Deception & Deceit, the Currency of the Realm

Strands of trickery, treachery, and treason

On my mind, 04162025: Today, I ponder the curious strands of the DJT Administration’s Project 2025 origins and madness. Like George McDonald’s “golden thread,” Project 2025 reveals its golden rope (McDonald’s “thread” is too delicate a metaphor to be useful here) of deception and deceit as a central frame along which the story travels. Alarmingly, the rope strands might be characterized as a braiding of trickery, treachery, and treason.

The first strand is one of the first executive orders DJT executed after his inauguration. In that order, he declared, “…only the attorney general or the President can speak for the US when interpreting the meaning of laws.” In its release, this order was implied to apply only to agencies of the Executive Branch. No longer would such agencies be allowed to interpret law or congressional actions independently. Under the order, all legal interpretations must pass through and be approved by the Attorney General or the President before agencies or regulators proceed. While cumbersome and considered a suspicious consolidation of executive power, it was not an unexpected DJT/Project 2025 execution of their plan. Now, only weeks later, the DJT/Project 2025 Administration suggests this Executive Order extends to the Judicial Branch and limits its authority under Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1 to provide legal interpretations and directions to the Administration. As “Little Marco” Rubio said at a meeting in the Oval Office yesterday, “The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.” While on the face of it, a reasonable assertion, the issue on which SCOTUS acted was not foreign policy but 5^th and 14^th Amendments rights of “due process,” a right affirmed for every person, even undocumented persons, standing on US soil by none other than Justice Antonin Scalia. Rubio suggested that the President’s authority over foreign policy could ignore the rights of the 5^th and 14^th Amendments. The issue with deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia and others is now a matter of foreign policy only because DJT et al. ignored the civil rights available to all persons in the United States under the 5^th and 14^th Amendments. With the AG siding with Little Marco, the DJT/Project 2025 Administration, the President is telling the Supreme Court to KMA. This creates a scenario in which the DJT/Project 2025 Administration removes itself from any SCOTUS oversight for violations of “due process” if they can get their targeted deportees on planes to foreign countries quickly enough. This is only one step removed from accomplishing the same with citizens.

The next strand is a head-scratcher and requires some bigly legal contortions. The backstory: In 2024, while litigating Colorado’s attempt to exclude DJT from the ballot for a violation of Amendment 14 Section 3 regarding committing insurrection or rebellion after taking an oath of office, thus making a person ineligible to run for federal office, DJT’s attorneys argued a) that this amendment did not cover the office of the President, and b) that DJT did not swear to “support” the Constitution,” he only swore to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” Their logic being that even if he was covered by the 14^th Amendment Section 3, because he did not swear to “support” the Constitution, his actions on January 5^, 2020, were not a violation of his oath, “preserve, protect and defend” notwithstanding. The setting for now: On January 20, 2025, the president-elect recited this oath of office: “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.” By his 2024 lawyers’ proposition above, with the added executive order providing for the AG’s interpretation of the law to be the final word second only to DJT, and with the SCOTUS ruling that the President is immune from criminal prosecution for almost anything he can fit into the basket of doing his presidential job, the stage is now set for the DJT/Project 2025 Administration to do precisely whatever they desire to further the malevolent purposes of this group of Slytherins. The Legislative Branch is already closed, and now the Judicial Branch is closed. Just to be on the safe side, at his 2025 inauguration, DJT, for whom everything is scripted to the last detail, did not put his hand on his personal Bible nor the Bible used for Lincoln’s 1861 Inauguration, both held by his wife for this occasion (I deduce he was concerned about lightning strikes). The Project 2025/Trump transformation of our Republic into a fascist, oligarchical, authoritarian monarchy is just about complete. This became most evident when DJT was caught on a live microphone whispering to President Bukele of El Salvador that he needed Bukele to build more concentration camps because he is looking into sending “homegrown” (i.e., American) deportees to El Salvador.

My final strand, the looming April 20, 2025 deadline for the report from the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, responding to DJT’s/Project 2025’s Executive Order of January 20, 2025, to assess the status of matters on the southern border. If their report affirms the already declared state of “national emergency,” DJT/Project 2025 will be empowered to execute the Insurrection Act of 1807. This act allows the President to declare “Martial Law” while retaining authority over the military. This would not be limited to the southern border but could be applied nationwide. Under this form of martial law, the President can deploy US military forces wherever he wishes. Moreover, such a declaration allows the President to consider any act of civil protest to be an act of aggression, allowing him to use the military to “quell” the protest, arrest protestors, imprison protestors without access to due process, and imprison or deport at will. The duration of this state would exist for as long as the President desires. If executed, the Insurrection Act of 1807 would strip Congress and the Courts of any effective oversight or power, not that they have any now.

Alas, the rope braiding is nearly complete, the noose will soon be fashioned, and Lady Liberty walks toward the gallows.

April 19 is a nationwide day of resistance and protest. Find a protest action in your area and join the masses to reject the course set by DJT/Project 2025. Ironically, it might be the last day for civil disobedience, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly without risk of being scooped up by the military of the United States under orders from Der Fuhrer on April 20, 2025.