“Those damn “entitlement” programs like Medicaid and Social Security must go.” John Buss, repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As the unfocused butchering of the federal workforce and agencies continues, we see more and more essential services and research getting turned into contracts for Elonia’s Empire and billionaire tax cuts. It’s only a matter of months now before the economy begins to collapse from the weight of higher prices and the return of high unemployment. Stagflation is inevitable. Economists, including me, see it as inevitable at this point. The financial markets are sending up red flares. The UK’s Economics Times has this banner headline. “Brace for impact: Stagflation fears could wipe 10% off stocks, says Wall Street’s Doom Prophet Barry Bannister.” I’ve been saying this all month.
Wall Street is worried about the possibility of a “worst-case scenario” in the US economy, one that would send stock prices plummeting by as much as 10%, as per a report.
Stifel managing director and chief equity strategist Barry Bannister has been among the few bears in an optimistic market. He is predicting the S&P 500 would end 2025 in the mid-5000s, reported Business Insider. His call for a potential stagflation scenario may serve as a wakeup call to investors.
According to Business Insider, while most investors expect another strong year of growth and inflation to continue cooling in 2025. According to Bannister, there are early signs that stagflation is beginning.
As per the report, inflation has already increased over the past few months, with consumer prices increasing by 3% from the year earlier in January and more than economists expected and above the 2.9% pace in the previous month. Bannister highlighted that the Trump-era tariffs might be driving up costs for consumers, reported Business Insider.
Bannister said, “I think it’s foolish that people assume that inflation’s going back down to 2%. It’s not going back down to 2%, not without a recession,” as quoted by Business Insider. He also claimed, “Tariffs undo a lot of the disinflation.”
Those of you my age will remember this from the 1970s. It is positively the worst economic scenario imaginable. I already am swamped by electric bills that are unimaginable for my little house. The unusual weather and snow basically doubled it last month. And just in time for Hurricane and Fire Seasons, we see the Triumvariate try to kill us all so billionaires and Multinational Mega Corporations can steal the coins from our eyes. Additionally, we are providing momentum to the spread of infectious diseases globally and locally. What a clusterfuck our country has become in such a short time! By mid-2026, we will officially be known as a shithole country. Let’s break this all down. You can see from the sources that I am becoming less trustful of the American Fourth Estate.
The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce, the Guardian has learned.
On Thursday afternoon, the commerce department sent emails to employees saying their jobs would be cut off at the end of the day. Other government agencies have also seen huge staffing cuts in recent days.
The firings specifically affected probationary employees, a categorization that applies to new hires or those moved or promoted into new positions, and which makes up roughly 10% of the agency’s workforce.
“The majority of probationary employees in my office have been with the agency for 10+ years and just got new positions,” said one worker who still had their job, and who spoke to the Guardian under the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “If we lose them, we’re losing not just the world-class work they do day to day but also decades of expertise and institutional knowledge.”
Another anonymous staffer called the laid-off workers “dedicated, hard-working civil servants who came to Noaa to help protect lives and keep our blue planet healthy”.
“These indiscriminate cuts are cruel and thoughtless,” the second worker said.
It is not only laid-off employees who will be harmed by the cuts, the second worker said. Ordinary Americans who rely on Noaa’s extreme weather forecasts, climate data and sustainably monitored fisheries will also suffer.
“Words can’t describe the impact this will have, both on us at Noaa and on the country,” the employee said. “It’s just wrong all around.”
Andrew Rosenberg, former deputy director of Noaa’s National Marine Fisheries Service, said Thursday was a “sad day”.
“There is no plan or thought into how to continue to deliver science or service on weather, severe storms and events, conservation and management of our coasts and ocean life and much more,” he said. “Let’s not pretend this is about efficiency, quality of work or cost savings because none of those false justifications are remotely true.”
Okay, this one is from the New York Times. I hope they can hold off the Techbro Overlords long enough to uncover some truth. “U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World Here are some of the 5,800 contracts the Trump administration formally canceled this week in a wave of terse emails.” This is reported by Stephanie Nolen.
Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding from the United States for lifesaving work.
“This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government,” they began.
The terse notes ended funding for some 5,800 projects that had been financed by the United States Agency for International Development, indicating that a tumultuous period when the Trump administration said it was freezing projects for ostensible review was over, and that any faint hope American assistance might continue had ended.
Many were projects that had received a waiver from the freeze because the State Department previously identified its work as essential and lifesaving.
“People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
The projects terminated include H.I.V. treatment programs that had served millions of people, the main malaria control programs in the worst-affected African countries and global efforts to wipe out polio.
What follows is an incredibly long list of programs that have saved all kinds of people from death and massive illness. A lot has to do with prenatal care. Certainly, we can be better human beings than this. I am ashamed of my country. Pamela Herd and Don Monyhan ask the big question on their substack: “Can we still govern?.” As a young adult, I used to joke that I would pay so much for so long–starting at 15–for Social Security that I doubt I’d ever see all of it. That was a bit of a joke back then, but it seems dead serious now. Sit down, swallow, then put the cup down. “Trump’s Assault on Social Security. The plan to cut America’s most successful safety net program in half.”
Social Security is our biggest and most successful safety net program. The annual $1.6 trillion in benefits constitutes 21% of federal spending and 40% of older adults’ income. It lifts more people out of poverty than any other government program. We all know some of the 69 million Americans depending on those benefits. If you are not currently a recipient, you will be at some point. We all have a stake in ensuring that Social Security works.
And so, we all have a reason to fear the Trump administration’s call to cut 50% of Social Security Administration employees. It’s current staff of about 57,000 employees would drop to 23,000. SSA, quite simply, will not be able to function if this happens.
President Trump promised that “Social Security will not be touched.” Then he claimed he would act only eliminate SSA fraud based on false claims by Elon Musk. Gutting agency capacity is not about fraud, and is very much going to affect people’s experience of Social Security. The benefits that so many Americans depend on will not administer themselves.
