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Fossil Fuel Companies Are Emptying Americans' Pockets

Happy Earth Day, Contrarians! Today, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) will hold a press conference to support the reintroduction of their the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act. Trump’s war of choice in Iran has given Big Oil companies a permission slip to increase prices at an exorbitant amount. Congress has an obligation to curb this type of profiteering to protect Americans. Now, Sen. Whitehouse joins Jen expose the connection between the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, Trump appeasing his fossil fuel donors, and the stifling of putting clean energy on the grid. Subscribe now Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse represents Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate, where he champions policies to uphold American leadership in the world, protect our planet in a changing climate, and hold the powerful accountable. The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes. Jen Rubin Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor in Chief of the Contrarian. We are delighted to have back with us Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. Welcome, Senator! Sheldon Whitehouse Thank you, Jen. Great to be with you again. Jen Rubin It is lovely. We are recording this late in the day on Tuesday, but it will air on Earth Day tomorrow. You will, along with Ro Khanna, are going to be reintroducing a measure that you have presented before. Tell us about that. Sheldon Whitehouse The predicament we’re trying to solve is that American consumers watch their gasoline prices skyrocket. When international problems drive the world oil price up. We did this before. when the war criminal Putin invaded Ukraine, and that sent world oil prices soaring, and American oil companies that had no connection with Ukraine or any of that in their supply chain nevertheless took the moment to Raise their prices with the world market. And the result was—I’m not speaking, exaggeratedly here, this is a factual, literal thing—the largest corporate profits ever reported. And I think it was $120 billion. It’s an enormous, enormous number. So, Ro joined my excess profits clawback bill at the time. And here we are again with another international conflict that is causing Americans to experience dramatically increased gasoline and diesel prices. And a lot of that It’s diesel and gasoline. Pumped. In America, piped in America, refined in America, and trucked in America to American gas stations. Nothing changed in their costs. Of the oil companies, but when they see the international price go through the roof, they all agree automatically to do the exact same thing and raise all their prices, and so we are going to see another huge, huge surge of excess profits into the big oil, and Trump isn’t going to do anything about it, because this is another way that he pays back his donors. Yeah. So, it’s up to Congress to press to claw back some of that excess profit and get it back to the Americans who paid it at the pump. Jen Rubin Today is a good time, I guess, to take stock of how much damage this administration has done. In terms of dismantling regulations with the help of the Supreme Court, hollowing out EPA, Is there some way of quantifying this? How much time we’ve lost in the global warming? Is there some way that you can approximate how much damage these people are doing? Sheldon Whitehouse You know, it’s hard to do. I would, one number that comes to mind is that the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden Clean Energy Initiative, was estimated to add 520 520 gigawatts of excess clean energy by 2030. So all of that would have provided clean energy that would have displaced fossil fuel. And so you lose 520 gigawatts of fossil fuel pollution. I can’t put an emissions number on that, because it depends on what the source is that gets taken off the grid for the clean energy, but one point that’s very much worth making in this space is that when Trump blocks clean energy from getting on the grid. That fails to displace. the more and more expensive fossil fuel units that make up what they call the generation stack. So as demand goes up, up the stack they go to more and more expensive units, bring in the clean energy, and you don’t have to go to the more expensive units, because the demand doesn’t go that high, because the clean energy met it down here. So, customers save money, there are fewer emissions. And everybody’s happy, except, of course, big oil, because those units aren’t running, they’re not dealing oil to them, and so they lose money, so they’re the big winners in Trump’s fossil fuel scheme to suppress clean energy on the grid. Jen Rubin And China is as well, since they now dominate in the EV and solar panel business, and would love nothing better than to sell it all over the world. Sheldon Whitehouse Yeah. They’re mercantile planners trying to make themselves the place to go to buy clean energy appliances, clean energy vehicles, clean energy supplies, solar, all of it. Every place that they get ahead of us and get technical advantage. is probably one day a lost sale from an American company to a Chinese company, because they’ve run ahead of us in the marketplace. Jen Rubin Exactly. Again, with reference to Earth Day, the New York Times had an unbelievable leak of memos from the Supreme Court detailing the evolution of the so-called shadow docket. And wouldn’t you know, it had to do with an area that you’re very familiar with. And what you see is John Roberts pushing, conniving, changing the standard of review in order to set up the Supreme Court as the ultimate determination of energy regulation. Were you surprised at all by that? Did that confirm your hunch that he is really, not the, balls and strikes guy he made himself out to be? Sheldon Whitehouse Yeah, I don’t know how many speeches I’ve given, in which I said that Citizens United was a decision basically by and for the fossil fuel industry, and that the dark money that it unleashed powered the fossil fuel industry to be able to squelch all the climate legislation that had been percolating through the Senate, and that the marriage between the climate denial and corrupt dark money operation of the fossil fuel industry, and the capture of the court and the services that the captured court was delivering to it were one and the same, that they were directly connected. So, it was a kind of bitter vindication to see that Roberts essentially start The Shadow Docket, break all the rules, do something that was unprecedented, and he does it very explicitly to protect the financial interests of the fossil fuel industry. He talks about the irreparable harm of them. Maybe, maybe in the future, having to start planning for the six-year-out deadline of the Clean Power Plan. Not a word. Not a word about the immediate climate harm of all the emissions, about the problem that EPA was trying to solve. It was a absolutely single-minded focus on only one thing, and that was how the fossil fuel industry was doing. And what it had said in its pleadings, and how to make them happy, and there was actually some pretty good research at the time. I think the costs to the industry were going to be about $8 billion. But the savings to the public in cleaner air, less healthcare costs, less environmental damage, were minimum gonna be $30 to $40 billion, so four to five times as much, and that’s the minimum, which could be a good deal much more in savings, so… just to watch them with their blinders on, snuffling away at what matters to the fossil fuel industry, and paying no attention to any other fact that pertains to that discussion, it was… I mean, I hope they’re embarrassed. Jen Rubin I would hope so. I think they’re past that, unfortunately. There are so many aspects of hypocrisy that are tied up in that, and I think one is the one you identified, which is when the government doesn’t get to do something, or the government is doing something bad to the fossil fuel industry, that is irreparable harm. But people being sent to CECOT in El Salvador, or the firing of an independent agency, and oh, no, no, no, no, no harm there, no harm there. Sheldon Whitehouse Now, they’re very selective about what harms they are willing to look at, and that tracks, you know, their little munchkin, Lee Zeldin, over at EPA right now, who is—again, this is not an exaggeration—I’m not saying this for rhetorical purposes, he actually took out of the cost-benefit calculation that EPA must do by law the harm of fossil fuel pollution. Just, we’re not going to count that. We’re going to count cost to the industry, but the harm that the pollution causes, we’re just going to assume that that is zero, and we’re going to get there by not bothering to ask about it or count it. So, what do you do when you’ve got somebody who’s willing to be so obviously, phony and dishonest? Jen Rubin Exactly. Again, we’re recording this on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Warsh, who wants to replace Mr. Powell at the Federal Reserve, wouldn’t answer a lot of questions. He wouldn’t answer who won in 2020. He wouldn’t answer whether he had invested in Trump operations. He wouldn’t answer whether Mr. Epstein had helped him on any of his investments. How does someone expect to be placed on the Federal Reserve and not answer those kind of basic, fundamental questions? Sheldon Whitehouse I think it’s because that Trump and his rather thuggish, administration, hold our Republican colleagues in thrall or in fear. And so, they think that they can just Line up the votes. on Warsh. We have Senator Tillis, Willing to break with his colleagues. He is not running for re-election. So they can’t hurt him… Politically, and he simply dug his heels in that the, sketchy, if not phony. investigation into the Federal Reserve and the subpoenas that were issued in that context. Which judges found to be fake and phony and a means of misusing the prosecutorial process to put pressure on a political figure to do what the president wants, which is to lower interest rates. You know, he took a look at that whole mess and said, well, until that crap stops. I’m a yes vote on Warsh, but I’m not voting for him until that crap stops. So, they’ve got a bit of a obstacle to getting worse. confirmed in the person of Tom Tillis. But over and over again, Trump nominees who can’t answer those questions and won’t answer those questions go scooting through the relevant committee and, voted for by all the Republicans on the floor. They simply have no, like, gag reflex for who they won’t confirm. Or very little, like Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Okay, great, that one. Low bar. Jen Rubin And by the way, one of the questions that was too hard for him to answer was whether he would defend the independence of, for example, Lisa Cook, who is trying to be railroaded off the Fed. He claimed he’s not a constitutional lawyer, so therefore he has no views on the matter. It’s… Right. quite a performance. Last question for you. As we sit here again, Donald Trump, appropriately enough on a Tuesday, has pulled a major taco. He has decided that, he will not and the ceasefire, even though the Strait of Hormuz remains under blockade, and in fact. Don’t restart the war until the talks are finished, one way or the other, and of course. Sheldon Whitehouse With no deadline, just indefinitely. Jen Rubin Yes. Why do we ever open up the Strait of Hormuz? Seriously, what is he going to give them in order to alleviate this international global energy crisis? Entirely of his making? Sheldon Whitehouse Yeah. And as the Iranians, and particularly the Revolutionary Guard, keep their chokehold on the Straits of Hormuz, you’re seeing some really significant disruptions in the economic system, in the transportation system, first in Europe, because they’re closer, but it’s hitting us as well. Flights being canceled, fuel unavailable, airplanes not able to get off the tarmac, costs going through the sky. And, at this point, you know, you’ve seen gasoline and diesel go way up. There was a pause, the cost didn’t fall, they just plateaued for a bit, while the markets held out hope. that this was going to be solved, that the straits were going to reopen. Now, without that, I suspect we’ll see another big surge, and already in many states, gasoline is over $4, diesel’s nearly $6. So, you know, this is a brutal situation for Republicans coming into a November election with a president who doesn’t care about them. doesn’t understand the situation in Iran at all well, has the mental disposition of a toddler. And seems perfectly happy to destroy the Republican Party around him in his kind of mad day-to-day quest to find a way to move, but it’s really gonna get pretty ugly pretty soon, and so then what does he do? Does he flip the script yet again and say, okay, now I’m back to threatening to bomb you into the Stone Age? I think what we’ve seen here is the power dynamic in these negotiations, shift from Trump’s expectation that he held all the cards and the Iranians would collapse. To his slow and gradual realization that they actually had cards. And that they’re playing hardball, and actually they feel that they have the cards because of all the economic pressure they can create. So now it’s the Iranians who look like they’re the dominant party in this negotiation, and Trump just folded right in front of him and said, okay, we’re not gonna bomb you for indefinitely, you get to keep the straits closed, all the pressure on us remains, none of the pressure on you of imminent bombardment remains. It’s hard to see how… That’s a successful transaction for the United States of America or for our allies in Europe. Jen Rubin I think along the way, he’s going to trade, and this is just supposition, the opening of the Strait of Hormuz for his agreement to lift sanctions. And we will be in a far worse position than we have been for probably the last 20 years or so, and it will make the JCPOA look like a draconian plan to eviscerate Iran, and the first ones to applaud will be Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton. But we have a ways to go, so we’ll see if that works out or not. Sheldon Whitehouse Yeah, but today was not a good day for Donald Trump in his Iran mess. Jen Rubin No, it was not. But it’s always a good day when we get to speak with you, so thanks so much, we appreciate it, and have a wonderful Earth Day. Sheldon Whitehouse Thank you, Jen. You too. Jen Rubin Take care. Bye-bye.

