Trump Orders 100 Rakes for Presidential Onstepping

Corporate media stand in awe of Trump actions as if they were victories

Jan. 22: Trump fires white woman from leadership role in which she succeeded where men failed … Trump poised to end billions that were withheld from Black farmers … Health agencies secretly end health warnings … Construction projects already under way ordered to stop …

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A simulation of Trump’s presidency shows his political decisions and their consequences sped up.

There are understandable reasons to respond to Pres. Donald Trump’s score-settling and scores of executive orders with outrage and panic and dismay. They are bad orders! And it’s important to signal the value and significance of those he seeks to hurt by calling attention to Trump’s many assaults.

But TFN isn’t (a) setting agendas (yet), or (b) in any way sure that the best way to help people in the crosshairs is by perpetuating an image of Trumpian power by reporting as though he’s actually accomplished things rather than merely ordering things. So we’ll be focusing elsewhere.

Plus, it seems really important to emphasize the flaws in Trump’s orders and the Greek-tragedy foreshadowing embedded therein. This is why we’re here.

It’s also important to cut through the media shock-and-awe noise to let the constituencies of Trump’s coalition know how his actions will fuck them. His allies and supporters won’t see his betrayals unless someone’s reporting on them. So…

White ladies for Trump, are we paying attention?

On his first full day in office yesterday, Trump fired one (1) of the military branch leaders. Was it a dude, you may ponder? Newsfucker, it was not.

Heads Will Sail

Admiral Linda Fagan, commandant of the United States Coast Guard and the first woman to lead a U.S. military branch, yesterday became the last woman to lead a U.S. military branch (for now!)

Trump is so good at presidenting that his team had finished its thorough performance assessment for Fagan within 24 hours of him taking the oath and fired her after determining that Fagan’s performance included having breasts and at least one vagina.

Oh, and fentanyl is her fault, Trump’s 24-hour performance review concluded. Way to addict the nation, lady sailor!

Another problem: Recruitment. According to a Trump administration¹ statement, Fagan oversaw “significant shortfalls in recruiting personnel.”

For instance, CNN reports, the last time the Coast Guard met its recruiting goals was 2017, thanks to, obviously, policies put in place before Trump1.0. It’s fallen short every year since. Including Trump1.0’s years.

Until last year. In September last year, for the first time since 2017, the Coast Guard announced it had met or exceeded all of its recruiting goals. As I’ve already written, male military recruitment lags women. Diversity in the military has helped the armed forces retain more forces to arm.

But Fagan’s firing was just one salvo in Trump’s opening shots against diversity federal efforts to mitigate centuries of racism and sexism. He issued multiple executive orders and directives shutting down virtually every office and initiative in the federal government working to ensure that the federal workforce reflects the people for whom it works used to work.

Which should do wonders for that diverse political coalition Trump has bragged about, once the seeds he’s planting start to bloom. Black men, for instance, mostly voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, but some shifted to Trump. Well, here comes the harvest…

Trump Kills Justice for Black Farmers

For decades, the federal government handed out farming subsidies and loans and all kinds of other goodies to farmers who were white and, this part’s important, definitely not Black.

Decades.

In 2022, one component of the Democratic Inflation Reduction Act signed by Pres. Joe Biden was $5.3 billion in funds to try to achieve parity by making or correcting loans to Black farmers who’d been screwed over in previous decades.

Decades.

Those lost loans crippled attempts by Black farmers to survive and compete by expanding their farms, investing in better equipment, hiring workers, on and on.

But now that federal aid — and ergo Black-owned farms — seem to be in jeopardy, although you wouldn’t know that from the coverage or the questions asked of Trump yesterday by corporate media which, no, I didn’t watch because life is finite.

So here’s how TFN came to this conclusion.

One of the rakes Trump gently laid for himself upon taking office is the power of impoundment — to not spend money that the law says must be spent because said allocation was written down for real in an actual bill and signed by a president.

The Associated Press, to their credit, listed some potential consequences of Trump freezing some spending and killing anything that rhymes with iversity.

“…that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs ‘discrimination’…”

So, your news-searching TFN — still stupidly a hostage to Google search — did a Google News search for “Black farmers” to see who had expanded upon this “funding for minority farmers.” Newsfuckers, there were a mere two (2) stories.

