Writers and Editors

• Uncooperative Responses (The Weekly Sift, 2-9-26)

     Trump’s assault on American democracy. This week he threatened to “nationalize” vote-counting in 15 states, and continued the violent occupation of Minneapolis.

     Climate change. Trump’s war against renewable energy is having results: Last year, for every new dollar committed to renewable energy projects, three dollars were rolled back.

     Gaza. The ceasefire is holding more or less, but it can’t hold forever if Gazans’ lives don’t start improving.

     Ukraine. The question is less who is winning than who will crack first. Russia’s economy is in serious trouble, and Ukraine is running out of soldiers.

• Donald Trump’s Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet (Steve Eder and Dave Philipps, NY Times, 8-2-2016)

   "For many years, Mr. Trump, 70, has also asserted that it was “ultimately” the luck of a high draft lottery number — rather than the medical deferment for bone spurs — that kept him out of the war. But his Selective Service records, obtained from the National Archives, suggest otherwise.

    Mr. Trump had been medically exempted for more than a year when the draft lottery began in December 1969, well before he received what he has described as his “phenomenal” draft number."
---Was Trump a 'draft dodger'? (PunditFact,7-21-2015)

    With his signature flair for controversy, billionaire Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump challenged the Vietnam War service credentials of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

    "He’s a war hero because he was captured," Trump said July 18, 2015, during an interview in Ames, Iowa. "I like people who weren’t captured." McCain ended up in a Hanoi POW camp after his Navy dive bomber was shot down in 1967.
    Ronald Kuby, a criminal and civil rights lawyer and talk show host, appeared on WABC-AM in New York City on July 15, 2015, three days before Trump made his controversial comments. Kuby highlighted the multiple student deferments Trump received, and how he finally got a medical exemption that staved off the draft. Trump "was a Vietnam draft dodger," Kuby said. 
---Deferments Helped Trump Dodge Vietnam: How the presidential candidate avoided combat (The Smoking Gun)

 
• Trump gave broad clemency to all Jan. 6 rioters. See their cases in 3 charts

   (Annette Choi, Alex Leeds Matthews and Marshall Cohen, CNN, 1-26-25)

    On his first day in office, President Donald Trump granted sweeping clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.    

    Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of everyone convicted of January 6-related crimes, including hundreds who were guilty of assaulting police. He also ordered the Justice Department to dismiss all pending cases.

    The move was the crowning achievement in Trump’s yearslong effort to whitewash the history of January 6, when a mob of thousands of his supporters violently stormed the Capitol and disrupted Congress’ certification of the 2020 election, which he lost.

• There Is a Very Good Reason Why Donald Trump Thinks Everything Is Rigged

    (David Corn, Mother Jones, January 2024)

In business, he was a master of gaming the system.
    "As a businessman, he generally did not use his influence and wealth to advance the interests of the government or any cause. He mostly cared about one thing—himself. But essential to his own rise to wealth and power was a core component of oligarchy: exploiting a rigged system. And during both his private sector career and his time in the White House, he has been friendly to oligarchs, cutting deals with them, cozying up to oligarchic regimes, and stacking his own Cabinet with the super­rich. It’s this world of immense wealth and power that Trump wishes to rule."

---The Pentagon Becomes a Fox News Segment (Michael Corthell, EssayX, 4-24-26)

     When performance replaces competence, government becomes theater with real weapons. “The public servant becomes the brand ambassador. The defense secretary becomes the host. The president becomes the product. The citizen becomes the audience.”
     There is a kind of power that comes from competence. It is earned slowly, through knowledge, judgment, restraint, institutional memory, and the basic understanding that the machinery of government is not a toy.
    Then there is the other kind: the power of the television tough guy, the man who mistakes volume for command, grievance for strategy, and a camera-ready scowl for constitutional authority.

    (This is about Hegseth, but who else comes to mind?)

--- Sen. Kelly holds a news conference on Trump and Hegseth's 'efforts to intimidate him' (YouTube video, 12-1-25) A summary of Trump's efforts to keep Kelly from arguing with him about issues.)

• 2 ex-FBI agents say in a lawsuit they were fired for their roles in Trump election investigation (Eric Tucker, AP News, 3-19-26)

   Two agents fired from the FBI last year said in a federal lawsuit Thursday that they were terminated “solely” because of their participation in an investigation into President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. They were terminated despite spotless disciplinary records and “exemplary” ratings on performance reviews. Both say they were given no explanation but that the terminations came soon after Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who along with other Trump allies asserted that the 'Arctic Frost' investigation was politically motivated, and

released unredacted Justice Department documents related to the investigation that exposed one of the agents’ names.

