With all the budget troubles facing Oregon, the Oregon Center for Public Policy wants it to spend more to feed immigrants in the country illegally.
The way things are headed in Oregon there soon won’t be any difference between a citizen and someone here illegally except the right to vote. And some even want to change that, based on the 164,781 Multnomah County residents who voted for a 2022 ballot measure that would have allowed people who are not U.S. citizens to vote in county elections. The ballot measure was defeated, but only by a vote of 52.71% to 47.29%.
“Voting exclusion based on non-citizen censorship is arbitrary, it’s unfair and it disproportionately impacts people of color,” ACLU Senior Policy Associate Mariana Garciá Medina said after the 2022 vote. “It silences the voices of community members.” That logic is reflected in the views of today’s supporters of giving free food to immigrants in the country illegally.
“Right now, some Oregonians face hunger on a daily basis simply because of where they were born,” the Oregon Center for Public Policy says, pleading for residents to “Tell the Oregon Legislature to pass Food for All Oregonians, SB 611“.
The left-leaning think tank, which claims to have a “vision of an equitable Oregon”, apparently doesn’t have a vision of an Oregon that lives within its means.
Undocumented immigrants in the United States are generally ineligible for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. Only U.S. citizens and certain lawfully present non-citizens may receive SNAP benefits, which currently consume $122.1 billion annually, or 53%, of the Department of Agriculture’s budget.
The Food for All Oregonians Program would provide nutrition assistance to residents of Oregon who are under 26 years of age or 55 years of age or older and who would qualify for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits but for their immigration status.
SB 611’s sponsors are, of course, almost all Democrats. Its chief sponsors are Sen. Wlnsvey Campos and Rep. Ricki Ruiz. Regular Sponsors are 18 more Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Mark Owens.
The bill would create the Food for All Oregonians Program in the Department of Human Services, require the department to implement the program by January 1, 2027, and mandate that the department conduct statewide outreach, education and engagement to maximize enrollment. The amount of benefits provided to a household participating in the program would be in the same amount provided to a household of equal size that is eligible for SNAP.
As expected, the Oregon Food Bank, a hunger relief organization serving Oregon and S.W. Washington, supports the bill. In written testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Human Services, which noted the bill is supported by a coalition of more than 165 organizations, Oregon Food Bank argued that many people in the state who work in food production, childcare, healthcare institutions, education, transportation and other critical services throughout the state don’t now get feed benefits and that “Immigration status shouldn’t exclude anyone from being able to feed themselves or their family.”
The committee has also received a deluge of supportive testimony from other individuals and organizations.
Some commenters justify their support for the bill by asserting that Washington and California already provide SNAP-equivalent benefits to non-citizens. That is not exactly so.
Washington has a state-funded Food Assistance Program, called FAP, is a state-funded program that provides food assistance to legal immigrants who aren’t eligible for federal Basic Food benefits solely because of their immigration status., but undocumented immigrants are not eligible. [1]
In California, the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP), a state funded program, provides benefits equivalent to SNAP (called CalFresh in CA) to qualified immigrants who are not eligible for CalFresh, but with limitations. Effective October 1, 2025, CFAP will expand to cover persons age 55 or older regardless of their immigration status.
As for Oregon, SB 611 is being put forward as the state is confronting potential federal funding cuts, everybody and their brother seems to want higher spending on schools, affordable housing, transportation and healthcare, Trump tariffs could lead to a trade war that hurts export-heavy Oregon and fears of a national recession are growing.
But what stands out even more in the current debate over the bill? All of its enthusiastic supporters haven’t the faintest idea what it would cost the state.
But, what the heck. It’s only money.
Addendum
“It’s only money” appears to be the theory behind another bill now before the Oregon legislature that offers benefits to immigrants in the country illegally. On March 15, Pamela Fitzsimmons, writing for Portland Dissent on Substack, reminded Oregonians of a $15 million pilot project Oregon lawmakers approved in 2022 to provide immigrants facing deportation with free state-funded legal representation and of the 2025 bill , HB 2543, requesting another funding round. Fitzsimmons notes HB 2543 would maintain previous funding levels: $10.5 million from the General Fund to the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to be deposited in the Universal Representation Fund, and another $4.5 million from the General Fund to be transferred via the Judicial Department to the Oregon State Bar to provide legal services on immigration matters.
OK, Mr. Trump, now you’ve gone over the line. You’ve callously attacked a critical federal agency I worked for earlier in my career and that works to protect the Pacific Northwest, where I live..
An administration that has demonstrated its resistance to science has taken another ill-advised step, firing 800 probationary employees at the of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In addition, about 500 employees left the agency on Friday after taking a so-called deferred resignation offer, the New York Times reported.
This follows a Trump administration order to NOAA earlier this month to search for climate change-related keywords in its grant programs. The Commerce Department instructed NOAA and its divisions to review grants for specific terms like “climate” and “greenhouse gas” without clearly saying why, although there were suspicions it was tied to the new administration’s hostility toward climate change research.
It also follows an Associated Press report that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, appointed by Trump, has privately urged the Trump administration the to reconsider a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change.
According to the Associated Press, in a report to the White House, Zeldin “called for a rewrite of the agency’s finding that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, according to four people who were briefed on the matter but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the recommendation is not public. The 2009 finding under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.”
The Trump administration is particularly resistant to climate science because taking the subject seriously would mean reducing the use of fossil fuels, an industry that supported and helped pay for Trump’s return to office and his commitment to American energy dominance.
The probationary employees pushed out at NOAA—who have been in their jobs for a short period and lack the protections afforded to staff members with longer tenure—received a blunt dismissal email on Thursday, according to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and transportation, which oversees NOAA. The email read in part: “[T]he Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency’s current needs.”
“The firings jeopardize our ability to forecast and respond to extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, and floods—putting communities in harm’s way,” Cantwell said. “They also threaten our maritime commerce and endanger 1.7 million jobs that depend on commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries…This action is a direct hit to our economy, because NOAA’s specialized workforce provides products and services that support more than a third of the nation’s GDP.”
