THE CASH STUFF FOR THURSDAY, FEB. 20TH, 2025

 

                                                          REP. ALMA ADAMS (D-12-NC)

REP. ADAMS OPPOSES

TRUMP/MUSK ATTEMPT 

TO CLOSE EDUCATION

DEPT.

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Amid President Trump’s campaign promise to “immediately” close the US Department of Education and billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency”(DOGE) attempt to cancel federal education grants, 12th District Congresswoman Alma Adams (D-NC) has spoken out, calling on Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson “to exert Congress’ authority” to stop what she calls “unconstitutional attacks on the ED ( Education Dept.).”

“Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ team has been inside the Department of Education for over a week attempting to cancel federal education grants and contracts,” a statement from Rep. Adams charged. “So far, 89 contracts and 29 grants have been terminated—including funding for diversity and equity programs– totaling over $900 million. Trump Administration officials know what they are doing is illegal, as they are ignoring the rulings of federal judges and the powers of Congress that are clearly laid out in the Constitution.” 

“Millions of students around our nation rely on programs administered by the ED, including at nearly 100,000 public K-12 schools,” the statement continued. “These programs that our children rely on must be protected to ensure we build a diverse workforce for the future and improve economic inequality over the coming decades.”

“I again call on Speaker Johnson to exert Congress’ authority, and I will not rest until the 'Trump-Musk' Administration is stopped from unleashing their blatantly unconstitutional attacks on the ED,” Rep. Adams’ statement concluded. 

Trump made his intentions clear about shuttering the Dept. of Education when reporters asked him about closing it during a Feb. 12th press conference in the Oval Office.

"Oh, I’d like it to be closed immediately,” the president replied. “Look at the Department of Education (DOE). It’s a big con job. They ranked the top countries in the world. We’re ranked No. 40, but we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: cost per pupil. So, we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we’re ranked No. 40."

Trump then noted that China is the US’s “primary competitor,” but is ranked in the top five.

"So, if we’re ranked No. 40, that means something’s really wrong,” he concluded.

It’s been a month since Trump was inaugurated, and immediately on his first day in office, issued several executive orders, one of them calling for closing the DOE, claiming that like the rest of the federal government, it is rife with wasteful spending.

Constitutionally, however, Trump can’t just close DOE, because that would legally take an act of Congress. But the president was about to direct billionaire Elon Musk to have his DOGE operatives to raid DOE headquarters, gain access to their computers, and cut $889 million in DOE contracts.

Of that $881 million, $101 million was devoted to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) training. That falls in line with one of Trump’s other executive orders removing federal funding from K-12 schools that teach critical race theory (CRT).

For the record, CRT is not taught at the K-12 academic level. But thanks to conservative demagoguery, many white parents believe that it is.

Here in North Carolina, a white Wake County School Board member has received threats and antisemitic insults after saying at a Feb. 4th board meeting that “mediocre white men” have been hired for 250 years  solely due ro their skin color, and the DEI critics use the term disparagingly in place of just saying   Black people.

Eliminating DOE was one of Trump’s 2024 major campaign promises, and since his inauguration, dozens of DOE employees have been terminated. World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. co-founder Linda McMahon was nominated by Trump to become DOE secretary, and during her confirmation hearing last week, she agreed to work with Congress in closing the agency down permanently.

McMahon also agreed that some of the essential DOE programs should be moved to other sections of the federal government because many K-12 public school systems and college students needing tuition assistance are vitally dependent on the funding received.

There are also programs for poor special needs students that need to be maintained.

This is not the first time Trump has promised to shutter DOE. He did so during his first term in 2017, but Congress never followed through.

The agency reportedly employed over 4,245 workers, with its most recent budget at $251 billion.

Trump maintains that education should be the responsibility of all fifty states, without federal intervention. Many civil rights groups believe this leaves the door open for rampant discrimination to occur across the country without a federal authority to deal with it.

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THE NEW CASH COMMENTARY FOR FEB. 13, 2025

 

                                                                      CASH MICHAELS

            HOW DO YOU STOP THIS RUNAWAY TRAIN?

                                               By Cash Michaels                                

As you begin to bless your day by reading this commentary, please permit me to raise a perplexing question for you.

America, right now, is a runaway train. How do we stop it?

