Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Pasta Salad in the Kitchen

Tina e-mailed to note Budget Bytes' recipe for Pasta Salad:


Ingredients

  • 1 lb. rotini pasta ($1.25)
  • 1 english cucumber ($1.49)
  • 1 red bell pepper ($1.59)
  • 1 orange bell pepper ($1.59)
  • 10 oz. grape tomatoes ($2.49)
  • 1/2 red onion ($0.37)
  • 2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley ($0.29)
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese ($1.83)
  • 16 oz. bottled zesty Italian dressing ($2.50)
  • 1/4 tsp salt ($0.02)
  • 1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)


Instructions 


    Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Drain the pasta in a colander and rinse briefly with cool water to cool off the pasta. Drain well.

    While the pasta is cooking, prepare the veggies. Slice the cucumber into half moons, chop the bell peppers, slice the tomatoes in half, thinly slice the red onion, and chop the parsley. Set the vegetables and chopped parsley aside.

    Once the pasta has drained, transfer it to a large bowl. Add the chopped vegetables, chopped parsley and feta cheese.

    Pour the dressing over the pasta salad. Toss the salad ingredients together until everything is evenly coated in the dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste, I added about ¼ tsp of salt and ¼ tsp ground black pepper. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat.*


That's a recipe for pasta salad and earlier this month, we had "Salad Pasta in the Kitchen ."

Here are some of the salad recipes we noted in the spring and summer of 2024:\

"Easy Summer Pasta in the Kitchen"



News?   Linda Bordoni (Vatican News) reports:


“The 15th of April will mark the second sad anniversary of the beginning of the conflict in Sudan, in which thousands have been killed and millions of families have been forced to flee their homes,” said Pope Francis on Sunday in a message distributed by the Holy See Press Office.

Recalling the “suffering of children, women and vulnerable people  [that] cries out to heaven and begs us to act” the Pope renewed his appeal to the parties involved:

“That they may end the violence and embark on paths of dialogue, and to the international community, so that the help needed may be provided to the populations."

The war in Sudan

The war between rival militaries – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – began on 15 April 2023 after a breakdown in the transition to civilian rule following the overthrow of long-time President Omar al-Bashir. Heavy fighting has levelled towns and cities and claimed tens of thousands of lives.

At least 12.4 million people have been uprooted from their homes, including more than 3.3 million refugees.

 

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Tuesday:


Tuesday, April 15, 2025.  Chump wrecks the economy and that includes tourism, Chump's deportation policies are illegal and one man proves that which is why Chump doesn't want him back in the US, they're going after Head Start, and much more.


Convicted Felon Donald Chump has wrecked he economy and the fallout continues.  Yesterday, Ruth noted in "Chump could be a wet nurse" that the real number of Republicans concerned about Chump's tariffs is probably much greater and that people have a hard time admitting they made a mistake.  And she notes how elected Republicans are beginning to voice their concerns which will break the ice and allow non-elected Republicans to get truthful.  Florence Muchai (CRYPTOPOLITAN) reports:


Republican lawmakers are worried that President Donald Trump’s pause-and-play tariff strategy could backfire politically and economically, potentially jeopardizing the GOP’s prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. 

Owing to how tariffs hit both adversaries and allies, party leaders warn the President that inflation, higher borrowing costs, suppressed consumer expenditure, and market instability could undo hard-won electoral gains.

Last week, Trump announced that Chinese import tariffs would clock 145%, prompting Beijing to retaliate with a 125% tariff on American goods. Though the POTUS temporarily paused trade levies for several other countries for 90 days, claiming they are now on the negotiation table, Republicans are concerned about the leading party’s reputation back home.

According to data reported by Yahoo Finance, the 30-year Treasury yield, closely linked to mortgage rates, saw its biggest one-week jump since 1982, rising to 4.88%. The 10-year yield climbed to 4.59%, increasing borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.
Conservative Senator Thom Tillis, one to watch in the upcoming midterm cycle, referenced the former President Ronald Reagan era in 1982 when Republicans lost 26 seats in the House, likely caused by economic concerns and rising interest rates.

