The Second Coming of Donald Dumpling - April 2025

 

Donald Trump wants reporters and pollsters investigated.

April 29, 2025, marks the end of the first hundred days of the Second Coming of Donald J. Trump. On this day, Americans pause to ponder what God and Donald Dumpling – not necessarily in that order – have wrought. 

At the White House, Press Secretary Kathrine Leavitt has spent every one of those days assuring anyone else who will listen that the president has a 100% approval rating. If she were to be believed, we would have to assume that Americans were salivating at the chance to vote for him again in 2028. 

Unfortunately, the president is currently spending valuable time, when he might be off golfing, lashing out at opinion polls that paint a less-than glowing picture of his approval ratings. 

An ABC/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, for example, puts Mr. Trump’s approval  at 39%. That’s the lowest “first-100-day rating” for any president in the last eighty years, since modern polling began. 

The New York Times/Siena College poll isn’t quite so grim. It’s nothing to brag about either. Trump sports a 42% approval rating, with 66% of voters choosing the word “chaotic” to describe his second administration. 

A stunning 59% choose “scary.” 

Then again, 42% call Donald’s latest work in the White House “exciting,” kind of like when NASCAR races are exciting when cars pile up in a high-speed wreck. Only 43% approve of his handling of the economy, previously one of his perceived strengths. 

CNN has The Dumpling at a 43% approval rating, and a disapproval rating at 57%. 

The last major poll to show the 47th President of the United States with a solid net positive rating was the Daily Mail on April 15, when Donald reportedly had the love of 54% of all Americans. 

(Ms. Leavitt chose to focus on that poll and scoff at the rest.) 

 

Today, the Daily Mail has Trump down 10 points, with a disapproval rating of 55%, and approval rating of only 45%. 

(Ms. Leavitt did not bring this up.) 

 

As always, Donald handled adversity with aplomb – meaning on Truth Social, he went bonkers. Before Melania could stop him, he started capitalizing words, like a madman whose keyboard was stuck in UPPER CASE. 

Nothing but “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS,” he howled. The pollsters should be “investigated for ELECTION FRAUD.” He described the people who did the polling as “Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win.” Then they keep on “cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.” 

The press, he screamed, was “COMPROMISED AND CORRUPT” and “writes BAD STORIES, and CHEATS, BIG, ON POLLS.” 

With a final flourish, he went with a couple of his favorite authoritarian lines. The news outlets he hates are run by people who are “SICK,” and reporters/pollsters are “TRULY THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” 

So, let’s back up a month and see how we got here in only a hundred days? 

 

Who gave pitchforks to immigrant invaders! 

April 1, 2025: In a surprise to all true MAGAs, who believe every immigrant who sets foot on our soil wants to kill them, Team Trump has announced that it will increase the number of available H-2B visas by 64,716 this year. These visas allow temporary workers to enter the United States, to fill jobs that native-born workers don’t care to do. Not at the wages cheap-ass employers are willing to offer, anyway. 

See, for example, Donald and his son Eric, who hired six men from Mexico in 2017, to prune vines at the Trump Winery, two miles south of Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Then we had the undocumented workers, hired at the same vineyard, who said they worked long hours, with no overtime pay, so no one really checked to see if the fake documents they submitted were forgeries. 

We should also mention the undocumented housekeeper who dusted Donald’s crystal golf trophies and got a certificate of appreciation from the White House Communications Agency, with her name on it. 

And the 100-plus undocumented workers who toiled at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey resort. 

And the undocumented workers at the Trump Golf Club in New York, including one who was employed for eight years. 

Nor should we skip over the 209 foreign individuals hired (legally, for a change) on H-2B visas, across all Trump properties in 2024. 

These visas are for non-agricultural workers who might want to fill line jobs at fish processing plants, or clean rooms at high-end resorts, or do dishes at Mar-a-Lago, in return for mediocre pay, and no Social Security benefits. H-2B workers can also travel with carnivals or clean up manure at racetracks. 

And so, the pitchforks.

 

* 

In other news, Forbes magazine notes that in 2024, the world could boast of having more billionaires (3,028) than ever before. The combined wealth of these three thousand plus men and women – and maybe a transgender person or two – was up $2 trillion in just one year, to $16.1 trillion. 

(According to the MAGA folks, this proves Joe Biden was a communist.)

 

The U.S. leads with 902 billionaires, followed, incongruously, by communist China and Hong Kong, with 502. 

NPR listed the top ten and how they came by their wealth: 

1.    Elon Musk ($342 billion), co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX

2.    Mark Zuckerberg ($216 billion), co-founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta

3.    Jeff Bezos ($215 billion), founder of Amazon

4.    Larry Ellison ($192 billion), co-founder of tech giant Oracle

5.    Bernard Arnault and family ($178 billion), founder and CEO of LVMH, luxury goods conglomerate, holding brands such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.

6.    Warren Buffet ($154 billion), investor known as the "Oracle of Omaha," CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

7.    Larry Page ($144 billion), co-founder of Google and former CEO of its parent company, Alphabet

8.    Sergey Brin ($138 billion), co-founder of Google and former president of Alphabet

9.    Amancio Ortega ($124 billion), founder of clothing retailer Inditex, which sells Zara and various other brands

10. Steve Ballmer ($118 billion), former CEO of Microsoft

 

Ortega, a Spanish businessman, is the only non-American to make the top ten. We should also mention that Vladimir Putin is rumored to be worth $200 billion, which would place him third. But if a Russian journalist exposed the truth, Vladimir would have them poisoned with radioactive tea for kicks. 

So, let’s not make fun of Vlad. We’ll use Ortega to illustrate a point. He’s 89 years old and has three children. If he spent a million dollars per hour, he’d need 5,162 days to wipe out his fortune, meaning he’d have to live to 103. If he keeled over tomorrow his giant piles of loot would pass to his children. 

Each would have $41,333,333,333.33 to spend. It would be hard work using up a million per hour, staying up all night figuring out what to buy – and now paying those damn tariffs. Let’s go easy on those poor kids, who just hypothetically lost their father, and figure they must spend only a million per day. 

Now they will need to “work” for 41,333 days to complete their task. That means they could finish their sprees in only 113 years. 

(I think this math proves that Elon, Vladimir, and Donald Dumpling need tax breaks.)

 

* 

History shows us that, across the centuries, great power always trends toward abusive power. Powerful leaders amass great wealth, and great wealth allows them to accumulate even more wealth. Kim Jong-un, the homicidal maniac who rules North Korea, is said to be worth $5 billion. 

(Trump has called him a “friend.”) 

Bromance: Trump and Kim.

 

Xi Jinping is another world leader who has piled up a mountain of loot. According to the Washington Times, as far back as 2012, when he first rose to the pinnacle of power in the Chinese Communist Party, Xi and his family had already amassed at least a billion dollars in assets. 

The man he replaced, Wen Jiabao, and his family had also done well. On the day Wen laid down the mantel of leadership, he and his DNA crew had piled up an estimated $2.7 billion in assets. 

No one can be sure how much Xi is worth now, because, like Donald Dumpling, the Chinese president-for-life is a staunch foe of a free press. 

(During a dinner with Xi, Trump once joked that he’d like that “president-for-life” shit.)

Xi Jinping: Trump likes his "president-for-life" vibe.

___ 

“You’ve got to accept the results.” 

4/2/25: The sun rises over the White House, or Mar-a-Lago, as it were, depending on where Donald’s mood has taken him. 

Sadly, the golden rays of morn do not lessen the president’s gloom. Yesterday, we mentioned how difficult it is for billionaires to spend all their cash, but this morning we know Donald and Elon Musk poured millions into the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, after endorsing Brad Schimel. 

When all the votes were tallied last night, Trump and Musk got their asses thoroughly kicked. Susan Crawford, the candidate favored by Democrats, won with ease. 

Susan Crawford         1,301,128 (55%) 

Brad Schimel              1,063,244 (45%)

 

It’s more than fair to say that this vote was a measure of the disdain most Wisconsinites felt for Mr. Musk, and all the bags of money he spent to swing the race. It may also be a sign of a growing disdain for The Dumpling himself. 

At any rate, Republicans took their defeat like real men, and real women, and… Oh, no, wait, they didn’t! 

Alex Jones and Roger Stone, two practiced prevaricators, immediately began claiming that there was massive evidence that the vote had been rigged. Then Elon started pushing the same claim. 

This was odd, since just six months earlier, Trump won a narrow victory in the same state, under the same voting system. 

November 5, 2024, Presidential Election Results – Wisconsin: 

Donald Dumpling     1,697,626 (49.7%) 

Kamala Harris            1,668,229 (48.9%)

 

Unlike Donald in 2020, however, when Schimel lost, he conceded graciously. When supporters gathered to hear his concession speech started chanting, “cheater! cheater!” as if Democrats had stolen the victory, he shut them down. 

“No,” he said, stilling the crowd. “You’ve got to accept the results.”

Elon gave away money to people he hoped would vote for Schimel.

 * 

Thankfully, for President Trump, his mood improved by afternoon, when he could proudly proclaim that April 2, 2025, was “Liberation Day.” He promised to use tariffs to spank just about every other country on the face of the globe and Make America Rich Again. 

