NEW LEVELS OF CORRUPTION

 

Another week, another set of new lows for President Donald Trump.  Much media attention has been given to the fact that, to construct an enormous golden ballroom, his administration has demolished much of the East Wing of the Oval Office.  This was after he promised not to alter the existing architecture, but then what do you expect from an inveterate liar like Trump?  And this is nothing new for him; way back in 1980, when he constructing Trump Tower in New York, he made a deal with the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art to donate some artistic statuary from the building that was being torn down to make way for his tower.  But then he went back on his word and had the statuary demolished, because of course he did.  Now, while I certainly don't care for the way that Trump is ripping apart a publicly funded building to turn into his own gaudy, gold edged playpen, and I'm also not fond of the way that he's raising funds for the work from wealthy companies trying to curry favor with him, I also think that in the grand scheme of things, this is hardly the worst thing he's done just this week. In other words, I agree with former Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who publicly said "He can demolish the entire White House, raze the whole thing to the ground, if he takes ICE off the streets."

Much worse than that construction is his recent contention that he deserves recompense for past investigations into his 2016's campaign ties to Russia and his refusal to return classified documents after his first exit from the White House.  The amount he's asking for is 230 million dollars, a staggering number even give how big his legal bills may have been, or how accurate he was about the illegitimacy of those investigations.  And unlike that ballroom, the money would come directly from the taxpayers.  Even Trump himself seemed a little awestruck by his own corruption here, pointing out that it would be he himself who finalizes this huge pay out to his own bank account.  Sadly, given how much he has already corrupted the Justice Department by filling it with his bootlicking lackeys, he very well may get that money.  

And he would get that money even after ProPublica reported that at least 170 American citizens have been held against their will by immigration agents since Trump took office in January, some of whom faced physical violence, and none of whom will be able to sue the government for false arrest.  Yes we now live in a country where our billionaire president can ask for almost a quarter of a billion dollars  to cover his legal expenses for past investigations of his wrongdoings, but American citizens wrongly arrested can't get any compensation for being held in brutal conditions.  What a time to be an American.

Another utterly corrupt moment came when Trump pardoned the world's wealthiest cryptocurrency owner, Changpeng Zhao.  In 2023, back when there was some sanity in this country, Zhao's cryptocurrency exchange known as  Binance, did not have decent compliance systems, which allowed terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, to move money on his platform. Zhao pleaded guilty to laundering and served four months in prison.  After his release from prison, Zhao has praised Trump and Binance has made deals with World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up, deals that the New York Times estimates could make the Trump family tens of millions of dollars this year.   The pardon will make it easier for Zhao to run his company after he stepped down while admitting his guilt in 2023.  Once again, Trump has used the power of the presidential pardon to reward his friends and business associates while lining his own pockets while his Republicans allies in congress ignore it.  And to add to the whole terribleness of this, just imagine if a Democrat pardoned someone who made it easier for terrorist organizations to move money.  Again, what a time to be an American.  

All of this is happening as Trump continues to use the Justice Department to go after his political enemies like Leticia James and James Comey and sends National Guard troops into states that don't want them and separates families and  tears communities apart with his ICE raids.  He can't even get inflation under control, with his tariffs driving prices up for American consumers, while his recently passed budget bill will raise healthcare premiums for millions of Americans. His second term  is proving to be a corrupt disaster for the country, and he hasn't even been in office a year yet.  And that's not even considering that former Trump advisor Steve Bannon says that there's a plan for him to run again in 2028, the 22nd. Amendment of the Constitution be damned.  At the recent No Kings rally, protestors chanted against the rise of fascism in this country, and with good reason.  Sadly, we do seem to be heading that way.    

WAR AND PEACE

 

During President Donald Trump's first term, I found almost all of his policies and actions morally and politically bankrupt.  But even I had to admit that Operation Warp Speed, the policy that lead to the quick development of a vaccine for Covid, was a good thing.  Even Trump could get some things right, even if he also once stated that injecting bleach was a good idea.  (He later tried to say that his comment about bleach was sarcastic, but it didn't sound that way at the time!)

