House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on CBS’ Face The Nation (05/25/25) to discuss among other things, the recent House passage of the Trump administration’s budget bill—dubbed “Big Beautiful Bill”. The Bill’s fate now lies with the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
#BREAKING: 🔥Margaret to @SpeakerJohnson : "You are eliminating subsidized federal student loans…$500 billion in clean energy subsidies…alongside that, you are carrying out about a trillion in reductions to Medicaid and food stamps…we looked at your home state and the… pic.twitter.com/14q7WpquTz
Among the issues raising concerns with the budget bill, is that it is projected to increase the national debt significantly, something Republican lawmakers lamented throughout the Biden administration. The bill also makes significant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps(SNAP), programs crucial for working families generally, and specifically, the working poor.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the nation, so cuts to Medicaid and food stamps are bound to have relatively more disastrous effects on families there. Asked by host Margaret Brennan how he can justify pushing such cuts knowing full well that his state is one of the poorest in the nation, Speaker Johnson responded that all the bill cuts is waste, fraud and abuse.
It will be interesting to see how Speaker Johnson and other House Republicans use this excuse once their poor constituents start complaining about the cuts. Even more interesting, will be the way Republicans defend this tricky position as we approach the 2026 midterm elections.
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Ever since President Trump beat his Democratic challenger Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Democrats have been in disarray, struggling to find a compelling narrative with which to challenge the new Trump administration.
Corruption is slowly becoming the galvanizing issue that is uniting Democrats in their opposition to the Trump administration. My posts on X(formerly Twitter) referencing these corruption stories generate a lot of engagement(retweets, likes, comments) which supports my assertion that corruption is clearly a hot topic for Democrats as we approach the 2026 midterms. Below are examples of such posts.
#BREAKING: 🔥Erin: "Now to our other big story tonight, the Trump family CASHING IN big time. President Trump's son @EricTrump is now arriving in Vietnam. In just hours, he'll be breaking ground on a $1.5 billion golf resort there…and while #EricTrump is in Vietnam receiving a… pic.twitter.com/RHOxxzomE7
#BREAKING: Legendary #Maddow: "The eldest son of POTUS, @DonaldJTrumpJr, has made multiple trips to Serbia to try to shore up their very Trumpy president against [protests] that he resign…WHY…?? In the middle of the capital city of Serbia, there is a ruined building [never… pic.twitter.com/eNqhYcbdID
#BREAKING: Erudite Anne to Morning Mika: "He [Trump] has been involved in an industry, the real estate industry, that relied on secret Russian money coming through anonymous bank accounts buying anonymous properties in his businesses for many years. He's been dealing in that… pic.twitter.com/Hh8VAaXitW
President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with NBC Meet The Press’ Kristen Welker on 05/04/25. As expected the interview covered all the major topics of the day—economy, immigration, military, foreign affairs, and in typical Trump fashion, even some humorous moments. Hey, he’s not a tv ratings magnet for nothing.😂🤷♀️
President @realDonaldTrump: "It partially is right now, and I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy…" pic.twitter.com/URezqwYqq3
One of the most humorous moments for me, came when host Kristen Welker asked him when problems in the economy can be attributed to his actions—ostensibly referring to the damage the tariffs are doing to the economy. President Trump responded by saying that when the economy does good, he should get the credit, and when it struggles, his predecessor Biden should bare the blame.😂
It will be interesting to see how this position holds, as the effects of tariffs become visibly evident from the empty store shelves. Will MAGA blame the empty shelves on Biden’s economic policies? Hmm, as Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.”
On 03/04/25, President Donald Trump delivered the customary State of The Union address before a joint session of Congress. Per MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, this was the longest State of The Union speech ever delivered by a U.S. president.
Moments after President Trump’s address, Maddow delivered a blistering fact check to Trump’s address
#BREAKING: Legendary #Maddow: "For the record, the worst inflation in this country was in 1980. For the record, the economy that he [Trump] was left by President Biden was not a catastrophy, it was literally the BEST economy in the world…For the record, social security is not… pic.twitter.com/S9LxOhaoXu
Among the issues that Maddow fact checked President Trump on, was his assertion that he had spoken with the heads of U.S. auto manufacturers, and that they were happy with his proposed tariffs on the auto industry.