The naysayers were quick to warn that what Trump was doing was implementing “the most sweeping tariff hike since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.” That would be “the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression.” 

The stock markets are closed by the time Trump reveals his tariff plan. But watch the market soar tomorrow!

Seattle's "Hooverville" during the Great Depression.
Hoover took the blame for crashing the U.S. economy.

___ 

 

That was the plan? 

4/3/25: No telling how many times we’re going to have to start a post with, “DOGE blunders continue piling up,” but here we go again. After the efficiency freaks who work for Elon cut 10,000 jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services, they were forced to backtrack today. 

No big deal, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised. “We’re streamlining the agencies. We’re going to make it work for public health, make it work for the American people.” 

He continued: “In the course of that, there were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we’ve reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut – we’re reinstating them, and that was always the plan.” 

That was always the plan? 

You fired people because you planned to fire them and then planned to hire them back? 

Well, not to worry. 

With RFK Jr., we’ll always have measles. 

 

* 

The Jack the Ripper types at DOGE have also been busy slashing grants to states to pay for popular programs like Meals on Wheels, aimed at helping the elderly and disabled. Now, if Granny can’t get out of her wheelchair to go buy groceries, or Grandpa is bedridden and can’t cook meals, let them starve. 

We’ve got to keep cutting all the “waste, fraud, and abuse” and f**k Aunt Sarah’s next hot lunch. 

All ten regional offices of the Administration for Community Living, which runs the Wheels program have been closed.

 

* 

The Dow-Jones plunges. 

Hey, how did the stock markets react to President Trump’s great new tariff plan to Make America Rich Again? 

On Liberation Day +1, the Dow-Jones average plunged 1,679 points. 

There was a happier time, when Republicans like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz would tell you exactly what they thought of tariffs. 

Now you can watch a film clip of Rubio, Cruz, and others, explaining (when they still had their manhood intact) exactly what they thought of imposing steep fees on imports.

___ 

 

Tariffs for penguins! 

4/4/25: Liberation Day +2: If you’ve been too busy to watch the news, you may be wondering how we’re doing, after President Trump declared Wednesday was “Liberation Day,” and slapped tariffs on almost every country on the face of the Earth. He and his top economic aides were so pumped up by the idea of putting up trade barriers that they tariffed the hell out of a country that did not, technically, exist, namely, Howard Island and McDonald Islands. 

The only inhabitants of those barren, windswept islands are penguins – and you figure they’re not much on exporting, or importing, or anything else, besides eating fish, pooping, and procreating.

As we now know, Wall Street was so excited by the news of massive tariffs that the Dow fell 1,679 points yesterday, which even penguins could tell you was not good. 

Today, we can report that the stock market gave the tariff situation a little more thought and dived 2,231 points. 

Members of the president’s economic team promised that any financial pain would be worth it in the end, even if it felt like a fiscal appendectomy. They promised that the plan was still the plan, and the MAGA faithful told each other not to read up on the Great Crash of 1929 and start jumping out of tall buildings. 

This blogger would be the first to admit that it is hard to predict what will happen when the global economy is disrupted, and Donald Dumpling may be correct in the end. For now, it has the feeling of a situation where the patient needed an appendectomy, so Doctor Donald shot him in the face. 

Trump, however, assured reporters that the U.S. economy was about to boom and then, as is his wont, headed for Florida, to attend a Saudi-sponsored golf tournament, being held at Trump National Doral Miami. So, Donald, at least, was still piling up money by hosting golfers and their friends at establishments he happens to own. 

The president, himself, is expected to shoot a few holes at his Jupiter club this weekend, meaning flight restrictions will be enforced. 

We don’t want any drone attacks on golf carts. 

Right?

Golfing again!

FUN FACT: Trump did find time in his busy day to unveil a golden card which can be yours for only $5 million, if you are a person desiring to emigrate to the United States. As anyone might have predicted, the card carries the president’s signature and features his glowering mug.

___

 

44/5/25: Great news from Florida, America! While you were staring bleakly at the computer screen and dripping tears on your keyboard as your 401k imploded, President Trump was off golfing again! And winning again! “On Saturday,” the Daily Beast reported, “Trump won the second-round matchup in a Senior Club Championship held at his very own Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, which means he advances to the Championship Round held on Sunday.”

 (This blogger, for one, will wager that Donald wins on Sunday, as well.)

___ 

 

4/6/25: Well, that was a bet I could have won. Sure enough, on his flight back to Washington D.C. late Sunday, Donald told reporters he had won another championship at a golf club he owns. 

This victory was confirmed by Laura Loomer, the white supremacist lady, and some fear Donald’s sometimes squeeze. 

Asked about the stock market dive last week, Trump insisted it was like “medicine” and the patient would be fine in the end. 

Sort of like ivermectin for your 401k plan.

 

* 

In other “Big News” the Trump folks have been busy saving our eyeballs from unpleasant realities, vis a vis U.S. history. Obviously, no one wants to know about Harriet Tubman and her fight to help African Americans escape from slavery! Under “Sleepy Joe” Biden the National Park Service webpage used to describe the Underground Railroad with this opening sentence. “The Underground Railroad – the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War – refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage.” 

A photo of Tubman, the most famous “conductor” on the entire system featured prominently, and a description highlighted her daring exploits. 

As the Washington Post reports, a new opening line now eliminates all mention of slavery! The Underground Railroad is instead described as “one of the most significant expressions of the American civil rights movement.” The effort “bridged the divides of race,” which sounds much nicer than bothering people with the fact that 4,000,000 men, women and children were treated like cattle in 1860, and that only a few thousand slaves were ever able to escape. The “divides of race” being bridged, is much cheerier than reporting that nearly 400,000 Americans owned those millions – and worked overtime to recapture any who dared escape. Bridging the gap? No need to mention whips and shackles, and bloodhounds, and bloody backs. 

Whipped Peter - don't think about that.

 

 

UPDATE (April 8, 2025): The original content at the Underground Railroad website has already been rectified. So, no harm done, correct?

 

The problem being: Someone working for Donald Trump thought those kinds of changes were justified.

 

And the changes were made in February.

___ 

 

Saving macho men – with tariffs! 

4/7/25: Monday wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As economists and stockbrokers, business owners and ordinary workers all scratched their heads, the world pondered a future of tariffs run amok. 

Would Donald Dumpling’s plans to bring America’s economy roaring back work, or would he go down in history like Herbert Hoover, taking the world economy (and all of us) with him? Yesterday, the Dow Jones dived, then soared briefly on a false claim that Trump had delayed tariffs for 90 days. At the close, the Dow was down only 349 points, having skidded 1,500 points earlier in the day. 

This blogger is not a trained economist – and in a perfect world, Donald’s tariff antics may work. On Fox News, however, the talking heads have been busy all week, spouting pro-tariff drivel. One of the emptiest talking heads belongs to Jesse Waters and, on a separate program, the guest columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon could be heard trying to match him for vacuous commentary. 

First, Jesse, - who for all the good it does to listen to him – a viewer might as well listen to a recording of a dozen dogs barking in unison at the moon. 

“When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this. Studies have shown this!” Jesse howled. He insisted that studies (none of which he cited) proved that men fared better if they did manly factory jobs and worked with their hands. Trump and the tariffs would bring those kinds of jobs roaring back! “And if you’re out working, building robots … you are around other guys,” he added. “You’re not around HR ladies and lawyers – and that gives you estrogen.” 

(Was I drenched in estrogen all those years I taught? I did work with lots of ladies.) 

 

Okay. No. I’m not stupid enough to believe that shit. In fact, if anyone was soaking in too much estrogen it was Jesse, not me. 

The day before, The Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon appeared on Fox & Friends Weekend to sound alarm. There was, she warned, a “crisis in masculinity” that only tariffs could resolve. “It’s not just the destruction of the economic vitality of the working class,” she moaned. “We shipped jobs that gave men who work with their hands for a living, and rely on brawn and physicality, off to other countries to build up their middle class.” 

She continued: “We imported millions and millions of illegals to work in construction, manufacturing, landscaping, janitorial services – jobs that used to give men access to the American dream.” 

Former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos, joined the chorus on X, suggesting that a mass return to factory work would be just what America’s men needed most. 

 

The “we love tariffs” rhetoric turned into outright misogyny at times, 

with some arguing that a manufacturing-based economy would naturally offer fewer career opportunities for women. This, in turn, would force them into relationships out of necessity and boost the country’s flagging birth rates.

 

As one prominent right-wing influencer wrote: “you do not solve low birth rates by giving money to women, you solve low birth rates by taking money away from women.” 

 

Neither Ungar-Sargon nor Watters mentioned that businesspersons – including Donald Dumpling himself – were only too happy to hire those “millions of illegals” because they worked long hours as janitors for no overtime pay, or stooped all day in fields of asparagus, doing the harvesting for less than minimum wage. 

I don’t know. If American men are suffering a “crisis in masculinity,” maybe they should get their lard asses off the couch, or get off their riding mowers, and walk behind a push mower, instead. 

Or take your lazy ass to the gym and lift a few weights. 

