It's Much More than "Shock & Awe"
The sweep and pace of White House and Administration actions is beyond the “shock and awe” metaphor George Bush used to describe his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The sweep and pace of White House and Administration actions is beyond the “shock and awe” metaphor George Bush used to describe his 2003 invasion of Iraq. It’s more akin to what would have happened if General George S. Patton had leveled his military might on the United States, rather than Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany. Patton famously declared that, “Battle is the most magnificent competition,” and “War is simple, direct, and ruthless.”
Other classic Patton aphorisms include:
“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
“Inspiration does not come via coded messages, but by visible personality.”
“Never stop being ambitious.”
“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week: Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”
“Speed, simplicity, and boldness are the keys to success.”
“Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say.”
“This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!”
Combined with the Project 2025 manifesto, Patton’s 1940s militaristic drive seems like the playbook of the Trump White House. Like Patton and the 7th Army under his command in WWII, Trump and his White House and Cabinet sycophants are on a high speed march, rules and laws be damned. They are completely redesigning the entire United States government, sending fear across its civil service and military command, devastating relations with long time allies, and erasing every office, rule and aspiration in place to bring workplace and contract equity to the Nation’s women, racial and ethnic minorities, and people whose sex lives reflect anything other than that defined by a biologically-determined man fucking and biologically-determined woman, using the Missionary position. (The Administration went so far on this yesterday that the Department of Transportation warned New York City the future funding for road, train and subway repairs will be linked to the City’s encouragement of heterosexual marriage and a desired rise in Gotham’s birth rate.)
This isn’t shock and awe – it’s the firebombing of Dresden, the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, carpet bombing the Plain of Jars. It’s a sort of Nazi Kristallnacht and Mao’s Cultural Revolution combined into an American 21st Century culture war aimed at wiping away all white Judeo-Christian male guilt for the sins of the past (and future), including slavery and segregation. It is a complete reconfiguring of the very definition of “America,” eradicating all semblance of the country’s role as a global citizen and benefactor, champion of Democracy and beacon of free trade. To the degree any of those labels were genuinely realized or aspired to, they have vanished. Trump’s minions are shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), PEPFAR, overseas food programs, political asylum pathways into the U.S., engagement in climate change mitigation and adaptation, efforts to stave off the 6th great mass extinction cycle, collaborative global science and medical research, demolishing international pandemic control efforts, and launching the opening salvos of what could well become the most globally destabilizing trade war since the U.S. froze Japanese assets and placed an embargo on all oil and gas shipments to the Empire in the summer of 1941.
This isn’t even a mere “shock and awe” domestically. It is a purge the likes of which America hasn’t seen since the height of the 1950s Red Scare and fear-mongering actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, Hollywood blacklists, Alger Hiss finger-pointing, and the infamous query: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?” It is resonating across the entire civil service, federal contractors and grant recipients, from military products manufacturers to USPS mail carriers. In what seems a deliberate effort to sow anxiety and spawn mass resignations from the government payrolls, the Administration and its agencies have issued conflicting and confusing mandates and guidelines, leaving tens of millions of individuals, NGOs and companies terrified about their finances and careers.
Oh, Canada!
A few months after the Clinton Administration’s NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) went into effect in January, 1994 I was asked to appear on a Canadian national television program to discuss the then- dire AIDS pandemic. The CBC flew me from New York to Montreal, where I landed at around 6pm, and was scheduled to find my driver and proceed to a dinner meeting. But Canadian border officials, enraged by the terms of NAFTA, demanded to know why the CBC couldn’t use a Canadian AIDS expert, rather than I, and refused to allow me to exit the airport immigration area. After some grilling, I was placed in a windowless ice-cold cell, and told I would be shipped back to America on this first flight the following morning. I was not allowed to phone the CBC producer who hosted my visit, but the driver he’d sent to take me to our dinner meeting had the gumption to ask my whereabouts at the airport, and passed on the grim immigration-detention news. Eventually, the executives of the CBC intervened with top officials in Ottawa, and I was released hours later by border guards who cursed at me, calling me a “fucking Yankee bitch” and “putain d'Américaine” as I passed thru a gauntlet to the waiting CBC driver.
