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Macrodose podcast arguing eloquently here that, as states can borrow money more cheaply than businesses, ANY privatisation of energy infrastructure is a deliberate policy decision to redistribute wealth from (poor) consumers to (rich) investors.
That's true, but there are corollaries.
Macrodose: The Break Down: Public Energy No.1 w/ Chris Hayes and Melanie Brusseler
Starting from: 00:13:05Episode webpage: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/macrodose/episodes/The-Break-Down-Public-Energy-No-1-w-Chris-Hayes-and-Melanie-Brusseler-e2o7rhk
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Macrodose podcast arguing eloquently here that, as states can borrow money more cheaply than businesses, ANY privatisation of energy infrastructure is a deliberate policy decision to redistribute wealth from (poor) consumers to (rich) investors.
That's true, but there are corollaries.
Macrodose: The Break Down: Public Energy No.1 w/ Chris Hayes and Melanie Brusseler
Starting from: 00:13:05Episode webpage: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/macrodose/episodes/The-Break-Down-Public-Energy-No-1-w-Chris-Hayes-and-Melanie-Brusseler-e2o7rhk
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Macrodose podcast arguing eloquently here that, as states can borrow money more cheaply than businesses, ANY privatisation of energy infrastructure is a deliberate policy decision to redistribute wealth from (poor) consumers to (rich) investors.
That's true, but there are corollaries.
Macrodose: The Break Down: Public Energy No.1 w/ Chris Hayes and Melanie Brusseler
Starting from: 00:13:05Episode webpage: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/macrodose/episodes/The-Break-Down-Public-Energy-No-1-w-Chris-Hayes-and-Melanie-Brusseler-e2o7rhk
-
Macrodose podcast arguing eloquently here that, as states can borrow money more cheaply than businesses, ANY privatisation of energy infrastructure is a deliberate policy decision to redistribute wealth from (poor) consumers to (rich) investors.
That's true, but there are corollaries.
Macrodose: The Break Down: Public Energy No.1 w/ Chris Hayes and Melanie Brusseler
Starting from: 00:13:05Episode webpage: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/macrodose/episodes/The-Break-Down-Public-Energy-No-1-w-Chris-Hayes-and-Melanie-Brusseler-e2o7rhk
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I’m listening to a #podcast crossover episode with the #StrictScrutiny crew running down the last year of crazy, frightening #scotus action. Not the most calming material, but it is helpful to hear informed thoughts on it. There was a lot that I missed or did not understand https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-is-this-happening-with-chris-hayes/id1382983397?i=1000661627486
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#Trump’s Brazen Pact with the One Per Cent
After reaping huge profits in the #Biden years, some #WallStreet #billionaires & #tech barons are throwing their support behind the President’s rival, who is desperate for their money.
#Trump #TrumpForSale #CorruptCandidateTrump #oligarchy #kleptocracy #Vote #VoteBlue #BidenHarris2024 #democracy
All in with Chris Hayes segment part 3
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/trumps-brazen-pact-with-the-one-per-cent -
#TimothyMellon, Secretive Donor, Gives $50M to Pro #Trump Group
The cash from Mellon, a reclusive #billionaire …, is among the largest single disclosed gifts ever.
#TrumpForSale #CorruptCandidateTrump #oligarchy #kleptocracy #Vote #VoteBlue #BidenHarris2024 #democracy
All in with Chris Hayes segment part 2
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/us/politics/timothy-mellon-trump-donation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb -
@nf3xn Great point. MY POINT is law enforcement needs to show arrests of all the OTHER people who have made threats. The media can report on THEM. Those people aren't Teflon. They don't have the legal resources #Trump has.
We can't deter Trump? Deter his followers. Here is Chris Hayes talking to Lisa Rubin about the threats to #JudgeEngoron's law clerk.
What we still didn't see are the faces of people arrested for those threats.
The Trump cult needs to see that those people have been arrested. -
Happy Caturday!!
Ted Gordon, born Louisville, KY 1924
The images in today’s post are from the Smithsonian collection of cat art.
On to today’s news:
Are NBC and MSNBC trying to compete with Fox News? Are they preparing for a Trump victory in November? The networks recently hired Ronna [Romney] McDaniel, recently deposed Chair of the Republican National Committee and proven liar and insurrectionist, as a commentator. To say this is an unpopular move with viewers is an understatement. There are reports that other networks competed to hire McDaniel, and NBC/MSNBC “won.” BTW, there have been no comments on this hire by Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes or Lawrence O’Donnell. Do they plan to have her on their shows?
John Knefel at Media Matters: NBC News hires Ronna McDaniel, who played a key role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to NBC News.
NBC News has hired former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to serve as an on-air commentator, meaning that NBC News just hired a key figure in former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to NBC News.
McDaniel left the RNC after losing Trump’s favor, only to be welcomed into the warmer waters of television punditry. NBC News’ Carrie Budoff Brown announced the hiring of the former RNC chair to the network, writing in a memo to staff, “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.”
What, exactly, are NBC News and MSNBC getting with “a voice like Ronna’s?” Let’s turn to the network’s own coverage for answers.
On June 21, 2022, NBC News published a story under the headline “Trump team orchestrated ‘fake electors’ to try to overturn election, Jan. 6 committee details.” The piece described the then-latest findings of the House January 6 committee and spelled out McDaniel’s role in the scheme. As NBC News reported, Trump called McDaniel and connected her with John Eastman, one of the architects of the subversion plot.
“Essentially he turned the call over to Mr. Eastman who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing changed the result of any of the states,” McDaniel said, according to NBC News.
CNBC reported on another of McDaniel’s statements to the committee, acknowledging her and the RNC’s direct participation in the fake elector plot. McDaniel said that the RNC’s role was “helping them reach out and helping them assemble them, but my understanding is the campaign did take the lead and we just were helping them in that role.”
Or, in the words of MSNBC’s Steve Benen: “Ronna McDaniel acknowledged that the Republican National Committee helped put the slates of fake electors together.”
Click the link to read the rest.
Oliver Darcy at CNN: NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected.
NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election….
Benson B. Moore, born Washington, DC 1882-died Stuart, FL 1974
During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.
McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks.
In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”
“How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked.
McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”
One more commentary from Tim Murphy at Mother Jones: What a Coup! NBC News Just Hired Ronna McDaniel.
While ex-strategists or party chairs ending up with TV deals is hardly unprecedented, Trump’s attacks on the media don’t have a parallel in modern US politics. He has called the press the “enemy of the people” and accused them of “treason.” A close ally has already signaled that Trump would use the powers of his office to crack down on critical outlets, if he wins a second term. Spending seven years running interference for a fascistic fraudster who holds the First Amendment in roughly the same terminal contempt with which he regards women and low-flow toilets is not the kind of thing that should qualify you for a new career in journalism.
But McDaniel did more than shill for the president. She played an important role in public and behind the scenes in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election—and with it, two and a half centuries of constitutional governance. That should be a clear red line for employers in the truth-telling business. In November 2020 story in Politico, just a few months before the Capitol insurrection, Tim Alberta offered a glimpse of how McDaniel abetted Trump’s lies about the election and allowed her party organization to amplify them in even more absurd ways:
McDaniel told multiple confidants that she doubted there was any scalable voter fraud in Michigan. Nevertheless, McDaniel told friends and fellow Republicans that she needed to stay the course with Trump and his legal team. This wasn’t about indulging him, she said, but rather about demonstrating a willingness to fight—even when the fight couldn’t be won.
This is why McDaniel has sanctioned her employees, beginning with top spokesperson Liz Harrington, to spread countless demonstrable falsehoods in the weeks since Election Day. It’s why the RNC, on McDaniel’s watch, tweeted out a video clip of disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell claiming Trump “won in a landslide” (when he lost by more than 6 million votes nationally) and alleging a global conspiracy to rig the election against him.
Mom and Dad, by William H. Johnson, born Florence, SC 1901-died Central Islip, NY 1970
McDaniel pushed to delay the certification of the presidential results in Michigan, and helped the Trump campaign assemble fake electors, a key part of its plot to throw the Electoral College certification into chaos. This is not standard-issue party-chair stuff. This was a historically dishonest conspiracy. And it is hardly a secret to anyone: As Media Matters noted on Friday, you can read about a lot of this at NBC News itself.
And that’s sort of the larger point here. NBC News is filled with professional journalists doing good work. Many of them have documented in exhausting (or actually quite lively and entertaining) detail the ways in which Trump and his helpers have corroded American democracy. McDaniel, on the other hand, was a major player in a political project that’s antithetical to that mission. Trump’s GOP was and is built on delegitimizing the people and institutions that might otherwise check it—Congress; the judiciary; the electorates of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. Foremost among the institutions Trump wants to blow up is legacy political media, and its critical, fact-checked information stream. The goal is to erode trust in the press. I’m not sure why the suits at NBC News think it’s in anyone’s best interest to hire someone to do that work for Trump.
How important is it to keep MSNBC from becoming Fox News? At The New York Times, Ruth Ingielnik reports: Republicans Who Do Not Regularly Watch Fox Are Less Likely to Back Trump.
Republicans who get their news from nonconservative mainstream media outlets are less likely to support Donald J. Trump than those who follow conservative outlets. And sizable numbers from the first group say they think Mr. Trump acted criminally, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
This division could affect his standing among Republicans in the general electorate — a decidedly different group from G.O.P. primary voters. That is in line with research that shows that changing the media habits of Fox News consumers may actually change their views.
One hundred percent of the Republicans in our poll who said they got their news from Fox News or other conservative sources said they intended to support Mr. Trump in the general election. This stands in contrast to Republicans whose main media sources are outlets like CNN and major news organizations: Seventy-nine percent of them plan to vote for Mr. Trump, and 13 percent said they planned to vote for President Biden.
And across many measures, mainstream media Republicans are less supportive of Mr. Trump. They are 20 percentage points less likely than conservative media Republicans to say they are enthusiastic about Mr. Trump as the party’s nominee and more than 30 percentage points less likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them personally.
Despite the perception that most Republicans watch Fox News, the share of Republicans who said they got their news from sources like CNN and major newspapers was similar to the share who said they primarily consumed conservative media — roughly 30 percent in each case.
These Republicans differ from consumers of conservative media primarily in terms of their ideology: They were much more likely to describe themselves as politically moderate. Nikki Haley had about 30 percent support among these Republicans and 4 percent among conservative media consumers (the poll was taken before Ms. Haley dropped out of the race).
If they watch NBC/MSNBC, they will now hear from insurrectionist and propagandist Ronna McDaniel.
by Neil Leifer, born 1942
In other news, there was a massive terrorist attack in Moscow. The U.S. tried to warn Russia it was coming, but Putin ignored it.
The New York Times: Gunmen Kill at Least 60 at Moscow Concert Hall, Russian Officials Say.
Several camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire at a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday night, killing about 60 people and wounding more than 100, Russian authorities said, making it the deadliest attack in the capital region in more than a decade.
Hours after the mayhem began, the Russian national guard said its officers were still looking for the attackers. State media agencies reported that there had been up to five perpetrators….
For many Russians, the massacre at a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday night brought to mind shootings and bombings across the country in recent decades, events that the authorities often described as terrorism.
The authorities linked many of those attacks to Russia’s wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s and 2000s. Those conflicts helped enable the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, who over his two decades in power has sought to project an image of being tough on terrorism.
New York Times: U.S. Warned About Possible Moscow Attack Before Concert Hall Shooting.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a security alert on March 7, warning that its personnel were “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.” The statement warned Americans that an attack could take place in the next 48 hours.
The warning was related to the attack on Friday, according to people briefed on the matter. But it was not related to possible Ukrainian sabotage, American officials said, adding that the State Department would not have used the word “extremists” to warn about actions ordered from Kyiv.
Pro-Kremlin voices immediately seized on the U.S. Embassy’s warning to paint America as trying to scare Russians.
America officials are worried that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could seek to falsely blame Ukraine for the attack, putting pressure on Western governments to identify who they think may be responsible. Mr. Putin frequently twists events, even tragic ones, to fit his public narrative. And he has been quick to accuse Ukraine of acts of terrorism to justify his invasion of the country.
U.S. officials said Mr. Putin could do that again after Friday’s attack, seeking to use the loss of life to undermine support for Ukraine both domestically and around the world.
On March 19, the Russian leader called the U.S. Embassy statement “obvious blackmail” made with “the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.” But he had yet to comment directly on the attack Friday.
And that is exactly what Putin did, according to The Guardian: Moscow concert hall attack: Putin tells Russians Ukraine linked to attack which killed 133, claims denied by Kyiv officials – live updates.
