President Donald J. Trump’s big announcement today at his press conference—to which he showed up late—was that he is assuming control over the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and deploying more than 100 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and about 40 from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, along with officers from the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service and members of the District of Columbia National Guard, “to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, and worse.” He reiterated that officers would clear homeless encampments from the city.

In fact, statistics from the Department of Justice show that violent crime in the nation’s capital was at a 30-year low in 2024 and, according to Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), is down 26% this year compared to the same period last year. Former undersecretary of state and editor of Time magazine Richard Stengel noted that Washington is “not even in [the] top 10 dangerous cities in [the] U.S.” Meanwhile, legal analyst Asha Rangappa notes that FBI agents are not trained to patrol the streets, and that every one of them assigned to do that is not investigating foreign spies, foreign and domestic terrorists, or crimes like fraud, murder, corruption, and human trafficking.

If that was Trump’s big announcement, the big story seems to have been something different.

Trump’s performance at the press conference—an event for which his handlers would have made sure he was at the top of his game—made it clear that his mental deterioration is moving rapidly. He let Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and FBI director Kash Patel explain the actual plan, taking the microphone himself to describe a fake world in which he plays the role of hero, solving five wars, creating a booming economy, solving the border security others couldn’t, protecting Americans from a hellscape that exists only in his rhetoric.

The administration’s seizure of power is anything but imaginary. As Stengel noted, “Throughout history, dictators use a false pretext to impose government control over local law enforcement as a prelude to a more national takeover. That’s far more dangerous than the situation he says he is fixing.” While Trump is mobilizing the National Guard under a pretext now, he memorably refused to mobilize it on January 6, 2021, to protect the lawmakers under siege in the U.S. Capitol as his supporters tried to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Democrat Joe Biden president.

Some clues to what the administration is attempting showed up today in a court in California, where Governor Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are suing the Department of Justice, saying it broke the law by deploying about 4,000 troops from the National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in June without authorization. A federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal troops from acting as law enforcement officers.

Anna Bower of Lawfare Media was following the events in court today. She posted that the government agreed the troops in Los Angeles were subject to the Posse Comitatus Act and that they were put in place simply to guard federal buildings and law enforcement officials. But witnesses said that troops accompanied ICE when they made arrests and one of the documents introduced that related to the massive troop presence in MacArthur Park on July 7 said the purpose of the mission was to “protect the execution of joint federal law enforcement missions…while preserving public safety and demonstrating federal reach and presence.”

The words “demonstrating federal reach and presence” seem to get to the heart of the administration’s object, for it is showing federal troops exercising power over civilians even while telling the court they are not. Making people fear the government is key to the rise of an authoritarian.

This mobilization echoes Trump’s attempt to take over Washington, D.C., in June 2020 when he was angry about the protests over the death of George Floyd, murdered in May 2020 by white police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. In 2020, members of Trump’s first administration stopped him from using the military against U.S. citizens, and, dramatically, members of the military stepped up to declare their support not for a president but for the United States Constitution.

This time around, Trump has installed loyalist Pete Hegseth at the head of the military. Hegseth made his support for the president’s plan clear today as he stood with Trump at the press conference. Ominously for civil liberties, observers note that no one from the administration is specifying where the administration intends to send people from the homeless encampments, although Trump wrote Sunday, “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

The administration is also consolidating power over the economy. Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal noted today that the U.S. is marching toward a form of state capitalism in which Trump looks much like the Chinese Communist Party, exercising political control not just over government agencies but over companies themselves. “A generation ago conventional wisdom held that as China liberalized, its economy would come to resemble America’s,” Ip wrote. “Instead, capitalism in America is starting to look like China.”

Ip points to the government’s partial control over U.S. Steel that it took as a condition for Nippon Steel’s takeover, the $1.5 trillion of promised investment from trading partners that Trump has claimed the right to direct personally, the 15% of certain chip sales of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to China that will go to the administration (although who or what entity will get that money I can’t figure out), and Trump’s demand that the chief executive of Intel resign.

Ip calls this system of state capitalism “a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.” He notes that it is a “sea change from the free market ethos the U.S. once embodied.”

Ip also notes that state capitalism is a means of political control, using the power of the state to crush political challenges. “In Trump’s first term, CEOs routinely spoke out when they disagreed with his policies such as on immigration and trade,” Ip writes. “Now, they shower him with donations and praise, or are mostly silent.” Ip pointed out that Trump is deploying financial power and regulatory power to cow media companies, banks, law firms, and government agencies he thinks are not sufficiently supportive.