Apr 22, 202617 votes

Fossil Fuel Companies Are Emptying Americans' Pockets

Apr 22, 202611 votes

Why Donald Trump and Kash Patel Want Your Data

By Jeff Nesbit Are we really going to blindly trust President Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, to be in charge of surveillance on Americans without abusing his power and violating our privacy rights? That’s the question every member of Congress ought to ask before voting soon on whether to agree to reauthorize FISA (the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act) and make the changes to Section 702 the Trump White House has asked for. (cbies/iStock) It’s useful in the FISA fight to remember that, just two years ago, the rhetoric from the Trump camp was clear: “KILL FISA.” Trump and his social media horde described FISA as a tool of the Deep State, a lawless mechanism used to spy on political campaigns and harass private citizens. But today, the tune has changed from apocalyptic rhetoric about the Deep State spying on Trump to an autocratic victory march. The Trump White House is now demanding a “clean“ extension of Section 702, stripping any proposed reforms that would require the government to obtain a warrant before searching the data of American citizens. The irony is genuinely hard to ignore. The very administration that claimed to be the victim of surveillance overreach is now asking for the keys to the most powerful spy machine ever built. With no strings attached. Trump recently took to Truth Social to declare that he’s “willing to risk“ the rights and privileges of citizens for the sake of the military. But in a constitutional republic, rights aren’t chips to be gambled with by the executive branch. Think about that for just a moment. Trump – who campaigned nonstop against a Deep State prying into his affairs – now wants that very same Deep State to violate the privacy rights of citizens for the sake of “national security” and a military that he wishes to command in autocratic fashion. At the heart of this fight is FISA Section 702, a provision intended to track foreign threats. However, it effectively acts as a giant vacuum, incidentally sucking up the private emails and texts of millions of Americans. Under the leadership of Patel -- who recently admitted the FBI is already buying Americans’ location data -- the risk of these backdoor searches turning into political tools is no longer a conspiracy theory. It’s a structural probability. The battle lines in Congress have shifted in ways that defy traditional partisanship. A “Warrants or Bust” coalition, ranging from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to hardline conservatives like Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, is holding the line for the Fourth Amendment. Yet, the Trump White House is finding support in unexpected places. Reports suggest the Congressional Black Caucus is being lobbied to provide the decisive votes for a “clean” bill, a move that would betray their long-standing opposition to the surveillance of activists and minority communities. The administration’s timing is calculated. By leaning on the pressures of the war in Iran, it is deploying the oldest trick in the Washington playbook: using a foreign crisis to justify a domestic power grab. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has already signaled that he will block any privacy amendments, claiming they make the bill too difficult to pass. If Congress votes for a clean reauthorization, it isn’t just passing a national security bill. It’s handing a blank check to an FBI director and a White House that have already shown they view civil liberties as optional. Before the clock runs out on April 20, members of Congress have one important question to decide: Do they represent the citizens whose privacy is at stake or the Trump administration bureaucracy that wants to watch them? Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet secretaries or agencies under four presidents. “Digital Dust,” his new book on the creation of the mass surveillance state in America, will be out in early summer this year. The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new posts, enable our work, help with litigation efforts, and keep this opposition movement alive and engaged, please consider joining the fight by becoming a paid subscriber.

