Month: May 2025

Lawlessness, incompetence, and cruelty

Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Krisiti Noem made herself a laughingstock on Tuesday in an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee. When Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) of New Hampshire asked Noem to define habeas corpus, Noem immediately went off the rails. Noem made it clear that she’s cosplaying as law enforcement even when she’s not wearing body armor and pointing a gun in an officer’s face.

Behold:

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus?

NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country

HASSAN: That's incorrect pic.twitter.com/ozRVVfdSoP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2025

Noem was before the committee to account for how she’s doing her job and managing her budget. Democrats were withering in their criticism.

Noem’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been snatching people off the street and deporting them without allowing them their due process rights since she took office in January. Her department repeatedly has defied court orders that it comply with constitutional norms. The administration took that battle to the U.S. Supreme Court last week.

As podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen put it, Noem “is either ignorant about the Constitution or willfully choosing to ignore its plain text out of convenience.” But that’s what Donald Trump wants from his employees, “to debase yourself on behalf of the god-king,” Cohen continues. “If you’re not throwing yourself in the line of fire, if you’re not throwing yourself on the grenade for an autocratic ruler, then you’re not fulfilling the principal function of your job.”

Vice chair Patty Murray (D) of Washington state questioned Noem about her department’s handling of deportations and the funding freeze or cancellation of over $100 billion in FEMA disaster relief and grants approved by Congress:

“As Senator Murphy mentioned in his opening statement, Secretary Noem, under your leadership, we have seen you ignore our appropriations laws, our constitution, common sense, and even basic humanity.

“Like a lot of Americans, I really have been horrified by the lawlessness, incompetence, and cruelty we have all witnessed.

Regarding that disaster assistance, Murray said, “We are talking about everything from disaster relief to grants that keep people safe. But when my staff has requested information on the status of this unacceptable hold-up, the Department failed to provide any acceptable justification. This illegal freeze—and it is illegal—is taking a real toll on communities who are waiting on the investments that Congress has delivered.”

Noem filibustered.

In the wake of the direct hit St. Louis took from an EF3 tornado on Friday, Missouri’s Sen. Josh Hawley (R) pleaded with Noem for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under her department’s umbrella. She was more responsive to the GOP senator from a red state.

Hawley, pleading for FEMA aid: "Many of these folks don't have insurance."

…Everyone's a socialist after a natural disaster. https://t.co/14AzwBYolB

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) May 20, 2025

Noem promised to expedite assistance to Missouri and advocated for reforming FEMA (WDSU):

But her assurances come amid ongoing turmoil at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency’s former acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was ousted after publicly opposing President Trump’s proposal to dismantle FEMA.

His replacement, acting Administrator David Richardson, is expected to unveil new policy guidelines which could include increased cost-sharing requirements for states and a policy shift toward FEMA only coordinating federal assistance “when deemed necessary.”

Critics warn the moves could undercut disaster relief at a time when more Americans are relying on federal assistance in the wake of severe weather events.

Already, the Trump administration has denied FEMA aid for a windstorm in Washington State, flooding in West Virginia and extending cleanup efforts tied to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

Helene’s aftermath

Speaking of that denial of aid to North Carolina for Helene cleanup, “Frontline” and NPR on Tuesday reviewed disaster assistance to communities like ours hit by climate change-supercharged storm effects:

In “Hurricane Helene’s Deadly Warning,” Laura Sullivan goes on the ground in North Carolina in the days after the 2024 storm and speaks with survivors who describe the devastation, fear and shock they experienced at seeing entire communities washed away. She revisits Houston, Texas, where thousands of homes remain in an area that already flooded during Harvey in 2017. Sullivan also returns to Staten Island, where, according to a former FEMA director, the billion dollar rebuilding process may not have been enough to prevent mass destruction should another Superstorm Sandy hit.

“The federal government spends more than $50 billion a year to help communities recover, including properties that have flooded repeatedly in what seems like an endless cycle of destruction and rebuilding,” says Sullivan. “Our new joint investigation examines the forces fueling this cycle, whether places that have rebuilt after devastating floods are any safer today, and how this process is now playing out in North Carolina.”