• A Case Against 6 Democrats Lacked Urgency. Then Came a Swift Bid for an Indictment. (Alan Feuer, Glenn Thrush, and Michael S. Schmidt, NY Tmes, 2-18-26)

    Senators Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly were among the Democratic lawmakers targeted by federal prosecutors after recording a video informing troops that they could refuse illegal orders President Trump said they should be charged with sedition for issuing the video.

    The botched attempt to prosecute the lawmakers for what was essentially an act of political dissent, critics say, was an egregious misuse of the grand jury system even for a Justice Department that has repeatedly trampled over prosecutorial norms in its efforts to satisfy Mr. Trump’s pursuit of vengeance against his adversaries.

 

• Epstein Dumps on Trump Again (Robert Reich, and I quote just part of this particular YouTube video, editing to tighten it, 1-21-26)

   "Pam Bondi and the Justice Department have tried to get  their hands on voting rolls in every state. They're suing half of the states because the states are not turning over their voting rolls as readily as Pam Bondi wants it. In Minnesota, she told Tim Walls that she wanted the voting rolls there. What's the excuse for for getting the voting rolls? I don't know, but this is a serious attack on democracy."

   We don't know exactly how much the Democrats are going to be able to get in terms of constraining ICE and the Border Patrol and making them more legal and respecting the rights, the civil rights and the constitutional rights and the first amendment rights of Americans of people who are here legally and of anybody....What worries me is that the Democrats did allow the rest of the federal agencies, the other five or six departments that were together in the original appropriation bill with the Department of Homeland Security. The Democrats said, "Okay, we agree you can you we'll let you go on and be fully funded."

    Well, that that reduces their bargaining power hugely. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE already has more money than it knows what to do with because it got it in the big ugly bill, remember? 

     The Trump sons, the two eldest Trump's sons and Trump are suing for 10 billion dollars. I mean, how does that work? Well, first of all it doesn't work. Legally, technically, I suppose a president has the right to sue, but look how he has abused that right. With the defamation suits against ABC and CBS, with his lawsuit against the New York Times,  and now he sues his own executive branch for 10 billion dollars. Who's going to represent him? And who's going to represent the government? Who is going to represent us, we taxpayers.

     And this release of Melania Trump's movie. Talk about corruption and sycophancy. Disgusting.  He pays $40 million [a bribe] to Bezos and Melania Trump is executive producer. Do you know how many of the licensing fees went to the Trumps? It was something like half the budget.

     There are reasons for being hopeful. When you look at what the people of Minneapolis have accomplished, at the solidarity, the community  that they have they have created. There was already a very strong community there but so many of the people of Minneapolis are doing so much to help others in Minneapolis... taking the children of vulnerable people to school, taking them to court, driving them places so that they don't have to be afraid, driving to food stores, creating food pantries. This outpouring of civic consciousness so heartening. Not only are we in this vile tipping point toward fascism, toward a dictatorship, toward a reign of terror. But we at the same time are seeing the rebirth of a kind of community in America, of a democratic spirit of self-government that we really desperately need in this country. We've needed it even before Trump.

     On the days that I'm particularly positive, and there aren't that many, the feeling is that the positives will outweigh the negatives, that our community and solidarity and this renewed democracy will last longer and deeper than the dictatorship we are now in. Let me thank all of you out there for just sticking with it, for not giving up. What they want most of all is for us to give up hope, to become so cynical that we are immobilized and we are not going to do that. We're going to continue to fight."

 

• The East Wing of the White House is destroyed, it can never be replaced, and Trump probably won't be allowed to put his precious ballroom there either. But he *did* pocket $400 million in bribes from his "donors" to build…absolutely nothing. If that doesn't thoroughly enrage you, check your pulse.

---Arts Panel Packed With Trump Allies Approves White House Ballroom Project (Luke Broadwater, New York Times, 2-19-26)

   President Trump has taken several steps to eliminate any pocket of resistance to his plans for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom. The National Capital Planning Commission received more than 2,000 messages in opposition to it, “comments were that they were concerned about the illegal demolition without permits or oversight, inappropriate scale that will dwarf the White House, the violation of historic preservation principles, a lack of transparency in funding and contracting and a fundamental miscarriage of democratic principles.”
---Trump’s White House Ballroom Sparks Questions About Funding and Ethics (FactCheck, org. 10-23-25)

   Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Axios that the White House fundraising dinner could affect public trust in government.