Until then, I hadn’t paid much attention to NAFTA, or U.S./Canadian relations. Like most Americans, I merely thought of Canada as our friend to the North.
On this very cold winter morning I see billows of steam pouring from the rooftops of hot water heated buildings across New York City, and I wonder what this will look like when Canada’s retaliatory 25% tariffs kick into place, in response to Trump’s imposition today of 25% tariffs on goods and resources from Mexico and Canada, and 10% against China (on top of preexisting anti-PRC tariffs). Here in New York city the exigencies of responding to climate change-amplified weather extremes of heat, cold, blizzards, floods and high winds across our State was already taxing the region’s utility companies and electrical grids. Con Edison warned early last month that average electricity bills will jump 11.4% by the end of this year, and gas bills will rise 13.3%. That was before Trump imposed a tariff on Canada, spawning today’s new conflict. Over the last year ConEd, New England Clean Energy Connect, and Hydro-Québec have been building a $6 billion underground and underwater (beneath Lake Champlain) system, bringing hydropower electricity from Canada to New England and New York. Slated for completion in spring 2026, the project would offset our region’s rising electricity demand with zero-fossil fuel, near-zero CO2 emitting clean Canadian power.
By mid-2026, this friendly and economically mutually advantageous handshake between out nations would send 10.4 terawatt-hours to New York City, meeting 20% of the City’s needs with clean power.
After much verbal saber-rattling over North American tariffs, the tariff executive order appears to impose an enormous additional cost on everything Canadian, including its electricity:
“Such rate of duty shall apply with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 4, 2025, except that goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, after such time that were loaded onto a vessel at the port of loading or in transit on the final mode of transport prior to entry into the United States before 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 1, 2025, shall not be subject to such additional duty, only if the importer certifies to CBP as specified in the Federal Register notice.”
“(b) With respect to energy or energy resources, as defined in section 8 of Executive Order 14156 of January 20, 2025 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency), and as otherwise included in the Federal Register notice, such articles that are products of Canada as defined by the Federal Register notice shall be, consistent with law, subject to an additional 10 percent ad valorem rate of duty. Such rate of duty shall apply with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 4, 2025, except that goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, after such time that were loaded onto a vessel at the port of loading or in transit on the final mode of transport prior to entry into the United States before 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 1, 2025, shall not be subject to such additional duty, only if the importer certifies to CBP as specified in the Federal Register notice.”
Though President Trump has told reporters that energy is exempted from the tariffs, there is nothing in writing that does so, and the petroleum, gas and hydropower industries of Mexico and Canada are reeling. A White House clarification issued Saturday states that Mexican oil will continue to face a 25% tariff, as will all sources of Canadian energy except oil and gas, with will be tariffed at 10%. According to NBC News:
The U.S. imports some 4 million barrels per day of Canadian oil, 70% of which is processed by refiners in the Midwest. It also imports over 450,000 bpd of Mexican oil, mainly for refiners concentrated around the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“Someone is going to get kind of hurt here,” Wells Fargo Investment Institute’s John LaForge told Reuters. “The oil in Alberta doesn’t have much of an option where it goes, and the refiners in the Midwest don’t have much of an option on where they get the feedstock.”
Tariffs are, of course, regressive. Who suffers most when the cost of heating a home or driving a car soars? The poorest in society, of course, suffer the greatest burden as a proportion of their income. A 13% increase in a ConEd bill for one person may represent pocket change; for another, it could mean forgoing new school clothing for the kids, or chicken for dinner. Fearing a trade war is imminent, stock futures trading on Sunday plummeted, with the NASDAQ down more than 2%.
BLOOD AND GUTS
“Blood and Guts” Patton Took over the Third Army in France after D-Day in 1944, leading the tanks and soldiers on a lightening speed march across France and into German territory, crushing Hitler’s army. But he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, insulting allies and rival British and French generals at every opportunity. Eventually, General Dwight Eisenhower removed Patton from power, his insults and egregious behavior having crossed the Rubicon. Patton was the Allied military commander the Germans most feared. But Eisenhower, a 5-star general, was far more effective, designing campaigns against the Axis powers that drew all of the Allies into play, balanced their senses of national glory, and maintained diplomacy. Patton would die in a car crash, for gotten by younger Americans. Eisenhower would go on to serve two terms as President of the United States, and unite the Republican Party in the 1950s.
Donald Trump and his acolytes show no hint of Eisenhower, only Patton. They do not hesitate to insult even America’s closest allies, and demand fealty from the entire world.
The Republican Party evidences no criticism of their 21st Century Patton. Every day since his inauguration, Donald Trump has challenged and then eroded key elements of Congressional authority, consolidating powers in the White House that are unprecedented, even in war time. What The New Yorker calls “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball” is swinging at the pillars of American governance, without even a hint of Republican resistance.
For their part, the Democrats are in trouble. In a tumultuous gathering the DNC selected new leadership, none of whom are from the Big Blue States – California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, or any place west of the Rockies. With one exception, they are all from the old “rust belt” midwestern states, the exception being one from Florida. The new Chair of the DNC, Ken Martin, has for the last 13 years served as Chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party.
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that 57% of the electorate ranks their feeling towards the Party as “unfavorable,” or worse. Under a third have a “favorable” perspective of the Party. Boiled down to their essence, polls and expert analyses characterize the Democrats as snobby, college-educated do-gooders who look down their noses at the working class and fail to see how hard inflation has hit working families. They failed to take local challenges seriously, and, “the GOP now holds all 50 U.S. Senate seats, and Democrats none, in the 25 states that backed Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024.” Upcoming redistricting in key once-Blue states, including Pennsylvania, will almost assuredly further empower Republicans. The Biden Administration touted its success in turning the U.S. economy around, but completely failed to appreciate how thoroughly the national wealth distribution was consolidated in the top 1% richest families. So, while national GDP grew, the dollar strengthened and industries blossomed, the cost of living for average Americans grew steadily worse. By 2023, the Democrats appeared far more concerned about identity issues – how many LGBTQ+, African American, Latin X, single moms and the like – were on committees and ballots than the economic pain tens of millions of Americans were feeling. That deadly combination of identity politics and seeming callousness about family hardship played neatly into the hands of the GOP, where Trump and his followers were every day shouting about inflation, and blaming “them” for the hardship – “them,” being people of color, individuals focused on their pronouns, immigrants and anybody speaking a language other than English.
Much has been made of “Renewing the Democratic Party,” published today, by analysts William Galston and Elaine Kamarck. They claim that the key feature of the 2024 election was college – education, or lack thereof. Democrats won all of the states where 40% or more of voters have college degrees, and lost all but one of the states in which fewer than 35% of adults have a BA or BS. In several states – notably California – Trump did not gain appreciable numbers of votes, but Harris saw a “collapse” in voter support compared to Biden four years earlier: “In Illinois and New Jersey, Harris received about 400,000 fewer votes than Biden. In New York, Harris fell short of Biden by 600,000. And in California, the shortfall reached an astonishing 1.8 million votes, a drop of 16.5% from 2020.”
The duo’s chilling conclusions:
“The 2024 election results confirmed our fears and revealed structural weaknesses in the Democratic Party as serious as those that were revealed in George H. W. Bush’s victory over Michael Dukakis in 1988. They require an equally comprehensive response.”
Hispanic voters, especially in Florida, have left the Party. “Nowhere has the impact of shifting Hispanic opinion been more dramatic than in Florida, a former swing state. In 2012, Barack Obama carried Florida by 1 point. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost it by 1 point. In 2020, Joe Biden lost by 3 points. In 2024, Kamala Harris lost the Sunshine State by a stunning 13 points, 56-43, mainly because Hispanics deserted her for Donald Trump. In 2020, Joe Biden carried Florida’s Hispanics by 7 points, 53-46. This year, Harris lost them by 14 points, 56-42.”