This long but useful read will tell you how effective and economical the plan is. I wrote a research paper for my doctoral class in Financial institutions right after Katrina and was amazed by its efficiency. An outline of studies and data follows the paragraphs above. I will cut to the chase and pass that for brevity.
While we don’t know precisely how the agency will implement the staffing cuts, it will almost certainly entail closing many of the 1,233 SSA field offices around the country. About 120,000 people visit those offices each day. Those that remain open will have fewer staff to serve more people.
We talked with Kathleen Romig, the Director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. She has also previously worked with Social Security, as well as the Social Security Advisory Board. She said:
There’s no way SSA can sustain the thousands of staff losses that result from the massive reductions to come without hurting beneficiaries. Over two-thirds of the agency’s staff serve the public directly, and the rest support their work—hearing appeals, keeping SSA’s systems running and secure, maintaining a high level of transparency and accuracy, and more. It’s going to get a lot harder for people to get help and take a lot longer to get access to their earned Social Security benefits.
DOGE has already announced the closure of 45 field offices, though it’s unclear if the offices are actually closed. The process is so chaotic that members of Congress are not being told when field offices are being closed in their district.
If the proposed cuts in staff move forward the scale of field office closures will be much greater. Field offices serve many functions. Its where you get a new Social Security card if you lost yours or need it changed due to a name change. The card, of course, is critical for everything from getting a drivers’ license to opening a bank account. It is the closest thing the US has to a national identity system. Field office staff also help people decide when they should enroll in the program, as well as provide in-person assistance when the agency makes mistakes with payments or paperwork.
We already know the effects of field office closures on a smaller scale. A study in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy found that field office closures led to a 16 percent decline in disability recipients in the surrounding communities due to excess demand in the remaining offices. The people hit hardest were those with moderately severe disabilities, lower education and lower income.
These actions are enough to make you want to take to Pennslyvania Avenue with pitchforks, torches, and guillotines. It’s a full-out assault on the least among us. He’s also going to puke out another Presidential order to establish English as the official language of the USA. We’ve been doing fine with pluralism for 250 years. Besides, if we’re going to be language NAZIs, let’s start with FARTUS and Elonia. Most of the time, they speak unintelligibly. This is from CNBC. “Trump to sign order making English the official U.S. language.” Why is this even necessary? What is this going to cost?
President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order making English the official language of the United States, three White House officials told CNBC on Friday.
The order would establish a national language for the first time in U.S. history.
Trump’s order would also rescind former President Bill Clinton’s August 2000 directive requiring agencies and other recipients of federal funds to provide services for those with limited English proficiency, according to a fact sheet shared with CNBC.
Trump’s designation will allow federal agencies to maintain their current policies and continue to provide documents and services in other languages. But it “encourages new Americans to adopt a national language that opens doors to greater opportunities,” according to the fact sheet.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the order earlier Friday morning.
Trump’s schedule for Friday does not currently include any time for signing executive orders. A White House source did not immediately tell CNBC when Trump was expected to sign the order.
So, with this and the destruction of the Education Department, will we stop seeing ESL classes in schools? I can only see this as the ultimate golden ticket for bullying.
The Department of Ed has a form to snitch on DEI policies in schools.I’d be a shame if we broke it with thousands of responses… enddei.ed.gov
House Republicans notched a major legislative victory this week when they passed their budget resolution. Now comes the hard part: Crafting a fiscal package that doesn’t doom them in the 2026 election.
One Republican moderate, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give candid thoughts about political concerns surrounding their party’s marquee legislation, told Axios: “It could be trouble.”
“We saw what happened in 2018,” the lawmaker said, referring to the midterm year in which voter anger over the GOP’s legislative efforts helped Democrats flip more than 40 House seats.
Driving the news: The House voted Tuesday to adopt House Republicans’ budget resolution, with all but one House Republican voting in favor of the measure and every Democrat opposing it.
The resolution — a first step toward the hulking budget reconciliation bill Republicans hope to pass — allows $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, offset by $2 trillion in spending cuts.
The vote came after a tortured process in which House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) strained to bring together right-wing hardliners who want greater spending cuts and centrists fearful of cuts to programs like Medicaid.
State of play: After the vote, some vulnerable Republicans were quick to distance themselves from the notion that the budget measure does anything more than provide a conceptual framework for the final bill.
“Last night’s vote was just a procedural step to start federal budget negotiations and does NOT change any current laws,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) said in a strident statement Wednesday morning.
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), in a CNN interview, insisted there is “zero mention of cutting Medicaid” in the budget resolution — even as it calls for the Energy and Commerce Committee to seek $880 billion in cuts, some of which will likely have to come from Medicaid.
Between the lines: Republicans have been barraged the last week and a half by angry constituents at town halls and protests outside their district offices complaining about DOGE’s layoffs and cuts to federal programs.
While DOGE has been the primary target of that voter blowback, House Republicans say they have also faced plenty of flack over the prospective benefit cuts in the GOP’s fiscal package.
“Most of the concern now is over … DOGE,” said a second House Republican who spoke anonymously, “but there’s also, maybe not too far behind that, the message that they are trying to get across on reconciliation.”
Zoom in: Despite voting for the budget measure, moderate and swing-district House Republicans told Axios they are drawing clear red lines on what they will support in a final package.
“If that doesn’t match with what our constituents and our district is looking for, then we won’t be voting for that product,” said a third House Republican.
A fourth told Axios: “I have told my leadership … there are scores of Republicans who don’t want to go further [on Medicaid] than requiring work for able-bodied adults, getting the illegals off and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.”
“If it goes further than that,” they said, “the bill is probably dead.”
Yes, but: Conservatives are equally emphatic the bill must include substantial enough cuts to Medicaid to offset the increases in spending — creating a seemingly unworkable dilemma for Johnson.
Insufficiently deep Medicaid cuts are “probably a nonstarter,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).
Burlison went as far as to say Republicans “should cut more” than the budget provides for, telling Axios: “I just had people in my office say, ‘You didn’t cut enough.'”
