For a good belly-laugh, there's nothing better than pulling up clips of that bumbling, incompetent band of policemen created for the silent screen by Mack Sennett who became known as the "Keystone Cops."

I promise you that you'll laugh yourself silly - until, about halfway through, you'll stop in your tracks like I did. OMG, you'll say, this isn't funny a ny more. Because the Keystone Cops are back - in real life this time, not on celluloid - and now they're running the country!

Indeed, so far the Trump administration resembles nothing so much as a rerun of the Keystone Cops, or that'50s classic television series, "The Original Amateur Hour." And that's nowhere more evident than in the scandal now called "Signalgate." Let's start with the facts.

Fact. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gathered top administration officials together to reveal plans for an American military strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. In addition to Hegseth, on that call were the National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Also in the chat, mistakenly invited to join by Waltz, was journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

Fact. Hegseth called his meeting, not in a secure room, or "SCIF" - many of which are located in the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and the Capitol - but on a commercial app called "Signal," which, while it does have some encryption, is not a secure government communications system. It's one step up from scheduling a Zoom meeting to unveil detailed plans for going to war.

Fact. No question. This is an unprecedented, shocking and inexcusable breach of national security which put the lives of American soldiers at risk. If any military officer revealed such plans on a public app, he'd be summarily court-martialed. And any civilian leader who took part in such an exercise should be fired. Didn't any one of those so-called "geniuses" in the chat think to ask: "Why are we discussing military secrets online?" Or "Why's this reporter in the room?"

As is always the case with Donald Trump, once the story broke, the denial and cover-up was as bad as the scandal. First, because that's what he always does, Trump attacked Greenberg personally, calling him a "sleazebag," and dismissing The Atlantic as a "failing magazine." Which is not true, and which has nothing to do with the substance of the Hegseth chat. And, remember, Goldberg did not sneak his way into the chatroom. He was invited to join by Trump's national security adviser.

Then, unbelievably, Trump, Hegseth and the other Cabinet members insisted there was "no classified information" discussed on the call. An assertion totally destroyed the next day when Goldberg published the timeline provided in Hegseth's chatroom, which - hours before the military operation began - included such crucial details as the targets of the attacks, the fighter planes and weapons to be used, the way they would be delivered and the precise timing of each missile launch. The only thing missing were the names of the pilots.

If that's not classified information, what is? As retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC: "This was an egregious breach of security that put Navy combat flyers at risk." The Wall Street Journal called it "security malpractice."

Equally disgusting is the reaction of cowardly Republican members of Congress. Just a few years ago, they demanded that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be "locked up" for using her personal computer to email friends. Yet Donald Trump's team uses an unsecured online chatroom to discuss details of a military strike and their response is: Crickets! No outrage. No demands that anybody be fired. No calls for congressional hearings. Crickets! Cowards!

This may be the worst screw-up by the Trump gang, but it's hardly the first. The last two months have seen a string of embarrassing moves: ordering a freeze on all federal grants, only to rescind it the next day; firing scores of Department of Energy employees, but forced to rehire them when learning they were responsible for overseeing nuclear weapons; also forced to rehire fired Agriculture employees leading the fight against bird flu; and taking many actions blocked by courts as clearly illegal.

No surprise, I guess. When you elect an incompetent president who surrounds himself with incompetent people, this is what you get. But, after two months of the Keystone Cops, the big question for 77 million Americans remains: Are you still glad you voted for this clown?

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Bill Press: Democrats: This is not the time to surrender or play nice

It's what everyone is asking today: Having had their clocks cleaned in November 2024 - and with the country facing an existential threat to our democracy - can Democrats ever get back on top? And if so, how?

First, two important points. One: No doubt, the Democratic Party will bounce back, as it always has before. As bad as November 2024 was, we've seen worse. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 49 out of 50 states. Two years later, Democrats regained control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1980.

