Opinion
Trump's 100th day is a landmark of American shame. We must all mobilize against him
Friends,
This is the 14th week of the odious Trump regime. Wednesday will mark its first 100 days.
The U.S. Constitution is in peril. Civil and human rights are being trampled upon. The economy is in disarray.
At this rate, we won’t make it through the second 100 days.
Federal judges in more than 120 cases so far have sought to stop Trump — judges appointed by Republicans as well as Democrats, some appointed by Trump himself — but the regime is either ignoring or appealing their orders. It has even arrested a municipal judge in Milwaukee who merely sought to hear a case involving an undocumented defendant.
Recently, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — an eminent conservative Reagan appointee who is revered by the Federalist Society — issued a scathing rebuke of the Trump regime. In response to its assertion that it can abduct residents of the United States and put them into foreign prisons without due process, Wilkinson wrote:
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”
Judge Wilkinson’s fears are already being realized. Early Friday morning, ICE deported three U.S. citizens — aged 2, 4, and 7 — when their mothers were deported to Honduras. One of the children, having Stage 4 cancer, was sent out of the United States without medication or consultation with doctors.
Meanwhile, the regime continues to attack all the independent institutions in this country that have traditionally served as bulwarks against tyranny — universities, nonprofits, lawyers and law firms, the media and journalists, science and researchers, libraries and museums, the civil service, and independent agencies — threatening them with extermination or loss of funding if they don’t submit to its oversight and demands.
Trump has even instructed the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue, the platform that handles the fundraising for almost all Democratic candidates and the issues Democrats support.
At the same time, Trump is actively destroying the economy. His proposed tariffs are already raising prices. His attacks on Fed chief Jerome Powell are causing tremors around the world.
Trump wants total power, even at the cost of our democracy and economy.
His polls are dropping, yet many Americans are still in denial. “He’s getting things done!” some say. “He’s tough and strong!”
Every American with any shred of authority must loudly and boldly sound the alarm.
A few Democrats and progressives in Congress (Bernie Sanders, AOC, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy) have expressed outrage, but most seem oddly quiet. Granted, they have no direct power to stop what is occurring, but they cannot and must not appear to acquiesce. They need to be heard, every day — protesting, demanding, resisting, refusing.
Barack Obama has spoken up at least once, to his credit, but where is my old boss, Bill Clinton? Where is George W. Bush? Where are their former vice presidents — Al Gore and Dick Cheney? Where are their former Cabinet members? They all must be heard too.
What about Republican members of Congress? Are none willing to stand up against what is occurring? And what of Republican governors and state legislators? If there were ever a time for courage and integrity, it is now. Their silence is inexcusable.
Over 400 university presidents have finally issued a letter opposing “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” Good. Now they must speak out against the overreach endangering all of American democracy.
Hundreds of law firms have joined a friend-of-the-court brief in support of law firm Perkins Coie’s appeal of the regime’s demands. Fine. Now, they along with the American Bar Association and every major law school, must sound the alarm about Trump’s vindictive and abusive use of the Justice Department.
America’s religious leaders have a moral obligation to speak out. They have a spiritual duty to their congregations and to themselves to make their voices heard.
The leaders of American business — starting with Jamie Dimon, the chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who in normal times has assumed the role of spokesperson for American business — have been conspicuously silent. Of course they fear Trump’s retribution. Of course they hope for a huge tax cut. But these hardly excuse their seeming assent to the destruction of American democracy and our economy.
Journalists must speak out too. In the final moments of last night’s “60 Minutes” telecast, Scott Pelley, one of its top journalists, directly criticized Paramount, CBS’s parent company. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” he told viewers, explaining why the show’s executive producer, Bill Owens, had resigned.
“Stories we pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza War and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair. He was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it.”
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, is seeking the Trump regime’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of the media company, and Paramount is obviously intruding on “60 Minutes” content to curry favor with (and not rile) Trump.
Kudos to Pelley for speaking out and to Bill Owens for resigning. We need more examples of such courage. (They both get this week’s Joseph Welch Award, by the way, while Shari Redstone and Paramount get this week’s Neville Chamberlain.)
***
Friends, we have witnessed what can happen in just the first hundred days. I’m not at all sure we can wait until the 2026 midterm elections and cross our fingers that Democrats take back at least one chamber of Congress. At the rate this regime is wreaking havoc, too much damage will have been done by then.
The nation is tottering on the edge of dictatorship.
We are no longer Democrats or Republicans. We are either patriots fighting the regime or we are complicit in its tyranny. There is no middle ground.
Soon, I fear, the regime will openly defy the Supreme Court. Americans must be mobilized into such a huge wave of anger and disgust that members of the House are compelled to impeach Trump (for the third time) and enough senators are moved to finally convict him.
Then this shameful chapter of American history will end.
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/.
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Judge's arrest echoes earlier case — with one key difference
Want to understand the levers of power in Wisconsin? Our statehouse team writes a weekly preview of what’s on the agenda in state politics and why it matters. It's called Forward. Here's an example of what you could see in your inbox every Monday by subscribing here.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on Friday for allegedly helping a man living in the United States without legal status evade federal immigration authorities. Dugan faces two federal felony counts — obstruction and concealing an individual.
Dugan’s case is similar to a 2019 case brought by federal prosecutors against Massachusetts Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph. In that case, Joseph was accused of helping an unauthorized immigrant avoid an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after a court appearance.
In both cases, federal officials alleged the state judges allowed the defendants to exit their courtrooms through alternative routes to avoid federal immigration officials waiting outside the courtrooms in publicly accessible areas.
In a criminal complaint filed last week, federal officials alleged that Dugan confronted immigration enforcement officials outside of her courtroom as they waited for a defendant who was scheduled to appear before her finished his court business. Witnesses reported that Dugan “was visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor,” according to the complaint. Dugan asked to see the warrant the immigration officials were acting upon and then referred them to see the county’s chief judge.
After returning to the courtroom, Dugan then escorted the man and his attorney through a door that leads to a “nonpublic area” of the courthouse, the complaint states.
A similar series of events unfolded in the Massachusetts case. After learning that an ICE agent was waiting to arrest a defendant, Joseph eventually had the man exit the courtroom through a nonpublic exit, federal authorities alleged in a 2019 indictment. A separate court official then helped him exit the building through a back door.
The Massachusetts case was dismissed in 2022. In exchange, Joseph referred herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct, per The New York Times.
One key difference between the two cases: Joseph was indicted. Dugan was served a criminal complaint. To secure an indictment, prosecutors have to present evidence to a panel of everyday Wisconsin residents and convince them there is probable cause a crime has been committed. For criminal complaints, officials only have to get the sign-off of a federal judge, but then later have to secure an indictment from a grand jury, two former federal prosecutors told Wisconsin Watch.
Now, the federal government has 21 days to seek an indictment, according to Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former federal prosecutor.
“It is unusual that this happened with an arrest and complaint because there really is no indication that the Judge was a flight risk or danger to the community,” she told Wisconsin Watch in an email. “They easily could have gone to the grand jury first and summoned her in IF the grand jury wanted to indict.”
