#fartus — Public Fediverse posts

My latest on Sky Dancing Blog, with Featured Funny by John Buss: https://wp.me/pgqML-XD7 The ultimate goal of #FARTUS may be to launch us back into the Gilded Age.  While the Captain of the Trumptanic kicks women off the sinking ship first, there don't appear to be any lifeboats in this version. First, it was Kristi Noem; then, Pam Bondi.  Tulsi Gabbard is the likely third to head face-first into the cold sea. Linda McMahon is about to have her entire office building sold out from under her

My latest on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat9168 https://wp.me/pgqML-X5j Gotta thank  @repeat1968 for giving me this earworm today, as well as today's Featured Funny. Today's topics are War, Inflation, and a domestic terrorist attack on a place of worship. All these are brought to you by the letters #FARTUS. Yes, Cadet Bonespurs with his band of incompetents is doing more damage to the world and our country than most folks thought possible.

My Latest on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat1968 https://wp.me/pgqML-WbH This weekend had a Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics, and a peak ongoing #FARTUS shitshow. The headline that caught my attention was the FBI seizure of 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia. The Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution is short and leaves much to be determined by Congress and the courts.

My latest at Sky Dancing Blog with Featured Funny by @repeat1968 https://wp.me/pgqML-TMH Once again, we've been treated to the overtly unconstitutional view that Orange Caligula can run for a third term. We're also listening to more insane chatter about how mentally "healthy" #FARTUS is now. All of these sideshows are undoubtedly trying to get the focus off the Epstein files, bombing hapless fishermen off coasts in South America, and the incredible price inflation in everything.

Finally Friday Reads: “The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness.”

Drew this last Sunday, envisioning a trump renovation of the Lincoln Memorial as he “cleans up” DC. Wake up to find South Park had the same idea. Should have posted it sooner. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I have to admit that my heroes have always been Nobel Prize Winners in Economics. Between hearing family stories about living through the Great Depression and my own experience of inflation and stagflation, I just totally fell into my economics major. It was practical, scientific, and consensus-seeking. I have an early copy of Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that was my father’s economic textbook after the War. I also have my own copy of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. As a Financial Economist, I have strong roots as a monetarist. 

As I reached out to study Trade Theory in search of what all countries needed in place to have a stable, growing economy and financial system, I became drawn to Paul Krugman. The headline up top is straight from him. This year, I’ve watched just about everything we’ve learned since the Great Depression on how to stabilize and grow an economy, from all these wise people, being thrown to the wind. I’m opening with the current Krugman critique of the “craziness.”  It will be followed by some excellent analysis of what’s passing as policy these days, which is anything but a market economy. You can make a good case that we are moving in the direction of a Soviet-style command and Control system and heading straight into a Maoist one. This is how our regime rolls these days, and as Krugman says, it’s crazy.

I start with Thor Benson’s interview with Dr. Krugman at the Substack Public Notice.

Paul Krugman’s publication here on Substack has quickly become a vital resource for explanatory (and entertaining) coverage of Trump’s self-destructive economic policies. In fact, the Nobel Prize winner recently triggered Trump himself, with the president howling that Krugman is a “Trump Deranged BUM” in an unhinged Truth Social screed.

So with economic indicators weakening and talk of stagflation in the air, we connected with Krugman for a wide-ranging conversation about tariffs, inflation, why the AI bubble is reminiscent of the late 1990s, Trump’s teetering economy, and more.

“I think there’s a high likelihood of what we used to call a ‘growth recession’ or a jobless recovery — a situation where the economy isn’t plunging, but in fact unemployment is going up,” Krugman told us. “The economy is growing too slowly right now to generate enough jobs and there’s real weakness, which we’ve already seen in the data.”

“The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness. Nobody knows what the tariff rates will be in six months. Businesses making investment decisions want to know what things are going to be like over the next five years, but nobody has the faintest idea.”

The key to the crazy car is indeed tariffs.  The damage, like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Congress imposed in 1929, made the Great Depression what it turned out to be.  The media has pushed the idea that the current tariff regime has been limited because of the TACO craziness. Read Krugman’s thoughts on that.

Thor Benson

Why haven’t tariffs inflicted more damage on the economy already? There were a lot of dire warnings in the lead-up to Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement nearly five months ago.

Paul Krugman

The scale of Trump’s tariffs is beyond the highest expectations people had. When he was talking about 10 percent tariffs globally, people thought, “Well, he won’t really do that.” In fact, it looks like we’re going to end up with an average tariff rate of around 18 percent, which is huge. We knew the reaction would be delayed, and it’s been even more delayed than expected, but it’s starting to show now.

The first thing to say is that, in general, protectionism is bad, but people tend to overstate the case. I’ve written about that a few times. It sounds important, because it has global effects, but it gets overhyped. Our screwed-up healthcare system does way more damage to the economy than Trump’s tariffs. Reasonable estimates of the long-run impact of these tariffs is a 0.4 or 0.5 percent cut to GDP — not trivial, but not apocalyptic.

In terms of the inflationary impacts of tariffs, there was a lot of front-running. Companies that import stuff rushed to do so earlier this year before the tariffs kicked in. To some extent, we’re still living off inventory that was built up in that period, and you can see it in the data. There was a huge surge in imports early in the year and then a huge drop after the tariffs finally kicked in. We’re still living off inventory that was brought in at much lower tariff rates.

It’s also important to note that the TACO thing is wrong. Trump did not chicken out. We’ve got 15 percent tariffs on the EU and Japan and iron tariffs on a number of countries.

The fact that people kept thinking we were gonna have trade deals and the tariffs were going to come back down meant that companies were reluctant to pass price hikes into stores, because they didn’t want to make customers mad and lose market share. It’s only now really sinking in that this is for real, and so the “let’s eat the tariffs for a while” thing is fading out.

It’s happening a little slower than expected, but for the most part we’re pretty much right in line with what economists were saying earlier this year.

Professionals are fleeing the U.S. Treasury.  “Treasury Department’s No. 2 official is leaving. Michael Faulkender oversees the department’s operations and has a broad policy portfolio that spans tax, international finance, sanctions, and financial regulation.”  The adults are leaving the room.

The rest is under a paywall, but you get the general gist of it. So, all of this tariff shit is not coming out of Congress, as it should. That is what led to this very important article in Fortune. You may read all of it. The first author, Jeffrey Sonnenfield, is a Yale University Business Professor. The rest of the authors are equally impressive.  There are CEOs of Top Companies as well as other academics, including Distinguished Professor Laura Tyson, a former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, back when we really were doing economic policy. Here’s the headline, folks!  “Is MAGA going Marxist and Maoist? Trump’s assault on free-market capitalism.”

As many CEOs understandably grew horrified last month at the prospect that New York City, the capital of capitalism, is on the brink of going socialist with the mayoral momentum of the inexperienced candidate Zohran Mamdani, they were ignoring the greater assault on free market capitalism that has already overtaken the nation in the Republican Party. While we agree that Mamdani’s solutions to affordable housing and grocery prices threaten to undermine free markets by bowing to the appeal of populist anger, President Donald Trump has already begun doing so, but to suit his own grandiose political agenda instead.

Unlike any leader of any free-market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprise’s strategic decision-making and investment policies while invading corporate board rooms so that he may dictate leadership staffing, punish corporate critics, and demand public compliance with his political agenda. This is far more dangerous to capitalism than a city-run grocery store.

Many free-market economists and business leaders who have long worshipped the free-market ideals of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman should be aware that their idols would be rolling in their graves right now, as rather than pursue standard laissez-faire conservative economic policies, MAGA has gone Marxist and even, increasingly, Maoist

That sounds dour, doesn’t it?

As Greg Ip warned this week in The Wall Street Journal, “The US marches toward state capitalism with American characteristics … President Trump is imitating [the] Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”  Ip pointed out that in the past, crisis-driven government bailouts of the banking and automotive sectors, such as TARP, were acute, targeted assistance, with brief and bipartisan rescue aims. Similarly, government incentives to drive investments in chips manufacturing, oil exploration, space exploration, internet development, agricultural vitality, cancer detection, disease treatment, and clean energy were not ownership deals with preferred companies or corporate cronies.

Indeed, Ip’s warnings mirror our own, as we were the first to accurately, presciently warn—over a year ago—that many of Trump’s economic positions more closely resemble communism than capitalism, as part of what we called “the coming MAGA assault on capitalism.” It certainly looks like MAGA is going Marxist if not even Maoist, especially across Trump’s vicious personal targeting of individual business leaders; government crackdown on business freedom of expression; weaponization of government powers; apparent extortion of businesses; and insertion of government into an unprecedented, outsized role in private sector strategic investment, capital flows and business decision-making.

Marxism and Maoism were both, of course, expressions of the communist theory that spilled forth from Karl Marx’s pen in the 19th century, brought to life in the brutal one-party states of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China under its leader Mao Zedong, before it evolved into “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” starting in the 1970s, around the time of President Richard Nixon’s fateful visit to Beijing.

Both Marxism and Maoism claimed to champion “ordinary people” against corrupt or exploitative elites, while both targeted intellectuals, bureaucrats, and traditionalists, and purged institutions to enforce ideological purity, especially during Stalin’s “Great Terror” and Mao’s “Cultural Revolution.” Both centralized leadership to the point of creating a cult of personality, demanding intense loyalty and the glorification of the sole figure who could fix the country’s problems. Both prized loyalty over expertise, sidelining critics and dissenters in favor of a tightly controlled political narrative. Sound familiar?

The essence of market capitalism is that owners—shareholders and the management they appoint share in the profits. These deals give share of profits to government in return for favors. Friedman said that federal government should never own anything—that it should not run a surplus because it would have funds to invest in the private sector. What strategic decision-making rights would the government have in such deals, then?

So, I have studied all of these things in both comparative economic systems and comparative political systems, as well as Russian and Chinese history courses. If you ever did any of this, you would be as scared as I am.  You may also watch the latest South Park episode, where all these institutional leaders line up and gift solid gold and silver gee-gaws to Yam Tits. Once again, dark humor mimics a dark regime.

You may read all the listed evidence at the link. This is not normal. This is heavy-handed interference in all our markets. Evidently, regulation is good if it’s the #FARTUS openly demanding he be cut in on all deals. There are so many things going on that are not normal; all alarms should be blaring loudly by now. “Trump’s FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home Looks Like a ‘Five-Alarm Fire. Thus far, little is known about Friday’s law enforcement action against a top Trump critic. But we’re seeing an escalation of authoritarian power on many fronts that has grown unmistakable.” This is from the New Republic. It’s written by Greg Sargent.

Whatever we end up learning about the rationale for the FBI’s early-morning raid on former national security adviser John Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home on Friday, there’s plainly a major escalation underway in President Donald Trump’s use of law enforcement to persecute his perceived enemies and entrench his authoritarian power. Consider the pattern:

Assaults targeting individual business leaders

Trump has a long history of targeting individual CEOs in highly vicious, personal terms for perceived offenses. This week, Trump called for the firing of Goldman Sachs’ renowned economist Jan Hatzius who accurately called the 2008 financial crisis over the economist’s concern regarding the tariff overhand on the US economy. He also attacked a top-performing financier, David Solomon, the non-partisan CEO of Goldman Sachs, telling him to quit and just be a disc jockey. (Solomon has a famous side hustle as an electronic dance music DJ, known as DJ D-Sol.)

• The targeting of Bolton, a major critic of Trump, appears to have been personally authorized by Kash Patel. An apparently official leak to the New York Post deliberately underscored Patel’s involvement, probably to make sure it’s understood by Trump’s other enemies. Remember: Trump installed Patel as FBI director for this very purpose. Patel had openly declared in 2023 that “the conspirators,” that is enemies of Trump and MAGA, must be prosecuted, and also that more loyalists with the resolve to see this through would be recruited to carry this out. Bolton was on Patel’s enemies list.
• Trump is now targeting Fed governor Lisa Cook, another proclaimed enemy, and he’s escalating the use of law enforcement and the manipulation of the bureaucracy to do so. Trump loyalist William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is alleging that Cook committed mortgage fraud, and this has been referred to the Justice Department. Whether or not there’s anything to the fraud claims, they’re minor at best, and it’s already highly suspect that Pulte, an agency head, has taken such an active interest in investigations into individual mortgages that happen to belong to Trump’s highest-profile enemies. Given that Trump personally promoted an article about the referral of the Cook matter to DOJ, Pulte’s move looks even more suspect.
• Tellingly, Trump also heavily promoted the news of another supposedly fraudulent mortgage held by an enemy, Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff flatly denies the charges, yet DOJ is now criminally investigating them. Here again, Trump loyalist Pulte was directly involved in the manufacturing of the pretext for this, and experts say the process employed was dubiously manipulated. The same tactic has been used against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another major Trump foe. The question now is whether the White House is directing Pulte to rummage through the mortgages of Trump enemies for material that can serve as a pretext for potential DOJ prosecutions. It’s hard to imagine something of this magnitude proceeding without the White House’s blessing.
• After protests broke out over Trump’s attempted takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and his deployment of the National Guard there—which is itself a major escalation—White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller expressly declared that protests would be met with a surge of additional law enforcement and/or military resources. Notably, there’s been no serious effort to reassure Americans that Trump’s militarization of the city, or of Los Angeles, is rooted in benign intentions. In fact, this week Trump suggested he would personally ride through the city with the National Guard. Though he scrapped the plan, that was probably for logistical reasons, and he plainly wants all this military activity in urban centers to be seen as affirmative confirmation of his ongoing consolidation of power.
• Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon explicitly declared the other day that ICE officers will indeed be employed during the 2026 midterm elections in large numbers to monitor voting booths, again floating undocumented voters as the bullshit pretext to justify it. Bannon is not in a position to compel this, of course, but it’s clear the MAGA movement now sees Trump’s militarization of cities as a precursor to the use of law enforcement and/or the military to intimidate voters in large numbers, or foment a crisis atmosphere designed to help the GOP, or both.
• Last but not least, as we reported, a recent internal Department of Homeland Security memo outlines the hopes of senior DHS officials for substantially escalated military involvement in domestic law enforcement going forward. It even declares that military operations like the one in L.A. may be needed “for years to come.”

The raid of Bolton’s home was authorized by a court, and it is seeking to “determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information,” according to The New York Times. Trump told reporters Friday that he’d been unaware of the raid, but responded to it ominously.

WTF is going on? This is not normal. This is not democratic. This is not how our republic is supposed to work. Meanwhile, Donald’s dash for the Nobel Peace Prize is dashed again.  Put so played him. This is from Politico. “Trump’s peace bid flops as Kremlin says no plans for Putin-Zelenskyy summit. Moscow obfuscates again in new remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.” Well, inadequate Yam Tits strike again and cost the country more of our hard-earned dollars.

Russia’s top diplomat said Friday the Kremlin is “not ready at all” for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pouring cold water on U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to set up a summit.

Trump announced Monday on social media that he was arranging a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, following crunch talks with European leaders at the White House — but gave scant details.

But Moscow has since been reluctant to commit to a confab between the two leaders, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Tuesday such a meeting would need to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.”

He sowed further doubt Friday, claiming that Zelenskyy was the one not willing to negotiate by refusing to rule out joining NATO or concede to the Kremlin’s maximalist territorial demands.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told U.S. channel NBC.

“Zelenskyy said no to everything. … How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” he added.

While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the Russian ruler had agreed to a face-to-face meeting, touting his supposed openness to talks as a breakthrough, European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war and willing to negotiate in good faith.

“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession, and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Friday of dragging out peace talks in a bid to hold off punishing American sanctions, which Trump has threatened to impose on Russia and its trading partners if the Kremlin does not participate.

#FARTUS is the most corrupt and inept president we’ve ever had. I have no idea how we’re going to survive much more of this. More things from Memeorandum to check out:

• Ian Millhiser / Vox: The Supreme Court hands down some incomprehensible gobbledygook about canceled federal grants  —  Late Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court handed down an incomprehensible order concerning the Trump administration’s decision to cancel numerous public health grants.
• Daniel Dale / CNN: Fact check: Trump and the case of the nonexistent $600 billion EU ‘gift’  —  Seventeen days ago, President Donald Trump made a dramatic claim in an interview on the business news channel CNBC.  As part of his July trade agreement with the European Union, he said, the EU gave the United States …
• New York Times: Noem’s Spending Rule Causes Delays at Homeland Security Dept.
• New York Times: Trump’s Attacks on Institutions Threaten a Bulwark of Economic Strength

Don’t forget, Trump is destroying the Smithsonian, the entire White House, and just about every check and balance enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.  You may gag over the Oval Office Changes at Business Insider.  His future architectural destruction is outlined in USA Today. It includes the Lincoln Bedroom, and he’s specifically interested in its bathroom.  That’s a lot of gag for your buck.

We’re certainly going to get more proof that everything Trump touches dies.

I can’t watch the news much anymore. I think I’ll go watch the Disney Channel now.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

#Repeat1968JohnBuss #economics #FARTUS #NobelPrizeEconomics #NobelPrizeForPeace #tariffs #TrumpIsAMarxistMaoist

Finally Friday Reads: “The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness.”

Drew this last Sunday, envisioning a trump renovation of the Lincoln Memorial as he “cleans up” DC. Wake up to find South Park had the same idea. Should have posted it sooner. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I have to admit that my heroes have always been Nobel Prize Winners in Economics. Between hearing family stories about living through the Great Depression and my own experience of inflation and stagflation, I just totally fell into my economics major. It was practical, scientific, and consensus-seeking. I have an early copy of Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that was my father’s economic textbook after the War. I also have my own copy of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. As a Financial Economist, I have strong roots as a monetarist. 

As I reached out to study Trade Theory in search of what all countries needed in place to have a stable, growing economy and financial system, I became drawn to Paul Krugman. The headline up top is straight from him. This year, I’ve watched just about everything we’ve learned since the Great Depression on how to stabilize and grow an economy, from all these wise people, being thrown to the wind. I’m opening with the current Krugman critique of the “craziness.”  It will be followed by some excellent analysis of what’s passing as policy these days, which is anything but a market economy. You can make a good case that we are moving in the direction of a Soviet-style command and Control system and heading straight into a Maoist one. This is how our regime rolls these days, and as Krugman says, it’s crazy.

I start with Thor Benson’s interview with Dr. Krugman at the Substack Public Notice.

Paul Krugman’s publication here on Substack has quickly become a vital resource for explanatory (and entertaining) coverage of Trump’s self-destructive economic policies. In fact, the Nobel Prize winner recently triggered Trump himself, with the president howling that Krugman is a “Trump Deranged BUM” in an unhinged Truth Social screed.

So with economic indicators weakening and talk of stagflation in the air, we connected with Krugman for a wide-ranging conversation about tariffs, inflation, why the AI bubble is reminiscent of the late 1990s, Trump’s teetering economy, and more.

“I think there’s a high likelihood of what we used to call a ‘growth recession’ or a jobless recovery — a situation where the economy isn’t plunging, but in fact unemployment is going up,” Krugman told us. “The economy is growing too slowly right now to generate enough jobs and there’s real weakness, which we’ve already seen in the data.”

“The thing that’s extra damaging now is the craziness. Nobody knows what the tariff rates will be in six months. Businesses making investment decisions want to know what things are going to be like over the next five years, but nobody has the faintest idea.”

The key to the crazy car is indeed tariffs.  The damage, like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Congress imposed in 1929, made the Great Depression what it turned out to be.  The media has pushed the idea that the current tariff regime has been limited because of the TACO craziness. Read Krugman’s thoughts on that.

Thor Benson

Why haven’t tariffs inflicted more damage on the economy already? There were a lot of dire warnings in the lead-up to Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement nearly five months ago.

Paul Krugman

The scale of Trump’s tariffs is beyond the highest expectations people had. When he was talking about 10 percent tariffs globally, people thought, “Well, he won’t really do that.” In fact, it looks like we’re going to end up with an average tariff rate of around 18 percent, which is huge. We knew the reaction would be delayed, and it’s been even more delayed than expected, but it’s starting to show now.

The first thing to say is that, in general, protectionism is bad, but people tend to overstate the case. I’ve written about that a few times. It sounds important, because it has global effects, but it gets overhyped. Our screwed-up healthcare system does way more damage to the economy than Trump’s tariffs. Reasonable estimates of the long-run impact of these tariffs is a 0.4 or 0.5 percent cut to GDP — not trivial, but not apocalyptic.

In terms of the inflationary impacts of tariffs, there was a lot of front-running. Companies that import stuff rushed to do so earlier this year before the tariffs kicked in. To some extent, we’re still living off inventory that was built up in that period, and you can see it in the data. There was a huge surge in imports early in the year and then a huge drop after the tariffs finally kicked in. We’re still living off inventory that was brought in at much lower tariff rates.

It’s also important to note that the TACO thing is wrong. Trump did not chicken out. We’ve got 15 percent tariffs on the EU and Japan and iron tariffs on a number of countries.

The fact that people kept thinking we were gonna have trade deals and the tariffs were going to come back down meant that companies were reluctant to pass price hikes into stores, because they didn’t want to make customers mad and lose market share. It’s only now really sinking in that this is for real, and so the “let’s eat the tariffs for a while” thing is fading out.

It’s happening a little slower than expected, but for the most part we’re pretty much right in line with what economists were saying earlier this year.

Professionals are fleeing the U.S. Treasury.  “Treasury Department’s No. 2 official is leaving. Michael Faulkender oversees the department’s operations and has a broad policy portfolio that spans tax, international finance, sanctions, and financial regulation.”  The adults are leaving the room.

The rest is under a paywall, but you get the general gist of it. So, all of this tariff shit is not coming out of Congress, as it should. That is what led to this very important article in Fortune. You may read all of it. The first author, Jeffrey Sonnenfield, is a Yale University Business Professor. The rest of the authors are equally impressive.  There are CEOs of Top Companies as well as other academics, including Distinguished Professor Laura Tyson, a former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, back when we really were doing economic policy. Here’s the headline, folks!  “Is MAGA going Marxist and Maoist? Trump’s assault on free-market capitalism.”

As many CEOs understandably grew horrified last month at the prospect that New York City, the capital of capitalism, is on the brink of going socialist with the mayoral momentum of the inexperienced candidate Zohran Mamdani, they were ignoring the greater assault on free market capitalism that has already overtaken the nation in the Republican Party. While we agree that Mamdani’s solutions to affordable housing and grocery prices threaten to undermine free markets by bowing to the appeal of populist anger, President Donald Trump has already begun doing so, but to suit his own grandiose political agenda instead.

Unlike any leader of any free-market economy around the world, President Trump has seized control of private enterprise’s strategic decision-making and investment policies while invading corporate board rooms so that he may dictate leadership staffing, punish corporate critics, and demand public compliance with his political agenda. This is far more dangerous to capitalism than a city-run grocery store.

Many free-market economists and business leaders who have long worshipped the free-market ideals of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman should be aware that their idols would be rolling in their graves right now, as rather than pursue standard laissez-faire conservative economic policies, MAGA has gone Marxist and even, increasingly, Maoist

That sounds dour, doesn’t it?

As Greg Ip warned this week in The Wall Street Journal, “The US marches toward state capitalism with American characteristics … President Trump is imitating [the] Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”  Ip pointed out that in the past, crisis-driven government bailouts of the banking and automotive sectors, such as TARP, were acute, targeted assistance, with brief and bipartisan rescue aims. Similarly, government incentives to drive investments in chips manufacturing, oil exploration, space exploration, internet development, agricultural vitality, cancer detection, disease treatment, and clean energy were not ownership deals with preferred companies or corporate cronies.

Indeed, Ip’s warnings mirror our own, as we were the first to accurately, presciently warn—over a year ago—that many of Trump’s economic positions more closely resemble communism than capitalism, as part of what we called “the coming MAGA assault on capitalism.” It certainly looks like MAGA is going Marxist if not even Maoist, especially across Trump’s vicious personal targeting of individual business leaders; government crackdown on business freedom of expression; weaponization of government powers; apparent extortion of businesses; and insertion of government into an unprecedented, outsized role in private sector strategic investment, capital flows and business decision-making.

Marxism and Maoism were both, of course, expressions of the communist theory that spilled forth from Karl Marx’s pen in the 19th century, brought to life in the brutal one-party states of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China under its leader Mao Zedong, before it evolved into “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” starting in the 1970s, around the time of President Richard Nixon’s fateful visit to Beijing.

Both Marxism and Maoism claimed to champion “ordinary people” against corrupt or exploitative elites, while both targeted intellectuals, bureaucrats, and traditionalists, and purged institutions to enforce ideological purity, especially during Stalin’s “Great Terror” and Mao’s “Cultural Revolution.” Both centralized leadership to the point of creating a cult of personality, demanding intense loyalty and the glorification of the sole figure who could fix the country’s problems. Both prized loyalty over expertise, sidelining critics and dissenters in favor of a tightly controlled political narrative. Sound familiar?

The essence of market capitalism is that owners—shareholders and the management they appoint share in the profits. These deals give share of profits to government in return for favors. Friedman said that federal government should never own anything—that it should not run a surplus because it would have funds to invest in the private sector. What strategic decision-making rights would the government have in such deals, then?

So, I have studied all of these things in both comparative economic systems and comparative political systems, as well as Russian and Chinese history courses. If you ever did any of this, you would be as scared as I am.  You may also watch the latest South Park episode, where all these institutional leaders line up and gift solid gold and silver gee-gaws to Yam Tits. Once again, dark humor mimics a dark regime.

You may read all the listed evidence at the link. This is not normal. This is heavy-handed interference in all our markets. Evidently, regulation is good if it’s the #FARTUS openly demanding he be cut in on all deals. There are so many things going on that are not normal; all alarms should be blaring loudly by now. “Trump’s FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home Looks Like a ‘Five-Alarm Fire. Thus far, little is known about Friday’s law enforcement action against a top Trump critic. But we’re seeing an escalation of authoritarian power on many fronts that has grown unmistakable.” This is from the New Republic. It’s written by Greg Sargent.

Whatever we end up learning about the rationale for the FBI’s early-morning raid on former national security adviser John Bolton’s Bethesda, Maryland, home on Friday, there’s plainly a major escalation underway in President Donald Trump’s use of law enforcement to persecute his perceived enemies and entrench his authoritarian power. Consider the pattern:

Assaults targeting individual business leaders

Trump has a long history of targeting individual CEOs in highly vicious, personal terms for perceived offenses. This week, Trump called for the firing of Goldman Sachs’ renowned economist Jan Hatzius who accurately called the 2008 financial crisis over the economist’s concern regarding the tariff overhand on the US economy. He also attacked a top-performing financier, David Solomon, the non-partisan CEO of Goldman Sachs, telling him to quit and just be a disc jockey. (Solomon has a famous side hustle as an electronic dance music DJ, known as DJ D-Sol.)

• The targeting of Bolton, a major critic of Trump, appears to have been personally authorized by Kash Patel. An apparently official leak to the New York Post deliberately underscored Patel’s involvement, probably to make sure it’s understood by Trump’s other enemies. Remember: Trump installed Patel as FBI director for this very purpose. Patel had openly declared in 2023 that “the conspirators,” that is enemies of Trump and MAGA, must be prosecuted, and also that more loyalists with the resolve to see this through would be recruited to carry this out. Bolton was on Patel’s enemies list.
• Trump is now targeting Fed governor Lisa Cook, another proclaimed enemy, and he’s escalating the use of law enforcement and the manipulation of the bureaucracy to do so. Trump loyalist William Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is alleging that Cook committed mortgage fraud, and this has been referred to the Justice Department. Whether or not there’s anything to the fraud claims, they’re minor at best, and it’s already highly suspect that Pulte, an agency head, has taken such an active interest in investigations into individual mortgages that happen to belong to Trump’s highest-profile enemies. Given that Trump personally promoted an article about the referral of the Cook matter to DOJ, Pulte’s move looks even more suspect.
• Tellingly, Trump also heavily promoted the news of another supposedly fraudulent mortgage held by an enemy, Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff flatly denies the charges, yet DOJ is now criminally investigating them. Here again, Trump loyalist Pulte was directly involved in the manufacturing of the pretext for this, and experts say the process employed was dubiously manipulated. The same tactic has been used against New York Attorney General Letitia James, another major Trump foe. The question now is whether the White House is directing Pulte to rummage through the mortgages of Trump enemies for material that can serve as a pretext for potential DOJ prosecutions. It’s hard to imagine something of this magnitude proceeding without the White House’s blessing.
• After protests broke out over Trump’s attempted takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and his deployment of the National Guard there—which is itself a major escalation—White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller expressly declared that protests would be met with a surge of additional law enforcement and/or military resources. Notably, there’s been no serious effort to reassure Americans that Trump’s militarization of the city, or of Los Angeles, is rooted in benign intentions. In fact, this week Trump suggested he would personally ride through the city with the National Guard. Though he scrapped the plan, that was probably for logistical reasons, and he plainly wants all this military activity in urban centers to be seen as affirmative confirmation of his ongoing consolidation of power.
• Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon explicitly declared the other day that ICE officers will indeed be employed during the 2026 midterm elections in large numbers to monitor voting booths, again floating undocumented voters as the bullshit pretext to justify it. Bannon is not in a position to compel this, of course, but it’s clear the MAGA movement now sees Trump’s militarization of cities as a precursor to the use of law enforcement and/or the military to intimidate voters in large numbers, or foment a crisis atmosphere designed to help the GOP, or both.
• Last but not least, as we reported, a recent internal Department of Homeland Security memo outlines the hopes of senior DHS officials for substantially escalated military involvement in domestic law enforcement going forward. It even declares that military operations like the one in L.A. may be needed “for years to come.”

The raid of Bolton’s home was authorized by a court, and it is seeking to “determine whether he illegally shared or possessed classified information,” according to The New York Times. Trump told reporters Friday that he’d been unaware of the raid, but responded to it ominously.

WTF is going on? This is not normal. This is not democratic. This is not how our republic is supposed to work. Meanwhile, Donald’s dash for the Nobel Peace Prize is dashed again.  Put so played him. This is from Politico. “Trump’s peace bid flops as Kremlin says no plans for Putin-Zelenskyy summit. Moscow obfuscates again in new remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.” Well, inadequate Yam Tits strike again and cost the country more of our hard-earned dollars.

Russia’s top diplomat said Friday the Kremlin is “not ready at all” for a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pouring cold water on U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to set up a summit.

Trump announced Monday on social media that he was arranging a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, following crunch talks with European leaders at the White House — but gave scant details.

But Moscow has since been reluctant to commit to a confab between the two leaders, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Tuesday such a meeting would need to be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the necessary stages.”

He sowed further doubt Friday, claiming that Zelenskyy was the one not willing to negotiate by refusing to rule out joining NATO or concede to the Kremlin’s maximalist territorial demands.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told U.S. channel NBC.

“Zelenskyy said no to everything. … How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” he added.

While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the Russian ruler had agreed to a face-to-face meeting, touting his supposed openness to talks as a breakthrough, European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war and willing to negotiate in good faith.

“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession, and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Friday of dragging out peace talks in a bid to hold off punishing American sanctions, which Trump has threatened to impose on Russia and its trading partners if the Kremlin does not participate.

#FARTUS is the most corrupt and inept president we’ve ever had. I have no idea how we’re going to survive much more of this. More things from Memeorandum to check out:

• Ian Millhiser / Vox: The Supreme Court hands down some incomprehensible gobbledygook about canceled federal grants  —  Late Thursday afternoon, the Supreme Court handed down an incomprehensible order concerning the Trump administration’s decision to cancel numerous public health grants.
• Daniel Dale / CNN: Fact check: Trump and the case of the nonexistent $600 billion EU ‘gift’  —  Seventeen days ago, President Donald Trump made a dramatic claim in an interview on the business news channel CNBC.  As part of his July trade agreement with the European Union, he said, the EU gave the United States …
• New York Times: Noem’s Spending Rule Causes Delays at Homeland Security Dept.
• New York Times: Trump’s Attacks on Institutions Threaten a Bulwark of Economic Strength

Don’t forget, Trump is destroying the Smithsonian, the entire White House, and just about every check and balance enumerated by the U.S. Constitution.  You may gag over the Oval Office Changes at Business Insider.  His future architectural destruction is outlined in USA Today. It includes the Lincoln Bedroom, and he’s specifically interested in its bathroom.  That’s a lot of gag for your buck.

We’re certainly going to get more proof that everything Trump touches dies.

I can’t watch the news much anymore. I think I’ll go watch the Disney Channel now.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

#Repeat1968JohnBuss #economics #FARTUS #NobelPrizeEconomics #NobelPrizeForPeace #tariffs #TrumpIsAMarxistMaoist

Finally Friday Reads: Only the Very Worst People

“I feel safer already,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

While we’re waiting for Putin to take what’s left of Yam Tits’ scalp in Alaska, let’s focus on what he’s trying to pass off as serious hires for all levels of the Federal Government. I’m going to start with the last target of South Park’s wonderful new season, ICE Barbie. This is from the Washington Post. “Kristi Noem is living free of charge in Coast Guard commandant’s home. A DHS spokesman said Noem must live on the military base because she had been “so horribly doxxed and targeted that she is no longer able to safely live in her own apartment.” I find it more than slightly ironic that the head of  “Homeland Security” doesn’t feel secure in her own home.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem is living for free in a military home typicallyreserved for the U.S. Coast Guard’s top admiral, officials familiar with the matter said. The highly unusual arrangement has raised concern within the agency andfrom some Democrats, who describe it as a waste of military resources.

Noem recently moved intoQuarters 1, a spacious waterfront residence at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Southeast Washington where the Coast Guard commandant typically resides. She did so because of concerns over her safety after the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published photographs in April of the area around Noem’s residence in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin described Noem’s time at the commandant’s residence as temporary. She did not specify how long thesetup would last or how long Noem has lived there.

Noem pays no rent to live in the commandant’s house, according to an official familiar with the matter granted anonymity to speak candidly. That’s a departure from how other Cabinet secretarieshave handled similar arrangements. Other Cabinet officials, including during both Trump administrations, have paid to use military housing that otherwise would be occupied by top generals and admirals.

Noem’s housing has raised eyebrows from current and retired Coast Guard officials, as well as Democrats, who warn that Noem risks creating the perception that she is exploiting the perks of her position as DHS secretary, in which she supervises the Coast Guard. They say her decision could set off a chain reaction that could displace other senior members of the service in a situation with limited housing.

Current and former Coast Guard members have also cited Noem’s frequent use of a Coast Guard Gulfstream aircraft as a point of tension. Agency guidelines require the DHS secretary to use a plane with secure communications for both personal and professional business, though they are required to reimburse the government for personal travel. McLaughlin said that Noem had reimbursed “tens of thousands of dollars” for the air travel, after publication of the story.

Noem faced scrutiny for her expenses when she served as governor of South Dakota. She spent $68,000 in taxpayer funds to refurbish the governor’s mansion with a sauna, chandelier and other amenities, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported in 2021. And South Dakota picked up the tab for at least $150,000 in campaign and personal travel for Noem related to her security when she was governor, the Associated Press reported this year.

Noem’s housing arrangement could create the impression that she is exploiting her position of authority over the Coast Guard to accrue perks for herself, said Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog nonprofit.

“What are the optics?” Brown said. “And is this taking advantage of your individual position as a government official to benefit unduly?”

So, I wonder if her neighbors hide their dogs? It’s amazing to me that the law and order crowd can’t seem to actually figure out either. Let’s continue with people who don’t know how to do their jobs.  “US Attorney Pirro’s office admits grand jury refused ICE interference charges — twice. Federal prosecutors told a judge they had failed twice to secure an indictment against Sydney Lori Reid for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE arrest.” I have to confess that I can’t listen to or watch any interviews with her. Her voice is disturbingly grating. She also looks like something out of a horror film. I pity the poor jury that has to deal with this. This much body dysmorphia in one administration is a sign of something. You may discuss that amongst yourselves. The story comes from the local news station at WUSA9.

Federal prosecutors twice sought a grand jury indictment against a D.C. woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE inmate transfer — and were twice rejected, the U.S. Attorney’s Office admitted in court Thursday.

Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey revealed the denials to attorneys for Sydney Lori Reid and later granted their request to remove all bond conditions and release her on her own recognizance over prosecutors’ objections. He will resume a preliminary hearing on Friday afternoon to determine whether to dismiss the case entirely.

“Two presentations to the grand jury returned no bill both times,” Harvey said. “Suggesting the evidence is wanting, given the standard for indictment is probable cause. Suggesting the government may never get an indictment.”

Grand juries are tasked with deciding only whether there is a reasonable basis to support charging someone with a crime – a much lower burden for prosecutors than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of criminal juries – and typically make their decisions after hearing evidence only from the government. At the federal level, grand juries return indictments, or “true bills,” in the vast majority of cases.

Reid, 44, was charged last month with an enhanced felony version of an assault charge that requires inflicting bodily injury on a federal officer and carries a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The charge is the same offense filed this week against a former DOJ employee accused of throwing a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.

In a press release last month, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office accused Reid of trying to impede the transfer of two alleged members of the 18th Street gang who were being arrested by ICE outside the D.C. Jail prior to transfer to the custody of the FBI.

Federal prosecutors declined to call the injured FBI agent or any of the ICE officers involved in the incident during Thursday’s hearing, however. Instead, they had an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office testify about his review of video of the incident and brief conversations with the officers. The investigator, Special Agent Sean Ricardi, said he’d had no involvement in the case until he was asked to prepare for testimony Thursday morning.

Video played by prosecutors shows Reid approaching the ICE officers while holding up her phone, which she says is for her protection. She is then later seen being held by multiple officers against a wall while she asks, “How do you feel about stealing f***ing people?”

Even the first soft porn star is getting into the headlines. You know, I really hate to slut slam or pick on woman for their looks. I love Stormy Daniels. She’s as sweet as pie, and she helped feed the neighborhood animals during our last hurricane. I’m always happy to see her when she visits. But, there’s a crossed Rubicon at some point with some behavior. Melania whiffed with this one. This story is from The Guardian. “Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein. First lady threatens to sue Joe Biden’s son after he said sex offender Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump. I can’t wait to read the testimony on the Trumps explaining their relationships with Epstein, frankly.

