President Donald Trump has caused so much devastation over the last several weeks that it is hard to calculate the loss. It is easy to lose sight of the people who are being hurt. Earlier this week, the Trump administration's Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a vast restructuring of the agency. As a result, literally thousands of workers were fired and entire sections of HHS eliminated and countless programs—spanning the gamut from world health to food safety—negatively impacted.

One of the programs devastated was the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) which helps low-income individuals and families pay for heating or cooling homes. According to the New York Times, the entire staff of LIHEAP was fired. LIHEAP helps over six million low-income people and has an annual budget of $4.1 billion.

Over the years, both Republicans and Democrats have supported LIHEAP. The program found supporters in New England who depended on LIHEAP for heating assistance and those in the southwest who used the assistance to help cool their homes. Those days of bipartisan cooperation are long gone.

Unless the cuts to LIHEAP are reversed, April 2025 will end up being a very cruel month for the millions of Americans who depend on LIHEAP...

No one should have been surprised by the severe cuts to LIHEAP. The program was targeted by Project 2025 and by the House Republican Study Committee’s proposed budget last year. Interestingly, this position puts the GOP at odds with utilities/energy companies which support LIHEAP.

In terms of bureaucracy, the LIHEAP staff was very small (25 people) when compared with overall staffing at HHS. Given the number of people LIHEAP helps, the program seems very efficient. Furthermore, LIHEAP serves a vital—that is, life-saving—purpose. The Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey shows that families across the country are having problems affording their energy costs. In October of last year, Louisiana (31%), West Virginia (28.%), and Massachusetts (27%) topped the charts in states with the highest percentage of adults in households that were unable to pay an energy bill in full in the last 12 months.

Congress has already approved $4.1 billion for LIHEAP subsidies and implementation costs for the current fiscal year and about 90% of that amount has already been awarded to the states who administer the grants to individuals in need. However, it is unclear how the rest of the funds will be disbursed as there is no staff to administer the program. It is anyone’s guess as to what happens when the money runs out.

One thing is for sure: If LIHEAP is eliminated, people will die and these will be the most vulnerable among us. In case you are interested in proof of this common-sense conclusion, check out the paper “The Mortality Effects Of Winter Heating Prices” in the Economic Journal.

On Thursday, Kennedy told ABC News that some of the HHS cuts had been made in error and would be rescinded. This whole situation will be clarified when Kennedy testifies on April 10 about the HHS reorganization before the Senate Health Committee. Hopefully, LIHEAP will be one of the programs that was cut in error. Given the fact that Project 2025 singled out LIHEAP, this may be a forlorn hope.

Written just over a hundred years ago, T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland proffered that “April is the cruelest month.” Unless the cuts to LIHEAP are reversed, April 2025 will end up being a very cruel month for the millions of Americans who depend on LIHEAP to stay warm in their homes and survive in this world.

Courts will not save us. Neither will a charismatic leader.

The Trump administration is unleashing unthinkable threats toward students. Each day a new harrowing accounting becomes publicly available. A Tufts student is abducted by a group of masked, plain-clothed people. Her phone ripped from her hand. She is screaming for help, confused. All we know is that she co-authored an op-ed. Another researcher, this time from Harvard, is detained at the border under the auspices of having scientific materials with her that she should have declared. Here, we learn that she protested the war against Ukraine while in Russia in 2022.

The list is growing everyday. Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and academic who mobilized against genocide, is confronted in the middle of the night by ICE agents who confusingly tell him and his pregnant wife that a student visa was revoked. He is whisked away under the shroud of darkness. Another student, who showed up to protests in order to voice her support for those most marginalized in our world and who exercised her free speech, has been threatened with deportation though she is a green-card holder and has been in the U.S. since she was 7. The arbitrariness here is a strategy, much like the infamous flood-the-zone approach. It is to spread fear so that no one acts, not knowing if they will become a target.

Consider what's happening at USAID: By the time lawsuits fully play out, many employees will have already found new jobs.

As I watch the escalating attack on the notion of free speech and higher education in the United States, federally but also on the state level, I am reminded of how fragile our democratic institutions have become. They are crumbling before us. Students exercising their basic human right to protest are being abducted in the middle of the day by masked men, threatened with deportation, surveillance, and academic punishment. States like Ohio have now enacted laws that significantly curtail what topics can be discussed within public universities. On March 28, Gov. Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 1, which bans diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at public colleges and universities without clearly defining what they are. The law also prohibits faculty strikes and requires universities to maintain neutrality regarding political and ideological expressions. This vague language opens the door to preventing conversations that unequivocally state that what the Nazis did was reprehensible or that name the evils of slavery.

University administrations around the country are being pressured by the White House to turn over names of students who have exercised their right to free speech to gather in peaceful protests. And based on Columbia's trajectory, it is terrifying to imagine how easily many universities, even those with the economic power to legally question these unconstitutional strategies, may comply with these illegal and unconstitutional requests. In this climate of paralyzing fear, students flee, professors hide, supports disappear, and a chill spreads across academic communities designed to foster critical thinking. The foundation of freedom is our ability to speak truth to power. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Republican establishment—which now only exists to support this dangerous vision—are attacking the free press and higher education—both spaces that enable free speech to flourish, both spaces that encourage speaking truth to power.

How can those of us who care about freedom and see the threat of this moment respond effectively? Yes, we have seen promising responses from the courts. We've seen rulings reinstating fired federal workers, insisting on due process for those sent thousands of miles to violent prisons in El Salvador, and beginning to protect students targeted for their political speech. But court responses take time. Incredible harm occurs while we wait: disappeared offices, maligned families, traumatized communities, and even death as this death tracker as a result of USAID cuts devastatingly demonstrates.

And there's a more fundamental problem: Courts are at their core designed to maintain the status quo. They can be instruments of the state, and as Angelo Guillen from the Philippines explains, the legal system can be "weaponized to target perceived enemies of the state." The law's fundamental purpose in many systems is to preserve existing power structures, not transform them. Even when legal victories occur, they may not lead to fundamental changes.

National security and counterterrorism laws—intentionally vague and overly broad—allow the state to target activists and progressive organizations. Increasingly these vague laws are used to target anyone who has expressed views in opposition to those held by the White House. Domestic legal systems often lack the necessary avenues to adequately protect violated rights. Courts are not neutral entities but are influenced by political considerations. Why else would Elon Musk suddenly become so invested in Wisconsin Supreme Court judges? He poured more money into a state supreme court race than ever before.

Most critically for those of us who want to see our beloved communities experience less violence, courts are inherently reactive institutions. They do not preemptively tell the government how to operate. Before a federal court can do anything, it must wait for the government to do something illegal, wait for a plaintiff to come along who is injured, and then, if conditions are right, the court can intervene. Here we are, all of us watching in horror, as the government illegally whisks up students from universities who are not fighting to protect them. We cannot watch as this assault on free speech, a bedrock of democracy, is dismantled before our horrified eyes.

By the time the courts may successfully declare these acts as unconstitutional, permanent damage may already be done. Consider what's happening at USAID: By the time lawsuits fully play out, many employees will have already found new jobs. If the Supreme Court ultimately rules the agency must continue to function, that decision could take months or years. By then, the agency may have experienced such severe brain drain that it will be a shadow of its former self and importantly thousands of lives will be lost because of the services that were suddenly ended.

Even if the court responds resoundingly, as it did in the case of migrants who have been deported to El Salvador without due process, Trump may just simply ignore it, as he seems to be doing so now. We see this also in the case of Brown University professor Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist who was expelled in apparent defiance of a court order.

If we cannot expect the courts to save us, especially during this era when the three branches of government have been usurped by Trump who believes himself to be king, what do we do?

We need to mobilize. As we have been, in fact! According to research by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth and colleagues, "Resistance is alive and well in the United States." Their data shows that protests against the Trump administration may not look like the mass marches of 2017, but they are "far more numerous and frequent—while also shifting to more powerful forms of resistance." In February alone, they counted over 2,085 protests compared with the 937 protests in 2017.

Keep showing up. Visible dissent matters. Trump and Musk are consuming the airwaves, are monopolizing our attention with orchestrated chaos, and we can take back our power and take back a narrative that is being spun about who we are. We can show them who we are.

This is what authoritarians like Trump fear most: not just our protest, but our solidarity, our unwavering commitment to truth and to one another.

These mass gatherings also help to put pressure on the courts. It really matters. We can show our legislators the priorities we have for protecting all of our human rights. We can make sure they hear our insistence that we won't let anyone in our community become a target for simply exercising the constitutionally protected right of free speech. We can show that we refuse to be complicit in this harm and we demand them to do the same. When we speak up in unison, we become unstoppable. We know that, because we have seen that repeatedly throughout history.

History doesn't only instruct us about the way democracies can slide toward authoritarianism—which has become essential to track as we watch that same pattern unfold here—but history also tells us how we can push back against it. How we can defeat oppressive regimes. History shows us that authoritarianism wasn't beaten by lawyers or by opposition parties. It was beaten by people rising up against systems of oppression. Consider the solidarity between factory workers and intellectuals during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Despite their different social positions, they joined forces in demanding political reforms, establishing democratic workers' councils, and resisting Soviet repression. Today's Hungary, with the authoritarian vision of Viktor Orbán, is once again creating these false divisions to disempower the collective and break down solidarities. Trump makes no secret of his admiration of Orbán's approach. But, as the 1956 revolution instructs us, we can refuse to be divided.

We see the war on academia and higher education as a way of further fracturing communities. But we are actually on the same side. We want one another to thrive. When we are placed into separate groups, it only serves to dehumanize us. By mobilizing together, we learn that we have shared struggles.

It has been frustrating to watch the Democratic Party flounder in terms of an organized response as they remain risk-averse, operating under the guise of a world where good faith still exists. Others simply say nothing can be done. James Carville suggests the party "roll over and play dead" and let Trump overreach. "No one is going to care how hard you fight in March of 2025," Carville said. "It's how you win" in 2026.

With all due respect, this is devastatingly wrong and dangerous. The quiet, the playing dead, the submission—this is allowance that enables the oppressor. Columbia is playing dead and thereby killing free speech and democracy. They didn't react by rightly taking the government to court and demonstrating how unconstitutional this interaction was. But we can. We have to react. We have to respond. We have to maintain connection. We need to do this together.

Ironically, with so much upheaval being justified as cost-cutting measures by the joke that is Musk's oligarchic takeover of the government in the form of DOGE, all the court cases fighting unconstitutional executive orders are costing taxpayers significant money. We are paying for the government to defend these unconstitutional actions. It is our taxpayers' funds that are used by Trump and Musk, billionaires, to defend their unconstitutional behavior. As of April 2, there are 162 cases challenging the administration's actions.