Weeks away from hurricane season, the Trump administration is cutting the legs out from under federal relief preparation and response in terms of funding and experienced personnel.

Lawlessness, incompetence, and cruelty are all the point. And every day Trump is making it.

Here in WNC, we’ve recently experienced plague, floods, fires, pestilence, hail, and even an earthquake. All that’s left is for Trump and three of his cabinet members to put in an appearance on horseback. Kristi Noem is sure to make Team Apocalypse.

* * * * *

Have you fought dictatorship today?

No Kings Day, June 14th
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Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

The Economist reports:

For decades America’s soft power put the wind in the sails of its companies as they ventured abroad. When the Berlin Wall fell, Coca-Cola sent lorries emblazoned with its logo into East Berlin, handing out free drinks to the amassing crowds. Sales soon soared, as consumers in the former communist state chugged enthusiastically on the sugary icon of American capitalism.

Peddling Americana abroad, however, is getting trickier. Last month Carlsberg, a Danish brewer that bottles Coca-Cola in its home country, noted that consumers there were boycotting the fizzy drink, opting for local alternatives such as Jolly Cola instead. For this Coca-Cola can thank Donald Trump, who has exasperated Danes—and many other consumers around the world—with his talk of territorial expansion and his chaotic trade war. How worried should America Inc’s bosses be about their new image problem?

That Mr Trump has damaged America’s reputation abroad is clear to see. In a survey of more than 100,000 people across 100 countries carried out last month by Nira Data, a research firm, for the Alliance of Democracies, a Danish non-profit, the share of respondents with an unfavourable view of America exceeded those with a favourable opinion by five percentage points, a sharp deterioration from previous years, and enough to place America behind China in global esteem (see chart).

I can totally understand why the foreign consumer would eschew buying American products under the circumstances. It’s a small protest that nonetheless hurts the bottom line of the corporations that help Republicans attain power. It may be the most important thing anyone can do.

According to the article this is already weighing on American companies.

The president’s actions are already weighing on American companies’ sales abroad. The backlash has been strongest in Canada, whose citizens have railed against the suggestion that their country become America’s 51st state, and Denmark, thanks to Mr Trump’s threats to pinch Greenland. Last month 61% of Canadians told YouGov, a pollster, that they were boycotting American products. Earlier this year Ontario and Quebec, Canada’s two largest provinces, pulled American-made alcohol from the shelves of government-run liquor stores, hurting sales of products such as Jack Daniel’s. Kraft Heinz, an American food giant, has been reminding Canadians that much of what it sells in the country is made there from local ingredients. In Denmark, the country’s largest retailer, Sailing Group, has been labelling European-owned brands in its shops to make it easier for customers to avoid American products.

I don’t think Trump cares. He’s openly threatening Walmart, the biggest retailer in the world, here at home. When it comes to the tariffs his only interest is in proving that he was right all along. Which he wasn’t. So this is likely to go on for quite some time.

Josh Marshall would like a word with Democrats. I wish they would listen:

I know there’s been a push from biomedical researchers and, for lack of a better word, Team Science over at the NIH to have members come over to the building and meet with some researchers who can explain just the scope of research and new cures that are being tossed in the garbage each day. Just think one of your family members may end up needing one of those cures the garbage truck picked up just this morning.

That’s how you focus attention. You create kinetics and visuals and actions that reporters gravitate toward. I’m not saying exactly that model is the only way. Let a thousand flowers bloom. But a press release ain’t it. Do a thing that seems out of the norm, man bites dog, and draws attention to an issue in which the public doesn’t like what the White House is doing. Boost the salience, spread the word. Reps and Sens, fucking help me here? Good lord.

But my understanding is that those emissaries have basically been told some version of, “it sounds like a bit much, a bit out there.” “That’s not how we roll.” Or, “it doesn’t fit with the comms strategy.” That is both highly surprising to me (surprising and not surprising) and deeply disappointing? What are we doing here? Are we worried that young people are getting increasingly open-minded about supporting cancer and degenerative disorders? Really? No one supports this shit.