Far more Americans think the Democrats are too extremely left wing (58%), than believe Republicans have swung extremely to the right (47%).
Harris’ 2019 support for transgender rights was pivotal, in Trump’s favor, with his campaign slogan garnering strong support. Nearly half of all pro-Trump ads and billboards stressed transgender opposition, featuring the tag line, “Kamala Harris is for they/them; Donald Trump is for you.”
Most Trump supporters (80%) backed the billionaire because they believe in the ideas he espoused. But fewer than 41% of Harris voters said that they agreed with her policies, especially her position on the Israeli/Gaza war.
Working class voters, “believe that the Democratic Party is dominated by elites whose privileges do not serve the common good and whose cultural views are far outside the mainstream and lack common sense. They believe that educated professionals look down on them and that the professional class favors policies that give immigrants and minorities unfair advantages at their expense.”
Democrats must work on, “stemming Democratic losses in the Electoral College, rebuilding the Party’s working-class support, and creating a Democratic majority in Pennsylvania” before the 2026 midterm elections.”
Famed Democratic Party operator James Carville put the challenge before Democrats succinctly:
“To win back the economic narrative, we must focus on revving up a transformed messaging machine for the new political paradigm we now find ourselves living in. It’s about finding ways to talk to Americans about the economy that are persuasive. Repetitive. Memorable. And entirely focused on the issues that affect Americans’ everyday lives. This starts with how we form our opposition. First of all, we have got to stop making Mr. Trump himself our main focus; he can’t be elected again. Furthermore, it’s clear many Americans do not give a rat’s tail about Mr. Trump’s indictments — even if they are justified — or about his antidemocratic impulses or about social issues if they cannot provide for themselves or their families. Mr. Trump won the popular vote by putting the economic anger of Americans front and center. If we focus on anything else, we risk falling farther into the abyss.”
The Left-slanted magazine The New Republic editorial position is that, “Even assuming the country has moved to the right, following voters there does not solve the biggest problem facing the Democratic Party. Voters want to know what the Democrats stand for, and if the answer is ‘Donald Trump policies, but less so,’ it is highly unlikely to succeed. And this approach still elides the most important question: How can Democrats convince voters that they will make their lives better?”
Jana Ganesh of The Financial Times argues that the Democratic Party, “has long had some of the characteristics of an aristocratic court. There is the same deference to seniority over merit. There is the same dancing around difficult subjects.” And he continues, “When Harris essentially finished last in the 2020 primaries, history was telling the Democrats to look elsewhere for a future leader. Their failure to do so has amounted to forfeiting a winnable election. And perhaps rather more than that. The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution will take place under a Trump presidency. How better to honour a republic of exquisite constitutional design than to subject it to a stress test.”
THE STRESS TEST
The “stress test” has already begun, as the MAGA surge over the American government like Patton’s 3rd Army command beating a march on Berlin. How the Democrats react, what strategies they deploys is hopes of slowing Patton-Trump’s march, will determine a great deal about the future of liberal institutions and policies in America and overseas. This headline in The Guardian says it all: Wrecking ball: Trump’s war on ‘woke’ marks US society’s plunge into ‘dark times’. Chris Scott, a Democratic strategist who was Harris’s coalitions director, told The Guardian, “What it has made clear is that a second Trump term is working to turn America back into pre-civil rights America during the Jim Crow era. That’s what we’re seeing with a lot of these policies.”
He added: “It is an absolutely terrifying time in this country. When we talk about ‘Make America Great Again’, a lot of folks understood what that means, particularly people of colour, particularly Black folks. We are on the precipice of going back, returning to our darkest times within this country.”
Here is a partial list of actions taken in the Trump blitzkrieg over his 13 days in office. Please note that many agencies are being slammed before they have Congressionally-confirmed leaders. In most cases, these actions are designed and executed by loyal staff inside the White House, or by medium-level officials already installed in Executive Branch positions.
