2026: Where Did All the Voters Go?

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

By Greg Palast/ GregPalast.com/ March 26, 2025

Trump-Musk Order Will Cost 21 Million Their Vote

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Continued here……“Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” will require every American who registers or re-registers to vote to prove their citizenship. The justification: Trump claims that the Democratic Party has registered three to five million non-citizen voters. But after four years of intense hunting by his Justice Department, they haven’t found three.

The Brennan Center for Justice of the New York University School of Law warned, when Trump first suggested this plan, that “the lie of non-citizen voting…could lead to the purging of hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls.” But that statement wildly underestimated Trump’s and Musk’s ambitions. “Hundreds of thousands” could be purged in a single state.

The GOP isn’t waiting. In a pre-dawn call, Gerald Griggs, the President of the NAACP of Georgia, told me that the Georgia Secretary of State is about to remove 466,000 voters from the rolls, notably, four times Trump’s “victory” margin last year.  

This follows Georgia’s request for access to the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration database — so Georgia can supposedly match its voter rolls to a list of non-citizens. Florida once used the DHS database to remove 172,000 “alien” voters. Only one (an Austrian Republican) was convicted of this crime — but thousands of “Luis Garcia’s” lost their vote.

“We tried to warn you, America,” said Griggs. “Jim Crow 2.0 has roared out of Georgia and is going national.”  

The Brennan Center reports that 21 million Americans, otherwise legal voters, don’t have access to citizenship ID, a very low estimate. All will lose their vote if they attempt to register or RE-register (as 31 million Americans do each year).  

Key facts:

  • Only 42% of white Americans — and only 34% of Black Americans — have passports to prove citizenship.
  • 69 million women who took their husband’s last name cannot use their birth certificate as proof of citizenship.
  • Military ID is NOT proof of citizenship.
  • A driver’s license is NOT proof of citizenship (except in 5 states that permit you to add citizenship to the “Real” ID card.

According to Barbara Arnwine, founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, who taught voting rights law at Columbia University, Trump and Musk are trying to get around the 10th Amendment to the Constitution which requires an act of Congress to make these changes to voting law by putting the citizenship proof requirement into the national mail-in federal registration form. This was tried in 2016 by Kris Kobach as Secretary of State of Kansas, who admitted in court that none of the 36,000 Kansans barred from voter rolls were non-citizens.

The Order also threatens the return of the infamous Interstate Crosscheck purge program. Courts had already struck down Crosscheck because it wildly tagged over three million Americans as potential “multiple” voters.  Trump’s order authorizes Musk’s DOGE hounds to go into the voter files and cross check names between the states to tag potential double voters.  But, according to Prof. Lorraine Minnite, author of The Myth of Voter Fraud, the chance of someone voting twice is far less than the chance of being killed by lightening. Nevertheless, a revived Crosscheck system would block the ballot to several hundred thousand voters.  

But don’t count on the courts, newly Trump’d, to defend your right to vote.

Posted in America, democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, elections, Elon Musk, government, politics, Republican Party | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Should Democrats Do To Rein in Trump/Musk Extremism?

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

After a two-week break Arlen joins Hal Ginsberg Tuesday on the YouTube videocast Halitics. We talked about AOC and Bernie barnstorming the country trying their best to stir up opposition to the Trump/Musk agenda. I see the recent surge in protests and opposition among the public, which pleases me and is necessary in fighting back against Trump’s policies. Hal is not satisfied with AOC and Bernie’s message and wants them to condemn Democratic Party policies more vigorously, especially their pro-Israel stance. I think it’s early and the Democrats need more time to figure out how to get the country behind them. 

Hal is upset that the Israeli onslaught against Gaza civilians is not being noticed enough or cared about. I agree, but point out the Ukraine war is getting more attention as Americans and the world worry about how far Trump will go in appeasing his buddy Putin.

We also spend time examining the anti-Tesla activity and differ about its value.

Posted in America, democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, extremism, Gaza, government, Iraq, media, politics, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

AOC: The Fight Is On!

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez travel around the country speaking to large crowds about the challenges ahead.

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Trump’s Attack on the American Mind

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

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.

By Robert Reich/ RobertReich@substack.com/ March 20, 2025

Friends,

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. 

Be warned.

Posted in America, Donald Trump, Education, politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Telling the federal judiciary to “f*ck off”

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

Will Trump defy the Supreme Court?

By Robert Reich/ March 17, 2025

Friends,

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. 

Posted in America, democracy, extremism, politics, Supreme Court, U.S. Constitution | Tagged | Leave a comment

Where Do We Go From Here, Bernie?

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

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. 

Not me. 

Us.

That is the only way forward.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

Posted in America, Congress, democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, elections, extremism, government, politics, Republican Party, U.S. Constitution | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rep. Larson Shames Republicans!!!

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

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!

Posted in America, Congress, democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, economy, Elon Musk, politics, Republican Party | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are We Heading For A Recession?

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

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)

Posted in America, democracy, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Economics, economy, political poster, politics, Republican Party, stock market, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s Really Happening? Bernie Explains…..

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

Bernie Sanders Talks About Something Missing From Washington, DC lately–It’s Called the TRUTH!

Posted in America, civil liberties, democracy, Donald Trump, government, politics, Republican Party, U.S. Constitution | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Did the Trump-Vance Ambush Work?

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Arlen Grossman

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..

Posted in America, Donald Trump, extremism, foreign policy, government, military, politics, Russia, Ukraine, Valdimir Putin, Zelenskyy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment