Republicans are enabling the destruction of America. Impeach Trump NOW! Attention Senator Susan Collins

Baltimore Sun opinion echo by Tom Jurkowsky

The unwillingness of our U.S. friends, allies and alliances to help the U.S. in its efforts against Iran should come as no surprise.

Donald Trump has spent time during both of his terms in office criticizing, insulting and demeaning NATO leaders — even going so far as to insult the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron and criticizing the pope.

Unfortunately, Trump’s bullying style of diplomacy does not engender a willingness by allies and friends to step forward and provide assistance to our efforts in Iran. Berating foreign leaders who complained about his tariffs, continuing with threats to take over Greenland and accusing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of cowardice are just a few examples that don’t create feelings of warmth, friendship and respect.

After a recent meeting in the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump berated allies and told Rutte that he was considering reprisals against NATO countries for their lack of support in the war against Iran. According to Politico, the conversation was nothing but a tirade of insults.

Throughout his terms in office, Trump has continued to repeat claims that the NATO alliance has never done anything to help the U.S. He continues to ignore the fact that when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, many NATO countries supported our efforts in Afghanistan. In fact, approximately 3,600 NATO-led coalition troops died in Afghanistan, while over 23,000 were injured. The president’s staff should remind him of those numbers. Failing to acknowledge NATO’s contributions during our 20 years in Afghanistan is insulting.

Donald Trump’s inept style of failed diplomacy stands in stark contrast to that of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Ronald Reagan.

Shultz compared diplomacy to gardening. “You go around and talk to people, you develop a relationship of trust and confidence, and then if something comes up, you have that base to work from.”

Shultz used his “tending the garden” metaphor throughout his tenure as secretary of state. He said the term described the continuous, daily nurturing of international relationships and diplomatic alliances. Shultz felt that neglecting those relationships, like neglecting one’s garden, will grow weeds.

Trump obviously is unwilling to buy into Shultz’s experienced foreign policy style, choosing instead to bully, threaten and belittle allies and friends because they would not send naval forces to help open the Strait of Hormuz.

Clearly, the Iranian regime is evil. Its sponsorship of global terrorism and murdering dissident citizens if they deviate from the Iranian ideology should not earn the country sympathy. Nor should Iran earn gold stars for supporting its murderous network of allies that includes Hamas and Hezbollah.

However, the unwillingness of countries to answer Trump’s call for help in Iran is understandable. First and foremost, Trump did not provide an argument to either the American people or Congress for his decision to attack Iran. He similarly failed to consult with any allies or friends about the war in advance of his taking kinetic action. This was reckless and careless. Many of our European and Asian allies are dependent on oil and gas from Iran. Blind-siding them with his actions on Iran was a fundamental mistake.

Did Trump not realize what Iran’s reaction would be to being attacked — closing the Strait of Hormuz and a resultant global economic impact? There have been many war games conducted regarding the Middle East over the last several decades. Not one has ever left the Strait of Hormuz open.

Nicolas Burns, a former ambassador to NATO, said, “If you prepare the ground diplomatically before you go in, even if they don’t want to fight alongside you, they understand your strategy, and you get so much more buy-in.”

Two former defense secretaries writing in The New York Times, Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, say problems arise when our country engages in conflicts that drift without clear objectives and end points. “They often become tragic, unwinnable wars that history does not remember kindly,” they contend.

“America needs allies, trading partners and friends. But now, instead of working together with them to maintain a global system that has brought real geopolitical and economic benefit to us all, we are isolating ourselves,” say Hagel and Panetta.

Unfortunately, Trump’s thoughtless “do it alone” actions have destabilized the world and are cultivating anti-American sentiment not just in Europe but among people in the Middle East and Pacific. Many countries in those regions are looking to China as a better strategic economic partner.

One of my foreign service friends once told me that diplomacy is based around “ships.” Being a Navy guy, I immediately thought he meant the use of seapower and Navy ships when discussing diplomacy. He quickly corrected my train of thought by saying diplomacy centers around three different kinds of “ships” — partnerships, relationships and friendships.

Adhering to those three ingredients in one’s diplomatic pouch will lead to a weed-free garden that George Shultz strove to achieve, along with friends and allies who will support you. Donald Trump should take heed.

Tom Jurkowsky is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who served on active duty for 31 years. 

#ImpeachTrumpNOW❗

Donald Trump lies and Karoline Leavitt amplifies it!

 The Cruelty and Theatre of the Trump Press Conference

"We're all mad here," said the Cheshire Cat to Alice. 

During the Donald Trump second term, he and his staff have made the media briefing his signature rhetorical form.
Echo essay by Vinson Cunningham published in The New Yorker Magazine

Texas oil fields for crude before successfully running for President—as much to establish strong images as to earn a family fortune. These are the ultimate capitalists, pecking ruggedly at the earth’s skin and turning its lifeblood into piles of cash. The men surrounding Trump were the kinds of guys he always seems to want to impress.

Now Trump, having asserted control over Venezuela’s resources as well as its immediate political fate—an arrogation he has taken to calling the “Donroe Doctrine”—had something to offer them. He started to deliver his remarks without having turned on the microphone in front of him; his Vice-President, J. D. Vance, leaned over unstealthily and pressed a button that activated the audio and made a green light on the microphone glow. Trump didn’t skip a beat. Now amplified, he was already midsentence, rushing off urgently, like a burbling river. Leaders of all the “biggest” countries had called to congratulate him about nabbing Maduro. “They’re all impressed,” he said, implying that the oil guys should be, too.

Playacting for journalists standing in an unruly huddle just off camera, Trump asked questions of the oilmen, wondering how soon they could suck the ground under Venezuela dry. “And you’re very much set up for the heavy oil, right?” he asked at one point. There was an implicit cruelty behind the exercise. He wanted the cameras to see him place Venezuela on the table like a celebratory goose and start slicing.

The White House press-briefing room, a small theatre for an increasingly sick show, sits atop what used to be a swimming pool. The pool was installed during the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who swam to maintain his strength after his paralysis. Today, the room is the central site of the Trump Administration’s ritual humiliation of the American media. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, presides over the space, transmitting the spleen and the constantly shifting imperatives of the President.

