Janis Joplin could really sing. And maybe that
will help poor Musk? To the tune of Janis' "A Woman Left Lonely"? Poor
Musk, he's been thinking about his relationship "when a good thing's
coming to an end." And he is now one of the most despised men in the
country. Sinead Butler (Indy 100) explains:
Despite
the chaos of cancelling contracts, cutting federal programs and firing
thousands of federal employees, which made headlines, Musk has admitted
he may only cut 15 per cent of the original goal.
Combine
that with the whole Nazi salute accusations from Trump's inauguration,
and throwing $25 million at Republican judge Brad Schimel's campaign in
the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, it's predictable that another
University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found most Americans do not
trust him to identify federal programs to cut (53 per cent), protect the
private information of citizens (55 per cent), or to avoid using his
position to benefit his business interests (59 per cent).
"Given
the unpopularity of Musk’s efforts to rein in federal spending, it is
no surprise that many expect Musk to return to his businesses and to put
Washington, D.C., in his rearview mirror," said Tatishe Nteta, provost
professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the
poll, as Musk has said he reckons most of DOGE’s work will be completed
by the end of May.
But those aren't the only
polls charting Musk's falling popularity, as new polling averages
aggregated by statistician Nate Silver show 39.4 per cent of Americans
have a positive view of Musk, but the majority (52.7 per cent) have a
negative view of him.
The people are fleeing Musk. But that's not his only problem. He and Chump have friction between them and not the fun kind. Eleanor Tolbert (Irish Star) reports:
President
Donald Trump was reportedly angry about the alleged meeting Elon Musk’s
was set to have with Pete Hegseth in the Pentagon last month.
The
Tesla billionaire has become Trump’s right-hand man, but there seems to
be a limit to what he’s allowed to do. The New York Times reported last
month that Musk was supposed to have a meeting with Secretary of
Defense Hegseth on March 21 to talk about China.
He was
said to be receiving a briefing on US plans regarding any potential
conflict with China involving some of the military's most closely
guarded secrets. Trump took to social media to slam the article,
however, calling it ‘fake news.”
Musk
did have a meeting with Hegseth, but Trump said it was a Department of
Government Efficiency issue. A source told Axios that the meeting was
originally intended to discuss China, but Trump axed it.
According to the government official, Trump said of the meeting: “What the f--- is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn't go.”
They continued that the Tesla CEO and Trump are still on good terms.
“POTUS
still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines. Elon has a
lot of business in China and he has good relations there, and this
briefing just wasn't the right thing."
Ooooh. Who was the source? Donna Martin? Trying to reassure us that Brenda and Dylan are still in love and not breaking up?
Whistleblower
Daniel Berulis claimed DOGE staffers were given extensive access to the
National Labor Relations Board systems in early March 2025. According
to Berulis, 10GB of sensitive data — including business information,
details of union activities and private affidavits — was exfiltrated
from NLRB servers."I can't attest to what their end goal was or what
they're doing with the data," Berulis told NPR. "But I can tell you that
the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a
very bad picture we're looking at."In a formal complaint, Berulis
claimed the organization was responsible for a "significant
cybersecurity breach."
In
an affidavit, Daniel Berulis pointed out how rare the incident was.
"That kind of spike is extremely unusual because data almost never
directly leaves NLRB's databases," he stated.
Wednesday, April 16, 2025. Whistle blower Daniel Berulis comes
forward with disturbing reports on DOGE, Chump continues to wreck the
economy and the American dream, MSNBC's web team is still asleep this
morning so could someone please wake them, Dems in Congress talk of
going to El Salvador to investigate what's going on, and much more.
Let's
start with Alien Musk's DOGE which has existed with no real authority
and certainly no oversight. We've trusted Musk with access to this
country's most sensitive information despite the fact that he's a
security risk due to his drug usage, despite the fact that he's depended
on huge amounts of money from China and despite the fact that he's not
an American citizen (he's first a citizen of South Africa, then Canada
and then the US). From yesterday's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR):
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump's Department
of Government Efficiency team, or DOGE, appears to be collecting
sensitive data from all over the government. A whistleblower has come
forward by filing an official disclosure to Congress. The disclosure is
over concerning activity at one independent federal agency - the
National Labor Relations Board. NPR's Jenna McLaughlin spoke to that
whistleblower. He described to NPR what he saw and how DOGE appeared to
go to great lengths to try to cover its tracks.
JENNA
MCLAUGHLIN, BYLINE: It was a Friday afternoon in February when Daniel
Berulis got a call from his boss. DOGE, the new federal cost-cutting
unit, effectively led by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk, would be
arriving soon.
DANIEL BERULIS: I was working on a
spreadsheet for some budgeting stuff, and I got a call from my boss
saying, hey, it's possible DOGE will show up.
MCLAUGHLIN:
The following week - according to his official disclosure to Congress -
Berulis and his colleagues watched a black SUV with a police escort pull
into the parking garage of the National Labor Relations Board in
Southeast Washington, D.C. The small, independent federal agency
investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It
stores reams of potentially sensitive data, such as private legal notes
in ongoing labor investigations or confidential lists of union
organizers.
Most of that data lives on the Cloud, a virtual
computer system that can be accessed remotely. It's Berulis' job to
watch over the cloud and make sure no single user has access to data or
systems they don't need. But for DOGE, those policies and guidelines
didn't seem to apply, Berulis says. They had a very specific request.
BERULIS: Do not log the accounts. Don't log the access and stay out of our way.
MCLAUGHLIN: That was just the start for Berulis and his colleagues.
BERULIS:
That was a huge red flag. That's something that you just don't do. It
violates every core concept of security and best practice.
MCLAUGHLIN:
After his suspicions were raised, Berulis was able to hunt down a few
details about what took place while DOGE had access. In his disclosure
to Congress, there's a ton of complicated technical detail. But here's
what it says.
There's clear evidence DOGE got the highest
level of access to the system, that a big chunk of data left the
agency's internal case management system, followed by another chunk of
data leaving the agency itself and that whoever had done those things
had turned off security tools and network monitoring logs. They deleted
records and appeared to try and disguise the chunks of data leaving the
agency as routine web traffic. And after the DOGE accounts were created,
someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in to the
NLRB system, using a username and password that DOGE had created. Even
though the attempts were blocked, Berulis says that made him worried the
system was more vulnerable now.
