Behind his closure of the Education Department, his assault on higher education, on science, and on libraries and museums, lie the oligarchs of the techno-state.
Today, Trump is dismantling the Department of Education. He’s ordering wrestling executive-turned-Education Secretary Linda McMahon to shut her department.
His executive order will effectively destroy a $100 billion-a-year executive department created by Congress under President Jimmy Carter 45 years ago.
But there’s a much larger plan here.
Combine this with Trump’s attacks on higher education — his gutting the funding of the National Institutes of Health (which provides a large portion of biomedical research) and the National Science Foundation (engineering and computer research), and his effective closure of USAID (which underwrites research in global diseases).
Put this together with Trump’s (and RFK Jr.’s) attacks on vaccine science,
Combine this with Trump’s attacks on the freedom of speech of university students and professors.
And Trump’s and rightwing governors’ attacks on teaching the truth in our schools about America’s history of slavery and Native American genocide.
Put this together with Trump’s attack on America’s libraries — last week’s executive order mandating cuts in the funding of libraries around the country — which will jeopardize literacy development and reading programs, reliable internet access for those without it at home, and homework help and other resources for students and educators.
Combine this with his attacks on America’s museums (the same executive order cut their funding, too). And his attack on the arts, as illustrated by Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center (last month, he announced himself its new chair, replaced 13 board members, and inserted a new interim president).
What’s the larger picture? What’s the overall purpose?
Not to mount an “attack on the liberal state,” as I keep reading. Not “a culmination of Trump’s culture wars.” Or that Trump seeking “small government” over “big government,” or is advancing traditional conservatism over traditional liberalism.
What’s really occurring is an attack on the American mind.
Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited slaves from learning to read. Nazi’s burned books.
Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.
Those who believe in democracy, on the other hand, have been at the forefront of the movement for free, universal public education; and for public libraries, museums, and the arts. They understand that democracy depends on people knowing what’s occurring around them and having the capacity to deliberate critically about it.
Trump is only the frontman in this attack on the American mind.
The attack is really coming from the anti-democracy movement: From JD Vance; and from Vance’s major financial backer, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who staked $15 million on Vance’s Ohio senatorial election in 2022 and helped convince Trump to make Vance vice president; and from Thiel’s early business partner, Elon Musk.
Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Hello? Freedom is incompatible with democracy only if you view democracy as a potential constraint on your wealth and power.
Behind Vance and Musk is a libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers, and disaffected far-right intellectuals.
Curtis Yarvin comes as close as anyone as being their intellectual godfather. He has written that political power in the United States is held by a liberal amalgam of universities and the mainstream media whose commitment to equality and justice is eroding America’s social order.
In Yarvin’s view, democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful. They should be replaced with sovereign joint-stock corporations whose major “shareholders” select an executive with total power, who serves at their pleasure.Yarvin refers to the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime.
Make no mistake: Trump’s attack on the American mind — on education, science, libraries, and museums — is an attack on the capacity of Americans for self-government.
It is coming from the oligarchs of the techno-state who believe democracy is inefficient, and want to replace it with an authoritarian regime replete with technologies they control.
Sorry to intrude on your inboxes for a second time today, but it’s necessary.
After a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence by 5 pm today about whether the White House had violated the court’s order in deporting migrants with little to no due process, so-called border czar Tom Homan said that flights would continue regardless. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “I don’t care what the judges think.”
In our system, judges don’t just “think.” They have the final say, unless their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court, in which case the high court’s majority has the final final say.
This afternoon, it became apparent that Trump’s Justice Department shares Homan’s odd view of our judicial system. DOJ lawyers filed papers telling the judge they would not appear in court, that the administration would not provide any further information about the deportation flights, and that the court should vacate the hearing.
What’s going on here?
On Sunday night, Trump told reporters that a federal judge in California who ordered the administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers was “putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes.”
Wrong. In our system of government, courts pass judgment on actions of a president and the executive branch. Court don’t put themselves in the position of a president. They act as the Constitution empowers them to act — as a co-equal branch of government. If the executive branch doesn’t agree with what a lower-court judge decides, it can appeal to a higher court and ultimately to the Supreme Court.