But CNN reports that: ISIS claims responsibility for attack at Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 60 dead.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow Friday after assailants stormed the venue with guns and incendiary devices, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145.
Still Life with Cat, by Franklin C. Watkins, born New York City 1894-died Bologna, Italy 1972an from color transparency
The terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram on Friday. It did not provide evidence to support the claim.
Video footage from the Crocus City Hall shows the vast complex, which is home to both the music hall and a shopping center, on fire with smoke billowing into the air. State-run RIA Novosti reported the armed individuals “opened fire with automatic weapons” and “threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire.” They then “allegedly fled in a white Renault car,” the news agency said.
State media Russia 24 reported the roof of the venue has partially collapsed.
The fire had been brought largely under control more than six hours later. “There are still some pockets of fire, but the fire has been mostly eliminated,” Moscow governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram.
The deadliest terror attack on Moscow in decades, Friday’s assault came less than a week after President Vladimir Putin won a stage-managed election by an overwhelming majority to secure another term in office, tightening his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century.
With attention focused on the country’s war with neighboring Ukraine, Putin had trumpeted a message of national security before Russians went to the polls.
Back in the USA, there are a couple of interesting stories involving Leonard Leo, former head of the Federalist society and staunch supporter of Donald Trump and the 2025 Project.
Huge funding from influential conservative donor networks is flowing into groups affiliated with a conservative venture aimed at creating a Republican “government-in-waiting,” including over $55 million from groups linked to conservative activist Leonard Leo and the Koch network, according to an Accountable.US review shared exclusively with NBC News.
Launched by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022, Project 2025 is a two-pronged initiative to develop staunch conservative policy recommendations and grow a roster of thousands of right-wing personnel ready to fill the next Republican administration. With former President Donald Trump now the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee, the effort is essentially laying the groundwork for a potential Trump transition if he wins the election in November.
With contributions from former high-level Trump administration appointees and an advisory board that has grown to over 100 conservative organizations, proponents describe Project 2025 as the most sophisticated transition effort that has existed for conservatives. The initiative includes a manifesto devising a policy agenda for every department, numerous agencies and scores of offices throughout the federal government.
Since 2021, Leo’s network and groups that have gotten funding from it have funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising the 2025 Presidential Transition Project as part of its “Project 2025 advisory board,” according to tax documents reviewed as part of the analysis by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group. That sum includes donations from The 85 Fund, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy financiers to other groups, and the Concord Fund, a public-facing organization, which are part of Leo’s network of organizations that seek to influence policy.
According to its 2022 annual return, the 85 Fund gave more than $2.55 million collectively to seven organizations advising Project 2025, including the Heritage Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Independent Women’s Forum.
In 2021, the 85 Fund gave $2.1 million to the same organizations, less the Heritage Foundation, while the Concord Fund collectively gave $4.32 million to nonprofit groups including Susan B. Anthony List, Independent Women’s Voice and Heritage Action for America.
Read the rest at NBC News.
This is from top notch reporter Heidi Przybyla at Politico: What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network.
Allies of Leonard Leo have mounted a monthslong offensive against the man investigating the judicial activist’s network: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb.
Since news of the probe broke last August, the GOP chairs of powerful congressional committees launched their own investigation of Schwalb’s investigation; conservative media wrote articles criticizing Schwalb on unrelated crime issues — based on a social media post from a top Leo lieutenant; and a group of his Republican law enforcement peers sent letters warning Schwalb to stand down.
Mary Elizabeth Francis, by John F. Francis, born Philadelphia, PA 1808-died Jeffersonville, PA 1886
Leo is the Federalist Society co-chair who has been called former President Donald Trump’s “court whisperer” for helping to choose and advocate for his Supreme Court nominees. His aligned network of tax-exempt nonprofits is also a major contributor to Project 2025, an initiative seeking to create a “government in waiting” for another Trump term.
The white-hot pressure campaign targeting Schwalb attests to the growing range of Leo’s influence. Beyond its work in promoting the conservative legal movement, his billion-dollar network of nonprofits has funded conservative media, Republican attorneys general and the campaign funds of leading congressional figures….
Schwalb has been probing Leo since he received a complaint about whether Leo-aligned groups violated tax laws governing nonprofit organizations, as POLITICO reported last August. Tax-exempt groups in Leo’s network have spent millions of dollars on his for-profit consulting business, CRC Advisors.
But since news of the probe became public, its legal basis has been challenged by 12 GOP attorneys general who are current or former members of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The Concord Fund, one of the Leo network’s primary nonprofits, and its predecessor, the Judicial Crisis Network, have long been RAGA’s biggest funder, directing $20 million to it since 2014, according to annual tax filings.
Meanwhile, GOP Reps. James Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and James Comer, who heads the House Oversight Committee, on Oct. 30 announced a probe of Schwalb’s Leo investigation, saying it was politically motivated. According to a federal disclosure form dated Oct. 20, the Concord Fund had hired a Virginia lobbying firm to handle issues related to “oversight” and “law enforcement,” matters over which Jordan and Comer have jurisdiction.
Read the rest at Politico.
Things aren’t going that well for far right members of the House, however. Politico: Johnson’s margin drops to one vote as Gallagher heads for early exit.
Speaker Mike Johnson is about to drop to a one-vote majority, as retiring Rep. Mike Gallagher has decided he will exit the House as soon as next month, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
In a statement shortly after this story published, Gallagher said he planned to leave April 19.
“I’ve worked closely with House Republican leadership on this timeline and look forward to seeing Speaker Mike Johnson appoint a new chair to carry out the important mission of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
Wisconsin law dictates that Gallagher’s seat — in a solidly red district — will stay empty for the rest of his term. Departing before April 9 would have triggered a special election.
The Wisconsin Republican announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection, after he received blowback for voting against impeaching Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His allies, however, say he was long jaded by the antics of the House following the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
It’s bad timing for Johnson, who is now potentially facing a vote on his ouster in the coming weeks. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed the so-called motion to vacate on Friday, over Johnson working with Democrats to pass a massive spending bill, but it’s unclear when she’ll try to force the vote on the floor. At the moment, no other Republicans have said they support her motion.
Gallagher’s decision to not finish out the term also further fuels conference concerns over its trajectory headed into the November election.
“It’s tough, but it’s tough with a five-seat majority, it’s tough with a two-seat majority, one is going to be the same. We all have to work together. We’re all going to have to unite if we’re going get some things done,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said shortly after Gallagher announced his early exit.
When Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado announced his early exit, he said he knew of three more House members who were on the verge of quitting. If that happens, control of the House could switch to the Democrats.
That’s all I have for you today. What do you think? What other stories are you following?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/03/23/extra-lazy-caturday-reads-3/
#2025Project #FoxNews #ISIS #KenBuck #LeonardLeo #MikeGallagher #MikeJohnson #MoscowTerrorAttack #MSNBC #NBC #VladimirPutin
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“Whatever happens to Twitter, watching Mr. Musk’s reign over it should force us to rebuild the dream of the internet’s founders of a digital commons. Because we’ve had it before, we know we can make a place to connect and learn and argue that no one person owns. We can create a collective digital life that doesn’t depend on mining every nanosecond of our attention for profit” Chris Hayes
#Twitter #DigitalPublicSquare
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/opinion/chris-hayes-twitter-elon-musk.html -
“Distracted from distraction by distraction”*…
Don Moynihan argues that here has been a shift in the character– the instincts, the motivations, and thus the patterns of decision and action– of our government…
One of the strangest moments to emerge from the U.S. kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was the flurry of images posted by President Trump on Truth Social. It felt a bit like a student who can’t decide which spring break photos look cutest, so they just upload them all.
The intent seemed to be to create an iconic image reminiscent of the White House Situation Room during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gathering of stoic men (no girls allowed!) staring grimly at some unseen screen. The message: “Look how serious and important our work is!” Yet, the staged nature of these photos undermines that effect, leaving the whole scene feeling less like history in the making and more like an amateur theater production of a Broadway classic.
In one image, the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense are grouped around a laptop. Behind them, unmistakably, a screen displays a feed from X—complete with a prominent yellow emoji. In other pictures, “Venezuela” appears to be in the search box.
With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands.
Trump is undoubtedly the American president who has most effectively wielded social media: drawing attention, reshaping norms, and fueling conspiracy theories. The successful use of social media, for example, turned avowed MAGA isolationists into enthusiastic colonial imperialists overnight.
But I want to suggest that what we are witnessing from the Trump administration is not just skillful manipulation of social media—it’s something more profoundly worrying. Today, we live in a clicktatorship, ruled by a LOLviathan. Our algothracy is governed by poster brains.
It’s worth remembering that social media operates like a drug, feeding us dopamine and rewiring our brains’ reward pathways. The fundamentally unhealthy dynamics are worsened by the fact that standing out online often demands being awful—channeling negative emotions like anger and outrage, usually based on misinformation or conspiracy theories.
None of this is new. Indeed, there is a booming political science literature on the effects of social media on voter behavior. Chris Hayes and others have written persuasively about the how toxic attention farming is for us personally and for our democracy. But I want to make the case that we should also consider how social media it is affecting how policymakers use public power.
What I’m arguing is that the Trump administration isn’t just using social media to shape a narrative. Many of its members are deeply addicted to it. We would be concerned if a senior government official was an alcoholic or drug addict, knowing it could impair judgment and decisionmaking. But we should be equally concerned about Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s social media compulsions—just as much as their alcohol or ketamine use, respectively.
Overexposure to online engagement has cooked the brains of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to have genuinely believed online conspiracy theories about election fraud, motivating his declaration of martial law and triggering a constitutional crisis, and his eventual arrest, in Korea.
But in the US government, poster brain feels endemic. The Trump administration is made up of a cabinet of posters. For many, that’s how they won Trump’s attention. The head of the FBI, for example, is a podcaster—that’s his main qualifier for the job.
They view the world through a social media lens in a way that is plausibly corrupting their judgment and undermining their performance. Lets think through how poster brain can affect how people in government operate…
[Moynihan explores, with illustrative examples, online bubbles, conflicts between professional and online indentities, the degradation of professional norms and work practices, and the altering of decision-making to be responsive to social media– to create content]
I’m just scratching the surface here. Pick any federal agency, and you can find examples of poster brains making important decisions. This trend is likely to only get worse as digital natives enter key government roles. And there are likely a host of other ways these patterns are undermining the professional behavior of people in government that I have not identified. In particular, the Trump administration represents the intersection of poster brain, personalism, and authoritarianism that seems especially toxic…
… The bottom line is that it we need to take more seriously how social media has rewired the brains—and behavior—of those running our country.
Eminently worth reading in full: What happens to government when everything is content? “Life Under a Clicktatorship,” from @donmoyn.bsky.social.
See also: “The Trump-Flavored Content Administration,” from @cooperlund.online, and “How ICE Makes Raids Go Viral,” from @taylorlorenz.bsky.social.
And a bit orthogonal, but apposite: “The year of technoligarchy,” from @molly.wiki.
* T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
###
As we recommit to real life, we might recall that today in National Static Electicity Day.
#culture #government #history #NationalStaticElecticityDay #politicalScience #politics #publicPolicy #socialMedia #staticElectricity #Technology -
“Distracted from distraction by distraction”*…
Don Moynihan argues that here has been a shift in the character– the instincts, the motivations, and thus the patterns of decision and action– of our government…
One of the strangest moments to emerge from the U.S. kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was the flurry of images posted by President Trump on Truth Social. It felt a bit like a student who can’t decide which spring break photos look cutest, so they just upload them all.
The intent seemed to be to create an iconic image reminiscent of the White House Situation Room during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gathering of stoic men (no girls allowed!) staring grimly at some unseen screen. The message: “Look how serious and important our work is!” Yet, the staged nature of these photos undermines that effect, leaving the whole scene feeling less like history in the making and more like an amateur theater production of a Broadway classic.
In one image, the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense are grouped around a laptop. Behind them, unmistakably, a screen displays a feed from X—complete with a prominent yellow emoji. In other pictures, “Venezuela” appears to be in the search box.
With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands.
Trump is undoubtedly the American president who has most effectively wielded social media: drawing attention, reshaping norms, and fueling conspiracy theories. The successful use of social media, for example, turned avowed MAGA isolationists into enthusiastic colonial imperialists overnight.
But I want to suggest that what we are witnessing from the Trump administration is not just skillful manipulation of social media—it’s something more profoundly worrying. Today, we live in a clicktatorship, ruled by a LOLviathan. Our algothracy is governed by poster brains.
It’s worth remembering that social media operates like a drug, feeding us dopamine and rewiring our brains’ reward pathways. The fundamentally unhealthy dynamics are worsened by the fact that standing out online often demands being awful—channeling negative emotions like anger and outrage, usually based on misinformation or conspiracy theories.
