Tag: politics

A president with great power, repression, amid growing resistance

Bob Sheak, Jan. 24, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

The president is an embarrassment to the US, but more importantly, he is an unprecedented danger to democracy and a threat to peace in the world. He often claims he is for peace, but he is quick to utilize the military abroad and authorizes the largest military budget in American history – and in the world. He also aggressively authorizes the deployment of federal law-less enforcers into cities across the U.S, particularly “Democratic” cities.

All the while, he acts and speaks erratically. He makes up his own “truths.” He sees himself as an all-powerful leader, an autocrat or dictator. He enriches himself and his family. The New York Times Editorial Board reported that Trump had pocketed $1,405,500,000 in 2025

(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html).

His power is unfortunately rooted in his control of the executive branch of the U.S. government, including the military, an array of federal agencies, ICE, along with the Republican Party, support from the rich and corporations, a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and his base of tens of millions of right-wing Americans. His policies are having detrimental effects on many Americans.

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His mental instability

Harold Meyerson contends that the president has “become psychotically megalomaniacal (https://prospect.org/2026/01/20/25th-amendment-time–mad-king-donald).

“Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.

“Today, which marks the first anniversary of Trump’s reassuming the duties of the presidency, it’s clear that the conventional wisdom was profoundly and disastrously wrong. Age, narcissism, and megalomania now determine Trump’s actions and, alarmingly, the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.

When the consequences are confined to his ordering up monuments to his assumed greatness—stamping his face on coins, engraving his name on government buildings, sizing his ballroom to dwarf anything else in D.C.—they can be dismissed as relatively harmless outbursts of ridiculously overindulged self-love.

“But when, as he told The New York Times earlier this month, he views the only constraints on his actions to be his own sense of propriety and morality, rather than the Constitution that presidents are sworn to preserve, protect, and defend, then we’ve been shuttled into a different form of government than the one we’ve assumed we’ve lived in for the past 250 years: a monarchy, at least as Trump himself sees it.”

Meyerson gives this example, regarding Trump’s bizarre reason to annex Greenland. “The president Bottom of Form

Tcited his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize as a reason he wants to seize Greenland. Just believing that he was in any sense qualified for the prize itself should have been evidence enough of his derangement. He surely feels wounded when anyone dares to tell him the truth about himself, as the Nobel Peace Prize committee unknowingly did when they gave the award to somebody else.

“But his determination to seize Greenland—already disgraceful, deplorable, and altogether addled even before his Nobel deprivation message—has become proof positive of his narcissistic megalomania, now that he’s linked his determination to his wounded ego.”

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Trump’s meandering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Erin Mendell and Shashank Bengali report on this for The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/us/politics/trump/davos-speech-takeaways.html). Here are some highlights of what they report.

“In remarks that stretched for over an hour, Mr. Trump lashed out at NATO in front of fellow members of the military alliance and lobbed criticism at the leaders of several nations, Somali immigrants in the United States, wind power and more.”

Denmark and Greenland

“Mr. Trump referred to Greenland, which he has insisted the United States must control for reasons of national and international security, as ‘cold and poorly located.’ He has argued that China and Russia could seek to exploit it, and said on Wednesday that granting U.S. control of it was ‘a very small ask.’” He ruled out using military force, but threatened European leaders who oppose such a U.S. annexation, telling them ‘We will remember.’”

Trump’s veiled threats pushed the long-established trans-Atlantic alliance “to the brink.”

Here are examples of other points Trump mentioned.

  • He spent several minutes arguing that European nations have hurt themselves by trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while reveling in his efforts to block and dismantle renewable electricity plants in the United States.
  • After referring to Greenland, a territory with a population of nearly 60,000 people, as a “piece of ice,” he appeared to confuse it with Iceland, a Nordic island nation, when talking about a dip in the stock market this week.
  • He said he had received a call from Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland’s president at the time, pushing back on an initial 30 percent tariff. “And she was very repetitive,” he said, adding, “She just rubbed me the wrong way.” After that call, Mr. Trump said, “I made it 39 percent.”
  • Mr. Trump drew some gasps when he directly criticized Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada. Canada is historically one of the United States’ staunchest allies.
  • Mr. Carney said in a speech at Davos on Tuesday that the era of U.S. hegemony could be over, calling the current moment “a rupture.” Though he didn’t mention Mr. Trump’s name, there was no mistaking his meaning.

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His Falsehoods

Falsehoods Fueled Trump’s First Year Back in Office

Linda Qiu does a fact-check of Trump’s falsehoods in 2025

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/politics/trump-falsehoods-fact-check-first-year-year.html). There is no surprise here. Trump has a long-history of stretching the truth and outright lying.

In the first year of his second term, President Trump has cited an arsenal of falsehoods, baseless claims and distortions to justify significant policy changes on the economy, immigration, trade, executive power, and foreign policy.

For example, Trump claimed that he would transform the economy from the “worst” to the “best” and that his tariffs would bring back manufacturing companies to the U.S. Contrary to this claim, Qui writes,

“The manufacturing sector shed 63,000 jobs from January 2025 to December 2025. Construction spending in manufacturing has also declined. Economic activity in the sector in general contracted for 10 consecutive months in 2025, according to a longstanding survey by the Institute for Supply Management.”

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Billionaires and Corporations gained a lot in Trump’s first year back in the White House

Derek Seidman considers who gained the most during Trump’s first year, Jan 20 2026 (https://truthout.org/articles/who-gained-the-most-during-trumps-first-year-billionaires-and-corporations). Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian living in Buffalo, New York. His research finds that billionaires and corporations did well 2025. Others find that the average American struggled just to pay the bills.

Seidman writes,“Big banks saw their stocks skyrocket by 29 percent during Trump’s first year.”

“…major industries and their billionaire leaders who rule over us all — from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, Big Oil to Big Crypto — have profoundly benefited from the administration’s first year. Many of these corporate actors have cozied up with Trump through piles of campaign and inauguration contributions, as well as donations to his White House ballroom project.

“They’ve been the big winners over the past year, raking in billions from a policy agenda overseen by Trump and his administration stacked with billionaires and industry-friendly regulators.”

Here’s one of Seidman’s examples.

‘Wall Street and its coterie of financial oligarchs have been prime beneficiaries of Trump’s first year. This is especially true of big banks, which saw their stocks skyrocket by 29 percent in 2025.

“The bullishness around banks springs largely from Trump’s lax regulatory regime.

This includes the weakening of antitrust oversight, to the glee of big banks profiting from ramped-up mergers and acquisitions, and the appointment of corporate-friendly regulators to key financial cabinet and oversight roles.”

“One major beneficiary of these policies is Jamie Dimon, the longtime billionaire CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the U.S.’s biggest bank.

Dimon — who appears to be chumming up with Trump after years of tension — raked in around $770 million in 2025 through a “combination of salary, bonuses, dividends, stock grants and appreciation in his allotment of the bank’s shares,” whose value rose 34 percent last year, according to The New York Times.

‘Other bank executives — at Citi, Goldman Sachs, Capital One, and more — have also massively cashed in.’

Seidman writes,

“Tech corporations and billionaires have been major beneficiaries of Trump’s first year, with their stocks and revenues soaring, as the president has adamantly backed their core interests, including turbocharging the construction of data centers that power artificial intelligence (AI), gutting state-level AI regulations, cutting limits of AI chip exports, and approving chip exports by chipmaking behemoth Nvidia to China.”

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Trump is hardly a president who advances peace in the world

Katrina Vanden Heuvel and John Nichols consider Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine,” Jan 13 2026 (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/donroe-doctrine-venezuela-maduro). Here’s some of what they write.

“Trump, acting very much as a European king of old, attacked Venezuela as this edition of The Nation went to press. His move represents a brazen violation of international law that destabilizes global security and seizes Congress’s exclusive authority to declare war. Military force is justified only in response to a clear, credible, and imminent threat to 
the security of the US or its treaty allies. Venezuela, whatever its internal dysfunctions or its connections to drug trafficking, poses no such threat.”

They continue.

 “While Trump and his allies tried to justify naked aggression as part of a convoluted strategy to target ‘narco-terrorism,’ Representative Pat Ryan (D-NY), a former Army intelligence officer who served two combat tours during the Iraq War, declared, ‘No matter what they say, it’s always oil.’ Ryan was not alone in recognizing echoes of the WMD claims of former president George W. Bush, and how that blood-for-oil war went so horribly awry. In his first bid for the presidency, Trump positioned himself as something of an anti-war Republican. That was always a cynical gambit, and Trump is now exposed as an economic imperialist who learned nothing from Iraq and who is willing, as Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) noted, to embark on a career of empire that risks the lives of US troops to make ‘oil companies (not Americans) more profitable.’”

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The growth of reckless domestic law-less enforcement: ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Bill Chappell considers “How ICE grew to be the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5674887/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump). Here’s some of what he reports.

“Just 10 years ago, the annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was less than $6 billion — notably smaller than other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. But ICE’s budget has skyrocketed during President Trump’s second term, becoming the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, with $85 billion now at its disposal.

“The windfall is thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted last July. After hovering around the $10 billion mark for years, ICE’s budget suddenly benefited from a meteoric spike.

Chappell quotes Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy institute.

“With this new bill and other appropriations, it’s larger than the annual budget of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined….”

Chappel continues. “ICE is now the lead agency in President’s Trump immigration crackdown, sending thousands of agents into U.S. communities. As its funding and profile has grown as part of those efforts, ICE has come under increasing criticism for its officers’ actions, from masked agents randomly stopping, questioning, and detaining people and thrusting them into unmarked vehicles to the recent 

“Under the 2025 law, ICE has a $75 billion supplement that it can take as long as four years to spend, along with its base budget of around $10 billion. If the agency spends that money at a steady pace and current funding levels continue, it would have nearly $29 billion on hand each year. That essentially triples ICE’s total budget from recent years.

“To give that large number a sense of scale, consider that the Trump administration’s 2026 appropriations request for the entire Justice Department, including the FBI, stands at a little over $35 billion.

“The Trump administration has set lofty goals for ICE, aiming to deport 1 million people each year. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act also allocates $45 billion for ICE to expand its immigration detention system — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last June that the agency will be able to hold up to 100,000 people in custody daily. By comparison, the federal Bureau of Prisons currently holds over 153,000 inmates.

“As of Nov. 30, 65,735 people were held in immigration detention, according to the data tracking project Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

With those metrics in mind, ICE went on a hiring spree in 2025, fueled by its bigger budget. In just one year, the agency says, it ‘more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000.’ (The Office of Personnel Management, which tracks federal workforce statistics, is only updated through Nov. 30 and does not reflect any hiring made by the DHS in the last quarter of the year.)

“According to the DHS, ICE received 220,000 applications in 2025, thanks in part to a generous incentive package with perks like a signing bonus of up to $50,000, disbursed over the course of a five-year commitment, and up to $60,000 in student loan repayment.

“ICE is still on that hiring spree, looking to hire deportation officers in at least 25 cities around the U.S., according to a job listing on the USA Jobs website that will remain active through the end of September. The starting salary for an ICE deportation officer in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division, or ERO, ranges from $51,632 up to $84,277.”

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More Americans have come to oppose Trump’s ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement force

Joe Lancaster reports on  this and how support for abolishing ICE is surging (https://reason.com/2026/01/20/as-ice-cracks-down-support-for-abolishing-it-surges).

Lancaster writes, “Earlier this month, the death of Renee Good at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross brought overly aggressive federal law enforcement into public view. As a result, more Americans than ever now think we should get rid of it.”

He continues, “More Americans now support the abolishment of ICE, in a major change since July and in Donald Trump’s first presidency,” Forbes‘ Mike Stunson wrote last week, “as the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal officer has led to a wave of backlash against the agency.”

Stunson who “cited a January 2026 poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, which found that 46 percent of respondents support abolishing ICE, with 43 percent opposed. The same poll found 50 percent felt Good’s shooting was “not justified,” while only 30 percent said it was justified.

“A separate poll by Civiqs found 43 percent of respondents support ending ICE, with 49 percent opposed. Notably, though, this represents a dramatic shift since only a few months ago. In September 2024, only 19 percent supported, and 66 percent opposed, abolishing the agency.

“It was also the highest number in favor of abolition, and the lowest number against, since Civiqs began asking the question in July 2018, when the #AbolishICE movement began in earnest. (At that time, respondents favored keeping the agency intact by a 2–to–1 margin.)

‘And an Associated Press/NORC poll shows 61 percent of Americans now oppose Trump’s handling of immigration; as recently as March 2025, respondents were evenly split.

“The reason for the shift is clear: Americans are suddenly confronted with the reality of what ICE is doing, and they don’t like what they see.”

What do they see?

“Trump has deployed 3,000 federal officers and agents to Minneapolis this month, the largest operation in DHS history,” Nick Miroff wrote last week in The Atlantic. “Many of the ICE officers and Border Patrol agents are outfitted in tactical gear and wear body armor and masks, and they’re using the technological tools that the department acquired to protect the country’s borders: surveillance drones, facial-recognition apps, phone-cracking software. Powered by billions of dollars in new funding, they are making immigration arrests and grabbing protesters who try to stop them.”

Stunson continues.

“The results are plain to see: ICE officers assaulting U.S. citizens, smashing windows and dragging them from their cars, going door-to-door without a warrant or even reasonable suspicion. In October, ProPublica reported ICE had arrested at least 170 Americans—in many cases using considerable force—including some who were detained for multiple days without being allowed to contact their families or an attorney.”

Stunson adds, “Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology found that ICE has scanned the driver’s license photos of one in three American adults and could access the driver’s license data of three in four American adults.”

An alternative

“Leaving immigration restrictions more to the states would bring us closer to the Constitution’s original meaning,” agrees George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin. “We may not be able to fully restore the original meaning of the Constitution on this score. But abolishing ICE and shifting more law enforcement resources to state and local governments would bring us closer to it. It would also simultaneously curtail ICE abuses and reduce crime.”

“The U.S. went nearly its entire existence without ICE; it could do so again. And the more that Americans become familiar with the agency and see what it does, the more they seem to agree.”

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Jack Smith’s Testimony on Trump’s Indictments

Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer report on Jack Smith’s defense of his Trump indictments during House Hearing (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/jack-smith-trump-testimoney-congress.html).

“Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who twice indicted Donald J. Trump, defended his investigation in a tense and long-awaited appearance before a House committee on Thursday — flatly accusing Mr. Trump of causing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”

Smith said, “No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account,” Mr. Smith said in his opening remarks. “So that is what I did.”

“The hearing posed significant risks to Mr. Smith, who has said he believes Mr. Trump and his appointees will seize on the smallest misstep to investigate, prosecute and humiliate him. House Republicans had made it clear that they would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department if his testimony revealed serious inconsistencies or misstatements.”

“‘Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,’ Mr. Smith said, sitting alone at the witness table with a water bottle, legal pad and white ballpoint pen.”

Jack Smith told the committee that he believed his investigations had gathered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would have led to President Donald Trump’s convictions on charges of mishandling classified documents and seeking to unlawfully overturn his 2020 election loss, if he had not won last year’s presidential election. 

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Concluding thoughts

I have written enough, though it is hardly all that could be written. The central point is that we are stuck with a president who looks at America and the World as something he can manipulate and, in the process, does great harm. And there are signs he is mentally unstable.

There is hope.

Democrats are doing well in recent state elections. People are demonstrating against his anti-immigrant, anti-democratic deployment of ICE forces. Trump’s poll ratings are down. Many countries are resisting his threats on tariffs and military interventions. Then, not the focus here, there are the yet to be released Epstein files.