Trump isn’t the only one to make this mistake. In early February, Trump’s vice-president JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” It was an odd statement from someone who has studied at one of America’s preeminent law schools — and it was logically absurd, since it’s up to judges and — if their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court — justices to determine a president’s “legitimate power.”
Let’s be clear. Trump has openly violated numerous laws and constitutional provisions — such ending birthright citizenship; giving associates of Elon Musk’s government-slashing effort access to a sensitive Treasury Department system; transferring transgender female inmates to male prisons; placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave; and effectively dismantling U.S.A.I.D. and folding it into the State Department. In response, federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump orders from taking effect.
But not until today has Trump or his regime openly and blatantly refused to follow a judge’s order.
What happens when this or another lower court ruling goes to the Supreme Court, and the high court rules against Trump?
Vance has said if this occurs, Trump should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
Never mind that the quote attributed to Jackson is, as one scholar has noted, “probably apocryphal.” It’s heard more and more from Trump appointees these days, as exemplified by Homan’s remark, and this afternoon’s Justice Department filing.
Trump’s appointments in his second term are having the opposite effect of his first-term appointees. In first term, they restrained him somewhat. The Justice Department’s top brass threatened to resign en mass if he appointed as Attorney General the one assistant attorney general who was prepared to sell his soul to Trump and say the 2020 election was stolen from him.
This time, his appointees are magnifying his worst instincts. Rather than act as guardrails, they are egging Trump on.
Many people wonder if we’re in a “constitutional crisis.” Definitions of that phrase vary considerably as do opinions about whether we’re in one now.
My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court.
If and when he does, we’ll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets.
The Best Politician in America Tells Us What Americans Need To Do Next–TBPR Editor
By Bernie Sanders/ BernieSanders.com/ May 15, 2025
Yesterday, I voted NO on a terrible Continuing Resolution bill – written by right-wing Republicans in the House with no input from anybody but themselves.
This bill moves our country toward authoritarianism by usurping Congress‘s constitutional responsibility to determine how federal funds are spent, and creates a slush fund for Elon Musk and Donald Trump to continue their war against the working families of our country. This bill puts more and more power into the hands of the White House.
In order to pass this bill the Republicans needed 60 votes – which meant they had to have seven votes from Democrats – and they got them. Actually they got ten. That is sad and a real failure on the part of Democratic leadership. NOBODY in the Senate should have voted for this dangerous bill.
But that’s only part of what’s going on right now.
As I’m sure you know Trump, Musk and the Republican Party are going after Social Security, cutting thousands of jobs at the Social Security administration.
They are going after Medicaid, trying to cut the program by over $800 billion dollars. That means millions of kids are going to lose their health care. It means if your mom and dad are in a nursing home, they’re going to be in trouble because 2/3 of people in nursing homes are supported by Medicaid.
They are going after the Veterans Administration and want to cut over 80,000 workers at the VA, which means our veterans will get lower quality health care.
They’re going after public education, nutrition assistance programs and regulations to protect us from polluters and corporate crooks – and on and on it goes.
And why do they want to cut all of these programs that are so important to the working families of our country?
The answer is very simple: they want to give massive tax cuts to the richest people in America. In their program, they are going to give over $1 trillion to the top 1%, paid for by cuts to programs working people rely on to survive.
It’s the Robin Hood principle in reserve. They’re taking from the poor and working people and giving to the very rich.
And if you think my Republican colleagues lose a minute of sleep thinking about all of the harm they will cause for families across the country in the process, you would be mistaken.
So. Where do we go from here?
First, we have to understand that the economic and political crises facing our country will NOT be solved in Washington, DC. The system is just too corrupt. As a result of Citizens United billionaires in both parties are able spend unlimited sums of money buying and selling politicians – and that’s what they do. Further, on any given day, thousands of corporate lobbyists roam the halls of Congress doing the bidding of their corporate masters.
