Progressive Populist Goes Monthly-Plus

This edition of The Progressive Populist starts the transition of our Journal from the Heartland to a monthly publication schedule for the printed edition. The transition back to a monthly journal, which was our production schedule in our first four years, was made necessary by the rising cost of printing and mailing the printed edition in the past few years. Instead of the second monthly printed edition, we’ll be offering supplemental editions by email.

Your generous support to our sustainability fund over the past nine months has given us time to plot our future, and we have concluded that costs will continue to rise, as periodical postage rates are expected to take effect in July, while postal delivery standards for periodicals have declined. The time it takes to deliver the newspaper across the United States has increased, from 2 to 3 days in the good old days to more than a week nowadays. And Donald Trump continues to threaten tariffs on Canadian lumber, which provides an estimated 80% of the newsprint used to print U.S. newspapers, so tariffs on lumber would further increase our printing costs.

So we will continue printing one issue per month in the current tabloid newspaper format, which will feature the works of our primary correspondents and syndicated columnists and features, delivered by the US Postal Service. The supplemental digital editions will mainly carry extra syndicated columns and features, delivered by email. 

This arrangement will allow us to continue to serve our current subscribers who prefer a paper edition, as well as those who don’t have internet access. If you don’t have internet access to take advantage of our digital supplement, perhaps you can get a friend with internet access to print it and share it with you.  

We also will develop our online presence as an alternative to the U.S. Postal Service, as Trump has signaled his intention to bring the Postal Service under his direct rule and reorganize it with an eye to privatization. In 1970 the Postal Service was set up as a separate subsidiary of the federal government, which is supposed to be managed by an independent Board of Governors. But the board on May 9 picked a FedEx board member, David Steiner, to serve as the new postmaster general. Steiner succeeds Louis DeJoy, who was widely believed to have been hired at Trump’s direction in 2020 to foil mail-in balloting efforts by Democrats. DeJoy has engaged in major reorganization in the past five years, resulting in the rate increases and declining delivery standards. DeJoy worked with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to make further cuts in the roughly 650,000 Postal Service employees before he quit in March.

The Washington Post reported that the board of governors had selected finalists, and Trump made the final call on hiring Steiner as the next postmaster general.

Steiner’s debut has drawn the concern of postal workers as well as people who rely on the Postal Service, particularly in rural areas whose residents fear universal service and six-day delivery could be subject to further cost cutting. 

“The apparent choice of a postmaster general that comes directly from service on the board of directors of FedEx, one of the Postal Service’s primary competitors, presents a clear conflict of interest,” Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said in a statement. “This is an unmistakable push to hand business over to private shippers. Letter carriers and the over 300 million people we serve every day recognize this attempt at a hostile takeover of a beloved American institution for what it is, privatization-by-proxy.”

Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said the board’s selection was troubling because it could lead to the privatization of the agency, which he thought could result in worse service in rural areas and higher prices for customers.

“It begs the question of whether this is a post office that is going to be run for the good of the people of the country,” Dimondstein said, “or whether it’s going to be a post office that serves private corporations like FedEx.”

At $45 for 12 issues, our rates are still competitive with most monthlies, even without the digital supplement, but if we have to send the The Progressive Populist by FedEx, subscription rates are really going to blow up, so renew now and, if you can afford it, send us a few bucks for our sustainability fund. And call your reps and senators, particularly if they’re Republicans, and tell them to knock off Trump’s move to privatize the post office.

Pope Leo: A Long Way from the South Side

Election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a native of the South Side of Chicago, as Pope Leo XIV on May 8 is good news for progressives, even if you’re not Catholic. Leo, a member of the Order of St. Augustine, was ordained in 1982 and served as a missionary in Peru before he was elected prior general of the order from 2001 to 2013 and returned to Peru as Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023,. Then he was promoted to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Francis and he was brought to Rome to lead the office that selects new bishops and preside over the Pontifical Commission for Latin America,.

As a protégé of Francis, Cardinal Prevost took the Papal name of Leo, after Leo XIII, who was an architect of Catholic social teaching in the late 19th century, which legitimized the right of workers to form unions. The new Pope Leo XIV is expected to maintain Francis’ prioritization of the needs of the poor, workers and migrants, as Jesus expressed in the Gospels. That comes as close as the College of Cardinals is likely to come to rejection of the works of Donald Trump, who made a mess of his appearance at Pope Francis’ funeral and later offended many Catholics by releasing a digitally altered photo showing him in papal garb. 

The Catholic vote usually tracks national vote results. Trump’s 53% share of the Catholic vote in 2024 was three percentage points higher than 2020 and one point higher than 2016, National Catholic Reporter noted. With a quarter of the electorate, Catholics may have made the difference in the 2024 race, which Trump won with 49.8% of the vote, 1.5 percentage points ahead of Kamala Harris. Much of Trump’s gain apparently came from Hispanic Catholics, as a Public Religion Research Institute poll found 55% of Hispanic Catholics voted for Harris last year, while a Pew Research Center study showed 66% support among Hispanic Catholics for Joe Biden in 2020 — a double-digit shift in four years. Trump’s mishandling of the economy, his disregard for the poor and his abuse of immigrants might cause Hispanic voters to rethink their support of Republicans and swing the Catholic vote back into the blue column in 2026.

Keep the debate on social justice instead of culture wars. — JMC 

From the June issue of The Progressive Populist.

GOP Stands By Trump’s Whims

Donald Trump tanked the world economy in April with his arbitrary imposition of tariffs on U.S. trade partners. He alienated longtime allies on our borders and around the world and resulting stock market losses tore big holes in retirement accounts of American workers who are counting on 401k and IRA funds to supplement Social Security benefits in their senior years. 

Trump has no regrets as he steers the U.S, toward a second Gilded Age, which will further enrich his wealthy supporters but could plunge the economy into a recession leading to depression. 

Leaders of the Greedy Oligarchs Party have no regrets, either, as they allowed Trump to unilaterally impose the tariffs, which are supposed to be a congressional prerogative, except in cases of national emergency, which Trump declared, and now we have an emergency. 

Senate Democrats got four Republicans to support a resolution to block tariffs on Canada. On April 2, the Senate passed the resolution 51-48, with Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joining co-sponsor Rand Paul of Kentucky. The vote came just hours after Trump announced tariff increases of 25% or more on goods from more than 100 nations, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) blocked the resolution’s consideration in the House. Trump proceeded to impose tariffs worldwide, but paused them for most nations after Wall Street market values plunged.