Melania Trump has demanded that Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has threatened to sue if he does not.

Biden, the son of the former president Joe Biden, alleged in an interview this month that Epstein had introduced the first lady to Donald Trump.

The statements were false, defamatory and “extremely salacious”, Melania Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, said in a letter to Biden. Biden’s remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm”, he added.

Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview with the US journalist Andrew Callaghan in which he lashed out at “elites” and others in the Democratic party who he said had undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s presidential campaign.

I’m sorry, but I just keep laughing at the “reputational harm” part. It’s not like you were “modelling” for some wannabe Picasso. We’ve seen the pictures, honey.

“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” Biden said in one of the comments that the first lady disputes. Biden attributed the claim to the author Michael Wolff. Donald Trump has accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.

Biden responded to the lawsuit on Thursday, speaking again to Callaghan, this time from a holiday location, and in effect doubled down on his unsubstantiated claim.

Asked if he wished to apologize, Biden said: “Uh, fuck that, not going to happen.”

“What I said is what I have heard and seen reported and written primarily from Michael Wolff, but also dating back to 2019.” He cited a number of publications, including the New York Times and Vanity Fair, as sources of his information.

The first lady’s threats echo a favoured strategy of her husband, who has aggressively used litigation to go after critics. Public figures such as the Trumps face a high bar to succeed in a defamation lawsuit.

The president also responded to the issue, accusing Biden of fabricating stories to denigrate the first lady. Trump told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday morning that he had encouraged her to sue.

“I said go forward. You know, I’ve done pretty well on these lawsuits lately … and Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,” he told Kilmeade.

“But they do that to demean, they make up stories. I mean I can tell you exactly how it was and it was another person actually … but it wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein. “I told her go ahead and do it.”

Yes, my goodness, Yam Tits! You never tell tall tales or make up stories! I bet it hurts your virgin ears to hear that kind of talk! I mean, it must’ve been so challenging to sneak around with her behind your second wife’s back, even though you had all that practice sneaking around behind your first wife’s bank. Pete Hegseth would be so proud of you! This Guardian article on Trump begging the Norwegian Finance Minister for a Nobel prize just had me spitting out my morning tea with laughter. “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.” He just can’t stand that former President Obama got one! “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.”  What? Ruining the Kennedy Center honors and wrecking the U.S. economy wasn’t enough for you?

Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.

The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”

The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.

In a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.

“I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” Stoltenberg said, adding that several White House officials including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, were on the call.

Each year, the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee reviews hundreds of candidates before choosing laureates. The committee members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Alfred Nobel, a 19-century Swedish industrialist. Laureates are announced in October.

Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.

In his most recent tirade, Trump took to Truth Social in June, saying: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

How about a little whine with that Skrei Yam Tits? So, I just had to put up this article by Mother Jones. It’s about the deluge of propaganda we get daily and its impact. “The Official Voice of the US Government Is Cruel, Gross, and Weird. What Is That Doing to Us? Joking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.”

In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a woman they accused of drug trafficking and entering the country illegally. Standing in a parking lot, they photographed her, weeping, eyes half-closed in anguish, her arms cuffed behind her back. And then—in a cruel innovation specific to the Trump administration—the White House’s official Twitter account used an AI tool to make a cartoon illustration of her crying and handcuffed, in the style of the beloved Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. The tweet got 155,000 likes, a mix of outraged and delighted responses, and, as it was designed to, a lot of attention: it’s so far been viewed 76 million times. On Twitter, many users posted positive responses declaring that the image was exactly what they had voted for.

This is, at the moment, the official voice of the US government: a rancid mixture of trolling, cruelty, propaganda, and crass jokes about the human suffering they’re creating, an effort, as Wired’s Tess Owen recently put it, to turn actions like mass deportation into “one big joke.” On Instagram and Twitter (their largest audience), government entities including the White House, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security attempt to surf viral trends to expanded public attention: They twist memes and sounds popular on TikTok, repurpose South Park’s parodies for their own self-promotion, and blend it all with images that draw on or directly reproduce classical art and Americana paintings that are designed to stir nostalgia for an imagined past. (The use of some of this art, as the Washington Post has written, has stirred the ire of the artists themselves or their representatives; it’s not easy to extract a stern condemnation from the estate of treacly pastoral painter Thomas Kinkade, but this government managed to do it.)

A lot of the trends are specifically designed to appeal to young white men, like one that repurposes a 1970s-looking ad for a van to ask, “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” Another ICE recruitment effort asks, “Which way, American man?” in front a befuddled-looking Uncle Sam gazing at a crossroads post labeled with signs including “INVASION,” “CULTURAL DECLINE” pointing one way, and, pointing the other, “SERVICE,” “OPPORTUNITY”; in Uncle Sam’s hands lies “LAW AND ORDER.” The phrase “Which way, American man?” is a barely altered reference to the phrase “Which way, Western man?,” the title of a book by white nationalist author William Gayley Simpson that’s been popularized by the far right as a meme. In this case, the white supremacist undertones are more like overtones.

While the government uses social media to bolster its philosophical choices on issues like mass deportations, it also deploys it to prop up support for deeply unpopular aspects of its plans, like “Alligator Alcatraz”—an immigration detention camp, trolling opportunity, marketing bonanza for amoral swag-sellers, including Florida’s attorney general. Before the tent prison was even officially open, Trump administration officials and their proxies in right-wing media bragged about the camp, joked about escapees dying by alligator and python, and made AI-generated images of President Trump standing alongside alligators wearing ICE hats.

Disinformation researchers and experts on propaganda have followed the sludge and bile emanating from these governmental accounts with alarm.

“What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,” says Jason Stanley; he’s a philosopher, author, and professor at University of Toronto who’s in the process of leaving the United States because of, as he baldly puts it, “concerns over fascism.”

You may read more at the link. So, everyone knows that Pam Bondi is in over her Miss Clairol Fox Blonde dye job head. She’s also doing things not in keeping with the role of the Attorney General. This is from Law Dork‘s Chris Geidner. “NEW: D.C. officials sue Trump admin over Bondi order claiming D.C. police powers. D.C.’s A.G. asserts that Bondi’s order — purporting to make the DEA administrator D.C.’s “Emergency Police Commissioner” — is “unlawful.” A lawsuit followed.”

A Thursday night order from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi caused the Washington, D.C. officials — who have responded cautiously to the Trump administration’s efforts to exert more control over D.C. — to declare that the administration had gone too far.

[Update, 11:00 a.m.: The D.C. government sued the Trump administration on Friday morning, asserting that the administration was violating the Home Rule Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and separation of powers. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is seeking a temporary restraining order to block Bondi from enforcing her order.]

[Update, 11:30 a.m.: The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, and she has scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. Friday to address D.C.’s TRO request.]

In the order, Bondi purported to have significant control over the Metropolitan Police Department — D.C.’s police force. Most significantly, she claimed that she had the authority to announce that “Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terrence C. Cole shall serve as MPD’s Emergency Police Commissioner.”

She also purported to rescind a Thursday morning order from MPD’s chief of police, in addition to suspending three other MPD orders, all relating to immigration enforcement.

She also announced that D.C. police are to enforce D.C.’s law against crowding streets or sidewalks “enforce, to the maximum extent permissible by law.“

In a final section, Bondi purported also to rescind “any existing MPD directives” that conflict with her order.

You may read this along with the associated part of Bondi’s order. We’ll see how that jives with the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. It is also known as the Home Rule Act. Meanwhile, everyone not associated with Putin is hoping that FARTUS will not give away the farm in Alaska today due to his advanced dementia, his Putin Fan Girl status, and his basic ignorance of history and diplomacy. This is from the New York Times. “Russia and Ukraine Agree: A Trump Summit Is a Big Win for Putin. The talks on Friday in Alaska pull the Russian leader out of diplomatic isolation from the West, and Ukrainian and European leaders fear it gives him an opening to sway the American president.” Andrew Higgins and Nataliya Vasilyeva share the byline.

President Trump has spent the week setting the bar extremely low for his high-stakes U.S.-Russian summit on Friday in Alaska. Hardly anyone expects him to make much progress in halting the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, given how far apart their views of the conflict are.

But those two warring countries do seem to agree on at least one thing. Merely meeting with Mr. Trump is a big win for President Vladimir V. Putin, bringing the Russian leader out of a diplomatic deep freeze and giving him a chance to cajole the American president face to face.

“Putin’s visit to the U.S.A. means the total collapse of the whole concept of isolating Russia. Total collapse,” Kremlin-controlled television crowed after news of the hastily arranged summit broke last weekend.

For Russia, “this is a breakthrough even if they don’t agree on much,” said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist who is a mainstay of state television.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, iced out of the Alaska talks about his own country’s future, has come to the same conclusion, telling reporters on Tuesday: “Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos. He needs a photo from the meeting with President Trump.”

But it is more than a photo op. In addition to thawing Russia’s pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO — a perennial Russian goal — and postponed Mr. Trump’s threat of tough new sanctions. Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Mr. Putin did not commit to a cease-fire by last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia’s war effort by buying its oil and gas.

This editorial cartoon is by Michael de Adder .

This is another fine mess that  #FARTUS (Felon Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States) has gotten us into. The world is expecting Putin to eat him for lunch. My favorite magazine, The Economist, has this headline. “The real collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It may be scarier than their critics long suspected.”

To DEFY Donald Trump is to court punishment. A rival politician can expect an investigation, an aggravating network may face a lawsuit, a left-leaning university can bid farewell to its public grants, a scrupulous civil servant can count on a pink slip and an independent-minded foreign government, however determined an adversary or stalwart an ally, invites tariffs. Perceived antagonists should also brace for a hail of insults, a lesson in public humiliation to potential transgressors.Vladimir Putin has been a mysterious exception. Mr Trump has blamed his travails over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on just about everyone but him. He has blamed the war in Ukraine on former President Joe Biden, for supposedly inviting it through weakness, and on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for somehow starting it. Back when Russia invaded in February 2022, Mr Trump praised Mr Putin’s “savvy”.

For months, as Mr Putin made a mockery of Mr Trump’s promises to end the war in a day and of his calls for a ceasefire, the president who once threatened “fire and fury” against North Korea and tariffs as high as 245% against China indulged in no such bluster. He has sounded less formidable than plaintive. “Vladimir, STOP!” he wrote on social media in April. His use of the given name betrayed a touching faith that their shared intimacy would matter to his reptilian counterpart, too.

When Mr Putin kept killing Ukrainians, Mr Trump took a step that was even less characteristic: he admitted to the world that he had been played for a fool. “Maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” he mused on April 26th. A month later, he ventured that his friend must have changed, gone “absolutely CRAZY!” Then on July 8th he acknowledged what should have been obvious from the start: “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” Mr Trump threatened secondary sanctions on Russia but then leapt at Mr Putin’s latest mixed messages about peace, rewarding him with a summit in America.

Why, with this man, has Mr Trump been so accommodating? Efforts by journalists, congressional investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint the reason have often proved exercises in self-defeat and sorrow. The pattern seemed sinister: Mr Trump praised Mr Putin on television as far back as 2007; invited him to the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013 and wondered on Twitter if he would be his “new best friend”; sought his help to build a tower in Moscow from 2013 to 2016; and tried unsuccessfully many times in 2015 to secure a meeting with him. Then came Russia’s interference in the election in 2016, including its hack of Democrats’ emails to undermine the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some journalists fanned suspicions of a conspiracy—“collusion” became the watchword—by spreading claims Mr Putin was blackmailing Mr Trump with an obscene videotape. The source proved to be a rumour compiled in research to help Mrs Clinton.

Nine years later Mr Putin’s low-budget meddling still rewards America’s foes by poisoning its politics and distracting its leaders. Pam Bondi, the attorney-general, has started a grand-jury investigation into what Mr Trump called treason by Barack Obama and others in his administration. The basis is a misrepresentation of an intelligence finding in the waning days of Mr Obama’s presidency. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has said that because Mr Putin did not hack voting machines, the finding that he tried to help Mr Trump was a lie. The conclusion under Mr Obama was instead that Mr Putin tried to affect the election by influencing public opinion.

The exhaustive report released in 2019 by an independent counsel, Robert Mueller, affirmed on its first page that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Mr Mueller indicted numerous Russians, and he also secured guilty pleas from some Trump aides for violating various laws. But he did not conclude the campaign “conspired or co-ordinated” with the Russians.

To wade through the report’s two volumes is to be reminded how malicious the Russians were and how shambolic Mr Trump’s campaign was. It is also to lament the time and energy spent, given how little proof was found to support the superheated suspicions. And it is to regret how little Mr Trump was accorded a presumption of innocence. In the final words of the report, Mr Mueller noted that while it did not accuse Mr Trump of a crime, it also did “not exonerate him”. One might understand his bitterness.

The puzzle of Mr Trump’s admiration for Mr Putin may have been better addressed by psychologists. Certainly Mr Putin, the seasoned KGB operative, has known how to play to his vulnerabilities, including vanity. Mr Trump was said to be “clearly touched” by a kitschy portrait of himself Mr Putin gave him in March.

Indeed, no one expects Trump to prevail in this discussion. I love to follow these things on the BBC. They’re updating live, as are most media outlets. “Will Trump achieve his aims? It remains to be seen.”  This news analysis is provided by Gary O’Donoghue.”

It has proved incredibly hard for US President Donald Trump to make any progress on the Ukraine war whatsoever.

Bearing in mind, he’s sent his envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow five times now.

The only real thing that’s come out of that is a few pretty low level meetings in Istanbul, between Ukrainians and the Russians, some prisoner swaps – but really very little progress.

Typically with these sorts of summits, all of the work has already been done – all the preparation and agreements have been ironed out. Usually this would be a ceremonial moment.

But what is happening in Alaska is that the two countries are starting pretty much from a blank sheet of paper.

We don’t know exactly what either side is really trying to achieve here, other than President Trump saying he wants to stop the killing.

That’s a noble aim. These talks are about life and death, war and peace – these things do matter.

But, we don’t know how Russian President Putin and President Trump will get from their positions now to where Trump wants to be.I

I will try to keep the blog feed updated as we move through the day. As usual, Trump has been met with protestors.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

A massive show of solidarity in Anchorage today as hundreds—some estimates put numbers at around 1,000—gathered in the streets waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “Ukraine and Alaska — Russian never again!” ahead of the Trump–Putin summit. No deal for War Criminals! #SlavaUkraini 💙💛🇺🇦

— MadGreek 🧿 (@madgreek2024.bsky.social) 2025-08-15T17:31:57.797Z

#PresidentPussyAssBitch #AlaskaSummit #FARTUS #JeaninePirro #KristinNoem #PamBondiWeirdo #PutinInternationalManOfCrime #TrumpSWorstHires #Weirdo

Finally Friday Reads: Only the Very Worst People

“I feel safer already,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

While we’re waiting for Putin to take what’s left of Yam Tits’ scalp in Alaska, let’s focus on what he’s trying to pass off as serious hires for all levels of the Federal Government. I’m going to start with the last target of South Park’s wonderful new season, ICE Barbie. This is from the Washington Post. “Kristi Noem is living free of charge in Coast Guard commandant’s home. A DHS spokesman said Noem must live on the military base because she had been “so horribly doxxed and targeted that she is no longer able to safely live in her own apartment.” I find it more than slightly ironic that the head of  “Homeland Security” doesn’t feel secure in her own home.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem is living for free in a military home typicallyreserved for the U.S. Coast Guard’s top admiral, officials familiar with the matter said. The highly unusual arrangement has raised concern within the agency andfrom some Democrats, who describe it as a waste of military resources.

Noem recently moved intoQuarters 1, a spacious waterfront residence at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Southeast Washington where the Coast Guard commandant typically resides. She did so because of concerns over her safety after the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published photographs in April of the area around Noem’s residence in Washington’s Navy Yard neighborhood, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin described Noem’s time at the commandant’s residence as temporary. She did not specify how long thesetup would last or how long Noem has lived there.

Noem pays no rent to live in the commandant’s house, according to an official familiar with the matter granted anonymity to speak candidly. That’s a departure from how other Cabinet secretarieshave handled similar arrangements. Other Cabinet officials, including during both Trump administrations, have paid to use military housing that otherwise would be occupied by top generals and admirals.

Noem’s housing has raised eyebrows from current and retired Coast Guard officials, as well as Democrats, who warn that Noem risks creating the perception that she is exploiting the perks of her position as DHS secretary, in which she supervises the Coast Guard. They say her decision could set off a chain reaction that could displace other senior members of the service in a situation with limited housing.

Current and former Coast Guard members have also cited Noem’s frequent use of a Coast Guard Gulfstream aircraft as a point of tension. Agency guidelines require the DHS secretary to use a plane with secure communications for both personal and professional business, though they are required to reimburse the government for personal travel. McLaughlin said that Noem had reimbursed “tens of thousands of dollars” for the air travel, after publication of the story.

Noem faced scrutiny for her expenses when she served as governor of South Dakota. She spent $68,000 in taxpayer funds to refurbish the governor’s mansion with a sauna, chandelier and other amenities, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported in 2021. And South Dakota picked up the tab for at least $150,000 in campaign and personal travel for Noem related to her security when she was governor, the Associated Press reported this year.

Noem’s housing arrangement could create the impression that she is exploiting her position of authority over the Coast Guard to accrue perks for herself, said Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog nonprofit.

“What are the optics?” Brown said. “And is this taking advantage of your individual position as a government official to benefit unduly?”

So, I wonder if her neighbors hide their dogs? It’s amazing to me that the law and order crowd can’t seem to actually figure out either. Let’s continue with people who don’t know how to do their jobs.  “US Attorney Pirro’s office admits grand jury refused ICE interference charges — twice. Federal prosecutors told a judge they had failed twice to secure an indictment against Sydney Lori Reid for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE arrest.” I have to confess that I can’t listen to or watch any interviews with her. Her voice is disturbingly grating. She also looks like something out of a horror film. I pity the poor jury that has to deal with this. This much body dysmorphia in one administration is a sign of something. You may discuss that amongst yourselves. The story comes from the local news station at WUSA9.

Federal prosecutors twice sought a grand jury indictment against a D.C. woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an ICE inmate transfer — and were twice rejected, the U.S. Attorney’s Office admitted in court Thursday.

Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey revealed the denials to attorneys for Sydney Lori Reid and later granted their request to remove all bond conditions and release her on her own recognizance over prosecutors’ objections. He will resume a preliminary hearing on Friday afternoon to determine whether to dismiss the case entirely.

“Two presentations to the grand jury returned no bill both times,” Harvey said. “Suggesting the evidence is wanting, given the standard for indictment is probable cause. Suggesting the government may never get an indictment.”

Grand juries are tasked with deciding only whether there is a reasonable basis to support charging someone with a crime – a much lower burden for prosecutors than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of criminal juries – and typically make their decisions after hearing evidence only from the government. At the federal level, grand juries return indictments, or “true bills,” in the vast majority of cases.

Reid, 44, was charged last month with an enhanced felony version of an assault charge that requires inflicting bodily injury on a federal officer and carries a maximum sentence of up to eight years in prison. The charge is the same offense filed this week against a former DOJ employee accused of throwing a sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent.

In a press release last month, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office accused Reid of trying to impede the transfer of two alleged members of the 18th Street gang who were being arrested by ICE outside the D.C. Jail prior to transfer to the custody of the FBI.

Federal prosecutors declined to call the injured FBI agent or any of the ICE officers involved in the incident during Thursday’s hearing, however. Instead, they had an investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office testify about his review of video of the incident and brief conversations with the officers. The investigator, Special Agent Sean Ricardi, said he’d had no involvement in the case until he was asked to prepare for testimony Thursday morning.

Video played by prosecutors shows Reid approaching the ICE officers while holding up her phone, which she says is for her protection. She is then later seen being held by multiple officers against a wall while she asks, “How do you feel about stealing f***ing people?”

Even the first soft porn star is getting into the headlines. You know, I really hate to slut slam or pick on woman for their looks. I love Stormy Daniels. She’s as sweet as pie, and she helped feed the neighborhood animals during our last hurricane. I’m always happy to see her when she visits. But, there’s a crossed Rubicon at some point with some behavior. Melania whiffed with this one. This story is from The Guardian. “Melania Trump demands Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein. First lady threatens to sue Joe Biden’s son after he said sex offender Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump. I can’t wait to read the testimony on the Trumps explaining their relationships with Epstein, frankly.

Melania Trump has demanded that Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has threatened to sue if he does not.

Biden, the son of the former president Joe Biden, alleged in an interview this month that Epstein had introduced the first lady to Donald Trump.

The statements were false, defamatory and “extremely salacious”, Melania Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, said in a letter to Biden. Biden’s remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm”, he added.

Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview with the US journalist Andrew Callaghan in which he lashed out at “elites” and others in the Democratic party who he said had undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s presidential campaign.

I’m sorry, but I just keep laughing at the “reputational harm” part. It’s not like you were “modelling” for some wannabe Picasso. We’ve seen the pictures, honey.

“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” Biden said in one of the comments that the first lady disputes. Biden attributed the claim to the author Michael Wolff. Donald Trump has accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.

Biden responded to the lawsuit on Thursday, speaking again to Callaghan, this time from a holiday location, and in effect doubled down on his unsubstantiated claim.

Asked if he wished to apologize, Biden said: “Uh, fuck that, not going to happen.”

“What I said is what I have heard and seen reported and written primarily from Michael Wolff, but also dating back to 2019.” He cited a number of publications, including the New York Times and Vanity Fair, as sources of his information.

The first lady’s threats echo a favoured strategy of her husband, who has aggressively used litigation to go after critics. Public figures such as the Trumps face a high bar to succeed in a defamation lawsuit.

The president also responded to the issue, accusing Biden of fabricating stories to denigrate the first lady. Trump told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday morning that he had encouraged her to sue.

“I said go forward. You know, I’ve done pretty well on these lawsuits lately … and Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,” he told Kilmeade.

“But they do that to demean, they make up stories. I mean I can tell you exactly how it was and it was another person actually … but it wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein. “I told her go ahead and do it.”

Yes, my goodness, Yam Tits! You never tell tall tales or make up stories! I bet it hurts your virgin ears to hear that kind of talk! I mean, it must’ve been so challenging to sneak around with her behind your second wife’s back, even though you had all that practice sneaking around behind your first wife’s bank. Pete Hegseth would be so proud of you! This Guardian article on Trump begging the Norwegian Finance Minister for a Nobel prize just had me spitting out my morning tea with laughter. “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.” He just can’t stand that former President Obama got one! “Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize. The US president told Norway’s finance minister he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian press.”  What? Ruining the Kennedy Center honors and wrecking the U.S. economy wasn’t enough for you?

Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.

The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”

The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.

In a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.

“I will not go into further detail about the content of the conversation,” Stoltenberg said, adding that several White House officials including the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, were on the call.

Each year, the five-member Norwegian Nobel committee reviews hundreds of candidates before choosing laureates. The committee members are appointed by Norway’s parliament according to the will of Alfred Nobel, a 19-century Swedish industrialist. Laureates are announced in October.

Trump has previously complained multiple times about not receiving the Nobel peace prize, an award which four of his predecessors, including Barack Obama, have received.

In his most recent tirade, Trump took to Truth Social in June, saying: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

How about a little whine with that Skrei Yam Tits? So, I just had to put up this article by Mother Jones. It’s about the deluge of propaganda we get daily and its impact. “The Official Voice of the US Government Is Cruel, Gross, and Weird. What Is That Doing to Us? Joking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.”

In March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a woman they accused of drug trafficking and entering the country illegally. Standing in a parking lot, they photographed her, weeping, eyes half-closed in anguish, her arms cuffed behind her back. And then—in a cruel innovation specific to the Trump administration—the White House’s official Twitter account used an AI tool to make a cartoon illustration of her crying and handcuffed, in the style of the beloved Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli. The tweet got 155,000 likes, a mix of outraged and delighted responses, and, as it was designed to, a lot of attention: it’s so far been viewed 76 million times. On Twitter, many users posted positive responses declaring that the image was exactly what they had voted for.

This is, at the moment, the official voice of the US government: a rancid mixture of trolling, cruelty, propaganda, and crass jokes about the human suffering they’re creating, an effort, as Wired’s Tess Owen recently put it, to turn actions like mass deportation into “one big joke.” On Instagram and Twitter (their largest audience), government entities including the White House, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security attempt to surf viral trends to expanded public attention: They twist memes and sounds popular on TikTok, repurpose South Park’s parodies for their own self-promotion, and blend it all with images that draw on or directly reproduce classical art and Americana paintings that are designed to stir nostalgia for an imagined past. (The use of some of this art, as the Washington Post has written, has stirred the ire of the artists themselves or their representatives; it’s not easy to extract a stern condemnation from the estate of treacly pastoral painter Thomas Kinkade, but this government managed to do it.)

A lot of the trends are specifically designed to appeal to young white men, like one that repurposes a 1970s-looking ad for a van to ask, “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” Another ICE recruitment effort asks, “Which way, American man?” in front a befuddled-looking Uncle Sam gazing at a crossroads post labeled with signs including “INVASION,” “CULTURAL DECLINE” pointing one way, and, pointing the other, “SERVICE,” “OPPORTUNITY”; in Uncle Sam’s hands lies “LAW AND ORDER.” The phrase “Which way, American man?” is a barely altered reference to the phrase “Which way, Western man?,” the title of a book by white nationalist author William Gayley Simpson that’s been popularized by the far right as a meme. In this case, the white supremacist undertones are more like overtones.

While the government uses social media to bolster its philosophical choices on issues like mass deportations, it also deploys it to prop up support for deeply unpopular aspects of its plans, like “Alligator Alcatraz”—an immigration detention camp, trolling opportunity, marketing bonanza for amoral swag-sellers, including Florida’s attorney general. Before the tent prison was even officially open, Trump administration officials and their proxies in right-wing media bragged about the camp, joked about escapees dying by alligator and python, and made AI-generated images of President Trump standing alongside alligators wearing ICE hats.

Disinformation researchers and experts on propaganda have followed the sludge and bile emanating from these governmental accounts with alarm.

“What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,” says Jason Stanley; he’s a philosopher, author, and professor at University of Toronto who’s in the process of leaving the United States because of, as he baldly puts it, “concerns over fascism.”

You may read more at the link. So, everyone knows that Pam Bondi is in over her Miss Clairol Fox Blonde dye job head. She’s also doing things not in keeping with the role of the Attorney General. This is from Law Dork‘s Chris Geidner. “NEW: D.C. officials sue Trump admin over Bondi order claiming D.C. police powers. D.C.’s A.G. asserts that Bondi’s order — purporting to make the DEA administrator D.C.’s “Emergency Police Commissioner” — is “unlawful.” A lawsuit followed.”

A Thursday night order from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi caused the Washington, D.C. officials — who have responded cautiously to the Trump administration’s efforts to exert more control over D.C. — to declare that the administration had gone too far.

[Update, 11:00 a.m.: The D.C. government sued the Trump administration on Friday morning, asserting that the administration was violating the Home Rule Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and separation of powers. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is seeking a temporary restraining order to block Bondi from enforcing her order.]

[Update, 11:30 a.m.: The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, and she has scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. Friday to address D.C.’s TRO request.]

In the order, Bondi purported to have significant control over the Metropolitan Police Department — D.C.’s police force. Most significantly, she claimed that she had the authority to announce that “Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terrence C. Cole shall serve as MPD’s Emergency Police Commissioner.”

She also purported to rescind a Thursday morning order from MPD’s chief of police, in addition to suspending three other MPD orders, all relating to immigration enforcement.

She also announced that D.C. police are to enforce D.C.’s law against crowding streets or sidewalks “enforce, to the maximum extent permissible by law.“

In a final section, Bondi purported also to rescind “any existing MPD directives” that conflict with her order.

You may read this along with the associated part of Bondi’s order. We’ll see how that jives with the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. It is also known as the Home Rule Act. Meanwhile, everyone not associated with Putin is hoping that FARTUS will not give away the farm in Alaska today due to his advanced dementia, his Putin Fan Girl status, and his basic ignorance of history and diplomacy. This is from the New York Times. “Russia and Ukraine Agree: A Trump Summit Is a Big Win for Putin. The talks on Friday in Alaska pull the Russian leader out of diplomatic isolation from the West, and Ukrainian and European leaders fear it gives him an opening to sway the American president.” Andrew Higgins and Nataliya Vasilyeva share the byline.

President Trump has spent the week setting the bar extremely low for his high-stakes U.S.-Russian summit on Friday in Alaska. Hardly anyone expects him to make much progress in halting the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, given how far apart their views of the conflict are.

But those two warring countries do seem to agree on at least one thing. Merely meeting with Mr. Trump is a big win for President Vladimir V. Putin, bringing the Russian leader out of a diplomatic deep freeze and giving him a chance to cajole the American president face to face.

“Putin’s visit to the U.S.A. means the total collapse of the whole concept of isolating Russia. Total collapse,” Kremlin-controlled television crowed after news of the hastily arranged summit broke last weekend.

For Russia, “this is a breakthrough even if they don’t agree on much,” said Sergei Mikheyev, a pro-war Russian political scientist who is a mainstay of state television.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, iced out of the Alaska talks about his own country’s future, has come to the same conclusion, telling reporters on Tuesday: “Putin will win in this. Because he is seeking, excuse me, photos. He needs a photo from the meeting with President Trump.”

But it is more than a photo op. In addition to thawing Russia’s pariah status in the West, the summit has sowed discord within NATO — a perennial Russian goal — and postponed Mr. Trump’s threat of tough new sanctions. Little more than two weeks ago, he vowed that if Mr. Putin did not commit to a cease-fire by last Friday, he would punish Moscow and countries like China and India that help Russia’s war effort by buying its oil and gas.

This editorial cartoon is by Michael de Adder .

This is another fine mess that  #FARTUS (Felon Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States) has gotten us into. The world is expecting Putin to eat him for lunch. My favorite magazine, The Economist, has this headline. “The real collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It may be scarier than their critics long suspected.”

To DEFY Donald Trump is to court punishment. A rival politician can expect an investigation, an aggravating network may face a lawsuit, a left-leaning university can bid farewell to its public grants, a scrupulous civil servant can count on a pink slip and an independent-minded foreign government, however determined an adversary or stalwart an ally, invites tariffs. Perceived antagonists should also brace for a hail of insults, a lesson in public humiliation to potential transgressors.Vladimir Putin has been a mysterious exception. Mr Trump has blamed his travails over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election on just about everyone but him. He has blamed the war in Ukraine on former President Joe Biden, for supposedly inviting it through weakness, and on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for somehow starting it. Back when Russia invaded in February 2022, Mr Trump praised Mr Putin’s “savvy”.

For months, as Mr Putin made a mockery of Mr Trump’s promises to end the war in a day and of his calls for a ceasefire, the president who once threatened “fire and fury” against North Korea and tariffs as high as 245% against China indulged in no such bluster. He has sounded less formidable than plaintive. “Vladimir, STOP!” he wrote on social media in April. His use of the given name betrayed a touching faith that their shared intimacy would matter to his reptilian counterpart, too.

When Mr Putin kept killing Ukrainians, Mr Trump took a step that was even less characteristic: he admitted to the world that he had been played for a fool. “Maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” he mused on April 26th. A month later, he ventured that his friend must have changed, gone “absolutely CRAZY!” Then on July 8th he acknowledged what should have been obvious from the start: “He is very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” Mr Trump threatened secondary sanctions on Russia but then leapt at Mr Putin’s latest mixed messages about peace, rewarding him with a summit in America.

Why, with this man, has Mr Trump been so accommodating? Efforts by journalists, congressional investigators and prosecutors to pinpoint the reason have often proved exercises in self-defeat and sorrow. The pattern seemed sinister: Mr Trump praised Mr Putin on television as far back as 2007; invited him to the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013 and wondered on Twitter if he would be his “new best friend”; sought his help to build a tower in Moscow from 2013 to 2016; and tried unsuccessfully many times in 2015 to secure a meeting with him. Then came Russia’s interference in the election in 2016, including its hack of Democrats’ emails to undermine the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Some journalists fanned suspicions of a conspiracy—“collusion” became the watchword—by spreading claims Mr Putin was blackmailing Mr Trump with an obscene videotape. The source proved to be a rumour compiled in research to help Mrs Clinton.

Nine years later Mr Putin’s low-budget meddling still rewards America’s foes by poisoning its politics and distracting its leaders. Pam Bondi, the attorney-general, has started a grand-jury investigation into what Mr Trump called treason by Barack Obama and others in his administration. The basis is a misrepresentation of an intelligence finding in the waning days of Mr Obama’s presidency. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, has said that because Mr Putin did not hack voting machines, the finding that he tried to help Mr Trump was a lie. The conclusion under Mr Obama was instead that Mr Putin tried to affect the election by influencing public opinion.

The exhaustive report released in 2019 by an independent counsel, Robert Mueller, affirmed on its first page that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.” Mr Mueller indicted numerous Russians, and he also secured guilty pleas from some Trump aides for violating various laws. But he did not conclude the campaign “conspired or co-ordinated” with the Russians.

To wade through the report’s two volumes is to be reminded how malicious the Russians were and how shambolic Mr Trump’s campaign was. It is also to lament the time and energy spent, given how little proof was found to support the superheated suspicions. And it is to regret how little Mr Trump was accorded a presumption of innocence. In the final words of the report, Mr Mueller noted that while it did not accuse Mr Trump of a crime, it also did “not exonerate him”. One might understand his bitterness.

The puzzle of Mr Trump’s admiration for Mr Putin may have been better addressed by psychologists. Certainly Mr Putin, the seasoned KGB operative, has known how to play to his vulnerabilities, including vanity. Mr Trump was said to be “clearly touched” by a kitschy portrait of himself Mr Putin gave him in March.

Indeed, no one expects Trump to prevail in this discussion. I love to follow these things on the BBC. They’re updating live, as are most media outlets. “Will Trump achieve his aims? It remains to be seen.”  This news analysis is provided by Gary O’Donoghue.”

It has proved incredibly hard for US President Donald Trump to make any progress on the Ukraine war whatsoever.

Bearing in mind, he’s sent his envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow five times now.

The only real thing that’s come out of that is a few pretty low level meetings in Istanbul, between Ukrainians and the Russians, some prisoner swaps – but really very little progress.

Typically with these sorts of summits, all of the work has already been done – all the preparation and agreements have been ironed out. Usually this would be a ceremonial moment.

But what is happening in Alaska is that the two countries are starting pretty much from a blank sheet of paper.

We don’t know exactly what either side is really trying to achieve here, other than President Trump saying he wants to stop the killing.

That’s a noble aim. These talks are about life and death, war and peace – these things do matter.

But, we don’t know how Russian President Putin and President Trump will get from their positions now to where Trump wants to be.I

I will try to keep the blog feed updated as we move through the day. As usual, Trump has been met with protestors.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

A massive show of solidarity in Anchorage today as hundreds—some estimates put numbers at around 1,000—gathered in the streets waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “Ukraine and Alaska — Russian never again!” ahead of the Trump–Putin summit. No deal for War Criminals! #SlavaUkraini 💙💛🇺🇦

— MadGreek 🧿 (@madgreek2024.bsky.social) 2025-08-15T17:31:57.797Z

#PresidentPussyAssBitch #AlaskaSummit #FARTUS #JeaninePirro #KristinNoem #PamBondiWeirdo #PutinInternationalManOfCrime #TrumpSWorstHires #Weirdo

My latest on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat1968. https://wp.me/pgqML-Qft "Today is the day that the Nation pays tribute to many Americans who gave their lives in wars to support our Country.  That is, everyone but #FARTUS.  He's ranting about how much our country sucks. This comes on the back of one of the most bizarre and uninspiring graduation speeches ever given to the graduating cadets at West Point.  I cannot believe this deranged monster was elected President.

Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes

Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes

Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes

Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes

Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our #FARTUS is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 #FARTUS who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #academicFreedom #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #FARTUS #HarvardVTrump #NeoRobberBarons #NoKingsProtestOverFARTUSParade #TheHinduLoveGods #TrumpSoursApple #WeLiveInDarkTimes

Friday Night Reads: Disappearing Democracy

“Blockbuster Trade Announcement.” John Buss @repeat 1968

Good Evening, Sky Dancers!

I was late getting this post started today. I’ve had two doctor’s appointments the last two days, and I’m just exhausted.  I guess I have one more test to go next week, and they’re leaving me alone until September. The good news is that I finally got to pick up my new glasses, so I can see clearly now! There is so much news today surrounding habeas corpus and free speech that I can’t believe what I’m seeing live on TV.  I’m going to start with this headline from PBS. “WATCH: Stephen Miller says Trump administration is ‘actively looking at’ suspending habeas corpus.”

Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, said the administration is looking for ways to expand its legal power to deport migrants who are in the country illegally.

Watch Miller’s remarks in the video player above.

“The Constitution is clear — and that of course is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” he told reporters. “So it’s an option that we’re actively looking at.”

Miller added that “a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

Habeas corpus refers to people’s right to challenge their detention in court.

This, of course, is completely false, but that never matters to any of the Psychopaths surrounding #FARTUS. Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at Georgetown University, writes this at his Substack One First. “148. Suspending Habeas Corpus. In response to adverse rulings in numerous immigration cases, Stephen Miller is raising the specter of suspending habeas. His argument is factually and legally nuts, but it’s worth explaining *why.*”

“I was going to wait until Monday’s regular issue to note the sad news out of the Supreme Court on Friday (that retired Justice David Souter passed away Thursday at the age of 85). But then Stephen Miller went on television Friday afternoon and made some of the most remarkable (and remarkably scary) comments about federal courts that I think we’ve ever heard from a senior White House official. Reacting to a series of high-profile losses in immigration cases this week, Miller raised the specter of President Trump suspending habeas corpus:

Well, the Constitution is clear. And that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So … that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that’s the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases. So Congress actually passed what’s called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren’t even allowed to be involved in immigration cases.