Two: It's going to take time. Given all the damage he's doing every day, we're all frustrated and angry that Democrats haven't yet stopped Donald Trump in his tracks. But, though it seems like an eternity, it's only been five weeks. Republicans were also in total disarray after Obama's election in 2008. It took them six months to come up with a strategy, which was to deny Obama a second term. Democrats already have a strategy, taking back the Senate and House in 2026.

The big question is: How? This week, we saw three examples of how not to do it. From Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Gavin Newsom. Democrats are never going to win by surrender (Schumer), waiting for the sky to fall (Jeffries) or playing nice (Newsom).

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer infuriated fellow Democrats by attacking the Republicans' budget bill one day, and then announcing he'd vote for allowing it to proceed the next. He defended his decision by insisting Democrats only had two choices: shutting down the government or going along with a bad bill. The bill sucks, he argued, but a government shutdown sucks worse. So, without putting up a fight, he simply surrendered.

Schumer was dead wrong. A shutdown would have been a disaster Trump could easily blame on Democrats, but Democrats had at least two other alternatives. One, proposed by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), was pushing for a four-week extension to negotiate a bipartisan solution. The other was simply to fight like hell.

Even if they lost that battle, Democrats could have used that time to let the American people know how dangerous the Republican budget plan is. It guts funding for health care, increases military spending while slashing $13 billion in domestic spending, funds mass deportations and cuts many vital services, including FEMA's disaster relief program, which is out of money after last year's disastrous tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires. But Democrats never got that message out because Schumer walked off the field.

Newsom, meanwhile, adopted the losing strategy of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." He launched a new podcast and bizarrely invited as his first guests three extreme MAGA Republicans: Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon and Michael Savage. In this case, Newsom's extreme ambition got in the way of his good judgment. You don't give the opposition a platform to spew their lies. And if you do invite them on, you don't play nice. You challenge them and prove them wrong.

As Democratic leader of the House, Jeffries takes the "wait and see" approach. Yes, Trump's doing a lot of bad stuff, he admits. But, he shrugs, "We can't swing at every pitch." Which raises the obvious question: How long do you wait before you swing - and do you have any juice left when you finally do?

"Right now, you have to swing at every pitch," counters Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). "If you let some of these egregious acts of his early days pass without real protest, it normalizes the behavior. It ends up less likely that you convince anyone to get off the mat later on."

Murphy's right. And, fortunately, he's not the only one speaking out. So is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), holding packed rallies in the Midwest to protest Trump's dismantling of the federal government. So is Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, comparing Trump's authoritarianism to the rise of Nazism in Germany.

And so is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the first to challenge Schumer's surrender, recently named in an SRSS poll as the politician who best represents the Democratic Party's "core values." In that same poll, 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said that opposing the GOP should be the party's number one priority, rather than trying to find common ground with MAGA.

Surrender, playing nice or sitting on the sidelines is not the answer. Democrats must be raising hell every day, on every platform, against every Trump outrage. There's no time to waste. The 2026 midterms are only 19 months away.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

We know what he's against. What is Donald Trump for?

We remember the good old days: when we had the strongest and best economy in the world. America was firing on all cylinders. Wages, consumer spending and corporate profits were up. Unemployment was at a record low. The stock markets were at a record high. The labor market added 7.9 million new jobs. And inflation, which popped up for a few months, was falling.

Believe it or not, that was just a month ago. We remember the good old days, under Joe Biden. It took Donald Trump only a month to destroy it all. Today, the markets are plummeting; unemployment - thanks to tens of thousands of workers fired by Trump - is soaring; inflation is creeping back up; and consumer prices are about to explode as Trump pursues his mindless, confusing, on-again-off-again trade war against Mexico, China, Canada and Western Europe.

And Americans don't like it. In the latest CNN/SRSS poll, 56% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy and 61% oppose his position on tariffs. Overall, only 45% of Americans approve of the way he's handling the presidency so far; 55% disapprove. Trump's honeymoon with voters lasted about as long as his honeymoon with Melania.

There's a good reason why Americans, even many who voted for him in 2024, have turned sour on Donald Trump so soon. Because, while it's easy to see what he's against, he's almost impossible to figure out what he's for.

