... and respect for facts.

As news, analysis and debate about the Trump Tariffs continues to dominate front pages, our Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay writes in the right column about a promise the president has not kept: Ending the war in Ukraine. 

Scroll down the page with the scrollbar on the far right to read Macaulay’s latest commentary on the tariffs, “Trump Trashes Trust.” On the same page, in the left column, you’ll find comments on the tariffs by contributors Hugh Hansen, Sharon Lintner and Jim McCraw. 

Scroll further down the whole page to read “Elon Musk Makes Himself Proud” by our new contributing pundit, Jerry Lanson, in the left column opposite Macaulay’s “Feel Better Yet?” in the right column. 

Scroll a bit farther to read a debate between Lanson, with “Defending Democracy is Not a Partisan Issue” on the left and Rich Corbett’s “A Partisan Weapon in Disguise” on the right. 

These issues are ripe and waiting for your civil response.

Email your civil COMMENTS on center column news & analysis, and/or any of the commentaries and opinions expressed in the right and left columns, to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (regardless of your opinion on the given issue) in the subject line.

… and respect for facts. As news, analysis and debate about the Trump Tariffs continues to dominate front […]

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

We are still reeling from the consequences of the massive Trump Taxes (a.k.a., tariffs).

Some people are saying that Trump campaigned on tariffs, so why should it be a surprise that he has imposed them?

While that is true, no one thought that they would be calculated in such an obviously ridiculous way.

Still, he said he would. He did. And now we have to deal with the consequences. 

But there is something else that he said — repeatedly — during the campaign, something that has life and death consequences.

In 2023 he told Fox News “I will have it”— the war in Ukraine — “solved within one day.”

In a CNN town hall, also in 2023, he said, “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

And he repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he would have peace in the region “while I’m still president elect.”

The war still rages.

He has spoken with Putin.

He had that hugely distasteful meeting — distasteful from the point of view that that isn’t how we treat our guests in the United States of America, particularly guests who are the leaders of a democracy that is being attacked relentlessly by a former superpower that, incidentally, has not been an ally of the United States for well over half a century — with Zelenskyy.

It is now some two-and-a-half months since Trump has been elected president.

It is more than 150 days since he was president-elect.

And the war continues.

==

On April 5, 2025, the remains of four US soldiers from the 1^st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division who died in a training exercise were returned to the US at Dover Air Force Base.

Their names are:

•Troy Knutson-Collins

•Jose Duenez Jr.

•Edvin Franco

•Dante Taitano

Donald Trump did not attend the ceremony.

Instead, he was at the LIV Golf Miami tournament held at Trump National Doral Miami.

Shameful.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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MONDAY 4/7/25

Comments from our contributing pundits …

Learning by Experience

I feel wealthier already! With Congress having cut its own hamstrings, I think most likely we'll get to learn by experience. I'm neither an economist nor a successful businessman (just like the president!) but I find it hard to imagine major "retro" industries (e.g. textile manufacturing) rebuilding in the US on as politically shaky a basis as Trump's tariffs.

--Hugh Hansen

Bleak House

Many ramifications of this Tariff War have yet to be seen. Today, tomorrow and maybe even over the next week we will make our purchases with little change noted. However, as items are restocked and this continues, we are looking at dramatic changes in our economy that may never be fixed in our lifetime. 

We have lost the feeling of security that living in America always gave us. Our future is now cloaked in fear of what comes next. It seems we cannot have faith in the stock market, and how do we even trust banks? Do we resort to putting money under the mattress and waiting to see if the economy stabilizes? This fear will lead to even more problems as people become leery of investing. 

At this point, it just seems bleak.

--Sharon Lintner

Trump Hates America

The president hates America because it did not re-elect him when it had the chance in 2020, and now he is exacting his revenge on the entire American population with these ridiculous, destructive tariffs. He and his millionaire-billionaire buddies will all be fine, because they are loaded, but the rest of us are going to suffer needlessly and for a long time to come. When did a presidential whim qualify as an emergency? What ever happened to Congress and the Supreme Court? We are screwed.