The NLRB tells NPR the
agency did not authorize DOGE to access their systems, and that there's
no record of DOGE requesting it. They also said there was a recent
internal investigation that ruled out a breach. However, the disclosure
includes forensic evidence and records of communications that seem to
tell a different story.
BERULIS: Why was that done? And
that's a purposeful effort. That doesn't just happen. Logs don't just
disappear. Tools don't just turn themselves off randomly. Everything in a
computer has a cause and effect. That means it has to have a trigger.
MCLAUGHLIN:
NPR has talked to 10 outside cybersecurity experts - embedded in
companies, government agencies and the private sector - who reviewed
Berulis' claims. They say the activity is suspicious and that there's no
reason a legitimate user would act this way or remove data that is
protected by multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act. They say
it is hard to definitively prove what happened without further access to
the NLRB systems or without an investigation by agencies with more
resources, like the FBI. But from what they can see, none of this
behavior is normal. They told NPR the shadowy tactics described in the
disclosure are the kinds of things criminals and hackers from China and
Russia like to do. Meanwhile, several labor law experts who spoke to NPR
say they believe there's no possible reason why DOGE should have had
access to or removed NLRB's sensitive labor data.
SHARON
BLOCK: There is nothing that I can see about what DOGE is doing that
follows any of the standard procedures for how you do an audit that has
integrity and that's meaningful and that will actually produce results.
MCLAUGHLIN:
Sharon Block is the director of Harvard Law School Center for Labor and
a Just Economy. She has held key labor policy jobs in multiple
administrations, including as a member of the National Labor Relations
Board. She said she thinks DOGE's statements about cutting waste and its
behavior don't match up.
BLOCK: That mismatch between what
they're doing and what we know the established professional way to do
what they say they're doing - that just kind of gives away the store -
that they are not about actually finding more efficient ways for the
government to operate.
Last night on THE RACHEL
MADDOW SHOW (MSNBC), Rachel spoke with the whistle blower and with his
attorney. We'd embed the video here but MSNBC's internet team appears
to be sleeping on the job and not understanding the importance of
breaking news.
The whistleblower report, which NBC News
has reviewed a copy of, comes as DOGE and Trump’s billionaire adviser
Elon Musk continue to face multiple lawsuits questioning their access to computer systems across the federal government.
Berulis,
who works at the labor board, wrote in the declaration that within days
of DOGE staffers arriving in March, he noticed a series of “anomalous”
events in the board’s computer systems. Those included changes to the
use of multi-factor authentication, which is a widely used security
protocol, and internal alerting systems being switched off, he wrote in
the 14-page statement.
He also wrote that he
tracked what appeared to be the outbound transfer of around 10 gigabytes
or more of data — “the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias” if
the data were all text files, he wrote. He wrote that the removal was
“extremely unusual because data almost never directly leaves NLRB’s
databases.”
The database accessed by DOGE
contained personally identifiable information of “claimants and
respondents with pending matters before the agency” as well as
confidential business information gathered during investigations, he
wrote.
e added that after DOGE gained access to the labor
board’s systems, there was an increase in attempted logins from
locations outside the United States including from a user with an
internet protocol (IP) address in Russia. He wrote that the person with
the Russian IP address appeared to have a correct username and password,
created minutes earlier by DOGE engineers, and was blocked from logging
in only because of their location.
“Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming,” Berulis wrote.
Berulis
included in his disclosure several screenshots from a computer
workstation that he says are evidence of data being transferred. He
wrote that he has almost two decades of experience in his field and that
he has held a Top Secret security clearance.
Musk is currently embroiled in a legal battle
with the NLRB over the agency’s ability to enforce labor law. Attorneys
for Musk’s SpaceX argued before a court in November that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional.
A ruling against the agency could severely diminish its power.
The legal battle began after the NLRB accused SpaceX of illegally firing employees who had publicly criticized Musk.
The nonprofit Whistleblower Aid, which is representing Berulis legally, passed along his sworn disclosure in a letter
to Sens. Tom Cotton and Mark Warner, the top Republican and Democrat on
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively. It asked the
committee to probe the matter.
The letter
describes DOGE’s actions as possibly constituting a “significant
cybersecurity breach that likely has and continues to expose our
government to foreign intelligence and our nation’s adversaries.”
It
also claims that ”someone physically taped a threatening note to Mr.
Berulis’ home door with photographs – taken via a drone – of him walking
in his neighborhood” as he prepared to make his disclosure. The note,
which Berulis declined to share with Reuters, specifically referenced
the impending disclosure, the letter says.
The
spying and intimidation attempts? They started before he went
public. Daniel Berulis' attorney explained that to Rachel Maddow last
night. Which means that DOGE is also spying on government employees.
Yesterday on CNN, Jake Tapper reported on this story and spoke with
Daniel.
It’s
worth underlining the caveat that no one quite knows where the data
allegedly pilfered from the NLRB is going—if indeed it has left the
agency at all. But the information allegedly leaving the NLRB would be
extraordinarily valuable to corporate titans like Musk looking for a leg
up on rivals, as well as a window into the inner workings of the labor
unions they despise. It would also explain why Musk is involved with
DOGE to begin with. As a number of his companies, especially Tesla,
struggle, the government systems DOGE now controls could provide
invaluable information.
The theft of
personal information also points to another more nefarious motivation
for Musk and DOGE. It’s already abundantly clear that the group will not
reduce the deficit. It likely will not even decrease federal spending,
which is already $100 billion higher under Trump than it was under Biden
at this point in his term. Instead, the group’s slashing of regulations
and bureaucracy is aimed not at reducing “waste” but at cutting the
many governmental layers that exist to fight risk—and fraud.
In
another sense, it really doesn’t matter if this information is being
used for nefarious corporate reasons at all. What matters is that
unaccountable coders with close ties to the world’s richest man have
their mitts on the personal information of millions of Americans—that’s
bad no matter what they’re doing with it.
Some reaction on BLUESKY.
Be really great if MSNBC could get Rachel's interview with Daniel uploaded to their YOUTUBE channel this morning.
Moving
over to the topic of the economy, the elephant in the room is the
breasty Donald Chump who continues to wreck the US economy. David J. Lynch (WASHINGTON POST) reports
that, since January 20th, the US dollar is on the decline having lost
10% of its value during that time period -- 5% of the decline occurred
in the last few weeks as Chump's tariff scheme was implemented. "Bad
news," Lynch explains, "for Americans traveling abroad and could also
aggravate inflation by making foreign goods more expensive."