The Education Dept. placed more than 50 employees in administrative offices on leave on Friday, and warns of suspensions on the way. Trump officials said the targeted workers were conducting DEI activities “in disguise” after they had already moved to shutter offices explicitly focused on those efforts earlier in the week.
Removed the U.S. from the World Health Organization.
Removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Announced cancellation of something guaranteed under the Constitution – birthright citizenship.
Reversed the Biden Administration’s efforts at lowering pharmaceutical prices for Medicare patients.
Declared a State of Emergency on the Mexican border.
Declared a State of Energy Emergency, ordering, “Drill, Baby, drill.”.
Pardoned more than 1,580 individuals who had been indicted, most also convicted, for crimes committed in the January 6th Insurrection.
Announced creation of a $500 billion Stargate A.I. initiative (the utility of which seems dubious in light of release of DeepSeek).
Ordered “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” and any other programs that included “D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.” Throughout the month of February.
Issued a freeze on all new regulations, or actions, pending review by the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) .
Suspended all refugee settlements and asylum application processes. Including taking down the app and website used by applicants.
Issued a freeze across the entire U.S. government on new hires into civilian positions: “this freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.”
Rescinded all Executive Orders issued by Joe Biden.
Ordered USNORTHCOM to develop and implement a plan to seal the Mexican border, “and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion.”
Issued a spending freeze, government-wide, for an indefinite period of time. Appeared to rescind that order as everything from cancer treatments to Veterans’ services were halted. And then reinstituted the order.
Cut funds to Planned Parenthood.
Challenged the Impoundment Control Act, of 1974, thereby eliminating Congressional power to prevent Executive Branch control over expenditures (including actions carried out by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an unofficial office located inside the White House and run by Elon Musk.
Floated a $5 trillion budget cut scheme that would drastically reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA.
Following an FAA fine levied against SpaceX, Musk’s Doge forced resignation of FAA chief Michael Whitaker.
DOGE released a hit list, naming officials and government employees scheduled for firing.
DOGE staff was refused entry to USAID computers; Musk had USAID security officials fired. Musk posted on X “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Within hours the USAID website, X and Instagram accounts and entry to its headquarters were all shut down. At this writing the employment status of USAID’s 10,000 employees, contracts to 100s of NGOS that execute USAID programs and global food distribution programs are unclear. Thirty USAID officials were on Sunday barred from accessing their email and government computers, and at least 100 were placed on leave. "They're trying to eliminate the agency," Obama Administration disaster relief official Jeremy Konyndyk told NPR. "They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they're just taking everything down," Konyndyk said. "They're trying to do it behind the scenes rather than openly," he said, so they don't have to "defend what they're doing" in announcements to the public. None of this appears to be legal.
The freeze on foreign aid extends far beyond USAID. Around the world clinics for HIV treatment and distribution of medicines that prevent AIDS in people infected with the virus were shuttered, imperiling the lives of some 14 million people. U.S. offices that tackle malaria, safe pregnancies and deliveries for thousands of women worldwide, provision of safe drinking water, and dozens of other vital global health programs. The CDC was ordered to cease all communications with WHO, cannot visit WHO offices anywhere in the world, and must not advise or assist in disease outbreaks alongside WHO.
The foreign aid freeze also extends to civilian relief programs and medical aid to Ukraine; famine relief in Sudan; U.S. intelligence operations tracking Al-Qaeda in Ivory Coast; security containment of detained ISIS fighters and their families; refugee clinics in Thailand and Bangladesh; malnutrition programs; support for battling Ebola in DRC-Congo and Uganda; scholarship programs for aspiring collegiates in poor countries.
Musk ordered a halt to all payments to U.S. contractors.
DOGE gained access to U.S. Treasury Dept. computers to shut down grants payments. Musk justified the move, claiming he had discovered, ““that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups”.
Deployed teams of young computer engineers to seize control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the General Services Administration (GSA). “What we're seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government.” Trump ordered that 70% of the jobs inside OPM be eliminated.