She’s good at telling lies on the job. Some press secretaries show hints of strain, managing the dual tasks of carrying the boss’s message and playing it straight with the press. Leavitt—who ran for Congress, in 2022, and lost—betrays no such struggle. She has a placid, open face and often, when she’s in a jovial mood, jokes around behind the lectern. When a wonky issue like health care comes up, she tends to read deftly and quickly from a sheet of talking points. When one of Donald Trump's favored hot-button issues arises, she speaks fluently off the cuff, as she did recently when describing undocumented people being hunted by ICE as “criminal illegal-alien killers, rapists, and pedophiles.”

Even when Leavitt is acting enraged, she does so with a small smile. Case in point: a fracas with Niall Stanage, a columnist from The Hill, who wanted to know how the Administration could possibly believe that ICE’s activity was going “correctly,” as the Donald Trump had enthused, when, for instance, one of its officers had been filmed shooting and killing  of the innocent American citizen named Ms. Renee Nicole Good, on January 7, 2026, in Minneapolis.

Leavitt took on the strict tone of a scolding teacher: “Why was, uh, Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”

“You’re asking me my opinion?” Stanage asked.

“Yeah!”

“Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably.”

Leavitt pounced. “Oh, O.K., so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion.” She said “left-wing opinion”—referring to an opinion she’d solicited just a second ago—with a slight, taunting singsong in her voice. She continued, “Yeah, because you’re a left-wing hack, you’re not a reporter, you’re posing in this room as a journalist, and it’s so clear by the premise of your question. And you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist—you shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.”

This short diatribe, delivered with a raised voice (but, still, that Cheshire Cat slimy smile) was a characteristic sample of the Administration’s verbal style. Its members apply names and labels—illegal, criminal, alien, left-wing, agitator—in order to dehumanize the people to whom those words are supposed to refer. If you fit into this ever-growing lexicon of categories, you shouldn’t have your job, or sit in your seat, or try to protect your neighbors, or even, in Good’s “unfortunately and tragically” illustrative case, be left alive.

A few days earlier, Vance gave a press conference to shame the media about its reporting on Good and her killer, Jonathan Ross, and to slant the story in a more Trump-friendly direction. Vance showed off a way with words quite similar to Leavitt’s, and to Trump’s. He made sure to note that Minnesota was under siege by fraud, perpetrated mostly by “Somali immigrants.” Without the benefit of a thorough investigation, he nonetheless asserted that Good had been trying to ram Ross with her car, called her a “deranged leftist,” and, admitting that her death was a tragedy, deemed it “a tragedy of the far left.” So many names for nonpersons, emitted with such ease!

And yet Trump doesn’t always sound so pleased with the promotional efforts of his team. On January 20th, to mark a year since he retook office, the President made a guest appearance at Leavitt’s briefing. She’d teased the spot on her X account with QVC-ish good cheer: “A very special guest will be joining me at the podium today. . . . TUNE IN! 👀🇺🇸.”

Trump showed up with a thick sheaf of papers, listing the “accomplishments” of the year. He’d turned the United States into the “hottest country anywhere in the world” and wanted to get some credit. “We’ve had the best stock market in history,” he said. “I mean, I’m not getting—maybe I have bad public-relations people, but we’re not getting it across.” ♦

Published in the print edition with the headline “Meet the Press.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans made campaign promises but GOP policies failed to help middle class voters

As usual when Donald Trump occupies the White House, in 2025, he condensed a decade's worth of political upheaval into a single year.

Opinion published in the Charlotte Observer, news in North Carolina, by Ronald Brownstein for Bloomberg opinion.

Brownstein: "2025 turned Trump's biggest strength against him."

Identifying the most important of those developments is like picking through the wreckage to find a few family heirlooms after a tornado has torn through the neighborhood. But, in the swarm of conflicts, controversies, personnel changes, policy reversals, legal battles, feuds and shifting alliances, several dynamics emerged this year that are most likely to shape the electoral landscape in 2026, 2028 and beyond.

Of those key developments, the most significant was the collapse of faith in Trump's ability to manage the economy. In virtually every survey during Trump's first term, more people approved than disapproved of his handling of the economy. Moreover, his approval rating on the economy almost always exceeded his overall job performance rating, which meant that confidence in his economic agenda was a floor bolstering his support no matter which other controversies engulfed him. 

Now, guess what❓ That equation is reversed. Recent surveys routinely show that fewer people approve of Trump's management of the economy than at any point during his first four years; most national surveys this month have shown that 40% or fewer Americans give him positive marks on the economy, and even fewer give him good grades on the cost of living - the problem that tops every survey as Americans' biggest concern. It's a complete inversion from his first term: The economy is now dragging down overall assessments of his performance.

To some extent, Trump is simply suffering from proximity: presidents' approval ratings always sag when voters are unhappy with the economy, as they are today. (Like other presidents, he's found that efforts to blame his predecessor for current conditions fall flat after a few months.) But Trump's problems extend beyond that. 

Opinion polls consistently find that most Americans believe he has not focused enough on their 💲cost of living. Even more damaging, more voters say his agenda has hurt than helped their finances, often by a crushing margin of two or three to one. Voters particularly dislike his tariffs❗

The bottom line: Trump's greatest asset during his first term - confidence in his economic mastery - has become his biggest albatross in his second. "Unless there's a fix to inflation … I think the economy is going to continue to drag him down," says Democratic pollster Jay Campbell, part of the bipartisan polling team that surveys attitudes about the economy and politics for CNBC. The crumbling of confidence in Trump's economic performance largely explains 2025's second key electoral dynamic: the reversal of the president's beachheads among the new voter groups central to his reelection. In 2024, Trump notably improved his previous performance among several big constituencies-Latino young men and non-White voters without a college degree. Republican strategists dreamed of realignment.

But, Trump's standing with those groups rapidly deteriorated. Recent surveys that extensively examined attitudes among Latinos and young people, both with much larger samples than typical public polls, found his approval rating with each group has plummeted below 30%.❗ Frustration over the economy explains much, but not all, of that decline. In the Pew Research Center's massive recent Latino survey, for instance, more than 7 in 10 said the administration is doing too much to deport immigrants; nearly 8 in 10 said his overall agenda was hurting the Latino community. (Even a third of his 2024 Latino voters said his policies were harming the community.) Former Republican Representative Carlos Curbelo, who represented a heavily Latino South Florida district, told me that Trump "had a lot of rope" with Latinos, but has squandered that opportunity with his militarized deportation offensive. "They have gone way too far," Curbelo added. "It's going to be hard for Republicans to recover some of this support." Which brings us to the third important development of 2025: In the normal hydraulic fashion of American politics, Trump's fall allowed Democrats to run well in this year's major elections. But the Democratic Party's overall public image also remains weak- but, not when voters are asked to put a generic candidate to run against any given Republican.

