Reports say that the FSB is taking over many Russian prisons and detention centers, arresting Putin's officials.
Ukraine drone attacks are weakening the Russian economy....
Autocracies die from implosion.....
We will celebrate his absence, as we should. Maybe he'll go on a Greyhound bus!
Thank God and Greyhound He's Gone! [Apologies to Roy Clark from 1970]
Maybe he'll just die. Perhaps his MAGA terrorist mob will turn on him. Or, maybe he will be hounded from Washington by a mob of ANTIFA 'rabble' patriots that takes over the capitol and demands that he leave
It will be a relief, however it happens.
BUT, what comes after will present real challenges to the United States of America.
On the one hand there are already forces of repression and theft who will try to control the government for their personal benefit - people like Thiele, Musk and the DOGE crooks, who are already lining up to take over.
Our job is to stop them - by whatever means necessary.
On the other hand, we will want to restore our Democracy back to the ancient history of 2024!
We can do that; BUT we can do it only if we have people committed to the rule of law and Democracy who are ready to take over Federal jobs VERY SOON.
Perhaps we can create a SHADOW GOVERNMENT [as seen below] that can identify Trump appointees to fire and have lists of qualified replacements.
May God bless America.....
That’s a really good — and serious — question. The process of “clawing back” money or assets given away, stolen, or misused by a sitting or former President depends on what exactly happened (e.g., illegal gifts, embezzlement, misuse of public funds, or corruption).
Here’s how it generally works in the U.S.:
Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of the Inspector General (OIG) can investigate and bring civil recovery actions or criminal charges.
The U.S. government can sue to recover funds (for example, under the False Claims Act or other restitution statutes).
If convicted of a crime like theft or fraud, the court can order restitution — repayment of the stolen money.
Under the Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause, the President cannot personally profit from gifts or payments from foreign governments or the U.S. government beyond their salary.
Congress can demand the return of such funds, and the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) or General Services Administration (GSA) may step in to reclaim physical gifts.
Civil lawsuits (including by Congress or watchdog organizations) can seek disgorgement — forcing the return of improperly obtained gains.
A former President can still face criminal and civil liability for actions while in office (as reaffirmed in multiple court rulings).
The DOJ, or private plaintiffs in some cases, can pursue asset recovery, fines, and civil forfeiture.
If foreign assets or shell companies were used, the Treasury Department and FBI can coordinate with international partners to seize or repatriate funds.
During office: Impeachment is the main mechanism for removal or sanction for misconduct.
After office: Congressional investigations can expose wrongdoing and refer matters to the DOJ or state attorneys general.
Richard Nixon had to return public gifts and pay back campaign funds after Watergate.
Donald Trump’s emoluments cases (though unresolved before he left office) set precedents for civil recovery efforts.
State-level prosecutions (like those involving fraud or tax violations) can also recover money even from a former president.
If you want, I can outline the legal steps Congress or the DOJ would need to take right now to reclaim funds in a specific scenario (e.g., “foreign gifts accepted by a president” or “funds misused from a campaign or public budget”).
Would you like me to break it down that way?
November 5, 2025
Heather Cox Richardson
New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a member of both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, began his victory speech last night with a nod to Eugene V. Debs, labor organizer and Socialist candidate for president at the turn of the last century.
“The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said: ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”
The 34-year-old mayor-elect’s speech went on to deliver something that was more than a victory speech. It marked a new era much like the one that had given rise to Debs himself. After more than forty years in which ordinary Americans had seen the political system being stacked against them and, over time, forgotten they had agency to change it, they had woken up.
Mamdani began by lifting up New York City’s working people, noting that “[f]or as long as we can remember,” they “have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands…. And yet,” he said, “over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.”
“Tonight,” he said, “against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands.” New York, he said, had delivered “[a] mandate for change. A mandate for a new kind of politics. A mandate for a city we can afford. And a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”
Mamdani thanked “the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past.” And that was the heart of his message: that democracy belongs to ordinary people. “We will fight for you,” he said, “because we are you.”
