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برچسب: Trump

  • Michael Tomasky: Why No One Cares that Trump Is Raking in $1 Billion a Month

    Michael Tomasky: Why No One Cares that Trump Is Raking in $1 Billion a Month


    Why did Trump run for President in 2024?

    1. To stay out of jail.
    2. To destroy our government.
    3. To make money.

    All three answers are correct. Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, recounts the latest financial scandal associated with Trump–the sale of Trump crytocurrency that is pulling billions into family pockets. And he tries to figure out why the story appears to have faded, instead of blowing up as a mind-boggling violation of the emoluments clause. That’s the part of the Constitution that says Presidents are not supposed to be getting rich by being President, especially by any sort of gift from foreign powers. Trump evaded that restriction in his first term, when he owned the hotel closest to the White Hiuse, and visiting potentates rented the most lavish suites. That was small potatoes. An investment firm in Abu Dhabi just put $2 billion into Trump cryptocurrency. Tomasky asks: does anyone care?

    He writes:

    Nicolle Wallace had Scott Galloway on her MSNBC show Thursday. She began by asking him what he makes of this moment in which we find ourselves. Galloway, a business professor and popular podcaster, could have zigged in any number of directions with that open-ended question, so I was interested to see the direction he settled on: “I think we essentially have become a kleptocracy that would make Putin blush. I mean, keep in mind that in the first three months, the Trump family has become $3 billion wealthier, so that’s a billion dollars a month.”

    Stop and think about that. A presidency lasts, of course, 48 months (at most, we hope). Trump has been enriching himself at an unprecedented scale since day one of his second term—actually, since just before, given that he announced the $Trump meme coin a few days before swearing to protect and defend the Constitution.

    And now, we know that he’s having a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in two weeks for his top $Trump investors, whose identities we may never know. How might these people influence his decisions? This whole arrangement is blatantly corrupt. And The New York Times had a terrific report this week about Don Jr. and Eric going around the world (Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) making deals from which their father will profit.

    I read these stories, as I’m sure you do, and I think to myself: How on earth is he getting away with this? It’s the right question, but we usually concentrate on the wrong answer.

    For most people, they think first of the Democrats, because they’re the opposition, and by the traditions of our system they’re the ones who are supposed to stop this, or at least raise hell about it. Second, we might think about congressional Republicans, who, if they were actually upholding their own oaths to the Constitution, would be expressing alarm about this.

    They both shoulder some blame, but neither of those is really the answer. Every time I ask myself how he gets away with this, I remember: Oh, right. It’s the right-wing media. Duh.

    After the election, I wrote a column that went viral about how the right-wing media made Trump’s election possible. Fox News, most conspicuously, but also Newsmax, One America News Network, Sinclair, and the rest, along with the swarm of right-wing podcasters and TikTokers, created a media environment in which Trump could do no wrong and Kamala Harris no right.

    Think back—I know you’ve repressed it—to that horror-clown-show Madison Square Garden rally Trump held the week before the election. It was, as the Times put it, a “carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism.” A generation or two ago, that would have finished off his campaign. Last year? It made no difference. No—it helped. And it helped because a vast propaganda network—armed with press passes and First Amendment protections—spent a week gabbing about how cool and manly it was.

    Newsflash: They’re still at it.

    First of all, Fox News is basically the megaphone of the Trump administration. In Trump’s first 100 days in office, key administration officials, reports Media Matters for America, appeared on Fox 536 times. That, obviously, is 5.36 times per day; in other words, assuming that a cable news “day” runs from 6 a.m. to midnight, that’s one administration official about every three hours. I’ve seen occasional clips where the odd host challenges them on this point or that, but in essence, this is a propaganda parade.

    I tried to do some googling to see how Fox is covering the meme coin scandal. Admitting that Google doesn’t catch everything, the answer seems to be that it’s not. On the network’s website, there was a bland January 18 article reporting that he’d launched it; an actually interesting January 22 piece summarizing a critical column by The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell, who charged that it was an invitation to bribery; and finally, an April 24 report that the coin surged in value after Trump announced the upcoming dinner—“critics” were given two paragraphs, deep in the article. (Interesting side note: Predictably, other figures on the far right have aped Trump by launching their own coins, among them former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley.)

