Bondi being fired is not surprising: she lost in court cases and bungled Epstein

 Pam Bondi being fired is not surprising: she lost many court cases and bungled the Epstein files.She was in an impossible spot...either be successful with frivolous lawsuits or lose her law license. She chose the former, but she still got ousted, because she failed.. She fumbled the Epstein files either with incompetence or too obvious an attempt to cover up. What Trump wanted her and demanded she do was act as his terrible swift sword of non-evidenced prosecutions (really persecutions of political and policy opponents), which also put her license in jeopardy. It was like Rudi, who lost his license, for his acts in 2020...as did a bunch of other stop the steal loyalists..Trump may have inadvertently done her a favor by removing her. Trump will get no further with a successor who tries this same stunt before judges, too. 

  https://www.npr.org/2026/04/02/g-s1-115077/trump-bondi-attorney-general-departure

Is Trump's management style: more like a King or more like a mob boss?

 What is Donald Trump's management style? More like a wannabe dictator or king or more like a mob boss? Either way, corruption is part of it.  He has made billiions using his power as president.  https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/trumps-profiteering-hits-four-billion-dollars

My take:  Trump's management style is based on corruption, more like a mob boss than a King, and both can be true at the same time... only corruption and pocket padding have marked much of Trump's second term.

This got me thinking: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share.In this February 24, 2025, opinion piece in the Atlantic, the writer Jonathan Rauch argued that there was a fancy word for what Trump really personifies. It is patrimonialism,  another word for a mob boss. Trump uses his power to make himself, his family, and his loyal followers rich.  What Rauch describes is padding the pockets of his family and loyalists.  Trump favors loyalists, I note, who have substance and power of their own to benefit him.  Pocetk padding is one aspect, and it appears to be his motivation for some of his actions, including paving the way through regulatory agencies to give legality to his crypto ventures and business dealings like those of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Another characteristic of a mob boss is punishing those who are "disloyal" or defy him. He does it by abusing his powers to "take revenge and retribution ", and carries it out, instructing and/or approving, or empowering his lieutenants in his cabinet and powerful regulatory government positions to take action using methods that courts later consider illegal or unconstitutional. Those actions inflict pain, financial and public pillorying,  until some judicial branch stops it months later, and those judicial chickens are just coming home to roost. Even "his" Supreme Court is putting on the brakes, though most of the action is still at the lower federal court level. Trump,  like a good mob boss, expects those he appoints to be loyal to him and not to the Constitution. April 1, 2026, he sat glaring in the Supreme Court chambers listening to the arguments near and dear to his heart, denial of birthright citizenship, as if to remind the justices to be loyal to him.  After all, he appointed so many of them.  It appeared to be an act of intimidation, if not just to give support to far-right, racist, white nationalist dreams. No president in US history had sat to hear the Supreme Court's argumentation on an issue until this. 

Recent examples of this include unjustified legal action by the DOJ or threatening the political future of those in GOP-favoring gerrymandered districts.  It does not mean doing what is in the reason for his election, such as reducing the cost of living and ending wars abroad.

I cannot help but think that a role model for a mob boss was best described in "The Godfather". Another description of how Trump operates was written by his former "fixer", Michael Cohen, Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump  (2020). Cohen may be embittered, but the book is instructive. One of Cohen's contributions to understanding Trump is that Trump never gives a direct order, but drops enough hints about what he wants done,

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/semantics-for-masses-grifter-for.html

What's the difference between celebrating independence on NO KINGS 3/28 and on July 4? Not much

 What's the difference between celebrating No KINGS and on July 4? I saw an objection to No King's Day...we already celebrate it on July 4th. Obviously, some still do not get it, or else they are just being cute or trolling instead of being ignorant. Here is why we should also celebrate July 4th, in addition to the 8 million-plus who got it on March 28. Believe me, it is one more opportunity to make a point on July 4th. For the ignorant, not for the MAGA trollers, a reminder, here is to remember the reason why we declared independence: No tyrannical kings, and to get out from almost exactly what angered us about what the King did,(Bill of Particulars in the Declaration), which are mostly now enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We also rose up in 1776 because of one issue that resonates today: taxation without representation.

Trump thinks he's a dictator, acts like one, and ignores laws and Constitutional provisions he does not like, treating executive orders like a law, making up his own laws as he will, punishing those who do not support him with retaliatory action by the DOJ and threats of being primaried. Dictators are the modern version of a tyrannical king, and every day he violates those First Amendment rights, particularly press freedom and civil rights of individuals and the 4th amendments. Pro democracy, the protection of the Constitution, and the spirit of 1776 are inseparable.

