Letters and Articles on the Trump Administration

Unless otherwise noted, letters were submitted to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper

Project 2025 Religious Agenda

6 Oct 2024

A major theme permeating the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 is the imposition of fundamentalist white Christian Nationalism throughout all aspects of government policies and practices and completely breaking down the wall between church and state.

It starts with a de facto national abortion ban by enforcing the 1873 Comstock Act that outlaws shipping abortion medications and supplies by mail or over state lines. Mifepristone will be unapproved and they are gunning for contraception. States will be required to report on abortions performed there and include the patients' home states. Planned Parenthood will be defunded.

Next, it calls for a complete ban on pornography -- defined as any books, movies, or TV shows that include LGBTQ+ content or characters. It will also eliminate science-based sex education in public schools, replacing it with abstinence-only. History classes will be whitewashed to remove discussion of racism and teach that America was founded as a Christian nation.

After that is the culmination of Republicans' long running plan to dismantle public education -- especially in poor, minority districts. Public schools will be starved as federal aid is diverted to vouchers for private and religious ones.

It will strip anti-discrimination protections from women and LGBTQ+ people in education and the workplace. Religion-based service organizations would be legally allowed to discriminate against gay or non-Christian clients. No-fault divorce would be eliminated amid a push to restore a patriarchal family structure.

Since this plan also concentrates power in the president, Congressional approval may not be needed to implement the above. Plus, after 50 years of stacking the federal courts with right-wing, activist judges, they are likely to be upheld.

Trump has tried to distance himself from this plan, but that's just another lie. It was written by his former staffers and has his name literally all over it. Note that none of this is new. Republicans have been implementing many of these provisions state-by-state for 50 years.

The only way to stop this from becoming reality is to keep Trump out of power and elect Democrats at all levels.

Michael Bleiweiss

Donald Trump Channels Woodrow Wilson
1 Dec 2024
 

The November 27 column about Woodrow Wilson by George F. Will was very informative. But, the most interesting part to me was that he could have substituted the name "Donald Trump" and have drawn the same observations.

Racism:
Throughout Trump's career in real estate, he has eagerly engaged in redlining -- the explicit exclusion of blacks from renting or purchasing his properties. He was the most prominent promoter of the "birther" conspiracy that asserted that our black president, Barak Obama, was not born in the United States, and denigrated Kamela Harris' race as a major theme in his presidential campaign.

Misogyny:
Trump has a long history of sexually assaulting women. Appointing a few hard right-wing women with major conflicts of interest aside, he constantly denigrates women. Whenever a strong woman criticizes him, she is "nasty."

Authoritarianism:
Trump has threatened to aggressively prosecute his political opponents and to shut down any broadcast stations that criticize him. He has also threatened to use the military to violently put-down any protests against him -- as he did to a Black Lives Matter protest (so that he could hold a bible upside-down in front of a church). He has also accepted the support of right-wing militias, neo-Nazi groups, and white Christian Nationalist activists -- a ready-made cadre of thugs.

History is rhyming for sure.

Michael Bleiweiss

Original Column:
https://www.timescall.com/2024/11/24/george-will-at-last-woodrow-wilsons-reputation-gets-the-dismantling-it-richly-deserves

Removing the Brakes on Trump's Government Corruption

28 Jan 2025

President Trump has fired 18 Inspectors General across the government's agencies.  These are the officials who investigate allegations of crimes, unethical behavior, and other malfeasance within their respective departments.  His reasons for this are obvious in light of the fact that he and members of his administration have already engaged in unconstitutional and illegal activities.

These include single handedly ordering cancellation of birthright citizenship, blatant violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (including his new Trump coin and charging his Secret Service agents to stay at his properties), and warrantless raids of businesses with indiscriminate arrests.

At his inauguration, Trump did not place his hand on the Bible when taking his oath of office.  Perhaps he thinks that negates his obligation to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land and that the firings plus his Supreme Court's grant of immunity will allow him to get away with anything he wants.  But, it does only if we let him.  It is up to us, the people, to hold him accountable.
 

Trump's Private Militia
31 Jan 2025

President Trump has pardoned the 1,500 insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol building. This includes members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys revolutionary groups plus other violent anti-government radicals. A vast number of them are totally unrepentant. Indeed, one freed prisoner said that he is going to buy more guns.

The result of this is that Trump now has his own private militia that can "bust heads" on his behalf, intimidating and attacking anyone who criticizes or displeases him. In case you think this can't happen, one of them has already attacked the mother of the capitol police officer whose neck was tazed during the riot, calling her a traitor and hurling a paper bag full of feces at her.

Can you say "Brown Shirts?" Be afraid -- and watch your back.
 