None of this is new. Indeed, there is a booming political science literature on the effects of social media on voter behavior. Chris Hayes and others have written persuasively about the how toxic attention farming is for us personally and for our democracy. But I want to make the case that we should also consider how social media it is affecting how policymakers use public power.
What I’m arguing is that the Trump administration isn’t just using social media to shape a narrative. Many of its members are deeply addicted to it. We would be concerned if a senior government official was an alcoholic or drug addict, knowing it could impair judgment and decisionmaking. But we should be equally concerned about Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s social media compulsions—just as much as their alcohol or ketamine use, respectively.
Overexposure to online engagement has cooked the brains of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to have genuinely believed online conspiracy theories about election fraud, motivating his declaration of martial law and triggering a constitutional crisis, and his eventual arrest, in Korea.
But in the US government, poster brain feels endemic. The Trump administration is made up of a cabinet of posters. For many, that’s how they won Trump’s attention. The head of the FBI, for example, is a podcaster—that’s his main qualifier for the job.
They view the world through a social media lens in a way that is plausibly corrupting their judgment and undermining their performance. Lets think through how poster brain can affect how people in government operate…
[Moynihan explores, with illustrative examples, online bubbles, conflicts between professional and online indentities, the degradation of professional norms and work practices, and the altering of decision-making to be responsive to social media– to create content]
I’m just scratching the surface here. Pick any federal agency, and you can find examples of poster brains making important decisions. This trend is likely to only get worse as digital natives enter key government roles. And there are likely a host of other ways these patterns are undermining the professional behavior of people in government that I have not identified. In particular, the Trump administration represents the intersection of poster brain, personalism, and authoritarianism that seems especially toxic…
… The bottom line is that it we need to take more seriously how social media has rewired the brains—and behavior—of those running our country.
Eminently worth reading in full: What happens to government when everything is content? “Life Under a Clicktatorship,” from @donmoyn.bsky.social.
See also: “The Trump-Flavored Content Administration,” from @cooperlund.online, and “How ICE Makes Raids Go Viral,” from @taylorlorenz.bsky.social.
And a bit orthogonal, but apposite: “The year of technoligarchy,” from @molly.wiki.
* T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
###
As we recommit to real life, we might recall that today in National Static Electicity Day.
#culture #government #history #NationalStaticElecticityDay #politicalScience #politics #publicPolicy #socialMedia #staticElectricity #Technology -
“Distracted from distraction by distraction”*…
Don Moynihan argues that here has been a shift in the character– the instincts, the motivations, and thus the patterns of decision and action– of our government…
One of the strangest moments to emerge from the U.S. kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was the flurry of images posted by President Trump on Truth Social. It felt a bit like a student who can’t decide which spring break photos look cutest, so they just upload them all.
The intent seemed to be to create an iconic image reminiscent of the White House Situation Room during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gathering of stoic men (no girls allowed!) staring grimly at some unseen screen. The message: “Look how serious and important our work is!” Yet, the staged nature of these photos undermines that effect, leaving the whole scene feeling less like history in the making and more like an amateur theater production of a Broadway classic.
In one image, the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense are grouped around a laptop. Behind them, unmistakably, a screen displays a feed from X—complete with a prominent yellow emoji. In other pictures, “Venezuela” appears to be in the search box.
With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands.
Trump is undoubtedly the American president who has most effectively wielded social media: drawing attention, reshaping norms, and fueling conspiracy theories. The successful use of social media, for example, turned avowed MAGA isolationists into enthusiastic colonial imperialists overnight.
But I want to suggest that what we are witnessing from the Trump administration is not just skillful manipulation of social media—it’s something more profoundly worrying. Today, we live in a clicktatorship, ruled by a LOLviathan. Our algothracy is governed by poster brains.
It’s worth remembering that social media operates like a drug, feeding us dopamine and rewiring our brains’ reward pathways. The fundamentally unhealthy dynamics are worsened by the fact that standing out online often demands being awful—channeling negative emotions like anger and outrage, usually based on misinformation or conspiracy theories.
None of this is new. Indeed, there is a booming political science literature on the effects of social media on voter behavior. Chris Hayes and others have written persuasively about the how toxic attention farming is for us personally and for our democracy. But I want to make the case that we should also consider how social media it is affecting how policymakers use public power.
What I’m arguing is that the Trump administration isn’t just using social media to shape a narrative. Many of its members are deeply addicted to it. We would be concerned if a senior government official was an alcoholic or drug addict, knowing it could impair judgment and decisionmaking. But we should be equally concerned about Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s social media compulsions—just as much as their alcohol or ketamine use, respectively.
Overexposure to online engagement has cooked the brains of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to have genuinely believed online conspiracy theories about election fraud, motivating his declaration of martial law and triggering a constitutional crisis, and his eventual arrest, in Korea.
But in the US government, poster brain feels endemic. The Trump administration is made up of a cabinet of posters. For many, that’s how they won Trump’s attention. The head of the FBI, for example, is a podcaster—that’s his main qualifier for the job.
They view the world through a social media lens in a way that is plausibly corrupting their judgment and undermining their performance. Lets think through how poster brain can affect how people in government operate…
[Moynihan explores, with illustrative examples, online bubbles, conflicts between professional and online indentities, the degradation of professional norms and work practices, and the altering of decision-making to be responsive to social media– to create content]
I’m just scratching the surface here. Pick any federal agency, and you can find examples of poster brains making important decisions. This trend is likely to only get worse as digital natives enter key government roles. And there are likely a host of other ways these patterns are undermining the professional behavior of people in government that I have not identified. In particular, the Trump administration represents the intersection of poster brain, personalism, and authoritarianism that seems especially toxic…
… The bottom line is that it we need to take more seriously how social media has rewired the brains—and behavior—of those running our country.
Eminently worth reading in full: What happens to government when everything is content? “Life Under a Clicktatorship,” from @donmoyn.bsky.social.
See also: “The Trump-Flavored Content Administration,” from @cooperlund.online, and “How ICE Makes Raids Go Viral,” from @taylorlorenz.bsky.social.
And a bit orthogonal, but apposite: “The year of technoligarchy,” from @molly.wiki.
* T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
###
As we recommit to real life, we might recall that today in National Static Electicity Day.
#culture #government #history #NationalStaticElecticityDay #politicalScience #politics #publicPolicy #socialMedia #staticElectricity #Technology -
“Distracted from distraction by distraction”*…
Don Moynihan argues that here has been a shift in the character– the instincts, the motivations, and thus the patterns of decision and action– of our government…
One of the strangest moments to emerge from the U.S. kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was the flurry of images posted by President Trump on Truth Social. It felt a bit like a student who can’t decide which spring break photos look cutest, so they just upload them all.
The intent seemed to be to create an iconic image reminiscent of the White House Situation Room during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gathering of stoic men (no girls allowed!) staring grimly at some unseen screen. The message: “Look how serious and important our work is!” Yet, the staged nature of these photos undermines that effect, leaving the whole scene feeling less like history in the making and more like an amateur theater production of a Broadway classic.
In one image, the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense are grouped around a laptop. Behind them, unmistakably, a screen displays a feed from X—complete with a prominent yellow emoji. In other pictures, “Venezuela” appears to be in the search box.
With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands.
Trump is undoubtedly the American president who has most effectively wielded social media: drawing attention, reshaping norms, and fueling conspiracy theories. The successful use of social media, for example, turned avowed MAGA isolationists into enthusiastic colonial imperialists overnight.
But I want to suggest that what we are witnessing from the Trump administration is not just skillful manipulation of social media—it’s something more profoundly worrying. Today, we live in a clicktatorship, ruled by a LOLviathan. Our algothracy is governed by poster brains.
It’s worth remembering that social media operates like a drug, feeding us dopamine and rewiring our brains’ reward pathways. The fundamentally unhealthy dynamics are worsened by the fact that standing out online often demands being awful—channeling negative emotions like anger and outrage, usually based on misinformation or conspiracy theories.
None of this is new. Indeed, there is a booming political science literature on the effects of social media on voter behavior. Chris Hayes and others have written persuasively about the how toxic attention farming is for us personally and for our democracy. But I want to make the case that we should also consider how social media it is affecting how policymakers use public power.
What I’m arguing is that the Trump administration isn’t just using social media to shape a narrative. Many of its members are deeply addicted to it. We would be concerned if a senior government official was an alcoholic or drug addict, knowing it could impair judgment and decisionmaking. But we should be equally concerned about Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s social media compulsions—just as much as their alcohol or ketamine use, respectively.
Overexposure to online engagement has cooked the brains of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to have genuinely believed online conspiracy theories about election fraud, motivating his declaration of martial law and triggering a constitutional crisis, and his eventual arrest, in Korea.
But in the US government, poster brain feels endemic. The Trump administration is made up of a cabinet of posters. For many, that’s how they won Trump’s attention. The head of the FBI, for example, is a podcaster—that’s his main qualifier for the job.
They view the world through a social media lens in a way that is plausibly corrupting their judgment and undermining their performance. Lets think through how poster brain can affect how people in government operate…
[Moynihan explores, with illustrative examples, online bubbles, conflicts between professional and online indentities, the degradation of professional norms and work practices, and the altering of decision-making to be responsive to social media– to create content]
I’m just scratching the surface here. Pick any federal agency, and you can find examples of poster brains making important decisions. This trend is likely to only get worse as digital natives enter key government roles. And there are likely a host of other ways these patterns are undermining the professional behavior of people in government that I have not identified. In particular, the Trump administration represents the intersection of poster brain, personalism, and authoritarianism that seems especially toxic…
… The bottom line is that it we need to take more seriously how social media has rewired the brains—and behavior—of those running our country.
Eminently worth reading in full: What happens to government when everything is content? “Life Under a Clicktatorship,” from @donmoyn.bsky.social.
See also: “The Trump-Flavored Content Administration,” from @cooperlund.online, and “How ICE Makes Raids Go Viral,” from @taylorlorenz.bsky.social.
And a bit orthogonal, but apposite: “The year of technoligarchy,” from @molly.wiki.
* T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
###
As we recommit to real life, we might recall that today in National Static Electicity Day.
#culture #government #history #NationalStaticElecticityDay #politicalScience #politics #publicPolicy #socialMedia #staticElectricity #Technology -
“Distracted from distraction by distraction”*…
Don Moynihan argues that here has been a shift in the character– the instincts, the motivations, and thus the patterns of decision and action– of our government…
One of the strangest moments to emerge from the U.S. kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro was the flurry of images posted by President Trump on Truth Social. It felt a bit like a student who can’t decide which spring break photos look cutest, so they just upload them all.
The intent seemed to be to create an iconic image reminiscent of the White House Situation Room during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden—a gathering of stoic men (no girls allowed!) staring grimly at some unseen screen. The message: “Look how serious and important our work is!” Yet, the staged nature of these photos undermines that effect, leaving the whole scene feeling less like history in the making and more like an amateur theater production of a Broadway classic.
In one image, the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense are grouped around a laptop. Behind them, unmistakably, a screen displays a feed from X—complete with a prominent yellow emoji. In other pictures, “Venezuela” appears to be in the search box.
With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands.
Trump is undoubtedly the American president who has most effectively wielded social media: drawing attention, reshaping norms, and fueling conspiracy theories. The successful use of social media, for example, turned avowed MAGA isolationists into enthusiastic colonial imperialists overnight.
But I want to suggest that what we are witnessing from the Trump administration is not just skillful manipulation of social media—it’s something more profoundly worrying. Today, we live in a clicktatorship, ruled by a LOLviathan. Our algothracy is governed by poster brains.
It’s worth remembering that social media operates like a drug, feeding us dopamine and rewiring our brains’ reward pathways. The fundamentally unhealthy dynamics are worsened by the fact that standing out online often demands being awful—channeling negative emotions like anger and outrage, usually based on misinformation or conspiracy theories.
None of this is new. Indeed, there is a booming political science literature on the effects of social media on voter behavior. Chris Hayes and others have written persuasively about the how toxic attention farming is for us personally and for our democracy. But I want to make the case that we should also consider how social media it is affecting how policymakers use public power.
What I’m arguing is that the Trump administration isn’t just using social media to shape a narrative. Many of its members are deeply addicted to it. We would be concerned if a senior government official was an alcoholic or drug addict, knowing it could impair judgment and decisionmaking. But we should be equally concerned about Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk’s social media compulsions—just as much as their alcohol or ketamine use, respectively.
Overexposure to online engagement has cooked the brains of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is not exclusively an American phenomenon. President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to have genuinely believed online conspiracy theories about election fraud, motivating his declaration of martial law and triggering a constitutional crisis, and his eventual arrest, in Korea.