I know, here in Cincinnati, almost every time I hear workmen putting new roofs on old homes, I hear Spanish speakers plying hammers and see them climbing ladders with heavy bundles of shingles on their shoulders. 

Men! Listen up! If you’re suffering from a crisis in masculinity, get a hammer and nails, buy a truckload of shingles, and get up there on your own roof! 

 

FUN FACT: At age 76, this liberal blogger still cuts his grass with a walking mower. Each time he does, he hoofs it four miles. 

He has cut the grass, or mulched the leaves roughly 35 times per year, and has done it for 33 years at his current address. That’s 4 x 33 x 35, or 4,620 miles. Jesse, all you fat Fox News fans, you don’t need tariffs. 

You need sweat.

Want to regain your masculinity, men?
Did you know you can put up a scaffold like this all by yourself
and then repoint your chimney? Well, you can.

(The liberal blogger: Age 71.)

 

You, too, can feel like a man.

 

* 

In other news, now that DOGE has made serious cuts to the workforce at Social Security, and messed with the data, the website keeps crashing. If you’re a retiree, with questions about eligibility or checks, and you’d like to talk to someone, good luck! That someone has already been terminated. 

So, log on to… 

Oh, wait. DOGE has already cut 7,000 jobs, and now wants to cut half the remaining staff at the agency’s technology division – which has responsibility for the website and electronic access.

 

* 

With DOGE, the “efficiency” never ends. Or really begins. Soon after Elon and his boys set to work, a freeze on all federal grants was announced, including grants to states to fund Head Start. 

Now, officials who administer the grant programs are being fired or put on paid administrative leave. Head Start helps children living in poverty, and even homeless children. But sure. Helping homeless kids is “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

___ 

 

4/8/25: Supporters of Donald Trump rejoiced on Tuesday, as his plan to “Make America Rich Again” finally began to bear fruit. The tariffs were beginning to bite, and the Dow rallied, and went up more than a thousand points. 

On X, the MAGA faithful were out in force, talking smack about how delicious liberal tears are to drink. 

Alas, by day’s close, the rally fizzled, and the Dow was down 320. Again, this blogger will admit that the Donald Dumpling Tariff Plan may work. Unfortunately, if it doesn’t, we could all be screwed. 

___ 

 

4/9/25: President Trump announces that he is going to pause implementation of all the tariffs he said would mark “Liberation Day” as the day American got stinkin’ rich again, for ninety days. Also, it means the U.S. isn’t going to pile up all the billions he promised every day, putting taxes on foreign goods and services. 

In any case, the Dow closes up 2,943 points. 

Trump fans claim this was all part of a brilliant plan to knock the bottom out of the markets, and then save them again.

___ 

 

4/10/25: No one really has a clue what Trump is going to do next, including, apparently, Donald Dumpling himself, regarding tariffs. Investors remain nervous, and on Thursday the Dow sinks 1,015 points.

___

 

Making war on fat people, with a side order of measles. 

4/13/25: On this fine spring Sunday, measles are in the news! Consider it a tribute to Secretary of Health and Human Services, gravel-voiced anti-vaxxer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and people like him. 

As of Friday, we can boast of 712 cases – and the first three measles deaths of Americans in decades – making this the second worst year for cases since 2000. 

The #1 worst year was in 2019, when Trump was also in charge. 

 

By comparison, as recently as 1990, the United States had 27,808 reported cases, with about ten percent of infected persons requiring hospitalization.

 

*

 

But wait, there’s more. If you have been wondering what ever happened to Mr. Trump’s big, beautiful healthcare plan, that was going to be bigger, better, and cheaper than Obamacare, we have news!

 

RFK Jr. explained his plans last week to realign U.S. healthcare, more broadly, and – cheap pun – we do mean more broadly. It’s time, he says, to make war on fat people, which is almost all of us in America. “If you’re smoking three packs of cigarettes a day,” Kennedy asked rhetorically, or you “eat donuts all day,” should you really “expect society to pay when you get sick?”

 

If you wanted donuts for breakfast seven days a week, or drank five Mountain Dews for lunch, Secretary Kennedy promised he would not take away the freedom to get fat. “But in terms of, should you then expect society to care for you when you predictably get very sick at the same level as somebody who was born with a congenital illness?” he wondered. “The best answer to that is to realign our incentives so that the economic incentives, the individuals and the industry align with the public health outcomes that we desire.”

 

As a self-confessed donut addict, this blogger would suggest the following policy initiatives. First, line up exercise bicycles outside every bakery and fast-food joint. Before you can order anything off the menu, you will be required to hop on one of those machines and pedal for thirty minutes.

 

“MAHA,” as RFK Jr. likes to say.

 

(Make America Healthy Again!)

___ 

 

Climate change, hurricanes, flooding, and the “Gulf of America.” 

4/14/25: I think all Americans can agree that last week was not a great one, but let’s recap: A federal judge ruled that the White House had to readmit the reporter for the Associated Press to the press room – because the AP was being punished for exercising the rights of free press, and free speech. 

“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden in his order. “The Constitution requires no less.”

 

Judge McFadden is a Trump appointee, and if you care about the First Amendment (you are a failed American if you do not), you should celebrate this win. 

The “crime” that got the AP banned from listening to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt yap: Refusing to alter maps, which for hundreds of years had labeled the “Gulf of Mexico,” to read “Gulf of America.”

 

* 

In related news, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a plan in Congress to formally adopt the name, “Gulf of America,” because this is the kind of focused governance all Americans count on and cherish. 

Democrats on the same congressional committee got into the spirit, offering up their own suggestions.

“Gulf of Ignorance,” offered one. 

In a nod to the dangers of climate change, another suggested “Gulf of Helene,” after the hurricane that pulverized homes and businesses along the Florida coast and led to catastrophic flooding in North Carolina last September. 

In a similar vein, a third Democrat suggested, “Gulf of America Should Rejoin the Paris Accord.” 

Finally, Rep. Jared Huffman suggested that Greene should go much bigger, and rename our planet, “Trump.” 

(Marge probably loves that idea.)

 

* 

Meanwhile, the DOGE folks have proposed a 25% funding cut for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

NOAA has been monitoring air and water temperatures and warning about the growing dangers related to warming air and seas. 

First, scientists know that warmer seas help supercharge hurricanes – which no one wants to see. 

Second, warmer air can hold more moisture, and when rain begins to fall, you can have torrents. 

Yes. Hurricane Helene. 

The DOGE plan now seems to revolve around the idea that what the MAGA faithful don’t know won’t hurt them, unless they look out their windows and see the next hurricane bearing down or get swept away in the next torrential flood. As for future generations who will bear the brunt of climate change, including little MAGA children and grandchildren – well, too bad for them.

 

* 

We can also announce that President Trump has moved decisively to address problems like the multi-state battle for dwindling supplies of Colorado River water. Last week, he signed an Executive Order related to shower heads. 

Forty million Americans in seven states rely on Colorado River water for drinking – not to mention taking showers – but Donald has been focusing on his hair. I am reminded of his grumbling during his first term as president when he said low-use toilets didn’t work, and he had to flush them ten or fifteen times – and I wondered exactly what he was dumping in his bowl, or whether, perhaps, he didn’t know how the handle on the toilet worked. Now, he's ready to put the kibosh on low-water-usage shower heads. Why? Let the plumbing genius explain. 

“I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” the Narcissist-in-Chief told reporters recently. “I stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.” 

Could it be? Does the sap not know how faucets work, either? Maybe Melania can show him how it’s done. 

Save Donald's hair!

 

* 

President Trump has unveiled his latest plan to rid American of illegal immigrant scum who Democrats imported to eat our pets, steal from Social Security, vote illegally in dark-skinned droves, and kill white MAGA patriots. 

On Wednesday, Donald explained his new vision to reporters. “We have to take care of our farmers, the hotels and, you know, the various places where they tend to, where they tend to need people,” he said. 

It’s not Democrats who keep importing all these homicidal Venezuelans and dog-napping Haitians. It’s America’s farmers! And they are giving the killers sharp gardening tools! 

Well, then, how would this new system work? 

“So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they’re great, they’re working hard,” Donald explained. “We’re going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we’re going to ultimately bring them back. They’ll go out. They’re going to come back as legal workers.” 

Details forthcoming.

 And I, for one, am hiding the family pet.

 

* 

We also learned that Dan Bongino, the new Deputy Director of the F.B.I., has determined that he can only remain safe if he is protected by a security detail, requiring the services of twenty F.B.I. agents. 

It would appear Deputy Director Dan is afraid of being attacked by the entire starting defense of the Philadelphia Eagles. 

And a few immigrant hotel workers, with toilet brushes. 

He is the first deputy director to need any security detail at all – in large part because Dan is a giant asshole. 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: We DO NOT advocate political violence. No shooting at President Trump. No January 6 rioters smashing up Capitol Hill. No attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, and then, if you are the son of Mr. Trump, making jokes about the attack. 

All of these examples would represent threats to democracy and Don Jr.’s response to the latter would be dickish, in the extreme.