On the topic of the economy, we noted yesterday that Chump was destroying travel to the US and the billions of dollars that this travel results in:
Other
damage he's doing? The United States makes a lot of money from
foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight
seeing journeys. Dallas, TX? A magnet for people around the world who
want to remember President John F. Kennedy. And a ton of people do
because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure --
unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment. Florida?
The incredible beaches. Key Largo, Key West. DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL
STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.
California? DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden
Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches,
the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin
Redwoods State Park,
Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . . New York has the Statue of
Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building,
Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . . That's just a few things in a
few states. Most of the states have major tourist attractions. And
tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money
each year.
Do you get how
much money that is? How many industries that impacts? You've got the
airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a
car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've
got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees
visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers
often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to
what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.
Or it did.
Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?
In
2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion --
billion -- into the US economy. That amounted to approximately $584
million a day.
And now
Chump's making us pariah around the world. See, sending people to a
gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.
And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no
trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is
worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally
get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back
to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines
and people are tortured.
Ignoring
the many tales of horror inflicted upon innocent tourists to the United
States, California Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged Canadians to visit the
Bear Republic. Canadians said no.
California
depends on international tourism, and the Trump administration's new
Draconian policies will hit the state hard. In 2024, nearly 1.8 million
Canadians visited California, contributing around $3.72 billion to the
state's economy. Only Mexico boasts higher international tourism numbers
than the Golden State, and you can be sure they will enthusiastically
not visit either. In an attempt to build some confidence in potential
international travelers, Newsom took to TikTok with an invitation.
Canadians politely shoved it back in his face.
Janna Brancolini (THE DAILY BEAST) points out, "President
Donald Trump’s policies could cost the U.S. economy $90 billion this
year in lost tourism and export revenue, according to analysts at
Goldman Sachs. Many foreign visitors are avoiding the U.S. over concerns
about increased hostility at the border, including reports about
European tourists being detained for weeks in U.S. immigration centers.
Others are angry about Trump’s trade wars and his treatment of U.S.
allies -- particularly Canada -- and are boycotting U.S. travel and
products."
This topic was also
addressed on THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE when Stephanie spoke
with Wilfred Frost about the upcoming series -- Sunday, April 27th -- on
his father journaist David Frost -- a six part docuseries entitled
DAVID VS. Stephanie and Wilfred looked at the countries and the drop
in travel to the US with Wilfred noting that Denmark had one of the
highest fallen rates on travel to the US since Chump was sworn in on
January 20th.
Love to post the video but, guess what --
That's right MSNBC's web team just sleeps on the job. We will note
this discussion Stephanie had last night at the start of her program.
Staying on the topic of the economy,
Brad Bannon (THE HILL) explains, "President
Trump has just reached a crucial stage early in the second term of his
presidency. Sandwiched between his abject capitulation on tariffs and
the bitter fight over his tax breaks for fat cats and plutocrats, he now
owns this creaky economy." Andrew Stanton (NEWSWEEK) elaborates, "A
growing number of Americans are blaming President Donald Trump, rather
than former President Joe Biden, for the state of the economy, according
to two recent polls." And what's the conclusion to the growing feeling of mistrust toward Chump and his GOP tariff boosters? Maria Villarroel (LATIN TIMES) explains, "As
the Trump administration continues defending tariffs and the
uncertainty they have created in the global economy, voters are
reacting, with more saying they trust Democrats more than Republicans to
handle the economy for the first time since 2021, a new poll shows. The
poll in question was conducted by Morning Consult among 2,203
registered U.S. voters across the country between April 11-13. It found
that more trust Democrats in Congress more than their Republican
counterparts to handle the economy (46% to 43%)." More bad news for
Chump via Miles Klee (ROLLING STONE):
New
polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals that after
almost three months in office, a majority of respondents disapprove of
Trump's actions in office. Just 27 percent said they "Strongly Approve"
of his job performance, with another 17 percent indicating they
"Somewhat Approve" of him so far in his second term, for total
favorables of 44 percent. By comparison, 44 percent "Strongly
Disapprove," and 7 percent "Somewhat Disapprove," for an unfavorability
rate of 51 percent.
Trump is also
underwater on every issue apart from immigration. At least 40 percent of
respondents said he has handled jobs, foreign affairs, civil rights,
inflation, and trade "Not Well At All," with the president receiving
especially poor marks on the latter two economic fronts: a combined 62
percent unfavorable on inflation and 58 percent on trade, presumably as
the cost of household necessities hasn't budged, while Trump's messy
tariffs plans have roiled international markets and investment
portfolios.
Again,
Chump has killed the American dream and few people want to travel into a
den of iniquity. His trashy ways have tarnished the country's image
around the world. And, as we noted yesterday, people don't want to
travel to some country that might deport them -- accidentally or
intentionally -- to a prison in El Salvador. Daniel Hampton (RAW STORY) notes:
A
civil rights attorney sounded the alarm Monday afternoon, warning the
Trump administration is essentially engaged in what he called "human
trafficking."
Trump publicly said he would like
to deport American citizens who are violent offenders to El Salvador,
where they would then serve their prison sentences under a deal with the
Salvadoran government. Trump made the remarks during a White House
meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.
[. . .]
The
idea has been widely challenged by legal experts, including civil
rights attorney Scott Hechinger, who took to X on Monday to blast the
president.
"Pay attention: This is human
trafficking. President Trump is already paying to ship humans to El
Salvador & now wants to expand his slave trade. US military
contractors like Eric Prince are salivating, now negotiating to
privatize deportations/imprisonment to make billions," warned Hechinger.
In a separate post, he called the deportation effort a "clear assault on civil liberties and due process rights."
"It
also represents an arguably darker milestone: 'The US government is now
in the business of trafficking migrants on the global market.'"
A darker milestone? Travis Gettys reports that historian Timothy Snyder is also making that argument:
"Yesterday
the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man who was
mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering
of this innocent person, and spoke of sending Americans to foreign
concentration camps," Snyder wrote.
"This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror," he added, "and it has to be identified as such to be stopped."
Snyder,
who is leaving Yale University for the University of Toronto in the
fall, said both Stalinists and Nazis both referred to their own people
as "criminals" and "terrorists," as both Trump and Bukele did at the
White House, to justify their authoritarian abuse and escape from the
law.
"It is that anti-constitutional escapism
that enables abuse," Snyder wrote. "State terror involves not just the
malignant development of state organs of oppression, such as masked men
in black vans, but also the withdrawal of the state from its role as a
guardian of law. What aspiring tyrants present as 'strength,' the
ability to terrorize innocent people, rests on what might be seen as a
more fundamental weakness, which is the withdrawal of the state from the
principle of the rule of law. When we have law, we are all stronger;
when we lack law, everyone is weaker except for the very few who can
direct the coercive power of the state against the rest of us."
In
the face of all of this, Democrats can't afford to be a cowardly James
Carville. People want to see leadership and they want to see that some
elected official actually gives a damn. Phillip M. Bailey (USA TODAY) reports:
Democratic
lawmakers say if a wrongly deported man sent to a supermax prison in El
Salvador isn't brought back to the U.S., they will visit the central
American country, adding further pressure on the Trump administration
for his release.
President Donald Trump met
with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office on Monday,
where he praised the foreign leader for opening his country's notorious
prison system to alleged gang members and detainees the U.S. wants out
of the country.
[. . .]
"I've
been clear: if President Bukele doesn't want to meet here in D.C., then
I intend to go to El Salvador this week to check on Kilmar Abrego
Garcia's condition and discuss his release," Sen. Chris Van Hollen,
D-MD, said in an April 14 post on X.
"Kilmar was illegally abducted and deported by the Trump (administration). He must be brought home now."
Other
members of Congress say they plan to join Van Hollen's trip, including
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fl., who described Garcia's detention as a
"kidnapping and illegal detention."
"We need answers now," said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., who reshared Van Hollen's post on Monday.
This needs to happen.
Brian Taylor Cohen discussed this Congressional trip last night with US House Rep Robert Garcia.
Again, this needs to happen.
And
Lawrence Tribe discussed this last night. Let's post that video. Oh.
Wait. We can't. He did that on MSNBC speaking with Lawrence
O'Donnell. Again, MSNBC's web team is sleeping on the job.
Marjorie Taylor Greene? She's got some conditions.
Maybe it's because of her recent 'winnings' -- see Elaine's "Lock up MTG?" from last
night -- but she is holding a town hall her way. David Badash reports:
Jake Gittes: I wouldn't extort a nickel from my worst enemy. That's where I draw the line.
Loach
Jr.: Well, I'll tell you, Jake. I knew a whore once. For the right
amount of money, she'd piss in a guy's face But she wouldn't s**t on
his chest. You see, that's where she drew the line.
Jake Gittes: Well, Junior, all I can say is: I hope she wasn't too much of a disappointment to you.
Oh,
wait, it just sounds like they're talking about Marjorie. That's
actually from the Jack Nicholson film THE TWO JAKES (script by Robert
Towne). Here's David Badash writing about Marjorie:
In
a social media video, Congresswoman Greene stated, “this is a town hall
that’s strictly for constituents. That means you have to live in my
district, and you had to sign up on the sign up link. That’s important.
Make sure you bring your ID, as we will be verifying that you actually
live in the district and have signed up to be in the town hall.”
Greene,
under scrutiny over recent stock purchases she allegedly made, is
holding the town hall in a county Vice President Kamala Harris carried
in November by 15 percentage points, according to Fox News. The GOP
Congresswoman established additional rules, namely, no
protesting—despite First Amendment protections.
“Also,
this is important for everyone attending the town hall,” she said. “You
need to understand this is not a place to protest. This isn’t a place to
stand up and scream and yell. This is a place to sit and listen, and we
have your questions if you signed up.”
Huh?
Isn't this the same bull dog who went after AOC? Stuck her ugly face in
the mail slot of AOC's office? I understand Marjorie stuck her face in
a lot of slots over the years. But this is when the burly girl was
making her way through the halls of Congress. And burly butch wasn't
one of AOC's constituents.
Poor
Marjorie, she can't handle an honest interaction with her
constituents. Listen to what I just said. "With her constituents." As
if. Marjorie can't handle an honest interaction with anyone. But last
night, she had them tossed out of the meeting, had them tasered and
much worse. Let's hope they all remember when the midterms approach.
The bro-cest continues its corruption -- but that's always what happens when you team crooks like Chump and Musk. Raw Story reports:
Employees
with the Pentagon's digital technology unit, dubbed the "SWAT team of
nerds," have decided to resign together rather than deal with changes
being brought about by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency,
according to new reporting from Politico.
The
report states that the Defense Digital Services unit was once considered
the Pentagon's "fast-track tech development arm" and "one of the
department’s earliest efforts to inject Silicon Valley ethos into its
massive bureaucracy."
Created in 2015, DDS helped the
Pentagon "adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises" and
pushed "Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon," according
to reporter Mohar Chatterjee. "It built rapid response tools for the
military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer
Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid," and "drone detection
technologies," among other projects.
With the ascendance of DOGE, however, DDS will effectively shut down by the end of this month.
They don't know what they're doing -- Chump and Musk -- they're just determined to destroy.
Betty has long noted that we only have one Earth and how appalling it is that people are willing to trash it and make this planet inhospitable. She's right. But those same creeps are willing to do that in other ways to our democracy.
And these people -- whether they are attacking our planet or attacking our democracy -- are motivated by greed and have no concern over the damage -- the very real damage -- that they are doing.
Even doge admits Elon musk is cutting cancer research
Unelected billionaire Elon Musk should not be acting as co-president of the United States and making $8 million a day from government contracts while he’s at it.
My new bill would crack down on conflicts of interest for Elon Musk and all Special Government Employees.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Chump wrecks the economy and that includes
tourism, Chump's deportation policies are illegal and one man proves
that which is why Chump doesn't want him back in the US, they're going
after Head Start, and much more.
Convicted Felon Donald Chump has wrecked he economy and the fallout continues. Yesterday, Ruth noted in "Chump could be a wet nurse" that the real number of
Republicans concerned about Chump's tariffs is probably much greater and
that people have a hard time admitting they made a mistake. And she
notes how elected Republicans are beginning to voice their concerns
which will break the ice and allow non-elected Republicans to get
truthful. Florence Muchai (CRYPTOPOLITAN) reports:
Republican
lawmakers are worried that President Donald Trump’s pause-and-play
tariff strategy could backfire politically and economically, potentially
jeopardizing the GOP’s prospects in the 2026 midterm elections.