Clearly, he's against education. What used to be a major plank of the Republican Party - that nothing was more important than giving American child the best possible education - means nothing to Donald Trump. He's determined to end any federal role in public schools - and has already, just this week, fired one-half of all employees of the Department of Education, on his way to eliminating it altogether.

Clearly, he's against science. With his blessing, Co-President Elon Musk has taken a chainsaw to several federal agencies where scientists are doing unsung but critical scientific research. Scientists have been fired and labs are shuttered in the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Clearly, he's against veterans. Trump's clobbered them twice. Roughly one-third of all federal employees are veterans (under a priority hiring program begun under President Barack Obama) so many of them are likely to face firings. On top of that, Trump has announced plans to fire 80,000 employees of the Veterans Administration, which will mean drastic cuts in medical care for America's 9 million veterans in 170 VA medical centers.

Clearly, he's against the environment. He's rolled back most of Biden's moves on climate change and renewable energy. He's repealed dozens of environmental regulations, including on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks. Lee Zeldin, Trump's EPA chief, says the agency's new goal is to "lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business" - no mention of "protecting the environment and public health," for which the EPA was created by Richard Nixon in 1970.

Clearly, he's against national parks. He's already fired 1,000 National Park Service employees and demanded that NPS come up with a plan to cut costs by 30%, while shutting down 34 park service centers nationwide. This despite the fact that national parks - which attract 300 million visitors annually - represent only one-fifteenth of 1% of the federal budget, yet contribute $55.6 billion in revenues to the federal budget.

Clearly, he's against the arts. He took over the Kennedy Center, for which he named a new MAGA chair and board of trustees. He disbanded the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, created by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. He fired one-half of the General Services Administration staff responsible for overseeing 26,000 public artworks in federal buildings, including the huge, red, iconic Alexander Calder "Flamingo" sculpture in Chicago.

No need to mention how much Trump's against immigrants. Still, you must ask: While he's busy destroying so much, is there anything Donald Trump is actually for?

Yes, as we discovered this week. He's for anything to help the richest man on the planet get even richer, including turning the revered South Lawn of the White House into a used-car lot and urging Americans to buy a car most of them can't afford, especially after he's fired so many of them.

After just one disastrous month, the big question for 77 million Americans is: Are you still glad you voted for this clown?

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
 

News outlets scrambled to find the right words to describe Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress this week. CNN: "unapologetic." Politico: "raucous." New York Times: "rowdy." The Hill: "campaign rally-like."

All of which are true. But I think The Bulwark summed it up better: "childish, silly, and unimpressive." To which I would add: disgusting, embarrassing, insulting, demented, disrespectful, offensive, provocative, perverse, mocking, mean-spirited, unwatchable, egomaniacal, packed with lies, and far, far too long. 100 minutes. 9,888 words.

Only a madman would begin a speech to Congress by bragging that it has been "stated by many" that his first month in office was "the most successful in the history of our nation." Stated by whom? Name one person! He didn't. He can't. But Trump didn't stop there. If he had the most successful month ever, that makes him the greatest president ever. "And what makes it even more impressive," Trump continued, "is that you know who No. 2 is? George Washington!"

The next morning, with exquisite timing, NOTUS - the great news outlet recently launched by the Allbritton Journalism Institute - gathered a group of journalists to discuss how to cover Trump 2.0. The general consensus was that, no matter how challenging covering this president is, it's important that reporters simply do their job: ask tough questions, tell the people what's going on and speak truth to power.

It's in speaking "truth to power" that I expose, out of hundreds of lies Trump told Tuesday night, a few of the biggest whoppers.

Mandate. "The presidential election of Nov. 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades." False. It's no mandate. Not even close. Trump's margin over Kamala Harris was 1.5 points, the fifth smallest margin of 32 presidential races since 1900. He didn't win most of the popular vote, either: 50.2% of Americans voted for someone else.

