Dean Baker, Common Dreams

If anyone doubted that the rich would use their control of the media to push their agenda and silence dissent, CBS removed it with its decision to censor the scheduled 60 Minutes broadcast on CECOT prison.

CECOT is the notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador where President Donald Trump has sent a number of the people he has deported. There have been numerous accounts of torture and abusive treatment in the prison, which presumably would have been highlighted in the segment.

CBS, under its new ownership, decided that we shouldn’t see the 60 Minutes segment, or at least not the one its team had prepared for broadcast last night. Apparently, they were worried it would offend the Trump administration....

I learned basic arithmetic skills in third grade. I wasn’t exceptional — everyone in my public school third-grade class learned them. Of course, we all can now use computers to have calculations done for us in a fraction of a second. But still, somehow, we have major national debates that show zero understanding of even the most basic arithmetic.

The latest example is the $2,000 tariff dividend check that Trump is promising us. The arithmetic here is about as simple as it gets. We have roughly 340 million people in the country. Let’s say 10 percent don’t get the check because they meet Trump’s category of “high-income.”

That leaves over 300 million people getting Trump’s $2,000 checks. That comes to more than $600 billion. Trump’s tariffs are raising around $270 billion. That means we will be paying out $330 billion more in Trump tariff dividend checks than he is raising in tariff revenue. That would add $270 billion to the deficit — this coming from the same guy who is making an obsession of paying down our national debt....

Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants have been busy telling us that we shouldn’t be bothered by Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his plans for a now $350 million ballroom. (The price tag keeps rising, it had been $200 million.)

While many of us were upset about Trump’s destruction of a historic landmark with zero consultation from anyone, the consolation is supposed to be that taxpayers are not footing the bill. Trump says he is raising the money from his friends and corporate sponsors.

Apparently, we are supposed to be relieved that people seeking favors from Trump are paying for the ballroom rather than taxpayer dollars. As David Dayen pointed out in a piece in The American Prospect, these contributions are likely to prove very costly to the American people....

Since there is a lot of confusion surrounding the shutdown, I thought it would be useful to go over some of the main points as I understand them. I will not pretend this is a comprehensive account, but there are some issues that are reasonably clear.

First, when Republicans claim that they are proposing a “clean” continuing resolution, they are ignoring a trillion-pound elephant in the room. In the past, when Congress passed a continuing resolution, it meant that the money appropriated in the resolution would be spent on the designated items. Under President Donald Trump, this is no longer true.

Trump has decided that because he was elected with a huge mandate (almost as large as Hillary Clinton’s in 2016) normal rules don’t apply to him. He has decided to unilaterally refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress....

Bill Pulte is the head of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He has been in the news recently over his allegations that prominent opponents of President Donald Trump committed mortgage fraud. Most recently, Pulte has put Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook in his crosshairs, claiming that she listed two homes as principal residences on mortgage applications.

Trump immediately used this allegation as a basis for trying to fire Cook, even though the Fed is supposed to be an independent agency outside of the president’s control. Governor Cook sued Trump over his firing effort, and the courts will ultimately decide whether this is within his power.

At this point, it is important to remember that Cook has not even been indicted for anything, much less convicted. We only have an allegation from Mr. Pulte....