That may not matter much next year, because midterm elections are predominantly a referendum on the incumbent president's performance. But "in 2028, the question of who we nominate matters enormously," says Simon Bazelon, an adviser at Welcome, a new centrist Democratic group. Even if Democrats win "a referendum on Trump's unpopularity in 2026," he adds, it would be a mistake to conclude "voters are happy with us again, when in fact they may still be angry at us." The heated argument between progressives and centrists over the party's direction will play out next year in Senate primaries in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Texas among other places. But, of course, the real battle will come in the 2028, presidential primary. And, indeed, that race may turn less on ideology than on disposition - who Democratic voters believe is the candidate most committed to fight, and most likely to beat, Trump's Make America Great Again -- maga cult ❗- movement. 

At home and abroad, Trump is governing as if he feels himself completely unbound. But while other Republican officials, with the rarest exceptions, have bowed to his excesses, he's provoked a clear recoil among voters beyond his core coalition. In that way, 2025, reaffirmed the most important political trend over roughly the past 60 years. The rapid erosion of Trump's 2024, breakthroughs underscored that we continue to live through the longest period in American history when neither party has been able to establish a durable advantage over the other.

In fact, the last five times a U.S. president has gone into a midterm election with unified control of the federal government (the White House, House and Senate), the voters have revoked it - the longest such streak in American history. Nothing that happened in 2025, suggests Trump can stop that wheel from turning again in 2026.

Donald Trump and his unpatriotic obsession with despots like the Saudi ghoul Mohammed bin Salman

Trump is crazy! He defends Saudi Crown Prince at White House Over Jamal Khashoggi Killing Read more (Legit World): 

Echo opinion letters: The NYTimes editorial board correctly called out Donald Trump’s disgraceful defense of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman 👿💢of Saudi Arabia after being asked by an ABC News reporter about the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But in reacting as he did, Trump, undoubtedly unintentionally, called out the prince.

In Trump's disgusting castigation to the reporter, Mary Bruce, the he said to her, “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”

In more than 40 years as a psychiatrist, I have observed something that will be obvious to most: Innocent people, wrongly accused, are generally indignant and angry.

Guilty people, rightly accused, are embarrassed or even ashamed (if they have the moral fiber for it).

When Donald Trump least intended it, the truth slipped out.

From Harold Schwartz in West Hartford, Connecticut

"Trump thinks Ms. Bruce’s job is to report to the president rather than to report about what the president does," from Bernard Joshua Kabak in New York.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must end the reign of anxiety and fear caused by their GOP "SHITdown" policies

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Jackie Calmes.

Saturday’s October 19, 2025, nationwide (and international) “No 👑Kings” rally vies for bragging rights as perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. The volume of protests and the numbers in the millions who attended sparked Donald Trump's disgusting monarchical outrages.

Leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests — his post that night of an AI-generated video depicting himself as a becrowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on citizens protesting peacefully below. Consider instead two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that on Trump’s orders the military had struck a seventh boat off Venezuela and then an eighth vessel in the Pacific, bringing the number of people killed over two months to 34. The administration has provided no evidence to Congress or the American public for Trump’s claims that the unidentified dead were “narco-terrorists,” nor any credible legal rationale for the strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the White House’s East Wing to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which, at 90,000 square feet, would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.

As sickening as the sight was — heavy equipment ripping away at the historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris — Trump’s 💲250-million (now re-evaluated at 💲300 million) vanity project is small stuff compared to a policy of killing noncombatant civilian citizens of nations with which we are not at war (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet together the actions reflect the spectrum of consequences of Trump’s utter sense of impunity as president, from the relatively symbolic to the murderous.

“In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776. But, not in Donald Trump’s America.

Among the commentariat, the president’s desecration of the East Wing is getting at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see in the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance generally — his other teardowns of federal agencies, life-saving foreign aid, healthcare benefits and more. The metaphor is indeed apt.

But what’s more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump telegraphs, constantly, with the “je suis l’état” flare of a Louis XIV — complete (soon) with Trump’s Versailles. (Separately, Trump’s mimicry of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Arc de Trump.)

No law, domestic or international, constrains him, as far as the convicted felon is concerned. Neither does Congress, where Republicans bend the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 right-wing majority, including three justices Trump chose in his first term.

The court’s ruling last year in Trump vs. United States gives Trump virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but U.S. service members don’t have that protection when it comes to the deadly Caribbean Sea attacks or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be judged to have been illegal.

The operation’s commander, Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey, reportedly expressed concerns about the strikes within the administration. 

Then, last week he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of the U.S. Southern Command. It could be a coincidence. But I’m hardly alone in counting Holsey as the latest casualty in Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived nonloyalists at the Pentagon.

“When the president decides someone has to die, the military becomes his personal hit squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said Monday on MSNBC. Just like with kings and other autocrats: Off with their heads.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in years past, the Coast Guard would board foreign boats suspected of ferrying drugs and, if contraband were found, take it and suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information about higher-ups to make a real dent in the drug trade. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically had no drugs. No matter nowadays — everyone’s a target for deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the paved-over Rose Garden.)

Ecuador said no evidence connects a citizen who survived a recent U.S. strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in a September strike, provoking Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally yank U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan told the Washington Post that the 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials told Congress the individuals were headed back to shore when hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and U.S. news reports contradict Trump’s claims that he’s destroying and seizing fentanyl — a drug that typically comes from Mexico and then is smuggled by land, ❗ usually by U.S. citizens❗.

Again, no matter to America’s 👑king, who said last week that he’s eyeing land incursions in Venezuela now “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he doesn’t need Congress’ authorization for any use of force🤥😡 . The Constitution suggests otherwise.

Alas, neither it nor the law limits Trump’s White House makeover. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he’s tapping rich individuals and corporations for the cost. Past presidents, mindful that the house is a public treasure, not their palace, voluntarily sought input from various federal and nonprofit groups. After reports about the demolition, which put the lie to Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects urged its members to ask Congress to “investigate destruction of the White House.”

Disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings were joined last week. At a White House dinner for ballroom donors, Trump joked about the sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.” The pay-to-play titans laughed. Shame on them.

Trump acts with impunity because he can; he’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Keep the “No  👑Kings” protests coming — right through the elections 🗳️- VOTE this November and next❗

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must pay attention to No Kings peaceful protests but instead are in panic mode about the growing movement

Echo opinion essay published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Will Bunch.  

Then they fight you: How the ‘No👑 Kings’ protests are winning America:  A massive turnout of over 7 (plus➕) million (with a tally on the ground being 8.2 million1) and a panicked White House showed Saturday why the No👑 Kings protests matter, a lot.

Outlined against a blue, gray October sky on a perfect fall morning, Carol Otis, in her Obama-Biden T-shirt, joined more than 1,000 people Saturday who lined both sides of the busy Eagle Road thoroughfare in Havertown, Pennsylvania, to yell, wave signs, and provoke an endless cacophony of car horns against an authoritarian Donald Trump regime.

Demonstrators gather for a ’No Kings’ rally in Philadelphia on Saturday.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer

“I could probably name 7,000 reasons why,” the 77-year-old recent retiree from Drexel Hill told me, “because every day there are 18 things that happen that are just what Trump says — and then there’s the GOP talking about this ‘hate rally.’"

There is a famous quote about mass protest movements — with murky origins (misattributed frequently to Gandhi) — that says: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” 

Saturday’s massive ”No👑Kings" protest that filled main streets and public squares from New York and D.C. to smaller burgs like Havertown showed that the effort to halt and reverse dictatorship in mid-2020s, America has already prompted a half-laughing, half-fighting response from an increasingly unpopular White House and its right wing (make America a dictatorship) allies.

Ignored at first, the “No👑Kings” protest movement is rapidly accelerating toward the then-you-win phase. 

Indeed, the over-the-top alarmism from Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called it a “hate America rally,” or Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who called up his state’s National Guard in Austin to pump up a ridiculous narrative about rock-throwing radicals instead of the peaceful, joyous events in 2,700 different locales — proved that “No👑 Kings” struck a raw nerve.

So Otis didn’t make a sign and chose instead — like many in this protest in the heart of suburban Delaware County — to wave an American flag, “because people who carry the flag do not hate America and as you can see there are a lot of flags.”

She laughed, then added sarcastically, parrying one of the more absurd GOP talking points: “We’re all paid protesters❗😀George” — Soros, the liberal billionaire — “where are you? I don’t see you. I’m waiting for my handout.”

The day was not only nonviolent, but also historic. The estimated over 7 million who showed up across America marked the second-largest one-day protest in U.S. history, surpassed only by a very different type of event, the first Earth Day in 1970. That was roughly 40% larger than the first “No👑Kings” event in June, and in talking to protesters Saturday it seemed the turnout was only boosted by the right-wing rhetoric, that anti-Trump protesters must be some kind of domestic terrorists.

“Knowing that they’re feeling threatened makes me know this is what needs to happen,” Gary Fishbein — 65, from Bala Cynwyd, with his American flag T-shirt and Eagles cap — told me. His words were nearly drowned out by the steady honking of supportive cars passing the undulating sea of signs that were as funny as “Does This Ass Make My Country Look Small” or as simple as “Dogs Against Fascism” (held by the canine’s companion) or just, “Freedom to Speak.”

The official White House reaction, as related to one reporter, was “Who cares?” But guess what❓ They clearly cared, a lot. You could see that in the week leading up to the demonstration, with the increasingly insane rhetoric and warnings about “antifa” — a tiny, unorganized sliver of young rock-throwing radicals who were nowhere in sight Saturday — that aimed to neutralize the reality that millions of everyday Americans are sick of seeing a masked secret police snatch people off the streets.

Just a short time after the “who cares” comment, Trump himself posted a shocking — to the extent that anything can be truly shocking anymore — AI-created video to Truth Social that showed him piloting a jet fighter wearing a king’s crown (!!) and “bombing” a large U.S. urban protest march with brown, liquid, um, excrement.

I guess that was supposed to be the fascist version of four-dimensional chess, that our 47th and possibly last president could mock, ridicule, and dismiss “No👑Kings” by confirming everything that the largest protest in 56 years was all about, that our government is hijacked by a monarch who defecates on his own subjects. 

Indeed, the reality is that Trump’s late-night video reeked more of panic and fear 😱than its crude subject matter.

The biggest American protest doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The reason that 7 (plus ➕) million people are in the streets is that Trump long ago squandered any chance for a honeymoon after his narrow reelection in 2024. 

Rather, his approval rating is just nearly 40% in the latest Gallup poll (even lower in some other surveys). And like the protester Otis said, there are about 7,000 reasons — including higher prices in the supermarket, a looming doubling of health insurance premiums for millions of Americans, and a 20-days-and-counting shutdown of the federal government with no end in sight.

But it was Trump’s mass-deportation crusade, and the brutal tactics by those masked and unbadged goons for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies — grabbing migrants (and, in at least 170 documented cases, U.S. citizens) off the street and lobbing tear gas at anyone who protests — that was cited again and again by the marchers when I asked them why they are in the streets.

Ben Liptock — 38, who lives in Havertown and teaches in a North Philadelphia public school, and came with his 9-year-old son, Bobby — explained that we need to “continue to show people that you’re not alone in today’s America — it’s scary to protest." 

Also,  Liptock said he felt they had to be there for his many immigrant students — some who’ve gone home to find their dads deported — who can’t safely demonstrate themselves.

“If I looked a little different I wouldn’t be able to show my face and protest power,” Liptock said. “There are people in the shadows right now and they’re 😠😠😨😥terrified.”

It arguably cut both ways that the suburban crowd in Havertown was overwhelmingly white, with most older than the median U.S. age of 38. Others echoed Liptock that this breed of protester can use its privilege to speak for those who can’t, and any true mass movement needs the white metro middle class to succeed. But the lack of Black and brown faces or members of Gen Z (who’ve powered uprisings in parts of Asia and Africa) remains a significant problem for “No 👑 Kings.”