Economy. His first term, Trump again claimed, gave us "the most successful economy in the history of our country." No, not true. According to FactCheck.Org, here are the economic numbers: We lost 2.7 million jobs. Unemployment climbed to 6.4%. Home prices rose 27.5%. And the federal debt soared from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.

Free speech. "I've stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America." No way. Just the opposite. Trump initiated government censorship by banning AP reporters from White House press events because they won't say "Gulf of America," and decreed that from now on, he alone, not the White House Correspondents Association, will decide which reporters get to cover him. Vladimir Putin did the same thing.

Price of eggs. "Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control." Ha! Yes, the price of eggs did soar last year. But only because the Agriculture Department required poultry farmers to destroy millions of egg-laying hens to prevent an outbreak of bird flu. With the continuing threat of bird flu, USDA projects egg prices will increase this year by 41.1%.

Social Security. As an example of "waste and fraud," Trump cited "1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229" on Social Security and "one person listed at 360 years of age." Ridiculous. Officials quickly pointed out these were merely people for whom there is no known date of death. They're not still getting checks.

Inflation. Under Biden, Trump claimed, "we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years. Perhaps even in the history of our country, they're not sure." Not true. And they are sure. Inflation soared to 9.1% in June 2022. It was 23.75% in 1920. When Biden left office, inflation had cooled to 2.9%. Under Trump, it's now 3%.

Bureaucracy. "The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over." LOL. Maybe Trump's biggest lie of all, because everybody knows that an unelected, unconfirmed bureaucrat from South Africa is now actually running the government!

Of course, those are only a few of Trump's cascade of lies. Which is only important if you think lying is wrong. Sadly, most people today don't seem to care. They may still teach their kids to tell the truth, but they don't care if the biggest liar of all time is in the White House.

How far we've come from the wisdom of French philosopher Michel de Montaigne: "Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. If we realized the horror and weight of lying, we would see that it is more worthy of the stake than other crimes."

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Who's in charge? It's not Donald Trump

No wonder the American people are confused. At first, it's hard to know who's actually running the country these days, the elected President Donald Trump or the unelected, unconfirmed "Shadow" President Elon Musk.

But take a closer look and there's no doubt about it. Who stood alongside the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office last week taking questions from reporters for half an hour? Not Donald Trump, but Elon Musk. Who ordered 2.3 million federal workers to tell him five things they'd done the previous week or be fired? Not Donald Trump, but Elon Musk. And who was standing up, dominating Donald Trump's first second-term Cabinet meeting, giving orders to Cabinet secretaries? Not Donald Trump, but Elon Musk.

No, that mad man from South Africa, unvetted and unelected to anything, is not the shadow president, he's the acting president. Another big Trump lie. He said he was going to be a dictator for one day. He didn't tell us he was going to make Elon Musk a dictator for four years. When does Musk move into the Lincoln Bedroom?

No doubt about it, Musk is running the show, taking a chainsaw to the federal government, already destroying the lives of many American families with his mass firings, and handicapping the ability of government agencies to provide important services.

What's striking is not only how much harm Musk has done in just one month, but also, despite his reputation as a genius, how badly he's screwed things up. He fired 300 employees of the National Nuclear Security Agency without realizing they were responsible for guarding America's nuclear arsenal - and had to hire them back. He fired a group of workers at the Department of Agriculture without realizing they were coordinating the government's response to bird flu - and had to hire them back. While the nation's still dealing with the impact of two deadly air crashes, Musk fired FAA employees without realizing they were providing backup to air traffic controllers - and had to rehire them. On DOGE's website, Musk bragged about saving $8 billion by canceling a diversity program at ICE - only to admit later that the total cost of the program was $8 million, not $8 billion and, in two and a half years, only $2.5 million of it had been spent.

Wait! It gets worse. Under Musk's orders, VA Secretary Doug Collins proudly announced he was cutting 875 government contracts for a savings of $2 billion. Two days later - after the Washington Post reported those contracts covered such essential services as basic medical care, cancer treatment, recruiting new doctors at the VA's 170 hospitals, and paying costs of burial services for veterans' families - Musk and Collins reversed course and renewed all 875 contracts.