Owing
to how tariffs hit both adversaries and allies, party leaders warn the
President that inflation, higher borrowing costs, suppressed consumer
expenditure, and market instability could undo hard-won electoral gains.
Last
week, Trump announced that Chinese import tariffs would clock 145%,
prompting Beijing to retaliate with a 125% tariff on American goods.
Though the POTUS temporarily paused trade levies for several other
countries for 90 days, claiming they are now on the negotiation table,
Republicans are concerned about the leading party’s reputation back
home.
According to
data reported by Yahoo Finance, the 30-year Treasury yield, closely
linked to mortgage rates, saw its biggest one-week jump since 1982,
rising to 4.88%. The 10-year yield climbed to 4.59%, increasing
borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.
Conservative
Senator Thom Tillis, one to watch in the upcoming midterm cycle,
referenced the former President Ronald Reagan era in 1982 when
Republicans lost 26 seats in the House, likely caused by economic
concerns and rising interest rates.
“All the indicators would be ‘wrong track’ if we’re still having the same tariff discussions by February,” Tillis remarked.
Tillis
is asking the Trump administration to finalize favorable trade deals
within the next 10 months. But without concrete results, he said, the
GOP would face “political headwinds” similar to past electoral wipeouts
following tax hikes or trade disruptions.
Another
GOP leader, Senator Rand Paul, invoked the 1932 election when the
Republican authors of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, Senators Reed Smoot
and Willis Hawley, lost their seats after their protectionist policies
shared the biggest part of the blame for deepening the Great Depression.
When
Democratic Party analyst James Carville says to let the GOP screw
things up all by themselves, he's basing it on historical models like
the above. History often repeats. But not always precisely and it's
rather lazy -- and a bit of a scaredy cat -- to talk people out of
taking action on the hope/dream/prayer that things will turn out exactly
as they did in the past. And it also puts aside/ignores all the other things he's doing -- all the other illegal things.
In a column for THE NEW YORK TIMES, Carville argues
that Chump's con may be coming to an end, "The problem is that smoke
and mirrors only work until you screw up so hard that no act of lunacy
can pull the American people's attention elsewhere. And boy, did the
president just screw up royally. In what will certainly be recorded as
one of the most ignorant acts of political leadership in American
history, the president of the United States has now willfully damaged
the global economy with his tariff chaos."
The
MAGA voters still hanging on to Chump are some who struggle with
admitting mistakes and others who are just idiots. Loved Reece Waters
underscoring the grammar challengers of one Chump defender on TIK TOK.
"I'm telling you guys, he's very smart. That's how the country was ran before taxes."
Was ran.
If
you're that stupid, I guess you don't care that you posted a video
exposing that you couldn't pass elementary school English. "Was ran."
It's a shame when she finished fourth grade that they didn't let her
keep the dunce cap -- especially since it appears she never went to any
grade higher.
They
lie to themselves that Chump has a plan, that this is going step by
step, one chess move after another. No, kids, he's making it up as he
goes along. Nicola Slawson (GUARDIAN) explains:
Donald
Trump’s tariff war has plunged deeper into chaos after a cabinet
official floated a plan for new levies on semiconductors – a crucial
component in electronic goods – just days after the Trump administration
exempted computers and smartphones from tariffs.
Trump’s
commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told NBC the tariff exemption on
several electronic devices was temporary, and that new duties would come
in “a month or two”. Semiconductors would be targeted, he said.
The
president said he would lay out the new tariffs on Monday and that any
relief for the electronics industry would be short-lived. “NOBODY is
getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding:
“Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”
President
Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he might temporarily exempt the
auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector, to give
carmakers time to adjust their supply chains.
“I’m
looking at something to help some of the car companies with it,” Trump
told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. The Republican president
said automakers needed time to relocate production from Canada, Mexico
and other places, "And they need a little bit of time because they’re
going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I’m
talking about things like that.”
You've
handed the checkbook over to an addict with no scruples. You're the
chumps for Chump. The sooner you wake up to that reality, the more
likely you'll be able to help out the rest of the country. And even if
you made a grave mistake in November, your help is still needed. From Anne Applebaum's "The Kleptocracy Presidency" (THE ATLANTIC):
The
right question to ask about Trump’s tariff policy is also financial:
How will this enormous change to American trade policy benefit Trump?
One answer is already clear. The countries and large companies damaged
by these tariffs, some of which could face huge losses or even
bankruptcy, will have an enormous incentive to play up to the president,
to offer him political donations, and maybe even to offer business
deals to him, his family, or his friends in order to get some kind of
exception made for themselves or their industry.
In
a law-abiding administration, personal finances wouldn’t be an
important part of the public debate. But this administration’s leaders
have decided that laws and norms of behavior that have held for a
century or more don’t apply to them. The Republican-led Congress has so
far decided not to enforce them either. It’s now up to the media, to
outside organizations, and to whistleblowers to keep reporting the slide
into kleptocracy to the public and to the courts, to make sure that
remaining laws are enforced. It’s up to the Democratic Party to follow
the lead of opposition movements in other kleptocracies and to put
corruption at the center of their arguments. Before it’s too late,
everyone who can do so must communicate what is happening: American
government, American foreign policy, and American trade policy are
slowly being transformed, not to benefit Americans but to benefit the
president, his family, and his friends. Only voters can stop them.
The
United States is about to pay an economic price that Edward Luce for
the Financial Times calls the "moron premium," he argued in an article
published on Monday.
A sign of how far things
have fallen on the right now, wrote Luce, is the constant appearances of
failed former British Prime Minister Liz Truss to MAGA conventions —
and Trump is somehow proposing a scheme even worse than that which got
Truss kicked out of office faster than a head of lettuce could rot.
Chumps for Chump live in denial. They are not at one with the world. Florence Muchai (CRYTOPOLITAN) reports, "The
International Monetary Fund is warning countries about an impending
global recession, citing US President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy and
geopolitical indifferences as factors that could destabilize global
financial markets. In a report released Monday, the IMF cautioned that
escalations in geopolitical risk, especially related to trade conflicts,
could lead to major and lasting corrections in global asset prices. The
global lender noted recent developments, particularly the White House’s
tariff agenda, have introduced a “heightened uncertainty” that could
disrupt macro-financial stability across economies." Need some more bad
news? Elliot Gulliver-Needham (CITY AM) reported yesterday, "The
dollar has fallen 0.7 per cent today, marking its fifth straight day of
decline, as markets continue to reassess the currency’s position in the
global economy. The DXY index, which tracks the dollar’s value against a
basket of currencies, dropped to its lowest in three years in trading
today." David Blond (MARKETWATCH) explains:
The
impact of Trump’s on-and-off again tariffs will be practically
immediate. Americans likely will see the choking of supply chains across
all industries as companies decide to wait to clear their orders
through U.S. Customs. Stores will have less to sell and need fewer
salespeople. Americans don’t have to wait for the knock-on effects in
the CPI; it could show up in farmers not planting as many soybeans or
retailers wondering if ordering in June for the December holiday season
is too much of a risk.