“All the indicators would be ‘wrong track’ if we’re still having the same tariff discussions by February,” Tillis remarked.

Tillis is asking the Trump administration to finalize favorable trade deals within the next 10 months. But without concrete results, he said, the GOP would face “political headwinds” similar to past electoral wipeouts following tax hikes or trade disruptions.

Another GOP leader, Senator Rand Paul, invoked the 1932 election when the Republican authors of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, Senators Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley, lost their seats after their protectionist policies shared the biggest part of the blame for deepening the Great Depression.



When Democratic Party analyst James Carville says to let the GOP screw things up all by themselves, he's basing it on historical models like the above.  History often repeats. But not always precisely and it's rather lazy -- and a bit of a scaredy cat -- to talk people out of taking action on the hope/dream/prayer that things will turn out exactly as they did in the past.  And it also puts aside/ignores all the other things he's doing -- all the other illegal things. 



In a column for THE NEW YORK TIMES, Carville argues that Chump's con may be coming to an end,  "The problem is that smoke and mirrors only work until you screw up so hard that no act of lunacy can pull the American people's attention elsewhere.  And boy, did the president just screw up royally. In what will certainly be recorded as one of the most ignorant acts of political leadership in American history, the president of the United States has now willfully damaged the global economy with his tariff chaos."


The MAGA voters still hanging on to Chump are some who struggle with admitting mistakes and others who are just idiots.  Loved Reece Waters underscoring the grammar challengers of one Chump defender on TIK TOK.




"I'm telling you guys, he's very smart.  That's how the country was ran before taxes."

Was ran.

If you're that stupid, I guess you don't care that you posted a video exposing that you couldn't pass elementary school English.  "Was ran."  It's a shame when she finished fourth grade that they didn't let her keep the dunce cap -- especially since it appears she never went to any grade higher.


They lie to themselves that Chump has a plan, that this is going step by step, one chess move after another.  No, kids, he's making it up as he goes along.  Nicola Slawson (GUARDIAN) explains:


Donald Trump’s tariff war has plunged deeper into chaos after a cabinet official floated a plan for new levies on semiconductors – a crucial component in electronic goods – just days after the Trump administration exempted computers and smartphones from tariffs.
Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told NBC the tariff exemption on several electronic devices was temporary, and that new duties would come in “a month or two”. Semiconductors would be targeted, he said.

The president said he would lay out the new tariffs on Monday and that any relief for the electronics industry would be short-lived. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”



President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector, to give carmakers time to adjust their supply chains.

“I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with it,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. The Republican president said automakers needed time to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and other places, "And they need a little bit of time because they’re going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I’m talking about things like that.”


You've handed the checkbook over to an addict with no scruples.  You're the chumps for Chump.  The sooner you wake up to that reality, the more likely you'll be able to help out the rest of the country. And even if you made a grave mistake in November, your help is still needed.  From Anne Applebaum's "The Kleptocracy Presidency"  (THE ATLANTIC):


The right question to ask about Trump’s tariff policy is also financial: How will this enormous change to American trade policy benefit Trump? One answer is already clear. The countries and large companies damaged by these tariffs, some of which could face huge losses or even bankruptcy, will have an enormous incentive to play up to the president, to offer him political donations, and maybe even to offer business deals to him, his family, or his friends in order to get some kind of exception made for themselves or their industry.

In a law-abiding administration, personal finances wouldn’t be an important part of the public debate. But this administration’s leaders have decided that laws and norms of behavior that have held for a century or more don’t apply to them. The Republican-led Congress has so far decided not to enforce them either. It’s now up to the media, to outside organizations, and to whistleblowers to keep reporting the slide into kleptocracy to the public and to the courts, to make sure that remaining laws are enforced. It’s up to the Democratic Party to follow the lead of opposition movements in other kleptocracies and to put corruption at the center of their arguments. Before it’s too late, everyone who can do so must communicate what is happening: American government, American foreign policy, and American trade policy are slowly being transformed, not to benefit Americans but to benefit the president, his family, and his friends. Only voters can stop them.