I know there’s a lot going on, and that Miller says lots of incendiary (and blatantly false) stuff. But this strikes me as raising the temperature to a whole new level—and thus meriting a brief explanation of all of the ways in which this statement is both (1) wrong; and (2) profoundly dangerous. Specifically, it seems worth making five basic points:

First, the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which is in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 is meant to limit the circumstances in which habeas can be foreclosed (Article I, Section 9 includes limits on Congress’s powers)—thereby ensuring that judicial review of detentions are otherwise available. (Note that it’s in the original Constitution—adopted before even the Bill of Rights.) I spent a good chunk of the first half of my career writing about habeas and its history, but the short version is that the Founders were hell-bent on limiting, to the most egregious emergencies, the circumstances in which courts could be cut out of the loop. To casually suggest that habeas might be suspended because courts have ruled against the executive branch in a handful of immigration cases is to turn the Suspension Clause entirely on its head.

Second, Miller is being slippery about the actual text of the Constitution (notwithstanding his claim that it is “clear”). The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This last part, with my emphasis, is not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn’t enough. Releasing someone like Rümeysa Öztürk from immigration detention poses no threat to public safety—all the more so when the release is predicated on a judicial determination that Ozturk … poses no threat to public safety.

Third, even if the textual triggers for suspending habeas corpus were satisfied, Miller also doesn’t deign to mention that the near-universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the President are per se unconstitutional. I’ve written before about the Merryman case at the outset of the Civil War, which provides perhaps the strongest possible counterexample: that the President might be able to claim a unilateral suspension power if Congress is out of session (as it was from the outset of the Civil War in 1861 until July 4). Whatever the merits of that argument, it clearly has no applicability at this moment.

Fourth, Miller is wrong, as a matter of fact,about the relationship between Article III courts (our usual federal courts) and immigration cases. It’s true that the Immigration and Nationality Act (especially as amended in 1996 and 2005) includes a series of “jurisdiction-stripping” provisions. But most of those provisions simply channel judicial review in immigration cases into immigration courts (which are part of the executive branch) in the first instance, with appeals to Article III courts. And as the district courts (and Second Circuit) have explained in cases like Khalil and Öztürk, even those provisions don’t categorically preclude any review by Article III courts prior to those appeals.

There’s more at the link. Here’s the bottom line from NBC News and Dan Mangam. “Top White House adviser Stephen Miller says ‘we’re actively looking at’ suspending due process for migrants. The “privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an action we’re actively looking at,” Miller told reporters outside the White House.”  How on earth they keep insisting that immigration is an invasion is beyond me.

Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller told reporters Friday that the administration is “looking at” ways to end due process protections for unauthorized immigrants who are in the country.

“The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an action we’re actively looking at,” Miller said in the White House driveway.

“A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Miller said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on whether he was referring to a specific group of people who’ve entered the country illegally, or all the people who have. It also did not comment on what he meant by the courts doing “the right thing.”

In his remarks, Miller maintained that the courts don’t have jurisdiction in immigration cases. “The courts aren’t just at war with the executive branch; the courts are at war, these radical rogue judges, with the legislative branch as well too. So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes,” he said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced frustration about constitutional due process protections slowing down his efforts at mass deportations.

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said in an interview with Kristen Welker that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Welker pointed out the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights, but Trump complained that those protections take too much time.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said, adding that some of the people the administration wants to deport are “murderers” and “drug dealers.”

Welker then asked if he needs to uphold the Constitution.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

A clause in the Constitution says due process protections can be suspended during an invasion: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Trump claimed the U.S. was being invaded back in March, when he invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act to send alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador.

What really held me up in writing this by the time I got home was watching ICE thugs rough up an 80-year-old congresswoman and arrest the Mayor of Newark.  This is from the AP, which is the news organization that refuses to go along with renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which was named 500 years ago. #FARTUS reminds me of some prehuman creature picked up by explorers in some version of the Land Time Forgot.  Kristen Noem is the enforcer in just about any movie about a fascist dystopian you’ve ever seen.  It’s ICE ICE BABY.  “New Jersey mayor arrested at ICE detention center where he was protesting, prosecutor says.”  Which century and country do we live in these days?

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday at a federal immigration detention center where he has been protesting its opening this week, a federal prosecutor said.

Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraka committed trespass and ignored warnings from Homeland Security personnel to leave Delaney Hall, a detention facility run by private prison operator GEO Group.

Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law” and added that he was taken into custody.

Baraka, a Democrat who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration.

He has aggressively pushed back against the construction and opening of the 1,000-bed detention center, arguing that it should not be allowed to open because of building permit issues.

Linda Baraka, the mayor’s wife, accused the federal government of targeting her husband.

“They didn’t arrest anyone else. They didn’t ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example out of the mayor,” she said, adding that she had not been allowed to see him.

A crowd gathered to protest outside the building where Baraka was being held, with many chanting, “Let the mayor go!”

Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, in attempting to enter the facility.

So if you want the laughable and extremely sad headline today from our GOOBERment, here it is from Homeland Security. “Members of Congress Break into Delaney Hall Detention Center, Delaney Hall Currently Holds Murderers, Rapists, Suspected Terrorists, and Gang Members. “  How exactly do we know all that if none of them have been before a court yet?  I’m not going to excerpt that, but do recommend you read this and realize it’s from OUR government.

Here’s Insider NJ with a more truthful angle. “Reps. Watson Coleman, McIver, Menendez, Exercise Oversight Authority in Visit to ICE Detention Facility.”  I watched the entire event live on MSNBC today. Again, it’s why I was even later than I originally had planned to be today.  I was watching and listening to the representatives demand that the masked ICE thugs take their hands off them.

Today, following an inspection of the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey with Reps. LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez, Jr., Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman released the following statement: 

“At around 1pm today, my colleagues Rep. Lamonica McIver and Rep. Rob Menendez, Jr. and I arrived at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark to exercise our oversight authority as Members of Congress.

“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not “storm” the detention center. The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.

“Reopening Delaney Hall won’t make us safer and it won’t create an immigration system that is fair and secure for all families.

“Private Prison companies like GEO Group create a perverse incentive to increase incarceration to increase corporate profits. It’s no accident that GEO Group was the first corporation to max out donations to Trump’s Super PAC, to the tune of $500,000 dollars. And they’re being rewarded with huge contracts to imprison immigrants like we’re seeing here at Delaney.

“New Jerseyans don’t want more private prisons just to increase shareholder income at the expense of taxpayers. They want a fair and secure immigration system that reflects our values and respects our Constitution.”

Meanwhile, judges continue to free students arrested by ICE under the weird ass interpretations of Habeas Corpus put forth by Miller. “She was arrested for an op-ed. Now a judge has ordered her freed. Her detention “chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens,” a federal judge said.”  This is from VOX’s Andrew Prokop.

A Trump administration spokesperson anonymously claimed in March that “DHS and ICE investigations found Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” But to this day they have conspicuously failed to produce any evidence of that — including, when Öztürk filed suit, before a judge.

What did the judge say? Judge William Sessions III ordered Öztürk released “immediately.” Ruling from the bench, he sounded appalled by the Trump administration’s conduct, which he said “chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens.”

He said Öztürk had made “very substantial claims of First Amendment and due process violations,” and that, furthermore, the government had offered “no evidence” about their motivation for detaining her other than the op-ed

Is this case over, then? No. Öztürk was ordered released from detention. But the question of whether the US government can legally revoke her visa remains unresolved. While Sessions sounds very likely to rule in her favor, it’s unclear if conservatives on the Supreme Court will do the same, should the case reach them. Still, this case has been an embarrassment to the Trump administration, and perhaps there’s a faint glimmer of hope they’ll decide to just drop it. Too optimistic? Probably.

Films of her release from the Louisiana ICE Detention Center have been shown on all the news stations today. Meanwhile, WAPO reports that “ICE moves detainees to Texas facility where judge declined to halt deportations. One Philadelphia man was transferred to Texas in apparent violation of a court order requiring that he be kept in Pennsylvania as his case played out there.”  

As the Trump administration battles to use awartime law to speed deportationsof alleged gang members, it has moved dozens of detained Venezuelans to the one court district in the nation where a federal judge for now has declined to stand in its way.

U.S. District Judge Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee sitting in the Northern District of Texas, refusedlast month to pause removals under the Alien Enemies Act of detainees who the government says are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang — even as judges in Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York and other parts of Texas have done so.

The administration views Hendrix’s district as a “favorable venue,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Tim Macdonald alleged at a recent court hearing in Denver. He and other immigrant advocates say the rush of relocations to the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, has forced targeted Venezuelans to contest their removals in a court they see as ideologically aligned with the president.

“What the government was doing,” Macdonald said in the hearing, “was finding Venezuelan men, rounding them up and shipping them to the Northern District of Texas.”

The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about how many Venezuelan migrants are housed at Bluebonnet. It also would not say how many had been moved there from other facilities in recent weeks or why those transfers were made.

For now, the Supreme Court has indefinitely paused all Alien Enemies Act deportations in Hendrix’s district as it weighs whether migrants there are being given adequate opportunity to challenge their designations as “alien enemies.” The administration does not appear to have deported any migrants under the law from anywhere in the country since it first sent more than 130 Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March.

I want to end with Senator Murphy reading the riot act to Cos-Playing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.  It’s really worth watching.

ABC News also had this write-up on the Senate Committee’s visit with her. “Democrats slam DHS secretary as Noem says Abrego Garcia ‘not coming back’ to US. Noem was in front of the Senate testifying on the 2026 DHS budget.”

“Senate Democrats sparred with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday over whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s spending.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, asked if the Trump administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s decision that the U.S. government must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, Noem replied that the government is following the law but didn’t say yes or no.

“What I would tell you is that we are following court order,” Noem shot back. “Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming.”

Van Hollen said he isn’t “vouching for the man” but rather due process.

“I suggest that rather than make these statements here, that you and the Trump administration make them in court under oath,” he added.

Van Hollen then accused Noem of a political speech, and Noem said she would suggest Van Hollen is an “advocate” for victims of illegal crime.

Last month, after Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S. The Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on April 10.

No one in this administration appears to be ready to comply with court orders to return Albrego Garcia.  I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts has already offered up his balls to #FARTUS.  We haven’t heard a peep from him since the court sent out the ultimatum to return Garcia.

So, there is so much here to cover that I’m hoping BB can pick up where I leave off.  All of this is illegal, unconstitutional, and un-American.  It’s about time someone defangs them all.

What’s on your reading and writing list?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #BringKilmerHome_ #dueProcess #FARTUS #HabeasCorpus #IllegalDeportations

My latest on Sky Dancing with Double the Featured Funnies of @repeat1968. https://wp.me/pgqML-PCW "I don't know about you, but these first 100 days of #FARTUS have taken a toll on me.  So many bad policies in such a short time have me spinning and anxious. I can't even plan my one-person, small-house, semi-retired life.  I can't even figure out what state and local governments, big and small businesses, and the courts have on their hands right now.

Mostly Monday Reads: It’s the Policies Stupid!

“Arresting development,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I don’t know about you, but these first 100 days of #FARTUS have taken a toll on me.  So many bad policies in such a short time have me spinning and anxious. I can’t even plan my one-person, small-house, semi-retired life.  I can’t even figure out what state and local governments, big and small businesses, and the courts have on their hands right now.

The assessment of these first 100 days, coming from polls and pundits, is stunningly bad.  Bad to the point that any polling firm is considered to be a criminal organization by yam tits. I will start with this analysis in The Guardian by Steven Greenhouse. “Trump’s second term will be the worst presidential term ever. Tragically, the president’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.”

In his first 100 days back in office, Donald Trump has made a strong case that his second term will be by far the worst presidential term in US history. So many of his flood-the-zone actions have been head-spinning and stomach-turning. His administration seems to be powered by ignorance and incoherence, spleen and sycophancy. Both he and his right-hand man, Elon Musk, with their resentment-fueled desire to disrupt everything, seem intent on pulverizing the foundations of our government, our democracy, our alliances as well as any notions of truth. Tragically, Trump’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.

The worst and most dangerous part of Trump’s agenda is his war against our democracy and constitution – defying judges’ orders, deporting people without due process, suggesting he will run for a third term, calling to impeach judges who rule against him, pardoning hundreds of January 6 criminals, gutting federal agencies and firing thousands of federal employees in flagrant violation of the law, and banning books from military libraries. (One wonders: will book burning be next?) Underlining just how dangerous and lawless Trump is, he is talking publicly about disappearing US citizens to foreign countries where they could be locked in prison forever. For those who care about democracy and basic freedoms, this is Defcon 1 stuff.

From Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, every president since the second world war has worked hard to build alliances to promote peace and prosperity and deter aggression. But right out of the box, Trump 2.0 has rushed to blow up our alliances and cavalierly alienate our allies. Trump quickly rejected the US’s traditional foreign policy and ideals by warmly embracing Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator, and turning against Ukraine and its noble fight against Putin’s aggression. Trump sounded like a rapacious 19th-century imperialist when he threatened to take over the Panama canal and, ditto, when he talked of using force to seize control of Greenland, which belongs to our longtime Nato ally, Denmark. Then there’s Trump’s astoundingly idiotic talk – and taunt – that Canada should be our 51st state. What a way to anger and alienate a nation that has long been the US’s best friend.

Then there is the disaster – or should we say clown show – of Trump’s on-again, off-again, on-again, who-knows-what’s-going-to-happen-tomorrow tariffs. His “liberation day” tariffs were put together by a clown-car crew, just three hours before he announced it, and Trump and company seemed to have zero idea that his hodgepodge of tariffs would send the world’s stock markets into a nervous breakdown. Trump’s team was stupid enough to think that China was too feeble to respond effectively to Trump’s trade war – treasury secretary Scott Bessent said China had “a losing hand” with just “a pair of twos”. Trump and his clown car failed to realize that China had the ability to retaliate in devastating ways – by clamping down on rare earth exports that American manufacturers and tech companies desperately need, and perhaps by selling off hundreds of billions of dollars in US bonds. Former treasury secretary Janet Yellen was appalled, saying: “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy.”

What really gets to me is his “bombastic rhetoric.” It’s like you’re either with the bully or being bullied.  But what appalls me is his stewardship of the US and global Economy.  He is completely detached from all we have learned about policy impacts from the 1930s. It was clear that as industrialization increased, the old mercantilism of the colonial days was fading fast.  Industrialization created a different trade paradigm.

The switch from the Gold Standard created a different-looking financial economic system.  The Information Age and the rise of advanced technology like robotics have changed us even more.  We have complex, intertwined, mixed market economies.  While the basics of market structure remain similar, the frictions within them have become much more complicated.  You may check the academic research of Nobel Prize-winning Joseph E. Stiglitz for his legendary study on how the various quirks in producing specific goods and services can lead to fairly serious economic issues.

I don’t think anyone in the West Wing or the Agencies knows how economic policy works. For that matter, Trump doesn’t even know how many countries there are in the world since he keeps mentioning 200 trade deals when there are only 195.  Maybe the Penguin islands are more autonomous than we know?

In fact, the communication style of the entire MAGA movement makes it an impossible environment for governing. This is how Amanda Marcotte–writing for Salon— puts it. “MAGA loves a tantrum: How public meltdowns became the preferred method of GOP communication. Why Nancy Mace, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller keep throwing fits on camera.”

If there were an Oscar for the category “hard to watch,” I’d have to nominate the video of Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., barking expletives at a constituent after he asked her if she would have a town hall soon. It’s produced in a beauty supply store instead of a movie studio, but in a brief minute and 42 seconds, the video finds its place in the canon of horror films shot from the villain’s perspective. The camera focuses entirely on the story’s hero, a man in a polo and shorts holding a bottle of what appears to be face cleanser, as he holds his own against his congressional representative getting increasingly shrill as she yells invective at him. Even though he said nothing about gay marriage, she demands his gratitude for voting “for gay marriage twice.” When he gets annoyed at her reductive assumption, she calls him “crazy” and “absolutely f—king crazy,” and repeatedly says “f—k you” to him.

In the eyes of normal people, Mace, as her interlocutor said when he fled from this encounter, is a “disgrace.” Most adults who act like Mace in public immediately wish to disappear off the face of the earth in shame. But not our Nancy! No, she’s the one who posted this video online, proud of her emotional incontinence. She even offered a homophobic “gay panic” defense, by describing the man as “wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store.” (Sorry, Miss Nancy, they aren’t daisy dukes until we see cheeks.) To people outside the MAGA bubble, it’s a baffling choice. She’s not even a fun villain. There’s none of the sleek appeal of Loki from the “Avengers” franchise or camp glee of Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.” Mace is serving pure toddler here. She likely wished to throw herself to the floor and start pounding it, but doing so would have meant dropping her iPhone.

Mace isn’t wrong, however, to think that what most adults find embarrassing, the MAGA base will eat right up. The public meltdown, in which you declare yourself the world’s greatest victim, is the preferred GOP method of political communication these days. Despite this effort, Mace didn’t even come close to nabbing last week’s gold star for the most histronic MAGA performance. She was outdone by Stephen Miller, whose usual register on TV is “verge of a nervous breakdown,” but got so shrill on Fox News Tuesday that Lauren Tousignant at Jezebel worried she’d soon have to “look at Stephen Miller’s face as he pops a dozen blood vessels as his brain explodes.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth turned in two performances that would cause Al Pacino to tell him to settle down. While carping about “the fake news media” during the White House Easter egg roll, Hegseth’s whining got so pitched his voice started to crack, while his children stood behind him, embarrassed at the spectacle.

Despite his own family’s discomfort with his antics, Hegseth kept up the scenery-chewing, bellowing about the all-powerful, forever-mysterious “they” have “come after me from day one.” (“They,” in this case, means close friends and advisors who got pushed out after beginning to question Hegseth’s fitness for the job.)

All this yelling and bellyaching serves a pragmatic purpose: to distract from how what they’re saying makes no sense. Miller’s claim that the six Republican judges on the Supreme Court — three appointed by Trump — are “communist” wouldn’t withstand even a moment’s thought at a normal volume. Because he’s delivering his commentary at “front row at Led Zepplin” levels, the brain can’t even process how preposterous the lie is. Mace’s routine showed this working in a literal way. Her target runs away, because trying to talk to someone behaving like her is like trying to converse with a wildfire.

It’s part of the overall too-muchness that is the signature of the MAGA aesthetic, which goes right back to Trump’s gold-plated tastelessness. We see it in the infamous “Mar-a-Lago” face, which uses plastic surgery and spackled-on make-up to turn women into terrifyingly exaggerated caricatures of femininity. Or the love of roided-out male bodies, which try to recreate the impossibly huge muscles of comic books on human bodies. It’s a maximalist aesthetic, minus all the playfulness of Las Vegas casinos or “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” There’s a grim vibe to the undertaking, as if they’re trying to pound your head into the ground with the excess.

“Fake Melania mystery solved. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer–writing for The Atlantic—dialed up Trump on his private phone one day in late March.  He spoke to them even though he had described them both heinously.

The week our interview was supposed to occur, Trump posted a vituperative message on Truth Social, attacking us by name. “Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.” (That last sentence is true—Ashley Parker does not know that Trump won the presidency three times.) “Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES.”

Yes, it was full-on #FARTUS Bully Verbal Bombing them publicly. They actually just called him later.  He picked up. This article is the result

Despite his attacks on us a few days earlier, the president, evidently feeling buoyed by a week of successes, was eager to talk about his accomplishments. As we spoke, the sounds of another conversation, perhaps from a television, hummed in the background.

The president seemed exhilarated by everything he had managed to do in the first two months of his second term: He had begun a purge of diversity efforts from the federal government; granted clemency to nearly 1,600 supporters who had participated in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those caught beating police officers on camera; and signed 98 executive orders and counting (26 of them on his first day in office). He had fired independent regulators; gutted entire agencies; laid off great swaths of the federal workforce; and invoked 18th-century wartime powers to use against a criminal gang from Venezuela. He had adjusted tariffs like a DJ spinning knobs in the booth, upsetting the rhythms of global trade and inducing vertigo in the financial markets. He had raged at the leader of Ukraine, a democratic ally repelling an imperialist invasion, for not being “thankful”—and praised the leader of the invading country, Russia, as “very smart,” reversing in an instant 80 years of U.S. foreign-policy doctrine, and prompting the countries of NATO to prepare for their own defense, without the protective umbrella of American power, for the first time since 1945.

…

We asked Trump why he thought the billionaire class was prostrating itself before him.

“It’s just a higher level of respect. I don’t know,” Trump said. “Maybe they didn’t know me at the beginning, and they know me now.”

“I mean, you saw yesterday with the law firm,” he said. He was referring to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of the nation’s most prestigious firms, whose leader had come to the Oval Office days earlier to beg for relief from an executive order that could have crippled its business. Trump had issued the order at least partially because a former partner at the firm had in 2021 gone to work for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was part of an investigation of the Trump Organization’s business practices. Also that week, an Ivy League institution, threatened with the cancellation of $400 million in federal funding, had agreed to overhaul its Middle Eastern–studies programs at the Trump administration’s request, while also acceding to other significant demands. “You saw yesterday with Columbia University. What do you think of the law firm? Were you shocked at that?” Trump asked us.

Yes—all of it was shocking, much of it without precedent. Legal scholars were drawing comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the early stages of the New Deal, when Congress had allowed FDR to demolish norms and greatly expand the powers of the presidency.

As ever, Trump was on the hunt for a deal. If he liked the story we wrote, he said, he might even speak with us again.

“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.

Media owners weren’t the only ones on his mind. He also seemed to be referring to law firms, universities, broadcast networks, tech titans, artists, research scientists, military commanders, civil servants, moderate Republicans—all the people and institutions he expected to eventually, inevitably, submit to his will.

We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

More like the country and the world run from him.  I have to admit. I admire the Chinese method of trolling him.  It’s funny and effective. Philip Bump at the Washington Post analyzes this self-defeating policy of the second term.  “The bubble that created Trump is the reason he’s stumbling. The White House is now a bubble where loyalty, not ability, defines success.”

Consider Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

No one should be surprised that Hegseth is flailing in his new role, one of the most arduous and complicated in the U.S. government, if not the world. When Donald Trump proposed that Hegseth run the agency, the response was broadly unified: Hegseth lacked the experience needed to do the job effectively. You could debate the other controversies surrounding his bid for the role ad nauseam, but there was no way to reasonably argue that the Fox News talk-show host was prepared to run the Pentagon.

Hegseth was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate anyway because Trump and a universe of voices who support him insisted Hegseth was the best choice for the job — because he was Trump’s choice for the job. Republican senators who undoubtedly knew better went along, betting that things wouldn’t get so bad under Hegseth that it was worth stirring up the fury of that pro-Trump bubble.

It’s the same bet that prominent Republicans have been making on Trump himself since 2015. Now, as Trump too is flailing — polling and the data make clear that he is — it’s trivial to identify that insular chorus of cheerleaders and cynics as a root cause.

The president owes his political career to that same bubble. Over the past few decades, the fringe right and then Republicans more broadly embraced discussions of the world that were mostly devoid of nuance: left bad, right good. The internet allowed for the emergence of bespoke “news” organizations (and, later, social media accounts) catering to conspiratorial partisan rhetoric — an alternative to traditional reporting unhampered by criticism or unpopular truths.

Trump secured the 2016 Republican nomination not because he was the best spokesperson for the Republican Party but because he echoed the refrains of that surreal universe of information. When you hear his supporters praise his straightforwardness, this is what they are referring to: He says the false things with which they agree.

We’re about to say goodbye to Musk. Hopefully, Hegseth will be a quick second out.  But what comes next?  Certainly, nothing better.  Even Rubio seems to have caught the munificently Kiss Ass  Fever. The speed of light is the rate at which he contradicts the old Little Marco makes me wonder if he a Musk AI robot and the ex-Senator is up in space some where.  Here’s the latest example from The Independent. “Marco Rubio claims Canada should be 51st state as PM told Trump they ‘couldn’t survive’ without U.S.  Rubio says State Department has not taken action on the president’s push to annex Canada and Greenland.”

America’s top diplomat was questioned on Sunday about Donald Trump’s reasoning for repeatedly calling for Canada to join the United States as the 51st state.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on NBC’s Meet the Presson Sunday where moderator Kristen Welker asked him if the administration was actually taking any steps to make Trump’s vision a reality.

The president has made his opinion clear: he wants Canada to join the United States and suggested his administration would also acquire the Danish-held territory Greenland by any means.

The secretary of state gave his own translation of the president’s remarks on the matter:

“What the president has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States, at which point he asked, ‘Well, if you can’t survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state.’ That’s what he said.”

Rubio told Welker that the administration had taken no action to realize this particular strain of Trump’s bluster, which has alarmed U.S. allies.

There’s a U.S. military base on Greenland, and the president has cited the self-governing nation’s geographical importance as a reasoning for his expansionist goal. Trump has made the comments on numerous occasions, including in conversations with his Canadian counterparts.

Trump himself made his goals of northward expansion apparent during his address to Congress in February.

“We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” Trump said at the time. “And I think we’re going to get it one way or the other. We’re going to get it.”

But he was making similar remarks publicly as early as December 2024.

“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State.”

“They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea,” added Trump.

So tell me if you ever thought you’d see the day that an American Secretary of State believes annexing your best allies, the ones you’ve fought beside in Wars, and stood by you when you were attacked, would say that sort of thing? Meanwhile, the entire Deportation debacle continues on its cruel and ugly path. This is from Politico. “Homan presses undocumented immigrants to self-deport, threatening prosecution. The push comes as the monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s.” Homan is now the antonym for Human.  Deportation in this country does not just fall on the undocumented. It impacts everyone.

White House border czar Tom Homan on Monday warned undocumented immigrants that they “cannot hide” and will be prosecuted in they remain in the U.S. illegally — the latest effort from the Trump administration to push self-deportation.

“Get your affairs in order. If you’re in the country illegally, work with ICE, go to CBP One Home app, and leave on your own,” Homan said from the White House press briefing room.

Homan said every immigrant in the U.S. illegally must register with the federal government and carry documentation. And those who fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security or neglect to update any new address will have those actions treated as criminal offenses “starting today.” He also warned other undocumented immigrants that if they have a final order to leave the country but remain anyway, the Trump administration will “aggressively prosecute” and issue daily monetary fines of up to $998.

The border czar’s briefing room appearance comes as the Trump administration marks its 100th day in office this week, with Homan touting the administration’s progress on border security. He pointed to a significant drop in illegal border crossings, which have plunged since Trump took office to the lowest level in decades.

Homan said Monday that the administration has deported 139,000 migrants since Jan. 20 as Trump officials have struggled to ramp up removal numbers. This figure includes people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, who would have been encountered at or before they reached the border, according to a DHS official. The Trump administration’s monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s, according to data obtained by NBC News.

The bluster is abusive, but the actions are unconstitutional, illegal, and inhumane. The New York Times reports on the weekend’s 60 Minutes sign-off. Every voice raised against the dismantling of US democracy is a voice that counts! “‘60 Minutes’ Chastises Its Corporate Parent in Unusual On-Air Rebuke. The show’s top producer abruptly said last week he was quitting. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers.”

In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.

“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.

Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”

Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.

Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.

President Trump sued CBS last year, claiming $10 billion in damages, in a case stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, that Mr. Trump said was deceptively edited. Ms. Redstone has expressed her desire to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, although legal experts have called the case far-fetched.

So that’s it for me today.  I’m just trying to keep my head above water and my thoughts on calm, clear awareness.  I hope you’re finding a way to cope with this mess.  I try to tune out as much as possible, but my job is to teach folks about financial and economic policies, so I can only shut out so much.  A friend of mine posted a picture of American NAZIs partying in the French Quarter and getting drinks from the Dungeon.  The tattoos and the t-shirts said it all.  What’s most disturbing about all of this is these folks are out of their hidey holes, and they don’t care who sees them and what they say. I’ll be out on Wednesday at a protest in front of the ICE offices here in the Central Business District.  I need to do something, even just being with like-minded people.

Also, we’re finding some older Dem Pols stepping down to make way for new blood. “Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will step down from his leadership post on the panel and not run for reelection.” Let’s try to hope.

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AllApologies #BombasticRhetoric #FARTUS #KashPatel #PamBondiWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #VerbalBullyBombs #YamTits100DaysOfOops

Mostly Monday Reads: It’s the Policies Stupid!

“Arresting development,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I don’t know about you, but these first 100 days of #FARTUS have taken a toll on me.  So many bad policies in such a short time have me spinning and anxious. I can’t even plan my one-person, small-house, semi-retired life.  I can’t even figure out what state and local governments, big and small businesses, and the courts have on their hands right now.

The assessment of these first 100 days, coming from polls and pundits, is stunningly bad.  Bad to the point that any polling firm is considered to be a criminal organization by yam tits. I will start with this analysis in The Guardian by Steven Greenhouse. “Trump’s second term will be the worst presidential term ever. Tragically, the president’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.”

In his first 100 days back in office, Donald Trump has made a strong case that his second term will be by far the worst presidential term in US history. So many of his flood-the-zone actions have been head-spinning and stomach-turning. His administration seems to be powered by ignorance and incoherence, spleen and sycophancy. Both he and his right-hand man, Elon Musk, with their resentment-fueled desire to disrupt everything, seem intent on pulverizing the foundations of our government, our democracy, our alliances as well as any notions of truth. Tragically, Trump’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.

The worst and most dangerous part of Trump’s agenda is his war against our democracy and constitution – defying judges’ orders, deporting people without due process, suggesting he will run for a third term, calling to impeach judges who rule against him, pardoning hundreds of January 6 criminals, gutting federal agencies and firing thousands of federal employees in flagrant violation of the law, and banning books from military libraries. (One wonders: will book burning be next?) Underlining just how dangerous and lawless Trump is, he is talking publicly about disappearing US citizens to foreign countries where they could be locked in prison forever. For those who care about democracy and basic freedoms, this is Defcon 1 stuff.

From Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, every president since the second world war has worked hard to build alliances to promote peace and prosperity and deter aggression. But right out of the box, Trump 2.0 has rushed to blow up our alliances and cavalierly alienate our allies. Trump quickly rejected the US’s traditional foreign policy and ideals by warmly embracing Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator, and turning against Ukraine and its noble fight against Putin’s aggression. Trump sounded like a rapacious 19th-century imperialist when he threatened to take over the Panama canal and, ditto, when he talked of using force to seize control of Greenland, which belongs to our longtime Nato ally, Denmark. Then there’s Trump’s astoundingly idiotic talk – and taunt – that Canada should be our 51st state. What a way to anger and alienate a nation that has long been the US’s best friend.

Then there is the disaster – or should we say clown show – of Trump’s on-again, off-again, on-again, who-knows-what’s-going-to-happen-tomorrow tariffs. His “liberation day” tariffs were put together by a clown-car crew, just three hours before he announced it, and Trump and company seemed to have zero idea that his hodgepodge of tariffs would send the world’s stock markets into a nervous breakdown. Trump’s team was stupid enough to think that China was too feeble to respond effectively to Trump’s trade war – treasury secretary Scott Bessent said China had “a losing hand” with just “a pair of twos”. Trump and his clown car failed to realize that China had the ability to retaliate in devastating ways – by clamping down on rare earth exports that American manufacturers and tech companies desperately need, and perhaps by selling off hundreds of billions of dollars in US bonds. Former treasury secretary Janet Yellen was appalled, saying: “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy.”

What really gets to me is his “bombastic rhetoric.” It’s like you’re either with the bully or being bullied.  But what appalls me is his stewardship of the US and global Economy.  He is completely detached from all we have learned about policy impacts from the 1930s. It was clear that as industrialization increased, the old mercantilism of the colonial days was fading fast.  Industrialization created a different trade paradigm.

The switch from the Gold Standard created a different-looking financial economic system.  The Information Age and the rise of advanced technology like robotics have changed us even more.  We have complex, intertwined, mixed market economies.  While the basics of market structure remain similar, the frictions within them have become much more complicated.  You may check the academic research of Nobel Prize-winning Joseph E. Stiglitz for his legendary study on how the various quirks in producing specific goods and services can lead to fairly serious economic issues.

I don’t think anyone in the West Wing or the Agencies knows how economic policy works. For that matter, Trump doesn’t even know how many countries there are in the world since he keeps mentioning 200 trade deals when there are only 195.  Maybe the Penguin islands are more autonomous than we know?

In fact, the communication style of the entire MAGA movement makes it an impossible environment for governing. This is how Amanda Marcotte–writing for Salon— puts it. “MAGA loves a tantrum: How public meltdowns became the preferred method of GOP communication. Why Nancy Mace, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller keep throwing fits on camera.”

If there were an Oscar for the category “hard to watch,” I’d have to nominate the video of Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., barking expletives at a constituent after he asked her if she would have a town hall soon. It’s produced in a beauty supply store instead of a movie studio, but in a brief minute and 42 seconds, the video finds its place in the canon of horror films shot from the villain’s perspective. The camera focuses entirely on the story’s hero, a man in a polo and shorts holding a bottle of what appears to be face cleanser, as he holds his own against his congressional representative getting increasingly shrill as she yells invective at him. Even though he said nothing about gay marriage, she demands his gratitude for voting “for gay marriage twice.” When he gets annoyed at her reductive assumption, she calls him “crazy” and “absolutely f—king crazy,” and repeatedly says “f—k you” to him.

In the eyes of normal people, Mace, as her interlocutor said when he fled from this encounter, is a “disgrace.” Most adults who act like Mace in public immediately wish to disappear off the face of the earth in shame. But not our Nancy! No, she’s the one who posted this video online, proud of her emotional incontinence. She even offered a homophobic “gay panic” defense, by describing the man as “wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store.” (Sorry, Miss Nancy, they aren’t daisy dukes until we see cheeks.) To people outside the MAGA bubble, it’s a baffling choice. She’s not even a fun villain. There’s none of the sleek appeal of Loki from the “Avengers” franchise or camp glee of Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.” Mace is serving pure toddler here. She likely wished to throw herself to the floor and start pounding it, but doing so would have meant dropping her iPhone.

Mace isn’t wrong, however, to think that what most adults find embarrassing, the MAGA base will eat right up. The public meltdown, in which you declare yourself the world’s greatest victim, is the preferred GOP method of political communication these days. Despite this effort, Mace didn’t even come close to nabbing last week’s gold star for the most histronic MAGA performance. She was outdone by Stephen Miller, whose usual register on TV is “verge of a nervous breakdown,” but got so shrill on Fox News Tuesday that Lauren Tousignant at Jezebel worried she’d soon have to “look at Stephen Miller’s face as he pops a dozen blood vessels as his brain explodes.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth turned in two performances that would cause Al Pacino to tell him to settle down. While carping about “the fake news media” during the White House Easter egg roll, Hegseth’s whining got so pitched his voice started to crack, while his children stood behind him, embarrassed at the spectacle.

Despite his own family’s discomfort with his antics, Hegseth kept up the scenery-chewing, bellowing about the all-powerful, forever-mysterious “they” have “come after me from day one.” (“They,” in this case, means close friends and advisors who got pushed out after beginning to question Hegseth’s fitness for the job.)

All this yelling and bellyaching serves a pragmatic purpose: to distract from how what they’re saying makes no sense. Miller’s claim that the six Republican judges on the Supreme Court — three appointed by Trump — are “communist” wouldn’t withstand even a moment’s thought at a normal volume. Because he’s delivering his commentary at “front row at Led Zepplin” levels, the brain can’t even process how preposterous the lie is. Mace’s routine showed this working in a literal way. Her target runs away, because trying to talk to someone behaving like her is like trying to converse with a wildfire.

It’s part of the overall too-muchness that is the signature of the MAGA aesthetic, which goes right back to Trump’s gold-plated tastelessness. We see it in the infamous “Mar-a-Lago” face, which uses plastic surgery and spackled-on make-up to turn women into terrifyingly exaggerated caricatures of femininity. Or the love of roided-out male bodies, which try to recreate the impossibly huge muscles of comic books on human bodies. It’s a maximalist aesthetic, minus all the playfulness of Las Vegas casinos or “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” There’s a grim vibe to the undertaking, as if they’re trying to pound your head into the ground with the excess.

“Fake Melania mystery solved. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer–writing for The Atlantic—dialed up Trump on his private phone one day in late March.  He spoke to them even though he had described them both heinously.

The week our interview was supposed to occur, Trump posted a vituperative message on Truth Social, attacking us by name. “Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.” (That last sentence is true—Ashley Parker does not know that Trump won the presidency three times.) “Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES.”

Yes, it was full-on #FARTUS Bully Verbal Bombing them publicly. They actually just called him later.  He picked up. This article is the result

Despite his attacks on us a few days earlier, the president, evidently feeling buoyed by a week of successes, was eager to talk about his accomplishments. As we spoke, the sounds of another conversation, perhaps from a television, hummed in the background.

The president seemed exhilarated by everything he had managed to do in the first two months of his second term: He had begun a purge of diversity efforts from the federal government; granted clemency to nearly 1,600 supporters who had participated in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those caught beating police officers on camera; and signed 98 executive orders and counting (26 of them on his first day in office). He had fired independent regulators; gutted entire agencies; laid off great swaths of the federal workforce; and invoked 18th-century wartime powers to use against a criminal gang from Venezuela. He had adjusted tariffs like a DJ spinning knobs in the booth, upsetting the rhythms of global trade and inducing vertigo in the financial markets. He had raged at the leader of Ukraine, a democratic ally repelling an imperialist invasion, for not being “thankful”—and praised the leader of the invading country, Russia, as “very smart,” reversing in an instant 80 years of U.S. foreign-policy doctrine, and prompting the countries of NATO to prepare for their own defense, without the protective umbrella of American power, for the first time since 1945.

…

We asked Trump why he thought the billionaire class was prostrating itself before him.

“It’s just a higher level of respect. I don’t know,” Trump said. “Maybe they didn’t know me at the beginning, and they know me now.”