--Jim McCraw

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Welcome to civil media, where we encourage your participation in these discussions and debates. Right now, we’re especially interested in your reaction to “Liberation Day,” President Trump’s heavy tariffs imposed on our erstwhile trade partners. 

Are inevitable higher prices worth the long-term gain in US manufacturing Trump promises? Should Trump have let Bidenomics play out and claim its falling inflation and low unemployment for his own?

Email your civil COMMENTS on center column news & analysis, and/or any of the commentaries and opinions expressed in the right and left columns, to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (regardless of your opinion on the given issue) in the subject line.

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THURSDAY 4/3/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

While most of us are watching our investments and savings collapse because of the savage-yet-ridiculous tariffs that Trump and his team of economists who must have received their degrees from Trump University, there is an effect of what is going on that is getting little attention, mainly because it is hard to fathom how anything as stupid as applying wide-spread tariffs and so we are thinking more about what it is that we need to stock up on, like toilet paper (a key component of Charmin et al. is northern bleached softwood kraft pulp which mainly comes from Canada).

It is that Trump is turning many countries in the world against us.

The attacks he’s made on Canada and Mexico are unfathomable. Remember, he negotiated the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he excoriated more than the Biden family, Hillary, and every legitimate working journalist.

On January 30, 2020, after USMCA had been signed, Trump went to an auto parts plant in suburban Detroit and crowed:

“The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.  It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made, and we have others coming.”

He went on to say:

“Over the next five years, the USMCA is projected to increase purchases of American auto parts by $23 billion a year, and automotive investment by at least $34 billion.  And it’s the very first trade agreement in decades endorsed by American labor.  We even had — the unions endorsed this, the labor endorsed it.  We had tremendous support all down the line: farmers, manufacturers, labor unions.  This is a great deal and a brilliantly drawn-out deal.”

And now so far as he’s concerned, it doesn’t matter.

He’s slapping tariffs on our neighbors to the north and south.

Now prior to “Liberation Day” (liberate people from their savings?), Trump argued that he was penalizing the two countries because of illegal aliens coming across the borders and fentanyl.

While the amount of fentanyl coming from Mexico in 2024 was sizeable — there were some 21,000 pounds intercepted at the border, so presumably a whole lot more came over — the amount of fentanyl intercepted at the U.S.-Canadian border? 

Forty-three pounds.

Or 0.21% of the drug intercepted at the Mexican border.

But the question that needs to be considered is why applying punitive tariffs is a solution that could be solved by all parties doing a better job at stopping people and drugs from coming over the borders — tariffs that have negative consequences on American citizens?

Now it seems that Trump simply maintains that the rest of the world somehow owes us for simply taking part in the network of global trade.

To be sure, the US has the largest economy in the world. The nominal GDP is on the order of $30.34 trillion.

The European Union is second, at $20.29 trillion.

China is third, with a nominal GDP of $19.53 trillion.

Here’s some math that I’ll do because clearly that is also not a forte of Team Trump economists:

$20.29 trillion + $19.53 trillion = $39.82 trillion

$39.82 trillion > $30.34 trillion

Of course, this is not to suggest that the two economies would join. The EU has its troubles with China, too.

But it is to say that to the extent that Trump is pissing off people in other countries with his unhinged economics those people are likely to start cooperating in ways that they once cooperated with. . .the US.

It has been reported that China, South Korea and Japan are in discussions to create an alliance to deal with aspects of the U.S. tariffs. 

About a week ago that was nearly unimaginable.

Trump will go away at some point. Let’s say he’s replaced by the most internationalist president possible.

What is the likelihood that the rest of the world will have trust in the United States?

Not high.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. His columns also appear in our Substack newsletter.

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Tariff on Canadian Fentanyl?

Yes, that’s a thing. At least, it’s a thing Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called out in the Senate’s 51-48 vote on a joint resolution the libertarian politician co-sponsored with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) to end the Trump administration’s “emergency” tariffs on various Canadian goods in reaction to fentanyl coming south across the border into the US. 

Without naming Trump, Paul said; “One of the social media posts today said there was going to be a tariff on fentanyl. Really? Do you think the drug dealers are going to pay a tariff on fentanyl? Fentanyl’s not being tariffed.”

