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برچسب: Trumps

  • Trump’s Ignorant Comments about World War II

    Trump’s Ignorant Comments about World War II


    At a news conference, Trump mused about Russia’s role in World War II and our alliance with Russia.

    He began by saying that he just finished talking to President Macron of France, who said the French were celebrating “our victory” in World War II. Trump scoffed.

    Then he said he had a conversation with President Putin. This reminded Trump that the Russians had been our allies in World War II, that they had lost 51 million people fighting the Nazis, and that Putin had fought with them. Yes, Putin himself assured our victory.

    So why, he wondered, does everyone now hate Russia, but love Germany and Japan, who were our enemies?

    “Macron was a good man. I said ‘what are you doing?’ he goes, uh, ‘we’re celebrating World War Two, our victory.’ I said ‘your victory? heh, your victory. tell me about that.’ and then I called somebody else, and I happened to speak to President Putin at the time. now, in all fairness to him, he lost 51 million people, and he did fight. Russia fought. sort of interesting, isn’t it? he fought with us at World War Two, and everybody hates him. and Germany and Japan, they’re fine, you know? someday, somebody will explain that, but I like Germany and Japan, too. but Putin is a little confused by that, you know? he said ‘we lost 51 million people and we were your ally and now everybody hates Russia, and they love Germany and Japan.’ I said ‘let’s explain that some time, ok?’ it’s a, uh, it’s a strange world.”

    Here are a few pointers for Trump:

    Stalin and Hitler signed a friendship pact in 1939 (non-aggression pact). Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941. After Hitler’s attack, the USSR became an ally of the anti-Nazis.

    Stalin was one of the worst dictators in history. But the UK, other European allies, and the U.S. welcomed him into the alliance against the Nazis.

    The Russians had more casualties than any other nation, but not 51 million.

    AI summarized the sources:

    An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens, including both military personnel and civilians, perished during World War II. This figure represents the highest number of casualties for any nation involved in the war. Of these deaths, around 8.7 to 10.7 million were military personnel, while 10.4 to 13.3 million were civilians. The majority of Soviet citizens who died were civilians. 

    So, no, 51 million Russians did not die in WWII.

    Contrary to Trump, Putin did not fight “with us” in World War II. He was born in 1952.

    Why do people hate Russia now–our wartime allies– but love Germany and Japan–iur enemies in World War II?

    Most Americans remember that the U.S. and the USSR parted ways after that war. Stalin continued to rule Russia and satellite nations with an iron fist. He was always a brutal dictator who crushed dissent and murdered enemies and banned criticism and sent poets and playwrights into Siberian work camp.

    When the USSR collapsed in 1991, western nations and Russian democrats hoped that Russian would shed its authoritarian past and join the western world as a free society.

    Meanwhile, Germany and Japan shed their history of fascism and built sturdy democracies (Germany was split in two, with a democratic West Germany and a Soviet-controlled East Germany until the USSR disintegrated in 1991).

    Americans today admire Germany and Japan because they are now stable democracies with thriving economies.

    Most Americans do not like Putin because he is a dictator who has been in power since 2000 (with a brief power when he was the shadow leader), and the Russian parliament has extended his term to 2036.

    Putin disappears his rivals. They are murdered in broad daylight, or mysteriously fall out of buildings, or are poisoned, or–like Alexei Navalny–die of unknown causes in remote prisons. No free press. No free speech. No dissent permitted.

    AI summary of deaths attributed to Stalin:

    Estimates of the number of people who died under Stalin’s rule range from 10 to 30 million, with most historians agreeing on a figure around 20 million. This includes both intentional killings and deaths due to starvation, forced labor, and neglect. 

    Elaboration: 

    • Estimates Vary:Different sources provide varying estimates, reflecting the difficulty in compiling accurate data from the Soviet archives. 
    • Official Records:Declassified Soviet archives revealed official records of executions, Gulag deaths, and deaths related to forced resettlement and deportations, totaling around 3.3 million. 
    • Soviet Famine:The Holodomor, a man-made famine in the 1930s, resulted in the deaths of millions, with estimates ranging from 5.5 to 6.5 million. (Ukraine)
    • “Purposive” vs. Neglect:Historian Stephen Wheatcroft estimates that around 1 million of the deaths were intentional, while the rest resulted from neglect and irresponsibility. 
    • Context Matters:It’s important to remember that Stalin’s policies led to widespread suffering and death, not just through executions but also through starvation, forced labor, and the overall repressive nature of his regime. 

    If Trump liked to read (he doesn’t), I would recommend that he read The Black Book of Communism, written by French historians.

    If others can explain better to Trump why most Americans don’t like Putin, please add your thoughts.



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  • Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Immigration Policy Is Wrong

    Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Immigration Policy Is Wrong


    The conservative, Murdoch–owned Wall Street Journal editorialized that Trump’s immigration plan is in deep trouble, and rightly so. His goal (Stephen Miller’s) is to deport 11 million immigrants (one of every 20 people in the country. That’s led to raids at workplaces. Even his supporters are shocked. They voted to deport criminals, “the worst of the worst,” not the hard-working people who contribute to the economy.

    Vincent Scardina is a Trump voter in Key West, Fla., who owns a roofing company. Six of his workers, originally from Nicaragua, were en route to a job late last month when they were detained, according to a report by a local NBC affiliate. Their attorney says five of those men have valid work permits, pending asylum cases, and no criminal records. We haven’t been able to verify that, but if it’s correct, jailing them is a strange enforcement priority.