The ONLY way that real change ever takes place is from the bottom on up. It’s when millions of people, at the grassroots level, reject the status quo and stand up for justice and decency. And the good news is that we’re beginning to see that happen right now – all across the country. Seniors in large numbers are telling Congress: don’t cut the Social Security Administration. Veterans and their organizations are telling Congress: don’t cut the Veterans Administration. Students are telling Congress: don’t cut Pell grants and student loans.
And large numbers of people are coming out to town meetings – and taking on members of Congress who are prepared to vote against their interests.
Over the past several weeks I’ve held a series of town meetings in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. And what I have found is that in these districts, and all across the country, Americans are saying loudly and clearly: NO to oligarchy, NO to authoritarianism, NO to kleptocracy, NO to massive cuts in programs that working people desperately need, NO to huge tax breaks for the richest people in our country.
Next week, as part of our Fighting Oligarchy tour I, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive members of Congress, will be holding events in Nevada, Colorado and Arizona. And that’s just the beginning.
There must be meetings and rallies in all 50 states, and they should take place over and over again. And when those rallies are over, we need to organize the people who attend to mobilize in their communities and be in touch with their members of Congress.
But that is not all.
We need progressives to run for office at all levels. I am talking about school boards, city councils, state legislature and the races that are not in the news but make a tremendous difference in local communities.
We need to build community and bring people together even when it isn’t about politics first. The Republican Party is always trying to divide us up based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and more… we need to come together as one.
We need to elect a U.S. House and a U.S. Senate that will prioritize the needs of the working people in this country. We now have open Senate seats in Minnesota, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Who are the progressives that are going to run, and how can we support them? There are also a number of House seats that can be won.
Further, we need to be looking for new and creative ways to educate each other in a world where nearly the entire media and communications infrastructure is owned and controlled by the wealthiest people in this country.
If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, this is that time.
One of the best speeches by a congressman you will ever hear!
Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT) called out his Republican colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee before they voted to block his Resolution of Inquiry into the Trump-Musk plan to gut Social Security. https://youtu.be/0MJDxvPL-EI?feature=shared Don’t miss this!
Wall Street is clearly worried about tariffs and the harm they can do to the economy. On my weekly appearance on the YouTube video podcast Halitics, I make the case that the market is in near recession territory with worries about President Trump’s insistence on ever-changing tariffs. Host Hal Ginsberg doesn’t like Trump’s policies overall, though he recognizes the possible benefits of tariffs. Both of us would like to see the Democratic Party pushing back harder. We also talk about the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil just for leading non-violent pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, which seems like a protected free-speech right. Trump has vowed to prosecute student protesters for expressing anti-Israel sentiment, another of the many assaults on our Constitutional rights. (Halitics videocast had to be adjusted due to copyright issues)
The insane press conference in the White House Friday was all over the news, so Hal Ginsberg and I reflected on it during my weekly (now Tuesday) appearance on Hal’s YouTube videocast Halitics. The discussion got heated when I said Trump and VP Vance were disrespectful to Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and we’ve now flipped over to Putin’s side. Hal contends that Ukraine needs to cooperate with Putin in order to get a peace treaty to halt the costly and destructive war. Hal blames the Biden administration and Ukraine for resisting negotiations. I remind Hal that it was Putin and Russia who started this war, and Putin has a record of not following through on previous treaties..
The former President of Poland Lech Wałęsa wrote the following letter to Donald Trump:
Your Excellency, Mr. President,
We watched your conversation with President Zelensky with fear and distaste. It is insulting that you expect Ukraine to show gratitude for U.S. material aid in its fight against russia.
Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who have been shedding their blood for over 11 years to defend the free world’s values and their homeland, attacked by Putin’s russia.
How can the leader of a country symbolizing the free world fail to recognize this?
The Oval Office atmosphere during your conversation reminded us of interrogations by the Security Services and Communist courts. Back then, prosecutors told us they held all the power while we had none.
They stripped us of our freedoms for refusing to cooperate or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Zelensky was treated in a similar manner.