Only one was about the new Trump orders. It was the Tucson Sentinel — go Tucson Sentinel! — republishing an article from The 19th.

So, how is it a rake that Trump’s apparently ending justice for Black farmers? Eventually Black pro-Trump farmers are going to figure out how much they’re about to get screwed.

And so will everybody else. Most people support diversity initiatives to mitigate if not outright end the effects of discrimination. (Hopefully they’ve already seen the blazing whiteness of Trump’s administration².)

And, it turns out, settlement payments from the racist U.S. Dept. of Agriculture — sued for its discrimination — just started going out. We’ll see if Trump tries to close the spigot on those, too. And whether anyone but TFN’s paying attention.

Trump Silences Health Warnings to Avoid Warning You About Threats to Your Health

As of yesterday, the federal government stopped issuing health warnings about shit that can kill you.

New flu bug? New COVID strain? Old COVID strain? Space virus from Planet X?

Sssshhhh.

The Washington Post reports:

“The Trump administration has instructed federal health agencies to pause all external communications, such as health advisories, weekly scientific reports, updates to websites and social media posts…”

That includes the Food and Drug Administration. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Institutes of Health. All gone dark. For how long? The administration didn’t say. So right now, it’s indefinite.

But does the Post even bother to link to the Trump announcement? Newsfucker, they do not. But also, Newsfucker, they have a great excuse: There was no announcement.

Trump cut off our health warnings secretly. The Post found out from almost a dozen unnamed sources.

Freak not, Newsfuckers, because the federal government is far from the only resource that tracks and warns. There are the governments of all 50 blue states. There are private organizations.

And in the days to come we may see on social media like TikTok — thanks, President Trump — video after video of people coughing up blood and xenomorphs and complaining that they’re dying because Trump shut down federal warnings.

Trump Launches Anti-Infrastructure Week

It was a running joke during Trump1.0 that every week was Infrastructure Week, with his Really-White House constantly declaring infrastructure this and infrastructure that without actually doing anything to create actual structures in America’s infra.

Pres. Joe Biden negotiated and signed into law trillions of dollars in spending to create (and spur additional private investment in) the construction/improvement of actual infrastructure around the country. Roads. Power grids. Bridges. Mass transit. Not enough mass transit. Sustainable energy. Broadband access so more people can access Chinese social media.

The smart thing for Pres. Donald Trump to do would have been to take credit for all of it instantly and prepare for the ribbon-cuttings by picking out the best-looking shoulder-padded suit and the giantest pair of scissors ever. But no.

Instead, one of Trump’s first executive orders (illegally) suspended all the funds allocated by the deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act — named thusly to trick then-Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) into voting for it — and by the accurately named Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.

Newsfucker, some of those ribbons done already been cut. Shovels turned. The projects are being built. People can see them through those little cutouts in the wooden construction walls. And now the earthmovers will stop moving earth and bulldozers stop dozing bull.

So, leading Democrats immediately called out Trump’s shit.

“Trump has a long history of stiffing contractors who worked on his failed business ventures,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), ranking Energy and Commerce Committee member. “The American government must uphold its commitments.”

“The law is very clear that he has to do what has been passed by Congress,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), ranking Budget Committee member. Sounds impeachable to me!

And, sure, Democrats can’t do jack now, but that just means the jackhammer guys are gonna learn about it for themselves when the paychecks dry up thanks to the guy they voted for because Vice President Kamala Harris made them sad and uncomfortable inside.

And, again, Trump doesn’t have a flawless echo chamber here. Republicans — who took credit for the spending they voted against and will get hammered by voters at home if the construction hammers go quiet — did their diplomatic ass-kissing best to wave Trump off this “pause” in spending:

• Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID): “I think he’s just pausing it right now.”

• Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): “…a brief pause.”

There are potentially a ton of laws to be broken here, and a ton of suing to ensue. All of it with local media and social media focusing on the partial skeletons of unfinished projects and unused equipment left lying on the ground. Like, literal rakes!