    “All of this money that they’re giving for something that’s important to the president could influence his decision making, and he could be thinking about that instead of thinking about what’s  best for  Read More 

Revised, expanded, 2-20-26.

The so-called "Deep State" is the force behind a "covert resistance" to the President (Donald Trump). White House aides reportedly blame it for the daily stream of leaks that have kept Trump's team on the defensive since before he even took office.
     

I did not understand what people meant by "the Deep State" so I searched for explanations and found that the Deep State is what Trump and his administration perceive as his enemies: federal staff who resist the political agenda of Trump's administration. This political insight is not particularly relevant to this Writers and Editors website except that it explains phrases common in political discussions that elude understanding for most readers. I have updated this entry by adding the first two clear explanations, which date from 2017. 

• President Trump’s Allies Keep Talking About the ‘Deep State.’ What’s That? (Alana Abramson, Time, 3-8-17)
   A far-right website loyal to Donald Trump says a so-called “Deep State” is the force behind a “covert resistance” to the new President. White House aides reportedly blame it for the daily stream of leaks that have kept Trump’s team on the defensive since before he even took office.
    But what is the so-called “Deep State?”
    To allies of Trump in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill, it is an organized resistance within the government, working to subvert his presidency. They blame career bureaucrats, many of whom they see as loyal to former President Barack Obama, for leaking damaging information to the news media.
    But until recently, “Deep State” was a term mainly used outside the United States, and generally associated with authoritarian regimes like Turkey and Egypt. And government experts are skeptical one exists in America.
    “This is a dark conspiratorial view that is being pushed by [top Trump strategist] Steve Bannon, his allies at Breitbart and some others in the conservative movement that is trying to delegitimize the opposition to Trump in many quarters and pass the blame to others,” said David Gergen, who has advised presidents in both parties.
    "The term, which emerged toward the end of the 20th century, was originally used to describe a shadow government in Turkey that disseminated propaganda and engaged in violence to undermine the governing party, often coordinating with people who were not part of the government."

 
• Ryan Gingeras, War on the Rocks (2-4-19)

    Almost two years have passed since the “deep state” became a part of the American lexicon.

   It was in early February 2017, just weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, that news reports first mentioned the term’s increased use within the president’s inner circle. Over the following months the president and supporters of his administration publicly embellished upon the deep state’s meaning and significance, making it into a catchphrase for perceived internal adversaries within Washington.

 

• Deconstructing the Deep State (Charles S. Clark, in Government Executive)

    Donald Trump isn’t the first president to be deeply skeptical of the institutions and people he now leads.
    “When Democrats come to Washington, they arrive as an army of liberation. They turn to the civil service and say, `We love you, go forth and let 1,000 flowers bloom.’ Then comes the madness, and the Democrats wake up,” Turk said.

     “Then the Republicans arrive as a conquering army and put their heels on the neck of the civil service. But after about a year or 18 months, they realize that they actually need them to run the place. So they take their heels off the necks, and things are fine.”
     The label deep state “assumes there’s some kind of planned conspiracy going on,” said Donald Devine, who headed the Office of Personnel Management in the Reagan administration, who still bemoans the obstacles to firing federal employees.

   “It is irrational to allow people to run around government doing anything they want, simply following the parochial interests of their agencies. Federal employees need and legally require political supervision, which was the essence of the Carter reforms, a lesson that the Trump administration Office of Management and Budget needs to explain to the White House rather than promoting a naïve version of the permanent bureaucracy.”
      “To refer to career civil servants in the U.S. government as some form of deep state is a clear attempt to delegitimize voices of disagreement," says Nancy McEldowney, former director of the Foreign Service Institute. “Even worse, it carries with it the potential for fear-baiting and rumor-mongering, and is really a dark conspiratorial term that does not correspond to reality.”  

• Trump and the “deep state” (Robert Horowitz, Policy Studies, Nov. 2021)

    "Donald Trump and his loyalists invoked the concept of the deep state when confronted with resistance to the president’s agenda. The hazy concept of the deep state was tied to the long-standing conservative critique of the administrative state and the growth of the federal bureaucracy. Together, they conveyed reproach that Trump was subverted by a shadowy network of unelected bureaucrats that illegitimately holds the levers of real power in the United States.

     "But there is no deep state. The conflict between the bureaucracy and Trump underscores a conflict between liberal and populist conceptions of democracy; between, utilizing Max Weber’s “Politics as a Vocation,” an ethic of responsibility and an ethic of  Read More