A Laundry List of Mistakes

For my own purposes, I am going to log the actions Donald Trump is taking that I see as dangerous, illegal or threatening to the long term health of our nation, or simply evidence of his lack of understanding what America is all about or what makes us great. These are in reverse chronological order, with most recent first. 

• RFK, Jr. ordered the cancelation of $500 million in research contracts for mRNA vaccines. Their role in helping end the Covid pandemic notwithstanding, mRNA vaccines promise to greatly enhance our ability to combat infectious threats far more quickly. Even if they are not perfect today, that is precisely the type of research that our government has so successfully funded in the past that has made us the economic powerhouse we are today. Even fracking technology, which has made us both energy independent and the world's largest exporter of natural gas, was developed through funding of unproven technologies provided decades ago by the US Department of Energy. Thanks to this administration we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot. (August 6, 2025)
  
  
• This makes one believe that loyalty to the nation and the Constitution is actually a negative in the eyes of the current administration. Jen Easterly, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had her appointment to teach at West Point revoked by the Army secretary on the advice of Laura Loomer, who has claimed that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Parkland High School and Las Vegas mass shootings were staged. This is how Ms. Easterly responded on LinkedIn:
  
  

  "As a lifelong independent, I’ve served our nation in peacetime and combat under Republican and Democratic administrations. I’ve led missions at home and abroad to protect all Americans from vicious terrorists, rogue nations, and cybercriminals. I’ve worked my entire career not as a partisan, but as a patriot—not in pursuit of power, but in service to the country I love and in loyalty to the Constitution I swore to protect and defend, against all enemies
  
  "Every member of the Long Gray Line knows the Cadet Prayer. It asks that we 'choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.' That line—so simple, yet so powerful—has been my North Star for more than three decades. In boardrooms and war rooms. In quiet moments of doubt and in public acts of leadership."

  Here is a take by Ian Bremmer, considered a centrist and political independent by the World Economic Forum: https://bit.ly/4mumoiI It is worth your time to hear how he describes Jen Easerly. Nothing could better represent who Ms. Easterly is than her words demonstrating class and love of country, as confirmed by Ian Bremmer. Sadly, it's become a country that now sees those traits - class and love of country - as disqualifying. (August 5, 2025)

• An FDA panel released a report on using anti-depressants during pregnancy that could have been a transcript of a dinner table discussion at my grandmother's house, with one panelist flatly claiming Selection Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) don't work, adding that some people "spontaneously recover" from depression, as though that should be reason to believe they are not necessary. Another panelist suggested depression in pregnant women isn't a real illness, but simply a matter of "women just naturally experiencing their emotions more intensely."
  
  Yes, according to this panel appointed under Robert f. Kennedy, Jr.'s leadership, says depression in women might just be their hormones acting up. It's why hysterectomies are named after hysterics - it's just women being women Or, so the Trump administration would have us believe. We are literally returning to the dark ages. God help us.  (August 1, 2025)
  
  
• Few will notice this one, but I will because anyone who analyzes data knows that nothing is more important in identifying trends than the consistency of the data's collection and reporting - and I am just such a person. I have been keeping a file of jobs data, unemployment, GDP, inflation and more, being diligent in getting each month's data from the same source. In the case of jobs, that is the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Services (BLS) monthly jobs report. Today, those numbers were not good, and prior month's numbers were revised downward - so Donald Trump fired the BLS commissioner hours after the report came out. This is as clear an example of firing the messenger as we're likely to see. 
  
  There is a PBS Frontline episode where Julia Ioffe, a Russian emigre and expert on Russian politics, discusses the meeting where Putin challenges his chief spy over his findings on Ukraine. Ioffe says it's reminiscent of such meetings under Stalin, where ministers were aware what had happened to their predecessor that had put them in their seat and were thus hesitant to speak the truth.
  