The point I’m making is
that the U.S. is not the trade titan that Trump believes we are.
Important? Yes. But the world can do without selling to or buying from
American companies and farmers. A 90-day pause in U.S. import tariffs
will not bring back trade-policy sanity, and other countries have no
good reason to negotiate with a U.S. president who could tear up signed
agreements on a whim.
Other
damage he's doing? The United States makes a lot of money from
foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight
seeing journeys. Dallas, TX? A magnet for people around the world who
want to remember President John F. Kennedy. And a ton of people do
because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure --
unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment. Florida?
The incredible beaches. Key Largo, Key West. DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL
STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.
California? DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden
Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches,
the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin
Redwoods State Park,
Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . . New York has the Statue of
Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building,
Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . . That's just a few things in a
few states. Most of the states have major tourist attractions. And
tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money
each year.
Do you get how
much money that is? How many industries that impacts? You've got the
airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a
car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've
got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees
visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers
often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to
what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.
Or it did.
Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?
In
2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion --
billion -- into the US economy. That amounted to approximately $584
million a day.
And now
Chump's making us pariah around the world. See, sending people to a
gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.
And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no
trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is
worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally
get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back
to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines
and people are tortured.
He's
destroying this country and he needs to stand trial at the ICC for what
he's done with regards to El Salvador alone. You're not legally
allowed to knowingly put people into human abuse situations -- and your
further guilty when you're paying El Salvador to take these people. He
needs to stand in the International Criminal Court and maybe he become
the first former US president to do so after he leaves office in January
2029.
Big-spending
European tourists appear to be turning their backs on the United States
as a a tourism destination, with new figures showing a sharp drop in
transatlantic travel. According to the U.S. International Trade
Administration (ITA), overseas visits to the U.S. fell 12% overall in
March compared to the same month last year. Western Europe -- traditionally
a key source of tourists -- was down 7%, but that modest figure masks some
dramatic declines in specific countries. U.K. visitors, the single
largest tourist group to the U.S., were down 14%. Ireland, another
crucial market, saw a staggering 27% drop. Denmark fell a whopping
34% -- possibly a response to Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S.
should annex Greenland, a Danish territory. German visitors plummeted
28%, as Elon Musk -- reportedly close to the former president—faced
accusations of promoting far-right parties there. Spain and Norway both
saw a 25% decline, and Swiss tourists dropped by 26%.
Where's
the Chamber of Commerce lodging their public objections as Chump
destroys the economy and destroys business big and small?
THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RULHE (MSNBC) last night featured a strong discussion of our economy and corruption.
Donald
Trump’s return to power is not just another act in the familiar drama
of American politics. It is a direct assault on the very framework of
American constitutionalism. This isn’t about pushing legal boundaries or
stretching precedent. It is about transforming legal defiance into
public performance. Trump is not merely ignoring the law – he is staging
a spectacle of impunity. Every ignored subpoena, every violated gag
order, every delayed trial becomes a demonstration of dominance. The
message is clear: the law will not touch me, because I have turned it
into theater.
And like all good
theater, it draws an audience. What should be a straightforward
exercise of legal accountability has become a recurring ritual in which
enforcement mechanisms are twisted into symbols of persecution. Each
indictment becomes a campaign prop. Each judicial rebuke is recast as
political martyrdom. Institutions built to constrain are instead
conscripted into a narrative of grievance. And because the machinery of
justice moves slowly by design, Trump’s tactics – delay, diversion,
denigration – are proving effective. He doesn’t need to win in court. He
just needs to run out the clock.
This is
Charybdis: a legal system whirling in futility while deadlines lapse and
consequences evaporate. Justice doesn’t just fail here – it becomes
farce. Trump has figured out how to convert the slow grind of due
process into a tool of mockery. Gag orders become proof of censorship.
Trials are dismissed as witch hunts. The very idea of law is hollowed
out and rebranded as tyranny. And the longer the system hesitates, the
deeper the damage. Rule of law begins to resemble a punchline.
But
Scylla waits on the other side. That’s the danger of overreaction – the
temptation to stretch legal remedies into political revenge, to let
fear drive institutions into excess. That’s what Trump is counting on.
He dares prosecutors to push too hard, courts to act too aggressively,
lawmakers to go too far. He wants the system to stumble into overreach,
to justify his claim that it was never about justice to begin with. His
strength lies in forcing the guardians of legality into a trap: act, and
look like tyrants. Don’t act, and look like cowards.
This
is the bind. The dangers are real, and the choices are terrible. Veer
too far one way, and legitimacy crumbles. Veer too far the other, and
law loses its teeth. That’s the tragic symmetry of the Scylla and
Charybdis metaphor – not a choice between good and evil, but a high-wire
act where the price of imbalance is catastrophe. Odysseus didn’t
conquer the monsters. He outlasted them. And that, now, is the task
before the republic: not conquest, but survival.
But
survival demands clarity. It demands the ability to see what’s actually
happening. This isn’t a cultural squabble. It’s not the latest round in
some never-ending partisan brawl. It is a stress test of whether
constitutional limits still mean anything. Because what we are
witnessing is not the ordinary friction of democratic politics. It’s the
steady conversion of the presidency into a stage for personal power –
where law is not enforced but inverted, not respected but turned into a
weapon against itself.
We’ve seen this before,
just not here. From Orbán to ErdoÄŸan to Putin, we’ve watched elected
leaders keep the outward forms of democracy – elections, courts,
legislatures – while draining them of substance. The systems look
intact, but their spirit is gone. Power is centralized, opposition is
marginalized, and the rule of law becomes rule by law. Trumpism is not
some American anomaly – it is part of a broader global drift toward
strongman politics cloaked in democratic rituals.
