Ink and fury: A cartoon chronicle of Trump’s presidency
Nick Anderson, Raw Story
Nick Anderson, Raw Story
Opinion
This Trump ick factor is an affront to Jews everywhere
Just as another judge conveyed his outrage at Donald Trump’s use of “staggering punishment” to silence his critics, the administration has begun exporting its war on the First Amendment. This week, the State Department announced that it is formally increasing “social media vetting” for all student and exchange visitor visa applicants. Enhanced “vetting” means federal employees will scourge the laptops, cellphones and personal devices of applicants seeking entry to the US on F, M, or J visas to see what they’ve posted, re-posted, engaged with, and liked on their personal Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts.
The move comes on the heels of escalated attacks against universities including Harvard, where Trump went straight to cancelling foreign student visas on May 22, a move blocked by a federal judge on May 29. Trump not only hopes to cripple America’s most iconic and independent educational institutions, he seeks to infuse higher learning with Trump-aligned political propaganda.
Setting aside the ick factor of a bunch of suits poring over teenagers’ hypersexualized social media accounts, that Trump is employing the ruse of “antisemitism” to attack fundamental freedoms is an affront to Jews everywhere. Peace-loving Jews who are committed to personal freedoms and social justice don’t appreciate it. In April, 800 Jewish professors, scholars and students advised the Trump administration that targeting universities to impose a political litmus test “did nothing to protect Jews, and in fact, could be used to target them.” Twelve national Jewish organizations, including J Street and T’ruah, have warned that Trump’s use of antisemitism to justify suppressing political dissent threatens Jewish safety as well as democracy itself.
Viewpoint discrimination
When the government engages in viewpoint discrimination, it singles out a particular opinion, perspective or “viewpoint” for treatment that differs from how other viewpoints are treated. Viewpoint discrimination, where the government persecutes or otherwise punishes someone for expressing views it dislikes or disagrees with, is illegal.
In 1995, the Supreme Court explained: “When the government targets not subject matter but particular views taken by speakers on a subject, the violation of the First Amendment is all the more blatant. Viewpoint discrimination is thus an egregious form of content discrimination. The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.”
Someone needs to read that memo to Trump’s legal advisors, who, under the ruse of “combatting antisemitism” concocted Trump’s EO, “PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS.”
Under the lizard-brain braggadocio of that EO, the administration announced its intention to “ensure that admitted aliens” in the US do not “bear hostile attitudes” toward the government. Given the depth and breadth of Trump’s illegal attacks against law firms that represented his political adversaries, mainstream media outlets that criticize him, and universities protecting academic freedoms, it is fair to assume that “hostile attitudes toward the government” means whatever Trump and his unqualified goons say it means.
Trump’s insecurities are churning
As Trump officials invade the privacy of international travelers by scrutinizing their social media accounts, administration officials are making it up as they go along. During Trump’s first administration, officials declared that, “Every visa adjudication is a national security decision,” but what constitutes “national security” changes by the hour, on whim.
Trump’s obvious goal is to impose a political litmus test under which only pro-Trump, anti-liberal, and for now pro-Netanyahu visa holders are permitted entry. People who criticize the war in Gaza need not apply today. Tomorrow, the ban will apply to anyone who criticizes Trump’s destabilizing tariffs, his efforts to accelerate climate change, or his unprecedented corruption.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed last month that the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting “counter to national interests.” Despite campaigning on an isolationist agenda, apparently, Israel’s war in Gaza is now America’s war, because criticizing it is deemed “counter to US interests.” According to an Associated Press review, students at more than 160 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated for expressing the wrong opinion, unprecedented aggression that has “stunned colleges” across the country.
Know your rights
As Trump spreads his thin-skinned efforts to kill the First Amendment, reports from non-student travelers are surfacing. Travelers report that they are “preparing for the worst” by deleting social media apps, destroying text messages, and removing identifiers from personal devices. After US citizens started reporting on TikTok that they were detained for hours on re-entry, an immigration lawyer’s video on citizens’ rights racked up more than 8 million views.
Reports of long detainments, deportations and higher personal scrutiny at airports are causing anxiety among US citizens. Americans who oppose Trump — over half the country — are starting to rethink upcoming trips, out of fear of being interrogated, detained, or worse when they return home.
While U.S. citizens can be detained at the border and made to feel fearful or uncomfortable, under federal law they cannot be denied entry or put into detention without reasonable suspicion similar to (but not the same as) probable cause. American citizens also have the right to remain silent to border agent questions. If a border patrol agent asks you for the password(s) to unlock your devices, understand that U.S. citizens cannot be denied entry for refusing to provide passwords or unlocking devices. However, your refusal might lead to significant delay, intense questioning, and/or officers seizing your device for further inspection.
As a US citizen coming back into the US, you may be questioned, have your luggage confiscated, and undergo intense scrutiny based on jacked up suspicions of a bored and/or power drunk border patrol agent.
But, at least as of this writing, US citizens who criticize Trump cannot yet be deported to El Salvador. Trump is working on that.
- Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
Keep reading...
Show less
'Trump's tactics are in fact communist': Former Tea Party congressman busts MAGA
The last time we talked about the communist tactics of Donald Trump, it was in the context of economics. In an interview with me, Patrick W. Watson, a senior analyst for Mauldin Economics, explained how the policies we are seeing coming out of the White House are the policies that would normally be associated with command economies.
“The way business leaders are frantically begging Trump for favors and the almost openly corrupt way in which he is granting them is, in effect, government taking control of the means of production,” he said.
But those communist tactics go beyond economics. The president’s assault on free speech, a free press, the legal profession and private enterprise — put these together, as Sen. Chris Murphy (D_CT) has, and you have an enormous contraction of individual rights and liberty, and an enormous expansion of what conservatives used to called statism.
“If journalists are constantly looking over their shoulders and unable to report on the truth; if protest is suppressed, even moderately, at universities; if lawyers start providing cover, instead of uncovering corruption and illegality; if companies start being mouthpieces for the regime as a price of doing business — if all that happens, we are not a real democracy,” Murphy said last month. “We are a fake democracy.”
Murphy isn’t alone. His GOP colleague, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), appears to be in the throes of recognizing what’s going on. After a tariff meeting with Trump, he told NOTUS that “most of it was Republican senators congratulating him, wishing him well as the industrial czar and pleading for exemptions to the tariffs for their people.”
“It reminded me of a meeting on industrial policy in the Soviet Union, where you have to be nice to the czar, because if you are not nice to the czar, they’ll bequeath exceptions to the iron fist,” Paul said.
Making matters worse is the upside down, backwards and prolapsed nature of the president’s propaganda. Here, for instance, is that White House putz Stephen Miller, explaining why the regime must use communist tactics — enforcing correct words and correct thinking and correct values — in order to fight, wait for it, “communist ideology.”
“Children will be taught to love America,” Miller said. “Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. So as we close the Department of Education and provide funding to states, we’re going to make sure these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.”