My feelings about Operation Warp Speed are similar to  what's going on now in the Middle East, with a cease fire between the Israeli government and the terrorist group Hamas finally being negotiated. This is, of course, a good thing, with the brutal war that began over two years ago leaving the territory of Gaza decimated with tens of thousands of casualties.  If Trump played a role in getting that cease fire, then good for him.  If it holds, then perhaps he should get a Nobel Peace Prize next year (although he may find holding both sides to the agreement may be difficult).

So Trump is helping to bring peace to the Middle East.  Good.  Too bad he's spreading hatred in our country and other parts of the world.  About a month ago, the Trump administration bombed a boat from the country of Venezuela that, the administration claimed, was carrying drugs to the US.  Since then, three more boats from Venezuela have been blown up by our government, each allegedly carrying drugs.  No evidence has been given by the Trump administration for what are essentially acts of war against a foreign country.  

The idea that blowing up a few boats could make a serious dent in the flow of illegal drugs to the US is laughable.  So what is the administration up to?  Well, there has been an amassing of American warships near Venezuela recently, and it's possible that Trump wants to move against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro,  Now, according to the US State Department, Maduro is a brutal authoritarian who has repressed the country and decimated the economy.  But removing him from power would be difficult, and if that's Trump ultimate goal, he should state that openly to the American public instead of dragging us slowly into a war.  

But what Trump is doing in Venezuela is dwarfed by his corruption in our country itself.  Yes, the man who has repeatedly said that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize has pushed our country to the brink of out right military conflict.  First, he has sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into our cities on a huge scale, with blue cities like Chicago and New York being targeted.  As if that weren't enough, Trump has also also ordered National Guard troops into blue cities like Washington DC and Portland Oregon, despite those cities leaders saying they aren't needed,  under the absurd notion that violent crime or out of control protests against ICE agents are taking place there.  In actuality, violent crime, after surging during the pandemic, has dropped precipitously all around the country, including in our cities.  And Trump's characterization of the city of Portland as being “war-ravaged”  because of ICE protests is based on a Fox News report on September 5th that showed footage of violent protests in Portland from five years ago!   

Hopefully, this will not become a self fulfilling prophecy, with increased military presence leading to increased protests that may become violent, leading to even more military presence.  So far, Portland seems to resisting the bait, with recent protests being low level and featuring people in animal suits to show how silly the whole thing is.  (Go Portland!).  But we must not forget what is going on here: our president is using the deportation of undocumented immigrants and the specter of violent crime and protests to use ICE and the national guard as his own personal army.  Just how far he's willing to push this kind of. power grab is unknown, but frightening. (Will he try to repress voter turnout in blue cities in the 2026 midterms?)  As is so often the case with Trump, we are in uncharted territory here, and the future looks grim.

THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

 

Since the Democrats in congress refused to sign onto a bill fully funding the government last Tuesday, the federal government has shut down non essential programs.  This isn't surprising; the use of a government shutdown as a last chance attempt by a  minority party to gain something politically have been around since the 1980's, and it was really turbocharged in the 90's when Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for one that lasted 21 days (before that they usually lasted only a day or two).

Shut downs are a tricky thing with the public, who usually say that they want congress to accomplish things, but then are divided over just what they want done.  Gingrich's shutdown was seen as a failure for him, cementing his image as a bomb throwing extremist, especially because he called for it more out of pique than any actual political issue (during a flight on Air Force One, then President Bill Clinton did not allow him to sit in the front of the plane or exit from the front).

The last shutdown was made by the Democratic party in 2019, and it lasted a whopping 35 days, making it the longest ever.  The subject was immigration, with the Democrats refusing to pay for President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico and Trump eventually giving in and removing funding for the wall from the budget.  

This time the Democrats are trying to prevent cuts in Obamacare spending that will result in the healthcare premiums for millions of Americans going up, with some even doubling.  The Republican party has countered by saying that the Democrats want to use federal funds to provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants.  Both sides are clearly playing up to what are seen as their strongest issues, with Democrats defending people's healthcare and Republicans bashing undocumented (or "illegal") immigrants.  For the record, the Republicans are straight up lying about the federal spending funding healthcare for the undocumented, but it's a powerful lie.