Democrats now need to lure four moderate House Republicans to caucus with them to restore accountability to the Lyin’ King.

The White House also bet the public would applaud the deportation of hundreds of immigrants from the United States to a prison in El Salvador on unsubstantiated claims by the Department of Homeland Security that they were gang members and/or terrorists, and ignore that the immigrants’ were denied their constitutional rights to due process, which would require a court hearing before the subjects could be sent to another country for indefinite detention.

Advocates of constitutional rights succeeded in putting a face on the issue, with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who fled to the U.S. in 2012 at age 16 to escape gang threats in his native El Salvador. He entered the U.S. illegally, and worked until 2019, when police picked him up and turned him over to immigration officers, but an immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal” status due to the danger he faced from gang violence if he returned to El Salvador. He was allowed to live and work legally in the U.S. He married an American citizen and was living in Maryland with his wife and three children, checking in with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, with no problems until DHS agents arrested him on March 12, as he was going home from a union sheet metal job. He was told his immigration status had changed. He was taken to a detention facility in Texas. On May 15 he was put on a plane headed for El Salvador and placed in a prison where El Salvador was holding deportees on contract with the Trump administration. 

The Trump administration alleged the deportees were members of criminal organizations, but Bloomberg News found 90% of them had no U.S. criminal record other than traffic or immigration violations. A Justice Department lawyer later admitted in court that Abrego Garcia was deported in error. That lawyer was placed on leave.

On April 10, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador was illegal.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted the government implied it “could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”

Trump and federal authorities continue to insist Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, without substantiation of the claims. Trump posed with a photo that appears to show “MS13” tattooed on Abrego Garcia’s fingers, but the photo apparently was digitally altered, as recent photos show his fingers have tattoos, but not “MS13.” So Trump and his flunkies appear to be comfortable with taking a gang victim from his family and sending him to another nation to be held in prison indefinitely, and then lie when called on it. And Trump said he is considering sending American citizens to prison in El Salvador. 

In another overreach, the White House froze more than $2 billion in federal funding for Harvard University and threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status if it doesn’t submit to Tump’s demands.

The Harvard Crimson reported, Trump called on Harvard to “derecognize pro-Palestine student groups, audit its academic programs for viewpoint diversity, and expel students involved in an altercation at a 2023 pro-Palestine protest on the Harvard Business School campus.”

Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, said in response that “no government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, warned that “if Trump gets away with weaponizing the tax system to target a political enemy, every American is at risk.”

“The First Amendment and federal tax law make clear no president can raise a university’s taxes because he doesn’t like what they teach,” said Wyden. “If this corrupt shakedown scheme stands, nonprofits from churches to temples to hospitals could be forced to echo Trump’s MAGA line or see their taxes hiked. Any Republican who claims to believe in the Constitution and doesn’t speak up is responsible for what happens next.”

Trump’s attack on Harvard is part of a broader campaign of retribution against universities and other institutions and organizations that are unwilling to capitulate to his administration. The Guardian reported that administration officials “have launched investigations into progressive and climate organizations, colleges, and recipients of government grants.”

Republican Congress members have been intimidated against opposing Trump’s overreaches, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said. 

In September 2024 we asked subscribers to help us cope with increased printing and postal costs. Our readers responded generously over the past eight months to help us keep publishing the paper, as well as developing digital alternatives. We got a few inquiries about whether the donations were tax deductible. We explained we couldn’t seek tax-exempt status. because it would limit our ability to engage in political reporting and endorse candidates and bills. 

Weaponization of the IRS and other federal agencies by the Trump administration has confirmed our caution. The last thing we need is a letter from the White House threatening legal action if we don’t change our attitudes about diversity, equity and inclusion to accommodate the Chief Extortionist’s prejudices.

The Progressive Populist has never counted on (or had access to) government grants or wealthy patrons to keep publishing, and we’ve only lost one offer of a five-figure contribution because the donor needed to send it to a tax-exempt organization. (Your two-, three- and four-figure donations made up for it. And we still need them.)     — JMC

From the May 15 issue of The Progressive Populist.

A Solid Wall of Justice

 

A Solid Wall of Justice:

Push-back on Trump - especially from the lower court judges - has been pretty consistent. 

How could it be otherwise? Everything Trump has done has been unconstitutional and illegal.

Ever the boot licking lackey, House Majority Leader Mike Johnson's response was predictable -- limit judicial power and make the judges go away.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

Chuck Schumer: Wise Old Owl of the Senate

 

Chuck Schumer: Wise Old Owl of the Senate:

Senator Chuck Schumer's much criticized vote in support of the Republican's Continuing Resolution to prevent a government shutdown is still drawing intense criticism.

Had he not done so, there would have been no effective Democrat push-back to prevent

Republicans from following through on their agenda. Republicans would have kept government shuttered indefinitely. I've always liked Chuck.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

Editorial: Trump’s Tariffs and Terrorism

After a few false starts that rattled the markets and U.S. trade partners, Donald Trump on April 2 ordered tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories, igniting a trade war that turned overseas allies into economic rivals, who are expected to impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods. 

Trump imposed a global tariff ranging from a 10% basic tariff on goods from smaller nations, 20 to 25 percent on goods from the European Union, 25% for Indian goods, 46% for Vietnamese goods and 54% for Chinese goods, which Trump increased to 145% after China imposed a retaliatory 34% tariff on U.S. goods. Despite Trump’s claims that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, American companies importing goods into the U.S. pay the tariffs, and pass the costs along to American consumers. Tariffs end up as a national sales tax that will cost the average American family thousands of dollars.

Goods from Mexico and Canada that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement Trump negotiated in 2020 will largely remain exempt from tariffs, except for 25% tariffs on auto exports and steel and aluminum which fall under separate tariff policies — but that could change on Trump’s whim.

Trump injected chaos into the world economy, which has caused stock market values to plunge worldwide, with a loss worth trillions of dollars. The chaos is likely to send the US economy into a recession, if not a full-fledged depression. And this is all to make Americans forget the vigorous economy and high employment rate that President Joe Biden handed over to Trump in January.

After stock markets showed a steep loss in values April 3-8, Trump on April 9 announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for all countries except China. The pause caused a surge in markets April 9, but continued uncertainty over the economic turmoil sent all three major Wall Street stock indices down again April 10.

In its authoritarian turn, the Trump administration insists on its right to terrorize immigrants with the threat of detention and deportation, and possibly extend that authority to terrorize U.S. citizens. 

