DCUM Weblog

I have written several posts about attempts by the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to remove international students from the United States. Initially, this was advertised as a policy aimed at students who had participated in protests opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza or who had displayed antisemitism. However, the administration's actions have been heavy-handed and, as is typical of this administration, frequently incompetent. After the initial removal attempts, the effort has grown much wider and ensnared many students who have had nothing to do with protests or antisemitism. Moreover, it appears that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have behaved deceptively at times in an effort to essentially trick students into leaving the country.

Today I am going to do something a bit different from my previous posts. I am going to focus almost exclusively on an article published by National Public Radio (NPR) titled, "A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data". The article and the accompanying radio story were the work of Jenna McLaughlin and detail the experiences of a whistleblower named Daniel Berulis who is an information technology specialist at the National Labor Relations Board. According to Berulis, members of a team from the U.S. DOGE Service, after disabling security mechanisms, may have exfiltrated sensitive data from the NLRB. Exactly what data and for what purposes it may have been removed is not clear, but Berulis paints a very troubling picture.

This morning I want to cut right to the chase. Admittedly, I am not a historian, I am not a politician, and I am not some special font of wisdom. I own a website that affords me a small platform to spout my opinions. Nothing more. But, with those caveats in mind, I think that yesterday marks a turning point in U.S. history: it was the first day of fascism in America. The United States is no longer a country that abides by the rule of law. Our system of three co-equal branches of government has failed. The reason that I believe this transition from democracy concluded yesterday is because, yesterday, the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump openly ignored two court rulings and clearly telegraphed its intention to ignore court rulings with which it disagrees. Congress had already become little more than a rubber stamp for Trump's preferences. Now Trump intends to treat the judiciary branch as little more than an advisory council. As a result, we have rule by Sharpie as Trump scribbles out executive orders that are clearly unlawful, but are treated as if they have the force of law.

One of the first victims of autocratic regimes is the free press. Autocrats detest criticism, preferring a controlled media that toes the government line. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump seems to have a love/hate relationship with most of the media. Reporters are one of Trump's favorite targets of attack — he frequently refers to reporters as the "enemy of the people" — and is routinely critical of the mainstream media. Simultaneously, however, Trump loves media attention and has a penchant for playing the media like a fiddle. He has house-trained mainstream reporters such as Maggie Haberman — who knows not to risk her access with hard-nosed reporting and to save her best scoops for a book in the future — and, more recently, started surrounding himself with bloggers who are essentially MAGA cult members. Trump's effort to neuter the media is wide-ranging and multifaceted. But it is an important element of his emerging autocracy.

Today I am going to provide updates on a number of the topics about which I've previously written. To be frank, compiling these updates has been a depressing endeavor as, if anything, they show that things in the U.S. are getting significantly worse. While there are a few glimmers of hope, they are generally outweighed by negative developments. We may feel an urge to look away in order to avoid the bad news, but it is important to keep our eyes open and aware of what is happening. It is in the interest of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump that we simply give up and ignore what he is doing to our country. However, the easiest form of resistance is to simply pay attention.

Trump's Attacks on Law Firms

Last month I wrote about executive orders that Trump signed targeting law firms that had fallen into disfavor with him. Since then, Trump has similarly gone after several additional law firms. While one of the first firms that Trump targeted, Perkins Coie, has challenged Trump in court and met with success, others, such as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, quickly capitulated and made considerable concessions to Trump. Far from being discouraged by the legal pushback, Trump instead seized on what was essentially tribute paid by the firms that surrendered. Trump has bragged about what he has been able to wring out of the firms and been encouraged to attack more of them. Some firms have even preemptively approached Trump to offer their surrender. It has been extremely disappointing to see firms comprised of what are supposed to be hard-nosed litigators fold like wet paper bags. I am, of course, just a simple website owner and not a graduate of an Ivy League law school or a partner in a prestigious law firm, but I cannot begin to understand the calculus of the firms that immediately give in. Who would want to hire a law firm that won't even stand up for itself? Who would want to pay them to immediately grovel at the slightest threat? How could these firms be trusted in any case that might upset Trump? To their credit, a number of employees have chosen to leave the firms that gave into Trump, putting their honor above their immediate interests. But far too many top lawyers appear to be more interested in being able to make payments on a house in the Hamptons than standing up for their own constitutional rights.