Non-DEI = Discrimination

3 Feb 2025

President Trump and the Republicans are on a vendetta against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).  If anything at all goes wrong with something, Trump immediately blames DEI.  He is on the warpath to eliminate it from our country, has already issued an executive order to purge it from all of our government agencies, and is picking agency heads that share this agenda.

This is nothing new.  Republicans (and the former Southern Democrats who converted when the Civil Rights Act passed) have done everything in their power to obstruct it since the Civil War.  Neither is it new that corporations and giant, powerful institutions are falling over themselves to comply, feigning mortal terror of our Great Leader when it's actually just getting permission.  Most of those that are rolling back their DEI initiatives want to anyway.  They have long histories of marginalizing minority and female employees.  That's why it was so easy for Harvard to fire their black, female president.

But, let's be clear.  The opposite of DEI is not equality or equal opportunity.  It is discrimination and sexism.  This is all about restoring and securing white male power and privilege.
 

Thank You Gaza War Protesters

6 Feb 2025

Congratulations and thank you to those supporters of Palestinians who withheld their vote for Kamela Harris or voted for Trump as a protest against President Biden's failure to force Israel to end their viscous war in Gaza. You helped get Trump elected. Trump effectively won by only an aggregate 15,000 votes in the six swing states, meaning that your votes might have helped to swing the election.

Now, we have a president who is a buddy to Israel's wannabe dictator, who will give him anything he wants. Indeed, Trump is now trying to become a war criminal by promoting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, suggesting that its population move to other countries so that he can turn it into a resort for billionaires. It would also leave it open for Israel to build their own settlements -- just what its right-wing religious extremists lust after.

You were warned and knew Trump's record. Remember, he is the one who moved our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I hope you're happy with the results.
 

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico
11 Feb 2025

The Gulf of Mexico was given its name by the Spanish Conquistadors in the early 1,500s. Now, Donald Trump has decreed that it be renamed it to the "Gulf of America" with the stroke of an executive order. The arrogance and chutzpah of arbitrarily changing a designation that has been in use for 500 years boggles the mind. I'm surprised that the narcissist-in-chief didn't call it the "Gulf of Trump."

Other countries must be laughing their heads off at us. None will take it seriously. He has also ordered all of the map-making companies to make the change and they are already capitulating to his bullying (just check Google Maps). Why are they so afraid of him? They should be telling him to go pound sand.
 

Corporate Welfare for Data Centers

15 Feb 2025

Donald Trump is spending half a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to subsidize the construction of massive artificial intelligence data centers and the power plants needed to run them. This is pure corporate welfare and comes at the same time he and Republicans are slashing programs that help the poor and middle class.

Tellingly, the proposed power plants will all be gas-fired -- consistent with Trump's total commitment to fossil fuels. Apparently, these giant corporations and their billionaire CEOs aren't even thinking of using the buildings' huge, flat roofs to hold solar panels or to install windmills next to them to mitigate the enormous power consumption of these gigantic buildings. It would save them money and "generate" some good public relations.

Are they afraid of the wrath of the great and powerful Trump and his government contracts or do they just not care about the fate of our planet -- just short-term profits?
 

Dismantling the Civil Service

17 Feb 2025

Hans von Spakovsky and Seth Lucas give us more disinformation and misdirection from the Heritage Foundation -- the authors of Project 2025 (DOGE ... Doing It Better than Eisenhower - Feb. 12). The goal of Donald Trump, his hatchetman Elon Musk, and the extreme right-wing ideologues being salted throughout the government is not cost-cutting. It is to dismantle it and cripple its ability to reign in corporate abuses and provide services to ordinary Americans. Along the way, they also plan to install fundamentalist white Christian Nationalist dogma as government policy.

By firing or forcing to resign tens of thousands of employees across all of the agencies, they will be hollowed out and unable to fulfill their functions. But, that may be moot because they will be rolling back the regulations that protect us, eliminating the programs we depend on, and even shutting them down completely. A comprehensive list is too long to fit in a mere letter.

All this is both illegal and unconstitutional, but that is irrelevant to them. Even if Congress acted to stop it (unlikely since Republicans support this agenda) they would be vetoed and/or ignored. Courts can issue injunctions, but they have no independent enforcement power. All of those tools lie exclusively in the executive branch and Trump can thumb his nose at them.

For those civil servants who took Trump's buy-out offer, don't count on getting your severance package. The offer is illegal, Congress has allocated no money for it, and Trump is notorious for stiffing his contractors and employees.

People voted for Trump to get lower grocery prices, but those are still increasing. Instead, you're getting a fascist oligarchy. You were warned, but were seduced by the conman.