The Supreme Court on April 7, in a 5-4 decision, allowed the use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which allows detention and removal of citizens of a nation at war with the United States, after Trump declared the presence of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang in the United States an “invasion.” But the court ruled that people who are detained under the act are entitled to due process before they are deported from the U.S.

The case originated in the D.C. court of Judge James E. Boasberg, whose temporary restraining order blocking the deportations of several immigrants was ignored by the Trump administration. Federal officials have said more than 130 Venezuelans who were being deported under the act were beyond U.S. airspace at the time of Boasberg’s order, and therefore could not be returned to the U.S. Instead, they were transferred to a prison in El Salvador that is known for human rights abuses, where they are being held indefinitely under a contract with the president of El Salvador. 

Family members have disputed that some of the migrants were gang members, and the government has acknowledged in court filings that many did not have criminal records in the United States.

Boasberg halted the deportations in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five migrants. The ACLU said Trump can’t invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans because the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela.

“The act was meant solely to address ‘military’ hostilities directed at the United States, not criminal activity by a gang during peacetime,” ACLU attorneys wrote in a filing.

The ACLU called the Supreme Court’s ruling that migrants are entitled to challenge the government’s claim that they are gang members “a huge victory.” However, the Supreme Court said the migrants would need to pursue their case in a federal court in Texas.

“We are disappointed that we will need to start the court process over again in a different venue, but the critical point is that the Supreme Court said individuals must be given due process to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act,” lead ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement.

A few hours earlier, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had blocked a Maryland federal judge’s order directing the Trump administration to return to the U.S. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who was mistakenly deported to the same notorious prison in El Salvador.

Abrego García, who is married to a U.S. citizen and had legal protected status in Maryland, was picked up by ICE officials March 12, was told his immigration “status had changed,” was moved to a detention facility in Texas, and was deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite a court order forbidding it because he had fled death threats from gang members in El Salvador.

Trump officials now argue they cannot return Abrego García because he is in the custody of El Salvador, but U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland wrote that the federal government has the authority to return Abrego García and the Trump administration has offered “no evidence” to prove he is a member of any gang. Xinis also noted that the Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government to detain deportees, and the agreement states that U.S. officials will decide what happens to the detainees in the future.

Earlier on April 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declined to intervene, as a three-judge panel unanimously agreed that the order to bring Abrego García back “should not be stayed.”

In deporting Abrego García, I.C.E. “most assuredly” violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process, Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote. She pointed out that the U.S. government has readmitted wrongfully deported migrants before. “Now it must clean up the mess it has made” in Abrego García’s case, the order said.

Several nations, including Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and the United Kingdom have advised travelers about the political climate and fears of detention or harassment in the U.S.. 

In case you think this is just a matter for foreigners to worry about, Trump on April 6 said he might take up an offer to send U.S. citizens into El Salvador’s prison system.

In a press briefing aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked by a reporter about an offer made by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept prisoners sent by the U.S. from its federal prison population.

“I love that,” Trump said. “If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would be honored to give them.”

In February, after Bukele first offered to imprison U.S. citizens, the ACLU told NPR the idea was a “non-starter.” But Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the time called Bukele’s offer “an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country.” 

While the Heritage Foundation gets to work on writing a new chapter of Project 2025, democracy defenders must get organized to hold all Republican members of Congress to account for enabling the Trump regime’s excesses. The Greedy Oligarch Party needs a good old-fashioned Wisconsin-style butt kicking in the next election.  — JMC

From the May 1 issue of The Progressive Populist.

Kid Musk

 

Kid Musk:

Elon Musk's unchecked power is illegal and unconstitutional. Privately many Republicans concede this. So, why aren't they standing up to Elon? Were they to do so, it might lessen the heat at their Town Hall meetings because clearly, their constituents want him out.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

Yeah, they're trying to re-write history.

 

Yeah, they're trying to re-write history.

The new Republican Jan 6 commission is re-investigating the events of Jan 6 with an emphasis on discrediting the original members of the first commission. All this is an attempt to somehow shift blame from Republicans to Democrats for the events of that fateful day. 

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

Exit the Caring Nation; Enter the Police State

Exit the caring nation; enter the police state.

The Trump administration continues to de-fund and eliminate most departmental agencies that cater to the needs of regular people, while continuing to subsidize and cut taxes for Corporate America. Bottom line, Trump and his cronies are attempting to destroy the democratic state, leaving Trump and his Billionaire buddies in charge.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

 

Editorial: Fight the Right Villains

 Democrats are plenty mad at Sen. Charles Schumer and nine other Democratic senators who blocked the filibuster that threatened to force the federal government to shut down, in the hopes it would force Republicans to negotiate with Democrats.

The rank and file wanted Democrats to stand up and fight the Republican attempts to replace democracy with dictatorship. When House Republicans brought up a partisan stopgap resolution that was drafted without Democratic input and would allow the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE tech bros to carry out their efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rallied the House Democrats in opposition, but the stopgap resolution passed 217 to 213 on March 11, with one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, opposing it and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine. supporting it. Then House Republicans left town, daring Senate Democrats to filibuster and force the shutdown three days later.

Schumer at first said Republicans, who have 53 senators, lacked the Democratic votes to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster. Schumer proposed an amendment to reduce the stopgap to one month, giving both parties work on a compromise, but he got a hard no from the Republican leadership. 

In the end, Schumer concluded, “While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Gary Peters of Michigan, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as Angus King — an independent senator from Maine, who caucuses with Democrats — voted to close the filibuster and let the CR proceed.

After the vote, Schumer rejected calls for him to step down, saying he believed he was doing the “right thing for America” and for his party in voting to keep the government open. During a shutdown, he said, “the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, ‘essential.’ And they can determine without any court supervision.”

Outraged voters need to remember that Democrats are not the bad guys in this situation. Republicans are in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. Democrats may fight them, but they can’t win, as Trump and Musk have effectively neutered any Republicans in Congress who might show a spine. All Trump has to do is call potential mavericks and threaten to promote a Republican primary opponent, who will be financed by Musk, in the next election.

Many Republicans are convinced shutting down government is a good thing and, during a shutdown, Trump and Musk would continue finding places to cut government agencies and employees in pursuit of dismantling the “deep state.” 

Congressional Republicans, who control the oversight committees, have refused to call Musk to the Capitol to explain how his DOGE bros, with their sketchy backgrounds, are qualified to find “waste, fraud and inefficiency” in government agencies, when it seems they are arbitrarily ordering the layoffs of probationary federal employees, who have less job protection, and shutting down government offices, with most of the savings going to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.