He thanked “Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.” He assured “every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point” that “this city is your city, and this democracy is yours too.”
Mamdani celebrated the hard work of democracy in his win. It was a victory not just for all those who make up New York City, he said, but also for “the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force…. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned, and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.”
With that base of Americans engaged in the work of democracy, Mamdani welcomed a new era. “There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less, with every election consigning us simply to more of the same,” he said. “And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn.”
But in New York City last night, he said, “we have answered those fears…. Hope is alive. Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.”
“And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”
Mamdani promised a government that would answer to the demands of the people. It would address the city’s cost-of-living crisis, invest in education, improve infrastructure, and cut bureaucratic waste. It would, he said, work with police officers to reduce crime while also defending community safety and demanding excellence in government.
Mamdani pushed back not just against the smears thrown his way during the campaign, but also against the deliberate division of the country that has been a staple of Republican rhetoric since 1972, when President Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew embraced his role as the key purveyor of “positive polarization.” In its place, he called for community and solidarity.
“In this new age we make for ourselves,” Mamdani said, “we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another…. Here, we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too.”
Mamdani, who is Muslim, promised to “build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism. Where the more than 1 million Muslims know that they belong—not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.”
He called for a government of both competence and compassion. “For years,” he said, “those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them. But on January first, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.”
Mamdani took on the problem of disinformation in modern politics, noting that “many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them.” He laid that disinformation at the feet of the very wealthy in their quest to divide working Americans to make sure they retain power. “[A]s so often occurred,” he said, “the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system.”
Mamdani urged New Yorkers to embrace a “brave new course, rather than fleeing from it.” If they do, he said, “we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.”
Mamdani identified the popular momentum to defeat President Donald J. Trump, but made the point that the goal is not simply to stop Trump, but also to stop the next Trump who comes along. While Mamdani’s prescription focused on the avenues of resistance open to New York City government, he emphasized that for the president “to get to any of us,” he will have to “get through all of us.”
Mamdani called for New Yorkers to “leave mediocrity in our past,” and for Democrats to “dare to be great.” When Mamdani said, “New York, this power, it’s yours,” and told New Yorkers, “[t]his city belongs to you,” millions of Americans heard a reminder that they, too, are powerful and that the government of the United States of America belongs to them.
Mamdani won election yesterday backed by just over half the city’s voters, in an election characterized by extraordinarily high turnout. Andy Newman of the New York Times noted yesterday that in the last four New York City mayoral elections, fewer than a third of registered voters turned out. Yesterday, more than 2 million voters voted, the highest turnout for a mayoral election since 1969.
And that turnout is a key part of the story of yesterday’s Democratic wave. As Mamdani said, American voters appear, once again, to be aware of their agency in our democracy.
—
Notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/05/zohran-mamdani-victory-speech-transcript
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/04/record-voters-ballots-cast-mamdani-cuomo-sliwa/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/nyregion/nyc-mayor-election-turnout.html
By POLITICO Staff
10/02/2024 05:55 PM ED
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan released to the public on Wednesday 10/02/2024 a redacted version of an important court filing from special counsel Jack Smith in the federal election case against Donald Trump.
Read the entire filing here:
America's Worst of the Worst win a battle and then create darkness, violence and cruelty.
It is clear now that the forces of darkness have won a battle; it is but a single skirmish in the ancient war between light and darkness, good and evil. This war began before us and it will continue after us. This particular battle is driven by the 'Worst of the Worst', MAGA members of the GOP. Collectively they embody a phalanx of corruption, cruelty, criminal actions and plain evil that is hard to imagine. Largely driven by psychotic levels of greed, the forces of darkness have compromised the Security of the United States of America.
We know that the tides of battle will turn again. For today, it is our duty and responsibility to resist, sabotage and hinder the Worst of the Worst in every way possible and by each and every one of us until we collectively vomit them out of power like listeria stomach flu.