Apr 16, 202610 votes

Why Donald Trump and Kash Patel Want Your Data

Apr 16, 202619 votes

Russ Vought Is Rewriting America's Budget

Today, Russ Vought, the Office of Management and Budget Director, testified before the House Budget Committee. Lawmakers quizzed him on Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget (a 44% increase) and cuts to domestic programs. Bobby Kogan, Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress, joins Jen to unpack what exactly is going on with Trump’s budget. Importantly, Kogan notes there is somehow always enough money for tax cuts for the rich, but never enough money for the rest of us. Tune in to find out exactly how Trump and Vought are destroying the trust between the American people and their government. Subscribe now Bobby Kogan is the senior director of federal budget policy at American Progress, working to ensure the federal budget prioritizes policies that help the most vulnerable people. He is an expert in federal budget issues, including aggregate spending, revenues, interest, deficits, and debt. He is also an expert in the congressional budget reconciliation process, as well as in budget concepts and budget scorekeeping. The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes. Jen Rubin Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor in Chief of The Contrarian. I am thrilled to have Bobby Kogan, who is the head of the budget analysis group at the Center for American Progress. Welcome, Bobby! Bobby Kogan Jen, thanks so much for having me on. Jen Rubin Donald Trump set up a budget that we used jaw-dropping, head-spinning, shocking, but it really was. Tell us in general terms what he proposed giving to defense, and what he proposed in taking away from everything else. Bobby Kogan We’ll start broad, and then we’ll get specific. The takeaway is that it will be a historic increase to defense, and a historic cut to non-defense, to everything else. So when I say historic increase to defense, I mean it would be the biggest in more than 50 years in terms of a one-year increase, but if you ignore the times we’re actively engaged in a ground war, it would be the biggest one-year increase in all of U.S. history events. that total ends up being $445 billion above last year’s level, it’s a 42% increase, so it’s just an enormous amount of money. On the non-defense side, it would take this group of spending, it’s called non-defense discretionary. It’s basically ignore defense, and ignore, like, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food assistance, and it’s the rest of the budget. It would take that part of the budget down to its lowest level since the Eisenhower era, and maybe since there’s kind of a one-year blip there, and not counting that would be the lowest since the Hoover administration. So, it would just, like, radically transform the relationship that Americans have with their government. Now, this comes across tons and tons and tons of cuts to programs that Americans rely on. So, one example is he would completely eliminate LIHEAP. This is a program that helps very poor households heat their homes in the winter so they don’t freeze to death, right? So, it’s a small program, entirely eliminate that sort of stuff. Huge cuts to the Small Business Administration, which helps small businesses get started, help them have easy access to capital, that sort of stuff, imposing hundreds of millions of dollars of new fees on businesses as well. Entirely eliminate preschool development grants, which helps states set up preschools. It’s just kind of across the board, you name it. Oh my gosh, actually, one other thing I should mention, though, the WIC program helps, pregnant moms, it helps newborns, and it helps infants have enough food, and it would entirely eliminate the fruit and vegetable benefit inside of that. You look across the board, and it’s tons and tons and tons of cuts to programs that ordinary Americans rely on, and it sinks that money into defense. So it’s just rewriting the budget. Jen Rubin When you look at the breadth of what is being cut, everything from Section 8 housing to nutrition to, grants for, K-12 and, higher ed. What’s the overall impact on states? Because they’re going to be pressed, aside from the things they get directly, to try to fill in the gap. Talk to us a little bit about what states are going to experience as a result of this. Bobby Kogan Yeah, so you’re totally right. State budgets are heavily reliant on federal assistance, education is one of the major ones, but highways, housing assistance, childcare assistance, these are things where states get federal money, and then they try to help their citizens. The way that the Trump administration frames it is they say, oh, we’re sending the money back to the states. But it’s not like they took the money away from the states and they’re now giving it back to the states. It just means that there’s less aid. And so what that means is that states either are gonna make do with less Or, since most states have balanced budget requirements, they are going to increase sales taxes, or property taxes, or income taxes to pay for it, and since most of the ways that states tend to… the federal income… the federal tax structure is progressive, states tend to have a very regressive tax structure that hits the poorest the most, and so the net effect of this is either they’re gonna tax the poor to try to pay for the lost money, or they’ll just be out the money. This means less money for schools, less money for roads, less money to kind of help recreational areas. Jen Rubin So, the only people who are getting money back are the people who are benefiting from that enormous tax cut. The trillions of dollars in tax money. If you put that back into the budget, would you need any of these other cuts to social programs? In other words, are these cuts really going, not only just for defense, but to pay rich people’s tax cuts? Bobby Kogan Yeah, I think that that’s a totally fair frame here. It’s pretty difficult to justify pinching pennies for programs that help ordinary Americans when we just did trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of tax cuts that overwhelmingly, disproportionately went to the richest Americans. And so, like, an example here is that, you know, the average person maybe got, like. $1,000 in tax cuts. The average top 0.1%-er got a $300,000 tax break. Ordinary Americans are always asked to do more with less when it comes to the budget, but the richest Americans are never asked to do more with less when it comes to tax cuts. In fact, the Trump administration is always looking for new, creative, exciting ways to give more tax cuts to the rich, and then they come and they say, we’re gonna take money, you know, from the neediest people. In fact, I’m glad you mentioned the big, beautiful bill, because even in that one, as an example, they did historic tax cuts, but they also did historic cuts to Medicaid and historic cuts to food stamps at the exact same time. They kicked 10 million people off their health insurance. They took food away from literal children, if their parents lose their job in an economic recession. Food away from children to help pay for tax cuts for the rich. I would say this is part of the same thing. They say there’s always money for tax cuts, and there isn’t money for us, for everyone else. Jen Rubin Let’s shift gears to the outstanding issue of the Department of Homeland Security, which still has not been resolved. There’s a lot of talk now about a skinny reconciliation bill. Explain what that is to our viewers and readers. Bobby Kogan Sure. So, as a reminder to folks, normally, when you want to pass something through the House, it just takes a simple majority, but when you want to pass something through the Senate, it requires 60 votes instead of just 51, because of this thing called the filibuster. But, under reconciliation, you can do it with only 51 votes instead of 60. You have to follow the rules of reconciliation, but if you do, then all of a sudden you could do it with only a simple majority. That’s how the Bush Tax Cuts Round 1 and 2 were passed. That’s how Obamacare