Democrat Politics

A cartoon by Jack Ohman.

Related | Sean Duffy is busy shilling for Tesla as flights are grounded

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By Darius Tahir for KFF Health News

At one call center in the Philippines, workers help Americans with diabetes or neurological conditions troubleshoot devices that monitor their health. Sometimes they get pressing calls: elderly patients who are alone and experiencing a medical emergency.

“That’s not part of the job of our employees or our tech supports,” said Ruth Elio, an occupational nurse who supervised the center’s workers when she spoke with KFF Health News last year. “Still, they’re doing that because it is important.”

Elio also helped workers with their own health problems, most frequently headaches or back pains, borne of a life of sitting for hours on end.

In a different call center, Kevin Asuncion transcribed medical visits from half a world away, in the United States. You can get used to the hours, he said in an interview last year: 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. His breaks were mostly spent sleeping; not much is open then.

Health risks and night shifts aside, call center workers have a new concern: artificial intelligence.

Startups are marketing AI products with lifelike voices to schedule or cancel medical visits, refill prescriptions, and help triage patients. Soon, many patients might initiate contact with the health system not by speaking with a call center worker or receptionist, but with AI. Zocdoc, the appointment-booking company, has introduced an automated assistant it says can schedule visits without human intervention 70% of the time.

Related | The dark reality of making US the ‘AI capital of the world’

The medically focused call center workforce in the Philippines is a vast one: 200,000 at the end of 2024, estimates industry trade group leader Jack Madrid. That figure is more than the number of paramedics in the United States at the end of 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And some employers are opening outposts in other countries, like India, while using AI to reshape or replace their workforces.

Still, it’s unclear whether AI’s digital manipulations could match the proverbial human touch. For example, a recent study in Nature Medicine found that while some models can diagnose maladies when presented with a canned anecdote, as prospective doctors do in training, AI struggles to elicit information from simulated patients.

“The rapport, or the trust that we give, or the emotions that we have as humans cannot be replaced,” Elio said.

Sachin Jain, president and CEO of Scan Health Plan, an insurer, said humans have context that AI doesn’t have — at least for now. A receptionist at a small practice may know the patients well enough to pick up on subtle cues and communicate to the doctor that a particular caller is “somebody that you should see, talk to, that day, that minute, or that week.”

The turn toward call centers, while creating more distance between a caller and a health provider, preserved the human touch. Yet some agents at call centers and their advocates say the ways they are monitored on the job undermine care. At one Kaiser Permanente location, it’s a “very micromanaging environment,” said one nurse who asked not to provide her name for fear of reprisal.

“From the beginning of the shift to your end, you’re expected to take call after call after call from an open queue,” she said. Even when giving advice for complex cases, “there’s an unwritten rule on how long a nurse should take per call: 12 minutes.”

Meanwhile, the job is getting tougher, she said. “We’re the backup to the health care system. We’re open 24/7,” she said. “They’re calling about their incision sites, which are bleeding. Their child has asthma, and the instructions for the medications are not clear.”

One nurses union is protesting a potential AI management tool in the call centers.

“AI tools don’t make medical decisions,” Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Vincent Staupe told KFF Health News. “Our physicians and care teams are always at the center of decision-making with our patients and in all our care settings, including call centers.”

Kaiser Permanente is not affiliated with KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Some firms cite 30% to 50% turnover rates — stats that some say make a case for turning over the job to AI.

Call centers “can’t keep people, because it’s just a really, really challenging job,” said Adnan Iqbal, co-founder and CEO of Luma Health, which creates AI products to automate some call center work. No wonder, “if you’re getting yelled at every 90 seconds by a patient, insurance company, a staff member, what have you.”

To hear business leaders tell it, their customers are frustrated: Instead of the human touch, patients get nothing at all, stymied by long wait times and harried, disempowered workers.

One time, Marissa Moore — an investor at OMERS Ventures — got a taste of patients’ frustrations when trying to schedule a visit by phone at five doctors’ offices. “In every single one, I got a third party who had no intel on providers in the office, their availability, or anything.”

These types of gripes are increasingly common — and getting the attention of investors and businesses.

Customer complaints are hitting the bottom lines of businesses — like health insurers, which can be rewarded by the federal government’s Medicare Advantage policies for better customer service.