It is true that Democrats need to create room for candidates to depart from party orthodoxies in parts of the country dominated by Republicans. But the big and overwhelming issue that Democrats face right now has very little to do with this. The overriding problem Democrats have today is a general belief that they’re not effective at fighting for what they believe in or what the country needs to be protected from. There’s a related, but secondary issue that they worry that Dems are most focused on issues that are obscure or not connected to the lives of the great majority of people struggling to make ends meet. That lack of fight is shattering for self-identified Democrats as well as highly damaging for genuine independents and low-information voters who genuinely flip from party to party from election to election. That is overwhelmingly the challenge Democrats have right now.

The idea that up-for-grabs voters are waiting for important signals out of a bizarre intra-party score settling over Joe Biden’s age is just such unreal bubble thinking that it beggars belief. Democrats may have gotten ahead of the public on the language they used about trans issues or DEI. But the idea that voters are waiting for signals about that rather than wanting to see people stand up for the country against the current onslaught is again just some bizarre insider/consultant circle jerk.

If the narrative isn’t working for you … change the fucking narrative! Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t but you have to keep doing it, over and over and over again . Attention is everything.

And what Marshall is talking about with the NIH is VITAL. People do not realize that Trump and his henchmen are literally trying to kill us by cutting jobs and grants and other funding that has made it possible to fight cancer, heart disease, diabetes and all the rest and every one of those things are as personal and “kitchen table” if you will, as you can get. There is no one in this country who voted for stopping cancer research, not even MAGAs.

I find this inexplicable. Giving floor speeches is not going to get this done. Simply throwing trans kids under the bus and working hard to torture the homeless is a total waste of time. Those are culture war issue of 2024. Don’t they understand that the Republicans have dozens of those issues up their sleeves? They need to go on the offense about the things that people really care about — like cancer! My God. It’s staring them right in the face.

People always seem to see Jamie Dimon as some sort of oracle so I thought I’d pass this on if you haven’t seen it. I don’t know if he really knows more than anyone else but if he does this is a little bit scary:

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that markets and central bankers underappreciate the risks created by record U.S. deficits, tariffs and international tensions.

Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.

“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think they can,” he said. “My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs,” Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%. That’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”

Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed over the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump’s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.

Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty. In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.

“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the price to earnings ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts. The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.

Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.

Jesus. But I can’t say I’m surprised.

The person who said that he wanted to put federal workers in trauma so they’d “understand that they are villains” is the alleged super Christian Russell Vought, Project 2025 author and Office of Management and Budget. He is going to hell, of course, for implementing the policies that are traumatizing and literally driving some federal workers to suicide.

Here’s a gift link to this Washington Post article:

The president had called federal employees “crooked” and “dishonest,” and his deputies had vowed to purge them from government and make them suffer…

Some have found themselves fired, rehired, then let go again. Many have been ridiculed as “lazy” and “corrupt.” They’ve been locked out of offices by police, fired for political “disloyalty,” and told to check their email to see if they still draw a paycheck.

In interviews, more than 30 former and current federal workers told The Washington Post that the chaos and mass firings had left them feeling devalued, demoralized and scared for themselves and the country. Many described problems they’d never experienced before: insomnia, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts. Others with a history of mental struggles said they’d found themselves pushed into terrifying territory.

Since MAGA is largely a sadistic cult, I’d guess that they’re pretty happy. But the rest of us should be appalled.

I’m familiar with people in the area who work in counselling and I can tell you that they are seeing a tremendous amount of trauma over this. It’s not just federal employees it’s contractors too and there are tens of thousands of them essentially being tortured for months by DOGE and Vought. Scientists are having their life’s work destroyed by faceless officials who just pull the plug with no warning and offer no reason. It’s a nightmare.

I’m glad to see the Post finally taking the time to go out and ask some of the people affected by what Trump and his henchmen are doing. It’s happening right in their backyard.

The world is watching us and doesn’t like what it sees:

Following the shocking annulment of Romania’s presidential election last year amid allegations of Russian interference, the eastern European nation and NATO ally undertook a do-over on Sunday. The result was another upset, but this time, it will count.

As Romanians went to the polls this weekend, they faced the same ideological choice as before: a nationalist, conservative demagogue who’s a fierce critic of the European Union or a pro-West reformer who supports Ukraine. This time, instead of disqualified far-right candidate Cǎlin Georgescu being on the ballot, they were choosing between Georgescu ally George Simion, a nationalist member of parliament, and Nicușor Dan, the independent mayor of Bucharest.

Simion led by double digits after the first round of voting on May 4, but as the results came in for Sunday night’s runoff, Dan was the clear winner, finishing with 54 percent of the vote.

It can’t be a coincidence.

What a dud

Surprise:

Ukrainian President Zelensky and five other European leaders joined a conference call with President Trump immediately after his call with Vladimir Putin on Monday hoping to hear that Putin had agreed to a ceasefire — or the U.S. would impose penalties on him for refusing to do so.

Instead, Trump said Putin had agreed to negotiate, stressed the U.S. wouldn’t be involved in those negotiations, and pushed back against the idea of imposing sanctions on Putin at the current time, two sources who were on the call and a third source briefed on the call told Axios.

 Trump gave the impression he was getting closer to withdrawing from the issue altogether. Some leaders on the call seemed “surprised” or “shocked,” the sources said.

“I think something’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going. Again, this was a European situation, and should have remained a European situation,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office several hours after his calls.

Played like a fiddle. Vlad wants him to take his ball and go home and so he will. What an incredible loser.

Trump told the leaders that Putin agreed to start direct negotiations on a ceasefire immediately. A source on the call said there were a few seconds of puzzled silence.

Zelensky then pointed out that Putin had previously agreed to negotiate, and the first round of ceasefire talks took place on Friday in Istanbul. Trump didn’t directly respond, the sources said.

The sources said Zelensky and several other leaders on the call told Trump it had been his idea to start the peace talks with an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

A White House official told Axios Trump “never agreed” that a ceasefire should be a prerequisite for negotiations and never said Zelensky can decide what the conditions for negotiations will be.

That’s bullshit. Trump marched around saying he’s demanded a ceasefire. I guess Vlad really gave him a talking to. He’s not going to do that again.

Other European leaders on the call asked about the possibility of U.S. sanctions against Russia, but Trump said he didn’t think was a good idea and stressed that he thought Putin wanted a deal.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni jumped in to ask why there couldn’t be a ceasefire for at least two weeks heading into the talks, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked what concessions Russia was willing to make, the sources said.

Trump told the group Putin would present a “peace memo” with his terms for a ceasefire and for ending the war. A source on the call said Trump told Zelensky and the European leaders he asked Putin to present “something people can agree to” and not a proposal that will be rejected immediately.

Oh, that’s precious. Putin will give his terms. The White House said later that getting him to put them in a memo was a big concession. No wonder Vlad was so happy yesterday.

Leaders on the call seemed surprised that Trump seemed relatively content with what he heard from Putin, and presented it as a new development, even though the Russian leader did not seem to have changed his position at all, the sources said.

Trump told the group that Russia and Ukraine should conduct bilateral direct negotiations without any third party mediators because the parties best understand all the details of the conflict.

NEW: Rubio says he does not have high hopes on Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul tomorrow and says right now breakthrough can only come through a face-to-face Trump-Putin meeting.

“The only one who can break this logjam at this point, if it can be broken, it is President Trump.” pic.twitter.com/khBj8eNqMn

— Hümeyra Pamuk (@humeyra_pamuk) May 15, 2025

On the call, Finland President Alexander Stubb asked Trump what the next steps were. “I don’t know. Someone has to come out and say whether the negotiations are going well or badly, and then we’ll decide what to do,” Trump said.

I think he was tired. It was a big day for him and he’d been up half the night tweeting about Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce. He needed a nap.

Seriously, as usual he got rolled by Putin. Which is actually fine with him — he hates Zelensky and Ukraine because of the first impeachment. And since he’s never held to anything he says, who cares if he promised to end the war on day one? And anyway if Vlad goes after a NATO country, Trump’s pretty much said he won’t respond so why bother?

We are really playing with fire now. The whole world sees what a paper tiger this loudmouth bully boy really is.