We’ve got two evil billionaires (Trump and Musk) at the controls, and the train is moving at breakneck speed down the tracks to hell-knows-where (I personally suspect that Hell is, in fact, the final destination). You would think that our laws  - you know, those written declarations of societal restrictions we’re all supposed to observe and obey in order to maintain some semblance of acceptable social order - would have kicked in by now, making clear something we’ve all been told, that we are a nation where the rule of law is supreme, and no one person or entity is above it.

        You would think.

Instead, and this is the part that gets me, we actually have the men and women who are responsible for making our laws (the Republican majority in Congress) turning their heads away from the excesses we’re seeing and hearing from the evil ones, effectively destroying what little foundation that “rule of law” I referenced earlier, still has.

All because of partisan politics, and cowardly resignation.

Please underline “cowardly resignation” if you’re printing this out for the class.

To put it all more bluntly, America right now, is NOT a place to be immensely proud of, because the very essence of its existence is being corrupted right before our eyes, and very little is being done about it.

Yep, this runaway train is taking us into No Man’s Land (with Hell indeed the next stop), and no one has a ticket to get off. The only current solace we have is that our federal courts, the places where the rule of law should thrive, have started to slowly but surely step in to assert their authority to at least slow the runaway train down, but at this point, that’s all they’re good for.

Please read the terse language of U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour, a Republican Reagan appointee, about what the current president of his party is up to, and why:

"It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain."

The emboldened political runaway train engineers we’re dealing with here really could care less what the courts and/or the rule of law say, and consider themselves powerful enough to flaunt both, because they have the tools and resources to fight them, and will.

        Democrats, however, still hold out hope.

        "The pace of this assault on the Constitution in order to serve the billionaire class, it is absolutely dizzying. And so, you have to run a full-scale opposition," Sen. Chris Murphy (D- Conn.) told ABC News Sunday. "Ultimately, you’ve got to bring the American public into this conversation because we need our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate ultimately to put a stop to this. You cannot just rely on the court system.”

        Can you say "headed towards a constitutional crisis," boys and girls?

So, I ask you again, “How do you stop this runaway train?”

We are way past the point of blaming who, what, when, where or why, and are desperately seeking the answer to “how.”

The only possible answer I see on the horizon is the 2026 midterm elections, when Americans traditionally send a message to the president in office that either they are not pleased with the progress of his administration two years in, or they’re very pleased and re-elect those of his political party to continue to rubber stamp his agenda.

Generally it’s more the former than the latter, but I frankly can’t read Americans voters like I used to, so I don’t have the slightest idea what they will do in 2026.

I assume that most are paying attention to the dangerous ride their country is being taken on right now and want it to stop.

I assume.

But fact of the matter is I just don’t know.

Maybe the majority of voting Americans actually want their government run by lawless rich white guys who just make it up as they go along.

Maybe the majority of Americans actually could care less about the fact that this is indeed a multi-cultural society that functions best when we all take the time to learn from one another, and respect our differences and varied backgrounds.

Maybe the majority of Americans really don’t mind being lied to regularly because they’ve come to expect it from their political leaders more times than not.

Or maybe a whole lot of us are emotionally worn out and just don’t give a damn anymore, so much so that we’ll elect a convicted criminal to the highest office in the land, who then goes about falsely accusing devoted foreign aid workers of being corrupt, dedicated FBI agents of being disloyal, and other committed federal employees of being a waste.

All of this, again, from a convicted criminal, mind you.

And then, believing that no one can stop him because he has the U.S. Supreme Court, both houses of Congress (for now), the U.S. Dept. of Justice and a mandate built on lies from a majority of the American people in his back pocket, this convicted criminal-in-chief grants his billionaire white Nazi-saluting South African buddy free reign to rummage through our federal government records to literally change or destroy anything he doesn’t like.

No one elected the rich South African Nazi-saluter.

No court in the land has determined his legal authority.

No official act of Congress has granted him the right to do what he’s doing. In fact, the Republican majority in Congress is praising the white South African billionaire’s “cost cutting work” as effectively doing what they’ve always wanted to do.

What kind of country do we really want to be, America? One where we’re selfish and unfeeling? Where we just allow our leaders to snatch vital foreign aid from the poorest countries in the world because we want them to salute our flag first before they get a precious morsel to eat from us?