Stephen Kravit, a Milwaukee area attorney and former federal prosecutor, said criminal complaints are rare in the Eastern District of Wisconsin and are usually reserved for “an exigent situation where the defendant’s whereabouts aren’t specifically known or the presence in this area is temporary.”
“None of that applies to a sitting Circuit Court Judge,” he added in an email.
Instead, Kravit said, “this was done in a hurry to make a political point.” He added, “Normally, a person charged even with felonies aged 60+ with no record and no chance of fleeing would be summoned to show up at an appointed time for booking and arraignment. Not here. And that was the point.”
🚘 Budget road trip. The Joint Finance Committee will hold a pair of hearings on Monday and Tuesday this week, stepping away from the Capitol in Madison to hear from Wisconsin residents in Hayward and Wausau about what they want included in the state’s next two-year budget.
It will be the third and fourth time so far that the committee has heard from the public on the spending plan. But as the GOP-controlled committee continues to go through the motions of crafting the budget, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, indicated last week that Republican lawmakers could punt on passing a new budget altogether.
Vos was reacting to a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that left intact a move from Gov. Tony Evers that provided for annual public school funding increases for the next 400 years. “It's certainly a possibility if we can't find a way for us to get to a common middle ground,” Vos said of spiking the funding plan last week on the “Jay Weber Show.” “But that's not the goal.”
“It's something we're talking about, but it wouldn't be the first go-to,” Vos added, noting that it has never happened before. The state has passed a budget every two years since 1931, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.
But even if the Legislature were to pass on sending a new spending plan to Evers, things in the state wouldn’t shut down. In Wisconsin, the state continues operating at the existing spending levels until a new budget is approved.
📈 Student homelessness rising. Homelessness among K-12 Wisconsin students reached a new high in 2024, increasing 9% over the previous year despite total enrollment declining slightly.
That’s according to a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum, which found that a little more than 20,000 Wisconsin students were homeless in 2023-24. If that figure seems high, it’s because it is. Homelessness among students is counted using a definition that is more expansive than the one employed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal McKinney-Vento Act defines homeless children and youth as those “who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.”
It’s the third straight year that student homelessness increased in Wisconsin, the report found, reaching a new high since the state Department of Public Instruction started keeping data in 2019.
“The number of students affected by homelessness has grown and is likely to continue to remain high in the near future as an insufficient supply of affordable housing remains a lingering problem throughout the state,” the report concludes. “Addressing the needs of this high-risk group of students could benefit not only them but also Wisconsin’s educational outcomes overall.”
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Nobody wants your feeble prayers
Thoughts and prayers.
On Thursday, April 17, a 20-year-old boy, a student, walked around FSU’s sunny campus, firing a handgun. Two dead; six injured.
The response from our elected leaders? The usual: “Thoughts and prayers.”
The governor of the State of Florida said he was “praying,” adding, “We are all Seminoles today.”
First Lady Casey DeSantis: “Praying.”
Sen. Rick Scott: Also “praying.”
The president of the United States called the attack “terrible, a shame,” then blew off any suggestion of gun control reform, saying he’s a “big advocate of the Second Amendment.”
Maybe he missed the praying memo.
I teach at FSU; and that Thursday afternoon, I was locked down in my office.
It was frightening, yes; it was also horribly familiar. This is America: Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Uvalde, Nashville, Parkland.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported that several survivors of the 2018 Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting were on campus that day.
Robbie Alhadeff’s sister Alyssa died at MSD: “Something has to change,” he said.
Graduate student Stephanie Horowitz saw people running and knew instantly what was happening.
Jason Leavy was a freshman at MSD when Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people. He knew, too, and started barricading his classroom door.
“It’s the least surprising thing in the world, honestly,” he said.
Every one of those kids has been through multiple active shooter drills. Many faculty have, too.
We are supposed to shove desks against our doors, turn off the lights, “harden” our schools and churches and college campuses and act as though we’re grateful when politicians express their insincere and frankly insulting “sympathy.”
Nobody wants their feeble prayers and, as for their thoughts, if the violence-loving reactionaries in charge of this state were actually capable of thoughts they’d realize things do not have to be this way.
Priorities
From the state Capitol to the U.S. Capitol, politicians shrug: Guns matter more than people; children, high school students, college students — they don’t give the big money to political campaigns.
The Second Amendment trumps all the others.
We’re supposed to accept there’s nothing anyone can do: This is just the way things are.
As The Onion’s evergreen mass shooting headline goes, “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
But the kids ain’t all right; the kids are scared — and furious.
Florida State University students marched to the Capitol on April 23, 2025, less than a week after a gunman opened fire on their campus, calling for legislation on guns and school safety. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
Last Tuesday, a group of FSU students braved the morally noxious fumes of the Capitol to demand sensible gun control, red flag laws, firearm storage legislation — commonsense stuff like that.
Madalyn Probst, president of the FSU College Democrats, said, “The fact that they are able to sit in this place and prioritize weapons over my life, my friends’ lives, and the lives of my community around me is deplorable.”
Problem is, the grown folks in charge don’t care.
“The fact that they are able to sit in this place and prioritize weapons over my life, my friends’ lives, and the lives of my community around me is deplorable.”
– Madalyn Probst, FSU College Democrats
The Florida House has approved a bill allowing 18-year-olds to buy guns, repealing a law they passed after the murders at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School.
We don’t let them drink, but hell, they can get themselves a nice Taurus 9mm semi-automatic handgun — just like the one used to kill three and wound five at Michigan State University in 2023.
Here at FSU, you can still see the mountains of flowers and teddy bears where the wounded and dead fell. Yet the governor — who has the emotional intelligence of a poison dart frog —continues to push what he calls “Second Amendment Summer.”
If you’re buying a gun or ammo between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, you don’t have to pay sales tax.
Because we want more people packing heat.
‘Protecting’ children
The FSU atrocity was Florida’s sixth mass shooting and the 27th school shooting in the nation.
This year. So far.
The grown folks in charge are obsessed with “protecting” children from fluoride and potentially life-saving vaccines.
No letting them near books like “And Tango Makes Three,” lest they want to become gay.
No letting them discover trans people and queer people are real and deserving of dignity.
They can’t stand the thought of high schoolers reading Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” or “The 1619 Project,” lest they learn about the horrors of slavery.
They are terrified college students might study sociology, delve into political theories suggesting organizational models for the state that don’t insist our version of rapacious capitalism is the best, or encounter books that challenge religious or cultural orthodoxies.
As for sex, they don’t even want to think about it — unless, of course, the teenaged daughter gets pregnant or the teenaged son gets an STD.
They insist on shielding kids from a slew of normal human realities, but not gun violence.
It’s OK for young people to grow up knowing how to barricade themselves inside a classroom or learn strategies for evading a mass shooter but not appreciate poetry or play a musical instrument or master a foreign language.
It’s OK for them to live scared of that loner kid or that angry-looking guy or some person they can’t see, someone who wants to spill as much blood as possible.