The other reason for independence was that we were being taxed without representation...another provision enshrined in the Constitution, to make sure we, the people, would control taxation and its use through Congress, especially the House. Trump cowed the House into a bunch of yes people (whatever Trump wants, Congress gives him), whether with tariffs or the cost of war. Now, he wants to make it more difficult for voters to cast their vote, particularly old people, brown people, and women. FYI, we celebrate the freedom our forefathers fought for, now in jeopardy, too, on July 4

The patriots who were the founders of the Constitution and our form of governance sought to preserve our right to govern ourselves, to preserve all who were created equally inalienable rights to pursue happiness, and to keep us from a tyrannical ruler, making those governing subject to the rule of law instead of the rule of an individual. Those who experienced the revolution in 1776 were also given the opportunity to write the Constitution which was approved in 1787. Aside from limiting the power of tyrants with checks and balances of three power centers, legislative, judicial, and executive, they added more safeguards to protect the power of individuals to protest peacefully per the Bill of Rights. They attempted to tackle some of the trickiest problems of governance in the Constitution and in both the amendments and in the regulated election process. How do you provide a peaceful transition of power while still allowing an outlet for the masses to express themselves and let off steam peacefully? They gave those who lost the election the protections and ability through the Bill of Rights to convince a majority of voters that those governing need to be replaced by the ballot box and not by a bloody revolt. 

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/07/my-declaration-of-independence-from.html

What's different about the No Kings protests March 28, 2026

What I saw in the TV coverage left me with the impression that not only were the numbers higher than in the prior No Kings, but that there was greater diversity in age and race, with handheld posters and banners supporting a wider range of public policy issues than we saw in the initial protest events. The difference now is that political science theory has met negative impact on people's lives after a year of Trump's second term. Trump has managed to anger more people in one year. Experience is always the best teacher. More are learning the lesson that democracy is worth fighting for. It is more than just venting protests: it is indeed solidifying into a pro-democracy movement.

An increasing number and wider variety of voters now get that without democracy, their own desires will be ignored and their voices will be suppressed, even if their views are supported by more than a 58-60% majority.  Trump, in his delusions of unbridled power, has ignored many, reneging on promises he made, from affordability to avoiding foreign wars. Furthermore, he and his appointees have been acting with cruelty and armed force, while he has been using fear with his tools of abuse of power to enact revenge and retribution. Patriotism to him is loyalty to him, and he acts like it, using vengeance, abusing power, using it against those who oppose him, suppressing their voices in the media, and limiting voting access. in some ways, he resembles more of a mob boss padding his and his family's pockets than a mad  king. https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/is-trumps-management-style-more-like.html.   Either way it is anti-democracy with similar repercussions.

Trump, the wannabe dictator,  has confused loyalty to Trump with loyalty to America. In his view, if you are not loyal to him, you are un-American. They are not the same: loyalty to Trump is not loyalty to the oath taken by public officials and military to be loyal to the Constitution and a government of, by, and for the people that respects and abides by the rule of law.  If what Trump wants to do runs afoul of the laws conforming to the intent of the Constitution, he ignores them, defies them, or finds a workaround to what was the original intent. No staff person, no GOP-dominated legislature, stops him. He condemns judges, even those he appointed, who dare rule against his interests, subjecting them to violence and threats of violence by Trump partisans. His plunging polls do not bother him; he has his priorities (him) and they are not the voters or the members of his own party or as it will be played out in the midterms. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact he is a lame duck and has come to personal grips that we will not run again in 2028.  Unlike his first term, he towed the normal lines of behavior more closely, but he knew he had to face voters again.  

By refusing to bow down to fear, over eight million responded on March 28, feeling safe in numbers nationwide by putting their bodies on the line in dispersed masses, appearing with joy, sometimes humor, and ridicule. This has become a pro-democracy movement under the unifying umbrella and realization that, without democracy, those with their own agendas and priorities would be ground in the dust by an overpowering, out-of-control, mad King wannabe dictator acting as if he were already one.

The reaction by MAGA is mostly ignoring this pro-democracy movement. They do it at their own peril, and the polls are reflecting that. We are no longer a 50-50 divided nation.  We are near 60-40.  https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/we-are-non-longer-nation-that-is.html.  

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/29/no-kings-rallies-a-red-flare-for-trump/89306058007/