But in the US government, poster brain feels endemic. The Trump administration is made up of a cabinet of posters. For many, that’s how they won Trump’s attention. The head of the FBI, for example, is a podcaster—that’s his main qualifier for the job.
They view the world through a social media lens in a way that is plausibly corrupting their judgment and undermining their performance. Lets think through how poster brain can affect how people in government operate…
[Moynihan explores, with illustrative examples, online bubbles, conflicts between professional and online indentities, the degradation of professional norms and work practices, and the altering of decision-making to be responsive to social media– to create content]
I’m just scratching the surface here. Pick any federal agency, and you can find examples of poster brains making important decisions. This trend is likely to only get worse as digital natives enter key government roles. And there are likely a host of other ways these patterns are undermining the professional behavior of people in government that I have not identified. In particular, the Trump administration represents the intersection of poster brain, personalism, and authoritarianism that seems especially toxic…
… The bottom line is that it we need to take more seriously how social media has rewired the brains—and behavior—of those running our country.
Eminently worth reading in full: What happens to government when everything is content? “Life Under a Clicktatorship,” from @donmoyn.bsky.social.
See also: “The Trump-Flavored Content Administration,” from @cooperlund.online, and “How ICE Makes Raids Go Viral,” from @taylorlorenz.bsky.social.
And a bit orthogonal, but apposite: “The year of technoligarchy,” from @molly.wiki.
* T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
###
As we recommit to real life, we might recall that today in National Static Electicity Day.
#culture #government #history #NationalStaticElecticityDay #politicalScience #politics #publicPolicy #socialMedia #staticElectricity #Technology -
Mostly Monday Reads: Oy mishigas!
“Putin addresses the residents of his newly acquired territory.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I am having an ongoing debate with myself about the current administration. Is it the stupidity, the arrogance, or the meanness that most damaged our Constitutional democracy? Or is it the greed? I’m tagging all my posts here with the words Polycrisis, Kakistocracy, and Oligarchy or Broligarchy. It’s getting to be a tough search to find a few journalists who will actually tell it like it is.
This article in The Guardian early this month by Jonathan Freeland describes the current president thusly. “Donald Trump is turning America into a mafia state. The pattern is inescapable – with just one caveat: organised crime bosses occasionally display more honour.” I’ll just add a local New Orleans colloquialism. True Dat.
Behold Donald Corleone, the US president who behaves like a mafia boss – but without the principles. Of course, one hesitates to make the comparison, not least because Donald Trump would like it. And because the Godfather is an archetype of strength and macho glamour while Trump is weak, constantly handing gifts to America’s enemies and getting nothing in return. But when the world is changing so fast – when a nation that has been a friend for more than a century turns into a foe in a matter of weeks – it helps to have a guide. My colleague Luke Harding clarified the nature of Vladimir Putin’s Russia when he branded it the Mafia State. Now we need to attach the same label to the US under Putin’s most devoted admirer.
Consider the way Trump’s White House conducts itself, issuing threats and menaces that sound better in the original Sicilian. This week the president said that a deal ending Russia’s war on Ukraine “could be made very fast” but “if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long”. You didn’t need a translator to know that the somebody he had in mind was Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Thursday, Trump was confident that the Ukrainians would soon do his bidding “because I don’t think they have a choice”. Almost as if he had made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Which of course he had. By ending the supply of military aid and the sharing of US intelligence, as he did this week, he had effectively put a Russian revolver to Ukraine’s temple, its imprint scarcely reduced by Trump’s declaration today that he is “strongly considering” banking sanctions and tariffs against Moscow, a move that looked a lot like a man pretending to be equally tough on the two sides, but which should fool nobody. He expects Zelenskyy to sign away a huge chunk of Ukraine’s minerals, the way Corleone’s rivals surrendered their livelihoods to save their lives.
This is how the US now operates in the world. Dispensing with the formalities during his annual address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump repeated his threat to grab Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” That recalled his earlier warning to Copenhagen to give him what he wants or face the consequences: “maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs”. Nice place you got there; would be a shame if something happened to it.
It’s the same shakedown he’s performing on the US’s northern neighbour. Canada’s outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau spelled it out this week, accusing Trump of trying to engineer “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us”, adding that: “We will never be the 51st state.” It’s a technique familiar in the darker corners of the New Jersey construction industry: a series of unfortunate fires that only stops when a recalcitrant competitor submits.
Both the substance and the style are pure mafia. Note the obsession with respect, demonstrated in last week’s Oval Office confrontation with Zelenskyy. Between them, JD Vance and Trump accused the Ukrainian leader three times of showing disrespect, sounding less like world leaders than touchy Tommy DeVito, the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas.
Note too the humiliation of subordinates. In his address to Congress, the president introduced secretary of state Marco Rubio as the man charged with taking back the Panama canal. “Good luck, Marco,” said Trump, with a chuckle. “Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong.” Cue anxious laughter from the rest of the underlings, briefly relieved that it wasn’t them.
It’s hard for aides and opponents alike to keep up because power is exercised arbitrarily and inconsistently. Tariffs are imposed, then suspended. Indeed, one reason why import taxes so appeal to Trump is that they can be enforced instantly and by presidential edict. That extends to the exemptions Trump can offer to favoured US industries. As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes observed: “This is very obviously going to be a protection racket, where Trump can at the stroke of a pen destroy or save your business depending on how compliant you are.”
This characterization of Trump is so spot on that you really should go read the rest. I’m using this description of FARTUS as a background to the absolutely appalling crap that’s going on today. It’s hard to mentally deal with how quickly he’s disassembled so many long-standing U.S. Institutions in such a short time. This is especially true because it appears that the massive amount of incompetence and ignorance that his appointments display just escalates the damage. Look at this headline in The Atlantic. It’s reported by Jeffrey Goldberg. “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.” WTAF?
The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.
This is going to require some explaining.
The story technically begins shortly after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, in October 2023. The Houthis—an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam”—soon launched attacks on Israel and on international shipping, creating havoc for global trade. Throughout 2024, the Biden administration was ineffective in countering these Houthi attacks; the incoming Trump administration promised a tougher response.
This is where Pete Hegseth and I come in.
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them.
I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”
A message to the group, from “Michael Waltz,” read as follows: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.”
The message continued, “Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”
The term principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.
Definitely go read this one. I’ve been missing reading John le Carré. I’m assuming anyone with a background in spying would have saucer eyes by this time. Trump’s love of playing checkers with the countries of the world is dangerous and immoral. He plays with everyone’s life like a mad king. This is from Oliver Darcy at Status. It’s a remarkable indictment of how the press enables his heinous policies and statements. “Gulf of Fear. When news anchors tiptoe around the name Gulf of Mexico, it’s not just semantics—it’s a glimpse at how the press starts to flinch under political pressure.”
In China, Taiwan doesn’t exist—at least not as a country. On official maps, it’s a province. The government enforces strict language about Taiwan’s status, shaping how its people—and the rest of the world—talk about it. The goal, of course, is far more significant than the name on a map. It’s not about semantics. It’s about wielding influence and asserting dominance. Controlling the language people use, particularly in relation to global geography, is a powerful capability to possess.
In the United States, that kind of top-down dictation might feel like a distant threat, the kind of thing that happens in authoritarian regimes or dystopian novels like “1984,” not in a country built on free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment. Americans tend to believe our press is too independent and and too proud to ever bow to government pressure. We assume that if a president ever tried to dictate language, the Fourth Estate would resist. We assume that we’re immune from such pressures.
But an important segment of the press—the television news media—over the past week quietly demonstrated that it is far less adversarial and far more compliant than the breathless promos these networks air hyping themselves as fearless truth-tellers. When the eyes of the world fixated on the stranded NASA astronauts being rescued and touching down back on Earth, every channel danced around what precisely to call the body of water they splashed into. A review of transcripts, courtesy of SnapStream, revealed an alarming reality: not one of the outlets could muster up the courage to simply refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico, the water feature’s name since the 16th century.
Instead, television news organizations tied themselves in knots, performing linguistic gymnastics to stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs, while also tiptoeing around audiences who would have surely been incensed to see them bend the knee and call it the “Gulf of America.” On ABC News, “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir referred to “spectacular images from off the coast of Florida.” On the “NBC Nightly news,” anchor Lester Holt spoke about the astronauts “splashing down off the Florida Gulf coast.” On the “CBS Evening News,” it was referred to simply as “the Gulf.” And on CNN, anchor Jake Tapper tried to seemingly have it both ways, noting the U.S. government refers to it as the “Gulf of America,” but the rest of the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico.
In fact, I could only one find instance on a television newscast where a journalist referred to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. During an appearance on MSNBC, NBC News correspondent Tom Costello used the term, but then quickly corrected himself, almost as if he had realized he was forbidden from doing so. “Six hours from right now, there will be a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, before backtracking. “Sorry, however you want to call the Gulf. It will be splashing down in the Gulf.”
Suffice to say, none of this was an accident.
We first saw the capitulation of the tech bros and their social media platforms, including Jeff Bezos, who has ruined The Washington Post. This week, the situation there is getting worse. The first thing any autocrat wants to do is to come for any vestige of a free media. This is from MEDIAITE as reported by David Gilmour. “Trump Claims Jeff Bezos Trashed the ‘Crazy People’ in His Own Newsroom: ‘They’re Out of Control’.
President Donald Trump claimed that billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos privately expressed regret over the newspaper’s editorial direction and trashed his own “out of control” newsroom for writing “bad articles” about him.
The comments came during a sit-down with OutKick’s Clay Travis aboard Air Force One on Saturday after Travis suggested “it seems” that Bezos may be attempting to make The Washington Post “more fair” in coverage towards Trump.
Trump agreed and didn’t hesitate to praise Bezos, telling Travis “I think it’s great.”
Travis later asked whether Trump had discussed how the newspaper had come after him “like crazy” in the past, AND the president replied: “At length, I talked to him about it. [Bezos is] a good guy. I didn’t really know him in the first term. I mean, it’s such a difference between now and the first time.”
Pressed on what Bezos had said he had planned for The Post’s coverage, Trump said: “Just that. He’s really trying to be more fair.”
Trump continued: “They actually did a couple of bad articles on him. He said, ‘This is crazy, I lose my fortune running this thing and they, you know, they’re out of control.’ These people are crazy. They’re crazy people. They’re out of control.”
“And he’s a actually a very good guy,” the president added. “If you look at the inauguration, look at the people that were on that stage, here was a who’s who of a world that was totally against me the first time. It’s a much different presidency. I have much more support.”
And now, we have the capitulation of top law firms. How many more legs of democracy will we lose? The Bulwark draws the line today. “Stop Making Excuses for Not Fighting Trump. The capitulations and acquiescence we’ve seen so far will only make opposition more difficult down the road.” This is written by William Kristol under the lede “No Excuse.”
Among those who might be expected to stand up against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, the hills are alive with the sound of excuses.
You’re an elected official. The Trump administration has rounded up individuals and sent them, without any due process and with much carelessness about who’s been seized, to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The administration is boasting about what it’s done and heralding it a prelude to further actions in the same vein.
You’re thinking of condemning these truly grotesque violations of constitutional rights and human decency. Maybe I should say this isn’t right?
Whoa, Nellie! Not so fast, your political advisers hasten to instruct you. The polls on this issue aren’t great. This really isn’t the hill to die on.
You take their advice. But you tell yourself, and you assure others, that of course you will fight one day—on some other hill, on some faraway hill, some time far in the future.
But to fight now? Bad idea. That would simply play into Trump’s hands. After all, Trump and his allies are good at fighting. If you try to do something, there’s a risk they’ll turn it against you. Whereas if you say nothing, nothing can be used against you.
You might worry for a second that silence and acquiescence just plays into Trump’s hands. But you’re not a sophisticated Democratic operative. So you take their advice.
And anyway, there’s a better plan. That plan is that, eventually, Trump will become less popular. Then, the public will rise up. And then you can speak up. It all works out.
It also works out if you’re in the private sector. In fact, if you’re the head of a huge law firm, capitulation isn’t just a regrettable necessity, it’s your duty. You’re acting in the best interests of your clients. It would be wrong and irresponsible to act otherwise.
What’s more, No one in the wider world can appreciate how stressful it is to confront an executive order like this until one is directed at you.
The people in the “wider world”—those serving in the military or waiting tables or cleaning offices at Paul Weiss—they just can’t appreciate the stress that comes from occupying that corner office at 51st and 6th.
Ugh.
All of these excuses—and there are many more!—are distasteful. But what’s worse is that they make it easier and more likely that others will capitulate. They make it seem that you’re kind of a chump if you actually fight Trump’s authoritarian takeover. The excuses offered for capitulation increase the damage done by capitulation.