The freedom to get a gun any time for any reason is more important.
So, we have Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Uvalde, Nashville, Parkland, and now FSU.
United Against Hate
One of my students reminded me there was supposed to be a “United Against Hate” symposium in honor of Maura Binkley on April 17.
Maura Binkley was the student shot and killed at a yoga studio in 2018 along with another woman.
The symposium was to promote campus safety, but it had to be canceled.
The FSU building where it should have taken place was a crime scene.
Maura Binkley was murdered by a guy who hated women.
The young man who allegedly walked around campus shooting his classmates hates people of color — he’s a Trump supporter and a white supremacist.
He told a fellow student Black people were ruining his neighborhood.
The United States government manufactures hatred against anyone who’s not a white Christian, embracing violence against its citizens.
Nowhere is safe.
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Trump is destroying trust in the government – we can't let him win
A few words about trust in the government, and I don’t mean the usual words about it.
Usually, we mean “conservatives” don’t trust. No matter how well and fairly the government actually performs, they still don’t, and they still don’t, because trust is a red herring. What they don’t really trust is a government out of their control that works for everyone, equally.
We don’t need to talk about that anymore. What we need to talk about is the people who normally trust the government, meaning liberals. And we need to talk about the fact that, unlike “conservatives” who distrust the government for phony reasons, liberals have real reasons. The Trump regime is actively trying to hurt the American people.
To give you just one example, the FDA announced this week that it would stop requiring drugmakers to use animal testing and instead permit artificial intelligence. I don’t know about you, but I do not want a robot to tell me whether a drug is going to hurt, maim or kill me. I want a human being to make that judgment based on human science.
This example is a snapshot of still emerging reality that virtually none of us has fully reckoned with: there are things that all of us have taken for granted, for pretty much our entire lives, that we can no longer take for granted. I’m talking about things that we never think about: food inspection, air quality control, drug safety, deposit insurance, etc. And because we never had to think about them, we could live our lives.
Now? Well, given that the president chose to tank the markets this week, it’s been hard to think about the things I want to do, because I’m preoccupied with the things I have to do, because I no longer have a government that will do those things quietly in the background.
I mean, for the first time in my life, I’m thinking about stuffing my mattress with cash. Not because of the stock market crash, though that was bad enough for my retirement, but because the regime is poised to gut the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC is the agency that has made it possible for everyone to walk around minding their own business, safe in the knowledge that no matter how stupid your banker is, your money won’t go down with him.
And government isn’t the only thing to distrust these days.
The news media, the universities, the legal profession and all the companies whose products we buy every day – all of them are kneeling before the evil, not because they are being forced to, but because they seem to believe they can bargain with it. And our distrust is justified in cases like Columbia University's. It completely caved to the regime’s demands and now the regime wants to take over the university.
Right now, the Democrats are rebuilding, as they should. But the congressional elections are far away. The next presidential election, assuming we have one, is even farther. Meanwhile, the regime is taking a wrecking ball to everything that we have taken for granted since, I don’t know, the 1930s? And what no one is talking about is this: none of us knows how to live like this. We will figure it out. We will have to. But we can’t start until we admit to the truth of what’s happening to us.
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Will we let this orange-faced death-cult leader finish the job he started?
The Trump administration just gutted Meals on Wheels. Seriously. Meals on Wheels!
Donald Trump didn’t just “disrupt” America; he detonated it. Like a political Chernobyl, he poisoned the very soil of our democratic republic, leaving behind a toxic cloud of cruelty, corruption, and chaos that will radiate through generations if we don’t contain it now.
He didn’t merely bring darkness; he cultivated it. He made it fashionable. He turned cruelty into currency and made ignorance a political virtue.
This man, a grotesque cocktail of malignant narcissism and petty vengeance, ripped the mask off American decency and showed the world our ugliest face. He caged children. Caged. Children. He laughed off their cries while his ghoulish acolytes used “Where are the children?” as a punchline for their next QAnon rally.
He welcomed white supremacists with winks and dog whistles, calling them “very fine people,” while spitting venom at Black athletes who dared kneel in peaceful protest.
He invited fascism to dinner and served it on gold-plated Trump steaks. He made lying the lingua franca of the right, burning truth to the ground like a carnival barker selling snake oil from a flaming soapbox.
And let’s not forget the blood on his hands: 1,193,165 dead from COVID by the time he left office, 400,000 of them unnecessarily, dismissed as nothing more than “a flu,” while he admitted — on tape — that he knew it was airborne and knew it was lethal. His apathy was homicidal, his incompetence catastrophic.
He tried to overthrow a fair election. He summoned a violent mob. He watched them beat cops with American flags and screamed “Fight like hell!” while cowering in the White House, delighting in the destruction like Nero fiddling as Rome burned.
And now, like some grotesque twist on historical fascism, Trump’s regime is quietly disappearing even legal U.S. residents — snatched off the streets by ICE and dumped into El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, a dystopian nightmare of concrete and cruelty.
One such man, Kilmar Ábrego García, had legal status and a home in Maryland. But Trump’s agents defied a federal court order and deported him anyway, vanishing him into a foreign hellhole so brutal it defies comprehension.
This isn’t policy: it’s a purge. A test run for authoritarian exile. And if Trump’s not stopped by Congress, the courts, or We The People in the streets, it won’t end there.
But somehow, he’s still here, waddling across the political stage like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man of authoritarianism, bloated with power, empty of soul, and reeking of spray tan and sulfur.
Donald Trump didn’t just bring darkness: he’s a goddamn black hole, a gravity-well of cruelty sucking the light out of everything he touches.
This is a man who desecrates everything good.
Empathy? He mocks it. Truth? He slanders it. Democracy? He’d bulldoze it for a golf course.
And if we let him continue, he won’t just end democracy — he’ll make damn sure it never rises again.
So the question is: are we awake yet?
Or will we let this orange-faced death-cult leader finish the job he started, grinning over the corpse of the America we once believed in?
Now is not the time to kneel: it’s the time to rise. Stay loud, stay vigilant, and show up. Every protest, every march, every call to DC, every raised voice chips away at the darkness.
Democracy isn’t a spectator sport: it’s a fight, and we damn well better show up for it.
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Trump has put American decency on ICE – and the world knows it
A while back, when I was still traveling internationally for work, I was coming home from Cartagena. I flew coach, the flight wasn’t full, and the young woman in my otherwise empty row was chatty.
Normally I’d put in headphones and avoid eye contact, because that’s the kind of selfish a-hole I can be, but this young lady had ‘vulnerable’ stamped on her forehead. She was petite and visibly nervous. She kept looking at a photo of someone, maybe her sister or mom, then putting it to her chest, then looking out the window, then back at the photo. Had she turned the photo toward the window to share the view, I’d have changed rows. She didn’t.
Her English was as broken as my Spanish, but we managed to exchange small talk, mostly about immediate things: what’s on the menu, our flight attendant is pretty, and does that man’s snoring behind us sound normal? It gave her comfort to talk, so I kept it up and we never went beyond the trivial.