Someone like Emilio Ovalle ― a lanky 19-year-old student from West Chester University waving a sign with a Mark Twain quotation ("they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised"). — stood out in the crowd on Saturday. The son of an immigrant from Guatemala, Ovalle also cited the deportations as his No. 1 issue, and while he said many of his friends oppose Trump he also understands their reluctance to protest.

“Part of it has to be the Democrats — they’re not good at getting the young vote,“ he said. ”The right is very good at appealing to a lot of the insecurities, especially in younger men."

This would seem to be the next mission for “No👑 Kings” going forward, to build a bigger network with groups such as Gen Z teens and 20-somethings or African Americans. Those groups also have major issues with the Trump presidency but feel them in different ways and express them in different venues than the ones like Facebook or MSNBC that are popular with the first wave of protesters.

That said, it’s impossible to ignore what the “No Kings” movement has accomplished in a matter of months. By raising their voices, protesters have encouraged Democrats in Washington to at least slightly stiffen their backbones, as shown by the current budget battle. They are winning new converts from the disaffected middle by exposing the depths of Trump’s unpopularity.

And they are reassuring their friends and neighbors to keep the faith in a dark moment — that there are far more Americans who want democracy than dictatorship. “It makes you feel good that you are not alone, that a lot of people feel the same way,” Michael Tempone, a 73-year-old from Upper Darby waving American flags with his wife Stephanie, told me.

There were thousands of American flags across the nation Saturday, and no reported violence, and close to no arrests — zero in New York City (where the NYPD is not known for its restraint) or San Diego or fearmongered Austin. That is driving the Trump regime bat-guano crazy, because they have not crushed the resistance, and they know their days are numbered. As I walked back to my car, I heard one protester chuckle to his partner, “This is the best ‘hate America’ rally that I’ve ever been to.”

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are hurting American business with Trump Tariffs and consumers pay higher prices

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Veronique de Rugy:  Trump’s tariffs are already hurting American businesses

With yet another round of tariffs taking effect this week — this time on cabinets and other furniture, timber and lumber — the White House insists that its policies are about “fairness” and “reciprocity.” The evidence now tells a different story of higher prices for Americans, lower margins for U.S. firms, collapsing exports in flagship industries, investment paralysis and mounting risks of an economic slowdown.

Start with exports. American goods are losing ground fast. A recent KPMG survey finds that “60% of businesses reported decreased overseas sales” in the first six months of Trump’s tariffs. For instance, U.S. liquor exports tumbled 9% in the second quarter of this year, with steep declines across the European Union, Canada, Britain and Japan, which together buy about 70% of these exports. In another example, China — once a key customer for U.S. farm goods — has turned instead to Argentina and other suppliers, and total U.S. soybean exports are down 23% this year.

Smaller companies are also adversely affected. A valve and gas-component maker in Napa Valley just announced that it will shut down a plant and discharge 237 employees, citing weak overseas demand linked to tariffs. 

Let’s not forget the upcoming Supreme Court case of V.O.S. Selections Inc. vs. Trump, where U.S. importers and resellers of wine, electronics kits, apparel and other goods argued that the 

April 2, (Fake❗) “Liberation Day” tariffs disrupted their supply chains, forced steep price increases and threatened their viability.

American consumers, too, are paying the price. KPMG (aka, economic intelligence) finds that nearly half of American companies have already raised prices because of tariffs; two-thirds have passed at least part of those costs on to shoppers; and nearly 40% have paused hiring, with a third cutting jobs.

CEOs overwhelmingly expect tariffs to weigh on business for years. Goldman Sachs estimates U.S. consumers are now footing 55% of the total tariff bill, while foreign exporters bear only a sliver of the costs.

Sometimes, though, the cost we pay isn’t higher prices — it’s no product at all. One of Europe’s largest farm-equipment manufacturers, Krone, has halted U.S. sales after a new wave of “steel derivative” tariffs required exporters to document the origin, weight and value of every screw, nut and bolt in their machinery. This bureaucratic tangle is so extreme that many European manufacturers are simply giving up. For American farmers waiting on harvesting equipment, that means delays, shortages and higher costs down the line.

The chaos doesn’t stop there. UPS has been drowning in a customs backlog since the administration scrapped the long-standing rule that allows imports costing less than $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free. Thousands of packages, from Japanese tea to engagement rings, are stuck or even “disposed of” because of missing tariff paperwork. It’s a vivid reminder that protectionism jams everyday commerce.

No product is too small. Italian pasta makers warn that Trump’s new duties, some nearing 92%, could double the price of a $4 box of rigatoni. Italian newspapers have dubbed it “Trump’s war against pasta.” Rome and Brussels accuse Washington of strong-arming companies like Barilla and Garofalo into producing in the U.S. Either way, the result is Americans paying more for our dinners.

Get ready for your kids’ lunches to get more expensive, too. Peanut butter could be swept into expanding steel and aluminum tariffs, with petitions asking the Commerce Department to treat food products packaged in metal as “derivatives” (subject to a 50% national-security tariff) under consideration.

So much for draining the swamp. All of this explains the wild uncertainty business leaders have experienced in recent months. Retailers are now bracing for 100% tariffs on Chinese goods scheduled for Nov. 1, right before the holiday rush. Some firms have scurried to ship early, but even a few days’ delay at sea could blow up their margins. With deadlines set, delayed and often re-announced with each news conference, companies can’t plan or invest.

The big-picture story isn’t any better. Each new round of tariffs rattles markets and makes investors more nervous about what the White House might do next. The result is a toxic mix for the economy: higher prices, slower growth and growing fears of stagflation. For the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, that means harder choices on interest rates and a rising risk that emergency measures to keep the financial system steady will be called for.

U.S. tariffs are taxes on Americans, and stealthy ones. They show up as higher prices in grocery aisles, lower wages for factory workers and greater global risk premia.

If Washington truly wants lower prices, stronger investment and resilient supply chains, officials should see at this point that the answer isn’t higher tariff walls. It’s stable rules, open markets and the simple economic truth that prosperity grows from trade.

Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.

Pharmaceutical companies do not make deals without a profit incentive- Pfizer's price reductions to Medicaid drugs is a cash cow for the company

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by business column writer Michael Hiltzik

 Trump’s deal with Pfizer on drug prices won’t do much for American patients, but it’s a great cash cow 💲 🐄🐄for Pfizer.