Why we’re frustrated beyond reason

Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place.
Ignazio Silone

The Republican outrage machine kicked into high gear last week over former FBI director James Comey posting (and then taking down) a photo of sea shells arranged to create a string of numbers. Why, by posting that image the demonic Comey was calling for the assassination of the president, they raged. I pointed out that if they really believed their own bullshit, they wouldn’t keep reposting the damned photo now, would they? I presented ten samples from high-profile Republicans that by now have nearly 100,000 retweets and many more “likes.”

Parker Molloy reflected on time spent at Media Matters and knew the pattern well: “take a Democrat’s statement, strip it of all context and reasonable interpretation, then breathlessly claim it was a call to violence or some other nefarious act.”

Comey isn’t even a Democrat. He was a Republican for some years before registering Independent in 2016, proving Molloy’s point that context and reasonable interpretation don’t matter when patented rightwing hissy fits are in play. 

Molloy writes:

The double standard would be comical if it weren’t so cynical. When Democrats use metaphorical language about “fighting” or “battling” in a political context — standard political rhetoric used by everyone, everywhere, forever — it’s framed as literal incitement. But when a Republican explicitly calls for violence, it’s just colorful language.

This level of deliberate obtuseness and bad-faith interpretation would be almost impressive if it weren’t so exhausting. The Great Seashell Panic perfectly illustrates how the right-wing outrage machine operates—take something innocuous, strip away all context and reasonable interpretation, claim it’s an existential threat, demand consequences, and then use it to feed the grievance industrial complex.

David Roberts reposted Molloy’s commentary to draw attention to the operation of the faux outrage machine that “you will *never* see acknowledged in the MSM”:

Why do they do this? As I’ve said a million times, the goal is to create a permission structure. Lying? Violence? Voter fraud? “Hey, everyone’s doing it, so we can do it too.” So you relentlessly accuse your opponent of what you want to do. It’s crude but it works, every time, without fail.

It really is the root driver of fascism: convincing the broad public that the *real* threat is the professors & queers & artists & do-gooders. Fascism is always “a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place.” I did a thread on this at the old place:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1686514452647329793.html#google_vignette

Roberts wrote in that thread:

This is why the only mode of moral argumentation you ever see from a reactionary is whataboutism. The point of “they did it first” (for whatever “it,” censorship or voter fraud or whatever) is not that “it” is bad & no one should do it, but that *it’s ok for us to do it too*. 

It’s not even really a moral argument. It’s just a permission structure — they did it, so we can’t be held accountable for doing it too.
So when they create this mythology about Dem voter fraud, the point is not “voter fraud is bad,” the point is, “it’s ok for us to do it too.” 

You won’t see the media point out that either.

It used to frustrate me beyond reason that these patterns are so obvious and they don’t get acknowledged. What I’ve come to realize is that these lizard-brain level fascist instincts are widely shared & even many “moderates” *want* to fall for it. They *want* permission.

The same way commoners vote for the rich and against the estate tax because they dream of being counted among them someday. Wouldn’t want to clamp down on misbehavior before we get to indulge in it ourselves.

* * * * *

Have you fought dictatorship today?

No Kings Day, June 14th
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Can Dems learn new tricks?

Anyone who’s read my morning missives for any time has seen me both promote the Democratic Party and criticize its many shortcomings again and again recently. (I was a DNC convention delegate last summer.) Among its biggest problems is cultural. Not popular culture, party culture.

In “Inside the Democrats’ Reboot,” Charlotte Alter heard what I heard watching the DNC’s winter meeting. Nothing new:

Many of these conversations made my head hurt. Democrats kept presenting cliches as insights and old ideas as new ideas. Everybody said the same things; nobody seemed to be really saying anything at all. But in between feeble platitudes about “showing up and listening” and “fighting for the working class” and “meeting people where they are,” a few common threads emerged.

Democrats know they have a branding problem that transcends policy, messaging, or leadership questions. 

