Trump Intends To Make Every Aspect Of America Worse & More Brutish— Except For The Billionaire Class

"Bought-- Lady Justice" by Nancy Ohanian

“The Trump-Musk chainsaw,” reported Bryce Oates and Jake Davis, “has hit rural America hard. While farmers and farm programs have been historically off limits for Republican cuts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not been spared. County and state offices are being shut down across the country. USDA employees who manage farm payments, conservation programs, rural development funding, forests and wildfires and science-based research projects are being terminated. Thousands of rural clean energy and conservation projects already paid for by farmers and small businesses are not being reimbursed though they have already signed valid, legal contracts with the government. Previously awarded funds for rural high-speed internet expansion and infrastructure projects are being withheld or clawed back, while Musk’s own Starlink satellite internet service is being considered as a replacement. When combined with other Trump chaos— trade wars, tax cuts, tearing down international alliances and attacks on Medicaid, SNAP (formerly food stamps), Medicare and Social Security— Congress has made little progress on farm bill negotiations. Within this context, Republicans rightly sense that there is no way Democrats will join them. Any draft with deep cuts to SNAP would be unlikely to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate by the September 30 deadline. That would require all Republicans and 7 Democrats to support any farm bill legislation. This sets the stage for the demise of the traditional notion of the farm bill as one of the last ‘bipartisan’ pieces of federal legislation. House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson (R-PA) is proposing to use the budget reconciliation process, which House and Senate Republicans are currently using to pass tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as a work-around the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.”

One top GOP priority is “slashing SNAP benefits that help poor and working-class people pay for their groceries. Some of those cuts would come from losing SNAP benefits due to work requirements. The bulk of the cuts would come from a $1.40 per day decrease from the current $6.40 level in SNAP per person per household. That means each day a family of four dependent on SNAP would have $5.60 less to pay for food. In other words, their weekly food budget would go from $179.20 to $156.80.”

That chainsaw hit Harvard hard too. Finally someone had the gall and self respect to stand up to him. “With billions of dollars in federal funding at risk, Harvard University officials on Monday rejected Trump administration demands to make sweeping changes to its governance, admissions and hiring practices,” wrote Susan Svrluga. The school is the first to push back against the government’s efforts to force change at elite universities. And it has the most funding potentially at stake: The administration recently announced that it was reviewing $9 billion in contracts and grants to Harvard and its affiliates.”

And by last night, Trump struck. “Hours later the government announced a $2.26 billion freeze of Harvard’s multiyear grants and contracts,” reported Douglas Belkin and Sara Randazzo. “The Trump administration said Monday that the school’s response ‘reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges— that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws.’ Harvard’s resistance to the administration’s demands is the most significant pushback against the government since it began pressuring universities earlier this year… Most of the demands concern how the university operates. The government is asking for a comprehensive mask ban as well as changes to governance, leadership and admissions and an end to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs. Notably the government also is seeking to reach into the classroom, demanding ‘necessary changes’ be made ‘to address bias, improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture,’ which fuel antisemitic harassment, the task force’s letter said.”

The good ole days

And public broadcasting? Trump is planning an announcement that all federal funding is down the tubes. “The White House has begun to notify Congress of its request to eliminate “all” public broadcasting funding and codify foreign aid cuts identified by Elon Musk’s DOGE… Major clawbacks in the so-called “rescissions” plan include $1.1 billion appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funds to PBS and National Public Radio, and $8.3 billion from USAID. A memo drafted by White House budget director Russ Vought— and requested by GOP congressional leaders— accuses CPB of a ‘lengthy history of anti-conservative bias’ and cites ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ at USAID. Formal transmission of the plan to lawmakers will start a 45-day clock for the Republican-held House and Senate to either adopt or reject the blueprint, which the White House believes will pass— unlike President Trump’s 2018 rescission plan, which failed by one vote in the Senate.”