    “It’s going to be really hard to replace those guys,” Mr. Scardina said. “We’re not able, in Key West, to just replace people as easily as, say, a big city.” He also got emotional. “You get to know these guys. You become their friends,” he said. “You see what happens to their family.” Mr. Scardina’s message to the President that he helped to elect: “What happened here? This situation is just totally, just blatantly, not at all what they said it was.”

    Four hours after that post about farms and hotels, Mr. Trump was back on Truth Social. President Biden let in “21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens,” who have “stolen American Jobs,” he said. “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History.” For the record, the Census Bureau says the U.S. population is about 342 million, so he’s talking about maybe deporting 1 person in every 20.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s deportation maestro, Stephen Miller, wants the immigration cops to arrest 3,000 migrants a day. That means raiding businesses across the country. Mr. Trump prefers to talk about “CRIMINALS” because he knows that’s where he has broad public support.

    But his federal agents are out raiding job sites full of non-criminal, hard-working people who are contributing to the American economy. The real policy isn’t what Mr. Trump says, but what his agents do on the ground.

    How can immigration czar Miller meet his goal without deporting farm workers, construction laborers, restaurant staff, and hotel workers?



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  • Jan Resseger: Trump’s Ugly Budget Bill Defunds Public Schools


    Jan Resseger is a social justice warrior who fights for the underdog. She describes here how Trump’s budget enacts the fever dreams of evangelicals and billionaires. He would change federal aid from its historic purpose–equitable funding–and turn it into school choice, diverting funds from the poorest children to those with ample resources. Since 1965–for 70 years–federal education funding for public schools has enjoyed bipartisan support. Trump ends it.

    She writes:

    Earlier this week, Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman released a concise and readable analysis of the likely impact for public education of two pieces of federal funding legislation: the “Big, Beautiful” tax and reconciliation bill currently being debated in the U.S. Senate to shape public school funding beginning right now in FY 2025, and also President Trump’s proposed FY 2026 federal budget for public schooling in the fiscal year that begins October 1st.

    Trump’s  FY 2026 budget proposal saves Head Start.

    Lieberman shares one important piece of positive news about Trump’s treatment of Head Start in next year’s federal budget: “Some programs survived the cut—including Head Start.” In early May, the Associated Press‘s Moriah Balingit reported: “The Trump administration apparently has backed away from a proposal to eliminate funding for Head Start… Backers of the six-decade-old program, which educates more than half a million children from low-income and homeless families, had been fretting after a leaked Trump administration proposal suggested defunding it… But the budget summary… did not mention Head Start. On a call with reporters, an administration official said there would be ‘no changes’ to it.”

    Federal funding for U.S. public schools looks bleak.

    Lieberman’s assessment of federal public education funding is not so encouraging.  Overall, “The administration is aiming to eliminate roughly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools in its budget for fiscal 2026, which starts Oct. 1. Several key programs will be maintained at today’s funding level, without an increase: “Flat funding amounts to a de-facto cut given inflation. The administration is proposing to maintain current funding levels for key programs like Title I-A for low-income students ($18.4 billion), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B for special education ($14.2 billion) and Perkins grants for K-12 and postsecondary career and technical education ($1.4 billion).”

    What has been historically a key purpose of federal public education funding—to compensate for vast inequity in the states’ capacity and the states’ willingness to fund public education—is being compromised.  Lieberman explains that much of federal funding, “is currently geared toward supporting special student populations including English learners, migrants, students experiencing homelessness, Native students, and students in rural schools. Longstanding federal programs that support training for the educator workforce; preparing students for postsecondary education; reinforcing key instructional areas like literacy, civics, and the arts… would disappear. A new K-12 grant program would offer a smaller pool of funds to states and let them decide whether and how to invest in those areas. And for the first time, all federal funding for special education would flow to states through a single funding stream…. Experts view Trump’s budget as part of an effort to roll back a half-century of effort by the federal government to help make educational opportunities more consistent and equitable from state to state and district to district.”

    The “Educational Choice for Children Act,” an alarming federal school voucher bill, is hidden inside the “Big Beautiful” bill.

    Lieberman worries about the enormous tuition tax credit voucher plan embedded deep in the weeds of the “Big, Beautiful” tax and reconciliation bill now being considered in the U. S. Senate: “Separate from the federal budget process, Congress is currently advancing a massive package of tax changes, including a proposal for a new tax-credit scholarship program that fuels up to $10 billion a year in federal subsidies for private K-12 education. Annual spending on that program could approach the amount the Trump administration is proposing to cut from elsewhere in the education budget.”  The voucher proposal is called the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).

    In a separate analysis of the “Big, Beautiful” bill as the House passed it in late May, Lieberman describes this proposed ECCA tuition-tax-credit voucher program: “House lawmakers narrowly approved a sweeping legislative package with $5 billion in annual tax credits that fuel scholarships and related expenses at K-12 private schools. The federal subsidies would come in the form of dollar-for-dollar tax credits for individuals and corporations that donate to largely unregulated state-level organizations that give out scholarship funds for parents to spend on private educational options of their choosing. Any student—even in states that have resisted expanding private school choice—from a family earning less than 300 percent of the area median gross income would be eligible to benefit from a scholarship paid for with a federally refunded donation.”

