May Day 2025
There are quite a few ways -- some profound and some petty -- the Trump administration can harass a person whom Trump doesn't like. Here's a petty one: ~~~
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “Chris Krebs, the former cybersecurity official in ... [Donald] Trump’s first term whom the president recently targeted for investigation because he had said that the 2020 election had been conducted securely, learned this week that his membership in a program giving travelers expedited status had been revoked. Mr. Krebs received an email on Wednesday alerting him that his status in the Global Entry program had changed, prompting him to log into his account. The program, run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, lets people deemed low-risk re-enter the country faster than normal travelers.”
Trump wants nice White Americans to have more babies, but he doesn't care if those babies die in their cribs: ~~~
~~~ Ismael Belkoura of Medill News Service, published by STAT: "The Trump administration has cancelled federal participation in Safe to Sleep, a 30-year campaign to prevent babies from dying in their sleep, STAT and the Medill News Service have learned. The elimination of the National Institutes of Health’s role in the program, which helped slash infant deaths in the 2000s, comes at a time when sleep-related deaths among infants have increased. Sudden infant death rates were up nearly 12% between 2020 and 2022, according to the most recent data in a study published in JAMA Pediatrics." MB: I had to sign up to read the article.
New York Times Editors: “The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely the autocratic approach that this nation’s founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution. Mr. Trump has the potential to do far more harm in the remainder of his term.... The patriotic response to today’s threat is to oppose Mr. Trump.... Mr. Trump has attacked at least five pillars of American democracy in his first 100 days: Separation of powers.... Due process.... Equal justice under law.... Free speech and freedom of the press....Government for the people.” It appears the Times is publishing its own editorial with a gift link.
Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "The audience ... – comprised of Republicans, Democrats, and independents ... at NewsNation’s town hall with ... Donald Trump burst into laughter on Wednesday after Trump said he did not believe he had made any mistakes during his first 100 days in the White House.
digby has more barfables from Trump's Cabinet meeting worship service yesterday. Thanks to RAS for the link.
Paul Krugman: “... it’s important to be clear that the bad [economic] news is all on Trump’s head, and we mustn’t let him get away with claiming otherwise.... Most of the time presidents have much less impact on the economy than many people believe.... A president’s policies usually don’t have large economic effects in the first few months of their administration. But Trump’s policies have been so extreme that they are already making the economy visibly worse. In particular, expectations of high tariffs began distorting business decisions even before the tariffs went into effect. If you look at the GDP numbers released yesterday, you see a huge surge in imports coupled with a large surge in inventories. Both of these clearly reflected businesses 'front-running' expected tariffs, racing to buy as much from China in particular as they could before the tariffs went into effect.... We’re ... already seeing signs of Trump’s policies causing broad economic weakness[.]” ~~~
~~~ Bonus Krugman: In this short post Krugman also (a) knocks the NYT headline writers, (b) insists that "data: is plural, and (c) mocks Trump for "com[ing] out as a critic of consumerism and proponent of the higher, spiritual side of life."
Gosh, it turns out Musk really is proud of being the "DOGEfather." Thanks to RAS for the link.
Marcie Jones of Wonkette on some of the Homeland Security atrocities: "There’ve been deaths in custody, at least five that we know of since January 20.... We’ve got children as young as three being forced to somehow defend themselves in court, because the administration has cut funding for their legal aid. A judge ordered it be restored, but CNN reports that hasn’t happened.... More things that are simply outrageous and unacceptable: the family of American citizens who had their house raided in Oklahoma.... And then there’s the students, tourists, and more than 200 people who accidentally made a wrong turn in Detroit and found themselves at the Canadian border, and then detained.... In mid-February ICE stopped using body cameras.... The Justice Department has told immigration agents in a secret memo that they can bust into houses and arrest people under the Alien Enemies Act with no warrant.... 'According to sworn declarations filed in court by those detained, Border Patrol agents slashed tires, yanked people out of trucks, threw people to the ground, and called farmworkers 'Mexican bitches”' [because they looked Hispanic].... It’s all part of the plan for as much cruelty as possible." Thanks to RAS for the link.