Then there’s the fact that the “communist ideology” they don’t like isn’t communism at all. It is the set of values etched into the Declaration of Independence, namely that “all men are created equal.” That’s the problem for Miller. He doesn’t want the government and the law to serve everyone equally, to treat everyone equally. For him, there are inpeople deserving of protection and there are outpeople deserving of punishment. Any attempt to bridge the difference is “communist.”
For more, I reached out to Joe Walsh, the radio host and podcaster who is entitled to the claim of being the most anti-Trump conservative of all anti-Trump conservatives in America. He has recently gotten into the habit of sharing posts from the Editorial Board. So I got in touch and he kindly accepted an invitation to a brief interview with me.
JS: Is there a market for limited government or is that principle too old-fashioned these days? Maybe liberals should take it up again?
JW: I think there’s an opening for, and a market for, efficient government. Government that works. Philosophically, I’m a limited-government guy, and I believe a smaller government is more efficient and works better, but in today’s world where both the left and now the MAGA right advocate an expansionist, activist government, I think the push should be for efficient, effective government that works.
JS: Trump called for government ownership of coal mining. If that isn’t “taking control of the means of production,” I don’t know what is.
JW: Trump represents the MAGA right view of big government. Your direct ownership of coal mining is just one example. Trump and the MAGA right want to use and expand government to achieve their aims. Which is antithetical to a libertarian like me. Heck, MAGA wants to use government to turn America formally into a Christian nationalist country. Scary stuff.
JS: Maybe the Cold War never ended?
JW: No, I think Russia lost the Cold War, then laid low for years, and waited for one of our two major political parties to become an arm of the Russian government. And because of that, because Trump is at best a useful idiot and at worst a Russian asset, Russia is ascending. The authoritarian impulse animates this Republican Party, hence a lot of Republican support for Vladimir Putin.
JS: Republicans have spent 40 years using the word “communist.” Is that why no one can see that Trump’s tactics are communist?
JW: Spot on about communism. Trump’s tactics are in fact communist. Many Republican elected officials do see this but turn the other way. Because the base of the party embraces these communist tactics. Again, so much of this can be attributed to the fact that the right had always had a thing for authoritarianism.
JS: Solzhenitsyn said the lie is the pillar of the state. Sounds right to me.
JW: Completely agree with “the lie is the pillar of the state.” I’ve said for years now that Trump’s greatest legacy is the destruction of truth. We now have a situation where one of our two major political parties is completely untethered to truth. Trump succeeded. He succeeded in 2020. Even though he lost the election, he won in that he convinced the vast majority of Republicans that he won.
Keep reading...
Show less
The baffling B.S. of US Sen. Ron Johnson
You have to hand it to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. As Republicans across the country run in fear from their constituents, refusing to hold town halls lest they be asked to answer for brutal federal budget cuts and threats to health care, nutrition assistance and Social Security, Johnson showed up at a Milwaukee Press Club event Wednesday and appeared cheerfully unperturbed as he took questions from journalists and a skeptical crowd. Not that his answers made sense.
People sitting in front of the podium at the Newsroom Pub luncheon crossed their arms and furrowed their brows as Johnson explained his alternative views on everything from global warming to COVID-19 to the benefits of bringing the federal budget more in line with the spending levels of 1930 — i.e. the beginning of the Great Depression, before FDR instituted New Deal programs Johnson described as “outside [the president’s] constitutionally enumerated powers.”
A handful of protesters chanted in the rain outside the Newsroom Pub, but overall, the event was cordial and reactions muted. In part, this was attributable to Johnson’s Teflon cockiness and the barrage of misinformation he happily unleashed, which had a numbing effect on his audience.
Johnson fancies himself a “numbers guy.” In that way he’s a little like former House Speaker Paul Ryan, his fellow Wisconsin Republican who was once considered the boy genius of the GOP. Ryan made it safe to talk about privatizing Medicare by touring the country with a PowerPoint presentation full of charts and graphs, selling optimistic projections of the benefits of trickle-down economics, corporate tax cuts and the magic of the private market. But Ryan couldn’t stomach Trump and he’s been exiled from the party. Johnson is the MAGA version. While he doesn’t dazzle anyone with his brilliance, he does a good job of baffling his opponents with a barrage of B.S. that leaves even seasoned journalists scrambling to figure out what question to ask. Where do you begin?
Back in 2021, YouTube removed a video of Johnson’s Milwaukee Press Club appearance because he violated the platform’s community standards by spreading dangerous lies about COVID, the alleged harm caused by vaccines and the supposed benefits of dubious remedies.
But this week he was back, proudly endorsing DHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s decision to eliminate federal COVID vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children. While he hopes Kennedy goes further in rolling back vaccinations, he said, “at least we’re not going to subject our children to them anymore.”
A woman in the audience who identified herself as a local business owner seeking “common ground” thanked Johnson for saying “we don’t want to mortgage our children’s future,” but expressed her concern that besides the deficit spending Johnson rails against, there’s also the risk that we’re mortgaging the future by destroying the planet.
Johnson heartily agreed that everyone wants a “pristine environment.” “I mean, I love the outdoors,” he declared. But then he added, “We shouldn’t spend a dime on climate change. We’ll adapt. We’re very adaptable.”
He claimed that “something like 1,800 different scientists and business leaders” have signed a statement saying there is no climate crisis. (The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that climate change is real and caused by people and the statement he referred to has been debunked.) “So if it’s climate change you’re talking about, we’re just at cross-purposes,” he added. “I completely disagree.”
Most of Johnson’s talk consisted of a fusillade of hard-to-follow budget numbers and nostrums like “the more the government spends the less free we are.” Charles Benson of TMJ4 News tried to get the senator to focus on what it would take to get him to go along with Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill. “So, a lot of numbers out there,” Benson said. “Can you give me a bottom line? Do you want 2 trillion? 3 trillion?”
“Your reaction is the exact same reaction I get from the White House and from my colleagues,” Johnson chided, “too many numbers. It’s a budget process. We’re talking about numbers. We’re talking about mortgaging our kids’ future.”
Like his alternative beliefs about vaccination and climate science, Johnson’s budget math is extremely fuzzy. He asserted, repeatedly, that Medicaid is rife with “waste, fraud and abuse.” But the Georgetown University School of Public Policy has published a policy analysis dismantling claims that there is rampant waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid that concluded, “This premise is false, and the thinking is dangerously wrong.”
More broadly, Johnson claims that balancing the budget and reducing the federal deficit is his No. 1 concern. But he’s committed to maintaining historic tax cuts for the super rich. The only way to reduce deficits, in his view, is to enact even deeper cuts than House Republicans passed, increasing hunger, undermining education and rolling back health care — because he’s totally unwilling to increase revenue with even modest tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy. Those cuts, not a deficit that could be resolved by making the rich pay their share of taxes, are the real threat to our children’s future.
“I’m just a guy from Oshkosh who’s trying to save America,” Johnson said at the Press Club event. He recapped, in heroic terms, his lone stand against the 2017 tax cut for America’s top earners, which he blocked until he was able to work in a special loophole that benefitted him personally.
He told the panel of Wisconsin journalists he will also block Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill unless he sees deeper cuts, which he insisted would be easy to make. The 40 states that have taken the federal Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (which Johnson still calls “Obamacare”) are “stealing money from federal taxpayers,” he declared. Slashing Medicaid will be easy, he suggested, since “nobody would be harmed other than the grifters who are sucking down the waste, fraud and abuse.”
Grifters?
Wisconsin has 1.3 million Medicaid recipients. One in three children are on BadgerCare, as Medicaid is called here, along with 45% of adults with disabilities and 55% of seniors living in nursing homes. Our state program faces a $16.8 billion cut over 10 years under the House plan. During the Q&A session, I asked Johnson about this — not just the numbers, but the human cost. I brought up Shaniya Cooper, a college student from Milwaukee and a BadgerCare recipient living with lupus, who spoke at a press conference in the Capitol this week about how scary it was to realize she could lose her Medicaid coverage under congressional Republicans’ budget plan.
“To me, this is life or death,” she said. She simply cannot afford to pay for her medicine out of pocket. When she first learned about proposed Medicaid cuts, “I cried,” she said. “I felt fear and dread.”
What does Johnson have to say to Cooper and other BadgerCare recipients who are terrified of losing their coverage?
“I’ll go back to my basic point,” Johnson replied. He quoted Elon Musk, whom he said he greatly admires for his DOGE work slashing federal agencies. “If we don’t fix this, we won’t have money for any of this [government in general],” he said Musk told him.
“Nobody wants the truly vulnerable to lose those benefits of Medicaid,” Johnson added. “But again, Obamacare expanded the waste, fraud and abuse of Medicaid, you know, expanding the people on it when, you know, when a lot of these people ought to be really getting a job.”
Some of Johnson’s Republican colleagues are worried about withdrawing health care coverage from millions of their constituents. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called it immoral and “political suicide.” He said he won’t vote for the Medicaid cuts that passed the House because they will put rural hospitals out of business, and because too many hard-working, low-income people rely on the program for health coverage and simply cannot afford to buy insurance on the private market.
But Johnson remains untroubled. He’s pushing for bigger and more damaging cuts. And when asked what he can tell his constituents who are afraid they’re about to lose life-saving health care, his answer is simple and unapologetic: Get a job.
Keep reading...
Show less
This odious monster left a trail of misery — but I'll thank him for one thing
The New York Times is out with one of those stories that has to be read to be believed, so I did just that, three times, to spare you the pain.
This one, published Wednesday night, has to do with the grotesque Elon Musk’s sudden dissatisfaction with his work to break his piggybank, the United States Government. But instead of really zeroing in on the damage he and his gang of post-pubescent drooler-nerds have done since infiltrating that government, and doing God knows what with our private information, while smashing to pieces infrastructure designed to pay our benefits and keep us safe, the Times thought it important we hear about some alleged feud that has developed between Musk and the only person who is more disgusting than him on the entire planet: the orange, wrinkly America-attacking Trump.
Here’s how this story, that has five bylines on top of it, gets out of the box:
Elon Musk took a swipe at President Trump’s signature domestic policy legislation, saying it would add to the national deficit. He complained to administration officials about a lucrative deal that went to a rival company to build an artificial-intelligence data center in the Middle East. And he has yet to make good on a $100 million pledge to Trump’s political operation.
Mr. Musk, who once called himself the president’s “first buddy,” is now operating with some distance from Mr. Trump as he says he is ending his government work to spend more time on his companies. Mr. Musk remains on good terms with Mr. Trump, according to White House officials. But he has also made it clear that he is disillusioned with Washington and frustrated with the obstacles he encountered as he upended the federal bureaucracy, raising questions about the strength of the alliance between the president and the world’s richest man.
All that under this headline: “A Disillusioned Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington.”
I mean, ho-ly-hell. A disillusioned Musk?!
Was there not just ONE of the 20 editors who assuredly looked at this monstrosity, that gave even a single thought to the lives that have been wrecked since Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which isn't a department at all and more like a hit squad — were given free rein and a metaphorical chainsaw to wreck OUR government and the lives of our public servants inside it??
How can this part be so casually ignored?
And because those lives were ruined, petty things like our drinking water, air traffic control, social security and Medicare benefits, and disaster relief are now in a jeopardy, but poor, poor “Mr. Musk” is the victim at the center of this tragedy:
“The cuts he wanted to enact were far more difficult than he expected and his lack of interest in learning more about the bureaucracy he considered toxic impeded his efforts, particularly on Capitol Hill, according to people familiar with his efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.”
That’s a nice way of saying The Gang Who Couldn’t Loot Straight shot first and asked questions later, and now careers, lives and countless families’ well-being are dead because of it.
But I'll let a high-ranking official at the Social Security Administration I spoke to this morning tell it. She is working around the clock and is both angry and terrified:
“The devastation ... It is not just the loss of trust from the American public as DOGE data mines all of their information. It is not just the increased call volume of concern from the American public, crushing our ability to maintain services. The panic that has been induced has created more work and worse services as staff simply cannot keep up. The workforce is demoralized as they do not know if they have a future. That worry does not inspire an ‘all hands on deck’ attitude that would carry any agency through a high volume, efficiencies gained period.
I have literally picked up federal agents off the floor, crying. I have reminded them of their duty to serve the American public and inspired them to continue for one day more … reminding them that they are here to serve the American public and focus on the work at hand.
My component lost 95% of the workforce. The agency still expects 100% of work to be done. They have provided us no new automation tools to theoretically replace the hundreds of workers. We keep telling the agency it is impossible; the leadership they installed is deaf and tells us we are not efficient. The exhaustion of trying to keep the remaining workforce upright and functioning is starting to affect overall service. The error rates are climbing. It feels intentional so that DOGE can tell us how we are not good enough and should be replaced. But it is all due to sabotage.”
So hold your ears and cover your eyes while I say what so urgently needs saying on behalf of her, America, and the public servants whose lives have been ruined: “F––k that guy.”
If you are really interested in why our government isn’t as efficient as maybe we’d all like it to be, consider they’ve spent the better part of the past four decades operating under constant attack from mostly the Republican Party. They have dealt with hiring freezes and something called “continuing resolutions” (CR) that essentially fund the government at ridiculously short increments of approximately 90 days, because God forbid Congress does its damn job and passes an annual budget that they are mandating to do by law.
I wonder how Musk and all these fat-cat billionaire ripoff artists would do if they were told they were only able to plan out for 90 days at their companies. Actually, I don’t wonder at all, because they’d all fail on Day 91. There would be no hiring, no capital funding, no investment, no advertising dollars, no nothing.
The CR is code for dysfunction and has absolutely nothing to do with the public servants who are forced to work in that environment, and everything to with the people who caused it.
Expecting the government to run smoothly under these toxic conditions is foolhardy, but you almost never hear a single person in Congress say it, because it’s a helluva lot easier politically, and far more convenient to just blame the people inside the government for their epic failures.
After all, that chickensh–t tactic has worked beautifully since the days of Ronald Reagan, who once said on behalf of the billionaires who funded his campaign and pointed him around the room: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.’"
And if there was a God, his house would have blown down the minute those words dripped out of his fat, lying mouth.
