Explain These Things, MAGAs

This post has been more than 3 weeks in the making. I thought it would take me 3 or 4 days, but I had to do so much research, and I’ve had so many interruptions. So much is happening so fast on Capital Hill, that I’ve had to go back through the post and insert some of the newest information to keep it up to date. I know I’ve missed plenty of updates, but the whiplash events in Washington are hard to keep track of.

Some of the below subjects, I’ve touched on elsewhere in this blog; some I haven’t. I just wanted to gather together some specific points that MAGAs are consistently trying to justify or explain away. So how about it, MAGAs? How do you explain away the lies and lawbreaking coming out of the Trump administration, which are guiding this country toward social and economic catastrophe?

So, why am I right and MAGAs are wrong? For one thing, I don’t depend on memes and other people’s opinions. Almost every single meme shared by MAGAs are either outright lies, or based on a grain of truth, but twisted out of all recognition. These are designed to spread a false narrative and make MAGAs angry at everyone who doesn’t lick Donald’s boots.

For another thing, I watch news for headlines only. From that jump-off locus, I search out official sources. I read Congressional records, government reports, court documents and whatever else I need to find the real truth of a matter.

I also watch pressers and news interviews of Trump, Elon, and any other prominent official so I can see and hear for myself what they are saying. I read Trump’s Truth Social posts and read his Executive orders. I even watch C-Span.

It astonishes me what a short and selective memory that MAGAs have. I catch Elon and Trump both in lie after lie after lie. I’ve seen Trump repeatedly blame Biden for stuff that Biden didn’t do. Trump himself did those things in his first term. But MAGAs don’t remember the insanity that was going on in Trump’s first term. I’ve also watched Trump blame Biden or others for his own actions which resulted in negative consequences. MAGAs choose to believe what Trump manipulates them into believing. (Update April 16: Trump has signed an Executive Order to lower prescription drug prices. But Biden already did that. Trump will soon brag about his success – whether or not it actually accomplishes anything. How does he think drug prices will get lower when he’s imposing extra tariffs on drugs?)

People like me with superior critical thinking skills and a knowledge of how things work are dismayed by the willful ignorance of MAGAs.

Disasters and Catastrophes – Trump Don’t Care

Every president except Trump has jumped into action when one or more states has experienced a disaster. After radio, then TV came along, presidents would give regular updates on the relief emanating from Washington.

During the entire month of March, and continuing into April, there have been back-to-back tornadoes, floods, fires and ice storms across a wide swath of states, especially in the south (and now, earthquakes in the 2nd week of April). Countless thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed or badly damaged. Dozens of people are dead. Trump’s response? Crickets.

There was a statement on his Truth Social account early in March saying Washington was monitoring the situation. I know that was posted by Trump’s staff because of the proper spelling and grammar. Trump himself has been ignoring the calamities. He’s too busy threatening other countries, having multiple news interviews and press conferences telling how wonderful he is and how everyone is being mean to him, and playing golf.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise, though. Back in January, he said over and over that states needed to take care of their own selves when anything happened. I saw him say it in many pressers and interviews, like you can see in the video here (about halfway down the page). Sometimes he said he would get rid of FEMA and Washington would give money directly to the states. Sometimes he said Washington would give no money at all to the states; they would be on their own. Sometimes he said only the states who did his bidding would get money. That’s Trump. He can’t stick with one thought.

But he has frozen FEMA funds. Several states have filed complaints with the courts. Finally, on Friday March 25, a Coalition of Attorneys General sued to get the FEMA funds unfrozen. Until that happens, millions of citizens reeling from the series of disasters that are occurring can’t even find their footing. (Apr 15 update: some funds have been released, but not a fraction enough. Trump is still telling states they are on their own).

I suppose you could call North Carolina a “poster child” in this fight, that state having been hit harder than most by a series of disasters since last year. Trump has gone back and forth: he will release federal funds to help that state. No, wait, he’s not going to help. Oh, yes he will. No, he won’t.