When Scan noticed a drop in patient ratings for some of the medical providers in its insurance network, it learned those providers had switched to using centralized call centers. Customer service suffered, and the lower ratings translated into lower payments from the federal government, Jain said.

“There’s a degree of dissatisfaction that’s bubbling up among our patients,” he said.

So, for some businesses, the notion of a computer receptionist seems a welcome solution to the problem of ineffectual call centers. AI voices, which can convincingly mimic human voices, are “beyond uncanny valley,” said Richie Cartwright, the founder of Fella, a weight loss startup that used one AI product to call pharmacies and ask if they had GLP-1s in stock.

Prices have dropped, too. Google AI’s per-use price has dropped by 97%, company CEO Sundar Pichai claimed in a 2024 speech.

Some boosters are excited to put the vision of AI assistants into action. Since the second Trump administration took office, policy initiatives by the quasi-agency known as the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, have reportedly explored using artificial intelligence bots for customer service at the Department of Education.

Most executives interviewed by KFF Health News — in the hospital, insurance, tech, and consultancy fields — were keen to emphasize that AI would complement humans, not replace them. Some resorted to jargon and claimed the technology might make call center nurses and employees more efficient and effective.

But some businesses are signaling that their AI models could replace human workers. Their websites hint at reducing reliance on staff. And they are developing pricing strategies based on reducing the need for labor, said Michael Yang, a venture capitalist at OMERS.

Related | Inside the Trump administration’s AI fever dream

Yang described the prospect for businesses as a “we-share-in-the-upside kind of thing,” with startups pitching clients on paying them for the cost of 1½ hires and their AI doing the work of twice that number.

But providers are building narrow services at the moment. For example, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences started with a limited idea. The organization’s call center closes at 5 p.m. — meaning patients who try to cancel appointments after hours left a phone message, creating a backlog for workers to address the next morning that took time from other scheduling tasks and left canceled appointments unfilled. So they started by using an AI system provided by Luma Health to allow after-hours cancellations and have since expanded it to allow patients to cancel appointments all day.

Michelle Winfeld-Hanrahan, the health system’s chief clinical access officer, who oversees its deployment, said UAMS has plenty of ideas for more automation, including allowing patients to check on prior authorizations and leading them through post-discharge follow-up.

Many executives claim AI tools can complement, rather than replace, humans. One company says its product can measure “vocal biomarkers” — subtle changes in tone or inflection — that correlate with disease and supply that information to human employees interacting with the patient. Some firms are using large language models to summarize complex documents: pulling out obscure insurance policies, or needed information, for employees. Others are interested in AI guiding a human through a conversation.

Even if the technology isn’t replacing people, it is reshaping them. AI can be used to change humans’ behavior and presentation. Call center employees said in interviews that they knew of, or had heard omnipresent rumors of, or feared, a variety of AI tools.

At some Kaiser Permanente call centers, unionized employees protested — and successfully delayed — the implementation of an AI tool meant to measure “active listening,” a union flyer claimed.

And employees and executives associated with the call center workforce in the Philippines said they’d heard of other software tools, such as technology that changed Filipino accents to American ones. There’s “not a super huge need for that, given our relatively neutral accents, but we’ve seen that,” said Madrid, the trade group leader.

“Just because something can be automated doesn’t mean it should be,” he said.

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As a presidential candidate in October 2024, Donald Trump attacked the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina—by lying about it.

“They’re offering them $750, to people whose homes have been washed away,” he falsely claimed at a campaign rally. “And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. … Think of it: We give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars, and we’re handing North Carolina $750.”

He also took to Truth Social, writing, “[I] don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

Then Trump got elected—and slashed the aid. Days ago, Trump’s FEMA denied the state’s request for the agency to equally match the state funds for hurricane cleanup, according to ABC News.

 A man walks past an area flooded by the effects of Hurricane Helene near the Swannanoa River on Sept. 27, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina.

It wasn’t just North Carolina, either. Disaster victims in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia have also been left hanging. Texas received some support, so Trump isn’t shutting it all down. But it’s clear he meant what he said about FEMA when touring fire-ravaged Los Angeles in January, “I say you don’t need FEMA, you need a good state government. FEMA is a very expensive, in my opinion, mostly failed situation.”