“I mean, you saw yesterday with the law firm,” he said. He was referring to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of the nation’s most prestigious firms, whose leader had come to the Oval Office days earlier to beg for relief from an executive order that could have crippled its business. Trump had issued the order at least partially because a former partner at the firm had in 2021 gone to work for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was part of an investigation of the Trump Organization’s business practices. Also that week, an Ivy League institution, threatened with the cancellation of $400 million in federal funding, had agreed to overhaul its Middle Eastern–studies programs at the Trump administration’s request, while also acceding to other significant demands. “You saw yesterday with Columbia University. What do you think of the law firm? Were you shocked at that?” Trump asked us.

Yes—all of it was shocking, much of it without precedent. Legal scholars were drawing comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the early stages of the New Deal, when Congress had allowed FDR to demolish norms and greatly expand the powers of the presidency.

As ever, Trump was on the hunt for a deal. If he liked the story we wrote, he said, he might even speak with us again.

“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.

Media owners weren’t the only ones on his mind. He also seemed to be referring to law firms, universities, broadcast networks, tech titans, artists, research scientists, military commanders, civil servants, moderate Republicans—all the people and institutions he expected to eventually, inevitably, submit to his will.

We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

More like the country and the world run from him.  I have to admit. I admire the Chinese method of trolling him.  It’s funny and effective. Philip Bump at the Washington Post analyzes this self-defeating policy of the second term.  “The bubble that created Trump is the reason he’s stumbling. The White House is now a bubble where loyalty, not ability, defines success.”

Consider Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

No one should be surprised that Hegseth is flailing in his new role, one of the most arduous and complicated in the U.S. government, if not the world. When Donald Trump proposed that Hegseth run the agency, the response was broadly unified: Hegseth lacked the experience needed to do the job effectively. You could debate the other controversies surrounding his bid for the role ad nauseam, but there was no way to reasonably argue that the Fox News talk-show host was prepared to run the Pentagon.

Hegseth was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate anyway because Trump and a universe of voices who support him insisted Hegseth was the best choice for the job — because he was Trump’s choice for the job. Republican senators who undoubtedly knew better went along, betting that things wouldn’t get so bad under Hegseth that it was worth stirring up the fury of that pro-Trump bubble.

It’s the same bet that prominent Republicans have been making on Trump himself since 2015. Now, as Trump too is flailing — polling and the data make clear that he is — it’s trivial to identify that insular chorus of cheerleaders and cynics as a root cause.

The president owes his political career to that same bubble. Over the past few decades, the fringe right and then Republicans more broadly embraced discussions of the world that were mostly devoid of nuance: left bad, right good. The internet allowed for the emergence of bespoke “news” organizations (and, later, social media accounts) catering to conspiratorial partisan rhetoric — an alternative to traditional reporting unhampered by criticism or unpopular truths.

Trump secured the 2016 Republican nomination not because he was the best spokesperson for the Republican Party but because he echoed the refrains of that surreal universe of information. When you hear his supporters praise his straightforwardness, this is what they are referring to: He says the false things with which they agree.

We’re about to say goodbye to Musk. Hopefully, Hegseth will be a quick second out.  But what comes next?  Certainly, nothing better.  Even Rubio seems to have caught the munificently Kiss Ass  Fever. The speed of light is the rate at which he contradicts the old Little Marco makes me wonder if he a Musk AI robot and the ex-Senator is up in space some where.  Here’s the latest example from The Independent. “Marco Rubio claims Canada should be 51st state as PM told Trump they ‘couldn’t survive’ without U.S.  Rubio says State Department has not taken action on the president’s push to annex Canada and Greenland.”

America’s top diplomat was questioned on Sunday about Donald Trump’s reasoning for repeatedly calling for Canada to join the United States as the 51st state.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on NBC’s Meet the Presson Sunday where moderator Kristen Welker asked him if the administration was actually taking any steps to make Trump’s vision a reality.

The president has made his opinion clear: he wants Canada to join the United States and suggested his administration would also acquire the Danish-held territory Greenland by any means.

The secretary of state gave his own translation of the president’s remarks on the matter:

“What the president has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States, at which point he asked, ‘Well, if you can’t survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state.’ That’s what he said.”

Rubio told Welker that the administration had taken no action to realize this particular strain of Trump’s bluster, which has alarmed U.S. allies.

There’s a U.S. military base on Greenland, and the president has cited the self-governing nation’s geographical importance as a reasoning for his expansionist goal. Trump has made the comments on numerous occasions, including in conversations with his Canadian counterparts.

Trump himself made his goals of northward expansion apparent during his address to Congress in February.

“We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” Trump said at the time. “And I think we’re going to get it one way or the other. We’re going to get it.”

But he was making similar remarks publicly as early as December 2024.

“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State.”

“They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea,” added Trump.

So tell me if you ever thought you’d see the day that an American Secretary of State believes annexing your best allies, the ones you’ve fought beside in Wars, and stood by you when you were attacked, would say that sort of thing? Meanwhile, the entire Deportation debacle continues on its cruel and ugly path. This is from Politico. “Homan presses undocumented immigrants to self-deport, threatening prosecution. The push comes as the monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s.” Homan is now the antonym for Human.  Deportation in this country does not just fall on the undocumented. It impacts everyone.

White House border czar Tom Homan on Monday warned undocumented immigrants that they “cannot hide” and will be prosecuted in they remain in the U.S. illegally — the latest effort from the Trump administration to push self-deportation.

“Get your affairs in order. If you’re in the country illegally, work with ICE, go to CBP One Home app, and leave on your own,” Homan said from the White House press briefing room.

Homan said every immigrant in the U.S. illegally must register with the federal government and carry documentation. And those who fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security or neglect to update any new address will have those actions treated as criminal offenses “starting today.” He also warned other undocumented immigrants that if they have a final order to leave the country but remain anyway, the Trump administration will “aggressively prosecute” and issue daily monetary fines of up to $998.

The border czar’s briefing room appearance comes as the Trump administration marks its 100th day in office this week, with Homan touting the administration’s progress on border security. He pointed to a significant drop in illegal border crossings, which have plunged since Trump took office to the lowest level in decades.

Homan said Monday that the administration has deported 139,000 migrants since Jan. 20 as Trump officials have struggled to ramp up removal numbers. This figure includes people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, who would have been encountered at or before they reached the border, according to a DHS official. The Trump administration’s monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s, according to data obtained by NBC News.

The bluster is abusive, but the actions are unconstitutional, illegal, and inhumane. The New York Times reports on the weekend’s 60 Minutes sign-off. Every voice raised against the dismantling of US democracy is a voice that counts! “‘60 Minutes’ Chastises Its Corporate Parent in Unusual On-Air Rebuke. The show’s top producer abruptly said last week he was quitting. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers.”

In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.

“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.

Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”

Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.

Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.

President Trump sued CBS last year, claiming $10 billion in damages, in a case stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, that Mr. Trump said was deceptively edited. Ms. Redstone has expressed her desire to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, although legal experts have called the case far-fetched.

So that’s it for me today.  I’m just trying to keep my head above water and my thoughts on calm, clear awareness.  I hope you’re finding a way to cope with this mess.  I try to tune out as much as possible, but my job is to teach folks about financial and economic policies, so I can only shut out so much.  A friend of mine posted a picture of American NAZIs partying in the French Quarter and getting drinks from the Dungeon.  The tattoos and the t-shirts said it all.  What’s most disturbing about all of this is these folks are out of their hidey holes, and they don’t care who sees them and what they say. I’ll be out on Wednesday at a protest in front of the ICE offices here in the Central Business District.  I need to do something, even just being with like-minded people.

Also, we’re finding some older Dem Pols stepping down to make way for new blood. “Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will step down from his leadership post on the panel and not run for reelection.” Let’s try to hope.

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AllApologies #BombasticRhetoric #FARTUS #KashPatel #PamBondiWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #VerbalBullyBombs #YamTits100DaysOfOops

Mostly Monday Reads: Oops!  He did it again! 

“King of kings..” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trump Kakistocracy continues to upset the operations of every agency in the country. Unfortunately, some of the most necessary and strategic posts have been filled with village idiots.  After the revelation of the first SignalGate, you would think there would be more quick changes to protect the conversations at the top of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense.  Party Boy, sexual predator, and all-around dumb guy, Pete Hegseth, has done it again.  No need for spies when the head of the nation’s military broadcasts stuff on commercial software that everyone’s hacked.  There is total chaos at the Pentagon. This headline from Politico says it all. “White House backs Hegseth, Leavitt says ‘entire Pentagon’ is resisting him. Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said during a Monday “Fox & Friends” appearance.”

“President Donald Trump “stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, defending the scandal-plagued Defense secretary against escalating criticism from Democrats and former senior officials.

Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said in a “Fox & Friends” appearance. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.”

Her comments came a day after The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer — the second reported instance of the secretary sharing operational plans in an unclassified chat. The revelations have reignited the so-called Signalgate scandal and deepened scrutiny over Hegseth’s judgment and leadership.

Former top Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, who stepped down last week, also bashed the Pentagon leader for allegedly plunging the department into dysfunction in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece published Sunday night.

Ullyot — once a vocal supporter of the Defense secretary — accused Hegseth’s team of spreading unverified claims about three top officials who were fired last week, falsely accusing them of leaking sensitive information to media outlets.

“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account,’” Ullyot wrote. “Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”

Hegseth brushed off the allegations Monday and blamed it on backlash for his efforts to reshape the Pentagon.

I love this headline from Rolling Stone. “Turns Out It Wasn’t Such a Great Idea to Put Pete Hegseth in Charge of the Military. The former Fox News host’s tenure at the top of the Pentagon has been riddled with scandal and broader institutional turmoil.”  The article was filed by Ryan Bort and Asawin Suebsaeng

Pete Hegseth barely received enough votes to win confirmation as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. Three Republicans even bucked their own party’s president to oppose him. One of them, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), cited “accusations of financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.” Another, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said Hegseth had “failed to demonstrate” that he could manage “nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion.”

It hasn’t taken long for Hegseth to prove them — along with every Senate Democrat and the countless others who warned about him taking over the Pentagon — right.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth shared attack plans in a second unsecured Signal group chat, following the revelation last month that he shared the plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen in a Signal chat group that included a journalist. The second chat included Hegseth’s wife, brother, and personal lawyer, underscoring the former Fox News host’s recklessness with highly sensitive information.

The news came after a tumultuous week in the Pentagon that saw Hegseth fire three senior officials — ostensibly because of an internal investigation into leaking, although the officials seemed confused about what happened. “We still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with,” they wrote in a joint statement Friday night, adding that, although the experience was “unconscionable,” they will continue to support Trump’s plans for the Pentagon.

John Ullyot, who resigned as a spokesperson for the Pentagon last week, put a button on the turmoil in an op-ed for Politico on Sunday. “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” the piece began. “From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”

Ullyot went on to bash the week’s firings, calling the purge “strange and baffling”; detail Hegeth’s “horrible crisis-communications” following the initial Signal scandal; and predict that “many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly” if Trump decides to hold him accountable. Ullyot also predicted that the drama isn’t going to let up anytime soon: “There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.”

We’ve already received notice in Louisiana about the number of student VISAS yanked by the #FARTUS party.  If it happens here, it’s undoubtedly happening all over the country. Jennifer Rubin has this advice on her Substack, The Contrarian. “Stop Waiting for a Formal Declaration of ‘Crisis’. It is here. We are living through it. No shit cupcake.

Are we in a “constitutional crisis”?

You have likely heard that question innumerable times over the past three months, followed by a discussion as to whether our president has actually, explicitly, openly violated a court order (make that a Supreme Court order). When a question is so pervasive, it is safe to assume that yes, we are already there.

When does the combo of authoritarian bullying, revenge seeking, stooge-nominating, retaliatory prosecuting, contemptuous litigating, and lawless usurpation of congressional power become a “crisis”? The word is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending…especiallyone with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.” Frankly, we have been in that “crisis” since the first day of the Trump presidency.

When a Republican Congress allows the president to seize the power of the purse and does nothing, when the secretary of defense commits the worst breach of national security protocols in memory (and evidently doesn’t learn his lesson), or when Republicans refuse to reclaim the power to lay tariffs—despite a recession-inducing presidential trade war—the question is not if we are in a constitutional crisis, but just how bad it is.

For Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and scores of others who are legally present in the United States have been snatched up, incarcerated (or are facing incarceration) in a foreign gulag, and are deprived of their right to contest their confinement and visa revocation, the “constitutional crisis” is well underway.

When the Supreme Court convenes “literally in the middle of the night” to stop the government from spiriting away Venezuelans in apparent contradiction of their instruction to give every individual a meaningful opportunity to oppose their deportation, the “constitutional crisis” has arrived.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) knows a constitutional crisis. When asked explicitly whether we were in one on Meet the Press, he affirmed, “Yes, we are.” He had to fly down to El Salvador to see for himself Abrego Garcia’s condition, and upon his return, called out the president and his flacks for abject lies, even revealing the clumsy attempt to stage a scene suggesting he and Kilmar were tossing down margaritas on a tropical holiday.

When such steps are required to confirm whether or not a lawful American resident is alive, we know this is not only the least trustworthy White House in modern history, but one seemingly eager to foment a constitutional crisis. “They wanted to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big, fat lie,” Van Hollen said. Calling out the White House’s baseless allegations that Abrego Garcia is a gang member and terrorist, Van Hollen declared, “…In other words, put up in court or shut up.”

If you are interested in tracking foreign students who have lost their VISAS, you may look at this from Inside Higher Education. “What We’ve Learned So Far From Tracking Student Visa Data. More than 1,500 students from nearly 250 colleges have had their visas revoked, but who they are—and why they’ve been targeted—is still largely unknown.” Two international students from UNO, where I teach, have had theirs removed.

On April 7, amid reports that the federal government was detaining international students and revoking their visas, Inside Higher Ed began collecting and cross-checking data in an effort to track exactly how many students were affected—and at which institutions. Our goal was to understand the scope of the federal government’s involvement in the visa process and what it means for international students and the colleges and universities they attend.

Over the past two weeks, more than 1,500 students—representing several hundred colleges and universities, as well as state systems—have had a sudden or unexpected change in their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) listing, or their F-1 or J-1 visa status.

Luke Garrett, writing for NPR, has this headline today. “House Democrats land in El Salvador, demand Abrego Garcia’s return.”  They need to start showing up in ICE detention centers, like the one down here, before more folks get shipped off despite all the court decisions.

Four House Democrats were scheduled to land in El Salvador Monday to demand the release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who lived in Maryland and was deported by the administration to a prison in El Salvador due to what the Trump administration an “administrative error.”

The group — Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., and Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore. — said in a statement they hope “to pressure” the White House “to abide by a Supreme Court order.”

“While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Rep. Garcia said. “That is why we’re here — to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”

The Trump administration has refused to bring back Abrego Garcia despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return — and is receiving bipartisan criticism for it. The Salvadoran citizen entered the country illegally; an immigration judge said he should not be deported to El Salvador because Abrego Garcia was able to prove he was likely to suffer persecution in his home country. The Trump administration says it deported him because he was a member of MS-13; his lawyers deny that Abrego Garcia belongs to the gang.

The White House has said it can’t force the Salvadoran government to release one of its citizens, while El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele called the idea of Abrego Garcia’s release “preposterous.”

On Thursday, a federal court denied the Trump administration’s appeal of the court’s return-order.

Last week, Reps. Garcia and Frost requested congressional travel funds and security for the trip to El Salvador. Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, rejected the request. Rep. Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday he’d also deny any such request.

The group’s visit to El Salvador is not a taxpayer funded CODEL trip.

“The Complicated Relevance of Dr. Seuss’s Political Cartoons The children’s author’s early works have been finding a new audience among those opposed to the “America First” policies of President Donald Trump.”

At least members of the Democratic Party are beginning to do something.  Will it be enough?  Some of the worst news came when an Executive Order leaked that basically removed all the Eisenhower reforms of the Diplomatic Corps and turned them all back into Ugly Americans.  The Substack PastPresentFuture, written by Dan Gardner, will give you some background on the changes made during Eisenhower’s presidency.

If one is of a certain vintage, the phrase “ugly American” has a vivid meaning.

Picture the worst stereotype of an American abroad. Loud, abrasive, arrogant. Incurious about local culture and politics because Americans have nothing to learn from foreigners. Incapable of delivering even a few words in another language and certain they can always make themselves understood by speaking English at a higher volume. Smugly confident that the United States is the most advanced of civilizations, in every way that matters, and all the rest of the world silently dreams of being American, or least meeting one of God’s chosen.

That’s an “ugly American.”

Curiously, though, that’s not what the phrase meant when it was coined. In fact, what it originally described was the opposite of all that.

The history of “ugly American” is worth reviewing because in that one phrase we can see how American foreign aid — and foreign policy more generally — is changing in the second Trump administration. There is even a direct connection between “ugly American” and today’s headlines, notably the hostile takeover of USAID by Elon Musk and his band of young zealots.

This isn’t a happy story, I’m afraid. But it is an important one.

You may read about the story at the link.  Here’s the information on the linked EO from The Daily Beast. “Diplomats Are Freaking Out About Trump’s Leaked Executive Order. One official said monkeys with a typewriter could have come up with a more logical plan for the State Department.”

American diplomats spent the weekend panicking about a possible plan to radically reshape the State Department in President Donald Trump’s image.

A 16-page document that appears to be a draft for an executive order has been circulating among diplomatic staff since last week. It calls for the elimination of dozens of positions and departments, slashing diplomatic operations in Canada, and closing “non-essential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa.

It would also overhaul the traditionally non-partisan foreign service exam to test applicants on whether they share Trump’s MAGA foreign policy views, according to Bloomberg.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a New York Times report on the draft document “fake news‚” though he didn’t offer any details about which part was wrong.

Diplomats, however, worried the document was real, especially in light of the administration asking Congress to cut the State Department’s budget almost in half this year, to $28.4 billion, Politico reported.

“There’s a lot that could be reformed, but you could give infinite monkeys infinite typewriters, and they would come up with something better than that,” one diplomat told Politico.

Many of the document’s items violate the laws that govern the State Department’s operations, while other parts contradict the Trump administration’s communications to Congress about its plans for the department, according to Politico.

Other parts are internally inconsistent. For example, the Fulbright Program would be recast as “solely for master’s-level study in national security-related disciplines” with priority given to programs offering intense instruction in critical languages, including Russian and Mandarin Chinese.

At the same time, the entire African Affairs bureau would be replaced by a single special envoy reporting directly to the National Security Council. Experts say pulling out of Africa would leave a void that Russia and China are both eager to exploit.

Already, Kremlin-backed groups are handing out boxes of tuberculosis and HIV medication on the continent after the Trump administration froze U.S. aid funding, The Washington Post reported. Chinese officials have given interviews and taken out advertisements branding the country as a reliable partner.

The purported State Department draft order would also lead to a major disruption in services for Americans living and traveling in the affected countries, including those who lose their passports or need to register births abroad.

“Something tells me that Steven Miller is one of the monkeys with a typewriter. So, this is about all I’m up for today.  I’ll leave some suggested reads below.

I imagine you’ve all heard that Pope Francis has exited the Earthly Door.  I’m just sorry that one of the last faces he saw was that of J Dank. But maybe he wanted to give him a test after the Cardinal gave him a lecture on why deporting innocent people is not very Catholic of him.

• Tom Sykes / The Daily Beast: Pope Francis’ Last Act Was to Give JD Vance a Lesson About Migrants  —  CHRISTIAN VALUES  —  The pontiff, who died Monday, spoke up in opposition to MAGA policies and suggested in a final statement that they stirred up “contempt.”  —  Pope Francis, who died at 88 on Monday …

This headline has raised my torch and pitchfork.

• Caroline Kitchener / New York Times: Baby Bonuses, Fertility Planning: Trump Aides Assess Ideas to Boost Birthrate … “We need to channel the MAHA spirit and really dive deep into infertility,” said Emma Waters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign.Rebecca Kiger for The New York Times

•  Svante Myrick / The Hill: At the first whiff of power, these Republicans betrayed the rule of law

You may check for more at Memeorandum.

Have as nice a week as possible!

What’s on your reading and blogging list?

#FARTUSPlansForDiplomats #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #FARTUS #FreeAlbregoGarcia #kakistocracy #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RIPPopeFrancis #uglyAmerican

Mostly Monday Reads: Oops!  He did it again! 

“King of kings..” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trump Kakistocracy continues to upset the operations of every agency in the country. Unfortunately, some of the most necessary and strategic posts have been filled with village idiots.  After the revelation of the first SignalGate, you would think there would be more quick changes to protect the conversations at the top of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense.  Party Boy, sexual predator, and all-around dumb guy, Pete Hegseth, has done it again.  No need for spies when the head of the nation’s military broadcasts stuff on commercial software that everyone’s hacked.  There is total chaos at the Pentagon. This headline from Politico says it all. “White House backs Hegseth, Leavitt says ‘entire Pentagon’ is resisting him. Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said during a Monday “Fox & Friends” appearance.”

“President Donald Trump “stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, defending the scandal-plagued Defense secretary against escalating criticism from Democrats and former senior officials.

Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said in a “Fox & Friends” appearance. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.”

Her comments came a day after The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer — the second reported instance of the secretary sharing operational plans in an unclassified chat. The revelations have reignited the so-called Signalgate scandal and deepened scrutiny over Hegseth’s judgment and leadership.

Former top Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, who stepped down last week, also bashed the Pentagon leader for allegedly plunging the department into dysfunction in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece published Sunday night.

Ullyot — once a vocal supporter of the Defense secretary — accused Hegseth’s team of spreading unverified claims about three top officials who were fired last week, falsely accusing them of leaking sensitive information to media outlets.

“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account,’” Ullyot wrote. “Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”

Hegseth brushed off the allegations Monday and blamed it on backlash for his efforts to reshape the Pentagon.

I love this headline from Rolling Stone. “Turns Out It Wasn’t Such a Great Idea to Put Pete Hegseth in Charge of the Military. The former Fox News host’s tenure at the top of the Pentagon has been riddled with scandal and broader institutional turmoil.”  The article was filed by Ryan Bort and Asawin Suebsaeng

Pete Hegseth barely received enough votes to win confirmation as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. Three Republicans even bucked their own party’s president to oppose him. One of them, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), cited “accusations of financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.” Another, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said Hegseth had “failed to demonstrate” that he could manage “nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion.”

It hasn’t taken long for Hegseth to prove them — along with every Senate Democrat and the countless others who warned about him taking over the Pentagon — right.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth shared attack plans in a second unsecured Signal group chat, following the revelation last month that he shared the plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen in a Signal chat group that included a journalist. The second chat included Hegseth’s wife, brother, and personal lawyer, underscoring the former Fox News host’s recklessness with highly sensitive information.

The news came after a tumultuous week in the Pentagon that saw Hegseth fire three senior officials — ostensibly because of an internal investigation into leaking, although the officials seemed confused about what happened. “We still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with,” they wrote in a joint statement Friday night, adding that, although the experience was “unconscionable,” they will continue to support Trump’s plans for the Pentagon.

John Ullyot, who resigned as a spokesperson for the Pentagon last week, put a button on the turmoil in an op-ed for Politico on Sunday. “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” the piece began. “From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”

Ullyot went on to bash the week’s firings, calling the purge “strange and baffling”; detail Hegeth’s “horrible crisis-communications” following the initial Signal scandal; and predict that “many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly” if Trump decides to hold him accountable. Ullyot also predicted that the drama isn’t going to let up anytime soon: “There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.”

We’ve already received notice in Louisiana about the number of student VISAS yanked by the #FARTUS party.  If it happens here, it’s undoubtedly happening all over the country. Jennifer Rubin has this advice on her Substack, The Contrarian. “Stop Waiting for a Formal Declaration of ‘Crisis’. It is here. We are living through it. No shit cupcake.

Are we in a “constitutional crisis”?

You have likely heard that question innumerable times over the past three months, followed by a discussion as to whether our president has actually, explicitly, openly violated a court order (make that a Supreme Court order). When a question is so pervasive, it is safe to assume that yes, we are already there.

When does the combo of authoritarian bullying, revenge seeking, stooge-nominating, retaliatory prosecuting, contemptuous litigating, and lawless usurpation of congressional power become a “crisis”? The word is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending…especiallyone with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.” Frankly, we have been in that “crisis” since the first day of the Trump presidency.

When a Republican Congress allows the president to seize the power of the purse and does nothing, when the secretary of defense commits the worst breach of national security protocols in memory (and evidently doesn’t learn his lesson), or when Republicans refuse to reclaim the power to lay tariffs—despite a recession-inducing presidential trade war—the question is not if we are in a constitutional crisis, but just how bad it is.

For Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and scores of others who are legally present in the United States have been snatched up, incarcerated (or are facing incarceration) in a foreign gulag, and are deprived of their right to contest their confinement and visa revocation, the “constitutional crisis” is well underway.

When the Supreme Court convenes “literally in the middle of the night” to stop the government from spiriting away Venezuelans in apparent contradiction of their instruction to give every individual a meaningful opportunity to oppose their deportation, the “constitutional crisis” has arrived.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) knows a constitutional crisis. When asked explicitly whether we were in one on Meet the Press, he affirmed, “Yes, we are.” He had to fly down to El Salvador to see for himself Abrego Garcia’s condition, and upon his return, called out the president and his flacks for abject lies, even revealing the clumsy attempt to stage a scene suggesting he and Kilmar were tossing down margaritas on a tropical holiday.

When such steps are required to confirm whether or not a lawful American resident is alive, we know this is not only the least trustworthy White House in modern history, but one seemingly eager to foment a constitutional crisis. “They wanted to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big, fat lie,” Van Hollen said. Calling out the White House’s baseless allegations that Abrego Garcia is a gang member and terrorist, Van Hollen declared, “…In other words, put up in court or shut up.”

If you are interested in tracking foreign students who have lost their VISAS, you may look at this from Inside Higher Education. “What We’ve Learned So Far From Tracking Student Visa Data. More than 1,500 students from nearly 250 colleges have had their visas revoked, but who they are—and why they’ve been targeted—is still largely unknown.” Two international students from UNO, where I teach, have had theirs removed.

On April 7, amid reports that the federal government was detaining international students and revoking their visas, Inside Higher Ed began collecting and cross-checking data in an effort to track exactly how many students were affected—and at which institutions. Our goal was to understand the scope of the federal government’s involvement in the visa process and what it means for international students and the colleges and universities they attend.

Over the past two weeks, more than 1,500 students—representing several hundred colleges and universities, as well as state systems—have had a sudden or unexpected change in their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) listing, or their F-1 or J-1 visa status.

Luke Garrett, writing for NPR, has this headline today. “House Democrats land in El Salvador, demand Abrego Garcia’s return.”  They need to start showing up in ICE detention centers, like the one down here, before more folks get shipped off despite all the court decisions.

Four House Democrats were scheduled to land in El Salvador Monday to demand the release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who lived in Maryland and was deported by the administration to a prison in El Salvador due to what the Trump administration an “administrative error.”

The group — Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., and Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore. — said in a statement they hope “to pressure” the White House “to abide by a Supreme Court order.”

“While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Rep. Garcia said. “That is why we’re here — to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”

The Trump administration has refused to bring back Abrego Garcia despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return — and is receiving bipartisan criticism for it. The Salvadoran citizen entered the country illegally; an immigration judge said he should not be deported to El Salvador because Abrego Garcia was able to prove he was likely to suffer persecution in his home country. The Trump administration says it deported him because he was a member of MS-13; his lawyers deny that Abrego Garcia belongs to the gang.

The White House has said it can’t force the Salvadoran government to release one of its citizens, while El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele called the idea of Abrego Garcia’s release “preposterous.”

On Thursday, a federal court denied the Trump administration’s appeal of the court’s return-order.

Last week, Reps. Garcia and Frost requested congressional travel funds and security for the trip to El Salvador. Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, rejected the request. Rep. Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday he’d also deny any such request.

The group’s visit to El Salvador is not a taxpayer funded CODEL trip.

“The Complicated Relevance of Dr. Seuss’s Political Cartoons The children’s author’s early works have been finding a new audience among those opposed to the “America First” policies of President Donald Trump.”

At least members of the Democratic Party are beginning to do something.  Will it be enough?  Some of the worst news came when an Executive Order leaked that basically removed all the Eisenhower reforms of the Diplomatic Corps and turned them all back into Ugly Americans.  The Substack PastPresentFuture, written by Dan Gardner, will give you some background on the changes made during Eisenhower’s presidency.

If one is of a certain vintage, the phrase “ugly American” has a vivid meaning.

Picture the worst stereotype of an American abroad. Loud, abrasive, arrogant. Incurious about local culture and politics because Americans have nothing to learn from foreigners. Incapable of delivering even a few words in another language and certain they can always make themselves understood by speaking English at a higher volume. Smugly confident that the United States is the most advanced of civilizations, in every way that matters, and all the rest of the world silently dreams of being American, or least meeting one of God’s chosen.

That’s an “ugly American.”

Curiously, though, that’s not what the phrase meant when it was coined. In fact, what it originally described was the opposite of all that.

The history of “ugly American” is worth reviewing because in that one phrase we can see how American foreign aid — and foreign policy more generally — is changing in the second Trump administration. There is even a direct connection between “ugly American” and today’s headlines, notably the hostile takeover of USAID by Elon Musk and his band of young zealots.

This isn’t a happy story, I’m afraid. But it is an important one.

You may read about the story at the link.  Here’s the information on the linked EO from The Daily Beast. “Diplomats Are Freaking Out About Trump’s Leaked Executive Order. One official said monkeys with a typewriter could have come up with a more logical plan for the State Department.”

American diplomats spent the weekend panicking about a possible plan to radically reshape the State Department in President Donald Trump’s image.

A 16-page document that appears to be a draft for an executive order has been circulating among diplomatic staff since last week. It calls for the elimination of dozens of positions and departments, slashing diplomatic operations in Canada, and closing “non-essential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa.

It would also overhaul the traditionally non-partisan foreign service exam to test applicants on whether they share Trump’s MAGA foreign policy views, according to Bloomberg.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a New York Times report on the draft document “fake news‚” though he didn’t offer any details about which part was wrong.

Diplomats, however, worried the document was real, especially in light of the administration asking Congress to cut the State Department’s budget almost in half this year, to $28.4 billion, Politico reported.

“There’s a lot that could be reformed, but you could give infinite monkeys infinite typewriters, and they would come up with something better than that,” one diplomat told Politico.

Many of the document’s items violate the laws that govern the State Department’s operations, while other parts contradict the Trump administration’s communications to Congress about its plans for the department, according to Politico.

Other parts are internally inconsistent. For example, the Fulbright Program would be recast as “solely for master’s-level study in national security-related disciplines” with priority given to programs offering intense instruction in critical languages, including Russian and Mandarin Chinese.

At the same time, the entire African Affairs bureau would be replaced by a single special envoy reporting directly to the National Security Council. Experts say pulling out of Africa would leave a void that Russia and China are both eager to exploit.

Already, Kremlin-backed groups are handing out boxes of tuberculosis and HIV medication on the continent after the Trump administration froze U.S. aid funding, The Washington Post reported. Chinese officials have given interviews and taken out advertisements branding the country as a reliable partner.

The purported State Department draft order would also lead to a major disruption in services for Americans living and traveling in the affected countries, including those who lose their passports or need to register births abroad.

“Something tells me that Steven Miller is one of the monkeys with a typewriter. So, this is about all I’m up for today.  I’ll leave some suggested reads below.

I imagine you’ve all heard that Pope Francis has exited the Earthly Door.  I’m just sorry that one of the last faces he saw was that of J Dank. But maybe he wanted to give him a test after the Cardinal gave him a lecture on why deporting innocent people is not very Catholic of him.

• Tom Sykes / The Daily Beast: Pope Francis’ Last Act Was to Give JD Vance a Lesson About Migrants  —  CHRISTIAN VALUES  —  The pontiff, who died Monday, spoke up in opposition to MAGA policies and suggested in a final statement that they stirred up “contempt.”  —  Pope Francis, who died at 88 on Monday …

This headline has raised my torch and pitchfork.

• Caroline Kitchener / New York Times: Baby Bonuses, Fertility Planning: Trump Aides Assess Ideas to Boost Birthrate … “We need to channel the MAHA spirit and really dive deep into infertility,” said Emma Waters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign.Rebecca Kiger for The New York Times

•  Svante Myrick / The Hill: At the first whiff of power, these Republicans betrayed the rule of law

You may check for more at Memeorandum.

Have as nice a week as possible!

What’s on your reading and blogging list?

#FARTUSPlansForDiplomats #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #FARTUS #FreeAlbregoGarcia #kakistocracy #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RIPPopeFrancis #uglyAmerican

Finally Friday Reads: “Historic Failure”

“Tariff Man doing Tariff Man stuff..” John Buss,@repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Last night, I dreamed I had been to an amusement park where everything spun oddly and fell apart.  Guess who followed me around his theme park at one point shoving his hands down my shirt to grab my tits until a nice black lady in a black suit with sun glasses on said “Sir, you really shouldn’t do that.” I pressed an elevator at one point, and some skinny, red-headed white guy in a flannel shirt on the other side of what turned out to be a duo door elevator had the ground pulled out from under him.  The ground below him started dropping.  All I could do was watch from the other side. There were guys everywhere with stacks of boxes, trying to sell stuff they wouldn’t let you see.  All the time #FARTUS just followed me, bragging about each ride that was more dangerous than the next.

I doubt I need a Jungian psychologist to decode all that. A lot of my time was spent trying to get children to get off and get out of here before they were hurt.  Oddly enough, I was more fascinated during the dream than anything else. It was a bit like a Salvador Dali show. Maybe some of the celebratory herb wafting from the 4/20 Party at the bar on the corner got into my bedroom.  Who knows?  I woke up thinking, “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been.”  I heard a lot of Grateful Dead on Temple’s last walk of the day.

I might have foretold the White House Easter Egg Roll, where all those folks get to see 30,000 donated eggs from the American Egg Board, while your average kids get to eat and dye something altogether different.  #FARTUS rejected the idea of using plastic.  Don’t forget to watch for “The American Egg Board to Present 48th First Lady’s Commemorative Egg to Melania Trump at 2025 White House Easter Egg Roll.”  It adds a “let them eat eggs”  mode to the event.  Yes, John, your dark muse is back.  John Buss has a cartoon for everything.  I don’t know what my posts would be without him up there with the Featured Funny.

Trump’s 100th day in office officially happens this month on the 30th.  So far, not good. This headline in the Washington Post, attached to an op-ed analysis from Dana Milbank, grabbed me.  And not by the you know what. “Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure. America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin. It will be far worse if Trump tries to illegally remove Fed President Jerome Powell from his post. He’s trying to blame Powell for this mess. I’m not sure who will be dumb enough to take that bait, but I do know that Republicans won’t stand in his way of his lawlessness, as usual.

“By any reasonable measure, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days will be judged an epic failure.

He has been a legislative failure. He has signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.

He has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that Trump’s tariffs will result in higher inflation and slower growth.

He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of Trump’s naive overtures to Vladimir Putin.

He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.

He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s retreat from the world.

He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.

He has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist/YouGov poll finds 42 percent approving his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a 16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.

Even his few “successes” amount to less than meets the eye. Border crossings are down from already low levels, but despite all the administration’s bravado, there’s little evidence of an increase in deportations. Hopes for cost-cutting under the U.S. DOGE Service, which Elon Musk originally projected at $1 trillion this year, have been scaled back to just $150 billion — and much of that appears to be based on made-up numbers.

But Trump, whose 100th day in office is April 30, has achieved one thing that is truly remarkable: He has introduced a level of chaos and destruction so high that historians are hard-pressed to find its equal in our history.

And yet, he persists.  There’s a long list that follows.  Seeing it all in print is disturbing.  Zachary Basu has another take posted on AXIOS. “Trump’s United States of Emergency. ”

In his first 100 days, President Trump has declared more national emergencies — more creatively and more aggressively — than any president in modern American history.

Why it matters: Powers originally crafted to give the president flexibility in rare moments of crisis now form the backbone of Trump’s agenda, enabling him to steamroll Congress and govern by unilateral decree through his first three months in office.

• So far, Trump has invoked national emergencies to impose the largest tariffs in a century, accelerate energy and mineral production, and militarize federal lands at the southern border.
• Paired with his assault on the judiciary, legal scholars fear Trump is exploiting loosely written statutes to try to upend the constitutional balance of power.

How it works: The president can declare a national emergency at any time, for almost any reason, without needing to prove a specific threat or get approval from Congress.

• The National Emergencies Act of 1976, which unlocks more than 120 special statutory powers, originally included a “legislative veto” that gave Congress the ability to terminate an emergency with a simple majority vote.
• But in 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional — effectively stripping Congress of its original check, and making it far harder to rein in a president’s emergency declarations.

The big picture: Since then, presidents have largely relied on “norms” and “self-restraint” to avoid abusing emergency powers for non-crises, says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

• That precedent was broken in 2019, Goitein argues, when Trump declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress and access billions of dollars in funding for a border wall.
• President Biden stretched his authority as well, drawing criticism in 2022 for citing the COVID-19 national emergency to unilaterally forgive student loan debt.
• But Trump’s second-term actions have plunged the U.S. firmly into uncharted territory — redrawing the limits of executive power in real time, and fueling fears of a permanent emergency state.

Zoom in: Trump’s justification for his tariffs cites the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which can be invoked only if the U.S. faces an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to its national security, foreign policy, or economy.

• According to the White House, America’s decades-old trading relationships — including with tiny countries and uninhabited islands — qualify as such threats.

• As a result, a 1977 law originally designed to target hostile foreign powers — and never before used to impose tariffs — is now being deployed to rewrite the global economic order.