With the exception of the Department of Defense, which is drowning in dollars and manpower, federal government staffing has stayed mostly steady the past two decades or so.
We’ve also heard a lot about all the money Musk palmed the greasy Trump to help him get elected. Most estimates have that in the $250 million range, but there’s never enough time spent on the astounding $38 billion — make that BILLION — in contracts, loans and subsidies Musk has received from US, the taxpayers, tied mostly to his failing SpaceX and Tesla ventures.
Musk bitching about the government is like the guy who walks away from the table after a third helping of lobster and champagne, and then spends the night whining to everybody about his heartburn.
It’s disgusting and a blinking billboard for all that is really wrong with America, which has absolutely nothing to do with our government and the public servants who staff it, and everything to do with these billionaires who pillage it and then stuff their bottomless pockets with our money.
So now Musk is allegedly going back to where he came from, because hell is always open for business.
From the Times’ story:
Last month, Mr. Musk told Tesla investors and analysts that he would cut his time on government matters to “a day or two per week,” and since then, he has made a concerted effort to show that he is re-engaged at his companies.
“Back to spending 24/7 at work,” Mr. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, posted on X on Saturday. “I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla.”
Sure, pal, that’ll do it.
Before you allegedly go, though, I do want to thank you for all your work here in Wisconsin helping to get a top-notch liberal judge elected to our Supreme Court last month by trying to buy our votes, while making a complete a––hole out of yourself.
The $25 million you dumped in my state will go a long way toward making sure everybody, and not just odious people like yourself, are represented here.
At least you aren’t completely good for nothing.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
Keep reading...
Show less
This striking personality trait is shared by Trump supporters: researchers
Since the start of his second term in office, US president Donald Trump has cultivated a political atmosphere that discourages freedom of thought. He also actively villainises and punishes any dissenting opinion. Worryingly, this atmosphere looks like it is spreading across other democracies.
Commentators have described Trump as both narcissistic and authoritarian. Yet, running parallel to these factors, one character trait is glaringly common among Trump supporters: sycophancy.
You just have to examine the pre-election rhetoric of Trump loyalists. One backer, Stephen Miller, declared him “the most stylish president … in our lifetimes”. Miller is now deputy White House chief of staff.
And South Dakota governor Kristi Noem gifted Trump a four-foot Mount Rushmore replica – with Trump’s face added alongside the original four presidents. Noem, who is now secretary of homeland security, epitomises the elevation of loyal sycophants over those with arguably better credentials.
Research has examined the dangers of sycophantic behaviour in the workplace, finding it reduces peer respect and morale, and leads to dissonance and lower productivity.
Other research has shown that someone who chooses to employ these tactics can enjoy improved promotion prospects, rewards such as the first refusal on business trips, easier access to company resources and a higher salary compared to their peers. But studies have also shown sycophants often suffer emotional exhaustion from the dual stresses of manipulation and responsibility.
Ongoing research I (Neil) am doing on workplace sycophancy reveals similar patterns. Interviews, spanning from junior staff to CEOs, show reduced motivation, falling team morale and declining respect for sycophants.
One participant highlighted the effect on teamwork that sycophantic behaviour can have within the workplace.
Sycophancy means raising yourself in somebody’s esteem, at the expense of somebody else, on the ladder. And so… it’s going to impact upon the ability to be part of a team.
Another participant offered a comparison to a different deviant workplace behaviour – intimidation.
I’d say that sycophantic behaviour is coming into the same category as bullying. And it’s hard sometimes, especially with bullying and sycophantic behaviour, you are dealing with a lot of people that are manipulative, and manipulating people are quite charismatic. And when you’re charismatic, you’re more believable because you’re a storyteller.
One solution that emerges from the research is workforce education – teaching employees to recognise and mitigate a culture of ingratiation.
As an employee, many people might find it difficult not to bow to peer pressure. If the senior colleague encourages and rewards those who suck up, how do other colleagues, who do not choose to utilise such tactics, compete?
Dangerous ideas take root
Another factor to consider is the tendency for some workers to “kiss up and kick down”. What this means is that staff who are lower down the hierarchical ladder suffer detrimental treatment from the colleagues who are trying to suck their way up the same ladder.
If workforces were educated on what these tactics looked and felt like, perhaps included in corporate codes of conduct, HR departments and management could identify potential issues and deal with them.
But this is not merely an HR concern. Previous research also shows a link between ingratiation, high turnover rates and poorer performance by the organisation as a whole.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of sycophancy is the push for conformity when it comes to opinions. If leadership hears nothing but agreement, dangerous ideas can be reinforced. Things like the leader’s own skills or the competence of the organisation as a whole can become wildly exaggerated – with disastrous consequences.
When leaders are surrounded by “yes-men”, they’re deprived of critical input that could challenge assumptions or highlight potential flaws. This can lead to cognitive entrenchment where decision-makers become overconfident and resistant to change. Bad decisions then proceed unchecked, often escalating into systemic failures.
In return, this can lead to groupthink, a phenomenon where a desire for harmony overrides rational evaluation. Environments that suffer from groupthink often ignore red flags, silence whistleblowers and overvalue consensus. All of these things are damaging to an organisation’s ability to remain agile and competitive.
Which brings us back to Trump. In his case this isn’t a corporate crisis. It’s a geopolitical one. At stake is not shareholder value but national security and global stability.
With sycophants backing poor decisions, the risk ranges from damaged diplomacy to outright conflict. If loyalty replaces truth, the cost could be catastrophic. Trump’s regime may ultimately collapse under the weight of its own delusions – but the collateral damage could be profound.
Keep reading...
Show less
First phase of Trump's presidency has failed — and all that's left is rage
Signing off via X after 128 wild days of mayhem and havoc, the damage Musk did to our government and its capacities to serve the people will be felt for years — although many of his cuts were swiftly reversed by the courts. His slash-and-burn tactics, his raids on government (and personal) data, and his almost cruel delight in firing government employees and closing entire agencies, leave a horrific legacy.
The irony is Musk came nowhere near his initial target of $2 trillion in savings. He kept moving the goal posts — from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, then to $150 billion. I doubt the final savings will be more than $20 billion although we may never know because his method of accounting for and claiming the savings was opaque.
Yet he did terrible damage to tens of thousands of civil servants, entire agencies such as USAID, and many government programs the public relies on, from FEMA to air traffic controllers to Veterans benefits to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
A large portion of the American public came to despise him, and his own Tesla business tanked.
Good riddance.
Second, the court in charge of international trade has just struck down almost all of Trump’s tariffs.
The United States Constitution’s Article I (dealing with Congress), Section 8 (dealing with its specific duties and responsibilities) says, “The Congress shall have the power to … regulate Commerce with foreign nations.”
Seems pretty clear. But a law enacted by Congress in 1977 — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — authorizes a president to impose tariffs, embargoes and sanctions in response to national emergencies.
This is the thin reed on which Trump based his tariff rampage. He declared “national emergencies” because of fentanyl trafficking and the threat of persistent trade deficits. Trump also imposed retaliatory tariffs on countries that responded in kind.