The irony is brutal: Red states receive more in federal disaster aid. Blue states have been subsidizing their disaster recoveries for years. Now, thanks to those red states’ voting habits, they’re on their own.

FEMA is even cutting flood prevention projects that primarily benefit rural, Republican-voting areas. That includes $1 billion in canceled flood-related projects in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay region, represented in the House by Republican Andy Harris, chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus.

“We were made aware of this cancellation in funds and are reaching out to the appropriate federal agencies for a better understanding of this decision,” Harris’ office said in a statement.

That funding isn’t optional—it’s existential. The Chesapeake Bay Journal reports that models show the Bay could rise high enough by 2050 to cause daily floods that could stall cars on roads. Climate change, which Harris denies, could submerge whole portions of his district.

Even more dire is the situation in Appalachia. The Guardian reports that FEMA’s retreat could wipe small towns off the map. Many of these communities are so dependent on FEMA—and agencies like the National Weather Service and National Science Foundation—that without them, they may cease to exist.

“A lot of people here would not know what to do without FEMA’s help,” one local storm victim told the outlet. “We need more information about the weather, better warnings, because the rains are getting worse.”

Geologist Ryan Thigpen sounded the alarm, warning, “This is where most people are going to die unless we create reliable warning systems and model future flood risks for mitigation and to help mountain communities plan for long-term resilience. Otherwise, these extreme flooding events could be the end of southern Appalachia.”

But what do scientists know, anyway? Trump won nearly 70% of West Virginia’s vote last year. Appalachia is deep red—and deeply distrustful of government, expertise, and the very institutions trying to save them.

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Back in Maryland’s flood-prone Chesapeake region, a man wearing a Trump T-shirt complained to the Chesapeake Bay Journal that the floods were hurting his vacation rental business. “People come down here, and if they have to wear boots, they aren’t coming back,” he said. 

Asked whether he regretted voting for Trump now that FEMA nixed flood prevention projects in the region, he said, “I think if he did it, he did it for a reason.”

Trump did do it for a reason: because he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you.

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 Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

June 1 marks the beginning of Caribbean American Heritage Month. It was unanimously adopted by the House and sponsored by former Rep. Barbara Lee in June 2005. The proclamation passed the Senate and was issued by President George W. Bush in June 2006.

Here’s some background on getting recognition established from the Institute of Caribbean Studies:

The Institute of Caribbean Studies’ (ICS) effort to establish National Caribbean American Heritage Month (NCAHM) began in 1999 with an outreach to President Bill Clinton asking for the recognition of August as National Caribbean American Heritage Month. This resulted in the first White House Caribbean American Community Briefing being held at the Clinton White House in 1999. […]

In June 2000, ICS took on the mantle of leadership in Washington DC, changed the name to National Caribbean American Heritage Month, and organized events in June under that banner. Efforts to engage the White House were fruitless. In 2001, ICS was joined by the TransAfrica Forum and the Caribbean Staff Association of the World Bank to organize events during June, promoting recognition of June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month, and the momentum slowly began to build. In 2004, the efforts gathered steam, when an Official Campaign for June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month was launched upon the tabling of a Bill in the US Congress by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, with language provided by ICS Founder and President, Dr. Claire Nelson. ICS worked with the Office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee to galvanize support for the Bill from organizations across the country and also organized events on Capitol Hill in recognition of June 2004. The Bill was reintroduced and passed the House in June 2005, and the Senate in February 2006.

A Proclamation making the Resolution official was signed by President George Bush on June 5, 2006.

Given that we live in an ugly time of open racism and governmental attacks against Caribbean people who live in the United States, it is imperative that we push back and educate ourselves on the contributions of Caribbean peoples and Caribbean Americans on both the history and culture that it adds to our nation.

Caribbean people’s contributions to U.S. history dates back to before the American Revolution. Lest we forget, there is a good reason New Orleans, Louisiana, is often referred to as “the Northernmost City of the Caribbean” since Louisiana didn’t become part of the U.S. until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Discussion of that history has recently made news due to the discovery of Pope Leo XIV’s Haitian Creole ancestry. Rarely discussed are the contributions of Haitians fighting in the American Revolution itself, which I wrote about.