  There were no bullets to the back of the head here as there were in Stalin's day, but how likely do you think we are to get accurate jobs numbers if they are likely to upset Donald Trump. In other words, how likely are we to know the truth about jobs under Donald Trump? Let's not forget this is the man who claimed Trump Tower was 10 stories taller than it actually was, leading to confusion among first responders when answering emergencies. As I wrote in my piece predicting what would transpire during Trump's second term, "All will be "fixed" by Donald Trump, via nothing but proclaiming them to be so, which is exactly how most of them came to be problems in the first place - by Trump proclamation." I thought that would be accomplished via bluster. This is much worse. Combined with the bias monitor referenced in the item below and we are in scary territory. (August 1, 2025)
  
  [Note: I was wrong that no one would notice this. Plenty have, including a London bond trader who wrote the following on his blog Morning Porridge (note the year referencing the Trump administration):
  
  A Porridge from May 2031 contained a link to a release from Trump’s Ministry of Economic Truth, formerly the US Treasury:
  
  “Under the leadership of President Trump, the US economy continues to grow at record speed. Payrolls data from the Ministry of Truth, a subsidiary of Truth Social, show full employment across America. Tensions in the inner cities have never been so low. All recent graduates have found highly paid jobs across America’s expanding manufacturing sector, causing many large companies in Trump Inc to report significant labour shortages. Due to this success The Ministry of Plenty is cutting the bread ration by a further 30% to reward workers for choosing to do more overtime. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Love has tightened quarantine restrictions on West Coast cities hit by the latest Chinese plague to facilitate the swift movement of ICE logistical heavy units, with supporting US Marine units, to these areas. The president remains in robust health and is fighting hard from the White House South to ensure the ongoing success of the economy and prosperity on behalf of all Americans.”
  
  
• I thought it was an AI joke, misinformation, but it is real. The agreement that the Trump administration reached with Paramount in its attempt to merge with Skydance - an agreement finalized just after Paramount's CBS group announced the cancelation of Stephen Colbert's Late Night - includes the appointment of a "bias monitor" who will report directly to President Trump. I cannot think of anything more Orwellian than something that smacks of a Ministry of Truth.
  
  
• Tariffs 3.0 (1.0 was during the first Trump term, 2.0 back in April). The stock market's rebound from the president's April round of random tariffs seems to have emboldened him, as he is now threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU, prompting the EU to withhold retaliation as they strategically try to establish themselves as the model of reason and stability in world trade. Indonesia, for one, seems to be interested, praising the EU for filling the vacuum left by US unpredictability. We are on track for a trifecta we should all dread - the loss of financial leadership thanks to exploding deficits due to the Big Beautiful Bill, the loss of technological leadership thanks to the brain drain resulting from attacks on our universities and on immigration, and finally loss of economic leadership as the world economy organizes itself in ways intended to isolate themselves from US unpredictability, thereby isolating us in the process. All the result of the president's lack of strategic thinking skills that I have referenced so frequently in these pages.
  
  
• Somehow I missed it, but naming Kari Lake to run the Voice of America means that the agency that has been a model of trusted journalism in the places where it was needed most is under the control of a woman who wouldn't know (or at least admit) the truth if it slapped her in the face. I wrote about the dangers of politicizing the VOA back in 2020 and now it has more than come to fruition. This is the agency that Hitler referred to as "those Cincinnati liars" because he had to discredit the truth-tellers, a hallmark of autocrats. Now that the agency has been politicized, there will be no need to discredit them because that work has become an inside job. The truth requires telling the good, the bad and the ugly, but under an administration that is so intent on whitewashing our history and its own missteps, the unvarnished truth will be the last thing one can expect from the VOA. We are doing our adversaries the greatest of favors.
  
  
• The cuts to Medicaid and SNAP that aid the poor in the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill are a travesty, but that they are done to give further tax cuts to those who need them least makes the bill obscene. That we still must go at least another $2.4 trillion in debt in the process promises to make this bill a disaster of epic proportions. The arguments that aid encourages bad choices that lead to poverty or that tax cuts just let people keep more of their own money are ones for another day, but they do not justify this monstrosity. 
  
  
• As if Emil Bove wasn't bad enough (see below), adding Jared Wise, a former FBI agent charged with encouraging rioters to kill police officers on January 6, to the Justice Department task force established by Donald Trump to seek retribution against his political enemies raises so many concerns that simply describing it is evidence of just how awful and off the rails this administration is. Jared Wise deserves to be a target of the Justice Department, not one of its officers. That it was announced the day the Senate voted to finance trillions in tax cuts for those who need them not at all by taking away health care from those who need it most and piling trillions more in debt on our children leaves me thinking that God did, indeed, save Trump from an assassin's bullet to punish the United States (see even further below). 
  