    Lieberman adds: “No other federal tax credit is as generous. The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t currently supply tax credits worth the full donation amount for any cause, as the private school choice scholarship credit would do. The federal government currently offers tax credits on donations for disaster relief, houses of worship, veterans’ assistance groups, and children’s hospitals at roughly 37 percent of the donated amount.  A $10,000 donation to those causes would yield a tax credit of $3,700.  By contrast, under the proposed legislation, if a taxpayer donates $10,000 to a scholarship (voucher)-granting organization, the IRS would give them a tax credit of $10,000.”

    The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy’s Carl Davis explains that because these federal school vouchers are primarily a tax shelter, they might appeal to wealthy people who are not even supporters of school privatization: “The tax plan…  includes a provision granting extraordinarily generous treatment to nonprofits that give out vouchers for free or reduced tuition at private K-12 schools. While the bill significantly cuts charitable giving incentives overall, nonprofits that commit to focusing solely on supporting private K-12 schools would be spared from those cuts and see their donors’ tax incentive almost triple relative to what they receive today. On top of that, the bill goes out of its way to provide school voucher donors who contribute corporate stock with an extra layer of tax subsidy that works as a lucrative tax shelter. Essentially, the bill allows wealthy individuals to avoid paying capital gains tax as a reward for funneling public funds to private schools.” “We estimate the bill would reduce federal tax revenue by $23.2 billion over the next 10 years as currently drafted, or by $67 billion over the next ten years if it is extended beyond its four-year expiration date… As currently drafted, the bill would facilitate $2.2 billion in federal and state capital gains tax avoidance over the next 10 years.”

    The Brookings Brown Center on Education Policy’s Jon Valant warns that the vouchers are so deeply buried in the “Big, Beautiful” bill that lots of people would not be aware of the plan’s existence until after it is passed: “The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale.  It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers…  ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers.”

    Valant explains how tax-credit vouchers work: “Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins. In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individual scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds… to families.”

    Valant creates a scenario that shows how this tax credit program could help the wealthy and leave out poorer families. A rich donor, Billy, donates $2 million in stock to an SGO: “Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community… Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 public education… It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible… So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown.”

    Valant summarizes the result if the “Big, Beautiful” bill is enacted: “This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it is likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.”



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  • Federal Appeals Court Restores Trump’s Control of Ca. National Guard

    Federal Appeals Court Restores Trump’s Control of Ca. National Guard


    Only hours after a federal district judge ordered Trump to return control of the California National Guard to Governor Gavin Newsom, a three judge federal appeals court blocked the lower court‘s order.

    The Orlando Sentinel reported:

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order that directed President Donald Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them there following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.

    The court said it would hold a hearing on the matter on June 17. The ruling came only hours after a federal judge’s order was to take effect at noon Friday.

    Earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and both violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids, had praised the earlier ruling.

    “Today was really about a test of democracy, and today we passed the test,” Newsom said in a news conference before the appeals court decision.

    The White House had called Breyer’s order “unprecedented” and said it “puts our brave federal officials in danger.”



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  • Brookings Analysis: Trump’s “School Choice” Plan Enables Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

    Brookings Analysis: Trump’s “School Choice” Plan Enables Waste, Fraud, and Abuse


    Jon Valant is doing a great job as Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D. C. He keeps close tabs on federal legislation. What follows is an excellent analysis of Trump’s legislation to use federal funds to underwrite the privatization of federal education funding. The potential for fraud, waste, and abuse is huge, he writes.

    He writes:

    • The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would create a $5 billion federal tax-credit scholarship program through a tax shelter for wealthy individuals.
    • The bill would provide minimally regulated scholarship-granting organizations with a great deal of discretion over how federal education funds are spent.
    • A hypothetical scenario illustrates the possibility of waste, fraud, and discriminatory behaviors.

    The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale. It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers.

    Recently, a colleague and I showed how ECCA is poised to redistribute funds from poor and rural communities to wealthy and non-rural communities. A study from the Urban Institute drew similar conclusions. Since those pieces were published, ECCA—then a standalone bill—has passed through the House of Representatives and now moves to the Senate. ECCA’s fate remains uncertain, which makes this as good a time as any to examine its potential implications.

    How would ECCA work?

    ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers. Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins.  

    In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individuals and/or corporations that donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds (“scholarships”) to families.

    The U.S. already has 22 tax-credit scholarship programs, but they’re relatively modest, state-level programs. ECCA is different. ECCA would create a massive, federal tax-credit scholarship program, operating across all 50 states, with a current price tag of about $5 billion in the first year (down from $10 billion in the bill’s earlier draft). It offers an extremely generous tax credit. Individuals get a full, 1:1 tax credit (not just a deduction) for their contributions, which fully offsets their contributions. In other words, these “donors” don’t actually give up any money—hence the quotation marks. On top of that, ECCA allows individuals to donate marketable securities (e.g., stocks) rather than cash. This provides an avenue to treat ECCA as a tax shelter and avoid paying capital gains taxes. More on that in a moment.

    Most students would be eligible for a scholarship, with the exception of those from households that earn more than three times their area’s median gross income. (More on that in a moment, too.) The list of qualified expenses covers everything from private school tuition to online educational materials.

    Rather than go through all of the bill’s details, let’s take a look at a scenario that illuminates what this program could do. Remarkably, this scenario appears—to my eye, at least—fully compliant with the House bill (even if the characters are a bit overstated).