Personally, I think the Democrats are right to stand up to Trump and the Republicans over this issue, even though shut downs are always messy.  Democratic voters have felt powerless ever since Trump took office again and started moving the country towards an autocratic system.  (I never thought in my lifetime that we would have masked government agents racially profiling people and then  grabbing them off the street in this country,  but here we are!).  Standing up to Trump and shutting down the government is the least that the Democrats can do, and using healthcare costs, a simple, relatable issue, makes sense.  And the fact that Republicans have resorted to lying about healthcare for the undocumented instead of actually defending the spending cuts on their own supposed merit shows how little they have to stand on here.  Put simply, the Democrats want Americans to not have to spend more money on their healthcare, and Republicans don't, even if they won't admit it.  (Bernie Sanders and  Acacia Ocasio-Cortez explained it all well in this this 3 minute video

That said, Trump is using the shutdown as an excuse to fire more government workers and cut already appropriated spending going to blue cities and states, engaging in the same kind of revenge based policies that have always driven him.   But Trump was already doing these things, and many of those fired workers have already sued him in court, so he's not really getting that much out of it.

The irony here is that the Democrats are actually doing the Republicans a favor; if the Dems had just let the healthcare cost increases pass, angry voters would have blamed the Republicans for being in power and voted against them strongly in the upcoming midterms.  But the Dems, as weak and ineffectual as they may seem, actually care about voters who aren't rich and want to make their lives better, even the ones in red states.  Hopefully, they will win this shutdown with some kind of compromise from the Republicans, because this issue is really a moral one.  

TWO ATTACKS ON SCIENCE

 In the past three days, Donald Trump has given two press conferences that have confirmed beyond a shadow a doubt that he is the worst president for scientific research in modern history, and maybe ever.  The first was a joint conference he made with Health and Human Services leader (and utter quack) Robert Kennedy Junior.  The second was a rambling, insulting and childish speech he made at the United Nations.  Both of them were full of his usual blustering, bragging and lying, that was no surprise.  But it's really the substance of both of them that's is so disturbing.

The first found Trump and Kennedy claiming that acetaminophen, the painkiller found in Tylenol, is linked to an increased chance of autism in children whose mothers take it during pregnancy.   They said this despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine have found no such link.  The complicated part of this is that Tylenol is the most widely used painkiller during pregnancy because, of course, it's available over the counter.  And, more importantly, it can help lower  fevers in pregnant women, which can cause pregnancy complications.  Repeatedly during the conference, Trump loudly told women not to take Tylenol during a pregnancy, hectoring  them to "tough it out" (easy for a man to say!).   As Dr. Laura Andreson, an obstetrician told the New York Times, “It’s hard to wrap my head around what kind of thought process was behind making these statements.”  Along with this terrible advice, Trump also rambled about vaccines in general, at one point describing vaccinations by saying “It’s too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number.”  He also oddly asserted that the Amish don't get autism, and that autism rates in Cuba are lower than here because they don't have Tylenol!  But then what do you expect from a man who once suggested injecting bleach?

His speech at the UN was perhaps less dangerous, although just as embarrassing.  Along with repeating the laughable lie that he's been making for weeks now, that he has stopped seven different wars as president, and all but begging for a Nobel Peace Prize, he also decided to talk about climate change.   First he claimed that China has been building wind turbines to sell all over the world, but have very few in their own country; this is the exact opposite of the truth.  China now uses more wind power than any other country in the world.  He also flat out called climate change a hoax, and said that “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”  And later insulted the rest of the world by saying "Your countries are going to hell" (that was more about immigration than green energy, but it was a terrible thing to say either way).   

While Trump's attitude about green energy has been known for years (his hatred of wind turbines stems from his anger over one of them being put up near one of his gold courses in Scotland), it was still both maddening and depressing to hear him state them so boldly in front of other countries that have not ignored the overwhelming scientific  research on climate change (not to mention the record droughts, fires and floods that have plagued the world in the past few years). 

While the Republican party has often been at odds with science ever since Ronald Reagan forged an  alliance   between the party and Christian fundamentalists back in the 80's, the fact that we know have a president who has defunded scientific research at colleges he considers too woke while spewing nonsense about autism and climate change is a new low for the country.  The sad fact of the matter is that for the world to make the logical transition to green energy, it will have to follow China and not the US, which is what's happening.  America once stood at the vanguard of scientific research, but now we are falling behind.  The damage Trump is doing will affect both American and the world negatively for years to come.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS ROILING OUR DIVED COUNTRY

 Last Wednesday, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was horribly shot and killed while engaging in a debate at a college in Utah.  Kirk was a young married father who's  family has suffered a terrible loss.In the wake of the shooting, some people on the left have quoted things that Kirk said in the past about gun control and  his reaction to other political attacks on people he disagreed with.  None of this can in any way justify what happened to him.