    But it’s not just Fox, and it’s not just on corruption. It’s all of them, and it’s on everything. You think any of them are mentioning Trump’s campaign promise to bring prices down on day one, or pointing out that all “persons” in the United States have a right to due process? Or criticizing his shambolic tariffs policies? I’m not saying there’s never criticism. There is. But the thrust of the coverage is protective and defensive: “Expert Failure & the Trump Boom” was the theme of one recent Laura Ingraham segment.

    So sure, blame Democrats to some extent. A number of them are increasingly trying to bring attention to the corruption story, but there’s always more they could be doing. (By the way, new DNC Chair Ken Martin announced the creation one month ago of a new “People’s Cabinet” to push back hard against Trump. Anybody heard of it since?)

    And of course, blame congressional Republicans. Their constitutional, ethical, and moral failures are beyond the pale, and they’re all cowards.

    But neither of those groups is the reason Trump can throw a meme coin party and nothing happens; can send legal U.S. residents to brutal El Salvador prisons; can detain students for weeks because they wrote one pro-Palestinian op-ed; can shake down universities and law firms; can roil the markets with his idiotic about-faces on tariffs; can whine that bringing down prices is harder than he thought; can empower his largest donor, the richest man in the world, to take a meat-ax to the bureaucracy in a way that makes no sense to anyone, and so much more.

    It’s all because Trump and his team operate within the protective cocoon of a media-disinformation environment that allows just enough criticism to retain “credibility” but essentially functions as a Ministry of Truth for the administration that would have shocked Orwell himself.

    And just remember—a billion dollars a month.

    Don’t be surprised to see Trump-branded stuff on the White House website any day now. Trump Bibles, Trump sneakers, MAGA hats, Trump watches, Trump trading cards, etc. why not?



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  • Qatar Gives Trump a Super-Luxury Airplane to Replace Airforce 1

    Qatar Gives Trump a Super-Luxury Airplane to Replace Airforce 1


    This is a shocking development. The government of Qatar is giving Trump an airplane worth $400 million to replace Airforce 1 and for Trump’s personal use after his Presidency. It will eventually be retired to the Trump “library.”

    Forget the fact that the Constitution forbids the President from accepting gifts from any foreign nation (the Emoluments Clause). Trump fired all the federal ethics officers and replaced them with his personal choices. Coincidence?

    The AP reported the funniest line:

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked Friday if the president during his upcoming trip might meet with people ties to his family’s business, said it was “ridiculous” to suggest Trump “is doing anything for his own benefit.”

    The Daily Mail has photos of the interior, fit for a Sultan.



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  • Trump Plans Deep Cuts to Interior Department, National Parks Service

    Trump Plans Deep Cuts to Interior Department, National Parks Service


    Government Executive describes the deep cuts that the Trump administration and the DOGE team intend to impose on the Interior Department, with the collaboration of Secretary of the Interior Douglas Burghum, former Governor of North Dakota.

    The Interior Department is finalizing reduction-in-force plans expected to target thousands of employees, including 1,500 at the National Park Service, with notices going out to employees within 10 days. 

    The anticipated layoffs follow the departure of thousands of Interior employees leaving the department under various incentives. Interior earlier in May initiated a consolidation of several functions currently conducted by each bureau individually by rolling them up into the department’s headquarters, where they will report directly to Secretary Doug Burgum. Some of the employees who were part of that consolidation—such as those in IT, communications, finance, human resources and contracting—are eventually expected to feel the impacts of workforce downsizing. 

    NPS is expected to issue around 1,500 RIFs, while the U.S. Geological Survey will lay off around 1,000 employees—focused on its Ecosystems Mission Area, according to a person familiar with the plans—and the Bureau of Reclamation will target around 100 to 150 employees, according to another employee there briefed on the details. Other components, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service, are also expected to experience layoffs. Four sources confirmed the first round of RIFs are expected on or around May 15.  