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The group 50501 is planning a 50-state National Day of Solidarity for today. Check 50501's site to find a protest you can join.
[The Trump administration is ] proudly lawless and anti-law.... [The danger] is that Trump is the most powerful person in the world, and he does not seem to be very good at restraining himself and he’s not getting any younger. -- Prof. Akhil Reed Amar, Yale Law
IOW, Donald Trump has a dangerous amount of power for an out-of-control ignoramus who is growing more and more senile. -- Marie ~~~
~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “Nearly every president has pushed the bounds of executive power to try to achieve something specific. And a handful of presidents who took office during a true national crisis, like the Civil War or the depths of the Great Depression, swiftly made a series of legally aggressive moves to grapple with the challenges facing the country. But the sheer volume and intensity of the power grab ... [Donald] Trump has undertaken in the first 100 days of his second term — an assault on legal constraints untethered to any equivalent catastrophe — is unlike anything the United States has experienced.... The rule of law in the United States has been traditionally understood to use checks and balances to prevent too much concentration of arbitrary executive power. But the maximalist cascade in the early days of Mr. Trump’s second term is testing the fundamental structures of American democracy in a way that has never been seen before. Mr. Trump, pursuing a confrontational style of presidential politics, has unleashed an assault on counterweights to his authority: attacking judges, sidelining Congress’s role in making decisions about taxes and spending, steamrolling internal limits on the executive branch and using the levers of government to try to force outside centers of power like law firms and universities to submit to his will.” (Also linked yesterday.)
David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald “Trump took office 101 days ago after a campaign in which voters bought his argument that he could skillfully manage the economy and that his policy prescriptions could both bolster growth and eradicate inflation. So the news on Wednesday that the nation’s gross domestic product had contracted in the first three months of the year was a sharp political jolt as well as a blinking economic warning.... [This was] Wall Street’s worst performance at the start of a new presidential term since Gerald R. Ford tried to steer the country out of scandal and inflation 51 years ago.... For many of the products Americans will be paying more for — especially Chinese-made products — there is no American alternative. And for many more, producing them in the United States may make no sense.”
Suck It Up, Kids -- McScrooge McDonald. Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has a message for the nation’s children: Prepare to sacrifice for your country. He was taking questions at the end of one of his marathon cabinet meetings when he finally allowed that, yes, his tariff policies and the trade war he has set off with China may soon result in some emptier-than-usual shelves in stores. Specifically, toy stores. 'You know, somebody said, “Oh, the shelves are going to be open,’” Mr. Trump said. 'Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.'... There he sat, surrounded by the other billionaires with whom he has filled his cabinet, telling the boys and girls of America they’ll just have to make do with fewer toys this year for the greater good. This grinchy pronouncement by the president had the value of being truthful. Many American toymakers and retailers have started to pause their orders as the effects of Mr. Trump’s tariffs ripple out, threatening to snarl supply chains. It could all have a big impact on this year’s holiday season since it takes months to manufacture, package and ship many products to the United States.” The AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: MSNBC was reporting yesterday that 90 percent of U.S. Christmas goods come from China.
Alan Rappeport, et al., of the New York Times: “The United States will share future revenues from Ukraine’s mineral reserves under a deal announced by the Trump administration on Wednesday that creates a joint investment fund between the countries. The agreement comes after months of fraught negotiations as the United States tries to broker an end to Ukraine’s three-year war with Russia. It is intended to give ... [Donald] Trump a personal stake in the country’s fate while addressing his concerns that the United States has provided Kyiv with a blank check to try to withstand Russia’s invasion.... The Trump administration did not immediately provide details about the agreement, and it was not clear what it meant for the future of American military support for Ukraine. One person familiar with the negotiations ... said the final deal does not include explicit guarantees of future U.S. security assistance.... Despite the fanfare, the deal will have little significance if fighting between Ukraine and Russia persists. But Ukraine’s supporters hope the agreement might lead Mr. Trump to see the country as something more than a money pit and an obstacle to improved relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.” A CBS News story is here.