The consequences of authoritarian power

Bob Sheak, January 12, 2026

Arlene Sheak edited

An unnecessary and tragic shooting

Renee Nicole Goodman was shot to death on Thursday, Jan. 8

by an ICE official. “ICE” stands for “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

This United States agency was created, so the government’s account says, to enforce immigration law across the country and protect public safety at the nation’s borders and within them. They are not called officials; they are “federal law enforcement officers” under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Soon after this hideous event, Christi Noam, Secretary of the Department of

of Homeland Security, President Trump, and Vice-President J.D. Vance,  

all described Renee as “a domestic terrorist” who had, they erroneously said, tried to run over one of the ICE law enforcers who then shot her in self-defense. The evidence is abundantly clear that their account is designed to protect ICE rather than to advance accountability and justice. It is simply wrong and cruel.

Here is some of what these immoral government dimwits have said.

Noam

“On Wednesday, Noem said any loss of life is a “tragedy” but alleged that this incident was “preventable” (Noem defends ICE officer who shot woman in Minneapolis as having “followed his training” – CBS News).

“ICE officers and agents approached the vehicle of the individual in question, who was blocking the officers in with her vehicle,” Noem said Wednesday night. “And she had been stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day [not true]. ICE agents repeatedly ordered her to get out of the car and to stop obstructing law enforcement [no obstruction by her], but she refused to obey their commands. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle and she attempted to run a law enforcement officer over “

Trump

“President Donald Trump has doubled down on his response to the fatal shooting of a protester by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, but admitted that he did not like to see such tragedies unfolding in U.S. cities” (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-political/trump-ice-shotting-minneapolis-renee-good-b2896922.html). But he is ultimately responsible for these tragedies and his comments about it are ridiculous.

“After Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, was shot dead behind the wheel of her car on a residential street following a confrontation with federal immigration officers, the president took to social media to blame the victim.

“Trump wrote that he had reviewed footage of the incident and concluded: ‘The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.’

“He went on to express sympathy for the agent involved, commenting: ‘It is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.’

“That claim was subsequently contradicted by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who told CNN that he understood the victim was the only person hurt in the encounter.”

J.D. Vance

“Vice President JD Vance blamed Renee Nicole Good for her own death during a press briefing one day after the 37-year-old mother was shot and killed by the ICE agent.” (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jd-vance-blames-renee-nicle-22442628.html).

“Vance, 41, described the circumstances of Good’s death as ‘an attack on federal law enforcement’ as well as ‘the American people’ while speaking to reporters from the White House on Thursday, Jan. 8.

“The vice president, who raised his voice at times while speaking, passionately defended the ICE agent — who has since been identified as Jonathan Ross — while characterizing Good as a radical activist.

“Vance alleged Good was ‘part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job,’ before accusing her of ‘trying to ram this guy with her car,’ referring to Ross.”

“Everybody who has been repeating the lie that this was some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves, every single one of you.”

The shame is his.

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A very different response from the Minneapolis mayor

Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis walked to a lectern Wednesday and delivered a blunt retort, saying that Trump’s officials’ account of what happened was “bullshit,” according to a report by Yasmeen Abutaleb for the

Washington Post  (After ICE shooting, Minneapolis mayor emerges with blunt rebuke of Trump).

“To ICE, get the f— out of Minneapolis,” Frey added later in his news conference. “We do not want you here”

“Frey, who recounted his experience in an interview with The Washington Post, has emerged as a singular figure in the aftermath of Renée Good’s death. For days, he has aggressively countered the Trump administration’s portrayal of the shooting, becoming one of the most prominent critics of the way the president and his team have depicted the situation.

“While President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended the officer and promised sweeping protections for federal agents, Frey has argued that available footage shows Good was not a threat and that the officer acted recklessly. He penned a New York Times op-ed with the headline stating, ‘Trump Is Lying to You’ and lambasted the FBI for seizing control of the post-shooting investigation, cutting out local officials. ‘This is not a time to hide from the facts,’ he said Friday.”

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ICE Is a Domestic Terror Threat

Jordan Liz discusses the issue in more general terms for Common Dreams, Jan 8, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/ice-domestic-terrorism).

The Trump administration false claims.

On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Immediately, the Trump administration sprang into action to propagandize the incident. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the woman “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed, “It was an act of domestic terrorism.”

President Donald Trump posted via Truth Social:

“…The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!”

Jordan Liz writes:

“Even after shooting Good, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was at the scene to provide aid. When an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, they were blocked by ICE vehicles. They harassed her, shot her, and if there was even the faintest possibility that she might have lived, they took that away from her too.”

What really happened.

Liz continues: “There is ample video evidence showing that Good was driving away slowly. None of the agents—who, to be clear, had no right to harass or intimidate her in the first place—were even remotely in danger. They simply shot her because they knew they could. They shot her because the Trump administration has specifically and purposely empowered law enforcement to act without impunity or care.”

The actions of fascists

“What’s particularly alarming here,” Liz writes, “is how, despite the abundance of video evidence and eye-witness testimonies, the Trump administration insists on lying. This is literal fascism. To quote George Orwell’s famous 1984, ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’”

Conservative commentators echo Trump

“And it’s not just the Trump administration. Conservative commentators are also amplifying this obvious falsehood. Megyn Kelly lies, ‘This cop almost got run over by this woman, who accelerated into him.’ Matt Walsh blames the ‘protestor’ and the ‘Democrats who’ve been fomenting chaos and violence against ICE for months.’ Elon Musk, whose Twitter-X is the social media propaganda wing of the Trump administration, backs the ICE agent: ‘Attempting to murder them with a car requires self-defense.’”

Trump and his allies are anti-democratic

Liz continues. “The Trump administration has given up any pretext of being a democracy bound to the Constitution. They demonstrated this when they kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and imposed colonial rule on Venezuela. And they demonstrated it Wednesday domestically against its own citizens. They will lie at every moment.”

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American citizens have rallied around the country to protest Renee Good’s murder

Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports on the protests for NPR (https://www.npr.com/2026/01/10/nx-s1-5673229/ice-protests-minneapolis-portland-renee-good). Consider some of what he writes.

“People took to the streets in cities across the country this weekend to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer last week.

“At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls ‘ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action.’

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to ‘grieve, honor those we’ve lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long.’”

“Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted ‘ICE out now!

 during protests across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protesters, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

“The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a “noise protest” in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

“People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O’Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned acts of violence but praised what he said were the “vast majority” of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.”

“In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators ‘were cooperative and peaceful’ at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. No arrests were made.

“Activists participate in a protest prior to a march to the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

“Protests also continued Sunday, including in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

“Crowds gathered across the metro Atlanta area, including on the 17th Street bridge, where demonstrators held signs that read ‘Stop ICE Terror Now’ and ‘ICE out 4 good,’ according to local media reports.

“In Washington, D.C., a day after protesters gathered in front of the White House on Saturday, demonstrators marched to ICE headquarters on Sunday. There were no arrests during the protests, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told NPR on Sunday.

“A large crowd of demonstrators also marched in New York City on Sunday, according to PIX11.”

There were also demonstrations in Columbus, Ohio.

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Prosecute the ICE killer!

Elie Mystal writes in an article published on Jan 8, 2026 that Nicole Good’s murderer should be prosecuted (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/prosecute-renee-good-murderer). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Trump administration has murdered another person. On Wednesday, ICE agents killed a woman, identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was not engaged in any illegal activity.”

“Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey immediately called DHS’s justifications for murder ‘bullshit.’ Again, there is video of the incident, and that video shows that, as usual, DHS and the Trump administration are lying. It shows a nonviolent encounter that turns deadly when an ICE agent unloads his gun into a car at an unarmed woman.”

There are state laws in Minnesota that are meant to prevent the murder of nonviolent people. These state laws also apply to federal agents. Mystal clarifies his point: Bottom of Form’Criminal immunity extends only to agents who are performing their federal duties. Despite the way ICE tends to operate, murdering unarmed civilians is not part of the official duties of ICE agents.’ However, the case for murder may well end up in a ‘lengthy immunity fight in this case and will probably last years and end up in the Supreme Court, where six Republicans stand at the read to lick Trump’s boots and grant him whatever illegal thing he is asking for.’”

———-

ICE in context

Chris Iorfida considers ICE historically and poses the question, “What is ICE and how has it changed during Trump’s 2nd term? | CBC News.” His basic point is that over the years, “ICE agents have reportedly been involved in dozens of shooting incidents. The article was posted on Jan. 8, 2026.

ICE expansion over 20 years

“ICE came into being after the Homeland Security Act was enacted in 2002, as the United States sought to grapple with the consequences of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.”

“Responsibilities and functions previously carried out by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) workforce under the aegis of the Department of Labour were reconsidered, and ICE was established in 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, focusing on the removal of unauthorized persons in the U.S. and stamping out cross-border trafficking of migrants.”

“Both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations have utilized ICE — Barack Obama was dubbed by some critics ‘the deporter-in-chief.’ But from the very first moments of launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has focused on illegal immigration in an unprecedented way.”

Iorfida continues. “In his first administration, Trump sought through executive orders and his own pulpit to pressure some local and state law enforcement agencies who over the years began to limit their co-operation with ICE in some circumstances.

Trump has ignored any such local and state pressure.

Since capping his political comeback last year, Trump and some of his closest advisers — including Stephen Miller — have expressed a desire for one million deportations a year.

“The first-year Trump budget allocated more than $170 billion US over four years for border and interior enforcement, with $75 billion going to ICE for further arrests of immigrants, including the building of more detention facilities. In an analysis critical of the administration, the liberal Brennan Center for Justice said the ICE budget for 2025, at almost $29 billion, was nearly triple the amount of the previous year’s budget.”

ICE tactics and arrests

Iorfida continues.

“U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is supposed to be targeting criminal illegal immigrants, but more American citizens and legal immigrants are being rounded up. For The National, CBC’s Terence McKenna talks to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents and asks: Is America becoming a police state?

“Mike Fox, a legal fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington,” Iorfida writes, “criticized that approach in September in an interview with CBC News.

“‘The [deportation] numbers are going to be a lot lower if you’re actually focusing on the violent people that you should be focusing on,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot easier to just stand outside a Home Depot and round people up.’”

Many people rounded up by ICE have no criminal record

“Cato has been among a number of think-tanks and civil rights groups to point out that the statistics provided by the federal government have shown that significant numbers of people detained by ICE have not incurred a criminal record since entering the U.S.”

Shootings, but not indictments

“Good’s killing was the second fatal shooting by an ICE officer in four months.”

“ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old cook from Mexico, during a traffic stop in suburban Chicago on Sept. 12. The FBI and DHS have yet to release any information concerning previously announced inquiries into the shooting.”

“ICE-involved shootings before this year were rare but not unprecedented, according to The Trace, an outlet devoted to gun-related news. What is unheard of are prosecutions.

“…between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers occurred across 26 U.S. states, leading to 23 fatalities.” There were no indictments of ICE agents.

———-

It is not at all surprising that Trump and his administration flout the law.

Journalist at the New York Times interviewed Trump and find this to be true.

Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality’

David E. Sanger,Tyler Pager,Katie Rogers and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

(https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html). These reporters were able to interview Trump in the Oval Office.

Here is some of what Trump said on whether domestic law restrains or guides his behavior as president.

He did acknowledge in the interview some constraints at home, “even as he has pursued a maximalist strategy of punishing institutions he dislikes, exacting retribution against political opponents and deploying the National Guard to cities over the objections of state and local officials.”

Trump suggested

“that judges only have power to restrict his domestic policy agenda — from the deployment of the National Guard to the imposition of tariffs —

under certain circumstances.’

“But he was already considering workarounds. He raised the possibility that if his tariffs issued under emergency authorities were struck down by the Supreme Court, he could repackage them as licensing fees. And Mr. Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some National Guard units if he felt it was important to do so.”

———-

A final note: He and his family are profiting from his presidential power as chaos, fear, and anger soar across the country

David Kirkpatrick, interviewed on Democracy Now, discusses how New Yorker Mag “Reveals Trump Family’s Frenzy to Cash in on the White House”

(https://democracynow.org/2025/8/20/trump_profit). The money flows to Trump and his family through numerous sources. Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now, offers this summary of Kirkpatrick’s research.

 “Many payments now flowing to Trump, his wife, and his children and their spouses would be unimaginable without his Presidencies: a two-billion-dollar investment from a fund controlled by the Saudi crown prince; a luxury jet from the Emir of Qatar; profits from at least five different ventures peddling crypto; fees from an exclusive club stocked with Cabinet officials and named Executive Branch.”

Here are excerpts from what Kirkpatrick said in the interview.

  • 20 million dollars over the last few years selling campaign merchandise through the Trump Organization’s online story (e.g., baseball hats, flip-flops)
  • $550 million through selling NFTs, or non-fungible crypto tokens, 75% of which flows to the Trump organization
  • Selling stablecoins, providing a way to transfer money here and there digitally. Trump’s sons set up a company to deal in these coins called World Liberty Financial. They are invested in Treasuries. The United Arab Emirates put up $2 billion to buy stablecoins.
  • Profiting from the rising stock price in their online company, Truth Social.
  • The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who controls the public investment fund, invested $2 billion with Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.
  • Kushner has “accumulated as much as $4.8 billion in assets under management….quite a bit of it also from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.”

Kirkpatrick adds, 

“Now, again, in my accounting, I’m not including deals which appear to be extensions of the business they were in before he was elected. You know, he had licensed his name for use on four condominium buildings around India before he ever went into the White House. Now there are five more Indian projects. Fine, let’s leave that aside.”

———-

Concluding thoughts

Trump and his administration are essentially anti-democratic and cruel. This is reflected in the abuses of ICE as it enforces Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. It is dramatically and tragically reflected in the murder to Renee Good, which has sparked outrage and protests against Trump and ICE across the country. And it is sadly reflected in how Trump is dismissive toward the law and how his family profit amidst it all. We hope that such abuse of power will culminate in voters holding the administration and its Republican toadies accountable in upcoming elections.

What the President gave us in 2025.

Bob Sheak, Dec 22, 2025

Arlene Sheak, edits

Let me underscore a few of the sad effects of Trump and his policies in 2025.

1 – A decline in employment opportunities

“…the U.S. economy added just 64,000 jobs in November, the weakest monthly gain in more than four years and a clear sign that hiring is slowing” (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bad-jobs-data-delivers-another-hit-to-trump-s-economy-story/arAA1SGFYt?ocid=BingNewsSerp).  This includes: “softer hiring trends and renewed strain in the manufacturing industry that had been central to Trump’s promises to blue collar communities. Those warning signs, detailed in a Dec labor analysis, suggest that November’s disappointment is not a one-off blip but part of a pattern that is increasingly hard for the White House to spin away.”

2 – The affordability problem

“Findings in a poll released Dec. 11 from the progressive think tank the Century Foundation, shared exclusively with USA TODAY, show rising costs are taking a heavy toll on the American family, with the working class bearing the brunt of what the group calls an “affordability crisis” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/87623654007).

“Nearly 3 in 10 of voters polled said they held off getting medical care over the past year because of costs. One-third said they have skipped a meal. Two-thirds of respondents said they are buying cheaper groceries or buying less food, while half said they dipped into savings to cover basic expenses.”

3 – ICE – a government-supported harassment of immigrants

“Neither Jose nor Josue [referred to in this article] have been convicted of a crime. The same is true of 73 percent of the more than 65,000 immigrants in ICE detention as of November, a record number of detainees [kidnapped people]. Nearly half of all immigrants in ICE detention have neither a criminal conviction nor pending criminal charges. Of the immigrants with criminal convictions, 5 percent have been convicted of violent crime such as murder or rape, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank” (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/12/19/how-ice-deports-refugees-and-migrants-despite-years-of-good-conduct).

4 – A self-glorifying, narcissistic president – Peter Baker reports the following (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html).

“ He no longer holds back, or is held back, as in the first term. Trump 2.0 is Trump 1.0 unleashed. The gold trim in the Oval Office, the demolition of the East Wing to be replaced by a massive ballroom, the plastering of his name and face on government buildings and now even the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the designation of his own birthday as a free-admission holiday at national parks — it all speaks to a personal aggrandizement and accumulation of power with meager resistance from Congress or the Supreme Court.”

