Trump Returns from Money Tour, But He Won’t Get the Plane
“My goal is to keep foreign money out of American politics,” Trump said at the October 2016 debate for the presidency. “Hillary Clinton’s goal is to put the Oval Office up for sale to whatever country offers the highest price.”
What a difference a few years make, as Trump, in his first foreign trip since retaking the presidency, again 
goes first to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because that’s where the Trump family has megadollar deals in the works and where influence into the White House is up for sale. Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy is the most outspoken of the very few in Congress who have anything to say:
”Let's be clear what this trip is about. This is Trump's corruption tour of the Middle East. He is going to the Gulf in order to collect tribute. What's happening here is an extraordinary level of corruption. “
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the family agreed not to sign any new international deals while he was in office. This time, they issued an ethics statement that said only that they would have “no new transactions with foreign governments”. Just two weeks before papa’s trip, the Trump Organization signed onto a deal to develop in Qatar a $5.5 billion golf and resort. The deal is with a Qatari company called Qatari Diar which happens to be owned by the Qatari government. So much for their ethics statement.
They are doing much the same in Oman (not on the president’s itinerary) – a luxury hotel and golf combination. It’s on government-owned land and the government will get a share. In Dubai (UAE) there is to be the 80-story $1.15 billion Trump International Hotel…
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Whistleblower Says DOGE Stole Government Data – and Handed It to Russia?
A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) says that DOGE team members appear to have stolen reams of data from the agency; someone with an IP (Internet protocol) address in Russia simultaneously tried to gain access to the NLRB; and whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, has received threats tacked to his front door.
Mr. Berulis says he’s also heard rumblings from IT employees at other agencies with similar worries that DOGE is secretly exfiltrating sensitive data. And found that another DOGE coder is busy with a product that creates a secret back door into data structures.
Berulis and his attorney, Andrew Bakaj of the nonprofit Whistleblower Aid.
NPR (National Public Radio) broke the story which has been picked up by other news reporting sources but is curiously absent so far from the major newspapers.
The NLRB receives complaints from workers of illegal employer treatment, holds sensitive information on unions, Social Security numbers, home addresses, proprietary corporate data, documentation of ongoing legal cases that contain corporate secrets — Musk's SpaceX among them. Data that…
ENTER DOGE”four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.”
A DOGE team arrived at the NLRB in the first days of March and demanded the highest access level, which gave them unencumbered… Read More »
Trump and Musk Scheme to Destroy the IRS »
Mar 21 2025On February 20th, termination letters were sent to 7,000 probationary employees at the IRS just as over 200 million tax returns were about to descend on the agency. In an e-mail sent this Wednesday, Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause reinstated them. Why? ProPublica uncovered that a top IRS lawyer warned the administration the letter, which fired the employees for poor performance, was “a false statement” that amounted to a phony predicate the Trump administration would claim in court, "an anticipatory fraud on tribunals of jurisdiction over these employment actions” in attorney Joseph Rillotta's words.
The performance of those dismissed had never been considered. To the contrary, many had received laudatory reviews. 
Krause had to back down. The cohort would continue to be paid but were not to return to work, never mind tax season.
President Trump may have instructed Elon Musk to start using a scalpel rather than a chainsaw, to keep good people and eliminate the “bad ones”, but the 7,000 remain unchanged as an arbitrarily chosen group with no attention given to… Read More »
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foreign policy
Tariff Turmoil: Agreements with 195 Countries in 90 Days Is Impossible
May 10 2025
On April 9th, President Trump rolled back the high tariff schedule he had announced on April 2nd, his “Liberation Day”, allowing 90 days for the world's 195 countries to come forward to offer concessions for his consideration. In the interim, tariffs worldwide are 10% in almost all cases, but 145% for China.
On May 8th, twenty-nine days into the pause, he announced the first agreement. Great Britain’s tariff would stay at 10%, in return for U.S. access to their markets, specifically mentioning beef, ethanol, and other farm products. It’s a framework; details to be worked out.
It’s hardly a triumph. The United Kingdom is one of the very few with which we have a trade surplus. They buy more from the U.S. than we buy from them. They didn’t need fixing. And it was immediately pointed out that the British market is already wide open to our products, including beef, ethanol, etc.
China said it would not negotiate until the U.S. lowers the 145%. On Friday Trump backed down, tweeting on Truth Social, "80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are now in Switzerland for talks with China. Wasn’t it Trump to do all the deals?
befuddlement
Okay, that's the latest that we report dutifully but the real story is the madcap confusion that has consumed the administration since the pause was announced.
About three weeks ago, the president sat for an interview by…
Read More »
On April 9th, President Trump rolled back the high tariff schedule he had announced on April 2nd, his “Liberation Day”, allowing 90 days for the world's 195 countries to come forward to offer concessions for his consideration. In the interim, tariffs worldwide are 10% in almost all cases, but 145% for China.