  
• The nomination of Emil Bove to serve on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Please read the quote from Hannah Arendt below. This is the worst nomination yet because it is not a mere case of the president surrounding himself with sycophants who will go away when he's gone, but instead it is a lifelong appointment to a court that will be reviewing the rulings of other judges. Bove is a man who is reported to have told Justice Department personnel to say "fuck you" to the courts. In other words, disregard the rule of law. And now this president wants that man to make the law. A better way to put it is that Donald Trump wants to make that man the law (if it takes several re-readings of what I just wrote for it to understand the nuance, I think it's worth it). As Immanuel Kant said, man is free if he need obey no man, but the law. This turns that on its head by making a man with zero regard for the law responsible for defining the law, meaning it is whatever suits him in that moment. That is the antithesis of how our legal system and every just legal system in the world works. It is banana republic stuff. [Note: Bove was confirmed July 29, 2025, just hours after additional evidence came to light supporting and expanding upon the whistleblower accusations.]
  
  
• I've written before how Donald Trump’s unwillingness or inability to admit he's wrong could have devastating consequences, as could his adversaries' ability to manipulate him thanks to his thin skin, as Kamala Harris showed during their lone 2024 debate when mere mention of bored rally crowds drove him down a rabbit hole where immigrants were eating cats and dogs. The bombing of Iran could be where both came into play as he proclaimed his Director of National Intelligence wrong in her assessment regarding that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons, while seemingly getting trapped into following Benjamin Netanyahu's lead in attacking Iran.
  
  
• I will not make a prediction, but dropping a bomb on Iran because Israel started a fight with them would seem to be the tail wagging the dog. Iran was off our radar militarily until Israel attacked them. We did not have to join in, but we did, raising the question who is really the power player here.
  
  
• Yesterday, just as the president authorized sending U.S. Marines into the city of Los Angeles to quell rather mild anti-ICE protests, he spurred active-duty soldiers into booing American citizens and politicians who oppose the president. I should not have to say anything more to explain why this is so troubling. That I feel the need to say more is just more evidence why it is. I hope to find time to expand on this before it becomes just another day in the life. (June 11, 2025)
  

[I've been too busy to expand my thoughts above in-depth, but suffice it to say that watching a president who began his political journey by painting Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers during what I thought (hoped?) would assuredly be a disqualifying candidacy announcement speech, who went on to incorporate classic dehumanization language to describe immigrants in general as snakes, vermin and an infestation, then began turning that same language against his domestic opponents, going so far as to suggest execution of his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff  - to watch him encouraging members of the armed forces to boo their fellow Americans as the enemy is beyond the pale. I would challenge anyone alive to picture, let alone find, another president of our lifetime doing such a thing. He is, quite simply, priming the military to treat the American public as the enemy. In doing so, he is proving correct every one of us who have opposed him so vehemently from the start.]

• I may have to start a separate JFK thread, but yesterday he dismissed all seventeen members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). A 6:37 AM report suggested people visit the ACIP profile page, which was still available at that time. When I went to view it ten minutes later, it was unavailable. This administration is going to needlessly kill people. (June 10, 2025)
  
  
• I listed the nomination of RFK, Jr. as Secretary of HHS below and here is both an example of why I did that and an addition to the laundry list itself - suggesting he might ban government scientists from publishing in independent scientific journals like the Lancet, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine, three of the most respected medical journals on the planet, suggesting instead a government-run publication. One can't help but see this as the politicization of science that will lead to junk science and corruption.
  
  
• This is one prediction that will be wrong until it's not - the GOP's tax cuts that the president fought for in person on Capitol Hill yesterday (5/20/25) will eventually undermine our credit rating, our economy and our position as the financial capital and financial leader of the world. Not once in the 44 years since Ronald Reagan's first tax bill has a tax cut not resulted in higher deficits, yet somehow the GOP keeps claiming they won't and we, the people, keep buying it. At some point, the chickens will come home to roost. 

Beyond the fiscal irresponsibility of this tax cut, we need to ask our legislators to justify the need for these cuts. I've argued elsewhere that there are times, as was the case in the early 80's, where  the scarcity of investment capital and the need for investment was so great that cutting taxes was justified. We are so far from such a scenario today, with U.S. businesses sitting on nearly $7 trillion in cash and billionaires sending friends and celebrities to space in their hobby rockets, that the old argument is beyond pointless. In fact, today's AI-driven economics argue for a near reversal of the GOP's tax policy. As AI eliminates more and more jobs, including those that have long been the entry-level gateway to white collar professions (basic coding, legal document review, data entry and bookkeeping, to name just a few), we need to be seriously addressing how we will manage a large, underemployed cohort of educated, intelligent folks and their lesser skilled counterparts forced into less than fulfilling jobs at best and unemployment at worst. Instead, we continue to reward those who develop the technologies that are creating this crisis. It is shortsighted and dangerous.