There’s much to look forward to as we lurch towards the midterms.  Little Marco Rubio is sure fucking up the state department.  All you need to do is see a cabinet meeting. His face is telling.  He looks like the only one who knows he’s going to hell.  This is from NPR as reported by Graham Smith. “The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights.”  What fresh hell is this lil Marco?

The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department’s annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process, NPR has learned.

Despite decades of precedent, the reports, which are meant to inform congressional decisions on foreign aid allocations and security assistance, will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won’t condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on “free and fair elections.”

Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations.

According to an editing memo and other documents obtained by NPR, State Department employees are directed to “streamline” the reports by stripping them down to only that which is legally required. The memo says the changes aim to align the reports with current U.S. policy and “recently issued Executive Orders.”

Officially called “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” the annual documents are required, by statute, to be a “full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights.”

Human rights defenders say the cuts amount to an American retreat from its position as the world’s human rights watchdog.

“What this is, is a signal that the United States is no longer going to [pressure] other countries to uphold those rights that guarantee civic and political freedoms — the ability to speak, to express yourself, to gather, to protest, to organize,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International, USA.

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the memo or the human rights reports. NPR confirmed the memo’s authenticity with two sources close to the process.

There is some good news on the front of Trump’s kidnapping and disappearing people to El Salvador. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) managed to get a meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as was his goal.  Historian Heather Cox Richardson, writing at her Substack, gives us some perspective.

Today, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) posted a picture of himself with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration says it sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador through “administrative error” but can’t get back, and wrote: “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

While the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, apparently tried to stage a photo that would make it look as if the two men were enjoying a cocktail together, it seems clear that backing down and giving Senator Van Hollen access to Abrego Garcia is a significant shift from Bukele’s previous scorn for those trying to address the crisis of a man legally in the U.S. having been sent to prison in El Salvador without due process.

Bukele might be reassessing the distribution of power in the U.S.

According to Robert Jimison of the New York Times, who traveled to El Salvador with Senator Van Hollen, when a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he would move to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, Trump answered: “Well, I’m not involved. You’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the [Department of Justice].”

Today a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to stop Judge Paula Xinis’s order that it “take all available steps” to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. “as soon as possible.” Conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote the order. Notably, it began with a compliment to Judge Xinis. “[W]e shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” he wrote.

Then Wilkinson turned his focus on the Trump administration. “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” he wrote. “But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

“The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” The court noted that if the government is so sure of its position, then it should be confident in presenting its facts to a court of law.

Echoing the liberal justices on the Supreme Court, Wilkinson wrote: “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” He noted the reports that the administration is talking about doing just that.

“And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present,” he wrote, “and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”

h/t to JJ

NBC News reports on Senator Holland’s meeting with Garcia. It certainly was a relief to see proof of life.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen confirmed Thursday night that he has met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man whom the Trump administration said it mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return,” Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote on X.

Images of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia were first posted online by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has rebuffed calls to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Bukele said on X after the meeting that Abrego Garcia will remain in El Salvador’s custody “now that he’s been confirmed healthy.”

President Donald Trump lashed out at Van Hollen Friday morning in a post on Truth Social, saying the Democratic senator “looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention.”

At an Oval Office meeting with Trump on Monday, Bukele argued that he didn’t “have the power to return him to the United States.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the same day that the United States would provide a plane for Abrego Garcia to travel back to the country should El Salvador allow his release, framing the decision as being solely in Bukele’s hands.

In a statement Thursday night, the White House called Van Hollen’s efforts in support of Abrego Garcia “disgusting” and said Trump will “continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans.”

Trump threats to Fed Chair Powell scare the shit out of me.  I am totally with Senator Elizabeth Warren on this statement. “Markets will ‘crash’ if Trump can fire Fed’s Powell, Elizabeth Warren warns.” You can listen to her interview at this link.   Nobel Prize-winning Economist Dr. Paul Krugman explains the dangers of a “Trumpified Fed” at his Substack today.  “Why You Should Fear a Trumpified Fed. Don’t give an abuser power that’s easy to abuse.  He even starts with the holy grail of economics charts from FRED. The Fed is a significant source of economic data. I spent hours as a new grad student in 1978 in the basement of the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a huge accounting pad and pencil in the Federal Documents area, writing down months of data to type onto punch cards with some code ordering up a graph that I had to wait hours for as I watched a huge printer spit out green bar paper.  Now it’s just a few clicks of a mouse button to get the same data from FRED.

Sometimes the Federal Reserve has extraordinary power over the economy.

Consider what happened from 1982 to 1984. For most of 1982 the U.S. economy was in grim shape. Employment had plunged, especially in manufacturing. The unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in December (it was 4.2 percent last month.) And economic pain helped Democrats make major gains in the 1982 midterms.

But everything was about to change, thanks to the Fed. In the summer of 1982 the Fed decided to ease monetary policy. Interest rates plunged, and about 6 months later the economy began a stunning rebound, growing 4.6 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984. Ronald Reagan claimed credit for “Morning in America,” but actually it was the Fed that did it.

This episode illustrates the Fed’s power — power that must be insulated from abuse by politicians, especially politicians like Donald Trump.

Over the past few days Trump has been demanding that the Fed cut interest rates and calling for the Fed chairman’s “termination.” It’s worth looking at what he posted on Truth Social to get a sense of how, to use the technical term, batshit crazy he is on this subject:

And we really, really don’t want someone that crazy dictating monetary policy.

The reason we don’t want politicians in direct control of monetary policy is that it’s so easy to use. After all, what does it mean to “ease” monetary policy? It’s an incredibly frictionless process. Normally the Federal Open Market Committee tells the New York Fed to buy U.S. government debt from private banks, which it does with money conjured out of thin air. There’s no need to pass legislation, place bids with contractors, deal with any of the hassles usually associated with changes in government policy. Basically the Fed can create an economic boom with a phone call.

It’s obvious that this kind of power could be abused by an irresponsible leader who wants to preside over an economic boom and doesn’t want to hear about the risks. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Consider what happened in Turkey, whose Trump-like president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, recently arrested the leader of the opposition. When the global post-Covid inflation shock hit, Erdogan embraced crank economic theories. He forced Turkey’s central bank, its equivalent of the Fed, to cut interest rates in the belief, contrary to standard economics, that doing so would reduce, not increase inflation. You can see the results in the chart at the top of this post.

How can we guard against that kind of policy irresponsibility? After the stagflation of the 1970s many countries delegated monetary policy to technocrats at independent central banks. Can the technocrats get it wrong? Of course they can and often have. But they’re less likely to engage in wishful thinking and motivated reasoning than typical politicians, let alone politicians like Trump.

What makes Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed especially ominous is the fact that the Fed will soon have to cope with the stagflationary crisis Trump has created. Trump’s massive tariff increase will lead to a major inflationary shock:

I’ve been using that “s” word for a while now. If Krugman uses it, run for the hills.

So, this is running long, so I’ll quit with this.  I hope your weekend is peaceful.  We’re gearing up for Jazz Fest, so I have a few more weeks of Ugly American Tourists in the hood, and then it might get more normal since Trump is decimating the tourist industry.

U.S. tourism has dropped with visits from other countries down as much as 11% in March, while more Americans are moving outside of the country to places like Canada. NBC News’ Liz Kreutz talks to USC Hospitality and Tourism Professor Hicham Jaddoud on the drop.

Maybe those disruptive Airbnb’s will be used for the people who live here.  I can only hope.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #BringKilmerHome_ #FARTUS #kakistocracy #TrumpHumanRightsViolations #TrumpMafiaState #TrumpStagflation

Finally Friday Reads: “Historic Failure”

“Tariff Man doing Tariff Man stuff..” John Buss,@repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Last night, I dreamed I had been to an amusement park where everything spun oddly and fell apart.  Guess who followed me around his theme park at one point shoving his hands down my shirt to grab my tits until a nice black lady in a black suit with sun glasses on said “Sir, you really shouldn’t do that.” I pressed an elevator at one point, and some skinny, red-headed white guy in a flannel shirt on the other side of what turned out to be a duo door elevator had the ground pulled out from under him.  The ground below him started dropping.  All I could do was watch from the other side. There were guys everywhere with stacks of boxes, trying to sell stuff they wouldn’t let you see.  All the time #FARTUS just followed me, bragging about each ride that was more dangerous than the next.

I doubt I need a Jungian psychologist to decode all that. A lot of my time was spent trying to get children to get off and get out of here before they were hurt.  Oddly enough, I was more fascinated during the dream than anything else. It was a bit like a Salvador Dali show. Maybe some of the celebratory herb wafting from the 4/20 Party at the bar on the corner got into my bedroom.  Who knows?  I woke up thinking, “What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been.”  I heard a lot of Grateful Dead on Temple’s last walk of the day.

I might have foretold the White House Easter Egg Roll, where all those folks get to see 30,000 donated eggs from the American Egg Board, while your average kids get to eat and dye something altogether different.  #FARTUS rejected the idea of using plastic.  Don’t forget to watch for “The American Egg Board to Present 48th First Lady’s Commemorative Egg to Melania Trump at 2025 White House Easter Egg Roll.”  It adds a “let them eat eggs”  mode to the event.  Yes, John, your dark muse is back.  John Buss has a cartoon for everything.  I don’t know what my posts would be without him up there with the Featured Funny.

Trump’s 100th day in office officially happens this month on the 30th.  So far, not good. This headline in the Washington Post, attached to an op-ed analysis from Dana Milbank, grabbed me.  And not by the you know what. “Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure. America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin. It will be far worse if Trump tries to illegally remove Fed President Jerome Powell from his post. He’s trying to blame Powell for this mess. I’m not sure who will be dumb enough to take that bait, but I do know that Republicans won’t stand in his way of his lawlessness, as usual.

“By any reasonable measure, President Donald Trump’s first 100 days will be judged an epic failure.

He has been a legislative failure. He has signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.

He has been an economic failure. On his watch, growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that “growth has slowed in the first quarter of this year from last year’s solid pace” and that Trump’s tariffs will result in higher inflation and slower growth.

He has been a foreign-policy failure. He said he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But fighting has resumed in Gaza after the demise of the ceasefire negotiated by his predecessor, and Russia continues to brutalize Ukraine, making a mockery of Trump’s naive overtures to Vladimir Putin.

He has been a failure in the eyes of friends, having launched a trade war against Canada, Mexico, Europe and Japan; enraged Canada with talk of annexation; threatened Greenland and Panama; and cleaved the NATO alliance.

He has been a failure in the eyes of foes, as an emboldened China menaces Taiwan, punches back hard in the trade war and spreads its global influence to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s retreat from the world.

He has been a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans. He is flagrantly defying a unanimous Supreme Court, and his appointees are facing contempt proceedings for their abuse of the legal system.

He has been a failure in public opinion. This week’s Economist/YouGov poll finds 42 percent approving his performance and 52 percent disapproving — a 16-point swing for the worse since the start of his term. Majorities say the country is on the wrong track and out of control.

Even his few “successes” amount to less than meets the eye. Border crossings are down from already low levels, but despite all the administration’s bravado, there’s little evidence of an increase in deportations. Hopes for cost-cutting under the U.S. DOGE Service, which Elon Musk originally projected at $1 trillion this year, have been scaled back to just $150 billion — and much of that appears to be based on made-up numbers.

But Trump, whose 100th day in office is April 30, has achieved one thing that is truly remarkable: He has introduced a level of chaos and destruction so high that historians are hard-pressed to find its equal in our history.

And yet, he persists.  There’s a long list that follows.  Seeing it all in print is disturbing.  Zachary Basu has another take posted on AXIOS. “Trump’s United States of Emergency. ”

In his first 100 days, President Trump has declared more national emergencies — more creatively and more aggressively — than any president in modern American history.

Why it matters: Powers originally crafted to give the president flexibility in rare moments of crisis now form the backbone of Trump’s agenda, enabling him to steamroll Congress and govern by unilateral decree through his first three months in office.

• So far, Trump has invoked national emergencies to impose the largest tariffs in a century, accelerate energy and mineral production, and militarize federal lands at the southern border.
• Paired with his assault on the judiciary, legal scholars fear Trump is exploiting loosely written statutes to try to upend the constitutional balance of power.

How it works: The president can declare a national emergency at any time, for almost any reason, without needing to prove a specific threat or get approval from Congress.

• The National Emergencies Act of 1976, which unlocks more than 120 special statutory powers, originally included a “legislative veto” that gave Congress the ability to terminate an emergency with a simple majority vote.
• But in 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that legislative vetoes are unconstitutional — effectively stripping Congress of its original check, and making it far harder to rein in a president’s emergency declarations.

The big picture: Since then, presidents have largely relied on “norms” and “self-restraint” to avoid abusing emergency powers for non-crises, says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

• That precedent was broken in 2019, Goitein argues, when Trump declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress and access billions of dollars in funding for a border wall.
• President Biden stretched his authority as well, drawing criticism in 2022 for citing the COVID-19 national emergency to unilaterally forgive student loan debt.
• But Trump’s second-term actions have plunged the U.S. firmly into uncharted territory — redrawing the limits of executive power in real time, and fueling fears of a permanent emergency state.

Zoom in: Trump’s justification for his tariffs cites the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which can be invoked only if the U.S. faces an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to its national security, foreign policy, or economy.

• According to the White House, America’s decades-old trading relationships — including with tiny countries and uninhabited islands — qualify as such threats.

• As a result, a 1977 law originally designed to target hostile foreign powers — and never before used to impose tariffs — is now being deployed to rewrite the global economic order.

There’s much to look forward to as we lurch towards the midterms.  Little Marco Rubio is sure fucking up the state department.  All you need to do is see a cabinet meeting. His face is telling.  He looks like the only one who knows he’s going to hell.  This is from NPR as reported by Graham Smith. “The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights.”  What fresh hell is this lil Marco?

The Trump administration is substantially scaling back the State Department’s annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process, NPR has learned.

Despite decades of precedent, the reports, which are meant to inform congressional decisions on foreign aid allocations and security assistance, will no longer call governments out for such things as denying freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. They won’t condemn retaining political prisoners without due process or restrictions on “free and fair elections.”

Forcibly returning a refugee or asylum-seeker to a home country where they may face torture or persecution will no longer be highlighted, nor will serious harassment of human rights organizations.

According to an editing memo and other documents obtained by NPR, State Department employees are directed to “streamline” the reports by stripping them down to only that which is legally required. The memo says the changes aim to align the reports with current U.S. policy and “recently issued Executive Orders.”

Officially called “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” the annual documents are required, by statute, to be a “full and complete report regarding the status of internationally recognized human rights.”

Human rights defenders say the cuts amount to an American retreat from its position as the world’s human rights watchdog.

“What this is, is a signal that the United States is no longer going to [pressure] other countries to uphold those rights that guarantee civic and political freedoms — the ability to speak, to express yourself, to gather, to protest, to organize,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International, USA.

A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the memo or the human rights reports. NPR confirmed the memo’s authenticity with two sources close to the process.

There is some good news on the front of Trump’s kidnapping and disappearing people to El Salvador. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) managed to get a meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as was his goal.  Historian Heather Cox Richardson, writing at her Substack, gives us some perspective.

Today, Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) posted a picture of himself with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration says it sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador through “administrative error” but can’t get back, and wrote: “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

While the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, apparently tried to stage a photo that would make it look as if the two men were enjoying a cocktail together, it seems clear that backing down and giving Senator Van Hollen access to Abrego Garcia is a significant shift from Bukele’s previous scorn for those trying to address the crisis of a man legally in the U.S. having been sent to prison in El Salvador without due process.

Bukele might be reassessing the distribution of power in the U.S.

According to Robert Jimison of the New York Times, who traveled to El Salvador with Senator Van Hollen, when a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he would move to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, Trump answered: “Well, I’m not involved. You’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the [Department of Justice].”

Today a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to stop Judge Paula Xinis’s order that it “take all available steps” to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. “as soon as possible.” Conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote the order. Notably, it began with a compliment to Judge Xinis. “[W]e shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” he wrote.

Then Wilkinson turned his focus on the Trump administration. “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” he wrote. “But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

“The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” The court noted that if the government is so sure of its position, then it should be confident in presenting its facts to a court of law.

Echoing the liberal justices on the Supreme Court, Wilkinson wrote: “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” He noted the reports that the administration is talking about doing just that.

“And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present,” he wrote, “and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”

h/t to JJ

NBC News reports on Senator Holland’s meeting with Garcia. It certainly was a relief to see proof of life.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen confirmed Thursday night that he has met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man whom the Trump administration said it mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return,” Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote on X.

Images of Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia were first posted online by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has rebuffed calls to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Bukele said on X after the meeting that Abrego Garcia will remain in El Salvador’s custody “now that he’s been confirmed healthy.”

President Donald Trump lashed out at Van Hollen Friday morning in a post on Truth Social, saying the Democratic senator “looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention.”

At an Oval Office meeting with Trump on Monday, Bukele argued that he didn’t “have the power to return him to the United States.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the same day that the United States would provide a plane for Abrego Garcia to travel back to the country should El Salvador allow his release, framing the decision as being solely in Bukele’s hands.

In a statement Thursday night, the White House called Van Hollen’s efforts in support of Abrego Garcia “disgusting” and said Trump will “continue to stand on the side of law-abiding Americans.”

Trump threats to Fed Chair Powell scare the shit out of me.  I am totally with Senator Elizabeth Warren on this statement. “Markets will ‘crash’ if Trump can fire Fed’s Powell, Elizabeth Warren warns.” You can listen to her interview at this link.   Nobel Prize-winning Economist Dr. Paul Krugman explains the dangers of a “Trumpified Fed” at his Substack today.  “Why You Should Fear a Trumpified Fed. Don’t give an abuser power that’s easy to abuse.  He even starts with the holy grail of economics charts from FRED. The Fed is a significant source of economic data. I spent hours as a new grad student in 1978 in the basement of the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a huge accounting pad and pencil in the Federal Documents area, writing down months of data to type onto punch cards with some code ordering up a graph that I had to wait hours for as I watched a huge printer spit out green bar paper.  Now it’s just a few clicks of a mouse button to get the same data from FRED.

Sometimes the Federal Reserve has extraordinary power over the economy.

Consider what happened from 1982 to 1984. For most of 1982 the U.S. economy was in grim shape. Employment had plunged, especially in manufacturing. The unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in December (it was 4.2 percent last month.) And economic pain helped Democrats make major gains in the 1982 midterms.

But everything was about to change, thanks to the Fed. In the summer of 1982 the Fed decided to ease monetary policy. Interest rates plunged, and about 6 months later the economy began a stunning rebound, growing 4.6 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984. Ronald Reagan claimed credit for “Morning in America,” but actually it was the Fed that did it.

This episode illustrates the Fed’s power — power that must be insulated from abuse by politicians, especially politicians like Donald Trump.

Over the past few days Trump has been demanding that the Fed cut interest rates and calling for the Fed chairman’s “termination.” It’s worth looking at what he posted on Truth Social to get a sense of how, to use the technical term, batshit crazy he is on this subject:

And we really, really don’t want someone that crazy dictating monetary policy.

The reason we don’t want politicians in direct control of monetary policy is that it’s so easy to use. After all, what does it mean to “ease” monetary policy? It’s an incredibly frictionless process. Normally the Federal Open Market Committee tells the New York Fed to buy U.S. government debt from private banks, which it does with money conjured out of thin air. There’s no need to pass legislation, place bids with contractors, deal with any of the hassles usually associated with changes in government policy. Basically the Fed can create an economic boom with a phone call.

It’s obvious that this kind of power could be abused by an irresponsible leader who wants to preside over an economic boom and doesn’t want to hear about the risks. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Consider what happened in Turkey, whose Trump-like president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, recently arrested the leader of the opposition. When the global post-Covid inflation shock hit, Erdogan embraced crank economic theories. He forced Turkey’s central bank, its equivalent of the Fed, to cut interest rates in the belief, contrary to standard economics, that doing so would reduce, not increase inflation. You can see the results in the chart at the top of this post.

How can we guard against that kind of policy irresponsibility? After the stagflation of the 1970s many countries delegated monetary policy to technocrats at independent central banks. Can the technocrats get it wrong? Of course they can and often have. But they’re less likely to engage in wishful thinking and motivated reasoning than typical politicians, let alone politicians like Trump.

What makes Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed especially ominous is the fact that the Fed will soon have to cope with the stagflationary crisis Trump has created. Trump’s massive tariff increase will lead to a major inflationary shock:

I’ve been using that “s” word for a while now. If Krugman uses it, run for the hills.

So, this is running long, so I’ll quit with this.  I hope your weekend is peaceful.  We’re gearing up for Jazz Fest, so I have a few more weeks of Ugly American Tourists in the hood, and then it might get more normal since Trump is decimating the tourist industry.

U.S. tourism has dropped with visits from other countries down as much as 11% in March, while more Americans are moving outside of the country to places like Canada. NBC News’ Liz Kreutz talks to USC Hospitality and Tourism Professor Hicham Jaddoud on the drop.

Maybe those disruptive Airbnb’s will be used for the people who live here.  I can only hope.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #BringKilmerHome_ #FARTUS #kakistocracy #TrumpHumanRightsViolations #TrumpMafiaState #TrumpStagflation

Surprise Wednesday Post on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat1968. https://wp.me/pgqML-Pmx "We've not heard much about JD Vance besides his globe-trotting mishegas.  He appears gaff and accident-prone, as well as off-putting.  Maybe Trump needed a fall guy; let's catch up with the lonely Boy since everyone needs a break from #FARTUS and his Depression-inducing policies. The Economics Times has several reports that provide evidence of a hapless Vice President."

What’s Going on Wednesday: J Dank goes Rogue

“A nation in crisis.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

BB’s under the weather today, so I’ve got the news!  We’ve not heard much about JD Vance besides his globe-trotting mishegas.  He appears gaff and accident-prone, as well as off-putting.  Maybe Trump needed a fall guy; let’s catch up with the lonely Boy since everyone needs a break from #FARTUS and his Depression-inducing policies. The Economics Times has several reports that provide evidence of a hapless Vice President.  This bit of news came earlier in the month. “Second lady Usha Vance says her husband, JD Vance, is very lonely; social media has a field day, here’s what people are saying.”

In her first interview as second lady, Usha Vance revealed that her husband, Vice President JD Vance, is extremely lonely in his new position.To no one’s surprise, social media had a field day. From sarcasm to scathing political criticism, the internet did not hold back.Usha Vance said JD Vance is “very lonely” as Vice President, attributing this to long working hours and little communication, as per a report by BuzzFeed.Her words created a social media storm, with online reactions varying from dark humor to brutally harsh, with scant sympathy for his loneliness.She told the Times that because her husband is so busy, they now communicate primarily via text these days. “I don’t know that he’s asking me for advice so much as it can be a very lonely, lonely world not to share with someone.”JD Vance was a huge hit on the internet! What people are saying is as follows, as per a report by BuzzFeed.Responses from Reddit threads:“Has he tried visiting a furniture store?”—u/parkerplotkin“Did he say thank you to his friends?”—u/GenosseGeneral“They weren’t wearing suits, so.”—u/Dosanaya“Poor JD Vance, oh no. While attempting to remove the benefits that they paid into and dismissing numerous Americans, he is profiting from the same taxpayers that he is disparaging. His children will attend the private, pricey schools that his wealthy friends have been urging taxpayers to fund. Is JD Vance feeling lonely, though? Whoa, that’s really sad.”Others criticized him for making money off taxpayers while pushing to take away benefits and firing many Americans. Some even suggested that JD could quit and be less lonely, urging Vance to shame the rest of the world for being a complete sell-out.”“He can give up, which will make him feel less alone.” Usha Eff and her collusion. You embarrass the others by being a total sell-out. —u/eastwestjewels“Is leaving the country permanently and resigning from your elected position the answer to male loneliness?”—u/500owls

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 29, 2025

Now, the jet-setting couple are headed to India.  Can he achieve any worse press than he did in his last jaunts to Europe?  “US VP JD Vance, wife Usha Vance to visit India, meet PM Modi amid push for trade deal.”   I thought #FARTUS was in charge of the bullying.

“US Vice President JD Vance will visit India from 21 to 24 April, marking his first official trip to the country since taking office. He will be joined by his wife Usha Vance and their three children — Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel — as part of a broader diplomatic tour that also includes a stop in Italy.The visit underscores growing US interest in consolidating its relationship with India amid shifting global alliances and economic realignments. A statement from his office confirmed meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the discussions will focus on shared economic and geopolitical priorities.”

T Bogg has this bit of news on Raw Story.  “‘Uppity’ J.D. Vance flattened for new screed defying the Supreme Court.”

Vice President J.D. Vance was raked over the coals on Wednesday morning for a series of social media posts on X on Tuesday where he continued to defend the Donald Trump administration for wrongfully shipping a Maryland man to El Salvador despite an admonition from the Supreme Court.With the battle over the deportation and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia at a notorious Salvadoran prison camp reaching the point where even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is stepping in and deploring the lack of due process, Vance has doubled down and blown off concerns.In a long post on X, Vance argued, “To say the administration must observe ‘due process’ is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors. To put it in concrete terms, imposing the death penalty on an American citizen requires more legal process than deporting an illegal alien to their country of origin.”He then added, “Here’s a useful test: ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with Biden’s millions and millions of illegals. And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year?”

So, let’s not leave out his latest embarrassing moment. This is from ABC News. “Vice President JD Vance fumbles Ohio State football team’s national championship trophy.”  This guy can’t get anything right.

Vice President JD Vance fumbled The Ohio State University football team’s national championship trophy during a celebration at the White House on Monday.

President Donald Trump hosted the Buckeyes after they won the College Football Playoff National Championship against the University of Notre Dame in January.

When Vance went to pick up the football-shaped trophy off a table at the end of the event, the 24-karat gold, bronze and stainless steel trophy nearly toppled over behind him before two players caught it. The base dropped to the ground to gasps from the crowd.

Vance went on to hold the trophy separate from the base.

Though the Pentagram-designed piece appeared to break, the trophy and base are two separate pieces so that the 26.5 inch-tall, 35-pound trophy can be hoisted in the air. The 12-inch-tall base weighs about 30 pounds.

That’s not seriously as bad, though, as the ongoing constitutional crisis of Trump’s DOJ.  He’s breaking our Constitutional Democracy by refusing court orders to bring Garcia home, putting Judge Paula Xinis in a difficult place.  Will she put them in contempt of court or rely on SCOTUS to deal with them.  This is from Politico. “Judge launches inquiry into Trump administration’s refusal to seek return of wrongly deported man, “To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said.”

 A federal judge ordered an “intense” two-week inquiry into the Trump administration’s refusal to seek the return of a man who was wrongly deported from Maryland to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a court hearing Tuesday.

Xinis’ order sets up a high-stakes sprint that may force senior Trump administration officials to testify under oath about their response to court orders requiring them to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. Each day that passes, the judge noted, is another day Abrego Garcia spends improperly detained in a maximum security mega-prison.

“We’re going to move. There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” the judge said. “There are no business hours while we do this. … Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments. I’m usually pretty good about things like that in my court, but not this time. So, I expect all hands on deck.”

Xinis’ inquiry is the latest chapter in an escalating clash between the executive and judicial branches over Abrego Garcia’s illegal deportation last month. Xinis previously ordered the administration to “facilitate” his release from the custody of El Salvador, and the Supreme Court upheld that directive last week.

Liz Dye of Public Notice puts it this way. “SCOTUS puts constitutional crisis in America’s Easter basket. Instead of a chocolate bunny, we get the president openly defying a court order.”

If Chief Justice John Roberts hoped to save the judiciary by burning it down, he badly miscalculated. Just a week after the Supreme Court’s five male conservatives kicked the legs out from under a respected trial judge to save the Trump administration from the consequences of defying a court order, we are back on the precipice of a disastrous constitutional crisis.Perhaps the justices aimed to protect the judiciary by swerving to avoid a head-on collision with the executive. Maybe they hoped that President Trump would take the win and trim his dictatorial sails. But this is Dr. Strangelove, not Speed, and no amount of vague harrumphing by the high Court was ever going to persuade Major Kong to stand down.Thanks to the Supreme Court’s fecklessness, the judiciary is now squarely back on a collision course with a Trump-shaped iceberg. But this time, instead of planeloads of faceless migrants, the case involves just one man: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a husband and father from Maryland, whom the government deported to a Salvadoran torture prison despite a court order barring just that.The first confrontation involved planeloads of migrants deported pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a statute associated with some of the most sordid chapters in American history, including Japanese internment. The law empowers the president to deport foreign citizens in times of war, and so Trump simply declared that Venezuela has invaded the US by dispatching members of the Tren de Aragua gang as shock troops, and began rounding up Venezuelan immigrants more or less at random.The fact that we are patently not at war didn’t matter to the Supreme Court. Nor did the revelation that 90 percent of the men deported had zero criminal record. In a hastily drafted order, the five conservative justices rebuffed a challenge to the AEA deportations, airily suggesting that anyone fearful of being deported should just file an individual habeas corpus petition … from a detention cell, in the few hours between when they’re informed they’re being moved and when they’re hustled onto a plane and cast into a windowless dungeon with no access to counsel.This had the desired effect of heading off a confrontation between Judge James Boasberg and the government, which flatly refused to explain why it deported the men after the judge ordered them not to. But along the way the Supreme Court did require the administration to give some process to AEA deportees.“AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act,” the majority wrote. “The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”Even this appears to have been too big an ask for the Trump administration, which refused to commit to giving AEA deportees even 24 hours notice before shipping them to a Salvadoran gulag.

There’s more at the link.  ProPublica has this scathing article. “Congress Has Demanded Answers to ICE Detaining Americans. The Administration Has Responded With Silence. Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions. None has received a reply.”  The analysis is provided by Nicole Foy.

Just a week into President Donald Trump’s second term, Rep. Adriano Espaillat began to see reports of Puerto Ricans and others being questioned and arrested by immigration agents.So Espaillat, a New York Democrat, did what members of Congress often do: He wrote to the administration and demanded answers. That was more than 10 weeks ago. Espaillat has not received a response.His experience appears to be common.At least a dozen members of Congress, all Democrats, have written to the Trump administration with pointed questions about constituents and other citizens whom immigration agents have questioned, detained and even held at gunpoint. In one letter, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded a list of every citizen detained during the new administration.None has received an answer.“What we are clearly seeing is that with this administration, they are not responding to congressional inquiries,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat.Leger Fernández and others wrote to Trump and the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 28 after receiving complaints from constituents and tribal nations that federal agents were pressing tribal citizens in New Mexico for their immigration status, raising concerns about racial profiling.The congresswoman and others say the lack of response is part of a broader pattern in which the administration has been moving to sideline Congress and its constitutional power to investigate the executive branch.“That is a big concern on a level beyond what ICE is doing,” Leger Fernández said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of DHS. “This administration does not seem to recognize the power and authority and responsibility” of Congress.Norman Ornstein, a longtime congressional observer at the American Enterprise Institute, said prior administrations’ lack of responsiveness has frustrated lawmakers too. But he’s never seen one so thoroughly brush off Congress.“What’s clear now is that the message from Donald Trump and his minions is: ‘You don’t have to respond to these people, whether they are ours or not,’” Ornstein said, referring to Republicans and Democrats. “That’s not usual. Nothing about this is usual.”A White House spokesperson denied that the administration has been circumventing Congress or its oversight. “Passage of the continuing resolution that kept our government open and commonsense legislation like the Laken Riley Act are indicative of how closely the Trump administration is working with Congress,” said Kush Desai in a statement.

It is obvious they are kidnapping and disappearing people like we’re a mafia state.  And they’re holding their ground because #FARTUS believes the Supreme Court will not do anything to him or anyone in his administration. This is breaking from The Hill. “Bondi says mistakenly deported man ‘not coming back to our country’.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration failed to take “one extra step of paperwork” before it mistakenly deported a Maryland man, adding that nonetheless Kilmar Abrego Garcia is “not coming back to our country.”

The comments were the latest example of officials under President Trump digging in despite a Supreme Court order requiring them to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

Bondi also repeated numerous claims about Abrego Garcia’s ties to MS-13 that his family has denied and for which there is a conflicting court record.“He is not coming back to our country. President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” she told reporters at a press conference Wednesday, referring to the Salvadorian leader. “If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none.”Bondi has previously argued the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate his return meant only that the government would need to supply a plane if El Salvador chooses to return him.Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who fled the country as a teenager to escape gang violence, was protected from deportation by an immigration judge in 2019. The gang Barrio 18 threatened to kill him when trying to extract money from his mother’s pupusa business.The court record shows numerous issues with the government’s assertion he is a gang member.

The DOJ is now the enforcer for Trump’s Mafia State. They might as well erase the Justice from the name.I have one thing I need to rant about.  I don’t know if I should call it the Space Bunny Adventure or Space Barbies.  The women on the Blue Origin Mission deserve all the backlash it was given. This did not empower women.  We have actual women astronauts. We do not need to see 11 women in slinky ‘flight suits’ performing cute space cone exit ploys.  Amanda Hunt, who writes for the New York Times, stated this. “One Giant Stunt for Womankind.  Blue Origin’s all-female flight proves that women are now free to enjoy capitalism’s most extravagant spoils alongside rich men.”

“Though women remain severely underrepresented in the aerospace field worldwide, they do regularly escape the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 100 have gone to space since Sally Ride became the first American woman to do so in 1983. If an all-women spaceflight were chartered by, say, NASA, it might represent the culmination of many decades of serious investment in female astronauts. (In 2019, NASA was embarrassingly forced to scuttle an all-women spacewalk when it realized it did not have enough suits that fit them.) An all-women Blue Origin spaceflight signifies only that several women have amassed the social capital to be friends with Lauren Sánchez.

Blue Origin is one of several private spaceflight companies — among them Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures and SpaceX — now offering rich people and their friends access to space. Its New Shepard rocket is self-piloting, and the six women had no technical duties on the flight. Though two participants had some aerospace experience (Bowe worked for NASA, and Nguyen interned there), Sánchez has said she picked them all because they are “storytellers” who could step off the flight and promote their experiences through journalism, film and song. To Blue Origin, their value lies expressly in their amateurism. Kristin Fisher, a journalist and the daughter of the NASA astronaut Anna Lee Fisher, who joined the livestream, called the flight’s roster “so refreshing.” In the early days of human spaceflight, astronauts “were all white male military test pilots, and they had to have ‘the right stuff.’ You could never talk about nerves, or being nervous, or your feelings,” Fisher said. “But now, in 2025, it is the right stuff.”

Sánchez arranged for her favorite fashion designers to craft the mission’s suits, leveraging it into yet another branding opportunity. Souvenirs of the flight sold on Blue Origin’s website feature a kind of yassified shuttle patch design. It includes a shooting-star microphone representing King, an exploding firework representing Perry and a fly representing Sánchez’s 2024 children’s book about the adventures of a dyslexic insect. Each woman was encouraged to use her four minutes of weightlessness to practice a different in-flight activity tailored to her interests. Nguyen planned to use them to conduct two vanishingly brief science experiments, one of them related to menstruation, while Perry pledged to “put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”

The message is that a little girl can grow up to be whatever she wishes: a rocket scientist or a pop star, a television journalist or a billionaire’s fiancée who is empowered to pursue her various ambitions and whims in the face of tremendous costs. In each case, she stands to win a free trip to space. She can have it all, including a family back on Earth. “Guess what?” Sánchez told Elle. “Moms go to space.” (Fisher, the first mother in space, went there in 1984.)

The whole thing reminds me of the advice Sheryl Sandberg passed on to women in “Lean In,” her memoir of scaling the corporate ladder in the technology industry. When Eric Schmidt, then the chief executive of Google, offered Sandberg a position that did not align with her own professional goals, he told her: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” It is the proximity to power that matters, not the goal of the mission itself.

So, WTF are they riding? Phallic Veneraton anyone?

This is from the Daily Mail, as reported by Daniel Matthews. “Female NFL reporter rips Katy Perry and Co over ’embarrassing’ Blue Origin space mission.”

Pop star Perry was part of an all-female crew – alongside the likes of Lauren Sanchez and journalist Gayle King – that made an 11-minute trip into orbit on Jeff Bezos‘ rocket.

Perry took a daisy into space – in honor of her daughter – and was seen kissing the ground after touching down back on earth. The singer said she felt ‘super connected to life’ and ‘so connected to love’.

The event was hailed by some as a landmark moment but NFL Network reporter Slater hit out at the stunt on social media.

‘The whole thing was embarrassing. So many smart women who worked their whole life to go to space and did the work,’ she wrote.

‘She (Perry) took a daisy and promoted a set list for her new album. If she really cared? Give your spot up to a young girl in the NASA program.’

Slater added: ‘Guess it’s ok for everyone just to care more about themselves and personal motivations these days. Very on brand (with) our culture shift.’

The NFL Network reporter – a self-confessed ‘sci fi geek’ admitted she would ‘love’ the chance to go into space.

But she claimed she ‘would absolutely give my seat up to a woman who has been passed over time and time again by NASA’.

Slater also took aim at how Perry and Co looked when heading into space.

‘I don’t think they truly appreciated the magnitude of the moment. With exception of former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe who absolutely deserved a shot at that flight the bs (bulls***) hair makeup and fits really annoyed me,’ she continued.

‘(It) just felt disrespectful to cosplay as an astronaut in full hair and a curated fit… I cringe thinking what (pioneering female astronaut) Sunita Williams had to think about it all.

‘I also understand why they sent them to promote “space tourism” but yeah the self promotion was so dumb.’

One more from The Guardian. This is written by Moira Donegan. “The Blue Origin flight showcased the utter defeat of American feminism. The trip leaned on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness ”

But the flight, and its grim promotional cycle, might be most depressing for what it reveals about the utter defeat of American feminism. Sánchez, the organizer of the flight, has touted the all-female crew as a win for women. But she herself is a woman in a deeply antifeminist model. It is not her rocket company that took her and her friends to the edge of space; it’s her male fiance’s. And it is no virtue of her character that put her inside the rocket – not her capacity, not her intellect and not her hard work – but merely her relationship with a man. (The fact that the rocket itself looks so phallic does not help to lessen the flight’s message that the surest way for women to raise themselves in the world is to attach themselves to a man.)

