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The drawing above was done during Trump’s first term in office. I don’t recall the precise news item that made me draw this pied piper image, but it’s still relevant.
Only things are much worse.
It appears as though Trump is ratcheting up his efforts to create a police state, enforced by people who support him and believe in the tactics used on January 6th. We know Kristi Noem is sending thousands more ICE to Minneapolis. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. In Heather Cox Richardson’s column yesterday, she shared information about this increase in military power to enforce trump’s ideology and police American citizens. I quote her here because it’s important:
“Although ICE currently employs more than 20,000 people, it is looking to hire over 10,000 more with the help of the money Republicans put in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act of July. That law tripled ICE’s budget for enforcement and deportation to about $30 billion.
On December 31, Drew Harwell and Joyce Sohyun Lee of the Washington Post reported that ICE was investing $100 million on what it called a “wartime recruitment” strategy to hire thousands of new officers. It planned to target gun rights supporters and military enthusiasts as well as those who listen to right-wing radio shows, directing ads to people who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear. It planned to send ads to the phone web browsers and social media feeds of people near military bases, NASCAR races, gun and trade shows, or college campuses, apparently not considering them the hotbeds of left-wing indoctrination right-wing politicians claim.”
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Sunday night after an announcement from Trump’s DOJ would investigate the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, in an unprecidented move, Powell released a video powerfully countering this action. Every living former head of the Federal Reserve condemned an “unprecedented” attempt by the Trump administration to weaken the central bank’s independence.
“The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence,” a blunt statement signed by 13 former senior officials said. “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.”
Powell argued he had been threatened with criminal charges because the Fed had set interest rates “based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president”.
The Federal Reserve is designed to be independent of presidents to avoid exactly what Trump is trying to do, writes Heather Cox Richardson. Senator Tillis, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee posted that “[i]f there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”
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More agents are being sent to Minnesota and Kristi Noem ordered restrictions on congressional oversight.
Hopeful news: States are moving to rein in ICE.
In a long NY Times interview, Trump said civil rights led white people to be “very badly treated.”
I wanted to share this video below with you, a very strange Trumo moment. I know there’s a lot of strange moments with Trump, but this one stuck out to me. Last week he was in a boardroom at the White House with oil executives, and he paused the meeting to wander over the window and boast about the plans for his new ballroom. It was extremely awkward, it seemed to me, people laughing nervously at what he was doing. It also seemed very much like a man who can’t control himself and his egocentric, narcissistic tendencies, and in some ways he knew it hadn’t worked.
ALL of the relentless hostile things that Trump is doing in the last few weeks is a reaction to the Epstein Files. Trump’s DOJ has released less than 1% of the Epstein Files, and much of those released are ridiculously redacted as to be useless. They are trying to distract us.
I’ll end today with a dog drawing for you.
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