The Great Renaming

He knows all

Brilliantly explained

Two of a kind

Put some peroxide on it

‘Alarm’ at White House After Vance and Miller Pushed Insurrection Act, Habeas Corpus Suspension During Anti-ICE Protests

Close call for democracy

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

A June 15 report in The New York Times revealed what it described as the “alarm” felt by some White House lawyers at proposals made earlier this year by Vice President JD Vance and Trump adviser Stephen Miller as the administration was forced to contend with widespread anger over its anti-immigration agenda.

Among other things, the Times reported that Vance pushed for Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow for the US military to be deployed on American streets, in an effort to shut down mass protests in Minnesota against federal immigration enforcement operations in the state.

A few days after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers fatally shot demonstrator Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis, the Times reported that Vance—who had also elevated a baseless claim by Miller that Pretti had been a “would-be assassin”—said invoking the Insurrection Act was necessary “to crush the unrest in Minnesota.”

Vance also believed invoking the law would send a “message” that “paid agitators could not get away with disrupting ICE operations”—even though, as the Times noted, there is no evidence that Pretti; demonstrator Renee Good, who was also killed by federal agents; or any other organizers in Minnesota or elsewhere received any money in exchange for protesting.

However, right-wing attorney Will Scharf quickly shot down Vance’s suggestion, noting that the Insurrection Act is an instrument aimed at putting down armed rebellions rather than groups of citizens blowing whistles at ICE officers.

Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair then made the political case against invoking the Insurrection Act.

Trump's biggest grift (so far)

Trump fights fraud by withholding funds from blue states while pardoning the fraudsters

It's odd that fraud only seems to happen in blue states

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

“Political retribution, plain and simple,” was how US Sen. Alex Padilla described an announcement by Vice President JD Vance late Wednesday regarding the White House’s decision to withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California.

Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed the state’s Medicaid records have generated “red flags” and demanded officials clarify $630 million in billing, $500 million that’s been spent on home health services, and $200 million in what Oz called “questionable expenditures,” which he claimed had been used to provide coverage for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid.

The announcement came a month after Vance’s federal anti-fraud task force suspended the licenses of nearly 450 hospice care facilities and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area, accusing them of fraud.

Vance also warned that all 50 states could soon see federal funding for their Medicaid Fraud Control Units frozen if they fail to “aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud.”

“We can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well,” said the vice president.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has frequently sparred with the Trump administration, said Vance and Oz were “attacking programs that keep seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes,” which are far more expensive to run than home healthcare agencies.

Newsom said the growth of the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program has saved taxpayers “$107,000 per person” by reducing reliance on nursing homes.

“MAGA hates in-home support programs—which help people stay out of costly institutional settings like nursing homes and get the care they deserve, typically from loved ones,” said Newsom.

Newsom also said the Trump administration had informed state officials that the deadline to review California’s Medicaid records “before deciding whether to defer funding” would be later in the month.

Earth-Destroying Trump and the Threat of World War III

The nightmare that is Donald Trump

Tom Engelhardt in the TomDispatch

Unlike every other column of mine, this one won’t be broken up with section titles for a simple reason. It’s all about Donald J. Trump and when it comes to him, in this strange world of ours, no one ever really gets a break.

In that context, here’s my advice to you: Don’t get old. For years, I managed not to do so, but unfortunately that’s all over now and I’m increasingly an old man. In fact, I’m not quite two years older than Donald J. Trump. 

I was born on July 20, 1944, while World War II was still ongoing, and he was born on June 14, 1946, in the peacetime that followed but would all too soon become the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

And let me tell you something else: these days it’s hard enough to keep the website I still run, TomDispatch, in some kind of reasonable shape, while also keeping track of our ever-stranger, more confusing, all-too-Trumpian world. 

But keeping track of things nationally and globally as an 80-year-old president of the United States (with another two-and-a-half years to go) in a world that seems to be coming apart at the — whoops, sorry, I can’t help it! — seams? I simply can’t imagine that. Of course, I couldn’t imagine it for Joe Biden either, and yet he left the presidency when he was a staggering 82 years and 61 days old and will still have been younger than Trump if he truly makes it to January 20, 2029. (And both of them will have beaten the oldest Roman Emperor, Gordian I, who at 81 only lasted a few weeks in power.)

It’s hardly news that Donald Trump is now the oldest president ever to take the oath of office (twice!) and, in that sense, he’s been both record-setting and, in his own strange way, remarkable. 

But in case you hadn’t noticed, while he’s always had his odd moments, they are indeed getting ever odder and more frequent. After all, how many times has this country had a president who mistook himself for (or do I mean confused himself with) Jesus Christ? Oh, wait, how could I be so confused? That image wasn’t of Jesus but (as “our” president insisted) of a lookalike medical doctor. (“I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said. “Only the fake news could come up with that.”)

And meanwhile, of course, in his own ever stranger fashion, “our” president took out after Leo, the American pope, himself a veritable youth at 70 years old, calling him of all things, “WEAK on crime” and, of course, “catering to the Radical Left.” Oh, and while he was at it, Trump also posted an image of himself being hugged by (yes, of course!) Jesus. And Leo responded to the president’s abuse by all too accurately deploring a world being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” (including, of course, You Know Exactly Whom).