History shows that when the U.S. distanced itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately endangered itself.
Wilson understood this in 1917 when the U.S. joined WWI. Roosevelt knew it after Pearl Harbor in 1941—realizing that defending America meant fighting in both the Pacific & Europe.
Without President Reagan and U.S. financial support, the Soviet empire’s collapse would not have been possible. Reagan called the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and confronted it decisively.
We won, and today, his statue stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy.
Mr. President, military and financial aid cannot be equated with the blood shed for Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the world.
Human life is priceless. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and freedom—something self-evident to us, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet russia.
We urge the U.S. to uphold the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s borders in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons.
These guarantees are unconditional—nowhere do they suggest such aid is a mere economic transaction.
Signed,
Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, Solidarity leader, President of Poland
Keith Olbermann makes a strong case that by aligning with Putin’s Russia and moving apart from Europe’s democracies, Donald Trump has upended the world order. Democrats and Republicans in Congress are too afraid of Trump and Musk to resist. Will Putin (with the help of China) be able to roll over Europe in the manner of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s? Who will stop them? We can’t rely on the U.S. government…..
EASON 3 EPISODE 105: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
TRANSCRIPT
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has just lost World War Three.
Trump listens to Musk maybe because he recognizes Musk is more insane than he is. Musk literally wants to own and rule the world. Musk just demanded this country withdraws from NATO. Other Muskers and Trumpers are following. If we leave NATO its remaining members will turn into a private hunting ground for Putin, or China, or both. Eventually he or they will run out of European countries to destroy and subsume and he or they will turn to destroying us.
As Senator Chris Murphy said yesterday: “The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin.” It’s that simple. Trump is the Russian Commissar of America.
And he’s already lost World War Three – and evidently so have the British. Back home, Prime Minister Starmer did the unthinkable, met Zelensky not at the front door of Number 10 but he went INTO Downing Street to embrace him on the sidewalk. The front page of yesterday’s far right tabloid the Daily Mail headlined “outrage over U-S President’s humiliation of Zelensky” and insisted “Now stop the state visit for Bully Trump.” Demanded the British WITHDRAW their invitation for Trump to go there. But within hours their ambassador here undid all of that. Lord Peter Mandelson went on ABC This Week here and called for a “very radical re-set” that “has to consist of the United States and Ukraine getting back on the same page and President Zelensky giving his unequivocal backing to the initiative that Trump is taking to end the war and to bring a just and lasting peace to Ukraine.” Europe’s nations “need to back the calls for a ceasefire and by the way I think that Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow.”
Hey, Lord Mendacious? Forgotten already? Zelensky already signed a cease-fire with Putin. Signed in 2019. Putin broke it in 2022.
200,000 guys named Lord Gaseous and Sir Toby Belch and they sent the one who sounds most like Neville Chamberlain. The British are defending Zelensky but their Ambassador just surrendered to Hitler. I mean Trump. No, Hitler. It’s impossible to believe the Prime Minister hasn’t fired Mandelson already (“recalled” is the polite term; “vaporized” would be the accurate one). Regardless the schism is present and the schism is a repeat, a throwback, a re-enactment of 1938, where as Churchill said the British leaders had a choice between shame and war. They have chosen shame, they will get war later. The war THEY got later was World War Two.
The war WE will get later will be World War THREE.
We will have to go to war – the real thing, none of this Iraq bullshit – the real thing, millions dead – not just to free Europe and all the other places who thought we understood that the world is simply successfully managed tension between the forces of more-or-less-good and the forces of the Putins, Hitlers, Musks, Trumps, Chamberlains, and Mandelsons… not just to free them but to save whatever’s left of this nation after the headstart Trump and Musk are giving, right now, as we speak, to Putin and China.
Thus I’ll repeat what I said in the bulletin after the pre-planned performative and nauseating ambush of Zelensky last Friday: Trump has not only imperiled the freedom of the United States of America AND the existence of Ukraine AND the independence of all the nations of Europe he has also lost all moral right to keep power in this country and he must lose that power.
thebigpicturereport ™ 