He
does need to be impeached. What he did to the economy is not something
a leader does. And he did it intentionally. He ignored every economic
expert. Mataeo Smith (MIRROR) notes:
Some
fund managers are doubting the logic of President Donald Trump's
actions as his back-and-forth on trade policies causes havoc in the
financial markets.
“In the last few days, we
have had many conversations with macro fund managers,” Tom Lee, the head
of research at the financial analysis firm FSInsights, wrote on
Wednesday morning, before Trump backed down from most of his tariffs on
U.S. trading partners.
“And their concern is that the
White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. And some
even fear that this may not even be ideology,” he added. “A few have
quietly wondered if the President might be insane.”
They think he's insane because this is insanity.
And
he's garbage trash which is why he doesn't golf at Augusta (they don't want him there). He's
garbage trash who embarrasses himself and the country. Yesterday, he
said this: "CNN over here doesn’t want to put them out because
they don’t like putting out good numbers. They only like putting it out
because I think they hate our country, actually."
Someone in the White House should have pulled him aside and said STFU.
With the economy, he's done enough damage this month. We don't need to see anymore crazy from our Breasty Donald Chump.
CNN
anchor Dana Bash cut in as President Donald Trump was still speaking in
the Oval Office to offer a refutation to Trump’s claim the network
“hates our country.”
Trump met with El Salvador
President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office for a photo op on Monday,
during which Trump repeatedly and viciously attacked CNN, including
various incendiary and groundless claims about the network’s beliefs.
He
began by refusing to take a question from CNN anchor and senior White
House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, then said “they hate our country”
and want criminals and murderers to roam free.
Eventually,
Collins was able to grill Trump in a heated exchange during which Trump
insulted her and called the personnel at her network “sick people.”
With
about 6 minutes still to go in the photo op, CNN cut away from Trump
during Monday’s edition of Inside Politics, and Bash addressed Trump’s
barrage before quickly changing the subject:
DANA
BASH: Okay we have been listening to a lengthy live press conference
inside the Oval Office with the leader of El Salvador, Bukele where we
have heard a lot of bits of information, a lot of news nuggets that we
want to definitely focus on, a lot of some misinformation as well.
But
we want to digest all of this right now with our terrific panel here
and our reporters, Jeff Zeleny. I want to start with you. You are at the
White House.
Before I get to you, I just want
to say for the record, since we heard President Trump say in the Oval
Office that CNN hates our country–.
CNN does
not hate our country. That should go without saying. I’ve been here for
32 years and I see a rhetorical device. in him trying to say such a
thing.
The
person who hates our country is Donald Chump and that's why he can't
stop attacking the Constitution. That includes his targeting of free
speech and that includes his use of deportation. BBC NEWS notes:
An
organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has been
arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of
his application for US citizenship, his lawyer says.
Mohsen
Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month from the
New York City college, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.
His
lawyer said Mr Mahdawi was taken into custody "in direct retaliation"
for his role in campus demonstrations against the Israel-Gaza war.
Others
who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia
University's Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University's Rumeysa Ozturk, have
been detained.
Mahmoud
Khalil. Some are asking in e-mails if I've been ignoring him for the
last two weeks. Yes, I have ignored here on purpose. His wife, Noor
Abdalla, is doing a wonderful job advocating for him, she's got polish
and experience and she's a wonderful spokesperson.
That's the good news and not why I've avoided the topic.
His attorneys are idiots -- and that includes the new ones brought on. And I'm tired of arguing with two of them.
The most important thing right now is to get him out of prison.
And it's not that hard. If you make that the focus, it's not that hard.
His
wife is pregnant and due to deliver their child at any moment. That's
one issue you raise to the court. You raise the issue that the
government's charged him with issues of paperwork, how he filled out an
application. You get him out.
That is the most important thing.
Yes, it's important because he needs to be there for the birth of his child and to support his wife through the birth.
But he needs to be out because it makes any arguments you make afterwards on his behalf all the more powerful.
Getting him out should be the main priority.
Then pick up issues of whatever Constitutional principals you want.
But get him out and it makes any case you make all the stronger.
I'm tired of arguing with them. I'm tired of their refusal to learn and synergize.
The
reason my mind is picked by various friends about their cases is
because I have a pretty good memory and know a lot of case law but it's
mainly because I synthesize. I pull from this legal are and that legal
area and come up with what can work.
They're
trying to make this about the Constitution and only that. Any defense
attorney will tell you that getting your client out from behind bars is
an immediate gain for any argument you're going to make regarding
innocence.
But they don't want to deal with reality and they don't want to incorporate lessons learned in other areas of the law.
So
there's really nothing I can do at this point with regards to that
issue. I wish I could but Im honestly tired from arguing with his
attorneys.
They don't want to listen. Point
out that he might appear before a judge shortly and that you want him in
something -- clothes -- other than a prison uniform. Point that out
and it flies over their head and they don't understand. The focus needs
to be on getting him out. Once he's out, you have have his released
behavior that you can also argue before the court that makes a stronger
case for him.
Again, my time is limited and you can't help when attorneys are focused on everything but helping the client.
Chump wants to move towards deporting us all.
Yesterday,
at the White House, he met with human rights abuser and dictator of El
Salvador Nayib Bukele. Both men are prepared to send more deportees to
gulags and torture chambers in El Salvador. That's where Kilmar Armando
Abrego Garcia remains despite the courts ordering Chump to return
Garcia to this country.
This issue -- and Chump's publicly stated desire to deport US citizens to El Salvador -- on MSNBC's THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW.
Right now Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is not coming back.
And we're talking about that but not talking about the why.
"Because Chump's ignoring court ruling!"
No.
That's not why.
That's a response but it's not why. His ignoring the Supreme Court is a response. But it's not the why.
Why
he's not coming back is because Chump doesn't want him talking -- not
about how a non-gang member and a non-criminal got thrown out of this
country by mistake. Garcia is a face on Chump's very bad policy and
Chump doesn't want that.
Chump also doesn't want Garcia back here because he doesn't want the truth getting out.
Right now, the people Chump places in that prison are really not represented or heard by the American people.
Garcia gets brought back and Garcia immediately talks about the torture he experienced.
He
talks about that torture and forces a lot of Americans to reckon with
the effects of Donald's illegal actions and the very real damage being
done and how we are currently ruled by an international criminal.
That's what's going on. That's the why.
Even an idiot like Lindsey Graham might have to break with Chump in the face of that reality.