But last night, three judges — appointed by Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Trump himself — unanimously agreed that Trump exceeded his authority by claiming America’s long-standing trade deficit was a “national emergency,” and struck down the vast majority of Trump’s tariffs issued since Jan. 20. They said cash must be repaid to those firms who have already paid.
The court’s ruling nullifies Trump’s executive orders imposing 25 percent duties on Canadian and Mexican products and a 20 percent tariff on Chinese products in response to a purported national emergency on drug trafficking.
It also strikes down a 10 percent tariff imposed on all U.S. trading partners to address trade deficits, as well as Trump’s paused “reciprocal” tariffs of between 20 and 50 percent on 60-odd trading partners, which are now scheduled to go into effect on July 9 if foreign governments can’t reach a deal with the White House before then.
The court did this in the middle of tense negotiations with the EU, China and other key trading partners who had only been forced to the negotiating table by the tariff threat. These talks may not even continue.
Trump retains the power to impose a 15 percent tariff on nations with which America has a significant trade deficit. And some of Trump’s tariffs — the 25 percent levies on metal and automobile imports — were issued under different legislation, and should be unaffected.
Obviously, the Trump regime will appeal. But chances for Trump to prevail on appeal appear dim.
Finally, Trump’s “big beautiful bill” — his effort to slash taxes, mostly on the wealthy — is stymied in the Senate.
Senate Republicans are deeply divided, setting up a battle in the upper chamber that’s likely to drag on well into July.
GOP senators are vowing to rewrite the bill, but they’re still weeks away from putting together a package that can muster the 51 votes it needs to pass.
The more senators change the legislation, the more difficult it will be to pass again through the House — where Republicans control a slim 220-212 majority. (Identical legislation must be approved by both chambers before it can go to Trump for his signature.)
The Medicaid cuts divide conservatives, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) warning they could be bad policy and politically suicidal. Maine’s Susan Collins is also concerned about them.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis is warning that an abrupt termination of renewable energy incentives will hit domestic companies like a bomb blast. He’s keeping close track of the billions of dollars of low-carbon energy investments in North Carolina.
Collins and Tillis are top Democratic targets for 2026. Their successful reelections would go a long way in ensuring Republicans keep control of the Senate for years to come. With their reelections potentially riding on how the bill affects their constituents, Collins and Tillis are likely to drive a hard bargain, whether on Medicaid reforms or green energy incentives.
Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent has also warned Congress it will need to raise the debt ceiling in July if the government is to meet its fiduciary obligations.
What does all this mean?
That the first phase of Trump’s second term — the “flood the zone” shock-and-awe blitzkrieg — is over. Without Musk, or the power to unilaterally levy tariffs willy-nilly, or the momentum to enact his “big beautiful bill,” Trump is left only with his vindictive rage.
But Trump II Part 2 may not be easy for America. I expect Russell Vought to take over the reins at Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Vought, the author of Project 2025, and Trump’s budget director in both his first and second terms, is an inside player who — unlike Musk — knows how to get things done without causing widespread backlash. He’ll work quietly but effectively.
Meanwhile, Trump will continue push American isolationism. I expect Stephen Miller’s vicious anti-immigrant policies to continue, even though the courts have slowed them down. The regime may now shift its focus on to a more comprehensive dragnet targeting undocumented people inside the United States. And Trump’s belligerence toward America’s traditional neighbors and allies will continue.
Trump is not giving up on any of this. He’ll also rage against judges, and take whatever he can to the Supreme Court. And his giant budget-busting tax cut will continue to be a focus of his demands on Congress.
But the frenzy of Part 1 is now over. There will still be bonkers executive orders and many headlines, but much of the damage so far has been contained.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/."
Keep reading...
Show less
This 'celebration' could launch Trump's final assault on freedom
It’s axiomatic that dictators are corrupt. But understanding the inevitable relationship between corruption and dictatorship — and how it flows in both directions — is essential to understanding the direction the Trump Crime Family is taking America.
First, it’s important to know that there’s no such thing as a dictator who’s not corrupt. Every dictator in world history, with the possible exception of Cincinnatus, has been massively corrupt.
To defy public opinion while skimming wealth out of the state’s coffers and public commons, national leaders must use the typical tools of dictatorship to intimidate good government advocates into silence: violence, threats, capture of police agencies and courts, intimidation of the press, cowing politicians, and prisons.
I’ve worked in and negotiated with governments in multiple countries where this was the plain reality: Uganda under Amin, Haiti, the Philippines under Marcos, Thailand during the military coup, Colombia, Peru, Russia, South Sudan, China in the 1980s, and a handful of others.
In every case the media was cowed, courts were run by sycophants loyal to Dear Leader, and the police were largely unaccountable to the people while kleptocrats shoveled fortunes into offshore banks and American or British real estate (we are only one of two developed countries in the world that allows anonymous shell companies to “invest” in real estate).
Less obvious, though, is how politicians in functioning democracies become dictators in order to protect their own corrupt attempts to profit off their leadership roles and loot the national purse.
Americans are particularly blind to this, as we’ve never had a president who publicly attempted to use his position of power to enrich himself (even Richard Nixon had the good sense to try to hide the bribes he took from the milk lobby and Jimmy Hoffa).
Looking at how this works in other countries, however, reveals the pattern.
First, the democratically elected leader takes power, like Vladimir Putin did in Russia and Viktor Orbán did in Hungary.
In the beginning, things seem relatively normal, although there’s an apparent zeal for “reforms” that seem questionable like replacing government functions with private contractors close to the leader, appointing incompetent but totally loyal toadies to run major essential agencies, and changes to election laws making it easier for wealthy people to buy elections and harder for democracy advocates to vote.
Those “reforms” are the early warnings that, if not stopped quickly, a dictatorship is being birthed.
Next come loud complaints about “fake news,” “enemies within the government,” and “activist judges”: This is the second major warning that the newly elected leader is trying to move the country toward authoritarianism.
Once the public is inured to these signals, the next step is for the leader to actively convert his position of political power into cash for himself, his family (inevitably: remember Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay?), and the oligarchs he’s brought into his circle of power.
He sells access to himself and the senior levels of his government using barely-legal schemes, bestows favors to corrupt foreign nations and their leaders in exchange for their enriching his family, and systematically replaces judges and agency heads with people whose first loyalty (and, often, financial interest) is to him personally rather than the nation or the rule of law.
This last point is key, and why virtually every senior official in every corrupt foreign government I’ve ever met or negotiated with wasn’t particularly bright and definitely wasn’t qualified to hold the position of power they did.
This is where we are now in America. Our:
— Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t know what habeas corpus is
— Secretary of State refuses to call Putin a war criminal (after demanding, years ago, that Rex Tillerson in that same position do so)
— Secretary of Education is a billionaire wrestling promoter
— Lead negotiator with Putin about Ukraine is a real estate billionaire friend of Trump with no diplomatic experience
— Secretary of Transportation is a reality TV star with no experience in that field
— Secretary of Defense is an alleged drunk and accused sexual abuser who ran two tiny veterans’ organizations into the ground
— Secretary of Health is a conspiracy-nut lawyer with no training in medicine
— Social Security Commissioner is a former Wall Street executive who had to Google his own new job description
— EPA Administrator is a former congressman with deep connections to the fossil fuel industry
— Secretary of the Interior was heavily invested in fossil fuels
— US Attorney for New Jersey is a former parking garage lawyer, etc.