FEMA has been shackled and handcuffed, but they’re doing what they can. They helped NC coordinate recovery efforts, and on March 26, they announced they had to turn all efforts over to the state. Then, on March 30, the Trump administration promised a grant through FEMA for NC. Hopefully it comes through. It’s hard for FEMA or a state to effectively plan anything when they don’t know if or when the money will be there.

Bizarrely, Trump has promised aid to Myanmar for earthquake relief. I don’t know how that’s supposed to happen. Elon dismantled the agency that helps in foreign disaster relief.

I thought it was supposed to be American first.

The Terrible Tariffs

Ludicrous memes like the above have been going around, and that’s an outright lie.

Canada has ZERO tariffs on imported American dairy and poultry, and zero to low tariffs on almost everything else, as long as the quota limits aren’t exceeded. Since the quotas haven’t been exceeded since USMCA went into effect, those tariffs haven’t been enacted; almost all have have remained zero to low. Furthermore, we have reciprocal tariffs on Canada IF we exceed our total. If the meme figures were accurate, then why has Canada been buying those things from us. They wouldn’t. MAGAs doesn’t know how to connect the dots before believing stupid memes.

I do not understand why Trump himself is spreading this misinformation. In his first term, he worked out the USMCA with Canada and Mexico, the three countries promising zero to extremely low tariffs on most imports/exports (only a tiny number of items have a high tariff). He made a huge fanfare out of it. He bragged about how he was going to implement it. The signing was televised, and played all over the news. But somehow he forgot he did it?

Starting on page 32 of this PDF document, you can see for yourself the aggregate quantity of originating goods that shall be permitted to enter duty-free in each quota year. “Duty-free” means zero tariffs. Trump signed this agreement! Here are some ACTUAL tariffs Canada has against us on agricultural products. If you have a few days to kill, you can read the entire USCMA agreement here that Trump signed. I can’t figure out if Trump really is that forgetful, or if he’s deliberately lying.

We also don’t subsidize Canada.

In 2024, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Canada was $63.3 billion, not the 100s of billions that Trump claims. But, to get a proper understanding, look at it from this angle:

The US has 340 million people and imported $412.7B in goods from Canada. That works out to $1214 per US citizen.

Canada has 40 million people and imported $349.4B in goods from the US. That works out to $8,735 per Canadian citizen.

Canada imports from us more than seven times per capita than we import from them. Why so much for a Canadian citizen? Because Canada’s top three imports from the US is cars, oil and natural gas.

Cars are expensive and most Canadian families have at least one. They buy 80% of their cars from us. They have been getting almost 80% of their refined oil from us. That’s a lot! Canada is very cold much of the year, and it takes a tremendous amount of natural gas to keep their homes warm. All that adds up to a lot of moolah. (Other Canadian imports, before their boycott of American goods, included fruits and vegetables, grains, home goods, clothing, pet food, medical equipment and so much more. We’re losing all that revenue because they are now boycotting us)

So what about the $63.3B deficit in 2024? You may as well erase that for two reasons:

[1] Canadians who live close to the border come into the United States to do a very great deal of their grocery and household shopping because our prices are cheaper. They also do their Christmas shopping here.

[2] Canadians come to the US for their vacations, and spend many billions a year doing so.

Except now Canadians are mad at us. They are refusing to shop here and canceling their vacation plans and boycotting US goods. So we will be losing all that revenue.

But Canada isn’t the only country mad at us.

When Trump imposed tariffs against China in his first term, many farms here went bankrupt. China had been buying most of our surplus corn and soybeans, and lots more agricultural products. The tariffs made them mad. They made deals with several countries in South America to get the same products from them. Farmers here lost that market. Some people couldn’t recover and lost their farms. The ones who managed to hang on took years to recover.

