Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond
East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact.
A recent sampling:
Shortly after announcing a suspension of all federal aid last week, President Donald Trump rescinded the action. Former Labor Secretary and columnist Robert Reich pointed out that Trump’s “freeze” “is expected to be re-imposed in a form less vulnerable to legal challenges.”
After a clash with federal budget-slasher Elon Musk, who forced access to payment systems at the Treasury Dept., the top-ranking Treasury Dept. official resigned to avoid compliance with Musk’s illegal action, The Washington Post reported.
The Lever said Musk’s move, reportedly approved by Trump’s new Treasury Secretary, gave him access to $6 trillion in annual federal transactions, and access to his business competitors’ info and Americans’ personal info. Musk then claimed he “deleted” the IRS’s free online tax filing.
The Lever also said Musk's actions compromised national security systems, and e-mailed orders to end leases on federal offices.
Historian Heather C. Richardson’s response: with Republican control of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court, constitutionally it would have been easily feasible to vote on budget bills and get a presidential signature, instead of allowing unelected Musk to declare shutting down agencies and cancellation of programs he dislikes. As she and others pointed out, “The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup.
“The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical…. It also makes Congress itself superfluous.”
Democrats pointed out that “we don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that’s going to become real clear.”
Why Musk’s Treasury takeover? U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy saw two motives: approval by self-interested billionaires and, shuttering agencies creates the illusion of saving money; the larger purpose is to “pass a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations.”
A recent sampling of Trump Administration headlines: “…gutted aviation safety committee days before national airport crash [that killed all passengers],” “DEI not to blame in crash, says top Republican overseeing FAA,” Trump blasted for “dangerous public health gag order,” “Trump says he ordered air strikes on Islamic State group in Somalia,” Dept. of Transportation memo directs funds to “communities with higher ‘marriage and birth rates’,” “Trump backs down on North American tariffs after threats rock stock markets,” “Trump’s Claim of Routing Water to Los Angeles [for fires]…It All goes to Central Valley Megafarms,” “Trump's Treasury secretary halts all Consumer Financial Protection Bureau work,” and “USDA ordered to scrub climate change from websites.”
The BBC reported that Trump’s tariff proposals are expected to cause higher prices in the U.S. Mexico countered Trump’s tariff ideas with an agreement to reinforce the border with the National Guard and a U.S. commitment to work to prevent high-powered weapons from entering Mexico from the U.S.
Trump’s offer of deferred resignation for federal workers, with pay and benefits until September 30 -- and no work -- should be cautiously considered, according to Sen. Patty Murray, on the Senate Appropriations Committee. She says “there is no funding allocated to agencies to pay staff for this offer.”
As reported last week, forensic economist and data journalist Greg Palast released his 2024 voter suppression investigative report: Had all legal votes been counted, he said Kamala Harris would have won the popular vote and the Electoral College. What happened? Palast found the count included mass purges of voters of color, and mass disqualifications of provisional and mail-in ballots, which, if counted, would have given Harris another 3,565,000 votes, exceeding Trump’s popular vote by 1.2 million.
Had the purges, vigilante challenges and ballot rejections been random, it would not have mattered, Palast wrote. But they were not random. He cited Washington State where a Black voter’s mail-in ballot was 400% more likely to be rejected. Uncountable: the influence of voter intimidation, (i.e. bomb threats to polling stations), and shuttering drop-boxes. In 2024, 22 states imposed 38 new restrictions on the ability to vote absentee; Palast said 14.1 million mail-in ballots “vanished.”
Before the 2024 election, close to 5 million registered voters were removed because they failed to respond to a postcard (that looked like junk mail,) to confirm their residency, according to the non-partisan Elections Assistance Commission. No response, no vote; response was a low 10%.
Using conservative figures, Palast computed voter suppression at no less than 4.596% of the total vote, and says some would likely have voted for Trump, so he halved the previous figure to a 2.3% voter suppression factor for Dems, costing numerous Harris losses. Notably, Democrats focused on get-out-the-vote, and Republicans focused on what resulted in the winning strategy -- voter suppression.
Blast from the past: In 1980 Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich told a group of Republican activists, “I don’t want everybody to vote…our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”