5 – His cruelty –

Henry Giroux writes here (https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-response-to-reiners-death-shows-the-cruelty-at-the-core-of-his-politics). On Trump’s cruelty.

“The endpoint of such brutalizing rhetoric is the colonization of consciousness, the normalization of state terror, and the steady march toward targeted persecution.

“After the September shooting of conservative commentator and close Trump ally Charlie Kirk, MAGA figures were relentless in condemning what they called ‘political and celebratory responses,’ weaponizing the tragedy to demand greater restrictions on free speech and to justify punishing liberal and progressive groups Trump despised. In this context, outrage was not about decency or respect for the dead, but about exploiting grief to expand authoritarian power.”

6 – The big lie – i.e., he won the 2020 presidential election

“Donald Trump is the only US president to deny electoral defeat, claiming that his loss in the 2020 presidential election was due to widespread fraud. We contend that belief in this “big lie” is deeply intertwined with devotion to Trump. That is, those who were already deeply aligned with Trump were not only more inclined to accept the big lie; its acceptance fostered ever deeper alignment with the former president. This alignment fueled other pro-Trump attitudes, related to both Trump’s felony indictments and his policy goals should he be reelected in 2024. These phenomena illustrate how the fusion of personal identity to a political leader can lead to acceptance of a single piece of misinformation that itself can serve as a base upon which other misinformation may propagate and insulate the original fiction against falsification. We begin by putting these phenomena into historical context.” This quote is from an article by Philip Money and William B. Swan, reported on Cambridge website, Jan 1, 2025.

7 – Trying to avoid his Epstein involvement

(https://the hill.com/opinion/white-house-5658590-epstein-scandal-bondi-trump-impeachment)

William S. Becker writes:

“Since the federal government got involved in the Epstein scandal in 2019, the case has been shrouded in mysterious leniency, cover-up and stonewalling. Now, with many of Epstein’s victims, the American people, and a virtually unanimous Congress calling for transparency, the scandal has become a confrontation that should end Attorney General Pam Bondi’s career — and Donald Trump’s presidency. 

“Why Bondi? Because the nation’s highest law-enforcement official has violated the law with her willful contempt of Congress. It’s not just any law. Congress passed it 527-1, requiring the Justice Department to release all its files on the Epstein case by midnight last Friday. Eighty percent of American adults support it. So do many of the victims of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking operation.” 

8. President is losing his grip on Republicans

“According to NBC News polling, the proportion of self-identified Republicans who align primarily with MAGA movement has plummeted by seven percentage points since April 2025 (https://www.newsweek.com/polls-show-donald-trump-losing-base-republican-party-maga-11248366).

“In the most recent survey conducted between November 20 and December 8, only 50 percent of Republicans said they identified more with MAGA, compared to 57 percent earlier in the year.” 

9 – Surrounding himself with incompetent sycophants

Ross Rosenfeld reports on this (https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-circus-of-sycophants-opinion-2062218).

“And who in his inner circle is willing to go against the president, point out the lunacy of many of these plans, and make counterarguments? No one, of course—and few outside of it either. Because there is an atmosphere of fear. ‘We are all afraid, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said to her constituents last week.

10 – A convicted felon

“Yes — based on the reporting provided, Donald Trump remains a convicted felon: a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of first‑degree falsifying business records on May 30, 2024, and he was sentenced on January 10, 2025; the sentence was an unconditional discharge that imposed no jail time or fine, but it did not erase the conviction itself” (https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/is-donald-trump-a-felon-current-status-2025-46d6d8). 

11 – A law-breaker

He has been impeached twice, indicted four times, convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual abuse and found liable for business fraud.

–Alexander Mallin also addresses the issue, ABC News, Dec 17,2025

(https://abcnews.go.com/US/jack-smith-testifies-house-judiciary-committee-trump-probes/story?id=128493801).

“Former special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers Wednesday he believed his investigations had gathered proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would have led to President Donald Trump’s convictions on charges of mishandling classified documents and seeking to unlawfully overturn his 2020 election loss, if he had not won last year’s presidential election. 

“Smith’s testimony came during a closed-door hearing in front of the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee as part of the panel’s probe into Smith’s investigations.

Smith told the committee that his actions were “based on what the facts and the law required.”

“‘If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the President was a Republican or Democrat,’ Smith said, according to his prepared remarks.”

“Smith charged Trump with undertaking a ‘criminal scheme’ to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power, and with mishandling classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.

“‘The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,’ Smith said in his prepared remarks.’”

12 – He hates his enemies

Here’s some of what Tyler Pager reports (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us-political/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html).

“As tens of thousands of people mourned the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, President Trump made a seemingly unscripted remark that summed up the retribution campaign that has come to define his second term.

“‘I hate my opponent,’ Mr. Trump told the crowd at the memorial in Arizona, ‘and I don’t want the best for them.’”

“Mr. Trump has used the full might of his political and executive power to express that mind-set in myriad ways, sparing no facet of American life. He has attacked law firms, universities, political leaders, government agencies, late-night TV hosts, news organizations and cultural institutions, and Mr. Kirk’s killing has only accelerated that campaign. Mr. Trump and his top advisers have signaled a broad crackdown on liberal groups, making the baseless argument that they are part of a violent conspiracy.

13 – Trump rejects science

Jeff Tollefson writes: “In just the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency, his administration embarked on making radical changes to US science (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04051-y). He continues.

“Officials appointed by the new president started firing thousands of researchers and other government employees. At the same time, it cut billions of dollars of US support for global-health programmes, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It arrested some scholars from outside the United States as it stepped up efforts to restrict entry into the country and limit political speech. Over the next few months, the US government took steps to exert unprecedented control over universities by withholding federal research funding. The administration cancelled tens of billions of dollars in research grants to universities to force the adoption of policies on hiring and admissions, policing of campuses, curricula and other factors.”

14 – RFK, Jr.

Madeline Halpert writes the following for BBC ((https://www.bbc.com.news/articles/dcvgv1ggrzzjo).

“More than 750 current and former employees of the US health department have published a letter rebuking Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, saying his ‘dangerous and deceitful statements’ contributed to recent violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters”)

“Officials say the man who fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC this month, killing a police officer, had expressed distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine.

“In their letter, the staff said the attack came as ‘politicized rhetoric

 drives mistrust in institutions.

“They also said Kennedy had put Americans’ health in danger and hurt the country’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.

“‘Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,’ they wrote in a letter addressed to both Congress and Kennedy and published on a site called Save HHS.

“The signatories were affiliated with the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services.”

15 – Trump seems drawn to autocrats –

Peter Baker reports on this  (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/us/politics/trump-imperial-presidency.html).

“When President Trump hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last month, he pulled out all the stops. To the traditional pomp of a formal White House visit, he added a few even fancier touches: a stirring military flyover, a procession of black horses and long, regal tables for the lavish dinner in the East Room instead of the typical round tables.”

16 – Enriching himself and his family – Baker: “The lack of checks on Mr. Trump has given him latitude that his predecessors did not enjoy, not just in policymaking but also in profit-making. While other presidential families have cashed in on the White House, none has been as successful or brazen as Mr. Trump and his clan. In the 11 months since he reclaimed the White House, the president’s family has made billions of dollars, at least on paper, through business deals around the world and cryptocurrency investments from people with a vested interest in American policy.”

Concluding thoughts

With luck, good evidence, effective organizing, electoral participation, and determined politicians, we may be able to tell a story of how Trump’s self-serving and anti-democratic policies were overcome in 2026.

Republicans put the interests of the rich over the majority. They disregard the healthcare system in crsis

Bob Sheak

Reasons for and effects of the government shutdown

The country is in shutdown because the Democratic Party wants to ensure that the Affordable Care tax credits are extended, while Trump and the Republicans refuse to discuss the issue until the government is opened. However, whenever it comes to a vote, the Republicans are expected to reject the Democratic proposal.  

Selena Simmons-Duffin writes for NPR that the tax credits make “ACA [Affordable Care Act] health care premiums affordable for many Americans” (https://npr.org/1025/10/12/nx-s1-5570849/shutdown-aca-health-care-tax-credits}.

She explains. “The tax credits that make ACA health care premiums affordable for many Americans don’t expire until December, as Republican lawmakers note. But Democratic lawmakers want to see them extended before enrollment begins Nov. 1, and they have made that a condition of voting to reopen the government.” The Democrats fear that Trump and the Republicans will not extend the tax credits, which otherwise continue into 2026.  

“It’s not just a battle over political messaging,” Simmons-Duffin writes. “These are real health insurance marketplaces where real people — 24 million of them — buy coverage. The amount the federal government picks up for their monthly premiums makes a big difference.” She identifies “5 things to know about the healthcare fight behind the shutdown.” (1) She refers to polls indicating that a majority of respondents favor extending the tax credits. (2) The issue is urgent since open enrollment starts Nov. 1. (3) Premiums are set to shoot up next year.

(4) “When researchers at KFF analyzed 2026 insurance filings, they found that premiums will double for many consumers next year. ‘On average, we’re expecting premium payments by enrollees to increase by 114% if these enhanced tax credits expire,’ says Cynthia Cox, director of the Program on the ACA at KFF.

Sky-high premiums might drive people to risk it and go uninsured, she says. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 4 million people will become uninsured in the next few years if the enhanced tax credits expire.”

(5) “The subsidies are expensive for the government. The subsidies that kept costs down for consumers cost the federal government a lot of money. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would cost the government $350 billion over the next decade if the enhanced subsidies were extended permanently.”

Simmons-Duffin adds: “Conservative groups that have always opposed the Affordable Care Act are against the enhanced subsidies. A coalition of groups recently argued in a letter to the president that the enhanced tax credits were meant to be temporary during the COVID-19 pandemic and that extending them will exacerbate rising health care costs.” They dismiss the harm that will cause so many people to be priced out of the healthcare market.

One of the principal arguments invoked by the Republicans is that the national debt of some 37 trillion dollars makes it irrational to add more to that debt. The truth is that Republican President and Congress are principal actors in raising this debt. Their tax cuts for the rich are so much greater than the tax-credit issue now at stake makes their argument ridiculous. Consider the following evidence reported on April 10, 2025 (https://budget.senate.gov/ranking-members-newsroom/press/news-cbo-analysis-shows-republican-tax-giveaways-add-52-trillion-to-national-debt-over-30-years).

“At the request of U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new projection showing that the tax giveaways in the Senate Republicans’ budget proposal will add $52 trillion to the national debt over the next 30 years. The previous projection for the cost of extending the Trump tax law and the Republican leadership’s attempt to use a budget gimmick, known as “current policy baseline,” was $37 trillion over the 2024-2054 period.

This new projection follows recently released data from the Joint Committee on Taxation showing a new estimate that the Republican plan to extend the 2017 Trump tax law will cost $5.5 trillion including interest over the next decade. The budget resolution Senate Republicans passed last week allocates an additional $1.5 trillion for tax giveaways. This brings the total potential 10-year cost of the Republican tax plan, which will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and corporations, to more than $7 trillion. 

“It has taken over 249 years, since the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, for the U.S. to accumulate nearly $37 trillion in debt – and today the Republicans want to use a budget gimmick to add an astronomical $52 trillion to our debt with one bill with one intention: to fund massive tax giveaways for billionaires,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee. “For 30 years, Republicans have been changing the rules to give tax cuts to the wealthy – and families have been stuck paying the bill. Republicans who claim to care about fiscal responsibility should be outraged and doing everything they can to stop it. This is the Great Betrayal of working families across the country.”

———-

The current Republican agenda is far-reaching

The current political fight reflects a broader goal of the Trump administration, namely, to diminish the size and power of the federal government generally and to create a presidency with extraordinary power, that of a “king.” Coral Davenport and her colleagues provide a detailed and insightful analysis of this anti-democratic vision (https://nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russel-vought-trump-budget.html). She highlights the role of Russel Vought, the White House budget director, in this project. Vought is a central figure in Trump’s administration when it comes to budget issues. Here is just a little of what Davenport writes.

“Now Mr. Vought, 49, is leveraging the shutdown of the federal government to further advance his goals of slashing agencies and purging employees. In a series of social media posts on Thursday, Mr. Vought said the administration had delayed or halted about $8 billion in what he called “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda,” a move that affects projects in 16 states, most of which are led by Democrats. He also paused about $18 billion in approved infrastructure funding for two major transportation projects primarily in New York City, whose state delegation includes Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader.

Just before the shutdown, Mr. Vought’s office had told agencies to prepare for mass firings unless Congress could strike a deal to keep the government open.”

———-

 US Healthcare System Is in Crisis

James K. Elsey, MD, FACS analyzes how the US health care system as a whole is in crisis (https://facs.org-articles/bulletin/2025/february-2025-volume-110-issue-2/us-healthcare-system-is-in-crisis). The article was published on Feb. 5 of this year. Dr. James Elsey is a professor of surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and Past Vice-Chair of the ACS [Affordable Care Act] Board of Regents.

Bear in mind, Trump, Vought, and the Republicans want to cut overall government healthcare spending, along with other government programs they don’t like.  

Here is some of what Elsey writes.

“During my 44 years of active surgical practice, I have witnessed numerous, significant, and onerous progressive changes that threaten the quality, safety, accessibility, and affordability of medical care in this country. Sadly, it has evolved into a highly corporatized system controlled by a decreasing number of increasingly powerful conglomerates where profit is often the main metric of performance and success. The stark realities of this dark devolution create daily difficulties for patients trapped in this harsh and inequitable system.”

His patients are commonly more concerned about the costs of a procedure. They ask: “How can I pay for this? Will I lose my house or my job? How fast can I get back to work?,” followed, all too frequently, by comments like: “There is no way I can afford this. I don’t have access to that level of deductible. This will bankrupt me.” And, periodically, they would come to this decision: “I just can’t proceed, doctor. This will put my family in the street. I’ll just tough it out and take my chances.”

Elsey continues. “There is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with this increasingly common situation where the accessibility of healthcare, which I believe should be a basic human right, is determined by one’s financial station in life. For this to be occurring in the most affluent country in the world is not just wrong, but in my opinion, abjectly amoral.”

“This system leaves too many people out resulting in 26 million uninsured and 43 million underinsured.3 In fact, recent World Health Organization metrics suggest that the US does an incredibly poor job with healthcare delivery, with the US ranked 37th overall to comparable Western country metrics and last among the 11 highest-income countries.4 These rankings are not surprising when you consider the fact that the US healthcare delivery system consumes 17% of our current gross domestic product and is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy accounting for 66.5% of total US individual monetary defaults.5,6

Placing Profits over Patient Care

“The US healthcare system handicaps business competitiveness with a crippling 160% increase in employer healthcare costs in the last 20 years, which averages about $14,000 per employee.” Elsey writes.7 “This system also causes downward pressure on employee wages resulting in a 8.9% inflation adjusted decrease in employee household income.8 In addition, it requires many Americans and their families to line up in fields for humanitarian healthcare events mirroring the activities of many third-world countries as well as requiring increasing numbers of citizens to use the ER as their default medical care.

“This default is fragmented, costly, inefficient, and a generally poor method of providing care with a total lack of continuity. This healthcare model also drives significant racial disparities in the availability and quality of care, and in the outcomes for these patient populations.

“Currently the US, compared to similar Western countries [all of which have some form of universal healthcare] has the lowest life expectancy at birth, highest reported maternal and infant mortality, highest hospitalization rate from preventable causes, highest death rate for avoidable and treatable conditions, highest suicide rate, and highest chronic disease burden rate in the world.9

“Our system lacks an emphasis on primary and preventive care. We strain under a dysfunctional payment system. It is plagued by a costly and onerous liability industry, and it has fallen prey to the detrimental policies of the medical industrial complex and corporatized care.”