Another early event was the founding of the city of Chicago by Haitian Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable with the help of Native Americans. Here’s a short biography of his life:

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Chicago’s Field Museum hosted this informative panel discussion,“The Story of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable,” which explores DuSable’s journey from Haiti to the Great Plains and his relationships with Native American communities, which helped him become Chicago’s first non-native settler:

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It wasn’t until I started doing genealogy, that I realized that hundreds of thousands of Caribbean people arrived in the U.S. via Ellis Island. I was mistakenly under the impression that it was only the entry point for Europeans:

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In case you are curious, you can do a passenger search here.

Google Arts & Culture has a webpage celebrating Caribbean spirit, noting that “the U.S. is home to over four million Caribbean people, who have thrived in every segment of our society. … People like Marcus Garvey, Harry Belafonte, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Malcolm X, Cicely Tyson, Kwame Ture and Shirley Chisholm are among some of the most influential figures of U.S. history. They were either immigrants from, or children of immigrants from the Caribbean region. Yet, all too often this important aspect of their heritage is merely a footnote.” 

Also highlighted are Puerto Ricans such as Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, “Father of Black History” Arturo Schomburg and actor, singer, and songwriter Lin Manuel Miranda.

Jamaican heritage author and vlogger Lindsay Archer has compiled a useful list of 60 influential Caribbean Americans, which she cut down from 80:

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Many people of Caribbean ancestry are counted as part of a demographic category frequently labeled “Hispanic” or “Latino,” and they or their ancestors came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The term “West Indian” tends to be used for Black people whose heritage is from the English-speaking Caribbean. This misses out on those who are Haitian, or from other parts of the Francophone Caribbean, and misses people from the Dutch colonies.

It becomes difficult to get accurate up-to-date census figures which cover both those of Caribbean heritage and those who are counted as migrants. These Migration Policy Institute figures are from 2019:

Approximately 4.5 million Caribbean immigrants resided in the United States in 2019, representing 10 percent of the nation’s 44.9 million total foreign-born population. Close to 90 percent of immigrants in the United States from the 13 Caribbean countries and 17 dependent territories come from one of four countries: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Haiti.

The Caribbean is the most common region of birth for the 4.5 million Black immigrants in the United States, accounting for 46 percent of the total. Jamaica (16 percent) and Haiti (15 percent) are the two largest origin countries for Black immigrants. […]

Voluntary, large-scale migration from the Caribbean to the United States began in the first half of the 20th century, following the end of the Spanish-American War, when a defeated Spain renounced its claims to Cuba and, among other acts, ceded Puerto Rico to the United States. In the early 1900s, U.S. firms employed Caribbean workers to help build the Panama Canal, and many of these migrants later settled in New York. A high demand for labor among U.S. fruit harvesting industries drew additional labor migrants, particularly to Florida. After World War II, U.S. companies heavily recruited thousands of English-speaking “W2” contract workers from the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Barbados to fill critical jobs in health care and agriculture. Around the same time, political instability in Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic fueled emigration from the region. Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, an estimated 1.4 million people fled to the United States. Whereas the first major migration of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other Caribbean nations was comprised mostly of the members of the elite and skilled professionals, the subsequent flows consisted chiefly of their family members and working-class individuals.

In the past few decades, natural disasters and deteriorating political and economic conditions have caused significant devastation and displacement, driving more migrants, from Cuba and Haiti in particular, to seek routes to the United States by land, sea, and air. While the Caribbean immigrant population tripled in size between 1980 and 2010, its growth rate had declined by 2019.

This NYC Public Schools website Caribbean Heritage Month webpage has some additional numbers:

When slavery in the U.S. was abolished  after the end of the Civil War in 1865, migration from the Caribbean grew significantly. Most Caribbean immigrants at the time were fleeing from poverty, and destructive hurricanes, droughts, and floods in their homelands. While in 1850, there were 4,000 U.S. residents of Caribbean descent, the population grew to more than 20,000 in 1900, and almost 100,000 in 1930.