Eventually I guess we both fell asleep, or at least I did, because the next awareness I had was the captain on the loudspeaker announcing our approach to Chicago.
Since it was an international flight, after we got our luggage, we both headed for US Customs. We walked together, her decision, and she got in line right behind me. I pressed the search button and got treated to a pat-down and hands on the stuff in my suitcase. I hadn’t smuggled anything in, nothing to declare, all was well. But once I was free to walk on, I overheard the customs agent behind me, speaking to my new friend.
One of the features of adult life in America is awareness of the ego of others. It’s an American pastime—or maybe it’s just my own- to diagnose the root cause of social pathologies when surrounded by them. A woman in a grocer’s aisle talking too loudly, arguing on her cellphone, likes the sound of her own voice. A man blaring music loud enough to shake the car windows next to him didn’t get enough (any?) attention as a child. The woman wearing excessive mascara and a pushup bra lacks self worth. Etc., etc., etc.
These are innocuous, every day annoyances from people around us. They don’t affect us personally, and, let’s be real, judging strangers lets us avoid judging ourselves. But on occasion, because we have to renew our drivers license or pay property taxes at the window of a government worker, we all experienced men and women with tiny chips of power. You know them instantly. They exaggerate their own authority over minuscule matters, including you, either to convince themselves or us. They crave agency. Their self-importance is so consuming one wonders what it’s like to live with them and hopes they live alone, no pets.
Well, this guy, on this day, at Customs, was that guy. He was fine with me, but sniffed out my friend’s vulnerability like a vampire sniffing out blood. I don’t remember what he said, but he was unnecessarily aggressive. She was Peruvian, and there was evidently some problem with her paperwork. He raised his voice and repeated whatever question it was he had. She started shaking, he relished her fear, and put his face close to hers, the better to smell it. His stance changed to a strut, and my memory may embellish here, but I’m pretty sure he thrust his thumbs into the top of his belt and tipped back, southern sheriff like.
I’ll never know what happened to her, whether she was trying to enter the States illegally, her nervousness admitting some perfidy on her part. But the unnecessary aggression of the customs agent got my back up. I stepped back toward the line and called back to her, “Are you okay?” She looked at me with giant eyes but didn’t respond. The Customs agent did. He left his target frozen in place and strutted toward me, relishing the plot twist. “Who do you think you are? Are you some kind of lawyer?” “Yes, in fact.” “Are you trying to be her lawyer?” “No, I’m trying to be her friend.” “Well, friend, unless you want to go where she’s going, what makes you think any of this is any of your business?”
To my eternal shame, I shot him a snarl and walked on. I like to tell myself it was because I was traveling on my client’s dime, and needed to get to the office. Or that I didn’t know immigration law so WTF did I think I was doing? But the truth is, I was intimidated. He was the worst kind of creep, a man of low intellect and high power. He enjoyed his authority. It was personal to him, so he made it personal for everyone else.
Reading about all the people Trump is having seized at the border, on mere suspicion or an unfortunate tattoo, I admire the travelers’ advisories issued by our allies. Citing instances of foreign nationals being detained for days or weeks, or expelled at the US border, our allies have begun warning their citizens about traveling here. Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the UK are among many countries that have recoiled from ICE’s heavy hand and warned their citizens not to come, or, if they do, to be aware of what kind of place they are entering. Canada issued its advisory on April 4, warning about potential detentions. Denmark’s travel advisory, like those of France and Finland, warns people thinking about traveling to the US that they will be forced to declare a gender on ESTA and visa applications and that it better match whatever it says on their birth certificate.
Germany warns its citizens about excessive documentation requirements and heightened border checks, and spells out the chip of power dynamic: “Neither a valid ESTA authorization nor a valid U.S. visa constitutes a right to entry into the USA. The final decision regarding entry is made by the U.S. border official. It is recommended that you bring proof of your return journey (e.g., flight booking) upon entry. There is no legal recourse against this decision. German diplomatic missions abroad are unable to influence the reversal of a denial of entry.” The UK warns people that, “even a slight overstay of their visa upon entry or exit can lead to arrest, detention, and deportation.”
These warnings are not limited to tourism. International student enrollment, which exceeded 1.1 million last year, will drop dramatically this year, as will the tuition those universities relied on. Research scientists working in the U.S. are looking to get out. Foreign CEOs have turned away from investing here.
Watching the men with shaved heads corralled and assembled like cattle in El Salvador’s CECOT, where Trump is imprisoning people on mere suspicion, I appreciate the travel advisories. Reading about the two young German travelers who spent 14 days in detention for failure to make hotel reservations before they landed in Hawaii, I recall that my happiest trips were like the one they had in mind: unplanned, unmapped, and free.
I respect the travelers’ advisories from our allies, even as I know they will grow more severe. I worry about universities losing tuition, our labs losing scientists, and small innkeepers losing tourism dollars. I think about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the gay makeup artist sent to an El Salvador dungeon, remember the young lady on the flight from Cartagena, and cry at what America has become.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Breathing is now a political act — thanks to the GOP
Breathing is no longer a basic human right in America: it’s now a political battleground.
Over 156 million Americans are inhaling toxic air today, not because we don’t know how to fix it, but because the Republican Party has decided that clean air is something only Democrats care about.
While children gasp through inhalers and wildfires choke entire cities, Trump and his fossil-fueled allies are dismantling environmental protections with surgical cruelty. This isn’t ignorance — it’s policy. It’s profit. It’s war on your lungs, your family, and your future.
The American Lung Association just released a new report documenting how over 156 million Americans are breathing poisonous air. Trump and the Republicans don’t give a damn; if anything, they’re enthusiastic about it.
Fossil fuel billionaires and the industry that made them rich have been major patrons of Republican politicians ever since Ronald Reagan floated into the White House in 1980 on a tsunami of oil and coal money. Donald Trump is no different.
Claiming that climate science research “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth,” the Trump regime last week cut millions from a Nobel Prize winning scientist’s program’s collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Princeton University.
Last month they also attacked the Renew America’s Schools program that provides funding for more than 3,400 schools across the country to install heat pumps, insulation, electric school busses, and other efforts to reduce their carbon footprints.
Lost in the news of Trump’s latest stock market pump-and-dump scheme for insiders and his kidnapping legal US citizens for foreign rendition, they also announced last Friday that they were zeroing out funding for the nation’s premiere annual climate change analysis, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the 13 agencies that collaborate on the National Climate Assessment. The report is mandated by Congress, but Trump is ignoring the law.
This follows by a few weeks EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement that the official position of the US government’s warning of climate change will soon be reversed. As Politico reported on March 12th:
“President Donald Trump’s environmental chief announced Wednesday that he will seek to overturn the federal government’s core scientific finding about the dangers of greenhouse gases — along with 30 other key regulatory actions stretching back years or decades.”
The report added that that Zeldin will also be gutting CO2 limits for coal-fired power plants, tailpipe emissions, methane leaks, and ending a program requiring major industries to report their CO2 emissions. In other words, “To hell with the health of our children and our climate; there’s money to be made and campaign contributions to be solicited!”