Are we a country where we no longer teach our children to proudly celebrate their cultural and ethnic differences despite their common bond of being Americans, insisting that they ignore why Almighty GOD made them different, and ignore the intrinsic value of their individual heritage?

Are we a country that is ready to permanently give our democracy away in exchange for a dictatorship where we have no voice, no vote, no say in the futures of our children?

        This is like watching someone robbing your house and hurting your family, and there's nothing you can do about it.

I tell you it’s a runaway train, my fellow Americans. We’re on the suckers’ ride to Hell plenty fast, and if we don’t rise up and at least take the U.S. House back in 2026, we’re going to find ourselves in an even bigger constitutional crisis that we may never, ever fully recover from.

Once again, THIS is what you voted for America! Live with it!

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THE CASH STUFF FOR THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH, 2025

 ST. AUG. OFFICIALS GET

NC AG MESSAGE: CHANGE

$70 MIL DEAL OR ELSE

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Officials at St. Augustine’s University (SAU) have capitulated to the demands of the NC Attorney General’s Office. The school’s $70 million 99-year land lease agreement with Florida-based developer 50 Plus One Sports - a deal that legally needed prior approval of the state attorney general’s office (NC AG) because SAU is a nonprofit - is being changed in order to pass legal muster in time for a Feb. 27th hearing SAU officials are scheduled to have with the SACSCOC (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission of Colleges) to have its probationary accreditation returned to permanent status.

By showing SACSCOC that it has now made a financial agreement that will satisfy its reported $32 million in debt (including several million in back taxes to the federal government), SAU hopes to demonstrate that it has its financial house in order to assure its stability into the future.

But getting the NC AG’s Office’s sign-off on a financial arrangement that will help SAU achieve that goal is the obstacle it must next overcome.

The original agreement had 50 Plus One Sports paying SAU a reported $60 million by the end of 2024, followed by another $10 million by June 2025.

Published reports say after the NC AG’s Office rejected that $70 million 50 Plus One Sports 99-year lease agreement because it involved virtually all of SAU’s over 100 acres of property, and also because it severely undervalued the property by $128 million, SAU officials are going back to the drawing board, reportedly selling only half of the historically Black private university’s acreage.

"Based on our review of the documents submitted thus far, we are concerned about SAU’s ability to continue to operate and fulfill its mission if this proposed lease agreement is finalized without substantive improvements,” wrote Senior Deputy Attorney General Kunai Choksi to school officials in a recent letter. 

That letter also expressed Choksi’s concern about "SAU's ability to continue to operate and fulfill its mission if this proposed lease agreement is finalized without substantive improvements."

What the new assessed land value will be, and for how long the new land lease agreement will be for is still to be determined. But once those new numbers are arrived at, SAU officials are expected to notify the NC AG’s Office with the details, in hopes that they will get approval in time for the Feb. 27th SACSCOC hearing.

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UNC STUDY REVEALS

“ALARMING” SUICIDE

TREND AMONG SOME

BLACK MIDDLE SCHOOLERS

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

If you’re the parent of an African-American middle school student, please take note.

According to a new study from UNC researchers, one-in-four Black middle school students have had thoughts of suicide, 1-in-6 “made plans to take their own lives, and 1-in-10” actually made a suicide attempt.

These are just some of the findings recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 

Based on information derived from 7,643 “self-identifying” Black youth for the study titled “The Factors Associated with Suicide Risk Behavior Outcomes Among Black Middle School Adolescents,” researchers further found that “…28% of Black middle school students nationally have reported suicidal thoughts or behaviors…”

From the “Plain Language Summary” of the report, Suicide rates have alarmingly increased for early adolescent Black youth, and exploring factors that inform suicide risk behavior outcomes is necessary for this population.

…the authors found that approximately 28% of Black middle school adolescents reported some form of suicidality with higher odds experienced among female participants. Other factors associated with suicidality included carrying a weapon, being bullied, being cyberbullied, and reporting lower grades in school.