And today, Trump’s new budget chief, Russell Vought — who’s never helped build anything famous except Project 2025 — has a confirmation hearing that’s gonna make headlines as even Republicans press him on his claim that presidents don’t have to spend money allocated by Congress, which even American students are taught has the power of the purse.

DEMS I haven’t written much about Democratic pushback. And tempting as it may be is to blame that on the party’s learned helplessness and fecklessness, that’s not the case here.

For one thing, no one’s even sure yet exactly what all these executive orders translate into in terms of concrete, discernible actions. “WELL FOR FUCK’S SAKE LET’S NOT WAIT TO FIND OUT!” you might reasonably shriek at the top of your lungs.

But there actually is good reason to wait.

The defense against all these measures is lawsuits. But those can’t happen without someone specific potentially being harmed — judges only hear suits from people directly affected. So, Democrats need to know specifically who’ll be harmed before they can line up their plaintiffs.

The good news? They’re not just waiting. They held a big organizing call yesterday with lawmakers and advocacy groups.

“There are a whole array of political countermeasures that one could undertake in terms of having standing to sue, to vindicate the will of Congress,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Politico. Trump’s shots will be answered and his first shots won’t be the last shots.

“Fuck it. Release ‘Em All”

That was the legal principle upon which Pres. Donald Trump based his decision to pardon the 1,500+ people who attacked the U.S. Congress in 2021 to steal the presidency by stealing the counting of the votes Trump failed to steal.

The promise had been that Trump would pardon non-violent, um, attackers — those who peacefully tried to usurp the United States government without actually hitting a cop. Trump would make his pardon assessments on a case-by-case basis.

Then Team Trump learned that this would involve assessing the pardons case by fucking case. Assessing things is hard! This is from Axios’s report:

“The case-by-case review was onerous. Trump staffers wondered whom to pardon and who might slip through the cracks.

“Time was running out heading into Inauguration Day. Trump wanted to pardon as many people as possible and get it over with, so he landed on clemency for everyone.”

That’s Washington-journalism-speak for “It was hard.”

So, how is this a rake? Most Americans opposed any of the pardons. And Trump’s pardons for violent offenders? They were opposed by 75% of people, including 55% of Republicans.

And Trump’s echo chamber is not echoing him on this, not remaking reality in his image. Sure, some are ducking the questions, but not all.

• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “No one should excuse violence. And particularly violence against police officers.”

• Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “People who assault police officers, if they do the crime, they should do the time.”

• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): “Anybody who is convicted of assault on a police officer, I can’t get there, at all. I think it was a bad idea.”

• Theocratic Sen. James Lankford (R-OK): “I think we need to continue to say we are a party of law and order [laughs].”

Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori writes in a very good piece for Politico that, statistically speaking, the next four years will be peppered with stories about the Jan. 6 attackers recidivating: Criming again.

Headline after headline: “Trump Pardon Recipient Arrested for [insert violent verb] Against [Wife/Girlfriend/Domestic Partner/Post Office/Mailbox]”

Rake after rake.

So, yes, Newsfuckers one and all, let’s muster our resources and decry the wrongnesses and defend the wronged, but let’s be brilliantly crystalline in our clarity on what’s happening here.

Trump is overreaching. He’s already pissing off every faction of his own coalition. This is failure. The media can report on Trump’s awesome, majestic flight through the heavens, but make no mistake: He’s falling.

P.S.

One reason I do TFN is to demonstrate through real-time action that there are alternative ways to cover “the news” just as quickly as corporate media do, without succumbing to their apparently unshakeable need to frame things through lenses with zero depth of field.

To wit, here’s the top of today’s New York Times front page, treating performative muscularity as if it’s the most important thing about Trump’s actions:

TFN exists to shame bad journalism and remind Newsfuckers they’re not crazy for rejecting bad journalism. But we can’t demand better journalism without providing evidence that it’s possible. So here we fucking are.

TCB

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Go get ‘em, kids! Day three and we’re. still. here.

1. Yes, “Trump administration” is a thing again, despite all the laws of nature and Nature’s God.

2. No offense to Scott Turner, a Black theocrat nominated by Trump to run Housing and Urban Development, the cabinet post where Trump relegates Black cabinet secretaries, because “Urban” is its middle name.