The $1.776 Billion Slush Fund

I am so distraught and angry that I can physically feel my stomach churn:

The latest and most egregious example of the Trump administration’s corruption is the outrageous $1.776 billion slush fund to reward his loyal subjects who claim the government was “weaponized” against them, particularly those who rioted at the Capital on January 6. I’d call that an insurrection aiming to keep President Trump in office.

Tied to this slush fund, the president’s personal attorney who now heads the Justice Department “negotiated” a deal to protect the president, his family, and businesses from IRS audits or future claims — despite a federal law that bars the president from interfering with the IRS.

Add all the stock trades timed to benefit from the president’s insider knowledge, the jet from Qatar, and the blatant business deals enriching his family.

(Hunter Biden was such an amateur.)

The president claims his administration is the most transparent in history. Yes, the most transparently corrupt.

This week when I filled my car, I paid $4.19 a gallon for the lowest grade of regular, the highest price since the president unilaterally attacked Iran. There’s no end in sight regardless of his yo-yo optimism, well timed to play the market.

Despite the war with Iran and the escalating cost of living, the president seems more interested in his big beautiful ballroom. I recall he said it would be funded with private donations; now he wants Congress to kick in $1 billion.

All these billions, not counting the to-be-defined cost of the Iran war, yet Republicans say we must cut programs that benefit Americans, like Medicaid and the tax credits to reduce the cost of health insurance.

By enabling the president to do whatever he wants, the Republican Congress is abetting his authoritarian hold on the country and undermining the Constitution. The words of Liz Cheney ring in my ears:

“I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

My State of the Union Address

Last week, we heard President Donald Trump’s “State of the Union” address to Congress. I'd like to share my own view of the state of our union:

Cost of Living

Prices and inflation are still high.

I’m reminded every morning when I make coffee. Thanks to the president’s delusional tariffs, I’m paying $22 to $24 a bag for coffee beans from a small roaster here in Opelika. I used to pay $16 to $18. My friends who own this small business tell me their prices for green beans jumped with the tariffs and have not come down.

Health insurance premiums also jumped at the start of the year. Last year, my son’s ACA coverage was fully subsidized. This year, his same Bronze plan costs $484 per month. The premium for my wife’s Bronze plan jumped 27% to $1,144 per month.

Affordability is not fake news, Mr. President.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling against the president's unilateral tariffs, he is doubling down and pursuing ways to maintain them. Tariffs are a hammer he can use to threaten and bully countries and companies to accede to his wishes.

As waves of economic uncertainty ripple across the globe, Republicans in Congress remain stone faced rather than exercising their Constitutional responsibility.

Immigration

The president claimed his administration would target only criminals illegally in the country. Yet he sent invasions of masked ICE and CBP agents into Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, and Minneapolis creating terror: Separating families. Detaining immigrants who are legally in the country. Deporting people without due process. Killing innocent Americans and labeling them domestic terrorists. Ignoring court orders.

Reuters reported that the administration unlawfully detained immigrants more than 4,400 times between October and mid-February.

In the case Anderson Jesus Urquilla-Ramos v. Donald J. Trump, et al., Judge Joseph R. Goodwin wrote

“Across the interior of the United States, agents of the federal government — masked, anonymous, armed with military weapons, operating from unmarked vehicles, acting without warrants of any kind — are seizing persons for civil immigration violations and imprisoning them without any semblance of due process.”

Another example of DHS’ cruel and inhumane treatment was Nurul Amin Shah Alam, nearly blind, who froze to death in Buffalo after Border Patrol agents left him at a closed Tim Hortons, jail booties the only protection on his feet. True to form, DHS lied about the incident, claiming agents left him at “a warm, safe location.”

Despite these flagrant, cruel, and illegal violations of law — a white nationalist strategy to purge the country of people of color — Republicans in Congress show no interest in reforming immigration laws. The country needs immigrants for our high technology industries as well as farms, food processing, and hospitality.

Corruption

The President has been using his power to enrich himself, his family, and members of his cabinet. David Kirkpatrick estimates the president and his family have made some $3.4 billion from crypto, real estate, branding, and other ventures. The jet from Qatar is arguably the most visibly egregious.

The corruption trickles down, such as the Boeing 737 Max 8 executive jet that Secretary Noem has been leasing, claimed to be for immigrant deportation flights. Yet the interior includes a bedroom suite.

Nary a murmur from Republicans in Congress.

Epstein Files

Is the Justice department incompetent or protecting the president? Certainly incompetent and, I believe, covering for the president.

With all the examples of philandering throughout Donald Trump’s storied life, I think the charge that he raped a minor is plausible. That he is morally bereft is more than plausible.

Iran

Now the President has unilaterally started a war with Iran, ignoring the Constitution, Congress, and international law. There is no legal or moral justification for preemptively attacking another country and targeting its leaders, no matter how heinous those leaders are. Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. Blatant and self-serving lies that Iran was close to having a nuclear bomb or had developed ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S.

We’ve now lost American lives, and the president predicts “there will likely be more.” For what end?

The state of the U.S.?

This administration and the Congressional Republicans supporting it do not reflect American values, the values outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We have an imperialist president who is attempting to rule the world, a narcissist dismembering our country and enabled by Republican robots in Congress. That’s the state of the union I see.

The Big Beautiful Bill

President Trump's so-called big beautiful bill to extend the tax cuts from his first administration and pay for them through cuts to federal spending — programs like Medicaid and SNAP — is struggling to be birthed by the House. Not hopeful that it will die in the House, I felt obligated to express my opposition to my Congressional representative:

Representative Rogers,

While House Republicans were holding middle-of-the-night hearings on the president’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” the CBO was analyzing the impact of the legislation, if passed:

The CBO estimates the tax provisions in the proposed bill will add some $3.8 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

After decades of Republican arguments during Democratic administrations that the federal debt must be reduced, the Republican hypocrisy is unfortunate, although not surprising. The tax cuts of the Bush and first Trump administrations fueled the debt. Why should we expect the second Trump administration to change behavior?

It’s not what you say, but rather what you do.

The CBO analysis also projects that the top 10% of earners will receive about 65% of the tax cut benefits. The cuts to social programs like Medicaid and SNAP will cause households in the lowest quintile to lose about $1,035 in income next year. That’s substantial for low-income Alabamians, who are living on the margins.

Not surprisingly, the CBO analysis contradicts Republican claims that the bill will not cut benefits, that it will only eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.

As expected, you’re taking from the poor to further enrich the rich. We see no consideration of increasing the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, who can afford to support the country that has enabled their success.

I urge you to have the courage to oppose this legislation. You were elected by the people of your district, not by President Trump.

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Addensum: The House narrowly passed the bill on Thursday, May 22, by a vote of 215-214. All 212 Democrats present voted against the bill, joined by two Republicans. One Republican representative voted "present," and two did not vote. Mike Rogers supported the bill.

The bill moves on to the Senate.

Truly Unfathomable

Unfathomable. I cannot imagine how the Republican party has fallen to such depths of depravity. The party of my youth that reflected conservative principles framing views of Federal governance, foreign policy, and the exconomy has abandoned policies for demonizing the other in a distorted view of Christianity.

I guess the moon is made of green cheese.

Reading this list in The Atlantic is both stunning and heartbreaking.