Ladder climbers, not leaders

Rep. Pat Ryan, 43, of New York tells Time magazine, “All the people that are in formal leadership roles,” says Ryan, “are ladder climbers, not leaders.” Top leadership is not only old, but the culture that put them there is sclerotic, observes Alter. Many are the product of a process by which idealistic young activists, as I’ve written, “slowly become the kind of politicians people love to hate.”

Alter looks at how that may be changing. Or not. Talk is cheap, and for the time this is mostly talk. What Democrats need to do to regain their footing, some tell Time, is to move away from narrowcasting on policies that activate its base toward more universal themes.

Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona puts his simply: “I’m here to bring you more security: economic security, and your personal family security.”

For Gallego that means talking about the cost of living and a harder stance on immigration than most of his caucus:

Like Gallego, many moderate Democrats have particular critiques of the party’s economic message. “I think Democrats have made this mistake of saying, ‘I’m here to help the little guy.’ Nobody wants to be called the little guy,” says Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, 36, who has won twice in a red district in Washington State. “The fatal mistake in politics is condescension.” She’s not the only Democrat who thinks the party erred by targeting their messaging to the most marginalized, rather than the vast, struggling middle class. Nearly 70% of voters in battleground districts think Democrats are “too focused on being politically correct,” according to brutal internal polling shared with top party leaders in March, while a majority think Democrats are not looking out for working people and are “more focused on helping other people than people like me.”

Identity politics has driven the party, not so much to the left as out of the mainstream. The identity that matters is a majority of voters identifying with the Democratic brand. Polls show that people identify with the policies, but not the party.

“Democrats in general are always fearful of messing up,” he said. As I’ve emphasized here, timorousness doesn’t look to voters like leadership. Voters especially now want boldness.

The message from activists tired of waiting for the party to get their heads back in the game is: “Do better, or we’ll replace you with people who will.” But that shift has been a long time coming:

Many Democrats are not eager only for generational change. They want change at the top of the party as well. Some see Jeffries and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as too deferential to established norms or too reluctant to use procedural powers to slow down Trump’s agenda. Both are underwater in public-opinion polls. Only 27% of Americans approve of congressional Democrats overall—the lowest number since CNN started asking in 2008. “I think the party is hyperfocused on message and forgetting about the messenger,” says Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits new Democrats to run for office and supports them with training, mentorship, and campaign tools. “They’ve missed the way people consume information. You look for a person, not an institution.” A sclerotic party establishment has created a culture of waiting your turn. “All the people that are in formal leadership roles,” says Pat Ryan, “are ladder climbers, not leaders.”

A new kind of leadership

Alter observes that one surprising takeaway from her conversations is how “Sanders-style economic populism had gained traction with politicians not normally associated with the Sanders wing of the party.” That, after all, was Sanders’ goal all along. The popularity of his and AOC’s Fighting Oligarchy tour proves he’s moved the needle.

Rep. Greg Casar, 36, of Texas tells Time, “People are even more opposed to what Donald Trump is doing than eight years ago … But they want a new kind of leadership from the Democratic Party.” One that looks more like and sounds more like a broader swath of voters.

Some older Dems are slowly adapting to the new media environment. They are, Alter sees, learning to “worry less about who they’re offending and more about who they’re reaching.” But the internal culture is still over-cautious and resistant. And the leadership is still not up to the moment. They still want to apply lessons learned in the 20th-century to 21st-century political challenges.

Talk is cheap. Now deliver.

* * * * *

Have you fought dictatorship today?

No Kings Day, June 14th
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and man who embraces traumatizing Federal Government workers, directed the US. Department of Agriculture to cancel all the grants. for the Food For Progress program.

The Food for Progress program sends U.S. commodities abroad for agricultural and economic development projects, providing an important foreign market for farmers and enhancing food security in poorer countries.

The next day a 30 foot tall banner of Donald Trump was hung at the USDA.

Last week i talked to someone who knew about this program, he told me how canceling all these grants was going to hurt American farmers. I had called him trying to quantify the economic hit to farmers in Nebraska following shutting down USAID.

When I heard about the canceling of all the grants. I started thinking about how the Republicans in Nebraska, like Rep Mike Flood, will spin the contract cancelations. He supported DOGE cutting USAID.

