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This Saturday, all those who oppose dictatorship will have a chance to engage peacefully in the second No Kings Day, which may wind up as the largest mass demonstration yet against an unhinged, lawless authoritarian regime that is tightening the noose on our democracy. Donald Trump has upped the ante in deploying the military against Americans, indicting political enemies, and effectively disbanding the House (Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to keep members out of town is certainly not his own). Despite all the MAGA mouthpieces’ bravado, notable cracks in the GOP façade have appeared. MAGA politicians’ increasingly hysterical outbursts suggest a mass peaceful demonstration attended by a wide cross-section of Americans is the last thing they want.
Johnson’s obnoxious McCarthy-like attack on peaceful demonstrators was not isolated. “They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall,” he said. “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the, you know, the Antifa people, they’re all coming out.” Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) also got in on the nonsense, declaring, “This is about one thing and one thing alone—to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in DC next week.”
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Their choice of language is not accidental. In misrepresenting their opponents as “terrorists” for peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights, Republicans are attempting to squeeze them into Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional, all-purpose executive decree purporting to outlaw “ANTIFA” as a domestic terrorist organization. (Remember, ANTIFA is not a defined group or even a coherent ideology; moreover, Trump has no power to designate any domestic terrorist organization.) Predictably, anyone the regime dislikes has been receiving the ANTIFA or terrorist label—and coming under the threat of retribution. Whether the Trump regime intends to actually (further) weaponize the Department of Justice to try to stop protests and/or enact retribution remains to be seen, but such action would be grossly unconstitutional and trigger swift court challenges and public outcry.
Aside from their baseless legal maneuvering, the MAGA cult’s freakout evidences how difficult they are finding it to maintain the big lies of 2025: blue cities are awash in violence, the government is benignly attempting to keep order, and their white Christian nationalist base is under siege. Right-wing media propagandists have so little material that they have to recycle old video to keep Trump’s pretext alive.
Images will appear of millions of ordinary Americans waving American flags, peacefully reminding Trump that we are not a monarchy and demanding that the regime abide by the Constitution. When they surface, the MAGA propaganda machine sputters. Like the inflatable menagerie of characters now appearing in Portland, the appearance of No Kings protestors (e.g., a 70 yr. old holding a flag, or parents with kids carrying clever signs) undermines the MAGA lie. The true nature of the opposition (i.e. patriotic, diverse Americans) becomes harder to conceal.
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The level of MAGA hysteria has risen as the reasons to protest have increased, including the big, ugly bill’s jaw-dropping maneuver to cut health care coverage for ordinary Americans to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires; the ongoing cover-up of the Epstein scandal (i.e. protection of powerful, rich men who enabled child rape); attacks on the press and free speech more generally; efforts to destroy public employee unions; and RFK, Jr.’s endangering public health by destroying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) while peddling crackpot non-science with his fringe movement.
If all that is not enough to get Americans into the streets, consider the large-scale corruption and self-dealing to enrich Trump and his family; politicization of the military; demolition of the Justice Department (transforming it into a political weapon to persecute opponents based on flimsy charges); illegal and unconstitutional use of military to blow up boats and murder suspected drug smugglers without due process; giving $20B $40B of taxpayer money to Argentinian President Javier Milei, a MAGA mini-me; and of course the ongoing, abusive, violent, and a lawless actions by ICE that victimize entire communities.
Need more reasons to protest? Recall the unilaterally-imposed and unconstitutional trade war that effectively taxes every American consumer and business while fueling inflation; the attack on the Federal Reserve’sindependence; evisceration of the National Institutes of Health including hundreds of millions in critical funding for cutting-edge medical research; dismantling USAID, which has killed hundreds of thousands of adults and kids and marred America’s international image; and mass layoffs of veteranstogether with unconscionable cuts to veterans’ care.
Let’s not forget the transformation of the Supreme Court into a band of partisan MAGA operatives who have so egregiously abused their power and strayed from their constitutional mission as to incur the fury of lower courts; the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act; the criminalization of abortion and life-threatening forced birth laws that ensued; the mean-spirited bullying and persecution of trans Americans; and the attempt to rewrite the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship.
Frankly, it is hard to think of any American not affected by one or more of these outrageous developments. If nothing else, turning out to protest the do-nothing GOP House and Senate majorities that have abandoned their jobs, ceded the power of the purse to Trump, and resorted to demeaning and vilifying the majority of Americans who oppose Trump and virtually all his policies should be more than enough justification to link arms with fellow Americans in defense of democracy, the rule of law, and decency.
We will look forward to seeing you all out in joyful, peaceful protest. Please also join us for coverage of the day at 7:30 pm ET with reports from events around the country plus an all-star lineup of guests.
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You've already seen in my header that the woodstove has been cranked up for the first time this 2025-2026 heating season. We had another fire there last night just to get the chill out of the air.
At the end of the heating season this past spring we installed this fan in the doorway between our great room and the rest of the house. Didn't get to use it much then, but it's been on for both fires this week and it does work to spread the warmth. The thermostat is in the main part of the house and it has raised the temperature on that so the heat didn't kick on.
Winter is not far away for us here in New Hampshire. At 10:30 this morning it was reading 40º and even colder at 10 am when I walked to the library to get some books for the storytime at 11:15 with granddaughter #4 on FaceTime.
The Friday morning we left for the sibling reunion last week there was a hard frost. My geranium that I debated bringing inside is done!
Granddaughter #1 who comes here one day a week for her homeschooling is a whiz at puzzles. She does these while she listens to her social studies lessons and to take a break. Luckily I am well stocked so far with puzzles. She finished this on on Tuesday and immediately starting another one.
I must admit that I take the opportunity to fit in some pieces, too when she's gone home. She can't have all the fun.
Final comment/question: has anyone watched "Have I Got News For You" on CNN? It's on Saturday nights at 9 pm I think. We record it so I'm not sure of the time. It is hilarious and despite the bad news of this administration we can laugh at the inane things the administration is doing.
I even learn things. There was a segment on Bondi's "testimony" with Senate oversight committee. If you watched any of her answers you probably noticed how she'd flip pages in her notebook. I thought she was flipping to sections on the topic of the questions. But no! An observant photographer took photos of her pages and there were derisive notes about the particular Democratic Senator asking the questions. No wonder she was so quick with her nasty retorts. She had them all prepared.
The rest of you may have known that already but this was eye opening for me. She is definitely in the thrall of tRump. Poor (well maybe not so poor) deluded woman!
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Donald Trump and his minions endlessly rail about “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government. Meanwhile, he and his regime are the most prodigious generators of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in American history.
First and foremost, no president has ever used his office to rack up anything close to the estimated $5B Trump has hauled in for himself, selling everything from tacky gold sneakers to crypto. He has mastered the art of trading on access and enticing foreigners to pony up big bucks (and even an airplane). The most pro-corruption president in history also has stopped enforcement of foreign corruption, crypto fraud and other white collar crimes.
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Beyond all that, in just over nine months the MAGA regime has been more egregious in its misuse of taxpayers’ money than any administration in memory.
Flying top brass into Quantico, Va., to hear an obnoxiously partisan pep talk from Defense Secretary (and wrinkle warrior) Pete Hegseth and Trump: $6M.That qualifies as both waste and abuse (i.e., politicizing the military).
Multiple unnecessary and unconstitutional deployments of national guard around the country (which have triggered adverse court rulings, costing a fortune in taxpayer-funded legal fees): 2/3 of a billion dollars. The Atlantic reports that the D.C. deployment will cost more than $200M while the Los Angeles invasion as of early September cost $118M. If you throw in tens of millions for deployments to other cities, the unconstitutional invasions “could wind up costing Americans roughly two-thirds of a billion dollars.” It is hard not to wonder how many NIH science grants or new air traffic controllers or SNAP meals $750M dollars would fund. Aside from the waste and abuse, the rationale for the deployments, which courts increasingly find specious, surely constitutes “fraud” as well.
