DCUM Weblog

I think that most of us know that the reconciliation bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives has a significant number of bad provisions. The bill contains massive tax cuts for the wealthy, which will add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It cuts Medicare and Medicaid and weakens Obamacare. The bill also increases funding for the military and the border patrol. But a must-pass bill of more than 1,000 pages, much of which was drafted in the final hours before passage and approved in the middle of the night with few Members of Congress having been able to read it, is ripe for exploitation. Such a bill is a prime candidate to be used for hiding provisions that may be unpopular and which would never pass on their own accord. The "Big Beautiful Bill", as the reconciliation act is named, is just such legislation, and exactly that has happened with it. Hidden away amidst the pages about tax cuts and defense spending increases is a provision that would protect government officials from the consequences of ignoring court decisions.

In March 2024, amidst a wave of Islamophobic attacks on Adeel Mangi, former President Joe Biden's nominee for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, three Democratic U.S. Senators announced their opposition to Mangi's nomination. This seat would, as a result, go unfilled through the remainder of Biden's presidency and continued to be empty when cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump assumed office. This week, Trump announced his nomination of Emil Bove, his former defense attorney, for the lifetime appointment. Thanks to the actions of the three Democrats, Catherine Cortez-Masto, Joe Manchin, and Jacky Rosen, a seat that could have been filled by a respected and widely experienced jurist will now potentially be occupied by a partisan political hack who puts his loyalty to Trump above the law.

For months, Israel has maintained an embargo of all food and medical supplies to Gaza, forcing its population of roughly 2 million into starvation. As children die from hunger and desperation grows among Gaza's residents, the world has found it increasingly difficult to simply avert its gaze. As Americans, the genocide that Israel is committing is our genocide as well. Our government, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, has been and remains the largest and most important backer of the Israeli government. Both former President Joe Biden and cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump have fully supported the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza. However, both Presidents have faced pressure over the spectre of the Palestinians being starved to death. In response, both Biden and Trump have supported complex, inefficient, and ineffective solutions designed more to gain Israeli approval rather than to satisfactorily address the Israeli-caused and U.S.-supported famine.

If there is one thing that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has made clear since he began his second term as President, it is that he plans to rule as a dictator. Instead of passing legislation through Congress, he relies on "rule by Sharpie" as he signs countless executive actions. Contrary to Trump's belief — as well as that of much of the public, including a disappointingly large portion of the media — executive orders, actions, and memoranda do not create, modify, or eliminate laws. They are directives to Executive Branch staff, essentially glorified interoffice memos. As a result, many of Trump's executive actions have been challenged in court, where they have routinely been blocked. As Trump has been learning, there are limits to his executive power. There is one area, however, where a President's authority is unchallenged. That is the power to pardon, commute sentences, and otherwise grant clemency. Like a king granting favors to his subjects, Trump has embarked on a pattern of using clemency to reward his supporters, often appearing to act in return for favors. In doing so, Trump has shown an extremely high tolerance, if not outright support, for corruption. Through his uses of executive clemency powers, Trump has legitimized corruption by Republicans or others who have won his approval. Just in case there was any doubt about this, yesterday Trump's recently appointed U.S. Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin, made this perfectly clear, tweeting "No MAGA left behind."

Both the United States and Israel are currently facing constitutional crises due to attempts by their leaders to remove obstacles to autocratic rule. While the specifics of the events in each country are somewhat different, there is a lot of commonality. In both countries, their current leaders ran for office while facing criminal charges. For both cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, winning their current offices was a means of staying out of prison. Both Trump and Netanyahu are currently ignoring decisions by their country's supreme courts that would constrain their authority. It is not clear that the political systems of either the United States or Israel are strong enough to prevent a slide into complete autocracy. In both countries, the rule of law is at stake. As a result, one country that has traditionally touted itself as the "world's leading democracy" and another routinely praised as the "only democracy in the Middle East" may soon lose the right to their claims.

If there is one thing that I would like readers to take from today's post, it is that Shadow President Elon Musk is a liar. Not just a run-of-the-mill liar who drops the occasional white lie or simple exaggeration, but a big-time, all-out falsehood-telling habitual liar. Therefore, when you see reports that Musk is stepping back from politics, I suggest taking them with more than a grain of salt. Musk's involvement in politics has had tremendous personal benefits for him, but there have also been downsides — especially the impact on Tesla. What Musk is likely trying to do is lower his profile to avoid the blowback as much as possible, while retaining access and influence in order to continue reaping the benefits of his involvement in politics.