———-

Concluding Thoughts

The Trump-Republican justification for not negotiating on an end to the shutdown reflects a dubious view of the causes. Rather than suggesting that their phony concern with the nation’s fiscal issues is what drives them, the evidence indicates they want what right-wing politicians have always wanted, less government spending on healthcare and other programs for Americans, expansive deregulation, and any other policy to improve profits for big corporations and the rich.  

A hateful president

Bob Sheak, Oct. 3, 2025

This article provides five examples that illustrate this hatefulness.

#1 – The Central Park Five

Here are extracts from Wikipedia’s account (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case)/

The Central Park jogger case (sometimes termed the Central Park Five case) was a criminal case concerning the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a woman who was running in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989.[1][2] Crime in New York City was peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the crack epidemic surged.[3][4] On the night Meili was attacked, dozens of teenagers had entered the park, and there were reports of muggings and physical assaults.[2]

Six teenagers were indicted in relation to the Meili assault. Charges against one, Steven Lopez, were dropped after Lopez pleaded guilty to a different assault. The remaining five—Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise (known as the Central Park Five, later the Exonerated Five)—were convicted of the charged offenses and served sentences ranging from seven to thirteen years.[5]

More than a decade after the attack, while incarcerated for attacking five other women in 1989, serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the Meili assault and said he was the only actor; DNA evidence confirmed his involvement.[6] The convictions against McCray, Richardson, Salaam, Santana, and Wise were vacated in 2002; Lopez’s convictions were vacated in July 2022.”

Donald Trump took out ads in major newspapers for $85,000, urging that the boys suffer the death penalty. Even after they were exonerated, Trump did not publicly admit his mistake.

Tyler Page reports on the case (http://nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html).

“After five teenagers were accused of assaulting and raping a young female jogger in New York City in 1989, Mr. Trump called for New York State to bring back the death penalty and told reporters, ‘I want society to hate them,’ according to a book on the president by Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter. (The men were later exonerated.)”

#2 – Trump vows retribution against his opponents (e.g. Democrats and critics).

During the campaign for a second presidential term, Trump told his supporters that HE is their retribution, as reported on July 25, 2025, by Jacob Knutson (https://democracydocket.com/analysis/trump-administration-weaponization-government-targeting-political-opponents).

“At a political conference in Maryland two years ago, Trump told hundreds of his supporters that he would be a tool of vengeance should they return him to the White House.

“‘I am your retribution,’ Trump said before repeating it again for emphasis.

Trump’s now returned to the White House, and he is fulfilling his promise. 

From the Department of Justices to the most peripheral federal agencies, Trump and his political appointees are weaponizing the bureaucracy to go after hundreds of the president’s political opponents and public officials who attempt to hold him accountable.

“To carry out this effort, Trump has obliterated the longstanding firewall protecting the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies from being used for political ends.

“The use by Trump of the massive resources of federal law enforcement against his political opponents threatens fair elections and aims to intimidate public officials out of using their positions to hold Trump accountable. As such, it represents perhaps his most chilling move yet to undermine democracy.”

#3 – Trump’s remarks at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service

Tyler Pager reports on some of what Trump said at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service  (http://nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/trump-kirk-memorial-hate.html. Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

“As tens of thousands of people mourned the conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Sunday, President Trump made a seemingly unscripted remark that summed up the retribution campaign that has come to define his second term.”

“‘I hate my opponent,’ Mr. Trump told the crowd at the memorial in Arizona, ‘and I don’t want the best for them.’”

“He spoke just minutes after Mr. Kirk’s widow, Erika, said she forgave her husband’s killer. Here is what she said.

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love.”

Pager continues. “‘At a time where the nation desperately needs to be bringing down the temperature, you’re saying he authentically doesn’t want to bring it down, or you’re saying that he authentically hates half of America,’ said Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary in the first term until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. ‘It just goes to show that’s what his mantra has always been. It’s just all about division and feeling like a victim and wanting to hate his opponents and get retribution.’”

#4 – Trump posts tawdry videos of Democratic Leaders Schumer and Jeffries after he met with them and ahead of the government shutdown

Kit Maher reports on this for CNN (https://cnn.com/2025/09/29/politics/trump-ai-generated-video-schumer-jeffries-shutdown). Here is some of what Maher writes.

“As the US government barrels toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump shared a racist video on social media, which appears to be AI-generated, depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.

“Jeffries and Schumer met with Trump just hours before at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.

“In the video, Schumer is depicted as arguing for undocumented immigrants to get ‘free healthcare’ because minority voters hate Democrats and they could use the votes in the next election.

“As mariachi music plays in the background of the video, the fake Schumer voice says, ‘There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.’

“The fake voice goes on to echo false GOP claims about Democratic policies and slam liberal leaders as ‘woke.’”

“The video was posted on Trump’s X account as well his official Truth Social account.”

Responses

“Shortly after Trump posted the video, Jeffries wrote on X, ‘Bigotry will get you nowhere. Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down.’”

“Schumer followed moments later, commenting on X, ‘If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.’”

“‘More than 20 million Americans are on the brink of experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits which benefit working class Americans,’ Jeffries said. ‘Working-class Americans, their health care, that’s what we’re fighting to preserve, to defend and to strengthen.’”

#5 – Trump is particularly focused on punishing Democratic cities and states  

White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes

By Tony Romm, New York Times, Oct 1, 2025

(https://nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/white-house-shutdown-punishment.html). Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.

Here are excerpts from the article.

“The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently.

“The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive, underscoring the risks of a fiscal stalemate that had no end in sight. It also evinced how President Trump might try to leverage the government-wide closure to achieve his agenda, slash the budget and exact revenge on his political enemies.

“In a series of social media posts, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, said the administration had paused or moved to cancel the delivery of about $26 billion in previously approved funds across a range of programs, describing the money as wasteful or in need of further review.

Here’s one of Romm’s examples. “The timing seemed to be no mere coincidence, nor were Mr. Vought’s choices of location. He said the administration was terminating one tranche of funds, totaling about $8 billion, because it was ‘Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda,’ a move that affected projects in 16 states, most of which are led by Democrats.”

Romm continues. “In a second instance, the Trump administration paused about $18 billion in approved infrastructure funding for two major transportation projects primarily in New York City, whose state delegation includes Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader. The two men have been frequent targets of Mr. Trump’s personal attacks, and the Transportation Department said the money would be held pending further review.

“Mr. Vought’s budget maneuvers marked an attempt to formalize Mr. Trump’s threat from a day earlier, when he described a shutdown as a ‘good’ opportunity to cut federal agencies, programs and benefits he disfavors in ways that would harm Democrats. He said at the time that it could include another round of mass layoffs targeting ‘a lot’ of government workers.”

Thus, “many federal employees are now furloughed, while others, including military service members and airport baggage screeners, are forced to report for work without pay. While those employees will eventually get back pay, there is no clear indication of when that might happen. Scores of critical government services are also halted or reduced significantly.”

Hours after Mr. Vought pledged to revoke some climate-related funding, the Energy Department offered scant details about its cuts. The agency said it had terminated 321 awards for more than 223 projects, claiming the investments did not ‘advance the nation’s energy needs’ and were not economically viable.’”

“Overall, the government is already expected to employ 300,000 fewer workers by December than it did in January. The substantial decline reflects a series of firings, layoffs and induced resignations that date back to the start of the president’s term, and the work of the cost-cutting campaign orchestrated by the Department of Government Efficiency.”

Concluding thoughts

In a March article for The Atlantic, Peter Wehner writes that “Trump’s Appetite for Revenge Is Insatiable” and he is doing what he can to satisfy this morally twisted urge (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/white-house-shutdown-punishment.html). Wehner reminds us that “No one can say they didn’t know.” Indeed, “During his first official campaign rally for the 2024 Republican nomination, held in Waco, Texas, Donald Trump vowed retribution against those he perceives as his enemies.”

Wehner notes, “Last Friday, in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, the president described his adversaries as ‘scum,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘Marxists,’ as well as ‘deranged, ‘thugs,’ ‘violent vicious lawyers,’ and ‘a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government.’”

“The threat this poses to American democracy is obvious,” Wehner writes. He continues. “A president and an administration with a Mafia mentality can create a Mafia state. They can target innocent people, shut down dissent, intimidate critics into silence, violate democratic norms, act without any statutory authority, sweep away checks and balances, spread disinformation and conspiracy theories, ignore court orders, and even declare martial law.”

An alternative

Later in the article, Wehner refers to a book by Václav Havel, “written as president of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic,—a playwright, human-rights activist, and dissident whose words shook the foundations of the Soviet empire—meditated on politics, morality, and civility. He emphasized, again and again, ‘the moral origins of all genuine politics.’

“Some people considered him naive, a hopeless idealist, but he pushed back. ‘Evil will remain with us,’ Havel wrote, ‘no one will ever eliminate human suffering, the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious adventurers and charlatans. And man will not stop destroying the world. In this regard, I have no illusions.”

“Havel went on: “Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all. At the very most, we can win a battle or two—and not even that is certain. Yet I still think it makes sense to wage this war persistently. It has been waged for centuries, and it will continue to be waged—we hope—for centuries to come. This must be done on principle, because it is the right thing to do.”

Havel later wrote:

“So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions. But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible….

Our republic and its ideals are supremely good causes. We should strive to protect them, which begins by speaking out for them, and by trying to do, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, what Havel did during his ennobling and consequential life: to once again give depth and dimension to notions such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness. To refuse to live within the lie. And to awaken the goodwill that is slumbering within our society.”

An anti-worker administration

Bob Sheak Sept 12, 2025

The economy is not doing well for the majority

Brad Bannon nails it in his Sept. 10 report: “Jobs are down, prices are up and Trump is in trouble (https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5494559-trump-broken-promises-inflation). Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.    

Bannon refers to a new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that “paint an astonishingly bleak picture of the Trump economy.” He continues. “The nation created few jobs in August, and BLS added to the grim portrait by taking off the board almost a million jobs that had supposedly been created over the last year.”

And the economy is still affected by inflation. On this, Bannon points out that

“Prices in July were up by 2.7 percent over the year prior, and employers predict a big increase in the cost of health insurance.” A recent national survey of registered voters for The Economist by YouGov.com finds that “Inflation was the problem that the most voters worried about and Republicans were even more concerned about the high cost of living than Democrats.” He adds, “Less than 40 percent of voters approved of Trump’s handling of high prices.” Further, Trump’s “stiff taxes [tariffs] on imports and his deportation of immigrant farm and construction workers have placed a severe burden on hard working and financially hard-pressed American families.” 

———-

Stagflation concerns rise with rising inflation and jobless claims

Andrew Ackerman and Lauren Kaori Gurley report on this issue for the  Washington Post (https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/09/11/august-inflation-trump-tariffs). Andrew covers the way Washington oversees Wall Street. follow on X@amacker. Lauren is the labor reporter for The Washington Post. She previously covered labor and tech for Vice for three years. follow on X@laurenkgurley

Inflation

“Inflation heated up in August at a 2.9 percent annual rate — a faster pace than in June and July as higher housing and food prices weighed on consumers’ wallets, according to the Labor Department.” On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.4 percent — a bit hotter than expectations, according to the agency’s consumer price index. Higher shelter costs was the largest factor in the monthly rise, though food prices also jumped 0.5 percent. The hotter figures are well above a low set in April.

“Earlier this summer, consumer prices began rising across a broader range of goods and services. June data pointed to notable increases in imports such as cosmetics, shoes and toys, as well as medical care. In July, furniture prices — heavily exposed to tariffs — jumped 0.9 percent, while tomato prices, hit by duties on Mexican imports, surged 3.3 percent.”

“Last month, apparel prices rose 0.5 percent and used car and truck prices rose 1 percent. And new vehicle prices ticked higher after four straight months of price declines or no changes.”

Unemployment

“In the labor market, fresh revisions to government data show U.S. employers added far fewer jobs over the summer than initially reported, underscoring a loss of momentum in hiring. The Labor Department said Tuesday that businesses created 911,000 fewer jobs from April 2024 through March 2025 than earlier estimates suggested — evidence the slowdown was already underway even before Trump’s sweeping new tariffs and immigration policies began squeezing business costs.”

“Separately, new applications for weekly unemployment benefits jumped to 263,000 last week, the highest level since October 2021, according to a separate report released Thursday by the Labor Department.”

———-

Anti-Union

Brad Reed writes on Trump’s attacks on unions for Common Dreams, Sept 01, 2025 (https://commondreams.org/news/trump-labor-day-unions).

“Although US President Donald Trump’s administration likes to boast that he puts ‘American workers first,’ several news reports published on Monday [Sept. 1] document the president’s attacks on the rights of working people and labor unions.”

Reed quotes the longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse who explained in The Guardian that “Trump throughout his second term has ‘taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous.’” He gives these examples. 

“Trump’s decision to halt a regulation intended to protect coal miners from lung disease, as well as his decision to strip a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.” He quotes Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO,

“‘His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious,’ she said. “He talks a good game of being for working people, but he’s doing the absolute opposite. This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires.”

Reed continues.

“Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, similarly told Greenhouse that Trump has been ‘absolutely, brazenly anti-worker,’ and she cited him ripping away an increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors that had been enacted by former President Joe Biden as a prime example.”

“NPR published its own Labor Day report that zeroed in on how the president is ‘decimating” federal employee unions by issuing March and August executive orders stripping them of the power to collectively bargain for better working conditions.’”

He continues. “So far, nine federal agencies have canceled their union contracts as a result of the orders, which are based on a provision in federal law that gives the president the power to terminate collective bargaining at agencies that are primarily involved with national security.

“The Trump administration has embraced a maximalist interpretation of this power and has demanded the end of collective bargaining at departments that aren’t primarily known as national security agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service.”

“The administration has weakened the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) so that even when workers successfully join or start a union, they may no longer get their grievances heard.” Moreover, the president is now able to fire NLRB administrative judges at will.

———-

The most anti-union president ever

Harold Meyerson argues that Trump is the most anti-union president ever

(https://prospect.org/labor/2025-09-01-trump-celebrates-labor-day-as-most-anti-union-president). Harold Meyerson is editor at large of The American Prospect.

Here are excerpts.

Donald Trump “chose to celebrate this year’s Labor Day by announcing last Thursday his unilateral abrogation of the federal government’s contracts with the unions that represent the scientists, engineers, and other staffers at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which includes the National Weather Service), the Patent Office, and the International Trade Administration. This follows his earlier contract terminations with the unions that represented 400,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as those at the Department of Health and Human Services, and other major departments.”

According to a study from the Center for American Progress (CAP), these Trump-imposed contract nullifications have cost 81.8 percent of civilian federal workers their right to collectively bargain—and that study came out before last Thursday’s new round of government fuck-you’s to its workers. The total number of workers whose contracts Trump has trashed now exceeds one million, which comes to approximately one-fifteenth of American workers covered by a union contract. Georgetown University labor historian Joe McCartin terms this ‘by far the largest single action of union busting in American history.’”

“What’s behind Trump’s union busting? At one level, he wants to destroy unions simply because they oppose him; opposition is all it takes for Trump to order a hit. At a deeper level, unions are a voice from below, and their autonomy poses a threat to autocrats. Even enfeebled unions have the potential to reawaken and join a battle to thwart despots. It’s no accident that every Western democracy has had—at one time, at least—a powerful union movement; just as it’s no accident that no autocracy—and no aspiring autocrat like Trump—can tolerate one. A core part of Hitler’s seizure of total power was the utter destruction of the German labor movement.”