Pfizer accused of ‘bringing discredit’ on pharmaceutical industry after Covid social media posts. Watchdog rules company breached regulatory code five times including promoting unlicensed medicines. The Telegraph report August 2024 by Camilla Turner.

If you had nothing better to do on September 30, 2025, you might have tuned in to a White House event at which President Trump, standing side-by-side with Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, announced a deal with the big drug company that was described from the podium as “a massive win for the American people.”

Under the deal, according to the administration, Pfizer will sell its drugs to Americans “at a deep discount” from their list price. Pfizer, for its part, said the arrangement ensures that “U.S. patients pay lower prices for their prescription medicine.”

(US media has no understanding about how Medicaid is administered. In fact Medicaid beneficiaries do not pay for their medications so the "deal" announced to save money only benefits the Pfizer company and the federal government as the payor for the drugs. Medicaid beneficiaries qualify for this benefit based on their income and disabilities.)

As is the case with so many pronouncements issued from the Trump White House, there’s much less to this deal than meets the eye. Whether it will effectively reduce spending on prescription drugs for most Americans — or any Americans — is highly doubtful.

For Pfizer, however, this is a fabulous deal — never mind that the news media has portrayed it just as the White House and Pfizer hoped, as a major concession by the company to help the average consumer.

The truth is that the company won’t be suffering any significant reduction in revenue or profits by offering these “discounts.” It will, however, be exempted for three years from tariffs of 100% that Trump had threatened to impose on drugmakers.

How do we know that Pfizer is the principal beneficiary of the deal? Its stock price has risen nearly 15% in the five trading days since the announcement. Do you think that a deal that cut consumer prices for a company’s most popular products would really produce a stock market gain? Me neither.

Accordingly, it’s proper to take a close look at what we know, and more importantly, what we don’t know, about this deal.

“We’re still in a place where we don’t know everything we want to know,” said Peter Maybarduk, head of the access to medicines group of the nonprofit consumer organization Public Citizen. 

“That’s unfortunate, but it’s also by design.” Public Citizen has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documentation about the deal.

Pfizer and the White House both describe the deal terms as “confidential.” Pfizer told me that “more details” will be made available as the January implementation date draws nigh. The White House asserts that this deal is secret because it’s working out deals with other drug manufacturers.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are cutting Medicaid harming the most vulnerable and disabled children

I’m a Conservative Republican. My Disabled Son Needs Medicaid to Live. By Rachel Roth Aldhizer: New York Times opinion echo.

Mrs. Aldhizer wrote from North Carolina. Her profoundly disabled 4-year old son is a Medicaid recipient.

I’m a registered Republican who just watched her party spend much of the summer pushing through new cuts to Medicaid. I’m also here to tell you why I’m an unlikely supporter of the program. My son’s life depends on government assistance. Recent cuts to Medicaid at both the federal and state levels mean millions of families like mine could soon be at a loss for how to care for our disabled loved ones.

In February 2021, during a routine ultrasound appointment when I was 17 weeks pregnant with my third child, David, doctors discovered that he had a set of life-threatening fetal anomalies. Our boy had an excruciatingly rare midline cleft lip and palate and was missing critical portions of his brain. We were told he fit the profile for a baby that had trisomy 18 and trisomy 13, or a disorder called holoprosencephaly, when the brain fails to divide appropriately into separate hemispheres. The first days after David’s diagnosis were otherworldly. Each subsequent day of my pregnancy was a nightmare. I became a person in pain.

Expecting David to be stillborn, we were amazed when he was born at term. At the hospital, after M.R.I. scans revealed strange imbalances in the size of his brain, we were told to expect him to die from intractable seizures. To our surprise, we were eventually discharged. There was nothing more to do — no treatments, just waiting. I thought David would die overnight.

But David lived. We celebrated his fourth birthday in July. I do not understand the course of his life; I am simply grateful. David does not walk, talk or eat independently. He is visually impaired and has hearing loss. He has an unrepaired cleft palate open to protruding brain tissue, covered by a thin layer of mucous membrane. Developmentally, David is like a 10-month-old baby. He is our joy, and it is our privilege to parent him.

Caring for David is holy work, but it takes a village. His extensive medical conditions mean he meets the criteria for institutionalized care. But because of Medicaid, David is able to live at home, where he belongs, surrounded by people who love him.

North Carolina’s Community Alternatives Program for Children, or CAP/C, is a home- and community-based services waiver that provides essential services to more than 3,700 children like David across our state. Doctors’ appointments, surgeries, many therapies, adaptive equipment, specialized food, medical supplies, respite care workers (who provide temporary relief to caregivers) and more are all provided for him by Medicaid. I am even paid a living wage to care for my son. David’s life simply wouldn’t be possible without this program — which keeps him healthy and alive. Medicaid is David’s village.

The White House insists that the passage of President Trump’s domestic policy bill won’t affect programs like David’s. I know better. 😞😏😧😥

North Carolina’s CAP/C program is majority-funded by federal dollars. States must now consider how to meet anticipated budget shortfalls when federal Medicaid cuts take effect over the next few years. Before the passage of the domestic policy law, when you paid your federal taxes, a fraction of your money helped support children like David through Medicaid. This ensured that their lives remained a communal responsibility and collective effort, reinforcing their value. That moral imperative has now disappeared. Children’s lives are quite literally on the line.

Yet even before the far-reaching impacts from the reduction of federal dollars will be felt, North Carolina state legislators have chosen not to fully fund our existing Medicaid program for the upcoming fiscal year, resulting in a $319 million gap. These dollars can still be appropriated by the state legislature before Oct. 1. But if this funding need goes unmet, there will be real-world consequences for people like David and me, and the rest of our Medicaid village.

North Carolina’s Medicaid program recently shared a variety of potential solutions that may be used to mitigate this funding loss. While CAP/C appears preserved for now, provider rates are set to be cut across the board by amounts ranging from 3 percent to 10 percent.

I am a Medicaid provider because I am paid to care for my son, as are my son’s physical therapists, occupational therapists, primary care physicians, specialists, case managers and others. 

Sadly, I expect my provider rate to be reduced by 8 percent effective October 1st, if no further action is taken by the state legislature to fully fund the North Carolina Medicaid program. 