We need each of these court cases; according to The New York Times, as of March 25, at least 53 rulings have temporarily paused some of the administration's initiatives. But they cannot save us.

What is necessary for our survival and the survival of our democracy are opportunities to gather. Talk to your neighbors. Organize community cleanups. Engage in acts of mutual aid that refuse to dehumanize each other. Get to know each other. Show up for protests that demand the protection and respect for human rights of our most vulnerable communities.

In my classrooms, I often tell my students that when we examine social change, we must look beyond individual personalities to focus on systemic processes and policies. This broader perspective reveals historical patterns and trajectories that help us identify opportunities for solidarity across different communities. When we understand that our struggles are connected through these systems, we can build movements based not on opposition to individuals, but on a shared vision of collective liberation.

Let's apply this same approach as a community now. The policies and processes being implemented are violent and stand against our fundamental values of dignity, freedom, and justice. By focusing on these systems rather than getting caught in the cult of personality that surrounds Trump or Musk, we open pathways to solidarity with others who might seem different but who share our vulnerability to these harmful policies. This is about more than Trump and Musk, it is about building a world that allows all of us to thrive. This is not about individual actors—it's about dismantling the policies that divide and harm our communities and replacing them with systems of care and mutual support.

Since the legislative branch, like the judicial branch, has been swallowed up by Trump and Musk's authoritarian takeover, we have to return to the very first words of the Constitution: WE THE PEOPLE. We the people have to mobilize. We the people have to gather. We the people have to talk. Not to escape the harm, but to begin to mobilize against it more effectively.

Universities should be doing the same. They cannot continue to operate as though their individual responses will make the threat go away. Instead, there needs to be an orchestrated collective response. As a recent open letter in The Guardian stated: "We urge Columbia's administrators to rethink their strategy in dealing with Trump's authoritarian administration. We urge university administrators around the country to respond collectively rather than allowing themselves to be picked off one by one."

This era is one of the greatest crises facing academia in U.S. history, and also one of the greatest assaults on free speech.

Solidarity, not isolation, is our path forward.

We can't wait for the courts to save us. We can't wait for the right democratic leader to come along with the right rhetorical presence. We have to speak up ourselves. Call your lawmakers every single day. Tell them you believe free speech is essential to maintaining our democracy. If you are at less risk because you are a citizen, attend know-your-rights trainings and ensure you can protect the most vulnerable. Refuse to be complicit with your silence. Safely join gatherings, make sure judges know the side of history we stand on, and pressure them to do the same.

This is what authoritarians like Trump fear most: not just our protest, but our solidarity, our unwavering commitment to truth and to one another.

The architects of alternative facts fear one thing above all: truth told boldly and repeatedly by communities standing together. The more chaotic and overwhelming these attacks on truth become, the more essential it is that we refuse to normalize them. Speak up. It matters. It makes a difference.

History is clear on this point: When leaders wage war on truth itself, silence equals surrender. We cannot afford to surrender now. Read the books they want to ban. Refuse to obey in advance unjust, unconstitutional, and illegal executive actions. Gather with your neighbors and friends and speak the truth. The courts won't save us. Neither will charismatic leaders. We—all of us, together—are the heroes we need.

In Texas, midwife Maria Margarita Rojas and assistant Jose Ley face felony charges for allegedly providing abortions, the first arrests under the state’s near-total ban since Roe was overturned in 2022 . Attorney General Ken Paxton boasts of jailing healthcare workers—Rojas held on a $500,000 bond—while ignoring the absurdity: punishing those trained to heal, not harm. Over 50,000 abortions occurred safely in Texas in 2020; now, caregivers risk decades in prison. It’s not justice—it’s dystopian control.

The post Texas Abortion Arrests appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? Before Hamas attacked Israel, American voters had not arrived at a consensus. They hadn’t thought much about it. Asked whether the two terms were synonymous, 62% of respondents to a Brookings Institution poll taken seven months earlier said they didn’t know. 15% replied yes and 21% said no.

For the time being, that argument is over.

Supporters of Israel won. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution that “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” A task force created to deal with anti-Gaza War protests at Columbia University, a hotbed of campus activism a year ago, has defined anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. The policy change was announced in an Israeli newspaper. NYU and Harvard followed suit.

If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you redefine criticism of the State of Israel and/or Zionism as anti-Semitism, it turns college campuses into hotbeds of anti-Semitic bigotry.

“Since the terrorist attack…anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish students on college campuses have reached alarmingly high rates, increasing by 700% from 2022 to 2023,” Hillel International claimed. The Anti-Defamation League said they went up 628%.

ADL reports about campus anti-Semitism are unquestioningly reported by news media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. Colleges and universities have freaked out in response—firing presidents and professors, banning protest groups, locking down campuses, expelling students and revoking diplomas, turning a blind eye as ICE arrests and imprisons their students. These actions are to be expected. Establishmentarian and conservative, university trustees and administrators don’t want to be seen as tolerating anti-Semitism, especially those whose schools dependent upon influential Jewish donors who cite this supposed spike in campus anti-Semitism.

Given those numbers, finding specific incidents of anti-Semitism should be easy. Yet factual, fully-sourced reporting is almost impossible to come by.

Where are the Jewish students, or witnesses of any background, willing and able to go on the record about seeing or hearing acts of anti-Semitism? Where are the verifiable details? I’ve pored over hundreds stories under sensational headlines describing an explosion of anti-Jewish hatred at institutions of higher education. To my frustration, almost everything I read turns out to be hearsay, hysteria or based on unreliable conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

It’s amazing that these pieces passed editorial muster. The stories are vague—there’s no who, what, why, when or how. Secondhand accounts abound. Specifics are absent. There is generalized anxiety; Jews on campus, we are told, “feel uncomfortable,” are “scared” or “worried” without explaining exactly why. Some supporters of Israel even say they’re triggered when they see a classmate wearing a keffiyeh.

The reports of anti-Semitism we’ve been hearing about, it appears, have been overstated.

“The problem is that the ADL changed its methodology after October 7,” NPR reported on April 25, 2024. “After [the Israel-Hamas War] began, the ADL started to include specific speech expressions in its audit of antisemitism, including certain anti-Zionist phrases and phrases that express support for Hamas. And for extremism researchers, you know, this is not traditional.”

So when the ADL receives a report that a protester carried a sign or shouted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a rally, the organization counts it as an “anti-Semitic incident.” Even in a New Republic op-ed sympathetic to the protests, the author stretches to find possible anti-Semitism in a sign posted outside George Washington University’s encampment that read “Students will go back home when Israelis go back to Europe.” There is an argument to be made, and backers of Israel do, that statements like these evidence anti-Semitism. But people who protest against Israel, a movement that includes many Jews, disagree. No matter what the House says, there is no widely accepted opinion.

If you oppose Israel, the ADL considers you to be an anti-Semite—even if you’re Jewish. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explains away antiwar Jews, who are inconvenient to framing that all Jews support Israel. Greenblatt bizarrely calls anti-Gaza War groups like If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace “radical far-left groups” that “represent the ugly core of anti-Zionism.” These organizations want the fighting to stop. Their members see a clear distinction between Israel, a nation-state with the most right-wing government in its history, and the Jewish people, most of whom do not live in Israel.

Greenblatt’s claim that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is highly debatable—even inside the ADL. A disgruntled staffer told The Guardian: “The ADL has a pro-Israel bias and an agenda to suppress pro-Palestinian activism.”

Several ADL staffers have quit over Greenblatt’s extremist stance. One former ADLer said: “Those were Jewish people who we [as the ADL] were defaming, so that felt extremely, extremely confusing, and frustrating to me. And it makes it harder to talk about that when any criticism of Israel, or anyone who criticizes Israel, just becomes a terrorist.”

At face value, conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism in order to discredit and suppress legitimate protests against a violent conflict that has cost at least 50,000 lives is dishonest and censorious. Stifling criticism of the biggest recipient of U.S. aid deprives society of the robust political debate necessary to develop intelligent analysis and policies toward the Middle East.

Less noticed and no less toxic is the effect the hysterical crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech has on Jewish people, especially those who feel affinity toward Israel.

The ADL’s decision to add anti-Zionist speech to its tally of anti-Semitic incidents without indicating separate subtotals of each means that there is no way to know if anti-Semitism as we knew it before October 7th has increased, decreased or remained at prewar levels. Are synagogues being vandalized more frequently? Are Jewish cemeteries getting desecrated more? We don’t know. It’s not apples to apples; it’s apples plus oranges.

Has anti-Semitism really increased? There’s no way to know. The FBI tracks hate crimes, not incidents that qualify as anti-Semitism but are legal, like First Amendment-protected speech expressing hatred of Jews. It may seem reasonable to assume that it would, given the powerful emotions surrounding the Gaza conflict. Feelings should never substitute for data. It’s insane to suddenly start stripping kids of their diplomas, banning activist groups and deporting peaceful protesters in response to a poorly-defined threat.

The ADL is doing no favors to Jews—a group that has disproportionately suffered horrific violence at the hands of the hateful for centuries—by insisting that people who are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people are anti-Semites. Nor are the media outlets that accept their misleading statistics. When a Jewish person sees 100 people wearing keffiyehs and chanting “intifada,” they may reflexively track the event as personal hatred directed at them when, in fact, they oppose the Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza—and the marchers may themselves be Jewish.

The Israel-Palestinian conflict is complex. Opinions are highly diverse, a point illustrated by a September 2024 Israel Democracy Institute poll that 28% of Israeli Jews believe Palestinians have the right to their own state. Attempts to radically simplify this complicated situation by equating anti-Israelism to anti-Semitism may quash the pro-Palestine movement in the short run but, in the long run, they will only muddy the truth and scare Jewish students—and everyone else.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)

The post Surprise Casualties in the War of Words Over anti-Semitism appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Suppose your doctor suddenly insisted that you needed to follow a strict diet and exercise regimen. He said he realized you had a serious problem when he divided your height by your birthday, and it came out way too high. You would probably decide that you need a new doctor.

This is basically the story of Donald Trump’s new round of import taxes (tariffs) on our trading partners. Trump somehow decided that trade was bankrupting the country, even though we were creating jobs rapidly, the economy was growing at a strong pace, and inflation was slowing to normal rates when he took office.