•••

That’s social media for you. This is civil media, and we invite – even encourage – your participation in these discussions and debates. Email your civil COMMENTS on center column news & analysis, and/or any of the commentaries and opinions expressed in the right and left columns, to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (regardless of your opinion on the given issue) in the subject line.

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FRIDAY 4/4/25
THURSDAY 4/3/25

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

A few days ago, he announced that in just two weeks he’ll be close to cutting $1 trillion from the federal government. It’s a dubious claim. Musk lies a good bit, and the courts are slowing his most egregious moves.

What’s more, cutting jobs doesn’t always mean saving money. Crippling reductions in the Internal Revenue staff, for example, could cause the government to collect 10% less in taxes in 2025, The Washington Post reports. That translates to $500 billion.

But for the moment, let’s grant Musk his not-so-little lie. Let’s instead focus on the fact that his slash-and-burn tactics could hurt the country for decades.

The timing of this assessment matters because Musk blanketed Wisconsin with money and braggadocio for days in advance of Tuesday’s vote for a new Supreme Court justice there. He himself became a central campaign issue.

So what has DOGE – his infamous Department of Government Efficiency – actually done?

I would argue that its record is not pretty, though it can be hard to parse where DOGE ends and agency-inspired reshuffling starts. What’s clear, however, is that parts of the American government are beginning to look like the rubble of the Myanmar earthquake.

Social Security

Musk’s DOGE wants to reduce the agency’s workforce by 7,000 workers. It is already at its lowest level in 50 years. Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley warns that the odds of a “system collapse” are high. More cuts may yet come.

The Brookings Institute writes that individual retirement accounts could be targeted, an ominous warning.

“Earnings records could be erased or altered – either maliciously or by accident,” it writes. “A president intent on retribution, for example, could manipulate the earnings records of a political opponent.”

Nearly 70 million people receive some form of Social Security. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested recently that only “fraudsters” would complain about a late check. Yet 40% of recipients rely exclusively on their Social Security checks to survive. Fraudsters?

Health Care

The Trump administration announced plans last Thursday to cut 20,000 workers in the Department of Health and Human Services, just shy of a quarter of its employees nationwide, NPR reported. The agency, headed by vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and more.

Science and Research

Broad-based cuts in scientific and health research at universities and specialized institutions could undermine American progress and our ability to compete in areas such as AI and medical research for many years.

Nature magazine reported that a survey of more than 1,600 American scientists and researchers found that three-quarters are considering leaving the United States, most to work in Canada or Europe.

“Ask economists which of the administration’s policies they are most concerned about and many point to cuts to federal support for scientific research,” The New York Times reported Monday. “The Trump administration in recent weeks has canceled or frozen billions of dollars in federal grants made to researchers through the NIH and has moved to sharply curtail funding for academic medical centers and other institutions. It has also tried to fire hundreds of workers at the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency. And it has revoked visas of hundreds of foreign-born students. To economists, the policies threaten to undermine US competitiveness … and to leave Americans as a whole, poorer, less healthy and less productive in the decades ahead.”

Education

The Trump administration wants to shutter the Department of Education, censor books in schools and clamp down on university curricula. 

“One day they are dismantling the department [of Education], the next day they are weaponizing it,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said on Boston’s WGBH radio Tuesday. 

The Department of Education, which began in 1979, has a budget of about $100 billion. When it shuts down, services at risk will include Pell Grants that help support lower-income college students; assistance in applying for federal loans; support for students with disabilities in grades K-12; and programs intended to help school districts with disproportionate numbers of low-income students.

“This is about dismantling and abolishing what gives kids opportunity,” Weingarten said.

Veterans Affairs

Joy Marver spent 22 years serving the US government. Until a week ago, the disabled veteran was working at the Veterans Administration near Minneapolis helping retrain soldiers for civilian work and coordinating veteran burials. Then, abruptly, she got fired.

The New York Times told Marver’s story Sunday in a touching narrative titled, “She Devoted Her Life to Serving the US. Then DOGE targeted her.” Marver is one of 80,000 employees, many of them veterans, the agency plans to fire this year. The NYT noted that she suffered traumatic brain injury in Iraq. Helping others has helped her on her long road to recovery. She won an employee of the month award and was hailed as a “great employee” in October.

