MAGA's bullyboys, Musk and Trump, pick a fight with the world's most vulnerable
Bravo to Sen. Brian Schatz for standing up to Musk's latest seize-and-desist rampage
By Sam Bellamy
I know little about Hawaii’s senior U.S. senator, Brian Schatz, but this week at least, he’s my favorite candidate for president in 2028. Let’s return to that in a moment and, first, focus on the two tinpot tyrants running and ruining our nation right now.
Like all bullies, Donald Trump loves to punch down. If his victims are the congenial sort, just trying to get along in the world – all the better. That’s why, in recent years, he’s picked inexplicable fights with Canada, Mexico, Denmark and NATO allies.
In the past few days, Trump and Elon Musk – who’s either Trump’s overlord or his carbon copy – have been picking fights with starving children, pregnant women, war refugees and victims of AIDs, Ebola and other scourges. They get their jollies this way, over and over and over.
The bloody-knuckled duo’s direct target is the United States Agency for International Development, which has provided humanitarian aid around the world since the Kennedy administration.
Our motives haven’t been entirely altruistic. As PBS and others have recounted for us, President Kennedy was looking for a way to counteract Soviet influence in vulnerable nations. Assistance from the United States, through hands-on help and funding to humanitarian groups, would help build goodwill, stabilize potentially volatile political situations and not-so-subtly let Soviet leaders know we were a quiet but formidable presence everywhere they were and then some.
Kennedy urged members of Congress to set up USAID as an independent agency, and – because they were led by a man in the Oval Office who was raised to punch up, not down – they did so. Today, USAID accounts for less than 1% of the U.S. budget or about 11% of Musk’s estimated worth.
Over the weekend, Musk posted on his social cesspool X, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” He offered no proof, of course. In Trump’s world, facts are unnecessary or, if they must be pressed into service, malleable beyond recognition.
The Trump administration placed on leave two USAID security officials when they refused to allow Musk’s pencil-pushing posse, none of whom is a government employee or under government oversight, access to classified material.
USAID employees were subsequently told not to report to work and had access to the agency’s computer system revoked. Some say their employee badges were seized.
Musk ranted some more, calling USAID a “radical-left political psy op.” His wingman, Trump, chimed in that it’s run by “radical lunatics.” (He couldn’t even come up with a different adjective.) Predictably, he said it was Joe Biden – and undoubtedly the Kenyan before him – who let it get completely out of control.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, once derided by Trump as “Mr. Meltdown,” melted down. Rubio declared himself acting administrator of USAID, said its employees were guilty of insubordination, and claimed its operations would be folded into the State Department. Later he said it could die, just as Musk demanded.
The idea of turning all foreign aid over to the State Department runs directly counter to JFK’s wishes. He wanted an independent agency, less susceptible to political interference and less encumbered by the bureaucracy of the State Department or other top-level departments.
Enter Sen. Brian Schatz. Although Democrats are blasting the Trump administration over this, they’ve been entirely too shy and retiring in the earliest days of his return to power. Apparently, they’ve all been too busy analyzing Kamala Harris? Gee, maybe it was too much navel gazing and not calling out Trump’s fascist streak early and often?
Schatz is punching up. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said he’ll place a hold on all of Trump’s nominees to the State Department, blocking the tyrant’s ability to fill key positions.
Democrats have criticized Republicans for using holds this way in the past. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama held up more than 400 usually routine military promotions because he didn’t cotton to a Defense Department policy that allowed travel for abortion or reproductive care.
Schatz, to his credit, is more concerned about the born – starving ones, in particular – and speaking up loudly to keep USAID out of Musk’s Nazi-saluting hands.
The holds, Schatz said, will stay in place “until and unless this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again.”
At a press conference outside the agency’s headquarters, the senator said, “Dismantling USAID is illegal and makes us less safe. USAID was created by federal law and is funded by Congress. Donald Trump and Elon Musk can’t just wish it away with a stroke of a pen — they need to pass a law.”
Echoing the sentiments of other Democrats, he said, “This is self-inflicted chaos of epic proportions that will have dangerous consequences all around the world.”
While they’re at it, Democrats need to take on Musk full force, through any means necessary, to sever his tentacles from our government.
Musk is an unelected, non-government employee seizing access to classified and secure systems (including federal payroll, Social Security checks and tax refunds) and physically blocking actual government employees under the oversight of actual elected officials from doing their jobs.
What’s it going to take for Congress to act? News that Musk has locked them from their offices and the House and Senate floors?