In the November of 2024 presidential election, CNN exit polling indicated that Donald Trump won the support of 76 percent of voters who answered that in the past year inflation had caused their families “severe hardship.” Now, less than five months later, voters are viewing the Trump administration as failing to address this issue sufficiently. A March 27-28 CBS poll found that 64 percent of polled individuals believed the Trump administration was “not enough” focused on lowering prices.
Continue readingMarijuana is still illegal under United States law, as it was before the waves through states to first legalize marijuana for medical use and then adopt, starting in 2012, “recreational marijuana” legalization. Faced with this expanding of respect for free choice, the US government has backed off in large part, scaling down its war on marijuana effort.
Continue readingOn November 9, a few days after Donald Trump won election to return to the White House, I wrote an article titled “Defunding NPR.” In the article, I presented reasons why “a spending cut that jumps out as among the most obvious for [Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk] and the incoming Donald Trump administration to pursue is eliminating all US government support for National Public Radio (NPR) and its affiliated programing and radio stations.” Here is an update.
Continue readingA repugnant tactic of authoritarianism is categorizing people’s desire for or exercise of freedom as illness that government should suppress. An example of this was the deeming of dissidents in the Soviet Union as mentally ill to justify their detention and punishment.
Continue readingUnited States President Donald Trump is out imposing tariffs of different sorts on products from countries across the world. In many instances, the governments of countries hit by tariffs have responded with retaliatory tariffs against America. Refreshingly, it looks like the Australia government it taking the economically sound course of opting out of this “trade war.” As a result, Australians should benefit from avoiding paying a tariff tax imposed by their own government when they buy products.
Continue readingThe Donald Trump administration is offering no good reason to deport Mahmoud Khalil, who was involved in protests at Columbia University in New York City related to the Israel government and to United States government support for that government. He is not charged with a crime of violence or fraud. He is just singled out for advancing communication that challenged US foreign policy — exercising rights listed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Continue readingThe United States government does not need to give a dime to any college. But, if it does continue its funding of colleges, the First Amendment of the US Constitution bars that funding from being denied to a college because the college is determined to have insufficiently prevented speech the US government opposes, such as speech the US government deems to be critical of the Israel government.
Continue readingLast week, I wrote about experimental “vaccines” that the United States government has been working with pharmaceutical companies to develop — different ones for poultry and people. I asked if Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins, both new to their jobs in February, would stand up against this and other aspects of “the US government’s bird flu scheme ramped up during the previous presidential administration.” Here is an update.
Continue readingPresident Donald Trump’s efforts, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and otherwise, to reduce United States government spending is the focus of much attention. Indeed, in his speech Tuesday night in the US Capitol, Trump listed several expenditures his administration had uncovered that he categorized as “appalling waste.” He also declared that his administration would balance the budget, something he noted had not been accomplished in 24 years.
It was thus peculiar that Trump slipped into his over hour and a half speech a shout-out to one of the groups most notorious for involvement in massive spending by the United States government — the military-industrial complex. The shout-out, though, was likely not understood by most people. This is because Trump did not use the term “military-industrial complex.”
Continue readingThe media are overflowing with discussion using an ongoing measles infection outbreak in Texas to whip up disdain for and fear of people who have not taken vaccines. Much media coverage was similar in 2015 when there was what was referred to as the Disneyland measles outbreak. That depiction of unvaccinated people back then, Del Bigtee of Informed Consent Action network (ICAN) explains in a segment of the Thursday “The Truth About Measles” episode of his The HighWire show, turned out to be off the mark.
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