I wondered why the media hasn’t covered this yet. Why aren’t we hearing from the farmers about this? Why aren’t the two big wholesalers, Cargill and The Andersons talking about this? What do the experts, like Dalton Henry, the Vice President of Policy at U.S. Wheat Associates, have to say about this?

Today it became more clear to me, companies know the new model. “DON’T complain about what Trump does! He will attack you!” Look at what he did with Walmart!

Does Cargill have DEI policies? Do the Andersons sell to countries that Trump has tariffs on?

They are afraid to lose other contracts so they are working behind the scenes calling lobbyists to get the money turned back on. They are calling their lawyers to see if what just happened is legal. They are asking, “What do we need to do to get old contracts completed and WHAT do they have to do to conform to Vought & Trump’s new policies?”

We won’t see it, but I expect that some $Trump Coins will be purchased. (As an investment of course!)

Midwest farmers will be hurt. Trump Won’t Be Blamed. So Blame Vought.

I wish I had some farmers, like Kowalski in Nebraska , who could stand up at a Town Hall and say, “This is costing Nebraska farmers millions of dollars. It is hurting our markets AND our reputation. What are you going to do about it?”

Flood would attack Kowalski, “You aren’t even from my district!” Then he would go on Fox News and complain about outside agitators.

If you recall, Flood supported Musk and DOGE, he said it was necessary to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” as the ONLY way to deal with the deficit. He asked people in his district at the Town Hall, “What do you want us to do, tax the rich?”
To his surprise the audience started chanting “Tax the Rich! Tax the Rich!”

This would be a good time to make Vought the face of canceling the Food for Progress grants. He makes a good villain. Rep. Mike Flood would have to support Russ Vought, like he did Musk, who is now one of the most hated men in America.

I was thinking about how to get on the local news the story of how shutting down the grants for USDA Food for Progress program hurts American farmers, but I don’t have any contacts in the Midwest anymore.

Sadly, I suspect when the story breaks Vought will use the same lying tactics he used with shutting off USAID. He’ll lie about who is really hurt, he’ll lie about the impact of the shut down, he’ll lie about the old contracts and the timing of restarting new contracts. If a lawsuit forces the USDA to turn the money back on, he’ll wait until the Supreme Court rules they have to follow the law. Meanwhile , like the USAID shut down, food will rot. Kids will die.

If someone in the Trump admin speaks up for the program, (doubtful) Vought will attack the person and their agency, he’ll do what he has done before, claiming they aren’t doing what Trump wants. (Of course he won’t talk about what congress had ordered the agencies to do, because he has a constitutionally wrong idea of what OMB can do vs. Congress actual mandate..

Vought wants to control the money. If asked, “Isn’t this impoundment? He’ll say “No, just a restructuring of the agency with new contracts, ” like he did last time.

We now know that DOGE has LOST multiple cases in court, but for Vought the TRAMA to the PEOPLE in the federal agencies is showing them who is in charge.

Vought wants the American people to hate the USDA, like he does. He will tell farmers in Nebraska that the USDA hates them and that it is GOOD that they aren’t sending their food to feed kids in Africa. But the farmers know “no money for crops because of Russ Vought” is NOT good.

I’m not joking about Vought’s view, THIS is exactly what he said to Tucker Carlson about the EPA. he lied about the EPA and the 77 year old Vet” story. I looked it up. The Vet was polluting federal land for years, he was told to stop but didn’t. Vought tells this to FOX and on Rumble, where nobody questions him. But local news could talk to farmers and the wholesalers in Nebraska who bought crops from farmers to sell to the USDA Food for Progress program. This is a real story about the terrible impact to the Nebraska farmers and the Nebraska economy.

I believe that the activists in the Midwest have learned the Trump/DOGE/Vought method of destruction with the support of RW media. They won’t be able to cut through to Fox, but the target is LOCAL media, THEY can get the message.

Canceling the food for Progress Program is canceling all of these exports of US commodities. all that money was supposed to go to US farmers. Canceling that program is not saving money. It’s hurting the US economy.

Food Policy Expert (Who I won’t identify because of the sick way Trump attacks people giving facts he doesn’t like.)