    A hypothetical scenario to illustrate some of ECCA’s risks

    A ‘donor’ who benefits from ECCA’s tax shelter

    Let’s imagine a billionaire, Billy, who couldn’t care less about K-12 education but cares a whole lot about his own wealth. Billy hears about ECCA from an acquaintance who tells him about how much money Billy could save by “donating” to an SGO. Billy’s adjusted gross income (AGI) was $20 million last year. That means, according to ECCA, that he’s eligible to donate $2 million to an SGO this year (10% of his AGI).

    Let’s walk through the math for Billy’s donation. Billy is looking to give $2 million in stock shares to an SGO. He bought these shares a few years ago for $1 million and then they doubled in value. That means that Billy’s earnings are subject to long-term capital gains tax if he sells the stock. With his AGI, that would be 23.8% in federal taxes plus another 4.7% or so in state taxes (depending on where he lives). In other words, if Billy sold the stocks today and kept the funds for himself, he’d owe about $285,000 in combined federal and state taxes on his $1 million in earnings (28.5% of $1 million).

    By donating the $2 million in stock to an SGO, not only does Billy get his entire $2 million back as a tax credit; he also dodges those capital gains taxes. He’s a billionaire who is $285,000 wealthier for having made this supposed donation. (For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)

    A scholarship-granting organization with extraordinary leeway in how to direct ECCA funds

    Now, let’s get back to that SGO. Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community—and, just maybe, for himself. Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 education. He does have a penchant for fraud, though, along with a strong distaste for Republicans.

    It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% of their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible. In more modest (and rural) areas, the cutoffs aren’t nearlyso high.

    So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown. Notably, ECCA doesn’t limit the amount of money that he can give to any one recipient. ECCA just requires that he provide scholarships to at least two students—who, between them, attend at least two different schools—and that he not earmark the funds for any particular student. Fred offers students $100,000 apiece for supplemental tutoring. That might seem like a lot, but, hey, this is high-end tutoring.

    A vendor with little oversight or accountability

    In fact, Fred stipulates that the funds must be spent at a new tutoring shop, High-End Tutoring, just created by his buddy, a former teacher. ECCA seems to allow that. ECCA also allows Fred to take a nice cut for himself for running the SGO: 10% of the SGO’s total receipts.

    No one really knows the arrangement that Fred and his tutoring friend have, if they have one, because there are hardly any transparency or accountability provisions in ECCA (aside from a requirement to obtain annual financial and compliance audits). We also won’t know if High-End Tutoring provides any educational value, because that’s not part of ECCA either. ECCA’s proponents have claimed there’s accountability to the SGO donors, who want to see their generous donations being put to good use. Billy, though, is enjoying his $285,000 money grab and content to leave Fred alone until it’s time for next year’s donation.

    An invitation to discriminate—and an attempt to keep local and state governments from intervening

    Fred does have one requirement of his own for High-End Tutoring that he doesn’t need to hide. High-End Tutoring isn’t going to serve any children of Republican parents. All students must complete an attestation form—stating that they and their parents are progressive—before receiving any tutoring services from this publicly funded vendor. Across town, another SGO leader is formally excluding LGBTQ+ children and children of LGBTQ+ parents from their pool of scholarship recipients.

    ECCA, in its current form, seems to allow all of this, as objectionable as it may seem. And it’s not just an issue with SGOs funding tutoring companies or other supplemental services. Similar issues could arise with private schools, especially in states without strong anti-discrimination protections.

    From hypotheticals to reality

    The scenario above might seem ridiculous or caricatured, and to some extent it probably is. But the point is, it’s allowable under the proposed legislation, and we should be realistic about how much fraud, waste, and bad behavior a program like ECCA would invite.

    Should we not expect wealthy stockowners to jump at the opportunity to exploit ECCA’s tax shelter? Is it unreasonable to think that many of these wealthy donors will look to benefit their own communities through their donations? Have we not seen bad actors creep in when governments offer large checks with hardly any accountability or strings attached?

    This isn’t some tiny, insignificant program either. This is a $5 billion federal program that, because of a “high-use calendar year” provision in ECCA, is almost certain to grow 5% annually. In fact, the cost is likely to be considerably higher than thatdue to the foregone capital gains tax revenue. That’s not quite the size of the behemoth federal K-12 programs—Title I ($18.4 billion in FY 2024) and IDEA ($15.5 billion)—but it’s not all that far off.

    And let’s be clear about cost, because ECCA certainly isn’t paid for by the contributions of generous donors. Tax credits are would-be revenue that the IRS is no longer collecting. That money is coming from somewhere else in the budget, whether it’s cuts in education spending, cuts to Medicaid or other social services, tax hikes, or increased debt.

    This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it’s likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.

    And, in its current form, ECCA leaves a whole lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.



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  • NPR: Trump’s Agreements with Law Firms May Be Illegal

    NPR: Trump’s Agreements with Law Firms May Be Illegal


    Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump began to inflict punishments on his enemies. That included law firms that had represented his political opponents in the past, such as federal prosecutor Jack Smith and prominent Democrats. He threatened to cancel any contracts those firms held with federal agencies and to bar them from future cases involving the federal government. Several major law firms worried about financial losses and immediately gave in to Trump’s demands. All agreed to provide pro bono services for causes chosen by Trump.