Trump’s response is to give the country the most massive tax increase in its history, possibly exceeding $1 trillion on an annual basis, which comes to $7,000 per household. And this tax hike will primarily hit moderate and middle-income families. Trump’s taxes go easy on the rich, who spend a smaller share of their income on imported goods.

Trump’s team calculated our trade deficit with each country and divided it by their exports to the United States. Trump decided that this figure was equal to that country’s tariff on goods imported from the U.S.

There was much that Trump said in his Rose Garden address that made little sense. He repeated his bizarre claim that the United States had its greatest period of prosperity in the 1890s. This was a time when workers put in seven days a week, unions were largely illegal, and life expectancy was less than 50.

He then attributed the Great Depression to the income tax, and had it continuing after World War II and President Roosevelt’s death. In Trump’s telling of history, the post-war Golden Age from 1945 to 1973 did not exist. This was a period when the economy was growing rapidly, the gains from growth were broadly shared, and the top income tax rate was between 70 percent and 90 percent.

Trump’s account of the present was no more based in reality than his history of the United States. He told us that our trading partners and closest allies were all ripping us off.

Canada is one of the prime villains in Trump’s story. This is based on their trade surplus with the United States, which Trump insists is $200 billion a year. In reality, Canada’s trade surplus is roughly $60 billion, and this all due to the oil we import from them. Without our oil imports, we would have a trade surplus with Canada.

Ironically, Trump encouraged us to import more oil from Canada in his first term in office. Apparently, he has now decided that they are ripping us off by selling us the oil he wanted us to buy.

The fact that Trump’s aides have been unable to get him to correct his imaginary Canada trade surplus number is a clear warning that Trump’s big tariffs are not grounded in reality. There are certainly issues that can be raised about trade, and our policies have often not benefited the country’s workers.

The rapid expansion of trade with China and other developing countries in the first decade of this century cost us millions of manufacturing jobs. It also devastated manufacturing unions. As a result, the unionization rate in manufacturing is now barely higher than in the rest of the private sector. The historical wage premium paid in manufacturing has largely disappeared.

But it is a huge and absurd jump from this fact to Trump’s claim that all of our trading partners are ripping us off. In fact, in the course of his rambling address Trump gave a great example of how trade was benefitting the country.

Trump’s method of calculating tariffs is comparable to the doctor who assesses your proper weight by dividing your height by your birthday. Any doctor who did this is clearly batshit crazy, and unfortunately so is our president.

An outbreak of Avian flu sent egg prices soaring when Trump first took office. In response to the record high prices, Trump’s Agriculture Secretary negotiated huge purchases of eggs from South Korea and Turkey, making our trade deficits with both countries larger. Nonetheless, Trump boasted about how his administration had brought egg prices down.

It was this sort of warped thinking that is the basis for the massive tax that Trump is imposing on the goods we import from our trading partners. Incredibly, it turns out that the tax rates Trump put in place, from 10 percent on goods from the UK to 49 percent on Cambodia, which were ostensibly “reciprocal” tariffs, bear no relationship whatsoever to the tariffs or trade barriers these countries place on our exports.

Instead, Trump’s team calculated our trade deficit with each country and divided it by their exports to the United States. Trump decided that this figure was equal to that country’s tariff on goods imported from the U.S.

Trump’s method of calculating tariffs is comparable to the doctor who assesses your proper weight by dividing your height by your birthday. Any doctor who did this is clearly batshit crazy, and unfortunately so is our president. And apparently none of his economic advisors has the courage and integrity to set him straight or to resign.

"We've seen encampments cleared, phones tapped, and permits held up—but this? This feels like they're preparing for war," said Marisol Jennings, a D.C.-based organizer who has coordinated protests since 2017.

Just days before thousands of Americans are expected to gather in Washington, D.C. to protest the Trump administration's policies, a sweeping new executive order threatens to transform the nation's capital into a showcase for authoritarian policing.

Signed on March 27, the order—Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful—appears less concerned with beautification than with containment. Its provisions call for surging federal law enforcement, accelerating immigration crackdowns, and strictly enforcing vague "quality-of-life" directives for the city. And its timing, just a week before what organizers are calling the most consequential day of protest since President Donald Trump's return to office, is raising alarm from civil rights lawyers, city officials, and veteran demonstrators.

April 5 could become a barometer for how far Americans are willing to go to resist encroaching authoritarianism—and how far their government is willing to go to stop them.

This aggressive reordering of public space arrives at a politically volatile moment. On April 5, demonstrators from across the country will convene under the banner "Hands Off!"—a coordinated protest against Project 2025, growing executive overreach, and the erosion of democratic norms. But these protests will unfold on ground that has just been legally redefined. The executive order establishes a federal task force with sweeping discretion to enforce federal statutes, remove homeless encampments, and sanitize public areas—rhetoric that critics fear is coded language for suppressing civil dissent. One of the EO's most striking directives calls for expanding the presence of federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and increasing enforcement of so-called "quality-of-life" regulations in public spaces, including parks and federal landmarks.

Civil liberties advocates point to the EO's targeting of "unpermitted" demonstrations and disruptive gatherings as a thinly veiled attempt to preempt large-scale mobilization. In a city where the right to protest has long been protected even under strain, the threat of being forcibly removed or detained for a sign, a chant, or an unauthorized step into the street carries profound implications. "You don't need to ban protests if you can criminalize every protester," one ACLU attorney told me. "Public noise ordinances, anti-loitering laws, unauthorized signage—those become the new tools of political suppression."

The fear is not hypothetical. Activists organizing the April 5 protests have already reported increased surveillance and delays in permitting. Groups representing immigrants and unhoused communities are reconsidering participation altogether. The EO directs federal agencies to maximize "enforcement of Federal immigration law" and redirect available "law enforcement resources to apprehend and deport illegal aliens in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area," a mandate that has already created a chilling effect among undocumented residents, some of whom now fear that attending a peaceful march could result in deportation. In response, the National Homelessness Law Center warned that the order "will worsen homelessness in D.C., violate rights, and waste resources," especially with the federal push to "promptly remove and clean up all homeless encampments."

Then there is the question of firearms. Nestled within the order is a provision directing local entities to expedite and reduce the cost of concealed carry licenses in the District of Columbia. In a city with some of the country's strictest gun laws, this shift could radically alter the atmosphere of a mass protest. Armed counterprotesters, legally carrying under the new directive, may now appear in greater numbers—creating conditions ripe for intimidation or escalation. Police, too, may respond with heightened aggression, assuming the risk of firearms in the crowd. As one security analyst from Georgetown University put it, "You're introducing legal ambiguity and lethal potential into an already volatile situation."

But the risk of physical violence is just one dimension of the broader threat.

For many organizers, the stakes are not just physical—they're existential. "This is a test run," said Rami Kareem, a civil rights attorney affiliated with the Brennan Center for Justice. "What they're doing in D.C. could easily be replicated in Atlanta, Phoenix, or Milwaukee if it succeeds. If people stop showing up out of fear, the right to protest dies quietly, without a single law being passed."

Legal analysts point out that the EO contains intentionally broad language, such as directing agencies to deploy a "more robust Federal law enforcement presence" to ensure "that all applicable quality of life, nuisance, and public-safety laws are strictly enforced." Additionally, the EO mandates "prompt removal and cleanup of all homeless or vagrant encampments and graffiti on Federal land." These directives could grant law enforcement considerable discretion to interpret and potentially suppress protest gatherings, signage, and activities under the guise of enforcing public safety and beautification measures.

Even before the order, Project 2025 had stirred significant public anxiety about the centralization of federal authority and the erosion of institutional norms. But this EO provides an immediate, tangible mechanism to contain dissent—not just in D.C., but in any city with significant federal presence. As national attention turns toward the capital on April 5, many movement leaders see it as a galvanizing moment: either a line is held in defense of civil resistance, or a line is crossed in the normalization of political suppression. "If people stay home out of fear, it tells them this worked. If we show up in mass, it tells them we still have power," Jennings said. "That choice is still ours."

What's at stake goes far beyond the fate of one demonstration. April 5 could become a barometer for how far Americans are willing to go to resist encroaching authoritarianism—and how far their government is willing to go to stop them. If the demonstrators are met with violence, surveillance, or mass arrests, it may radicalize a new generation of resistance. If they succeed in holding ground peacefully, it may mark the resurgence of a national movement grounded in visibility and defiance.

Either way, this is not just a march—it is a test. Of power, of will, and of what kind of country this is becoming. Washington, D.C. is not only a geographic location; it is the symbolic heart of American democracy. If peaceful protests in the capital can be stifled under a vague mandate of "beautification," it sets a precedent that ripples outward. Critics argue this beauty is being defined in opposition to presence, protest, and poverty. The message is clear: Public dissent may now be treated as public disorder. That message is not lost on organizers, some of whom now fear their demonstration may be remembered not for its power—but for its suppression.

City leaders are in a bind. Mayor Muriel Bowser has offered cautious criticism of the order, noting that her administration already addresses crime and homelessness through existing programs. But the new federal task force was created without local input, and its presence sharply curtails D.C.'s home rule. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton warned that the order strips power from D.C. residents under the guise of national pride. In her statement, she added the order was "thoroughly anti-home rule" and "insulting to the 700,000 D.C. residents who live in close proximity to a federal government, which continues to deny them the same rights afforded to other Americans." Yet legally, city officials may have little recourse. On federal land, the task force's authority is unchecked.

As April 5 approaches, the atmosphere in Washington is one of deep unease. The executive order's timing, scope, and ambiguity suggest that the federal government is not preparing for peaceful civic engagement, but rather girding itself for defiance. If protesters are met not with the protections of the Constitution but with barricades, surveillance, and selective enforcement, then this spring may be remembered not as the moment democracy was defended in the streets—but the moment it was quietly roped off, one barricade at a time.

President Donald Trump has said “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” He claims tariffs will restore American trade supremacy, bring lost jobs back to the United States, and most bizarrely, replace income taxes.

Tariffs can be a useful tool to regulate global trade in the interest of jobs, wages, labor rights, the environment, and consumers—if applied correctly.

But Trump’s chaotic, overly broad tariffs are only likely to hurt working people. They won’t ensure labor rights or protect the environment. They won’t even return jobs to the U.S., if his first term tariffs are any indication.

Tariffs on oil imports, for example, if done correctly, can foot the bill to repair the climate destruction that fossil fuel companies profit from, and incentivize phasing out oil and gas altogether.

Because new tariffs require congressional approval, Trump manufactured a crisis about the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants across U.S. borders in order to use executive power to unilaterally impose tariffs. He insists that foreign governments and companies pay these tariffs—and that imposing them on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China will solve all of the U.S.’ economic problems.

Tariffs aren’t the same as income taxes. When applied to goods being imported from, say, Canada, tariffs aren’t paid by either the Canadian manufacturer or the Canadian government. They’re paid by the U.S. importer to the U.S. government. So a company like Walmart would pay a fee in order to be able to import specific goods from Canada.

Importers will often pass increased tariffs on to consumers, resulting in higher prices. But as Hillary Haden of the Trade Justice Education Fund explained to me in an interview, that’s not a given. Sometimes tariffs are absorbed by the importer as the cost of doing business.

Unsurprisingly, the stock market is leery of tariffs, as are investors and free market champions, who’ve pushed for decades to demolish trade barriers via such initiatives as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Indeed, China has already filed a lawsuit against Trump’s tariffs at the WTO.

With the world’s free-trade-based economy teetering on a knife’s edge, Democrats are attempting to undo Trump’s haphazard tariffs, especially against our neighbors, Mexico and Canada. After all, it was a Democratic president—Bill Clinton—who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992, turning all three member nations into a tariff-free zone. (In 2020, Trump signed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, replacing NAFTA.)

There’s good reason to criticize Trump’s blanket tariffs. But rather than reflexively dismiss tariffs altogether, those of us who care about sweatshop labor, plastic pollution, climate change, and other destructive by-products of tariff-free trade can still use them to demand a fairer economy.

In 1999, hundreds of thousands of activists, including union members and environmentalists, marched against the WTO in Seattle. The “Battle of Seattle,” as it came to be known, was the high point of the so-called anti-globalization movement, which sought to prioritize human rights, workers’ rights, conservation, and other considerations before corporate profits.

It was the pursuit of a “fair-trade” economy over a free-trade one.

So it’s ironic that President Trump is wielding tariffs as a central pillar of his pro-billionaire economic agenda—and his liberal opposition is championing free trade. Neither pro-billionaire trade nor unregulated trade is in the interests of working people.

Tariffs on oil imports, for example, if done correctly, can foot the bill to repair the climate destruction that fossil fuel companies profit from, and incentivize phasing out oil and gas altogether.

Similarly, tariffs on products manufactured with slave labor or underpaid labor can level the playing field for manufacturers who pay their workers a fair, living wage and ensure safe working conditions.

Rather than reflexively opposing tariffs because it is Trump’s latest fixation, we ought to demand a protectionist economy that can apply tariffs carefully, strategically, and thoughtfully in order to undo the damage of free market capitalism.

LIVE 10 am Eastern time & Streaming anytime thereafter:

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan tackle the legacy of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, on the 29th anniversary of his 1996 arrest. Joined by guest Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer with deep counterterrorism experience, the show examines Kaczynski’s 17-year bombing campaign that killed three and injured 23, driven by his anti-technology manifesto. The discussion covers the FBI’s extensive manhunt, ending with his capture in a remote Montana cabin, and the broader implications of his actions on security and society.

Johnson brings firsthand expertise from his CIA tenure, while Rall and Chan offer their distinct perspectives as a renowned cartoonist and seasoned journalist, respectively. Together, they explore Kaczynski’s journey from Harvard graduate to domestic terrorist, including his time in CIA-linked psychological experiments, and the lasting questions his case raises about technology and control. It’s a mix of historical insight and expert analysis, making it essential viewing for true crime and security enthusiasts.

The post TMI Show Ep 110: “Unabomber Arrest Anniversary with CIA’s Larry Johnson” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The deep sea, Earth’s last untouched ecological frontier, is an ancient, living system that regulates our climate, stores carbon, and hosts breathtaking biodiversity. It is the common heritage of all of us. It is not a resource bank for speculative profits. And it is not for sale.

Yet, the deep-sea mining industry, led by The Metals Company (TMC), is determined to change that. The company has threatened to submit the world’s first commercial mining application in June 2025—with or without regulations in place. And now, in a desperate new move, it says it will bypass the International Seabed Authority (ISA) altogether and seek mining permits under the United States’ 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (DSHRMA).

TMC’s reckless and dangerous attempt at a deep-sea neocolonial land grab came on the penultimate day of the ISA’s 30th Council session, ahead of a discussion of its mining application and a Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Update call. As it became clear that it would be forced to leave the meeting empty-handed, when nations rejected its wish to secure a process to have its commercial application approved, the company doubled down. Its tactics echo those of the oil and gas industry—manufacturing urgency and demanding fast-tracked approval.

The truth is this: deep-sea mining is a “cause in search of a purpose.” Greed, driven by speculative profit rather than public need, is driving the push for the launch of this destructive industry.

Member states and the ISA’s newly appointed Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho swiftly condemned it as a blatant attempt to sidestep international law and undermine the multilateral governance of the global commons. This pressure from TMC and other industry players forces a defining question for the ISA: Will it uphold its mandate to protect the seabed for the benefit of all humankind, or will it cave to corporate pressure?

Contrary to industry complaints, the careful ISA deliberations that have taken place over the years are safeguards to ensure that crucial unresolved questions around environmental risk, equity, science, and underwater cultural heritage are addressed. Notably, in this session, the African Group spotlighted long-ignored issues of how benefits will be shared and the socioeconomic impacts of seabed mining on terrestrial mining countries. These questions cut to the core of justice and global balance, and they demand answers before any approval can be considered.

Outside the meeting rooms, public opposition is mounting. Greenpeace International and Pacific allies brought the voices of over 11,000 people from 91 countries directly to the ISA urging deep-sea conservation. Thirty-two countries now support a moratorium, ban, or precautionary pause on deep-sea mining. The United Nations Environment Program has echoed these calls, emphasizing the need for robust, independent science before any decisions are made. And legal scholars have dismissed recent threats of lawsuits from contractors as baseless.

The industry is increasingly being recognized for what it is—a false solution. Deep-sea mining proponents claim that mining the seabed would reduce pressure on land-based ecosystems. However, research suggests deep-sea mining is more likely to add to global extraction than replace it. Meanwhile, emerging battery technologies, recycling breakthroughs, and circular economy models are rapidly reducing any purported demand for virgin metals from the seafloor.

With its original green-washing narrative unraveling, TMC and others are now stoking geopolitical tensions, positioning themselves as a strategic necessity for national security. However, the cracks are showing. For instance, TMC recently surrendered a third of its mining contract area in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), after ending a services agreement with its Kiribati-sponsored partner, Marawa. The industry faces failed mining tests, equipment and vessel delays, no finalized regulations, and growing investor skepticism over the industry’s environmental and financial viability.

The truth is this: deep-sea mining is a “cause in search of a purpose.” Greed, driven by speculative profit rather than public need, is driving the push for the launch of this destructive industry.

And the risks are profound. A recent study published in Nature found reduced biodiversity and ecosystem degradation more than 40 years after a small-scale mining test. Recovery of these nodules, which take millions of years to form, in human timescales is impossible.

But there is still hope. The recent appointment of Leticia Carvalho, a scientist who is calling for transparency, inclusivity, sustainability, environmental protection, and science-driven governance, as the secretary-general of the ISA presents a real opportunity. The multilateral body, recently decried for its seemingly pro-industry stance, should seize it and reorient itself back toward its most weighty purpose: protecting the seabed for the benefit of humankind as a whole.

The ISA’s dual mandate under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—to both manage the mineral resources of the seabed and ensure the effective protection of the marine environment—has always been fraught with tension. But in this era of climate chaos, biodiversity loss, and ocean degradation, it is precaution and protection that must prevail. The health of the ocean, the rights of future generations, and the principle of the common heritage of humankind demand it.

As the world heads toward the U.N. ocean conference in Nice, France this June—just a few weeks before the July ISA Assembly—leaders will have a crucial chance to show where they stand. They must reject TMC’s and the rest of the deep-sea mining industry’s attempts to force the ocean floor to be opened for exploitation with no assurance of marine protection. They must not allow themselves to be bullied into the adoption of a weak Mining Code built on industry-favored timelines. They must honor their roles as stewards—not sellers—of the international seabed.

The deep sea is not for sale—and the ISA still has a chance to prove it.

There's a relatively obscure quotation, sometimes attributed to the 20th-century American author Sinclair Lewis, that reads, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Although no one’s actually sure that Sinclair Lewis ever wrote or said this, his 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here, centers around a flag-hugging, Bible-thumping politician named Berzelius (”Buzz”) Windrip. Despite having no particular leadership skills other than the ability to mesmerize large audiences by appealing to their baser instincts (and to bully those people who aren’t so easily mesmerized), Windrip is elected President of the United States. Shortly after Windrip takes office, through a flurry of executive orders, appointments of unqualified cronies to key governmental positions, and then a declaration of martial law, Windrip quickly makes the transition from a democratically elected president to a brutal, fascist dictator. The novel’s title, It Can’t Happen Here, refers to the mindset of key characters in the novel who fail to recognize Windrip’s fascist agenda before it’s too late.

The question now is whether the people of the United States have the necessary critical thinking skills, moral compass, and political courage to reverse the rise of fascism in our country before further harm is done.

Written almost a century ago during the rise of fascism in Europe prior to World War II, It Can’t Happen Here is disturbingly prescient today. Buzz Windrip’s personal traits, his rhetoric, and the path through which he initially becomes the democratically elected U.S. president, and soon afterward, the country’s first full-fledged fascist dictator, bear an uncanny resemblance to the personality traits and rhetoric of Donald Trump and the path through which he has come thus far to be the 47th President of the United States, and through which he appears to be on course to become our country’s first full-fledged…. But no! It can’t happen here! Or can it?

Trump’s uncanny resemblance to the fictional dictator in Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel is disconcerting. The far more important concern, though, is the degree to which Trump resembles real-life fascist dictators, past and present. A study of notorious 20th- century fascist dictators, including Hitler and Mussolini, concluded that they and their regimes all had several characteristics in common. (The current regimes of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China, and Kim Jong Un in North Korea also share these characteristics.)

Fascist Dictators Encourage and Condone Violence Against Their Political Enemies

After losing the 2020 presidential election, Trump urged a large crowd of supporters on the morning of January 6, 2021 to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” After the violent assault on the Capitol had been going on for more than three hours, when Trump finally posted a video message urging the rioters to go home, he told them, “We love you, you’re very special.” On his first day back in office in 2025, he granted clemency to the more than 1,500 rioters who were charged with crimes related to the attack on the Capitol, including rioters convicted of assaulting police officers and rioters with past convictions for other violent crimes, including sexual assault.

Fascist Dictators Blur the Distinction Between Private Business Interests and the Public Good and Put Wealthy Business Leaders in High Governmental Positions

At the beginning of his second term, Trump appointed Elon Musk, reportedly the world’s richest man and the CEO of companies that have received tens of billions of dollars in federal funding, to head the ad hoc “Department of Government Efficiency,” with the power to summarily fire vast numbers of federal employees without cause and to potentially steer federal funding away from other companies and toward his own.

Fascist Dictators Promote Bold-Faced Lies and Other Propaganda

Some of Trump’s most notorious lies include his claims that he won the 2020 presidential election; that the January 6, 2021 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol was a “day of love;” and that the Ukrainians themselves, not the Russian invaders, are responsible for starting the war in Ukraine. The Washington Post catalogued more than 30,000 other demonstrably false or misleading statements that Trump made during his first term as president. Currently, a special team within the Trump administration is spewing out pro-Trump propaganda at a prodigious rate on social media, including a portrait of Trump wearing a golden crown with the caption, “Long Live the King,” via Elon Musk’s “X” platform.

Fascist Dictators Promote the Myth That Their Citizens Are Being Threatened by Scapegoats

Trump’s favorite scapegoats are undocumented immigrants whom he frequently refers to as “criminals,” “gang members,” and “killers,”and who he claims are stealing jobs and benefits from U.S. citizens. In fact, undocumented immigrants do the work that most U.S. citizens are unwilling to do; they pay far more in federal taxes than they receive in federal benefits; and, unlike Trump himself, they are convicted of committing serious crimes at a lower rate than the U.S. population as a whole.

Fascist Dictators Put Grossly Unqualified Sycophants in Key Governmental Positions

The many grossly unqualified sycophants who Trump has nominated or appointed to key government positions in his second administration include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a favorite Fox News interviewee who has himself been accused of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, and mismanagement of nonprofit financial funds, and who has spoken in defense of U.S. soldiers charged with war crimes; Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who seeds doubt concerning vaccine effectiveness and promotes other medical quackery; and FBI Director Kash Patel who endorses the “deep state” theory and who has previously described jailed January 6 insurrectionists as “political prisoners.”

Fascist Dictators Exhibit Flagrant Sexism

Trump boasted in a 2005 video recording about not only groping women and kissing them without their consent, but about an incident involving a married woman in which, in his own words, “I moved on her like a bitch.” He added, “I failed, I admit it, I did try and “f—k her.” Trump called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during their final 2016 presidential debate; he has repeatedly referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as “Pocahontas;” and he entertained a joke during a 2024 campaign rally implying that past Vice President Kamala Harris once worked as a prostitute.

The list of common characteristics in the study of 20th-century fascist dictators and their regimes includes 14 categories in all, and Trump and his MAGA disciples have already exhibited characteristics in most of these categories. One common characteristic not mentioned in the study is the fact that all the 20th-century fascist dictators met ignominious ends—but not before they had caused enormous damage, including the deaths of millions of innocent people.

Questions about what fascism might look like when it comes to the United States of America and whether it can or cannot happen here are no longer merely hypothetical. Fascism has come to the USA. It is happening here. The question now is whether the people of the United States have the necessary critical thinking skills, moral compass, and political courage to reverse the rise of fascism in our country before further harm is done, or will we be like the characters in Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel; the people in Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy; and the people in current day Russia, China, and North Korea and allow our system of government to devolve into a full-fledged fascist dictatorship.

The second administration of President Donald J. Trump has already started working its special magic across the Washington, D.C. capital region. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have fired tens of thousands of federal workers, with more to come. Those who have lost their jobs include people who find housing and other support for veterans struggling with mental illness. They include civil servants who maintained safeguards to prevent our nuclear weapons from becoming dirty bombs. They include healthcare researchers developing treatments for cancer and other killer diseases; workers who ensured that low-income, homeless, and rural students were able to get an education; agricultural researchers who opened up international markets to American farmers; and too many others to mention here.

My neighborhood, located on farmland about 40 miles outside Washington, D.C., is among those wracked by this administration’s shakeup of the government workforce. An estimated 20% of our country’s federal workers make their homes right here in Maryland and in nearby Virginia within reach of the capital. And that doesn’t count the tens of thousands of us who work in (or adjacent to) federal agencies as contractors. All those workers have also been subjected to the same back-to-work requirements, anti-DEI policies, and (depending on their roles) job insecurity, as their government colleagues.

To see how this administration’s attack on federal workers penetrates everyday life, look no further than the lives of children in local public schools.

President Trump, his unelected right-hand man and billionaire businessman Elon Musk, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) began wreaking havoc on government agencies in late January with a poorly formatted, emotionally worded PDF that some in the civil service initially mistook for a phishing email. That “fork in the road” document offered workers a chance to take eight months of severance pay, or else face the possibility of simply losing their jobs — a possibility that turned out to be all too real for those who risked staying and continuing to serve.

I hope that red state voters are happy.

My Own Deep State

Before all this started, life was pretty good for families like mine, who live here and depend on the federal government for work. Of course, I have to admit that, by many measures, we are privileged in so many ways: A White, upper-middle-class, dual-income (for now) family, with healthy kids, cats, and even a raucous flock of chickens. And as of yet, many families like mine are still fine. But for how long?

I think the wholesomeness of life in my area of Maryland owes much to the diverse cultures represented in our communities. You don’t need to look hard to find someone who can tell you about customs, food, norms, and rituals in places as far away as Afghanistan, China, El Salvador, Ukraine, and elsewhere. (Maryland has long offered broad protections to refugees and asylum seekers.) Until recently, the military and the civil service also cast wide nets in their recruitment and anti-discriminatory hiring practices, coming up with some of the best of the best in every field, regardless of national origin.

To the cultural anthropologist in me, this diversity offers remarkable wealth. You can drive a few minutes from my house and get the crispest Peruvian chicken, the most fragrant Salvadoran pupusas, the tenderest Afghan kabobs. Kids growing up here have a chance to understand the world and international affairs in an up-close-and-personal way. My kids grasp just why democracy and peace are so important, because they know other kids whose families fled authoritarian dictators. They also get why hanging out with people who are different from you is both challenging and rewarding.

Another aspect of life here in the capital region that I value is the high-quality services accessible to many, if not (unfortunately) all — from well-funded Medicaid and Medicare health clinics, to nearby Veterans Administration and military hospitals, to cutting-edge treatments at the National Institutes of Health for sickle cell anemia and cancer, including for those around the country who can’t afford to travel here on their own dime. Until recently, at least.

I think you’d find it hard to fault our federal government for not providing for those in its backyard, at least in my county, which is admittedly the wealthiest in Maryland. Schoolchildren visit science and art museums for free. There are outdoor marvels like national monuments, sprawling botanical gardens, and hiking trails that, at least until recently, have been remarkably well maintained. Whatever you make of those who have made careers running our government, I see how federal facilities and their workers have made my community safer, more exciting to live in, and more beautiful.

In the age of Trump, I fear it’s goodbye to all that, not to speak of a Department of Education. (Who needs education after all?)

Elon Musk, DOGE, and Mass Firings

Unfortunately, just a little more than two months after Donald Trump entered the White House for the second time, that beauty is diminishing. Already, the D.C. area and its suburbs are bearing the economic brunt of his and Elon Musk’s cuts because federal jobs form the backbone of the local economy. Since military veterans make up about a third of the federal workforce, they have been disproportionately affected by DOGE’s slashing of jobs, with at least 6,000 veterans nationally losing their employment, including in this area.

The federal workforce is more racially diverse than the private sector, meaning that those firings will impact minorities particularly strongly. In addition, as most of us already know, DOGE has been targeting the federal staff responsible for enforcing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which people of color and women are more likely to say are important to ensure that they succeed in the workplace. And that’s without even mentioning the way DEI programs allow women who are being sexually harassed or Black employees facing racial slurs to seek redress. People implementing DEI programs are also responsible for ensuring that nursing parents get safe, clean places to pump breastmilk, while protecting many of us — White men included — whose extenuating circumstances (eldercare at home, difficulties entering buildings due to disabilities) would otherwise make work senselessly harder, if not inconceivable.

And make no mistake, DOGE’s firings have nothing to do with efficiency. If the Trump administration cared about that, it wouldn’t have launched itself by firing the inspector generals who were charged with identifying projects responsible for tens of billions of dollars in waste and fraud.

At best, I suspect such cuts reflect real resentment over problems our government does indeed need to address (like why insufficient stable and well-paid jobs exist in large pockets of this country), and consequently, the need for our leaders to create the appearance of “getting things done.” At worst, they reflect a deep spitefulness and Musk’s desire to line his pockets, as every good profiteer does in times of conflict (though I don’t think he ever expected the stock value of his line of cars to fall through the floor).

Back to a Military Lifestyle

Let me describe a few of the costs of Trump’s war on the home front on federal workers. The lucky ones in my community, like us, are those who still have their jobs. But nearly everyone with a federal job now has to commute daily to his or her office in order to meet Musk’s return-to-work requirements. Telework is a privilege that most white-collar workers across this country got to enjoy in the Covid years and thereafter, though civil servants and military personnel have strict requirements to prove they are indeed working. Moreover, research suggests that, surprisingly enough, people who work from home are often more productive, due to fewer distractions and more time made available without lengthy commutes.

Under the new return-to-work mandate, folks I know in the broader Maryland-Virginia area around Washington now often have to commute hours on a daily basis in punishing traffic or decide to try to move closer to their work. Former military families like mine may have thought that the days of long separations from their loved ones, due to deployments and 16- to 18-hour work shifts, were a thing of the past. Now, however, our family has less time to help with the kids’ homework, less time for me to earn a sorely needed living, and (again for me, alone with kids into the evening) more housework and childcare. (I can’t help but think that this last aspect was part of Musk’s whole point.) Stress, exhaustion, and their close relative — loneliness — now permeate our lives and those of so many others. Even health problems that emerged when our family was actively engaged in military service have resurfaced.

As many who have served in the military can attest, it’s hard to quantify the stress of living at the whims of abusive commanders who see needless suffering as a feature, not a detriment, of military service. And now such attitudes are being transferred to civilian life. Consider, for example, Trump’s appointee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, who has said that he actually wants federal workers to be “in trauma.” I consider that hazing on a national scale.

During our military service, for some in my family and community, there was at least a sense of contributing to a wider purpose: serving a government that pledged allegiance to the American people rather than to one man.