What to watch: Democrats are eager to exploit Republicans’ struggles as the process of crafting the final package begins.
“Health care’s gone for everyone … we just won back the House,” exulted Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) coming out of the budget vote on Tuesday.
Democrats’ House Majority PAC is circulating a memo on the vote, first shared with Axios, titled: “House Republicans Ignore Constituents, Vote For Trump-Musk Agenda.”
Well, I’m off to see if I can pay the electric and cable bill and get groceries today. It’s a big question.
Take care and be kind to yourselves!
What’s your reading and blogging list today?
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Good morning, just a quick post today. My dad has not been doing well, so I am taking care of him. I thought I would have to take him back to the ER…so yeah, it is just a cartoon post.
Cartoons via Cagle:
Stay safe out there….
Fuck SCOTUS and Fuck Trump:
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a judge's order requiring the Trump administration to release billions in foreign aid
JUST IN: The Pentagon has issued its formal guidance for currently serving transgender members of the military.It says they will be separated from service unless they obtain a waiver meeting these criteria: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us…
I woke up this morning to the stunning news that Elon Musk will be in attendance at Trump’s first cabinet meeting this morning. That is completely insane, but it’s the reality we are living in right now. I wonder if this will be similar to the first cabinet meeting in 2017? Remember how most of the attendees took turns praising Trump? This time, perhaps they’ll be forced to suck up to Musk.
President Trump is holding his first Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday, convening his top advisers who are now largely in place across the executive branch.
Billionaire and senior Trump adviser Elon Musk, who is not a member of the Cabinet, will also be present, the White House said. Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday that “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON. The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!” Musk is a special government employee who has been tasked with informally overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The Cabinet meeting comes as Musk has started to run into opposition from other top officials in his push to slash federal spending and the government’s workforce. In recent days, he has said federal employees must respond to an email by describing five things they accomplished last week or face termination, sparking confusion among federal workers. Multiple Senate-confirmed heads of departments told their employees that they could ignore the demand, which was issued by the Office of Personnel Management.
Most, but not all, of Mr. Trump’s top nominees have now been confirmed by the Senate. A full Senate vote has yet to be scheduled for Rep. Elise Stefanik, his pick to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as House Republicans cannot afford to lose a vote given their razor-thin majority. Linda McMahon, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the Department of Education, also has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Trump has pledged to overhaul that department.
The president’s nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer for secretary of labor is still in limbo, with no vote scheduled yet. And the Senate has yet to confirm Jamieson Greer as U.S. trade representative, although the Senate advanced his nomination this week, as the president imposes hefty new tariffs on allies and adversaries alike.
Meanwhile, the White House claims that Musk actually has no control over DOGE; yesterday we learned that the mysterious person who is actually in charge of destroying our government is someone named Amy Gleason.
The acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency is a low-profile executive who has expertise in health care technology and worked in the first Trump administration.
The White House on Tuesday afternoon identified Amy Gleason as the acting leader of DOGE, which has been pushing agencies to fire employees, cancel contracts and make other budget cuts.
Although DOGE’s cuts have been championed by billionaire Elon Musk and his associates, the White House has insisted that Musk is overseeing the effort as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, not a DOGE employee.
The identity of who was technically running DOGE had been a mystery, even though an executive order signed by Trump last month called for the appointment of an administrator to report to the White House. A government lawyer on Monday told a judge that he didn’t know who that person was, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had declined to identify the person earlier Tuesday in a press briefing….
Gleason, 53, worked from 2018 through 2021 in the United States Digital Service, an agency that has been renamed the US DOGE Service, according to her LinkedIn profile. In that role, she worked with the White House on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.
She returned to the agency in January after Trump took office. DOGE and Gleason did not respond to an email seeking comment on Tuesday….
In the interim, she had been working as “chief product officer” at two small Nashville-based health care startups, Russell Street Ventures and Main Street Health, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Okay. But everyone knows that Musk is in charge.
The latest news and commentary on Musk’s activities:
Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas A. Collins took to social media on Tuesday to tout sweeping cuts to contractsthat he said would save the department nearly$2 billion without touching core services.
But the 875 contracts on the chopping block help cover medical services, fund cancer programs, recruit doctors and provide burial services to veterans, according to internal VA documents.
“Make no mistake,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement Tuesday responding to Collins’s announcement. “This is just another reckless cost-cutting decision that will harm veterans and tax payers for years to come.”
The cancellations mark the administration’s latest effort, led by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, to streamline a federal bureaucracy President Donald Trump has cast as bloated, corrupt and lazy — a campaign that has left no part of the 2.3 million civilian workforce untouched, not even the department tasked with supporting the nation’s veteransand their families. On Monday, following a first round of layoffs affecting 1,000 workers, VA announced another 1,400 dismissals of “non-mission critical positions.”
Collins announced the moves to cut contracts from a wood-paneled office in a video posted to X on Tuesday, looking into the camera with papers in hand to declare: “I got some big news for you.”
“I’ve been given this report. Says we were taking millions … in dollars in contracts to create things like PowerPoint slides and meeting minutes,” he said, telling employees they could learn to make their own presentations.
Collins also pledged an end to contracts that provide executive support, and coaching and training, but did not further detail terminations. He said the savings would be funneled back into veterans’ care: “Don’t let nameless sources, even senators and House members who want to scare you, and media, who want to perpetuate the line. We are taking care of the veterans,” he said.
Obviously, anything involving helping human beings is considered non-“mission critical” in Trump/Musk world.
Elon Musk and his cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service team have been on a mission to trim government largesse. Yet Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.
The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process,holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.
When Tesla soon after realized it was missing a crucial Environmental Protection Agency certification it needed to qualify for the loan days before Christmas, Musk went straight to the top, urging then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to intervene, according to one of thepeople. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Nearly two-thirds of the $38 billion in funds have been promised to Musk’s businesses in the past five years.
In 2024 alone, federal and local governments committed at least $6.3 billion to Musk’s companies, the highest total to date.
