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Democrats should make Elon Musk the face of the GOP budget
He’s unpopular and House Republicans are starting to get nervous.
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One bright spot is that Democrats in the House — who have struggled to figure out how to respond to a second Trump term — remained totally united in voting against the budget framework. As Trump’s approval sinks, the opposition appears to be organized and more willing to fight.

Roberts steps in to protect Trump admin’s effort to avoid court’s USAID payment order
If the Trump administration was testing the Supreme Court with its last-minute filing on Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts gave them exactly what they wanted.

President in Name Only (PINO) Donald Trump and acting president Elon Musk might be able to bamboozle some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot bamboozle all of the people all of the time (to paraphrase Lincoln). And, hard as they may try, not even Fox News or the rest of the captive MAGA media can hide inflation, layoffs, and consistently bad economic news. That is a problem for a president who misled the voters by campaigning on how easily he would “bring down” prices.

“Trump campaigned relentlessly on the cost of living and made a big (and unrealistic) promise to bring down food prices on day one of his term,” The Guardian’s columnist Arwa Mahdawi reminded us. “Now, it’s clear he has no realistic plan to lower the cost of groceries; eventually, even his most devoted followers are going to figure out that you can’t eat the culture wars.”

I saw a video posted yesterday of a woman behind a pulpit speaking on the dangers of yoga. She said yoga was Hindu and Christians shouldn’t practice yoga because they would be calling on Hindu demons with each pose. She stated that Christians can stretch, but they should never practice yoga.

The resistance meets daily on Microsoft Teams.

The country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general log on at 4pm ET for a thirty-minute confidential video chat to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration. They share updates on the seven cases they have moving through federal courts and argue about whether to treat Elon Musk as a lawful arm of the government or an uncredentialed interloper to it. They plot where to respond next, leveraging timezone differences to expand the workday.

• Budget cuts and Medicaid
• The SALT deduction cap
• Pushback on budgetary accounting
• The Senate is moving its own legislation
• Democratic opposition

Today, Kennedy ordered the cancellation of an FDA meeting of a vaccine advisory panel, without explanation. The panel meets every January or February to recommend the flu strains that will be covered by next year’s shot. Without the panel’s recommendation, drug manufacturers can’t start making the flu vaccine.

Because of Donald Trump’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion. (DEI)

I get that it is “The President’s own” United States Marine Band, and he can dictate programming. But to cancel an already planned concert and musical retreat that high school kids from diverse backgrounds already auditioned for and won their respective positions for the occasion of rehearsing and performing alongside the Marines, is just cruel. It’s yet another disgrace in a month full of them, and with kids involved again—what a slap in the face to these high school kids who’ve been working towards this day for months if not years. This is music, for goodness sake. The Marine Band mentoring high school kids for a program already on the books, that high school minority kids were selected under the guidance of the Marines (likely under the last administration of Biden/Harris) is a good thing for everyone. Beyond the music, there is also the opportunity for the Marine musicians to encourage young people towards a career in the military as an enlistee, and to bring their ability to play music with them.

Racism like this in full pursuit has many repercussions obviously. In music, it may discourage minority kids who once shown interest in participating in music programs at school, to turn away from band or orchestra altogether—from the various musical genres that caring teachers have been working for a lifetime to fully integrate. Minority kids and their parents looking at their white leaders might say that this music is just not for them, even though historically the violin itself was widely played by black musicians generations ago. It took consistent institutional racism to turn African Americans away from the violin and string playing, or to prevent them from playing it altogether professionally, and a lot of people are to blame for that from many corners. But now the government is the lead player in discouraging or refusing minority kids to be involved in a music program with our own Marines. Or technically speaking, “The President’s Own Marines”. But of course, the President represents American citizens. Does he not?