As we deal with the fallout of DOGE policies, I can only imagine the kinds of wait times that military health facilities are going to have with a gutted government in the second age of America’s very own You Know Who.

“A Protest a Day Keeps the Fascists Away!”

To see how this administration’s attack on federal workers penetrates everyday life, look no further than the lives of children in local public schools. Typically, for military kids and many others, school provides a respite from the uncertainties of messy family life. Schools also provide regular meals, uninterrupted adult attention, a predictable schedule — sometimes even healthcare. At my kids’ elementary school, which is still fantastically resourced and run, they are starting to hear from their friends about parents who have lost their jobs and are dealing with spiking food prices and an abysmal local job market. Meanwhile, beloved classmates from immigrant families are preparing to leave the country for fear of harassment, separation from other family members, or worse.

The problem with cruelty as a governing strategy is that it spreads like wildfire among the nation’s loneliest– even the youngest ones. Recently, my older child started coming home from school sick to his stomach because a peer had told him that Trump was a role model for “making America great again” through his deportations of immigrants — and his two best friends both happen to be foreign-born kids of color. Even when a kid repeatedly claims that immigrants commit crimes and spread disease, it’s difficult for a school counselor to intervene, given that those racial slurs come directly from the highest office in our land.

Since public school can offer exposure to just such grim sentiments, I’m not surprised that schoolchildren like mine have come out with some of the most courageous statements against the Trump administration’s malice. Take, for example, the middle schoolers at a military post in Stuttgart, Germany, who staged a walkout to protest Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s DEI purge of books and curricula related to race, gender, and sexuality, or the online record of a 12 year-old protesting to support his mom, fired from the Department of Education.

My son recently came home from a rough day of standing up to the little urchin harassing him and his friends, and started to craft his own political posters, as he imagined one day running for office. He then put them on his window facing the world beyond our house. One of them reads, “Make America Great Again,” with two lines through it. Underneath, he wrote, “Make America Better Than Great. We All Belong.” And underneath that, in small red letters: “Help us.”

Fellow progressives who are searching for strong leaders: How about instead helping ensure that more of us lead from where we are by speaking out! In our national culture, infused with Trump’s cult of personality, it’s easy to forget that we Americans are the government. The real waste and fraud happens when we miss opportunities to stand up for each other, or when, out of fear, we nod and smile at injustice.

Young kids who call out hate, injustice, and hypocrisy should be role models for the rest of us. They have everything to lose. They can’t look for a new job, move to Canada, or hire a lawyer. All they have is the truth (unless some adult is feeding them grown-up Trumpian poison) and they hold the truth dear.

More people speaking out will make it harder for Musk and Trump to destroy institutions that did many things so well most Americans didn’t even realize they were behind the scenes. As Democratic Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin said recently at a teach-in I attended: “A protest a day keeps the fascists away!”

In the meantime, please consider what I’ve shared about my community as a sort of canary-in-the-coal-mine warning that, unless more people — including you and your neighbors — speak out, too, we can expect the end of American democracy.

Live 12 noon Eastern and Streaming Afterwards:

Hosts Ted Rall and Scott Stantis dive into a heated question: Is the United States veering toward fascism under Donald Trump’s influence? They analyze recent political trends—Trump’s tightening grip on power, weakened democratic institutions, and polarizing rhetoric—debating whether these signal an authoritarian shift. The conversation then takes a dramatic turn: If fascism is emerging, is it time to leave the U.S.? To ground the discussion, they highlight high-profile Americans who have already fled, linking their departures to Trump’s impact.

Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, a fascism expert, is leaving the U.S. for the University of Toronto in fall 2025, citing America’s authoritarian slide under Trump. Author of “How Fascism Works,” he points to threats like Columbia University’s compliance with Trump’s demands as evidence. Stanley, who compares the U.S. to pre-WWII Germany, wants to protect his family and continue his work from Canada, sparking talk of a U.S. intellectual exodus.

Former Gawker publisher Nick Denton also left, settling in Budapest and citing the U.S.’s authoritarian leanings as his motivation. Adding to the list, filmmaker Michael Moore relocated to Ireland, publicly stating that Trump’s policies and cultural influence made staying untenable. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s ex-partner, musician Grimes, departed for New Zealand, expressing unease with America’s political trajectory under Trump’s shadow. Even conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, despite his ideological differences, moved his family to Israel, hinting at discomfort with domestic unrest tied to Trump’s polarizing return.

With their dynamic interplay of perspectives, Rall and Stantis probe whether these notable exits reflect a broader crisis, challenging listeners to consider: Should I stay or should I go?

The post DMZ America Podcast Ep 199: “Is It Time To Leave the USA?” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The richest person in the world couldn’t buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which was won by liberal Susan Crawford, who defeated Elon Musk’s favored candidate and Trump toadie, Brad Schimel. She will serve a ten-year term, cementing liberal dominance for some time. Vested interests poured $100 million into the race, a record for a state Supreme Court contest. This orgy of big money in politics was unleashed in large part by John Roberts’s wretched Citizens United ruling in 2010, which solidified America’s march to (further) plutocracy.

This election may signal the beginnings of a backlash against the Trump regime. Since his inauguration, Trump has acted more lawlessly than any president in history, even Tricky Dick Nixon, willfully thwarting the legislative intention of Congress in funding government agencies to do jobs Congress wanted them to do. Trump has undermined the basic parliamentary principle that the people’s elected representatives have the power of the purse, a principle that goes back to Britain hundreds of years ago.

At the same time, the Trump regime has exalted toxic masculinity and signaled its intent to liquidate workers’ unions. The problem for Trump is that a majority of Americans are women or workers or both.

Moreover, Trump’s surrender of such fiscal decisions to Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency has resulted in mass firings of government personnel and the gutting of America’s health services, scientific research and threats to the solvency of the country’s preeminent research universities. The attack on Social Security — removing the ability of recipients to do business by phone, the firing of 7,000 Social Security employees (14% of the workforce), the breaking of the agency’s website — has alarmed the elderly nationwide.

American democracy is stronger today because voters in one Midwest state stood up to the richest man in the world.

Trump won Wisconsin last fall by less than a percentage point, with a margin of only 29,000 votes. Trump’s full court press against the institutions Americans depend on has made a bad impression. In early March, Savannah Kuchar explained in USA Today, a Marquette poll found that 51% of the voters in Wisconsin viewed Trump’s initial weeks in office negatively. He had frittered away his slight advantage in the state. Of course, Republicans supported him and Democrats despised him. But the key is the independents, and of those 60% disapproved of the initial Trump record and only 39% approved.

As for Elon Musk, the same poll found that 53% of Wisconsin voters viewed him negatively, and only 41% saw Musk positively. Someone with such high negatives and so few supporters in a relatively conservative “purple” state likely made a mistake by taking a high profile, pouring $20 million into the Supreme Court race, and offering a million dollars to select voters to vote for the conservative candidate.

Elon may have defeated himself, just as Trump did.

Of course, there were other issues. Schimel as attorney general of Wisconsin a decade ago attempted to defend a restrictive abortion law that Federal judge William Conley in Madison struck down as unconstitutional in 2015. More recently, Republicans have argued that a nineteenth-century law banning abortion came back into effect once the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. A liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court is likely to find that the freedoms enshrined in the state constitution take precedence over Victorian era legislation.

Abortion rights activists came out to vote in large numbers in an off-year election of a sort that often sees low turnout in the state. Abortion rights helped drive the blue wave of 2018 and the return of the Democrats to the White House in 2021.

Union issues also brought out workers. The far right wing Gov. Scott Walker had in 2011 gutted teachers’ unions, which resulted in a precipitous fall in pay and in high turnover, which disadvantages schoolchildren. Late last fall a state judge found the 2011 law to violate the equal protection clause of the constitution, since Walter had actually favored police and fireman unions that supported him politically but had placed disabilities on teachers’ unions. Republican attempts to overturn this ruling by taking it to the Supreme Court have now been dealt a substantial blow.

Finally, Wisconsin’s congressional delegation is skewed 6 to 2 for Republicans, even though the two parties are neck and neck in the state. The current districts for federal elections disadvantage Democrats concentrated in Madison and Milwaukee. Districts for the state legislature, however, were made fairer in 2022 by legislation.

In 2020, as well, the Trump campaign demanded that 200,000 votes in the presidential contest be thrown out in Wisconsin. Any further such scurrilous demands will clearly be rebuffed in the state.

American democracy is stronger today because voters in one Midwest state stood up to the richest man in the world. The people of Wisconsin and of the United States have more rights today because of Wisconsin voters. Trump’s catastrophic policies, which threaten the health of the Republic both literally and figuratively, may produce not so much a blue wave as a blue tsunami as people realize that they are the ox to be gored.

Another moment of truth for Gaza has arrived.

Any day now, the Senate will vote on Senator Bernie Sanders' resolutions to block $8.8 billion in U.S. arms sales to Israel – and every single American who believes in human rights needs to flood Senate phone lines demanding support for these resolutions.

Let's be crystal clear about what's happening: Since Israel unilaterally shattered the ceasefire on March 17, over 600 Palestinians have been killed, disproportionately women and children in just the initial wave of strikes. These aren't just statistics—these are human beings, families, entire communities being obliterated with American-made weapons, paid for with our tax dollars.

Whether you just believe in following U.S. and international law when it comes to human rights, or you see this as part of a broader struggle against U.S. imperialism and militarism—or both—this is your moment to act.

The humanitarian catastrophe has reached unimaginable levels. According to the UN, Israel imposed a complete blockade on all aid into Gaza for several weeks, despite desperate daily efforts by UN agencies to deliver essential supplies. Think about that – 40 out of 49 aid movements coordinated with Israeli authorities were denied in just one week in March. Tom Fletcher, the UN relief chief, warned that food is “rotting, medicine expiring, and vital medical equipment stuck” while children are sick and starving. This isn't just a policy failure – it's a moral catastrophe of historic proportions.

What's at stake in Sanders' resolutions? We're talking about 35,000 MK84 2,000-pound bombs—massive weapons that have already been used to demolish Gaza's hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. The death toll has now surpassed 50,000 Palestinians. And the Trump administration wants to send more of these weapons, bypassing congressional oversight through cynical abuse of "emergency" authorities.

Trump’s Gaza policies are part and parcel of his authoritarian drift: In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked “national security emergency” waiver provisions to ram through these weapons transfers—despite the fact that many won't even be delivered for years. Some "emergency." This is nothing but a transparent attempt to avoid public scrutiny and democratic oversight of our role in this catastrophe.