The total amount is probably larger: This analysis includes only publicly available contracts, omitting classified defense and intelligence work for the federal government.SpaceX has been developing spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, the Pentagon’s spy satellite division, according to the Reuters news agency. The Wall Street Journal reported that contract was worth $1.8 billion, citing company documents.
The Post found nearly a dozen other local grants, reimbursements and tax credits where the specific amount of money is not public.
An additional 52 ongoing contracts with seven government agencies — including NASA, the Defense Department and the General Services Administration — are on track to potentially pay Musk’s companies an additional $11.8 billion over the next few years, according to The Post’s analysis.
Of course the fact that Musk has multiple government contracts demonstrates conflicts of interest that make it illegal for him to be any kind of government employee and be involved cutting government programs and firing government employees. But so what? We live in Trump/Musk world now.
Shortly before 11 a.m. on Sunday, the 80,000 physicians, health scientists, disease detectives, and others tasked with safeguarding the nation’s health received instructions to respond to an email sent the day before asking them, “What did you do last week?”
The email arose from a Saturday dispatch issued by President Donald Trump on the social-media platform he owns, Truth Social. “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” he wrote.
The response from Elon Musk arrived seven hours later on the social-media platform he owns, X. The billionaire Trump confidant leading the effort to slash the federal workforce wrote that afternoon that he was acting on Trump’s “instructions” and ensuring that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.”
The result was a government-wide email directing federal workers to detail their accomplishments over the previous week, in five bullet points. Musk wrote on X: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Government agencies responded in different ways to this e-mail, giving employees confusing messages. A number of bosses advised their employees not to respond at all.
By late afternoon on Monday, many federal health workers had left their offices with no new guidance, uncertain about whether to respond to the email and whether ignoring it would jeopardize their jobs.
They didn’t know that the federal government’s main personnel agency, which had sent Saturday’s government-wide email, had quietly instructed agencies midday Monday that a response was voluntary. Those instructions effectively rescinded Musk’s threats.
For Musk, the episode was a setback. For federal workers struggling to get their bearings, they told us, it was just one more reason to feel both fury and fear.
“This whole administration is a fucking train wreck,” a federal health official said….
Most of the early guidance not to reply to the Musk directive came from the country’s national-security agencies, including the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. A senior official at NASA, which advised employees not to respond, called the request an “unprecedented ask and unprompted attack on our workforce” in a weekend email to employees that was described to us. A deputy commander at the Navy told people in his chain of command, “Please do NOT respond at this time,” accenting his order using bold red text.
The cascading series of contradictory guidance reflected the unusual balance of power between Trump and Musk, and the unpredictable consequences for millions of federal workers. “It’s a psyop,” said a senior official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, referring to a psychological operation, in this case intended to intimidate federal workers. “It’s a form of harassment. But there’s no one to complain to, because no one knows exactly where it’s coming from or who’s behind it.”
The entire episode was a clusterfuck, but supposedly Musk/DOGE are still trying to make it happen.
Meanwhile, there were signs that OPM was working to make parts of the Musk directive permanent, at least within the agency. In an email to employees Monday evening, OPM’s acting director wrote that he had asked the chief human capital officer to “operationalize this exercise” so that employees continue to “submit weekly accomplishment bullets.”
WTF?! In many cases we are talking about highly accomplished scientists, doctors, and other professionals–and they are supposed to justify their jobs with lists of 5 accomplishments every fucking week?
Fraud, waste, and abuse has become the rallying cry for Elon Musk’s dismantling of the federal government. During a recent Oval Office briefing about DOGE, Trump and Musk used the terms “fraud” and “fraudsters” a dozen times, claiming that their elimination of fraud could save up to $1 trillion dollars.
Musk’s social media is similarly laden with tales of fraud and abuse that his DOGE team has supposedly uncovered. Millions of dead people receiving fraudulent Social Security! “Illegals” living in high end hotel rooms paid for by FEMA! Corrupt USAID bureaucrats ripping off the government and enriching themselves! None of it is true.
Musk and Trump’s focus on fraud is nothing new. Fraud has always served as a powerful political trope, one that provides a rationale for cutting government. Accusations of fraud were used to discredit Black elected officials during Reconstruction. Ronald Reagan’s Welfare Queen was an especially effective trope directed against poverty-based policies. A recent poll suggests that 70% of Americans believe government expenditures are filled with waste, fraud, and inefficiency….
Trump and Musk’s fraud trope is distinct in three ways
First, Musk’s fake fraud claims are different from the past because he has built, and now is able to leverage, a propaganda machine to feed the fraud narrative. Ronald Reagan was an extraordinarily effective communicator, but Musk makes him look like an amateur. Musk can use DOGE to generate false claims about fraud, and how much money DOGE can save by tackling it. He then pushes those claims on his social media platform. The President and right-wing media obligingly repeat the claims. It is an integrated production function that converts conspiracy theories into government policy, and then conventional wisdom in MAGAland.
Second, as we describe below, the scale and scope of the programs they’re targeting are fundamentally different from the past. It’s not just to gut programs that benefit marginalized populations. They’re targeting a broad swath of government programs, including popular policies that benefit most Americans, and using the fraud trope to justify extreme and illegal actions, like shutting down entire agencies. This fits with a worldview that government is fundamentally corrupt, and must be captured and radically refashioned.
Third, the motivation is not really about shrinking government, rather it’s about state capture. The strategy is simple. Claim there’s fraud, dismantle the institutions that prevent fraud, and then capture public dollars for yourself. As Musk himself recently noted: “it’s like, really easy to take advantage of the federal government. Very easy.” He should know. His companies have received at least $38 billion from government subsidies, loans and contracts. Their value, and his personal net worth, have ballooned since the election.
And here is the key point: Musk is the one committing an unprecedented fraud on the American people, conning it out of a functional government. He is systematically lying, claiming that there is widespread fraud and abuse, then leveraging those lies to remake government in ways that benefit the broligarchy.