Now it’s happening again. Farmers have huge stockpiles of soy and grain that was ready to ship, and our global customers are saying they don’t want it. And it’s not just grain. US farmers have depended on export markets for all kinds of raw and processed agricultural products to keep their heads above water. For example, the US is the largest exporter of cheese in the world, most originating in Wisconsin and California. But countries angry at Trump are cancelling contracts with US farmers (and other industries). Farmers have put time and expense into producing their products, and they are losing their markets. How many more farms will go under during Trump’s second term, compared to his first? (Update April 15: Now the Trump admin has cut funds to the agencies that help farmers find export markets. This means many farmers have no hope at all of recovering their expenses and will go under).

Tariffs also result in an additional cost to consumers: more sales tax to pay. For example, if you have a 10% sales tax rate, then when you buy a $100 item, you pay $10 in tax. Ergo, you’ll shell out $110 to get that product. But if tariffs have caused that product to increase in price to $150, you’ll pay $15 in tax. Instead of $110, you’ll be paying $165.

I’ve seen people on social media say that as long as you buy American made products, the tariffs won’t affect you. Those people are in for some surprises because they don’t have a clue how things work.

(Update April 15: The situation is deteriorating rapidly. Trump is threatening to raise the 145% tariff against China to 200%. The 90 day reprieve he’s given other countries is pointless; they no longer trust us. All the other countries are busy cutting us out and making deals with each other. We don’t have the factories to produce everything we need, and almost everything we do make uses imported materials and ingredients. We are losing our export markets. We’ll be paying through the nose for everything. MAGAs, tell me if America is Great Again.)

Trump Tilting at Timber

It’s about to get a lot more expensive to build a house. We do not have the capacity to produce most of the materials that go into building one, so we have no choice but to import. With tariffs being slapped on those materials, it’s going to cost much more to build one, which translates to a much higher selling price.

A typical new American home contains more than 7 metric tons of gypsum (in drywall, moldings, and much more). We produce much of our own, but not nearly enough, so we still have to import huge amounts, primarily from Spain, Mexico and Canada. We’re able to produce most of our own Cement, but not nearly enough, so we still have to import +21% of what we need. We mine a little over half of the copper we need, mostly in Arizona, but we have to import the rest, mainly from Mexico, China and Canada. We have the potential to mine more copper domestically, but that industry is in a mess, and it could take many decades for this country to become copper independent.

And then there’s lumber. We need Canadian lumber. Canadian White Spruce, Engelmann Spruce, Lodgepole Pine and Subalpine Fir are light, strong and tight grained. The US has southern yellow pine. This is actually a blanket term for several related species, but they have a reputation for warping and splitting. It’s used for things like plywood, trusses, decks, wood pallets, and it’s good for pressure treating for outdoor use, such as deck railings, fence pickets, porch flooring, and joists and beams.

According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, Canada accounts for 84.3% of all softwood lumber imports into the U.S.. We need construction grade lumber from Canada because we can’t supply enough of our own, and Canada is one of the largest softwood producers in the world. Tariffs or not, we will still import Canadian lumber because it’s superior in quality.

Until now, Canadian lumber has been an economical choice for us. Frederik Laleicke, Wood Products Extension specialist at NC State University, explains:

Because Canada directly borders the US, it is an integral part of the North American construction material market,” he says. “Looking at the history of dimension lumber, the industry has developed extremely efficient logistics for moving logs from forests to construction sites, including harvesting, processing and transportation.

The U.S. Department of Commerce watches the lumber trade very closely, and frequently adjusts the tariffs. Since 2017 it’s gone as low as 6.6% and as high as 26.5%. (In 2024 it ranged between 11.5% and 16.6%). These tariffs are in addition to tariffs that the presidents demands. The Commerce Dept. is currently warning that by this coming summer, combined tariffs on Canadian lumber may total 55% or more. If that happens, lumber is going to be VERY expensive!

On March 1, Trump signed an exective order calling for the Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production. But “immediate” is impossible. Lumber companies would have to build roads, bridges and new sawmills, and build supply chains. The infrastructure would be enormously expensive, and will take years. And to what end? In order to supply enough lumber for our own needs, we would need to turn to inferior grades of softwood. Do we really want to build houses that blow over in a strong wind? Of course, much of this timber would be sourced from federally owned lands. I remember the huge to-do in the news over letting cattle graze on federal lands. But apparently it’s ok to strip them of their trees?