 

* 

As we all know, tariffs are on – or off – or on for now, but soon off – and according to Peter Navarro, the president’s top trade advisor, they are going to be magic. They are going to pile up billions of dollars for the federal government every day – or, no, if they are off, then other countries will come crying to negotiate new and better trade deals – and, either way, they are going to bring jobs back to America, almost instantly. 

For example, the Chinese are going to get hit with tariffs so steep, they’ll start asking if China can become the 51st state. Apple and other tech companies will have no choice but to start building phones in America… Except, April Fools, the tariffs on phones and computers are off again for now. 

This blogger is no economist and will not venture to predict whether the Trump Tariff Plan will work or not. 

It has been fun, as a good liberal thinker, however, to see Navarro and Elon Musk start insulting each other, because both men are colossal asses. Musk described Navarro as “a moron.” Navarro disrespected Elon and called him nothing but a “car assembler,” who put together cars using foreign-made parts. 

 

FUN FACT: Let’s not forget that Navarro wrote a book about tariffs and how they could help make America great again – plus he graduated from Harvard. In his book, he quotes Ron Vara, a noted economist, to make many key points. This was dubious, at best, since “Ron Vara” is not, technically, a noted economist. Ron is a fictitious expert, and if we unscramble the letters in his name, we get “Navarro.”

___ 

 

Giving illegal immigrants a stipend to come back. 

4/15/25: This simple blogger may not be as smart as the typical “MAGA patriot” who professes to love America but seems to hate half of all Americans. So, I admit, I am confused. I thought illegal immigrants lusted after MAGA blood and drooled when they saw MAGA types walking their pets. 

Once again, Donald Dumpling has muddied his message. Even if he does close the border, he is going to let many of these cat-eating, dog-eating maniacs remain. He doesn’t really want to mass deport everyone his MAGA fans dreamed he would. “One of the things I am doing, though,” he says, “is I’m also making it easier on the farmers and the hotels and everything, because you have a lot of farmers that they’re not going to be able to, you know, do their crops and pick up the corn and do all of the things that they do so incredibly well.” 

In other words: We need the illegals, hungry pet-nappers, or not. 

Breakfast for the hungry illegal immigrant?

 

Donald has now announced a genius plan to spend even more precious tax dollars “solving” a problem that, despite all the right-wing howling, and all the racist demonizing, has never really needed solving. 

“Ultimately, at some point we want the people to go out [and] come back as, as legal. You know, we’re going to send, as you probably know, we’re doing a self-deportation and we’re going to make it comfortable for people, and we’re going to work with those people to come back into our country legally.” 

Best of all, these potential killers will leave, and then we’ll all be safe, and then Donald will allow them to return! “We’re going to give them a stipend,” he told Fox Noticias host Rachel Campos-Duffy in an interview today. 

“We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them,” he continued. “If they’re good.” 

 

So, to recap: 

While running for president, Donald J. Trump warned that voracious illegals were making it unsafe to walk your poodle in broad daylight. 

He fired up his base, dinning in supporters’ ears that illegals were “poisoning the blood of the country.” 

Top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, resident White House ghoul and closet neo-Nazi, warned that Democrats wanted waves of illegals to flood the land, as part of a plot to commit “white genocide.”   

In fact, the “Great Replacement Theory (GRT),” a favorite of Mr. Miller and neo-Nazi types round the world, holds that race mixing, and mass importation of “inferior” dark-skinned peoples, will dilute racial purity, reduce the white population to minority status, and allow liberal tyrants to enslave the MAGA faithful, and white folks round the globe. 

Other fans of GRT include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Lauren Boebert, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Paul Gosar, and a number of other GOP politicians of the very worst possible stripe. 

(As a haters’ bonus, neo-Nazi types insist that Jews are behind the replacement plan.) 

 

So, it was no surprise when on January 22, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order warning that illegal immigrants were “engaged in an invasion of the United States through the southern border.” 

The invaders, he promised, would be stopped! 

Or not – as we learned today – if they were the kind of people who would work cheap and pick up the corn.

* 

FUN FACT: Today we learn that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, under new, Team Trump management, has switched sides and joined with the big banks and big credit card companies. 

(Who doesn’t think “consumer protection” if you mention credit card companies!)

 

Under Team Biden, CFPB had imposed an $8 limit on most credit card late fees, a move that was expected to save real households $10 billion per year. That rule had been held up by an injunction, filed by the banking and credit card folks. 

Then, 

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Texas vacated the fee limit at the joint request of the banks and the consumer bureau. Now under the leadership of Russell T. Vought, the White House budget office leader who is also serving as the bureau’s acting director, the consumer bureau reversed its stance and said in court filings that it agreed with the banks that the fee limit illegally stretched beyond the agency’s bounds.

 

In fact, “f**k the consumer” was pretty much the vibe, with the Trump crew back in charge. Vought, of course, was the mastermind behind Project 2025, a document so full of toxic ideas that Candidate Trump had to claim during the 2024 campaign that he had never read it and didn’t know the people who wrote it.

So, Donald lied, Russell turned the CFPB upside down, and Elon Musk celebrated the news, posting on X: “RIP CFPB,” adding a tombstone emoji. 

Have fun, Trump fans, and non-Trump fans alike, paying those hefty late fees on your credit cards, from now on.

___

4/16/25: Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, warns that Trump tariffs are “highly likely” to fuel inflation. 

Powell is Trump’s appointee and will serve until May 2026. The Dow-Jones average slips another 699 points. 

Trump posts on Truth Social, that Powell’s “termination can’t come fast enough.”

 

* 

In case you have forgotten, the Dow hit 45,014, on December 4, 2024, when Joe Biden was still president. Trump insisted he deserved the credit because the business community loved the idea that he would soon retake office. 

If Kamala had been elected, he warned, “the result will be a Kamala economic crash, a 1929-style Depression.” 

Today, the Dow closed at 39,669, down a mere 5,045 points, since that day when a Democrat was still in office. 

 

Meanwhile, American consumers will see a 10% increase in the cost of Hermès luxury bags, scarves and other goods, starting in May, as the French company moves to offset the costs of Trump tariffs. 

This blogger will now use that as an excuse to tell his most lovely wife that he did not buy her a “Garden Party Voyage 49” Hermès bag for $7,000. 

(With tariff: $7,700.)

The bag of my wife's dreams?

___ 

 

DOGE – bringing back lung cancer! 

4/17/25: Russia continues to strike at cities in Ukraine with long-range missiles and drones, hitting Suma on Monday, killing 35 civilians and wounding dozens more. When asked for comment President Trump made like an innocent bystander. “I was told it was a mistake – this is Biden’s war – this is not my war” 

So, he wasn’t going to blame Russia. 

This bystander business is odd since Donald promised that, if elected again, he could end the war in 24 hours, even before taking office. He was indeed elected on November 5, 2024. That was: 

163 days ago. 

(It’s your war now you golfing fool.)

 

* 

Since our topic is “Russians,” imagine that you hoped to be confirmed as the next U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. From 2016 to 2024, you know that you appeared on Russian state television more than 150 times. 

You must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 

So, you sit for a preliminary hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. You are under oath. What should you do? 

a.     Pretend you suffer from amnesia and when asked, “Are you Edward Martin?” reply, “Who?” 

b.     Answer every question, but in Russian, “Я планирую поцеловать Владимира Путина как.” 

c.     Immediately reveal these meetings, and if reimbursed by Team Putin, tell senators how much you earned – and hopefully don’t mention cavorting with Russian prostitutes, if any. 

(Translation for “B,” above: “I plan to kiss Vladimir Putin’s ass.”)

 

If your name is Ed Martin – and, in fact, for this hearing, it is – and President Dumpling has selected you for this important position, “C” is the correct response. You can’t claim that you forgot. 

You’re not Roger Stone.

 

* 

Mr. Martin isn’t the only member of Team Trump suffering through a difficult stretch. Election-denier extraordinaire Mike Lindell has told a judge that he cannot pay Smartmatic, a company he allegedly defamed (saying Smartmatic helped steal the 2020 election) the $56,369 he owes. 

The judge has found him liable for filing a “frivolous lawsuit.” 

With tears welling in his eyes, poor, broke Mr. Lindell blubbered, “I’m ruined.” Smartmatic is also demanding unspecified damages, so Lindell’s ruination may have several chapters to follow. 

 

UPDATE: Poor Mike’s problems are only compounded when a judge admonishes him and his legal team for submitting an AI-drafted legal filing. That filing cited precedents from thirty non-existent cases! 

One non-existent case would be a lot. 

But thirty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

That’s epic. 

* 

“It’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” 

We also hear of turmoil inside the Trump administration, with anonymous voices dubbing Elon Musk as “Crazy Uncle Elon.” 

A senior Trump official recently admitted, 

“I have been in the same room with Elon, and he always tries to be funny. And he’s not funny. Like, at all. He makes these jokes and little asides and smiles and then looks almost hurt if you don’t lap up his humor. I keep using the word ‘annoying’; a lot of people who have to deal with him do. But the word doesn’t do the situation justice. Elon just thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room and acts like it, even when it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

 

That might explain why the DOGE bozos keep screwing the pooch. The Musk Boys start each day by ordering federal agencies to slash employees, in the name of cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” By afternoon those same agencies are forced to bring those same employees back to perform crucial services. 