Garcia's
best hope is people talking about his case and getting the word out and
forcing Chump to defend his actions when they can't be defended.
Lawsuits also need to be brought against the dictator of El Salvador who
stated at the White House yesterday that he had no plans to release
Garcia.
But we need to be making Garcia's case and pointing out that he's being tortured.
That's
what Chump's trying to hide and that's what reveals him as a crook not
fit to be president. American presidents are not supposed to
participate in torture, they're not supposed to send innocent people
overseas to be tortured.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
New reporting shows the Trump
administration is considering proposing to eliminate Head Start
altogether—a key goal of Project 2025
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior
member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions (HELP), responded to new reporting
that President Trump is considering proposing to zero out funding for
Head Start in his forthcoming budget request—a goal proposed in Project
2025, which would cut off essential services and early childhood
educational opportunities for hundreds of thousands of families
nationwide.
“While families feel the crunch with a worsening child care
crisis and much higher daily costs thanks to Trump’s tariffs, President
Trump wants to eliminate Head Start and kick hundreds of thousands of
kids out of the classroom, fire teachers, and make child care and early
learning more expensive and less safe.
“This administration believes we cannot afford to help
families get preschool or help kids get basic health services, but we
can afford trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for billionaires.
It’s offensive and just plain wrong, and let me be clear: Democrats
won’t let a proposal like this go anywhere in Congress. But that doesn’t
mean Head Start and so many other programs aren’t under grave
threat—because Trump has proven he’ll ignore our laws and do whatever he
can to break these programs on his own. Trump has already tried
illegally blocking funding for Head Start earlier this year, and
programs across the country continued having problems accessing their
funding long after his administration promised everything was fine. He
has already fired the very people who keep Head Start running with no
plan in place to ensure hundreds of thousands of families will keep
getting the care they count on, so it’s on every one of us to keep
speaking out and opposing this administration’s anti-family,
pro-billionaire agenda.”
Head Start currently serves over 750,000 kids nationwide,
and the program has served nearly 40 million children and their
families nationwide since its inception in 1965. There are over 17,000
Head Start centers nationwide that help kids and families thrive, and
these centers are particularly important in serving rural communities
with fewer options for care.
Since taking office, President Trump has gutted the offices that keep
Head Start centers and child care programs across the country running.
In late February, the Trump administration fired scores of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care. Earlier this month, Trump continued to hollow out HHS,
including by shuttering half of the regional offices at the Office of
Head Start, which are responsible for ensuring high-quality Head Start
services are available to families nationwide. The Trump administration
has failed to articulate how it will ensure that uninterrupted services
are available to families and that appropriate oversight will be carried
out despite gutting the very offices charged with these
responsibilities.
WHEN NOT REHEARSING TO PLAY OTIS CAMPBELL IN DINNER THEATER PERFORMANCES OF EPISODES OF THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, D.C. DRUNK PETE HEGSETH LIKES TO TRAVEL OVERSEAS.
Mike's picked Alien Musk as "Idiot of the Week." And it's not been a good week for Musk. Yasmeeta Oon (DMR NEWS) notes, "Tesla’s stock has dropped a staggering 22% in the last four trading
sessions, continuing its 45% loss for the year. This downturn has erased
over $585 billion in value from the company, severely affecting Musk’s
financial standing." Robert Crow (THE COOL DOWN) adds, "Teslarati has reported that New York City's comptroller, Brad Lander, is asking the municipality to sue Tesla based on Musk's activities within the Department of Government Efficiency. In a release, Lander asserted
that Musk's work with the administration has taken the CEO away from
his duties with Tesla. The company's stock has plummeted since Musk
joined DOGE, causing 'losses over $300 million for the New York City
pension systems,' Lander said in the release." Naomi LaChance (ROLLING STONE) reports:
Elon Musk, who owns one of the world's biggest social media platforms,
has spent many millions of dollars on politics as he helps Donald Trump
slash the federal government and continue the administration's attack on
immigrants. Now, Musk is saying that he is losing the "propaganda war,"
potentially through his own choices.
Recent polling shows people don't like Musk. On Friday, numbers pundit Nate Silver posted on X
that Musk's popularity is at negative 14 points. Trump, for comparison,
is at negative 5 points. The chart shows that Musk's popularity
markedly decreased when Trump took office, with 39.6 percent of
respondents viewing him favorably as of this month.
He's
a racist and people are learning that. He's not 'an' American. He's a
citizen of South Africa. He was born there. He's citizen of Canada
(though some are reviewing that status) via his mother. He applied for
US citizenship after fleeing South Africa when White racism crumbled as
apartheid collapsed. Per his brother, he broke visa rules in the US
which would mean his US citizenship was fraudulent and should be
revoked.
The recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) has sent shockwaves through the healthcare sector. Under
the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an ambitious plan to
restructure the department is underway, potentially resulting in the
loss of up to 10,000 jobs. This move is part of a broader strategy to
overhaul the functioning of key agencies responsible for tracking health trends,
conducting medical research, and ensuring the safety of food and drugs.
The implications of such a massive layoff are profound, raising
concerns about the future of public health services in the United
States.
That's only one of many examples of the mass firings. Americans are losing their jobs and they hate Musk.
They
also hate him because he's a disgusting parent. That's obvious by (a)
the treatment of his daughter and his attack on her and other trans
people, (b) his 'spreading his seed' and (c) that ridiculous and
appalling Oval Office moment where, when his young son wasn't on his
shoulders, he was pressed against Musk's crotch. That was really
disgusting and it's amazing that people wanted to look the other way.
I
waited for others to comment. None did. I thought, well, it's just me
that finds that shocking and that's because I was raped as a child in
elementary school (by the man who kidnapped me). But this week, I
started asking other people about that moment. It's not normal.
There's nothing normal about Alien Musk. And a grown man should have
pushed the kid away from his crotch. But somehow it just seemed normal
to Musk. Wonder why that is?
I don't live in a world
where it's normal for a child's head to rub against it's father crotch
over and over. I don't live in a world where a father wouldn't stop the
kid from doing that. That's not me blaming the child. The behavior I
witness in that video seems taught and modeled. So I don't blame the
child.
I do blame the adult parent who clearly has
boundary issues. And I do blame the occupant of that office who invited
Musk in and just sat there while Musk all but humped his own child.
What kind of perversions are taking place in the Oval Office that the above in the video seemed normal?