The stunning report adds that Suicide rates for early adolescent self-identifying Black populations, aged 10 to 14 years, have extraordinarily risen in the United States over the last 2 decades, resulting in suicide becoming the second leading cause of death for this population. From 2003 to 2017, researchers noted significant upward trends in suicide rates for Black youth aged 5 to 14 years.Furthermore, Black youth aged 5 to 12 years were twice as likely as White youth to die by suicide. 

These alarming increases have resulted in the acknowledgment and amplification of Black youth suicide as a national public health crisis. Researchers attribute these increases in suicidality to the disproportional experiences of racism, gendered racism, discrimination, and racial trauma found to increase suicide risk outcomes among Black youth populations. 

Altogether, data indicate an increased risk of suicide for self-identifying Black adolescents, where race is acknowledged as a social construct. Despite the increased suicide rates for Black youth populations, less is known about the early adolescent or middle school population, necessitating an examination of this younger population.

The report summary continued, Among Black youth aged 13 to 19 years, sex-based differences were identified with male suicidal thought and behavior (STB) rates increasing by 60% and female rates increasing by 182% between 2001 and 2017. These rates are alarming as individuals who have engaged in STBs are at high risk for future death by suicide. Specifically, among Black adolescents aged 12 to 14 years, researchers found a significant upward trend in suicide rates, with Black girls experiencing an annual percentage rate twice that of Black boys.

The UNC researchers add that because Black youth suicide is an “understudied’” area of research, a ground-level approach aiming to build a more encompassing understanding of suicidality is necessary.

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NEW CASH COMMENTARY FOR FEB. 6, 2025

 

                                                                    CASH MICHAELS

HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?

by Cash Michaels

The lifeless bodies of 67 passengers after the collision of American Eagle Commuter Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk Army helicopter were still trapped in the icy Potomac River of Washington DC last week, when President Donald J. Trump took to the White House press room lectern, and crudely blamed the tragedy on Democrats, previous presidents Obama and Biden specifically, and the federal government’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies that include even the handicapped.

Rep. Alma Adams called Trump’s words and performance “disgraceful.”

David Sanger of The New York Times aptly reported:

Mr. Trump’s instant focus on diversity reflected his instinct to frame major events through his political or ideological lens, whether the facts fit or not. It is something he has done before….often detached from facts and analysis.”

Prime example, direct from Trump’s executive order outlawing DEI in federal agencies:

“[DEI policies] …undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”

        Spoken like a true white supremacist!

Late Show host Stephen Colbert found a definite pattern to Trump’s penchant for madness when the president was asked at the press conference following the crash why blame diversity, equity and inclusion policies for the tragedy without evidence:

“Because I have common sense, OK?” The hatemonger-in-chief replied.

“Trump “blames everything on DEI, it’s his only game,” Colbert added, according to Buzzfeed. “The horrific fire sweeping through Los Angeles, DEI in the fire department. Violence in America, DEI in the police departments. Grocery prices, DEI chickens…”

As preposterous and racist as all that sounds, I’m not going to spend precious more time and space here blasting Trump for his beyond psychotic views on DEI. I did that last week, so my position on that is very clear.

But I must remark on Trump’s cold-bloodedness, and his permission slip to the rest of America to be just like him in times of national tragedy.

Mindless. Heartless. Petty. Careless. Cruel. Calculating.

Trump’s stupefying remarks in the immediate aftermath of the Reagan National Airport disaster were flares to his MAGA followers that this is the kind of America you wanted, well, this is the kind of America you now have!

Clearly, Trump’s behavior was atypical of what decent Americans have come to expect in times of national sorrow and crisis.

The mark of a good leader is that in times of crisis, you lead sensitively and earnestly, setting the example for others to follow! First you help define the depth of pain the country is feeling so that everyone is on the same page, and then you lead your constituents in that grieving process, hopefully to comfort.

Bill Clinton was a master at that after the domestic terrorist attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 which killed 168, and injured more than 680, the second deadliest in US history. 

To this day, conservatives accuse Clinton of exploiting that tragedy for political gain, but tell that to the victims’ families Clinton generously spent time with and consoled in the aftermath. You’ll recall, his presidency was in the crapper until that attack, and then the nation saw a leader who cared and embraced tearful loved ones in their deepest, darkest hour of need.

Say what you will about Bill Clinton’s motives. The human decency he displayed during that horrific episode in American history will never be forgotten.