“American science, in other words, had performed a remarkable feat: it had given us a timely early warning of the single greatest danger our species has ever faced,” Bill McKibben wrote in the New Yorker. “I listed all the players involved because those agencies—the N.S.F., NOAA, NASA—are precisely the institutions now being told to scrub their Web sites and re-examine their grants for projects that run counter to the Administration’s diktat on climate—and “diversity.”
The attack on NOAA, one of the more visible signs of the Trump administration’s opposition to climate change activism, seems to foolishly reflect a view that blocking research will also halt the reality of long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.
NOAA’s Climate Change Program’s office manages competitive research programs in which NOAA funds high-priority climate science, assessments, decision support research, outreach, education, and capacity-building activities designed to advance our understanding of Earth’s climate system. It also aims to foster the application of this knowledge in risk management and adaptation efforts. The research is conducted across the United States and globally.
Project 2025, a policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation that is reflected in many of the actions taken by the Trump administration, says the agency is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and calls for it to be dismantled.
During his presidential campaign, Trump firmly disavowed any connection with, or even detailed knowledge of, Project 2025. He has nevertheless filled his new administration with numerous Project 2025 authors and contributors and is pursuing many of the project’s recommendations.
Donald Trump seems to have a way of picking the wrong person for the job.
OPB reported today that Vance Day, a former Marion County Circuit Court Judge, has joined the U.S. Department of Justice.
Vance Day
“I can confirm that I received an appointment to serve as ‘Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States,’” Day told OPB in an email. He began work at the Justice Department on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
The deputy attorney general is the second in command at the Justice Department and oversees an agency that includes the FBI, a sprawling federal prison system and U.S. Attorneys across the country, OPB reported.
Given Vance’s background, it’s like Jason coming back to life in the Friday the 13th franchise.
In January 2016, the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability, dealing with a 13-count complaint, found Day had violated the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct on eight of the counts relating to his judicial and public behavior. The Commission unanimously recommended Day’s removal from the bench and filed its recommendation with the Oregon Supreme Court.
The Commission also took issue with efforts by Judge Day to tie the Commission’s actions to his refusal to perform same-sex marriages.
Day argued that he was being persecuted for his Christian beliefs. “Throughout the Commission’s prosecution of Judge Day is an open disdain and hostility towards the religious beliefs of those whose faith honors marriage between one man and one woman,” his attorneys said in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Prior to the hearing in this case, Day engaged in an organized media campaign designed to create the impression that the only reason for the investigation of his conduct is his position regarding same sex marriage,” said the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability’s Commission’s Jan. 25, 2016 Opinion. “To this end, Judge Day made repeated public assertions that he was being unfairly attacked by this investigation due solely to his religious beliefs concerning same sex marriage. Judge Day made these statements despite the fact that his position on same sex marriage was not discovered by the Commission until after the investigation was well underway. His assertions in this regard were intentionally deceptive to the public.”
On Sept. 3, 2015, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission approved an application to create a legal defense fund for Day, permitted under an Oregon law that allows public officials to create a trust fund to defray the cost of legal bills related to their duties.
Subsequently, Randall J. Adams, a Mt. Angel, OR attorney, established the Vance D. Day Legal Expense Trust Fund with Adams as its trustee. A Defend Judge Day website also went up saying Day’s defense “will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars” and soliciting donations.
In the beginning, donations didn’t exactly roll in by the barrel. But on May 1, 2017, Eberle Associates, a Virginia-based professional direct-mail fundraising company, signed on.
By Sept. 30, 2018, fundraising revenue totaled $2,008,658.54. The whole effort seemed like quite a success story. But fundraising expenses, including $1,290,383 in payments to Eberle and $6,021.38 in payments for other related services, totaled $1,296,404.38.
In other words, Eberle chewed up 64 percent of all fundraising receipts. According to NonProfit Quarterly, “The agencies that set acceptable fundraising percentage limits say that on average an organization’s fundraising expenses throughout the year should not represent more than 35 percent of the donations raised, and most organizations come in significantly below that benchmark.” Some professional fundraisers say the best practice target should be 12-20 cent per dollar raised.
After all the fundraising payments, that left just $712,254.20 for other expenses, principally for lawyers. And there was a slew of lawyers at the trough. The two firms pulling in the most money were Hart Wagner Trial Attorney, Portland, $167,640.96, and Sherlag DeMuniz LLP, Portland, $161,827.63.
All the money, lawyers and investigators sounded pretty impressive. How could Judge Day lose with that kind of firepower?
But he did.
Despite Day’s efforts to explain and defend his behavior, the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability unanimously recommended his removal from the bench
The Oregon Supreme Court imposed a three-year suspension, without pay, on Day.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Day, leaving in place the three-year suspension against him imposed by the Oregon Supreme Court.
Criminal charges against Day were dropped, but only because a key witness declined to participate.
Day tried to salvage the whole mess by declaring, “I’m the first person to ever push back against the decades of liberal elites in Oregon government.”
Now Vance is aiming for a resurrection, I guess, with his appointment to the Department of Justice.
As with many of Trump’s cabinet appointments, the United States deserves better.
If you have a few minutes, I’d like to begin by telling you about Edwin Bell Forsythe because his service to our country and his dedication to liberty are instructive.
Forsythe was a true public servant. A devoted Quaker from Moorestown, New Jersey, he served honorably in the House of Representatives as a Republican from 1970 until his death in 1984. I worked for Forsythe and remember keenly his decency and dignity.
Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe and his wife, Mary, at the Capitol.
A continuing reminder of Forsythe is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. The refuge includes over 32,000 acres of coastal salt meadows, uplandbrush and woodlands, and open bays and channels along the New Jersey shore.
At the dedication of that refuge, Ed Welch, Chief Counsel of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, praised Forsythe for his effective leadership, the ability to take divisive controversies and hammer out strong bipartisan compromises in an atmosphere of fairness and civility. “The policy differences between Republicans and Democrats were never ignored, but they were not permitted to obstruct the essential workings of the Committee,” Welch said.