Tuesday of last week, Trump signed an executive order declaring war on individual state initiatives to dial back carbon emissions, ordering the Department of Justice to “stop the enforcement” of such state laws. The EO specifically attacked “climate Superfund” programs in Vermont and New York that would have required fossil fuel companies to reimburse those states for damages caused by climate change-fueled storms, as well as going after California’s cap-and-trade carbon credit auctions.
Fossil fuel oligarchs are, no doubt, breaking out the champagne. And the dark money for attack ads against Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
This widespread and wholesale destruction of programs intended to research and fight climate change will directly damage the future of young people in America, but Trump and the GOP frankly don’t give a damn. There are, after all, big bucks to be made and campaign contributions to be collected.
This insanity began in its modern form when five corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court ruled in their 1978 Bellotti decision (written by Lewis Powell) that money was the same thing as “free speech,” protected by the First Amendment, and that corporations are “persons,” protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment. That floated Reagan into office in 1980 on a tsunami of oligarch money, as I noted in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America.
Five corrupt Republicans on the Court doubled down on that in 2010 with Citizens United, which led to an absolute explosion of billionaire money in politics. As a result, in 2024 just 150 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion to elect candidates, money that went to the GOP on a more than 2:1 basis.
And now, in a manner demonstrative of a fully corrupt banana republic mindset, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are giving the fossil fuel industry everything they could want. In addition to the outrages listed above, in just the first three months of this regime, they have further gifted the industry by:
— Exempting Coal Plants from Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS): The Trump administration granted two-year exemptions to 47 coal-fired power plants, allowing them to bypass MATS regulations. This decision increases the risk of mercury pollution, which can cause neurological damage (particularly in children) and respiratory illnesses.
— Declaring a National Energy Emergency: Trump declared a national energy emergency to accelerate fossil fuel development, weakening environmental reviews and potentially increasing pollution.
— Rolling Back Vehicle Emissions Standards: The administration overturned emissions standards for vehicles, leading to increased air pollution and associated health risks.
— Reducing EPA Enforcement: Under Trump, the EPA brought fewer cases against polluters and sought lower penalties, diminishing deterrents against environmental violations. Now Musk and his Doge teenagers are further gutting the EPA itself.
— Weakening Methane Emission Regulations: The administration rolled back rules limiting methane emissions from oil and gas operations, contributing to climate change and air quality issues.
— Providing Direct Channels for Pollution Exemptions: Fossil fuel companies were given a direct email line to request exemptions from air pollution regulations, undermining public health protections.
— Eliminating Climate and Environmental Justice Webpages: The removal of federal climate and environmental justice webpages hindered public access to crucial information for addressing pollution and climate impacts and served to hide or cover up Trump’s naked corruption.
— Reversing the Clean Power Plan: The administration replaced the Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which could lead to thousands of additional premature deaths annually due to increased air pollution.
— Cutting Funding for Environmental Protections: Significant budget cuts to the EPA and other environmental programs reduced the capacity to monitor and enforce pollution controls.
— Reducing Public Land Protections: The administration reduced the size of national monuments and opened protected lands to fossil fuel extraction, threatening ecosystems and biodiversity.
— Rolling Back Clean Water Protections: By narrowing the definition of “protected waters,” the administration allowed more pollutants to enter waterways, affecting drinking water and aquatic life.
— Undermining Scientific Research: Policies were enacted to limit the use of scientific studies in policy-making, particularly those related to environmental and public health research.
— Reversing the Paris Climate Agreement Commitment: The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under Trump signaled a retreat from global efforts to combat climate change.
— Promoting Fossil Fuel Exports: The administration lifted restrictions on fossil fuel exports, encouraging increased production and consumption globally, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
— Reducing Air Quality Monitoring: Cuts to air pollution monitoring programs made it more difficult to detect and address harmful emissions, posing risks to public health but increasing the profits and impunity of the fossil fuel industry.
Trump and Republican cronies in his administration and Congress are committed to trading millions of cases of asthma, childhood cancers, and environmental damage — not to mention the thousands who are dying every year from climate-change-related violent weather, floods, and fires — in exchange for blood-money cash.
Republicans refuse to do town halls, refuse to answer questions about this, and hide behind a timid media that’s afraid to even ask serious questions about this criminal corruption of the protective role of government.
Which leaves it up to us.
— Get out in the streets as often as possible.
— Call your representatives, particularly if they’re Republicans (only 4 or 5 Republicans in the House and Senate could change the course of history).
— Make your voice heard on social media, letters to the editor, calling into to talk radio, and sharing messages like these with friends and family.
— Contribute, if you can, to politicians who are taking brave stands against the oligarchy.
This is not just politics — it’s a slow-motion slaughter disguised as deregulation.
Republicans won’t answer for it, won’t debate it, and won’t hold town halls to face the people they’re sacrificing. The media tiptoes. The billionaires cheer. And Trump signs away your children’s futures with a grin and a pen.
But here’s the truth they don’t want us to grasp: If we want our children to grow up with lungs that work, we better start working and voting like our lives — and theirs — depend on it.
This isn’t just about air. It’s about whether democracy itself can breathe.
Tag—you’re it.
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How to prepare for the uprising
Last week, I mentioned conservative columnist David Brooks’s call for a “comprehensive national civic uprising” against Trump, which Brooks described as “one coordinated mass movement.”
I wondered what shape that mass movement could take and asked whether, for example, it might be a general strike.
One person who got back to me was my old friend Sam Brown.
Sam knows something about mass movements. He was one of the chief organizers of the Moratorium to End the Vietnam War, on October 15, 1969.
When Richard Nixon took office on January 20, 1969, about 34,000 Americans had already been killed fighting in Vietnam — and an untold number of Vietnamese. During Nixon’s first year in office, from January 1969 to January 1970, roughly 10,000 additional Americans were killed there.
Sam reminds me that the idea for the moratorium started out as a call for a general strike. Sam (who previously had worked on Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign) changed the concept from general strike to a “moratorium.”
The moratorium was a huge success. Millions participated throughout the world. (Bill Clinton and I, then graduate students at Oxford, joined in the demonstration in London — which later became an issue when Clinton ran for president.)
The moratorium was followed a month later, on November 15, 1969, by a large Moratorium March in Washington, D.C.
It was the first time the anti-Vietnam War movement reached the level of a full-fledged mass movement. Many credit it with hastening the end of that horrendous war. (Interestingly, research shows that nonviolent protests “have never failed to bring about change” when they involve at least 3.5 percent of the public.)
Why did Sam change it from a general strike to a moratorium? He says he wanted protests to take place in communities rather than on university campuses so that “the heartland folks felt it belonged to them.”
Sam also thought that the best way to pressure Nixon was to ensure the movement had a “respectable” face in order to win the support of the largest number of Americans, many of whom did not much like either the hippie counterculture or the New Left movement. At the time, Nixon’s opponents were easily dismissed as “nattering nabobs of negativism,” or, in Trump-speak, as “whiners and losers.”
