not care about “reading the room” anymore.

He seems to believe he can continue to demand obedience from the world at large and in specific instances.

Not true.

He is becoming the victim of one of the most effective negotiating tools. The other parties are leaving the table.

He is not allowed to seize Greenland.

Credit. Cagle Cartoons

His last birthday was 14 June 25. He threw himself a 79^th and the US Army a 250^th birthday party. It was an expensive and embarrassing bust.

Smarty, Smarty held a party.

No one came to the party but Smarty.

Except the 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, tanks, warplanes, horses, mules, parachutists, celebrities, and performances by seven bands that $45 million of taxpayer funds could command. Participants in the parade outnumbered the viewers. Spectators were offered a 1-hour parade, a 7-hour festival on the National Mall, and a fireworks display that evening.

Elsewhere, over 5 million persons attended 2000 No Kings rallies held across America (anywhere away from the Birtday Boy) on the same day.

Credit CartoonStock

Cut and Run. We’re Comin’ fur Ya

Trying to rewrite history will not work. Biden won Election 2020 fair and square.Italian satellites did not interfere with the integrity of the vote count in Fulton, Georgia. The 45^th president of the United States conspired to avoid a transfer of power. And urged his supporters to protest the electoral results on the day of their public counting.

Credit. Syracuse.com

While out of high office, he was tried and convicted of financial crimes and sexual misconduct. He took, held, and tried to refuse demands to return official records of his time in office.

For the last twelve long and terrible months, masked and armed ICE and Border Patrol personnel have been operating in cruel, inhumane, illegal, and unsustainable manners wherever deployed by the current administration. The government has surveilled the population from land, air, and near space.

Driving while black and working while brown have been dangerous activities for some time. Being on a public street while white became fatal this last month in Minnesota for sure. Other atrocities and assassinations have occurred in places and instances less documented but locally known and resisted.

The high-handed, free-wheeling good times of Trump 2.0 are under attack now.

In the courts. On the street. On highway overpasses. In places of public and private discussion and demonstration. At the off-season special election ballot boxes.

In the hearts and minds of independent voters who have no reason to trust either political party. Much less fund their candidates du jour.

Do not act like the governed do not know when they are thirsty, hungry, cold, ill, and/or frightened. And betrayed.

The Battle Is Joined

The Tyrant Trump is declaring his every desecration of law and custom a tribute to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

He seems to be pursuing some of notion that he can and will divorce America from the principles and practices of its freedoms on 04 July 26. That he can capture unfettered rule by force of will, abuse of office, and disrespect for 250 years of common rule of law as embodied in:

1. The Declaration of Independence;

2. The Constitution of the United States;

3. All amendments and supporting laws in force on 20 Jan 25.

He is a lost cause personally. He is a clear and present danger politically for as long as his health and his billionaire handlers will allow him to rail against the night of his inescapable demise.

Congress is a very different and urgent matter. Those members faithless to their oath of office require removal and replacement. The wrath of the voters cannot be escaped by eliminating their voice, opinion, and will. It is some sort of madness to:

1. Pass the SAVE Act;

2. Continue funding for ICE and Border Patrol operations; and/or,

3. Suggest it might be useful or necessary to federalize voting in fifteen targeted states.

Those of We the People unhappy with the results of Election 2024 and aghast at the implementation of the Project 2025 playbook will not surrender our discontent easily.

We the People need and demand a Congress composed of persons of good character dedicated to the proposition of rehabilitating constitutional guidelines and restoring the rule of common law.

Bravery and solidarity are becoming ever more the necessary pass keys to the glory land of life, liberty, human rights, constitutional protections, welfare, health, security, education, research, privacy of thought, and open expression of opinion.

It’s Nike Time.

Just do it.

Let the signs protesting these troubled times point the way to winning Election 2026. They spread the word to persons routinely driving by them. They gather the good will, shape the opinion, and will energize the vote of persons otherwise distracted and/or consumed with earning a living, raising a family, and generally chasing an opportunity to survive, prosper, and prevail in a context presently antithetical to those aspirations and efforts.

Anthem

We the People have the power to refuse to be governed by those persons, principles, and practices that betray a sworn duty to serve, protect, preserve, and promote our best interests.

The last long year of bewildered enduring has closed. The new year of purposeful and effective curing now commences.

What good and great things gained between FDR and Trump 2.0 cannot be forgotten or lost. Or willingly surrendered.

In twelve more months, the issue can be settled.

If We the People do not relent, Trump 2.0 will weaken, retreat, and retire.

1. Stay strong. Through the winter and into spring, keep protest and resistance visible.

2. Stay strategic. Inflatable costumes to obscure identity are brilliant. Keep laughing at tyranny and shaming its enforcers. Keep assembling in ever larger numbers of peaceful public protest.

3. Stay effective. Every horn honk and wave that cheers the presence and message of peaceful protesters is a potential vote for change in 2026 mid-term elections.

4. Stay faithful. Support each other and every legal challenge to the cruel, unusual, unlawful, and unsustainable ICE operations.

5. Stay able. Be relentless in requiring legislative and legal attention to your issues and concerns.

It is a long road back to political health and strength once We the People stop the bleeding of Trump 2.0.

There is no room for despair or time for delay. Let us each continue to exercise our indivisible Power of One. Let us continue to use our persons and our purses every day everywhere in every legal way to deny, delay, disassemble, defeat, and destroy Trump 2.0.

Election 2026 is critical. Let us covenant with each other to remember ourselves well as we refuse to be discouraged or side tracked. Let us keep the pressure on DEI deniers and the breakers of private, public, and constitutional oaths. Let us demand respect for our presence and our power. Let us require faithless representatives to repent, reform, or retire.

Let us march to old songs of hopeful resistance. Let us join with Bruce Springsteen in making and singing new anthems to courage and commitment.

Let us covenant to:

• Be faithful

• Be firm

• Be resolved

• Be present

• Be strategic

And, further, to:

• Rise

• Remain

• Resist

• Persist

• Prevail

And, to continue to wonder and ask— “What’s in the rest of those Epstein files?”

Go, team, go.