But Trump’s press conference did not show a president in control of these dramatic changes. His words echoed the rhetoric he used to win office in 2016, rhetoric he summed up in his inaugural address that turned a speech usually designed to be uplifting into a description of what he called American carnage: “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our Nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”

But in the context of the president’s rambling nonsense, that apocalyptic rhetoric, along with Trump’s focus on renovating and redecorating the White House to look like one of his gold-splattered properties, seems like an attempt to return to a past in which he felt powerful.

Meanwhile, Trump’s second presidency has been following the plan outlined in Project 2025 closely, even though Trump denied any association with Project 2025 when he ran for office. Russell Vought, now director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the section of the plan that called for an extraordinarily strong executive in order to put in place Christian nationalism. Increasingly, it looks like members of his administration are using Trump in order to create a system that will respond to whoever is in charge, making it possible for today’s leaders to retain control over the country even without Trump there to mobilize MAGA voters.

Trump’s press conference today showed a badly weakened president. His apparent connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have already weakened him with his base. That story is not going away, and Trump has made it clear he is frantic over it. Then today he indicated even he is worried about his mental deterioration. At 7:36 this morning, he posted on social media that Representatives Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are “morons.” He wrote: “Each of these political hacks should be forced to take a Cognitive Exam, much like the one I recently took while getting my ‘physical’ at our GREAT Washington, D.C., Military Hospital (W[alter] R[eed]!). As the doctors said, ‘President Trump ACED it, something that is rarely seen!’ These Radical Left Lunatics would all fail this test in a spectacular show of stupidity and incompetence. TAKE THE TEST!!!”

Vice President J.D. Vance appears to have been distancing himself from Trump and the administration by taking repeated vacations. As Bill Kristol noted today in The Bulwark, Vance also appears to be undercutting Trump over the Epstein files, twisting the knife while also seeming to make overtures to Trump’s MAGA voters, who have never warmed to Vance. As Kristol notes, Vance set up what Kristol calls a “very unusual” meeting at his residence to discuss Epstein, a meeting that just happened to leak to the press. Then yesterday, Vance brought up the issue again in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel, parroting MAGA beliefs that the files name prominent Democrats.

“[A] lot of Americans want answers. I certainly want answers,” Vance told Bartiromo. As Kristol notes: “With this bland statement, Vance succeeded—inadvertently, needless to say!—in reminding us that we don’t yet have the answers we want and deserve,” thus ginning up the Epstein story again.

Those people cheering on Trump’s drive for autocratic power because they still somehow think he will use that power to make their lives better might want to consider how their lives may change if that power is in the hands of J.D. Vance.

And so we have come full circle: the arbitrary nature of dictators was, after all, what made our nation’s founders base a government not on men, but on impartial laws that defended the rights and liberties of the people.

Why?  Because he’s a black man and, although he has not been in office for over 8 years, they know their hate-filled base just loves to attack Obama.

Perhaps it is time the United States joins the rest of the world with national health insurance – Medicare for All.  Read on.  Pay special attention to the last paragraph.

 

The price increases that should cause Americans more alarm
The price of health insurance is rising faster than the price of eggs or gasoline.
August 8, 2025 at 6:45 a.m. EDT
By Elisabeth Rosenthal

Elisabeth Rosenthal is senior contributing editor at KFF Health News and author of “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.”

Wary of inflation, Americans have been watching the prices of everyday items such as eggs and gasoline. A less-noticed expense should cause greater alarm: rising premiums for health insurance. They have been trending upward for years and are now rising faster than ever.

Consider that, from 2000 to 2020, egg prices fluctuated between just under $1 and about $3 a dozen; they reached $6.23 in March but then fell to $3.77 in June. Average gas prices, after seesawing between $2 and $4 a gallon for more than a decade starting in 2005, peaked at $4.93 in 2022, and are now back to just over $3.

Meanwhile, since 1999, health insurance premiums for people with employer-provided coverage have more than quadrupled. From 2023 to 2024 alone, they rose more than 6 percent for both individuals and family coverage — a steeper increase than that of wages and overall inflation.

For many people who have the kind of insurance plans created by the Affordable Care Act (because they work for small companies or insure themselves), rates have probably risen even more drastically. In this market, state regulators scrutinize insurers’ proposed rate increases, but only if they exceed 15 percent.