Sam’s view is that those of us who oppose Trump will similarly be dismissed until clearly identifiable Trump voters join with us. And, as then, the people who agree with us but don’t express themselves or participate need an easy on-ramp to do so.
In Sam’s view, “strike” has an overtone of militancy, which isn’t an easy place for people in the middle to go. Furthermore, “strike” doesn’t resonate with a small business person or a farmer or most of rural America. (Sam’s favorite visual for the demonstration would be Lincoln and Des Moines immobilized by tractor-driving farmers.)
Sam thinks we need an action that can grow and morph with time into a national movement — and one with which people newly opposed to Trump can identify.
So what’s the best word to describe this? Sam doesn’t think “moratorium” is right this time around, but we still need a neutral, mainstream descriptor that can incite a huge demonstration involving millions of people, that leads to an even larger one.
Ideas, anyone?
What would be the overall strategy? Sam believes it should be locally based, with a range of entry points and a broad set of supporters. (Sam and the Vietnam Moratorium Committee sought the support of groups like the Civil Rights Movement, churches, university faculties, unions, business leaders, and politicians.)
He points out that modern means of communication makes something like this radically easier to organize. The additional good news is that Trump has pissed off nearly everyone, even those who won’t yet admit it.
But Sam believes we need to find a way to gain the support of conservative opinion leaders like David Brooks. This takes some time and a great deal of thoughtful networking.
What do you think?
NOW READ: Breathing is now a political act — thanks to the GOP
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/
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Convicted GOP grifter pardoned by convicted GOP grifter
Convicted grifter Michele Fiore getting pardoned by fellow convicted grifter Donald Trump reflects a casual disregard for law enforcement, and a blithe disrespect for one former law enforcement official in particular: Nevada’s Republican governor.
Money Fiore raised to build a statue honoring a police officer killed in the line of duty was reportedly spent on plastic surgery and other expenses incurred in the course of the care and feeding of Michele Fiore.
Gov. Joe Lombardo testified at Fiore’s trial as a self-described “victim” of Fiore’s grift. While sheriff running for reelection, Lombardo’s campaign contributed $5,000 to Fiore’s purported memorial effort in 2019.
Lombardo is declining to comment on Fiore’s pardon. That’s too bad, because it would be fun to watch him yet again try to thread that needle between expressing mild non-approval of some bat guano thing Trump did or said yet not get browbeaten by some Trump flunky as a result.
Nevada also has a right to know if Lombardo, the governor after all, is in the loop. Was he informed about Fiore’s pardon beforehand, and if so, who informed him? Someone from the White House? A gloating Fiore herself? Interim U.S. attorney for Nevada (and Fiore’s fellow full-on MAGAwhackadoodle kindred spirit) Sigal Chattah?
Or did Lombardo find out about it at the same time as everybody else?
When Fiore was convicted in October, noting how Fiore wears her weapons worship on her sleeve, I joked in the Daily Current newsletter that “Maybe her beloved idol Trump will pardon her and appoint her director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
Well, we’re halfway there.
In a statement dripping with pathetic melodrama and theatrical piety, Fiore said for now she’ll be returning to a different job for which she is woefully unfit on countless levels and to which she never should have been appointed in the first place, Nye County’s justice of the peace in Pahrump. But it’s not clear if that’s going to happen.
And frankly, now that Trump, during a break from his busy schedule of wrecking the global economy and imposing misery and despair on untold millions, gave her brand as a Trumpy grifter extraordinaire a boost, Fiore can probably land, if not the ATF job, at least a position that’s both more high-high profile and better-paying.
Maybe Chattah is staffing up the U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada to launch lawfare and retribution against people who have displeased Michele Fiore, and will name Fiore special DOJ agent in charge? Maybe Chattah’s office will buy Fiore an armored Cybertruck!
Meanwhile, to reiterate, all this is demeaning to Lombardo, and makes him look snubbed and small. And to think just earlier this month Lombardo went to such great pains to showcase his capacity for MAGAliciously crude and hateful buffoonery. As the master and model of the genre used to always say: Sad.
A version of this commentary was originally published in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.
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Trump's climate death wish is in full view
Donald Trump’s executive order to accelerate climate change didn’t get nearly the press it should have, upstaged as it was by his more immediately destructive acts. By digging in to trash the economy, ignore court orders, and end habeas corpus as we know it, he has successfully diverted attention from his efforts to make sure big oil CEOs, among his largest donors, never have to face an angry American jury.
His “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” executive order, issued two weeks ago, is a blind assault on federalism, meant to strip states of their inherent power to regulate pollution and protect natural resources within their borders. Taking aim at state and local-led fossil fuel accountability efforts, Trump’s ferociously anti-science, anti-environment order seeks to destroy what has been called the last remaining hope for addressing climate change while there is still time. It anoints attorney general Pam Bondi as an all-too-willing agent of death: she is ordered to identify, investigate, and challenge any state laws and policies meant to address climate change, including laws that reduce carbon emissions from cars and factories.
Trump is hell-bent on climate destruction. Aside from fast-tracking fossil fuel expansion, gutting EPA protections, and terminating wind energy developments, his order directs Bondi to sue state and local governments to block their climate and clean energy policies and to “take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement” of a wide array of state climate and clean energy laws. His edict proclaims that, “Americans must be permitted to heat their homes, fuel their cars, and have peace of mind—free from policies that make energy more expensive and inevitably degrade quality of life.”
He obviously has no idea that, due to technological advancements, renewable energy has become cheaper and more reliable than coal-fired electricity.
Climate change needs better PR
Other than Trump and a few IQ-compromised pols who think space lasers control the weather, no one still seriously disputes that carbon emissions are warming the planet, causing weather disasters of increased frequency, intensity, and cost.
Many fossil fuel CEOs now admit the causal link between their products and climate destruction—some even acknowledging that climate change presents an “urgent threat”—but their change of heart came late. Following decades of an industry-wide gaslighting campaign promoting false, anti-science denials, big oil today seems to have transitioned to timing. To protect their own ROI and profits for as long as possible, their efforts now focus more on slow-pedaling climate mitigation than on denying climate science, even as big oil itself invests heavily in green energy.
A crooked president and his political party rewarding fossil fuel donors is one part of the problem, but mainstream media, aided by America’s short attention span, is another. When climate disaster strikes, cameras and headlines linger on the aftermath, never the cause.
A quick look at press coverage of the hurricanes in Florida and North Carolina, extreme flooding in Arkansas and Kentucky, increased wildfires from the west coast to the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Rockies, and the 2025 early boil in Phoenix, where 100-degree days came a month early, confirms the for-profit media’s sensationalist bias. Boats on roofs, flipped cars, and people clinging to logs in fast-moving water attract more eyes than science and graphs.
And if climate science is boring to the average reader, imagine how they feel about climate law and policy.
Tenth amendment? What tenth amendment?
