Grifter in a Hurry

A Man in a Hurry

Our Grifter-in-Chief (GC) is in a hurry.  He is in a hurry because he knows that he has only a about a year to pull off one of the greatest and most spectular long cons in history: his plan to change the tax system and cut key programs in order to steal money from his working and middle-class supporters to give to billionaires like himself, like Elon Musk or like Jeff Bezos. The GC has only about a year to pull this off because historically, the president’s party loses support in the midterm elections, and because once the election season begins, he will have little chance of passing major legislation. 

A Grifter Masquerading as a Populist

In order to pull of his spectacular long con, the GC ran for office claiming to be a populist, a voice of the people against an oppressive elite. He claimed that the government was controlled by a shadowy elite in alliance with a deep state, and he said that he would be the voice of the people. If he were elected, he claimed, the people would truly be represented. 

However, the GC's populism was always a masquerade. We can see that in the main achievement of his first term in which he did nothing for working Americans but did provide a major tax cut for wealthy people like him. That was the first stage of his long con, and I imagine that he was surprised that he could pull it off so easily. 

Now, he wants to steal still more money from you and me to give to billionaires, and if he succeeds, the effect will be the greatest transfer of wealth from the American middle class to the very wealthy that our people have ever seen. To achieve that goal, he will have to cut government spending severely because otherwise, the deficit hawks in Congress will block him. His only hope of pulling off such a huge transfer of wealth is to cut services like Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP that many of his voters depend on. Such cuts will inevitably alienate many of his supporters.

The GC's populist masquerade allowed him to build a political coalition which included rural voters and the racist right. To satisfy the racist right, he promised to deport millions of immigrant workers.  Unfortunately for his coalition, that effort will decimate the work force on which many farmers and agricultural businesses depend. So, deporting the workers will split the GC's coalition, and therefore, he has to do it quickly before opposition has time to organize.

Tariffs are also a part of the GC's plan. In fact, they are a key part of the con. He has proposed that the revenue from the tariffs (paid mainly by the middle class) will replace the revenue lost when he cuts income taxes (which fall heavily on the rich).  The tariffs will not hurt the rich very much because they do not spend much of their income on goods that are taxed, and any small hurt that they feel will be more than offset by benefit they receive from a reduction in the income taxes that they pay. 

The tariffs will mainly be paid by poor and middle-class consumers who have to spend a large part of their incomes on goods that are taxed. In addition, the tariffs will bring more inflation as they cause prices to rise, and that, too, will hurt the poor and the middle class. Finally, the tariffs will bring retaliation from trading partners. The retaliation will hurt American agriculture, which depends on exports. So, the GC must complete the con before people notice what he is doing. He must cut taxes, raise tariffs and deport millions of people all before the midterm elections because he will very likely lose his control of Congress in 2026. He has just over a year to pull it off.

Time Pressure Underlies Political Conflicts

The pressure of time explains some of the political conflicts that the GC is involved in. For example, he and his supporters are furious at Judge Boasberg because his court orders will delay the deportations, and delay is the one thing that the GC cannot allow. So, he is calling for the impeachment of federal judges, and his supporters are looking for other ways to rein them in. 

The pressure of time also explains the speed of Musk’s firing of federal workers and dismantling of federal agencies. Again, the GC has no time for niceties like following legal procedures. He has to eliminate trillions of dollars in spending by the fall in order to be able to pass his tax cuts in the current Congress.

The pressure of time also explains the GC’s suppression of dissent including the muzzling of Democratic law firms. Dissent could lead to effective opposition and bring his carefully planned con to the attention of the voters. All of that would create delays that he cannot tolerate. So, he does what he can to suppress dissent.

A Ray of Hope

The time pressure that the GC is under is a ray of hope for those of us who want to preserve programs like Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP along with a progressive tax system and American democracy. Delay is our friend. We don’t have to defeat the GC decisively in the courts. We only have to delay the implementation of his policies for a year, and our system of justice provides an ideal means for doing that. We can tie him up in endless lawsuits and thus spoil his plan to rob the American people. A year is a blink of an eye in our judicial system. We can delay the long con that long. Of course, the GC will do what he can to defy or delay court rulings, but that effort will itself take time. So, there is light at the end of this tunnel.