Maddow specifically said, “For the record, U.S. auto company CEOs are NOT psyched, and delighted, and sooo excited about Trump’s economic policies, including his tariffs.”
Less than 24 hours after Maddow’s fact check, news broke that the Trump administration was pausing it’s proposed tariffs on automakers—a tacit admission that the said CEOs had never expressed optimism about the proposed auto tariffs, as the president had indicated on his State of The Union address.
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In the 03/03/25 edition of MSNBC’ s Rachel Maddow Show, host Maddow pointed out the striking resemblance between how the U.S. dealt with Hitler’s assault on Europe, and the way the Trump administration is dealing with Putin’s current assault on Ukraine in particular, and Europe generally.
#BREAKING: Legendary #Maddow: "On 07/10/1940, the German Airforce started its large scale attack on our closest overseas ally, Great Britain…At that point Great Britain was the last man standing…in the way of total Nazi domination of western Europe…President Roosevelt sent… pic.twitter.com/JOnRk1HbMi
Maddow pointed out that by July 1940, Great Britain was the only European country left standing after Hitler’s forces had practically run over every other European country.
Then U.S. President Roosevelt was doing everything in his power to assist the Brits against Hitler’s forces. But interestingly, there was no consensus in the U.S. that the we should be assisting the Brits, which is quite similar to what we hear today from some leading Republican voices re Ukraine.
One of the leading Republican voices against Roosevelt assisting the Brits, was a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, one Ernest Lundeen.
Senator Lundeen apparently argued that Britain did not deserve America’s aid because it was not “grateful enough” for America’s past assistance(World War I, etc). He also argued, much like Republicans are arguing today, that Britain and other European allies needed to dig into their own mineral resources and pay America for its assistance–again, the same argument we are hearing today from leading Republicans.
It later came out, however, that during the entire time Senator Lundeen had been making these otherwise reasonable arguments against aid to Britain (on fiscal grounds), he was actually being paid by Hitler’s Germany to make their case from his lofty perch as a U.S. Senator.
The $1 million question now is, who is Putin paying to make his case in the U.S. Congress or even from a loftier perch, which I’ll leave to your imagination? Only time will tell.
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U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) appeared on CNNSOTU (022825) where he dropped a bombshell, telling host Dana Bash that the shouting match we recently witnessed at the White House between President Trump, his VP Vance, and the President of Ukraine, was not an anomaly, but rather, a conscious effort by Trump-Vance to steer America towards kleptocracy.
#BREAKING: Sen Murphy: "It is absolutely SHAMEFUL what is happening right now. The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin…"😳 pic.twitter.com/47YwD25K1o
The characterization by the mainstream media thus far, has been that the confrontation at the White House was just an unfortunate case of a good meeting gone bad—something that happened out of happenstance.
What Sen Murphy is saying however, is markedly different, and that is, this was a pre-meditated, conscious effort by Trump-Vance to humiliate the President of Ukraine for the benefit of Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, Sen Murphy adds that this is part of their larger effort to align America with dictators around the world, so as to make it easier for them to transform America into a kleptocratic oligarchy like Russia.
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In one of his post election posts on X, President-Elect Donald Trump promised to “dismantle the Deep State.” This as you know, was a central theme of his presidential campaign so it should come as no surprise to anyone. The question now is whether he will actually deliver on this seemingly tall order that may play well on the campaign trail, but prove very difficult in terms of actually pulling it off.
Different people have different notions as to what the Deep State actually means, or whether it even exists, but the general consensus is that they are powerful but unelected bureaucrats, who control the levers of power behind the scenes, and span different administrations (both Democrat and Republican)–essentially a permanent unelected ruling class, who ruthlessly protect their power from “outsiders”–ambitious people they don’t approve of/like. They use the instruments of government(the ABC agencies we shall not name) to crush their perceived enemies.
Trump has cast himself as one of those outsiders, and he points to his endless criminal prosecutions as proof of the Deep State coming after him. He has repeatedly singled out the FBI as one of the key instruments of the Deep State that he wants hollowed out.
Whether or not the FBI has become an instrument of the Deep State as Trump alleges, is a question Yours Truly chooses to sidestep for now–way above my pay grade. What Yours Truly finds very encouraging about Trump’s proclamation however, is that during his 4 years, maybe, just maybe, we may achieve something I have begged and prayed for for quite a long time now, and that is, a Church-type Committee to look into the abuses of our intelligence agencies.