• Nominating Casey Means to be Surgeon General. The fireworks that have erupted within the anti-vax, anti-science movement over this nomination is so convoluted that conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Laura Loomer comes across as the voice of reason.
  
  
• This mistake is on us, but allowing the president to accept a luxury 747 from Qater's foreign government as though it's just another Tuesday shows just how normalized unethical behavior has become. It is hard to imagine a more blatant violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, which prohibits gifts from foreign entities without specific authorization by Congress That the president said only stupid people would turn down such a gift demonstrates how lacking he is in both ethics and in understanding what stupid really means since such gifts are never free.
  
  
• The deportation of Kelmar Garcia to a prison camp in El Salvador without due process is bad enough (if anyone is denied the right to due process, none of us has a right to due process), but the president's admission that he would be fine with shipping U.S. citizens to El Salvador prisons should be a clarion call to anyone who professes loyalty to the Constitution. And if this president disobeys court orders regarding this, or any case, that would be yet one more impeachable offense. [Footnote: the glib glee that our president and the president of El Salvador took in laughing off the Supreme Court order to facilitate Garcia's return betrays an underlying cruelty that has been evident since Donald Trump stated that if hate were needed to serve justice in the Central Park Five case, so be it. New York journalist Pete Hamill captured it best at the time: 

“Snarling and heartless and fraudulently tough, insisting on the virtues of stupidity, it was the epitome of blind negation. Hate was just another luxury and Trump stood naked.” 

The man is what he is and always has been - heartless, soulless and thoughtless. Convince me otherwise. 

• Tariffs. Nothing can better demonstrate the breadth of this man's shortcomings, from intellect to business smarts to effective human and foreign relations. His insistence that tariffs are paid by the originating country is just the tip to the iceberg (I've written checks to pay his tariffs), but anyone who's read behind the scenes tales of his distaste for trade (I have) can tell you he has no understanding how economics works. Thus, tariffs on products impossible to produce here that only serve to raise the cost.
  
  
• Punishing law firms out of favor with the White House by revoking security clearances. One firm, Skadden, Arps agreed to perform $100 million in pro Bono (free) work on causes dear to the administration to avoid such a penalty, which is difficult to distinguish from extortion. Targeted law firms are not those who've broken the law, violated security requirements or behaved unethically. Instead, they have all employed lawyers who worked cases opposite Donald Trump or on cases contrary to his aims. This threatens to chill representation for anyone who is targeted by the Trump Justice Department (see Kash Patel and Dan Bongino for an idea of how this could imperil fundamental American legal rights and protections).
  
  
• Attacking universities while withdrawing billions in research dollars that have been one of the great sources of global U.S. economic power (March 18, 2025). [this NY Times article confirms what I've noticed on French websites and discussion sites - that Europe is ready to roll out the welcome mat for researchers who no longer feel welcome or appreciated int he U.S. I cannot think of a more foolish, shortsighted, well, I can't call it a strategy, so I'll just go with stupid mistake - and I think that is being overly kind).

          On April 29, 2025, American University released a report showing that the average American                 could wind up $10,000 poorer due to the reduction in government investment in R&D.

• Eliminating references to Ira Hayes (a Pima Indian who was one of the six famous flag-raisers on Iwo Jima) and the Navajo Code Talkers from Defense Department web pages. References celebrating those who served from groups who were at times treated as less than full citizens have served to build pride and loyalty among those groups, thus tightening the bonds of citizenship.

• Yesterday, February 28, 2025, was the low point not just of the Trump administration, but of my experience as an American. Except for those irretrievably attracted to Donald Trump or the blindly partisan, what happened in the Oval Office with Vladimir Zelensky was awful, a turning of the back on American principles and the moral standard we've set since the end of WWII. My fear is that there are worse days to come. I'll extend the offer I made to a local township trustee - I'll sit down in the location of your choosing to review this exchange so you can point out where Zelensky was the one being rude.
  
  
• Removing or altering more than 8,000 government websites covering topics from vaccine research to Census Bureau datasets. As a data junkie who seeks source material rather than what third party sources who might have an agenda choose to share, this bothers me to no end.
  
  
• Canceling a planned meeting of scientists who were to discuss flu strains expected this winter (2025), thus putting research for next year's flu strain at risk
  
  
• Naming Lynn Deklava, a lobbyist at the American Chemistry Council, an industry group that spends millions of dollars lobbying against chemical regulation, as head of the EPA group responsible for chemical regulations (February 26, 2025). As I've argued elsewhere, there needs to be a healthy balance between business and government to check the greed and desire for power inherent in human nature. This undermines that completely.
  