Moving on to the Qatari corruption racket, Trump’s “gift”—an Air Force One, which will cost an estimated $1B to retrofit. And in the end, the government apparently does not even get to keep the jet. Waste, fraud, and abuse.
Even worse, Hegseth proudly announced that “we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.” Cost: Unknown. In what world is that a remotely appropriate expense for American taxpayers, let alone for our national security?
Once you start looking around, waste, fraud, and abuse seem to be key features of the Trump regime. A recent General Accounting Office detailed all three offenses in the federal oil and gas program. CNN documented the bailout to farmers (necessitated by Trump’s counterproductive and possibly illegal tariffs) and the $20B giveaway to Argentina.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof enumerated the billions Trump has wasted in shuttering USAID—leaving warehouses full of everything from vegetable oil to family planning supplies, not to mention hundreds of thousands of doses of monkey pox vaccine and “donated medicines meant to prevent river blindness, schistosomiasis and intestinal parasites about to expire.” Worse, “the cost to American taxpayers of shutting down U.S.A.I.D. will be $6.4 billion over two years—enough to save more than one million children’s lives.” [Emphasis added.]
What about Trump’s frequent Mar-a-Lago trips? The Palm Beach Postreports on items such as $800,000 per Air Force One trip, one month of security at about $478,000, and other assorted costs for Marine One helicopter and county security. Sounds like a lot of waste and abuse.
Trump’s military birthday parade? That wasted $30M, which did NOT include related costs such as “Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and local police personnel to secure a chunk of downtown Washington and monitor possible threat.”
The big, beautiful ugly bill was supposed to cut out a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse, but (shocker!): it created more. The big, ugly bill that takes healthcare coverage from tens of millions to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires is a cornucopia of waste, including over $165M (with little specificity or oversight) for the Department of Homeland Security’s abusive shock troops, a $100M slush fund for Office of Management and Budget(!), incentives for states to maintain high error rates in SNAP, and 10 million in income tax-free for investing in certain startup companies (75% of which goes to millionaires).
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The MAGA big spenders also added more waste to the already bloated defense budget, including $25B on the nonsensical “Golden Dome” missile shield. According to one watchdog group, “Another $2.5 billion would go to the controversial Sentinel missile program, which is currently 81 percent over-budget. Meanwhile, the $13-16 billion meant for ‘expediting innovation’ is filled with earmarks for Congress’ ‘pet projects.’” [Emphasis added.]
Put simply, Trump only wants to eliminate “Democrat programs”—those that improve the livelihoods of real people. Meanwhile, Trump habitually clears the way for more waste, fraud, and abuse. Earlier this year he fired a slew of inspectors general. More recently, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Cal.), Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, demanded Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “stop illegally withholding congressionally-approved funding” for items such as “websites for dozens of Inspectors General (IGs) that publish hotline numbers where whistleblowers can submit complaints of waste, fraud, and abuse and make reports detailing corruption available to the public.”
And when the MAGA regime order cuts in the name of fighting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” things get worse. Trump and Elon Musk (the real president before Stephen Miller took over) cut vital programs, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of adults and children, halting hundreds of millions to fund in cutting-edge scientific research, and destroying student aid programs. DOGE itself made gob-smacking mistakes that resulted in firing and then rehiring critical personnel. (Learning nothing, Trump’s minions repeated this mind-boggling incompetence in the firing and rehiring of CDC personnel during the shutdown.)
Since Trump is the all-time “waste, fraud, and abuse” champ, we should retire the phrase. If we really want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse we should get rid of the MAGA regime—and before that, boot out the do-nothing MAGA congressional majorities that eschew oversight.
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