Musk in February labeled Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and “one big pyramid scheme,” fueling concern that he was making the case to dismantle key social safety net benefits, which is a longtime goal of right wingers. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Musk’s comments show that Republicans are “coming after Social Security and Medicare. And they aren’t even hiding it.”

Republicans aren’t demanding that Musk show his work, either. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., defended Musk, saying his scrutiny of Social Security is focusing on “fraud, waste and abuse.” (Social Security’s inspector general in August 2024 reported that between fiscal 2015 and 2022, less than 1% of its payments were “improper,” most of which are overpayments, and they do attempt to recover those overpayments.)

Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner during the Biden administration, said he expects the reorganization and staff cuts being steered by Musk and DOGE to cause a meltdown that could interfere with benefit payments that go to more than 73 million retirees and disabled Americans. 

Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek threatened to shut the whole agency down March 21 because he’s angry a federal judge temporarily blocked Musk and his DOGE hackers from accessing sensitive information at the agency.

“Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency,” Dudek said. Again, Republican congressional leaders are not showing concern, although unnamed Republicans have told reporters they wish Musk would shut up about calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick didn’t help when he said on a podcast that anyone calling for help because their Social Security check didn’t come is likely a fraudster.

“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She thinks something got messed up and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining,” said Lutnick, a multibillionaire who could easily cover his mother-in-law’s expenses until Social Security gets sorted out.

Democratic leaders must do a better job messaging. of course,  but Schumer isn’t going anywhere, and his term runs through 2028. Democrats’ best hope right now is getting federal courts to reverse Trump’s illegal actions that shut down agencies, intimidate liberal advocates and twist immigration laws to deport or deny entry to foreign nationals who criticize Trump.

Democrats must come up with strong candidates to replace retiring Sens. Gary Peters in Michigan, Tina Smith in Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire. They also need candidates for special elections in Ohio to fill the remaining two years of JD Vance’s term and one in Florida to fill the remaining two years of Marco Rubio’s term after he became Secretary of State. Democrats also expect a tough re-election race for Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia,

Endangered Republican incumbents include Susan Collins in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. In Texas, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn may face a Republican primary challenge from right wingers who think he’s not crazy enough, so Democrats should put up a strong challenger in case it turns out to be an open seat and Texas Latinos decide they have had enough of Trump’s harassment of Browns.

The best course forward is not to burn Teslas, but win back the House and Senate in 2026 and make Trump a lame duck. — JMC

From the April 15 issue of The Progressive Populist.

Editorial: Stop the Orange Betrayer

 In his first six weeks back in power, Donald Trump betrayed democracy, the rule of law, neighboring trade partners as well as our allies overseas, his own supporters at home and the principles that have kept the United States a beacon of hope at home and abroad over the past century. 

It is time for defenders of democracy to challenge the Great Betrayer, as well as Republicans who enable his power grabs.

The challenge was brought March 4 with Trump’s speech before the joint session of Congress, where Republicans celebrated the return of their leader, who had spent the past four years fighting criminal charges for his attempt to rig the 2020 election — while baselessly claiming  Democrats had stolen the election from him — and his attempt to mount an insurrection with a violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election — an insurrection that cost the lives of five police officers and injured 174 more. Trump has pardoned the assailants.

Trump also was found liable in separate cases in New York courts for fraud and for sexual assault and later he was convicted on 34 felony counts involving his use of business funds and documents to cover up his adulterous affairs before the 2016 election. A partisan majority on the Supreme Court obstructed the work of a special prosecutor who had brought indictments in Florida and D.C. involving the alleged insurrection and Trump’s refusal to return classified documents he had taken from the White House.

After his inauguration, Trump proceeded with his plan to rule as a dictator, issuing executive orders setting aside acts of Congress, congressional appropriations and at least one article of the Constitution. He let centibillionaire Elon Musk set up an independent Department of Government Efficiency, operating under White House authority, as young computer hackers with sketchy backgrounds were sent into federal agencies to search computer files and, apparently arbitrarily, identified areas of potential “waste, fraud and abuse” that had escaped the attention of actual government auditors, such as inspectors general, whom Trump had summarily and illegally fired.

One of DOGE’s first moves was to shut down the US Agency for International Development, which was authorized by Congress in 1961 to unite several programs that provided humanitarian assistance for underdeveloped countries and counter the Soviet Union’s influence during the Cold War. It earned a good reputation for providing food and medical care to stop epidemics from spreading, as well as socioeconomic development. But USAID’s inspector general had initiated a probe of Musk’s Starlink satellite business. Musk said USAID was a “criminal organization” and that it was “beyond repair” and needed to be shut down. Trump ordered USAID merged into the State Department, despite warnings the move was illegal, and blocked payment of $2 billion to contractors for work that already been done.

The Supreme Court provided a glimmer of hope March 5 when it ruled 5-4 that US District Judge Amir H. Ali had the authority to order the administration to restart the payments. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in the ruling, which stirred hope the court won’t endorse Trump’s dictatorial powers, but it apparently shows four justices would give Trump whatever he wants. 

DOGE has continued to call for thousands of federal workers to be fired, with the main targets being those who have been working less than a year, since they generally have less civil service protection.

Former Social Security commissioner Martin O’Malley predicted  the slashing of 7,000 jobs in the agency would cause disruption within three months of payments to some of the 73 million Americans who rely upon Social Security benefits. He also told Rolling Stone the gutting of employees and offices will also prevent Americans from easily applying for benefits and delay processing of disability claims.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut 80,000 jobs from the agency that provides health care and other services for millions of veterans, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees hired in a VA expansion during the Biden administration, including those who care for veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.

In the week before his speech to Congress, Trump had brought Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House on Feb. 28. But instead of negotiating to continue supporting Ukraine’s three-year-long attempt to defeat Russia’s invading army, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance tried to browbeat Zelenskyy into capitulating, while news crews, including the Russian news service Tass, broadcast the debacle, as Vance lectured Zelenskyy on how he had not been properly thankful for everything the U.S. had done for Ukraine (while Trump was negotiating with Putin on the terms of “ungrateful” Ukraine’s surrender). Trump ended up stopping intelligence sharing with Ukraine and left other support to NATO allies in Europe.

Democrats faced a challenge in how to respond to Trump’s March 4 speech to Congress. Democratic congressional leaders favored maintaining decorum at Trump’s speech to Congress, though many carried paddle-sized placards with messages of opposition.