And we're going to have to because Chump is destroying the economy.   Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes:


The United States is about to pay an economic price that Edward Luce for the Financial Times calls the "moron premium," he argued in an article published on Monday.

A sign of how far things have fallen on the right now, wrote Luce, is the constant appearances of failed former British Prime Minister Liz Truss to MAGA conventions — and Trump is somehow proposing a scheme even worse than that which got Truss kicked out of office faster than a head of lettuce could rot.



Chumps for Chump live in denial.  They are not at one with the world. Florence Muchai (CRYTOPOLITAN) reports, "The International Monetary Fund is warning countries about an impending global recession, citing US President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy and geopolitical indifferences as factors that could destabilize global financial markets. In a report released Monday, the IMF cautioned that escalations in geopolitical risk, especially related to trade conflicts, could lead to major and lasting corrections in global asset prices. The global lender noted recent developments, particularly the White House’s tariff agenda, have introduced a “heightened uncertainty” that could disrupt macro-financial stability across economies."  Need some more bad news?  Elliot Gulliver-Needham (CITY AM) reported yesterday, "The dollar has fallen 0.7 per cent today, marking its fifth straight day of decline, as markets continue to reassess the currency’s position in the global economy. The DXY index, which tracks the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies, dropped to its lowest in three years in trading today." David Blond (MARKETWATCH) explains:


The impact of Trump’s on-and-off again tariffs will be practically immediate. Americans likely will see the choking of supply chains across all industries as companies decide to wait to clear their orders through U.S. Customs. Stores will have less to sell and need fewer salespeople.  Americans don’t have to wait for the knock-on effects in the CPI; it could show up in farmers not planting as many soybeans or retailers wondering if ordering in June for the December holiday season is too much of a risk.

The point I’m making is that the U.S. is not the trade titan that Trump believes we are. Important? Yes. But the world can do without selling to or buying from American companies and farmers. A 90-day pause in U.S. import tariffs will not bring back trade-policy sanity, and other countries have no good reason to negotiate with a U.S. president who could tear up signed agreements on a whim.  




Other damage he's doing?  The United States makes a lot of money from foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight seeing journeys.  Dallas, TX?  A magnet for people around the world who want to remember President John F. Kennedy.  And a ton of people do because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure -- unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment.  Florida?  The incredible beaches.  Key Largo, Key West.  DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.  California?  DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches, the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . .  New York has the Statue of Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building, Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . .  That's just a few things in a few states.  Most of the states have major tourist attractions.  And tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money each year. 

Do you get how much money that is?  How many industries that impacts?  You've got the airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.

Or it did.

Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?

In 2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion -- billion -- into the US economy.  That amounted to approximately $584 million a day.

And now Chump's making us pariah around the world.  See, sending people to a gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.  And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines and people are tortured.

He's destroying this country and he needs to stand trial at the ICC for what he's done with regards to El Salvador alone.  You're not legally allowed to knowingly put people into human abuse situations -- and your further guilty when you're paying El Salvador to take these people.  He needs to stand in the International Criminal Court and maybe he become the first former US president to do so after he leaves office in January 2029.

For now, he just ruins our economy.  Tom Sykes (DAILY BEAST) reports:

Big-spending European tourists appear to be turning their backs on the United States as a a tourism destination, with new figures showing a sharp drop in transatlantic travel. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration (ITA), overseas visits to the U.S. fell 12% overall in March compared to the same month last year. Western Europe -- traditionally a key source of tourists -- was down 7%, but that modest figure masks some dramatic declines in specific countries. U.K. visitors, the single largest tourist group to the U.S., were down 14%. Ireland, another crucial market, saw a staggering 27% drop. Denmark fell a whopping 34% -- possibly a response to Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. should annex Greenland, a Danish territory. German visitors plummeted 28%, as Elon Musk -- reportedly close to the former president—faced accusations of promoting far-right parties there. Spain and Norway both saw a 25% decline, and Swiss tourists dropped by 26%.