As of 2016 … New York City boast[ed] the highest Caribbean population (Open external link) in the country among all U.S. cities. These communities trace their roots back to Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and include a mix of cultures, religions, and languages. In fact, several languages spoken in Caribbean nations—such as Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole are among the top spoken languages in New York City. 

Given the fact that we are currently engaged in discussions and legal battles on Trump’s insane and patently unconstitutional birthright citizenship executive order, there are many immigrant Caribbean Americans who fear that it will not be defeated in the courts. This includes discussions about the possible revocation of the citizenship of Puerto Ricans and Virgin Islanders.

So while we come together this month to celebrate, let us not forget that there are those among us who repudiate all things Caribbean that have enriched us as a nation.

Join me in the comments section below for more, including our weekly Caribbean News Roundup, and please share about any and all Caribbean communities you live in or near to, and any upcoming events.

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A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

Related | DOGE let the door hit ya: Trump sends Musk off with a golden key

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When I wrote “Yes, progressive buzzwords are killing us,” I expected to get nuked. I pictured myself donning a metaphorical hazmat suit before readers blasted me to kingdom come. And yes, some people took their shots.

But surprisingly, the response was productive, with more than 1,000 comments—and counting. Most practical progressives instinctively understand that language matters in politics. And we suck at it.

The data confirms what our ears are already telling us: We’ve become the party of the elite, and the 2024 exit polls make that clear. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris won wealthier voters who make $100,000 and above by 51-47%, but lost those earning less than that by the exact same margin. She won college grads 56-42%, but lost non-college-educated voters 56-43%. And of course, income and education are tightly correlated.

Being the elite, we speak like elites—using abstract language, lofty ideas, and big words that don’t land outside our bubble.

Related| Yes, progressive buzzwords are killing us

Historically, civilizations have created art, culture, and philosophy after they achieved safety, peace, and prosperity. No one paints oil portraits or writes treatises when they’re starving or dodging bullets.

Republicans understand this instinctively. That’s why Donald Trump ditched Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” optimism and replaced it with doom and fear. Trump’s message:  America is collapsing. Immigrants want to murder you. Liberals want to destroy your family. The world is cheating you. And trans people are endangering your kids.

Just look at Trump’s unhinged Memorial Day message: “JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER, AND RAPE AGAIN.”

Subtlety isn’t his thing.

Trump’s message is all about danger. You’re physically in danger—because Black and brown people are going to kill you. You’re economically in danger—because “globalists” (i.e. Jews) and immigrants are cheating you. You’re culturally in danger—because trans people are coming for your children.

Security isn’t a luxury: It’s as fundamental as food, water, and shelter. And Trump taps into that primal fear so effectively that he’s peeled off major parts of our traditional base: lower-income voters of color and the organized labor movement.

In an excellent comment on that last piece of mine, qazplm wrote:

Why are we wasting time trying to get people to learn new words?
For fucks sake, the average voter turns their attention span our way for an infinitesimal span of time, we don’t have time to waste on acronyms or words that get activists excited but no one else.

And we also don’t have time to waste on fringe issues that affect a percent of a percent of the population. How we got so associated with trans-athletes as some sort of critical part of our identity I have no idea.

We are so afraid to offend, or in the slightest way signal negatively to so many disparate groups that we stopped being the party of the poor and middle class in the minds of voters.

Talk about the economy, and ONLY the economy going forward. Hispanics voters, Black voters, LGBTQ voters, women, young people, they ALREADY know we are better on those various social issues.

We need to keep redirecting the conversation to jobs, wages, healthcare, housing, all the things that cut across every demographic.

Trump’s most effective ad during the 2024 presidential race was simple: It showed Harris talking about access to gender-affirming surgery for prison inmates. 

Yet the ad wasn’t effective because of transphobia, as polling shows that Americans are generally supportive of the trans community. A 2022 Pew poll found that 64% of those surveyed supported protecting trans people from discrimination, with just 10% opposing. 

The problem with the ad was the perception it created—real or not—that Democrats care more about niche issues than the average American’s economic situation. 

Donald Trump peeled voters away with promises to lower grocery prices.

While inflation crushed voters and grocery prices spiked, Republicans painted Harris as someone more concerned about trans prisoners than working families. When Harris affirmed her support, voters didn’t hear nuance. They heard: “Democrats want to use your tax dollars for sex-change operations for criminals—and you can’t even afford eggs.”