The End of Free Speech in the United States?

An Arrest to Discourage Dissent

The recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil should make you very angry and very afraid because it is a direct assault on your right to free speech. In case you think that I am exaggerating, read on. Here is a little background on the case.

Khalil is a legal resident of the United States with a green card. He was a graduate student at Columbia University and a leader of the demonstrations against Israel's invasion of Gaza. He was arrested under a 1952 law that says that an “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the secretary of state has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” After his arrest in New York, he was shipped to a prison camp in Louisiana.

Under the 1952 statute, the government does not have to say that Khalil has committed a crime, and in fact, he has not been accused of a crime. The government has only said that flyers bearing the logo of Hamas were distributed at a protest rally of which Khalil was a leader.  In effect, Khalil has been arrested and threatened with deportation because he is believed by the secretary of state to espouse views that our president doesn't like. The courts may well prevent Khalil from being deported, but that will not matter to the Trump administration because the purpose of arresting and trying Khalil is not merely to deport him. The purpose is to show us all that it is dangerous to disagree with our president. Let me repeat that. The purpose of arresting and trying Khalil is to show that it is dangerous to disagree with our president.  

The Case Was Chosen Carefully

The administration chose its case carefully. Khalil is Palestinian by birth, and the demonstrations he led were in opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza. There are deep divisions of opinion among Americans over the invasion. Many Jews, in particular, view any criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and many Christians also have strong reasons for supporting Israel. The Trump administration believes that many people will support the arrest and deportation of Khalil because of their feelings about the invasion of Gaza and will ignore the issues of free speech that Khalil’s arrest raises.

A Method For Suppressing Dissent

It would be a grave error to ignore those issues. What is being done to Khalil is a trial run for a method of suppressing all kinds of dissent in the United States. It is a method for eliminating freedom of speech for all of us and not just for Khalil or for Palestinians. The method is not new. A variant of it was used by HUAC and by Senator Joseph McCarthy Here is how it works.

The Trump administration has threatened to deport Khalil. A district court may declare that Khalil cannot be deported because he has committed no crime, but the Trump administration won’t care. It will appeal the case up though the court system, and that will enmesh Khalil for years in an expensive and time-consuming defense. Even if the administration ultimately loses the legal case, it will have proved that it can make protests against its policies extremely expensive.

The Method Can Be Used Against American Citizens

The method can be used not only against immigrants but also against any American citizen. It can be used against you or me. The government can bring a case against an American citizen under any law of its choosing and force the citizen to defend him/herself at great expense. It won’t matter that the case is bogus or that there is no evidence to support the accusation brought against the citizen because again, the goal is not to obtain a conviction. The goal is to frighten all of us into keeping silent, and that goal will be attained. The mere threat of such a suit will be enough to stifle most dissent. To avoid even the remote possibility of being sued by the government, most people will choose to be silent. Moreover, the method described here will not be used alone. Its effect will be magnified when it is used in combination with the institutionally focused methods described in last week's post, and the results will be devastating for free speech in the United States.

The Method Can Suppress Any Kind of Activism

The threat of lawsuits can also be used to prevent citizens from promoting causes or engaging in activities that the president opposes.  A recent article in The New Republic tells us that, "The FBI is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration." The groups are being accused of defrauding the United States by accepting the grants, and here again, the government can lose in court and still attain its objective, which is to make American citizens afraid to espouse causes or promote ideas that are opposed by the president. 

Resist While You Still Can

So, don't kid yourself. Khalil's case is not just about him. It is not about American policy in the Middle East or even about the rights of immigrants. It is about you. It is about all of us. It is about our freedom to speak out. If you care at all about preserving your freedom, you will resist with all of your strength while you still can. Soon, it may be too late.

