Charlie Cooper: Fight Fascism and Corruption
Charlie Cooper
April 1, 2025: Here’s stuff to do and know now
Go to Washington or find a rally near you on April 5
Working people are being screwed and rights are being trampled
Trump continues to use hate and vilification of immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities – especially Palestinians. Leading university presidents, media barons, and law firm executives are kneeling and conceding. This tactic diverts attention from the transfer of wealth and income to himself and his cronies. We the People fight fascism or face further impoverishment and degradation.
Trump's disregard for human life has led to dangerous abandonment of health assistance both here and abroad. We may be facing dangerous global epidemics.
We can and must resist and prevent our country from being overtaken by fascism and oligarchy. The Hands Off rallies in Washington, DC and all around the nation will amplify our popular strength. Rallies are happening in:
Cumberland
Hagerstown
Frederick
Olney
Leisure World
Westminster
Catonsville
Baltimore
Bel Air
Salisbury, and
Ocean City
Please attend if you can.
Musk and his PayPal partner Peter Thiel . . .
. . . grew up in South Africa in pro-apartheid families. They think they are anointed as philosopher-kings. Watch here or read the transcript.
Eight super-wealthy individuals combined to spend over $1 billion to elect Donald Trump and the Republicans
Now Trump is selling Musk’s cars from the White House lawn, and his lapdogs in Congress are rewarding these billionaires. What other raids on the Federal Treasury and your pocketbook are in store? In assessing the threat to democracy, we should observe Trump’s disregard for due process and Constitutional rule, but we must also help build a broad movement among the middle and working classes to build solidarity, overthrow oligarchy, tax the rich, and restore fairness to the economy. The following talking points stress the harm Trump’s measures cause rather than the rules they break.
Enacting tax cuts for the rich and crippling enforcement on behalf of wealthy tax cheats.[i] Half of the tax cuts go to the top 5% of income earners.
Musk’s government “efficiency cuts” are tiny – only $8.6 billion of the claimed $105 billion can be verified.[ii] However, the recently passed Republican budget resolution (Schumer’s total surrender) calls for about $880 billion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years.[iii] One-fifth of all U.S. residents receive Medicaid, including young children and people in nursing homes.
Giving Musk access to your personal info and info about his competitors makes everyone vulnerable to corruption. [iv] Here’s how you can join Jamie Raskin to fight back.
Firing Social Security workers will impact the application process and issuance of benefit checks to taxpayers.[v]
Cutting 83,000 jobs at the Veterans Affairs Department will cause pain, suffering, and death. Ninety percent of the VA’s pre-Trump 500,000 employees are direct care workers.[vi]
Shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau helps bankers and scammers and hurts working people. The Bureau has reopened pursuant to a Federal case, but the Court has “yet to rule on the larger question of whether the Trump administration can essentially end the bureau by hollowing out its operations, even if it technically stays open.”[vii]
As of March 4, Public Citizen reported that “The Trump administration has already halted or moved to dismiss enforcement investigations and cases against 109 corporations.[viii] This includes:
“All 42 cases at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;
“At least 20 investigations and cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act;
“At least 15 cases brought by the Civil Rights and Environment and Natural Resource divisions at the U.S. Department of Justice;
“At least six Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cases defending transgender and gender non-conforming workers from workplace abuse and discrimination; and
“At least seven cases at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against cryptocurrency corporations.”
Dropping enforcement of requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act regarding beneficial ownership reporting, thus facilitating fraud and tax evasion.[ix]
Neutering the National Labor Relations Board hurts workers seeking to unionize. A federal judge said that the President is “not a king” in revoking his firing of an NLRB Board member.[x]
Driving up tariffs may drive up prices. It would have to be done very carefully to achieve the goal of creating more jobs in U.S.
Laying off federal workers may pave the way for crony capitalist contracts to Trump’s wealthy patrons.
Cutting off research into cancer and other diseases is plain stupid.
Stopping pollution enforcement will harm the health of millions of people. The EPA has already deregulated power plants, oil and gas, mercury and toxics, auto emissions, greenhouse gases, particulates in our air, and coal ash.[xi]
Using your tax dollars to buy cryptocurrencies has no purpose except to line Trump’s own pocket and endear him to billionaire crypto cronies. (“The S.E.C. said memecoins wouldn’t be subject to regulatory oversight.”) [xii]
[ii] https://www.muskwatch.com/p/introducing-the-musk-watch-doge-tracker
[iv] https://jamieraskin.com/doge-privacy-act-requests/
[v] https://popular.info/p/exclusive-memo-details-trump-plan
[vi] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/5-reasons-federal-cuts-are-hitting-veterans-especially-hard
[vii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/business/trump-cfpb.html
[viii] https://www.citizen.org/news/enforcement-actions-against-over-100-corporations-stopped-by-trump/
[ix] https://x.com/USTreasury/status/1896348155522039985
[xi] https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history
[xii] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/business/dealbook/trump-crypto-bitcoin-reserve.html