Social Security and Dead People

It’s uncommon for dead people to receive benefits. When discovered, the SSA recovers the funds from the family member or caretaker who fraudulently took the money – one way or another.

When a person receiving SS dies, the family is supposed to notify the SSA. The funeral director will usually also notify them. The checks are immediately stopped. When a person receiving SS gets way up there in years, the SSA starts keeping close tabs on them to make sure they know when the person dies and the checks need to stop. When a person reaches 115 years of age, the checks automatically stop. The person then has to prove to Social Security they’re still alive, which can be a long, difficult process.

The Social Security Administration reports that the number of people over 100 years old receiving benefits are extremely rare, with only 0.1 percent of Social Security benefits being paid to people over 100 years old.

Elon got his ridiculous figures from the Numident master file and/or the Death Master File. The Numident includes EVERYONE who has ever received an SS number, living or dead. If you are reading this, you are listed in that file! It includes number holders age 100 or older who did not have death information listed. These people were NOT getting benefits, though Elon claimed they did. The Death Master File is distributed to Federal benefit-paying agencies, banks, identity authentication companies, and others, to help red-flag individuals who are deceitfully using SS numbers for their own advantage.

Elon said he would stop everyone who is dead and getting Social Security benefits. Two men were assigned to go through the records and find those rcipients. They didn’t find any! They signed an affidavit for a Congressional committee stating they didn’t find any. (I had the link to that and I’ve lost it. Ugh).

Elon immediately went silent about the issue for several days after that report. Then he started posting lies about all the dead people receiving benefits that he stopped. Think about it- if it were true, it would be huge news. If it were true, then presumably relatives would have been receiving those checks for as long as decades. Trump and Leavitt would be crowing about it and showing off videos of the people who had been arrested. But… nothing.

And by the way, no, children have not gotten loans from Social Security. There’s no such thing. When a parent dies, the child might be eligible for a one time payment, or a monthly check.

A few useful links:

• Social Security Death Master File Quick Reference Card
• Statement of Death By Funeral Director
• Social Security Provides Update about its Death Record
• New Social Security chief refutes claims of deceased people over 100 years old getting checks

Clueless in the White House

I watch Trump’s press conferences and news interviews. If MAGAs are watching them, some obvious clues are going right over their heads.

A reporter will ask Trump details about something going on in the Capitol. Trump will answer with things like: “I don’t know the specifics” “I haven’t been briefed on that yet” “I heard something about that” and sometimes he seems to not know what they’re even referring to.

He’s the president! He’s supposed to know everything his people are doing! He’s supposed to give his approval for every action! Instead, he has a bunch of unruly children doing whatever they want to under his nose while he remains unaware!

Not Biden’s Tax

MAGAs claim the economy is being hurt by Biden’s tax, and it affects their paychecks. Except Biden’s tax proposals never went into effect. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in December 2017. It’s been in effect ever since. If taxes are hurting you, that’s Trump’s doing, not Biden’s. It sure has hurt an awful lot of small businesses, but it has greatly benefited the rich.

Naziism

MAGAs insist Elon isn’t a Nazi. His Nazi salute wasn’t a Nazi salute!

Then why in the world did Elon and Vance campaign in Germany for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD for short), which is a far-right neo-Nazi party. Why did Trump praise them for doing that? And why did the US vice president get involved in another country’s election campaign?

Explain that one away.

Here’s an interesting article about the AfD leader Alice Weidel.

Heartless Elon

I see lots of memes going around showing the wonderful things Elon did for hurting people. A common theme is how he saved the life of some dying person in the hospital by providing technological devices to cure them, and paying their medical bills. None of these are true. Elon doesn’t have a generous bone in his body.

I reverse image searched the person in one of those memes. Poor child, in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes. It turned out to be an image lifted from a medical training video. The person was likely an actor, and if not, it was someone from years ago who never would have met Elon.