US Rep. Al Green of Houston played the role of Old Testament prophet, pointing his cane and calling out Trump’s lies and Republicans for moving to slash Medicaid, which provides health care for many of Green’s working-class constituents. When Green refused to sit down and shut up, House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the sergeant at arms to remove Green and let Trump continue with his lies. 

Green went peacefully, and many Democrats applauded him for at least demonstrating resistance, but Republicans later moved to punish Green for his behavior. 

Green was brought up for censure by the House, despite a history of Republicans heckling Democratic presidents Obama and Biden without retribution. Biden actually turned the heckling to his advantage in 2024, when Rep. Margorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) yelled out “Liar!” after Biden chided Republicans for floating the possibility of cuts to Social Security and Medicare. When others echoed Greene’s objections, Biden responded, “We all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? ... We’ve got unanimity.” But Trump is not sharp enough to engage in a conversation that extends beyond his limited vocabulary of insults, and he had no answers to Al Green’s accusations.

Ten Democrats joined Republicans in voting to censure Green, but dozens of fellow Democrats accompanied Green to the well of the House and sang “We Shall Overcome” in a show of solidarity, causing Speaker Johnson to declare a recess.

Democrats at home may grumble that their congressmembers are not aggressive enough in their resistance to Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, but the best thing Democrats can do is remain unified, hoping for cracks in the Greedy Oligarch Party, and prevent bad things from getting passed, at least until next year, when Republicans can be called to account for enabling Trump and his oligarchs in their attempts to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs for working families. 

Until then, Democrats must hold the line in Congress and keep voters informed. In the meantime, don’t despair. Organize.     —JMC

From the April 1 issue of The Progressive Populist.

Editorial: The Lyin’ King Sets Rules

When he was campaigning last year for a return to the White House, Donald Trump said he would be a dictator on Day One, and after his inauguration he made a show of signing 28 executive orders that stretched his authority. But it took him a month before he actually declared himself a monarch. 

The first-day edicts included pardons for 1,500 people convicted of crimes, including violence that injured police officers, and commuting the sentences of 14 others involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump called the convicts “hostages.” Another executive order aimed to cut off birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, for children of undocumented aliens. Five federal lawsuits were filed the first week challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order.

But Trump really hit his stride on Jan. 24, when he fired 17 inspectors general, who are responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse, and instead put Elon Musk’s Department of Govern Efficiency in charge of those tasks. Eight of those inspectors general, with oversight of the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Agriculture, Education, Labor and the Small Business Administration, filed suit Feb. 12, charging their terminations were unlawful and seeking reinstatement.

Then, on Feb. 19, Trump declared himself “king” as he announced his decision to rescind approval of New York’s “congestion pricing” — an auto toll instituted by the state in January to raise money for the region’s aging mass transit system and cut traffic in the city.

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” the Trump proclaimed on social media. 

Soon after, an official White House account not only echoed the president’s online statement, it also released a portrait showing a grinning Trump wearing a crown.

Two days later, at a National Governors Association session at the White House,Trump referenced his recent executive order forbidding transgender student-athletes and said he had learned that Maine intended to ignore his directive. He then asked if Maine’s governor was in the room.

When Maine Gov. Janet Mills spoke up, he asked her whether her state would comply with his demands. The two-term Democratic governor — who also had served as Maine’s attorney general for several years — told the president she would comply with state and federal laws.

Trump replied, “Well, we are the federal law.” He added, “You better do it, because you’re not going to get federal funding.”

“See you in court,” the governor replied.

Republican members of Congress have bent the knee to the mango majesty, and have threatened to impeach federal judges who dare to undermine Trump’s decrees. Elon Musk stated on his X site that it is “time to impeach judges who violate the law.”

Republicans have no chance of removing the judges from office. Even if they pass impeachment articles in the House, they are dead letters in the Senate, where 67 votes are needed to remove the judges.

The Trump regime represents the opportunity for the Heritage Foundation to achieve their goal of dismantling the vestiges of the New Deal. Heritage is a right-wing think tank that has led the oligarch movement in the U.S. since the 1970s, when it was founded during Richard Nixon’s administration by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner, and beer magnate Joseph Coors. Heritage grew from the new business activist movement inspired by the Powell Memorandum, written by Lewis Powell in 1971 when he was a consultant for the US Chamber of Commerce. 

Powell, who later was appointed to the Supreme Court by Nixon, offered a plan for conservative business interests to dismantle New Deal programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and government regulation of businesses, which Powell considered socialist. Heritage advocated for pro-business policies and anti-communism in its early years, but also advocated cultural issues that were important to Christian conservatives.

Heritage’s influence grew with the ascent of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the Heritage Foundation in January 1981 published “Mandate for Leadership,” a plan to reduce the size of the federal government that provided guidance to the incoming Reagan administration, with more than 2,000 policy recommendations on how the Reagan administration could use the federal government to advance conservative policies. Several of its authors went on to take positions in the Reagan administration and Reagan later called the Heritage Foundation a “vital force” during his presidency. The Heritage Foundation remained an influential voice during the administrations of presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Heritage discounted the candidacy of Trump in 2015. “Donald Trump’s a clown,” said Michael Needham, leader of Heritage Action, which handled political activism. Needham argued that Trump was riding the same wave of establishment disaffection that was floating Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic nomination. “He [Trump] needs to be out of the race.”

But once Trump secured the Republican nomination, Heritage changed its tune and obtained influence in Trump’s presidential transition and administration. After the 2016 election, Trump’s team was unprepared to staff the new administration, but Heritage stepped up with its 3,000-name searchable database of trusted movement conservatives who were eager to serve in a post-Obama government. The New York Times in 2018 reported that several hundred people from Heritage ultimately received jobs in government agencies, including Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, Jeff Sessions, and others who became members of Trump’s cabinet.

Now, in Trump’s reincarnation, Heritage produced Project 25 to give Trump a running start in recreating U.S. government as an oligarchy. The GOP is going ahead with a budget reconciliation power play that makes severe cuts in federal services to allow more tax cuts for billionaires. There is a relatively minor amount of “waste, fraud and abuse” in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — mainly in the eye of the beholder — but greedy oligarchs demand a piece of the action. 

Medicaid and the related Children’s Health Insurance Program provide health care for more than 79 million Americans in low-income families, at a cost of $880 billion a year. If the poor don’t get health care through Medicaid, they are likely to end up relying on local charities to cover health care costs.