The last time we did an audit of our intelligence agencies was way back in the 1960s so reasonable people will agree that a fresh audit is way past due. A lot of “dirt” was uncovered in the previous audit (cointelpro being the main one) so smart money is that 70 years after that, there are bound to be some let’s just say, “interesting” new programs to be “unearthed”. I for one, would keep my eyes open for the notorious Targeted Individual program, which our intelligence agencies have categorically dismissed as a conspiracy theory. A Church-type committee would be the perfect venue to get to the bottom of this supposed “conspiracy theory”.
Yours Truly has long advocated for the enactment of a new Church-type commission to investigate the abuses of power by our intelligence agencies. Though President-Elect Trump doesn’t outrightly call for the creation of such a commission, reasonable people will agree that his recent post on X is the most serious attempt yet by a modern American president to rein in our out of control intel agencies, and for that, he deserves a lot of praise. Whether he will keep his promise is a different matter altogether.
President-Elect Trump is known to desire things/issues that cast him aside from other American presidents in terms of greatness. Well, 70 years later, historians are still talking about the historic Church Committee hearings, and the administration that was in charge then. If Trump pushes for a new Church-type committee during his four years, historians will also be talking favorably about his administration 100 years from now, especially if a lot of illegal government activity is uncovered.
President-Elect Trump should also know that a much overdue audit of our intelligence agencies is an issue that enjoys tremendous bipartisan support despite the media’s depiction of it as a partisan MAGA issue.
Interesting report on CNN News Central says (06/17/24) says that after weeks of treading carefully around the subject of former President Trump’s recent felony convictions, Team Biden has finally decided to take the gloves off, and make the convictions a key part of their 2024 campaign message.
Some, including Yours Truly, will translate this CNN report thus: “Team Biden has finally decided it wants to win the 2024 presidential election.” Make no mistake about it, this is Team Biden’s strongest message from now until the November election day, which will effectively boil down to a fight for independent voters.
CNN’s Sara Sidner(0:22): “Today, the Biden campaign escalating its attacks against Donald Trump with a new $50 million ad push rolling out in battleground states, taking on the former President’s character and felony convictions.”
Part of the ad says: “In the courtroom, we see Donald Trump for who he is. He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s been working…”
CNN’s Arlette Saenz(1:10): “This new ad is significant, as it marks the first time the Biden campaign is using former President Donald Trump’s legal woes in television advertisements…In this ad, they [Team Biden] are trying to frame this election as a choice between a convicted criminal who is looking out for himself, with President Biden who in his words, ‘works for the American people.’ This ad will run as part of a $50 million ad push in key battleground states…”
Bottom line folks, this is the best move Team Biden has made thus far, regarding the upcoming November 2024 presidential election. Simply put, if they preach this message steadily–the other guy is a convicted felon–Biden wins reelection easily, thanks in large part to the independent vote. It’s really that simple.
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Kristy Greenberg, Former Deputy Chief at SDNY’s Criminal Division, appeared on MSNBC’s The Weekend show (06/09/24) where she made quite a compelling case as to why former President Trump should be imprisoned after being found guilty of 34 felony counts in the hush money case–the best case yet, as far as Yours Truly is concerned.
Kristi Greenberg: “I think that if you objectively look at all of the factors that are taken into account in sentencing, the prosecutors here should be seeking a jail sentence, and the judge should impose one. Look at the nature and the seriousness of the conduct…This was about the subversion of democracy. This was about depriving the voter of information that they would need when they go to the ballot box and decide who to vote for. What is more important than that?”
She also knocked down the argument one regularly hears on Fox News and other pro-Trump media outlets–that Trump should be accorded some deference and spared prison time, simply because he’s a former president. She argued instead that, because Trump wrote the hush money checks from the Oval Office, the judge should treat that as “an aggravating factor” for sentencing purposes.
In conclusion, she made the case that because Michael Cohen went to jail for the same conduct, Trump should likewise be imprisoned, especially given the fact that he was directing the criminal scheme–a slam dunk argument in my opinion. She specifically told the MSNBC hosts (1:09): “Michael Cohen went to jail for the same conduct, and he was less culpable than Donald Trump, who was directing him to do it. So if it’s serious enough for Michael Cohen to go to jail, it is certainly serious enough for Donald Trump to go to jail as well.”