The same with Republican Pres. George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Going to New York City, and standing amid the rubble of the World Trade Center with courageous NYC firefighters, vowing to find the terrorists responsible and bring them to justice, bought Bush enormous bipartisan good will that he later squandered, but the power of his fighting words and imagery momentarily brought stunned Americans together, and that will always be remembered. 

And of course, the visible outrage and grief of Pres. Barack Obama in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy in Newtown, Conn., where on December 14, 2012, a gunman walked in and slaughtered 27 people, most of whom were young, defenseless children.

No, Obama didn’t play politics with that dark tragedy, but he understandably tried to leverage it to get a Republican-led Congress to pass more gun-control legislation, which it ultimately, and shamefully, didn’t.

Like a broken record three years later when a white supremacist murdered nine black members of a prayer group at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, Obama again wore his grieving heart of his sleeve as he not only spoke at the mass funeral commemoration, but actually and famously sang “Amazing Grace” to lead the nation in sorrow.

In each case, the president of the United States, in times of immense tragedy, helped to heal the wounds of a troubled and saddened nation. You can argue their motives (after all, these are politicians we’re talking about here, and in the case of Clinton and Obama, particularly gifted ones). But you can’t argue with the end results - in leading by example during moments of national pain and tragedy, these leaders brought the nation together.

        Fast forward, unfortunately, to Donald Trump.

Weeks ago, in his heartless remarks as people were losing their homes to rampaging fires in California, and certainly in the aftermath of the Reagan National Airport catastrophe last week, not only did Trump use these opportunities to, again, display a remarkable inhumanity that has become his trademark since his controversial mismanagement of the Covid -19 pandemic, but also model for his nation of MAGA followers what their everyday default behaviors should be - blame anything and everything bad on your enemies, regardless of whether it’s true or not.

Trump wants a nation of followers who see the world through his twisted mind. That means he has to rebuild America in his image, make people not just understand his way of thinking, but embrace it, and accept what comes with it. 

That also means he has to leverage every tragedy for political advantage, this way the uninitiated will come around to his twisted vision eventually.

This isn’t new. Republicans have been pulling this for years. Democrats have never been as devious in modern times. But Trump has raised this bizarre behavior to a different, more lethal art form because he wants to see his enemies - perceived and otherwise - also crushed and destroyed.

Look at what he did as soon as he was sworn back into office - remove the Secret Service security detail from some of his former administration officials-turned-critics like Dr. Anthony Fauci and retired General Mark Milley. Trump said it point blank - he doesn’t care what happens to them, knowing full well their lives have been threatened since leaving government.

        And look at what he's done after just two weeks in office - shutting down USAID, a vital American humanitarian relief lifeline to the world's poorest nations; threatening trade wars with our allies just to look tough, not caring about the disastrous impact or "pain" it would have on millions of citizens; and allowing his billionaire buddy Elon Musk to run rampant throughout the federal government, accessing vital records and threatening to close large agencies without so much as an inch of legal authority.

        Let's not forget his stated plans to forcibly grab the Panama Canal and Greenland, make Canada our 51st state, and now, "takeover" the Gaza Strip from the embattled, impoverished Palestinians and turn it into some kind of U.S.-owned resort property - "the Riviera of the Middle East," Trump called it.

This madness is how ruthless dictators behave, not principled presidents of the United States.

Wonder how Trump’s friends in the right-wing clergy, like Rev. Franklin Graham or Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, feel about their leader’s sinful behavior of late? Jesus wouldn't like any of this stuff at all!

The bottomline here is that those who voted to elect Trump president again are getting what they wanted, and don’t give a flip what the rest of us think. That means no matter what happens from now on, as long as Trump remains in office, there is no possibility of him bringing this country together, unless those of us who didn’t vote for him also commit to a senseless mantra of hatred and injustice that really benefits only one person.

It’s a well known fact that Trump loves conflict, especially when he causes it. It’s his best weapon to keep everyone off balance and distracted while he does his dirty work, like a true criminal.

So the question for the president and his MAGA followers is this: “Have you no decency?”

And the answer from them is quite simple.

“What for? Decency is for suckers and losers, not folks who live to use their power to destroy their enemies one day.”

THIS is what you voted for America! Live with it!

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