    Reclamation already lost about one-quarter of its 5,800 employees through incentivized departures, according to an employee briefed on the details, so it is expecting a smaller RIF of 100 to 150 employees. At NPS, meanwhile, just 5% of employees have so far opted into the “deferred resignation program”—which has enabled them to take paid leave through September, at which point they must leave government service—leading to a more significant expected RIF for the agency. 

    In addition to NPS headquarters and regional offices, NPS’ Cultural Resources Stewardship, Partnerships, and Science Directorate and Natural Resource Stewardship and Science directorates are expected to be heavily impacted, with the vast majority of staff being laid off. Those divisions are made up of hundreds of biologists, archaeologists, geologists, historians and other scientists and specialists who help preserve and understand resources within the parks. 

    While NPS staff were originally told the RIFs would focus on Washington and regional staff, wiping out those directorates would mean individual parks would also see direct impacts. Some of the functions of those offices are statutorily required, said Kriten Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s senior vice president for government affairs, who added groups like hers would sue Interior if it follows through on its plans….

    Government Executive first reported on Interior’s plan to consolidate functions across the department earlier this month, which Interior Secretary Doug Burgum subsequently confirmed in a memorandum. Burgum tapped the assistant secretary for policy, management budget—a role currently being filled by Tyler Hassenm—to lead the effort. Hassen previously served in the Department of Government Efficiency….

    The cuts come on top of a significant exodus across Interior as employees have flocked to the deferred resignation, buyouts and early retirements all while a hiring freeze is in place. NPS has already lost around 13% of its workforce, according to NPCA, complicating Burgum’s order to keep parks open without reducing hours. 

    The mandate—park superintendents will need a sign off from agency leadership to close even a trail or visitor center—already raised concerns with agency stakeholders even before the layoff plans were made clear. NPCA’s Brengel suggested Burgum was “setting up the Park Service for failure” as it aims to carry out the same level of operations without the requisite staff to do so. 

    She added the expansion of NPS RIFs to the science teams means the cuts are “larger and more directly attacking the Park Service.” 

    A USGS employee in the Ecosystems Mission Area said the cuts will likely spell the end of fish survey work, in which agency staff go out on ships to inform states of fish stocking and harvest rates. 

    “The states do not have the funds or staff to take over,” the employee said. “There are few people in the US with these skills.” 

    Mary Jo Rugwell, a long time BLM executive who now leads the Public Lands Foundation, said her former agency has lost more than 1,000 employees since President Trump took office, or about 10% of the workforce. The agency has long suffered from understaffing, Rugwell said, an issue exacerbated in Trump’s first term when he moved the agency’s headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado. Now, she said, as employees head for the exits and more RIFs are expected, BLM will struggle to carry out the Trump administration’s priorities to approve oil and gas leasing, grazing permits, drilling and timber sales, work that requires significant experience. 

    “The very people you need to get this work done, they’re sending them packing,” Rugwell said. “And it doesn’t make any sense….”

    “Morale is at an all time low,” one employee said. “People are worried about RIFs, contracts being cut and so many changes coming at once. Consolidation at the department is seen as a hostile takeover of bureau level functions, and a way to group people to make RIFs easier.”  



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  • Where Did Trump Get the Nutty Idea of Reopening Alcatraz?

    Where Did Trump Get the Nutty Idea of Reopening Alcatraz?


    Have you visited Alcatraz? It’s a fun way to spend time in San Francisco. You take a boat ride with other tourists and get a guided visit around the infamous prison. It sits on a 22-acre island known as “The Rock.” To describe Alcatraz as dilapidated would be an understatement. You learn about the notorious gangsters who were locked up there (including Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly), about the many efforts by prisoners to escape, and you see the tiny, grim cells they lived in. Then you visit the gift shop for souvenirs and books about Alcatraz.