Other times, the damage is done, but the public won’t know until it’s too late. The Food and Drug Administration recently laid off dozens of staffers whose jobs were to monitor retailers for sales of tobacco products to minors, and issue fines as necessary. In a typical week, a hundred complaints were filed, as stores continued to sell cigarettes and vapes to any kid old enough to talk and tall enough to reach money over the counter. 

(I exaggerate. Slightly.)

 

In 2024, the use of tobacco products among middle school and high school students fell to the lowest levels in a quarter century. That’s not waste, or fraud, or abuse – unless you are a big fan of lung cancer.

 

* 

DOGE still wasn’t done. Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, nor human empathy, can keep the DOGE crew from their appointed rounds. So it was, this week, that the entire staff at Centers for Disease Control, in the Office on Smoking and Health (OSH), was summarily fired. 

A writer for STAT, a website that reports “from the frontlines of health and medicine,” describes just one of CDC’s successful, anti-smoking campaigns: 

In the earliest ads, Terrie Hall wears a scarf around her throat to cover the artificial voice box that helps her speak. She talks about smoking on the day of her surgery; how she wishes she’d recorded her voice so her grandchildren would know how she used to sound.

Two years later, just days before her death from cancer at age 53, Hall insisted on filming again from her hospital bed in North Carolina. In these ads, she’s not wearing scarves or her shining blond wig anymore. She urges people who smoke to keep trying to quit until they succeed. “I don’t want anybody to have to go through what I’m going through.”

Hall was one of dozens of people who have been featured in the Tips From Former Smokers campaign that launched in 2012, run by a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The ads have been a remarkably effective tool in the push to help Americans stop smoking: When the television spots air, calls to the state-run 1-800-QUIT-NOW hotlines go up. When they stop, calls go back down. The CDC estimates that in the first five years of the campaign alone, an estimated 1 million Americans quit smoking, preventing 129,100 premature deaths.

 

Tim McAfee, who headed the OSH division from 2010 to 2017, called this gutting “the greatest gift to the tobacco industry in the last half century.” 

Once again, cancer fans were thrilled. People in red MAGA hats high-fived and told each other, “This is just what we voted for!” 

More cancer for the young! 

In the "good old days," cigarette companies could market
their products as doctor-recommended.

 

* 

And DOGE still wasn’t done! An entire team from the National Center for Environmental Health that was set to go to work with residents of flood-ravaged Asheville, North Carolina was axed this week. 

Could drinking water have been contaminated with toxic chemicals, as floods destroyed homes, businesses, and supply lines of all kinds? Now no one will know. Drink up, North Carolinians!

 

* 

And DOGE still wasn’t done! An entire team from the National Center for Environmental Health that was set to go to work with residents of flood-ravaged Asheville, North Carolina was axed this week. 

Could drinking water have been contaminated with toxic chemicals, as floods destroyed homes, businesses, and supply lines of all kinds? Now no one will know. Drink up, North Carolinians!

 

* 

And still – the DOGE folks did not rest. Next, they ordered AmeriCorps to pull hundreds of volunteers off relief projects nationwide (including in North Carolina) and put almost everyone at AmeriCorps headquarters on administrative leave. 

WIRED [magazine] spoke with seven workers with the National Civilian Community Corps, better known as AmeriCorps NCCC, who say that they were told to stop working on projects ranging from rebuilding homes destroyed in storms, to readying a summer camp for kids, to distributing supplies for hurricane recovery, and prepare to immediately travel back to their homes.

 

Each year, AmeriCorps recruits 2,200 volunteers, aged 18-26. WIRED was shown the memo sent to all volunteers, notifying them that all programs will be terminated on April 30.

Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, warns: “The loss of the people who make up these programs will be felt immediately, and especially in the next major disaster.” 

Other idiotic “cost-savings” cuts include eliminating funding needed to launch weather balloons. Those balloons allow federal agencies to track potentially destructive storms and warn Nebraskans (and others) that tornadoes might be forming, and it would be wise to take shelter.

 

* 

If DOGE wasn’t done Gary Shapley was, after only 72 hours as head of the Internal Revenue Service. Director Shapley had barely enough time to sharpen his pencils and arrange family photos on his desk. 

Shapley first gained Donald Dumpling’s attention when he claimed he could prove the Treasury Department showed favoritism during the Hunter Biden investigation, while Dad Biden was in the White House. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Shapley, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was opposed to his appointment, because he was known to be an ally of Elon Musk. And almost no one now likes Musk. 

Unnamed sources have told reporters that an argument between Bessent and Musk became heated, first in the Oval Office, and then continuing outside. “It was two billionaire, middle-aged men thinking it was WWE in the hall of the West Wing,” Axios reports, quoting one witness. 

Axios went so far as to characterize it as a “chest-to-chest clash.” 

In any case, no truth to the rumor (which I am just starting) that Secretary of State Marco Rubio also shouted, “Kick Elon’s ass all the way back to South Africa!” to encourage Secretary Bessent. 

 

* 

“He, she, they,” and gunfire. 

In other news, the White House folks have taken a bold stand to protect Americans from pronouns. 

As Fox News explains, 

The White House has the policy in place because “any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital.

 

Meanwhile, we had another school shooting, in Dallas, Texas, with a 17-year-old opening fire on classmates, and wounding five. No word on whether the shooting was sparked by a dispute about “he/she/they,” or not. 

In related news, the shooter does not appear to have been a blood-thirsty transgender person or illegal immigrant. 

A Republican lawmaker in Texas did recently blame a measles outbreak on illegal immigrants, however.

 

* 

Then it happened again today. A 20-year-old student at Florida State University, who had access to at least one of his mother’s handguns, and possibly a shotgun, opened fire on campus. 

Two killed. 

Six wounded. 

As for Mr. Trump, he was asked about the bloodbath this afternoon, and replied with typical eloquence, “It’s a horrible thing. It’s horrible that things like this take place.”  

Yes. “Things like this.”

 

NOT SO FUN FACT: The alleged shooter turned out to be a young man named Phoenix Ikner. 

One college classmate described Ikner this way: 

“He espoused the election denialism belief that Joe Biden was not the legitimate president, he said that Rosa Parks was in the wrong, he also talked about how Black people are ruining his neighborhood and Stonewell was bad for society. … He would also talk about how multiculturalism is dangerous.”  

Barricaded classroom.

(Pronouns accused of murder today: 0.)

___ 

 

4/18/25: President Trump has been bragging about bringing gas prices down to $1.98 per gallon in several states. 

In fact, according to AAA, the two states with the lowest prices, Mississippi and Tennessee, are currently selling gas at $2.70.

___

 

4/19/25: The stock market was closed on Good Friday, and as Easter approaches, we have time once more to catch up on the idiocy that is Team Trump 2.0. 

1. In the spirit of this most Christian season, we should start by pointing out that Team Trump has notified Afghan Christians, who fled the Taliban takeover in 2021, and who found religious freedom and safety in this country, that they have only days left until they must “self-deport.” If they are forced to return, they may face torture and execution as apostates, under the Taliban’s extremist interpretation of Islamic law. 

(Hey, anyone want to buy a Trump Bible?)

 

2. Also told to self-deport this week: Tucson lawyer, Pamela Rioles Saeed. This was interesting, since she happens to be a U.S. citizen, born in Boston. Good job, Team Trump! You fools can’t even figure out geography. Ms. Saeed was one of several U.S. citizens living in Arizona to get the same email.

 

3. We can also note that the Dow-Jones average closed Thursday, down another 527 points, at 39,142.

 

4. If the Dow is down, measles are up – to 800 cases, so far this year. This is the second worst year since 2000, with the worst year, 2019, also coming with Donald J. Trump in the White House. 

Or at Mar-a-Lago, depending on his mercurial moods.

 

5. Speaking of Mar-a-Lago, a picture of five guests at Trump’s Florida estate raises an interesting question. If transgender bathroom usage is truly a burning issue in this country, where does Caitlyn Jenner (the former Olympian Bruce Jenner) go potty at the president’s abode? 

Do they require Jenner to use a porta-potty? Or what? 

 

6. Travel to the U.S. from Canada is expected to drop 20% this year, leading to a revenue drop of $3.4 billion for the tourist industry – because Canadians don’t like being told that Canada isn’t a real country.

 

7. In fact, tourists from around the world are thinking twice about visiting the United States, as the president continues to insult world leaders, allied nations, and different cultures. 

(He does seem to like Russians.)

 

In March, the number of overseas visitors to this country fell 12% year-over-year, with signs that the decline will only get steeper. French, Germans, South Koreans, Brits, even Lilliputians, were staying away.

 

8. This blogger is willing to admit that the Trump Tarriff Plan to Make America Stinking Rich Again might work. (The blogger has, for example, grumbled for years about having to buy Chinese-made tools – since he can remember an era when Sears Craftsman brand tools were made in America and guaranteed for life.) 

Right now, consumers are scared. According to a University of Michigan report, Americans expect inflation to surge, to 6.7% in the coming year. That would be the highest level since 1981.