During his first term, Donald Trump followed the advice of people entrenched in the federal bureaucracy and repeatedly appointed people with reasonable qualifications for their jobs. One after another, from James Comey to Tillerson to Jeff Sessions and beyond, when they refused to swear personal loyalty to Trump or help him promote corrupt schemes, he fired them.
This time, following what could be called the “Putin Rule,” Trump has put 13 of his billionaire buddies in his cabinet and stocked his senior-most roles in critical federal agencies with incompetent but reliably loyal bootlickers.
This illustrates how a wannabe dictator becomes a real dictator. If he’s committed to enriching himself at the public trough (as all dictators are), he really has no choice: he must crack down when his corruption and violations of law are called out.
This is how dictators are always created, at least every one in countries I’ve interacted with.
First, he sets up the infrastructure of corruption and rids himself of the “cops on the beat” (Trump fired 18 Inspectors General whose job is to prevent corruption in major federal agencies) who could stop or slow him down.
Then he fills his administration with people who put personal loyalty or avarice above public service or the rule of law.
Then he opens attacks on the press and the judiciary.
And finally he begins to openly engage in the type of behavior most people first associate with dictators: throwing people in prison or bankrupting them for defying him or speaking out against him.
The problem is that it’s generally only at that final stage that the country begins to realize they’re dealing with a man who wants to be a dictator and is moving quickly in that direction.
This is also typically the moment when Dear Leader is “forced” to use citizen armed militia violence, the legal system, and the military to crush his opponents and terrorize the general public.
Given how fast events are moving in this second Trump administration, June 14 could well be that inflection point, the moment when Trump drops what’s left of the mask of civility and begins what he’ll consider a “necessary” crackdown to protect himself from being held to account for his corruption and lawbreaking.
If the protests coinciding with his birthday celebration in DC are large enough, and, especially, if his people can infiltrate them to provoke violence and property damage like what happened during a tiny handful of the George Floyd protests, it could be the moment when the final threads holding our republic together are broken.
He’s already put into place an executive order preparing the military to turn their guns on civilians. He’s already put otherwise unqualified or even outright neofascist loyalists in charge of federal police agencies. And he’s already ignoring court orders that might restrain him.
This could be the final test of America’s will to democracy. (And, if not this June, it’ll almost certainly come over the following year.)
We sacrificed blood, treasure, and lives to stop the King of England, the fascists of the Confederacy, and the Nazis of Europe. Do we still have the will, the determination, and the courage to fight one more battle on behalf of democracy?
Stay tuned.
Keep reading...
Show less
This fact-check should kill Trump's lying lapdogs' evil scheme
One of my purposes in sending you this daily letter is to give you the truth about an important issue that Trump and his lapdogs in Congress are demagoguing — so you can spread the truth.
Right now, the Senate is taking up Trump’s “Big Beautiful budget bill” (really a Big Bad Ugly Bill) that just emerged from the House.
If enacted, it would be the largest redistribution of income in the nation’s history — from the poor and working class to the rich and super-rich.
How? The tax cut mainly benefits the wealthy. A major source of funding is at least $715 billion of cuts in health care spending, mostly from Medicaid.
It also contains a poison pill that would remove the power of federal courts to hold officials in contempt of court — fining or imprisoning them if they fail to follow court orders. As the courts push back against Trump, this is a critical power.
And the bill cuts Medicaid spending by requiring Medicaid recipients to work.
Republicans are spreading lies about this work requirement.
Here are the facts you need to know — and share:
1. 64 percent of adult Medicaid recipients already work.
Many recipients work in jobs that don’t typically offer health insurance and pay little — which makes Medicaid vital. These people aren’t freeloaders mooching off the system, as Republicans claim. They’re barely scraping by.
2. Adults on Medicaid who aren’t working have good reasons not to.
— 12% are primary caregivers.
— 10% have an illness or disability.
— 7 % are attending school.
3. So, 93 percent of all Medicaid recipients either already working or having good reason not to.
The entire work requirement would affect 7 percent at most. In reality, a work requirement would cause many more who are eligible to lose their Medicaid coverage. The current estimate is at least 8.6 million people.
4. The work requirement kicks eligible people Medicaid because of its burdensome and confusing reporting requirements.
It’s not really meant to put people to work. It’s a shady way of kicking people off Medicaid to fund tax cuts mainly for the wealthy.
In Arkansas, which tried a work requirement for Medicaid, more than 18,000 people who were eligible lost coverage mainly because of the paperwork reporting hoops they had to jump through.
5. When Arkansas enacted work requirements, there was no significant change in employment rates.
Because, again, Medicaid recipients already have high rates of employment to begin with.
6. If Republicans really want to put people to work, they’d make it easier to get Medicaid — not harder.
After Ohio expanded Medicaid, enrollees had an easier time finding and holding down a job.
Access to healthcare means people can manage chronic conditions, afford medication, or receive mental health treatment — all of which helps people keep their jobs.
Republicans are spouting lies about a work requirement for Medicaid because they’re really trying to push eligible people off it — to help finance their big tax cut mainly for the rich.
Senate Republicans can afford to lose only three Republican votes. Otherwise, the Big Bad Ugly Bill is dead. Please share these facts.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/."
Keep reading...
Show less
Trump finally finds use for Elon Musk's Cybertrucks
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Loudmouth Trump just met his match — and it's about damn time
The tide is turning in this fight against Republican fascism, and if you listen you can hear it. And when you hear it, you can feel it. And by God, if you can feel it, well then let it move you to take action.
After catching punch after punch from the most anti-American administration in our 248-year history, some of our most cherished institutions and artists in this country are finally hitting back, and hitting back hard.
Politicians were never going to be the answer, my friends, because history tells us that when the people lead, the so-called leaders will follow ...
Me? As a Navy veteran, who has had a steady, 42-year professional relationship with the written word, I spit on Trump and his repeated attacks on America. As readers, I know you do too.
This morning, NPR and PBS signaled they, too, have had enough of this loudmouth traitor, and sued him over his order to cut their funding.
So let’s get this part out of the way quickly: Trump has no damn authority here. It is not his money.
In fact, let me repeat that one for emphasis: IT IS NOT HIS MONEY.
It is OURS.
But I’ll let a paragraph from the stations’ lawsuit speak to that:
“The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions. On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress.”
This one’s cut and dry, but as usual, you can expect the America-attacker and his odious lawyers to kick it up to Chief Justice John Roberts’ bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court. As usual, they could nip all this silliness in the bud, if they actually cared about the rule of law in this country.
It’s worth saying here, too, that neither NPR nor PBS are going away whether they get this subsidy or not. Just 2 percent of NPR’s budget comes from from federal monies. PBS’s situation is a bit more tenuous, with 15 percent of their budget coming from those grants.