There are at least two women on the mission who can be credited as serious persons: Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights entrepreneur whose past work with Nasa makes her something closer to an actual astronaut. But most of the crew’s self-presentation and promotion of the flight has leaned heavily on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness that insults women by cavalierly linking their gender with superficiality, vanity and unseriousness.

In an interview with Elle, the crew members paid lip service to the importance of women, and particularly women of color, in Stem. (The Trump administration has forced Nasa to close some offices in order to comply with its ban on the diversity, equity and inclusion programs that would recruit such candidates.) But mostly, they seemed interested in talking about their makeup and hair. “Space is going to finally be glam,” Katy Perry said, bizarrely. “Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”

“Who would not get glam before the flight?!” asked Sánchez, who evidently can’t imagine that women might prioritize anything else. “We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule.” Bowe, too, joined in, saying that she had gone to extreme lengths to make sure that she would be, of all things, well coiffed for the experience. “I skydived in Dubai with similar hair to make sure I would be good,” she said. “I took it for a dry run.”

It is not misogynist to say that these women do not have their priorities in order. Rather, it is misogynist of them to so forcefully associate womanhood with cosmetics and looks, rather than with any of the more noble and human aspirations to which space travel might acquaint them – curiosity, inquiry, discovery, exploration, a sense of their own mortality, an apprehension of the divine. These women, who have placed themselves as representatives for all women with their promotion of the flight – positioning themselves as aspirational models of femininity – have presented a profoundly antifeminist vision of what womankind’s future is: dependent on men, confined to triviality, and deeply, deeply silly.

Is this the future that awaits women in Donald Trump’s America: one where the only way to achievement is through sexual desirability, the only way to status as an ornamental attachment on a man who really counts, the only subject on which we are qualified to speak is whether lash extensions will stay in place? If this is the future, count me out. On the other hand, the notion of being launched off of such a grim and sexist Earth is looking more and more appealing.

That’s all, folks!What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FartusDeportUs #FARTUSMafiaState #BlueOriginSpaceBunnies #BringKilmerHome_ #constitutionalCrisis #FARTUS #JDVanceFamilyGlobeTrotters #JDankLonelyBoy

What’s Going on Wednesday: J Dank goes Rogue

“A nation in crisis.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

BB’s under the weather today, so I’ve got the news!  We’ve not heard much about JD Vance besides his globe-trotting mishegas.  He appears gaff and accident-prone, as well as off-putting.  Maybe Trump needed a fall guy; let’s catch up with the lonely Boy since everyone needs a break from #FARTUS and his Depression-inducing policies. The Economics Times has several reports that provide evidence of a hapless Vice President.  This bit of news came earlier in the month. “Second lady Usha Vance says her husband, JD Vance, is very lonely; social media has a field day, here’s what people are saying.”

In her first interview as second lady, Usha Vance revealed that her husband, Vice President JD Vance, is extremely lonely in his new position.To no one’s surprise, social media had a field day. From sarcasm to scathing political criticism, the internet did not hold back.Usha Vance said JD Vance is “very lonely” as Vice President, attributing this to long working hours and little communication, as per a report by BuzzFeed.Her words created a social media storm, with online reactions varying from dark humor to brutally harsh, with scant sympathy for his loneliness.She told the Times that because her husband is so busy, they now communicate primarily via text these days. “I don’t know that he’s asking me for advice so much as it can be a very lonely, lonely world not to share with someone.”JD Vance was a huge hit on the internet! What people are saying is as follows, as per a report by BuzzFeed.Responses from Reddit threads:“Has he tried visiting a furniture store?”—u/parkerplotkin“Did he say thank you to his friends?”—u/GenosseGeneral“They weren’t wearing suits, so.”—u/Dosanaya“Poor JD Vance, oh no. While attempting to remove the benefits that they paid into and dismissing numerous Americans, he is profiting from the same taxpayers that he is disparaging. His children will attend the private, pricey schools that his wealthy friends have been urging taxpayers to fund. Is JD Vance feeling lonely, though? Whoa, that’s really sad.”Others criticized him for making money off taxpayers while pushing to take away benefits and firing many Americans. Some even suggested that JD could quit and be less lonely, urging Vance to shame the rest of the world for being a complete sell-out.”“He can give up, which will make him feel less alone.” Usha Eff and her collusion. You embarrass the others by being a total sell-out. —u/eastwestjewels“Is leaving the country permanently and resigning from your elected position the answer to male loneliness?”—u/500owls

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 29, 2025

Now, the jet-setting couple are headed to India.  Can he achieve any worse press than he did in his last jaunts to Europe?  “US VP JD Vance, wife Usha Vance to visit India, meet PM Modi amid push for trade deal.”   I thought #FARTUS was in charge of the bullying.

“US Vice President JD Vance will visit India from 21 to 24 April, marking his first official trip to the country since taking office. He will be joined by his wife Usha Vance and their three children — Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel — as part of a broader diplomatic tour that also includes a stop in Italy.The visit underscores growing US interest in consolidating its relationship with India amid shifting global alliances and economic realignments. A statement from his office confirmed meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the discussions will focus on shared economic and geopolitical priorities.”

T Bogg has this bit of news on Raw Story.  “‘Uppity’ J.D. Vance flattened for new screed defying the Supreme Court.”

Vice President J.D. Vance was raked over the coals on Wednesday morning for a series of social media posts on X on Tuesday where he continued to defend the Donald Trump administration for wrongfully shipping a Maryland man to El Salvador despite an admonition from the Supreme Court.With the battle over the deportation and imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia at a notorious Salvadoran prison camp reaching the point where even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is stepping in and deploring the lack of due process, Vance has doubled down and blown off concerns.In a long post on X, Vance argued, “To say the administration must observe ‘due process’ is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors. To put it in concrete terms, imposing the death penalty on an American citizen requires more legal process than deporting an illegal alien to their country of origin.”He then added, “Here’s a useful test: ask the people weeping over the lack of due process what precisely they propose for dealing with Biden’s millions and millions of illegals. And with reasonable resource and administrative judge constraints, does their solution allow us to deport at least a few million people per year?”

So, let’s not leave out his latest embarrassing moment. This is from ABC News. “Vice President JD Vance fumbles Ohio State football team’s national championship trophy.”  This guy can’t get anything right.

Vice President JD Vance fumbled The Ohio State University football team’s national championship trophy during a celebration at the White House on Monday.

President Donald Trump hosted the Buckeyes after they won the College Football Playoff National Championship against the University of Notre Dame in January.

When Vance went to pick up the football-shaped trophy off a table at the end of the event, the 24-karat gold, bronze and stainless steel trophy nearly toppled over behind him before two players caught it. The base dropped to the ground to gasps from the crowd.

Vance went on to hold the trophy separate from the base.

Though the Pentagram-designed piece appeared to break, the trophy and base are two separate pieces so that the 26.5 inch-tall, 35-pound trophy can be hoisted in the air. The 12-inch-tall base weighs about 30 pounds.

That’s not seriously as bad, though, as the ongoing constitutional crisis of Trump’s DOJ.  He’s breaking our Constitutional Democracy by refusing court orders to bring Garcia home, putting Judge Paula Xinis in a difficult place.  Will she put them in contempt of court or rely on SCOTUS to deal with them.  This is from Politico. “Judge launches inquiry into Trump administration’s refusal to seek return of wrongly deported man, “To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said.”

 A federal judge ordered an “intense” two-week inquiry into the Trump administration’s refusal to seek the return of a man who was wrongly deported from Maryland to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said at a court hearing Tuesday.

Xinis’ order sets up a high-stakes sprint that may force senior Trump administration officials to testify under oath about their response to court orders requiring them to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. Each day that passes, the judge noted, is another day Abrego Garcia spends improperly detained in a maximum security mega-prison.

“We’re going to move. There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” the judge said. “There are no business hours while we do this. … Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments. I’m usually pretty good about things like that in my court, but not this time. So, I expect all hands on deck.”

Xinis’ inquiry is the latest chapter in an escalating clash between the executive and judicial branches over Abrego Garcia’s illegal deportation last month. Xinis previously ordered the administration to “facilitate” his release from the custody of El Salvador, and the Supreme Court upheld that directive last week.

Liz Dye of Public Notice puts it this way. “SCOTUS puts constitutional crisis in America’s Easter basket. Instead of a chocolate bunny, we get the president openly defying a court order.”

If Chief Justice John Roberts hoped to save the judiciary by burning it down, he badly miscalculated. Just a week after the Supreme Court’s five male conservatives kicked the legs out from under a respected trial judge to save the Trump administration from the consequences of defying a court order, we are back on the precipice of a disastrous constitutional crisis.Perhaps the justices aimed to protect the judiciary by swerving to avoid a head-on collision with the executive. Maybe they hoped that President Trump would take the win and trim his dictatorial sails. But this is Dr. Strangelove, not Speed, and no amount of vague harrumphing by the high Court was ever going to persuade Major Kong to stand down.Thanks to the Supreme Court’s fecklessness, the judiciary is now squarely back on a collision course with a Trump-shaped iceberg. But this time, instead of planeloads of faceless migrants, the case involves just one man: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a husband and father from Maryland, whom the government deported to a Salvadoran torture prison despite a court order barring just that.The first confrontation involved planeloads of migrants deported pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a statute associated with some of the most sordid chapters in American history, including Japanese internment. The law empowers the president to deport foreign citizens in times of war, and so Trump simply declared that Venezuela has invaded the US by dispatching members of the Tren de Aragua gang as shock troops, and began rounding up Venezuelan immigrants more or less at random.The fact that we are patently not at war didn’t matter to the Supreme Court. Nor did the revelation that 90 percent of the men deported had zero criminal record. In a hastily drafted order, the five conservative justices rebuffed a challenge to the AEA deportations, airily suggesting that anyone fearful of being deported should just file an individual habeas corpus petition … from a detention cell, in the few hours between when they’re informed they’re being moved and when they’re hustled onto a plane and cast into a windowless dungeon with no access to counsel.This had the desired effect of heading off a confrontation between Judge James Boasberg and the government, which flatly refused to explain why it deported the men after the judge ordered them not to. But along the way the Supreme Court did require the administration to give some process to AEA deportees.“AEA detainees must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act,” the majority wrote. “The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.”Even this appears to have been too big an ask for the Trump administration, which refused to commit to giving AEA deportees even 24 hours notice before shipping them to a Salvadoran gulag.

There’s more at the link.  ProPublica has this scathing article. “Congress Has Demanded Answers to ICE Detaining Americans. The Administration Has Responded With Silence. Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions. None has received a reply.”  The analysis is provided by Nicole Foy.

Just a week into President Donald Trump’s second term, Rep. Adriano Espaillat began to see reports of Puerto Ricans and others being questioned and arrested by immigration agents.So Espaillat, a New York Democrat, did what members of Congress often do: He wrote to the administration and demanded answers. That was more than 10 weeks ago. Espaillat has not received a response.His experience appears to be common.At least a dozen members of Congress, all Democrats, have written to the Trump administration with pointed questions about constituents and other citizens whom immigration agents have questioned, detained and even held at gunpoint. In one letter, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded a list of every citizen detained during the new administration.None has received an answer.“What we are clearly seeing is that with this administration, they are not responding to congressional inquiries,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat.Leger Fernández and others wrote to Trump and the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 28 after receiving complaints from constituents and tribal nations that federal agents were pressing tribal citizens in New Mexico for their immigration status, raising concerns about racial profiling.The congresswoman and others say the lack of response is part of a broader pattern in which the administration has been moving to sideline Congress and its constitutional power to investigate the executive branch.“That is a big concern on a level beyond what ICE is doing,” Leger Fernández said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of DHS. “This administration does not seem to recognize the power and authority and responsibility” of Congress.Norman Ornstein, a longtime congressional observer at the American Enterprise Institute, said prior administrations’ lack of responsiveness has frustrated lawmakers too. But he’s never seen one so thoroughly brush off Congress.“What’s clear now is that the message from Donald Trump and his minions is: ‘You don’t have to respond to these people, whether they are ours or not,’” Ornstein said, referring to Republicans and Democrats. “That’s not usual. Nothing about this is usual.”A White House spokesperson denied that the administration has been circumventing Congress or its oversight. “Passage of the continuing resolution that kept our government open and commonsense legislation like the Laken Riley Act are indicative of how closely the Trump administration is working with Congress,” said Kush Desai in a statement.

It is obvious they are kidnapping and disappearing people like we’re a mafia state.  And they’re holding their ground because #FARTUS believes the Supreme Court will not do anything to him or anyone in his administration. This is breaking from The Hill. “Bondi says mistakenly deported man ‘not coming back to our country’.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Trump administration failed to take “one extra step of paperwork” before it mistakenly deported a Maryland man, adding that nonetheless Kilmar Abrego Garcia is “not coming back to our country.”

The comments were the latest example of officials under President Trump digging in despite a Supreme Court order requiring them to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

Bondi also repeated numerous claims about Abrego Garcia’s ties to MS-13 that his family has denied and for which there is a conflicting court record.“He is not coming back to our country. President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story,” she told reporters at a press conference Wednesday, referring to the Salvadorian leader. “If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back. There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country. None, none.”Bondi has previously argued the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate his return meant only that the government would need to supply a plane if El Salvador chooses to return him.Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who fled the country as a teenager to escape gang violence, was protected from deportation by an immigration judge in 2019. The gang Barrio 18 threatened to kill him when trying to extract money from his mother’s pupusa business.The court record shows numerous issues with the government’s assertion he is a gang member.

The DOJ is now the enforcer for Trump’s Mafia State. They might as well erase the Justice from the name.I have one thing I need to rant about.  I don’t know if I should call it the Space Bunny Adventure or Space Barbies.  The women on the Blue Origin Mission deserve all the backlash it was given. This did not empower women.  We have actual women astronauts. We do not need to see 11 women in slinky ‘flight suits’ performing cute space cone exit ploys.  Amanda Hunt, who writes for the New York Times, stated this. “One Giant Stunt for Womankind.  Blue Origin’s all-female flight proves that women are now free to enjoy capitalism’s most extravagant spoils alongside rich men.”

“Though women remain severely underrepresented in the aerospace field worldwide, they do regularly escape the Earth’s atmosphere. More than 100 have gone to space since Sally Ride became the first American woman to do so in 1983. If an all-women spaceflight were chartered by, say, NASA, it might represent the culmination of many decades of serious investment in female astronauts. (In 2019, NASA was embarrassingly forced to scuttle an all-women spacewalk when it realized it did not have enough suits that fit them.) An all-women Blue Origin spaceflight signifies only that several women have amassed the social capital to be friends with Lauren Sánchez.

Blue Origin is one of several private spaceflight companies — among them Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures and SpaceX — now offering rich people and their friends access to space. Its New Shepard rocket is self-piloting, and the six women had no technical duties on the flight. Though two participants had some aerospace experience (Bowe worked for NASA, and Nguyen interned there), Sánchez has said she picked them all because they are “storytellers” who could step off the flight and promote their experiences through journalism, film and song. To Blue Origin, their value lies expressly in their amateurism. Kristin Fisher, a journalist and the daughter of the NASA astronaut Anna Lee Fisher, who joined the livestream, called the flight’s roster “so refreshing.” In the early days of human spaceflight, astronauts “were all white male military test pilots, and they had to have ‘the right stuff.’ You could never talk about nerves, or being nervous, or your feelings,” Fisher said. “But now, in 2025, it is the right stuff.”

Sánchez arranged for her favorite fashion designers to craft the mission’s suits, leveraging it into yet another branding opportunity. Souvenirs of the flight sold on Blue Origin’s website feature a kind of yassified shuttle patch design. It includes a shooting-star microphone representing King, an exploding firework representing Perry and a fly representing Sánchez’s 2024 children’s book about the adventures of a dyslexic insect. Each woman was encouraged to use her four minutes of weightlessness to practice a different in-flight activity tailored to her interests. Nguyen planned to use them to conduct two vanishingly brief science experiments, one of them related to menstruation, while Perry pledged to “put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”

The message is that a little girl can grow up to be whatever she wishes: a rocket scientist or a pop star, a television journalist or a billionaire’s fiancée who is empowered to pursue her various ambitions and whims in the face of tremendous costs. In each case, she stands to win a free trip to space. She can have it all, including a family back on Earth. “Guess what?” Sánchez told Elle. “Moms go to space.” (Fisher, the first mother in space, went there in 1984.)

The whole thing reminds me of the advice Sheryl Sandberg passed on to women in “Lean In,” her memoir of scaling the corporate ladder in the technology industry. When Eric Schmidt, then the chief executive of Google, offered Sandberg a position that did not align with her own professional goals, he told her: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” It is the proximity to power that matters, not the goal of the mission itself.

So, WTF are they riding? Phallic Veneraton anyone?

This is from the Daily Mail, as reported by Daniel Matthews. “Female NFL reporter rips Katy Perry and Co over ’embarrassing’ Blue Origin space mission.”

Pop star Perry was part of an all-female crew – alongside the likes of Lauren Sanchez and journalist Gayle King – that made an 11-minute trip into orbit on Jeff Bezos‘ rocket.

Perry took a daisy into space – in honor of her daughter – and was seen kissing the ground after touching down back on earth. The singer said she felt ‘super connected to life’ and ‘so connected to love’.

The event was hailed by some as a landmark moment but NFL Network reporter Slater hit out at the stunt on social media.

‘The whole thing was embarrassing. So many smart women who worked their whole life to go to space and did the work,’ she wrote.

‘She (Perry) took a daisy and promoted a set list for her new album. If she really cared? Give your spot up to a young girl in the NASA program.’

Slater added: ‘Guess it’s ok for everyone just to care more about themselves and personal motivations these days. Very on brand (with) our culture shift.’

The NFL Network reporter – a self-confessed ‘sci fi geek’ admitted she would ‘love’ the chance to go into space.

But she claimed she ‘would absolutely give my seat up to a woman who has been passed over time and time again by NASA’.

Slater also took aim at how Perry and Co looked when heading into space.

‘I don’t think they truly appreciated the magnitude of the moment. With exception of former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe who absolutely deserved a shot at that flight the bs (bulls***) hair makeup and fits really annoyed me,’ she continued.

‘(It) just felt disrespectful to cosplay as an astronaut in full hair and a curated fit… I cringe thinking what (pioneering female astronaut) Sunita Williams had to think about it all.

‘I also understand why they sent them to promote “space tourism” but yeah the self promotion was so dumb.’

One more from The Guardian. This is written by Moira Donegan. “The Blue Origin flight showcased the utter defeat of American feminism. The trip leaned on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness ”

But the flight, and its grim promotional cycle, might be most depressing for what it reveals about the utter defeat of American feminism. Sánchez, the organizer of the flight, has touted the all-female crew as a win for women. But she herself is a woman in a deeply antifeminist model. It is not her rocket company that took her and her friends to the edge of space; it’s her male fiance’s. And it is no virtue of her character that put her inside the rocket – not her capacity, not her intellect and not her hard work – but merely her relationship with a man. (The fact that the rocket itself looks so phallic does not help to lessen the flight’s message that the surest way for women to raise themselves in the world is to attach themselves to a man.)

There are at least two women on the mission who can be credited as serious persons: Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights entrepreneur whose past work with Nasa makes her something closer to an actual astronaut. But most of the crew’s self-presentation and promotion of the flight has leaned heavily on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness that insults women by cavalierly linking their gender with superficiality, vanity and unseriousness.

In an interview with Elle, the crew members paid lip service to the importance of women, and particularly women of color, in Stem. (The Trump administration has forced Nasa to close some offices in order to comply with its ban on the diversity, equity and inclusion programs that would recruit such candidates.) But mostly, they seemed interested in talking about their makeup and hair. “Space is going to finally be glam,” Katy Perry said, bizarrely. “Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.”

“Who would not get glam before the flight?!” asked Sánchez, who evidently can’t imagine that women might prioritize anything else. “We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule.” Bowe, too, joined in, saying that she had gone to extreme lengths to make sure that she would be, of all things, well coiffed for the experience. “I skydived in Dubai with similar hair to make sure I would be good,” she said. “I took it for a dry run.”

It is not misogynist to say that these women do not have their priorities in order. Rather, it is misogynist of them to so forcefully associate womanhood with cosmetics and looks, rather than with any of the more noble and human aspirations to which space travel might acquaint them – curiosity, inquiry, discovery, exploration, a sense of their own mortality, an apprehension of the divine. These women, who have placed themselves as representatives for all women with their promotion of the flight – positioning themselves as aspirational models of femininity – have presented a profoundly antifeminist vision of what womankind’s future is: dependent on men, confined to triviality, and deeply, deeply silly.

Is this the future that awaits women in Donald Trump’s America: one where the only way to achievement is through sexual desirability, the only way to status as an ornamental attachment on a man who really counts, the only subject on which we are qualified to speak is whether lash extensions will stay in place? If this is the future, count me out. On the other hand, the notion of being launched off of such a grim and sexist Earth is looking more and more appealing.

That’s all, folks!What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FartusDeportUs #FARTUSMafiaState #BlueOriginSpaceBunnies #BringKilmerHome_ #constitutionalCrisis #FARTUS #JDVanceFamilyGlobeTrotters #JDankLonelyBoy

Mostly Monday Reads: Trump defies the Supreme Court and the Constitution

“True story.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The  El Salvador Deportation atrocity and the DOJ’s response to the court orders certainly represent a Constitutional Crisis. We also see a plan to use the Military domestically at the Border, which is also clearly unconstitutional. I will focus on the responses to this because of the human rights and constitutional rights involved and the belligerence of Trump’s DOJ. Along with the Global Trade War and the dismantling of Federal Agencies, this continues to be a top concern. I would, however, like to start with the act of one white dude in Pennslyvania who decided to set fire to the Governor’s Mansion where Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife, and four children were celebrating Passover. This, along with the continual bullying of Judges who displease Trump by delivering Pizzas to their homes and their children’s homes sent in the name of the late son of New Jersey Judge Esther Salas. Even a long-time Op-Ed writer for the Wall Street Journal has written that #FARTUS is begging to be impeached again.

This is from the AP. “Suspect in arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence being treated at hospital, police say.”

A man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire is in police custody at a hospital after an unrelated medical event, state police said Monday.

Cody Balmer, 38, told police he had planned to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents. He was being treated at the hospital, which police said was “not connected to this incident or his arrest.”

Balmer’s mother told The Associated Press on Monday that she had tried in recent days to get him assistance for mental health issues, but “nobody would help.” She said her son had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The AP was not able to verify that information.

“He wasn’t taking his medicine, and that’s all I want to say,” Christie Balmer said, speaking at the family home in Harrisburg.

The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building early Sunday. Balmer, who was arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said.

Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during a police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it didn’t explain why.

Shapiro said he, his wife, their four children, two dogs and extended family had celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover at the residence Saturday and were awakened by state troopers pounding on their doors about 2 a.m. Sunday. They fled and firefighters extinguished the fire, officials said. No one was injured.

At a Sunday evening news conference in front of the badly damaged south wing of the governor’s residence, Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris identified the man in custody as Balmer.

Pitting Americans against each other should not be a political strategy.  It gets people killed. No one knows this better than Judge Esther Salas, whose son was murdered and husband badly injured by a crazed Trumper. This is from the Daily Mail. “Terrifying reason judges across the US are receiving unexpected pizza deliveries amid war with Trump” as reported by Lauren Acton-Taylor.

A judge has revealed the terrifying epidemic of unexpected pizza deliveries to US judges’ homes across the country amid their war with Trump as he battles his executive orders through court.

US District Court Judge Esther Salas labeled the deliveries an ‘intimidation tactic’ on Friday after a slew of judges faced Trump’s wrath after they blocked his executive orders.

‘I found out about it on Tuesday night, and we had already known about hundreds of pizzas that had been going out to judges all over this country,’ she told MSNBC.

Salas said the deliveries were meant as a threat.

‘The point is, someone wants that judge, someone wants those judges to know, “I know where you live,”‘ she said.

Not only were the pizzas being delivered to the judges’ homes, but also to the homes of their children, Salas added.

‘So now, “We know where you live and we know where your children live,”‘ she continued.

The pizzas were not only mere intimidation tactics, but they also served as a cruel reminder of heartache for Salas, whose son was killed by a man posing as a FedEx driver in 2020.

Is this the country you thought you lived in?  Is this what you learned that our country was about as you sat through history and civics courses and read books in your English classes that represented various periods our country experienced. It is no wonder that one of the past Presidents that Trump most admires is Andrew Jackson, the author of the Trail of Tears and Indian Removal Act. He also defied the Supreme Court. Many indigenous natives died on the Trail to the Indian Territories in Oklahoma, which was later turned over to white immigrants for settling.  Jackson also owned slaves.

Now, for our latest Constitutional Battles. This is from Johnathan V. Last writing at The Bulwark. He actually offers up 3 examples that will rule the week’s news.

If you were Chris Krebs, would you flee the country?

Your answer before last week would probably be “no.” Your answer after last week is probably “maybe.” Your answer after the coming week might be “absolutely.”

Let’s break it down to understand what just happened and what is coming in the next 48 hours. Because the next two days may determine whether or not America crosses more critical red lines into open authoritarianism.

Last Wednesday, the president signed a memorandum instructing both the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Chris Krebs. You’ll remember that during Trump’s first term, Krebs headed the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—and was fired two weeks after the 2020 election for publicly rebutting Trump’s lies about the integrity of the election. Trump’s memorandum flips truth upside down, accusing Krebs of having “falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen,” and it not only orders an investigation into Krebs himself but it also commands that the entire cybersecurity company he now works for be stripped of any security clearances it has.

On Thursday, in an unsigned, unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant whom Homeland Security mistakenly (by its own admission) arrested and extradited to a gulag in El Salvador.

On Saturday the government responded to the SCOTUS decision by stonewalling the district court judge and then claiming that it could not “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia because he is now detained by a sovereign nation on which the United States could not possibly exert any influence.

Also on Saturday, Nayib Bukele, the authoritarian ruler of that sovereign nation, arrived in the United States.

On Sunday, the government stonewalled the district court judge yet again—filing an update saying it had “no updates”—and in a separate filing challenged the Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and added that the details of the deal with Bukele to imprison deportees from the United States are “classified.”

On Monday, Bukele will meet with his patron, Donald Trump.

So, why can’t Bukele just bring Abrego Garcia with him on whatever plane and hand him over to Donald Trump?  Is this another dark shadow performance of how Trump bullies everyone, including innocent people and other dictators? This is the historical perspective by Heather Cox Richardson.

In her opinion, filed April 6, Judge Xinis wrote that “[a]lthough the legal basis for the mass removal of hundreds of individuals to El Salvador remains disturbingly unclear, Abrego Garcia’s case is categorically different—there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal.…. [H]is detention appears wholly lawless.” It is “a clear constitutional violation.” And yet administration officials “cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person—migrant and U.S. citizen alike—to prisons outside the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate return because they are no longer the ‘custodian,’ and the Court thus lacks jurisdiction.”

The administration had already appealed her April 4 order to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision on Thursday, April 10, requiring the Trump administration “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador,” but asking the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” that release, noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.” Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. on April 11 explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

But the administration evidently does not intend to comply. On April 11, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and ignored her order to provide information about what the government was doing to bring him back. Saturday, it said Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in CECOT. Today, it said it had no new information about him, but said that Abrego Garcia is no longer eligible for the immigration judge’s order not to send him to El Salvador “because of his membership in MS-13 which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization.”

There is still no evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13.

Today, administration lawyers used the Supreme Court’s warning that the court must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs” to lay out a chilling argument. They ignored the Supreme Court’s agreement that the government must get Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador, as well as the court’s requirement that the administration explain what it’s doing to make that happen.

Instead, the lawyers argued that because Abrego Garcia is now outside the country, any attempt to get him back would intrude on the president’s power to conduct foreign affairs. Similarly, they argue that the president cannot be ordered to do anything but remove domestic obstacles from Abrego Garcia’s return. Because Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, is currently in the U.S. for a visit with Trump, they suggest they will not share any more updates about Abrego Garcia and the court should not ask for them because it would intrude on “sensitive” foreign policy issues.

Let’s be very clear about exactly what’s happening here: President Donald J. Trump is claiming the power to ignore the due process of the law guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, declare someone is a criminal, kidnap them, send them to prison in a third country, and then claim that there is no way to get that person back.

All people in the United States are entitled to due process, but Trump and his officers have tried to convince Americans that noncitizens are not. They have also pushed the idea that those they are offshoring are criminals, but a Bloomberg investigation showed that of the 238 men sent to CECOT in the first group, only five of them had been charged with or convicted of felony assault or gun violations. Three had been charged with misdemeanors like petty theft. Two were charged with human smuggling. In any case, in the U.S., criminals are entitled to due process.

There is also this about my hope he comes on the plane, however.  This is from the Washington Post. It’s hot off the web. “Salvadoran president says he won’t return wrongly deported man to U.S.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday that he did not plan to return to Kilmar Abrego García to the United States. “How can I return him to the United States?” Bukele asked Monday during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.” The comments come a day after the Justice Department told a federal judge that it isn’t required to bring home a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Since Bukele struck a deal with Trump’s administration, he has accepted more than 200 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. in recent months and housed them in his country’s draconian mega-prison. Later Monday, Trump is scheduled to welcome the Ohio State football team to the White House to celebrate its 2025 national championship.

Come on, Ohio State!  Remember Kent State?  Be Better!  Another not-a-shocker from the Washington Post’s John Hudson. “No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found. An internal memo, prepared days before Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE agents, raises doubts about the Trump administration’s claims that she supports Hamas.”

Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.

The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States.

The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities “in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.

What has Trump done to Little Marco?

Steve Vladick, a law professor at George Town, has this to say about the idea of using the US Military for obvious Domestic Policies.  I have this nightmare that all these professors I want to meet will wind up bunking with me and BB in some form of Trump Gulag. Maybe we get a Guantanamo visit. “Five Questions About Domestic Use of the Military. The federal government’s authorities to use the military for domestic law enforcement are old, broad, and vague. They may soon become far more relevant than they’ve been for quite a long time.”  Trump was stopped by his Generals last time. Now it’s between us, the Constitution, and a drunk rapist who used to shill conspiracy theories on the weekend at Fox News.

But one of the problems when so much is going on is that we may neglect other stories that are also important, but not as immediate. And so I wanted to use today’s “Long Read” to tackle a topic that may soon become a very big deal—the President’s power to use the military for domestic civilian law enforcement. One of President Trump’s January 20 executive orders directed various officials to report back about the propriety of using the Insurrection Act (about which more in a moment) at and along the border. That report is due April 20, i.e., this coming Sunday. And last Friday, President Trump signed an ominous memorandum authorizing the military to take control of a wide swath of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border (the “Roosevelt Reservation”)—a move that seems designed to allow the military to arrest non-citizens trying to enter the country unlawfully on the ground that they’re trespassing on military property.

For obvious reasons, the President’s power to use the military for domestic law enforcement is a big deal—and has, historically, been a matter of substantial controversy. Indeed, there are lots of good reasons why we have come to reflexively oppose domestic use of the military except when it is absolutely necessary. But there is meaningful daylight between using the military for domestic law enforcement and using the military in ways that are anti-democratic. And as little as this administration can or should be trusted to hew to the historical line, it’s worth at least articulating what that line is in advance of what may well be the first domestic deployment of regular armed forces since 1992.

…

About a hundred 21 years ago, I wrote my student note in law school on the “Militia Acts”—a series of statutes enacted by early Congresses, and then amended in 1861 and 1871, to delegate to the President domestic emergency authority that the Constitution had given to Congress—“[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” These statutes, which have unhelpfully become known as the “Insurrection Act” (unhelpful because the authority isn’t limited to suppressing insurrections), are one of the President’s most important—and most controversial—domestic emergency powers. And it’s possible President Trump may soon seek to use the Insurrection Act in some immigration-related capacity; indeed, as noted above, one of the January 20 executive orders calls for a report on potential invocations of the statute by next Sunday.

Although the details of any invocation will matter, I thought it would be useful to tee up even a potential invocation of the Insurrection Act with a brief explainer of where the statutes come from, what they do and don’t authorize, and why, historically, domestic use of the military has been so controversial. To make a long story short, any invocation of the Insurrection Act under our current circumstances would be a dangerous move from the Trump administration, but contra some hot takes on the internet, it would not be tantamount to a declaration of martial law.

Read more about this act and also the deportation to El Salvador atrocity at the link.  Here’s another Hot Take from Wired which is moving up in the Journalism World with its reporting. “HHS Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say. The purging of IT and cybersecurity staff at the Department of Health and Human Services could threaten the systems used by the agency’s staff and the safety of critical health data.”

Much of the IT and cybersecurity infrastructure underpinning the US health system is in danger of a possible collapse following a purge of IT staff and leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), four current and former agency workers tell WIRED. This could put vast troves of public health data, including the sensitive health records of hundreds of millions of Americans, clinical trial data, and more, at risk of exposure.

As a result of a reduction in force, or RIF, in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), the sources say, staff who oversee and renew contracts for critical enterprise services are no longer there. The same staff oversaw hundreds of contractors, some of whom play a crucial role in keeping systems and data safe from cyberattacks. And a void of leadership means that efforts to draw attention to what the sources believe to be a looming catastrophe have allegedly been ignored.

Thousands of researchers, scientists, and doctors lost their jobs earlier this month at HHS agencies critical to ensuring America’s health, such as the Centers for Disease Control and and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Hundreds of administrative staff were also subjected to a reduction in force. Many of these staffers were responsible for helping ensure that the mass of highly personal and sensitive information these agencies collect is kept secure.

Employees who were subject to the RIF, as well as some who remain at the agency, tell WIRED that without intervention, they believe the systems they managed could go dark, potentially putting the entire health care system at risk.

“Pretty soon, within the next couple of weeks, everything regarding IT and cyber at the department will start to operationally reach a point of no return,” one source, who was part of a team that managed these systems at HHS for a decade before being part of the RIF, alleges to WIRED.

Like many across the agency, administrative staff found out they were part of the RIF on April 1 in an email sent at 5 am Eastern, though a number of employees only realized they had been let go when their badges no longer worked when trying to access HHS buildings.

Had enough of Trump’s appointments yet?  Try this one. This is from CNN.  “Ex-January 6 prosecutors urge attorney disciplinary board to investigate Trump’s controversial pick to be DC’s top prosecutor.” Feeling steamrolled yet?  Or maybe Gas lit?

Five former prosecutors who worked on criminal cases stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol are urging the disciplinary office governing lawyers in Washington, DC, to open an investigation into President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to be the district’s top prosecutor.

The filing is the latest turn in the nomination of Ed Martin to be US attorney for DC and comes as Senate Democrats have pledged to delay any confirmation vote.

Martin, who has been serving in the post on an interim basis since Trump returned to the White House, is a divisive pick for the job. After stepping into the position, he used his new powers to dismiss January 6 Capitol riot cases, fire prosecutors who were involved in the investigations, go after his and Trump’s political adversaries, and launch internal reviews in an attempt to find misconduct within the office.

In a letter filed Sunday with the DC Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the former prosecutors outlined those controversial actions, as well as others, saying that Martin violated several professional rules.

“He has used his brief time in office to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a federal prosecutor, announcing investigations against his political opponents, aiding defendants he previously represented, and communicating improperly with those he did not,” the group wrote.

“These actions are not worthy of the Department of Justice, undermine the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law, and violate Mr. Martin’s professional obligations,” the letter reads.

Martin’s office declined CNN’s request for comment on the letter.

Okay, so I’m bumping 3800 words now.  I also want to return to my hot Macha Tea and floofy cuddly furbabies.  I think we all need a group hug now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AgencyPurges #BallOfConfusion #FARTUS #FARTUSDomesticUseOfMilitary #FartusKidnappingPolicy #GriftersGottaGrift #kakistocracy #TrumpAppointments

Mostly Monday Reads: Trump defies the Supreme Court and the Constitution

“True story.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The  El Salvador Deportation atrocity and the DOJ’s response to the court orders certainly represent a Constitutional Crisis. We also see a plan to use the Military domestically at the Border, which is also clearly unconstitutional. I will focus on the responses to this because of the human rights and constitutional rights involved and the belligerence of Trump’s DOJ. Along with the Global Trade War and the dismantling of Federal Agencies, this continues to be a top concern. I would, however, like to start with the act of one white dude in Pennslyvania who decided to set fire to the Governor’s Mansion where Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife, and four children were celebrating Passover. This, along with the continual bullying of Judges who displease Trump by delivering Pizzas to their homes and their children’s homes sent in the name of the late son of New Jersey Judge Esther Salas. Even a long-time Op-Ed writer for the Wall Street Journal has written that #FARTUS is begging to be impeached again.

This is from the AP. “Suspect in arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence being treated at hospital, police say.”

A man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire is in police custody at a hospital after an unrelated medical event, state police said Monday.

Cody Balmer, 38, told police he had planned to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents. He was being treated at the hospital, which police said was “not connected to this incident or his arrest.”

Balmer’s mother told The Associated Press on Monday that she had tried in recent days to get him assistance for mental health issues, but “nobody would help.” She said her son had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The AP was not able to verify that information.

“He wasn’t taking his medicine, and that’s all I want to say,” Christie Balmer said, speaking at the family home in Harrisburg.

The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building early Sunday. Balmer, who was arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said.

Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during a police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it didn’t explain why.

Shapiro said he, his wife, their four children, two dogs and extended family had celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover at the residence Saturday and were awakened by state troopers pounding on their doors about 2 a.m. Sunday. They fled and firefighters extinguished the fire, officials said. No one was injured.

At a Sunday evening news conference in front of the badly damaged south wing of the governor’s residence, Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris identified the man in custody as Balmer.