But, of course, that didn't spare veterans from the Musk/Trump massacre. Thanks to a program begun by First Lady Michelle Obama, which requires federal agencies to give veterans priority status in new hires, 30 percent of federal employees today are veterans. Which means that almost one-third of all workers fired by Trump and Musk so far are veterans, one group that Republicans promised never to abandon - until Elon Musk and Donald Trump came along. Thanks for your service, indeed.

And Musk is just getting started. He's already given federal agencies a mid-April deadline for submitting plans to move their operations out of Washington. He's targeted cutting the work force at the Social Security Administration in half, cutting EPA by 65 percent, firing 7,000 employees at IRS, gutting the National Park Service, and cutting the Equal Opportunity staff at the Department of Labor by 90 percent.

Here's what's really galling: While Musk sells himself as the champion against waste and fraud, he himself has pocketed more than $38 billion in federal loans, contracts and subsidies over the years. He wouldn't be the business success he is today without the federal government. He's not only cruel, he's a phony.

Two things for sure. One, you can't take such a meat ax approach to government without its blowing up in your face. Two, when it does, Trump will try to blame it all on Elon Musk. But don't be fooled. Trump gave Musk the power. And rather than try to rein him in, Trump has encouraged Musk to be even more "aggressive." Donald Trump is Elon Musk.

In the meantime, this is the only time I've ever agreed with Steve Bannon, who's called Musk "truly evil." We don't need any dude from South Africa wrecking our government, while telling us what democracy is all about.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Put on your marching shoes! Time to hit the streets!

As bad as it is, there are parts of the country where the damage already done by Donald Trump has not yet sunk in. But, as I discovered, Washington, D.C., is not one of them.

On Presidents' Day, walking down the Capitol Mall, I came across a huge crowd, out in freezing weather, protesting the firing of federal employees. On the Metro a couple of days later, a young woman boarded the train and sat alongside me, carrying a sign "NIH Research Saves Lives." Curious, I paused the book I was listening to and asked her what was going on.

She told me she'd just been summarily fired as a scientist at the National Institute of Health. After working for four years as a contractor, she'd been invited to become a federal employee and was serving her first year of probation at NIH, during which she'd personally received five awards for outstanding research on mental health. Then, out of the blue, she and her entire team received a pro-forma email from Musk's DOGE telling them they were fired because their work was not important. Yet, as she pointed out, there's no government work more important for public health than ongoing research by scientists at NIH and CDC on chronic diseases and possible cures. We were only able to produce a COVID vaccine so quickly, for example, because of the years of research previously done at NIH.

A couple of stops later, she got off the subway, headed to another protest in front of the Health and Human Services Agency, now under the helm of vaccine-denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I regret I didn't get off the train with her.

And I've been wondering ever since: What's it going to take for the rest of us to get off the couch and take to the streets in protest against Donald Trump? After only one month, it's clear that he's more dangerous than we feared. He makes no bones about his intentions to destroy democracy. This week, he tweeted: "Long Live the King!" And he's not kidding.

Consider first: Trump assembled the most unqualified gaggle of misfits possible to form his Cabinet, every one of them pledged to destroy the very agencies they're supposed to lead. And over all of them he empowered Elon Musk, an unelected madman, to gut the federal government.

Musk may be the wealthiest man on the planet, he's also the dumbest. He fired hundreds of employees at the Department of Energy without realizing their job was to protect our nuclear weapons stockpile - and then had to hire them back. He fired dozens of employees at the Department of Agriculture, only to learn they'd been working on bird flu - and had to rehire them, too. In the wake of three recent plane crashes, he fired hundreds of critical workers at the FAA. He bragged about saving $8 billion by shutting down a diversity office at ICE, but later admitted the program was actually funded for $8 million, not $8 billion. And he promised to eliminate FEMA - which might be fine, until the next hurricane hits. Musk himself should be fired for incompetence.

