In Thrall to Foreign Gods
The days of consensual democracy are clearly over. We are in some kind of Banana Republic/Strongman phase. This was highlighted yesterday in a news item that showed the strongman signing another EO.
Thursday, November 19th, 2025
Bill Bonner, from Baltimore, Maryland
This is far more than a case of institutional betrayal. It is a vivid window into the decadence of a depraved American elite, a later Roman empire with dozens of tiny Caligulas committing dozens of heinous crimes. It is a story of money, and what it can buy, and power, and what it can conceal. As allies, they can make anything happen, or not happen, as the case may be.
—Esquire Magazine
Lighting up the wires is the Epstein Saga.
AP:
House votes overwhelmingly to force release of Epstein files, sending bill to Senate
The Hill:
Senate unanimously approves bill to force release of Epstein files
Donald Trump has backed down from his earlier position; now he says he will sign it.
And now we will see how far we have come since those days of the Watergate Scandal, when White House counsel John Dean told a Senate committee that there was “a cancer within, close to the presidency.”
We follow the story only to try to figure out where we are in the larger story — the degeneration of the US empire and the likely devaluation of US dollar assets. Where are we? At Caligula...Nero...or Elagabalus?
Already, the days of consensual democracy are clearly over. Now, we are in some kind of Banana Republic/Strongman phase. This was highlighted yesterday in a news item that showed the strongman signing yet another proclamation.
Trump has now signed 212 Executive Orders. In a signing ceremony, POTUS was surrounded by his smiling lackeys, congratulating him for signing so many.
“This makes it twice as many as Biden signed in his whole four years in office,” said one sycophant.
“It’s more than Obama signed in eight years,” said sycophant number two.
The crucial lesson of history — that ‘the government that governs best, governs least’ — has not reached the White House. Instead, the Trump Team has succumbed to the ‘fatal conceit;’ it thinks it knows what is best for everyone.
These EOs (executive orders) cover everything from...
EO 14357:
Modifying Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China
to
EO 14355:
Unlocking Cures for Pediatric Cancer With Artificial Intelligence
But despite the weight and breadth of the issues before him, POTUS still has time to worry about the everyday problems we face:
EO 14264:
Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Showerheads
Some people spend their entire careers designing, manufacturing and marketing shower heads. How come they didn’t think of the water pressure problem? Thank God for POTUS.
But how could one man have the intellectual juice to consider so many complex issues, a new one almost every day?
The answer was on the videotape. As the president signed the EO, his flunkeys explained what he was signing; he hadn’t even read it.
Congress is AWOL. POTUS rules by decree.
Most of these decrees are just blah blah...setting up committees and commissions or, such as EO 14276, ‘Restoring America’s Seafood Competitiveness.’ But some are loaded with explosives. EO 14353, for example, seems to obligate the US to defend Qatar (the country that gave Trump a Boeing 747). Another EO attempts to put a Democratic-leaning law firm out of business by denying it federal contracts.
Yes, the big man is large and in charge. No moth can singe its wings on a streetlight in Calcutta without drawing his concerned attention.
Alas, into this happy fantasy barges the ghost of Jeff Epstein, dragging behind him approximately 20,000 documents, 1,608 of which mention none other than the man who is now president of the USA.
According to the New York Times:
In a series of emails with friends and associates — surfacing first in a few messages selected by House Democrats and then in full by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee — Mr. Epstein described Mr. Trump as a “dirty” businessman who was “borderline insane,” untrustworthy and worse in “real life and up close” than the image he sought to portray to the public.
In other words...nothing new.
And now what? We’ll take a guess. More emails will come out...showing that the president is the person everyone knows he is.
Many people would like to see Trump brought down by a salacious sex story.
But the most important documents — the ones that show a foreign government manipulating both Democrat and Republican leaders — will be kept under wraps.
At this point in the empire’s descent, any information the political class chooses to keep from voters is classified as a ‘national security risk.’
Regards,
Bill Bonner
The question with Mr. Bonner has always been, what happens when the money goes? I like the premise, which is, the money is, no doubt, going. He was concerned about it enough back in 70s (and I was right there with him in that conclusion) to find a way to try to force the government to preserve the Dollar. In the 70s, Mr. Bonner did not have the physical resources he now possesses. He is now diversified with his wealth and assets scattered over half the earth, a nominal, private empire, which, of course, is acceptable, because it's not a public empire. Private or public, few would wish to see assets in any empire either diminished or brought to effective worthlessness, so, of necessity, the question became and still is: do the assets outlast the empire, or does the empire prevail while the assets, and their nominal owners, bear the burden? A new dynamic has entered into the discussion: what if they, the assets and the empires, public and private, are joined at the hip?
Where did Big Man-ism begin? Teddy Roosevelt? He nearly killed himself trying to invent and take on the role. Woodrow "Stroke Out" Wilson? How about the original 4-term man himself, the author of the big-government New Deal, the original devaluer of the Dollar (through EO governmental fiat, by the way), and commie-lover, and original Big-Man wannabe, TR's cousin (does Big Man-ism run in a/the family?), Franklin Roosevelt? John Kennedy, who was, evidently, so rogue and big-mannish that the other rogue and big-mannish in the government disposed of him? The Great Empire, I mean, Society man, LBJ himself? Or more recent time's most celebrated Big Man, the Fundamental Transformer Himself, the one and only Barack Hussein Obama? Or Obama's clown lackey and personal client of Red China, Mr. Biden? Maybe in one of his "more to come" moments, Mr. Bonner will enlighten us with his choice. In the meantime 52% of us with 312 electoral votes say that the current Big Man, who is, maybe, not ideal, is more suitable out of all the choices presented. Best always. PM
Trump was installed in his first term to placate his fan base while he ushered in CONVID and the death jabs; he's been installed in his second term to foment chaos and civil strife while he ushers in digital IDs and CBDCs.
Winter is coming.