Part 2 was passed, that’s how Trump almost repealed the ACA, it’s how Trump did the Trump tax cuts, it’s how Biden did the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s how Trump did the big, beautiful bill. So, Republicans want to come back, and they say, we want to give more money to DHS. Well, why do they want more money for DHS? It’s because there is a fight, there’s a standstill right now over DHS funding. DHS has been shut down for well over a month now. It’s because Democrats want, kind of oversight. Obviously, DHS has killed American citizens and non-citizens alike for protesting, you know, exercising their First Amendment rights and Second Amendment rights as well. Republicans say, no, we don’t want body cams, we don’t want any identification for the folks who are doing this, we don’t want any oversight. And so, due to the standstill, Republicans say, well, we’ll just fund it alone. And that’s this idea of the skinny reconciliation. Instead of doing a big, beautiful bill where they do tons of stuff, they say, what if we just throw money at ICE and Border Patrol? And the current idea, it’s an evolving thing, but the current idea that they have right now is that they would give sufficient money for DHS through the end of the Trump administration, with no strings attached, no oversight. know anything, so that, no matter what happens, they’d just be able to continue kind of doing the… lawless kind of DHS activities through the end of the Trump era. Jen Rubin When they spend all this money on DHS, within reconciliation, do they have to pay for it? Are there any cuts that have to go in with that? Bobby Kogan You don’t have to pay for deficits inside of the budget window. So if you do a deficit within the first 10 years, you’re good to go. You should think about the American Rescue Plan, where, you know, in the Biden administration, think actually about the DHS money and the military money that Republicans gave in the big, beautiful bill. It’s anything beyond the 10th year that you have to pay for. So the only limiting factor will be… how much Republicans are willing to spend. What we’re hearing is they might do $70, $80 billion, but for DHS, but they could do less, they could do more, they don’t have to pay for it. If they choose to pay for it, that would be their decision. Of course, that would be pretty tough to justify. It’s really tough to say, we want to give money to an agency that’s killing citizens, and we’re going to pay for it by taking away your healthcare is a pretty tough political message, but it’s tough for them regardless. Jen Rubin Now. reconciliation, the rules there seem to work, in this case, against Democrats, because they can try to put amendments forward for demasking and identification, all these other things, but those may very well be ruled out of order, because they’re not financial issues. So, they get the money, they just don’t get any of the reforms, and that’s what we’re essentially looking at. Bobby Kogan Yeah, that’s right. Democrats, I think, will put them forward, but those things would have a 60-vote point of order against them, so instead of just having to peel off, you know, like, 3 Republicans or 4 Republicans, they’d have to… Democrats would have to get 13 Republicans willing to go forward and actively put that in the legislation, and since the whole reason we’re here in the first place is Republicans. don’t want to do that. I think it’s a pretty uphill battle. Very ironically, if this is able to go through, Republican DHS money will have Basically no oversight, instead of the modicum of oversight that it currently has. Jen Rubin What happens with the rest of the budget? If the skinny budget just takes care of DHS, what are the Republicans gonna do about everything else, including their defense proposal? Bobby Kogan Yeah, I think this sort of thing is gonna blow up appropriations. think this should all be viewed in the context of Russ Vought, OMB director, affirmatively saying that he thought that appropriations should be less bipartisan. And so, sure enough, we are seeing less bipartisan appropriations, just like he asked for. I think this is all gonna make everything more difficult, because The whole point of… Lots of Congress doesn’t work right, and the props doesn’t work right either, but at least that’s something where every year, all four corners get together, they roll up their sleeves, they go through the dirty, you know, the dirty, the gritty parts, and they walk out of there with funding line by line by line, every single part of the government. And there are lots of problems with the process, but they get it done. And sometimes there’s shutdowns, or whatever. But no one gets everything they want, but everyone gets enough of what they want that, you know, large majorities in both chambers are willing to make this happen. The more that you kind of take out any of the compromised parts of it, the more that the whole nego… and the more that you say, we’ll come to a deal, but we’re gonna change this part of it unilaterally over here, the more the whole thing falls apart. So I think we are looking at much more dysfunction many more shutdowns, and I just think we’re looking at an American government that is less capable of helping its citizens. Jen Rubin Well, if we could have a Congress that is less dysfunctional… that is rather more dysfunctional than last year, that would be an achievement. Let’s talk about Russ Vought, who is the head of OMB. He testified today and said some… mind-numbing things. One of the things, for example, he said is that the Bureau of Consumer Protection, which he has tried to ravage. has cost money to Americans. That’s absurd! There’s billions and billions of dollars that have been returned to Americans. How can he say something like that? Bobby Kogan Well, if you are not tethered to the truth, then, you know, the sky’s the limit. It’s, yeah, I mean, to your point, it is, I mean, it’s true up-is-down stuff. The CFPB has put billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars back in consumers’ pockets. It’s the sort of thing where, when Trump was kind of first ravaging it, you saw even a lot of very MAGA people saying, like. Well, that doesn’t make sense. Like, I really benefit from this. I think the real answer is that the Trump administration has gone after any sort of oversight. Financial oversight, consumer oversight, any sort of oversight. And I think that’s within the context here. But, yeah, that’s right. It is a thing that, by getting rid of junk fees, doing click-to-cancel, any sort of thing where a company is really kind of financially worked to take advantage of people. CFPB is supposed to fight that, and has directly and indirectly helped people by preventing a whole bunch of stuff, and directly help people by literally getting money back to people who’ve been taken advantage of. It’s operating at, you know, in a shell capacity, illegally. Ross Vogt is the head of it, but it’s a non-functional thing, and this this is just part of his reworking of the American government. Jen Rubin What were some of the other zingers he put out there that kind of just strained credulity? Bobby Kogan I mean, it’s near and dear to my heart, so in, in, we talked about the WIC cut, that he proposed in the budget, and I think it was Rep. McGarvey said, you’re cutting, you’re cutting the fruit and vegetable benefit, that’s, that’s, you know, it’s really un-American, and Russ Vogt said, no, we fully fund, WIC, and he’s being clever, it’s because he’s fully funding the part of WIC that he’s not cutting. So we’re, you know, we’re cutting this, and we’re fully funding the remaining part. And, you know, McGarvey just interrupted me, said, you do not, you know, I have the page right here, you know, on this page, whatever. But the entire Ross Vought test, oh my goodness, he leaned in on impoundment, so this is not sexy, but it’s really, really important. The Trump administration has been illegally not spending money that Congress says it must spend. So they illegally didn’t spend billions of dollars for, like, overseed aid that’s probably already killed hundreds of