    But a few major law firms refused to capitulate to Trump. Instead of agreeing to serve him, they went to court. To date, all the firms that challenged Trump have won in court. It’s a basic principle in American law that every defendant should have access to a lawyer and that lawyers can represent defendants no matter what they are accused of doing.

    Now leaders of the legal profession are saying out loud what they thought all along: Trump’s demands and punishments are illegal.

    NPR reported:

    Veteran lawyers have reached a curious conclusion about President Trump’s deals with big law firms this year: they do not appear to be legally valid.

    Trump since coming to office has punished certain firms for their past clients or causes, stripping them of security clearances and government contracts, while trumpeting deals with others, including titans like Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins.

    The White House said the nine firms it’s settled with agreed to provide about $1 billion in pro bono services in order to curtail investigations into their hiring practices and maintain access to federal buildings. But the details of those agreements remain murky, even after Democratic lawmakers demanded answers.

    “The problem with the law firm deals is … they’re not deals at all,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a professor and former dean at Yale Law School. “You know, a contract that you make with a gun to your head is not a contract.”



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  • Elon’s Tweets Today About Trump, Trump’s Responses

    Elon’s Tweets Today About Trump, Trump’s Responses


    The most famous and powerful bros broke up today. Elon Musk and Donald Trump turned on one another. Elon had spent months slashing and burning the federal government, destroying agencies and Departments.

    Congress sat back and watched, happy to relinquish their Constitutional powers to the richest man in the world. No, he can’t close down USAID, which is Congressionally authorized. No, he can’t shutter the U.S. Department of Education, without the consent of Congress. Republicans in Congress did nothing to slow him down or reclaim their Constitutional duties.

    Apparently, Elon was not happy to learn that Trump’s new budget will increase the national debt.

    The tweets flew today between Musk and Trump. I don’t have them all, but you will get the picture of intense acrimony.

    The most amazing tweet: Musk wrote that Trump would have lost and Republicans would have lost the House without Elon’s help. What did Elon do that turned the election for Trump? We know he offered million dollar rewards to Trump voters, but only a few. What else did he do? Was it something about voting machines?

    I am not taking sides. They deserve each other.

    The Boston Globe summed it up:

    May 27: Musk says he’s ‘disappointed’ in Trump’s spending bill 

    Musk criticized Trump’s spending bill, saying he was “disappointed” in the president’s bill in a CBS News interview.

    “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS. 

    DOGE stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, which has been responsible for slashing federal programs and jobs during Trump’s first months back in office.

    June 3: Musk calls Trump’s spending bill a ‘disgusting abomination’

    Just days after Musk departed as a senior adviser at the White House, the billionaire issued a scathing criticism on X, calling President Trump’s spending bill a “disgusting abomination”

    “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

    June 4: Musk continues to blast Trump’s bill

    Musk on Wednesday escalated his attacks, urging lawmakers to “KILL the BILL.”

    “Call your Senator, Call your Congressman,” Musk wrote. “Bankrupting America is NOT ok!”

    June 5: Trump threatens to cut Musk’s government contracts 

    During an Oval Office meeting Thursday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump told reporters that he was “very disappointed” with Musk as the tech billionaire continued to blast the president’s massive tax and spending cuts package. 

    “I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,” Trump said. “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

    Trump added that he and Musk “had a great relationship” but “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

    Musk swiftly responded to the president’s criticism on social media, saying “Slim and beautiful is the way.”

    “Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk wrote on X.

    “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way,” Musk added. 

    Musk continued his criticism in a series of posts, saying Trump has him to thank for winning back the Oval Office.

    “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote. 

    “Such ingratitude,” Musk wrote in a follow-up post.

    Just hours after Trump said he was “disappointed” with Musk, the billionaire fired back online — prompting Trump to stoke the flames by threatening to cut Musk’s government contracts.

    “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote Truth Social, his social media network. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

    Musk then claimed Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, then reposted a comment calling for the president’s impeachment. 

    Trump fired back on Truth social, saying Musk “just went CRAZY!”

    In a separate post, Trump touted his spending bill and suggested Musk should’ve turned against him months ago.

    OnnElin’s Twitter account (@Elonmusk), he tweeted that Trump would cause a recession in the second half of the year. He also retweeted videos of Trump partying with Jeffrey Epstein and young women.

    At 3:10 pm today, Musk tweeted:

    Time to drop the really big bomb:

    @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.

    Have a nice day, DJT!



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  • Trump’s budget would reduce Pell Grant awards and work-study programs

    Trump’s budget would reduce Pell Grant awards and work-study programs


    A commencement ceremony at California State University, Fullerton, in 2021.

    Credit: Cal State Fullerton/Flickr

    • New “K-12 Simplified Funding Program” is effectively an elimination, advocates say.
    • Proposal eviscerates programs for low-income students in both K-12 and higher education.
    • Funds for disabled students increased, but shift to flat funding is concerning to educators.

    The Trump administration is proposing the biggest cuts in a half-century to federal financial aid by reducing Pell Grant award amounts for low-income college students, plus the government’s contribution to the Federal Work-Study program. Fewer students will likely enroll in college and achieve a degree as a result, college officials say.

    The cuts are included in a proposed 15% reduction to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, totaling $12 billion in cuts to K-12 and higher education, plus sweeping changes to how remaining funding would be distributed.

    The president’s initial budget, issued on May 2, foreshadowed programs in danger of cuts or eliminations, but specifics remained vague until late last week with the release of new details.