Meanwhile, Trump swings his own wrecking ball. He ordered an end to birthright citizenship, guaranteed in the Constitution. In violation of federal law, he fired 17 inspectors general and the watchdog head of the Office of Special Counsel. He took over the Kennedy Center, started rounding up undocumented workers and sending them to Guantanamo Bay, started a new trade war with Mexico and China, and banned the AP from White House briefings because they won't call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America."

On foreign policy, Trump upended 80 years of American support for democracy by embracing Vladimir Putin, spouting Kremlin propaganda and blaming Ukraine, not Russia, for starting the war.

And the list of outrages grows every day. What more evidence do we need? Trump must be stopped now.

How? One thing for sure: spineless Republicans in Congress won't do it. Neither will Trump's flunkies on the Supreme Court. Massive public protests are the only answer. In 1968, demonstrations by millions of Americans stopped the war in Vietnam. More recently, crowds stopped Bibi Netanyahu from gutting the Israeli Supreme Court and drove Syria's Bashar al-Assad from power.

Americans must hit the streets now to stop Donald Trump while we still have any democracy worth saving. I don't know who will step up to organize such mass protests, but once the call comes - I'm ready to march.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Have you hugged a bureaucrat yet today?

Call me a contrarian, but today I'm going to do something unpopular: I'm going to stand up for federal employees - and, while I'm at it, for city, county and state employees, too. You know, all those people Elon Musk and Donald Trump snidely dismiss as "bureaucrats."

Unlike most presidents, who take office promising to create new jobs, Donald Trump's doing just the opposite: rushing to kill jobs. He's given unelected Anti-Jobs Czar Elon Musk authority to fire tens of thousands of federal workers - in order to get the money he needs to give billionaires like Musk another tax cut.

First, let's stipulate that there's always fat to cut in government: a lot of overlap and too many programs that no longer serve any purpose kept needlessly alive. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

In 1978, California Governor Jerry Brown did it the right way. Forced to slash state spending across-the-board after passage of Proposition 13, he formed a task force to look for places to cut. There were three of us: Finance Director Roy Bell, Chief of Staff Dick Silberman, and me, director of the Office of Planning and Research. We met with every cabinet secretary and department head. We asked them to justify every dollar and asked them where cuts might be made. We then presented our recommendations to the governor, who made the final decisions.

Give Brown credit. It was a painful process, but it was handled with planning, investigation, intelligence, evidence, care and compassion - the exact opposite of the meat-axe approach Elon Musk is taking today, with Donald Trump's blessing. In fact, the only surprise this week when Trump signed yet another executive order giving yet more power to Musk was that the world's richest man was standing alongside the Resolute desk, not sitting behind it.

Musk began by asking all 2.3 million civilian federal employees to resign by early February, in return for a questionable "promise" to pay them through September 30. That grace period having ended, he's now begun firing scores of employees, starting at the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration and the United States Agency for International Development, whose ranks he's shrunk from 14,000 to about 200.

In some cases, these mass firings are being done against the law. In every case, they're carried out with no public hearings and no consideration of how key these jobs are, how they've been performed, or what happens to the important work done by federal agencies after most employees are gone.

In the Oval Office, Musk told reporters it's a war of the bureaucracy v. democracy. Which just shows how clueless and heartless he is. Bureaucrats aren't the enemy of democracy. Bureaucrats are the ones who deliver the benefits of democracy to millions who depend on them.

Bureaucrats are, first of all, middle-class Americans who could probably be making a lot more in the private sector, but who chose a life of public service. They're people who live paycheck to paycheck, with families to support, kids to put through school, and bills to pay at the end of the month - something Musk knows nothing about.

Federal employees are not, as Trump claims, the "deep state." For the most part, they don't take sides. In fact, they're prohibited by law from engaging in politics. They just do their job, regardless of who's in the White House.

And federal employees are not, as Musk claims, corrupt. He insists that many bureaucrats are on the take - using federal funds to line their own pockets - without giving ONE example. Besides, if there were any employees breaking the law, Congress provided the solution: an inspector general to police every federal agency. But, of course, inspectors general can't do that any longer - because Trump fired them all!