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On 05/08/24 U S. President Joe Biden sat down with Outfront CNN host Erin Burnett in Milwaukee Wisconsin, for a wide ranging interview that included his reelection campaign, the economy, his thoughts about his Republican challenger Donald Trump, AI, the crisis in Gaza… The interview provided an excellent compare and contrast situation between president Biden and his Republican challenger Trump, thanks in large part to excellent questioning by host Erin Burnett.
As host Erin Burnett correctly pointed out at the start of the interview, President Biden was in the battleground state of Wisconsin to tout plans for the creation of a massive Microsoft AI (artificial intelligence) data center, that will reportedly bring some 2,000 union construction jobs to that region, plus provide AI training to some 100,000 people (more job opportunities). As Erin pointed out, Trump, while president, promised the creation of some 13,000 FoxConn jobs in the same area, a promise we now know, never panned out. Only about 1,000 jobs exist right now, as opposed to the promised 13,000.
Asked why Wisconsinites should believe his jobs promise after clearly being duped by his predecessor Trump, Biden’s response boiled down to this(1:42): “He [Trump] has never succeeded in creating jobs, and I’ve never failed. I’ve created over 15 million jobs since I have been president. 15 million in 3.75 years and secondly, Microsoft is a serious player, and they are very much engaged in making sure that they pick this area as the home base for their AI initiative in the nation. They are going to do it.” Biden then delivered a body shot to Trump (liver shot if you will), telling host Erin, “When has he [Trump] ever done anything that he said? I’m not being facetious…” You get the drift–Trump is all talk, or as they say in Texas, “All hat and no cattle”.
Next up on the interview was the economy, where host Erin Burnett pointed out that recent polls show his challenger Trump beating him when it comes to the question as to who voters think would handle the economy better. Specifically, Erin asked whether he was worried that time was running out for him to turn around that sentiment. President Biden responded in relevant part (7:31), “We’ve already turned around. Look at the Michigan survey. Over 65% of Americans think they are in good shape economically. They think the nation is not in good shape, but they are personally in good shape. The polling data has been wrong all along…” Yours Truly has warned about these mainstream media “polls” in a previous post.
The next major topic was the crisis in Gaza, which is having ripple effects way beyond the Middle East.
Host Erin Burnett(10:26): “I know that you have paused, Mr President, shipments of 2,000-pound U.S. bombs to Israel due to concern that they could be used in any offensive on Rafah. Have those bombs, those powerful 2000-pound bombs been used to kill civilians in Gaza?”
President Biden: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they [Israel] go after population centers. I made it clear that if they go into Rafah…I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem…” Simply put, the United States will continue supporting Israel in its efforts to counter terrorism, but it will no longer just rubber-stamp and supply weapons for anything Israel does to Gazans. The Biden administration will hold the Netanyahu government to some human rights standards, a commendable position indeed. As for the related protests popping out at U.S. institutions of higher learning, and the legitimate questions such protests have raised regarding the first amendment, President Biden said (13:06): “There’s a legitimate right to free speech and protest…They [students] have a right to do that. There’s not a legitimate right to use hate speech. There’s not a legitimate right to threaten Jewish students.There’s not a legitimate right to block people’s access to class. That’s against the law.”
Next up was a discussion about the real potential for a repeat of a January 6th style insurrection if Biden defeats Trump again. Specifically, Erin asked how seriously President Biden takes the remarks by Trump, that he will not accept the election results if he loses. President Biden responded(16:44): “Very seriously, just like I did with January 6th. The guy is not a democrat (small d)…You can’t only love your country when you win…He may not accept the outcome of an election? I promise you he won’t.”
The interview concluded with a question as to whether former President Obama, who did very well in his election and re-election, and who Biden served as vice president, was giving him any advice on how to run his re-election campaign. President Biden admitted that he was indded getting advice from Obama, adding that the advice was, “You’ve got to organize, block and tackle, people knocking on doors, putting up signs…”. One has to admit, that is as “Obama-esque” as it gets. Hopefully Team BidenHarris heeds his advice and get the results Obama always delivered–kicking Republicans in their you know what!!
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