And the damage wasn’t just electoral. Instead of having a champion in the White House, trans Americans are now grappling with a dangerously hostile second Trump presidency.

According to the exit polls, Trump won those who said that inflation had caused them “severe hardship” by a whopping 76-23% margin. He also won those suffering “moderate hardship” 52-46%. Being the party of the elite, Harris won those suffering “no hardship” 78-21%. As former Daily Kos writer Kerry Eleveld once said during a podcast, “Democrats are the party of people who don’t have to look at grocery prices while shopping.” 

That’s a branding problem.

More voters of color voted Republican in 2024 not because they’ve abandoned progressive values, but because they’re getting crushed economically—and Trump, speaking at a fourth-grade level, told them what they wanted to hear: “I’ll make stuff cheaper.” It was a lie. But it was simple, and they understood it. Meanwhile, our side was telling the truth in activist-speak.

It was the same with young voters, who went from 60-36% Democratic in 2020 to 54-43% in 2024. And can you blame them?

College is unaffordable. Student loans are suffocating. Owning a home is now an out-of-reach fantasy for most. According to Bankrate, you need to earn $117,000 to afford the average American home. Young people with lower earnings and no assets feel the weight of inflation more than anyone.

The most successful Democrats have always understood this dynamic—and distanced themselves from political silo issues.

Related | This group of Trump voters will piss you off—and give you hope

President Bill Clinton had his “Sister Souljah moment.” Then-Illinois-state Sen. Barack Obama built his 2004 Democratic convention speech around unity with this memorable declaration: “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” 

Beloved former first lady Michelle Obama carefully avoids culture war flashpoints. Former President Joe Biden built his brand on foreign policy and working-class relatability—not progressive campus discourse.

As a party, we need to stop running campaigns that win over the local Democratic committee potluck and start running campaigns that win a national electorate.

Because no one will care about our most important causes—whether it’s trans rights, climate change, racial justice, or reproductive freedom—if we can’t get into power in the first place.

Talk about lower prices. Talk about good jobs. Talk about housing, health care, and education. Talk about the economy working for everyone—not just a few billionaires.

And then say it in plain English.

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Elon Musk is officially done with his nongovernmental government business at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency—at least for now.

“This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” he said during his departure ceremony in the Oval Office on Friday. “The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE’s influence will only grow stronger. I liken it to a sort of personal Buddhism. It’s like a way of life. So it is permeating throughout the government.”

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Musk received a ceremonial golden key from President Donald Trump, who has a penchant for covering things in gold at taxpayers’ expense.

“A little special something we have here. A very special … that I give to very special people. I have given it to some, but it goes to very special people,” Trump said while presenting Musk with the key.

The ceremony appeared to be an attempt at damage control following Musk’s criticisms of Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which would more than double the national deficit. 

Sporting a black eye during the ceremony, Musk claimed that it was a result of a punch from his 5-year-old son. The world’s most dubious dad also dismissed Friday’s explosive report on his excessive drug abuse.

According to Wired, Musk was correct in his assertion that DOGE isn’t going away.

“This doesn’t sound like a group that is going away, it sounds like one that’s digging in like a parasite,” a Department of Agriculture IT specialist told the outlet. 

If the purpose of Trump’s ceremony for Musk was to reassure the public that the unpopular billionaire would stop dismantling vital government agencies, then mission not accomplished.

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As the country braces for a potential recession, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem requested Congress to approve a $50 million Gulfstream V jet, funded by the Coast Guard’s budget. This ask prompted a scathing letter from Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson and LaMonica McIver, who criticized the move as a reckless luxury grab that would undermine critical Coast Guard missions.

Noem, noted as one of the least effective Trump Cabinet members and a full-time enforcer cosplayer, argues that the current DHS jet is too old and “well beyond operational usage hours.” Thus, she seeks taxpayer funds for her personal travel to photo ops in New York, El Salvador, and wherever else her stunt calendar takes her.

To be fair, the Coast Guard, which falls under DHS, does need updated aircraft. Experts informed The Intercept that the fleet is aging, and parts are increasingly difficult to obtain.