thousands of people, will kill millions of people, illegally not spending money in the Department of Education, all sorts of things where they were supposed to spend the money and they just didn’t do it. He was asked about it, and he… He asserted that the president has a constitutional authority to ignore spending laws. If that were true, if that were really true, it would mean that Social Security is unconstitutional. It would mean that Medicare is unconstitutional. It would mean that our national highway system is unconstitutional. All the things that say, no, you are owed this money if you’ve done X, Y, or Z, it would mean they’re all unconstitutional. It would mean they’re all voluntary. It’s a really extreme position. Now, all up and down the field. Russ Vogt was asked about, defunding the IRS, right? So they talk a lot about fraud. One of the biggest sources of fraud is tax fraud, and I’m gonna say this twice, because it’s such a large number. Every year, the United States loses $725 billion. billion dollars of money that it was supposed to take in under the tax code, but didn’t take in due to tax cheats. $725 billion every year. This is bigger than the entire Medicaid program as a team. And the Trump administration, by its own estimates, when it defunds IRS enforcement, it loses money. And Russ Vogt was asked about this, and he said, well, I just don’t think that people cheat on their taxes. He said, I just don’t think when they’re filing their taxes, they’re shooting their taxes. Jen Rubin He thinks all of these other programs are rife with fraud. Totally. So he thinks… poor people who are looking for food, or looking for housing vouchers. Those people are fraudulent, but people who pay taxes in… who are supposed to pay billions of dollars are giving every dime they owe? That’s Upside down world. Bobby Kogan Totally. I mean, most of us can’t cheat on our taxes, and it’s very simple, right? We have a… we have a, you know, we make wages, and it all gets deducted and everything, you see how much you’re supposed to make, and it’s all simple. It is specifically Russ Vogt’s friends, who have very complicated taxes, and lots of stuff the government can’t see, or whatever. That is where a lot of the tax cheating happens, and that’s where they’ve been doing it. In fact, if you look at their budget in IRS, they cut in half enforcement last year of people who have at least $10 million of income. Of income! They cut… they cut, yeah, so the audits for people who make at least $10 million per year, they cut their audits in half of where they thought they wanted to be, and they called to, like, cut it another third this year, right? So it’s just a disarming of money going against people who are actively defrauding the American government, and taking that and then saying, my God. we have a deficit. We should instead, kick people out of their homes. We should take food away from them. We should take their heating oil away, right? Like, it’s just a totally different vision of America, and that’s what his… I mean, that’s what his testimony today was about. He was leaning into it. He was leaning into this kind of absurd bizarro reality. Jen Rubin Now, we are in an election year. Are Republicans really gonna go for all this? Are they really gonna take the votes to pass $70 more billion dollars? to the department that has killed Americans? Are they really going to then lower it up and get Democrats to agree to $1.5 trillion in defense? What’s your view of whether this is gonna work or not? Bobby Kogan I think that they probably have the votes to do just Skinny, right? Just DHS. I think what’s gonna make it difficult for them is they have all sorts of different people who want something more, and they’re worried that if they don’t get it now, they’ll never get it. So, they’re gonna be the defense hawks who really want the money for defense inside of it. They’re not really deficit hawks, but it’s the spending cut hawks who say, yeah, who say, well, if you’re gonna do all this, then I want another chance at cutting nutrition assistance and healthcare and SSI, or that sort of thing. And then there are gonna be the people, as well, who say, my gosh, I’ve seen the polling, I’m really worried about my job. I want to actually try to do something that helps my constituents for a change. And all of those people are going to be trying to compete, and the more you open up the process, the harder it gets, and then some people complain, they say, well, how come this person got their stuff but not me? How come… you know, whatever, whatever. And so, I think it’s difficult for them. I think there’s probably a better than half chance that they are able to land the plane on something, but it’s easy to see it unraveling, and I definitely think even if they can do the skinny, skinny reconciliation, I think they will struggle with more things. I think it’s gonna be very tough, right? If they tried to do round one just skinny, and round two, a $350 billion paid for by taking money away from Americans. I don’t think Amer… I mean, the war is already super unpopular. I don’t think Americans are gonna really go for it and say, wait a minute, you have to prolong a war that’s driving up my gas price, and you’re gonna pay for it by taking away my education or my healthcare? Like, that’s not the sort of thing that sits well with the American people. Jen Rubin So, if people don’t like this, what should they do? Bobby Kogan You need to call—I know, it’s so lame to say—you need to call your representative. Reconciliation is a partisan exercise, so if you have a Republican representative, that’s the only way to stop this is getting Republicans to vote no. So you can call your Republican representative if you have a Republican governor. You call your Republican governor, because they are all tight with that sort of folks. You attend a town hall, lots of people don’t do town halls, but I’ll say—so I worked on the Hill for six and a half years, There is nothing more important than getting, you know, a minute with your member. 80 emails are less important than you spending 1 minute talking to your member face-to-face at a town hall. So, if your member has a town hall, go to a town hall. It’s… it’s tough. You have to drive a long time, you have to wait a long time, you get to talk for 30 seconds or whatever, but it is the only thing that gets through those folks. So, number one thing, talk to them in person. Number two, you do a phone call. We went over phone calls every single week in our weekly meetings. So that stuff matters. Emails also matter, but those two things are far more important. As they say, talk to your governor as well. It’s an uphill battle, right? Because the whole point is Republicans do have the power to do this. And so, definitionally, it means convincing them that they don’t want to do it. So talking in their language to things that matter to them. why they should be against it. That’s the sort of thing that really matters. That is why Lisa Murkowski voted against ACA repeal. That is why John McCain voted against ACA repeal. That is why Susan Collins voted against ACA repeal, because it was put into terms that mattered to them. So, you have to try to communicate, Jen Rubin And the magic words are, if you vote for this, I’m gonna kick you out of office. Right now, that’s a pretty good threat, given the fact that Democrats look like they’re gonna do pretty well. Well, I have to say, the reward if you drive all that way to a town hall is you can embarrass the heck out of your Republican lawmaker, like Mike Lawler, who got screamed at and booed the other day. So that might be attractive to all of you folks out there. Bobby, thank you so much. You are such a wealth of knowledge about the numbers and the process. I am sure we will have you back to explain as this thing, plays out over the next year. So thank you so much, and thank you for everything you and your friends do at CAP. Absolutely rely on them for great information, so thank you for that. Bobby Kogan Jen, the pleasure was all mine. Thanks so much for having me on, happy to come back anytime. Jen Rubin Absolutely. Take on.