Fallows begins with a photo of Queens College, Oxford and the caption:
The plush lawn of The Queen’s College, Oxford. As the corny joke goes, a visiting American asks, “How do you get your lawn to look like that?” The British groundskeeper replies, “It’s easy. Just sow it, roll it, mow it—and do that for 400 years.” But what has taken centuries to perfect could be torn up in minutes with a backhoe. That’s essentially what’s happening to America’s carefully built ‘soft infrastructure’ now. Here’s another example from the aviation world.
Last week the eminent China scholar Orville Schell likened this moment’s all-fronts Trump-Musk disruption of American institutions to the early years of the catastrophic Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao. “Trump may lack Mao’s skills as a writer and theorist,” Schell wrote, “but he possesses the same animal instinct to confound opponents and maintain authority by being unpredictable to the point of madness”:
“Mao, who would have welcomed the catastrophe now unfolding in America, must be looking down from his Marxist-Leninist heaven with a smile, as the East wind may finally be prevailing over the West wind – a dream for which he had long hoped.”
It is impossible to keep up with the barrage of daily shocks and dislocations. Of course this is by design. The nonstop flow of outrages also makes it easier for members of the quisling Congress to avoid commenting on any of them in particular—for instance, the US siding with Russia and North Korea in a major UN vote this week, and siding against all its traditional allies. By tomorrow, reporters will have something else to ask about.
So let me focus on one dull-sounding development that sooner or later will be killing people. Yes, I could be talking about changes in Medicaid or in vaccine coverage or in cancer research, or about the USAID shutdowns that have already left many people dead overseas. Or lots more.
But instead I’m talking about the sudden attack on part of the invisible infrastructure that has kept air travelers so safe in the skies. Reminder: before last month’s helicopter-airliner collision over the Potomac, the US had gone nearly 16 years without a major airline crash. Through those years, US airlines conducted well over 10 billion passenger-journeys. A total of two people died in US airline accidents through that time. [UPDATE: Just now, as I put up this post, I see news of a potentially catastrophic close-call this morning at Chicago’s Midway airport. More on that as extra info comes in.]
Aviation as a ‘marker species’: Systems that work only when many other systems are working too.
Certain animals—frequently amphibians—are seen as indicators of the larger health of an ecosystem. If they’re doing OK, probably so is the system as a whole.
Certain industrial and social structures can have a marker-species function. If a society can sustain them, it means that many other institutions and arrangements must be functioning too. Any country can operate crude steel smelters or grow plantation crops. But to have an advanced biotech industry, or a globally successful university system, or advanced info-tech, a country needs a lot of other physical and social infrastructure.
Aviation, especially aircraft-making, is another of these industrial marker-species. There are only a handful of viable aircraft producers in the world. That’s not a coincidence: Success in this realm is so difficult, and the cost of the smallest error can be so high. To have an Airbus company—or a Boeing in its heyday, or a smaller Embraer or Bombardier—you have to have a lot of other things in working order. After living in China, I wrote a book called China Airborne. Its premise was that China’s decades-long quest—still unsuccessful—to join Airbus and Boeing as a global aerospace power was a microcosm of its strengths and limitations in many other realms.
Why would this be? It is again because of aviation’s marker-species role. To have a successful aircraft industry you need so many other things:
Read the rest at the Substack link. I’ve already quoted too much.
My latest. Please read + share: "Drain MSNBC of Viewers As It Whitewashes its Network to Placate Trump"MSNBC has decided to silence, sideline, & cancel prominent anchors of color, such as Joy Reid. The rest of us can tune out and build our own media community.open.substack.com/pub/thelefth…
NEW: Macron has to interrupt Trump and correct a lie about Europe’s contribution.TRUMP: “Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back."MACRON: “No. We provided real money. To be clear.”Trump clearly not used to get fact-checked live.
I'd heard a rumor that DOGE had fired all the regional directors at SEC. Seems that rumor was pretty close to the mark. All told their jobs are being eliminated. (Remember, Musk despises the SEC.) http://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-…
lol there's so much going on here.when is second chance. what does termination actually mean. Musk is literally attempting to make himself look important and in charge when multiple agency heads have told him to fuck off.
The Trump administration may continue — for now — to keep the AP from covering key events. A federal judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order on Monday.
"Will childhood vaccines now mandated by law become voluntary, or removed from circulation altogether? Putting a bullseye on the polio vaccine is a clear warning that even the safest, most proven vaccines aren’t safe from Kennedy."
My fear is Trump is "putting people in place for when that fateful day arrives & the suggestion is made, as it was in the Oval Office, 'should we just shoot them in the legs,' … my fear is there will be officers in the room who say sure, we will shoot them," retired Rear Adm. James McPherson said.
“Of course, they’ll blame Biden for the missing gold. The plan all along. John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The grift and chaos are real. There is nothing golden about this new Gilded Age. The rich guys may have been rotten back then, but they did it by building railroads and steel plants. This new set throws their Dad’s money at things and tells everyone they are smart when they are anything but intelligent.
The Republican party deserves ignominious defeat at the polls.
Musk’s claws are all over Medicaid, and he’s being aided by Republican Congress Critters. Trump’s recent shake-down of the mayor of New York City is already giving Musk his jollies by throwing immigrants housed at the Roosevelt Hotel the boot. But that’s only one of 53 sites that will be shuttered without indicating who is waiting to hear their case in a court of law, which is likely a good portion if not all of them. Neo-Nazi encampments are on the rise too. But take heart: hackers have joined voters in trolling these folks. The midterm elections cannot come fast enough for me. Let’s take this news in order.
This analysis of the coming Medicare evisceration is provided by the site The Last Billionaires and is written by Jason Sattler. Guillotines one? “Here’s how Republicans are planning to throw millions off Medicaid and lie about it. Trump is teaching his minions to say, “We didn’t insure anyone”/”They deserved it.”
A lot of the horror in the Donald Trump sequel is new.
That’s what Elon Musk has given us by singlehandedly electing Trump a second time.