And this one that has gone around: 96-year-old Woman Is Forced To Sell Her House To Brokers. Then Elon Musk Shows Up And Does The Unthinkable

Supposedly, Elon shelled out the money to save her home. Except the woman in the photo is a Scottish woman named Jessie Gallan. The photo is from 2015 when she was celebrating her 109th birthday. Elon was photoshopped or AI’d in, and the woman died years ago.

The house in the meme is in Toronto. The woman (named Joyce) who owned it wasn’t losing the house due to financial difficulties. She called these realtors back in 2020 to sell the house. The realtors took photos of the inside of the house. Joyce’s photo is at the bottom of that page. She most certainly is not the woman in the Elon meme.

Foreign Students

I’m recently seeing a lot of outrage from the far right about foreign students in American universities. Why should those students be excluded? They pay a huge amount more for tuition than American students do. They help finance the universities. It’s true that a small percentage of them get financial aid help via scholarship or grant, but those primarily come from research institutions and private estates. Which monies of course go to the university, not the student.

A great many American students attend universities in other countries. Turn about is fair play.

Eggs and Gasoline

MAGAs have been gleefully crowing that Trump has brought down the prices of gas and eggs, sharing memes like the absurd one above. How did he do that? Give me some links to the congressional record showing me what actions he took. I’ll wait.

There are several reasons gas prices are dropping, and none of them are due to any positive actions Trump took.

One reason is, demand is down because people are traveling less. This has created a surplus of winter gas, and producers needed to get rid of it so they can get the summer gas on the market.

Another reason is, OPEC is increasing production and flooding the market.

The first week of April, Trump opened public lands to more drilling. But if that even comes to anything, it will be a long time before any results are seen.

The United States was already producing more oil than any other country while Biden was in office. He issued a record number of domestic drilling permits. So many permits are out there but not being used, that opening yet more land is pointless. Also, when the price of oil drops too much, American oil producers stop drilling because they can’t make a profit when the price is too low. Are you understanding that? Cheap gas is due to imports. If we depend on domestic oil only, gas prices will be high.

There are two reasons egg prices dropped.

1. Cases of bird flu at the egg farms drastically dropped during the winter when the wild birds migrated south.
2. The US began importing millions of eggs from other countries and the supply increased.

There are two reasons egg prices may start gong up again soon.

1. Cases of bird flu at the egg farms may increase again as the wild birds migrate back from south of the border.
2. Tariffs may add to the cost of the eggs we’re importing.

Unlawful Deportations

I try to avoid thinking about how the US government treated the Native Americans in the 1800s, because it always makes me tear up. But what they are doing now may exceed those former actions in the level of barbarism.

Trump illegally invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 so he could wholesale deport every perceived undesirable possible without due process. Except it was never meant to be used in that way.

Trump wanted to make a big show of deporting criminals. He makes a big show of everything, and that was a good one. The White House gleefully released videos of the prisoners being brutalized by ICE agents, their faces bruised from beatings. Karoline Leavitt called them “fun videos”. She is depraved. Anyone deriving sadistic pleasure from watching human being being savagely treated is a despicable person. I noticed that the videos carefully omitted the women who were in the mix. I suppose the Trump admin knew even MAGAs might object to that.

ICE agents are out of control, all this business of abducting people off the streets, and charging through apartment buildings banging on doors, demanding proof of citizenship. This is no exaggeration; dozens of security cameras have caught them in the acts. That is a classic manifestation of fascism.

Speaking of the deportations: “I love that” said Trump in this April 6 press conference, which is full of his usual lies, or is it delusions? In the same presser, he said he was open to sending American citizens there. That’s not the first time he said it, and he’s still saying it. If he really starts doing that, it would have to be done without due process. If that doesn’t scare the pants off of you, you aren’t living in reality.