 

9. At the same time, the Index of Consumer Sentiment has fallen to a reading of 50.8, the second lowest level since 1952. If consumers start cutting back and we slide into a recession, even the MAGA faithful may rise in righteous indignation. 

(Maybe this time they’ll attack Mar-a-Lago, instead of Congress.)

Not since Harry Truman was president has consumer sentiment dipped so low.
Harry, seated, right. Lauren Bacall, left.

 

10. Mack Trucks has announced plans to lay off 250-350 workers at its plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania. “Heavy-duty truck orders continue to be negatively affected by market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes, and the impact of tariffs,” [company] spokesperson Kimberly Pupillo said.

 

11.Also cutting back, in the face of tariff concerns: Volvo will lay off as many as 980 workers at three U.S. plants.

 

12. America’s farmers are also nervous. China has cut purchases for soybeans, corn, and other agricultural commodities from the United States – as the game of “Tariff Chicken” heats up. A huge taxpayer-funded bailout may be necessary – similar to the $23 billion bailout required in 2019, the last time Donald was galivanting around Washington D.C.

___

 

 

4/20/25: Former President Obama marks this holy day on the Christian calendar with a simple message: “To everyone celebrating today, Michelle and I hope you have a blessed and happy Easter.” 

Donald goes for something different: 

___ 

 

4/21/25: Are we headed for a recession? No one knows for sure, but the stock markets are melting. 

Today, the Dow dropped another 972 points, after Donald Dumpling called Fed chair Jerome Powell “a major loser.” 

With talk that Team Trump could be looking to oust Fed Chair Jay Powell (which may not be legal), business leaders worry that absent his steadying hand, the world will be at the mercy of the mercurial Donald J. Trump. 

The Dow finished Monday at 38,170, down from 45,014 on December 4, when Joe Biden was in charge.

 

* 

“Even bigger bombshell stories coming this week.” 

Once again, Secretary of Defense Pete “Hair Gel” Hegseth is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. 

First, we learn that he was part of a second unclassified Signal chat group, wherein he sent classified information regarding U.S. plans to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen to his wife, his brother, his personal lawyer, and the last Uber driver he tipped. 

(Okay, the part about the driver is a joke.) 

 

But we do know Hegseth has fired three of his top aides and has since tried to smear them all, claiming they were fired for leaking information about a sensitive investigation. 

As always, the MAGA faithful rallied to Hegseth’s defense – because that’s the same as rallying to Donald’s defense, insisting that any story that made the Secretary sound like a bumbling alcoholic was “fake news.” 

Only, the man sounding the alarm was John Ullyot, chief Pentagon spokesmen during Trump’s first term in office. The three aides, he said, weren’t the problem. 

The Pentagon, he warned, was in “chaos.” 

While the department said that it would conduct polygraph tests as part of the probe, not one of the three has been given a lie detector test. In fact, at least one of them has told former colleagues that investigators advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door.

 

Spreading “easily debunked falsehoods” is not usually the look you want from the people in charge of organizing the nation’s defense. 

Ullyot went on to say that he has been a “longtime backer” of Hegseth and still “values his friendship.” 

Nevertheless, “The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon.” He cited the first Signal group foul up, wherein Hegseth or some other yahoo sent Houthi attack plans to a reporter for The Atlantic. 

Then we had “Hair Gel” Pete’s attempt to claim he didn’t send any plans, and the reporter was a liar. 

And then the reporter revealed exactly what Hegseth had sent him by mistake – namely attack plans. 

Then The Wall Street Journal revealed that Hegseth brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where other sensitive information was discussed. 

(Well, at least he didn’t bring a mistress!)

 

Finally, we learned that the Pentagon set up a briefing for Elon Musk with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, regarding China. That meeting was squelched when saner folk realized Musk still had extensive business interests in the People’s Republic of China. Plus: He wasn’t part of the U.S. military chain of command. 

Finally, Ullyot predicted, “There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.” 

Ullyot finishes with a defense of the president – as if he wasn’t a dope for putting a former Fox News host in charge of the Pentagon – saying, “The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.” 

(I had to look it up, but “Mishegoss” is a Yiddish word meaning craziness, senseless behavior, or senseless activity.)

___ 

 

Bipartisan fight against “Forever Chemicals.” 

4/22/25 (Earth Day): The Trump years are not going to be known as years when environmental protections were prioritized, or advanced. In fact, we can expect to march rapidly in reverse for the next four years. 

See, for example, Team Trump’s effort to weaken the Endangered Species Act. 

Or, Team Trump’s effort to pretend that climate change isn’t happening. 

Or, Team Trump’s promise to make the focus of the Environmental Protection Agency advancing the burning of fossil fuels – akin to the Department of Transportation advancing bus crashes. 

But there is one battle that states are slowly winning, and even an EPA of the coal companies, by the coal companies, and for the coal companies, can’t undo all the progress made so far.

In 2023, for example, Minnesota lawmakers were hesitant to pass laws banning “forever chemicals,” or PFAS. 

But then a young woman named Amara Strande turned up at the Capitol. Ms. Strande, who grew up near St. Paul, had been diagnosed at age 15 with a rare liver cancer, a disease she and her family attributed to drinking water polluted with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as forever chemicals are formally known.

 

At hearing after hearing, she was at the statehouse lobbying lawmakers and giving testimony. Speaking faintly into the microphone, she described her excruciating pain and the gruesome surgery she endured to have a 15-pound tumor removed. She talked about the horrors of the cancer spreading throughout her chest, cracking her ribs and immobilizing her right hand. “There are no more treatments to try,” she said. “I can no longer braid my hair or play the piano.” 

Ms. Strande died that April, just two days shy of her 21st birthday. But the following month, the State Legislature passed Amara’s Law, the most aggressive PFAS ban in the country.

 

In this era of DOGE run wild, with the president insisting that government regulations are the root of all evil, the fight against PFAS has support from across the political spectrum. “Forever chemicals” spread rapidly, by air and water, and remain a threat in the environment for hundreds of years. They can damage cells and alter DNA. They can cause infertility and give you testicular cancer. PFAS are great if you want your thyroid system to get messed up, or to have your immune system suppressed. And if you are an expectant mother, they can cause life-threatening pregnancy complications. They even increase your chances of being obese. 

And, as in the case of Ms. Strande, at high enough doses, they will kill you. 

As The New York Times reports, thirty states have enacted their own bans on PFAS, including red states like Mississippi, Montana and Texas. 

The dangers of PFAS first came to light in the 1990s, after a family of West Virginia farmers whose land adjoined a DuPont landfill noticed that their cattle were sprouting tumors and vomiting blood. Soon the cows were dying faster than the farmers could bury them, and family members were landing in the hospital with mysterious chemical burns. Convinced that the landfill was to blame, the family sued the company.

 

That case helped expose a decades-long cover-up involving the forever chemical PFOA, which DuPont used to make Teflon. It also inspired a class-action lawsuit and a flurry of scientific research.

 

But PFAS didn’t attract much attention outside scientific circles until 2016, when contamination in the upstate New York village of Hoosick Falls made national headlines. There the instigator was a young man named Michael Hickey, who had started questioning the safety of the local drinking water after losing his father and several friends to cancer. When officials refused to investigate, he tested his own tap water and discovered dangerous levels of PFOA.

 

Mr. Hickey wasn’t your typical activist. A clean-cut insurance underwriter with a fear of public speaking, he had no interest in environmental issues generally. He liked to joke that he got his news from ESPN. And yet he wound up spearheading a fight against several giant multinational corporations and government agencies to get his community clean drinking water.

 

Other residents with little interest in politics found themselves enmeshed in the same battle: A doctor who had documented unusually high rates of rare, aggressive cancers among his patients before being diagnosed with cancer himself. A high school music teacher who decided to run for public office after learning his 2-year-old daughter had PFAS blood levels 50 times the national average. A young mother named Emily Marpe who had put everything she had into a dream home for her family, only to learn that her well was contaminated.

 

So, the battle lines formed – and for good reason. A two-year-old’s blood was tainted. And Marpe’s water supply was unsafe to drink. “The American dream was ripped out from under us,” she said later. 

In 2017, President Trump joined the battle – on the side of polluters – and “nominated a scientist who had helped chemical makers fend off PFAS regulation to head the E.P.A.’s Office of Chemical Safety.” 

Environmental groups struck back and invited ordinary citizens to come to Washington D.C. to tell their stories before Congress. Ms. Marpe gave testimony. So did a former Marine sergeant who lost his 9-year-old to cancer and learned – too late – that he and his family had been drinking poisoned water. A Virginia man born with serious facial deformities and a Michigan woman who had the highest PFAS levels ever detected in a human, showed up. And members of Congress, always anxious to retain their seats in office, took notice. 

Even Congressman Lee Zeldin – now head of the EPA in the second Trump administration – but then representing a Long Island district – began pushing for strict PFAS legislation and safety regulations. 

And yet the battle is far from won, and the threat from PFAS pollution is unabated. In South Carolina, as red a state as there is, the abandoned Galey & Lord textile mill in Society Hill, where PFAS have spread to soil and water, was designated a Super Fund site in 2022. Galey & Lord was once known as the “King of Khaki,” before corporate raiders realized they could ship production overseas and underpay foreign workers. So, the plant closed, but the PFAS’s used in making the khakis remained. For years the company had treated wastewater used in production in lagoons and then offered sludge from the ponds to farmers to fertilize their fields. 