Federal employees are not the enemy. They're people we count on: to deliver the mail; inspect food production facilities; develop and approve safe, new prescription drugs; provide security at our airports; maintain our federal highways; issue our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid checks; staff our embassies around the world; oversee our great national parks and forests; issue passports; deliver clean air and clean water; keep America competitive in trade and energy, and so much more, including cracking down on criminals who break the law (but not politicians, unless they, too, break the law).

Public employees deserve our respect and thanks and maybe a hug. They keep America in business. America would grind to a halt without them.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
 

You can't say he didn't warn us. In three weeks, Donald Trump has taken a wrecking ball to our democratic institutions, trying to deliver on every wild campaign promise he made.

The scope of his lawless actions even stunned some of his supporters. Oh, he won't pardon all January criminals, they assured us, just those who'd not engaged in violence. Wrong! Oh, he won't round up all undocumented persons, just those with a criminal record. Wrong! Oh, he's not going to eliminate the Department of Education, just reform it. Wrong again!

Trump and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk, are determined to tear it all down and, so far, there seems no way to stop them. Clearly, cowardly Senate Republicans won't do it. Neither will puppy dog Speaker Mike Johnson. Nor Trump's rubber stamp Supreme Court, which has already practically given him total immunity.

In just three weeks, there have been so many mind-blowing executive actions - all of them ignoring the role of Congress, expanding the powers of an imperial presidency and violating or undermining existing law - it's hard to decide which is worst. Here are a few of the more outrageous examples. You decide.

January 6. In one fell swoop, Trump pardoned all those charged with following his orders and storming the U.S. Capitol, including some 200 guilty of assaulting police officers.

Justice Department. On Trump orders, the acting attorney general fired dozens of career DOJ prosecutors, merely for working with Special Counsel Jack Smith in his case against the former president for his role in the insurrection.

FBI. The deputy acting attorney general fired eight senior officials for assisting Smith and warned that anyone else in the bureau who worked with Smith could also be fired. A president sends an armed mob to attack the Congress. You help investigate him for it? You're fired! For doing your job!

Treasury Department. Last weekend, Elon Musk sent his thugs into the Treasury Department to seize all records of the government's centralized payment system, including highly sensitive private information on every federal employee.

Birthright Citizenship. Defying the U.S. Constitution, Trump declared that birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment, no longer exists. Why? Because he says so.

Inspectors General. Ignoring the legal requirement that he give Congress 30 days notice and a detailed report before doing so, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, some of whom he'd appointed himself.

CIA. As part of his plan to gut the entire federal government - with no consideration for the expertise lost or who would replace them - Trump asked 2.3 million civilian federal employees and every agent of the CIA to consider resigning by Sept. 30. With the promise of a "buy-out" he has no authority to deliver.

Gaza. Then, of course, styling himself after Alexander the Great, there's Trump's plan for seizing Greenland, Panama and Gaza and making Canada the 51st state. You can't make this stuff up!

But for me, the worst Musk/Trump outrage is dismantling the US Agency for International Development, or USAID. All worldwide USAID missions have been shut down. And all USAID workers have been ordered home by this weekend.

What a disaster. USAID was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, in the middle of the Cold War, to provide a humane presence, not a military presence, for the United States throughout the world. Since then, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, it has saved millions of lives, providing food, health care, housing and security for the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world. USAID is credited with preventing a 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea and, through George W. Bush's anti-AIDS PEPFAR program, saving 26 million lives so far. Until last weekend, it was engaged in fighting malaria in Uganda. So many lives saved, at so low a cost: less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

But now, suddenly, all of that goodwill built up over 60 years is gone. No doubt, as a result, millions will suffer and die of disease. Because Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, decided to wage war on the poorest people on the planet. He called it a "criminal organization" and, with Trump's full support, shut it down.