Trump said cuts to Medicare and Social Security are “off the table,” but so was Medicaid until Republicans lined up enough votes to put it back on the table. They have proposed increasing the age to qualify for Medicare, cuts in coverage and moving remaining Medicare recipients to privatized Medicare Advantage, where insurance companies increase profits by denying medical procedures.

Social Security would be fiscally solid for the foreseeable future if Congress would increase the cap on taxable income from the current limit of $176,000, after which the wealthy pay nothing. Democrats must stand firm against the Greedy Oligarchs Party. — JMC

From the March 15, 2025 issue of The Progressive Populist.

Editorial: Don't Get Distracted by Chaos

In his third week back in the White House, Donald Trump brought the United States’ biggest trading partners to the brink of a tariff war, shut down the US Agency for International Development on the suggestion of volunteer co-president Elon Musk, and announced his plan to bring peace to the Gaza Strip by clearing Palestinians from the territory so the bombed-out rubble can be redeveloped into a Mediterranean resort.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress began to devise a way to pay for renewal of tax cuts for billionaires under special rules that allow them to get the budget through the Senate with a simple majority. But the reconciled budget cannot increase the national debt. So they must cut trillions of dollars from federal spending. Likely targets for cuts include health care, welfare and attempts to mitigate climate change. And they won’t miss a chance to take a swipe at Social Security and Medicare.

Trump allowed Musk to become the freelance head of the self-styled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), operating under Trump’s authority to conduct inquisitions of federal agencies to slash federal spending and replace entrenched bureaucracy with Trump loyalists.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is essentially the human resources agency for federal government, has been practically taken over by Musk lackeys who sent out a mass “deferred resignation” offer to federal employees in an attempt to get “deep state” bureaucrats to leave willingly, with the promise that they would get full pay and benefits through September. But union leaders said the offer was dodgy, would imperil pensions, and advised federal employees not to fall for it. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with the buyout while lawsuits proceed.

Musk got his minions access into the Treasury Department’s payment system that disburses trillions of dollars and contains sensitive personal data on all Americans. The next thing you know, Musk announced that USAID, the 64-year-old agency that provides humanitarian assistance — mainly food and medicine— to combat poverty and support global health in 100 countries, is “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,” are “evil” and “a criminal organization … Time for it to die.” (USAID also happened to be investigating problems with Musk’s Starlink satellite system, one of his many conflicts of interest with his probe of federal government waste.) But even if Republicans finally decided it was worth the risk to ignore epidemics around the increasingly mobile world, USAID’s $40 billion in annual appropriations isn’t going make much of a dent in the $2.3 trillion Republicans need to grease the planned tax breaks for the ultrawealthy. And don’t expect that risking another pandemic at home will get working-class taxpayers much of a break.

In Trump’s first term, households with incomes in the top 1% received an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2017, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60%, according to the Tax Policy Center. Trump brought the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and now he wants to bring it further down to 15%.

For the ultrawealthy, Republicans propose to eliminate the federal estate tax, which now charges a percentage of the value of a person’s fortune after they die, with a $14 million deduction. It would cost the government $370 billion in revenue over 10 years.

Republicans plan to eliminate income taxes on tips, at a cost of $106 billion over a decade, fulfilling a pledge Trump made to to service employees in Las Vegas during the campaign. But the Bait and Switch Party wants to broaden the exemption to include bonuses for executives.

One of the programs Republicans have targeted for major cuts is Medicaid, which provides health care for 72 million people with low incomes, as well as nursing home care for seniors, at a cost of nearly $900 billion. 

Republicans propose to “recapture” $46 billion in savings from Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, and they would limit eligibility for plans, based on citizenship status.

Other proposals would eliminate tax breaks for families with children. Currently, parents can get a tax credit of up to $2,100 for child care expenses. The House Republican plan floats the elimination of that break. The cut is estimated to save $55 billion over a decade.

They’re also eyeing repeal of significant health care rules the Biden administration put in place, such as requiring minimum staffing levels at nursing homes. In addition to Medicaid and ACA cuts, Republicans hope to claw back bipartisan infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Act funding. 

Also on the chopping block are Joe Biden’s climate policies, which are estimated to cost as much as $468 billion. Trump’s promises to repeal Biden’s “EV mandate,” as well as discontinuing “Green New Deal” provisions from the bipartisan infrastructure law and green energy grants from the IRA.

When that doesn’t do the job, Republicans are preparing to make the case for cutting Social Security and Medicare — touching the third rail of politics, Emily Singer noted at DailyKos.com. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W. Va, told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Feb 10 that Republicans have been “discussing” cutting “mandatory spending” — that is, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits — in order to pass Trump’s tax cut agenda. ”This is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Moore said.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah went further in a post on X, saying, “Social Security [is] a ripoff for most Americans compared to essentially any legitimate retirement investment.”

Musk’s unqualified DOGE bros have already accessed the Treasury Department’s systems that make payments for Social Security, raising alarm bells from Democratic lawmakers.

“The federal government is not Twitter. It matters if Elon breaks things at the Social Security Administration. Musk has no clue what SSA employees do, nor does he care — it doesn’t matter to him if you miss a Social Security Check. He belongs NOWHERE NEAR your Social Security,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, posted on X.

Cutting Social Security benefits could cause a massive backlash from voters. But Republicans might fear the backlash from billionaires more, if the rich folks don’t get those tax cuts they’re expecting. Make them fear the wrath of voters more.

Republicans only hold a 218-215 majority in the House and 53-47 in the Senate. Call your senators and House member. If you can’t get through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, call their local offices. Demand they protect Social Security and Medicare. And if they’re Republicans, hold them to account for Trump’s misuse of executive orders and defiance of courts. They supported a convicted felon for president. Now it’s time to rein him in.     — JMC

From the March 1, 2025 issue of The Progressive Populist. 

Will the Military Follow?

As Trump plans foreign adventures - a possible invasion of Greenland, The Panama Canal, etc. - one question is paramount. Will the military go along with him. They are sworn to uphold the Constitution. Trump plainly is not.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

 

Trump's Bird Flu

 

As new strains of bird flu continue to mutate and spread, scientists race to find a vaccine.

Will Trump react more prudently this time around. Doesn't look like it.

Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite

Editorial: Trump the Merciless Rules

 Donald Trump jumped back into action Jan. 20 with a flurry of lies, executive orders and presidential pardons designed to show he was back, and badder than ever. He also violated his “solemn” oath to uphold the Constitution on the first day, when he announced that he would ignore the 14th Amendment provision of birthright citizenship when it interferes with his deportation of migrants’ children born in the United States.

