| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thursday, May 29, 2025
News Alert | Elon Musk Exits With 'Legacy of Carnage and Corruption' in His Wake
Saturday, May 17, 2025
When the Cuts Hit Home
 |
I am not an alarmist. But we live in alarming times. The rampant racism and misogyny. The anti-immigrant fervor. A thousand cuts into the fabric of democracy since Donald Trump became president in 2016. And strangest, most frustratingly of all, nothing seems to break through to the American people writ large. Decent people, church going people, people who love their dogs and kids and would give a neighbor the shirt off their back, have fallen in line behind a deceitful, hateful vision of American white nationalism.
DOGE and Project 2025. Trump’s American nightmare took hold with a vise-like grip, a force that could be constrained around the edges by the courts but not controlled. Cuts in government services and employees, all in the name of efficiency, but not its substance. And as those of us paying attention have known all along, it was never about finding waste and fraud, because there wasn’t much, if any, of that. It has been, of course, about the grift, about corruption, about self-enrichment. The full contours of the long-term plans aren’t clear yet, but there are suggestions it is about accessing personal data so people can be pinpoint targeted by disinformation campaigns in future elections and plenty of grounds to suspect that this is about expanding Trump and Elon Musk’s personal portfolios.
The implications of Trump’s cuts to government services came into focus Friday, as a line of storms moved across the East Coast. Americans rely without bothering to think much about it on the accuracy of weather prediction services that warn us about when we need to take care. In California, where I grew up, that’s not as much of an issue—no one is accurately predicting earthquakes. But in Alabama, where I have spent the last 35 years, and other parts of, well, Trump Country, deadly tornadoes and hurricanes make it a necessity. Without forecasting, there would be too few visual cues before it was too late.
Here in the Southeast, we are prone to increasingly frequent and deadly tornadoes, and hurricanes as you get down to the coast. There are no innate warning systems. We rely on the government, the federal government, so people can be prepared and seek shelter. Trusted local weathermen get their data from NOAA and other federal sources, and when disaster strikes, states and localities—and people, taxpayers—rely on FEMA for first response and to help them get back on their feet.
The New York Times reported yesterday that a weather service office in Kentucky scrambled to cover overnight forecasting as storms bore down on the region. They no longer have 24-hour staffing. Among the concerns they included in their story:
The National Weather Service has lost close to 600 employees since the start of the Trump administration, as a result of layoffs and early retirements because the administration demanded “significant cuts”.
Because of the staffing cuts, some of the 122 weather forecasting offices that operate 24 hours a day, nationwide, each with responsibility for their area, have cut back on the twice-daily launches of weather balloons that collect data and make daily forecasts and forecast models possible.
An agreement last month between the National Weather Service and its employees’ union warned of “degraded” services.
Five former directors recently wrote an open letter saying they “feared the cuts had been so deep that lives would soon be endangered.”
The Washington Post put up a map of parts of the country that no longer have 24-hour weather prediction services. In addition to the Kentucky office, there is one in Kansas. None of this makes any sense. I worked in government long enough to be a big fan of cutting waste. But providing lifesaving weather prediction services is about as far from waste as I can imagine. Why derail them? (Unless, of course, you’re planning on creating a private company to provide those services for a fee, but I try not to deal in speculation here.)
Friday night into Saturday, as severe weather, possibly including tornadoes, crossed through Missouri and Kentucky, 21 people were killed.
Too many people only seem to pay attention to the way Trump is “transforming” government when they are personally impacted. Too many people don’t miss much-maligned government services until they are absent in a time of need.
 |
As students prepared for final exams in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on April 27, 2011, a violent EF4 multi-vortex tornado descended on the area. Other storms continued into the evening and beyond Tuscaloosa, devastating other parts of the region. Sixty-four people were killed and another 1,500 people suffered injuries. The first time I drove into Tuscaloosa after the storms, I had to pull over on the side of the road to take in the decimation and collect myself.
Without the National Weather Service, it would have been so much worse. Without FEMA and other resources—the U.S. Marshals service, for instance, stepped in to help one small town—recovery and first response would have been still more traumatic.