On May 8th, twenty-nine days into the pause, he announced the first agreement. Great Britain’s tariff would stay at 10%, in return for U.S. access to their markets, specifically mentioning beef, ethanol, and other farm products. It’s a framework; details to be worked out.
It’s hardly a triumph. The United Kingdom is one of the very few with which we have a trade surplus. They buy more from the U.S. than we buy from them. They didn’t need fixing. And it was immediately pointed out that the British market is already wide open to our products, including beef, ethanol, etc.
China said it would not negotiate until the U.S. lowers the 145%. On Friday Trump backed down, tweeting on Truth Social, "80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are now in Switzerland for talks with China. Wasn’t it Trump to do all the deals?
befuddlementOkay, that's the latest that we report dutifully but the real story is the madcap confusion that has consumed the administration since the pause was announced.
About three weeks ago, the president sat for an interview by… Read More »
the presidency
Shouldn’t Our Presidents Know Our History? This One Doesn’t.
May 9 2025
On the last day of April, President Trump was giving ABC's Terry Moran a tour of the Oval Office.
“Over here you have the original of Abe Lincoln and George Washington and of course you have the Declaration of Independence"
He was pointing to a framed copy on a wall. Moran asked, "What does it mean to you?" Trump replied:
"Well it means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot, and it’s something very special to our country.”
Moran looked dumbstruck. Very special it is, but the antitheses of "unity and love and respect". Trump revealed he had no idea what the document was about.
Last Sunday on "Meet the Press", the president was interviewed by NBC's Kristen Welker. Part of the interview went as follows:
Welker: Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?
Trump: I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.
Welker: Well, the Fifth Amendment says as much.
Trump: I don’t know…
He continued with his constantly repeated refrain of “thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth”.
Welker: Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?
Trump: I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.
Not long before, on January 20th, he had sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, but here he shows himself to know nothing of one of its fundamental precepts, the…
Read More »
On the last day of April, President Trump was giving ABC's Terry Moran a tour of the Oval Office.
“Over here you have the original of Abe Lincoln and George Washington and of course you have the Declaration of Independence"
He was pointing to a framed copy on a wall. Moran asked, "What does it mean to you?" Trump replied:
"Well it means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot, and it’s something very special to our country.”
Moran looked dumbstruck. Very special it is, but the antitheses of "unity and love and respect". Trump revealed he had no idea what the document was about.
Last Sunday on "Meet the Press", the president was interviewed by NBC's Kristen Welker. Part of the interview went as follows:
Welker: Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?
Trump: I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.
Welker: Well, the Fifth Amendment says as much.
Trump: I don’t know…
He continued with his constantly repeated refrain of “thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth”.
Welker: Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?
Trump: I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.
Not long before, on January 20th, he had sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”, but here he shows himself to know nothing of one of its fundamental precepts, the… Read More »
education
For Trumpism, the Universities Are the Enemy. Just Ask JD Vance.
Apr 25 2025
Going far beyond the stated purpose of fighting anti-Semitism in American universities, Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to try to crush Harvard University, the nation's oldest 
school, founded in 1636, older that the United States by a century and a half.
When the University's president, Alan Garber, rejected a long list of reform demands, Trump lashed out like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way. Withholding $2.26 billion in research grants was not enough to make Harvard buckle, so he has moved to have its tax exempt status revoked, and when that wasn't enough, threatens to block foreign students from enrolling – an important source of revenue. Our embarrassing president is in the grip of tantrum, tweeting on his Truth Social…
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders’”
Harvard was the first to fight back against the administration, which has posted a list of 60 colleges and universities the administration is investigating under the rubric of its anti-Semitic crusade. Which begs the question, are there really that many universities across the country that have exhibited anti-Semitic outcroppings?
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” University President Dr. Alan Garber wrote in a message to the Harvard community.
America won’t shed too many tears over Trump having taken particular aim at the Ivy League, perceived as bastions of white privilege, however mistaken. But these institutions use the federal…
Read More »
Going far beyond the stated purpose of fighting anti-Semitism in American universities, Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to try to crush Harvard University, the nation's oldest
school, founded in 1636, older that the United States by a century and a half.
When the University's president, Alan Garber, rejected a long list of reform demands, Trump lashed out like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way. Withholding $2.26 billion in research grants was not enough to make Harvard buckle, so he has moved to have its tax exempt status revoked, and when that wasn't enough, threatens to block foreign students from enrolling – an important source of revenue. Our embarrassing president is in the grip of tantrum, tweeting on his Truth Social…
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders’”
Harvard was the first to fight back against the administration, which has posted a list of 60 colleges and universities the administration is investigating under the rubric of its anti-Semitic crusade. Which begs the question, are there really that many universities across the country that have exhibited anti-Semitic outcroppings?
“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” University President Dr. Alan Garber wrote in a message to the Harvard community.
America won’t shed too many tears over Trump having taken particular aim at the Ivy League, perceived as bastions of white privilege, however mistaken. But these institutions use the federal… Read More »