“Ed Forsythe was a man of integrity and principle,” said Rep. William J. Hughes of New Jersey, who served as a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995, “He represented the very best that this nation has to offer, serving quietly but tirelessly and effectively for the people of his district. There was not an ounce of pomposity or pretension in Ed Forsythe. Ed’s unfortunate death has taken from us a great legislator and a fine individual. We have all been enriched by his presence among us.”
”His sensitivity, wisdom and quiet voice of reason will be missed,” added New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean.
In today’s tumultuous political environment, “sensitivity, “wisdom and (a) quiet voice of reason” are sadly missing. Can you name even a handful of members of Congress who are spoken of with such respect today?
In their place we have rancorous, narcissistic exhibitionists focused more on messaging and publicity than on driving good public policy.
In 2015, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, a shape-shifting individual, called Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.” He’s now one of Trump’s most sycophantic defenders when it suits him.
Then there’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Despite being a doctor, who’s obligation is “First, do no harm”, he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made multiple outrageous medical statements, as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Even Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a supposed moderate, has lost her bearings. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for 12 years, she voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, a politician with a history of troubling statements and actions, to be the Director of National Intelligence, putting American security at risk.
Republican Senator Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in the face of Trump’s threat of supporting a primary competitor, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. This despite serious allegations of personal misconduct and lack of judgement on his part, as well as minimal executive experience essential to managing a Department of Defense with about 3.4 million civilian and military personnel and an $850 billion annual budget.
The list of weak-kneed Republican members of Congress could go on as the Republican Party has fallen into the trap of slavishly bowing down to President Trump, less because they agree with his erratic pronouncements than because they fear losing their prestigious positions.
House Republicans are no better. In bowing to Trump’s will, they are consciously compromising their authority.
In the midst of all this stands Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who daily declares his fealty not to the constitution, but to an erratic, morally compromised president.
On August 7, 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
These days, don’t count on Johnson to try to put the brakes on any of Trump’s questionable autocratic moves. As Johnson told reporters in January, “There is a new sheriff in town.”
And reveling in his position at the top of the Republican hierarchy stands Donald Trump, who sees himself as a wonder of the world, comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes constructed in homage to Helios, the original god of the Sun in ancient Greek mythology.
Wishing to be unburdened by common standards of decency and respect, Trump has even tried to fire an executive branch ethics watchdog who heads the Office of Special Counsel.
With a brusque two sentence email, the White House Personnel Office leader was dismissed on Feb. 7, 2025, with little more than a “Thank you for your service”. The firing is only on hold because a federal district court issued a temporary order keeping the lawyer in office through a hearing scheduled for Feb. 26, 2025.
The behavior of senior people serving under Trump is no better. Their abandonment of civility is exemplified by “Border Czar” Tom Homan who callously said of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Feb. 17 Newsmax interview, “She’s the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress and she proves that every day.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is no more reticent. A fanatical Trump devotee, he was accused by the chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol of “efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and encouraging state legislatures to alter the outcome of the 2020 election by appointing alternate electors.
Considered a racist by some of his detractors, Miller was a lead author of the zero tolerance policies that led to immigrant children being separated from their parents during Trump’s first term.
“America is for Americans and Americans only” Miller bellowed at a Madison Square Garden Trump campaign rally on October 27, 2024, “With your vote, you can smash this broken establishment” he concluded.
Trump has also brought into government efforts to indiscriminately hollow out the federal civil service. Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government efficiency, or DOGE, is hacking away with abandon at multiple federal departments. Regardless of what Trump and Musk might say, the goal is not so much to diminish the federal workforce as to replace it with clones of Trump’s most rabid supporters. Meanwhile, Republicans stand idly by.
Affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department oi Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Aviation Administration. The IRS is also expected to lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season.
A DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees led to embarrassment and a recall when it was discovered that many of them worked on the nation’s critical nuclear weapons programs. The Associated Press noted that the firings came as the National Nuclear Security Administration “is in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort, including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads.”
“The goal here is to dismantle the merit system and return the government to the spoils system, awarding the president who gets into office and punish people who worked for the prior administration,” Kevin Owen, a lawyer who represents federal employees in civil service and whistleblower litigation, told the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, issues of privacy and data security are arising. Democrats and tax experts are sounding alarms, for example, about a plan by Elon Musk’s DOGE team to gain access to an IRS system that contains detailed financial information about millions of taxpayers, including their tax returns.
“This is a five-alarm warning,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS, said in a post on X, calling the move an “illegal and blatant power grab.”
Also raising alarms are DOGE moves at the Social Security Administration, where Elon Musk’s team, alleging unsubstantiated concerns about fraud, is reportedly attempting to access reams of sensitive information. The acting head of the SSA, Michelle King, has already resigned over the intrusion. Yet, again, elected Republicans casually ignore the threat.
And I haven’t even begun to address the international chaos emerging under Trump and his servile minions.
Nowhere is this chaos more evident than in Trump’s handing of the Ukraine war. Word of impending negotiations with Russia was, first of all, a shock to Ukraine and America’s European allies.
Then, when negotiations on the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between the U.S. Delegation, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Russian Delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, conspicuously absent were any representatives from Ukraine or Europe. The move was perceived by both as a slap in the face.
“Making sense of Trump’s plan – if there is one” read the headline of a Kyiv Independent article on the negotiations.
One thing was clear, though. “Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in address at a Munich Security Conference. “From now on, things will be different…”
On Feb.18, Trump lambasted our European allies and Ukraine for letting the war go on. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” he said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
On February 17, Trump went so far in a Truth Social post as to directly insult Zenenskyy , calling him “a modestly successful comedian” and ” A Dictator without Elections”.
” Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote. ” In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do.”
“Trump sold his soul and our country to Putin,” said one commenter. “Hard to believe we’re defending Russia instead of the Ukrainian freedom fighters.
