Members of Congress have slithered their way back to Washington, many Democrats continuing to silently cower in the face of injustice, many Republicans kissing the ring (or something else) of their dystopian, distractive, and disingenuous leader. In the middle, the people or suffering, and while Democrats offer some lip service opposition to oligarchal tyranny, and Republicans continue to roll over like puppies on command, working people are dealing with rising prices, economic uncertainty, and more.
These people are capable of bipartisanship when it serves them. For example, Congressional members Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Kahana (D-California) jointly held a press conference to highlight the women exploited by Trump’s buddy Jeffrey Epstein. Even Marjorie Taylor Green, the Trump ally so accurately described by Jasmine Crocket as a “bleached blonde bad built butch body, weighed in to support Eptein’s victims breaking ranks with her massa. How did these people connect? How could they overcome the same partisanship that increases hunger, homelessness, and decreases health access, to deal with Epstein? Democrats and Republicans both are guilty of buying into the President’s distractionary tactics. And prices keep rising. And some of our streets are being occupied. And the cowards keep cowering around economic issues while pandering to the sideshow.
I’m not excusing the Epstein violations, nor the fact that this administration has pandered to the Epstein legacy by moving his pardon-seeking partner Ghislaine Maxwell from a restrictive prison to one of those country club ones. But I’m wondering when this president and his team of sycophants move from the distractions to the real deal. Trying to fire people like Federal Reserve governor Dr. Lisa Cook, or CDC director Susan Monarez generates headlines but what about the economy? Trump said he’d fix it. He hasn’t.
The cowards are back after heir undeserved break, now what is their agenda? Congress holds the purse strings, by law, but they are letting the president snatch their authority by taking funds away from already Congressionally funded initiatives. His impoundments, outlawed by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment act of 1974, are patently illegal and he knows it. But he believes he is above the law, and the Congressional cowards are unwilling to check him. I don’t begrudge the Epstein survivors their two hour press conference and moment in the sun, but why not a press conference with some of the entrepreneurs who are hit by these wilily nilly random tariffs that are slowing our economy?
This President is hell bent on implementing his Project 2025, the one whose complicity he denied during the campaign. The cowards in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, seem powerless to stop him. Democrats offer great lip service, but little more. Republicans simply kowtow. And the people suffer.
Congress has authority, but they fail to use it. The president cannot fire heads of independent agencies, and the courts are telling him so. He knows he can’t fire these people, but he is doing it anyway. He ought to have better things to do than to meddle without museums, but he is so determined to erase history that he would change the way the National Museum of African American History and Culture showcases our horrible legacy of enslavement. He summoned Smithsonian Director Lonnie Bunch to a White House lunch, probably to simply flex his muscles and exert his authority. Bunch’s term ends in 2026. I’m apprehensive that the next Smithsonian director will check more of the Trump boxes.
This president is shamelessly chasing a Nobel Peace Prize, which he is unlikely to catch. He promised to end the war in Ukraine. Not. He promised to end the conflict in the Middle East. Not. You don’t get peace prizes for deporting legal citizens, nor for flooding cities with the National Guard. The delusion of the Nobel Peace Prize should be enough for the president’s close associates to invoke the 25th Amendment, the one that would declare him medically unfit to hold office.
Meanwhile, the world is looking at us with shock and awe, wondering whether there is a grownup in government to stop this madness. The Congressional clowns are back, willing to go along with insanity rather than stop it.
