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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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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
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
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
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us
EDITORIAL p. 2
Trump the merciless rules
FRANK LINGO p. 3
Trump’s tribe attacks Earth
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
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
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
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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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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Goodbye to all that: From Carter to the crater
EDITORIAL
The Big Lie Party takes over
DON ROLLINS
From Jackson to Trump: It’s all about land
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Slammin’ 2025 — An epic look forward
DISPATCHES
‘Republicans are geating up for class war,’ Dem warns, as R’s push for Medicaid cuts.
L.A. renter advocates demand eviction moratorium, rent freeze as landowners ‘cash in.’
Trump allies launch $20M effort to convice working class to back tax scam 2.0.
State-level attacks on public schools decried as ‘part of a national playbook.’
Biden bequeaths strong economy for Trump ...
ART CULLEN
Time to make some noise about cancer in Iowa
ALAN GUEBERT
Sustainable aviation fuel study: SAF means ‘Sacrificing Affordable Food’
FARRAH HASSEN
Sweeps don’t solve homelessness
JOHN YOUNG
Fear new year? Time to summon your inner Molly
SABRINA HAAKE
Using the NOLA tragedy to hide Trump’s bait and switch on immigration
DICK POLMAN
Trump’s mob runs wild. Why is anyone shocked?
JOE CONASON
Did Musk abuse Visa program?
SARAH ANDERSON and CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO
10 Wins against inequality to celebrate in 2024
ROBERT KUTTNER
Memo to term appointees: Stay put!
SETH SANDRONSKY
An emerging US health care politics?
THOM HARTMANN
America needs a national health care system
SONALI KOLHATKAR
What is our collective solution to health care injustice?
THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson
Project 2025: Will American democracy survive Trump’s second term?
GENE NICHOL
Thinking about North Carolina
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The sad news of January: Scrooge lives on and on
SAM URETSKY
Wondering about wonder drugs
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
America first imperialism
WAYNE O’LEARY
Mr. Roosevelt gives a speech
RICHARD D. WOLFF
Political economy contradictions as we lurch into 2025
JUAN COLE
The worst news from 2024: CO2 went up again, as tundra starts to emit carbon
JASON SIBERT
Summit of the Americans can spread democracy instead of war
JAMIE STIEHM
Pardons turn the truth around — then and now
BARRY FRIEDMAN
Roeder and Mangione
ERIC S. JACKSON
Mocking the disabled is cruel and immoral — especially when the president does it
RALPH NADER
We need anticipatory strategies for oncoming Trumpism
FRANK LINGO
The truth tastes good
TIM LYDON
Savoring the darkness in Alaska
ROB PATTERSON
Keeping music in the families
BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes
Go back in time with Studs
FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
From Minnesota to Manhattan to Newport: Biopic about balladeer Bob Dylan’s odyssey is positively electrifying
AMY GOODMAN
Wicked, The Wizard of Oz, and the blacklisted lyricist Yip Harburg
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
Let freedom ring. Or maybe not.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2025
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