    The budget is still under review by the Senate, which could change the administration’s proposal in any direction.

    Advocates, however, remain pessimistic and warn that this education budget request is only one aspect of the larger budget and policy concerns.

    “The biggest thing is what happens in the Senate with budget reconciliation,” said Rob Manwaring, a fiscal and policy analyst at the advocacy organization Children Now.

    The proposal eviscerates funding for programs that support students experiencing homelessness, rural students, English learners, and more. However, President Donald Trump would maintain Title I, which provides supplemental funds to schools in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, at the current $18 billion.

    K-12 funding

    Funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is slightly higher in the budget request, but advocates are concerned that federally mandated costs are rising faster than federal funding.

    Manwaring said special education, for instance, is “one of the fastest growing costs for school districts,” due to a rise in students being screened and diagnosed with disabilities, plus costs associated with the resources provided.

    The budget request lists funding for special education as an “increased investment,” but a consolidation of various programs supporting students with disabilities ultimately amounts to flat funding.

    This type of funding “is further reducing the federal government’s role in supporting special education” because it does not account for variables such as cost-of-living increases, costs of salaries and benefits for educators, a rise in disabled student populations, and other such changes, Manwaring said.

    At risk of elimination are hundreds of millions for programs that support the education of migrant students, teacher training, education research and English learners.

    The proposal includes pooling together 18 grant programs currently funded at about $6.5 billion into a single $2 billion block grant. It is titled K-12 Simplified Funding Program and the administration argues it will allow states and local education agencies flexibility in how funding is allocated.

    Those 18 programs include:

    • Education for Homeless Children and Youths (EHCY)
    • Assistance for Arts in Education
    • Statewide Family Engagement Centers
    • American Civics and History Education
    • Comprehensive Literacy State Development

    Advocates say the consolidation amounts to elimination.

    “It’s just another way of saying ‘we’re eliminating funding,’” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection. “Whether the funding is zeroed out because the line item is zeroed out or whether it’s zeroed out because supposedly it’s put into a new block grant, the program doesn’t exist anymore.”

    Part of the problem with the consolidation plan is the removal of targeted funding, she added.

    California’s Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, provides an example of how the federal consolidation plan could play out: While schools receive funding for several vulnerable student groups, the stream is not only often limited in how it can be spent, but is also shared among students with widely varying needs. This has historically led to insufficient funding for students who require much greater support, according to the Learning Policy Institute.

    Lack of targeted funding for vulnerable student groups, such as students experiencing homelessness, fails to address the specific types of support that students may need in order to keep attending school, Duffield added.

    “Who’s doing the outreach and awareness? Who’s going knocking on the doors of motels? Who’s going to shelters?” she asked, listing a multitude of tasks that homeless liaisons, funded in part with federal dollars, take care of.

    Students experiencing homelessness are one student group with a specific federal policy outlining supports that schools are required to offer. In their case, it’s the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

    Advocates are raising questions about whether the proposed funding changes could impact other federal policies.

    “Will the requirement go away if the funding goes away? That is where the ambiguity of what the information that’s been shared so far is: Will there be changes in law that accompany changes in budget?” Manwaring said.

    How higher education is faring

    California college leaders said the proposed changes and cuts to federal financial aid programs, including TRIO programs, the Pell Grant, and federal work-study, would make it more difficult for students to enroll and complete their degrees.

    TRIO programs — such as Upward Bound, Veterans Upward Bound, and McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement — aim to help disadvantaged students enroll in and complete college. Its funding, over $1 billion across 10 programs, would be fully eliminated.

    In project year 2024-25, TRIO funded almost 450 projects in California, according to an EdSource analysis of grant award data for all eight TRIO program types published by the U.S. Department of Education. Together, projects in California received about $150 million to engage more than 100,000 student participants and train 556 staff members.

    The White House proposal would also reduce the maximum Pell Grant by 23% — nearly $1,700 — from $7,395 to $5,710. The administration defends the proposed cut, saying that not reducing the maximum amount “would put the program in an untenable financial position,” and contends that the maximum award will still cover the average full amount of in-state tuition and fees for community college students. The budget summary says that overall funding levels have not kept up with broader eligibility requirements approved by former President Joe Biden.

    The proposed cut to the Pell maximum grant is the first in more than 30 years and certainly the largest by far in the more than 50 years of the program’s existence, according to federal records. Very modest reductions to the maximum award were made in 1993 and in the early 1980s.

    Additional changes imposed in the House’s reconciliation bill would strip any Pell Grant eligibility from many part-time students and change the number of minimum credits students need to get the maximum award from 12 credits per term to 15.

    Such a large reduction in the maximum grant would be “troubling” and, together with the possible eligibility changes, would mostly impact low-income students and shut off more of them to the financial aid they need to attend college, said Allie Bidwell Arcese, senior director of strategic communications and engagement for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

    In California, 24% of community college students, 35% of University of California undergraduates and about 42% of California State University students receive a Pell Grant, which is available to low-income students.

    The White House proposal would also reduce funding for Federal Work-Study by $980 million and eliminate the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant. Those changes would be less impactful to California students but still significant. To employ students in work-study jobs, colleges would have to put up 75% of their pay; currently, they contribute only 25%. With both the CSU and UC already facing cuts in federal and state funding for next year, it’s unclear whether they could afford such an increase in matching money to sustain work study at current levels.

