Disloyalty retributions handed down from up on high
while hubris reigns and incompetence dances carefreely
Signal-gate, the highly publicized White House fiasco, has reverberated across the media landscape. Just prior to the US bombing Houthis rebels in Yemen, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz inadvertently included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg on a Signal group text in which the airstrikes were discussed. Obviously a ridiculous blunder, the story continues to grow organically as every senior member of the White House on the Signal group text continues to point blame at someone else when pressed by the media or Congress.
Given the actual military operation was largely ineffective, Signal-gate’s importance arguably pales in comparison to other Trump 2.0 blunders - massive federal government layoffs including essential federal personnel (who in some cases had to be embarrassingly rehired to work in health and national security), immigrants being deported regardless of having been criminally convicted (most recently a makeup artist whose ‘crime’ was having crowns tattooed on his wrists with the words “Mom” and “Dad”) and the continued military and political withdrawal of this administration from the ongoing war in Ukraine ceding more power to Russia (including voting against a UN resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine).
Perhaps only Trump’s ongoing tariff war which has its own commemoration day today - Liberation Day, April 2nd - is treated with the proper severity given the national and global economic impacts of his trade policy. As we brace for Wall Street’s reaction, and the global markets for that matter, another hallmark of this administration is not given its due attention - the woke police is firmly being replaced with disloyalty retributions.
Shortly after Trump took the oath of office, the Justice Department formed a multi-agency task force to combat antisemitism. Late February, the taskforce visited 10 university campuses to fulfill “its first priority to eradicate antisemitic harassment.” Two of those 10 universities have recently been targeted to no longer receive federal funding - Colombia and Harvard universities. In response to losing $400 million in federal funding and under threat to lose billions more, Colombia made a series of concessions and its interim president Katrina Armstrong resigned. Harvard is now being subjected to an investigation in which more than $8 billion in grants are under review. Despite a reported endowment exceeding $50 billion, Harvard may follow Colombia’s lead given even Colombia caved despite having an endowment exceeding $13 billion.
And although citizens and visa holders are already subject to hate crime laws, this administration is seemingly going even further than its predecessor in wanting to establish any who protest the terror and suffering inflicted on the innocent in Gaza or who want to bring attention to potential war crimes committed by IDF and the state of Israel should be considered antisemitic and punished without mercy.
Students who have been detained or deported for pro-Palestine protests include:
Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident married to an American citizen who negotiated on behalf of Columbia students with university officials last spring to cut financial ties with Israel and companies that supported the war in Gaza
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was arrested while walking down a suburban street in Boston. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims she actively supported Hamas, while her friends and family say her only activism was '“co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel”
Yunseo Chung, a Colombia student and legal permanent resident was arrested at a sit-in protest at neighboring Barnard college. DHS is ready to deport Chung for “[engaging] in concerning conduct” but a judge has ordered her pending legal challenge must be honored
Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholar from India with no criminal record and married to a US citizen was “arrested outside his Virginia home and detained by masked Homeland Security agents on allegations that he spread Hamas propaganda”
As the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism spreads fear on university grounds for those who speak about Israel with anything but loving allegiance, the Trump administration will continue calling into question members of the judiciary branch that dare to uphold existing laws and potentially thwart future legal issues.
In March the Trump administration deported more than 200 Venezuelans suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang despite being immediately blocked from doing so by Judge Boasberg. In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, President Trump claimed that he had not and would not defy a court order but did clamor that Judge Boasberg should be impeached and strongly implied any judge who acts ‘against’ him and the administration is corrupt and bad at their job.
And yesterday Susan Crawford won a local election in Wisconsin that rarely would be acknowledged nationally had it not witnessed the largest amount of money spent in a judicial election (topping $100 million) with nearly $20 million spent by presidential advisor Elon Musk. Musk claimed the election would determine “the entire destiny of humanity” and in addition to the ad spend gave two $1 million check to voters in an effort to tip the election to his (and Trump’s) preferred candidate, Brad Schimel. Prior to the election, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
Radical Left Liberal Susan Crawford, who has repeatedly given child molesters, rapists, women beaters, and domestic abusers “light” sentences. She is the handpicked voice of the Leftists who are out to destroy your State, and our Country — And if she wins, the Movement to restore our Nation will bypass Wisconsin.