Where's the Chamber of Commerce lodging their public objections as Chump destroys the economy and destroys business big and small?  


THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RULHE (MSNBC) last night featured a strong discussion of our economy and corruption.






Donald Trump’s return to power is not just another act in the familiar drama of American politics. It is a direct assault on the very framework of American constitutionalism. This isn’t about pushing legal boundaries or stretching precedent. It is about transforming legal defiance into public performance. Trump is not merely ignoring the law – he is staging a spectacle of impunity. Every ignored subpoena, every violated gag order, every delayed trial becomes a demonstration of dominance. The message is clear: the law will not touch me, because I have turned it into theater.
And like all good theater, it draws an audience. What should be a straightforward exercise of legal accountability has become a recurring ritual in which enforcement mechanisms are twisted into symbols of persecution. Each indictment becomes a campaign prop. Each judicial rebuke is recast as political martyrdom. Institutions built to constrain are instead conscripted into a narrative of grievance. And because the machinery of justice moves slowly by design, Trump’s tactics – delay, diversion, denigration – are proving effective. He doesn’t need to win in court. He just needs to run out the clock.

This is Charybdis: a legal system whirling in futility while deadlines lapse and consequences evaporate. Justice doesn’t just fail here – it becomes farce. Trump has figured out how to convert the slow grind of due process into a tool of mockery. Gag orders become proof of censorship. Trials are dismissed as witch hunts. The very idea of law is hollowed out and rebranded as tyranny. And the longer the system hesitates, the deeper the damage. Rule of law begins to resemble a punchline.
But Scylla waits on the other side. That’s the danger of overreaction – the temptation to stretch legal remedies into political revenge, to let fear drive institutions into excess. That’s what Trump is counting on. He dares prosecutors to push too hard, courts to act too aggressively, lawmakers to go too far. He wants the system to stumble into overreach, to justify his claim that it was never about justice to begin with. His strength lies in forcing the guardians of legality into a trap: act, and look like tyrants. Don’t act, and look like cowards.

This is the bind. The dangers are real, and the choices are terrible. Veer too far one way, and legitimacy crumbles. Veer too far the other, and law loses its teeth. That’s the tragic symmetry of the Scylla and Charybdis metaphor – not a choice between good and evil, but a high-wire act where the price of imbalance is catastrophe. Odysseus didn’t conquer the monsters. He outlasted them. And that, now, is the task before the republic: not conquest, but survival.

But survival demands clarity. It demands the ability to see what’s actually happening. This isn’t a cultural squabble. It’s not the latest round in some never-ending partisan brawl. It is a stress test of whether constitutional limits still mean anything. Because what we are witnessing is not the ordinary friction of democratic politics. It’s the steady conversion of the presidency into a stage for personal power – where law is not enforced but inverted, not respected but turned into a weapon against itself.

We’ve seen this before, just not here. From Orbán to Erdoğan to Putin, we’ve watched elected leaders keep the outward forms of democracy – elections, courts, legislatures – while draining them of substance. The systems look intact, but their spirit is gone. Power is centralized, opposition is marginalized, and the rule of law becomes rule by law. Trumpism is not some American anomaly – it is part of a broader global drift toward strongman politics cloaked in democratic rituals.


He does need to be impeached.  What he did to the economy is not something a leader does.  And he did it intentionally.  He ignored every economic expert.  Mataeo Smith (MIRROR) notes:


Some fund managers are doubting the logic of President Donald Trump's actions as his back-and-forth on trade policies causes havoc in the financial markets.

“In the last few days, we have had many conversations with macro fund managers,” Tom Lee, the head of research at the financial analysis firm FSInsights, wrote on Wednesday morning, before Trump backed down from most of his tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
“And their concern is that the White House is not acting rationally, but rather on ideology. And some even fear that this may not even be ideology,” he added. “A few have quietly wondered if the President might be insane.”


They think he's insane because this is insanity.  

And he's garbage trash which is why he doesn't golf at Augusta (they don't want him there).  He's garbage trash who embarrasses himself and the country.  Yesterday, he said this: "CNN over here doesn’t want to put them out because they don’t like putting out good numbers. They only like putting it out because I think they hate our country, actually."