Banned transgender servicemen and women, proclaiming, “Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Froze all communications from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leaving the agency powerless to advise the nation’s physicians and State and local health officials on the current status of dangerous outbreaks in America of tuberculosis (largest in U.S. history unfolding now in Kansas); H5N1 avian flu across the country; H5N9 avian flu; norovirus. The administration disconnected from the Pandemic Treaty development process, and shut down outbreak and pandemic training and collaboration programs worldwide. The CDC was ordered to pause publication of its vital Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report and all guidances to State agencies regarding outbreaks.
It is unclear how Trump’s ban on DEI government-wide is intended to impact racially or gender specific research programs out of the NIH and NSF. Out of an abundance of caution, researchers and NIH grant recipients are already trying to remove mentions of such specifics, fearing the funding will be slashed. For example, it is unknown whether a research project titled, “COVID Related Depression Among Navajo and Apache, 2020-2022” would be a target.
Hospitals all over America that depend in part on Federal funds, out of fear of retaliation or severance of vital financing, started to deny trans care. This includes hospitals in the NYU system.
Trump ordered dozens of Department of Justice employees, including FBI agents and attorneys, that worked on prosecutions of January 6th insurrectionists fired. By Saturday night all six of the FBI’s top executives and dozens of field leaders were fired in the largest purge in FBI history. And there will be more heads rolling, according to acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, who informed DOJ staff in a memo that the White House plans, “a review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
Fourteen Inspectors General were fired last week, in clear violation of law.
Fired more than a dozen DOJ federal prosecutors that worked on the January 6th cases.
Placed on leave hundreds, if not thousands, of federal employees working in DEI offices in any agencies in the Executive Branch. Encouraged similar moved by private companies that work as federal contractors. Everett Kelley, President of the American Federation of Government Employees National, said, “Ultimately, these attacks on DEIA are just a smokescreen for firing civil servants, undermining the apolitical civil service and turning the federal government into an army of yes men loyal only to the president, not the constitution.”
Thirteen State Attorneys General declaimed the actions as, “unnecessary and disingenuous. These orders have nothing to do with combatting discrimination. The Trump administration has longstanding civil rights laws at its disposal to combat real discrimination, and we would be willing partners if it chose to pursue this path. Instead, the administration is targeting lawful policies and programs that are beneficial to all Americans. These policies and programs are not only consistent with state and federal anti-discrimination laws, they foster environments where everyone has an opportunity to succeed. That is the opposite of discrimination.“
Initiated a campaign to push Federal workers out of jobs and into the private sector, driving fear, under a program called “deferred resignation.”
Trump fired Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; he was a close ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Trump ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to remove references to climate change from the agency’s website.
Because Trump insists the massive, unprecedented Southern California fires were the result of the State’s snail darter protection program and related damming of rivers in northern California, he ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to turn on the spigots – after the fires had ended. The scheme caused flooding in Tulare County and other downstream areas.
DoD under its new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, shut down all abortion access for female military personnel.
Trump reinstituted the Global Gag Rule, under which no employee of the U.S. government, or contractor or NGO working with a U.S.-funded entity, may provide women overseas with information regarding abortions, assist them in obtaining abortion services or provide abortion-related medical services.
Issued a memo to FAA employees urging them to seek employment in the private sector. The memo was sent out just 24 hours after a terrible accident occurred in the skies of Washington DC occurred involving collision of an Army helicopter and a mid-sized commercial passenger jet, resulting in the death of all 70 people on the two aircraft. It stated, among other things, “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”
DoD ordered it will cease observing “special observances;” Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Black History Month, LBGTQ+ Pride Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day, and others.
Shut down many government websites, including those of the U.S. Census Bureau, some NIH sites, State Dept. foreign assistance sites, parts of the Dept. of Transportation website.
Fired all of the members of the EPA’s scientific advisory board on human health and environmental risks. “This is not about good governance, this is about rigging the system for polluters; corruption at the expense of the American people,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
A comprehensive list of actions taken by the Trump Administration would, of course, exceed any reasonable length for this posting. As Gen. Patton put it, “Speed, simplicity, and boldness are the keys to success.”