Nothing could be more short-sighted, more heartless or counter to centuries of civilized behavior, as spelled out in Matthew 25/40: "Today, I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Trump should have read it, and shown it to Elon Musk, before killing USAID.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 

Would you buy a new or used car from this man?

We've survived two turbulent weeks of Trump Two. And, amid all the chaos, there's no doubt who's in charge. He's the man of the hour. He's everywhere: giving orders, making demands, blasting what he doesn't like, and seizing the role of spokesman for the United States around the world. And, of course, I'm talking about - not Donald Trump, but - Elon Musk.

Musk, you must admit, is the most controversial man on the planet today. He's possibly the most talented. He's maybe the most dangerous, more so than Donald Trump. And he's definitely the most difficult to define.

On the one hand, TESLA alone earns Musk recognition as one of history's most brilliant innovators and businessmen. When nobody was taking electric cars seriously, Musk launched the first successful EV, designed the most beautiful car on the road, captured the market, and spurred production of a host of rival EV's by American car manufacturers.

In 2002, Musk also created SpaceX, which quickly excelled in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicles, and human spaceflight. Today, SpaceX stands as the world's dominant space launch provider, surpassing all other private companies, NASA, and the Chinese space agency.

That's the good Musk. If only he'd stopped there, he'd be a hero. Instead, he started going crazy. In 2018, he launched a line of $800 blow torches, which served no useful purpose other than, maybe, roasting marshmallows. At the same time, he created the Boring Company, whose stated goal is still to relieve traffic on I-95 by building an underground transit tunnel linking New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. To date, not one shovel of dirt has been turned, and AMTRAK, not Elon, provides the link between New York and Washington for all those who don't want to drive.

Then Elon Musk discovered politics. And that's where he really went nuts. First, by buying Twitter, the world's biggest social network, with 330 million followers, and quickly destroying it: renaming it "X," welcoming Donald Trump back on the platform, and removing any guidelines for truthful content. Today, "X" is nothing but an extreme right-wing, MAGA, Trump propaganda platform. It's the home of zany conspiracies, most of them spread by its owner. People looking for an honest exchange of views are flocking to BlueSky and other alternative sites.

Musk not only converted Twitter into a Trump tabloid, he pumped at least $277 million (chump change for the richest man on the planet) into Trump's 2024 campaign - for which he's been richly rewarded. Ever worshipful of people who, unlike him, have "real" money, Trump embraced Musk as his new BFF, made him a top adviser, and has now created a whole new government agency just for him. Musk, in return, seldom leaves Trump's side. It's hard to get a photo of Trump without Elon leering over his shoulder. Musk flew into Washington for Trump's Inaugural and hasn't left since.

And he didn't waste any time showing who was in charge. Late last year, when Speaker Mike Johnson made a deal to keep the government running, it was Musk, not Trump, who spoke out and killed the deal. Last week, the day after Trump announced a $500 billion-dollar private-sector partnership to build infrastructure for AI, Musk, not Trump, trashed it. And this week, without consulting top White House aides, Musk, not Trump, sent out an email to 2.3 million federal employees - with no regard for what their jobs were or how well they were performing - encouraging them to resign en masse by September 30.

Musk has also enthusiastically endorsed Trump's plan to deport millions of people who entered the country illegally, even though, as the Washington Post reported, Musk himself violated the law as an immigrant from South Africa by enrolling as a student and never attending any classes - a violation for which he himself would have been deported under Trump's new plan.

Most alarmingly, Musk - again, a top adviser to the president of the United States - addressed a rally of Germany's anti-semitic, right-wing political party, the Alternative for Germany, whose co-founder has dismissed the Holocaust as nothing but "a speck of bird poop" in the history of Germany. Musk, in turn, encouraged Germans to "get over" the Holocaust and forget about any "past guilt."

Elon Musk's exalted status in the Trump White House should concern anyone who loves democracy. The oligarchy is here. We're not only stuck with a president totally unfit for office, we're saddled with a powerful co-president who wasn't elected to anything.

(C)2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.