The real problem with Kirk was how successful he was, as he, like so many people in the right wing media world, channeled the frustrations of white men by saying that were the one truly oppressed group in our society.  At one conservative gathering he said that, "Actually MLK was awful. OK? He's not a good person." later adding that  "We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s." His connection to white men, especially young ones, was instrumental in getting Donald Trump reelected.  As much as I may find all that abhorrent, again, none of that justifies what happened to him.

But one point that should be made is that Kirk's is not the only recent political killing in this country: just a few months ago, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated by a Trump supporter who had reportedly made a long hit list of mostly Democratic leaders. (At the time President Trump released a perfunctory statement condemning the killings, but then he pointedly played gold instead of going to their funeral).  There was also Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s house suffering an arson attack, Democratic House member Nancy Pelosi's husband being assaulted and  a kidnapping plot against  Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.  But instead of mentioning any of those, in the wake of  Kirk's shooting,  Trump has only talked about attacks on right wing political figures.  In one interview on Fox News, when asked about what to do about right wing violence, Trump said, "I'll tell you something that's gonna get me in trouble but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem  They’ve vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy."  Later, when he was asked about how he was holding up after the shooting of a man that he considered a friend, Trump said that he was doing great and turned the conversation to the construction of a new ballroom in the White House!  Once again, he proved that there is no cure for being a  narcissistic psychopath.

Sadly, Trump is the absolute worst kind of person to have as our nation's leader at a moment like this, but then what do expect from a man who pardoned January 6th protestors who beat police officers?  So, instead I would like to end with some quotes from a man is who is saying the right thing after this shooting, Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox:  “We just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be. To ask ourselves, is this it? Is this what 250 years has brought on us? I pray that that’s not the case.” “If anyone, in the sound of my voice, celebrated even a little bit at the news of the shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror, and see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.”  

WILL THE SUPREME COURT RESTRAIN TRUMP?

 One of the ways that President Donald Trump has moved so quickly to consolidate his power is to declare an emergency about whatever he wants to control and then use emergency presidential powers granted from past laws to do what he wants.  He has already done this 11 times in his first 9 months in office. Probably the most dramatic use of this is his assertion that the  Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows for the speedy deportation of foreign born enemies during an invasion, permits him to deport Venezuelan gang members without a trial.  Unfortunately,  that act, which  was passed over 200 years ago,  was unspecific about what counts as an invasion, the Trump administration has made the  dubious assertion that gang members are actually invading our country like soldiers.

Recently, Trump's power grab has been hitting some snags; in the past two weeks, lower court rulings have been against him.  First, a move to deport Guatemalan children was held up by a judge in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.  Then Trump's sending of members of the US military to the city of Los Angeles was found to be illegal by the Federal District Court of San Francisco.  Also, his attempt to withhold billions of dollars in research funds to Harvard University was voided by the US District Court in Boston.  And then, in the most dramatic of these rulings,  just last Friday a federal panel of judges ruled that most of Trump's tariffs, the cornerstone of his economic polity, are illegal and will be voided next month.  

While all of these rulings make sense on the face of them, together they more importantly show that, despite all the Trump excusing Republicans holding congress, the American system may still be able to put some restraint on Trump's authoritarian views through the courts.  The ruling against his tariffs, for example, makes perfect sense when you consider that Trump asserts that he has the right to pass any tariffs he wants against any other country based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.  But that act also says that the president can only do so against an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”  The administration claims that our trade deficit with other countries is a threat, even though it has existed for years and has never stopped the US from having the world's biggest economy.  It's almost laughable how Trump doesn't seem to understand what a trade deficit is; countries that we have a trade deficit with simply sell us more of their goods than they buy of ours.  This is hardly a threat when you consider that a country like Canada has almost 300 million less people living in it!  So imposing tariffs that could cripple Canada's economy is hardly being done in response to a threat.  Again,  this ruling just feels like common sense.