The unifying thread of Trump’s wide-ranging executive orders—aside from Trump not understanding the difference between enforcing laws and writing them— is that with each new order, Trump reveals a staggering level of ignorance about the subject he is trying to control. Just as his rejection of due process for immigrants proves his bafflement over how immigration actually works, and his yoyo-ing tariffs show his ignorance of how products are manufactured in the 21st century, his order to destroy state climate efforts reveals that, despite four years of prior experience in his role, he still has no clue how state authority relates to federal authority.
The 10th Amendment retains for the states any sovereign powers not expressly granted to the federal government. State power specifically includes state police powers to protect public health, which in turn requires states to monitor, regulate and curb pollution. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld states’ rights to enact and enforce their own pollution laws for decades. The Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972 establish a framework where the federal government sets national standards, but states pass their own regulations to either meet or exceed those standards. The Clean Air Act in particular protects the right of states to set stronger-than-federal standards to regulate industrial pollution and carbon emissions.
The Federal Power Act specifically protects states’ authority to determine for themselves which kinds of power generation best serves their needs, based on their location, geography, and natural resources, and to build whatever form of electric generation they choose within their own borders, whether from coal, oil, wind, or solar.
Trump’s energy order seeks to rewrite these laws and replace them with his one-size-fits-all, rabidly anti-earth, pro-fossil fuel edict.
A dangerous quid pro quo
Trump’s order came after big oil donors met with him in March, seeking his help in fighting their mounting climate liability risks from “polluters pay” lawsuits. Trump now accuses state and city climate litigants of trying to “extort” billions from energy producers, even as he insists that the enormous cost of climate disasters—which Forbes estimates will top $38 trillion annually—should fall exclusively on state and local governments.
Climate destruction is on course to take the lives, businesses and homes of hundreds of thousands of people this decade alone. Instead of protecting Americans in its path, Trump has sacrificed them to protect staggering fossil fuel profits for his donor class.
As forests, animals and neighborhoods burn, pollinators disappear, and streets slide into the ocean, the steepest price will be paid by our grandchildren. The head of the youth-led Sunrise Movement describes Trump’s energy order as “an illegal, disgusting attempt to force everyday people to pay for the rising toll of climate disasters, while shielding the richest people in the world from (legal) accountability.” Here, here. It also illustrates a president’s shocking ignorance of states’ rights.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Defamation, capitulation and phonies: Inside a wild and disgusting news day
Tuesday was a banner day in the news business as it continues its transition into authoritarian-controlled propaganda that is sold to the highest bidders, which in this case are our nation’s ever-increasing collection of hideous tech bros — otherwise known as Boosters of Trump (BOTs).
It was nothing if not a wild and disgusting day, and featured some heavy-hitters in the political, entertainment and journalism world, as well as reputable truth-tellers like Larry David, who was the only person proving capable of seeing though all the never-ending BS that has blanketed the United States of America.
Good ol’ Sarah Palin appeared out of the Alaska wilderness and into a courtroom in New York City Tuesday where she once again provided some much-needed, albeit brief comedic entertainment to a starving American public.
You’ll remember Palin, who with the help of John McCain and his slippery handlers was hurled downward into the Republicans’ glass floor 17 years ago, making it possible for literally anything or anybody to lower themselves and land with a thud in the basements of power in Washington.
Before there was Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, Marsha Blackburn or Lauren Boebert, there was Sarah Palin …
The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, Russia-stalker, second-rate reality TV star, and Hall-of-Fame embarrassment lost in the retrial of her defamation case against The New York Times, because of course she did.
Defamation cases are almost impossible to prove, but you can’t blame her for trying, because as delicious as this loss was by one of America’s all-time fools, the real news here is how bad it made the supersonic losers at ABC-News look by comparison.
Just four months ago, that one-time reputable news outlet flew the white flag in their very public $16M surrender to the America-attacking Trump on similar charges.
This time George Stephanopoulos was the target of the beady-eyed Trump, who was incensed that he was incorrectly referred to as “a rapist” on the air during Stephanopoulos’ questioning of Mace about Trump’s veracity as a serious candidate given his talent for treating women like one of his sand wedges.
Turns out all Trump was technically found guilty of was being a lowly sexual-abuser. Before settling, ABC-News decided to conveniently forget the fact that the very judge who tried the case, said that most people would call what Trump did, and what the jury found him guilty of, was in fact, “rape.”
You say, “potatoes.” I say “rape.”
ABC-News’ capitulation, while weak and embarrassing, also only encouraged lowlifes like Trump, because … also on Tuesday … CBS-News signaled it was about to tell its once-rivals at ABC-News to hold their beer …
The venerable 60 Minutes, which has been one of the few news programs that has continued to righteously pound away on the America-attacking Trump will now be in search of a new leader. Executive Producer Bill Owens, announced his resignation Tuesday saying:
“Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”
Owens sudden departure is hinting loudly at yet another surrender by yet another billionaire to Trump.
This time Shari Redstone. The Chairwoman of the Board at Paramount which owns CBS, has been dutifully kissing any inappropriate ass she can find in the White House to ensure her sale of Paramount for gobs of billions to the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison goes through.
She can’t have Trump mad at her for telling the truth on air, so Owens had to sacrifice herself on the Mar-a-Lago altar first.
No surprise, Ellison is yet another slimy tech bro and the buddy of the sexual-abuser Trump, who some judges refer to as a rapist.
The sexual-abuser, who some judges refer to as a rapist, has sued CBS for $20 billion claiming the network aired two different versions of an answer Kamala Harris gave about Israel and Gaza on the network’s flagship news programs, Face the Nation as well as 60 Minutes.
As if the serial-lying Trump doesn't give 17 different answers to any question every hour ….
Well, rather than fight that one out and win going away, Redstone has apparently figured it is much easier to just hand the whole franchise over to Trump’s buddy, Ellison, and be done with the damn thing. And if and when that deal goes through, if you are wondering if you will ever be able to trust anything from the CBS-News division again, the answer is, no.
While insiders at 60 Minutes like correspondent Scott Pelley are saying, “This isn't something Bill (Owens) is doing of his own volition: There was no choice in any of this," I am saying I’d have a whole helluva lot more respect for him, if he stood in strong and made these grotesque sellouts fire him and drag him out of the building.
Resigning in advance is just weak, Bill. I’ve walked a mile in your shoes during my career, and take great comfort I didn’t cave to dishonest brokers who had it out for me and the truth. Ask me about it. I’d be glad to enlighten you ...
Finally, Larry David arrived on the scene to save Terrible Tuesday when he took to the editorial pages of The New York Times to politely skewer the smarmy, one-time comedian, turned Trump-propagandist, Bill Maher, with some deftly aimed satire in his short and sweet piece “My dinner with Adolph.”
David, the genius behind Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm never mentioned Maher by name preferring instead the roughly 257 million people across the world who will end up seeing or hearing about the piece connect the dots all on their own.
I’ll guess it’s behind a paywall for now, so I’ll treat you to the piece’s conclusion:
“Two hours later, the dinner was over, and the Führer escorted me to the door. “I am so glad to have met you. I hope I’m no longer the monster you thought I was.” “I must say, mein Führer, I’m so thankful I came. Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean that we have to hate each other.” And with that, I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night ...”