    More than 41,000 students in California participated in the Federal Work-Study program in the 2022-23 award year, according to an EdSource analysis of Federal Student Aid data. Their earnings include almost $95 million in federal compensation.

    In addition, more than 252,000 California students received Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. The federal share of those awards was about $131 million.

    In the San Diego Community College District, more than 12,000 students receive a Pell Grant. The proposals put forth in the White House’s budget request and the House reconciliation bill would have devastating impacts on the district’s students, said Chancellor Gregory Smith.

    Roughly 4,000 students in the district get the maximum award and would lose out on about more than $1,500 annually. An additional 4,500 students take fewer than eight credits and could forgo their Pell Grants entirely under the House’s bill. Smith said he expects many of those students will end up dropping out if the proposed changes are enacted.

    “The likelihood of many of them being able to complete college would be very low,” he said. “So many of our students are in difficult financial circumstances. One bad break — car breaks down — or a medical emergency — will likely force them to have to stop their education.”

    At CSU, where more than $1 billion in Pell Grants was distributed to more than 200,000 students in 2023-24, officials estimate that 60% of Pell recipients would see their awards reduced or eliminated altogether under the White House proposal.

    A number of CSU students also stand to lose out if the cuts to the opportunity grants and work-study are enacted. Almost 40,000 students were awarded the opportunity grants, and 6,300 participated in Federal Work-Study in 2023-24.

    At UC, students and officials in recent years have advocated for the maximum Pell Grant to be doubled, arguing that the current ceiling for the award doesn’t meet student needs and forces many to take out loans. UC was thus “deeply concerned” about the White House proposal, said UC spokesperson Omar Rodriguez, particularly as the system also deals with disruptions to federal research funding.





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  • NPR Will Fight Trump’s Effort to Cut Off Funding

    NPR Will Fight Trump’s Effort to Cut Off Funding


    Oliver Darcy, media journalist, writes about NPR’s decision to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to shut it down.

    Trump is directly infringing on freedom of the press, punishing NPR because it is not slavishly devoted to him and his views.

    I listen to NPR for straightforward, unbiased news. I appreciate their long-form reports on a wide array of subjects. Many parts of the country are news deserts, where the only media available are the rightwing Sinclair radio stations and FOX News.

    The nation needs NPR, just as the world needs Voice of America, which Trump is defunding.

    As with so many of his decisions, I wonder who benefits? I have no answer.

    Darcy writes:

    When Trump signed an order to defund NPR, the network faced a choice over how it would respond—but CEO Katherine Maher made one thing clear from the start: there would be no backroom negotiations.

    In the days following Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order to strip NPR of all federal funding, leaders at the public broadcaster began deliberating their options. But even before the network’s legal team got to work on the litigation, one decision had already been made. NPR chief executive Katherine Maher made clear that the outlet would not quietly negotiate with the White House—an approach other media companies have recently taken under immense political pressure. 

    “As an independent media organization,” Maher told me by phone Tuesday, “we wouldn’t go ahead and have that conversation because that would be negotiating on editorial principle.” 

    On Tuesday morning, NPR and three of its member stations in Colorado filed a federal lawsuitagainst Trump and his administration, alleging the executive order he signed was not only punitive, but also unconstitutional. In a 43-page complaint, the stations argued that Trump’s directive violated theFirst Amendment, usurped Congress’authority over federal spending, and more broadly, posed a threat to the editorial independence of public media nationwide. 

    The language of the filing was unambiguous. It framed the executive order not as a routine dispute over funding priorities or media policy, but as a retaliatory strike designed to punish critical coverage and reshape the information environment in Trump’s favor. “The Order’s objectives could not be clearer,” the lawsuit stated. “The Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country.” 

    I asked Maher what it felt like to take a sitting president to court. She didn’t hesitate. “What did it feel like?” she rhetorically asked me. “It felt like recognizing that there are responsibilities that one takes on in running a media organization, and this was one of those.” She emphasized that the case wasn’t just about NPR’s national desk or morning programming—it was about the entire public media system: “We did this on behalf of our newsroom. We did this on behalf of our editorial independence. We did this on behalf of public media at large.”

    Maher, who only took the helm of NPR in January 2024, told me that the legal option became increasingly clear as the organization studied the implications of the executive order. “We took a look at [the order] and wanted to be able to make sure that we really analyzed it,” she said. “We got to understand what avenues existed for us to be able to seek relief—and litigation was something that we came to once we realized that fundamentally this was a First Amendment issue.” The legal review moved quickly. “Obviously, it’s only been four weeks,” Maher added, “and so you can imagine it happened on a pretty quick timeline.”

    The lawsuit was filed by not just NPR, but also Colorado Public Radio, KSUT Public Radio, and Aspen Public Radio. Together, they asked the court to block enforcement of the order and affirm that federal support for public broadcasting, which Congress has repeatedly approved, cannot be overturned by presidential fiat. For its part, NPR receives just 1% of its annual operating budgetdirectly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit that distributes federal funding. But local member stations across the country receive a much larger slice of their budgets from the $535 million in taxpayer funds CPB distributes. PBS, facing a similar predicament, said Tuesday it is also actively weighing a legal challenge of its own.