    While it’s often said that no one ever escaped Alcatraz, despite many attempts, three men built a raft and took off undetected in 1962: Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers. They were never seen again, so authorities think they must have drowned. But it’s possible they they made it to the mainland and started new lives. No one knows.

    Trump announced that he wants to reopen Alcatraz because it is time to get tough on hardened criminals. He said he was reacting to the madness of judges ruling that criminals were entitled to due process. This was impossible, he said, because he wanted to toss out millions of criminals, and there are not enough judges to give due process to so many criminals.

    At its height, Alvarez housed fewer than 350 prisoners.

    Malcolm Ferguson of The New Republic thinks he found out why Trump suddenly discovered Alcatraz as a solution. He saw a movie about Alcatraz!

    Ferguson writes in The New Republic

    President Trump may have gotten his half-brained idea to reopen and expand the infamous Alcatraz prison from a movie that aired on WLRN this past weekend. 

    “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” the president wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

    “I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he continued. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”  

    A Bluesky user provided some more details on this seemingly random announcement. 

    “I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’” they wrote. Trump was in Palm Beach on the night in question. 

    Trump potentially making major policy decisions based on the last movie he watched is bleak but unsurprising. Alcatraz is a dilapidated full-time museum off the coast of San Francisco that closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive to operate and many of the buildings were falling apart. Getting it back to a full-time jail would be incredibly costly and labor intensive. 

    “Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” California Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”

    Rachel Maddow had a different theory about why Trump suddenly wanted to revive Alcatraz. She thinks he purposely distracts the public and the media. Toss out a shiny object for people and the media to get excited about, and it distracts them from serious policy failures. Alcatraz is bread & circus for the rubes, like the proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Better to have them talk about something silly than to talk about Pete Hegseth’s latest mess at the Pentagon or RFK Jr.’s relentless war against modern science.



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  • Breaking News: Trump Administration Encouraging Other Nations to Sign Up For Musk’s Starlink Internet Service to Cut Tariffs

    Breaking News: Trump Administration Encouraging Other Nations to Sign Up For Musk’s Starlink Internet Service to Cut Tariffs


    The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is promoting Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet service while negotiating trade deals.

    Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink.

    The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years.

    The decision drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post, which states: “As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.

    A series of internal government messages obtained by The Post reveal how U.S. embassies and the State Department have pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name. The documents do not show that the Trump team has explicitly demanded favors for Starlink in exchange for lower tariffs. But they do indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk’s satellite firm at a moment when the White House is calling for wide-ranging talks on trade.

    In India, government officials have sped through approvals of Starlink with the understanding that doing so could help them cement trade deals with the administration, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.

    Other nations seeking relief from Trump’s killer tariffs have discovered that adopting Starlink is part of the deal. I think this is called cronyism.



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  • Trump Withdraws Nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. Attorney for DC!

    Trump Withdraws Nomination of Ed Martin as U.S. Attorney for DC!


    Trump pulled the nomination of the noxious Ed Martin, whom he had nominated to be U.S. Attorney for DC, a crucial post.

    After Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced that he would not vote for Martin, his nomination was dead. The vote in the Senate Juduciary Committee would be 11-11, and Martin’s name would not go to the Senate floor.

    In the world of horrible nominations for important posts, this was one of the worst. Ed Martin has been a vocal defender of the January 6 insurrectionists, even those who violently assaulted police officers. Think MAGA, then think extreme MAGA, and that’s Ed Martin. It was recently revealed that Martin appeared on Russian state media more than 150 times since 2016.

    Thankful there is at least one Republican in the Senate who is not kissing Trump’s feet.



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  • Thom Hartmann: Trump and the Death of Our Ideals

    Thom Hartmann: Trump and the Death of Our Ideals


    Thom Hartmann sums up what Trump is: a malignant narcissist intent on destroying every shred of our democracy and our ideals. we knew from his first term that he was a liar and a fraud. Yet here he is, acting with even more rage, vengeance, and destruction than before.