Apr 15, 202612 votes

Words & Phrases

No wonder Donald Trump is melting down. The Iran war, more than any other Trump screw-up, perfectly illustrated the central truth at the heart of his presidential bluster: “The emperor has no clothes.” With the announcement of the half-baked ceasefire, the entire world could see that Trump, who fancies himself a great dealmaker (whom critics call a conman) and a winner, turns out to be an easy mark and a loser. (Backiris/iStock) Trump came oh so close to grasping the extent of his humiliation in his Truth Social post: “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways.” (One is tempted to respond: ‘Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?’) “Short term extortion” is a preposterous phrase to camouflage “indefinite and overwhelming leverage.” Trump’s ostensible purpose for the war (other than fantasy regime change) was to reduce Iran’s ability to project power in the regime. Now Iran can project power internationally with a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz — while also maintaining its stockpile of enriched uranium and retaining “thousands of ballistic missiles in its arsenal that it could use by retrieving launchers from underground storage areas.” Transporting us from tragedy to farce, Trump announced that the Iranians would not get away with blockading the Strait of Hormuz — HE would do it! As ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner (D-VA) said dryly on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “How blockading the strait gets it open suddenly — I don’t get that logic.” Neither does anyone else, Senator. Trump still does not understand — or will not admit — that if Iran refused to release the Strait of Hormuz when it was getting pummeled by U.S. and Israeli air power, it is unfathomable that it will give up control during a negotiation in which Trump is desperate to avoid resumption of fighting. (Watching inflation soar and consumer confidence tank no doubt makes him more frantic than ever to “end” the war for good.) And indeed, the marathon negotiating session over the weekend came to … nothing. Why should Iran give up its most valuable bargaining chip? Iran surely grasps that Trump does not have the stomach for a mammoth military exercise to free the strait. If the Iranians had any doubt, Trump reassured them that he did not care if a deal was reached, since the United States had “already won.” (Translation: He will walk away with the strait in Iran’s hands.) How did Iran wind up with all the cards (in Trump lingo, “short term extortion”)? Simple: Trump was “played,” as the New York Times illustrated in its account of how Trump plunged recklessly into a disastrous war. Unlike his predecessors, Trump got snowed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As former secretary of state John Kerry explained to Jen Psaki: Kerry: I was part of any number of conversations with Netanyahu. Psaki: Pitching the U.S. strike Iran? Kerry: Yes, he wanted us to strike. He came to President Obama. He made a presentation to ask to strike. President Obama refused. President Biden refused. President Bush refused. The only thing Trump refused was to appreciate or listen to aides who warned that Netanyahu was peddling the “farcical” (CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s description) notion that bombing Iran could expedite regime change. Whether you prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s evaluation (“Bullshit”) or Chairman of the Joints Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine’s formulation (“They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed”), Trump’s addled brain could not process that the Iranian regime’s survival — coupled with its predictable seizure of the Strait of Hormuz and success in refurbishing missiles to hit Israel and the Gulf States — would leave Iran more dangerous. Narcissism coupled with utter ignorance of history, military strategy, and the Iranian mindset set up Trump (eager to repeat his success in knocking out Nicolás Maduro and in avoiding a robust Iranian response during the 12-day war) as an eager mark for Netanyahu’s farcical sales pitch. Subscribe now In some cosmic karma, Netanyahu is also receiving blowback at home for failing to deliver on his “farcical” scheme. Israeli polling shows his party is sinking in advance of this year’s elections, substantial majorities disapprove of the nothing-burger ceasefire that gives Iran overwhelming leverage, and “a majority of respondents were unconvinced that Israel and the U.S. had won the war.” To boot, Netanyahu has earned the enmity of 60 percent of the American people, is getting squeezed to end his Lebanon campaign, and faces the same Iranian regime, now more determined than ever to build a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu is paying the price for getting “high on his own supply.” At any rate, Netanyahu is not the only leader adept at selling Trump a bill of goods. The world has seen that Trump has long been under the spell of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As far back as 2018, Putin persuaded Trump to believe him, not our own intelligence community, about election interference. Since then, Putin has assumed the role of ventriloquist, Trump the dummy (pun intended). As Rex Huppke put it, the ex-KGB agent routinely fleeces “an easily glazed sucker who fancies himself a genius.” After the disastrous Alaska summit last year, where Putin utterly dominated Trump, Trump revealed his astounding gullibility. A hot mic captured his remark to French President Emmanuel Macron, that Putin “wants to make a deal for me.” Even Trump sheepishly admitted that sounded “crazy.”) “Trump, as always, [was] mistaking manipulation for respect. In the place of logic, he has “unquenchable narcissism,” Huppke observed. Trump is putty in the hands of cagey manipulators such as Putin or Netanyahu. Trump has continued to parrot Russia’s anti-Ukraine propaganda. As maddening as Netanyahu’s aggressive sales pitch and Putin’s nonstop manipulation may be, other presidents have adeptly rebuffed savvy operators. Only Trump has consistently displayed jaw-dropping gullibility. He alone is responsible for repeatedly endangering our national security. So no one should buy into Trump’s absurd “short term extortion” formulation. What happened here is simple: Trump handed Iran the rope to strangle the world’s economy. Trump is now so deluded as to claim victory without a deal to free up the Strait of Hormuz. (Instead, he’ll double blockade the strait — that’ll show ‘em!) Iran’s extortion scheme is not a short-term problem — and neither is Trump. The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new posts, enable our work, help with litigation efforts, and keep this opposition movement alive and engaged, please join the fight as a free or paid subscriber.