However, one aspect of this Trump administration is nearly identical to the last. He wants to give rich people sloppy, unnecessary tax cuts and then “pay” for those tax cuts by basically ending Medicaid as we know it.
You’ll remember that he succeeded in the giveaways to the rich, but thanks to millions of activated Americans and John McCain’s thumb, he failed to gut Medicaid. Thankfully, because you may also remember that Trump bungled us into the worst response to COVID-19 in the rich world with a yearlong supercut of unforced errors that would have been infinitely worse if he’d succeeded in his dream of swiping insurance from masses of struggling workers and their families.
This time around, Trump, MAGA, and the Nerd Reich are determined to punish us for the few weeks rich people had to take out Olive Garden rather than enjoying the lush dining room by destroying the best medical research system ever created and simultaneously gutting the worst health insurance system in the rich world.
Republicans only need 50 votes in the Senate, which they have for pretty much anything Trump wants. The House is a mess. Speaker Mike Johnson only has a few votes to lose. While there are no true moderate Republicans in Congress, there are Republicans in losable districts—more than enough of them to lose the House in 2026 if democracy continues somewhat usually. If things go wrong enough, the GOP could even conceivably lose the House in special elections before November 2026.
One way they could go wrong is if Republicans touch a third rail and gut the largest provider of insurance in America. And that’s Trump’s plan. He has endorsed $880 billion in cuts for Medicaid, which is actually $44 billion MORE than House Republicans under his and Paul Ryan’s direction tried to cut Medicaid last time.
“In calendar year 2026, Medicaid enrollment is estimated to be 8 million lower under the AHCA than under current law due to the combination of two factors: (i) a decline of 6 million in enrollment for newly eligible adults under current law and (ii) a decline of 2 million in enrollment for all other Medicaid enrollees attributable to more frequent — 2 — eligibility redeterminations, the repeal of retroactive eligibility, and optional State work requirements for adults.”
That’s at least 8 million who’d be thrown off the program due to paperwork and ridiculous requirements that undermine the very nature of Medicaid, which exists to supplement Americans who can’t get insurance because they’re aged and not rich or taking care of a family member or trying to find a job or a kid.
As Kelly Hooper of Politico reminds us “Republicans’ plans for Medicaid have a political problem. GOP lawmakers expected to vote soon on slashing the insurance program for low-income people represent tens of millions reliant on it.
House Republicans who represent large numbers of Medicaid recipients are pushing back on their leaders’ plans to slash billions in funding for the insurance program for low-income people.
That dissension could grow considering that President Donald Trump has made the GOP more appealing to the working class. Republicans rely on low-income voters more than they have in decades, with Trump the first Republican presidential candidate to win the poorest third of the electorate since the 1960s.
A POLITICO review of enrollment in Medicaid by congressional district found that 11 Republicans in competitive seats represent larger-than-average Medicaid populations — collectively nearly 2.7 million recipients. A vote to cut the program presents a politically sensitive decision that may come back to haunt them in 2026.
With a 218-215 House split — the tightest in modern history — Republicans will be fighting for every seat during the midterms to keep control of the chamber. And they can only lose one vote in the House and still pass their budget bill.
House Republican leaders plan to use Medicaid cuts to pay for tax relief, border security and energy production in the coming weeks.
“The bulk of these cuts would have to be in Medicaid, and that’s why they’re not going to get the requisite votes they need to get it passed with the margins that they have right now,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former GOP Senate Budget Committee staffer. “Leaders are going to have a lot of difficulty getting the votes to pass this resolution.”
Nationally, about 24 percent of people in the United States are enrolled in Medicaid, according to an estimate compiled by NYU Langone Health. Just over 72 million people nationwide had Medicaid coverage as of October 2024, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The Sunday night announcement that Dan Bongino — a bombastic MAGA podcast host, fiery right-wing troll, one-time Secret Service agent, and three-time failed Republican congressional candidate — would be the new FBI deputy director and join the newly confirmed director Kash Patel, another MAGA loyalist better known for his hucksterism of Trump merchandise than his management, leadership, or law enforcement experience, and lead the FBI marked an almost certainly permanent alteration of the fabric of the institution.
In the entire modern history of the bureau, the deputy director — the #2 person who serves as the day-to-day operational leader of the FBI — has always been a civil servant and career special agent, one who has worked his (they’ve always been men) way up the ranks over a two-decade career and is deeply familiar with the workings of the bureau, its wide-ranging missions, and curious culture.
All previous modern directors, meanwhile, have had deep experience with the FBI — working in senior roles in law enforcement, atop the Justice Department, or as federal judges. Patel and Bongino, who does not require Senate confirmation in the role, bring none of that acquired expertise or wisdom to the role; neither has worked for the FBI for a single day and neither has meaningful senior management experience.
Both have been installed, effectively, to troll the libs — and, more dangerously for every American, to weaponize the normally fiercely independent bureau in service to Donald Trump personally. Don’t take my word for it — Bongino said it himself in 2018: “My entire life right now is about owning the libs.” He added then: “We win, you lose, the new rules are in effect.” Or try this video:
More recently, he said this on his podcast: “What matters? Anyone? Power.” Listen to that clip, watch the glee on his face as he says, and imagine him as the second most-powerful person in a vital national law enforcement agency that holds enormous sway over Americans of all stripes, and tell me that isn’t one of the darkest things you’ve seen yet out of the Trump administration.
Dan Bongino, who hosts a popular pro-Trump podcast and has appeared regularly on Fox News, will serve under Kash Patel. http://www.ft.com/content/510e…
Over 173,000 migrants completed registrations at the Manhattan hotel since its opening in May 2023, accounting for nearly three quarters of the 232,000 migrants who entered the city since the spring of 2022, the Adams administration reported.
“While we’re not done caring for those who come into our care, today marks another milestone in demonstrating the immense progress we have achieved in turning the corner on an unprecedented international humanitarian effort,” Adams said in a Monday statement.