But Musk and his DOGE boys don’t look at people. They look at numbers, revel as they slash the bureaucracy and often demean those they’ve fired without knowing anything about them. Marver’s firing shook her to the core.

Other veterans are losing jobs, losing access to much-needed care and losing the respect they’ve clearly earned. CNN reports that the agency is considering automating call centers that veterans use to set up appointments.

“Veterans in need of life-saving care and compassion should be met with a person who understands their needs and can provide them the information and resources they seek, not a lifeless machine, a Democratic congressional staff member told CNN.

USAID

The overwhelming majority of employees at the United States Agency for International Development will have lost their jobs by this summer, CBS News reports. The agency for six decades has had bipartisan support in fighting disease and supporting development in poorer countries around the world. Its assistance also spreads good will for the United States.

Its elimination (it’s officially being absorbed by the State Department) already has had catastrophic results. Writes CNN: “More than 11,000 additional TB (tuberculosis) patients are estimated to have died in the two months since almost all USAID funding froze on January 24.” TB infections are expected to rise roundly 30% this year as a result of the cuts. That’s a single disease.

The program’s demise also has hurt American farmers – heavily Trump voters – who sold surplus grains to USAID.

Looking Ahead

If you are a numbers person and remain unmoved by these bullet points, consider the economic impact of both DOGE cuts and Trump’s tariffs.

1. Economists increasingly are talking about stagflation – rising prices and rising unemployment. The CNBC Rapid Update, an average of economists’ forecasts, projects a sickly 0.3% increase in growth in the first quarter of 2025. It was 2.3% in the last quarter of last year.

“Economic growth has flatlined so far this year,” writes Axios. “Inflation has picked up. And consumers expect both to get worse.”

• The Washington Post quotes economists who said the sweeping tariffs Donald Trump promises to impose this week will amount to the largest peacetime tax hike in US history.
• The stock market remains shaky. 
• Donald Trump regularly praises Hungary and its autocratic leader. An interesting article in The Atlantic notes the country has become one of the poorest countries in the European Union. Productivity is dropping. Unemployment is climbing. And two-thirds of citizens describe the national education system as “bad.”

Maybe our “co-bros,” Trump and Musk, need a new model of good government.

My thanks to Taegan Goddard and his excellent website, politicalwire.com, which brought many of the articles referenced here to my attention.

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Commentary Fodder

Are you taking President Trump’s comments seriously on his potentially running for a third term? 

Are you watching Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which pits an Elon Musk-backed candidate against a George Soros-backed candidate? 

What about Wednesday, which President Trump calls “liberation day” because he is imposing a 25% tariff on all imported autos? Good or bad for the economy? 

This potentially is a big week for reader comments. But first, you have to comment after reading. 

Email your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line, so we may post them in the proper column. 

And be sure to read our Substack newsletter here.

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MONDAY 3/31/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

So how has Trump made things better for the average American?

Wasn’t that the reason why many people voted for him, because he promised them a Golden Age?

It was that and his deporting illegal aliens, a cadre of people whom, if you listen to him, are all murders, rapists and drug-addicts/peddlers.

As Adrian Carrasquillo reports in the Huddled Masses newsletter, on March 26 representatives of the American Business Immigration Council had meetings with members of Congress. Carrasquillo quotes Matt Teagarden, CEO of the 5,600-member Kansas Livestock Association, which is likely not some radical group, saying, “We either import workers or we import our food.”

What seems to be overlooked in the discussion of undocumented people is that according to information from the American Immigration Council, a large percentage of them work in agriculture. And based on Teagarden’s comment, they work in meat-processing, too.

While it might seem from the rhetoric of Team Trump that these people are “taking Americans’ jobs,” according to the most-recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in the US is 4.1%, which is essentially full employment.

Arguably there aren’t a whole lot of Americans available to take those jobs and the real question is how many of them would be willing to do that work.

When Trump was elected in November 2024 the Consumer Price Index — a gauge based on “a basket” of products people regularly buy — was at 2.7%. In February 2025, the CPI is 2.8%. Yes, a 0.1% increase, but not a 0.1% decrease.