Maher of course accepted an invitation to dine with the America-attacking Trump recently, and through his 500-lb. smirk bragged to everybody that breaking bread with the racist, Lysol-guzzler was actually a very normal and wholesome experience. Hell everybody should try it, but of course they can’t because not everybody can be Bill Maher.
Here in part is how Maher described his dining experience, sandwiched around his usual overcooked, fatty condescending barf:
“Honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk to Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will.”
Oh we will, sport, no worries there.
Your foolish capitulation and normalization of a woman-abusing, America-attacking thug should finish you off for good. That you tipped him at the door after being played like Stephen Miller’s used violin was pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty pret-ty …pathetic.
You’ve been a damn fool for going on a long time now, Bill. Your once-clever condescension is now full-blown, look-at-me arrogance.
I know you will invariably ignore my advice to just shut up and go away for a period of about six years for some serious introspection, because I have come to understand that guys like you and Trump simply can’t help themselves.
You have the phonies in our billionaire-controlled media to do that for you …
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.
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'Arrogance is stunning': Florida's 'Ivy League governor' now hates education
No one should be surprised by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement that the state DOGE taskforce intends to dig into the finances of Florida’s public colleges and universities, pore over years of research, and decide what is kosher and what needs to be jettisoned.
It’s the beginning of a new round of aggression by DeSantis, designed to mortally wound universities as we have known them and rid the state of these supposed hotbeds of liberalism.
The arrogance is stunning. This man, who admits he knew nothing about DEI until a couple of years ago, and who has never shown a glimpse of intellectual discernment, is now the self-appointed curator of Florida’s higher education.
“There’s certain state policies that have been implemented, such as the abolition of DEI, which I know on a superficial level the universities went and applied with,” DeSantis said.
“But as we’ve seen, you know, you kind of burrow in and rename, do what you want. And there is some sense in some quarters that whatever the law in the state of Florida is, it just is not obligatory on them, and they can kind of do their own little fiefdom. That’s not going to fly here.”
DeSantis has it in for these institutions, as have many extremist conservatives who despise education and the educated, harboring a deep loathing of learning any ideas of which they disapprove.
Although he pretends otherwise, DeSantis, conservative ideologue Christopher Rufo, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and others know that education has always been an antidote to authoritarianism, which is why they are fighting so hard. They are resisting the diversity that the Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement, and LGBTQ-rights movement engendered.
‘The professors are the enemy’
The DeSantis blitzkrieg through higher education has include book bans and removing women’s studies, African American history, and critical race theory from university curricula. He hijacked New College of Florida, purged it’s courses of “liberal” topics, forced dissenters to flee or be silent, and tossed books into dumpsters.
As a part of his audit, DeSantis is demanding that universities provide information about researchers — including names, job titles, salaries, and details of their work, Newsweek reports.
He says the state seeks to “identify, review, and report on unnecessary spending, programs, courses, staff, and any other inefficiencies.”
DeSantis isn’t operating in a vacuum. The assault on universities and institutions of higher learning has been carefully choreographed by the Heritage Foundation, the Republican Party, archconservatives, and MAGA.
Vice President J.D. Vance captures the animus Republicans in general have towards education and educational institutions. Vance said during a speech: “There is a wisdom in what Richard Nixon said approximately 40 to 50 years ago. He said, and I quote, ‘The professors are the enemy.'”
DeSantis, by his actions, is no different. His war on academia has so far only been checked by the courts.
Republicans’ aggressive approach is an effort to reshape education in consequential and permanent ways. They want to shift the ideological tilt of a higher education system which they regard as profoundly hostile to conservatives. The Trump administration has several universities in its crosshairs, threatening billions of dollars in federal contracts and grants. They include the University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Cornell University, and Northwestern, stripping them of federal contracts and research grants; demanding control over hiring and the authority to oversee university operations.
DJ Spang, a student from Tallahassee Community College, joined a walkout at Florida State University to protest various policies for higher education from the DeSantis Administration. Feb. 23, 2023. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Florida Phoenix)
Harvard’s example
Floridians could look to the example of Harvard University in refusing to obey Trump’s directives and moves toward a mutual defense compact being organized among faculty at 18 Big Ten universities.
Yi-Li Wu, associate professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan said during a recent faculty meeting that the United States is on the cusp of authoritarianism and that everyone must look at themselves in the mirror and determine what they will do as democratic institutions like higher education are attacked.
Neither silence nor compliance are survival strategies, Wu added, noting that Columbia University, which has hundreds of millions of dollars pulled and several pro-Palestinian students arrested, is a prime example of the reality that compromising on core values will not save schools from Trump’s wrath.
Prof. Jason Stanley, a former Yale University philosophy professor, says the war on universities is straight out of an authoritarian playbook. Throughout history, he said, the rise of authoritarian regimes has coincided with attacks on intellectuals — and efforts to discredit the institutions they’re associated with — in concert with the scapegoating of marginalized groups.
Authoritarians view universities — vital centers of critical thought and free expression — as an innate threat to their desire for complete subservience, Stanley said.
“The universities, not because of ideological indoctrination but because they contain a lot of young smart people called students, have always been the source of resistance against authoritarianism and unjust war,” he said.
The “leaders” of Florida’s colleges and universities have shown no backbone or a willingness to resist DeSantis’ bullying. But those concerned about his onslaughts must fight back fiercely.
Boycott
Resisting should be a slam dunk.
Florida’s colleges and universities should be protecting their cherished traditions, as well as their diverse student populations, from these ideological thugs. And if they are content to cower in the corner, the people must take the fight to DeSantis and the rest of them.
They hope that by instilling fear in people, they won’t fight back. But there is too much at stake not to oppose these people at every turn.
Journalist and author Joy Ann Reid told Dr. Christina Greer, a political scientist, during a recent Zoom discussion organized by Fair Fight Georgia, that education triggers rebellion, adding that a grassroots political uprising is necessary to fight against what she described as “a toxic, noxious, lawless political party.”
“Well, you know, as a university professor, the university is a space for intellectual ideas and debates. We cannot have a space where it’s filled with fear and silence.” Greer told Juan Gonzalez on ‘Democracy Now.’
“I think universities have to band together. This is the — what is the point of an endowment if during hard times you’re not going to use it?
“We know that there are some universities that are larger, more powerful than others. If they stick together — collective action, which is what I talk about in all of my books — you can actually get a lot more than sort of being picked off one by one … time and time in America, if you know your history. You know, as you target one group, many groups don’t ever think that they’ll be targeted. And it’s like, your day will come.”
Reid agreed.
“A generation from now, you won’t have enough people aware of history to fight back. Don’t be like Columbia and get on your knees,” she warned. “Join a compact, send your children to a state where they are protecting people. Don’t go to states like Florida.”
Economic boycotts are effective tools, Reid said. “Don’t buy from stores who gave to Trump. Reward people who are fighting back, unsubscribe from newspapers, don’t buy Tesla.”
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