But Russia is likely thrilled by Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine as well as by Vice President Vance’s remarks critical of Europe and supportive of far-right forces on the continent.
“The Kremlin for years has sought to weaken Europe by boosting parties that Mr. Vance argued must be allowed to flourish,” reporter Paul Sonne wrote in the New York Times on February 16. “The same day as his remarks at the conference, Mr. Vance met with the leader of Germany’s extreme right movement, which is contesting national elections this month, boosting a party Russia has sought to legitimize. Moscow has also sought to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, realizing that a destruction of the longstanding Euro-Atlantic alliance from within would lead to a world where Moscow can wield far more power.”
Echoing Sonne, Ian Bond, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, commented online, “Some of the most shameful comments uttered by a president in my lifetime. Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim. In the Kremlin they must be jumping for joy.”
If Trump’s usual bull in a china shop approach to foreign affairs, complemented by his vice president, leads to the abandonment of Ukraine and a reinvigorated Russia, the risk for Europe will be great and another American threat, China, will be emboldened.
The United States has also inserted itself into a flammable situation with Trump’s proposal that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and push the Palestinians into other countries, principally Jordan and Egypt. The land by the Mediterranean Sea is a potential French “Riviera,” something that would be worth a “long-term ownership position,” Trump said in early February. Typical of Trump, his vague proposal was an apparent surprise even to his closest advisors and stunned Congressional Republicans.
It was all reminiscent of Trump in his first term trying to convince North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un that his country was ripe for development as a popular destination spotif he gave up his militaristic nuclear weapons program. If you can believe this, Trump even showed him a slick video the White House National Security Council came up with showing what North Korea could become if it concluded a rapprochement with the United States. “They have great beaches,” Trump said.
Where are the members of Congress voicing concerns? Where is today’s Wayne Morse, a vocal critic of the Vietnam war and an outspoken defender of the Constitution’s checks and balances during his 24-year tenure in the U.S. Senate representing Oregon from1945-69?
Fariborz S. Fatemi, who worked on foreign policy issues on the staff of U.S. Sen. Frank Church, told of how Morse frequently went to the floor of the Senate to deliver riveting and informative speeches about the rule of law, separation of powers and how the Senate and the House were slowly giving their powers away to an already powerful executive.
Way back in 2018, Berry Craig, a state AFL-CIO official, saw the relevance of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, to Trump’s behavior. President Lincoln “wanted men who would tell him what he needed to win the war, save the union and put slavery on the road to extinction – not what they thought he wanted to hear,” Craig said. “It’s the opposite with Trump. He demands obsequiousness.”
That’s still true. Instead of strong, valiant, principled members standing up to Trump on myriad issues for their institution, we have toadies worried only about their next election.
That must change.
George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, cautioned his fellow Americans about the rise of a man like Trump. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty,” he warned.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said on Fox TV about Trump’s push to control Greenland, “I met with the Danish Ambassador this past week. They said Greenland is not for sale. I said, ‘Everything is for sale.’”
We already know Marco Rubio is. He previously portrayed Trump as “a pathological liar”, a “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral”. Now Trump’s his best buddy.
So far, the Republican Party, Republican members of Congress and obedient Republican staff seem to be for sale, too. They need to act to protect America from Trump’s lunacies.
Challenging Trump won’t be easy.
In the movie “The Apprentice”, Sebastian Stan portrays a young Donald Trump determined to make his mark in 1970s New York. Reflecting on what he saw in Trump, Stan said in a New York Times story. “What I’ve always seen in his journey, and certainly we were exploring in the film, was the solidifying of a person into stone, the loss of humanity.”
Despite his public efforts to appear amiable and open, Donald J. Trump is a cold-hearted vindictive man who will fight tooth and nail.
There’s a common saying that reflects how a person’s friends reveal a lot about them: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”
“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in announcing that Kashyap “Kash” Patel would serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As Paul Harvey used to say in his widely popular radio broadcasts, “And now, the rest of the story”.
After working for the first Trump administration,Patel launched Kash’s Corner, a podcast in which he offered his MAGA-tinged take on the news alongside a co-host, none other than The Epoch Times senior editor, Jan Jekielek.
The Epoch Times is a far-right conspiracy-peddling newspaper and website affiliated with Falun Gong, a fringe Chinese religious movement. If you are not already familiar with the Epoch Times, Falun Gong also founded the controversial entertainment organization, Shen Yung, the the ubiquitous dance troupe that appears regularly in Portland.
The Epoch Times and its affiliates “have grown, in part, by relying on sketchy social media tactics, pushing dangerous conspiracy theories and downplaying their connection to Falun Gong” according to a New York Times investigation.
NBC News has reported in depth about the “conspiracy-fueled” Epoch Times, citing it as “an early and aggressive promoter of election information” in the United States. The Election Integrity Partnership coalition has cited the Epoch Times as a “repeat spreader” of false and misleading voter fraud stories as well as a major promoter of debunked conspiracy theories around Dominion voting machines and the “Stop the Steal” movement, aimed at overturning the election results.”
After the 2020 election, The Epoch Times refused to acknowledge the results, “falsely suggesting instead that legal and procedural challenges that will flip the results in favor of Trump are still ongoing,” Forbes reported.
NBC News has also reviewed 79 episodes of Patel’s podcast, featuring Patel and Jekielek. “Together, they spun detailed but unfounded claims of conspiracies involving government officials, law enforcement agencies, the media and tech companies, among others, all aiming to rig elections, silence conservative voices and undermine Trump’s presidency and re-election,” NBC reported.
NBC noted that in a 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, Patel claimed the FBI used confidential sources during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capital for political purposes, asking whether rioters had been goaded by agents to commit crimes and questioning the related convictions. Did “those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so? That is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped,” he said.
At his January 30, 2025 Senate confirmation hearing, Patel said with a straight face, “I have no interest, no desire, and will not, If confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI.”