Apr 14, 202620 votes

Words & Phrases

Apr 14, 20269 votes

‘The madness must stop now’

(C-SPAN) On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump posted on a social media site a threat that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran’s leaders didn’t strike a deal with him to at least reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Reactions were swift — and damning. A sampling: “Threatening to destroy a civilization is clearly a war crime if he acts on it. He’s putting those who serve in the military in a terrible position. This is stuff you’d wouldn’t even see from Putin, let alone the American president. Isn’t it time for the 25th amendment? “ — Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) “This is not strength. Intentionally destroying the power, water, or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend to punish the very civilians who suffer at the hands of the Iranian regime would constitute a war crime, a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on, and a moral failure. It’s unconscionable to threaten the lives of so many people – grandparents, children, families – simply because they were born in Iran. President Trump’s reckless threat makes Americans less safe, further destabilizes our nation and economy, and puts at greater risk U.S. service members. It only serves to push us further away from the only viable solution to this war: a diplomatic one. The president must not follow through on this threat.” — Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Brian Schatz (D-HI) “ ” — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) “President Trump has openly announced a plan to conduct the EXACT definition of genocide against the Iranian people! The MADNESS MUST STOP NOW!!” — Alex Jones, Republican influencer “Today as we all know there was this threat against all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable.” — Pope Leo XIV “We need to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump. Threatening war crimes is a blatant violation of our constitution and the Geneva Conventions.” — Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Cal.) “In an age of creeping relativism, a universal moral law still exists. Threatening to end an entire civilization of 90 million people in order to bend a nation’s conduct to your will is grossly morally wrong. It is evil. And we should say this loudly.” — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.” — Marjorie Taylor Greene, former congresswoman from Georgia (R) “Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III. It’s time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness. Enough.” — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) “Trump’s threat to bomb Iran ‘back to the stone age’ and that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ is 1000% out of sync with every moral code. To the Republican leaders: call Congress back into session NOW to stop Trump’s plan to slaughter civilians.” — Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) “The 25th amendment needs to be invoked. He is a genocidal lunatic. Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.” — Candace Owens, Republican influencer “Trump is escalating a devastating, illegal war, threatening massive war crimes and targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran. In the last 48 hours alone, the rhetoric has crossed every line. Pete Hegseth is complicit. I’ve called for the 25th Amendment and am introducing Articles of Impeachment against Hegseth.” — Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) “How we protect the lives of the innocent is just as important as how we engage the enemy. Our nation has always conducted military operations for just causes and through just and moral means. This must continue in the future; otherwise we forfeit our legitimacy to lead the world.” — Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) “This is not ok. Invoke the 25th amendment. Impeach. Remove. This unhinged lunatic must be removed from office.” — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “I’m sick to my stomach. The fate of millions of innocent civilians now depends on the whims of a sick and demented man. This is pure evil. Republicans, if there were ever a time to stand up, it’s now. We must invoke the 25th Amendment before it’s too late.” — Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) “After bombing a school and massacring young girls, the war criminal in the White House is threatening genocide. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment. This maniac should be removed from office.” — Rep. Rashida Tlaid (D-MI) “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster. I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure. ... We are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them. We’re at war with about a million of the elites, the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps], the other security forces and the people who are brutally ruling that country,” he continued. “They’re not going to give it up easy. I warned [when] the first bombs were flying that this is not going to be an easy task.” —Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) “This is a horrifying threat of genocidal war crimes. The lives of civilians and service members alike are at stake here. Congress must stop this war and remove Trump from the White House.” — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) “Donald Trump must be removed from office. Not only is he waging an illegal war—he’s threatening war crimes. To the members of our military: remember, you do not have to follow illegal orders.” — Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) “Donald Trump is an unhinged warmonger and war criminal using violence for personal gain and profit, while innocent people pay the price. We must stop this war immediately. Every member of Congress must stand up to these threats and put an end to this before more lives are lost. Congress must reconvene to pass the War Powers Resolution. The 25th Amendment must also be invoked. Congress has to do our damn job. War powers and impeachment.” — Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) “We have a completely unhinged president who is threatening massive war crimes against the Iranian people. This war was a mistake from day one. Trump lied when he said he was going to keep America out of foreign wars. He lied 3 weeks ago when he said we won the Iran war.” — Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) “Trump just threatened to slaughter 100 million people. It’s clear he’s unfit to be president, the 25th amendment must be invoked. If Vance, Rubio & the others continue to be spineless cowards, Congress must do everything possible to stop Trump & this war.” — Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) “This is a brazen pre-admission of genocide against the Iranian people, which would obviously be a war crime. Madness.” — Piers Morgan, talk show host “Donald Trump is openly threatening war crimes against the entirety of Iranian civilization. 25th Amendment proceedings must begin immediately, but if the Cabinet is too cowardly, the House should begin the impeachment process now.” — Diana DeGette (D-CO) “25th Amendment RIGHT NOW! Trump is too unhinged, dangerous, and deranged to have the nuclear codes!” — Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) “This is sick and twisted from anyone, much less the president of the United States. Trump’s genocidal language and indiscriminate warfare cannot be normalized or accepted. He should be removed from office.” — Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) “I'm there: Vance would be better. He should invoke the 25th A” — Jennifer Rubin, editor in chief of The Contrarian “ ” — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “In a political career defined by grotesque statements, this president’s horrifying, illegal, and genocidal threat this morning is among the most dangerous and appalling. You can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater and a president cannot be allowed to threaten genocide with the United States military. Threats of war crimes and disregard for human life must be met with accountability under the law. Trump must go—and Republicans, whether in the Cabinet or Congress, must join Democrats in using any and all constitutional powers at our collective disposal to end this illegal war and take the gun out of this madman’s hands.” — Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) “This is not normal. This is not just ‘Trump being Trump’. This is an insane man who is unfit for office, and needs to be removed immediately.” — Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) “Trump’s unhinged threats of violence and genocide are inexcusable. He is a warmonger, escalating the conflict for his own profit and consolidation of power. My Republican colleagues can’t keep turning a blind eye. He must be stopped and impeached.” — Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) “Trump is acting recklessly. His war with Iran has already cost American lives. This is a serious conflict, not a reality show. We need steady, diplomatic leadership. What we’re seeing now is insane behavior from a deranged president. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment.” — Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) ““I call on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “The President just threatened genocide. The Joint Chiefs of Staff must disregard any such military orders that violate federal and international law. Republicans in Congress can’t hide anymore: we must consider all options – including impeachment – to stop Trump.” — Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) “Reckless, dangerous rhetoric from the most powerful office in the world. This isn’t leadership. This is a threat to end millions of innocent lives, which would lead to catastrophic results for America and the world. Congress should pass a War Powers Resolution, and if there’s any indication President Trump will follow through on this threat, the cabinet must invoke the 25th Amendment.” — Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) “ ” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “Donald Trump is unfit to serve as the leader of the free world. That’s why I have cosponsored H. Res. 939 Articles of Impeachment to remove him from office.” — Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA) “Trump’s megalomania has reached a point that his proposed attacks tonight must be stopped. Calling for the end of Persian ‘civilization’ is a call for genocide, something so far beyond acceptable that any decent human being must oppose it. The Cabinet has the 25th Amendment to rein in this unhinged behavior and remove him from office. His actions make him unfit for office, and a disgrace to the Presidency. It is morally reprehensible for an American President to call for genocide. Our military leaders have the duty to recognize and reject unlawful orders. Trump has gone too far.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) “ ” — Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) “This is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted. To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.” — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) “Donald Trump saying a ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ is beyond reckless—it’s inhumane. No leader should speak about human lives with this kind of indifference. America should stand for peace, dignity, and responsibility—not threats that put innocent people at risk. Threatening to destroy an entire civilization is both morally indefensible and effectively a declaration of war - something a president has no authority to initiate without congressional approval. Such a blatant and unethical overreach of executive power is grounds for impeachment, which I’m calling for.” —Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-MD) “This man is threatening mass killings and war crimes on social media posts. When will enough be enough? This is why the 25th Amendment and impeachment were created. These aren’t policy differences. He is threatening crimes. It’s time to invoke the 25th. But we can’t do it alone—we need our Republican colleagues to do the right thing, for this country and for the world.” — Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) “Someone this unstable, whose behavior endangers the nation, shouldn’t remain in office. The 25th Amendment must be invoked. If Trump’s Cabinet is too cowardly to act, Congress must do its duty and begin impeachment proceedings before more damage is done.” — Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) “ ” — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new posts, enable our work, help with litigation efforts, and keep this opposition movement alive and engaged, please consider joining the fight by becoming a paid subscriber.

