My God, what a week

Sadly, I fear every week is going to be like this. Just an onslaught of Trump carnage, intended to overwhelm and pacify us. Don't fall for it. Get angry, remain vigilant, fight back.

We all expected Trump’s second term to be a whirlwind of pain, but I’m not sure any of us expected *THIS* much this quickly, though, honestly, we should have — and especially elected Democrats in DC, who are paid to pay attention, should have been preparing for months for Project 2025 to become a reality. Okay, I’m contradicting myself a bit, but as smart as I am, I don’t control the levers of power in DC, Dems on the Hill do. They should be shutting this place down, and they should have been planning for months.

Today, among other stories, I’m focused on Elon Musk firing a Doge staffer who allegedly proclaiming himself a racist not four months ago, who went on Twitter to urge more hate of Indians, and who called for Israel and Gaza both to be wiped from the map. You’d think even in the Trump administration this might pose a problem, especially the week the Israeli prime minister is visiting. And it did, for a nanosecond. But Elon Musk wanted to hire the guy back, put up a poll, then JD Vance weighed in, and told Elon to bring the guy back, Trump agreed, so he’s being rehired. Vance, for his part, has called the kid’s — well, he’s not a kid, he’s 25 — tweets racist, a joke, and suggested that cancel culture was coming for him. Others noted that JD Vance’s own wife and kids are Indian, and perhaps he should be a little more sensitive to hiring avowed racists. But this is Trumpland, where there are good people on both sides. So, he’s back.

Oh, and I just found out the proud racist blocked me on Twitter!

We got the news a few minutes ago that a federal judge paused Trump putting another 2000 USAID employees on administrative leave, and his plans to force thousands of employees to come back to Washington to be fired. But that’s only a temporary pause, likely until the judge can either hear more arguments, or think about the issue. Now, the legal experts have said that Trump has no power to do what he’s doing with AID. The agency was created by Congress, and can only be modified or eliminated by Congress. Same goes for the Department of Education, and every other department Elon has sicced his winged monkeys on.

Well, since last night when I wrote the above, another judge has stepped in, this time to tell Elon to get the children of the corn out of the Treasury Department computer payments system that funds Medicare, Social Security, and trillions of other federal programs. The judge ordered Elon to pull his staff from the computer system, and to delete any data they may have copied. Now, will he? Trump was ordered days ago to turn federal funding back on for a number of domestic programs, and so far has refused. Also, if Elon or his children refuse, and the judge sanctions him, Trump can just pardon them. Setting up one hell of a constitutional crisis, whereby every time the judge sanctions Elon again, Trump pardons him again. So that, basically, Trump is no longer subject to any court’s jurisdiction. Scary stuff.

Our only hope is two-fold: the courts and public opinion. So far, the courts have roundly been on our side. The public, however, I suspect, thinks “Trump is doing things!” Which they think is a good thing. Their opinions will only change when they start to realize that Elon’s budget-cutting minions have now accessed the Social Security and Medicare computers. And when they start to feel the pain of higher prices — eggs will continue to go through the roof as Bird Flu worsens, which it will, in part because Trump killed USAID monitoring of Bird Flu worldwide, and Trump also killed updates that the government was providing farmers and scientists about the epidemic, including the CDC’s famous weekly MMWR update, which was about to publish a new study about the spread of the disease. Trump killed it. And the virus is now spreading to people, and the symptoms are getting far worse than they were previously.

A “few” other Trump scandals from the past few days:

• Trump hires senior State Dept official who says to only hire white men.

• US farmers will lose $2bn a year from USAID shutting down.

• Elon Musk screwed up, and it might cost the government a lot.

• A judge temporarily blocked Trump’s federal employee “buyout.”

• Elon’s budget-cutters are now targeting the National Weather Service, possibly because of SharpieGate.

• Tesla sales are plunging across Europe, seemingly in response to Elon being elected president.

• Trump proposed the US takeover Gaza, have the US military kickout the Palestinians, and make it a US territory.

• Trump caved on his tariff threat against Canada and Mexico.

• Trump wants to fire 1,000 EPA employees.

• Elon Musk threatened his Doge critics with prison.

• Elon Musk said the Lutheran Church was a criminal enterprise because they’ve been doing international refugee work for the past 85 years.

• And finally, coffee prices are expected to rise 20% to 25% over the next few months because of climate change and Trump’s tariff threats.

I haven’t even mentioned the Kennedy Center, the National Archivist, and so many atrocities. But I’ve spoiled your weekend enough.

Till next week, JOHN