“That said, labor has retained and even enhanced one form of strength: Today, in this populist age, unions are the only American institution whose popularity has been steadily rising, winning 68 percent approval ratings in Gallup’s polling. The gap between that level of approval and the 6 percent unionized share of private-sector workers, however, illustrates how completely the rickety remains of labor law have failed to enable a pro-labor workforce to go union—despite the best, though short-lived, efforts of Biden’s NLRB, and even before the havoc that second-term Trump has inflicted on unions. The 2026 elections may afford unions an opportunity to arrest some of Trump’s attacks; the 2028 elections, an opportunity to reverse them. Even then, the road to re-establishing workers’ rights will be steep.

———-

Concluding thoughts

In short, as documented, Trump has little concern for ordinary workers or the unions representing a minority of these workers. This is one important aspect of an unfolding autocracy.

Donald Trump demonstrates over and over again how he wants to transform the federal government away from one that reflects the Constitution and the law to one that  he can lawlessly dominate – to be a “king” or “dictator.”  If he is successful,

workers will become even less secure than now, with lower wages and job benefits, and with the demise of ever-more restraints on Trump’s power. For further information on such a future, check out Thomas B. Edsall’s column, “What Can’t Trump wreck? (https://nytimes.com/2025/09/09/opinion/trump-maga-government-future.html).

RFK and Trump attack scientists at the CDC

Bob Sheak, August 31, 2025

It’s likely that most Americans have never heard of the CDC, or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, until Robert F. Kennedy, Trump’s appointment to head the Department of Health and Human Services which includes the CDC, wanted the recently appointed director of the CDC, Susan Monarez, fired.

Kennedy asked her to resign because she refused to support his anti-vaccine agenda. She refused, and Trump supported Kennedy by firing her. In this post, I include the highlights of articles reporting on this scandalous issue.

————

Washington Post journalists, Lena H. Sun, Dan Diamond, and Lauren Weber, help to clarify what happened (https://washingtonpost.com/health/2025/08/27/susan-monarez-cdc-director-ousted).

“Susan Monarez was confirmed as the CDC’s director in July [2025].” On Wednesday, August 27, the “White House…fired Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she refused to resign amid pressure to support [Kennedy’s] vaccine policy, which sparked the resignation of other senior CDC officials and a showdown over whether she could be removed. Her lawyers “accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of ‘weaponizing public health for political gain’ and ‘putting millions of American lives at risk’ by purging health officials from government.”

The journalists continue.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” the lawyers, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell, wrote in a statement. “For that reason, she has been targeted.”

Soon after their statement, the White House formally fired Monarez.

“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in an email. “Since Susan Monarez refused to resign…, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.” Her lawyer, Mark S. Zaid rejected this notion, saying that “Monarez never intended to resign, never told anyone that she intended to do so and legally remains in the position because President Donald Trump did not personally fire her.”

Monarez, who was confirmed in late July, was pressed for days by Kennedy, administration lawyers and other officials over whether she would support rescinding certain approvals for coronavirus vaccines, according to two people with knowledge of those conversations. Kennedy, who has a long history of anti-vaccine advocacy, and other officials questioned Monarez on Monday (Aug. 27] on whether she was aligned with the administration’s efforts to change vaccine policy, the people said.

“Kennedy and one of his top advisers, Stefanie Spear, also pushed Monarez to fire her senior staff by the end of this week, according to an administration official and another person with direct knowledge of that conversation.”

Monarez, who was a longtime federal government scientist before Trump nominated her to lead the CDC, declined to commit to support changing coronavirus vaccine policy without consulting her advisers, two people said. That prompted Kennedy to urge her to resign for “not supporting President Trump’s agenda,” one of the people said. Monarez still declined to resign, even though Kennedy wanted that. Trump supported Kennedy and decided to follow his recommendation and fired Monarez.”

———–

Mary Meyer, MD, MPH, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today, argues that the “The Evisceration of CDC Is a Disaster for All of Us” (https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/washington-watch/117188).

Meyer is an emergency physician with The Permanente Medical Group. She also holds a Master of Public Health and certificates in Global Health and Climate Medicine. Meyer previously served as a director of disaster preparedness for Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Here’s some of what she writes.

“For anyone who missed it, it’s been a whirlwind week at the CDC. Here’s the recap. After 6 months of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ — including layoffs, rescinded grant funding, and content censorship — the CDC descended into chaos on Wednesday [Aug 27].

 “First, CDC Director Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired after refusing to resign . Soon after, three longstanding CDC leaders announced their resignations, citing political interference and pressure to sign off on unscientific vaccine recommendations. A few other high-level departures were also reported earlier this week.” The impact on the CDC, the “nation’s leading public health institution will be far-reaching.” Meyer then offers an explanation on why we need the CDC.

“It’s difficult to exaggerate the role CDC has played in protecting the health of our nation. For nearly 80 years, CDC’s accomplishments have been nothing short of remarkable. In 1951, it presided over the elimination of malaria in the U.S. In 1980, it helped achieved the seemingly impossible — the global eradication of smallpox, a disease that killed a third of its victims and left the majority of its survivors disfigured or blind. A year later, the agency authored the first report of an unusual disease striking gay men in California. For almost 8 decades, CDC pioneered global vaccination campaigns , responded to numerous disease outbreaks    (SARS, Ebola, Zika), and assembled a national network of subject matter experts. Now, with its current leadership vacuum, both CDC and its vast safety net are at risk of collapse.”

Meyer considers why the administration’s attacks on the CDC are disastrous for the health of the nation.

Effects on state and local health departments

“To begin with, approximately 70% of CDC’s funding   goes to state and local public health departments, where it supports workforce training, lab capacity, and public health education. These local departments are the nation’s first line of defense against chronic diseases, environmental exposures, and infectious outbreaks. If their funding becomes compromised, it will undoubtedly lead to cuts in services and staffing, with a concomitant rise in various health conditions and further strain on already-taxed healthcare organizations. Furthermore, these impacts are likely to be greatest in rural and historically underserved areas — the places that can least afford it.”

Effects nationally

Meyer writes: “Nationally, the dysfunction at CDC could easily undermine its programs and trigger a rise in the nation’s overall burden of disease. CDC is the juggernaut of disease prevention. It operates numerous prevention programs aimed at chronic diseases (including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer), infant mortality, microbial resistance, and injuries. It funds programs to combat the tobacco, obesity, and opioid epidemics. It’s been estimated that CDC’s infection prevention guidelines for healthcare facilities save  and $3.3 billion. Its tobacco control program has prevented millions of people from facing the adverse consequences of smoking, and its HIV programs have prevented over 350,000 HIV infections.”

“Then, of course, there’s the role CDC plays in outbreak response, both within U.S. borders and internationally. The agency also serves a vital function in responding to man-made and natural disasters, acting as the national command center in disaster responses.”

Meyer concludes: “We must return to the principles on which CDC was founded: evidence-based policy shepherded by experienced public health leaders.

—————

Here is what CDC says about its mission and accomplishments (https://cdc.gov/about/cdc/index.html).

“CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.

“CDC increases the health security of our nation. As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats and responds when these arise.”

A sample of the CDC’s accomplishments.

  • On the cutting edge of health security – confronting global disease threats through advanced computing and lab analysis of huge amounts of data to quickly find solutions.
  • Putting science into action – tracking disease and finding out what is making people sick and the most effective ways to prevent it.
  • Helping medical care – bringing new knowledge to individual health care and community health to save more lives and reduce waste.
  • Fighting diseases before they reach our borders – detecting and confronting new germs and diseases around the globe to increase our national security.
  • Nurturing public health – building on our significant contribution to have strong, well-resourced public health leaders and capabilities at national, state and local levels to protect Americans from health threats.

Further background

Tanja Popovic and Dixie E. Snider Jr. provide an historical sketch of the CDC’s 60 Years of Progress (https://pmc.mcbi.nim.nih.gov/articles/PMC3291076).

“Malaria Control in War Areas was formed in 1942 to ensure that the areas around military bases in the southern United States remained malaria-free. Initial facilities were modest, a few rooms on the sixth floor of the Volunteer Building on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Hardly anyone could have foreseen the future of this small organization. But Joseph W. Mountin, who was charged with setting it up, was not just anyone. An architect of modern public health, Mountin quickly realized that malaria control operations serving the needs of the states (response to state calls for help, laboratory and epidemiologic investigations, training) could become the foundation for improving the health of the nation.

“…in 1946 the Public Health Service established the Communicable Disease Center to work not only on malaria but on typhus and other infectious diseases. The following year, a token payment of $10 was made for a 15-acre area on Clifton Road to house the operations. In the next 60 years, minor changes were made to the name (Center for Disease Control, Centers for Disease Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), but the initials, CDC, remained the same. The campus on Clifton Road grew to include 2 biosafety level 4 laboratories and other state-of-the-art facilities; operations were established in Morgantown, Cincinnati, Fort Collins, and overseas; and the work expanded to include all infectious diseases, as well as occupational health, toxic chemicals, injury, chronic diseases, health statistics, and birth defects.

“A magnet for gifted scientists and other professionals looking to serve in public health, CDC has attracted an exceptional cadre of talent over the years. Mountin was succeeded by leaders who pushed the agency to new levels of achievement, constantly probing new challenges and seeking new public health solutions. The thousands who work in laboratories and offices or trot the globe on epidemiologic investigations; the physicians, veterinarians, microbiologists, statisticians, economists, social scientists, other scholars, and support personnel; the many volunteers who serve on institutional review and other boards and committees; and CDC’s many partners in academia, industry, clinical practice, and state and local governments all share unequivocal dedication to public health.

“In this climate of idealism and dedication, the achievements have been many and span all areas. CDC scientists, typically working with like-minded colleagues, identified and characterized several infectious agents and emerging infectious diseases; invented devices, tools, and stains for diagnoses and systems for surveillance; demonstrated the value of combining laboratory practices and epidemiology; and through vision and leadership, worked closely with state and local health departments to increase their effectiveness as public health organizations. Some in its midst made such major contributions that microorganisms were named after them (Lee Ajello, Ajellomyces spp.; Dannie Hollis, Vibrio hollisiae; Don Brenner, Neisseria brenneri; Robert Weaver, Neisseria weaveri; Joseph McDade, Legionella micdadei).

“CDC led the US campaign to immunize all children against vaccine-preventable infectious diseases; efforts to ‘link’ states in search of foodborne disease outbreak causes by using molecular approaches to trace the causative organisms (PulseNet); efforts to translate science to practice, protecting women and children from such emerging infection-related conditions as toxic shock syndrome and aspirin-associated Reye syndrome.

“Achievements in international health have been major benchmarks. CDC contributions range from support for and leadership of the global effort to eradicate smallpox to the establishment of Project SIDA in Africa to initiate scientific research on the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”

—————

Concluding thoughts

The CDC is an outstanding example of how, over decades, the government has supported the health of the nation’s people. Now, under Trump and Kennedy, the agency is being reduced and compromised. If they have their way, the CDC will be unable to provide the scientific research and breakthroughs it has had for 80 years. As a result, the U.S. population will suffer. The actions of Trump and Kennedy are yet other examples of an administration based on extremist right-wing ideology and growing authoritarianism. It remains to be seen whether the American public will be able to vote them out in the 2026 midterms. Will it be the CDC of the past decades or will it be the Center of Disease.

Economic problems multiply under Trump

Introduction

In an earlier post titled “The Specter of Fascism,” I considered the fascist aspects of Trump’s rhetoric and plans (https://vitalissuesbobsheak.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=4124&action=edit). This was sent out on May 25, 2024. There I quoted  Federico Finchelstein, who has written extensively about fascism.

In his most recent book, The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy (publ. 2024 by the University of California Press), he identifies “the four pillars of fascism,” including: (1) “violence and the militarization of politics; (2) “lies, myths, and propaganda”; (3) “the politics of xenophobia” and racism; and (4) dictatorship (pp. 16-17). He argues that Trump is not quite a full-blown fascist, but rather a “wannabe fascist because he has not yet become a “dictator,” or a leader with unlimited power.

“Well before January 6, 2021,” Finchelstein writes, “Trump had already established (to some alarming extent) three of the four pillars of fascism: violence and the militarization of policies, racism, and lies. The element that Trumpism was missing was dictatorship. And then the attempted coup d’etat happened….Had this attempt succeeded, Trump would have most likely become a dictator. In that scenario, it would have been more appropriate to think of him as a fascist. Because he wavered and failed, I [Finchelstein] calls him a wannabe fascist” (p. 18). This could all change if Trump wins the presidential election in November, 2024 (as he did). The plans of Trump and the Republican Party are clearly anti-democratic and revolve around the idea of Trump as the permanent leader, a “one-person [with] absolute and permanent rule” (p. 152).

As we all know, Trump narrowly won the presidential election in 2024 under extraordinary circumstances. The authors of the book 2024, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, document how Biden’s long delay in withdrawing from the presidential campaign, left Kamala Harris with too little time to mount an effective campaign. She almost managed to win the election anyway and would have won if not for so many gerrymandered elections and financial support from the rich and powerful, especially but from Elon Musk and other billionaires.

Now, well into his seventh month of his second term in the White House, Trump has striven to extend his power over more of the country’s institutions, advancing rightwing, often anti-democratic policies. His efforts are supported by his MAGA base, by the Republican Party, by many rich people and big corporations, by the Supreme Court, and by right-wing media.

In recent weeks, Trump’s popularity has been weakened by the economic dislocations and hardships on most citizens related to his firing of many thousands of federal workers and the related loss of services and jobs. These were exacerbated by Trump’s tariff policies, the arbitrary expulsion of law-abiding, employed immigrant residents, and the highly regressive tax policies in his Big Beautiful Bill. His low poll numbers now reflect how the majority of Americans are unhappy with what Trump is doing and attempting to do.

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Trump’s Tariff Debacle

John Feffer considers the effects of Trump’s tariff policies, August 6, 2025 (https://fpif.org/trumps-tariff-tsunami). He is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus. His latest book is Right Across the World: The Global Networking of the Far-Right and the Left Response. Here’s some of what Feffer writes about in the article.

It’s not difficult to imagine that seasoned trade negotiators are squaring off against Trump’s team, which includes the unseasoned and frankly incoherent Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, to make deals that contain holes big enough to drive a truck through (all the way to the United States). The early evidence is that Trump’s tariffs are backfiring in many ways, including the one statistic that obsesses the president. America’s trade deficit with the world is only increasing.”

China.

“Consider the administration’s approach to China, the third or fourth largest U.S. trade partner depending on the metric. In early April, Trump decided to apply tariffs of about 145 percent on Chinese products. The Dow tanked, and U.S. businesses freaked out at the prospect of huge price increases on components and finished products coming from China.

“Negotiations with the Chinese followed, during which Trump backpedaled like a prizefighter sustaining a series of body blows. The Chinese economy is doing pretty well, and they have natural resources like rare earth elements that the United States desperately needs. So, when China retaliated with high tariffs of their own and threatened restrictions on rare earth elements, Trump was forced to deal. He reduced U.S. tariffs to 30 percent (while China reduced its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10 percent).

“But here’s the kicker. Trump also approved the sale of sophisticated computer chips—Nvidia’s H20 chips, which are designed for artificial intelligence applications—that previous U.S. administrations had blocked. This kind of compromise has signaled to various economic actors that perhaps Trump is not so serious about his tariffs—or, at least, he can be negotiated with.”

The European Union

“Instead of fighting like the Chinese, the European Union accepted a 15 percent tariff rate. That’s ‘definitively better than the 30 percent threatened by Trump,’ writes Cecilia Malmström of the Peterson Institute. ‘But it is still a lot more than the status of trade before Trump’s second term, when the average tariff rate between the European Union and the United States was only a few percentages. Today we face the highest transatlantic tariffs in 70 years.’”

Canada and Mexico

Feffer: “Canada saw its tariffs rise from 25 percent to 35 percent, though this applies to a minority of goods crossing the border that don’t comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Trump was pissed off at the earlier reciprocal tariffs against U.S. products, which Canada hasn’t yet removed. A ‘Buy Canada’ campaign and a diversification of trade partners point to a longer-term reduction in Canadian dependency on U.S. markets and suppliers.

Hope that Trump will retract the tariffs

Feffer: “U.S. businesses are also hoping that Trump will eventually retract his tariffs. Although markets fluctuate with the same kind of volatility that characterizes Trump’s temperament, manufacturers don’t appreciate such unpredictability.

“They’ve responded by employing interim hedging measures that have so far not passed on the costs to consumers. One popular [but limited and short-term] tactic has been to stockpile.”

“Consumers, meanwhile, have adopted the tactic of hoarding: consumer electronics, auto parts, building materials, clothing. Even members of the Trump administration have been stocking up on bulk toilet paper in anticipation of price hikes. But pantries can hold just so many bags of Brazilian coffee beans. And worse is to come.”

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Mass Firing of federal workers

Lauren Kaori Gurley writes on the high unemployment in July

(https://washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/07/unemployment-claims-rise). She

is the labor reporter for The Washington Post.

Gurly cites a Labor Department report that “claims for unemployment benefits jumped to 1.97 million in late July.” That is the highest level since November 2021. “A separate jobs report released last week showed that employers are hiring at close to the slowest pace in more than a decade, excluding the pandemic.”

“Federal layoffs have also accelerated and will continue to rise this year, which could spill over to other industries. A Supreme Court decision in July allowed the Trump administration to proceed with job cuts.”

Gurley refers to a government jobs report released Friday [Aug. 8] that “showed a much slower labor market than previously recorded, with lower-than-expected job gains in July and far fewer job gains in May and June, 258,000 less than previously reported for those months.” Trump responded angrily to the report by taking “the unprecedented step of firing the top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, hours after the data was released. Trump claimed, without evidence, that jobs data had been manipulated for political purposes.”

Rather, Trump’s own tariff policy has negatively affected many retail, construction and manufacturing employers “who have paused plans for hiring and expansion amid the expectation of the higher import costs.” That same is true for hiring in white-collar sectors, which has been stagnant for many months. Gurly’s sources say that if economic conditions continue to deteriorate, employers will increase layoffs even more than they have.

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The Bleak Future of Trumponomics

Ryan Cooper writes on the likelihood of a bleak future with Trumponomics for the American Prospect magazine (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-06-bleak-future-of-trumponomics). Cooper is a senior editor at the Prospect, and author of ‘How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.’ His central point is that “Donald Trump is destroying the world’s faith in America and the dollar.” That will cost the country dearly in lost foreign investors.

Cooper continues. “On July 4, Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law. It’s a hyped-up edition of the same old Republican dogma. It contains the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits in history, which do not even come close to compensating for giant tax cuts, mostly for the rich. It would increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion by 2034; if we assume that all the tax cuts will be made permanent (a certainty if Republicans have anything to say about it), the total is over $5.5 trillion.”

The global importance of the dollar is now threatened

“Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, turbulent economic times have reliably led to a flight to the safety of dollars and U.S. government debt. That creates a consistent demand for dollar-based assets, so countries and businesses can settle international transactions, and build up exchange reserves to defend against potential currency crises.

“That assumption is now being called into question. Trump’s wildly erratic behavior, abolishing whole federal agencies by fiat and yanking up and down tariffs at random via social media post, has created vast turbulence in the international economy. But instead of a flight to dollar safety, since Trump has taken office, interest rates on 10- and 30-year Treasury bonds are up modestly, while the dollar’s value has fallen about 15 percent against the euro, and about 10 percent against the pound and yen.

This suggests that a new economic order is taking shape, “after the keystone nation of the global economy decided to elect an unhinged maniac, again. Absent some kind of reckoning with MAGA …America will never live this down, and all future administrations will be burdened with Trump’s legacy of lower growth, lower employment, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and a dramatically higher cost of financing the national debt.”

The dollar’s role as global reserve currency

Cooper continues, “as the issuer of the global reserve currency, America has an obligation to provide dollar assets. As Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein argue in their book Trade Wars Are Class Wars, if the government won’t provide them in the form of Treasury bonds, demand for other dollar assets will drive up its value, tanking American exports and widening the trade deficit.

Indeed, the dollar’s reserve status is partly to blame for America’s chronically large trade deficit. As economist Paul Krugman points out, much of these deficits have been financed by foreign investment in the U.S. If those investors lose confidence in America, they might pull back, similar to a “sudden stop” crisis that countries like Argentina and Portugal have faced.

“There are built-in shock absorbers in place for a country as critical to the global economy as America. But those guardrails are buckling under Trump’s leadership. Cooper elaborates.

“Trump has regularly attacked Powell for not cutting rates and might fill the Fed board with toadies to do the job. But rate cuts, combined with other factors, would boost inflation even more. Tariffs are already spiking some prices. New home prices are likely to rise as Trump is deporting so many construction workers. The enormous tax cuts will drive up borrowing, as will the cost of rolling over existing debt, some $14 trillion of which must be refinanced over the next three years. IRS cuts carried out by DOGE, with the obvious goal of preventing audits of wealthy tax cheats, will further cut revenue by an estimated $500 billion this year alone; that’s more money out there to be spent. As a result of all of this, either interest rates will have to stay high, or prices will keep rising.”

International faith in the dollar has been jolted

Withal, the unquestioned faith in the dollar has been shaken by Trump’s erratic tariff policies.

So, while dollars will continue to be used around the world, Cooper expect[s] a steady erosion in the dollar’s hegemonic status, with a greater share of foreign exchange using a basket of other currencies—the euro, the pound, the yen, the Swiss franc, and so on.

“Trumponomics, by contrast, will produce the opposite: a poorer, weaker America, with structurally higher prices, dedicating a large and growing share of its economy to financing debt created by Republican tax cuts for the rich. And it will all be entirely self-inflicted.”

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Trump’s Unforgivable Sin

Peter Wehner and Robert P. Beschel Jr. delve into this issue in an article for The Atlantic, Aug 10 2025 (https://theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/trump-incompetence/683779)

Voters have proved willing to tolerate corruption, but there’s one thing they won’t ignore.

“Tens of millions of Americans voted for President Donald Trump in the belief that he would be competent. They might not have been thrilled that Trump is a convicted felon or pleased with his role in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Many worried that he posed a threat to democracy. But enough were willing to overlook all that, because they convinced themselves that Trump would be an effective chief executive, that under his stewardship their lives would get better, and the country would prosper.

A little more than half a year into Trump’s second term, however, the public’s confidence in Trump’s skill as a chief executive is shattering. Wehner and Beschel cite a recent AP/NORC poll, which found that “only about one-quarter of U.S. adults said that Trump’s policies have helped them.”

“Roughly half report that Trump’s policies have ‘done more to hurt’ them, and about two in 10 say his policies have ‘not made a difference’ in their lives.

“Remarkably, Trump failed to earn majority approval on any of the issues in the poll, including the economy, immigration, and cutting government spending.

“As a result, a politically toxic impression is hardening. Trump’s approval rating in the most recent Gallup poll is 37 percent, the lowest of this term and only slightly higher than his all-time low of 34 percent, at the end of his first term. (Among independents, Trump’s approval rating is down to 29 percent.) Americans already understood Trump to be corrupt and proved themselves willing to tolerate that. But now they are coming to believe that he is inept. In American politics, that is an unforgivable sin.

Prices up, employment down

Wehner and Beschel continue. “On the economic front, Trump’s tariff increases—announced and then altered, often without rhyme or reason—are only now beginning to percolate through the economy, and the steepest hikes haven’t yet kicked in. The economy appears to be slowing down. Consumer prices are up 2.6 percent from a year earlier, which is keeping the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates despite intense pressure from Trump. The jobs report for July showed a gain of only 73,000, a sign that the labor market is weakening. Perhaps more significant, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the jobs totals from May and June downward by more than a quarter of a million. Unemployment ticked up to 4.2 percent. Consumer spending is well below what it was last year. More than half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a ‘major’ source of stress in their life right now. Many industries are postponing hiring, and the national hiring rate is near its lowest level in a decade. Customers appear to be holding off on large, long-term purchases. The Budget Lab at Yale University calculates that the American consumer is dealing with an average effective tariff rate of 18.3 percent, the highest since 1934, and it estimates that price increases will cost each household $2,400 on average this year.” General Motors reported last month that Trump’s tariffs have cost the company more than $1 billion. And the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement that Trump’s latest tariffs “would disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, to the detriment of businesses, consumers and patients on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Cut backs in the Social Safety Net

Wehner and Beschel point out that the number of Americans without health insurance is going up, increasing by more than 10 million in less than a decade, “with particularly devastating impacts for vulnerable rural populations.”

Delayed tax refunds from the IRS – “Eliminating a quarter of the IRS workforce may well undermine tax collection and increase the wait time for Americans to receive refunds.

“Slashing the Social Security Administration, which is serving more people than ever before, with the fewest workers in half a century, will increase wait times for those needing help. It will lead to field-office closures that will hit seniors in rural communities the hardest and may well delay the processing of retirement, disability, and survivor benefits.”

National Institutes of Health have been devastated  — “The Trump administration has devastated the National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s foremost medical-research centers and the biggest sponsor of biomedical research in the world. Nearly 2,500 grants have been ended or delayed, disrupting vital medical research, reducing the pool of available researchers, and compromising public health and disease prevention.”

Massive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resulting in the loss of some of the weather service’s most experienced leaders and impeding the collection of data that are essential for accurate and timely weather forecasting, will place Americans at greater risk of experiencing extreme-weather events.

The upcoming elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “As The Atlantic’s David A. Graham has written, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray, headed by a person who is clearly out of his depth. Trump wants FEMA eliminated by the end of the year. It has already lost about a third of its permanent workforce, and its program dedicated to helping communities prepare for natural disasters such as floods and fires has been canceled.” What are the consequences?

“In the immediate aftermath of the recent Texas floods, FEMA’s earlier decision to lay off hundreds of call-center contractors resulted in thousands of unanswered calls for recovery assistance. (The administration dismissed reports about this as “fake news.”) FEMA didn’t deploy to St. Louis for several weeks after a tornado destroyed parts of the city, leaving people unable to apply for even basic payments for fresh food and medicine, let alone get help addressing uninsured losses from the natural disaster.”

Despite these cuts that national debt is expected to rise by over staggering $3 trillion, largely as a result of Trump’s tariffs and the reductions in federal government spending.

Concluding thoughts

Trump continuously claims that he and his administration are encouraging a strong economy, perhaps the strongest since the high-growth years of the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s. However, as the evidence considered in this post shows, the overall U.S. economy under Trump is doing poorly. It is not clear how this will impact the mid-term elections in November 2026, but poll data indicate that a majority of Americans are unhappy with Trump’s policies.

The future of democracy is in question. If the Republicans continue their control of both houses of the U.S. Congress, along with Trump in the White House and a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, then democracy’s future is dim.

The war on evidence. Trump makes up his own truth….

Trump makes up his own truth when facts don’t match what he wants

Bob Sheak, August 3, 2025

In this post, I identify 6 examples, there are more, that illustrate how Trump pays little attention to verifiable facts when it suits him.

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#1 – Attacks on Science

Brett Wilkins considers a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists [UCS], citing that Trump made 400+ unfounded attacks on science in his first 6 months of his second presidential tour (https://commondreams.org/news/trump-attack-on-science).

Wilkins notes that it is “part of a larger strategy to strip public protections, consolidate power, and remove scientific evidence from policymaking.” He continues. “The 402 attacks are nearly double the 207 UCS said that Trump oversaw during his first full term, and over four times the number committed during eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency. UCS said the Obama administration carried out 19 attacks on science, while former President Joe Biden oversaw just two attacks.”

The UCS defines an attack on science as “an action, statement, or decision that originates from an elected official or political appointee in a federal agency that results in the censoring, manipulation, forging, or misinforming of scientific data, results, or conclusions conducted within the government or with federal funds.”

Wilkens refers to the costs. “People are already paying the price of these attacks on science: children unnecessarily exposed to lead, families denied clean air, and lives needlessly lost in preventable disease outbreaks,” UCS noted. “Dismantling science harms every member of the U.S. public—but especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, rural, and low- and-moderate-income communities.”

To stop such attacks and “protect science and the public good, UCS offers two recommendations. One, pass the Scientific Integrity Act,  “introduced in February by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.)—which would require federal agencies to uphold evidence-based policymaking free from political interference”; and. two, the Experts Act, “legislation proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to limit industry influence on science-based rulemaking.”

Wilkins also quotes Darya Minovi, the report’s lead author, who said that “the pace and severity of the administration’s attacks on science is extremely alarming.”

“‘These attacks are about power,’ she continued. ‘By silencing science that does not align with its agenda to line the pockets of polluters and billionaires, the Trump administration is stripping the public of its right to information, participation, and protection.’”

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#2- Attacking the science on global warming

Wilkins’s evidence is hardly unusual. Trump continues to judge news and federal agency reports, not according to their accuracy, but according to whether they conform to his particular self-interests. This hostile inclination toward facts is revealed in a report by Trump’s partisan Energy Department. Maxine Joselow and Brad Plumer, write on this issue (https://nytimes.com/2025/07/31/climate/trump-climate-skeptics-science-report.html). Here is the title of the report, “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.”

Joselow and Plumer point out that the report, “which is meant to support the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to roll back climate regulations, contends that the mainstream scientific view on climate change is too dire and overlooks the positive effects of a warming planet.” The report makes the following wild assertions.

“Sea level rise is not accelerating. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be good for plant growth. The computer models used to predict global warming tend to exaggerate future temperature increases.”

“Climate scientists said the 151-page report misrepresented or cherry-picked a large body of research on global warming. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth​ and the payments company Stripe, called the document a ‘scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims​’ that ‘are not representative of broader climate science research findings.’”

Joselow and Plumer continue.

“The report demonstrates the extent to which President Trump is using his second term to wage a battle against climate change research, a long-held goal of some conservative groups and fossil fuel companies. While the first Trump administration often undermined federal scientists and rolled back more than 100 environmental policies, officials mostly refrained from trying to debate climate science in the open.”

However this time Trump officials have gone much further.

“The Environmental Protection Agency this week cited the Energy Department report in its proposal to repeal a landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, pose a threat to public health. That determination, known as the endangerment finding, underpinned the agency’s legal authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution.

“The new report also comes months after the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship analysis of how climate change is affecting the country. That analysis, known as the National Climate Assessment, was set to explore how rising temperatures will influence public health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production and other aspects of the economy.

“‘It is a coordinated, full-scale attack on the science,’ said Dave White, who directs the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University. ‘This was present in the first Trump administration, but it’s being exacerbated in the second.’”

A fringe argument

“The vast majority of climate scientists agree that carbon dioxide, which is released by the burning of fossil fuels, is accumulating in the atmosphere and raising global temperatures. This warming is increasing the risk of destructive storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves around the globe.”

“For instance, the report suggests that solar activity may be an ‘underestimated’ contributor to warming, citing a recent paper that has been sharply criticized. In contrast, a 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was compiled by hundreds of scientists, determined that human activity is responsible for essentially all of the global warming seen to date, while natural factors like sunspots have played little role.”

“Experts said they were struck by how quickly the Energy Department’s report was put together. When the federal government has previously compiled National Climate Assessments, it has convened hundreds of scientists who spend years gathering research and go through several rounds of peer review.”

“In contrast, the five scientists assembled by the Energy Department began work in early April and finished by a May 28 deadline, according to the report. ‘The short timeline and the technical nature of the material meant that we could not comprehensively review all topics.’”

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#3 -Trump and his administration attack the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ashleigh Fields reports that “Statisticians blast Trump over BLS firing: ‘Dangerous precedent’” (https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5433583-trump-bis-firing-precedent-controversy). Here’s some of what she reports.

“Statisticians railed against President Trump on Friday following his decision to fire Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer for ‘inaccuracies’ and ‘incompetence’ after presenting a low job growth report for the month of July.”