Apr 7, 202612 votes

‘The madness must stop now’

Apr 7, 202610 votes

‘The madness must stop now’

Apr 7, 202620 votes

The Epstein Cover-up Must End

Donald Trump has continually downplayed his relationship with child rapist and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied knowing anything about the pedophile operation preying on hundreds of girls and women, despite telling New York magazine in 2002, “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” By 2019, Trump had changed his tune. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.” Trump and his lackeys in the Justice Department have done everything possible to hinder the release of the files. Despite a law passed and signed by him, the Justice Department has not released all the files, has redacted names of conspirators and perpetrators, and has improperly released names and nude images of the victims. Now we learn — to nobody’s surprise — that Trump apparently knew much more about Epstein far earlier than he has let on. ABC News reports: A former Palm Beach, Florida, police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-2000s told the FBI he had received a call from Donald Trump at the time to say “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” according to an FBI account of an interview with the ex-police chief in 2019. . . . President Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with his former friend more than 20 years ago. The report contradicts his (and other famous men’s) professed ignorance of any wrongdoing: “TRUMP told him people in New York knew EPSTEIN was disgusting. TRUMP said [GHISLAINE] MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, ‘she is evil and to focus on her,’ the report continues. “TRUMP told [Reiter] that he was around EPSTEIN once when teenagers were present and TRUMP ‘got the hell out of there.’ TRUMP was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating EPSTEIN,” the report of Reiter’s statement said. This should trigger an onslaught of elevated public alarm, with serious legacy media covering Trump’s involvement with the worst pedophile in history. There should be incessant calls for Trump to testify under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and who else knew what was going on. (Just one example: if he knew Maxwell was “evil” for over a decade, why did he say in 2019 he “wished her well”?) In any normal timeline, Trump, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (who has facilitated the cover-up and coddled Maxwell), would be facing demands for impeachment. Subscribe now Trump is not the only one who misled the public about his connection to Epstein. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as recently as last year, denied having any contact with Epstein after 2005. Under questioning from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Tuesday, however, Lutnick admitted that in 2012, he went to Epstein’s island (with his wife, kids, and nannies). It did not end there, as the New York Times reports: The files also contain documents showing that Mr. Epstein expressed an interest in 2013 in meeting Mr. Lutnick’s nanny and had her résumé sent to him. Mr. Lutnick said Tuesday that he did not know if the nanny had met Mr. Epstein, or if she was one of the nannies Mr. Lutnick had brought to the island, adding he “had no idea what that was about.” Van Hollen wasted no time in rightly accusing Lutnick of “totally misrepresent[ing]” his contact with Epstein. “The information recently revealed shows that you had interactions with Epstein over 13 years, including long after he was convicted of soliciting the prostitution of a minor,” Van Hollen added. “That does call into question your credibility and fitness for the job.” Democrats including Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and a single Republican, Rep. Tom Massie (KY), have called on Lutnick to quit or be fired. Congress must get more serious about pursuing the truth. Andrew Weissmann makes the case in Just Security that Congress should take Maxwell’s bogus 5th Amendment claim off the table with a grant of immunity and compel her to testify. In addition, Weissmann argues: Congress can use its subpoena power to track down all known email accounts of Epstein, Maxwell and their staff, for starters. It can then turn to the numerous people who enabled his crimes, wittingly or unwittingly. That investigation may reveal wrongdoing or complicity by Democrats and Republicans. That is what apolitical investigations do. … When law enforcement obtains the contents of an email account, the emails won’t discriminate by party affiliation, unless the participants did. And we know with Epstein, he didn’t. Steve Bannon and Larry Summers, for instance, were both in his orbit. The DOJ investigation may be intended to be partisan, but it could result in revelation of bipartisan incrimination. Share Fortunately, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) went to the floor on Tuesday to reveal the names of co-conspirators whose names have been redacted. It’s time for all the names of those associated with Epstein to be made public, as the law requires. The appalling lack of action and outrage over the elite men involved with Epstein (whether they committed crimes or knew of crimes or normalized him after his plea deal) stands in dramatic contrast to European governments, which have booted out of office one politician after another. (The British government teeters on the brink of a severe crisis over the ongoing relationship between Epstein and Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States.) Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) observed earlier this week, “People are losing their jobs in England right now, it is a huge political scandal there.” He added: “I’m just afraid that the general coarsening and degradation of American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as seriously as we should be taking it.” Given the MAGA protection racket, the sloth of the media, and the catatonic Congress, we may not get all the facts out until there are Democratic majorities in the House and Senate willing to use their power to uncover every bit of available evidence. In the meantime, Bondi and Blanche should not be practicing law, let alone serving in the highest ranks of a now thoroughly discredited department. Moreover, a party unwilling to pursue justice for Epstein’s survivors and boot out predators, those who facilitated or normalized his crimes, and those who lied or covered up for them, does not deserve to hold power — now or ever. The Contrarian is community-supported. 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Mar 5, 20269 votes

The Epstein Cover-up Must End

Mar 5, 202611 votes

The Epstein Cover-up Must End

Mar 5, 202620 votes

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