As usual, Shakespeare saw all. Here’s Pembroke in Act IV, Scene 2 of King John:
And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by th’ excuse,
As patches set upon a little breach
Discredit more in hiding of the fault
Than did the fault before it was so patched.The excuses offered by our elites for not standing up to authoritarianism have the effect of helping the authoritarians gain further ground.
Zach Beauchamp writes at VOX, “There’s a pattern in Trump’s power grabs. The White House strategy demands we defend alleged criminals and those with unpopular views.”
After rising to power, Nazis pitched power grabs as efforts to address the alleged threat posed by menaces like “Judeo-Bolshevism,” harnessing the powers of bigotry and political polarization to get ordinary Germans on board with the demolition of their democracy.
What’s happening in America right now has chilling echoes of this old tactic. When engaging in unlawful or boundary-pushing behavior, the Trump administration has typically gone after targets who are either highly polarizing or unpopular. The idea is to politicize basic civil liberties questions — to turn a defense of the rule of law into either a defense of widely hated groups or else an ordinary matter of partisan politics.
The administration’s first known deportation of a green card holder targeted a pro-Palestinian college activist at Columbia University, the site of some of the most radical anti-Israel activity. For this reason, Columbia was also the first university it targeted for a funding cutoff. Trump has also targeted an even more unpopular cohort: The first group of American residents sent to do hard labor in a Salvadoran prison was a group of people his administration claimed without providing evidence were Tren de Aragua gang members.
Trump is counting on the twin powers of demonization and polarization to justify their various efforts to expand executive authority and assail civil liberties. They want to make the conversation less about the principle — whether what Trump is doing is legal or a threat to free speech — and more a referendum on whether the targeted group is good or bad.
There is every indication this pattern will continue. And if we as a society fail to understand how the Trump strategy works, or where it leads, the damage to democracy could be catastrophic.
This, too, is a long read that deserves a look. A lot of this goes back to White House aid Stephan Miller. This guy needs to have an entire press detail following him. I’m going to end with a few articles on economics. The first comes from Paul Krugman and will clarify what’s happening with Social Security. “Social Security: A Time for Outrage. Trump’s policies attack his own base — but who will tell them?” I often find myself in conversations with friends, and we all wonder if Trump Supporters will ever show a glimmer of intelligence.
Donald Trump is often described as a “populist.” Yet his administration is stuffed with wealthy men who are clueless about how the other 99.99 percent lives, while his policies involve undermining the working class while enabling wealthy tax cheats.
What is true is that many working-class voters supported Trump last year because they believed that he was on their side. And that disconnect between perceptions and reality ought to be at the heart of any discussion of what Democrats should do now.
Right now the central front in the assault on the working class is Social Security, which Elon Musk, unable to admit error, keeps insisting is riddled with fraud. The DOGE-bullied Social Security Administration has already announced that those applying for benefits or trying to change where their benefits are deposited will need to verify their identity either online or in person — a huge, sometimes impossible burden on the elderly, often disabled Americans who need those benefits most. And with staff cuts and massive DOGE disruption, it seems increasingly likely that some benefits just won’t arrive as scheduled.
Oh, and Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security administrator, threatened to shut the whole thing down unless DOGE was given access to personal data.
Not to worry, says Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Commerce secretary. Only “fraudsters” would complain about missing a Social Security check:
Let’s say social security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.
There’s so much wrong with that statement that it’s hard to know where to start. But it’s clear that Lutnick — like many affluent people — has no idea how important Social Security is to the finances of most older Americans. According to a Social Security Administration study, half of Americans over 65 get a majority of their income from Social Security; a quarter depend almost entirely on Social Security, which supplies more than 90 percent of their income. I doubt that these people would shrug off a missed check.
Reliance on Social Security isn’t evenly distributed across the population; it’s strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. In particular, it very much depends on education, with less-educated Americans much more reliant on the program than those with more education:
That Lutnick quote cannot be repeated enough. The last read I’m sharing today comes from The Economist. “Musk Inc is under serious threat. The world’s richest man has lost focus. His competitors are taking advantage.” Well, isn’t that special?
UNTIL RECENTLY Elon Musk had little need to look over his shoulder. He once described competition for Tesla, his electric-vehicle (EV) company, as “the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day”, rather than the “small trickle” of other EV-makers. SpaceX, his rocket firm, had so undercut and outwitted the bloated aerospace incumbents that it had developed an almost invincible aura.
Yet if Mr Musk can tear himself away from the intoxication of shredding the American government, he may notice something. It is not just that the political firestorms he has whipped up this year are singeing his companies’ brands. It is that the two businesses that underpin his corporate empire—accounting for around 90% of its value and probably all its profit—are facing increasingly stiff competition. The world’s richest man has lost focus—and now has a target on his back.
Start with SpaceX. Last year it conducted five out of every six of the world’s spacecraft launches. Through its Starlink division, it owns 60% of satellites in space. In December it sold shares at a valuation of $350bn, two-thirds higher than its previous level. Starlink, its main profit engine, is on track to generate more than $11bn of revenue this year and $2bn of free cash flow, says Chris Quilty of Quilty Space, a consultancy.
Now, however, Mr Musk’s bomb-throwing interventions are alarming SpaceX customers, and at a time when rivals are growing more capable. His on-again, off-again threats to end Starlink’s support for Ukraine have raised the difficult question of trust. European politicians are pondering how reliable Mr Musk will be as a long-term provider of strategic satellite communications. The search for alternatives has helped spur a more than tripling of the share price of Eutelsat, the French owner of OneWeb, which provides satellite services to broadband companies.
No European supplier could come close to matching the 7,000 satellites Starlink has in low orbit. (Eutelsat has a mere 600.) Nor could any compete on price. As Simon Potter of BryceTech, another space consultancy, puts it, for now the concerns are “more noise than action”. Yet Starlink may soon face meaningful competition from Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which aims to put over 3,000 satellites into low orbit, creating a space-based broadband network. If it achieves that, some customers outside America may decide they have more confidence in an Amazon product than in one belonging to the mercurial Mr Musk.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is also stepping up the pace in the launch business with Blue Origin. His rocket firm is separate from Project Kuiper, but has contracts to fly many of its satellites. In January Mr Bezos’s New Glenn rocket reached orbit on its first try. If Blue Origin manages to make repeated successful journeys with reusable rockets, it could become a meaningful competitor to SpaceX. So could Rocket Lab, SpaceX’s closest rival by number of launches, which is due to debut Neutron, a new rocket, this year.
Here comes the Rooster.
It’s like we’re in a very bad dystopian novel and can’t escape. Anyway, I’m not shutting up any time soon.
What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?
Here’s a picture of this big boy who keeps crossing the road in front of my house. The rain just stopped, and the sun cleared up, so he’s been yelling at the sun for about an hour now. I feel like he’s some kind of omen.
Here’s an Alice in Chains song about the Vietnam War. That ought to cheer you up.
#Repeat1968 #Broligarchy #FARTUS #MafiaDon #oligarchy #PaulKrugman #VladimirPutin
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Finally Friday Reads: Shutdown or Meltdown?
“So, not even two months. Here we are.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’ve always been an opponent of letting the US Government shut down. As an economist, I know what kind of misery that creates for many people as well, as the possibility of a government default, which could haunt us for many years. My worry is real, but this situation is unique, and typically, the party that tries to shut the government down takes the political heat. I understand what he’s worried about. If we default on debt we become a risky debtor. If we shut the Government down, the weakest among us will suffer needlessly. Default has incredible consequences for the Social Security trust fund, the strength of our dollar, and if anyone will ever buy a US t-bill or t-bond now or ever. That includes war bonds if we ever need them again. I don’t like it, but a default would be unbelievably destructive to the country’s future. I hate that we’re in this position.
How it played out this last night and this morning pitted Schumer against many of his most strong-willed colleagues. Schumer’s support even earned him a pat on the head from #FARTUS. Trump’s always one to take advantage of a bad situation. He interpreted the move as support of the Doge Bulldozer moving through government agencies and policy. That was something one of my Canadian friends from way back in my Fired Dog Lake days predicted. I’d like to read your thoughts on that because I’m unsure how it will be received by folks outside Beltway machinations.
Let’s review what’s out there in the Press and Social media about the move that separated many Democratic senators from the leader. This is from AXIOS as proffered by Andrew Sollender. “House Dems go into “complete meltdown” as Schumer folds”.
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
- “Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains,” said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members’ internal conversations.
- A senior House Democrat said “people are furious” and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
- Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is “very bad,” the possibility of a government shutdown “has consequences for America that are much, much worse.”
- “A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.
- The comments likely clear a path for at least eight Senate Democrats to vote for the bill — enough for Republicans to overcome the upper chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Zoom in: All but one House Democrat voted against the bill earlier this week, in large part because it lacks language to keep the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved spending.
- “There were many battleground Dems in the House … that were uncomfortable, semi-uncomfortable, with the vote,” said one House Democrat. “The Senate left the House at the altar.”
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in remarks to his House colleagues at their annual retreat Thursday, lauded them for standing up to President Trump by voting against the bill, according to multiple sources.
- When he praised House Democrats’ votes, he received a standing ovation. When he mentioned Senate Democrats, members booed.
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
- “People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message.
- Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
- One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat.
- Another Democrat told Axios the ideation has gone a step further: “There is definitely a primary recruitment effort happening right now … not just Schumer, but for everyone who votes no.”
More gossip and speculation at the link.
Schumer himself appeared on Chris Hayes last night as well as wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.”
Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.
President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.
Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.
As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.
This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.
Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.
He isn’t the first president to want this, but he may be the first president since Andrew Jackson to successfully cow his party into submission. That leads Democrats to a difficult decision: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Mr. Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown.
This, in my view, is no choice at all.
Emptywheel (a friend from my Fire Dog Lake Doays) wrote a scathing piece on the situation. It indicates how desperately we need the Democrats in Congress to get their acts together. It isn’t easy dealing with chaos, but it’s even worse if you contribute to it. “Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026.” I’m unsure if that’s all they’re thinking about or if they’re just running around like chickens with their heads caught up.
I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.
It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.
Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.
I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.
Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:
Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.
I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.
In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.
THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —
MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.
THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.
Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.
Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.
So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.
I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.
The rest of her essay argues that everyone is far too interested in the midterm elections.
(snip)
One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.
This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.
Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).
Either way, this is an untenable situation.
Today is another day of the country finding out none of this is normal. NBC News has a running thread on every crazy thing on deck for the Beltway today. “Government shutdown live updates: Senate to vote on funding bill today; Dr. Mehmet Oz faces confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at the Justice Department, a frequent target of his and his allies’ government weaponization claims.” Have I mentioned I have a TV, but it’s been sitting in a box for nearly three years? I just don’t have the stamina to set it up and watch all this craziness on a big screen.
Reality TV stars and swindlers are about all Trump has to offer up these days.
Hassan grills Dr Oz about promoting a bunch of scam "medical" products on TV, including "raspberry ketones." She notes that "it seems to me you are still unwilling to take accountability for your promotion of unproven snake oil remedies to millions of your viewers."
The only good news I found today was this.
Judges order Trump to rehire thousands of fired federal workers.
Two federal courts are ruling that the firings of probationary federal workers were improper and that tens of thousands of those employees must be immediately reinstated. The Trump administration is calling the ruling absurd and unconstitutional and is vowing to fight back. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
It seems we are fully reliant on the Judiciary Branch to stop the destruction of our Government and democracy. It’s not like we didn’t warn people, either. This is in Fortune, as reported by the AP. ” The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules.” The Judge really read the riot act to the Federal attorney also.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate thousands—if not tens of thousands—of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies last month, saying that the terminations were directed by a personnel office that had no authority to do so.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14 using guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell.
Alsup directed the agencies to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the departments complied with his order as to each person.
The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.
The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections. He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.
“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”
Opinion: 3 ways DOGE challengers could win court cases from CNN
It’s the day before my favorite holiday, The Ides of March. For those who don’t know, if I could go back in time and eliminate before they came into power, it would be the baby that became Julius Ceasar. They offed him too late to help history. So, there’s likely a few folks walking around the White House right now that should Beware the Ides of March. Nipping the Roman Empire in the bud would have definitely put us farther away from the Dark Time Line.
Here’s tomorrow’s version of the Ides of March.
Donald Trump has suggested that the US should buy Gaza, will get Greenland “one way or another” as well as the Panama Canal, ignited a new trade war, floated the annexation of Canada, and hired the world’s richest weirdo (who also happens to be the world’s richest man) to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. And that’s just one country.
Romania’s leading presidential candidate was arrested after winning the first round of elections with the assistance of Russian bots, showing that Putin is determined to mess with all his neighbors. Look for the Moldovan election in a few months; Russia is sowing chaos with energy sabotage.
Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II just had a record-breaking result after the the US basically endorsed them. And don’t be fooled by Friedrich Merz’s lack of flair: The Europeans are about to try to build an independent defense, give the American abdication.
China’s DeepSeek has upended the AI market, throwing Silicon Valley into full-blown panic mode. And it will soon dominate the renewable energy market and have just been given a monumental soft-power gift the US abdication of 80 years of global leadership of the free world.
Tara Palmeri writes this on her blog, Red Letter. “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing. Inside the revolt against Elon Musk…”
The tolerance for Elon Musk inside of the White House is wearing thin, as they deal with the fallout of his calamitous interview with Larry Kudlow when he touched the third rail – entitlements. Even though Trump’s staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you try to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you die, politically speaking.
“It’s no longer simmering resistance, people are fucking furious,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.
“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” said a Republican operative close to the White House.
Even before the interview, I’m told that the White House communications team was adamantly against letting Musk do the interview with Kudlow, even though he’s a former administration official and ally. They know that FOX News is a network that their older, white working-class voters watch closely and this was a rare televised interview for Musk, not the same as getting high with Joe Rogan.
Now they’re playing cleanup. Sure, they sent out a “Fact Check” memo from the White House highlighting that his words were garbled when he said he’s looking at the “waste and fraud in entitlement spending,” not entitlements all together. But then Musk went further, falsely claiming in the interview that Democrats use entitlement programs to attract illegal immigrants into the country so that they can add them to their voter rolls. It doesn’t help that earlier this month, Musk referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
You can even see Kudlow shifting around uncomfortably during the interview.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was an issue. “We love [Musk] doing media,” he said, pointing to his joint interview with Trump on Sean Hannity.
As promised, I want to share the ins and outs of my reporting process with you, so I first reached out to Trump’s personal pollster John McLaughlin after I learned about the meltdown over Musk’s interview to ask if he’s been polling Musk’s response in the interview. And I was shocked to learn that McLaughlin has not polled Musk at all, even though he’s clearly a political liability to the President. McLaughlin has been polling Trump for decades and was one of the main pollsters alongside Tony Fabrizio on the campaign. He said the last poll that he conducted that even remotely touched on Musk was about DOGE in November 2024 and it did not mention Musk by name.
“No one has asked us to do that poll,” McLaughlin told me.
Well, the public polling shows that the numbers for Musk – what some would call Trump’s heat shield – have been in free fall since Trump took office, with more than 53 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to a new CNN poll. But surely Trump’s political operation, which to be fair is an impressive one, would want to know if Musk was starting to become a liability. No political consultant in Washington trusts public polling. They’d probably trust the opposition party’s polling over public polling. So that leaves me to believe that they are afraid of Trump’s appendage or it’s because Musk just donated $100 million to Trump’s political arm, which just so happens to be run by Trump’s other pollster Fabrizio. When I asked Fabrizio if he’s conducting polls on Musk favorables, he didn’t get back to me.
Regardless, I’ve heard that the White House is aware that Musk’s numbers are “dog shit,” according to a source. “
More at the link.
Just one more thing to ruin your weekend and I’m sorry but it’s story that needs telling. This is from The New Republic. “Trump Gives New Orders to U.S. Military on Panama Canal Takeover, Donald Trump is moving forward on his plans to seize the Panama Canal.”
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal.
President Trump has been pushing for retaking the canal since December, and repeated his desire in a joint address to Congress last week, without any elaboration. The rest of the Trump administration hasn’t attempted to explain what he means, either.
The military is drawing up options, according to NBC News, that range from a closer partnership with the Panamanian military to soldiers seizing the Panama Canal by force, according to unnamed officials. The use of force depends on how much Panama’s military is willing to work with the United States, the officials told NBC News.
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, presented the different strategies to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this week. The plan to use military force against Panama will only be considered if posting additional U.S. military personnel does not accomplish Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the canal, the officials said.
Right now, the U.S. has more than 200 troops in the country, including Special Forces units working with Panamanian units to combat internal unrest. Trump claims China has troops in the canal, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denies, as does China. In February, Panama decided not to renew an infrastructure agreement with China, drawing criticism from the country toward the U.S.
One tin soldier rides again.
So, I just want to watch a few more Star Wars movies and eat the tabouli I made last night. We’re seriously in trouble, and I don’t see Captain America out there anywhere, or Wonder Woman, or any of the other Super Heros we could use right now. At least it’s almost crawfish season.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #ChuckSchumer #Doge #FARTUS #governmentShutdown #JudgeOrdersRehireOfFederalWorkers
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Finally Friday Reads: Shutdown or Meltdown?
“So, not even two months. Here we are.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’ve always been an opponent of letting the US Government shut down. As an economist, I know what kind of misery that creates for many people as well, as the possibility of a government default, which could haunt us for many years. My worry is real, but this situation is unique, and typically, the party that tries to shut the government down takes the political heat. I understand what he’s worried about. If we default on debt we become a risky debtor. If we shut the Government down, the weakest among us will suffer needlessly. Default has incredible consequences for the Social Security trust fund, the strength of our dollar, and if anyone will ever buy a US t-bill or t-bond now or ever. That includes war bonds if we ever need them again. I don’t like it, but a default would be unbelievably destructive to the country’s future. I hate that we’re in this position.
How it played out this last night and this morning pitted Schumer against many of his most strong-willed colleagues. Schumer’s support even earned him a pat on the head from #FARTUS. Trump’s always one to take advantage of a bad situation. He interpreted the move as support of the Doge Bulldozer moving through government agencies and policy. That was something one of my Canadian friends from way back in my Fired Dog Lake days predicted. I’d like to read your thoughts on that because I’m unsure how it will be received by folks outside Beltway machinations.
Let’s review what’s out there in the Press and Social media about the move that separated many Democratic senators from the leader. This is from AXIOS as proffered by Andrew Sollender. “House Dems go into “complete meltdown” as Schumer folds”.
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.
Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
- “Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains,” said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members’ internal conversations.
- A senior House Democrat said “people are furious” and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
- Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is “very bad,” the possibility of a government shutdown “has consequences for America that are much, much worse.”
- “A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.
- The comments likely clear a path for at least eight Senate Democrats to vote for the bill — enough for Republicans to overcome the upper chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Zoom in: All but one House Democrat voted against the bill earlier this week, in large part because it lacks language to keep the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved spending.
- “There were many battleground Dems in the House … that were uncomfortable, semi-uncomfortable, with the vote,” said one House Democrat. “The Senate left the House at the altar.”
- House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in remarks to his House colleagues at their annual retreat Thursday, lauded them for standing up to President Trump by voting against the bill, according to multiple sources.
- When he praised House Democrats’ votes, he received a standing ovation. When he mentioned Senate Democrats, members booed.
What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.
- “People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message.
- Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
- One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat.
- Another Democrat told Axios the ideation has gone a step further: “There is definitely a primary recruitment effort happening right now … not just Schumer, but for everyone who votes no.”
More gossip and speculation at the link.
Schumer himself appeared on Chris Hayes last night as well as wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.”
Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.
President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.
Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.
As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.
This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.
Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.
He isn’t the first president to want this, but he may be the first president since Andrew Jackson to successfully cow his party into submission. That leads Democrats to a difficult decision: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Mr. Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown.
This, in my view, is no choice at all.
Emptywheel (a friend from my Fire Dog Lake Doays) wrote a scathing piece on the situation. It indicates how desperately we need the Democrats in Congress to get their acts together. It isn’t easy dealing with chaos, but it’s even worse if you contribute to it. “Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026.” I’m unsure if that’s all they’re thinking about or if they’re just running around like chickens with their heads caught up.
I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.
It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.
Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.
I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.
Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:
Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.
I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.
In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.
THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —
MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.
THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.
Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.
Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.
So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.
I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.
The rest of her essay argues that everyone is far too interested in the midterm elections.
(snip)
One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.
This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.
Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).
Either way, this is an untenable situation.
Today is another day of the country finding out none of this is normal. NBC News has a running thread on every crazy thing on deck for the Beltway today. “Government shutdown live updates: Senate to vote on funding bill today; Dr. Mehmet Oz faces confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at the Justice Department, a frequent target of his and his allies’ government weaponization claims.” Have I mentioned I have a TV, but it’s been sitting in a box for nearly three years? I just don’t have the stamina to set it up and watch all this craziness on a big screen.
Reality TV stars and swindlers are about all Trump has to offer up these days.
Hassan grills Dr Oz about promoting a bunch of scam "medical" products on TV, including "raspberry ketones." She notes that "it seems to me you are still unwilling to take accountability for your promotion of unproven snake oil remedies to millions of your viewers."
The only good news I found today was this.
Judges order Trump to rehire thousands of fired federal workers.
Two federal courts are ruling that the firings of probationary federal workers were improper and that tens of thousands of those employees must be immediately reinstated. The Trump administration is calling the ruling absurd and unconstitutional and is vowing to fight back. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
It seems we are fully reliant on the Judiciary Branch to stop the destruction of our Government and democracy. It’s not like we didn’t warn people, either. This is in Fortune, as reported by the AP. ” The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules.” The Judge really read the riot act to the Federal attorney also.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate thousands—if not tens of thousands—of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies last month, saying that the terminations were directed by a personnel office that had no authority to do so.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14 using guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell.
Alsup directed the agencies to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the departments complied with his order as to each person.
The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.
The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections. He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.
“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”
Opinion: 3 ways DOGE challengers could win court cases from CNN
It’s the day before my favorite holiday, The Ides of March. For those who don’t know, if I could go back in time and eliminate before they came into power, it would be the baby that became Julius Ceasar. They offed him too late to help history. So, there’s likely a few folks walking around the White House right now that should Beware the Ides of March. Nipping the Roman Empire in the bud would have definitely put us farther away from the Dark Time Line.
Here’s tomorrow’s version of the Ides of March.
Donald Trump has suggested that the US should buy Gaza, will get Greenland “one way or another” as well as the Panama Canal, ignited a new trade war, floated the annexation of Canada, and hired the world’s richest weirdo (who also happens to be the world’s richest man) to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. And that’s just one country.
Romania’s leading presidential candidate was arrested after winning the first round of elections with the assistance of Russian bots, showing that Putin is determined to mess with all his neighbors. Look for the Moldovan election in a few months; Russia is sowing chaos with energy sabotage.
Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II just had a record-breaking result after the the US basically endorsed them. And don’t be fooled by Friedrich Merz’s lack of flair: The Europeans are about to try to build an independent defense, give the American abdication.
China’s DeepSeek has upended the AI market, throwing Silicon Valley into full-blown panic mode. And it will soon dominate the renewable energy market and have just been given a monumental soft-power gift the US abdication of 80 years of global leadership of the free world.
Tara Palmeri writes this on her blog, Red Letter. “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing. Inside the revolt against Elon Musk…”
The tolerance for Elon Musk inside of the White House is wearing thin, as they deal with the fallout of his calamitous interview with Larry Kudlow when he touched the third rail – entitlements. Even though Trump’s staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you try to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you die, politically speaking.
“It’s no longer simmering resistance, people are fucking furious,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.
“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” said a Republican operative close to the White House.
Even before the interview, I’m told that the White House communications team was adamantly against letting Musk do the interview with Kudlow, even though he’s a former administration official and ally. They know that FOX News is a network that their older, white working-class voters watch closely and this was a rare televised interview for Musk, not the same as getting high with Joe Rogan.
Now they’re playing cleanup. Sure, they sent out a “Fact Check” memo from the White House highlighting that his words were garbled when he said he’s looking at the “waste and fraud in entitlement spending,” not entitlements all together. But then Musk went further, falsely claiming in the interview that Democrats use entitlement programs to attract illegal immigrants into the country so that they can add them to their voter rolls. It doesn’t help that earlier this month, Musk referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
You can even see Kudlow shifting around uncomfortably during the interview.
Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was an issue. “We love [Musk] doing media,” he said, pointing to his joint interview with Trump on Sean Hannity.
As promised, I want to share the ins and outs of my reporting process with you, so I first reached out to Trump’s personal pollster John McLaughlin after I learned about the meltdown over Musk’s interview to ask if he’s been polling Musk’s response in the interview. And I was shocked to learn that McLaughlin has not polled Musk at all, even though he’s clearly a political liability to the President. McLaughlin has been polling Trump for decades and was one of the main pollsters alongside Tony Fabrizio on the campaign. He said the last poll that he conducted that even remotely touched on Musk was about DOGE in November 2024 and it did not mention Musk by name.
“No one has asked us to do that poll,” McLaughlin told me.