    Let us not forget that Trump is enabled by the Republican Party. By their slim majorities in Congress. They have meekly watched as he terminated departments and agencies authorized by Congress. They have quietly given the power of the purse to Trump and Musk. They have watched as he turned himself into an emperor and made them useless. They could stop him. But they haven and they won’t.

    He writes:

    The Trump administration just gutted Meals on Wheels.

    Seriously. Meals on Wheels!

    Donald Trump didn’t just “disrupt” America; he detonated it. Like a political Chernobyl, he poisoned the very soil of our democratic republic, leaving behind a toxic cloud of cruelty, corruption, and chaos that will radiate through generations if we don’t contain it now.

    He didn’t merely bring darkness; he cultivated it. He made it fashionable. He turned cruelty into currency and made ignorance a political virtue.

    This man, a grotesque cocktail of malignant narcissism and petty vengeance, ripped the mask off American decency and showed the world our ugliest face. He caged children. Caged. Children. He laughed off their cries while his ghoulish acolytes used “Where are the children?” as a punchline for their next QAnon rally.

    He welcomed white supremacists with winks and dog whistles, calling them “very fine people,” while spitting venom at Black athletes who dared kneel in peaceful protest.

    He invited fascism to dinner and served it on gold-plated Trump steaks. He made lying the lingua franca of the right, burning truth to the ground like a carnival barker selling snake oil from a flaming soapbox.

    And let’s not forget the blood on his hands: 1,193,165 dead from COVID by the time he left office, 400,000 of them unnecessarily, dismissed as nothing more than “a flu,” while he admitted — on tape — that he knew it was airborne and knew it was lethal. His apathy was homicidal, his incompetence catastrophic.

    He tried to overthrow a fair election. He summoned a violent mob. He watched them beat cops with American flags and screamed “Fight like hell!” while cowering in the White House, delighting in the destruction like Nero fiddling as Rome burned.

    And now, like some grotesque twist on historical fascism, Trump’s regime is quietly disappearing even legal U.S. residents — snatched off the streets by ICE and dumped into El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, a dystopian nightmare of concrete and cruelty.

    One such man, Kilmar Ábrego García, had legal status and a home in Maryland. But Trump’s agents defied a federal court order and deported him anyway, vanishing him into a foreign hellhole so brutal it defies comprehension.

    This isn’t policy: it’s a purge. A test run for authoritarian exile. And if Trump’s not stopped by Congress, the courts, or We The People in the streets, it won’t end there.

    But somehow, he’s still here, waddling across the political stage like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man of authoritarianism, bloated with power, empty of soul, and reeking of spray tan and sulfur.

    Donald Trump didn’t just bring darkness: he’s a goddamn black hole, a gravity-well of cruelty sucking the light out of everything he touches.
    This is a man who desecrates everything good.
    Empathy? He mocks it. Truth? He slanders it. Democracy? He’d bulldoze it for a golf course.
    And if we let him continue, he won’t just end democracy — he’ll make damn sure it never rises again.

    So the question is: are we awake yet?

    Or will we let this orange-faced death-cult leader finish the job he started, grinning over the corpse of the America we once believed in?

    Now is not the time to kneel: it’s the time to rise. Stay loud, stay vigilant, and show up. Every protest, every march, every call to DC, every raised voice chips away at the darkness.

    Democracy isn’t a spectator sport: it’s a fight, and we damn well better show up for it.



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  • The Atlantic: The Inside Story of How Trump Regained Power: “I Run the Country and the World”

    The Atlantic: The Inside Story of How Trump Regained Power: “I Run the Country and the World”


    The Atlantic published a fascinating story about Donald Trump’s surprising return from what seemed to be the disastrous end of his political career in 2021 to regain the presidency in 2024.

    In 2021, he left the White House in disgrace: twice impeached, leader of a failed and violent effort to overturn the election, so bitter that he skipped Joe Biden’s inauguration. For four years, with the exception of an occasional slip of the tongue, he nourished the fantasy that he was the rightful winner in 2020.