As the storms formed in Alabama that day, the National Weather Service sent out severe weather warnings, and people in the area were able to prepare and take cover. That happened because of the scientific network that takes in data, analyzes it, and provides a product to the public. That’s the federal government at work. That’s the fat Trump and Musk decided should be cut. And hurricane season is just about to start.
We need and rely on the federal government in moments like this. It’s one thing for billionaires to make light of it. To the rest of us, it is something else entirely. And it is our taxpayer dollars, which the Constitution says are to be allocated by Congress, but the president now believes are his to dictate.
Wake up, folks. The tornado is on your doorstep, and this time you’re not going to get a warning.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Trump’s budget proposes steep cuts to NIH, health funding
Trump’s budget proposes steep cuts to NIH, health funding
The White House on Friday revealed President Trump’s budget request for fiscal 2026, which includes cutting a quarter of the discretionary funding designated to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a letter addressed to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought listed out the major discretionary funding changes requested by the Trump administration.
The 2026 proposal is seeking to cut $33.3 billion in discretionary funding for HHS, representing a 26.2 percent reduction compared to the fiscal 2025 budget.
This includes a $3.6 billion reduction in discretionary funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an $18 billion reduction for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a $674 million reduction for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Program Management and a $240 million reduction for Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Hospital Preparedness Program.
The only health program that gains discretionary funding in the proposal is HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, for which the budget provides $500 million.
The budget claims these funds would “allow the Secretary to tackle nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety across HHS.”
In his letter, Vought wrote that the recommended funding levels “result from a rigorous, line-by-line review of FY 2025 spending, which was found to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life.”
The reasons cited by the Trump administration for the numerous proposed budget cuts include arguments that the CDC has “duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary programs,” citing the National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for Environmental Health as examples.
At NIH, the recommended cuts include eliminating funding for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities, “which is replete with [diversity, equity and inclusion] expenditures” per Vought’s letter, as well as funding for the National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Medicaid, currently the center of a headache for the House GOP as it seeks to find cuts in the budget, will suffer “no impacts” in its ability to provide benefits despite the quarter of a billion-dollar reduction in discretionary funding being asked for, the proposal claimed.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps households pay for heating and cooling costs, was deemed unnecessary by the Trump administration which argued states already have policies in place preventing utilities from being disconnected in low-income households.
“The President’s Budget Request is simply one step in the annual budget process. This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” the Maine Republican said in a statement.
“Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse,” she added.
MAINE SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS - TIME TO RETIRE!
Most Mainers don’t think Susan Collins deserves another term, survey says
Maine's Republican senator is in a tough political spot, and her latest favorability numbers show it.
SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS
TOP CONTRIBUTORS BLACKSTONE GROUP!
OPEN SECRETS SEN. SUSAN COLLINS
On May 18, 2021, Axios[97] revealed the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation of defense contractor Martin Kao, former CEO of Navatek,[98][99] who funneled $150,000 to a pro-Collins super PAC, 1820PAC, via a shell LLC, Society for Young Women Scientists and Engineers, as a federal contractor, and reimbursed donations to the Collins 2020 campaign, both of which are illegal. A spokesperson said that the campaign had no knowledge of the exchange.[100][101]
Abortion
Collins is one of two Republican U.S. Senators, along with Lisa Murkowski, who describe themselves as pro-choice, or pro-abortion rights, and supported Roe v. Wade.[126][127][128]
According to HuffPost, Collins has repeatedly voted to confirm judges who have signaled opposition to abortion rights. She has defended these votes by citing her support for both of Obama's Supreme Court appointments.[129] She voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying she did not believe he would overturn Roe.[130][131] She said she felt "vindication" in 2018 when Kavanaugh voted with the court's four Democratic-appointed justices and Chief Justice John Roberts not to hear cases against Planned Parenthood from Kansas and Louisiana, although Planned Parenthood disagreed with her assessment of the situation.[132][133] In 2020, Collins faced renewed criticism of her vote by progressive groups when Kavanaugh said states should be permitted to severely reduce access to and availability of abortion in his dissent in June Medical Services LLC v Russo.[134][135]