We know that, as Americans, we can do anything we make up our minds to do. For the short run, we need an effective strategy for today in 2025; one effective strategy today is to document and publicize all the actions taken by this phalanx of cruelty. We know that once the scope and weight of the GOP's actions become overwhelming, the American public will rise and stop the damage.
Today, our voice is their worst fear. It is hard, but we should not act with fear, and we must act calmly and effectively to disable their cruelty.
In the long run, we can prepare a Shadow Government so that we have a plan of action and the people to execute the plan when the Worst of the Worst depart. A Shadow Government is one way to accomplish the goal and it is discussed below.
WHAT DOES A SHADOW GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY DO ?
Simply put, the Shadow Government [SG] begins by keeping track of who works at any Agency, who has been fired from an Agency and what Agency programs and actions have been cut; further, it tracks former employees fired by the current administration, recording their experience and qualifications.
Eventually, the SG can develop analyses of how well or poorly any Agency is accomplishing its legislatively mandated responsibilities.
Lastly, the SG can develop action plans to resurrect an Agency to its formerly mandated effectiveness. Since the SG is not-partisan, it focuses on the expenditures and programs approved by the former administration and passed by Congress as required. The SG strives to avoid partisanship where possible with the objective of restoring the Federal Government to its former self.
SHADOW GOVERNMENT
Many Parliamentary Governments around the world have standing Shadow Cabinets or Governments. A shadow Cabinet normally consists of Opposition Party members who monitor the actions of the Government in power and are ready to serve the country when their Party takes power.
We can and should modify that idea into a Shadow American Government by making the American Shadow Government non-partisan and expanding it to cover all major Federal institutions. I expect that several prominent public officials currently out of office will volunteer to oversee the process of creating a Shadow Government. The new organization must be non-partisan and independent of any Candidate.
The reason is simple: If we do not have an organization or Party ready to assume power at any time, when Trump passes or resigns the United States will most likely devolve into either a Hollow Democracy where Billionaires control government actions regardless of elections, a Balkanization process where competing groups of States choose to create new countries, OR, simple chaos.
It has a simple goal: It will act to reboot and restore our Constitutional Republic and prevent further deterioration of our system.
It is time now to begin public discussion about the need for such a Shadow Government and to begin actual preparations, very soon. The MAGA GOP is very fragile and can collapse at any time.
I stand ready to contribute to this effort. My academic specialty is comparative economic systems.
Mike P. McKeever
Professor, Economics
Founder, The Mike P. McKeever Institute of Economic Policy Analysis [www.miepa.net]
Founding Editor, The Oakland School of Economics Journal [econoak.org]
Email: Mike P. McKeever<mckeever.mp@gmail.com>
Cell: 415-816-2982
Most of us know that we will really need a comprehensive action plan to re-boot the United States of America after tRump goes. We're gonna need an organized group of non-partisan Americans preparing lists of qualified people to run things and lists of specific actions to take for each Department of the Federal government. Then, with those, we can re-boot our society quickly and easily.
But, the trouble is this: there is no such organization or lists being prepared or kept! And, if we are caught flat-footed, we open the door for some Bad Billionaires to take over the systems and organizations tRump created for himself. If that happens, we might see a hollowed out Democracy with all the trappings of elections, courts and due process but with all the real power in the hands of another set of tyrants. Or worse!
Most of us are not really ready to think about that just yet. But, things can happen quickly and the time to prepare is now.
So, I am asking select groups of Entertainment Media and Political stars to begin talking about that idea and how we all need it. That's a first step.
We don't need any money yet; this first step is just to prepare the country to begin thinking about it. Then, once it is a discussion item, it will be easier to find a bit of money and some hi-profile politicians to get behind the idea.
When there is some momentum, we can find some folks to be the public face of the effort as well as some qualified analysts to prepare the lists of actions and candidates.
This effort can complement and/or substitute for a political campaign. I think we will need non-partisan groups of Patriots whose only interests are in the future of the Country and not the future of their personal bank accounts.
More to follow.