A win-win for farmers and the company. 

Only the sludge contained high PFAS concentrations and over time the soil became toxic, and the crops grown on 10,000 acres became a threat too. The farmers and their families had to start worrying about all kinds of cancer. 

“They said that it was good fertilizer, that it would help our crops,” said Robert O’Neal, a soy, corn and wheat farmer whose fields were fertilized with sludge from Galey & Lord in the late 1990s.

 

“They said, ‘This is so great for you. You can have it for free,’” he said. “And they brought us all their problems.”

 

So, from Maine to South Carolina, and everywhere in between, the growing danger of PFAS pollution becomes known. The local politicians in South Carolina are now awake to the threat, and there are calls to include those ten thousand acres as part of the Super Fund site, and the costs rise. 

And this is another example of why environmental protections are often beneficial. 

And when DOGE makes cuts at government agencies that guard against all types of pollution, it’s not a win for ordinary Americans.

 

* 

Indeed, this might be time to remind readers of the bloody “War on Coal,” waged so brilliantly during Donald Dumpling’s first term in office. Simply put, Donald accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of hating coal, and coal miners, and coal miners’ families, and coal miners’ children’s pets. 

When President Obama took office in January 2009, there were 86,400 coal miners at work in the United States. 

Eight years later, when The Dumpling took over, only 51,000 remained; and Donald set out to save them and bring coal back to life. 

Also: To exacerbate climate change problems – which, at least, he did! 

Mr. Trump worked his magic, and his MAGA followers cheered, and by the time he was done … um … in 2021 … the ranks of the coal miners had been thinned again. Only 37,900 remained. 

Four years later, 41,300 coal miners could now be found at work – meaning “Sleepy Joe” did a better job fighting the “War on Coal” than the golfing nitwit, who spends half his time now hunkered down at Mar-a-Lago. At his private estate, he doesn’t have to worry about PFAS or climate change, or anything else, except how to enjoy his showers. (See: 4/14/25, above.) 

 

FUN FACT – ENVIRONMENTAL: In an announcement made on the official White House website, in the spirit of all humanity working together to celebrate Earth Day, we got another dose of hating on Joe Biden. 

The cheery message to Americans: 

Under President Donald J. Trump, America is back — leveraging environmental policies rooted in reality to promote economic growth while maintaining the standards that have afforded Americans the cleanest air and water in the world for generations.

 

Unlike the previous administration, which wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on virtue signaling and ineffective grifts, the Trump Administration’s policies are rooted in the belief that Americans are the best stewards of our vast natural resources — no “Green New Scam” required.

 

Please note that steps taken to save the environment include “expanding responsible logging,” ending “the forced use of paper straws,” “pausing restrictive emissions rules for coal plants,” “opening more federal lands and waters for oil, gas, and critical mineral extraction,” and “pausing certain wind projects.” According to Trump fans, Donald is the first president to “recognize” (or think he does) the harmful effects windmills have on wildlife. 

There’s no mention of climate change, of course, since most Trump supporters don’t believe it’s occurring, or don’t care if it is. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration was considering stripping away the tax-exempt status of most major environmental groups. Donald is no doubt smarting because virtually every major environmental group in this country endorsed Kamala Harris. 

See, for example, Friends of the Earth and five other major organizations, the Sunrise Movement, which advocates for young Americans, and many, many others.

___ 

 

4/23/25: Good news, America. Today and yesterday, the Dow-Jones average is up, having steadied somewhat, after plunging almost 7,000 points since the president announced it was “Liberation Day” and tariffs were going to solve all our problems, economic, social, and sartorial. 

Also up, thanks to Team Trump ineptitude: Threats directed toward Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal immigrant sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador for reasons not entirely clear. She and her three children, all four family members U.S. citizens, had to move to a “safe house” after the Department of Homeland Security shared a protective order from 2021 that prominently featured her address to the department’s 2.4 million followers on X. 

“This is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids,” Sura told a reporter for the Washington Post. 

(Great work DHS, and Director Kristi Noem!) 

(Keeping Americans safe by exposing Americans to multiple death threats.)

 

Not up: Trump’s approval rating. In the latest Pew Research Poll, The Dumpling scored a 40% approval rating, vs. a very solid, well-earned, 59% disapproval rating. 

Also dropping: Tourism to the United States. According to a report by Tourism Economics, international travel to this country is expected to fall by 15% this year, putting a $90 billion dent in the U.S. economy. As Travel and Tour World explained last month, global tourists are “increasingly avoiding the country due to fears of detentions, deportations, political rhetoric, and heightened border scrutiny.”

___

 

4/24/25. To this point, the three-equal-branches-of-government blueprint, as designed by James Madison, the “architect of the U.S. Constitution,” and lesser-known Founding Fathers, such as Richard Bassett and George Read, still holds. 

Albeit barely. 

Fortunately, for fans of the U.S. Constitution, the courts continue to hand out legal defeats to President Donald J. Trump, who seems committed to reducing the three-branch system to one. For example, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher – a Trump appointee to her post – has ordered the return of “Cristian,” a 20-year-old “illegal immigrant” from Venezuela, sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. 

A class action lawsuit was filed in 2019 on behalf of immigrants who entered the U.S. as unaccompanied minors [“Cristian” being one]. They sued the government to have their asylum applications heard while they remained in the country, and the parties later settled in 2024.

 

Judge Gallagher has ruled that the settlement agreement has been breached, and Team Trump must facilitate the young man’s return.

 

* 

In unrelated news, Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine – even before he took office – continues to look stupid. 

With Vladimir Putin refusing to agree to a cease fire, and pounding civilian targets in Ukraine, Trump launches a…Truth Social attack. 

On his favorite social media platform, which he owns, and from which he profits, Donald Dumpling posts: “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets [sic] get the Peace Deal DONE!” 

In Kyiv, more than a hundred people were killed and wounded in just one night. That is: “Very bad timing.” 

Also, a war crime.

 

* 

Well, if Vladimir won’t listen, at least The Dumpling can count on Xi Jinping, his Chinese pal. According to the president, he and Xi have been talking regularly about tariffs and true “Art of the Deal” magic is imminent. This welcome news helped calm rattled markets last week. The Dow-Jones average rebounded from a rough start Monday and by Friday’s close regained almost 2,000 points. 

 

FUN FACT: No one will ever claim that Donald Trump is modest. He has claimed, for example, that he can negotiate anything, including getting special spanking deals from porn stars. 

My favorite, however: 

“The Civil War was so fascinating, so horrible,” he once said. “So many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died, so many people died. You know, that was the disaster.” 

True, I suppose, had Donald been there in 1861, and had he been willing to promise the South that he would never tamper with slavery, he could have negotiated a deal. And could he borrow a few slaves to tend to his golf courses? 

They would have worked cheap.

Who needs Abe Lincoln? All we needed was a Trump.

 ___ 

 

“These essential research studies.” 

4/25/25: Once again, the DOGE Boys strike at “waste, fraud and abuse” and the MAGA types cheer. 

Elon Musk is saving the overburdened taxpayers of this nation trillions. If Democrats don’t like it, they must hate America! 

In fact, we often have excellent reasons for not liking Elon, and the DOGE wrecking crew, and The Dumpling, in particular. On Friday, yet again, the bumblers at the apex of the Trump administration had to walk back another “cost-saving” DOGE cut. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services assured ABC News that it would restore funding to the Women's Health Initiative. This thirty-year study, ABC explained, has involved more than 160,000 women, leading “to discoveries in women's health on everything from cancer and hormone therapy to chronic disease, aging and osteoporosis.” 

Even HHS was forced to admit, “These studies represent critical contributions to our better understanding of women’s health.” 

Which is good. 

Then HHS Secretary Kennedy, through a spokesperson, tried to put the blame on the National Institutes of Health, an agency within HHS. NIH, which had been overseeing the study for three decades, had “initially exceeded its internal targets for contract reductions.” 

Which is bad. 

Then HHS announced proudly that it was, “working to fully restore funding to these essential research efforts.” 

Which is good. 

Then HHS assured everyone that, “The NIH remains deeply committed to advancing public health through rigorous gold standard research and we are taking immediate steps to ensure the continuity of these studies.” 

Which means, if you’re not following the thread here, that HHS and NIH and Elon and the DOGE Boys had f**ked up again. 

Which means, furthermore, that opposing these kinds of blunders by Team Trump does not mean anyone on our side hates America. 

So: Time for a heartfelt letter:

 

                                                                                                                   April 25, 2025

 

Dear MAGA folks,

 

If you have a mom you love, or a wife, or daughters, or sisters, or even a porn star you slept with, and you care about, you should cheer for continuation of this kind of government research. The scientists at NIH have advanced our understanding of hormone treatments for women. There have been advances – in slowing memory loss for women – in advancing healthy aging and extending life span – in preventing and treating breast, ovarian and colorectal cancers – in understanding how pregnancy, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes impact women later in life – and in reducing major chronic diseases.