However, here’s the catch: The proposed DHS budget already allocates over $500 million for upgrades. Furthermore, the jet Noem is demanding wouldn’t necessarily support Coast Guard missions—it would primarily serve Noem herself.

That’s why Democrats are calling BS.

“Reports indicate this jet would cost $50 million and replace one of the two Gulfstream jets already at your disposal,” Thompson and McIver, from Mississippi and New Jersey, respectively, wrote in their letter, obtained by The Hill on Friday. “Funding the acquisition of this new jet would come at the cost of other USCG investments, including sorely needed modernization of the USCG’s aging aircraft fleet used by service members for search and rescue and other critical missions.”

They pointed out that the jet Noem currently uses—a Gulfstream V purchased in 2002—is newer than many Coast Guard aircraft still in service, some of which date back to the 1980s. In the meantime, parts for some of the service’s helicopters are no longer even manufactured.

So, why does Noem require a shiny new private jet while Coast Guard pilots are flying outdated models? 

Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood didn’t hold back when she confronted Coast Guard Adm. Kevin Lunday during a recent House Appropriations Committee hearing or on social media.

“I was horrified last Friday when we received a last-minute addition to your spend plan for fiscal ’25, a new $50 million Gulfstream 5 for Secretary Noem’s personal travel,” Underwood said. “She already has a Gulfstream 5, by the way.”

Lunday attempted to defend the request, claiming the current plane is “approaching obsolescence,” with unreliable communications and outdated avionics. However, this justification didn’t resonate, especially since the rest of the fleet is in similar, if not worse, condition.

Related |Kristi Noem also wants a fancy new jet

Thompson and McIver’s letter made the connections clear, comparing Noem’s request to President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional attempt to secure a $400 million Air Force One from Qatar. 

“We know President Trump has set a high bar for wasteful luxury travel by government officials,” they wrote. “That does not mean members of his Cabinet must follow suit.

They added: “Your desire to travel in luxury should not eclipse the need for USCG service members to fly safely and conduct lifesaving missions.”

They’re correct. Noem’s vanity purchase occurs in an administration focused on slashing services, terrorizing immigrants, and dismantling the essential programs that working families depend upon.

Democrats are not allowing this to go unchecked. They are demanding a complete accounting of Noem’s use of DHS aircraft—including every flight she’s taken, and a breakdown of which Coast Guard aircraft are set to expire before either of the two jets she already has access to.

Meanwhile, Republicans remain silent. Apparently, they’re fine with the DHS wasting funds on a luxury plane while the rest of the fleet falls apart.

At a time when millions of Americans are anxious about inflation, layoffs, and cuts to essential services, Noem is out here asking for a new toy. The message couldn’t be clearer: This administration governs for the powerful, the privileged, and the performative. And the rest of us are footing the bill.

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A cartoon by Brian McFadden.

Follow me on Mastodon, Bluesky, Patreon, or at my website.

Vice president JD Vance granted Newsmax host Greg Kelly an “exclusive interview,” excerpts of which aired Thursday night. When Kelly asked about “brain drain,” highly skilled professionals leaving the United States due to President Donald Trump’s relentless war on higher education, Vance’s response was perfectly ironic.

“If you go back to the ‘50s and ‘60s, the American space program—the program that was the first to put a human being on the surface of the moon—was built by American citizens, some German and Jewish scientists who had come over during World War II, but mostly by American citizens who had built an incredible space program with American talent,” he said.

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Vance’s reference to “some German and Jewish scientists” who fled Europe to come to the United States “during World War II,” as Nazis rose to power in Germany, is what literally laid the foundation for the concept of “brain drain.”

Trump’s attack on higher education has been multifaceted. His inhumane immigration policies have struck fear in international talent by violating students’ free speech and threatening detainment and deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s wholesale revocation of thousands of student visas has also frozen the immigration process for foreign scholars and professionals.

More damaging still are Trump’s threats and cuts to billions in federal funding to top research institutions like Harvard, which have already inspired top U.S. talent to begin seeking opportunities abroad. 

Turns out that forcing the brightest minds to conform to anti-educational MAGA propaganda isn’t the best tactic for luring scholars to U.S. institutions.

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