    Surely there were Republicans who thought he was finished, as did all Democrats. I remember how thrilled I was to think that I would never again have to see his face or hear his voice.

    His redemption began when Congressman Kevin McCarthy flew to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage to Trump. Trump spent most of the last four years plotting and planning for his return.

    The article was written by Atlantic staffers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer.

    It begins with the story of how they won an interview with Trump. They filled out forms describing the reason for the interview and thought their request might be approved. But Trump personally rejected them, denouncing the reporters and the magazine as part of the leftist effort to embarrass him. Trump called Ashley Parker a “radical left lunatic.”

    The reporters had spent many hours preparing for the interview, and they were determined to land it.

    Soon after they were turned away, they decided to try another route. They obtained Trump’s private cell number, and they called him. He answered his phone, and they had a long conversation. During the conversation, he said matter-of-factly, “I run the country and I run the world.”

    Humility was never his strong suit.

    Trump eventually agreed to sit with them for an interview in the Oval Office with them and the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally invited to be part of Defense Secretary’s Signal conversation about bonbing Yemen.

    This is a must-read.



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  • Trump Plans to Revise U.S. History in the Smithsonian and All Other Federal Sites

    Trump Plans to Revise U.S. History in the Smithsonian and All Other Federal Sites


    On March 27, Trump issued an executive order authorizing the cleansing of the Smithsonian Museums and other federal sites of anything that detracts from American greatness and patriotism.

    Trump makes clear that he doesn’t want anything displayed that implies that racism exists. He specifically targets the 21 museums of Smithsonian Institute. He wants all exhibits to remind the public of America’s greatness. Any exhibits that don’t, he says, should be removed.

    The executive order says, in part:

    It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.  Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.

    The executive order assigns to Vice-President JD Vance the job of cleansing the Smithsonian museums and all federal parks and cultural institutions of all derogatory content about our history. In doing this, Vance will be assisted by one Lindsey Halligan, Esq.

    Who is Lindsey Halligan, the woman who will determine which parts of the nation’s story should be told? If you open the link, you will see that she is a beautiful woman with long blond hair. But that’s not all.

    The Washington Post explained:

    The first question is: What is improper ideology, exactly?

    The second: Who is Lindsey Halligan, Esq.?

    We have her on the phone, actually. She’s calling from the White House.

    “I would say that improper ideology would be weaponizing history,” Halligan says. “We don’t need to overemphasize the negative to teach people that certain aspects of our nation’s history may have been bad.” That overemphasis “just makes us grow further and further apart.”

    As for the second question: Halligan, 35, is a Trump attorney who seems to have tasked herself as a sort of commissioner — or expurgator, according to critics — of a premier cultural institution.

    After moving to D.C. just before the inauguration to continue working for Trump as a special assistant and senior associate staff secretary, Halligan visited local cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian museums of Natural History, American History and American Art. She didn’t like everything she saw. Some exhibits, in her view, did not reflect the America she knows and loves.

    “And so I talked to the president about it,” Halligan says, “and suggested an executive order, and he gave me his blessing, and here we are.”

    Here we are: A former Fox News host is leading the Pentagon. A vaccine skeptic is running the Department of Health and Human Services. A former professional wrestling executive is head of the Department of Education.

    And Lindsey Halligan, Esq., could turn a major cultural institution upside down.

    How did she arrive at this point? Halligan grew up in Broomfield, Colorado, and went to a private Catholic high school, Holy Family, where she excelled at softball and basketball. Her parents worked in the audiology industry. Halligan’s sister, Gavin, a family-law attorney in Colorado, ran for a state House seat as a Republican in 2016 in a blue district and lost.

    Halligan attended Regis University, a Jesuit university in Denver, where she studied politics and broadcast journalism. She was always interested in history, she says — particularly the Civil War and the westward expansion of the country.

    She competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant, making the semifinals in 2009 and earning third runner-up in 2010, according to photos and records of the events. This was back when Trump co-owned the organization that puts on the Miss Universe pageant, for which Miss Colorado USA is a preliminary event.