This week there are supposed to be 25% tariffs on all vehicles imported to the US. Imports accounted for approximately 50% of all cars and trucks purchased by Americans in 2024.

So if 50% have an increased price (likely some percentage of 25%) and people suddenly buy the vehicles that aren’t imported, don’t the laws of supply and demand have it that those domestic products are going to get more expensive, too?  After all, a car dealer who sees increased interest in the non-tariffed cars isn’t going to simply sell them at sticker, as we saw during the COVID crisis.

Another thing that isn’t typically thought about — but will be — are those 25% tariffs that are applied to imported steel and aluminum. About 47% of the aluminum used in the US was imported. So given that, this means that things like beer cans are going to be getting more expensive.

And so will beer. According to the Beer Institute, about 18% of the beer consumed in the US is imported. Add tariff costs to that and. . . .

(Beer, incidentally, is an excellent case of why, despite what Team Trump says, other countries aren’t ripping off America. People just like the taste of Modelo, Heineken, Guinness, etc. So they buy it. No one is forcing them to drink it. Will making it more expensive make it taste any less good to them — or will it serve to drive up inflation?)

And then there are all of those DOGE activities that are (1) increasing the number of people unemployed (how is that good?) and (2) knee-capping the services that regular Americans depend on — like having someone at Social Security answer the phone.

Elon Musk may claim “waste, fraud and abuse” are rife.

But consider this: if you worked in an office, there was probably “that guy” who pilfered supplies. It wasn’t the whole staff. Just that guy. And you can pretty much be certain that whether it is a grocery store or any other product-based business you can think of, it is “that guy” who is doing dubious things, not everyone.

So why is it that literally thousands of people at various agencies are losing their jobs rather than “that guy”? Because it seems that Musk et. al. fail to understand that the US government is a service business and cutting services will reduce the amount of money spent but it will also reduce the purpose of the enterprise.

Isn’t answering a phone in a Social Security office “mission critical” when the mission is serving the people on the other end of the line?

Trump has intimated that before the wonders of tariffs kick in that Americans may “feel some pain.” The pain will be real. The wonders will be fanciful.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings, writing primarily for the right column.

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MONDAY 3/31/25

Is there any defense for the use of the Signal app to discuss war plans for the US military attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen March 15? The Trump White House so far has reacted primarily by attacking Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic for accepting an invite on Signal from national security advisor Mike Waltz to tune in for the planning on the messaging app, instead of holding the meeting in a sensitive compartmentalized information facility (SCIF) as is required for military actions that place our troops in harm’s way.

Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay has something to say about Signalgate in the right column. Whether you agree or disagree, whether from the right or left, we want to further this discussion. 

Join the debate by emailing your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news, and please, indicate your political leanings (which do not have to align with your opinion) in the subject line (e.g., “I lean left” or “I lean right”).

For more analysis and commentary, please visit our Substack page.

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THURSDAY 3/27/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

In case you missed this from the official White House website:

“Democrats and their media allies have seemingly forgotten that President Donald J. Trump and his National Security team successfully killed terrorists who have targeted US troops and disrupted one of the most consequential shipping routes in the world. This is a coordinated effort to distract from the successful actions taken by President Trump and his administration to make America’s enemies pay and keep Americans safe.” (Emphasis not added by The Hustings. The White House evidently thinks you might miss it without it being put in bold face.)

Regarding what is now being called “Signalgate” there is no coordinated effort to distract anyone from anything. Well, maybe there’s the Team Trump attempts to distract at how horrible this situation is.

Never mind the administration officials’ use of a free, open-source app that you can get for your Apple or Android phone, was used for a group chat said to be including:

• Michael Waltz, national security advisor
• Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense
• Marco Rubio, secretary of state
• John Ratcliffe, CIA director
• JD Vance, vice president
• Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence
• Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff
• Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff
• Steve Witkoff, special envoy for the Middle East and Ukraine

Yes, we’re talking the Full Monty.

Oh, and of course, also in the group chat:

• Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic

Goldberg was a class act, hesitating to take the lid off this rancid mess.

But then Team Trump being Team Trump, what did they do?

Smear Goldberg.