But, then there's the Supreme Court, the same court that now has a 6-3 conservative majority, with 3 of those 6 conservative judges being appointed by Trump himself.  Inevitably, the Trump administration is going to appeal these rulings form lower courts to the Supreme Court (he's already requested a ruling on the Tariff decision as soon as next Wednesday).  So the question is,  will this extremist court side with our extremist president?  It's tough to say.

This year, there have been two rulings by the Supreme Court against Trump: the first was a presidential order voiding birthright citizenship (that was a no brainer even for this court; birthright citizenship is in the constitution).  The second involved cuts to the. US AID program.  Now, on the other side of the ledger, the court has sided with the Trump administration 7 times, on cases allowing for mass deportations, stricter immigration rules, and the gutting of the federal Department of Education.  Along with these rulings, last year the court made what appeared to be a peremptory decision when it ruled for him while he was out of office, stating that any president would have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts committed within their "core constitutional powers."  Basically giving him a blank check to try anything in his second term without fear of criminal charges.  Really, the  court is now so pro Trump, that one has to fear that his stated desire to be able to run for a third term (which has gone from a joke to a serious threat) may actually be upheld.  In other words, while I was glad that the lower courts ruled the way that they did, there's no guarantee that Trump's unprecedented attempt to run this country with absolute power won't be upheld by our highest court.  Yes, we live in very frightening times in this country.    

HOW THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD FIGHT BACK ON CRIME

 

After saying on the campaign trail that he would lower inflation, President Donald Trump's tariffs have caused prices to increase.  After promising not to cut Medicaid, he recently signed a spending bill that did just that.  The Russian invasion of the Ukraine, which he claimed he could end in one day, is still ongoing, and a recent meeting between him and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in which Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for the man that the International Criminal Court considers a war criminal,  ended with Putin conceding nothing while Trump, as usual, fawned over him pathetically.

Clearly, Trump is failing at all of these things.  But one thing he is good at is finding something to distract the media from his failures.  About two weeks ago, after lying about violent crime rates in our nation's capitol, he sent both FBI agents and the national guard to patrol the streets of Washington DC.,  despite no law officer or political leader there saying that they were needed.  Trump has also threatened to send troops to other cities  like Chicago while continuing to spread lies about violent crime rates.  In one truly odd moment, he claimed that “The people in Chicago, are screaming for us to come now...African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying, ‘Please, President Trump, come to Chicago, please.’  I did great with the Black vote, as you know. They want something to happen."  (For the record, Trump got only 15% of the Black vote in 2024 overall, and only about 7% of the Black female vote).

Along with distracting the media and letting Trump look tough without actually accomplishing anything (the national guard troops are mostly just standing around in low crime areas), bringing up the issue of crime lets Trump turn to a subject that voters have mostly favored Republicans on for years.  This is despite the fact that, except for a spike during the pandemic, violent crime has been on a downward slope for decades in this country.  Sadly, that message hasn't gotten through to the public; in a 2024 Gallup poll, 64% of Americans thought that crime in the country was increasing, even as crime numbers shrank to per covid levels.  The tricky thing is that telling people that their fears are unfounded by the facts doesn't seem to work, especially when those fears are stoked by local news broadcasts featuring crime stories non stop and right wing politicians pushing the idea that cities with Democratic mayors are awash with crime.

But I think the Democrats should fire back on this issue, and Trump's actions  have left him open to an attack on his tough on crime credentials.  I'm talking about his pardoning of over 1500 January 6th protestors, some of whom, despite his claim to support the police, violently attacked capitol police officers. A December 2024 YouGov survey showed that over 60% of voters opposed his pardoning them, so already most of the public think that that was wrong.  Things gets worse for Trump when you consider that some of those pardoned protestors have gone on to commit more crimes after being released.  I really think that the Democrats should make a big issue of this, releasing television ads and giving speeches pointing out that it was a Republican president who let convicts out onto our streets to wreak more havoc.  Make it an issue at every debate until every Trump supporter in the country has to explain why pardoning criminals was a good thing.  And use the names of the criminals to personalize it, like Brent John Holdridge who was arrested for grand theft just last May, or Matthew Huttle who was killed while resisting arrest within days of his release.

As a progressive, I don't like tough on crime rhetoric in general, but using it against the Republican party for defending Trump's pardoning of the January 6th rioters is just fine by me.  That was one pardon Trump should have never made, and I hope it comes back to haunt him in 2026.