But In an interview with Trump ally Steve Bannon, Patel insisted he would go after judges, lawyers and journalists who, in Patel’s view, had improperly investigated Trump and stolen the 2020 election. “We’re going to come after the people in the MEDIA who helped Biden rig presidential elections,” he vowed.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media — yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’re going to figure that out — but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice,” he added. “We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”
Bill Bramhall, The Virginian-Pilot
Should this guy be running the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in the United States? I don’t think so.
Meta Platforms has agreed to pay about $25 million to settle a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after the social-media platform suspended his accounts following the attacks on the U.S. Capitol that year.
$22 million of the payment will go toward a fund for Trump’s presidential library,. Meta won’t admit wrongdoing under an agreement Trump signed in the Oval Office on Jan. 29.
This follows a Dec. 14 announcement that ABC News would pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump is discouraging. Even more discouraging, however, is word that under the terms of the settlement ABC News will donate the $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum.
And now The New York Times reports many executives at CBS’s parent company, Paramount, believe that settling an absurd $10 billion lawsuit against CBS filed before the Nov. 2024 election would increase the odds that the Trump administration does not block or delay their planned multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance. Trump accused CBS of deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
“A settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation,” the Times reported on Jan. 30.
“We once held the office of president, as well as its occupant, in high regard,” Anthony Clark wrote in The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity, and Enshrine Their Legacies. “As we have lowered our opinions of both, presidential libraries, consequently, have grown larger and more powerful—and, not incidentally, less truthful.” As Clark wrote in Salon, presidential centers tend to be “proud, defensive, and a little self-absorbed” and eventually become theme parks with declining numbers of visitors.
The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc. was incorporated in Florida on Dec. 20, six days after it was revealed that ABC News had agreed to donate the $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum.
The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey and Rebecca Ballhaus reported “Serious talks about the suit, which had seen little activity since the fall of 2023, began after Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to dine with him in November, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The dinner was one of several efforts by Zuckerberg and Meta to soften the relationship with Trump and the incoming administration. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. Last year, Trump warned that Zuckerberg could go to prison if he tried to rig the election against him. Toward the end of the November dinner, Trump raised the matter of the lawsuit, the people said. The president signaled that the litigation had to be resolved before Zuckerberg could be ‘brought into the tent,’ one of the people said.”
Knowing Donald Trump’s tendency toward grandiosity, he will likely want a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious billion dollar Presidential Monument. The Washington Post reported back in January 2021 that a top Trump fundraiser said the president had told supporters he wanted to raise $2 billion for his presidential library and museum and thought he could collect it in small-dollar donations from his grass-roots supporters. A satirical website was subsequently created showing the contents of a potential Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, with images of “The Wall of Criminality” and the “Alt Right Auditorium”.
The way we’re headed, presidential centers will surpass Egypt’s pyramids as monuments to the egos of leaders. But as I’ve observed in previous posts, if Donald Trump goes forward with his museum plans, his former, current and future advisors may have reason to be concerned. Many of the Egyptian pyramids entombed not only the deceased, but also the deceased’s servants.
For all his talk about representing the common man, Donald Trump”s bid to return to the White House was bankrolled by a phalanx of American billionaires. The A List included Elon Musk, Woody Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, and Timothy Mellon.
Now another less widely known billionaire Trump backer has emerged, Thomas Klingenstein.
Thomas Klingenstein
On January 4, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump held a “World Premier Screening” at Mar-a-Lago of a 104-minute film, The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice, about attorney John Eastman. Eastman had worked with Trump to devise a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, despite Pence’s lawyer and other lawyers on the White House staff dismissing Eastman’s proposals as illegal and unconstitutional.
The New York Times reported on the showing, but noted, “It is unclear who produced the movie”. A few other media outlets also cited the showing, but none of the stories said who was behind the movie.
Some digging revealed that a lot of people in the constellation of conservative influencers played a role. The website for the film highlights the Madison Media Fund[1] which “supports freedom focused filmmakers.”
“The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice” addresses a critical pain point: the growing reality that attorneys who represent conservative clients are being unfairly targeted and “canceled” by a legal system as it grows increasingly politically biased,” the Media Fund website asserts.
In addition to highlighting The Eastman Dilemma, The Media Fund website includes a “Producer Circle Film Library: Film collections curated by free speech advocate thought leaders.”
Many of the featured films have conservative or patriotic themes, including films by Dinesh D’Souza, a right-wing conspiracy theorist. D’souza released 2000 Mules, a widely debunked film that falsely claimed paid “mules” illegally collected and deposited ballots into drop boxes that favored Joe Biden in swing states in the 2020 presidential election.
The Madison Media Fund is registered as a non-profit. In its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service, the Irvine, CA-based fund reported no revenue or expenses in 2023. The Executive Director was listed as Garry Depew, but the money behind The Eastman Dilemma likely came from its Executive Producer, Thomas Klingenstein.
Klingenstein is chair of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank based in Upland, CA. “Scholars at Claremont have long subscribed to the belief that the American republic has been dismantled, the Constitution corrupted by left-wing ideas,” The New York Times said in a lengthy 2023 piece on the Institute.
The Institute was awarded the National Humanities Medal from President Trump in 2019. Noteworthily, John Eastman is a long-time senior fellow at the Institute and is the founder and director of Claremont’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.
Klingenstein is a principal in the investment firm Cohen Klingenstein, LLC which, according to Influence Watch, administers a portfolio worth more than $2.3 billion.
He is also founder of the Thomas D. Klingenstein Fund. The Klingenstein Fund donated $100,000 to Public Media Lab for production of Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words, a documentary on the life of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, released theatrically in January 2020 and broadcast on PBS in May 2020.
“We find ourselves in a cold civil war.,” Klingenstein said in a video released by a Super Pac, American Firebrand. “This is a war not over the size of government or taxes but over the American way of life.” “This war is between those who want to preserve the American way of life, and those who want to destroy it.”