Pitting Americans against each other should not be a political strategy.  It gets people killed. No one knows this better than Judge Esther Salas, whose son was murdered and husband badly injured by a crazed Trumper. This is from the Daily Mail. “Terrifying reason judges across the US are receiving unexpected pizza deliveries amid war with Trump” as reported by Lauren Acton-Taylor.

A judge has revealed the terrifying epidemic of unexpected pizza deliveries to US judges’ homes across the country amid their war with Trump as he battles his executive orders through court.

US District Court Judge Esther Salas labeled the deliveries an ‘intimidation tactic’ on Friday after a slew of judges faced Trump’s wrath after they blocked his executive orders.

‘I found out about it on Tuesday night, and we had already known about hundreds of pizzas that had been going out to judges all over this country,’ she told MSNBC.

Salas said the deliveries were meant as a threat.

‘The point is, someone wants that judge, someone wants those judges to know, “I know where you live,”‘ she said.

Not only were the pizzas being delivered to the judges’ homes, but also to the homes of their children, Salas added.

‘So now, “We know where you live and we know where your children live,”‘ she continued.

The pizzas were not only mere intimidation tactics, but they also served as a cruel reminder of heartache for Salas, whose son was killed by a man posing as a FedEx driver in 2020.

Is this the country you thought you lived in?  Is this what you learned that our country was about as you sat through history and civics courses and read books in your English classes that represented various periods our country experienced. It is no wonder that one of the past Presidents that Trump most admires is Andrew Jackson, the author of the Trail of Tears and Indian Removal Act. He also defied the Supreme Court. Many indigenous natives died on the Trail to the Indian Territories in Oklahoma, which was later turned over to white immigrants for settling.  Jackson also owned slaves.

Now, for our latest Constitutional Battles. This is from Johnathan V. Last writing at The Bulwark. He actually offers up 3 examples that will rule the week’s news.

If you were Chris Krebs, would you flee the country?

Your answer before last week would probably be “no.” Your answer after last week is probably “maybe.” Your answer after the coming week might be “absolutely.”

Let’s break it down to understand what just happened and what is coming in the next 48 hours. Because the next two days may determine whether or not America crosses more critical red lines into open authoritarianism.

Last Wednesday, the president signed a memorandum instructing both the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to investigate Chris Krebs. You’ll remember that during Trump’s first term, Krebs headed the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—and was fired two weeks after the 2020 election for publicly rebutting Trump’s lies about the integrity of the election. Trump’s memorandum flips truth upside down, accusing Krebs of having “falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen,” and it not only orders an investigation into Krebs himself but it also commands that the entire cybersecurity company he now works for be stripped of any security clearances it has.

On Thursday, in an unsigned, unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant whom Homeland Security mistakenly (by its own admission) arrested and extradited to a gulag in El Salvador.

On Saturday the government responded to the SCOTUS decision by stonewalling the district court judge and then claiming that it could not “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia because he is now detained by a sovereign nation on which the United States could not possibly exert any influence.

Also on Saturday, Nayib Bukele, the authoritarian ruler of that sovereign nation, arrived in the United States.

On Sunday, the government stonewalled the district court judge yet again—filing an update saying it had “no updates”—and in a separate filing challenged the Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and added that the details of the deal with Bukele to imprison deportees from the United States are “classified.”

On Monday, Bukele will meet with his patron, Donald Trump.

So, why can’t Bukele just bring Abrego Garcia with him on whatever plane and hand him over to Donald Trump?  Is this another dark shadow performance of how Trump bullies everyone, including innocent people and other dictators? This is the historical perspective by Heather Cox Richardson.

In her opinion, filed April 6, Judge Xinis wrote that “[a]lthough the legal basis for the mass removal of hundreds of individuals to El Salvador remains disturbingly unclear, Abrego Garcia’s case is categorically different—there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal.…. [H]is detention appears wholly lawless.” It is “a clear constitutional violation.” And yet administration officials “cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person—migrant and U.S. citizen alike—to prisons outside the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate return because they are no longer the ‘custodian,’ and the Court thus lacks jurisdiction.”

The administration had already appealed her April 4 order to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision on Thursday, April 10, requiring the Trump administration “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador,” but asking the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” that release, noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.” Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. on April 11 explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

But the administration evidently does not intend to comply. On April 11, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and ignored her order to provide information about what the government was doing to bring him back. Saturday, it said Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in CECOT. Today, it said it had no new information about him, but said that Abrego Garcia is no longer eligible for the immigration judge’s order not to send him to El Salvador “because of his membership in MS-13 which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization.”

There is still no evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13.

Today, administration lawyers used the Supreme Court’s warning that the court must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs” to lay out a chilling argument. They ignored the Supreme Court’s agreement that the government must get Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador, as well as the court’s requirement that the administration explain what it’s doing to make that happen.

Instead, the lawyers argued that because Abrego Garcia is now outside the country, any attempt to get him back would intrude on the president’s power to conduct foreign affairs. Similarly, they argue that the president cannot be ordered to do anything but remove domestic obstacles from Abrego Garcia’s return. Because Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, is currently in the U.S. for a visit with Trump, they suggest they will not share any more updates about Abrego Garcia and the court should not ask for them because it would intrude on “sensitive” foreign policy issues.

Let’s be very clear about exactly what’s happening here: President Donald J. Trump is claiming the power to ignore the due process of the law guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, declare someone is a criminal, kidnap them, send them to prison in a third country, and then claim that there is no way to get that person back.

All people in the United States are entitled to due process, but Trump and his officers have tried to convince Americans that noncitizens are not. They have also pushed the idea that those they are offshoring are criminals, but a Bloomberg investigation showed that of the 238 men sent to CECOT in the first group, only five of them had been charged with or convicted of felony assault or gun violations. Three had been charged with misdemeanors like petty theft. Two were charged with human smuggling. In any case, in the U.S., criminals are entitled to due process.

There is also this about my hope he comes on the plane, however.  This is from the Washington Post. It’s hot off the web. “Salvadoran president says he won’t return wrongly deported man to U.S.”

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday that he did not plan to return to Kilmar Abrego García to the United States. “How can I return him to the United States?” Bukele asked Monday during a meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. “I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.” The comments come a day after the Justice Department told a federal judge that it isn’t required to bring home a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Since Bukele struck a deal with Trump’s administration, he has accepted more than 200 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. in recent months and housed them in his country’s draconian mega-prison. Later Monday, Trump is scheduled to welcome the Ohio State football team to the White House to celebrate its 2025 national championship.

Come on, Ohio State!  Remember Kent State?  Be Better!  Another not-a-shocker from the Washington Post’s John Hudson. “No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found. An internal memo, prepared days before Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE agents, raises doubts about the Trump administration’s claims that she supports Hamas.”

Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.

The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States.

The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities “in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.

What has Trump done to Little Marco?

Steve Vladick, a law professor at George Town, has this to say about the idea of using the US Military for obvious Domestic Policies.  I have this nightmare that all these professors I want to meet will wind up bunking with me and BB in some form of Trump Gulag. Maybe we get a Guantanamo visit. “Five Questions About Domestic Use of the Military. The federal government’s authorities to use the military for domestic law enforcement are old, broad, and vague. They may soon become far more relevant than they’ve been for quite a long time.”  Trump was stopped by his Generals last time. Now it’s between us, the Constitution, and a drunk rapist who used to shill conspiracy theories on the weekend at Fox News.

But one of the problems when so much is going on is that we may neglect other stories that are also important, but not as immediate. And so I wanted to use today’s “Long Read” to tackle a topic that may soon become a very big deal—the President’s power to use the military for domestic civilian law enforcement. One of President Trump’s January 20 executive orders directed various officials to report back about the propriety of using the Insurrection Act (about which more in a moment) at and along the border. That report is due April 20, i.e., this coming Sunday. And last Friday, President Trump signed an ominous memorandum authorizing the military to take control of a wide swath of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border (the “Roosevelt Reservation”)—a move that seems designed to allow the military to arrest non-citizens trying to enter the country unlawfully on the ground that they’re trespassing on military property.

For obvious reasons, the President’s power to use the military for domestic law enforcement is a big deal—and has, historically, been a matter of substantial controversy. Indeed, there are lots of good reasons why we have come to reflexively oppose domestic use of the military except when it is absolutely necessary. But there is meaningful daylight between using the military for domestic law enforcement and using the military in ways that are anti-democratic. And as little as this administration can or should be trusted to hew to the historical line, it’s worth at least articulating what that line is in advance of what may well be the first domestic deployment of regular armed forces since 1992.

…

About a hundred 21 years ago, I wrote my student note in law school on the “Militia Acts”—a series of statutes enacted by early Congresses, and then amended in 1861 and 1871, to delegate to the President domestic emergency authority that the Constitution had given to Congress—“[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” These statutes, which have unhelpfully become known as the “Insurrection Act” (unhelpful because the authority isn’t limited to suppressing insurrections), are one of the President’s most important—and most controversial—domestic emergency powers. And it’s possible President Trump may soon seek to use the Insurrection Act in some immigration-related capacity; indeed, as noted above, one of the January 20 executive orders calls for a report on potential invocations of the statute by next Sunday.

Although the details of any invocation will matter, I thought it would be useful to tee up even a potential invocation of the Insurrection Act with a brief explainer of where the statutes come from, what they do and don’t authorize, and why, historically, domestic use of the military has been so controversial. To make a long story short, any invocation of the Insurrection Act under our current circumstances would be a dangerous move from the Trump administration, but contra some hot takes on the internet, it would not be tantamount to a declaration of martial law.

Read more about this act and also the deportation to El Salvador atrocity at the link.  Here’s another Hot Take from Wired which is moving up in the Journalism World with its reporting. “HHS Systems Are in Danger of Collapsing, Workers Say. The purging of IT and cybersecurity staff at the Department of Health and Human Services could threaten the systems used by the agency’s staff and the safety of critical health data.”

Much of the IT and cybersecurity infrastructure underpinning the US health system is in danger of a possible collapse following a purge of IT staff and leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), four current and former agency workers tell WIRED. This could put vast troves of public health data, including the sensitive health records of hundreds of millions of Americans, clinical trial data, and more, at risk of exposure.

As a result of a reduction in force, or RIF, in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), the sources say, staff who oversee and renew contracts for critical enterprise services are no longer there. The same staff oversaw hundreds of contractors, some of whom play a crucial role in keeping systems and data safe from cyberattacks. And a void of leadership means that efforts to draw attention to what the sources believe to be a looming catastrophe have allegedly been ignored.

Thousands of researchers, scientists, and doctors lost their jobs earlier this month at HHS agencies critical to ensuring America’s health, such as the Centers for Disease Control and and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Hundreds of administrative staff were also subjected to a reduction in force. Many of these staffers were responsible for helping ensure that the mass of highly personal and sensitive information these agencies collect is kept secure.

Employees who were subject to the RIF, as well as some who remain at the agency, tell WIRED that without intervention, they believe the systems they managed could go dark, potentially putting the entire health care system at risk.

“Pretty soon, within the next couple of weeks, everything regarding IT and cyber at the department will start to operationally reach a point of no return,” one source, who was part of a team that managed these systems at HHS for a decade before being part of the RIF, alleges to WIRED.

Like many across the agency, administrative staff found out they were part of the RIF on April 1 in an email sent at 5 am Eastern, though a number of employees only realized they had been let go when their badges no longer worked when trying to access HHS buildings.

Had enough of Trump’s appointments yet?  Try this one. This is from CNN.  “Ex-January 6 prosecutors urge attorney disciplinary board to investigate Trump’s controversial pick to be DC’s top prosecutor.” Feeling steamrolled yet?  Or maybe Gas lit?

Five former prosecutors who worked on criminal cases stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol are urging the disciplinary office governing lawyers in Washington, DC, to open an investigation into President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to be the district’s top prosecutor.

The filing is the latest turn in the nomination of Ed Martin to be US attorney for DC and comes as Senate Democrats have pledged to delay any confirmation vote.

Martin, who has been serving in the post on an interim basis since Trump returned to the White House, is a divisive pick for the job. After stepping into the position, he used his new powers to dismiss January 6 Capitol riot cases, fire prosecutors who were involved in the investigations, go after his and Trump’s political adversaries, and launch internal reviews in an attempt to find misconduct within the office.

In a letter filed Sunday with the DC Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the former prosecutors outlined those controversial actions, as well as others, saying that Martin violated several professional rules.

“He has used his brief time in office to demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a federal prosecutor, announcing investigations against his political opponents, aiding defendants he previously represented, and communicating improperly with those he did not,” the group wrote.

“These actions are not worthy of the Department of Justice, undermine the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law, and violate Mr. Martin’s professional obligations,” the letter reads.

Martin’s office declined CNN’s request for comment on the letter.

Okay, so I’m bumping 3800 words now.  I also want to return to my hot Macha Tea and floofy cuddly furbabies.  I think we all need a group hug now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AgencyPurges #BallOfConfusion #FARTUS #FARTUSDomesticUseOfMilitary #FartusKidnappingPolicy #GriftersGottaGrift #kakistocracy #TrumpAppointments

My latest on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat1968 https://wp.me/pgqML-Pao #FARTUS has deliberately tanked the equity markets and the dollar with record-level tariffs set with an equation that made no sense and included tariffs placed on islands with no human inhabitants.  This is further evidence of the incompetency and utter ignorance of the Trump Administration. This is not economic policy. This is some personal brain fart of a very disturbed man.

Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel

“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go.  Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters, and the only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable.  You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable.  I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.

Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!”  She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer.  She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she?   She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture.  Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first,  and her poor puppy.

This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.”  I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those.  She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour.  This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.

The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.

Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.

“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”

While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to  Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far.  We’ve already had children in cages and family separation.  We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA.   This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”

For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.

This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.

But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.

The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.

The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.

If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.

Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.

The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.

Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.

Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.

If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.

And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.

I have taught university classes for decades.  Finance and Economic policy are inherently political.  We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich.  We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear that the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress.  The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students we will not have teachers after we old folks retire will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.

This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.

President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.

This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.

The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:

• Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
• Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
• Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services

These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:

• $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
• $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
• $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students

Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.

This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.  I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.

“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Then there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment.  Hey! Hey DOJ!  How many kids did they kill that day?  They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?

This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent.  But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet.  They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,

Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.

Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.

In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.

Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.

The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”

Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”

But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.

Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.

“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.

“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.

“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”

A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”

“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”

CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.

The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.

Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today.  “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?”  Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare.  Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.

Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.

It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless.  They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday.  The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.”  Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.

An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.

Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.

“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.

“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”

Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks

Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel

“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go.  Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters. The only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable.  You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable.  I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!”  She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer.  She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she?   She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture.  Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first,  and her poor puppy.This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.”  I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those.  She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour.  This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.

The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.

Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.

“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”

While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to  Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far.  We’ve already had children in cages and family separation.  We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA.   This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”

For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.

I have taught university classes for decades.  Finance and Economic policy are inherently political.  We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich.  We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress.  The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students will mean a lack of qualified professors after we old folks retire, which will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.

President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:

• Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
• Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
• Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services

These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:

• $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
• $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
• $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students

Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.  I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.

“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Then there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment.  Hey! Hey DOJ!  How many kids did they kill that day?  They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent.  But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet.  They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,

Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.

Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.

In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.

Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.

The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”

Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”

But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.

Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.

“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.

“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.

“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”

A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”

“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”

CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.

The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today.  “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?”  Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare.  Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.

Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless.  They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday.  The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.”  Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.

“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.

“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”

Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.What’s on your reading and blogging list today?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufw9dVys3t0

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks

Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel

“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go.  Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters. The only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable.  You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable.  I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!”  She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer.  She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she?   She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture.  Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first,  and her poor puppy.This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.”  I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those.  She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour.  This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.

The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.

Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.

“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”

While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to  Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far.  We’ve already had children in cages and family separation.  We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA.   This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”

For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.

I have taught university classes for decades.  Finance and Economic policy are inherently political.  We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich.  We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress.  The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students will mean a lack of qualified professors after we old folks retire, which will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.

President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:

• Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
• Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
• Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services

These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:

• $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
• $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
• $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students

Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.  I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.

“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Then there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment.  Hey! Hey DOJ!  How many kids did they kill that day?  They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent.  But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet.  They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,

Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.

Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.

In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.

Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.

The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”

Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”

But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.

Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.

“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.

“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.

“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”

A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”

“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”

CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.

The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today.  “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?”  Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare.  Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.

Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless.  They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday.  The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.”  Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.

“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.

“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”

Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.What’s on your reading and blogging list today?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufw9dVys3t0

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks

Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel

“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go.  Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters, and the only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable.  You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable.  I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy.

Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!”  She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer.  She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she?   She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture.  Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first,  and her poor puppy.

This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.”  I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those.  She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour.  This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.

The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.

Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.

“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”

While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to  Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far.  We’ve already had children in cages and family separation.  We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA.   This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”

For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes.

This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in.

But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up.

The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana.

The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough.

If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked.

Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper.

The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago.

Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit.

Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process.

If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition.

And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.

I have taught university classes for decades.  Finance and Economic policy are inherently political.  We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich.  We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear that the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress.  The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students we will not have teachers after we old folks retire will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal.

This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.

President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education.

This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight.

The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:

• Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department
• Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury
• Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services

These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:

• $18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students
• $15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities
• $120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students

Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs.

This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities.  I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.

“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Then there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment.  Hey! Hey DOJ!  How many kids did they kill that day?  They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us?

This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent.  But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet.  They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,

Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.

Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.

In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.

Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.

The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”

Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”

But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.

Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.

“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.

“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.

“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”

A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”

“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”

CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.

The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.

Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today.  “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?”  Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare.  Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.

Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.

It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless.  They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday.  The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.”  Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine.

An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations.

Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.

“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.

“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”

Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968JohnBuss #abuGhraibTortureAndPrisonerAbuse #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #DepartmentOfEducationBlues #EliseStefanikIsACunt #EveryOneGoesToElSalvador_ #FARTUS #higherEducation #HillaryClintonOnSignalGate #KidnappingGraduateStudents #KristiNoemSociopathAndCunt #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheWhiskeyLeaks

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

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."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-14T16:04:34.209Z

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

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."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-14T16:04:34.209Z

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

https://wp.me/pgqML-OC3 My latest on Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by @repeat1968. Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for "a face worthy of being slapped."  That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of #FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States). 

Finally Friday Reads: Backpfeifengesicht

“EEK!” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for “a face worthy of being slapped.”  That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of #FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States).  JJ found this sweet article at The Guardian and shared it with BB and me this morning. It’s an Op-Ed written by Marina Hyde about JD Vance, but it could apply to any subhuman of the modern MAGA movement. “There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing. Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit.” Ayup.

You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.

I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.

Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”

Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.

Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.

While JJ found that amusing read today. BB brought home the rancid bacon. This is an op-ed by Brett Wagner in The San Francisco Chronicle today. “Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way. A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration.”

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.

Coincidence?

As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.

Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).

This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).

Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.

I bring you the reality on the ground from Joy Reid on Threads.  “This is inhumane, hideous and repugnant. If this is what MAGA America is, count me out. I’m ashamed that this is what our government is doing. Shame on them. Shame.”  What it is is a 21-year-old girl with cancer who relies completely on her immigrant mother, who is in no way a criminal or bothering anyone.  When protesters came to protest, they were arrested.  How many laws and constitutional rights can this miserable administration break before they completely break all of us?  This story comes from El Monte, California. You can read the hatred of the MAGA monsters in the threads below on YouTube. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave the house and take a chance at seeing a FARTUS supporter in my neighborhood. I’m fine with all the immigrants, though. Everything they do makes my neighborhood a better place.

“I can’t even wake up properly… she helps me, she bathes me, she changes me, she makes my food.”Deportation didn’t protect anyone it only stole a mother from the child who needs her most-Blake Coronadohttps://www.threads.net/@blakecorona…

— Audrey (@parickards.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T23:59:31.294Z

The US Military and US Vets are under attack from this Administration. This cannot be denied.  This is from the AP this morning.  FARTUS has always had a thing against military service and those who fight for values that he seems to hate very much.  “War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge.”  So much of this just comes as an attack against the diversity of our nation being represented in all of its institutions.  But is that really it? Why the disappearance of all people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community? Are white cis men really that sensitive?

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.

The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.

Are they just trying to up their odds that one will be less likely to disrupt the plan when martial law is declared?  Everything they’ve been doing shows their delight in being the worst kind of bullies. Just yesterday, they announced they will deport Ukrainians who fled to the US for safety.  We are no longer a safe harbor. Not even close. Heather Cox Richardson discusses this in detail this morning in her Substack Letters from an American.

This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.

In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.

Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.

Trump, bitcoin, political cartoon

We’re being turned into part of the Trump Grift Mafia.  Nothing will be left standing of any of the good we have done in the world. This is neocolonialism and neomercantilism.  We’ve retreated to some of the worst historical ideologies ever.  The most symbolic thing happened yesterday. The latest Space X project blew up in the sky and shut down many flights yesterday. “Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports. The video showed the upper stage of the most powerful rocket ever built spinning out of control in space, a repeat of an unsuccessful test flight in January that led to debris falling over the Caribbean.”  This is what we’re spending money for?  Elonia is pushing his company to the brink of getting to Mars and looking down at the rest of us. The report is from The New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang.

Starship — the huge spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — failed during its latest test flight on Thursday when its upper stage exploded in space, raining debris and disrupting air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.

It was the second consecutive test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built where the upper-stage spacecraft malfunctioned. It started spinning out of control after several engines went out and then lost contact with mission control.

Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.

The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built. At 403 feet tall, it is nearly 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty atop its pedestal.

It has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.

The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from science fiction movies of the 1950s, is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.

The rocket lifted off a little after 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday from the SpaceX site known as Starbase at the southern tip of Texas near the city of Brownsville.

Starship’s mammoth booster again successfully returned to the launchpad, just as it had during the previous test flight. In the last half minute before the upper-stage engines were to shut off, several of them malfunctioned. Video from the rocket showed a tumbling view of Earth and space until it cut off.

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote this analysis for The Atlantic. “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence.  The president, who has flirted with regal rhetoric, wants a historic copy of America’s founding document placed in the Oval Office.”

Long live the king!

Down with the king!

President Donald Trump sees the appeal of both.

Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.

I had no idea one of my greats who signed the Declaration had made of the copies of it.  But the weird thing here is that Trump seriously wants the document to hang in the Oval Office.  My question is, why take it from the people who can see it in the archives?

Since returning to power, Trump has moved quickly to redesign his working space. He has announced plans to pave over the Rose Garden to make it more like the patio at his private Mar-a-Lago club, as well as easier to host events with women wearing heels. He has also revived planning for a new ballroom on the White House grounds. “It keeps my real-estate juices flowing,” Trump explained in a recent interview with The Spectator.

Golden trophies now line the Oval Office’s mantlepiece. Military flags adorned with campaign streamers have returned. And portraits of presidents past now climb the walls—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among others. Gilded mirrors hang upon the recessed doors. A framed copy of his Georgia mug shot appears in the outside hallway. And the bright-red valet button, encased in a wooden box, is back on the desk.

In addition to the National Archives’ original Declaration, the government has in its possession other versions of the document. The collection includes drafts by Jefferson and copies of contemporaneous reprintings, known as broadsides, that were distributed among the colonies.

Alarmed by the deterioration of the original Declaration in the 1820s, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an engraving of it with the signatures appended. That version forms the basis of the document since reproduced in school history books—the one with which most Americans are familiar. Adams tasked Stone with engraving 200 copies—but in what passes for a mini 19th-century scandal, Stone made an extra facsimile to keep for himself, the documents dealer and expert Seth Kaller told us.

Many of those Stone copies of the document have now been lost; roughly 50 are known to survive, Kaller said. The White House already has in its archives at least one of the Stone printings. Kaller told us that one of his clients who had recently purchased a Stone facsimile was visiting the White House when President Barack Obama asked him whether he could help procure a Stone printing for the White House.

“The client called me, and I said, ‘I can’t—because, one, there aren’t any others on the market right now, and two, the White House already has one,’” Kaller told us. In 2014, Kaller visited the White House to view the Stone Declaration, which the curator displayed for him in one of the West Wing’s rooms. (The White House curator’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including on whether the Stone copy still resides under its purview.)

It is unclear where Trump first got the idea to add a Declaration to the Oval Office’s decor. Since returning, Trump has shown interest in the planning for celebrations next year of the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. Days after taking office, he issued an executive order to create “Task Force 250,” a White House commission that will work with another congressionally formed commission to plan the festivities.

I hope he’s not trying to go with one of those grandiose military parades again.  And if he does, will he eliminate everyone but the white guys?  It can’t be anything other than another way for him to get attention, that’s for sure.  Again, this all continues to be an appalling cosplay of how FARTUS wants to view himself in relation to his imagined ideas of American History.  I can’t even with the economy today.  Just know he’s changed his mind on tariffs again for Canada and Mexico, and employment figures are worsening. He’s turned a strong economy into a weak one in a matter of weeks.  He’s also shaken the Equity markets to their core.  What’s on is this:  “Trump’s “Crypto Reserve” is a world historical grift. Corruption doesn’t get much more blatant than this.”  My Finance Daughter and I both find crypto to be a huge Ponzi scheme. I lecture against it.  She doesn’t consider it a product that brokers should be involved in.  In short, we stay as far away as possible.  But, you know, grifters gotta grift.  This is from Public Notice.

Authoritarian regimes by definition have no accountability to voters or the public. That means autocrats and their cronies can gorge themselves at the public trough and blatantly steal from taxpayers with few if any consequences.

It’s not really a surprise, then, that as part of his authoritarian power grab, Trump has embraced brazen and open self-dealing. The most ludicrous example of this is the scheme he announced last Sunday for a national crypto reserve.

As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?

Trump, fresh off avoiding 88 felony charges, obviously feels confident that the answer is “no one.”

Government on the blockchain

Crypto refers to digital currencies which are generated and stored in a digital ledger, or blockchain. In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.

Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”

During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.

Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.

Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.

If you have any questions about any of this, I’d be glad to try to answer them.  Seeing such craziness in our economic policy has been hard on me. I’m just waiting for the major attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. They’re the only ones that bring credibility to the dollar these days, and I’m afraid he’ll have a go at them. The mess at the Treasury is already impacting the banking business.  Don’t even get me started on the Budget Crisis, either.  I’m tired of the repeats of that one by disingenuous Republicans.

I hope all of you can close your doors and stay sane inside the one place you can control, home. I have a few more tests next week, so I will be out at clinics again, being poked and prodded.  This weekend, I will just relax and try to avoid the ever-changing Trump Surreality Show.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#aFaceWorthyOfBeingSlapped #Backpfeifengesicht #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #DeclarationOfIndependence #FARTUS #martialLaw #PeopleAreNotIllegal #SpaceXExplosion #TheInsurrectionAct #WhiteMaleChristianSupremacists

Finally Friday Reads: Backpfeifengesicht

“EEK!” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for “a face worthy of being slapped.”  That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of #FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States).  JJ found this sweet article at The Guardian and shared it with BB and me this morning. It’s an Op-Ed written by Marina Hyde about JD Vance, but it could apply to any subhuman of the modern MAGA movement. “There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing. Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit.” Ayup.

You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.

I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.

Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”

Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.

Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.

While JJ found that amusing read today. BB brought home the rancid bacon. This is an op-ed by Brett Wagner in The San Francisco Chronicle today. “Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way. A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration.”

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.

Coincidence?

As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.

Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).

This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).

Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.

I bring you the reality on the ground from Joy Reid on Threads.  “This is inhumane, hideous and repugnant. If this is what MAGA America is, count me out. I’m ashamed that this is what our government is doing. Shame on them. Shame.”  What it is is a 21-year-old girl with cancer who relies completely on her immigrant mother, who is in no way a criminal or bothering anyone.  When protesters came to protest, they were arrested.  How many laws and constitutional rights can this miserable administration break before they completely break all of us?  This story comes from El Monte, California. You can read the hatred of the MAGA monsters in the threads below on YouTube. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave the house and take a chance at seeing a FARTUS supporter in my neighborhood. I’m fine with all the immigrants, though. Everything they do makes my neighborhood a better place.

“I can’t even wake up properly… she helps me, she bathes me, she changes me, she makes my food.”Deportation didn’t protect anyone it only stole a mother from the child who needs her most-Blake Coronadohttps://www.threads.net/@blakecorona…

— Audrey (@parickards.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T23:59:31.294Z

The US Military and US Vets are under attack from this Administration. This cannot be denied.  This is from the AP this morning.  FARTUS has always had a thing against military service and those who fight for values that he seems to hate very much.  “War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge.”  So much of this just comes as an attack against the diversity of our nation being represented in all of its institutions.  But is that really it? Why the disappearance of all people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community? Are white cis men really that sensitive?

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.

The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.

Are they just trying to up their odds that one will be less likely to disrupt the plan when martial law is declared?  Everything they’ve been doing shows their delight in being the worst kind of bullies. Just yesterday, they announced they will deport Ukrainians who fled to the US for safety.  We are no longer a safe harbor. Not even close. Heather Cox Richardson discusses this in detail this morning in her Substack Letters from an American.

This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.

In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.

Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.

Trump, bitcoin, political cartoon

We’re being turned into part of the Trump Grift Mafia.  Nothing will be left standing of any of the good we have done in the world. This is neocolonialism and neomercantilism.  We’ve retreated to some of the worst historical ideologies ever.  The most symbolic thing happened yesterday. The latest Space X project blew up in the sky and shut down many flights yesterday. “Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports. The video showed the upper stage of the most powerful rocket ever built spinning out of control in space, a repeat of an unsuccessful test flight in January that led to debris falling over the Caribbean.”  This is what we’re spending money for?  Elonia is pushing his company to the brink of getting to Mars and looking down at the rest of us. The report is from The New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang.

Starship — the huge spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — failed during its latest test flight on Thursday when its upper stage exploded in space, raining debris and disrupting air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.

It was the second consecutive test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built where the upper-stage spacecraft malfunctioned. It started spinning out of control after several engines went out and then lost contact with mission control.

Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.

The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built. At 403 feet tall, it is nearly 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty atop its pedestal.

It has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.

The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from science fiction movies of the 1950s, is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.

The rocket lifted off a little after 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday from the SpaceX site known as Starbase at the southern tip of Texas near the city of Brownsville.

Starship’s mammoth booster again successfully returned to the launchpad, just as it had during the previous test flight. In the last half minute before the upper-stage engines were to shut off, several of them malfunctioned. Video from the rocket showed a tumbling view of Earth and space until it cut off.

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote this analysis for The Atlantic. “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence.  The president, who has flirted with regal rhetoric, wants a historic copy of America’s founding document placed in the Oval Office.”

Long live the king!

Down with the king!

President Donald Trump sees the appeal of both.

Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.

I had no idea one of my greats who signed the Declaration had made of the copies of it.  But the weird thing here is that Trump seriously wants the document to hang in the Oval Office.  My question is, why take it from the people who can see it in the archives?

Since returning to power, Trump has moved quickly to redesign his working space. He has announced plans to pave over the Rose Garden to make it more like the patio at his private Mar-a-Lago club, as well as easier to host events with women wearing heels. He has also revived planning for a new ballroom on the White House grounds. “It keeps my real-estate juices flowing,” Trump explained in a recent interview with The Spectator.

Golden trophies now line the Oval Office’s mantlepiece. Military flags adorned with campaign streamers have returned. And portraits of presidents past now climb the walls—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among others. Gilded mirrors hang upon the recessed doors. A framed copy of his Georgia mug shot appears in the outside hallway. And the bright-red valet button, encased in a wooden box, is back on the desk.

In addition to the National Archives’ original Declaration, the government has in its possession other versions of the document. The collection includes drafts by Jefferson and copies of contemporaneous reprintings, known as broadsides, that were distributed among the colonies.

Alarmed by the deterioration of the original Declaration in the 1820s, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an engraving of it with the signatures appended. That version forms the basis of the document since reproduced in school history books—the one with which most Americans are familiar. Adams tasked Stone with engraving 200 copies—but in what passes for a mini 19th-century scandal, Stone made an extra facsimile to keep for himself, the documents dealer and expert Seth Kaller told us.

Many of those Stone copies of the document have now been lost; roughly 50 are known to survive, Kaller said. The White House already has in its archives at least one of the Stone printings. Kaller told us that one of his clients who had recently purchased a Stone facsimile was visiting the White House when President Barack Obama asked him whether he could help procure a Stone printing for the White House.

“The client called me, and I said, ‘I can’t—because, one, there aren’t any others on the market right now, and two, the White House already has one,’” Kaller told us. In 2014, Kaller visited the White House to view the Stone Declaration, which the curator displayed for him in one of the West Wing’s rooms. (The White House curator’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including on whether the Stone copy still resides under its purview.)

It is unclear where Trump first got the idea to add a Declaration to the Oval Office’s decor. Since returning, Trump has shown interest in the planning for celebrations next year of the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. Days after taking office, he issued an executive order to create “Task Force 250,” a White House commission that will work with another congressionally formed commission to plan the festivities.

I hope he’s not trying to go with one of those grandiose military parades again.  And if he does, will he eliminate everyone but the white guys?  It can’t be anything other than another way for him to get attention, that’s for sure.  Again, this all continues to be an appalling cosplay of how FARTUS wants to view himself in relation to his imagined ideas of American History.  I can’t even with the economy today.  Just know he’s changed his mind on tariffs again for Canada and Mexico, and employment figures are worsening. He’s turned a strong economy into a weak one in a matter of weeks.  He’s also shaken the Equity markets to their core.  What’s on is this:  “Trump’s “Crypto Reserve” is a world historical grift. Corruption doesn’t get much more blatant than this.”  My Finance Daughter and I both find crypto to be a huge Ponzi scheme. I lecture against it.  She doesn’t consider it a product that brokers should be involved in.  In short, we stay as far away as possible.  But, you know, grifters gotta grift.  This is from Public Notice.

Authoritarian regimes by definition have no accountability to voters or the public. That means autocrats and their cronies can gorge themselves at the public trough and blatantly steal from taxpayers with few if any consequences.

It’s not really a surprise, then, that as part of his authoritarian power grab, Trump has embraced brazen and open self-dealing. The most ludicrous example of this is the scheme he announced last Sunday for a national crypto reserve.

As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?

Trump, fresh off avoiding 88 felony charges, obviously feels confident that the answer is “no one.”

Government on the blockchain

Crypto refers to digital currencies which are generated and stored in a digital ledger, or blockchain. In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.

Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”

During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.

Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.

Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.

If you have any questions about any of this, I’d be glad to try to answer them.  Seeing such craziness in our economic policy has been hard on me. I’m just waiting for the major attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. They’re the only ones that bring credibility to the dollar these days, and I’m afraid he’ll have a go at them. The mess at the Treasury is already impacting the banking business.  Don’t even get me started on the Budget Crisis, either.  I’m tired of the repeats of that one by disingenuous Republicans.

I hope all of you can close your doors and stay sane inside the one place you can control, home. I have a few more tests next week, so I will be out at clinics again, being poked and prodded.  This weekend, I will just relax and try to avoid the ever-changing Trump Surreality Show.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#aFaceWorthyOfBeingSlapped #Backpfeifengesicht #CryptoCurrencyPonziSchemeFromTrumpAndMusk #DeclarationOfIndependence #FARTUS #martialLaw #PeopleAreNotIllegal #SpaceXExplosion #TheInsurrectionAct #WhiteMaleChristianSupremacists

My latest at Sky Dancing with Featured Funny by John Buss. @repeat1968 https://wp.me/pgqML-Owv

Once again, the transformation of American democracy into a theocratic fascist state--which once was unimaginable--is shaking global confidence. The closing argument came Friday when #FARTUS and JDank tried to shake down Ukraine's President like a classic Mafia Don. The US is no longer the leader of the free world. We are becoming the lap dog of evil men.

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

• The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
• ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
• The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
• Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
• Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
• While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
• There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

• • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
  • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#CrushingTheAcademicLeft #FARTUS #First #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #kakistocracy #massDeportations #OpenCarryBirthCertificate #pardonsOfJailedDomesticTerrorists #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #theyCameFor #ViveLaRésistance

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

• The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
• ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
• The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
• Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
• Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
• While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
• There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

• • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
  • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#CrushingTheAcademicLeft #FARTUS #First #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #kakistocracy #massDeportations #OpenCarryBirthCertificate #pardonsOfJailedDomesticTerrorists #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #theyCameFor #ViveLaRésistance

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

• The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
• ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
• The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
• Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
• Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
• While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
• There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

• • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
  • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#CrushingTheAcademicLeft #FARTUS #First #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #kakistocracy #massDeportations #OpenCarryBirthCertificate #pardonsOfJailedDomesticTerrorists #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #theyCameFor #ViveLaRésistance

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

• The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
• ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
• The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
• Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
• Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
• While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
• There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

• • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
  • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#CrushingTheAcademicLeft #FARTUS #First #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #kakistocracy #massDeportations #OpenCarryBirthCertificate #pardonsOfJailedDomesticTerrorists #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #theyCameFor #ViveLaRésistance

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

• The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
• ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
• The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
• Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
• Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
• While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
• There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

• Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
• The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

• Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
• The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

• • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
  • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#CrushingTheAcademicLeft #FARTUS #First #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #kakistocracy #massDeportations #OpenCarryBirthCertificate #pardonsOfJailedDomesticTerrorists #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #theyCameFor #ViveLaRésistance

Finally Friday, Finally ERA? Reads

“Pretty sure a Mar-a-Lardo membership was included in the payoff to stop the Florida investigation into Trump University.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

President Joe Biden keeps doing historically wonderful things as we end the week of seeing several of the Deadly Horsemen FARTUS put up for Cabinet Positions. I’m glad BB covered the Alpha Chad, who is uniquely unqualified to become the Head of the DOD. Pam Bondi has the credentials but would not answer questions about her constitutional duties and responsibilities.  Pete the Cheat’s tagline was “anonymous smears.”  Her tagline was “I won’t answer hypotheticals,” which makes me think she had the same trainer as Beer Enthusiast Brent Cavanaugh. However, having served as a personal lawyer to the guy who is a Felon, Adjuctated Rapist, and Traitor to the county, I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t see that as a conflict of interest. However, with this motley crew of discontents and zealots, that’s a feature, not a bug.