A minimum of 75% of these deportees had no criminal record and most were here legally. Of the small number who do have a criminal record (in the United States or in their country of origin), most crimes are for non-violent offenses like theft, shoplifting and trespassing. Trump’s goons claimed they investigated the people before deporting them, but that’s an outright lie. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump admin to bring the innocent victims back. They said they couldn’t. That’s funny, they are paying El Salvador millions of tax dollars to house the deportees. They should have a say in who can be retrieved.

U.S. officials acknowledged in court filings that many people sent to El Salvador do not have criminal records. But they refuse to do anything about it.

The El Salvadorian mega-prison CECOT has a reputation for torturing prisoners. Systematic physical beatings, torture, intentional denial of access to food, water, clothing, health care have been documented.

Prisoners in CECOT are in a hopeless state. Most will be there the rest of their life. That might be tolerable if they were treated like humans, but that’s far from the case.

They are so overcrowded that they have to take turns standing or sitting and sleeping. Lights stay on 24 hours a day. All inmates must have their heads shaved. They spend much of their day sitting on the floor in line, resting their heads on the back of the person in front of them.

Communications with their families and lawyers are forbidden. That means no letters, no phone calls and no visits. Cell signals are unavailable within a radius of 1.5 miles of the prison lest a prisoner were to find a way to contact someone from the outside. They are not allowed to have books, watch TV or listen to music.

Prisoners subsists on a diet of beans and pasta. Access to toilets and showers are limited. Skin diseases are rampant and medical care is almost non-existent. They are NEVER allowed outdoor access.

You’ve probably heard of some of the specific innocents that have been featured in the news, but if you watch Fox News or News Max, you are getting a grossly twisted version of the events.

I won’t go into too much detail for lack of time, but I’ll briefly touch on Abrego Garcia, since his case is dominating the news.

• He fled violence and illegally came to the US in 2011 at the age of 16.
• He found work, married and settled into life.
• ICE arrested him in 2019.
• A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13 member in New York. He had never been to New York.
• An investigation could find no evidence Garcia had committed any crimes in the US or in El Salvador
• In 2019, a judge, under the auspices of the Executive branch of the US government, granted him Protected Status (Court document dated 2019, retrieved March 2025)
• In March 2025, he was arrested by ICE again. This time, he was deported.
• When confronted by the courts, ICE claimed they believed he was guilty because he was wearing “his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie”, and they referenced the years-earlier allegations that Garcia was a gang member.
• Government officials acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador.
• The court ordered he be returned.
• On April 11, Trump said “If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back, I would do it. I respect the Supreme Court. I’m not talking about the lower court, I have great respect for the Supreme Court. I’m not totally well versed as to the specific case, but if they said to bring him back, I would tell them to bring him back.”
• Then on April 14, Trump said no, he wouldn’t bring him back. He said he doesn’t have the authority, which is an outright lie.
• Now everyone in the White House is spreading all kinds of lies about the case in an attempt to justify their actions.

A number of churches are praying for Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return. I’m hoping for a miracle.

A few more examples of innocent victims. There are so many.

DOGE

This needs an entire post, but I doubt I’ll write one because it would be too time consuming. So I’ll just relate a few facts.

ELON IS NOT FINDING THE WASTE AND FRAUD THAT HE’S CLAIMING TO FIND. He has not reduced the Federal deficit one iota. In fact, the deficit has gotten even higher higher already during Trump’s second term- and we’re only 3 months in.

All those government agency reductions and dismantlings WILL come back and bite us all in the butt. Elon has no understanding at all of how things work. He needs to stick with his space ships.

It’s a funny thing how Elon is careful to leave the departments intact that pay him his billions in government contracts. He’s not looking out for your interests. He’s making his fortune off of your working back.

Stick a Fork in Me

So much more I could say, so many more details need saying, but this blog is not my full time job, so I need to quit this post.

Events are unfolding rapidly on Capitol Hill, and some of this post will be old news within days, being overshadowed by the newest insanity coming out of Washington.

I just want MAGAs to explain to me why they are stubbornly refusing to accept the truths that are obvious to many of us.