Simultaneously, Trump’s bizarre “Riviera of the Middle East” plan for Gaza has been repeatedly endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan would involve forcibly relocating Palestinians under the guise of voluntary migration, a move widely condemned as ethnic cleansing. Netanyahu affirmed his support for Trump’s vision, describing it as a coordinated effort between their governments. This approach not only violates international law but also exemplifies Trump’s authoritarian tendencies: consolidating executive power to implement policies that prioritize militarism and demographic engineering over human rights and democratic accountability. Together, these actions reflect a pattern of governance rooted in unilateralism.

Whether you just believe in following U.S. and international law when it comes to human rights, or you see this as part of a broader struggle against U.S. imperialism and militarism—or both—this is your moment to act. We cannot let weapons paid for with our tax dollars continue to devastate civilian populations. We cannot allow a wannabe dictator to bypass democratic oversight through bogus "emergency" declarations.

Here's what you need to do right now (the vote is expected any day):

1. Call your senators’ offices immediately at (202) 224-3121. Demand they vote YES on Sanders' Resolutions of Disapproval on U.S. arms transfers to Israel – S.J.Res 26 and S.J.Res 33.

2. Remind them that these are the exact weapons used to destroy Gaza’s schools, hospitals, and homes.

3. Remind them that U.S. law requires U.S. weapons sales to cease when the weapons are being used in exactly these kinds of violations of human rights.

4. Spread the word – share this article, organize call-in campaigns, make your voice heard.

The vote could come any day. UN human rights experts have warned that Israel's recent actions have opened "the gates of hell" in Gaza. Will the United States continue to supply the weapons that keep those gates open? That depends on what we do right now.

So... Pick up your phone. Call your senators. Demand they vote YES on Sanders' resolutions to block these arms sales. Countless Palestinian lives hang in the balance, and history will judge all of us by what we do in this moment.

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan tackle the workplace fallout from President Trump’s rollback of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies, zeroing in on what it means for women. Joined by guest Gloria Esoimeme, a seasoned workplace equity advocate, they dissect how scrapping DEI reshapes professional landscapes across industries. The conversation dives into potential changes in hiring practices, promotion tracks, and corporate culture as companies abandon mandated diversity targets under Trump’s anti-woke agenda.

Esoimeme brings hard data and real-world accounts, shedding light on how women—particularly from underrepresented groups—might navigate this new terrain. Let’s whether this policy shift opens doors, widens gaps, or simply reverts workplaces to pre-DEI norms. With Trump’s administration doubling down on deregulation, the stakes are high. Too much info? That’s the TMI promise.

The post TMI Show Ep 109: “Gloria Esoimeme on Trump’s DEI Rollback” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

U.S. President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the U.S., repeatedly stating things such as, "Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history…”

Trump aims to close the trade deficit by imposing tariffs, thereby impeding imports and restoring trade balance (or inducing other countries to end their rip-offs of America). Yet Trump’s tariffs will not close the trade deficit but will instead impoverish Americans and harm the rest of the world.

A country’s trade deficit (or more precisely, its current account deficit) does not indicate unfair trade practices by the surplus countries. It indicates something completely different. A current account deficit signifies that the deficit country is spending more than it is producing. Equivalently, it is saving less than it is investing.

America’s trade deficit is a measure of the profligacy of America’s corporate ruling class, more specifically the result of chronically large budget deficits resulting from tax cuts for the rich combined with trillions of dollars wasted on useless wars. The deficits are not the perfidy of Canada, Mexico, and other countries that sell more to the U.S. than the U.S. sells to them.

Trump blames the rest of the world for America’s deficit, but that’s absurd. It is America that is spending more than it earns.

To close the trade deficit, the U.S. should close the budget deficit. Putting on tariffs will raise prices (such as for automobiles) but not close the trade or budget deficit, especially since Trump plans to offset tariff revenues with vastly larger tax cuts for his rich donors. Moreover, as Trump raises tariffs, the U.S. will face counter-tariffs that will directly impede U.S. exports. The result will be lose-lose for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Let’s look at the numbers. In 2024, the U.S. exported $4.8 trillion in goods and services, and imported $5.9 trillion of goods and services, leading to a current account deficit of $1.1 trillion. That $1.1 trillion deficit is the difference between America’s total spending in 2024 ($30.1 trillion) and America’s national income ($29.0 trillion). America spends more than it earns and borrows the difference from the rest of the world.

Trump blames the rest of the world for America’s deficit, but that’s absurd. It is America that is spending more than it earns. Consider this. If you are an employee, you run a current account surplus with your employer and a deficit with the companies from which you buy goods and services. If you spend exactly what you earn, you are in current account balance. Suppose that you go on a shopping binge, spending more than your earnings by running up credit-card debt. You will now be running a current account deficit. Are the shops ripping you off, or is your profligacy driving you into debt?

Tariffs will not close the trade deficit so long as the fiscal irresponsibility of the corporate raiders and tax evaders that dominate Washington continues. Suppose, for example, that Trump’s tariffs slash the imports of automobiles and other goods from abroad. Americans will then buy U.S.-produced cars and other merchandise that would have been exported. Imports will fall, but so too will exports. Moreover, new tariffs imposed by other countries in response to Trump’s tariffs will reinforce the decline in U.S. exports. The U.S. trade imbalance will remain.

While the tariffs will not eliminate the trade deficit, they will force Americans to buy high-priced U.S.-produced goods that could have obtained at lower cost from foreign producers. The tariffs will squander what economists call the gains from trade: the ability to buy goods based on the comparative advantage of domestic and foreign producers.

The budget deficit is not due to the salaries of civil servants, who are being wantonly fired, or to the government’s R&D spending, on which our future prosperity depends, but rather to the combination of tax cuts for the rich, and reckless spending on America’s perpetual wars...

The tariffs will raise prices for automobiles and wages of automotive workers, but those wage hikes will be paid by lower living standards of Americans across the economy, not by a boost of national income. The real way to support American workers is through federal measures opposite to those favored by Trump, including universal health coverage, support for unionization, and budget support for modern infrastructure, including green energy, all financed with higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporate sector.

The federal government does not cover its overall spending with tax revenues because wealthy campaign donors promote tax cuts, tax avoidance (through tax havens) and tax evasion. Remember that DOGE has gutted the audit capacity of the IRS. The budget deficit is currently around $2 trillion dollars, or roughly 6 percent of U.S. national income. With a chronically high budget gap, the U.S. trade balance will remain in chronic deficit.

Trump says that he will cut the budget deficit by slashing waste and abuse through DOGE. The problem is that DOGE mispresents the real cause of the fiscal profligacy. The budget deficit is not due to the salaries of civil servants, who are being wantonly fired, or to the government’s R&D spending, on which our future prosperity depends, but rather to the combination of tax cuts for the rich, and reckless spending on America’s perpetual wars, U.S. funding for Israel’s non-stop wars, America’s 750 overseas military bases, the bloated CIA and other intelligence agencies, and interest payments on the soaring federal debt.

Trump and the Congressional Republicans are reportedly taking aim at Medicaid—that is, at the poorest and most vulnerable Americans—to make way for yet another tax cut for the richest Americans. They may soon go after Social Security and Medicare too.

Trump’s tariffs will fail to close the trade and budget deficits, raise prices, and make America and the world poorer by squandering the gains from trade. The U.S. will be the enemy of the world for the harm that it is causing to itself and the rest of the world.

In a genocidal war that has spiraled into a struggle for political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and the global powers supporting him continue to sacrifice Palestinian lives for political gain.

The sordid career of Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir epitomizes this tragic reality.

Ben-Gvir joined Netanyahu’s government coalition following the December 2022 elections. He remained in the coalition after the October 7, 2023 war and genocide, with the understanding that any cease-fire in Gaza would force his departure.

Though “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” as Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz once surmised, in Israel’s case, the “politics” behind the war is not about Israel as a state but about Netanyahu’s own political survival.

As long as the killing of Palestinians and the destruction of their cities continued, Ben-Gvir stayed on board—though neither he nor Netanyahu had any real “next-day” plan, other than to carry out some of the most heinous massacres against a civilian population in recent history.

On January 19, Ben-Gvir left the government immediately following a cease-fire agreement, which many argued would not last. Netanyahu’s untrustworthiness, along with the collapse of his government if the war ended completely, made the cease-fire unfeasible.

Ben-Gvir returned when the genocide resumed on March 18. “We are back, with all our might and power!” he wrote in a tweet on the day of his return.

Israel lacks a clear plan because it cannot defeat the Palestinians. While the Israeli army has inflicted suffering on the Palestinian people like no other force has against a civilian population in modern history, the war endures because the Palestinians refuse to surrender.

Yet, Israel’s military planners know that a military victory is no longer possible. Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently added his voice to the growing chorus, stating during an interview on March 15 that “revenge is not a war plan.”

The Americans, who supported Netanyahu’s violation of the cease-fire—thus resuming the killings—also understand that the war is almost entirely a political struggle, designed to keep figures like Ben-Gvir and extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in Netanyahu’s coalition.

Though “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” as Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz once surmised, in Israel’s case, the “politics” behind the war is not about Israel as a state but about Netanyahu’s own political survival. He is sacrificing Palestinian children to stay in power, while his extremist ministers do the same to expand their support among right-wing, religious, and ultra-nationalist constituencies.

This logic—that Israel’s war on Gaza reflects internal politics, ideological warfare, and class infighting—extends to other political players as well.

The Trump administration supports Israel as payback for the financial backing it received from Netanyahu’s supporters in the U.S. during the last elections. On the other hand, Britain remains steadfast in its commitment to Tel Aviv, despite the political shifts in Westminster, thus continuing to align with U.S.-Israeli interests while disregarding the wishes of its own population. Meanwhile, Germany, it’s said, is driven by the guilt of its past crimes, while other Western governments pay lip service to human rights, all the while acting in ways that contradict their stated foreign policies.

This mirrors the dystopian world of George Orwell’s 1984, where perpetual war is waged based on cynical and false assumptions, where “war is peace… freedom is slavery… and ignorance is strength.”

Indeed, these elements are reflected in today’s equally dystopian reality. However, Israel substitutes “peace” with “security,” the U.S. is motivated by dominance and “stability,” and Europe continues to speak of “democracy.”

Another key difference is that Palestinians do not belong to any of these “superstates.” They are treated as mere pawns, their deaths and enduring of injustice used to create the illusion of “conflict” and to justify the ongoing prolongation of the war.