Trump Corruption, International Edition. Vivian Nereim & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “The Trump Organization has agreed to a new Middle East golf course and real estate deal that involves a Qatari government-owned firm, two weeks before ... [Donald] Trump is set to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a state visit. The project in Qatar, a key U.S. ally and home to a major American military base, is a partnership with Qatari Diar, a real estate company established by the country’s sovereign wealth fund and chaired by a government minister. Eric Trump, the president’s son who runs the family business, traveled to the Middle East this week to attend a cryptocurrency conference and promote the company’s real estate developments, which include a separate Trump-branded tower in Dubai, the largest city in the Emirates. The two projects will also involve Dar Global, the international subsidiary of the private Saudi real estate firm Dar Al Arkan, which is leading the project and has close ties to the Saudi government.... Few places exemplify the Trump family’s fluid melding of business with politics as clearly as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, the three countries in the Gulf that Mr. Trump will visit.” MB: The link, which I picked up at a site that is not the NYT, looks like a freebie.
Since it's more-or-less established that DOGE has cost the federal government money instead of saving taxpayer dollars, we might suspect the DOGE team is just a bunch of blunderers. But maybe not. ~~~
~~~ ⭐Julia Angwin in a New York Times op-ed: “Elon Musk may be stepping back from running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but his legacy there is already secured. DOGE is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system for the Trump administration — the likes of which we have never seen in the United States.... [Donald] Trump could soon have the tools to satisfy his many grievances by swiftly locating compromising information about his political opponents or anyone who simply annoys him. The administration has already declared that it plans to comb through tax records to find the addresses of immigrants it is investigating — a plan so morally and legally challenged, it prompted several top I.R.S. officials to quit in protest.... What this amounts to is a stunningly fast reversal of our long history of siloing government data to prevent its misuse. In their first 100 days, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have knocked down the barriers that were intended to prevent them from creating dossiers on every U.S. resident. Now they seem to be building a defining feature of many authoritarian regimes: comprehensive files on everyone so they can punish those who protest.
“Over the past 100 days, DOGE teams have grabbed personal data about U.S. residents from dozens of federal databases and are reportedly merging it all into a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. This month House Democratic lawmakers reported that a whistle-blower had come forward ... [and] alleged that DOGE workers are filling backpacks with multiple laptops, each one loaded with purloined agency data.” MB: It occurs to me that not only has Homeland Security compiled this information, but Elon & the boys have it, too. It's true that the data get more obsolete every day. BUT among Elon's team are young men who specialize in hacking, and I expect there are also DOGE boys still inside Homeland Security. So there's every reason to suspect that the richest person in the world also personally has control of information on most Americans.
Red State Blues. Sophia Cai & Ben Johansen of Politico: “The cuts [in government spending that Elon Musk & Doge have made] are hitting home in the reddest parts of the country, and Republican elected officials are starting to push back. Abrupt cuts at AmeriCorps this week have landed hard in deep red states with high poverty rates like West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama, where national service programs have long-filled gaps in education, disaster response and job training.... More than 20 blue states filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Trump administration of illegally dismantling the agency without congressional authority. On Capitol Hill, some moderate Republicans are looking for ways to stop the bleeding.”
Connie Loizos of Tech Crunch: “According to a new, brow-raising WSJ report, Tesla’s board quietly began searching for Elon Musk’s potential successor about a month ago, approaching executive search firms as the carmaker faced protests, plummeting sales, and shrinking profits while Musk waded into Washington to slash government spending. Board members reportedly met with Musk to express concerns about his divided attention, telling him he needed to spend more time on Tesla and to publicly commit to doing so; per the Journal report, Musk didn’t push back and subsequently told investors he would 'allocate far more time to Tesla' starting in May.... It’s unclear whether Musk, who has run Tesla for nearly 20 years, was aware of the effort [to find his successor].”
Ben Finley of the AP: “A federal judge on Wednesday again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland temporarily halted her directive for information at the administration’s request last week. But with the seven-day pause expiring at 5 p.m., she set May deadlines for officials to provide sworn testimony on anything they have done to return him to the U.S.... When a reporter asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday whether he has had any conversations with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia, Rubio said...., 'Well, I’ll never tell you that. And you know who else I’ll never tell? A judge.... Because the conduct of all foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.'” ~~~
~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: “New details deepen questions about the [Trump administration's] deportations [to El Salvador], showing that El Salvador’s president [Nayib Bukele] pressed for assurances that the migrants were really members of the Tren de Aragua gang.... As part of the agreement with the Trump administration, Mr. Bukele had agreed to house only what he called 'convicted criminals' in the prison. However, many of the Venezuelan men labeled gang members and terrorists by the U.S. government had not been tried in court.... The matter was urgent, a senior U.S. official warned his colleagues shortly after the deportations, kicking off a scramble to get the Salvadorans whatever evidence they could.... [Bukele] did not want to bring in noncriminal migrants; he could not convince Salvadorans he was prioritizing their national interests if he turned their country into a dumping ground for U.S. deportees from other countries, he explained to Mr. Trump’s aides.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Then There's This. Really?? Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials in El Salvador to inquire about releasing a Salvadoran immigrant whom government officials have been ordered by the Supreme Court to help free, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. But the authoritarian government of Nayib Bukele, the leader of El Salvador, said no, two of the people said. The Bukele administration claimed the man should stay in El Salvador because he is a Salvadoran citizen.... It remained unclear whether the diplomatic effort was a genuine bid by the White House to address the plight of the immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged was improperly expelled to El Salvador last month in violation of a court order expressly prohibiting him from being sent there. Some legal experts suggested that the sequence of events could have been an attempt at window dressing by officials seeking to give the appearance of being in compliance with the recent Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to 'facilitate' Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release. The disclosure about the note adds to the confusion about the Trump administration’s efforts to free Mr. Abrego Garcia and whether it is seeking to comply with court orders.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I would say Trump's remarks to Terry Moran of ABC News entirely undermine the fake cover story the administration has floated to Schmidt, et al. More from Aaron Blake, linked next, & Zolan Kanno-Youngs yesterday. ~~~
~~~ White House Won't Explain Why Trump Is So Stupid. Shawn McCreesh & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: “During an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News on Tuesday..., [Donald] Trump insisted that the man his administration had mistakenly deported to El Salvador had a gang name tattooed on his hand. 'On his knuckles,' Mr. Trump said, 'he had MS-13.'... In the interview with Mr. Moran, the president appeared to believe that the characters that had been typed onto [a] photo he [had] triumphantly held up in [a] social media post [last week] were in fact tattoos themselves. Mr. Moran gingerly tried to correct the record about that, but Mr. Trump was having none of it.... He could not bring himself to admit that Mr. Abrego Garcia did not have the words 'MS-13' tattooed on his hand.... Asked about the exchange on Wednesday, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman..., declined to answer questions about why Mr. Trump would not accept that Mr. Abrego Garcia does not in fact have 'MS-13' tattooed on his hand, and that the photograph Mr. Trump had posed with in his social media post had been altered.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: A few days ago, RAS linked an unsourced photo of a law-enforcement-style badge that said "DOGEfather" and purportedly belonged to Elon Musk. I thought it was a joke but Googled it anyway, and the only reputable source I found was the Daily Beast, which I can't access. So I didn't post the picture even though I found it amusing. I'm not the POTUS. I don't have all the agencies Tulsi Gabbard oversees to verify or rule out a claim. Nevertheless, I do know that one doesn't post a defamatory photo without making an effort to find out if it's real or at least acknowledge it might be a hoax. The fact that an ordinary person like me is more careful of the reputation of someone I despise than is the POTUS* is alarming.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “Trump, for the second time in a week, undermined the administration’s claims about its ability to get [Kilmar] Abrego García — who was wrongly deported — returned to the United States. And it’s quite possible his comments could feature significantly in an ongoing showdown with the courts in which the administration is at the very least flouting court orders — if not outright defying them. Trump’s comments indicate the administration has effectively decided not to get Abrego García returned. And they could be used as evidence that the administration is deliberately violating court orders that said the administration must 'facilitate' his return.” Related NYT story, by Zolan Kanno-Youngs, linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is yet another example of Trump's practice of committing crimes right out in the open. In this case, he's admitting he defied not just lower court orders by also a Supreme Court directive. So Blake is right about Trump's admissions. Not only that, earlier today RAS hit the nail on the head after reviewing Trump's remarks to Terry Moran of ABC News: "Trump the Plague is literally being judge, jury and executioner. And it is with fake photoshopped evidence."
