Occasionally, I have a nightmare that is remarkably the same every time I have it, with only minor details changed. In the dream, I return to my desk/office/restaurant table/conference table and cannot see my purse. I was certain I’d left it in a specific place, but it’s not there. At this point in the dream, my stomach sinks in fear. I feel frantic and violated. If there are people around, I ask them if they’ve seen my purse or saw who took it. If I’m alone, I search the place and then search in other rooms. I’ve never found the purse in the dream because I usually wake up. The panicked feeling remains. Someone has stolen something valuable from me.
I’m surprised that I haven’t yet had this nightmare since January 20, 2025.
Do you want someone stealing from you? Would that be OK with you? There are so many precious things that could be stolen from an individual beginning with their identity, their personal and private information, their savings, their cash and credit cards, their home, their car, their job, their human dignity, their health, their food. Their country. What about the taxes you pay? You’d want that money to go to fund programs that help America and Americans, right? What about the tariffs that the Trump regime instituted last April? They are import taxes paid by American companies who pass on the cost to American consumers. Foreign companies or countries do not pay them. We do. I consider the tariffs a form of theft that Trump has perpetrated. The money collected from the import taxes is not going to fund programs that help America and Americans. My understanding is that that money is going to fund the tax cuts for the billionaires. And possibly, somehow, to Trump and his family.
Greed for wealth. Greed for power. Greed for control and domination. Billionaires by definition do not need any more money. They already have billions.
The U.S. government has become a kleptocracy. What does that mean? Well, certain people working in the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court prefer to take rather than give. They believe it is their right because they are in power. And there is a sense that they believe they are above the law, or that the law doesn’t apply to them, just like the way the billionaires think. This attitude or belief leads to unbridled corruption. Trump, of course, is the Klepto-in-chief.
I’ve been following Anne Applebaum’s Open Letters at Substack for a while now. Back in April, she wrote a post entitled Kleptocracy, Inc. in which she wrote about how Trump was more interested in his personal businesses than in the country’s business, how he demonstrated that day after day, and how his personal business was to treat the government’s money as his personal money. Conflicts of interest and using America’s money as their own typifies how the U.S. government has become a kleptocracy. Applebaum introduced her Kleptocracy Tracker, a section of each of her Open Letters posts where she lists by date what Trump and government officials have been doing to steal America’s money or to use their position for personal gain. This is a valuable record of criminal activity.
My personal favorite example is when Trump brought up his lawsuit against the DOJ to obtain restitution for the various charges they brought against him, such as his mishandling of classified documents, and his role on January 6, 2021 to incite the insurrection against Congress. He thought it was funny that, as president, he was the person who would have to sign off on the resolution of the suit, giving himself damages of about $230 million. He did this after Congress passed the Big Ugly Bill that ended the ACA premium subsidies, cut SNAP, cut Medicaid, and will end up cutting Medicare, and will give the top 1% tax cuts equaling $4 trillion over ten years. All Trump cared about was getting his money. Not what he was doing to the American economy with signing the Big Ugly Bill. Does he need that $230 million? And guess what? That money comes from our tax payments.
Klepto-in-Chief is Deflector-in-Chief
Trump blames others for the problems he causes. Immigrants are his Number One scapegoat. During the last two weeks, he’s dug in to blaming Somali immigrants for alleged extensive fraud in Minnesota. When everyone is looking at Minnesota, no one is watching Trump and what he’s doing. The 2020-21 fraud in Minnesota involved a non-profit hunger relief organization, Feeding Our Future, established by Aimee Bock (white, American) who also perpetrated the fraud using her (willing) employees and contractors. Almost immediately, the Minnesota Dept. of Education noted signs of possible fraud and mismanagement of funds and the MDE refused the grants Bock applied for. Bock sued the MDE, claiming discrimination. The MDE reported the organization to the USDA. Those involved have been and continue to be prosecuted. The funds distributed by MDE came from a federal USDA program.
Why is Trump so fixated on Somalis in Minnesota and fraud by them? What is Trump doing that he doesn’t want Americans to notice? Well, the economy is in terrible shape. Because of the boat attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, he and Pete Hegseth could be prosecuted for war crimes. He demolished the East Wing of the White House without getting the required approvals and without consulting with the owners—the American People—and now it looks like his ballroom may not happen. The ICE raids on alleged immigrant criminals are going terribly and Americans have begun to push back about them, not to mention all the money Kristi Noem has been siphoning from the DHS coffers to buy planes and pay her friends for advertising the DHS doesn’t need. Trump has been accepting exorbitant gifts from foreign countries, which is illegal, and then giving the foreign countries what they want—often exemption from the sky-high tariffs (I’m thinking of Switzerland’s infamous gold bar and the Rolex desk clock). And let’s not forget the Epstein files! As more and more information comes out, released via the Epstein Estate, it’s become more and more evident that Trump was more involved with Epstein and his operation than was thought. What they have accused Minnesota of, or the Somalis in Minnesota, is a single drop compared to the ocean of fraud and corruption by the Trump regime.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his team, I’m certain, will address the DOJ’s and Mehmet Oz’s concerns about fraud in Minnesota—they have already begun to take steps. In the meantime, what about the fraud and corruption in the Trump White House and Cabinet? I’m going to call my federal elected representatives and complain about it and ask what Congress plans to do about it. Please feel free to do the same, often. What about the Epstein files? What does Congress plan to do about Trump’s involvement with Epstein? It’s especially important to contact your elected reps if they’re Republicans and let them know in strong terms about your concerns and what Congress plans to do about all the corruption.
Keep your attention on Trump’s fraud and corruption—don’t let him deflect your attention away to something else that has nothing to do with him.
Friendly Reminder: the paperback of my first novel, Perceval’s Secret, is on sale now at Amazon, B&N, Bookshop.org/shop/ccyager, and IngramSpark.
The ebook of Perceval’s Shadow is on sale now at Amazon and B&N; and the paperback will be on sale December 10, 2025 at Amazon, B&N, Bookshop.org, and IngramSpark.