The mayor added that his administration has “skillfully managed this crisis,” and that the Roosevelt Hotel has been “key in allowing us to effectively manage our operations.”
On top of closing the arrival center at the hotel, Adams also announced the closure of the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center located at Roosevelt.
The mayor cited a downtick of migrant registrations as well as the success of migrants who have “sought care” from the city to take their “next steps in their journeys,” as inspiring the move to shut down the core center at Roosevelt Hotel.
Adams’ administration said that while an average 4,000 migrants were arriving each week to New York City during the “height of the international asylum seeker crisis,” the average number of registrants in the city has dropped down to the about 350 migrants per week in recent months.
“Now, thanks to the sound policy decisions of our team, we are able to announce the closure of this site and help even more asylum seekers take the next steps in their journeys as they envision an even brighter future, while simultaneously saving taxpayers millions of dollars,” Adams said in a statement.
The former leader of Reform UK in Wales has appeared in court accused of accepting bribes to make statements in the European Parliament that would benefit Russia.
Nathan Gill, 51, from Llangefni on Anglesey, is facing eight counts of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.
The court heard Mr Gill, who was a UKIP and later a Brexit Party MEP between 2014 and 2020, was alleged to have received money from his co-defendant and former Ukrainian politician Oleg Voloshyn.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court by video link on Monday, speaking to confirm his name, date of birth and address.
An international neo-Nazi terrorist group with origins in the US appears to be quickly rebuilding its global and stateside ranks, according to information obtained by the Guardian from its digital accounts.
Founded in 2018, the Base has been the intense focus of a years-long FBI counter-terrorism investigation that has resulted in more than a dozen of its members arrested. It has plotted an assassination, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, which made it a proscribed terrorist organization in several countries.
By 2022, it seemed to disappear. Yet its founder and leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, a former US special forces contractor residing in Russia, used the safety of Russian apps before the November election to recruit and reorganize during a tense political moment. At one point, he even solicited ex-American soldiers with an offer of $1,200 a month to put members through paramilitary training somewhere in the Pacific north-west.
The Base’s regrouping comes at a time when the Trump administration has made it a policy goal to move away from policing far-right extremism and during the appointment of Kash Patel – a Maga acolyte who lauds January 6 attackers and has peddled Qanon conspiracy theories – to helm the FBI. Experts say federal law enforcement ignoring far-right groups such as the Base could expose Americans to increased domestic terror threats.
Nazzaro’s efforts, so far, appear to be paying off: the Guardian was tipped to an audio message released in mid-February from an assumed new leader of the Base with an American accent, discussing the ambitious future of the group.
After criticizing other neo-Nazi organizations such as Blood Tribe for publicly protesting against drag-queen story hours in the midwest, the voice preached covert action and quiet preparations for armed cells throughout the US rather than flashy activism.
“Are we just going to be reactionary? Or are we going to be part of the solution? The military solution,” they said. “Because inevitably we’re going to end up in some sort of military situation, what are the choices?”
The voice then describes a “black scenario” where the US government soon collapses and there’s a need to “provide for your family” and for “white women”.
“There is no political solution, only a military solution,” they can be heard saying under heavy voice modulation. “So act accordingly.”
So, there have been various ways to express concern about what has happened these first 6 weeks under the FARTUS Triumvarite and Kakistocracy. MTN has this about recent contributions by hackers. “Hack at Department of Housing and Urban Development Trolls Donald Trump and Elon Musk | Report
The hack has ended, but the images are circulating on the internet.”
A hack at the Department of Housing and Urban Development this morning has now trolled Donald Trump and Elon Musk by playing a short, AI-generated video of Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet with the title “Long Live The Real King” over the video. Below is a screen grab taken by reporters this morning at the Department:
The video was on display for a short period of time this morning before being taken down by Housing and Urban Development officials. The “long live the real king” message on the video likely refers to a recent statement made by Donald Trump stating “long live the king” after he said that he would be ending congestion pricing in New York City.
It is unclear at this point who is responsible for the hack this morning, whether it was done internally by a HUD employee, or whether authorities have any leads.
Well, it stands to irritate them more than many of our protests since internet surfing, trolling, and golfing appear to be the only presidential duty these days. I’m not sure how long it will take to stop all of this and try to rebuild our infrastructure, but this sure will kill a lot of people in the process. Just the firing of all the best and brightest of the top brass in the military is a huge loss of knowledge and leadership. The Republicans are working on those billionaire tax cuts already, so the bilking of the Treasury continues.
So, our lonely eyes turn to the Democratic Party. Nicholas Wu, writing for Politico, filed this report today. “House Democrats are ramping up their attacks on the GOP agenda. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urged “maximum attendance” this week ahead of a tight vote.”
House Democrats are sharpening their attacks on the Republican policy agenda ahead of an expected Tuesday budget vote, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laying out a plan for pushback in a letter to Democratic colleagues Monday.
With one House Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) already publicly opposing the plan and others privately dug in against it, Jeffries urged “maximum attendance” from his caucus to keep the pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson and his minuscule GOP majority. Democrats are also playing up the backlash some Republican members of Congress faced at recent town halls (some of it organized by liberal advocacy groups) as they try to harness grassroots resistance to the GOP.
House Democrats will gather Tuesday on the House steps, Jeffries said, to “make sure that the country can hear from everyday Americans whose lives will be devastated by the Republican budget scheme.”
Even Bernie Sanders is back on the road again. This time, he’s holding town meetings in deeply red republican states and cities. So, I’m going to use this article from the Nebraska Examiner. “Overflow Omaha crowd launches U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour. ‘We are living in two Americas,’ says the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate.” Hey, it’s an improvement over giving speeches on the floor to a camera.
U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders kicked off his “Fighting Oligarchy” nationwide tour in Omaha Friday night, drawing an overflow crowd of more than 2,500, with hundreds more turned away.