Fake Science, Suppression of Dissent and Death

Who Was Lysenko?

Today, hardly anyone remembers  Trofim Lysenko, Josef Stalin’s favorite biologist, but in his day, he was responsible for millions of deaths. His story shows us how dangerous it is to put a believer in fake science in a position of authority that allows him/her to suppress dissenting views. Lysenko insisted, contrary to standard biological theory, that acquired characteristics could be inherited. His beliefs led him to recommend agricultural practices that were responsible for widespread crop failures that caused  the famines from which millions of people died in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.

Lysenko was able to do what he did because Stalin suppressed dissent in the Soviet Union rigidly. A person could be imprisoned for expressing unapproved ideas including any disagreement with Lysenko’s scientific theories. So, there was a deadly silence. It was deadly because fake scientific theories can kill people, and that is what happened in the Soviet Union. Lysenko was put in charge of the collectivization of agriculture, and he was able to forcethe farmers to adopt practices that led to massive crop failures. As a result, millions of people died of famine in those years. No one could protest because dissent was suppressed, and protests were illegal.

Is Robert Kennedy a Lysenko?

Robert Kennedy, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, believes in fake science concerning vaccinations, and he is trying to suppress dissent. He has recently issued an order prohibiting public comments in the rule-making process at HHS. Rules regarding public health will be written without comment from scientists or others outside of HHS. Inevitably, bad decisions will be made, and bad public health decisions kill people. We are already seeing children die in the measles epidemic in Texas as a result of anti-vaccination propaganda.

The Battle Over the Suppression of Dissent Here at Home

Kennedy and Donald Trump his boss cannot yet suppress dissent completely, but they are doing what they can to change that. That is why Trump has revoked the security clearances of lawyers who have filed lawsuits against the government in the past. A recent New York Times article, quotes the legal scholar Thomas Vladeck saying:

What the Trump administration is doing is not just about specific lawyers representing unpopular clients, but is rather far more ominous: The administration is acting in ways that will necessarily chill a growing number of lawyers from participating in any litigation against the federal government, regardless of who the client is.

That, in turn, will make it harder for many clients adverse to the Trump administration to find lawyers to represent them — such that at least some cases either won’t be brought at all or won’t be brought by the lawyers best situated to bring them.

 In addition, Trump announced recently that colleges and universities that allow what he called “illegal protests” will lose their federal funding, and that students who participate in such protests will be arrested. 

No lawsuits and no protests. 

In addition, scientists at the Center for Disease Control are now discouraged from engaging in research with colleagues outside the CDC and are forbidden to publish research results that conflict with the Trump administration's executive orders. This mirrors the approach used in Stalin's Soviet Union, where nothing could be published that had not been approved by the Communist Party.  

Moreover, federal support for university research is being cut, and given Trump’s well-known tendency to reward his friends and punish his enemies, we can feel confident that the remaining federal dollars will be directed to institutions and projects that support him and his agenda. Scientists who need research funding to further their careers will learn to avoid criticizing Kennedy just as Soviet scientists learned to avoid criticizing Lysenko. 

We can see the results in a recent New York Times article, which says,

The silence grows louder every day.

Fired federal workers who are worried about losing their homes ask not to be quoted by name. University presidents fearing that millions of dollars in federal funding could disappear are holding their fire. Chief executives alarmed by tariffs that could hurt their businesses are on mute.

Even longtime Republican hawks on Capitol Hill, stunned by President Trump's revisionist history that Ukraine is to blame for its invasion by Russia, and his Oval Office blowup at President Volodymyr Zelensky, have either muzzled themselves, tiptoed up to criticism without naming Mr. Trump or completely reversed their positions.

More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond.

People on both sides of the aisle who would normally be part of the public dialogue about the big issues of the day say that are intimidated by the prospect of online attacks from Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, concerned about harm to their companies and frightened for the safety of their families. Politicians fear banishment by a party remade in Mr. Trump's image and the prospect of primary opponents financed by Mr. Musk, the president's all-powerful partner and the world's richest man.

