For Trumpism, the Universities Are the Enemy. Just Ask JD Vance.
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 funds to conduct vital research for the advancement of human knowledge in medicine and… Read More »
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 permission to read, copy, and alter data. In addition, the DOGE team curiously asked that their activities not be logged. All computer system usage by staff at any government agency or corporation of any size is routinely recorded – logged – for security to alert staff to intruders and for troubleshooting should there be system failures. The log enables tracing the path of an intruder’s wanderings through a system. As well, the DOGE crew seemed to try to cover any other tracks by turning off monitoring tools and erasing behind them as they went. These… Read More »
The DOGE Team Is Cluster Bombing Social Security
Over the last decade or so, the younger generations have expressed increasing resentment that Social Security will not be there for them when they reach retirement age, that the 6.2% deducted from their paychecks – double that for the self-employed who have to pay the employer’s 6.2% as well – would make it what Elon Musk is calling "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time".
But their fear of losing out was only that Social Security would run short of funds when their time came and not be able to pay full benefits. 
What they nor current retirees hadn’t bargained for is the Trump administration’s multifaceted attempt to finally take great strides toward accomplishing the Republican dream of seeing Social Security destroyed altogether despite candidate Trump repeatedly telling us that he would not “touch” Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. “I will not cut one penny from Social Security”, he said.
What he did not say was that he intended to have Elon Musk lay hands on the agency for him. Musk and his acolytes have been doing so in several ways, starting with having acting commissioner Michele King and her chief of staff fired when they refused access to the agency’s data. Trump's replacement, Leland Dudek, threw open the doors despite a federal judge blocking access to personal data and accusing Musk of a "fishing expedition".
squeeze play
First announced, in February, were 7,000 job cuts at the already understaffed Social Security Administration (SSA) to bring the personnel count down to 50,000. Worse, The Washington Post ran a story that said its management had been told to swiftly produce plans…
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Trump’s Tariffs Reveal They’d Threaten a U.S. Meltdown
Right-wing cable “news” channels try to spin their audience Apr 11 2025
After Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement of staggering “reciprocal” tariffs triggered days of steep stock market plunges, the President painted a picture of a world groveling at his feet, saying on Tuesday:
“These countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. 
President Trump displays his by-country list of "reciprocal" tariffs.
I’ll do anything, sir.”
At a Republican dinner that evening he said:
"They’re all coming here. Japan is coming here as we speak. They’re in a plane, flying, lots of them”.
But after yet another day of stock index collapse, on Wednesday the President could only weakly urge everyone to buy stocks, posting at 9:37 that morning on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
That was before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that morning instilled in him what must have been a fear bordering on panic, enough to induce him to announce at 1:18 that afternoon his 90-day pause in the steep tariff imposition penalizing countries around the world.
Bessent undoubtedly schooled him in what it meant that both the bond markets and the dollar were in sharp declines of their own other than just the stock markets. Trump evidently took fright from the tariff chaos he had created when he was made to understand that the sell-off of U.S. Treasury bonds — normally regarded as the safest refuge from world turmoil — was signaling a loss of confidence in America’s future. The U.S. operates on borrowed money — witness our huge national debt — and if the world decides to pull its funds because the U.S. looks to become unstable, the government would need to offer exorbitant interest rates to lure them back, if they…
Read More »
After Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement of staggering “reciprocal” tariffs triggered days of steep stock market plunges, the President painted a picture of a world groveling at his feet, saying on Tuesday:
“These countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything.
President Trump displays his by-country list of "reciprocal" tariffs.
I’ll do anything, sir.”
At a Republican dinner that evening he said:
"They’re all coming here. Japan is coming here as we speak. They’re in a plane, flying, lots of them”.
But after yet another day of stock index collapse, on Wednesday the President could only weakly urge everyone to buy stocks, posting at 9:37 that morning on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
That was before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that morning instilled in him what must have been a fear bordering on panic, enough to induce him to announce at 1:18 that afternoon his 90-day pause in the steep tariff imposition penalizing countries around the world.
Bessent undoubtedly schooled him in what it meant that both the bond markets and the dollar were in sharp declines of their own other than just the stock markets. Trump evidently took fright from the tariff chaos he had created when he was made to understand that the sell-off of U.S. Treasury bonds — normally regarded as the safest refuge from world turmoil — was signaling a loss of confidence in America’s future. The U.S. operates on borrowed money — witness our huge national debt — and if the world decides to pull its funds because the U.S. looks to become unstable, the government would need to offer exorbitant interest rates to lure them back, if they… Read More »
governing
Trump and Musk Scheme to Destroy the IRS
Mar 21 2025
On 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 individual merit.
larceny
On top of that, the "continuing resolution" passed by Congress a week ago — a Republican plan with deep cuts in social programs grudgingly acceded to by a few Democrats to avoid a government shutdown — contained a little noticed line item that docked the IRS $20 billion in funding. And it's not the first time.
Nothing so clearly illuminates the Republicans’ fiscal…
Read More »
On 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 individual merit.
larcenyOn top of that, the "continuing resolution" passed by Congress a week ago — a Republican plan with deep cuts in social programs grudgingly acceded to by a few Democrats to avoid a government shutdown — contained a little noticed line item that docked the IRS $20 billion in funding. And it's not the first time.
Nothing so clearly illuminates the Republicans’ fiscal… Read More »
the presidency
America Has Switched Sides. Is That What You Voted For?
Mar 10 2025
Rob Dobi, Washington Post.
Donald Trump is incessantly irate at Democrats and liberal media for probing his ties and flattering deference to Vladimir Putin, calling it a “Russia, Russia, Russia” obsession and a hoax. In office a little over a month, let’s see what transpired:
Vice President JD Vance went to the Munich Security Conference to tell European governments that their greatest threat was not Russia but “from within” – their migrant problem and curtailment of free speech that shuts out extremist rightwing parties such as AfD.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Brussels meeting of almost 50 of Ukraine’s Western backers that a return to Ukraine’s pre-war borders was “unrealistic,” that NATO membership for Kyiv was off the table, and that…
"We're also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”
It was a thunderclap, a reversal of 80 years of American policy in a single stroke.
Hegseth further announced the halt of offensive cyberoperations…
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Rob Dobi, Washington Post.
Donald Trump is incessantly irate at Democrats and liberal media for probing his ties and flattering deference to Vladimir Putin, calling it a “Russia, Russia, Russia” obsession and a hoax. In office a little over a month, let’s see what transpired:
"We're also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”
It was a thunderclap, a reversal of 80 years of American policy in a single stroke.