Well, the public polling shows that the numbers for Musk – what some would call Trump’s heat shield – have been in free fall since Trump took office, with more than 53 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to a new CNN poll. But surely Trump’s political operation, which to be fair is an impressive one, would want to know if Musk was starting to become a liability. No political consultant in Washington trusts public polling. They’d probably trust the opposition party’s polling over public polling. So that leaves me to believe that they are afraid of Trump’s appendage or it’s because Musk just donated $100 million to Trump’s political arm, which just so happens to be run by Trump’s other pollster Fabrizio. When I asked Fabrizio if he’s conducting polls on Musk favorables, he didn’t get back to me.
Regardless, I’ve heard that the White House is aware that Musk’s numbers are “dog shit,” according to a source. “
More at the link.
Just one more thing to ruin your weekend and I’m sorry but it’s story that needs telling. This is from The New Republic. “Trump Gives New Orders to U.S. Military on Panama Canal Takeover, Donald Trump is moving forward on his plans to seize the Panama Canal.”
The Trump administration has asked the U.S. military to draw up options for retaking the Panama Canal.
President Trump has been pushing for retaking the canal since December, and repeated his desire in a joint address to Congress last week, without any elaboration. The rest of the Trump administration hasn’t attempted to explain what he means, either.
The military is drawing up options, according to NBC News, that range from a closer partnership with the Panamanian military to soldiers seizing the Panama Canal by force, according to unnamed officials. The use of force depends on how much Panama’s military is willing to work with the United States, the officials told NBC News.
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, presented the different strategies to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier this week. The plan to use military force against Panama will only be considered if posting additional U.S. military personnel does not accomplish Trump’s goal of “reclaiming” the canal, the officials said.
Right now, the U.S. has more than 200 troops in the country, including Special Forces units working with Panamanian units to combat internal unrest. Trump claims China has troops in the canal, which Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino denies, as does China. In February, Panama decided not to renew an infrastructure agreement with China, drawing criticism from the country toward the U.S.
One tin soldier rides again.
So, I just want to watch a few more Star Wars movies and eat the tabouli I made last night. We’re seriously in trouble, and I don’t see Captain America out there anywhere, or Wonder Woman, or any of the other Super Heros we could use right now. At least it’s almost crawfish season.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
#Repeat1968JohnBuss #ChuckSchumer #Doge #FARTUS #governmentShutdown #JudgeOrdersRehireOfFederalWorkers
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Good Day!!
Peder Mørk Mønsted, Sunny winter landscape with a road, 1907
I was just about to get going on my post when I glanced at the TV screen (sound muted) and noticed a wild scene in the House Oversight Committee hearing. The Republicans scheduled the meeting today to hold Hunter Biden in contempt for ignoring their subpoena to appear for a secret deposition.
You’ll recall that Rep. James Comer originally said that Hunter could testify either in a public hearing or behind closed doors with committee staff. Hunter offered to testify publicly under oath but Comer freaked out and said it would have to be in a closed deposition. Obviously, they have no evidence of wrongdoing and Comer wanted to be able to lie about what happened in a closed hearing.
Anyway, Hunter showed up at the hearing today with two of his attorneys and sat in the audience. The media was all a-flutter.
Republicans were outraged. Nancy Mace yelled at Hunter and accused him of not having the “balls” to respond to the subpoena. After a long, idiotic rant by Mace, it was Margery Taylor Greene’s turn. Unfortunately for her, Hunter and his attorneys left the meeting as she began to speak, and all of the press followed them out the door, leaving Greene with no one to record whatever stupid things she planned to say.
Here’s the report from NBC News: Hunter Biden makes surprise appearance at House committee hearing to hold him in contempt.
The son of the president arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning to attend in person congressional committee meetings called to hold him in contempt of Congress — setting up an unprecedented standoff on live television between Hunter Biden and House Republicans who have long sought his testimony as part of their impeachment inquiry into his father.
Hunter Biden was accompanied by his attorneys Abbe Lowell and Kevin Morris. He did not initially respond to questions.
House Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees are holding separate committee votes on Wednesday recommending that Hunter Biden be charged with contempt of Congress.
Hunter Biden is at odds with Republicans over their demand that he testify behind closed doors. The president’s son, who is facing two separate criminal indictments, has agreed to testify publicly, an offer Republicans have refused, continuing to insist that the testimony be given behind closed doors.
During the Oversight Committee’s markup Wednesday morning, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., called for Hunter Biden’s arrest on the spot for defying the congressional subpoena.
“Hunter Biden you are too afraid for a deposition, and I still think you are today,” she said.
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” she added.
Outside the chamber, Lowell said committee Republicans were motived by “improper partisan motives.” He said he and his client had offered to work with Republicans on the committees on a half dozen occasions since February of last year to see “how relevant information to any legitimate inquiry could be provided,” but their first five offers were ignored. He called the subsequent GOP subpoena for a closed-door deposition “a tactic that the Republicans have repeatedly misused in their political crusade to selectively leak and mischaracterize what witnesses have said.”
Asked by NBC News shortly after leaving the Oversight hearing whether he would testify today if asked, Hunter Biden replied “yes.” He and his team left the building afterwards.
This is interesting. It appears that Chairman Comer has a hypocrisy issue as he accuses Joe and Hunter Biden of “corruption.” Roger Sollenberger at The Daily Beast: Oversight Chairman James Comer’s ‘Legitimate’ Shell Company Was Shut Down—Twice.
As Rep. James Comer (R-KY) plows ahead with his sensationalized impeachment inquiry premised on Hunter Biden’s business dealings, the Oversight Chairman has alleged that Biden’s opaque financial operations merit investigation, and that people who own corporations have a “responsibility” to maintain proper “books and records.”
But a review of dozens of tax, real estate, and business filings in Kentucky and Tennessee indicate that Comer’s own personal “books and records” are opaque at best—and improper at worst.
Jef Bourgeau (American, b.1950), The Gloaming, 2024
Those records include the dealings of Comer’s shell company, Farm Team Properties LLC, which the state of Kentucky has dissolved twice for failure to file annual reports—first in 2020, then again in 2022.
Kentucky law states that an administratively dissolved business “continues its existence but shall not carry on any business except that necessary to wind up and liquidate its business and affairs.” An official with the Kentucky Department of Revenue told The Daily Beast that a company in administrative dissolution may not legally conduct business in the state—such as executing deals and leases, securing loans, or collecting rent as an LLC.
But in response to questions about the shell company last month, Comer told Fox Business that Farm Team Properties not only holds properties, it also “manages” them, “leases hunting on my 1,600 acres of farmland,” and generates “lots of revenue, legitimate revenue.” (The previous month, he denied having an LLC during a committee hearing.)
While Comer and his wife rectified the first dissolution within a few weeks, they allowed the October 2022 dissolution to languish for more than a year, only reinstating the entity last month, after The Daily Beast first reported on the company and flagged the dissolution on social media. It’s not clear from Comer’s filings whether Farm Team Properties ceased business activity for those 14 months.
The “books and records” questions also run to Comer’s real estate holdings, which directly contradict his recent public statements about his LLC. For one, Comer reports rental income from all of his farmland holdings, but it’s not clear whether that income derives from Farm Team’s alleged hunting leases. If so, experts told The Daily Beast, his records should reflect that, and they do not.
The opacity of Comer’s disclosures—along with his contradictory defenses of the shell company—mean the public still doesn’t have a clear picture of his finances. And Comer’s broadsides targeting Hunter Biden’s cloudy corporate entities would seem to invite parallel scrutiny into the similar haze that has settled over his own business dealings….
On personal financial disclosures starting from 2017—the year Comer’s wife created Farm Team Properties—and continuing through his most recent statement covering 2022, Comer has listed the income from the company as “none.” But after recent reports from The Daily Beast and the Associated Press raised questions about the shell company, Comer has called into question whether he’s really making no money from the entity.
House ethics rules state that members who “own an interest in a partnership or limited liability company established for the purpose of holding real estate,” must describe “each individual property held by the company.” Members also “must disclose each asset held by the company in which your interest (or that of your spouse or dependent child) had a period-end value of more than $1,000” or had recorded “more than $200 in income during the reporting period.”
Brendan Fischer, an ethics expert and deputy director of watchdog Documented, told The Daily Beast that it seems as if Comer should disclose more information.
“For a company created to hold investment properties—which sounds like Farm Team Properties, LLC—a Congressperson not only must disclose the company, they must also provide details about the properties it owns, and the amount of any income (such as rental income) from those properties,” Fischer said, noting that the rules apply “regardless of whether the entity is taxed as a partnership or corporation.”
Comer’s disclosures list his FTP ownership as a business interest, not as investment or real estate, despite the fact that it owns properties and is engaged in “real estate speculation.” This was true in 2017, when Farm Team Properties was created to hold property and obscure Comer’s co-ownership with a campaign donor, the Associated Press reported last month.
Sollenberger notes that Comer is a millionaire, because his father handed over two valuable properties for $10 apiece. Read much more about Comer’s shady dealings at The Daily Beast link.
The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jim Jordan (who refused to honor a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee) is also meeting today in order to decide whether to hold Hunter Biden in contempt.
Winter Trees, by Egon Schiele
CNN on the Judiciary Committee hearing:
In a different committee room, Jordan gaveled in the Judiciary panel’s meeting.
“Rather than come before us and answering questions about these and other concurring instances of the Biden family trading cash for influence, Hunter Biden held a press conference a few hundred yards from here, a press conference where he said I’m happy to answer questions in public but when he finished his statement he abruptly left, taking no questions from the press,” Jordan said.
“We have no choice but to hold Mr. Biden in contempt,” he added.
The pair of markups on Wednesday kick off a lengthy process and underscore that the Republican effort to obtain testimony from the president’s son will remain difficult. If the contempt resolution passes out of committee, it is referred to the full House for a contempt vote.
If an eventual House floor vote succeeds, the Department of Justice, which is already pursuing two criminal cases against the president’s son, would have to determine whether to prosecute the president’s son for evading a congressional subpoena.
Yesterday, Trump showed up in person for the hearing on his appeal of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s denial of his claim of “absolute presidential immunity” from criminal prosecution. The hearing didn’t go well for him. Joyce Vance wrote about it at Civil Discourse: Trump’s Bad Day in Court. The first of many to come.
Following Tuesday morning’s oral argument in the District of Columbia, Donald Trump made some predictable comments to the press from a Washington, D.C., hotel. As he finished, a reporter shouted out a request that he use the moment to tell his followers, “No violence.” The former president walked out of the room without responding.
The Judges came prepared for oral argument on Trump’s immunity motion. Let’s start with the key figures in the argument:
Judges: Bush appointee Karen LeCraft Henderson. Biden appointees Florence Y. Pan and J. Michelle Childs.
Lawyer for Trump: Former Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer.
Lawyer for the Special Counsel: James I. Pearce, a career federal prosecutor who has worked in both DOJ’s public integrity section, which Jack Smith previously led, and in the Criminal Division’s appellate section.
The top line from the argument: a broad consensus among observers that the panel didn’t buy Trump’s immunity argument. None of the Judges seemed to believe Trump should be immune from prosecution. But each Judge came at it from a different vantage point. While they may end up agreeing on a single rationale for their decision, it’s also possible we could have an opinion with concurrences by one or more of the Judges, using different reasoning.
Mr. Sauer argued first because Trump is the petitioner—he lost in the trial court and is asking the Court of Appeals to reverse Judge Chutkan’s decision. Mr. Pearce, who argued second, began by telling the court that no other president in history claimed his immunity from prosecution extended beyond his time in office. A president’s role is unique, Pearce said, “but not above the law.”
The most telling points in the oral argument centered on hypotheticals offered by Judge Pan. Judges frequently use hypotheticals to help them understand what a ruling would mean both for the case at hand and in future cases. Judge Pan posed three to Sauer, asking whether, under his view of immunity, a president could:
- order Seal Team 6 to execute a political rival, and get away with it
- accept a payment for issuing a pardon, and get away with it
- sell nuclear secrets to a foreign power, and get away with it
Landscape with Snow, Vincent Van Gogh
Sauer argued that presidents can only be prosecuted if they are first impeached and convicted by the Senate. He, of course, has to argue this because otherwise, his client Donald Trump is in trouble.
It’s an unappetizing position. Sauer ran into still more trouble as the hypothetical was played out with both lawyers in turn, exploring the ways a president could avoid being impeached and convicted. They ranged from a president who resigns to avoid conviction, succeeds in concealing criminal conduct until he leaves office so he is never impeached, or even one who orders the deaths of his opponents in the Senate to prevent conviction. Under Trump’s theory of immunity, no prosecution would be available in these cases.