 

And that is just another reason why people on our side don’t like Elon, with his $400 billion and his ham-handed cuts.

 

We even believe you can tax millionaires and billionaires a little more and not ruin America.

 

Sincerely,

The Blogger.

 

 

FUN FACT: President Trump was asked last week if he was in favor of a three percent increase in the tax on millionaires and billionaires. He told reporters he was not, because if we raised taxes on such people, they would all jump on airplanes or boats or Kon-Tiki style rafts and flee the country.

___ 

 

4/26/25: A good way to test your judgment and overcome partisan prejudices, is to read stories about politicians who have been convicted of crimes – and decide whether you believe they got what they deserved – before you know which party (if any) they represent. 

If you missed what this blogger would call “good news,” former Congressman George Santos has been sentenced to spend the next 87 months behind bars. His penchant for defrauding others previously got him booted from office. Now he has been ordered to pay $373,000 in restitution. 

Nadine Menendez, wife of former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez is also looking at spending a healthy chunk of her golden years in the slammer. She and Bob accepted cash, gold bars, and a luxury automobile, as bribes from assorted scuzz bag businesspeople. Bob has already been sentenced to eleven years. Nadine will learn her fate on June 12, and they will soon be prison pen pals. 

Michele Fiore, a Nevada politician, is in the news, after being convicted of wire fraud. She was found guilty of using funds raised to honor a slain police officer with a statue, for purposes not meant to honor anyone, except her daughter and herself. Fiore decided to spend some of the $70,000 on cosmetic surgery for herself, to pay rent, and to fund a lavish wedding for her child. 

So, without knowing which party these four criminals represent, how many would you send to jail? 

George? Nadine? Bob? Michele? 

And which one would you pardon if you were president? 

In order they are Republican, Democrat (wife), Democrat, Republican. Only Michele has been deemed worthy of pardon. 

You know, by Donald J. Trump – the man who wants to keep us all safe from pet-eating illegal immigrants.

___

 

“The United States should not confuse the public.” 

4/27/25: Late last week, President Trump claimed that he and Xi Jinping were in talks to work out a deal on tariffs. 

And the sun shined brightly once more, and the stock markets regained hope and rose, and then, after the markets closed, the Chinese said no talks were being held, and more than implied that Donald was hallucinating. 

Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked about his boss’s calls with Xi and had to admit he was not aware of any such. 

(Could it be that Trump was talking tariffs with his imaginary friend?)

 

“I don’t know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi,” Secretary Bessent told Martha Raddatz, of ABC News. “I know they have a very good relationship and a lot of respect for each other,” he added. 

Meanwhile a spokesperson for the Chinese government responded, “China and the U.S. have not held consultations or negotiations on the issue of tariffs. The United States should not confuse the public.”

___ 

 

4/28/25: A new work week begins, with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress preparing a budget bill that all the MAGA faithful will love. Trillions of wasted spending will be slashed. 

President Trump’s popularity will soar, and even those of us who don’t like Donald will bow down and be happy when he ignores the U.S. Constitution and runs for president again in 2028. 

And 2032.

 

Does the federal government spend too much – and are annual deficits too high? This liberal blogger would agree that they are. 

So where should we start with the cuts? To be honest, Republicans are going to have a hell of a time making their big, bold, deficit-slashing plans work. The New York Times provided this telling graphic last week:

 

On a positive note, the Dow-Jones continued to climb out of the giant hole into which it had fallen. 

First, Donald backed down (again) on tariffs, this time related to the auto industry. Then the Dow rose 300 points. 

Still, at least one analyst warned that even the newest tariff plan still represented a “gut punch” for the industry. “It’s akin to having a car accident and saying, ‘Oh good, it’s not totaled, but it’s still $20,000 worth of damage,’” said Dan Ives, managing director of autos at Wedbush Securities. 

In other news, tornado victims left homeless in Arkansas were denied federal aid, after the president refused to declare a major disaster. 

The student visas of thousands of foreign students have been restored, after the courts ruled that the process to determine which students should get booted was flagrantly illegal. At least fifty judges, in assorted cases, have ruled that the Trump administration didn’t know what it was doing. 

Verizon warns that Donald’s proposed tariffs will be too high for the company to ignore and absorb, and phone prices will have to be increased. 

Amazon moved to include two prices on all items for sale, giving the price before tariffs, and then the hit from the tariffs – but backed down – not because it wasn’t true - but because of White House pressure.

___ 

 

4/29/25: Attorney General Pam Bondi deserves special mention on this, Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office, to start his second term, which she is calling “Fentanyl Awareness Day.” 

Bondi posted this impressive claim on X: 

In President Trump’s first 100 days we’ve seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 Million lives. We are fighting relentlessly for the families of loved ones lost, for those whose lives are at risk, and for the soul of our nation. We will not rest until this poison is off our streets and those peddling it are behind bars.

 

This blogger is all for fighting the fentanyl scourge. But he is also a believer in math. If Bondi was to be believed, it would mean she and the president, and maybe Stephen Miller, and all the pardoned January 6 rioters were saving 1.19 million American lives daily. At that impressive pace, by the end of the first year of Trump’s second term, 434,350,000 American lives would have been saved, which is only one hundred million more lives than there are to be saved. 

So, keep up the miracles, Pam Bondi!

 

* 

In related news, ICE agents are working hard to save us all from having our throats slit by terrifying illegal immigrants. Early one recent morning, agents raided a home in Oklahoma, and ordered a mother and her three daughters out into the street before they could properly dress. Then they walked off with the family’s phones, laptops, and life savings. 

Upsy-daisy. 

The mother and the daughters were all U.S. citizens. The warrant was for other named individuals – who had lived at the address previously. 

Other slick moves by the folks at ICE include entering military housing to arrest the wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman, because she had an expired visa, deporting a two-year-old U.S. citizen without due process, and sending a four-year-old with Stage 4 cancer to El Salvador, without medication. 

“Having a US citizen child does not make you immune from our laws,” Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan explained lamely to reporters.

 

* 

Meanwhile, a survey of more than 500 political scientists found that a vast majority fear the U.S. is moving swiftly from a liberal democracy toward a form of authoritarianism. They explain: 

In a competitive authoritarian system, a leader comes to power democratically and then erodes the system of checks and balances. Typically, the executive fills the civil service and key appointments — including the prosecutor's office and judiciary — with loyalists. He or she then attacks the media, universities and nongovernmental organizations to blunt public criticism and tilt the electoral playing field in the ruling party's favor.

 

The leader still allows the people to vote in elections, but those elections are no longer truly “free and fair.” 

Another trick of authoritarians is to engineer new constitutions – such as, Trump suggesting that the 22nd Amendment doesn’t limit him to two terms, and if he wants to deport U.S. citizens, why not.

___ 

 

Three kinds of lies – and a simple truth. 

4/30/25: We start the second hundred days of President Donald J. Trump’s second term in office with startling news. According to the Commerce Department, U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, declined at an 0.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year. 

As with almost all economic figures, that number may be misleading, but it would be the first quarterly decline since the worst days of COVID. 

Donald Dumpling, however, was in no mood to accept even a shadow of blame and insisted that the entire decline was Joe Biden’s fault. He asked his MAGA fans to “be patient” and insisted that “Sleepy Joe” stuck him with a terrible mess to clean up. 

To be fair, inflation slowed, to a rate of only 2.3% year-over-year, which would be good news. 

“But it is unclear how long that, too, will last,” The New York Times said one expert had warned. “The longer tariffs are in place, the more pressure businesses will feel to pass along higher costs to customers, feeding into higher inflation, said Sarah House, an economist at Wells Fargo.” 

As Mark Twain once wrote, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

(He claimed he was quoting Benjamin Disraeli.)

 

So, a MAGA type might see numbers one way, and this blogger might see them differently, although he tries to be reasonable. 

He’s not Pam Bondi, for God sakes. 

It should help, then, to look at a longer record. Under Joseph Biden, GDP quarterly growth was, as follows: 

-0.3% (first quarter, 2025) part Biden, mostly Trump

 

2.4% (fourth quarter, 2024)

3.1% (third quarter)

3.0% (second quarter)

1.6% (first quarter)

 

3.2% (fourth quarter, 2023)

4.4% (third quarter)

2.4% (second quarter)

2.8% (first quarter)

 

3.4% (fourth quarter, 2022)

2.7% (third quarter)

0.3% (second quarter)

 

We can also compare annual GDP growth, starting in 2009, when Barack Obama truly inherited a mess, and including 2024:

 

Obama 

2009   -2.6% (the economy was in recession, before Obama took office)

2010    2.7%

2011    1.6%

2012    2.3%

2013    2.1%

2014    2.5%

2015    2.9%

2016    1.8%

 

Trump 

2017    2.5%

2018    3.0%

2019    2.6%

2020   -2.2% (the COVID catastrophe, not really Donald’s fault)

 

Biden 

2021    6.1%

2022    2.5%

2023    2.9%

2024    2.8%

 

You can look at the numbers above and glimpse one simple truth. The U.S. economy grew well under Trump during his first term in office; and it grew better during Biden’s time in the White House.