This all follows Trump revoking security clearances for a number of high profile Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden. These were in addition to the “50 former intelligence and high-ranking government officials, including multiple former CIA directors, secretaries of defense, and directors of national intelligence” who lost their security clearance upon Trump retaking the White House.
And of course the Associated Press continues to be banned from the White House for nearly 50 days now for committing the travesty of not referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
These instances do not cover the full gamut of retributions, but they do highlight a question more and more Americans are asking - is this what America voted for in 2024?
Executive branch developments:
“The revolution begins today!” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media hours after employees began receiving layoff emails
To transform American healthcare to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), HHS has reduced its agency by another 10K full-time employees, which in addition to the roughly 10K who voluntary exited the agency, has downsized the agency this year from 82K to 62K full-time employees. To streamline functions, 28 HHS divisions will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, regional offices have been halved to 5 and core functions such as Human Resources, Information Technology and Procurement will be centralized. The $1.8 billion annual savings equates to 0.1% of the total HHS budget and 0.027% of the entire federal budget.
The approximately 10K HHS employees who voluntarily accepted a separation incentive have not received their promised administrative leave. According to Reuters, “fired staff received emails saying the termination did not reflect on their service, performance or conduct.” In conjunction with Trump’s executive order ending collective bargaining with federal labor unions in agencies involved with national security, these administrative actions will undoubtedly seriously detriment the remaining federal workforce’s trust in their employer.
Only days after pharma and biotech shares fell after Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s top vaccine official, Peter Marks, was forced to resign, HHS fired the head of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products division and accepted the resignation of the director of the Office of New Drugs in its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research division. Former Commissioner Robert Califf summarized the potentially severe impact on LinkedIn writing "The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed."
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.. or “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
Claiming “a lot of people want me to do it,” Trump continues to reiterate what was once thought a campaign joke; his team is looking into "methods" that would allow him to serve a third presidential term. In an effort to discern a motive, the New York Times mused “[It] redirects attention from other controversies, such as the leaked Signal message chain in which his top advisers inadvertently included a journalist in a group-chat discussion of an upcoming military operation. And they freeze the field of potential successors who may steal the spotlight from a lame duck — a status dreaded by American presidents, who see their relevance diminish steadily over time.”
In an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, former presidential advisor Steve Bannon was pressed twice about whether a revolution (reminiscent of January 6th) was a potential method. Bannon deflected at first and eventually said No but couched his answer by clarifying what America is witnessing now constitutes a revolution.
Of course, presidential detractors steadfastly remain concerned a dictatorship may take hold. Just prior to the 2024 election, “a few states tried to keep Trump off the ballot because they found he violated the 14th Amendment’s ban on officials who engaged in insurrection. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed those decisions.” Though it is too early to know how Trump would actually pursue a 3rd term, it is troubling that as the White House continues to cede ground to Russia in Ukraine that Trump may take a page from Putin’s playbook in which Russia adopted a constitutional amendment to allow Putin to serve more than two consecutive presidential terms.
Meanwhile, potentially good news for America’s wealthiest taxpayers and bad news for tax revenue generation
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) discovered the IRS’s Global High Wealth office, which audits billionaires, has cut 38% of its workforce since Trump has taken office. This office has “experienced a far higher rate of terminations compared to the IRS as a whole” resulting in unfinished audits of ultrawealthy individuals, which could have generated millions or tens of millions in tax revenue.
This development comes shortly after the ICIJ report in which they revealed “hundreds of billions of dollars held by the wealthiest people had become effectively hidden from [IRS] agents in murky partnership schemes.” According to economist Owen Zidar, hired by the U.S. Department of Treasury to investigate this problem, “this is where the 1%’s rising share of income is going” and the IRS was “simply trusting them to pay their taxes.”
And with tax season underway, it is worthy to note that all recently fired probationary employees (~7400) at the IRS who were reinstated following a US District Court ruling were immediately placed on administrative leave to be paid for not working. Despite the court ruling, “officials at the Elon Musk-led group advising the administration want to cut the IRS by 20% by May 15.”