You don’t have to be a high-end appellate lawyer to understand that this argument is a stone-cold loser. At least in a democracy.
Read the rest of Vance’s analysis at the link above.
HuffPost recaps an interview from last night’s Lawrence O’Donnell show on MSNBC: Ex-Prosecutor Surprised By ‘Jarring’ Aspect To Trump Court Appearance.
Former U.S. Army prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Tuesday said Donald Trump’s demeanor as he appeared before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — while his attorneys argued his “absolute immunity” for acts he committed during his presidency ― was “kind of jarring.”
The former president and Republican 2024 front-runner behaved “entirely like a defendant, not like a politician,” Kirschner told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.
It was in stark contrast to Trump’s usual bluster.
“I think I know what retail politics means,” said Kirschner. “He didn’t look anybody in the eye, he didn’t take an interest in anyone around, he kept his head down. He sort of lumbered forward to counsel table and plopped down.”
Trump “seemed like a defeated defendant who was kind of resigned to his fate,” he added.Kirschner later described the argument being put forward by Trump’s legal team as “harebrained.”
From Raw Story: ‘Dead man walking’: Legal expert explains the moment Trump lost immunity appeal.
Former President Donald Trump’s attorney John Sauer failed catastrophically in selling an absolute immunity argument the appellate judges considering whether special counsel Jack Smith’s election conspiracy prosecution can move forward, argued former federal prosecutor Harry Litman on MSNBC Tuesday.
In particular, he said, it was over as soon as Sauer seemed to concede their position would imply Trump can assassinate his opponents with no recourse.
Edvard Munch, Winter Landscape
“He basically threatened some sort of unrest or bedlam if things didn’t go his way,” said anchor Chris Hayes. “He didn’t take any questions … and the headline comes from a hypothetical that appears in Jack Smith’s own briefs, which is to say the argument that Trump and his lawyers are making proves too much, obviously goes too far. It cannot be the case. Under the Constitution and under the rule of law, in a democracy and such as ours, it would allow it to be possible to order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival and not face accountability but for some impeachment and conviction.”
“Cannot be, that is the headline, all three judges will reject that proposition,” agreed Litman. “Basically after Judge Pan asked that hypo about Seal Team Six, Sauer … was a dead man walking. He will lose. He should lose. Legally, historically, logically, et cetera. So in that sense there is the satisfaction that this vampire will have a stake in its heart.”
“But below the headline, Chris, there’s more drama, I would say, because this is one of the cases in which the three judges were kind of probing different theories, and one at one stage Judge Henderson said maybe we need to remand, to Judge Chutkan, this. They were probing different ideas, none of which was in lockstep with what Chutkan said. There are two reasons it matters. Depending on how they decide, even if they were unanimous, and you could see it concurring with Judge Henderson, if they were unanimous it could affect the prospects for a remand, and remand might entail a subsequent round of appeals under the remanded standard by Trump and a little bit more delay. And also could affect whether the Supreme Court takes review. So that lower level, there was some drama.”
George Conway wrote a long piece about yesterday’s hearing at The Atlantic: Trump’s Lawyer Walked Into a Trap. It’s pretty entertaining, if you can get through the paywall. They usually allow one free article, before they cut you off.
The second E. Jean Carroll case is also coming up soon. From Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast: Judge Signals Trump Is Doomed in New E. Jean Carroll Trial.
With Donald Trump’s second rape defamation trial only one week away, a federal judge has rewarded the billionaire’s unceasing legal insolence and delusional defense strategy with a brutal order laying out just how punishing the court battle is going to be.
Until recently, the former president’s lawyers had been preparing for the upcoming defamation trial as if the first one never happened—seeing it as a chance to rewrite history and try to clear Trump’s name after a jury last year concluded he sexually assaulted the journalist E. Jean Carroll decades ago.
But on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan made it clear that Trump is not getting another go at whether he raped Carroll.
“In other words, the material facts concerning the alleged sexual assault already have been determined, and this trial will not be a ‘do over’ of the previous trial,” Kaplan wrote in an order.
In the 27-page order, the federal judge reiterated that the jury will merely be deciding how badly to reprimand Trump for dragging Carroll’s name through the mud while he was at the White House in 2019—when he denied a coercive sexual encounter that did, according to a jury last year, occur.
This new jury will see the most damning evidence of Trump’s misogyny, from the Access Hollywood tape in which he gloats about how he can “grab them by the pussy” to the videotaped deposition where he remarks that stars get away with sexual assault “unfortunately—or fortunately.”
The previous iteration of this case dealt with the defamatory denials Trump made after leaving office, a trial that cost him $5 million in damages (which he apparently paid).
The second defamation trial, which begins next week, deals with the denials Trump made as U.S. president, with all the additional attention and gravitas his former position of power bestowed upon him at the time he made those comments.
Kaplan’s order on Tuesday clarified that Trump will have the obligation—but not the right—to remain silent about nearly everything the billionaire intended to say in court.
“Mr. Trump and his counsel are precluded, in the presence of the jury, from claiming that Mr. Trump did not sexually abuse (“rape”) Ms. Carroll, that Mdid not make his… 2019 statements concerning Ms. Carroll with actual malice… or that Ms. Carroll fabricated her account,” he wrote.
In other (not new) news, Republican politicians are showing themselves to be sadistic psychopaths when it comes to women’s abilities to make choices about their bodies and health care. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate: Republican Officials Openly Insult Women Nearly Killed by Abortion Bans.
For many years before S.B. 8 passed in Texas and was then swept into existence by the Supreme Court, and before Dobbs ushered in a more formal regime of forced childbirth six months later, the groups leading the charge against reproductive rights liked to claim that they loved pregnant women and only wanted them to be safe and cozy, stuffed chock-full of good advice and carted around through extra-wide hallways for safe, sterile procedures in operating rooms with only the best HVAC systems. Then Dobbs came down and within minutes it became manifestly clear that these advocates actually viewed pregnant people as the problem standing in the way of imaginary, healthy babies—and that states willing to privilege fetal life would go to any and all lengths to ensure that actual patients’ care, comfort, informed consent, and very survival would be subordinate.
We are only beginning to understand the extent to which pregnant women are dying and will continue to die due to denials of basic maternal health care, candid medical advice, and adequate treatment. The issue of emergency abortions, though, has already rocketed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed on Friday to decide whether federal law compels hospitals to terminate dangerous pregnancies regardless of state bans. No matter how SCOTUS rules, the fallout is already all around us. The stories of Kate Cox in Texas, devastated would-be mothers in Tennessee, and a horrifying prosecution of a mother who miscarried in Ohio all surface the brutal reality of the post-Dobbs zeitgeist: Any woman who seeks to terminate a pregnancy is wicked, any woman who miscarries is evil, and any woman who—for reasons of failing health, circumstance, or simple bad luck—does not prove to be an adequate incubator deserves whatever she gets. Every unborn fetus is the priority over the pregnant person carrying it and must be carried to term at all costs. So goes the moral calculus of the death-panel judges who now determine how to weigh the competing interests between real, existing human life and a state’s dogmatic fixation with a fetus that, by definition, must be seraphically innocent.
Frosted Evening, by Paul Evans
One need only look at red states’ scramble to defend their draconian abortion bans to witness this perverse moral hierarchy in action. In the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise, the victims of these laws are no longer hypothetical: They are flesh-and-blood women, directly and viscerally injured by the denial of basic health care, and some of them have even had the gall to fight for their rights. Republican attorneys general have responded with furious indignation, openly demeaning these women as liars, wimps, partisans, and baby killers.
A recent filing by the office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan T. Skrmetti, a Republican, captures the dynamic all too well. Skrmetti has been fighting a lawsuit filed by a group of Tennessee women denied emergency abortions under the ultranarrow medical exception to that state’s ban. The women plaintiffs suffered an appalling range of trauma, including sepsis and hemorrhaging, because they could not terminate their pregnancies. The attorney general’s response to their complaint is a scathing, shockingly personal broadside against the victims of the ban. He accused them of attempting to draw “lines about which unborn lives are worth protecting” by imposing a medical exception “of their own liking.” He mocked them for asserting that ostensibly minor conditions like “sickle cell disease” might justify an abortion. And he insisted that the lead plaintiff, Nicole Blackmon, lacks standing, because she underwent sterilization after the state forced her to carry a nonviable pregnancy and deliver a stillborn baby. The attorney general viciously suggested that, if Blackmon really wanted to fight Tennessee’s ban, she could have tried for another doomed pregnancy.
Perhaps Skrmetti deserves half credit for candor, because he did not even pretend to treat these plaintiffs like compelling moral human beings. Instead, he wrote that Tennessee may allow different standards of care for pregnant and nonpregnant women. A pregnant woman, the attorney general averred, may be refused a treatment if it “has the potential to harm unborn lives—an issue not implicated” when treating nonpregnant women. “No equal-protection rule,” he concluded, “bars lawmakers from acting on that difference to protect unborn babies.” In other words, once a woman is pregnant, she becomes a vessel for “unborn babies,” giving the state authority to cut off her access to urgently necessary health care. Since nonpregnant women don’t immediately suffer the consequences of abortion bans, those bans don’t discriminate on the basis of sex.
There’s much more at the link.
One more story before I wrap this up. I’m sure you’ve heard that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was was treated for prostate cancer in December and was hospitalized with complications from surgery on Jan. 1. The problem is that President Biden and other top officials had no clue this was happening. From BBC News: President Joe Biden was only told that US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was being treated for cancer on Tuesday, the White House has said.
This seems pretty odd. It’s not clear what is going to happen to Austin yet.That’s it for me today. What stories have you been following?Mr Austin, 70, was admitted to hospital on 1 January and then to the intensive care unit for complications following surgery in December.
He has faced criticism for not telling senior officials about it for days.
He has since apologised for not “ensuring the public was appropriately informed”.
The lag in notifying the White House raised potential national security concerns and issues of transparency within the Biden administration.
The defence secretary sits just below the president in the chain of command for the US military, and is one of the most important members of the president’s Cabinet.
The Pentagon confirmed Mr Austin remained hospitalised on Tuesday.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that President Biden was only informed that day about the diagnosis of prostate cancer.
“Nobody at the White House knew that Secretary Austin had prostate cancer until this morning,” he said.
While he emphasised the president’s initial reaction was concern for the secretary’s health, Mr Kirby acknowledged the communications were “not optimal.”
“This is not the way it is supposed to go,” Mr Kirby said.
Mr Biden and Sec Austin have not spoken since their last interaction over the weekend, according to Mr Kirby.
Mr Austin’s deputy, Kathleen Hicks, was not informed of his hospital stay despite being asked to assume some of his responsibilities.
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/01/10/wednesday-reads-46/
#abortion #DefenseSecretaryLloydAustin #EJeanCarroll #GlennKirschner #HouseJudiciaryCommittee #HouseOversightCommittee #HunterBiden #JohnSauer #JudgeFlorenceYPan #JudgeLewisKaplan #MargeryTaylorGreene #NancyMace #postDobbsCrueltyToPregnantWomen #RepJimJordan #RepJamesComer #SpecialCounselJamesIPearce #TrumpSPresidentialImmunityAppeal
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RE: https://watch.hayes.software/video/44
> “[...] I have it on my portable, that I carry with me all the time.”
😆 Who knew a 1987 buyer's guide would have comedic timing. #LGR -
RE: https://watch.hayes.software/video/44
> “[...] I have it on my portable, that I carry with me all the time.”
😆 Who knew a 1987 buyer's guide would have comedic timing. #LGR -
RE: https://watch.hayes.software/video/44
> “[...] I have it on my portable, that I carry with me all the time.”
😆 Who knew a 1987 buyer's guide would have comedic timing. #LGR -
RE: https://watch.hayes.software/video/44
> “[...] I have it on my portable, that I carry with me all the time.”
😆 Who knew a 1987 buyer's guide would have comedic timing. #LGR -
RE: https://watch.hayes.software/video/44
> “[...] I have it on my portable, that I carry with me all the time.”
😆 Who knew a 1987 buyer's guide would have comedic timing. #LGR -
#TIL `:empty` is a CSS selector. Only took me 20 years to notice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:empty #WebDev #CSS
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#TIL `:empty` is a CSS selector. Only took me 20 years to notice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:empty #WebDev #CSS
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#TIL `:empty` is a CSS selector. Only took me 20 years to notice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:empty #WebDev #CSS
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#TIL `:empty` is a CSS selector. Only took me 20 years to notice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:empty #WebDev #CSS
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#TIL `:empty` is a CSS selector. Only took me 20 years to notice.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Selectors/:empty #WebDev #CSS
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Amazing how much one can learn about the forests of #NewEngland just by looking around.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zcLQz-oR6sw #Connecticut #Nature