In 2021, Collins was one of three Republican senators to decline to sign an amicus brief supporting an anti-abortion Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.[136] She faced renewed criticism after Kavanaugh voted with the majority, in a 5–4 vote, to reject an emergency petition to block a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy; the law went into effect while facing continued challenges in the courts.[137] Responding to the legislation and criticism, Collins denounced the Texas anti-abortion law as "extreme, inhumane, and unconstitutional" and said she supports the Roe precedent as the "law of the land".[138]
In December 2017, Collins voted to pass the 2017 Republican tax plan.[156] The bill greatly reduces corporate taxes while reducing taxes for some individuals and increasing them for others by removing some popular deductions.[156] The bill also repeals Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, leaving thirteen million Americans uninsured and raising premiums by an estimated additional 10% per year.[157][158] After the vote, Collins said she received assurances from congressional leaders that they would pass legislation intended to mitigate some of the adverse effects of the individual mandate's repeal.[158] When asked how she could vote for a bill that would increase the deficit by an estimated $1 trillion (over ten years) after having railed against the deficit during the Obama administration, Collins insisted that it would not increase the deficit. She said she had been advised in this determination by economists Glenn Hubbard, Larry Lindsey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin.[159][156] Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote that Hubbard and Holtz-Eakin denied saying the plan would not increase the deficit.[160][161]
After voting for the tax plan, Collins became the top recipient of political donations from private equity firms.[162] Blackstone chief executive Steven Schwarzman donated $2 million to Collins's PAC, and Ken Griffin of the hedge fund Citadel donated $1.5 million.[162]
Along with all other Senate and House Republicans, Collins voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.[163] On September 30, 2021, she was one of 15 Senate Republicans to join all Democrats and both Independents to approve a temporary spending bill to continue government funding and avoid a government shutdown.[164][165] On October 7, 2021, she voted with 10 other Republicans and all members of the Democratic caucus to break the filibuster on raising the debt ceiling.[166][167] She voted with all Republicans against the legislation to raise the debt ceiling.[168]
Immigration
In 2007, Collins voted against the bipartisan McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform proposal, which would have given undocumented immigrants (including those brought into the United States as minors) a pathway to citizenship if they met certain requirements, while also substantially increasing border enforcement.[213] In 2010, she voted against the DREAM Act.[214] In 2013, Collins was one of 14 Republicans to vote in favor of a comprehensive immigration bill that included border security and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.[215] She opposed Obama's decision to achieve immigration reform through executive action, which gave deportation relief to as many as five million undocumented immigrants through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).[216]
United States Postal Service
In 2006, Collins sponsored the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which passed the Senate unanimously. It requires the USPS to prepay 50 years' worth of employee health and retirement benefits.[247] Since the act passed, the USPS has defaulted on payments.[248][249]
In March 2017, Collins co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.270), which made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment,[188] for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories if protesting actions by the Israeli government.[189]
Friday, March 21, 2025
Elon Musk Made No Promises
Elon Musk Made No Promises
So with Trump’s blessing, he is going after Social Security
 |
Members of Congress, those brave enough to hold town hall meetings while home over spring recess, may have become reacquainted with an old lesson: Hell hath no fury like an angry constituent. And that goes double for anyone who threatens Social Security.
Across the country, we have seen reports of meetings where hundreds of constituents have shown up to raise the roof with their representative.
At a meeting in Baltimore, a woman said, “We need people to get mad.” Another responded, “We earned our Social Security!”
In Michigan, a disabled man told his Republican representative, “We worked our entire life, but we can’t get any help because we can’t get through to anybody.”
At an Iowa town hall: “Go to a local office. Try to get an appointment! Right now you’re waiting a month. And we’re going to cut more staff?”
Politicians from both parties got an earful.
It feels like a bait-and-switch, a common Trump tactic. Sure, he made a plethora of promises not to cut Social Security. Elon Musk didn’t.
Trump and Musk must be betting that Americans care more about possible waste, fraud, and abuse at the Social Security Administration (SSA) than they do about getting their monthly benefit checks.
That’s a bad bet.
Nearly 73 million elderly and disabled Americans receive $1.6 trillion annually in Social Security benefits. It is one of the most popular and most important government services. And it is funded directly by working Americans in the form of a payroll tax.
Musk has made his feelings about the program crystal clear, calling it a “Ponzi scheme” and claiming $500 to $700 billion in annual waste and fraud. To date he has offered no supporting evidence.
Regardless of these claims of waste and fraud, Musk is doubling down and using this vital program as the political football du jour. Musk and his DOGE assistants have been trying to access the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans in what they call their hunt for waste and fraud. Two labor unions and an advocacy group have sued to stop them.
Yesterday a federal judge agreed that giving DOGE “affiliates,” or employees under Musk, “unbridled access” likely violates privacy laws. The judge issued a temporary restraining order, stating DOGE affiliates were barred from accessing Social Security information systems.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is in the haystack,” wrote U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander in her ruling.
In response, acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Lee Dudek threatened to shut down the entire agency. Rather than honor the judge’s order and keep working for the millions of Americans who rely on their monthly Social Security checks, he said that any employee could be a DOGE worker, so, “I will follow [the ruling] exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”
With the Social Security Administration squarely in Musk’s crosshairs, he is also taking aim at the program itself, without cutting actual payouts — yet. Though the net effect will be a delay or reduction in benefits for many Americans.
With no authority other than Trump saying he can, Musk, who has manipulated and bought his way into the system, is cutting 7,000 jobs at SSA, or 12% of the workforce, and closing more than 40 field offices. Closing those offices is a terrible idea for an agency where getting an in-person appointment is already notoriously difficult.
But wait, there’s more. Recipients can no longer file for benefits by phone. Instead they have to verify their identity online or in person.
Forcing older and disabled Americans to find an internet-ready computer and then navigate a new online system is almost as bad as making them try to get an in-person appointment while closing dozens of offices.
An internal SSA memo by a senior official accessed by The Washington Post admitted that these changes “increased challenges for vulnerable populations.” The senior official was not on the same page as her boss.
“These changes are not intended to hurt our customers,” Lee Dudek said in a Tuesday news conference. Intentional or not, it is hard to imagine that the changes won’t hurt seniors.
“If it is to the detriment of the citizens we serve, then we’ll take necessary actions. If that means backing out the policy, then we’ll back it out. But we need to see what the results are,” Dudek continued. In other words, Social Security recipients, some of whom rely solely on this benefit to eat, are human guinea pigs in Musk’s efficiency experiment.
Though Trump has claimed that 20 million people on the Social Security rolls are so old they must be dead, widespread fraud has not been found. The Social Security inspector general found less than 1% of payouts from 2015-2022 were considered improper.
A former SSA official told Axios that the money it would cost to implement Musk’s changes would be significantly more than any cost savings.
Might this be this issue that gets the Democrats united and focused?
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said on X, “Make no mistake, this is a full-blown attack on Social Security. Elon Musk is trying to take away benefits you earned.”
Most older voters receive Social Security checks. And they vote … in larger numbers than any other age group. In fact, 72% voted in the 2020 presidential election. And guess what those voters’ No. 1 issue is? Social Security. We soon shall see where this latest full-frontal attack on Social Security leads.
To support my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism, please consider joining as a paid subscriber. It keeps Steady sustainable and accessible for all. Thank you.
No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading.
Stay Steady,
Dan
Trump PANICS as his BIGGEST EVENT Was TOTAL FAILURE!!
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... OR REMOVED ON THEIR WHIM! ALL...
-
04 April 23 Live on the homepage now! Reader Supported News Dahlia Lithwick | Let Donald Trump Cry It Out Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Lithwic...
-
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON Right now, we are standing on the edge of a he...
-
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON We love making ice cream, but our mission has ...