And the situation is about to get worse: For 2026, ACA marketplace insurers have proposed eye-popping new prices: In New York, UnitedHealthcare has proposed a 66.4 percent rise. HMO Colorado has asked for an increase of more than 33 percent in that state. In Washington, the average proposed increase across all insurers is 21.2 percent, and in Rhode Island it’s 23.7 percent.

According to Business Group on Health, a consortium of major employers, “actual health care costs have grown a cumulative 50% since 2017.” In a recent survey, 87 percent of companies said that in the next five to 10 years, the cost of providing health insurance for their workers would become “unsustainable.”

 

 

Working conditions at Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Fremont, California, have gone from bad to worse, with sexual assaults aboard company shuttle buses, drug and alcohol use onsite, all-out brawls breaking out between employees, and “prevalent” bigotry – including widespread use of the N-word, a bombshell lawsuit reveals.

In a 159-page federal lawsuit filed Thursday and obtained first by The Independent, Ozell Murray, a former Fresno police officer in charge of security at the 22,000-person factory, claims he and his team “routinely” seized cocaine and fentanyl onsite, confiscated guns discovered in the building, investigated “acts of sexual deviance” on Tesla grounds, and, at regular intervals, “pulled employees off the manufacturing line and sent them home for being alcohol-intoxicated and high on drugs.”

Those who reported the issues were fired over bogus charges or forced to resign, according to Murray’s complaint, to which several of his ex-colleagues signed on as co-defendants.

“Healthy profits have always been more important to the Company than a healthy working environment,” the complaint alleges. “For Tesla, more bodies on the manufacturing line meant more vehicles flying out the factory door – no matter how unclean the hands were that were assembling those cars.”

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/tesla-lawsuit-elon-musk-california-b2804549.html

Why is Trump’s Secretary of Defense calling for women to lose their right to vote?

The United States Secretary of Defense just promoted a clip calling for women to lose their right to vote.

Pete Hegseth shares a clip saying women shouldn’t have the right to vote, the 19th Amendment should be “repealed,” and women should “submit” to their husbands: “All of Christ for All of Life”

“All of Christ for All of Life,” Hegseth posted on social media, from an account marked with a grey checkmark that says, “This account is verified because it’s an affiliate of @DeptofDefense on X.”

That post accompanied a CNN interview (below) of Pastor Wilson. CNN billed the segment as “The Christian nationalist pastor with ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”

“Women are the kind of people that people come out of,” Wilson unapologetically told CNN.

“It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically,” he continued. “The wife and mother, who is the chief executive of the home, is entrusted with three or four or five eternal souls.”

Wilson also believes women should not have certain leadership roles, and should not be allowed to vote.

https://www.alternet.org/higseth-christian-nationalist/

On Tuesday Donald Trump went on CNBC to explain why the European Union is facing a tariff of “only” 15 percent.

But what he said was simply delusional — and the delusion should be more concerning than the non-existent tariffs.

The Europeans, Trump asserted, had agreed to cough up $600 billion, which he described as a “gift,” not a loan. And he emphasized that this is “$600 billion to invest in anything I want. Anything. I can do anything I want with it.”

So Trump apparently believes that the European Union has agreed to provide him with a personal $600 billion slush fund.

In fact, as several economists pointed out after the “deal” was announced, the EU agreed to no such thing. In fact, it literally couldn’t have made such an agreement. European nations aren’t command economies in which government can tell the private sector where to invest, and in any case the European Commission, which negotiated with Trump, can’t tell the governments of member states what to do.

So think of it as the emperor’s new trade deal: Trump is strutting around, feeling very impressed with himself, but in substantive terms he’s stark naked.

Does it matter?  Yes, it matters because it means he’s lost touch with reality across the board.

He really does seem to think that completely vague and unenforceable promises of “investment” represents a kickback he can use to buy people off and bail people out. The problem is what happens when he figures out that this isn’t true:

What will happen if and when Trump realizes that Europe hasn’t actually promised what he thinks it has — or, as he’s likely to see it, that the EU has gone back on its promise? He’s already given us an answer: He’s going to put the tariff on Europe back up to 35 percent.

He may not be able to carry out that threat. In fact, there’s a very real possibility that the courts will rule many of the tariffs Trump has already imposed illegal (which they surely are) and order the administration to refund the money it has already collected.

But assume that the Supreme Court does its usual thing and decides that the Constitution allows Trump to do whatever he wants. How afraid should Europe be of the possibility that Trump will put the tariffs back up, higher than before?

Well, as far as anyone can tell putting U.S. tariffs up from 15 to 35 percent would do less damage to Europe than many people imagine.