The deaths of Palestinians—now numbering over 50,000—are widely reported by mainstream media outlets, yet rarely do they mention that this is not a war in the traditional sense, but a genocide, carried out, financed, and defended by Israel and Western powers for domestic political reasons. Palestinians continue to resist because it is their only option in the face of utter destruction and extermination.

Netanyahu’s war, however, is not sustainable in the Orwellian sense, either. For it to be sustainable, it would need infinite economic resources, which Israel, despite U.S. generosity, cannot afford. It would also need an endless supply of soldiers, but reports indicate that at least half of Israel’s reserves are not rejoining the army.

Furthermore, Netanyahu does not merely seek to sustain the war; he aims to expand it. This could shift regional and international dynamics in ways that neither Israeli leaders nor their allies fully understand.

Aware of this, Arab leaders met in Cairo on March 4 to propose an alternative to Netanyahu-Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza. However, they have yet to take meaningful action to hold Israel accountable if it continues to defy international and humanitarian laws—as it has since the Arab summit.

The Arab world must escalate beyond mere statements, or the Middle East may endure further war, all to prolong Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists a little longer.

As for the West, the crisis lies in its moral contradictions. The situation in Gaza embodies Orwell’s concept of “doublethink”—the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both. Western powers claim to support human rights while simultaneously backing genocide. Until this dilemma is resolved, the Middle East will continue to endure suffering for years to come.

On April 30, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that could fundamentally reshape public education: Oklahoma’s controversial approval of the nation’s first religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. The case forces a critical question to the forefront—should taxpayers be compelled to finance religious schools while having no authority to regulate them?

The court’s decision could continue a pattern of rulings that have chipped away at the traditional separation between church and state, transforming the landscape of public education and public funding. If the justices side with St. Isidore, the ruling could mark a turning point in American schooling—one that may erode public accountability, alter funding priorities, and blur the constitutional boundaries that have long defined the relationship between religion and government.

This case builds on a series of decisions from the Roberts Court that have steadily eroded the wall between church and state. In Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, the court allowed public funds to be used for secular purposes by religious institutions. Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue expanded this principle, ruling that states cannot exclude religious schools from publicly funded programs. And in Carson v. Makin, the court went further, mandating that state voucher programs include religious schools, arguing that exclusion constitutes discrimination against religion.

As the justices deliberate, they would do well to consider not just the legal arguments, but also the practical and moral consequences of their decision.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in Carson, stated, “[i]n particular, we have repeatedly held that a State violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits.” On its face, this reasoning frames the issue as one of fairness—ensuring religious entities are not treated unequally. But the deeper implications of this logic are far more radical.

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in her dissent, this interpretation fundamentally redefines the Free Exercise Clause, equating a government’s refusal to fund religious institutions with unconstitutional religious discrimination. Justice Stephen Breyer took this concern a step further, pointing to the court’s own precedent to highlight the dangerous trajectory of its rulings:

We have previously found, as the majority points out, that “a neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices of private benefit recipients does not offend the Establishment Clause.” We have thus concluded that a State may, consistent with the Establishment Clause, provide funding to religious schools through a general public funding program if the “government aid… reach[es] religious institutions only by way of the deliberate choices of… individual [aid] recipients.”

Breyer then underscored the significance of this distinction:

But the key word is “may.” We have never previously held what the court holds today, namely, that a State must (not may) use state funds to pay for religious education as part of a tuition program designed to ensure the provision of free statewide public school education.

Finally, he distilled the implications into a warning: “What happens once ‘may’ becomes ‘must’?”

That shift—from allowance to obligation—could force states not only to permit religious education in publicly funded programs, but to actively finance it, eroding any semblance of neutrality between public and religious schooling. This transformation threatens to unravel the Establishment Clause’s core protection: that government does not privilege or compel religious exercise.

Now, the Oklahoma case brings Breyer’s warning into sharp focus. The petitioners are asking the court to declare that charter schools are not state actors—meaning they would be free from public accountability and regulations, including those related to discrimination or special education. At the same time, they argue that public funds must be made available to religious charters. The implications of such a ruling could reverberate across the country, reshaping education in profound and troubling ways.

The May-to-Must Transformation and Its Far-Reaching Consequences

If the Court sides with St. Isidore, the ripple effects could be seismic, triggering a wave of religious charter school applications and fundamentally altering the landscape of public education. Here’s how:

1. A Surge in Religious Charter Schools

Religious institutions, particularly those struggling to sustain traditional parochial schools, would have a financial lifeline. Charter subsidies, which often surpass voucher amounts, would incentivize religious organizations to enter the charter school market. For years, leaders in some religious communities have sought public funding to buoy their schools, and a decision in favor of St. Isidore could provide the legal green light. The result? A proliferation of religious charters, funded by taxpayers but largely free from public oversight.

2. Erosion of Protections for Students with Disabilities

The implications for students with disabilities are especially concerning. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s implementing regulations, a student with disabilities who is “placed in or referred to a private school or facility by a public agency…[h]as all of the rights of a child with a disability who is served by a public agency.” Yet, a ruling in favor of St. Isidore risks undermining these guarantees by creating a loophole for private religious charters to skirt IDEA’s requirements.

This concern is not just theoretical. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the hybrid nature of charter schools already complicates questions of accountability and state action, particularly when it comes to safeguarding student rights. Allowing religious charters to operate free from IDEA’s obligations would further erode the fragile legal protections students with disabilities rely on—protections that are already too often disregarded in practice.

3. Undermining Public Health and Safety Policies

The pandemic underscored the challenges of balancing public health mandates with constitutional protections for religious freedom. In 2020, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down the state’s attempt to close religious schools during a Covid-19 spike, even as public and secular private schools complied. Extending public funding to religious charters could further erode the state’s ability to enforce neutral regulations, from health measures to curriculum standards. Such decisions privilege religious institutions over secular ones, creating a patchwork of inconsistent rules that could undermine public safety and equity.

Toward Transparency and Accountability

Can these challenges be mitigated? Some experts argue for stricter regulations to preserve the public nature of charter schools. Bruce Baker, a professor of education finance, suggests limiting charter authorization to government agencies and requiring boards and employees to be public officials. Such reforms could ensure that charters remain accountable to taxpayers and subject to the same constitutional constraints as public schools.

Other scholars, like Preston Green and Suzanne Eckes, propose requiring religious charters to forgo certain exemptions if they wish to receive public funding. Specifically, they recommend restructuring charter school boards as government-created and controlled entities to ensure they are unequivocally recognized as state actors subject to constitutional obligations. For example, this would require religious charters to comply fully with anti-discrimination laws and other public mandates, maintaining the balance between religious freedom and public accountability.

The Larger Threat to Public Education

Even with these potential safeguards, the broader implications are sobering. If the court rules in favor of religious charters, states will face difficult choices: increase taxes to fund an expanding universe of religious and secular schools, divert money away from public schools, or create new bureaucracies to regulate religious institutions. Taxpayers could find themselves funding schools tied to a bewildering array of faiths, from mainstream denominations to fringe sects.

As the justices deliberate, they would do well to consider not just the legal arguments, but also the practical and moral consequences of their decision. What happens to a society when its public institutions are splintered along religious lines? And what happens to the students and families who depend on those institutions for equity, opportunity, and inclusion?

The answers to these questions will shape the future of American education—and the values we choose to uphold.

As a self-confessed polling nerd, I have studied polling for decades. One of the more interesting things I have done in my life is worked as an analyst for a prominent Democratic polling firm. There is no organization with a better reputation than Gallup. Founded way back in 1935, Gallup is truly the gold standard. Their nonpartisan reputation is without question. However, Gallup has not been perfect: It predicted New York Gov. Thomas Dewey would beat President Harry Truman back in 1948 and it had Gerald Ford edging out Jimmy Carter back in 1976. Despite these misses, you could always depend on Gallup to uphold the strictest methodological ethics and, even more importantly, they would report their data without any spin. Sometimes I liked what the Gallup reported, other times I did not.

So, when Gallup released new polling data last Thursday, I eagerly clicked on the link. I was wondering if President Donald Trump’s job approval was trending up or down. The headline of the Gallup press release was “Republicans, Men Push Trump Approval Higher in Second Term.” I was perplexed by the sub-header which said “Black, Hispanic adults more approving of Trump in second term, but still disapprove of him overall.”

The point that Gallup is making is that in 2017, 22% of Hispanics approved of Trump’s job performance while now it is 37%. Similarly, Black voters are more positive about Trump now than they were in 2017 (13% vs. 22%). This is a notable trend and one that political analysts need to watch. However, Gallup is missing the bigger point that if Trump wants to make inroads in the Black and Hispanic communities, he has a lot of work to do.

The only problem for Democrats, and it is a big one, is that the party needs to come up with an economic message.

The more important story in Gallup’s findings is that Independent voters have soured on Donald Trump. Fully 61% of Independents disapprove of Trump’s job performance. Independent voters’ feelings about Trump’s job as president are intense—fully 46% strongly disapprove of his performance.

When asked about Trump’s handling of the economy, two-thirds (66%) of Independents disapprove of Trump’s performance.

CNN 2024 exit polling showed that Trump lost Independent voters by 3 percentage points to Harris (49% Harris, 46% Trump). So, if we take voters’ perceptions of Trump’s handling of the economy as a proxy for their intention to vote for the GOP 2028 presidential candidate, it is evident that Republicans have some work to do to win over Independents.

Granted, the 2028 presidential election is years away. However, next year are the midterm elections. Historically, midterm elections go against the party in the White House. Furthermore, the polling that Gallup did does not measure the impact of Trump’s tariffs that will go into effect on April 2. Even the Trump administration has admitted that the president’s economic policies will cause problems in the short-term.

All of this is good news for Democrats. The only problem for Democrats, and it is a big one, is that the party needs to come up with an economic message. They have a real opportunity to take back the economy as an issue among Independents (34% of the 2024 electorate). For all our sake, I hope the party does not miss this opportunity.

Trump’s fixation on Greenland might be military overreach, a risky move given America’s war record. Since 1945, the U.S. has lost or stalemated in Korea (1953), Vietnam (1975), and Afghanistan (2021), with Iraq’s 2003 “victory” devolving into chaos. Greenland, a Danish territory with 56,000 residents and strategic Arctic value, isn’t for sale. Trump’s bluster ignores history: of 12 major post-WWII conflicts, the U.S. decisively won just three.

The post Trump’s Greenland Military Overreach appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.