The bulk of their funding comes from private grants, subscribers, donations, and an increasing amount of advertising. If you want to help, I’ll leave this here.
The government subsidy they receive is used primarily to aid in funding local operations and to create original programming. And, no surprise, rural areas would be hurt worst if these cuts were to pass because the convicted felon, Trump, has never cared who he assaults.
While I was at Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper that serves the troops and their families overseas, we too took a small stipend from the government to help fund our operations. Like PBS and NPR, most of our operating budget came from other sources. In Stripes’ case that was subscriptions, single-copy sales, and advertising dollars.
That didn’t stop Trump from trying to cut that funding during his first disastrous term, until it was pointed out to him that Stripes had the longest, most dangerous circulation route in the world. If he somehow cut that federal funding and doused the troops’ only news source, he, not our enemies, would be responsible for it.
Well, he backed off, and stomped off into his corner to contemplate another attack on America that would commence on January 6, 2021 …
It should also be pointed out that none of these pathetic efforts by Republicans to keep America ignorant and stupid are new. They have pulled this stunt time and again and failed.
I’ll pull from a recent piece in The New York Times to highlight their most epic setback:
The most dramatic showdown between legislators and public media defenders came more than a half-century ago. In 1969, Fred Rogers, the creator of the children’s TV show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” testified before Congress to protest cuts to public media proposed by the Nixon administration. After his testimony, which underscored the value of helping children manage their emotions, a proposal to cut public media funding by half was waved away by Senator John O. Pastore, a Democrat.
“Looks like you just earned the $20 million,” Mr. Pastore said to Mr. Rogers.
It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood … and if guys like Rogers can stand up to this kind of nonsense, it would be about time all these damn universities and corporations along with their “news” networks did the same.
Enter CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
Pelley, whose station is also being sued by the serial-lying Trump, started getting some big-time attention today for a commencement address he delivered last week.
Speaking to graduates at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University, the veteran journalist said this:
“In this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”
Here’s some damn fine reporting from the Independent, on Pelley’s important speech:
Delivering his address in theatrical fashion, frequently raising his arms to the heavens like an evangelical pastor, Pelley continued: “Insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts.
“The fear to speak ... in America,” he added, stressing the word to emphasize his horror and dismay in the speech on May 19. “Power can rewrite history, with grotesque, false narratives. They can make criminals heroes, and heroes criminals. Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this.”
I won’t lie, I almost wept when I read this, because there has been so damn little of it coming from people who should know better.
I am so sick and tired of reading the words: “Trump is doing this now … Trump is doing this now … Trump is doing this now …” over and over and over again that I could spit.
What I want to read about is just what in the hell WE are doing about it.
Well, as I noted above the tide seems to finally be changing here, too, and lifting us all up, as patriots like Bruce Springsteen use their influence to enlighten and pushback on this authoritarian punk.
“I've always tried to be a good ambassador for America,” said Springsteen while introducing a performance of “My City of Ruins” in Manchester, England, two weeks ago. “I've spent my life singing about where we have succeeded and where we've come up short in living up to our civic ideals and our dreams. I always just thought that was my job. Things are happening right now in my home that are altering the very nature of our country's democracy and they're simply too important to ignore.”
Perfectly put, Boss …
On Sunday evening Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello jumped to Springsteen’s defense and pressed the attack on the America-hating Trump.
From reporting in Rolling Stone today:
When Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello took the stage at Boston Calling Music Festival on Sunday evening, his solo set featured a pointed message. On the screen behind him, a graphic compiled nearly two dozen buttons that read and spelled out “Fuck Trump,” labeled the president a “tyrant,” and referred to him as the “Hater in Chief.” Addressing the crowd, Morello said: “Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the last big event before they throw us all in jail.”
Morello used the performance to join the legion of musicians backing Bruce Springsteen in the musician’s recent standoff with Donald Trump. “Bruce is going after Trump because Bruce, his whole life, he’s been about truth, justice, democracy, equality,” Morello said. “And Trump is mad at him because Bruce draws a bigger audience. F––k that guy.”
Damn straight.
With our corporate media too often failing us, and even submitting to authoritarianism … While phonies like Jake Tapper attack what has passed and ignore the very real and present danger … While the Democratic Party fumbles at the switches to come up with a consistent, unified message … We must look to the arts — our musicians, writers, sculptors, painters, filmmakers — to be truth-tellers during this fascist assault on our nation, and Trump’s grotesque attempt to end us.
YOU, my friends, must be truth-tellers, and get out there and spread words that you know to be true and righteous to everybody — whether they want to hear them or not.
WE must be the change, because while we didn’t ask for this fight, we damn sure better win it.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
Keep reading...
Show less
Iowa law would ground Trump’s donated jet with a thud
Last week, the Pentagon accepted the emir of Qatar’s gift of a Boeing 747, a $400 million bauble donated for our president to enjoy by a monarch whose family has ruled the tiny Mideast nation for more than a century.
Our commander in chief said the United States would be stupid to reject the donation — a present he hopes to use as a temporary replacement for Air Force One. The key word there: a temporary replacement.
Controversy clouds this gift for a couple of reasons. And Iowa’s public gift law — which deals with freebies much less ostentatious than the Qatari jet — provides important context on the controversy.
First, the Boeing 747 is far from being free. The United States government will need to spend upwards of $1 billion, according to Business Insider magazine, before the president can climb aboard what has been described as a sky palace considering its opulent use of marble and polished wood.
U.S. experts first must inspect the jet to confirm Qatar did not hide any devices that might jeopardize the president’s safety or security. Then the Pentagon needs to retrofit the aircraft with advanced, military-grade communications, security and defensive gear so the new version of Air Force One can serve as an aerial command post during a time of war.
At the conclusion of Donald Trump’s presidency in January 2029, the White House and Pentagon leaders said ownership of the jet will pass to his presidential library foundation — where the plane could become a museum relic or remain in service for Citizen Trump’s personal travel.
Iowa law imposes no-nonsense gift restrictions
That arrangement leaves some of my Iowa government friends incredulous. Even those who are retired can still quote chapter and verse from Iowa’s state government ethics laws that impose no-nonsense restrictions on the acceptance of gifts by public officials and employees.
For example, state government cannot accept a donated $75,000 Chevy Suburban for use by Gov. Kim Reynolds while she is in office and then hand her its keys when her term ends in January 2027.
The fact is, officials in Iowa can accept gifts worth only $3 or less. You read that correctly — $3, not $3 million, and certainly not $300 million.
When The Des Moines Register employed me, I would lunch periodically with state employees. They always paid their tab and I paid mine. They feared even an appearance that they might owe me or my employer a favor in the future if I bought their meal.
With state employees so concerned about such an appearance involving a ham on rye, it is logical to worry about a conflict of interests with Qatar for the rest of the Trump presidency and beyond.
There’s more to this Qatar gift that should raise the eyebrows of Jane and Joe Taxpayer, good-government advocates and Iowans serving in Congress — especially when White House representatives are running chainsaws through the federal budget.