“War is not a time for too much civility, compromise, or for imputing good motives to the enemy,” Klingenstein said in another video. In an apocalyptic tone, he added, “You must understand your enemy: education, corporate media, entertainment, big business, big tech. These institutions, together with the government, function as a totalitarian regime.”
According to the Federal Election Commission, Klingenstein has contributed millions to conservative candidates, organizations and Republican-aligned political committees. A search of Federal Election Commission records reveals a list of 164 individual contributions by Klingenstein to conservative election campaigns during 2023-2024. Major recipients of Klingenstein’s largesse included:
Club For Growth Action, a Super PAC focused on defeating big-government Democrats and replacing them with pro-growth conservatives
Win It Back PAC, a conservative Republican Super PAC
Make America Great Again Inc., a Super PAC in support of Donald Trump
The Sentinel Action Fund, a conservative Super PAC with a year-round ground game committed to turning out absentee, early vote, and “day of” voters.
Turning Point PAC Inc., a Republican conservative Super PAC
According to a Jan. 13, 2024 story in The New Yorker Daily, Klingenstein has also contributed to the American Leadership PAC that planned to spend one million dollars to pressure Republican senators to support Pete Hegseth as Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary. Breitbart News has reported that the targets are senators in Alaska, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Utah. In the 2022 and 2024 political cycles, most of the PAC’s funding came from Klingenstein and three other wealthy men.
“Pete Hegseth is a warrior against wokeness in our military and will make an excellent Defense Secretary,” a spokesman for the group told Breitbart News. “It’s vital that Senate Republicans stand with President Trump and vote to confirm Pete. We will do everything in our power to help him get across the finish line.”
There are many more substantial Trump donors from the moneyed class that have largely escaped media attention, but you can be sure they are actively playing the influence game. In mid-2024, Forbes identified 26 billionaires who had each given more than $1 million to Trump. You can be sure they all want something.
“These are smart, accomplished people,” New Yorker writer Susan Glasser said on NPR’s Fresh Air program on October 22, 2024. “I think they have a pretty clear read of who Trump is, which is why for many of them, it strikes me as a fairly cynical transaction that they’re making. And that’s what I was told explicitly from some sources that I have among very senior Republicans who have observed up close this donor class. They believe that it was very transactional. And they think that, in fact, they’re purchasing a level of access and seats at the table in a second Trump administration that they simply wouldn’t have had in a continued Biden or Harris administration.”
Watch closely.
[1] The Madison Media Fund is not the same as NY-based Madison Media Group (MMG)
Presidential candidates say a lot of things during the heat of a campaign. Voters have to separate the wheat from the chaff to figure out what among all the proposals are likely to actually be pursued. President-elect Donald Trump has taken things further by revealing his most controversial proposals AFTER the election, saving voters from having to consider whether they make any sense or should influence their vote.
As Tina Brown said today in Fresh Hell, “In Trump Season Two, deranged masculinity is all the rage.” Consider the following items Trump has put forward since the election:
Greenland: Trump has refused to rule out the use of force or economic coercion as a means for America to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark in the polar zone with self-government and its own parliament, a population of approximately 56,600 inhabitants and an official language, Greenlandic, that is spoken by the majority, although a small proportion of the population considers itself bilingual and uses Danish as a parallel language. “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale,,” said Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede. “… he (Trump) seems to sincerely believe that strong countries have the right to bully weaker ones. Trump has long insisted that the United States should seize smaller countries’ natural resources, and that American allies should be paying us protection money, as if they were shopkeepers and America were a mob boss,” Jonathan Chait wrote in The Atlantic.
The Panama Canal: Trump has refused to rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of the Panama Canal that America built more than a century ago. Construction of the canal, an artificial 82-kilometer waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean, was officially completed on April 1, 1914 and officially opened to commercial traffic on August 15, 1914. On Sept. 7, 1977, President Carter submitted two treaties to the U.S. Senate. The first, called the Neutrality Treaty, stated that the United States could use its military to defend the Panama Canal against any threat to its neutrality, thus allowing perpetual U.S. usage of the Canal. The second, called The Panama Canal Treaty, stated that the Panama Canal Zone would cease to exist on October 1, 1979, and the Canal itself would be turned over to the Panamanians on December 31, 1999. These two treaties were signed on September 7, 1977. Carter signed the implementation legislation into law on September 27, 1979. When pressed on whether he might order the military to force Panama to give up the canal, or to do the same with Greenland, Trump recently said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.”
The Gulf of Mexico: “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said at a recent news conference. “ … What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.” That The body of water has been depicted with that name for more than four centuries.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has already proposed a bill that would federally fund the required changes to maps.
Making Canada Part of the United States: Trump has threatened to use “economic force” to join Canada and the United States together, implying that the United States would pare back its purchases of Canadian products to force such a move. He has posted maps on social media showing Canada as part of the United States and posted “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.” He has also said, “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” he added. “Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!” Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded on X, “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.”
Wind energy: Trump has said he wants the US to move away from wind energy. “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he said. In 2023, wind power generated 10% of the United States’ electricity. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that by 2050, wind power could meet 35% of the country’s electricity demand, unless its growth is stymied by political action. Maybe all this is nonsense, theater of the absurd. Maybe it’s designed to dominate the news cycle, control the narrative, a practice Trump employs with abandon and one which drives out competing coverage of important issues.
Lawsuit: And if the above aren’t enough of a contribution to chaos, Trump is pursuing a lawsuit against Ann Selzer, a veteran pollster who predicted Kamala Harris would win Iowa, for fraud, and The Des Moines Register. It’s not enough that he won, I guess.
As Heather Cox Richardson observed in her Jan. 8 Letters from an American, “things that matter deeply to the American people are going largely unnoticed”.[1] Maybe all this is nonsense, theater of the absurd. Maybe it’s designed to dominate the news cycle, control the narrative, a practice Trump employs with abandon and one which drives out competing coverage of important issues. If that’s the case, Trump is succeeding, pushing aside other important issues as his inauguration draws nearer.