A Tiny Bit of Good News. Ana Ley of the New York Times: “Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia University, was freed from federal custody on Wednesday as immigration officials seek to rescind his green card as part of a widening crackdown against student protesters. In ruling to release Mr. Mahdawi on bail, Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford of Federal District Court in Vermont found on Wednesday that he did not pose a danger to the public and that he was not a flight risk. The judge drew parallels between the current political climate and McCarthyism, saying it was 'not our proudest moment.' The immigration case against Mr. Mahdawi will continue, his lawyers said, but he will now be able to fight it from outside a detention facility.... Mr. Mahdawi, 34, had been in custody since April 14, when immigration officials detained him at an appointment in Vermont that he thought was a step toward becoming a U.S. citizen.” The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: “In Oklahoma City Thursday, about 20 federal immigration agents raided the wrong home, forcing a woman out of the house with her three daughters, not even leaving them enough time to get dressed, and then seized their phones, laptops, and life savings. The woman had only moved into the house two weeks earlier, after relocating to Oklahoma from Maryland. The armed agents told the woman, identified by local TV station KFOR as 'Marisa,' that they had a search warrant, but the named suspects on the warrant didn’t live in the house and weren’t connected to anyone in the family.... The agents, who identified themselves as U.S. marshals, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and FBI agents, didn’t seem to care, waking the family up, forcing them outside in their underwear, ransacking the house, and taking the family’s belongings as 'evidence.'” Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's digby's take. The post is titled, "They Really Should Abolish ICE." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Rachel Maddow said last night that the U.S. Marshals & FBI said they had nothing to do with the raid on this family's home. She noted that two little cards that listed the property taken from the home said the agency seizing the property was "HSI," which stands for Homeland Security Investigations, apparently a little known agency of Homeland Security.
Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration’s efforts to significantly broaden the number of countries willing to accept people deported from the United States has found a welcoming partner in the African nation of Rwanda. A recent U.S. overture, which included a list of names of potential deportees to Rwanda, was received warmly, according to a Rwandan official.... Under the proposal, Rwanda would join a growing number of nations — including El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama — that have agreed to receive deportees who are not their citizens.... The deportation discussions have coincided with U.S. efforts to broker a peace agreement between Rwanda and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Fear of Condensation. “RFK Jr. Goes Full Tinfoil.” Ed Cara of the Huffington Post: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gone full conspiracy buff. In a recent interview with Dr. Phil, the Secretary of Health and Human Services vowed to combat the entirely fabricated threat of chemtrails.... At one point [in a town-hall interview which Dr. Phil conducted], Kennedy fully endorsed an audience member’s fears about chemtrails, appeared to blame another government agency for their existence, and said he would do everything in his power to stop them. Even among conspiracy theories, the logic underlying chemtrails is especially stupid. The theory goes that planes have been secretly seeding the skies with all sorts of chemical weapons that have been poisoning people for decades — weapons that conveniently leave behind easily visible trails. Some people claim these chemicals are also — or instead — being used to modify the weather. In truth, these trails are the product of condensation that usually happens when jet fuel exhaust — mostly made out of water vapor but also containing small particles of soot—mixes with cold, humid air at high altitudes.”
Lauren Weber, et al., of the Washington Post: “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. intends to shift the way vaccines are tested, a move that the agency said will increase transparency but that medical experts fear could limit access to vaccines and undermine the public’s trust in immunization depending on its implementation. The potential change outlined in a statement says all new vaccines will be required to undergo placebo testing, a procedure in which some people receive the vaccine and others receive an inert substance — such as a saline shot — before the results are compared.... For well-researched diseases, such as measles and polio, public health experts say it makes little sense to do that and can be unethical, because the placebo group would not receive a known effective intervention.”