This only fuels more concern about the next round of funding cuts that will result once Donald Trump’s policy law takes effect. Like all states, North Carolina’s Medicaid program operates by having the federal government match its state spending. So the real impacts of these reductions will be much larger than $319 million. One source estimates that North Carolina will experience a $1.1 billion total reduction in Medicaid services.

Let me be clear: North Carolina’s Medicaid program is being voluntarily reduced, even before federal Medicaid cuts take full effect as a result of Mr. Trump’s signature policy act. While North Carolina is one of the first states to reduce its Medicaid program, cuts like these may soon arrive in other states, too.

Families like mine are struggling to make sense of this rapidly shifting landscape. Lack of clear and accessible information, fear of impending federal cuts and proactive state reductions in Medicaid have left me and others confused and angry. Parents of disabled children don’t have the time to hunt down details buried in evasive political jargon that have the potential to upend their lives. Moms like me are simply trying to keep our heads above water and keep our children alive. Life with a child like David is hard in ways I cannot fully explain — unless you have also cared for a medically fragile, physically disabled and intellectually impaired child 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for four years.

How we care for our most vulnerable reveals what we believe about ourselves. I’m just one mother, and David is just one child. But this affects your neighbors. This affects you. At one point or another most of us will lose our independence, health, rationality and will. Eventually we will rely wholly on someone else to care for us. Dependence, weakness, need of others: These are features, not bugs, of the human experience.

We can testify to this reality with our dollars, knowing that one day we too will be in need like David. I have a pen and you have a phone, a voice and a vote. David has none of these things. If you still believe that your dollar should go to care for people who cannot care for themselves, then you have a moral responsibility to charity. Medicaid is that charity. Whether you live in North Carolina or elsewhere, we all have work to do. Call your state representatives and Congressional delegations.  Please❗Ask them to do to others as you would have them do to you, and remember my son and others like him when you do it.

Donald Trump Republican interference in the Social Security data base creates anxiety puts all beneficiaries at risk of loosing benefits

"Social Security advocates are aghast. “As with most of the actions of the Social Security Administration since Trump came into office, we cannot make rational sense of the policy to place immigrants on the SSA’s list of deceased persons,” says Max Richtman, chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare." Echo report by Michael Hiltzik published in the Los Angeles Times:

Trump’s Kafkaesque attack on Social Security--Declaring living people as dead.

In so many ways the evil Trump Republican administration has given us a window into a dystopian world — flouting a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court, elevating scientific myth into healthcare policy and so on. But its latest attack on the Social Security system is arguably the most frightening of all.

Reportedly pressured by Elon Musk’s DOGE team and by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the current stewards of Social Security have allowed the government to declare 6,300 people “dead” in a crucial Social Security database, even though they’re very much alive.

The initial reports of this action were reported by the New York Times and Washington Post, but it was confirmed for me, if somewhat obliquely, by a White House spokeswoman.

Trump promised mass deportations and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,” the spokeswoman, Elizabeth Huston, told me by email.

The White House claims that “DHS identified over 6,300 temporarily paroled aliens on the terrorist watch list or with FBI criminal records,” and as of April 8, “terminated” their right to hold Social Security numbers or receive benefits.

What’s that? It’s what is officially known as Social Security’s “Death Master File,” the database of deceased number holders.

Make no mistake: In effect, these 6,300 living, breathing individuals have been declared “dead” by Trump administration fiat.

“You’d have a hard time explaining this to someone in a way that doesn’t seem dystopian,” says Devin O’Connor, an expert on Social Security at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Social Security advocates are aghast. “As with most of the actions of the Social Security Administration since Trump came into office, we cannot make rational sense of the policy to place immigrants on the SSA’s list of deceased persons,” says Max Richtman, chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“These are people who are in the United States legally and need active Social Security numbers in order to work and transact personal business,” Richtman says. “By placing them on the list of dead persons, the Trump administration is needlessly preventing them from utilizing their Social Security numbers for legitimate reasons.”

Before we delve further into the consequences of this action — for the newly “dead,” for all Social Security beneficiaries and indeed American citizens, and for the Social Security system itself — a few words on how this came about.

It started on inauguration day, when Trump abruptly terminated four Biden administration humanitarian programs granting legal U.S. residence to applicants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela seeking asylum. By the end of Biden’s term, more than 500,000 applicants had been granted so-called parole via the programs known collectively as CHNV. Typically, they feared political violence or death in their home countries.

After passing national security and public safety scrutiny and showing that they had a U.S. sponsor to provide housing and other support, they were granted a “parole” of up to two years permitting them to work legally, which required them to obtain Social Security numbers and to contribute payroll tax to the program. During that period, they could seek more permanent permission to stay in the country. As of April 8, they lost those rights and obligations.

The White House, i.e., Donald Trump Republicans, have not specified what evidence it has that the 6,300 immigrants declared “dead” were members of terrorist groups or FBI-designated criminals.

As it happens, the termination order was blocked Monday by federal Judge Indira Talwani of Boston. In a 41-page order, Talwani raised the question of whether Congress had given Trump the authority, “after parole has been granted and individuals have entered the country on a lawful basis,” to revoke the grants of parole “en masse.” She wrote: “The answer is no.” The revocation, she ruled, would have to be on a case-by-case basis, just as their paroles had been granted.

Trump’s Kafkaesque attack on Social Security--Declaring living people as dead

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly demanded changes in Social Security’s database so living people could be classified as “dead.”

In so many ways the Trump administration has given us a window into a dystopian world — flouting a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court, elevating scientific myth into healthcare policy and so on. But its latest attack on the Social Security system is arguably the most frightening of all.

Reportedly pressured by Elon Musk’s DOGE team and by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the current stewards of Social Security have allowed the government to declare 6,300 people “dead” in a crucial Social Security database, even though they’re very much alive.

The initial reports of this action were reported by the New York Times and Washington Post, but it was confirmed for me, if somewhat obliquely, by a White House spokeswoman.

You’d have a hard time explaining this to someone in a way that doesn’t seem dystopian.

“President Trump promised mass deportations and by removing the monetary incentive for illegal aliens to come and stay, we will encourage them to self-deport,” the spokeswoman, Elizabeth Huston, told me by email.