‘Gift’ will cost taxpayers
The cost to U.S. taxpayers to prepare the Qatar 747 for the president should cause political heartburn for Republicans in Congress. The optics are terrible. Two similar 747s — adorned with “United States of America” across their fuselages — are fueled and ready to fly the president anywhere, anytime.
The president and the Republican majorities in Congress talk about out-of-control federal spending. They want to pare government safety net programs for the poor, like SNAP and Medicaid. They want to reign in FEMA, the federal disaster recovery agency, and reduce the National Weather Service budget. They want to cut funding for national parks, medical research, food safety inspections and the arts.
But little comment has arisen about the eye-popping price of retrofitting the Qatar jet for the president’s use for the next 36 months and then to remove the secret weaponry and communications gear before the plane sets course for the departing president’s library or personal airstrip.
The federal government already is spending $4 billion for two new Air Force One 747s that now are in production. The Qatar jet will not save a nickel on that contract.
The House last week approved a budget proposal from the White House and Republican leaders that the Congressional Budget Office says will add $2 trillion, with a “t,” to the $36 trillion national debt over the next 10 years. At the same time, the White House and Pentagon are getting ready for a huge military parade in Washington next month costing an estimated $45 million.
There is one more reason the optics of the Qatar gift are so embarrassing.
President Trump’s tariffs on imported products are expected to raise U.S. consumer prices. The president has lectured Americans on their need to make do with less in the near term for the good of the U.S. economy. You know, two dolls instead of 30, five pencils, not 250.
Members of Iowa’s delegation in Congress ought to use one of their pencils to scratch a note to the president and attach a copy of Iowa’s government gift law. The Iowa Code provisions limiting gifts to $3 or less could provide him good airplane reading the next time Air Force One flies over our state.
Plus, a little prairie common sense would teach him that for the good of the federal budget, even presidents can make do with less — specifically, a Qatar 747. Two, not three planes, will work just fine.
Randy Evans is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and his columns may be found on his blog, Stray Thoughts.
Keep reading...
Show less
Trump’s NATO doubts rattle allies — but embolden Russia
The United States has long played a leadership role in NATO, the most successful military alliance in history.
The U.S. and 11 other countries in North America and Europe founded NATO in 1949, following World War II. NATO has since grown its membership to include 32 countries in Europe and North America.
But now, European leaders and politicians fear the United States has become a less reliable ally, posing major challenges for Europe and, by implication, NATO.
This concern is not unfounded.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly spoken of a desire to seize Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO member. He has declared that Canada, another NATO member, should become “the 51st state.” Trump has also sided with Russia at the United Nations and said that the European Union, the political and economic group uniting 27 European countries, was designed to “screw” the U.S.
Still, Trump – as well as other senior U.S. government officials – has said that the U.S. remains committed to staying in and supporting NATO.
For decades, both liberal and conservative American politicians have recognized that the U.S. strengthens its own military and economic interests by being a leader in NATO – and by keeping thousands of U.S. troops based in Europe to underwrite its commitment.
Understanding NATO
The U.S., Canada and 10 Western European countries formed NATO nearly 80 years ago as a way to help maintain peace and stability in Europe following World War II. NATO helped European and North American countries bind together and defend themselves against the threat once posed by the Soviet Union, a former communist empire that fell in 1991.
NATO employs about 2,000 people at its headquarters in Brussels. It does not have its own military troops and relies on its 32 member countries to volunteer their own military forces to conduct operations and other tasks under NATO’s leadership.
NATO does have its own military command structure, led by an American military officer, and including military officers from other countries. This team plans and executes all NATO military operations.
In peacetime, military forces working with NATO conduct training exercises across Eastern Europe and other places to help reassure allies about the strength of the military coalition – and to deter potential aggressors, like Russia.
NATO has a relatively small annual budget of around US$3.6 billion. The U.S. and Germany are the largest contributors to this budget, each responsible for funding 16% of NATO’s costs each year.
Separate from NATO’s annual budget, in 2014, NATO members agreed that each participating country should spend the equivalent of 2% of its gross domestic product on their own national defense. Twenty two of NATO’s 31 members with military forces were expected that 2% threshold as of April 2025.
Although NATO is chiefly a military alliance, it has roots in the mutual economic interests of both the U.S. and Europe.
Europe is the United States’ most important economic partner. Roughly one-quarter of all U.S. trade is with Europe – more than the U.S. has with Canada, China or Mexico.
Over 2.3 million American jobs are directly tied to producing exports that reach European countries that are part of NATO.
NATO helps safeguard this mutual economic relationship between the U.S. and Europe. If Russia or another country tries to intimidate, dominate or even invade a European country, this could hurt the American economy. In this way, NATO can be seen as the insurance policy that underwrites the strength and vitality of the American economy.
The heart of that insurance policy is Article 5, a mutual defense pledge that member countries agree to when they join NATO.
Article 5 says that an armed attack against one NATO member is considered an attack against the entire alliance. If one NATO member is attacked, all other NATO members must help defend the country in question. NATO members have only invoked Article 5 once, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., when the alliance deployed aircraft to monitor U.S. skies.
A wavering commitment to Article 5
Trump has questioned whether he would enforce Article 5 and help defend a NATO country if it is not paying the required 2% of its gross domestic product.
NBC News also reported in April 2025 that the U.S. is likely going to cut 10,000 or more of the nearly 85,000 American troops stationed in Europe. The U.S. might also relinquish its top military leadership position within NATO, according to NBC.
Many political analysts expect the U.S. to shift its national security focus away from Europe and toward threats posed by China – specifically, the threat of China invading or attacking Taiwan.
At the same time, the Trump administration appears eager to reset relations with Russia. This is despite the Russian military’s atrocities committed against Ukrainian military forces and civilians in the war Russia began in 2022, and Russia’s intensifying hybrid war against Europeans in the form of covert spy attacks across Europe. This hybrid warfare allegedly includes Russia conducting cyberattacks and sabotage operations across Europe. It also involves Russia allegedly trying to plant incendiary devices on planes headed to North America, among other things.
A shifting role in Europe
The available evidence indicates that the U.S. is backing away from its role in Europe. At best – from a European security perspective – the U.S. could still defend European allies with the potential threat of its nuclear weapon arsennal. The U.S. has significantly more nuclear weapons than any Western European country, but it is not clear that this is enough to deter Russia without the clear presence of large numbers of American troops in Europe, especially given that Moscow continues to perceive the U.S. as NATO’s most important and most powerful member.
For this reason, significantly downsizing the number of U.S. troops in Europe, giving up key American military leadership positions in NATO, or backing away from the alliance in other ways appears exceptionally perilous. Such actions could increase Russian aggression across Europe, ultimately threatening not just European security but America's as well.
Maintaining America’s leadership position in NATO and sustaining its troop levels in Europe helps reinforce the U.S. commitment to defending its most important allies. This is the best way to protect vital U.S. economic interests in Europe today and ensure Washington will have friends to call on in the future.
Keep reading...
Show less
Copyright © 2025 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 |
Masthead
|
Privacy Policy
|
Manage Preferences
|
Debug Logs
For corrections contact
corrections@rawstory.com
, for support contact
support@rawstory.com
.