    While Trump has long treated NPR as a proxy for elite coastal media (he’s referred to it as a “liberal disinformation machine,” among other insults), Maher declined to say in her own words why he despises the outlet with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. “I really couldn’t say what the president thinks or doesn’t think,” she told me. “It’s beyond my powers to get inside his mind.” At the same time, she acknowledged the broader context in which public broadcasting has become a partisan target. “I think that we recognize that there has long been pushback about public media,” she said.

    In any case, the legal issue, she insisted, is separate from any political debate. When asked whether she worries that suing the president could further cement in the minds of the MAGA faithful that NPR has a bias against him, she pushed back. 

    “I fundamentally reject the idea that defending the Constitution is partisan,” Maher told me. “We are taking this action on behalf of the First Amendment. We’re taking this action on behalf of the free press. Regardless of your political beliefs, we all benefit from that.” She added that the lawsuit should be viewed as an act of civic duty, not political retaliation: “I would much rather people saw this as an act of patriotic commitment to our Constitution on behalf of citizens rather than saying that this is somehow partisan or political.”

    Of course, that’s not how her actions have been portrayed by MAGA Media, which—similarly to Trump–views NPR as a liberal mouthpiece of the so-called “deep state.” Maher seemed to acknowledge that reality, but said she would continue to work to get the outlet’s message out. She even said she would be willing to appear on outlets like Fox News to do so. “I’m always happy to talk to people who are happy to talk to us,” Maher said. “I think that we’d be open to having that conversation.”

    What happens if the court doesn’t rule in their favor? Maher didn’t give the possibility of such an outcome any oxygen. “I’m really confident that we will [win],” she said. “I feel that we’re on very, very solid ground, so I’m not concerned about the downside.”



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  • California Department of Education urges school districts to resist Trump’s threats over transgender athletes

    California Department of Education urges school districts to resist Trump’s threats over transgender athletes


    Flanked by fourth-place winner Ellie McCuskey-Hay, left, and first-place winner Loren Webster, right, second-place winners AB Hernandez, center right, and Brooke White share the podium during a medal ceremony for the long jump at the California high school track and field championships in Clovis.

    Credit: AP Photo / Jae C. Hong

    Top Takeaways
    • California Department of Education vows to protect “all students’ access to participate in athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.” 
    • Sixteen-year-old transgender athlete AB Hernandez shared three medals with cisgender competitors under newly rejiggered rules at California’s track and field championships last weekend, sparking controversy.
    • The U.S. Department of Justice warned California schools they may be held in violation of civil rights protections for girls.

    The California Department of Education on Tuesday weighed in on the escalating controversy over transgender athletes in school sports, advising schools to hold the line in the wake of threats from the federal government. 

    The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday issued a letter warning California school districts they will face legal trouble if they don’t pledge to bar trans athletes from competition by June 9, citing civil rights concerns. The CDE countered Tuesday, advising schools to hold fast and let it respond to the Justice Department regarding matters of gender identity on behalf of the state.

    “Let’s be clear: sending a letter does not change the law,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in a statement. “The DOJ’s letter to school districts does not announce any new federal law, and state law on this issue has remained unchanged since 2013. California state law protects all students’ access to participate in athletics in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity. We will continue to follow the law and ensure the safety of all our athletes.”

    Last weekend’s fracas over California’s track and field championships in Clovis has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s campaign to target transgender athletes in girls sports, a divisive hot-button issue that conservatives have pushed aggressively of late.

    President Donald Trump has threatened financial penalties for California public schools after a 16-year-old trans athlete, AB Hernandez, won three medals in last weekend’s California Interscholastic Federation State Track and Field Championships. Hernandez placed first in the high jump and triple jump and finished second in the long jump.

    In the wake of a key last-minute rule change, Hernandez shared the podium with her cisgender competitors. The hastily rejiggered rules allow girls to receive medals based on where they would have finished if a transgender athlete had not been allowed to compete. 

    This compromise did not mollify the president. 

    “Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump wrote in a 12:56 a.m. ET post on June 2. “As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!” he added, referring to Newsom.

    Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, argues that letting transgender athletes into girls sports competitions constitutes sex discrimination, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

    “Scientific evidence shows that upsetting the historical status quo and forcing girls to compete against males would deprive them of athletic opportunities and benefits because of their sex,” Dhillon has said. “Therefore, you cannot implement a policy allowing males to compete alongside girls, because such a policy would deprive girls of athletic opportunities and benefits based solely on their biological sex.”

    The Civil Rights Division has also announced investigations into the University of Wyoming and Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado for allegedly allowing males to live in intimate and communal spaces earmarked for females.

    Town leaders in Clovis, the largely conservative city in Central California that hosted the track and field championships, called it unfair to include a transgender athlete in girls sports, The Fresno Bee reported. Chino has also filed a lawsuit on the issue. 

    California is among 22 states with laws that allow transgender athletes to compete with girls. Amid the state’s nearly 6 million TK-12 public school students, experts say, the number of active transgender student-athletes is estimated to be in the single digits.

    Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has often jousted with Trump on social issues, shocked many on the left when he admitted that he felt allowing transgender athletes to compete against girls was “deeply unfair” during a recent interview with conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

    While Newsom himself has not as yet weighed in on this specific controversy, Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for the governor, has praised the new rules as “a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness — a model worth pursuing.”

    For her part, Hernandez, a junior at Southern California’s Jurupa Valley High, has been characterized as poised and unruffled amid the heated controversy. 

    “We could not be prouder of the way this brave student-athlete conducted herself on and off the track,” said Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, the state’s LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. 





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