Daniel Dale of CNN noted that Trump made only a smattering of false claims in his inaugural address, but later “he embarked on a lying spree” and finished the day with more than 20 lies.

In a second speech to supporters in the US Capitol Visitor Center, Trump made false claims about elections, immigration and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, among other subjects, Dale noted. Trump then made additional false claims in a freewheeling third speech at Washington’s Capital One Arena and again to reporters as he signed executive orders in the Oval Office.

President Trump’s barrage of 28 executive orders in the first three days may seem familiar to anyone who paged through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, Avery Lotz noted at Axios. During the campaign, Trump distanced himself from the right-wing blueprint to expand executive power and reshape American life, but his new administration already seems to have taken whole sections from it.

Several of Trump’s Cabinet and agency picks, including Brendan Carr and Russ Vought, wrote parts of Project 2025 or contributed to the text. Tom Homan, John Ratcliffe and Pete Hoekstra are listed among the dozens of Project 2025 contributors who aided in “development and writing.”

A review of Trump’s early executive orders shows clear parallels with Project 2025 on key proposals, such as dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; loosening environmental regulations; and ending certain international agreements.

Among the executive orders was one to rescind a 1965 order by President Lyndon Johnson that barred federal contractors from employment discrimination and required them to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity “based on race, color, religion, and national origin.”

Continuing the Big Lie Party’s obsession with transgender issues, Trump signed an executive order declaring there are “two sexes, male and female” and that “sex” is not a synonym for gender identity — echoing a section of the Heritage Foundation’s plan. He also rescinded Biden-era protections allowing transgender Americans to serve in the military, a throwback to his first term that Project 2025 also called for.

To fulfill his promise to “Drill, Baby, Drill,” Trump signed an order promoting the use of “Alaska’s vast lands and resources” for oil production on his first day in office. He also eliminated what he called Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate,” which actually amounted to incentives to buy electric vehicles, and rescinded a Biden executive order promoting wind energy development, as Trump halted wind turbine leases in federal land and waters and ordered review of existing leases.

Trump declared a national emergency to send active-duty US military as well as National Guardsman to the Southern border to assist in arrests along the border. He also suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions program for Afghan refugees who worked for the US.

Rev. Mariann Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., dared to speak truth to power in a 15-minute sermon at the Washington National Cathedral the morning after the inauguration. With Trump and his family sitting in the front row, she issued a plea directly for him to “Have mercy” on “the people in our country who are scared now,” and she specifically held up the fears felt by many LGTBQ+ people and immigrants at the start of Trump’s second term.

Budde, in her sermon, did not criticize any specific policy promoted by Trump. Rather, she invoked familiar Christian themes of compassion, respect for human dignity, and welcoming the stranger, David Paulsen noted in The Christian Century.

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here,” Budde said. “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

Later, Trump told reporters he “didn’t think it was a good service.” Then, in an early morning social media post, he demanded Budde and “her church” apologize. Without using Budde’s name, the president labeled her “a so-called bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” whose sermon was “ungracious” and “nasty in tone.”

Imagine that. How could an Episcopal bishop, in her study of the Gospels, get the idea that it is appropriate to ask a leader to “show mercy”?

Trump’s response shows he has neither mercy, nor compassion. If anything, he sees those traits as a sign of weakness. 

As Bishop Budde spoke, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan already was deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers nationwide to conduct raids seeking to locate and arrest undocumented immigrants. In one such raid, at a seafood shop in Newark, N.J., ICE agents arrested at least one U.S. citizen, a Puerto Rican native who did not have a driver’s license but produced a US military veteran’s ID, which ICE agents rejected, as he and two other Latino employees were arrested. The store owner noted that White employees were not required to produce IDs.

Immigration raids across the country included multiple federal agencies and resulted in arrests of more than 3,500 people in the week after Trump’s inauguration, according to ICE.

During the Biden administration, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted 113,431 administrative arrests in the fiscal year that ended October 2024, the agency reported. That’s about 310 arrests a day, CNN noted.

Homan has said ICE would focus on rounding up criminal migrants and not conduct mass workplace raids. But that was before Trump told ICE officials to increase numbers of arrests. Immigrant communities clearly expect mass raids, which are likely to catch “legal” and “illegal” immigrants, as well as native Latino Americans, in the dragnet.

“We are already seeing people are not showing up for work. They’re not sending their children to school,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told Texas Public Radio.

The California Farm Bureau said fears of raids in the Central Valley led to migrant farmworkers not showing up for work, which virtually halted the area’s citrus harvest. Immigrants also are a large portion of workers at meat-packing plants around the country. Their departures could lead to much higher food prices to come. 

In Trump 2.0 there is no mercy for consumers, either. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2025

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Selections from the February 15, 2025 issue

 COVER/Sharon Lerner p. 1

A storm-battered Louisiana town voted for Trump. He has vowed to overturn the law that could fix its homes. 

EDITORIAL p. 2
Trump the merciless rules

JIM HIGHTOWER p. 3
Yes,you can fight the bastards ... and win! | Who will organize a progressive majority | The billionaire bros do the immigrant worker two-step | A billionaire vs. a cartoonists. I’m betting on the cartoonist

FRANK LINGO p. 3
Trump’s tribe attacks Earth

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR p. 4

DON ROLLINS p. 4
Trump’s master plan: Undoing

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
Local producers provide quality food at affordable prices

DISPATCHES p. 5
Trump’s plan to relocate Gazans to Jordan and Egypt triggers outrage.
Dems slam Trump for bailing on pledge to lower grocery prices.
Trump’s mass deportation promise is failing, so why is he still bragging?
Tramp back to golfing after demanding fed workers return to office.
GOP grapples with Trump’s release of violent rioters and backlash.

ART CULLEN p. 6
The oligarchs are coming!

ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Rural America has enough problems; why create new ones? 

ELI TAYLOR GOSS and TREASURE MACKY p, 7
Trump wants to cut taxes on the rich. States can choose differently. 