Someone in the White House should have pulled him aside and said STFU.  


With the economy, he's done enough damage this month.  We don't need to see anymore crazy from our Breasty Donald Chump.  



CNN anchor Dana Bash cut in as President Donald Trump was still speaking in the Oval Office to offer a refutation to Trump’s claim the network “hates our country.”

Trump met with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office for a photo op on Monday, during which Trump repeatedly and viciously attacked CNN, including various incendiary and groundless claims about the network’s beliefs.

He began by refusing to take a question from CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent  Kaitlan Collins, then said “they hate our country” and want criminals and murderers to roam free.

Eventually, Collins was able to grill Trump in a heated exchange during which Trump insulted her and called the personnel at her network “sick people.”

With about 6 minutes still to go in the photo op, CNN cut away from Trump during Monday’s edition of Inside Politics, and Bash addressed Trump’s barrage before quickly changing the subject:

DANA BASH: Okay we have been listening to a lengthy live press conference inside the Oval Office with the leader of El Salvador, Bukele where we have heard a lot of bits of information, a lot of news nuggets that we want to definitely focus on, a lot of some misinformation as well.

But we want to digest all of this right now with our terrific panel here and our reporters, Jeff Zeleny. I want to start with you. You are at the White House.

Before I get to you, I just want to say for the record, since we heard President Trump say in the Oval Office that CNN hates our country–.

CNN does not hate our country. That should go without saying. I’ve been here for 32 years and I see a rhetorical device. in him trying to say such a thing.



The person who hates our country is Donald Chump and that's why he can't stop attacking the Constitution.  That includes his targeting of free speech and that includes his use of deportation.  BBC NEWS notes:

 
An organiser of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has been arrested by immigration officials as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship, his lawyer says.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month from the New York City college, was detained on Monday in Colchester, Vermont.

His lawyer said Mr Mahdawi was taken into custody "in direct retaliation" for his role in campus demonstrations against the Israel-Gaza war.

Others who took part in campus protests against the war, including Columbia University's Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University's Rumeysa Ozturk, have been detained.



Mahmoud Khalil.  Some are asking in e-mails if I've been ignoring him for the last two weeks.  Yes, I have ignored here on purpose.  His wife, Noor Abdalla, is doing a wonderful job advocating for him, she's got polish and experience and she's a wonderful spokesperson.

That's the good news and not why I've avoided the topic.

His attorneys are idiots -- and that includes the new ones brought on.  And I'm tired of arguing with two of them.  

The most important thing right now is to get him out of prison.  

And it's not that hard.  If you make that the focus, it's not that hard.  

His wife is pregnant and due to deliver their child at any moment.  That's one issue you raise to the court.  You raise the issue that the government's charged him with issues of paperwork, how he filled out an application.  You get him out.

That is the most important thing.

Yes, it's important because he needs to be there for the birth of his child and to support his wife through the birth.  

But he needs to be out because it makes any arguments you make afterwards on his behalf all the more powerful.

Getting him out should be the main priority.  

Then pick up issues of whatever Constitutional principals you want.

But get him out and it makes any case you make all the stronger.

I'm tired of arguing with them.  I'm tired of their refusal to learn and synergize.

The reason my mind is picked by various friends about their cases is because I have a pretty good memory and know a lot of case law but it's mainly because I synthesize.  I pull from this legal are and that legal area and come up with what can work.  

They're trying to make this about the Constitution and only that.  Any defense attorney will tell you that getting your client out from behind bars is an immediate gain for any argument you're going to make regarding innocence.  

But they don't want to deal with reality and they don't want to incorporate lessons learned in other areas of the law.

So there's really nothing I can do at this point with regards to that issue.  I wish I could but Im honestly tired from arguing with his attorneys. 

They don't want to listen.  Point out that he might appear before a judge shortly and that you want him in something -- clothes -- other than a prison uniform.  Point that out and it flies over their head and they don't understand.  The focus needs to be on getting him out.  Once he's out, you have have his released behavior that you can also argue before the court that makes a stronger case for him.