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, as an imperial power (even, historically speaking, the imperial power, the only one at its height to control quite so much of the planet in one fashion or another), this country, too, is growing ever older and (again) in its own strange fashion going down (as, of course, all great imperial powers do sooner or later). Phew! That was a long sentence for this old guy, but you can’t get too long and complicated (or do I mean confused?) when it comes to the world of Donald J. Trump. In electing him a second time in 2024, 49.8% of American voters clearly opted to go down in style by giving imperial oldness a startling new meaning.

Ask the hand

Honoring Dear Leader

Vance at the negotiating table

Trump's military threatens Pope Leo for demanding peace

Will Trump launches air strikes against the Vatican?

Julia Conley

Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against Donald Trump’s policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba’s 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island’s economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the “side” of the White House in foreign disputes.

The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope’s “State of the World” address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US diplomatic representative, to Washington.

Colby told Pierre that the US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.”

“The Catholic Church had better take its side,” he said, according to The Free Press.

Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.

Let's play "What Will He Screw Up Today?"

And then he disappears

Elementary

Why do Americans hate each other while Canadians love each other?

Could it have something to do with our politics? With the sociopath in the Oval?

Robert Reich

A survey released on March 5 by the Pew Research Center finds that 53 percent of American adults describe the morality and ethics of our fellow citizens as “bad” (ranging from “somewhat bad” to “very bad”).

This puts Americans way out front of other nations on the we-hate-our-compatriots scale. In the 24 other countries polled by Pew, most people called their fellow citizens somewhat good or very good.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the United States is Canada, where 92 percent say their fellow Canadians are good, while just 7 percent say they’re bad.

Why are we so down on our fellow citizens? It may have something to do with our politics.

Some 30 years ago, my dear friend the late Republican Senator Alan Simpson told me Democrats viewed Republicans as stupid and Republicans viewed Democrats as evil. “I’d rather be in the stupid party,” he chuckled.

I asked him why Republicans saw Democrats as evil.

He took a deep breath. “Religion.”

I said I didn’t understand.

“It’s the Christian right,” he said, as if talking to a five-year-old. “Since Reagan, my party has been a magnet for religious conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, where it’s all about good and evil. Too bad, pal. You’re on the evil side.”

That was 30 years ago. Since then, the divide has only sharpened.

In 2012, Mitt Romney told supporters that “47 percent” of Americans would vote for Obama no matter what because they’re “dependent upon government ... believe that they are victims ... believe the government has a responsibility to care for them ... [and] pay no income tax.”

Insulting 47 percent of Americans was no way to win an election. It was also no way to unite the country.

Then in 2016, Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Also no way to win or to foster mutual trust.

Once Trump took office, dislike of our fellow citizens soared.

Before he entered the White House, 47 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats said people in the opposing party were “immoral.”

By 2022, after years of Trump’s venom: 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats called people in the opposing party “immoral.”

Since he’s been back in the Oval, it’s gotten even worse. 

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate

A deeper understanding of corruption in the Trump regime

By Corey G. Johnson, Brandon Roberts and Al Shaw for ProPublica

Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States.

But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection.

At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.

Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project, which is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Feinberg filed paperwork saying he divested from Cerberus and its related businesses. But his government ethics records contain an unusual clause: He is allowed to continue contracting with the company for tax compliance and accounting services as well as health care coverage, a financial relationship that documents show could continue indefinitely.

Feinberg’s financial statements and ethics agreement are part of a trove of nearly 3,200 disclosure records that ProPublica is making public today. The disclosures, which can be viewed in a searchable online tool, detail the finances of more than 1,500 federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Records for Trump and Vice President JD Vance are also included.

The documents reveal a web of financial ties between senior government officials and the industries they help regulate — relationships that have drawn scrutiny as Trump has dismantled ethics safeguards designed to prevent conflicts of interest.

On his first day back in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that required his appointees to comply with an ethics pledge. The pledge barred them from working on issues related to their former lobbying topics or clients for two years. Weeks later, Trump fired 17 inspectors general charged with investigating fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest across the federal government. Around the same time, he removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, the agency that oversees ethics compliance throughout the executive branch. The office is currently without a head or a chief of staff.

Against that backdrop, ProPublica has, over the past year, used the disclosure records to investigate how personal financial interests have intersected with government decision-making inside the Trump administration.

The documents helped show that senior executive branch officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, made well-timed securities trades, at times selling stocks just before markets plunged because Trump announced new tariffs. (The officials either did not respond to requests for comment or said they had no insider information before they made their trades.)

Other disclosures revealed that two high-ranking scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who recently helped downgrade the agency’s assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde had previously held senior positions at the chemical industry’s leading trade group. (The EPA said the scientists had obtained ethics advice approving their work on the project.)

In December, ProPublica reported that Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively owned — either by themselves or with their spouses — between $175 million and $340 million in cryptocurrency investments at the time they filed their disclosures. Some of those appointees now hold positions overseeing or influencing regulation of the crypto industry. Among them are Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department.

Blanche’s disclosure records show that he owned at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets last year when he shut down investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges.

Great leadership, huh?

Kristi is gone...time for these fools to go

Success! Life is worse for almost everybody.