JOHN YOUNG p. 7
Suffering amid disaster? Enter the scorn chasers

LARRY COHEN p. 9
Loosening GOP’s grip on rural America

JOE CONASON p. 9
Welcome to the grifters ball

THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson p. 10
Whiplash 2.0: A split-personality, now the most powerful man in the world

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet p. 10
Trump 2.0: The vulnerable are in the crosshairs

JOEL D. JOSEPH p. 10
Six ways to bring manufacturing back and stop them from leaving the country

ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
The next financial crisis: Insurance

THOM HARTMANN p. 12
Presidential payola: The evolution of political bribery

SABRINA HAAKE p. 12
Hogseth’s thin line between lethality and legality

DAVID MONTGOMERY p. 13
‘Anything we can do to help’: This Texas county is poised to play a key role in deportations

ROBERT B. REICH p. 13
Why I remain hopeful about America

SULMA ARIAS p. 14
Anti-immigrant legislation doesn’t serve anyone but prison contractors

LINDSAY OWENS p. 14
Trump plans a supersized tax giveaway for corporations and the wealthy

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
Manifest destiny revisited: Greenlanders should scream “no”

SAM URETSKY p. 15
It’s getting a little dark at the Washington Post

BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes p. 15
Picketty’s ‘Nature, Culture and Inequality’ follows up on ‘Capitalism in the Twentieth First Century’

WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
Billionaires’ ball

JUAN COLE p. 17
Trump’s envoy Witkoff on Gaza deal: “Now we have to implement it”

N. GUNASEKARAN p. 17
Beyond the 1.5ºC threshold: Deepening the climate crisis

JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Tragic irony in the rotunda

BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
Sen. Mullin’s greatest hits

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson p. 18
Thinnest of skins 

RALPH NADER p. 19
What Donald Trump has revealed about our country

DAVE MARSTON p. 20
Los Angeles is a wake-up call for the West — especially Durango

ROB PATTERSON p. 20
The pleasures of literate police mysteries (take 2)

SETH SANDRONSKY p. 20
An emerging environmental proletariat?

FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell p. 21
Euthanasia takes a holiday: Is there room for room at Christmastime and beyond? 

GENE NICHOL p. 23
Based on merit again?

From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2025

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Copyright © 2025 The Progressive Populist

Editorial: Big Lie Party Takes Power

 When Donald Trump is sworn in as the nation’s 47th president, the Republican takeover of federal government will be complete. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate are small, but they are enough to back up whatever high crimes and misdemeanors the once and future Liar in Chief might commit.

Trump is perhaps the most prolific liar in American history. The Washington Post Fact Checker tallied 30,573 lies told by Trump in his first term as president, and his biggest lie was the unfounded claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election, which inspired riots at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a last-ditch attempt to stop the certification of the vote, but Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House. 

During the interregnum, Trump maintained control of the Republican Party and insisted that Republicans adopt the Big Lie that Trump was still the rightful president. 

During the past election year, Glen Kessler, the Post’s chief Fact Checker, noted, “Trump once again resorted to false claims and sometimes outrageous lies, especially on immigration and the economy. He rode a wave of discontent about inflation — a problem in every industrialized country after the pandemic — to falsely claim that the economy was a disaster, despite relatively low unemployment, falling inflation and strong growth.”

In 2024, Kessler noted, the Post’s most-read fact check was Trump’s false claim in October 2024 about Hurricane Helene relief efforts, claiming there was no money for North Carolina because Joe Biden spent FEMA funds on migrants. “What’s even richer is that when Trump was president, he did exactly what he claimed Biden did — funding migrant programs with FEMA disaster aid,” Kessler noted.

Two weeks before Trump was to be inaugurated again (and perhaps to distract attention from his scheduled sentencing two days later for 34 felonies in New York), Trump recklessly blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for wildfires that were rapidly spreading across the hills surrounding Los Angeles. 

In a Jan. 8 post on “Truth Social,” Trump said, “Governor Gavin Newscum [sic] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”

By that time, three raging fires had consumed more than 5,000 acres, with no containment, and the flames were spreading at unprecedented levels, driven by winds of up to 100 mph, which kept the state from using firefighting airplanes to stop the advance.

Newsom noted there was no “water restoration declaration” at issue and state reservoirs were filled, but the demand on fire hydrants by hundreds of firefighters reduced water pressure to the point that they were ineffective against wildfires as hurricane-force winds blew the flames and cinders into new neighborhoods. 

Reckless statements such as Trump’s attempt to politicize a wildfire catastrophe in California because it is governed by Democrats, as well as his musing that the US should take control of Greenland from Denmark (a NATO ally) and the Panama Canal from the Republic of Panama by force, if necessary, as well as his proposal to annex Canada as the 51st of the United States, should undermine any belief that Trump is fit for the presidency. But his political appointees embrace his craziness, starting with the Big Lie that he won the 2020 election, and they must pledge their loyalty to him over the Constitution. Republican senators are expected to vote to confirm his dubious nominees for Cabinet positions, and they are threatened with being primaried if they resist.

Among other “big lies” Republicans must embrace to advance in the party (many of which were noted in a Jan. 8 column by Thom Hartmann at HartmannReport.com) are:

• Climate change is not responsible for the increased ferocity of wildfires, hurricanes, windstorms or other extreme weather events; 

• Giving tax cuts to billionaires and corporations helps average working people;

• Joe Biden opened the southern border for four years and Democrats encouraged illegal immigrants to vote;

• Social Security is going broke and can only be fixed by cutting benefits or privatization. 

• A national healthcare system, such as Medicare For All, won’t work in America, even though it works in every other advanced democracy in the world.

• Free or inexpensive college doesn’t benefit the nation, but student debt builds “individual responsibility.”

• Gun control laws lead to higher crime rates.

• Public schools are indoctrinating children with Marxist and homosexual ideologies and Critical Race Theory is being taught in elementary schools to make White children feel guilty.

Trump added “convicted felon” to his resumé on Jan. 10, as New York Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to “unconditional discharge” for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet during the 2016 campaign. Trump was found guilty by a New York state court jury in May 2024 after Daniels testified about the one-night sexual encounter in 2006, while Melania Trump was nursing their infant son, Barron. 

Trump, whose business reimbursed Cohen for the payment, insisted he did nothing wrong and refused to take responsibility for his actions, a position endorsed by many Republican misleaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who issued a statement after Trump’s sentencing, calling the trial a “weaponization of government” and expressing support for the president-elect’s decision to appeal the hush money conviction.

The case, Johnson asserted, “was never about the facts, and it should have never been brought in the first place.” Covering up serial adultery to win the election apparently wasn’t a problem for Johnson or other professed evangelical Christians.

“The judge grossly perverted the American legal system by manipulating existing law in a purely partisan effort to convert a bogus misdemeanor charge into a felony,” Johnson said.

Don’t enable the Big Liars. Don’t surrender your constitutional rights. Don’t believe anything you read on social media without checking it out. Support the Democratic resistance in Congress. And hold on until 2026. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2025

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