It would appear that we have a lot riding on whether there are any of what we might call Constitutional generals left in the Pentagon when Trump and Hegseth are done with it.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
This is what they're working on behind the scenes, a system of AI-connected totalitarianism with Trump's golfing buddy oligarchs and Silicon Valley suck-ups at the top and everybody else relegated to the ranks of the forced-loyalty masses down below.
USAID has been accused by Trump and Musk of being corrupt. Putin is also not a fan. But to people around the world for decades it rendered help and assistance at a very personal level.
While the rest of his madness has been happening at warp speed, the Trump administration announced that they will be opening a razor wire-topped Club Med to house 30,000 deportees at Guantanamo.
Trump isn't following the Mao playbook of using young people and college students to do his dirty work. No, he's got Elon Musk and his battering ram of functionaries—who are unelected and do not hold government jobs—to tear through the government for him.
The entirety of the incoming Trump administration is an accident in progress. That an actual air traffic accident occurred during the first 11 days of Trump’s rule was as predictable as the bright orange makeup he wears for the cameras.
Trump hasn’t had much trouble bullying the Congress, firing federal workers, closing DEI offices, and signing executive orders. But deals with other countries have been a little hard to come by.
Donald Trump is deluded about many things, but perhaps his most profound delusion is that he can bend or even break our democracy with rule by fear.
As grim as prospects seem on this second day of the Trump presidency, do not despair. There is much to be done, and with the lawsuits against Trump’s attempt to amend the Constitution by fiat, we have already begun to fight.
We are accustomed to listening to Trump make pronouncements as if the words coming out of his mouth are actions. Good luck him and to his minions getting his "promises" actually accomplished.
Angry at a military establishment he sees as insubordinate to his sense of self as Supreme Ruler Over All, Trump just decided to take a well-coiffed Fox News yapper and blow the whole thing up and see what happens.
Dylan had always had a way of distilling being young and living in New York City. His songs piled up images, metaphors, hints about his life. Trying to read into them, we could also read who we were.
Remember how Trump burned through cabinet secretary scandals in the opening months and years of his first term? Buckle your seatbelts. The crew he has nominated this time are a whole new category of horror-story.
There are many ways to view the Grinchy fact that our president-elect and his new owner are aiming to ruin the holidays for hundreds of thousands. But this poetic adaptation is probably the best.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are essentially ordering the Congress of the United States to suspend the Constitution and obey them.
Let us not forget that this man who has been credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl, paying for sex with women he flew to the Bahamas, and using drugs with prostitutes was nominated by Trump to be the chief law enforcement officer in the land.