Again, my time is limited and you can't help when attorneys are focused on everything but helping the client.

Chump wants to move towards deporting us all.  

Yesterday, at the White House, he met with human rights abuser and dictator of El Salvador Nayib Bukele.  Both men are prepared to send more deportees to gulags and torture chambers in El Salvador.  That's where Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia remains despite the courts ordering Chump to return Garcia to this country. 


This issue -- and Chump's publicly stated desire to deport US citizens to El Salvador -- on MSNBC's THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW.



Right now Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is not coming back.

And we're talking about that but not talking about the why.

"Because Chump's ignoring  court ruling!"

No.

That's not why.

That's a response but it's not why.  His ignoring the Supreme Court is a response.  But it's not the why.


Why he's not coming back is because Chump doesn't want him talking -- not about how a non-gang member and a non-criminal got thrown out of this country by mistake.  Garcia is a face on Chump's very bad policy and Chump doesn't want that.

Chump also doesn't want Garcia back here because he doesn't want the truth getting out.

Right now, the people Chump places in that prison are really not represented or heard by the American people.

Garcia gets brought back and Garcia immediately talks about the torture he experienced.

He talks about that torture and forces a lot of Americans to reckon with the effects of Donald's illegal actions and the very real damage being done and how we are currently ruled by an international criminal.

That's what's going on.  That's the why.

Even an idiot like Lindsey Graham might have to break with Chump in the face of that reality.  

Garcia's best hope is people talking about his case and getting the word out and forcing Chump to defend his actions when they can't be defended.  Lawsuits also need to be brought against the dictator of El Salvador who stated at the White House yesterday that he had no plans to release Garcia.  

But we need to be making Garcia's case and pointing out that he's being tortured.  

That's what Chump's trying to hide and that's what reveals him as a crook not fit to be president.  American presidents are not supposed to participate in torture, they're not supposed to send innocent people overseas to be tortured.  



Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

New reporting shows the Trump administration is considering proposing to eliminate Head Start altogether—a key goal of Project 2025

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), responded to new reporting that President Trump is considering proposing to zero out funding for Head Start in his forthcoming budget request—a goal proposed in Project 2025, which would cut off essential services and early childhood educational opportunities for hundreds of thousands of families nationwide.

“While families feel the crunch with a worsening child care crisis and much higher daily costs thanks to Trump’s tariffs, President Trump wants to eliminate Head Start and kick hundreds of thousands of kids out of the classroom, fire teachers, and make child care and early learning more expensive and less safe.

“This administration believes we cannot afford to help families get preschool or help kids get basic health services, but we can afford trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for billionaires. It’s offensive and just plain wrong, and let me be clear: Democrats won’t let a proposal like this go anywhere in Congress. But that doesn’t mean Head Start and so many other programs aren’t under grave threat—because Trump has proven he’ll ignore our laws and do whatever he can to break these programs on his own. Trump has already tried illegally blocking funding for Head Start earlier this year, and programs across the country continued having problems accessing their funding long after his administration promised everything was fine. He has already fired the very people who keep Head Start running with no plan in place to ensure hundreds of thousands of families will keep getting the care they count on, so it’s on every one of us to keep speaking out and opposing this administration’s anti-family, pro-billionaire agenda.”

Head Start currently serves over 750,000 kids nationwide, and the program has served nearly 40 million children and their families nationwide since its inception in 1965. There are over 17,000 Head Start centers nationwide that help kids and families thrive, and these centers are particularly important in serving rural communities with fewer options for care.

Since taking office, President Trump has gutted the offices that keep Head Start centers and child care programs across the country running. In late February, the Trump administration fired scores of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care. Earlier this month, Trump continued to hollow out HHS, including by shuttering half of the regional offices at the Office of Head Start, which are responsible for ensuring high-quality Head Start services are available to families nationwide. The Trump administration has failed to articulate how it will ensure that uninterrupted services are available to families and that appropriate oversight will be carried out despite gutting the very offices charged with these responsibilities.

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