After reports that Shadow President Elon Musk would be stepping back from his Special Government Employee role in the federal government, he has been kind of quiet. While the US DOGE Service that the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump insists that Musk does not lead, despite all evidence to the contrary, continues its rampage through the federal government, Musk has not recently been in the spotlight. He has popped up only to criticize Peter Navarro, Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing. That does not mean that Musk has not kept busy. For instance, he recently concluded a multibillion dollar merger involving his artificial intelligence company, xAI. At the same time, Musk also completed a merger of another of his companies, X, his social media network that was previously known as Twitter. As you may have divined, Musk's two companies merged with each other. This involved a multistep process that provides an interesting window into how it is possible to create wealth out of thin air. The merger also raises questions about Musk's future plans and whether they might involve the highly sensitive government data to which DOGE has had access.

Imagine that while in the course of your daily routine, maybe walking your dog, picking up a child from school, leaving work, going to the grocery store, or any other mundane activity, you are seized by a group of masked individuals, tossed into an unmarked van, and whisked to a detention center. Within hours, you are moved to another detention center and, shortly after that, transferred to a third detention center. Somewhere along the way, you are told that you will be deported to El Salvador, where you will be confined to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). You are also informed that you have the right to file a habeas petition to challenge your deportation. It is entirely possible that you don't even know what a habeas petition is, let alone how to file one. Nobody may even know that you are missing or, if they do, where you are being held. If friends or family manage to find a lawyer willing to help, the lawyer won't know where to file a habeas petition because your location is unknown. Before you are able to obtain a court appearance, you are put on an airplane to El Salvador. Then, days later, lawyers present evidence that you were wrongly identified as a member of the violent Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, and should not have been deported. The government admits that your deportation was in error but claims no ability to have you returned from a prison that is under foreign control. The government's reaction is essentially "too bad, so sad" or, more directly, "it sucks to be you."

Not all of the attacks on American freedoms started under cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. When it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, Trump has continued the policy of former President Joe Biden of providing full, unequivocal support for Israel. Both Presidents have sought to squelch criticism of their policies and Israel's actions, especially among college students. The result has been the most pronounced assault on freedom of speech within the United States in modern history. Biden began the process by funding, supplying, and providing political support for Israel's genocide in Gaza and then backing attempts by Israel's supporters to classify almost any criticism of the country's actions as "antisemitism". Even the most modest critique of Israel's actions in Gaza is likely to be declared "antisemitic" or "pro-Hamas" and, in many cases, punished. This process began under Biden, but Trump has seized the cudgel of combating "antisemitism" to further his own interest in neutering universities as a source of opposition to his autocratic policies. Under both administrations, steps were taken to suppress freedom of speech, particularly on college campuses, in order to avoid criticism of the full-fledged support for Israel and Israel's atrocities in Gaza.

Yesterday, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump announced a broad range of tariffs on almost every country in the world, minus Russia and Belarus (I'm sure this was a simple oversight). Trump claimed that these are "reciprocal" tariffs that simply duplicate tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers that those countries place on U.S. goods. Observers quickly expressed confusion about how the various tariff rates were derived because they could find no combination of tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers that added up to Trump's figures. Eventually, one analyst — who could probably have a good future as a code breaker — discovered that the tariff rates were actually just the trade deficit that we have with each country divided by the value of the country's annual exports to the U.S. and then divided in half. When asked to confirm that this was, in fact, the calculation that was used, White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai replied that the formula was incorrect and, instead, provided a complex equation containing Greek symbols and a lot of complex and confusing language. Those with a working understanding of mathematics quickly discovered that the Greek symbols cancelled themselves out (one multiplied the value by 4 while another multiplied the same value by .25) and, once the equation was simplified, indeed matched the initial discovery that the calculation was simply the trade deficit divided by the value of exports divided in half. Obviously, basing tariff rates on such a number makes no sense whatsoever.