Arguably, much of Musk's personal wealth is owed to his lies. For instance, as far back as 2013, Musk was predicting that Teslas would be capable of driving autonomously for 90% of the miles by 2016. In 2014, he shortened the prediction to 2015. Tesla didn't come close to meeting either of those expectations, but in 2015 Musk predicted full self-driving by 2018. Musk did not deliver on that promise either, but that year he did start a pattern of annual announcements that full self-driving would be available the next year. Tesla has still not produced a fully self-driving vehicle, but now one is promised for next month. The impact of these failed annual predictions, strangely enough, has not been to undermine confidence in Musk. Quite the contrary. Each time Musk makes one of these predictions, Tesla's stock surges. In fact, as assuredly as you can predict that the sun will rise in the East, you can expect that anytime Tesla's stock dips, Musk will issue another pronouncement that full self-driving is just about ready.

Personally, I think that the U.S. DOGE Service has always primarily been an effort by Shadow President Elon Musk to seize control of several tools of government for his own benefit and to direct government contracts to his own businesses. But many people — including a number generally believed to be serious — continue to believe that DOGE is truly aimed at increasing government efficiency. There is very little evidence to support that belief. Moreover, the failures of DOGE are easily documented. Today, I will look at one specific case: DOGE's involvement in the Social Security Administration.

Social Security has long been considered the third rail of U.S. politics. A great number of individuals rely on their monthly Social Security checks, and almost everyone of them votes. It is no surprise then that politicians fall over themselves to commit to protecting Social Security. At the same time, like Willy Sutton who robbed banks "Because that’s where the money is.", those hoping to cut government spending can't resist targeting Social Security. This leads to the magical incantation of promising to protect Social Security while cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse." The problem comes when significant waste, fraud, and abuse cannot be found. This is exactly what happened in the case of DOGE's involvement in Social Security.

In another demonstration of the autocratic practices that have marked the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, has announced that she will criminally charge a sitting member of the U.S. Congress. The charges arise from an attempt by three Members of Congress to inspect a recently reopened Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Newark, New Jersey. During the visit, ICE agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. The three Representatives, LaMonica McIver — who represents the district in which the detention center is located — Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rob Menendez, attempted to prevent Baraka's arrest. This resulted in a fracas involving pushing and shoving. Habba has announced charges against McIver for assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement.

During the presidential campaign, inflation and the cost of everyday goods — especially eggs — were a major campaign issue. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump made repeated promises to bring down costs. The fact that this commitment directly conflicted with another major campaign promise — to apply widespread tariffs that would increase the cost of imports — never seemed to bother Trump, his supporters, or most of the media. The fact of the matter was that when Americans went to the grocery store, they encountered increased prices. This provided an opening that the Trump campaign was eager to exploit.

So eager was the campaign to stress the cost of food that J. D. Vance once conducted a photo-op in a grocery store complaining that the price of eggs was $4. Unfortunately for Vance, he was standing in front of an egg display where the $2.99 price tag was clearly visible. Bumbling photo-ops were sort of a Vance specialty, especially where food was concerned. He had an unnecessarily difficult time ordering donuts in a shop in Georgia while an employee repeatedly told him she didn't want to be photographed. In one of his first campaign appearances, Vance attempted to prove his Appalachian bone fides by saying, "I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today". If anything, that remark (especially mentioning that it was "diet") made Vance seem out-of-touch rather than true to his family roots. Both Trump and Vance — one a billionaire and the other a multi-millionaire — wanted to relate to voters and show that they understood the challenges normal people were facing. Generally, however, these attempts had the opposite effect.

"We’re being eliminated now." This was tweeted last night by Motasem Dalloul, a Palestinian journalist reporting from Gaza for international news outlets. At the time Dalloul sent this tweet, Israel was in the midst of a wave of over 150 air attacks across Gaza and was expanding ground operations in parts of the Palestinian territory. The reality of life in Gaza these days makes it impossible to tell whether Dalloul was referring to the elimination of journalists or the entire Palestinian population of Gaza. Given Israeli words and actions in recent days, either interpretation could be valid. Israel has been systematically killing journalists. For instance, Hassan Aslih first suffered severe burns when Israel bombed a tent encampment sheltering displaced persons. Aslih was ultimately killed when Israeli jets bombed the burn unit of the Nasser Medical Complex where he was being treated. There was a time when Israel vehemently denied that it attacked hospitals or killed journalists. Now the country proudly takes credit for both. But journalists are far from the only victims of Israel's aggression. Overnight, at least 85 Palestinians were killed by the Israelis. In several cases, entire families were murdered. This has become the daily toll recently and things are likely to get worse.