  
• Selling $5 million gold cards to wealthy foreigners as a path to citizenship (February 25, 2025) We don't need people who are going to move here to join a country club, we need people willing to work their asses off to get here and get their hands dirty to build a future for their family. That's what has always made America great.
  
  
• Firing JAG officers without cause. ( see this also February 21, 2024)
  
  
• Firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other generals for suspicion of being DEI hires (February 21, 2025).
  
  
• Nominating Fox host Don Bongino to be Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who posted this on Twitter/X less than a year ago

The irony about this for the scumbag commie libs, is that the cold civil war they’re pushing for will end really badly for them.
Libs are the biggest pussies I’ve ever seen and they use others to do their dirty work. Their mommas are still doing their laundry for them as they…

— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) May 30, 2024

• Nominating Pete Hegseth, who proclaimed his willingness to rebel against the United States in his book The War on Warriors, as Secretary of Defense (November 13, 2024)
  
  
• Nominating Kash Patel, whose primary qualification would appear to be a children's book he wrote where a wizard named Kash thwarts a plot against King Donald, as Director of the FBI. I kid you not.  (December 2, 2024)
  
  
• Nominating Tulsi Gabbard, who has expressed sympathy for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, among other troubling security issues, as Director of National Intelligence (November 1, 2024) [Note: Tulsi became one of the few in the president's inner circle willing to present information that contradicts the president's viewpoint, which is rare and valuable in a world of loyal yes men and women, though George Will did refer to her as the astonishingly unsuitable amateur.]
  
  
• Nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (November 14, 2024) Note RFK Jr.'s unscientific take on the March 2025 measles outbreak.
  
  
• Nominating wholly unqualified Oprah Winfrey guest Mehmet Oz to serve as administrator for Medicare and Medicaid Services (November 19, 2024)
  
  
• Nominating the World Wrestling Federation's Linda McMahon for Secretary of Education (December 5, 2024) [Note: McMahon would go on to refer to AI (artificial intelligence) as A1 (as in the steak sauce), ironically suggesting intelligence itself is absent in the one heading the department responsible for education.
  
  
• [At this point it might be instructive to insert a passage from Hannah Arendt's 1951 magnum opus, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" before suggesting one re-read the list above. 

"Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first rate talent, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty." 

Re-reading the list above, starting with Dan Bongino, might now be in order.]

• Siding with Russia to vote against a UN resolution condemning Russia's war against Ukraine (February 24, 2025)
  
  
• Conceding to Russian demands with nothing in return to end the war in Ukraine (February - February 24, 2025) 
  
  
• Allowing Elon Musk's unvetted team unfettered access to our payment systems and other sensitive data stores, opening the door to a threat far worse than anything Hilary Clinton's email server could have posed.
  
  
• Shutting down the US Agency for International Development, opening the door for China and Russia to fill the void in building influence. (February 6, 2025)
  
  
• Removing online climate data farmers use to plan sowing and harvesting because the data contradicts the administration's preferred climate narrative. [Note: I've long said one of life's greatest disappointments is learning data doesn't support one's arguments, and that one of life's greatest mistakes is refusing to reconsider one's opinion in light of the data. This is even worse, reminiscent of former Soviet Union tactics, where anything (or anyone) contradicting the party line was "disappeared.] (January 30, 2025)
  
  
• Demanding that Ukraine turn half its mineral resources over to us as tribute for the support we provided in their war against the Russian aggressors. [the deal as finalized is not as ominous as originally presented, yet the appearance of "blackmailing" Ukraine in return for our help is troubling, and I fear, unwise strategically.]
  
  
• Objecting to NATO's use of the word "aggressor" to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine
  
  
• Sending Vice President Vance to Munich, a city closer to Kiev, where Russian bombs are falling, than Washington DC is to Atlanta in order to scold them that Russia is less a threat than their own refusal to give a platform to a party whose rising star is a young man who confessed to pasting swastikas on a church.
  
  
• Claiming in his inaugural speech that God saved him from an assassin's bullet to save America (if God was willing to do that, why didn't he save Abraham Lincoln, a far more pious man in a far for grievous period, from an assassins bullet? Might it be that both were done as God's punishment of America? January 20, 2025)

Paul Szydlowski