Senate Fail. Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Wednesday rejected an effort to undo ... [Donald] Trump’s sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, even as a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in delivering a rebuke to a trade policy that many lawmakers fear is causing economic harm. The vote deadlocked at 49 to 49, meaning it failed despite three Republicans joining Democrats in favor of a measure that sought to terminate the national emergency declaration Mr. Trump used this month to impose 10 percent reciprocal tariffs. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a cosponsor of the resolution, crossed party lines to support it, as well as Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But the defections were not enough to make up for the absences of two supporters: Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who backed a similar measure this month.” The NBC News story is here.
Steve Inskeep & Obed Manuel of NPR: "The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has blocked an inquiry into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the encrypted messaging app Signal.... Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Morning Edition that House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked any inquiry resolutions into the matter because they know Hegseth and his actions are 'indefensible.' Smith filed a resolution of inquiry, which allows a member of the House to force an investigation even when they're in the minority."
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Israel. Miriam Berger & Julia Ledur of the Washington Post: “In the six weeks since Israel resumed its war in Gaza, Israeli forces have dramatically altered its map, declaring about 70 percent of the enclave either a military 'red zone' or under evacuation, according to the United Nations, and pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into ever-shrinking pockets.... Recent evacuation orders have covered border areas and population centers and have displaced more than 420,000 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In addition, Israel has enlarged its 'security zone,' also called a buffer zone, along Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt.”
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Reader Comments (9)
....which is why "chemtrails," which I'd never heard of, have been called condensation trails ("contrails") since the arrival of high flying jets in the skies....that is, for about 75 years.
@Marie: Here's a picture from X of Musk with his fake badge.
Wonkette on some of the immigration tragedies. People dying in custody, robbing citizens, kids in court, slashing tires, and them turning off all their cameras because of "bombs". FH enables the worst. And with his executive orders he trying to give them even more room to ignore the laws.
A Table of Pathetic Psychopaths did their mandatory brown nosing for the cameras.
First 100 Days
“So all you little brats will have to suck it up with just two dolls instead of thirty!”
Who thinks like this? Who thinks little girls would normally be getting thirty dolls for Christmas, or would even want thirty dolls?
Only an overly entitled Richie Rich prick who has always had way more than he needs and assumes everyone—even little kids—are as rapacious as he is. Too much is never enough for Fatty. And millions of children must be greedy little snots just like him.
This disgusting blob has lived in a bubble of soft comfort his whole life but he takes immense pleasure in making life hard and miserable for others, even children.
WC Fields was famous for his onscreen dislike of children and dogs, “Go ‘way boy, you bother me.” But it was a put-on, part of his screen persona.
Trump obviously genuinely dislikes children as well as dogs (just look at how his kids turned out). But dislike is one thing. Active antagonism of small children? That’s some serious Dickensian black heartedness.
This guy is the exact opposite of how good parents teach their children not to act. He’s rude, disrespectful, vicious, greedy, a liar, a racist, a criminal, he makes fun of disabled people, sexually assaults women, cons people out of their money, he’s supremely narcissistic, paranoid, ignorant, and just an all around asshole.
No parent (unless they’re like Trump) hopes for their kids to grow up to be that sort of despicable scumbag.
But he’s held up as an avatar of Christian goodness by the holy rollers. Kinda makes you question how they were brought up.
Most of the media makes it sound like Musk is actually stepping away from DOGE and his plan to steal and destroy our government. In fact he has said that he is just cutting back his time to one or two days a week of hands on destruction. I don't see how that changes much since his minions are still entrenched throughout the government now and Musk will still be just a phone call away at all times.
The Guardian
"Kamala Harris says ‘courage is contagious’ in major speech excoriating Trump
Democratic presidential candidate speaks in San Francisco in first significant appearance since election defeat
In her remarks, she accused Trump of deliberately sowing fear and chaos to consolidate his own executive power, in a “high velocity” start to his presidency that hurled the country toward a constitutional crisis.
“They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others,” she said. “But what they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”"
Sarah Taber followup to her video on farm bailouts