The silence that "grows louder every day" endangers all of our lives because epidemics can kill people just as effectively as famines. How far will Kennedy go if our freedom to speak out is limited or destroyed? How many Americans will die?

The Grifter-in-Chief Swindles His Working-Class Supporters to Reward His Billionaire Friends

The Grifter in Chief Will Cut Medicaid to Give Tax Cuts to Billionaires

Last week, under pressure from the Grifter-in-Chief (GC) in the White House, the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that envisions enormous tax cuts for billionaires that will be paid for by cuts in the Medicaid and food assistance programs that many of Grifter’s supporters depend on. That is to say that the Grifter will stiff his working class supporters in order to give money to his billionaire supporters. Medicaid is a tempting target because it is big. As a recent New York Times article said,

Once considered a poor people’s program, Medicaid has proved itself a political juggernaut. Why? Start with the money. The Medicaid program spends about $900 billion a year in state and federal funds, paying for close to one-fifth of health care expenditures in the United States. The program is the primary payer for almost two-thirds of nursing home residents and funds just over 60 percent of long-term care.

A Clear Expression of the Confidence Game Played by the Grifter's Republicans

Cutting Medicaid would be a clear expression of the confidence game at the heart of the GC’s Republican Party. The Party serves the interests of oligarchic billionaires who want to reduce the taxes they pay and at the same time depends on the votes of white,working-class people many of whom depend on government programs like Medicaid or SNAP. The billionaires pay for Republican electoral campaigns, and the working-class people provide the votes. They do so because they are the victims of a confidence game in which they are promised benefits that the candidates do not intend to deliver. The voters are swindled.

In the most recent election, millions of working-class people voted for the GC because they believed that they were voting to “Make America Great Again.” They expected that groceries and housing would be cheaper. They expected that there would be more jobs in manufacturing. Some expected that millions of immigrants would be deported. These voters did not vote to lose their health insurance or their food. They did not expect that America would be great again only for billionaire oligarchs. These voters are being swindled.

In campaigning, the GC focused on the fears and hopes of his white, working-class supporters. His campaign speeches were filled with promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to restore “family values,” to bring down the price of eggs and to create lots of manufacturing jobs. In governing, on the other hand, the GC focuses on the rewarding his billionaire supporters.  He has Musk his Assistant Grifter eliminating programs and firing thousands of government workers in order to reduce government expenses enough to allow the taxes paid by the billionaires to be cut. The pretense is that the cuts increase the efficiency of our government although there has been no effort to determine which if any cuts would really increase its efficiency. 

Some Republican legislators have already noticed that the Grifter-in-Chief wants to swindle their constituents in order to reward the billionaires. The legislators have gently voiced their concern, but they have not yet found enough courage to oppose the GC directly. Some legislators are concerned about job losses in their districts, while others are concerned about cuts to SNAP or Medicaid.

The Deficit Hawks Block the Way

The problem for the Grifter-in-Chief and his oligarchic friends is that the deficit hawks in Congress have made it clear that they will oppose his tax cuts unless they are balanced by cuts in federal spending, but cutting federal spending is not easy, especially when the GC wants to increase spending on military preparedness, on controlling the border and on deporting 11 million undocumented workers. He cannot reward oligarchs like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos without cutting federal spending substantially, and the only cuts available to him are firing lots of federal workers - which will do great harm to the economies of states like Idaho - and cutting programs like SNAP and Medicaid that his working class supporters depend on. In order to reward his billionaire friends, the GC will literally have to take health insurance away from hardworking Americans and take food away from hungry children. He will have to swindle his supporters, and of course, he has always known that. 

Swindling Makes the Grifter in Chief Vulnerable

It appears that the GC will not hesitate to swindle his working-class supporters to reward his billionaire friends, but the swindling makes him vulnerable to attack both from Democrats and from Republicans from swing districts. We should not hesitate to take advantage of the GC’s vulnerability. Oppose the oligarchy! Attack the Grifter-in-Chief now and keep attacking!