Yes, it would hurt, but not all that much. By making a 15 percent tariff the baseline — what countries pay even if they do make “deals” — Trump has used up a lot of his trade war ammunition, greatly reducing the effectiveness of any further threats.

After all, Europe has never been all that dependent on access to U.S. markets. In 2024 the EU’s exports of goods to the United States were slightly less than 3 percent of its GDP — not a trivial sum, but not enough to make European prosperity dependent on U.S. goodwill.

Trump’s tariffs will make the EU even less dependent on the U.S. market.

The crucial number is what economists call the “Armington elasticity,” which measures how sensitive trade flows are to tariffs, and that a reasonable estimate of that elasticity is 3. If we go with that number, we would expect the 15 percent tariff currently in place to cut EU exports to America by roughly a third, to around 2 percent of GDP.

That’s a palpable hit, but not a huge one. Writing in the Financial Times, Richard Milne tells us that reports from European companies are showing surprising resilience. Furthermore, the loss of U.S. business will be partially offset by higher government expenditure in Europe, with Germany in particular boosting spending on both infrastructure and defense.

That’s with a 15 percent tariff. But what happens if Trump pushes tariffs up to 35 percent? Back-of-the envelope calculations say that this would reduce Europe’s exports to the United States by another 0.7 percent of GDP. That is, the hit to Europe if Trump makes good on his threats would be smaller than the hit he has already imposed with the tariffs he plans to keep in place regardless.

One of the many problems here is that the clowns who are giving Trump his ideas are convinced both(1)  that the United States is being completely ripped off by the rest of the world and (2) that everyone is totally dependent on access to the American market. Neither of these things is true, but the result will be a bunch of random revenge outlashes that will hurt the US more than it hurts other countries.

 

Desperate for warm bodies to help carry out President Donald Trump’s evil deportation agenda, the Department of Homeland Security this week has announced it is lowering the standards for applicants to serve as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said on Wednesday that there are no longer age limits to serve as an ICE agent, as the agency seeks to staff up after being injected with billions in funding from Republicans’ unpopular “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”

“We are ENDING the age cap for ICE law enforcement. Qualified candidates can now apply with no age limit,” Noem wrote in a post on X.

A day earlier, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin declared that no undergraduate degrees are necessary to work at ICE. All uneducated racists are welcome!

“Serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required!” the official DHS account wrote in a post on X, using blatantly white supremacist rhetoric to say that the administration is deporting mostly Latino immigrants in order to preserve American—i.e. white—culture.

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It was one of a number of vile DHS posts seeking ICE applicants, including multiple that use the iconic World War II Uncle Sam poster.

“​​America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out,” reads one post that includes the Uncle Sam image.

Yes, this is an actual DHS recruiting poster.

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ICE is desperate to beef up its staff to meet the arbitrary 3,000-per-day arrest quota set by bigoted hobgoblin Stephen Miller. Indeed, ICE arrests have actually dropped by 20% in July—which is likely the reason DHS is so desperate to hire more ICE agents.

Not only does the agency not have enough staff to arrest that many people, but it’s causing ICE agents with modicums of a soul to quit or consider quitting, saying they are being forced to stop going after actual criminals to instead arrest day laborers and farm workers who are the engine of the American economy.

“Even those that are gung ho about the mission aren’t happy with how they are asking to execute it—the quotas and the shift to the low-hanging fruit to make the numbers,” one ICE agent told the New Republic in July.

Indeed, TRAC reported 71% of people in ICE custody have no criminal convictions. Those that do have convictions are for minor offenses, such as traffic violations.

In order to entice people to sign up as an ICE goon, the agency has been offering as much as $50,000 in bonuses and student loan forgiveness to get retired agents to rejoin Trump’s deportation force. Apparently there are some student loans Trump and his goons think are worth forgiving.

But apparently even that’s not doing the job to get enough warm bodies, as it’s now lowering age and education standards. But relaxing standards for ICE agent hires is dangerous.

History shows that doing this could increase misconduct in the agency—which is already abducting citizens off streets and holding them in detention facilities without charges. Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen in California, was abducted off the street by ICE agents and detained. She was later charged with assaulting an ICE officer, even though video footage shows she was grabbed off the street by masked agents and forced into a vehicle in a situation that she said felt like a kidnapping. Charges were later dropped.

“Any time you have massive political pressure to beef up overnight, it never turns out well,” T.J. Bonner, former president of the Border Patrol agents union, told the Associated Press. “Too many corners have to be cut. Then when things go wrong, the fingers get pointed.”