The progressive independent from Vermont spoke to supporters about what he said is division in the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Sanders said he chose Omaha as his first tour stop because of its working-class voters who were swayed toward Republican candidates in the 2024 election. The former presidential candidate said he wants to encourage people, similar to those living in the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District, to recognize policies that could hurt them and their livelihoods.
He said that 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck while rich people are receiving tax cuts.
His tour continues Saturday in Iowa, aimed at promoting democracy and encouraging the working class to stand up to signs of oligarchy.
“We are living in two Americas,” said Sanders. “What we do now will impact our lives. [Americans] need a grassroots movement that says no to oligarchy.”
Kitty Brougham, 65, of Omaha was among those cheering at the Omaha Marriott Downtown at the Capitol District.
She said she wanted to attend the event because she was losing hope. She is the mother of Sammie Peterson, 24, a transgender woman, and is worried for her future.
“I am watching my country be taken away from me,” said Brougham. “I needed hope.”
Sanders’ call to stand up inspired Peterson as well. She said she has not been very politically active in the past but feels that now is the time. As she worries for her future, she finds the ability to speak out.
Sanders spoke for about 30 minutes, at one point reciting the Gettysburg Address and reminding supporters that America was built on pushback against oligarchs. He encouraged people to speak up and said they are stronger when they come together — regardless of political party.
Originally set for the Laborers International Union building, the event was moved to the larger Marriott to accommodate a turnout estimated at 2,580 in the ballroom and two overflow rooms. Organizers said hundreds of others were turned away due to space constraints.
Alexander Beavers, 13, a middle school student from Omaha, was with his family cheering from the front row.
“Trump already ruined the state,” said Beavers.
Now, if these folks’ comments could only show up on the front page of any of the legacy national newspapers.
I don’t look forward to MSNBC really making a big effort for anything if this is typical of their reactions. You may have been here when I did an interview as one of the original “Reiders” back in the day on Zerlina Maxwell’s podcast. I’ve been a fan of hers forever. I attended her book signing at Baldwin Books when she launched a tour of her book on the Evers. This has me both sad and mad. They’ve canceled her show. They’re also moving Jen Psaki to Rachel’s current and old spot. Two women of color out their shows. Alex Wagner will be an at-large reporter. That is sure to be tough on her young family.
I just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out with kindness and encouragement, both personally and in these social media streets. So very proud of The Reidout @joy.msnbc.com team, who are truly family, and all of our supporters & friends. See you tomorrow night at 7, one more time ‼️
This is from The Independent. “Joy Reid’s staff had ‘tense’ meeting with MSNBC chiefs after learning her show was being axed in media, report says. Joy Reid hosted ‘The ReidOut’ for more than four years on MSNBC.”
MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid’s evening news show and held a “tense” meeting with her staff after the news was leaked to the press.
The final episode ofThe ReidOutwill air this week, The New York Times reports. Her slot will be replaced by a show led by a trio of hosts: Democratic strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez. They currently host The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Rebecca Kutler, the network’s newly-appointed leader, made the call amid larger plans to overhaul MSNBC’s programming, according to the Times.
Now, media journalist Oliver Darcy reports Reid’s staff found out they were losing their jobs in a tense and emotional 30-minute impromptu meeting Sunday morning. Staffers were reportedly frustrated they learned about the show shutting down from media reports, rather than directly from leadership.
Reid has hosted a 7 p.m. show on the network since 2020. She had been with the company since 2014.
The network has also removed Alex Wagner from her weekday evening spot, and Darcy reports Kutler held a “similar” meeting with the show’s staff. However, Wagner is expected to stay with MSNBC as a contributor.
Now, many are mourning Reid’s departure.
“I owe the television part of my career to Joy Reid, as do so many other Black voices y’all never would have heard of if not for her,” journalist Elie Mystal wrote on X. “And *that’s* why she’s gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable.”
I’m getting too old for this shit.
#BlueskyResistance #Voices4Victory #ProudBlurAdvertisement at a London bus stop. Ya gotta love the British…
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Those of you my age will remember this from the 1970s. It is positively the worst economic scenario imaginable. I already am swamped by electric bills that are unimaginable for my little house. The unusual weather and snow basically doubled it last month. And just in time for Hurricane and Fire Seasons, we see the Triumvariate try to kill us all so billionaires and Multinational Mega Corporations can steal the coins from our eyes. Additionally, we are providing momentum to the spread of infectious diseases globally and locally. What a clusterfuck our country has become in such a short time! By mid-2026, we will officially be known as a shithole country. Let’s break this all down. You can see from the sources that I am becoming less trustful of the American Fourth Estate.
What follows is an incredibly long list of programs that have saved all kinds of people from death and massive illness. A lot has to do with prenatal care. Certainly, we can be better human beings than this. I am ashamed of my country. Pamela Herd and Don Monyhan ask the big question on their substack: 
This long but useful read will tell you how effective and economical the plan is. I wrote a research paper for my doctoral class in Financial institutions right after Katrina and was amazed by its efficiency. An outline of studies and data follows the paragraphs above. I will cut to the chase and pass that for brevity.
These actions are enough to make you want to take to Pennslyvania Avenue with pitchforks, torches, and guillotines. It’s a full-out assault on the least among us. He’s also going to puke out another Presidential order to establish English as the official language of the USA. We’ve been doing fine with pluralism for 250 years. Besides, if we’re going to be language NAZIs, let’s start with FARTUS and Elonia. Most of the time, they speak unintelligibly. 
The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process,holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.
As Kelly Hooper of Politico reminds us
Garret Graff has written 
FARTUS’ shakedown of the Mayor of New York City is already paying off big time. This is from 
Remember, seeking asylum is not illegal in the US. It’s a process that’s part of an international treaty that we signed. Our government’s site about the process is still online. 
While FARTUS is still trying to turn the US Military into his own private force, he still has these guys and they are building. This is from 
So, there have been various ways to express concern about what has happened these first 6 weeks under the FARTUS Triumvarite and Kakistocracy. 
Now, if these folks’ comments could only show up on the front page of any of the legacy national newspapers.
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