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  • Why is Trump Killing the Voice of America?

    Why is Trump Killing the Voice of America?


    Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day.

    Press Freedom is at risk in every authoritarian regime, but also in the U.S. Trump has filed frivolous lawsuits against ABC and other news outlets. ABC paid him $15 million to make peace.

    Trump sued CBS for $10 billion for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris and is now in settlement talks. Editing a pre-taped interview is standard practice. The interview may last for an hour, but only 20 minutes is aired. Since Trump won the election, how was he damaged? It is hard to imagine he would win anything in court.

    But Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has the power to destroy CBS. And the owner of CBS–Shari Redstone– is currently negotiating a lucrative deal that needs FCC approval. What will CBS pay Trump?

    Given Trump’s legendary vindictiveness, will he succeed in eviscerating press freedom? Will the media dare criticize him as they have criticized every other president?

    See CNN’s Brian Stelter on the state of press freedom today.

    Now comes Trump’s puzzling vendetta against the Voice of America. In March, he issued an executive order to shut it down, although Republicans have traditionally supported it. On April 22, a federal district court judge overturned Trump’s executive order and demanded the rehiring of VOA staff. They were told they would be back at work in days. But yesterday, a three judge appeals court stayed the lower court’s ruling and VOA’s future is again in doubt. Two of the three appeals court judges were appointed by Trump.

    The Voice of America has a unique responsibility. It brings objective, factual, unbiased news to people around the globe. For millions of people, the Voice of America is their only alternative to either government propaganda or no news at all.

    Why does Donald Trump want to kill the Voice of America.

    He has never explained.

    He has called VOA “radical,” “leftwing,” and “woke,” but there is no factual basis for those attacks. They are talking points, not facts.

    He appointed his devoted friend, Kari Lake, who ran for office in Arizona and lost both times, as the agent of VOA’s demise. She was an on-air commentator, so she knows something about media.

    VOA seems to be in a death spiral, like USAID and the Department of Education.

    The Washington Post reported on the Appeals Court’s ruling. Kari Lake described the decision as a “huge victory for President Trump.”

    Trump has never explained why the Voice of America should be silenced.

    Apparently no one at the VOA understands. I found this interview by Nick Schifrin of PBS (also on Trump’s chopping block), Lisa Curtis, and Michael Abramowitz, Director of VOA:

    • Nick Schifrin: Lisa Curtis is the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a former senior director on President Trump’s first National Security Council staff.
    • Lisa Curtis: While it’s understandable that President Trump wants to cut down on government waste and fraud, I think this is the wrong organization to be attacking. Russia, Iran, China, these countries are spending billions in their own propaganda, their own anti-American propaganda. So I think it’s critical that the U.S. government is supporting organizations like RFE/RL that are pushing back against that disinformation, misinformation.
    • Nick Schifrin: And she says RFE/RL’s content reaches more than 10 percent of Iranians, many of whom have protested the regime.
    • Lisa Curtis:So I think it really is part of U.S. soft power, but they actually call it the hard edge of soft power because it is so effective in getting out the truth about America, about what’s happening in their local environments. And this is absolutely critical.
    • Nick Schifrin:Curtis said she considers the freeze and their funding illegal because the money is congressionally appropriated and RFE/RL’s mission is congressionally mandated. And they will sue the Trump administration to get it restored.To discuss this, I turn to Michael Abramowitz, who since last year has been the president of Voice of America and before that was the president of Freedom House.Michael Abramowitz, thanks very much. Welcome back to the “News Hour.”As you heard, President Trump in his statement on Friday night referred to VOA as a radical propaganda with a liberal bias. Is it?Michael Abramowitz, Director, Voice of America: I don’t think so.I do think that people at many different news organizations have been accused of bias on both right and left, like many different news organizations. VOA is not perfect, but we’re unusual among news organizations because we are one of the few news organizations that by law has to be fair and balanced.Every year, we look at each of our language services, review it for fairness, for balance. I have been a journalist in this field for a long time, and I think the journalists at VOA stand up very well against people from CNN, FOX, New York Times, et cetera, in terms of the commitment to balance.When we do talk shows, for instance, broadcasting into Iran, we will have Republicans, we will have Democrats. We are presenting the full spectrum of American political opinion, which is required by our charter.
    • Nick Schifrin:You have heard from other administration officials or allies of the president. Ric Grenell, who is a special envoy, called it — quote — “a relic of the past. We don’t need government-paid media outlets.”
    • Elon Musk says:“Shut them down. Nobody listens to them anymore.”Fundamentally, why do you believe taxpayers should pay for VOA journalism?
    • Michael Abramowitz:You know, the media is changing, the world is changing, and the Cold War doesn’t exist anymore.But what is happening around the world is that there is a huge, really, battle over information. The world is awash in propaganda and lies, and our adversaries like Russia and China, Iran are really spreading narratives that directly undermine accurate views about America.And we have to fight back. And VOA in particular has been an incredible asset for fighting back by providing objective news and information in the languages, in 48 languages that people in the local markets we serve. No other news organization does that.
    • Nick Schifrin:Let me ask a little bit about the status of the agency. You and every employee were put on leave over the weekend. Today, all contractors have been terminated. Do you have any notion of what the goal is from the administration? Is it to reform VOA, or is it simply to destroy it?
    • Michael Abramowitz:Candidly, I don’t know.Ms. Kari Lake, who is supposed to be my successor at some point she’s given some interviews, and I think she clearly recognizes in those interviews that VOA serves an important purpose. I think there are a lot of Republicans, in particular, especially on the Hill, who recognize the value of Voice of America, who recognize that, if we shut down, for instance, our program on Iran, which is really an incredible newsroom — we have 100 journalists, most of whom speak Farsi, has a huge audience inside Iran.When the president of Iran, when his helicopter went down over the summer, there was a huge spike in traffic on the VOA Web site because the people of Iran knew that they could not get accurate information about what was going on, so they came to VOA to get it. That’s the kind of thing that we can do.
    • Nick Schifrin:I want to point out, we heard from Lisa Curtis, the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.Voice of America and the Cuba Broadcasting, previously known as Radio Marti — we have got a graphic to show this — those are fully federal networks.(Crosstalk)
    • Nick Schifrin:What RFE/RL is talking about, they are a grantee. They get a grant from the U.S. government. RFE/RL will sue. Does VOA have any recourse today?
    • Michael Abramowitz:Well, I think we are — I mean, there’s a lot of discussion about some lawsuits that different parties are making. I know that the employees may be thinking about that.I think — I’m not sure that litigation in the end is going to be the most productive way. Maybe — I mean, you have to see what happens. But I think what would be really great is if Congress and the administration get together, recognize that this is a very important service, recognize that it’s sorely needed in a world in which our adversaries are spending billions of dollars, like Lisa said, and reformulate VOA to be effective for the modern age.
    • Nick Schifrin:And, finally, how — what’s the impact of this decision and the language that we have heard from the Trump administration on the very idea that information, that journalism sponsored by the U.S. government can support freedom and democracy?
    • Michael Abramowitz:We have been on the air essentially for 83 years through war, 9/11, government shutdown. VOA has kept — has kept its — has kept the lights on, has not been silent.So we’re silenced for the first time in 83 years. That’s devastating to me personally. It’s devastating to the staff. It’s devastating to all the thousands of people who used to work at VOA. I mean, this is a very special and unique news organization. It deserves to live. It doesn’t mean we can’t reform, but it deserves to survive.

    I still don’t understand why Trump wants to close down America’s voice to the world.

    I ask myself, who benefits if the Voice of America is stifled.

    The obvious culprits: America’s enemies, especially Russia.

    During the decades of the Cold War, VOA beamed information to dissenters behind the Iron Curtain. It kept hope alive.

    No one would be happier to see VOA shut down than Putin.



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