Today, Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, called Goldberg an “anti-Trump hater” and that it is simply the “Signal hoax.”

That’s right: Providing information before the fact about an attack on “terrorists who have targeted U.S. troops” on an app is Goldberg’s fault.

Michael Waltz, who created the group for the chat and who included Goldberg, called the journalist “scum.”

Pete Hegseth typed in information prior to the attack not only about the equipment, but even the weather.

Yet he sluffs off any responsibility for doing something wrong.

The level of incompetence of these people is breathtaking.

And let’s not forget that US Attorney General Pam Bondi says that people who are vandalizing Teslas, Tesla chargers, or Tesla stores are committing acts of “domestic terrorism.”

Not only does this trivialize the charge of “terrorism,” but it is done for one reason only: Elon Musk.

Press Secretary Leavitt said on Fox News of Trump: “He will ensure that the harshest penalties are pursued for those who are engaging in this vicious violence.”

Do you think if someone took a crowbar to every windshield of vehicles parked in your local Ford dealer’s lot it would garner the attention of the president of the United States?

Clearly, being “mission critical” isn’t something that applies to Team Trump.

How is it they “keep Americans safe” by holding a group chat that provides specifics about an attack on real terrorists before the fact? Aren’t they putting the servicepeople who were flying the planes in danger by providing operational detail on the app?

Nobody is distracting anyone from this absolute cluster that occurred among most of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. government.

Trump called Waltz “a very good man.”

Perhaps he is. Perhaps he brushes twice daily, flosses, and goes to church every Sunday.

But Waltz is evidently a man who is in well over his head. And Hegseth preens and postures even though this whole situation is, to borrow a military term, FUBAR.

Which may be qualifications for serving on Team Trump.

Just imagine if this happened on Biden’s watch.

Trump would have broken the “caps lock” function on his phone banging out screeds on Truth Social.

On January 27 Trump signed an Executive Order related to the US military that reads, in part:

“Success in this existential mission requires a singular focus on developing the requisite warrior ethos, and the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”

The “pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas.”

If all of the denials, obfuscations, coverups, and out-right lies being told about the Signal fiasco isn’t a political agenda that has consequences regarding our military excellence, then it is hard to know what is.

By the way, there is something called the “Federal Records Act,” which is codified in Title 44 of the United States Code. It is a law.

It is a law for the perseveration of federal records.

According to the National Archives, “Federal records have value by protecting the rights and interests of the public, holding officials accountable for their actions, and documenting our nation's history.”

“Holding officials accountable for their actions.”

One of the features of the Signal messaging app? “Disappearing messages.”

After a set time, all messages on the app can be automatically deleted.

Poof!

So do you think that group of individuals was using Signal rather than, say, WhatsApp because they think it sounds more serious?

Or because they’d like their messages to disappear?

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. His columns also appear on our Substack.

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THURSDAY 3/27/25

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

I went to New York City this week for a few days’ vacation. By the time I got back, Donald Trump’s Defense Department had stripped articles about the Holocaust and 9/11 from its website. His acting head of Social Security was threatening to shut down the agency that provides me and some 73 million others with monthly checks. And Trump had moved to dismantle the Department of Education, the source of programs ranging from educational support for public school students with disabilities to loans and grants for college students. 

There’s much more cutting and outright obliteration to come, of course. It seems to be the only certainty in American politics today. 

That’s why we all need to put aside the imprecise political definitions that too often serve to separate us from one another. Instead, we need to work together to restore the very foundations of our democracy.  I’m not interested in whether you define yourself as a liberal, a conservative or a libertarian. I don’t care whether you are a progressive, a moderate, or something else.  I do care whether you are serious about being pro-American – the kind of pro-American who believes in the constitutional, democratic form of government that has allowed the United States, with all its imperfections, to be a model for the world for many decades.

Do Not Ignore

If you embrace the Constitution, there’s no honest way to shrug as the Trump administration attempts to obliterate or rewrite history.  There’s no way to ignore the potential theft of Social Security benefits from recipients who saved them throughout a lifetime of work. There’s no way to stand silent as the government strips agency after agency of the capacity to provide basic national support, from predicting deadly storms to tracking the spread of disease.