In the meantime, it’s discouraging to see some commentators suggest ignoring Trumps bluster.On Jan. 8, Joe Klein, a former Time magazine columnist, wrote a message on his Substack blog saying essentially, “Don’t worry. Be happy”:
“I’ll not fall for the bait. I watched Trump’s press conference. I will take him seriously, but not literally. He’s negotiating. He’s sending messages. And I don’t think the messages are all that terrible. He is haggling for better rates for American ships in the Canal (and perhaps a MAGA project of widening that too-skinny thing). He’s sending a larger message to the Chinese: we’re watching every move you make, especially in the western hemisphere. He is haggling with Denmark: Greenland wants independence, at least a majority of its minuscule (57,000) population does and we’re a more plausible big brother than you. He is poking Canada, provocatively, for better trade deals and more defense spending. He is sending us a message, too: I’m Back and More Vehement Than Ever. All of which conveys three things: confidence, the appearance of strength and a certain crafty craziness.”
Reed Galen, president of JoinTheUnion.us, a pro-democracy coalition, took a different tack in The Guardian, saying we need to be more wary of Trump’s outbursts and threats:
“The guy’s been a troll for nearly 80 years,” Galen said. “The problem is now he happens to be a troll who is about to run, again, the most powerful nation that humanity has ever known. He wants to do this because he wants outrage. He wants, to the extent that he thinks he can induce it, fear or panic. Chaos is the coin of his realm and it always will be because things being out of control is the only way he’s in control.”
[1] According to Richardson, MAGA representatives have been introducing a slew of measures to the new Congress, many of which incorporate the plans of Project 2025 into legislation. They call for turning over immigration to the states, privatizing veterans’ healthcare, and repealing the 1993 National Voting Rights Act, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Bills call for withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization; increasing oil and gas production on federal lands; abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); allowing states to spend federal education money on private school vouchers; and removing the protection of transgender rights from schools. Other measures would revoke security clearances for “certain former members of the intelligence community,” introduce a constitutional amendment to cap the Supreme Court at nine justices, and cut off federal funding to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (the office that successfully charged Trump with election interference) and the Fulton County (GA) District Attorney’s Office (the office that has charged Trump with criminal conspiracy). And MAGA Republicans have proposed a bill to impose a national abortion ban, along with a bill urging Congress to support a consortium of antiabortion doctors for women because, the bill says, “health care should emphasize the whole woman, including her physical, mental, and spiritual wellness,” and “health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities.”
In today’s political culture, supplicants don’t bother with subtle appeals for favors; they just pay up.
Talk about obsequiousness.
On Sunday, Amazon announced that its Prime Video streaming service would release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life that will be shown in theaters and stream on Amazon Prime later this year. To top it off, Melania Trump will be the film’s executive producer, ensuring it will be a hagiography.
Adding insult to injury, Amazon has agreed to pay $40 million to Trump for the documentary, according to Puck News, and it will be directed by Hollywood director and producer Brett Ratner, accused in 2017 by six women, including actress Olivia Munn, of sexual misconduct, according theLos Angeles Times.
Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, who is also the owner of the Washington Post, said it was “excited to share this truly unique story.”
In May 2025, the New Yorker ran a story noting that just before Christmas, Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, his fiancé, dined with Donald Trump and Melania at Mar-a-Lago. During the meal, according to the Wall Street Journal, Melania told Bezos and Sánchez about a documentary project she was developing based on her own life. Two weeks later, Amazon licensed the film for forty million dollars, nearly three times more than the company had ever spent on a documentary. As much as twenty-eight million dollars of the licensing fee will go directly to the First Lady.
Talk about trying to curry favor with Donald Trump, a famously self-absorbed impulsive, vindictive politician. As Semafor Business said, “An open-air bazaar has replaced a black market of influence-peddling. It’s unsettling to reporters who are used to having to dig around for evidence of pay-to-play.”
If a First Lady documentary is worth doing, others have a considerably stronger claim.
Betty Ford, President Gerald Ford’s wife, Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness following her 1974 mastectomy and was a passionate supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). She also was involved in HIV/AIDS causes and served as the first chair of the board of directors of the Betty Ford Center, which provides treatment services for people with substance use disorders.
Nancy Reagan, wife of President Ronald Reagan, was an accomplished former actress and a passionate advocate for decreasing drug and alcohol abuse, initiating a campaign to “just say no” to drugs.
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was, in her time, one of the world’s most widely admired and powerful women. During her husband’s presidency she was aggressive advocate of liberal causes, defending the rights of defense of the rights of Blacks and the poor and wrote a widely read daily syndicated newspaper column. After his presidency, she was appointed a delegate to the United Nations, where she served as chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (1946–51) and played a key role in the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There’s even an interesting story to tell about President Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, Edith Wilson. For all intents and purposes she conspired to serve as the “acting president” for an astonishing 17 months after her husband suffered a paralyzing stroke in the fall of 1919
First Lady Dolley Madison, the wife of President James Madison, is often credited with saving the portrait of George Washington and other White House treasures when the British attacked the Capitol in 1814. Hillary Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton, went on to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, a New York Senator and a Democratic candidate for the presidency. Rosalynn Carter, wife of President Jimmy Carter, was committed to the improvement of mental health care and after her husbands term in office became a strong participant in efforts that, as she said, would result in “good for others” including Habitat for Humanity.
Can you think of one thing that distinguishes Melania Trump, the “I really Don’t Care. Do You?” First Lady, and her life enough to justify aboot-lickingAmazon documentary?
“Nuttiness may be subjective, but truthfulness is not”
Bill Scher, Politics Editor, Washington Monthly
On Dec. 16, Donald J. Trump held his first press conference since his Nov. 5, 2024 election. Wishing to be of service to those of you who were too busy or not inclined to tune in, I reviewed the entire deluge of Trump’s rambling thoughts:
“We had no wars when I left office and now the whole world is blowing up.“
Truth: When Trump left office in early 2021, US troops were still deployed in combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. About 200,000 US troops were deployed overseas, including 6,000 – 7,000 American troops spread across Africa, with the largest numbers concentrated in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, about 50,000 troops at roughly two dozen bases across Japan and about 2,000 Marines in northern Australia
“Lot of people don’t realize, but we did 571 miles of wall (on the Mexican border). I built much more than I said I was going to build.”
