Year: 2025

Maddow on Trump’s Disastrous First 100 Days: ‘Oops!’

Jon Ponder

During her April 23, 2025, show, Rachel Maddow provided a run-down of the Trump regime’s destructive, mistake-ridden first 100 days. In describing the Trumpists’ authoritarian takeover of the country, she took us on a wild ride through the regime’s long list of blunders:

  • Oops! Freezing all federal funding/grants, then rescinding the order within 48 hours due to confusion and legal challenges.
  • Oops! Accidentally listing the wrong person as acting head of the FBI on the White House website and letting the error stand.
  • Oops! Accidentally sending names of hundreds of CIA officers in an unclassified email to the White House.
  • Oops! Announcing a policy that inadvertently halted all mail from China, then reversing it.
  • Oops! Accidental firing and attempted rehiring of nuclear security agency staff.
  • Oops! Misstating savings on a contract by billions of dollars.
  • Oops! Reversing a decision to remove legal aid for migrant children after public outcry.
  • Oops! Cutting, then restoring, the program for 9/11 first responders.
  • Oops! Elon Musk, Trump’s top campaign donor, sending out mass layoff threats to federal employees, then walking it back.
  • Oops! Cutting and then restoring burial services and cancer support for veterans.
  • Oops! Accidentally eliminating Ebola prevention measures, then reversing.
  • Oops! Cutting and then reinstating hires for the Veterans Crisis Line due to an “administrative error.”
  • Oops! Deleting and then restoring thousands of federal contracts in error.
  • Oops! Announcing mass firings of federal employees, then denying it happened.
  • Oops! Posting hundreds of federal properties for sale, including agency headquarters, then removing the listings without explanation.
  • Oops! Publicly releasing unredacted Social Security numbers and private information of hundreds, including Trump’s own lawyer, in JFK assassination files, then scrambling to mitigate.
  • Oops! Accidentally texting war plans to a journalist.
  • Oops! Admitting to mistakenly deporting a Maryland man to an El Salvador prison.
  • Oops! Tariffs inadvertently affecting remote islands, including one inhabited mainly by penguins.

At the end of the segment, Maddow suggested that we should keep this long list of Trump’s failures in mind as the mainstream media sane washes and glosses over of the chaos in its reporting on Trump’s first 100 days.

It’s the Stupid, Stupid

Buck Banks

“Yes, Trump and his accomplices are malicious. Yes, they’re corrupt. Yes, they’re dangerous. But they’re also profoundly stupid, and their stupidity is hurting or worrying a lot of people who voted for Trump. … So here’s my pitch: To break Trump’s coalition and reclaim our government, we need to talk not just about the administration’s corruption and its abuse of power, but about its pervasive incompetence.”

— Will Saletan

IMF Predicts Global Growth Slowdown, Increase in U.S. Inflation

Buck Banks

1.8%

The International Monetary Fund yesterday lowered its 2025 growth outlook for the US and the global economy, citing heightened uncertainty and economic disruption caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs. The IMF trimmed the 2025 US growth estimate to 1.8% from 2.7%, the largest reduction among the world’s advanced economies, and cut the global growth forecast to 2.8% from 3.3%. The fund cautioned the trade policy climate and ongoing conflicts between the US and other tariff-hit countries are discouraging investment and spending. US inflation is now predicted to reach 3% this year, one percentage point higher than the IMF’s January projection, while the risk of a US recession has increased to 40%, up from 25% in October.

Ron DeSantis Steals $10 Million from Florida Taxpayers to Fund Casey’s Bogus Charity

Buck Banks

HERNDON/Tampa Bay Times

From a Tampa Bay Times investigative report:

The $10 million that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted to a state-created charity last year consisted of Medicaid dollars owed to state and federal taxpayers, contrary to what the governor and other officials have publicly asserted.

Three years ago, lawyers working with the state drew up a settlement agreement that said Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, Centene, overbilled taxpayers $67,048,611 for medications, according to a copy of a draft agreement obtained by the Times/Herald.

That’s the exact amount DeSantis officials settled on with Centene last year. But instead of returning all $67 million to state and federal coffers, they sent $10 million of it to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity overseen by first lady Casey DeSantis.

The money was then sent to two nonprofit organizations that aren’t required to report how they spend their funds. Those “dark money” groups later gave $8.5 million to a political committee overseen by DeSantis’ chief of staff in a series of transactions that some Republican lawmakers believe were illegal. How Medicaid is allocated, which pays for health care services for the poor, is highly regulated.

The document contradicts statements by DeSantis and state officials that the $10 million was a charitable contribution by Centene separate from what it owed to the state.

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