Fields quotes former BLS chief William Beach, who

“slammed the ‘totally groundless’ rebuke alongside the Friends of BLS, an organization that advocates on behalf of the agency which he co-chairs.”

“Trump objected to the BLS report because “the agency lowered May and June job growth numbers by the initial 258,000 positions reported.

The organization also published a strongly worded statement condemning the shift in leadership at BLS, denying Trump’s accusations that McEntarfer deliberately reported “fake” numbers to tarnish his administration’s standing. 

“This baseless, damaging claim undermines the valuable work and dedication of BLS staff who produce the reports each month,” a Friday statement on the organization’s website reads.

“This escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news,” they added. “The Commissioner does not determine what the numbers are but simply reports on what the data show.”

Here’s what Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY.”

Trump added, “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes. But competence and qualification have nothing to do with Trump’s decision. He is especially annoyed that the stock market responded negatively to this news and as of Saturday morning [Aug 2], the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 542 points, Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.3 percent and the S&P 500 decreased 1.6 percent of its value.” 

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#4 -Trustworthy US Jobs Info Is the Latest Victim of Trump’s War on Facts

Robert Reich also writes on “Trump’s War on Facts, Common Dreams, Aug 2, 2025 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-attack-bis).

Reich was U.S. secretary of labor during much of the 1990s. One part of the Labor Department is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He recalls,

“I was instructed by my predecessors as well as by the White House, and by every labor economist and statistician I came in contact with, that one of my cardinal responsibilities was to guard the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Otherwise, this crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy would be compromised. If politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information.

“Trump didn’t like the fact that the BLS revised downward its jobs reports for April and May. Revisions in monthly jobs report are nothing new. They’re made when the bureau gets more or better information over time.”

“Yet with no basis in fact, Trump charged that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, ‘rigged’ the data ‘to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.’”

“Then he ordered her fired and replaced with someone else—presumably someone whose data Trump will approve of.

“How can anyone in the future trust the data that emerges from the Bureau of Labor Statistics when the person in charge of the agency has to come up with data to Trump’s liking in order to stay in the job? Answer: They cannot. Trump has destroyed the credibility of this extraordinarily important source of information.”

Additionally, Reich comments on how Trump’s attempts to purge truth is not limited to just one agency.

“Trump hates facts that he disagrees with. That’s why he’s dismembering the Environmental Protection Agency, which has repeatedly shown that climate change isn’t a ‘hoax,’ as Trump claims, but more like a national emergency. It’s why Trump is attacking American universities, whose scientists are developing wind and solar energy, and whose historians have revealed America’s tragic history of racism and genocide of Indigenous people. He is killing off the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, which are showing the sources of sickness and disease and how we can guard against them.”

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#5 – The Gilded Lie: Trump’s Ballroom

Jesse Mackinnon reports on this “lie” in an article in Common Dreams, Aug 03, 2025 (https://commondreams.org/opinion/trump-s-ballroom).

Here are some details. “U.S. President Donald Trump’s $200 million plan to construct a new golden ballroom at the White House is not just a monument to narcissism. It is statecraft by spectacle, financed by national rot. The timing is not subtle. It arrives alongside his ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ a federal budget that slashes Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and climate programs, all while inflating the national deficit past $40 trillion. In this juxtaposition—architectural self-glorification for the ruling executive, fiscal starvation for the governed—we are not witnessing innovation.”

Mackinnon writes,

“The ballroom is a symptom. A projected $200 million marble-and-gold performance space, modeled loosely on Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, will sit at the center of Trump’s renovated West Wing. It will host foreign dignitaries, Republican fundraisers, and presidential photo ops. This is how kleptocracy dresses itself—in borrowed grandeur, gilded walls, and florid illusions of permanence.”

“A president calls himself ‘king’ on social media and receives thunderous applause from his base. He designs a ballroom while communities lose clinics. He throws gala dinners while food pantries see record demand. The White House is not a palace, but it is being remade into one.”

“Trump’s defenders will call the ballroom symbolic. They are right. It symbolizes a state that has abandoned the moral obligations of government and replaced them with architecture. It is the spatial embodiment of policy by spectacle. The Roman emperors built circuses. Louis built Versailles. Trump builds ballrooms. The continuity is not ideological. It is psychological.”

“The question is not whether America can afford another ballroom. The question is whether it can survive the regime that thinks it should build one.”

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#6 – The Golden Dome fantasy

Melvin Goodman considers Trump’s whacky proposal for a golden dome national missile defense system (https://counterpunch.org/2025/07/21/the-waste-and-futility-of-the-golden-dome-national-missile-defense-system).

Goodman reminds readers that (1) the U.S. is responsible for half of global spending on defense, committing more than $1 trillion dollars on defense, and (2) an addition hundreds of billions

The United States is responsible for half of global spending on defense.  The Trump administration is committed to spending more than $1 trillion dollars on defense, and this figure doesn’t include the hundreds of billions “devoted to the intelligence community, the Department of Energy, the Veterans’ Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security.”  There is huge waste in the defense budget, and the major culprits in this department are the unneeded modernization of U.S. strategic weaponry and the so-called Golden Dome national missile defense.  The enormous cost and technological deficiencies of the U.S.-supplied, European-based missile defense system adds to the huge bloat in U.S. defense spending.

“The Golden Dome missile defense system, as proposed by President Trump, is estimated to cost $175 billion. This cost is just for the initial three-year period, with ongoing operational and sustainment costs potentially pushing the total figure much higher. Some estimates from organizations like the Congressional Budget Office suggest a total cost between $161 and $542 billion over two decades. Since programs were first launched in the 1950s to build systems capable of intercepting incoming nuclear or conventional weapons, the United States has spent more than $400 billion on various missile defense programs.

“Over the years, NMD [National Missile Defense] has been a technical flop, having failed most of its tests.  The NMD system has flaws such as an adversary’s ability to use shorter range ballistic and cruise missiles that could ‘underfly’ NMD.  The U.S. system could be defeated by numerous unsophisticated countermeasures and decoys that would overload the NMD system and create confusion.  Moreover, the U.S. system will never be tested in a realistic battle environment, and there is no assurance that a U.S. system could be effective against all of the many varieties of countermeasures.

“Even a flawed NMD system will create instability in the nuclear community.  Russia would fear that the United States would feel protected by the so-called shield, and China would fear that its smaller nuclear arsenal would be compromised.  The level of instability could lead such non-nuclear states as Japan and South Korea to pursue nuclear weapons and thus weaken the Non-Proliferation Treaty that has kept the number of nuclear states to nine.  If unchecked, proliferation would have no logical stopping point.”

Goodman refers to alternatives to national missile defense, particularly the pursuit of arms control and disarmament.  The United States missed a major opportunity in the 1990s and 2000s, when Russia was weak and open to a strategic dialogue and China was still committed to minimal strategic deterrence. Moreover, the last arms control agreement between the United States and Russia—the New Start Treaty—is scheduled to expire in January 2026.

“The U.S. retreat from arms control and renewed commitment to NMD will only worsen the problem of nuclear proliferation as nuclear nations will pursue greater deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles and non-nuclear states, such as Japan and South Korea, could consider the deployment of nuclear weaponry.  The absence of any nuclear dialogue at present and the strained relations between the United States and both China and Russia are major contributors to the current state of international instability.  The Trump administration’s cut backs at the Department of State and the National Security Council as well as the politicization of the intelligence community will make it more difficult for the United States to enter a serious and substantive dialogue on any aspect of arms control.”

————

Concluding thoughts

There is little doubt that Trump is not limited in his rhetoric and policy-making by the best evidence. It is bad for democracy. It may indicate, for example:

The intrigues of right-wing government

Bob Sheak, July 24, 2025

Introduction

As a result of Trump’s razor thin victory in the 2024 presidential election, a victory that was abetted by Elon Musk’s massive donations of $250 million or more to Trump’s campaign and the contributions of other billionaires, along with Republican gerrymandering in many states, we now have a president who is again advancing policies that conflict with and threaten to destroy democratic values, constitutional mandates, and services that are important to most Americans. For example, with the help of Musk and his young inexperienced team, there have been major reductions in agencies throughout the federal government, reducing or eliminating people, experts in their fields, and services to millions of Americans.

There have already been cuts in education, health care, regulatory agencies, clean energy policy (climate-change deniers), veterans’ benefits, and foreign aid.

Wikipedia reports

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_mass_layoffs).

 “More than 275,000 United States federal civil service layoffs have been announced by the second Trump administration.[1][2] As of June 26, 2025, CNN has tracked at least 128,709 workers laid off or targeted for layoffs.[3] As of 3 June 2025, The New York Times tracked more than 58,500 confirmed cuts, more than 76,000 employee buyouts, and more than 149,000 other planned reductions; cuts total 12% of the 2.4 million civilian federal workers.[4] In limited cases, the administration has rescinded layoff notifications.[5]”

The public justification, lacking evidence, is that there is waste and abuse throughout government that needs to be eliminated. Trump has also naively supported rising tariffs to discourage imports. This has caused shortages in the U.S. economy, rising prices, and the potential loss of trade with even previously allied countries.

Concerned about the negative effects of these actions, including Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” Trump and his Republican allies in the Congress have deceptively postponed some of the cuts until after the 2026 mid-term elections or later in hopes of retaining Republican majorities in both chambers of the Congress.

———–

The one big not-so beautiful bill

Amy B Wang reports on what to expect from Trump’s “big tax law”

(https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/14/trump-tax-bill-takes-effect).

“President Donald Trump signed his massive tax and immigration bill into law on July 4 in a White House ceremony full of patriotic pomp and circumstance. The legislation extends the tax cuts enacted in Trump’s first term and directs hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending to defense and immigration enforcement. To offset those costs, the bill also makes historic cuts to spending on social safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nonpartisan estimates have said cuts in the bill will cause at least 17 million Americans to lose their health coverage.”

Wang continues.”

The key provisions in Trump’s law, which he called the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ will take effect at different times over several years. The facets of the law have varying degrees of popularity with the American public, according to a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll. Many of the more unpopular policies in the legislation will not kick in until after the 2026 midterm elections, possibly minimizing the political damage to Republicans that some in their party previously warned the bill could inflict. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan agency that vets the cost of major legislation, projects the bill will add $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.”

Here’s a look at when certain provisions from the legislation are scheduled to take effect.

“Effective right away, the new law permanently extends trillions of dollars of tax cuts enacted in 2017 during Trump’s first term that otherwise were set to expire at the end of this year. Those included cuts for corporate businesses and for all income levels, though the highest-earning households saw the biggest benefits. The new law also raises the limit on how much people can deduct in state and local taxes — known as the SALT cap — from their federal returns, from $10,000 to $40,000 a year.

“Under the new GOP bill, the standard deduction will increase to $15,750 for an individual ($31,500 for a married couple filing jointly) and the child tax credit will increase from $2,000 to $2,200 per child, to be adjusted for inflation each year. However, some noncitizens are now barred from claiming the latter, even if their children are American citizens.

“Also essentially kicking in right away are many of the policies Trump promised during his campaign, such as no taxes on tips, overtime compensation or car-loan interest. A worker earning less than $150,000 a year can exclude up to $25,000 of tip income and up to $12,500 of overtime compensation from being taxed. People age 65 and older earning up to $75,000 a year can deduct an additional $6,000, with lower deductions for those earning more. The deductions are all retroactive to Jan. 1 and can be claimed when filing taxes next year.

“‘Finally,’ Wang writes, ‘the law mandates new, more stringent work requirements for those on SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. Adults aged 19-64 who don’t have dependents must prove they are working, volunteering or going to school for a certain number of hours each month to qualify for federal food assistance. (SNAP’s previous work requirements apply to adult recipients up to 54 years old, without dependents.) Requirements will be phased through 2029, depending on how states look to supplement the program without federal help. Groups that are likely to see benefit changes this year are veterans, parents with children 14 to 17 years of age, foster youths and people between 55 and 65 years old.”

“What’s getting cut this year? The legislation ends several green- and clean-energy initiatives enacted under President Joe Biden. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022, certain electric vehicle purchases qualified for a tax credit for anywhere from $4,000 to $7,500. That incentive is now set to end on Sept. 30, instead of in 2032.

“Other credits for green home improvement projects — including the Residential Clean Energy Credit and the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit — are also due to sunset on Dec. 31 because of the GOP law. Those credits have been offered for the purchase and installation of things like household solar panels, home batteries and solar water heaters, as well as for homeowners to upgrade to more energy-efficient appliances or improve insulation.

2026 changes

“As the new coverage year starts for health insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, people are likely to see new restrictions and higher premiums because of Trump’s law that allows pandemic-era enhanced subsidies to expire at the end of 2025. The CBO estimates that 4.2 million people will lose insurance as a result of losing those subsidies that made coverage affordable.

“Several new restrictions and changes to federal student loan programs are set to kick in on July 1, 2026. Being eliminated are the Graduate PLUS student loan program, as well as the SAVE, PAYE and ICR student loan repayment plans, which are based on income level. New student loan borrowers must choose between one of two repayment plans approved under the new GOP legislation. Parent PLUS loans — which previously allowed parents to borrow up to a student’s full cost of attendance — also will be capped at $20,000 per year, or $65,000 total per student.

Throughout the year, both parties are expected to use the changes enacted in the law as campaign fodder for the midterm elections on Nov. 3, 2026, with Republicans likely to tout the tax cuts that will have already gone into effect.

Wang continues.

2027

“With midterm elections in the rearview mirror, this is the year that the least popular aspects of the law are set to take effect. Jan. 1, 2027, [and] is the deadline for most states to implement new Medicaid work requirements for people who became eligible for Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the program, though some states may get exemptions for up to two years. Similar to the new SNAP work requirements, adults 19-64 will have to prove they are working, volunteering or going to school for a certain number of hours per month to qualify for Medicaid.

“The bill provides exemptions for certain groups, including those who are pregnant, disabled or taking care of dependent children 13 or younger — but those recipients could still lose their health insurance if they don’t submit paperwork proving their exemption. The bill requires that states conduct an extra eligibility check every six months, starting in 2027, which could open the door to people losing coverage midyear.

“On Oct. 1, 2027, most states will begin to be required to cover some SNAP benefit costs previously covered entirely by the federal government.”

2028

“This is the year that most permanent funding changes to Medicaid kick in, namely the gradual reduction of provider taxes and state-directed payments that experts say are likely to cause states to have to make cuts to their programs. The Trump administration has cast the cuts as ‘strengthening Medicaid by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,’ but the CBO projected the nearly $1 trillion cuts to Medicaid alone will result in 11.8 million more uninsured Americans by 2034.

“July 1, 2028, is the deadline for student loan borrowers to change to one of the two new repayment plans approved under Trump’s law.

“Starting Oct. 1, 2028, those who became eligible for Medicaid under the ACA’s expansion of the program in 2010 — and whose income is from 100 percent to 138 percent of the federal poverty level (roughly $32,000 to $44,000 for a family of four) — will begin to pay new out-of-pocket costs of up to $35 per service, which experts have said is likely to lead low-income recipients to avoid seeking care.

“Possibly the changes that will affect the largest swaths of the population will take place at the end of the year, after the election of a new president. On Dec. 31, 2028, the temporary tax provisions for tips, overtime compensation, seniors, car-loan interest and state and local tax deductions will expire. However, the extension of the 2017 tax cuts — including for corporate businesses and higher-income households — will remain because the law made them permanent.”

————-

The creation of a Police State

Rob Wallace ,Joe Sexauer , Rita Valenti  argue that “Trump Is Trying to Dismantle Public Health — and Replace It With a Police State”

 Truthout, July 16, 2025 (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-trying-to-dismantle-public-health-and-replace-it-with-a-police-state).

“The Trump administration is fighting to remain a step ahead of the growing popular backlash to its draconian cuts to social programs that millions of Americans depend on — at least until the administration operationalizes enough of the police state it’s practicing on immigrants to put down any such objection.