Truth: Early in his 2016 election campaign, Trump pledged to build a wall along the entire 2000-mile length of the border with Mexico. He later clarified he’d build a wall covering half of that distance. In his State of the Union address in February 2020, he pledged to build “substantially more than 500 miles” by January 2021.
Various types of fencing totaling 654 miles, running through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, were already in place before Trump became president in 2017. At the end of Trump’s first term, the Trump administration said it completed more than 400 miles of border wall, but only 80 miles of new wall barriers were actually built where there were none before. The vast majority of the construction replaced existing structures at the border that had been built by previous US administrations.
“We’re also going to create clean coal. Clean coal is something that has really taken over. …we’re going to be doing a lot of clean coal for the people of West Virginia and others, Wyoming.”
Truth: The idea of “clean coal” is generally considered not viable, as current technology cannot fully mitigate the environmental impacts of burning coal, making it essentially a marketing term with little practical application; while some technologies can reduce emissions, the process remains too expensive and energy-intensive to be considered truly “clean” on a large scale, with many experts stating that “clean coal” is a myth
“So we’re looking to save maybe $2 trillion and it’ll have no impact. Actually. It’ll make life better, but it’ll have no impact on people. We will never cut social security or things like that. It’s just waste, fraud and abuse.”
Fact: This would certainly run counter to Trump’s actions in his first term, during which he added $8 trillion to the national debt, despite having promised to run budget surpluses. The federal government is now burning through $6.8 trillion annually and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Trump’s proposed policies would add an estimated $7.7 trillion to debt over the next decade. Cutting $2 trillion in one year would be impossible, as well, given that Trump has already said he’s not going to touch Social Security or Medicare., the two largest government programs, and interest payments, which account for 13% of federal spending, can’t be cut either (Unless the government plans to default on the national debt). Discretionary spending accounts for only about 25% of total expenditures, but that includes defense, which Congress has no inclination to cut.
“We’ll immediately restore the sovereign borders of the United States and stop illegal immigration.”
Truth: Over the past 30 years, the Border Patrol’s budget has grown more than sevenfold, the number of agents stationed along the southwest border has quadrupled, the border wall has been strengthened and lengthened, and increasing amounts of technology have been used to deter illegal migrants, but they have kept coming, more and more of them from countries other than Mexico. Also complicating the situation, a substantial number of the illegal immigrant population in the United States came legally on work visas and stayed after they expired. The government has been terrible at finding and deporting these people.
“We had no problems, we had no inflation. We had no inflation. We had at less than 1%. A perfect number.”
Truth: The Consumer Price Index rose 7.8% during Trump’s first term. The CPI rose an average of 1.9% each year of the Trump presidency according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was about the same as the average under Obama (1.8%) and below the average of 2.4% during George W. Bush’s years.
Trump responding to a question, “Do you believe there’s a connection between vaccines and autism? Do you believe there’s a link?” Trump: We’re looking to find out. …There’s something wrong. And we’re going to find out about it.”
Truth: Many studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD.), but to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD, according to the federal Centers for Disease control and Prevention.
Two studies, referred to as the Wakefield Studies, have frequently been cited by those claiming that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Both studies are considered critically flawed. In the first study, published in 1998, Wakefield’s hypothesis was that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused a series of events that include the development of autism. The study was subsequently retracted; in scientific terms, this means that the paper is not part of the scientific record because it was found to be based on scientific misconduct. In this case, the studies were deemed fraudulent and data misrepresented. The second study, published in 2002, which examined the relationship between measles virus and autism, was also critically flawed. Meanwhile, several studies have been performed that disprove the notion that MMR causes autism.
Trump responding to a question – “Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?” Trump – “I don’t like mandates. I’m not a big mandate person.”
Truth: Mandating vaccinations of schoolchildren saves lives. Schools and broader communities rely on high immunization rates to keep vaccine-preventable diseases from spreading. When more children are immunized, the risk for everybody declines, particularly for people with weakened immune systems and chronic medical conditions like lung, heart, liver, kidney disease or diabetes. The more parents who decline to vaccinate their children, the greater the risk that infection will spread in the community.
“Europe doesn’t use pesticides, and yet they have a better mortality rate than we do.”
Truth: Pesticides are still widely used in Europe, with the agricultural sector relying on significant volumes of chemical pesticides to maintain crop yields, although the EU has regulations in place to limit their use and is actively working to reduce pesticide reliance because widespread pesticide use is major source of pollution, according to the European Environment Agency.
” They’re still counting the vote in California.“
Truth: California did take longer to count votes in the recent federal elections than other states, but the California Secretary of State had certified the 2024 election results prior to Trump’s news conference.
“We got the biggest tax cuts in history.”
Truth: Trump’s tax cut s in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was not the largest in history, either in percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars. When the Congressional Budget Office reviewed tax cuts enacted between 1981 and 2023, it found that two other tax cut bills were bigger – former President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 package and legislation signed by former President Barack Obama that extended earlier tax cuts enacted during former President George W. Bush’s administration. Reagan’s 1981 tax cut was the largest in U.S. history, reducing revenues by $19 trillion over a decade.
The US took in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs “from China” during Trump’s first term and “no other president took in 10 cents, not 10 cents.” before he was president.
Truth: First, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics the revenue from tariffs on Chinese imports come from the importers, not China. Importing businesses pay the tariffs and then have to decide whether to bear some of the costs or pass any portion of the cost on to consumers through higher prices.
Second, according to the Institute, Americans have been paying tariffs on imports from China for decades., going as far back as the late 19th and early 20th centuries and more recently during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.
ThinkingOregon 