The White House claims that “DHS identified over 6,300 temporarily paroled aliens on the terrorist watch list or with FBI criminal records,” and as of April 8 “terminated” their right to hold Social Security numbers or receive benefits.

“To prevent them from receiving any payments,” the White House told me, the Social Security Administration moved their numbers into what the White House calls the “Ineligible Master File.”

What’s that? It’s what is officially known as Social Security’s “Death Master File,” the database of deceased number holders.

Make no mistake: In effect, these 6,300 living, breathing individuals have been declared “dead” by the evil Trump administration fiat.

“You’d have a hard time explaining this to someone in a way that doesn’t seem dystopian,” says Devin O’Connor, an expert on Social Security at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Social Security advocates are aghast. “As with most of the actions of the Social Security Administration since Trump came into office, we cannot make rational sense of the policy to place immigrants on the SSA’s list of deceased persons,” says Max Richtman, chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“These are people who are in the United States legally and need active Social Security numbers in order to work and transact personal business,” Richtman says. “By placing them on the list of dead persons, the Trump administration is needlessly preventing them from utilizing their Social Security numbers for legitimate reasons.”

Before we delve further into the consequences of this action — for the newly “dead,” for all Social Security beneficiaries and indeed American citizens, and for the Social Security system itself — a few words on how this came about.

It started on inauguration day, when Trump abruptly terminated four Biden administration humanitarian programs granting legal U.S. residence to applicants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela seeking asylum. By the end of Biden’s term, more than 500,000 applicants had been granted so-called parole via the programs known collectively as CHNV. Typically, they feared political violence or death in their home countries.

After passing national security and public safety scrutiny and showing that they had a U.S. sponsor to provide housing and other support, they were granted a “parole” of up to two years permitting them to work legally, which required them to obtain Social Security numbers and to contribute payroll tax to the program. During that period, they could seek more permanent permission to stay in the country. As of April 8, they lost those rights and obligations.

The White House hasn’t specified what evidence it has that the 6,300 immigrants declared “dead” were members of terrorist groups or FBI-designated criminals.

As it happens, the termination order was blocked Monday by federal Judge Indira Talwani of Boston. In a 41-page order, Talwani raised the question of whether Congress had given Trump the authority, “after parole has been granted and individuals have entered the country on a lawful basis,” to revoke the grants of parole “en masse.” She wrote: “The answer is no.” The revocation, she ruled, would have to be on a case-by-case basis, just as their paroles had been granted.

Meanwhile, Tuesday in Baltimore, federal Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander convened a hearing over whether the Social Security Administration has complied with her earlier order to keep DOGE employees’ hands off the agency’s records — an issue on which the unilateral “death” designations may well be relevant. Hollander had ordered acting Commissioner Leland Dudek to appear for testimony, but the government has refused to allow him to appear.

That brings us back to the Death Master File. (The administration has said it should be referred to now as the “Ineligible Master File,” but its authority to change its official designation isn’t clear, and in any case this looks merely like an attempt to obscure the nature of the file itself.)

The DMF is one of the most important and closely supervised databases in the Social Security Administration’s possession. Currently it contains more than 141 million names of deceased workers, along with their Social Security numbers and their dates of birth and death. The program uses the information, according to former Social Security official Tiffany Flick, for the purpose of “discontinuing benefits payments to deceased individuals, confirming an individual’s right to survivor benefits, and identifying fraud” carried out by users of dead persons’ Social Security numbers.

The information is carefully vetted unless it comes from family members, a state agency or a funeral home, Flick said in a court declaration. The agency takes pains to verify reports from anyone else. Of the 2.9 million death reports received each year, Flick said, fewer than one-third of 1% typically have to be corrected.

Federal law requires the agency to keep the full database confidential. A redacted version, however, is marketed via the Department of Commerce to banks, credit agencies and other financial institutions — but only if they can pass an annual certification in which they have to show they can protect the data from illicit use. The limited version contains only information that is more than three years old.

There can be no question that “intentionally marking people who are still living as dead” in the master file “is unheard of and improper,” Flick stated.

Beyond that, “when Social Security incorrectly declares someone dead, it ruins their lives,” observes Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy organization Social Security Works.

In 2023, Altman notes, “a Maryland woman was wrongly declared dead and found her health insurance and Social Security benefits terminated, her home listed for sale, her credit cards canceled, and her water shut off. Her health deteriorated as she spent endless hours trying to undo the mistake. Indeed, she did actually die seven months later.”

Because the DMF is viewed as authoritative by financial services companies, adds O’Connor, its misuse can cause “disruption in your bank account access, your credit cards canceled, your pension benefits being cut off, your insurance coverage canceled or an insurance claim denied. If you apply for a job your application could be rejected, or have a denial of credit.”

The very idea that government bureaucrats can designate living persons as dead for reasons other than their actual death should send shudders through all Social Security participants, citizens and otherwise — especially given the manipulation of the program from Trump acolytes already and the absence of official oversight over DOGE’s rampaging minions.

“Now, if you’re included in the Death Master File even by accident, how do you show not only that you’re not dead, but that you don’t belong on the file for some other unknown, mysterious reason?” O’Connor asks. “It’s creating the potential for some Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares every time they make a mistake — and there will be mistakes.”

As for the administration’s contention that the 6,300 “dead” people are on a terrorism watch list or FBI list, the administration’s treatment of facts and statistics when it comes to immigrants or Social Security does not inspire confidence.

The administration, for instance, has consistently described Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom it admits to having transported to El Salvador illegally, as an “illegal alien” and a member of the criminal gang MS-13. But he was in the U.S. legally, and no valid evidence has been produced to show he’s a member of MS-13 — quite the contrary, he may be a victim of MS-13.

DOGE’s claims about Social Security data are almost risibly ignorant. Musk asserted that DOGE found millions of dead people as old as 150 receiving benefits, but he was misinterpreting a software artifact.

The manipulation of the Death Master File itself has obliterated its validity as a data source for financial and commercial institutions. If those institutions can no longer trust what was once the gold standard for information about their present or future customers, how can it be used at all?

What’s scariest about the cavalier manipulation of the Death Master File is that Trump’s refusal to observe bureaucratic norms, statutory limitations, and even to respond to court orders, points to the question of how far he’s willing to go. Designating living persons as dead could be only the beginning.

“If they can do this to somebody,” O’Connor says, “they can do it to anybody.”