The deeply unpopular White House is confronted with a second problem of its own making. It’s a trap already apparent during Donald Trump’s first term. In letting go federal employees or replacing them with incompetent sycophants, the administration is having difficulty running its political relay to the fascist finish line.”

“Under the ‘ budget signed into law July 4, all that will be removed from Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans will be reallocated nearly dollar-for-dollar to the Pentagon, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and subsidies and tax cuts for the rich.”

“As Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s failure to deploy federal search and rescue until more than 72 hours after the recent deadly Texas floods underscores, the incompetence on display is likely to blow back upon the administration time and again. Within only the last month:

“Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ team used artificial intelligence to write a report plotting out a new vision for health policy that strips out childhood vaccines, ultra-processed foods, and pesticides. The report included false information and fake citations.

“David Richardson, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) new head, shocked FEMA staff when he shared his surprise there was a hurricane season.

“Casey Means, a wellness influencer and Trump’s pick for surgeon general, never completed her medical residency.

“Against their Hippocratic oaths, Veterans Affairs doctors are now allowed to refuse to treat Democrats, the unmarried, or people of any characteristic not presently protected under law.”

“The U.S. has long suffered the consequences of failing to offer access to well-run federal programs to all Americans. But the new administration’s rollbacks reach another order of abandonment, rejecting any notion of our shared fate.”

————

Trying to limit clean energy

Zack Colman and Josh Siegel report on a Trump administration memo that could strike a fatal blow to wind and solar power (https://politico.com/news/2025/07/18/definitely-playing-favorites-interior-memo-could-strike-dire-blow-to-wind-and-solar-projects-00460801). Here’s some of what they report.

“As POLITICO first reported on Wednesday, the Interior Department issued a directive requiring Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal approval for even the most routine activities related to wind and solar projects on federal lands. The directive could have a much broader impact, affecting scores of projects on private land that must pass through or connect with projects on Interior-managed federal land, according to industry officials, financiers and lawyers.

“The memo comes as President Donald Trump has sought to squelch new wind and solar projects through executive orders and limit use of federal tax credits that moderate Republicans fought to preserve in their megalaw earlier this month. Trump has decried those energy sources as harmful to the power grid’s reliability and said those industries ultimately benefit China, which controls a sizable chunk of the world’s wind and solar supply chains.

“Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, warned the move would hamstring the U.S. economy by delaying additions of readily available power.”

“‘The president and Secretary Burgum will then be responsible for raising electricity prices on every state in this country because that will be the end result of that kind of abuse of permitting,’ he said. ‘I would warn them if they create this as a precedent and it survives, a future administration could play the same game with oil and gas pipelines and leases.’”

“The department’s new policy requires Burgum’s office to weigh in on virtually every aspect of or permit for solar and wind projects with a nexus to Interior. That includes siting, navigating threats to endangered species, road access and right-of-way permissions.”

“Solar, wind and battery storage accounted for 93 percent of power capacity added to the grid last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”

“American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet called the new policy ‘obstruction’ and an ‘intentional effort to slow energy production.’”

“‘In stark contradiction to the Administration’s commitment to tackling bureaucracy, this directive adds three new layers of needless process and unprecedented political review to the construction of domestic energy projects,’ Grumet said in a statement.”

“Harry Godfrey, managing director of Advanced Energy United, who leads the clean energy organization’s federal engagement efforts, said in a statement it is ‘deeply disappointing to see the Administration yet again singling out affordable energy sources for added scrutiny, particularly at a time of rising demand. This is the antithesis of expedited permitting that the Administration supposedly favors.’

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), put it bluntly: ‘It sounds blatantly political on the face of it.’”

————–

Trump exempts more than 100 polluters from environmental standards

Rachel Frazin reports on Trump’s exemption of more than 100 polluters from environmental standards, July 18 2025 (https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5408714-trump-epa-polluters-environmental-standards-clean-air-act).


She points out, “The Trump administration is exempting dozens of chemical manufacturers, oil refineries, coal plants, medical device sterilizers and other polluters from Clean Air Act rules.

“On Thursday, the White House announced it would exempt more than 100 plants from pollution limits established by the Biden administration.

“The limits are aimed at reducing the releases of toxic chemicals, including those that cause cancer. One rule that the Trump administration is exempting about 50 polluters from would have been expected to reduce cancer risks of people living within 6 miles of a chemical plant by 96 percent.

“The Trump administration touted its decision as being supportive of fossil fuels and manufacturing.” Trump rejects any policy that might “undermine America’s energy reliability, economic vitality, and national security, according to a White House fact sheet.” Frazin notes the move also stands in contrast with the administration’s pledge to “make America healthy again.”

The consequences are likely to be insufferable. Frazin gives the following examples. “Trump’s action on behalf of big corporate polluters will cause more cancer, more birth defects, and more children to suffer asthma. The country deserves better,” Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation at Earthjustice’s Healthy Communities Program, said in a written statement.”

———-

Ignoring global warming

Donald Trump’s Greatest Failure

Tom Engelhardt consider this issue, July 15 2025

(https://tomdispatch.com/donald-trumps-greatest-triumph). Tom Engelhardt created and runs the website TomDispatch.com. He is also a co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture.  A fellow of the Type Media Center, his sixth book is A Nation Unmade by War.

“‘My guess,’ Engelhardt writes, “is that you haven’t read much about it recently, despite the fact that a significant part of this country, including the city I live in, set new heat records for June. And Europe followed suit soon after with a heat hell all its own in which, at one point, the temperature in part of Spain hit an all-time record 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit. And oh yes, part of Portugal hit 115.9 degrees as both countries recorded their hottest June ever. Facing that reality, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said (again all too appropriately): ‘Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal.’ The new normal, indeed! He couldn’t have been more on target!”

“And why am I not surprised by all this? Well, because whether you’re in the United States or Europe (or so many other places on this planet) these days, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, you’ve noticed that June is indeed the new July, and that, thanks to the ever increasing amounts of greenhouse gases that continue to flow into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, heat waves have grown more frequent and more intense. After all, we’re now on a planet where, without a doubt, heat is at an all-time-record high. After all, 2024, was the hottest year in history and the last 10 years, the hottest decade ever known.” Worse yet, in the age of Donald Trump, this is clearly just the beginning, not the end (though somewhere down the line, of course, it could indeed prove to be exactly that).”

—————

An Ongoing Act of Global Terrorism

Engelhardt continues. “In short, despite everything else he’s doing in and to this world of ours, there’s nothing more devastating (not even his bombing of Iran) than his urge to ignore anything associated with climate change, while putting fossil fuels back at the very center of our all-American world. Yes, he can no longer simply stop solar and wind power from growing rapidly on this planet of ours, but he can certainly try. And simply refusing to do anything to help is — or at least should be — considered an ongoing act of global terrorism.

Fewer forecasts

“And don’t think it’s just that either. For example, Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service have already ensured that, when truly bad weather hits (and hits and hits), as it’s been doing this year, whether you’re talking about stunning flash-flooding or tornadoes, there will be, as the Guardian‘s Eric Holthaus reports, ever fewer staff members committed to informing and warning Americans about what’s coming or helping them once it’s hit. Meanwhile, cuts to the government’s greenhouse gas monitoring network will ensure that we’ll know less about the effects of climate change in this country.”

Engelhardt concludes his article, “Of all the wars we shouldn’t be fighting on this planet of ours from Ukraine to Gaza, Iran to Sudan, there is indeed one that we all should be fighting, including the president of the United States, and that’s the war against our destruction of this planet (as humanity has known it all these endless thousands of years) in a planetary heat hell.” 

————

Monitoring and suppressing dissent

John W. Whitehead – Nisha Whitehead consider this issue

(https://counterpunch.org/2025/07/17/thewearables-trap-how-the-government-plans-to-monitor-score-and-control-you). Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books The Erik Blair Diaries and Battlefield America: The War on the American People are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

The Whiteheads make their key point: “Under the present Republican-dominated government, ‘bodily autonomy—the right to privacy and integrity over our own bodies—is rapidly vanishing.

“‘We are entering a new age of algorithmic, authoritarian control, where our thoughts, moods, and biology are monitored and judged by the state.

“This is the dark promise behind the newest campaign by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, to push for a future in which all Americans wear biometric health-tracking devices.

“Under the guise of public health and personal empowerment, this initiative is nothing less than the normalization of 24/7 bodily surveillance—ushering in a world where every step, heartbeat, and biological fluctuation is monitored not only by private companies but also by the government.”

“‘According to Kennedy’s plan,’ which has been promoted as part of a national campaign to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ wearable devices would track glucose levels, heart rate, activity, sleep, and more for every American.

“Participation may not be officially mandatory at the outset, but the implications are clear: get on board, or risk becoming a second-class citizen in a society driven by data compliance.”

“Devices like Fitbits, Apple Watches, glucose trackers, and smart rings collect astonishing amounts of intimate data—from stress and depression to heart irregularities and early signs of illness. When this data is shared across government databases, insurers, and health platforms, it becomes a potent tool not only for health analysis—but for control.”

“Once health tracking becomes a de facto requirement for employment, insurance, or social participation, it will be impossible to ‘opt out’ without penalty. Those who resist may be painted as irresponsible, unhealthy, or even dangerous.

“This is not merely the expansion of health care. It is the transformation of health into a mechanism of control—a Trojan horse for the surveillance state to claim ownership over the last private frontier: the human body.”

“The goal is no longer simply to monitor behavior but to reshape it—to preempt dissent, deviance, or disease before it arises.”

————

 Trump’s angry, erratic behavior explains his lowball poll numbers, except among his MAGA base

Stephen Collinson reports for CNN on Trump’s low poll ratings

(https://cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/trump-powell-epstein-poll-numbers-analysis).

Collinson focuses on Trump’s views toward Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, and his relations to Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide while serving a prison sentence for enticing young girls into sex acts with him and his wealthy friends, including, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, Trump.

On Powell

Trump’s inclination to fire Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve would represent, Collinson writes, “the riskiest power grab yet of Trump’s expansive second term, since it would traumatize markets by obliterating an assumption that made the US the world’s most powerful economy — that presidents don’t emulate developing world dictators by cooking the books for political gain.”

Trump later insisted it was “highly unlikely” he’d dismiss Powell after markets shuddered. But given his volatile nature and obvious desire to exact revenge on an official who has refused to bow to his autocratic impulses, few will take such assurances to the (central) bank.

Notably, “Powell is praised by many economists for doing the impossible — taming the worst inflation crisis in 40 years without setting off a recession or surging unemployment. But unlike the Fed chief, whom he appointed in his first term, Trump acts on hunches. If he gets this wrong and ignites contagion in the financial markets, the savings and livelihoods of millions could be on the line.”

On Epstein

Meanwhile, in an extraordinary outburst on Truth Social, “Trump blasted some of the most vocal MAGA personalities as ‘weaklings’ over their criticism of his administration’s refusal to throw open files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s defensiveness supercharged a furor simmering for more than a week — and is likely to spur more claims he’s got something to hide and to encourage Democratic calls for more transparency.”

Trump sues the Wall Street Journal

Amid the controversy, Nandita Bose and Jonathan Stempel report for Reuters that Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal seeking $10 billion (https://apnews.com/article/trump-epstein-wall-street-journal-b006f3ef25e6b4ab910cc3b41c865227). Here’s some of what they write.

“U.S. President Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal and its owners including Rupert Murdoch for at least $10 billion on Friday, over the newspaper’s report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Jeffrey Epstein that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.

The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court names Murdoch, Dow Jones, News Corp (NWSA.O), opens new tab and its Chief Executive Robert Thomson, and two Wall Street Journal reporters as defendants, saying they defamed Trump and caused him to suffer “overwhelming” financial and reputational harm.”

Bose and Stempel continue. “A spokesperson for Dow Jones said in a statement: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

Low poll ratings, except among many in his base

Bottom of Form

Collinson (cited previously) refers to a new CNN/SSRS poll that sheds light on Trump’s unruly presidency.

“In the CNN poll, Trump’s approval rating was largely unchanged from the spring, at 42%. But less than a year after an election that turned in part on frustration about the cost of groceries and housing, only 37% of those polled say Trump is concentrating on the right issues — down 6 points from March.”

And his “biggest-ever domestic triumph — the just-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which contains much of his second-term domestic agenda — is opposed by 61% of Americans. And his approval among independents is an anemic 32%.”

Still, “the CNN/SSRS findings show that Trump’s standing with Republicans is rock-solid at 88%.”

———–

Does Trump have a plan to avoid becoming a lame duck?

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post considers Trump’s plan, July 11, 2025

(https://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/11/trump-third-term-legacy-era).

Members of the Editorial Board: Deputy Opinion Editors Mary Duenwald and Stephen Stromberg, as well as writers Robert Gebelhoff, James Hohmann, Megan McArdle, Eduardo Porter and Keith B. Richburg.

They write,

“Trump cannot lawfully seek a third term, but he may continue to dominate U.S. politics, according to the Washington Post’s editorial board.

“One especially ostentatious way that Trump has sought to avoid becoming a lame duck is by flirting with seeking a third term in 2028. Usually, Trump is clearly joking. At other times, he has acknowledged that he will be a two-term president.”

But the Board writes that some of Trump’s policies will have a negative effect on his future.

“His tax cuts promise to add trillions to the debt, risking a fiscal crisis the likes of which Americans have never experienced.”

“The president’s erratic tariff policy risks stoking inflation and promotes corrosive uncertainty for businesses trying to plan and invest.

“His war on undocumented immigrants, marked by a provocative, militarized federal presence in Los Angeles, could bring more economic pain.

“…as Trump rolls out a new, massive tariff seemingly every hour, the bigger he goes, the higher the risk to the nation’s fortunes.”

————-

Is it about his psychological instability and incapacity?

There is concern in some circles that Trump’s erratic behavior is affected by a growing mental instability and incapacity.

Bandy X. Lee, the author and editor of the bestselling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (publ. 2017), has written another book about Trump’s psychological state. The title: The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind (publ. 2024). Lee writes that “mental incapacity” occurs when “a person does not possess the rationality and mental stability to be able to make reality-based, sound decision, so that one can perform a task or a job” (p. 62).

Here are two examples from Lee’s book. One, “Donald Trump became the source of almost half the world’s disinformation on Covid-19, at a time when public education was the most critical defense against the disease” (p. 62). Two, he encouraged his supporters to gather in Washington D.C., to stop the certification of Biden’s presidency on January 6, 2021, where at least 2,000 of them engaged in a violent insurrection at the U.S. capitol, and “injuring 174 police officers and killing four (p. 63).

Lee points out that trump waited hours to intercede while the rioters ransacked the capitol and unleased their damage and harm. Lee writes: “Donald Trump himself never telephoned the National Guard, and never contacted any federal law enforcements agency to order security assistance to the Capitol Police. Instead, during the attack’s first three hours, Trump was transfixed on the violence shown on television, ignoring pleas to call off the mob” (p. 68).

Trump continues to this day to claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him. It has become known as the “big lie.” However, the overwhelming evidence conclusively denies his claim. Sixty-three lawsuits brought by Trump or his supporters failed to change the election results against him. To top it off, and as an illustration of Trump’s unhinged views, one of Trump’s first executive orders in his second presidential term was to pardon over 1,500 of the incarcerated rioters, viewing them as “patriots” rather than the law-breakers they are.

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Concluding thoughts

Trump’s actions and policies indicate that he has a poor judgment on the policies he supports and opposes and on the people he selects for important posts in hisadministration. Consequently, the majority of Americans are being negatively affected and their future is of concern, from global warming to loss of government services Polls show that majorities of American reject his policies on tariffs, immigration, and on his overall performance. If his erratic and harmful behavior continues, the Republican Party may lose their control of at least one of the Congressional houses in the midterm 2026 midterms. That would be beneficial for the country.