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.

• Tariffs. Nothing can better demonstrate the breadth of this man's shortcomings, from intellect to business smarts to effective human and foreign relations.
• 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).

• 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.
• Removing or altering more than 8,000 government websites covering topics from vaccine research to Census Bureau datasets
• 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)
• 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 yacht 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 as Director of the FBI (December 2, 2024)
• Nominating Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (November 1, 2024)
• 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 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)
• 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 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 (February 6, 2025)
• Removing online climate data farmers use to plan sowing and harvesting because the data contradicts the administration's preferred climate narrative (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.
• 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, Ukraine 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