It's true. There’s a difference between a threat and an action. When CNN reports that “articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites,” the network is reporting on an action.

When, as The Washington Post reports, the acting head of the Social Security Administration is “consulting with the … Justice Department as he threatens to shut down the agency …. A dramatic move [that]… would immediately begin halting benefit payments to millions of Americans,” it is reporting on a threat.  A very sizable threat.

The pace of both actions and threats in the first two months of the Trump Administration is unprecedented.  Judges threatened with impeachment for doing their jobs in a co-equal branch of government, universities threatened with the loss of hundreds of millions in federal funds, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stripped of their security clearances.

Is this the democracy you learned about in American history classes?  Is it the kind of America you want to live in?

“The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America,” former federal judge J. Michael Luttig told MSNBC (he’s a conservative if you insist on embracing labels). “In the past few weeks… the president himself has led a full-frontal assault on the Constitution.”

Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political science professor and the co-author of How Democracies Die, put it this way in an interview with The New York Times.  “I’ve never seen anything like it…. These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”

That is why in today’s United States there is only one political fault-line that carries overriding importance. On one side are those who believe in democracy and the Constitution in this country. On the other are those who actively or passively support their destruction.

None of us individually can stop what’s happening. Collectively, we stand a chance. I urge you to attend public forums, show up at congressional town hall meetings, find your way to one of the mass protests being planned across the country on April 5. 

And I urge you to speak out, not hide behind the illusory safety of silence. That just allows things to slide further and faster toward the abyss of unchallenged authoritarianism.

Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson writes Jerry’s Substack.

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MONDAY 3/24/25

Commentary by Rich Corbett

The pitch that defending democracy is a noble, non-partisan cause is a comforting tale, but it’s not the last word on the matter. Instead of uniting us, this slogan has become a partisan bludgeon, swung by one side to hammer the other. Look at the hysteria over Social Security: warnings of an "assault" on this retiree lifeline get paraded as evidence of democracy in peril. It’s a scare tactic, not a shared mission, showing how the concept gets twisted into a political weapon.

Take that claim head-on. Proposals to tweak Social Security—like adjusting eligibility or benefits—are spun as full-scale attacks, proof of democratic sabotage. Yet these ideas often aim to keep the program viable amid real pressures, like an aging workforce. If defending democracy were truly bipartisan, wouldn’t we debate fixes instead of shouting betrayal? The one-sided outrage betrays the game: it’s a rallying cry to energize one faction while branding opponents as threats, not a call for common ground.

The hypocrisy stretches further. When one camp decries election security laws as voter suppression, it’s a crisis of democratic values. When the other side calls out Big Tech censorship or executive overreach—like rules shoved through without Congress—the same voices shrug. If this were a neutral fight, both concerns would matter. Instead, "defending democracy" amplifies selective fears—Social Security today, something else tomorrow—to let one side play savior while painting rivals as villains.

The bias runs deep. The argument props up a "free" press and "independent" judiciary as democratic cornerstones, but a press skewed one way, as bias studies show, isn’t free—it’s a mouthpiece. A judiciary’s independence is a partisan tug-of-war, too, with every appointment a battle. When these institutions echo certain alarms, they’re not safeguarding democracy—they’re picking winners.

The "defend democracy" line assumes we all see it the same way. We don’t. Some view entitlements like Social Security as untouchable; others see reform as survival. Some push majority rule; others guard minority rights. These gaps don’t unite us—they fuel the fight. Democracy isn’t a holy grail to protect; it’s a ring where partisan armies, armed with overblown claims, slug it out.

This vision of a bipartisan defense of democracy is a delusion. It’s a catchphrase hijacked by those who gain from fearmongering, whether over cherished programs or other hot buttons. Unity starts with owning the messiness of democracy—not pretending it’s a saintly ideal we all agree to save.

Corbett writes on a variety of subjects at My Desultory Blog.

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Has the US already descended into authoritarianism after barely more than two months of President Trump’s (and Elon Musk’s) rule? In the left column, contributing pundit Jerry Lanson makes the case for how we are now under authoritarian rule and why you should care – and fight back – no matter how you identify politically.

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MONDAY 3/24/25