Opinion

Trump has given Ketamine-addled Elon Musk and six boys, ages 19-24, control over the US Treasury Department’s data and financial transfers.

Musk’s kids at DOGE, still hooked on video games, have moved cots into federal offices for pizza-and-drunk-power-fueled sleepovers. They have already accessed Americans’ private data, worth billions to Musk and his friends controlling Russia and China. Equally dangerous, their trigger-happy fingers can stop all federal money going to any person, corporation, or organization Trump dislikes. Ditto, to any competitor they’d like to see hobbled, and there are hundreds. As Kara Swisher said on CNN, Musk is “very into videogames, and so (thinks) he’s sort of ‘Ready Player One.”

In your mind, turn the tables for a moment.

If Barack Obama had sent a murderous mob against the Capitol and they had beaten and pepper-sprayed Officer Brian Sicknick so badly he suffered two strokes and died the next day, how would Republicans refer to the so-called “J6 rioters”? Is there any doubt in your mind that they’d be calling them “Cop killers”? Every day, day after day, in every venue possible? And if Obama pardoned them, they’d be demanding impeachment right now?

— Let’s just call these mass firings at Justice and the FBI what they are. Donald Trump is a lawless man who is ripping apart the FBI to turn it into a banana republic-style group of enforcing thugs who will only do his will. They will spare his friends and persecute his enemies. We’ve seen this over and over during the past century in countries all over the world; it’s nothing new. It’s just that we never expected to see it here in America. Putin dreamed for most of his life of destroying America; he now has a friend who is doing it for him. This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America’s first true era of dictatorship. The only question now is how long and how far Democratic and Republican politicians and career government employees will tolerate this, and, when their resistance comes, whether it will be too late. The phone number for Congress is 202-224-3121.

— This plane crash shows Trump can’t handle a crisis; we’re going to have to hold our breath for the next 4 years... We already knew this from Covid, when at least 400,000 Americans died unnecessarily because of Trump’s utter incompetence and his attempts to use the pandemic for political gain. Now, with the plane and helicopter crash into the Potomac he let his racist and misogynist freak flag fly high, coming out before any investigations to say that the crash was caused by Black people, women, and/or handicapped people having been hired by the FAA. This is sick, twisted, unAmerican, inhumane, and highlights his complete and utter lack of character or humanity. It now appears that the fault for the crash lies with the helicopter pilot, who was both too high and off-course — and was apparently a woman. One of his people must’ve told Trump, who immediately saw it as an opportunity to go off on women, arguing, like Pete Hegseth, that women shouldn’t be in any kind of significant role in the military. The FAA itself did a quick investigation and found that there was only one controller in the tower handing both plane and helicopter traffic (normally there are 2) in part because the DCA airport only has 19 certified controllers altogether, even though the FAA says they should have 30. This is the result of years of Republican cuts to the FAA’s budget to finance tax breaks for billionaires. The GOP’s 2025 proposed budget includes another 26% cut in FAA funding to pay for tax cuts for Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, just like their unsuccessful 2023 budget effort. When will Americans wake up to the fact that Republicans only care about billionaires and big corporations that kick back campaign contributions to them in exchange for subsidies, deregulation, and tax loopholes? You’d think, after all these years of the Reaganomics trickle-down scam (among others) that they’d have figured it out…

After repeatedly claiming that he has “nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump has signed warp speed executive orders to effectuate Project 2025.

A fever dream of the Christo-nationalist Heritage Foundation and other right-wing extremists, Project 2025 seeks to advance Trump’s authoritarian vision for America. At full tilt, it would enact tenets of Christianity into law (controlling and punitive tenets of the Old Testament, not the woke stuff about loving your neighbor), accelerate climate change, further marginalize immigrants and the poor, and replace the federal workforce with Trump loyalists.

Editor's note: this story has been replaced with an updated file.

A party in need of bold, new leadership looks to have given America the same, old thing ...