“The confirmation hearings are confirming that loyalty to royalty is the only prerequisite.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Joyce Vance provides this brutal analysis at her Substack Civil Discourse.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi took her seat in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, her confirmation to be Donald Trump’s new attorney general almost a foregone conclusion. Her home state senator, Rick Scott, offered a glowing recommendation in his introduction, calling Bondi’s nomination a “home run” and a “grand slam.” But throughout her testimony, Bondi was incapable of giving a direct answer to the question, posed in various ways, of who won the 2020 election. If her introduction was full of sports metaphors, her testimony itself was more of a circus performance, with Bondi clumsily walking the tightrope between what she knew she had to say to get confirmed and what she knew she had to say to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces. She made it clear in the process that if she falls off, it will be in his direction. Bondi possesses the essential element for any Trump nominee, loyalty, and she’s not afraid to wear it on her sleeve.

So, I got a big glimmer of hope this morning when I got a text that told me that President Biden “President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is “the law of the land,” a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that is being celebrated by its backers, who plan to rally today in front of the National Archives.” That’s how NPR described it today since there’s some confusion over whether or not the Archivist will (or even can) publish it.

President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is “the law of the land,” a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that is being celebrated by its backers, who plan to rally today in front of the National Archives.

The amendment would need to be formally published or certified to come into effect by the National Archivist, Colleen Shogan — and when or if that will happen is unclear.

The executive branch doesn’t have a direct role in the amendment process, and Biden is not going to order the archivist to certify and publish the ERA, the White House told reporters on a conference call. A senior administration official said that the archivist’s role is “purely ministerial” in nature, meaning that the archivist is required to publish the amendment once it is ratified.

I spent a good deal of my 20s trying to get this passed. I went to Oklahoma. Started an event with a group of like-minded women in Nebraska to promote it while my state senator was trying to get Nebraska’s ratification removed. I also met so many Feminist leaders I’d adored for years.  I still have my copy of “The ERA handbook.”  Betty Ford was a big supporter, and I had hoped to get her to the podium at our event, but the cost of bringing the Secret Service in was overwhelming.  It clearly had a lot of support, but White Christian Nationalists were organizing to kill it and everything they deemed unholy. The ERA was introduced into Congress in 1923, the year my late mother was born.  The Brennen Center has a good analysis of its long history and why it has languished so long.

Danielle Kurtzleben has this headline. “Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment is law. What happens next is unclear.”

Within a year, 30 of the necessary 38 states acted to ratify the ERA. But then momentum slowed as conservative activists allied with the emerging religious right launched a campaign to stop the amendment in its tracks. Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative lawyer and activist from Illinois who led the STOP ERA campaign, argued that the measure would lead to gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage, and women in military combat, among other things.

The opposition campaign was remarkably successful. Support for the ERA eroded, particularly among Republicans. Though the GOP was the first party to endorse the ERA back in 1940, GOP lawmakers cooled to the amendment, leading to a stalemate in the states.

By 1977, only 35 states had ratified the ERA. Though Congress voted to extend the ratification deadline by an additional three years, no new states signed on. Complicating matters further, lawmakers in five states — Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota — voted to rescind their earlier support.

In 1982, following the expiration of the extended deadline, most activists and lawmakers accepted the ERA’s defeat. But in the four decades since Congress first proposed the ERA, courts and legislatures have realized much of what the amendment was designed to accomplish. A significant portion of the credit goes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who as the founding director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project found success in arguing for a jurisprudence of gender equality under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

And yet, despite these dramatic and important gains for women’s rights, pervasive gender discrimination persists in the form of wage disparities, sexual harassment and violence, and unequal representation in the institutions of American democracy.

Here’s the White House Statement.

BREAKING: President Biden declares that the Equal Rights Amendment should be published

— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.bsky.social) 2025-01-17T15:41:09.155Z

I guess we’ll see what happens.  We can be assured that the next administration will sandbag it.  Even if this turns out to be a symbolic gesture, it’s a good one. It’s probably one of the last positive things from the Oval Office for a long while.

I had planned on discussing how odd it was that all these foreign dictators got invited to the inauguration and had seats saved for them on the dais.  Among those invited was a list of Far-Right Leaders.  I’ll briefly mention this and laugh with you as the cold weather seems to have relocated the entire thing indoors.  That seems like a shamanic sign. Where’s the MAGA guy with the horn hat? Is he still in jail? This is from US News & World Report. “Bucking Tradition, Trump Invited These Far-Right Leaders to the Inauguration. For the first time in U.S. history, foreign leaders are invited to an inauguration. Most are right-wing politicians, though a few notables didn’t make the cut.”  This portends the unpleasantness to come in the future.

President-elect Donald Trump has extended invitations to a handful of foreign leaders to attend his Jan. 20 swearing-in, a break with centuries of protocol by which heads of state were not a part of U.S. presidential inaugurations.

Trump floated the idea last month, saying it was something he was “thinking about.” The Associated Press at the time, citing State Department historical records, reported that no head of state has previously made an official visit to the U.S. for the inauguration.

“And some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” he said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”

In fact, foreign leaders in the past have been told politely, but firmly, to stay home, although diplomats and ambassadors are often present.

So who’s coming to Washington? The heads of America’s closest allies like the United Kingdom, Canada or Israel? Nope. It doesn’t look as if they were invited. Maybe a wild card like Saudi Arabia, where Trump took his first foreign trip after winning in 2016? If they were, no one’s saying. How about the leaders of geopolitical rivals or strategic global partners like China, India or Japan? Well, reports indicate that Xi declined. But all three have announced plans to send diplomatically face-saving, lower-level functionaries. So it seems a safe bet that the leaders of India and Japan were also on the list but RSVP’d that they had plans for the day that didn’t involve celebrating Trump’s ascension to the presidency.

Many of Trump’s invitees – and certainly the majority of those who have accepted – are far-right leaders with whom he has had a close relationship, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Argentinian President Javier Milei.

Here’s a roundup based on public statements and published reports on the current and former heads of state, politicians and bureaucrats who were invited or excluded and how they reacted.

Follow the link to see their roundup. So let’s get back to that change of plans on the inauguration.  This new deal still doesn’t include Former First Lady Michelle Obama.  She is still staying away.  CNN reports on the changes. I will not be watching either.  I’m with her. “Trump’s inauguration to be moved indoors.” Evidently, FARTUS can’t take a little rain and cold weather.  By the way, Happy Birthday Ms Obama!

President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be moved indoors, he announced Friday, due to dangerously cold temperatures projected in the nation’s capital.

“I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“We will open Capital One Arena on Monday for LIVE viewing of this Historic event, and to host the Presidential Parade. I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing In,” Trump added.

CNN reported earlier Friday that plans were underway for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance to be sworn in in the Rotunda and that Trump’s team was in talks to potentially hold some of the festivities at the arena, where Trump will host a rally on Sunday.

Officials are worried about the low temperatures being a health risk to attendees and guests — a concern Trump voiced on Friday.

“I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!),” Trump posted.

The last president to be sworn in indoors was Reagan in 1985, when daytime temperatures dipped to 7 degrees with a windchill of -25. Reagan took the oath of office inside the Capitol rotunda. His inaugural parade was canceled.

This year, the temperature on Inauguration Day at noon — when the president-elect swears in — is expected to be in the low 20s, which is around 20 degrees below normal — likely the coldest since Reagan’s second inauguration.

I almost used a different source for this because the tone seems awfully understanding and supportive rather than the perfunctory reporting of a change of venue. What’s this about “likely the coldest since Reagan’s second inauguration?”  They couldn’t ask the NWS for the stats or something? Seriously?  Since when is 20 degrees frigid? But that’s what our legacy media is reporting.  Let’s just hope some independent fact-checkers get on it.

So, that’s it for me today. I’m waiting for the city to shut down when we get the “frigid” temps in the 20s on Tuesday and even some snow!  Not!  But I refuse to go anywhere near people driving cars that have never seen snow.  Have a good weekend!

What’s on your Reading and Blogging List today!

#DictatorEnvy #FARTUS #FrigidWeather #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #michelleObama #PamBondiWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheERA

Finally Friday, Finally ERA? Reads

“Pretty sure a Mar-a-Lardo membership was included in the payoff to stop the Florida investigation into Trump University.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

President Joe Biden keeps doing historically wonderful things as we end the week of seeing several of the Deadly Horsemen FARTUS put up for Cabinet Positions. I’m glad BB covered the Alpha Chad, who is uniquely unqualified to become the Head of the DOD. Pam Bondi has the credentials but would not answer questions about her constitutional duties and responsibilities.  Pete the Cheat’s tagline was “anonymous smears.”  Her tagline was “I won’t answer hypotheticals,” which makes me think she had the same trainer as Beer Enthusiast Brent Cavanaugh. However, having served as a personal lawyer to the guy who is a Felon, Adjuctated Rapist, and Traitor to the county, I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t see that as a conflict of interest. However, with this motley crew of discontents and zealots, that’s a feature, not a bug.

“The confirmation hearings are confirming that loyalty to royalty is the only prerequisite.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Joyce Vance provides this brutal analysis at her Substack Civil Discourse.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi took her seat in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, her confirmation to be Donald Trump’s new attorney general almost a foregone conclusion. Her home state senator, Rick Scott, offered a glowing recommendation in his introduction, calling Bondi’s nomination a “home run” and a “grand slam.” But throughout her testimony, Bondi was incapable of giving a direct answer to the question, posed in various ways, of who won the 2020 election. If her introduction was full of sports metaphors, her testimony itself was more of a circus performance, with Bondi clumsily walking the tightrope between what she knew she had to say to get confirmed and what she knew she had to say to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces. She made it clear in the process that if she falls off, it will be in his direction. Bondi possesses the essential element for any Trump nominee, loyalty, and she’s not afraid to wear it on her sleeve.

So, I got a big glimmer of hope this morning when I got a text that told me that President Biden “President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is “the law of the land,” a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that is being celebrated by its backers, who plan to rally today in front of the National Archives.” That’s how NPR described it today since there’s some confusion over whether or not the Archivist will (or even can) publish it.

President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is “the law of the land,” a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that is being celebrated by its backers, who plan to rally today in front of the National Archives.

The amendment would need to be formally published or certified to come into effect by the National Archivist, Colleen Shogan — and when or if that will happen is unclear.

The executive branch doesn’t have a direct role in the amendment process, and Biden is not going to order the archivist to certify and publish the ERA, the White House told reporters on a conference call. A senior administration official said that the archivist’s role is “purely ministerial” in nature, meaning that the archivist is required to publish the amendment once it is ratified.

I spent a good deal of my 20s trying to get this passed. I went to Oklahoma. Started an event with a group of like-minded women in Nebraska to promote it while my state senator was trying to get Nebraska’s ratification removed. I also met so many Feminist leaders I’d adored for years.  I still have my copy of “The ERA handbook.”  Betty Ford was a big supporter, and I had hoped to get her to the podium at our event, but the cost of bringing the Secret Service in was overwhelming.  It clearly had a lot of support, but White Christian Nationalists were organizing to kill it and everything they deemed unholy. The ERA was introduced into Congress in 1923, the year my late mother was born.  The Brennen Center has a good analysis of its long history and why it has languished so long.

Danielle Kurtzleben has this headline. “Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment is law. What happens next is unclear.”

Within a year, 30 of the necessary 38 states acted to ratify the ERA. But then momentum slowed as conservative activists allied with the emerging religious right launched a campaign to stop the amendment in its tracks. Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative lawyer and activist from Illinois who led the STOP ERA campaign, argued that the measure would lead to gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage, and women in military combat, among other things.

The opposition campaign was remarkably successful. Support for the ERA eroded, particularly among Republicans. Though the GOP was the first party to endorse the ERA back in 1940, GOP lawmakers cooled to the amendment, leading to a stalemate in the states.

By 1977, only 35 states had ratified the ERA. Though Congress voted to extend the ratification deadline by an additional three years, no new states signed on. Complicating matters further, lawmakers in five states — Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota — voted to rescind their earlier support.

In 1982, following the expiration of the extended deadline, most activists and lawmakers accepted the ERA’s defeat. But in the four decades since Congress first proposed the ERA, courts and legislatures have realized much of what the amendment was designed to accomplish. A significant portion of the credit goes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who as the founding director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project found success in arguing for a jurisprudence of gender equality under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

And yet, despite these dramatic and important gains for women’s rights, pervasive gender discrimination persists in the form of wage disparities, sexual harassment and violence, and unequal representation in the institutions of American democracy.

Here’s the White House Statement.

BREAKING: President Biden declares that the Equal Rights Amendment should be published

— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.bsky.social) 2025-01-17T15:41:09.155Z

I guess we’ll see what happens.  We can be assured that the next administration will sandbag it.  Even if this turns out to be a symbolic gesture, it’s a good one. It’s probably one of the last positive things from the Oval Office for a long while.

I had planned on discussing how odd it was that all these foreign dictators got invited to the inauguration and had seats saved for them on the dais.  Among those invited was a list of Far-Right Leaders.  I’ll briefly mention this and laugh with you as the cold weather seems to have relocated the entire thing indoors.  That seems like a shamanic sign. Where’s the MAGA guy with the horn hat? Is he still in jail? This is from US News & World Report. “Bucking Tradition, Trump Invited These Far-Right Leaders to the Inauguration. For the first time in U.S. history, foreign leaders are invited to an inauguration. Most are right-wing politicians, though a few notables didn’t make the cut.”  This portends the unpleasantness to come in the future.

President-elect Donald Trump has extended invitations to a handful of foreign leaders to attend his Jan. 20 swearing-in, a break with centuries of protocol by which heads of state were not a part of U.S. presidential inaugurations.

Trump floated the idea last month, saying it was something he was “thinking about.” The Associated Press at the time, citing State Department historical records, reported that no head of state has previously made an official visit to the U.S. for the inauguration.

“And some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” he said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”

In fact, foreign leaders in the past have been told politely, but firmly, to stay home, although diplomats and ambassadors are often present.

So who’s coming to Washington? The heads of America’s closest allies like the United Kingdom, Canada or Israel? Nope. It doesn’t look as if they were invited. Maybe a wild card like Saudi Arabia, where Trump took his first foreign trip after winning in 2016? If they were, no one’s saying. How about the leaders of geopolitical rivals or strategic global partners like China, India or Japan? Well, reports indicate that Xi declined. But all three have announced plans to send diplomatically face-saving, lower-level functionaries. So it seems a safe bet that the leaders of India and Japan were also on the list but RSVP’d that they had plans for the day that didn’t involve celebrating Trump’s ascension to the presidency.

Many of Trump’s invitees – and certainly the majority of those who have accepted – are far-right leaders with whom he has had a close relationship, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Argentinian President Javier Milei.

Here’s a roundup based on public statements and published reports on the current and former heads of state, politicians and bureaucrats who were invited or excluded and how they reacted.

Follow the link to see their roundup. So let’s get back to that change of plans on the inauguration.  This new deal still doesn’t include Former First Lady Michelle Obama.  She is still staying away.  CNN reports on the changes. I will not be watching either.  I’m with her. “Trump’s inauguration to be moved indoors.” Evidently, FARTUS can’t take a little rain and cold weather.  By the way, Happy Birthday Ms Obama!

President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be moved indoors, he announced Friday, due to dangerously cold temperatures projected in the nation’s capital.

“I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“We will open Capital One Arena on Monday for LIVE viewing of this Historic event, and to host the Presidential Parade. I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing In,” Trump added.

CNN reported earlier Friday that plans were underway for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance to be sworn in in the Rotunda and that Trump’s team was in talks to potentially hold some of the festivities at the arena, where Trump will host a rally on Sunday.

Officials are worried about the low temperatures being a health risk to attendees and guests — a concern Trump voiced on Friday.

“I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!),” Trump posted.

The last president to be sworn in indoors was Reagan in 1985, when daytime temperatures dipped to 7 degrees with a windchill of -25. Reagan took the oath of office inside the Capitol rotunda. His inaugural parade was canceled.

This year, the temperature on Inauguration Day at noon — when the president-elect swears in — is expected to be in the low 20s, which is around 20 degrees below normal — likely the coldest since Reagan’s second inauguration.

I almost used a different source for this because the tone seems awfully understanding and supportive rather than the perfunctory reporting of a change of venue. What’s this about “likely the coldest since Reagan’s second inauguration?”  They couldn’t ask the NWS for the stats or something? Seriously?  Since when is 20 degrees frigid? But that’s what our legacy media is reporting.  Let’s just hope some independent fact-checkers get on it.

So, that’s it for me today. I’m waiting for the city to shut down when we get the “frigid” temps in the 20s on Tuesday and even some snow!  Not!  But I refuse to go anywhere near people driving cars that have never seen snow.  Have a good weekend!

What’s on your Reading and Blogging List today!

#DictatorEnvy #FARTUS #FrigidWeather #JohnRepeat1968BussJohnbussBskySocial #michelleObama #PamBondiWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #TheERA

Mostly Monday Reads: Seven days to Hell

Odorific John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

If there ever was a day to step away from the news, this is it.  There was a headline in Raw Story yesterday by Alternet’s Maya Boddie that explains the panic-inducing headlines I’m seeing today. “‘People are scared’: Trump ‘leaning heavily’ on this tactic to complete his first priority.”  The talk of having the military turned on our citizens and concentration camps for people deemed illegal has my stomach churning, frankly. Do we have to carry our birth certificates around with us until FARTUS determines a different manner of identifying citizens other than through birthright citizenship as outlined in our Constitution? When do those of us who actively write about him and his policies and protest his actions get the ticket to those same camps? What happens to the GLBTQ+ community? And why do I sound like I’m teaching a history class on Germany in the 1930s?

Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection, he made his plan to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Three sources familiar with the president-elect’s plans recently spoke with Rolling Stone senior political reporter Aswan Suesaeng about the MAGA administration’s strategy to implement the operation.

Per Suesaeng’s report, Trump “and several of his key lieutenants are aware that their desired, larger-scale crackdowns — which could involve a new network of militarized ‘camps‘ — will take significant time to execute.”

Therefore, “In the meantime, Trump and his incoming anti-immigration crew have plans to fill the gaps in part by leaning heavily into generating relentless propaganda and (as one Trump transition official puts it) ‘media spectacle’ that many of them hope will cause undocumented immigrants to flee the country and persuade migrants not to come to America,” Suesaeng reports.

“People are really scared,” immigration attorney Katie Kersh told the publication. Having run legal clinics for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio last year, Kersh added, “I think a lot of the Haitians are concerned that their rights will be violated. We are right now trying to make sure that people understand their rights, and allay their fears that they’ll be on a plane back to Haiti on Jan. 21, which is not how the law works.”

Suesaeng reports, “According to the three sources, there have been recent internal discussions within Trump’s government-in-waiting, including with the president-elect himself, not only about launching high-profile, big-city raids at the very beginning of the second term — but about how to inject those raids into the media ecosystem and social-media bloodstream as aggressively as possible.”

This, the politics reporter adds, would involve “tipping off friendly media, such as Fox News, to generate news footage of the actions; sending along the administration’s own camera crews; coordinating with, and pumping out video, photos, and announcements to top influencers on popular social media sites; having billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk wield his X platform (formerly Twitter) to whip up a MAGAfied propaganda loop highlighting these law-enforcement operations; and, of course, letting Trump boast garrulously on TV and online about these operations.”

This is from Politico. “‘I Think Things Are Going to Be Bad, Really Bad’: The US Military Debates Possible Deployment on US Soil Under Trump. Trump has said he wants to use active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?”  The last time this happened was when Poppy Bush sent the military to LA during the protests and riots after the Rodney King beatings.

According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

On Nov. 18, two weeks after the election, Trump confirmed he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for the mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear “rules of engagement” for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.

“Everything I hear is that our training is in the shitter,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Marvin Covault, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division in 1992 in what was called “Joint Task Force LA.” “I’m not sure we have the kind of discipline now, and at every leader level, that we had 32 years ago. That concerns me about the people you’re going to put on the ground.”

In an interview, Covault said he was careful to avoid lethal force in Los Angeles by emphasizing to his soldiers they were now “deployed in the civilian world.” He ordered gun chambers to remain empty except in self-defense, banned all automatic weapons and required bayonets to remain on soldiers’ belts.

But Covault added that he set those rules at his own discretion. Even then Covault said he faced some recalcitrance, especially from U.S. Marine battalions under his command that sought to keep M16 machine guns on their armored personnel carriers. In one reported case a Marine unit, asked by L.A. police for “cover,” misunderstood the police term for “standing by” and fired some 200 rounds at a house occupied by a family. Fortunately, no one was injured.

“If we get fast and loose with rules of engagement or if we get into operations without a stated mission and intent, we’re going to be headline news, and it’s not going to be good,” Covault said in the interview.

The military patrols in front of my house after Hurricane Katrina: Hummers, guns, and soldiers

I remember when I first got back to New Orleans after Katrina and was met by an up-armored Humvee with a gun turret and a few guys popping their rifles at me. I smiled, lifted my coffee cup to them, and my dogs wagged their tale, but, wow, I was glad that acting Lt. General Russel L. Honoré had yelled, “Weapons down! Weapons down, damn it!” at the NOPD and the surrounding National Guards. I’m not sure I’d wish that experience on anyone. However, what I witnessed as the National Guard stayed and started coming to our locals and accompanied the police to crime scenes was that they kept the police in line.  What FARTUS is suggesting seems to go against the Constitution.

Ever so often, the media drags out some political has-been and gets their opinion. The Guardian has this to say about what Newt Gingrich says about the deportation efforts.  Remember, Chamber of Commerce Republicans love them some cheap and plentiful labor. “Trump’s deportation vows only for ‘rabid’ Republicans and will fail, says Newt Gingrich. Former US House speaker says documented people, Dreamers, mothers and children must not be deported‘They enrich our lives’: Newt Gingrich on immigrants and Trump’s mass deportation plan

Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker and presidential hopeful, said a section of his own Republican party was “rabid” over immigration and predicted Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could deport documented people as well as millions of undocumented people will not come to pass.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump’s return to the White House. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories began to come out “about mothers or babies or children being deported”.

The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He has chosen ultra-hardliners including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and has suggested his administration will attempt to remove children and documented people, telling NBC: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Also at issue is the fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when they were brought to the US, and Trump’s vow to remove birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th amendment but which Trump says he will strike down by executive order.

Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protest, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for the Dreamers”, a position that may put him less at odds with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion he might accept a deal on the matter.

Gingrich continued: “It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?

“ … I think [the Trump administration has to] to realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with, and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge.”

There’s already some discussion about the HB-1 VISAs supported by Trump’s buddy, the equally vile Elon Musk, who, by Trump’s standards, should be in line to be deported, Bannon has picked a fight with him over the issue, and it’s as bugfuck ugly as the two of them are physically.  This is from The New Republic. “Bannon’s Rage at Musk Suddenly Goes Nuclear as MAGA Meltdown Worsens. As the war between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk intensifies, a leading Never Trump writer explains what all this says about the horrors that Trump-MAGA have in store for us—and how Dems can fight back.”

Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen, a columnist at The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

Sargent: Steve Bannon gave this interview to an Italian newspaper in which he said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day. He will not have a pass to the White House…. He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy.” Bannon even says it’s his personal vendetta to take this guy down. Before we get into the guts of this dispute, what do you think of this, Mona?

Charen: It’s interesting because I published a piece that you were kind enough to mention last week where I was asking: Where are the Democrats who are calling upon Trump and others in the Republican Party to denounce Musk for his open promotion of basically reactionary movements in Europe, even fascist movements and other crimes and misdemeanors? And they’ve been oddly quiescent. Then, of all people, Steve Bannon comes out and he’s going out at it hammer and tongs. He’s accusing him of also racism, which I didn’t see coming. I don’t know, did you imagine that you were going to see Steve Bannon decrying the white South Africans and their influence on the MAGA movement? That was interesting too.

Sargent: Just to clarify for listeners, that is something else that Bannon said in this interview. He decried the white South Africans, [saying] they’re real racists. Why are we letting the worst racists in human history, or something like that,dictate policy in the United States? Let’s talk a little bit about the real root of the feud between Musk and Bannon. Musk wants more high-skilled visas for tech workers, and Bannon, along with Stephen Miller, oppose this. They see big tech as part of a globalist plot to replace American workers, etc.

I do not know how so many privileged old white men can be so outraged about everything. All this is going on as Pete Hegseth’s hearings happen tomorrow.  This is from the falling apart at the seams Washington Post. “Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces tough confirmation test. The controversial former Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault and faces a grueling confirmation hearing on the path to becoming the next secretary of defense.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will appear for questioning Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in a public confirmationhearing that Democrats will use to interrogate his limited management experience, allegations of illicit and inappropriate conduct, and a long history of public commentary deriding women, minorities and people with opposing political views.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, who has called for a “full counterattack” to retake America’s military from “radical leftists” and Democrats, will be the first of Trump’s unconventional cabinet picks to submit to formal scrutiny before a bipartisan panel of senators.

Hegseth’s path to winningthe job depends in large part on how he weathers the blistering questions he will face this week, with little hope of securing any Democratic votes andas several moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about his appointment.

As the secretary of defense, one of the senior-most positions in Trump’s incoming cabinet, Hegseth, a 44-year-old National Guard veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would oversee more than 3 million military and civilian personnel around the world, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, and an annual budget of more than $800 billion.

This is Rebecca Traister’s take on the New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. ” Pete Hegseth Is a Test Inside the Senate’s torturous debates over Donald Trump’s worst Cabinet nominee.”

Pete Hegseth is, by every measure, an abysmal nominee to run the American military. The Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News commentator has no experience managing enormous, complex organizations like the Pentagon and would, as secretary of Defense, be in charge of an $850 billion budget and 3 million active-duty and civilian personnel. His spotty professional record includes having been asked to step down from two nonprofit veterans’ groups whose budgets he reportedly ran into the ground. Questions about his personal behavior abound: He has been accused of rape (he reached a civil settlement with his accuser in 2017) and has a reported habit of excessive drinking, including while on the job and to the point of incapacitation in public. He has defended waterboarding and torture, advocated on behalf of alleged war criminals, and as recently as November he declared, “I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles.” Even Republicans haven’t been able to find much good to say about him. “If it were a secret ballot,” one moderate senator told me, “I don’t think he’d be confirmed.”

But the battle for his confirmation will not be secret; it will be glaringly public, with televised hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for Tuesday. It is the first serious test of Donald Trump’s newly invigorated strongman model of governance and of whether he can continue to bend the Republican Party to his will even as Hegseth breaks procedural precedents, including skirting a vetting process designed to protect national security. It is also a window into the influence that Trump’s heavy, Elon Musk, is exerting across Washington by threatening to bankroll primary challenges of anyone who defies Trump. And Hegseth’s nomination is a measure of just how strenuously Democrats are planning to fight back, at a moment when they are powerless to stop the Republicans in Congress and are second-guessing past resistance efforts that have been retrospectively cast as failures. Trump has singled out Hegseth as the figure he cares most about pushing through, his next administration’s big opening number, showcasing what he hopes will be his own party’s submission to his whims and the Democrats’ humiliating impotence in the face of his authority.

The Armed Services Committee is not one that has historically been the venue for explosive partisan warfare. “The thing to understand about it,” said one staffer, “is that it’s designed to have hearings about defense policy, draft the defense bill every year, and is sort of bipartisan.” But Hegseth is all but certain to cleave the group into partisan camps. His nomination has put an uncomfortable spotlight on Republican senators who might be persuaded to vote against his nomination, especially on Iowa’s Joni Ernst, a staunch Republican who is respected by her Democratic colleagues for her commitment to the committee’s work.

Is this the man you want commanding armed troops on your neighborhood streets if Trump gets his way?  Trump has started backtracking on ending the Ukraine Invasion by Russia by giving a lot of it away to Putin. This is from The New Republic. It’s reported by Hafiz Rashid. “Team Trump Suddenly Backtracks on Key Campaign Promise. Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy made a damning confession on the likelihood of the war ending.”

Donald Trump is backtracking on his big campaign promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, according to his special envoy to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Keith Kellogg told Fox News that the Russia-Ukraine war would come to a “solvable solution in the near term.”

“You know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level and professional level. I would say, let’s set it at 100 days and move it all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends,” Kellogg said.

A “near term” timeline is a marked difference from Trump’s bravado on the campaign trail, where he repeatedly bragged that he could end the war in a day or even sooner. Trump himself seems to realize this, telling Time magazine last month that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin has also thrown cold water on Trump’s promises, ignoring the president-elect’s “warnings.”

In just 7 days, the clown car returns.  We’ve seen a slight shuffle in some of the folks we’ve received news from. Jennifer Ruben announced she’s left WAPO and will be writing at The Contrarian at Substack with Norm Eisen.

Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy—Donald Trump—at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.

I therefore have resigned from The Post, effective today. In doing so, I join a throng of veteran journalists so distressed over The Post’s management they felt compelled to resign.

The decay and compromised principles of corporate and billionaire-owned media underscore the urgent need for alternatives. Americans are eager for innovative and independent journalism that offers lively, unflinching coverage free from cant, conflicts of interest and moral equivocation.

Also, Rachel Maddow returns to her timeslot 5 times a week for FARTUS’ first 100 days, as reported by CNN.

The MSNBC prime time star is expanding her on-air presence for the first 100 days of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, the network announced Monday, injecting what may be a much-needed ratings boost into the progressive outlet’s lineup.

Maddow’s show, MSNBC’s highest rated program, has only aired once a week since 2022 when she stepped away to focus on other projects, including films, books and podcasts. Her temporary return to the anchor desk weeknights at 9 p.m. ET will see Alex Wagner, who currently anchors the timeslot Tuesday through Friday, deployed on special assignment to cover the impact of the president-elect’s policies.

So, there’s a lot more out there, and you may share it in the comments section. We may have to try to pull your comments out of the pending bin, so be patient.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FARTUS #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #massDeportations #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #USMilitaryOnUSStreets

Mostly Monday Reads: Seven days to Hell

Odorific John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

If there ever was a day to step away from the news, this is it.  There was a headline in Raw Story yesterday by Alternet’s Maya Boddie that explains the panic-inducing headlines I’m seeing today. “‘People are scared’: Trump ‘leaning heavily’ on this tactic to complete his first priority.”  The talk of having the military turned on our citizens and concentration camps for people deemed illegal has my stomach churning, frankly. Do we have to carry our birth certificates around with us until FARTUS determines a different manner of identifying citizens other than through birthright citizenship as outlined in our Constitution? When do those of us who actively write about him and his policies and protest his actions get the ticket to those same camps? What happens to the GLBTQ+ community? And why do I sound like I’m teaching a history class on Germany in the 1930s?

Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection, he made his plan to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Three sources familiar with the president-elect’s plans recently spoke with Rolling Stone senior political reporter Aswan Suesaeng about the MAGA administration’s strategy to implement the operation.

Per Suesaeng’s report, Trump “and several of his key lieutenants are aware that their desired, larger-scale crackdowns — which could involve a new network of militarized ‘camps‘ — will take significant time to execute.”

Therefore, “In the meantime, Trump and his incoming anti-immigration crew have plans to fill the gaps in part by leaning heavily into generating relentless propaganda and (as one Trump transition official puts it) ‘media spectacle’ that many of them hope will cause undocumented immigrants to flee the country and persuade migrants not to come to America,” Suesaeng reports.

“People are really scared,” immigration attorney Katie Kersh told the publication. Having run legal clinics for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio last year, Kersh added, “I think a lot of the Haitians are concerned that their rights will be violated. We are right now trying to make sure that people understand their rights, and allay their fears that they’ll be on a plane back to Haiti on Jan. 21, which is not how the law works.”

Suesaeng reports, “According to the three sources, there have been recent internal discussions within Trump’s government-in-waiting, including with the president-elect himself, not only about launching high-profile, big-city raids at the very beginning of the second term — but about how to inject those raids into the media ecosystem and social-media bloodstream as aggressively as possible.”

This, the politics reporter adds, would involve “tipping off friendly media, such as Fox News, to generate news footage of the actions; sending along the administration’s own camera crews; coordinating with, and pumping out video, photos, and announcements to top influencers on popular social media sites; having billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk wield his X platform (formerly Twitter) to whip up a MAGAfied propaganda loop highlighting these law-enforcement operations; and, of course, letting Trump boast garrulously on TV and online about these operations.”

This is from Politico. “‘I Think Things Are Going to Be Bad, Really Bad’: The US Military Debates Possible Deployment on US Soil Under Trump. Trump has said he wants to use active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?”  The last time this happened was when Poppy Bush sent the military to LA during the protests and riots after the Rodney King beatings.

According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

On Nov. 18, two weeks after the election, Trump confirmed he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for the mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear “rules of engagement” for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.

“Everything I hear is that our training is in the shitter,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Marvin Covault, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division in 1992 in what was called “Joint Task Force LA.” “I’m not sure we have the kind of discipline now, and at every leader level, that we had 32 years ago. That concerns me about the people you’re going to put on the ground.”

In an interview, Covault said he was careful to avoid lethal force in Los Angeles by emphasizing to his soldiers they were now “deployed in the civilian world.” He ordered gun chambers to remain empty except in self-defense, banned all automatic weapons and required bayonets to remain on soldiers’ belts.

But Covault added that he set those rules at his own discretion. Even then Covault said he faced some recalcitrance, especially from U.S. Marine battalions under his command that sought to keep M16 machine guns on their armored personnel carriers. In one reported case a Marine unit, asked by L.A. police for “cover,” misunderstood the police term for “standing by” and fired some 200 rounds at a house occupied by a family. Fortunately, no one was injured.

“If we get fast and loose with rules of engagement or if we get into operations without a stated mission and intent, we’re going to be headline news, and it’s not going to be good,” Covault said in the interview.

The military patrols in front of my house after Hurricane Katrina: Hummers, guns, and soldiers

I remember when I first got back to New Orleans after Katrina and was met by an up-armored Humvee with a gun turret and a few guys popping their rifles at me. I smiled, lifted my coffee cup to them, and my dogs wagged their tale, but, wow, I was glad that acting Lt. General Russel L. Honoré had yelled, “Weapons down! Weapons down, damn it!” at the NOPD and the surrounding National Guards. I’m not sure I’d wish that experience on anyone. However, what I witnessed as the National Guard stayed and started coming to our locals and accompanied the police to crime scenes was that they kept the police in line.  What FARTUS is suggesting seems to go against the Constitution.

Ever so often, the media drags out some political has-been and gets their opinion. The Guardian has this to say about what Newt Gingrich says about the deportation efforts.  Remember, Chamber of Commerce Republicans love them some cheap and plentiful labor. “Trump’s deportation vows only for ‘rabid’ Republicans and will fail, says Newt Gingrich. Former US House speaker says documented people, Dreamers, mothers and children must not be deported‘They enrich our lives’: Newt Gingrich on immigrants and Trump’s mass deportation plan

Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker and presidential hopeful, said a section of his own Republican party was “rabid” over immigration and predicted Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could deport documented people as well as millions of undocumented people will not come to pass.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump’s return to the White House. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories began to come out “about mothers or babies or children being deported”.

The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He has chosen ultra-hardliners including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and has suggested his administration will attempt to remove children and documented people, telling NBC: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Also at issue is the fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when they were brought to the US, and Trump’s vow to remove birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th amendment but which Trump says he will strike down by executive order.

Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protest, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for the Dreamers”, a position that may put him less at odds with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion he might accept a deal on the matter.

Gingrich continued: “It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?

“ … I think [the Trump administration has to] to realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with, and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge.”

There’s already some discussion about the HB-1 VISAs supported by Trump’s buddy, the equally vile Elon Musk, who, by Trump’s standards, should be in line to be deported, Bannon has picked a fight with him over the issue, and it’s as bugfuck ugly as the two of them are physically.  This is from The New Republic. “Bannon’s Rage at Musk Suddenly Goes Nuclear as MAGA Meltdown Worsens. As the war between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk intensifies, a leading Never Trump writer explains what all this says about the horrors that Trump-MAGA have in store for us—and how Dems can fight back.”

Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen, a columnist at The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

Sargent: Steve Bannon gave this interview to an Italian newspaper in which he said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day. He will not have a pass to the White House…. He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy.” Bannon even says it’s his personal vendetta to take this guy down. Before we get into the guts of this dispute, what do you think of this, Mona?

Charen: It’s interesting because I published a piece that you were kind enough to mention last week where I was asking: Where are the Democrats who are calling upon Trump and others in the Republican Party to denounce Musk for his open promotion of basically reactionary movements in Europe, even fascist movements and other crimes and misdemeanors? And they’ve been oddly quiescent. Then, of all people, Steve Bannon comes out and he’s going out at it hammer and tongs. He’s accusing him of also racism, which I didn’t see coming. I don’t know, did you imagine that you were going to see Steve Bannon decrying the white South Africans and their influence on the MAGA movement? That was interesting too.

Sargent: Just to clarify for listeners, that is something else that Bannon said in this interview. He decried the white South Africans, [saying] they’re real racists. Why are we letting the worst racists in human history, or something like that,dictate policy in the United States? Let’s talk a little bit about the real root of the feud between Musk and Bannon. Musk wants more high-skilled visas for tech workers, and Bannon, along with Stephen Miller, oppose this. They see big tech as part of a globalist plot to replace American workers, etc.

I do not know how so many privileged old white men can be so outraged about everything. All this is going on as Pete Hegseth’s hearings happen tomorrow.  This is from the falling apart at the seams Washington Post. “Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces tough confirmation test. The controversial former Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault and faces a grueling confirmation hearing on the path to becoming the next secretary of defense.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will appear for questioning Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in a public confirmationhearing that Democrats will use to interrogate his limited management experience, allegations of illicit and inappropriate conduct, and a long history of public commentary deriding women, minorities and people with opposing political views.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, who has called for a “full counterattack” to retake America’s military from “radical leftists” and Democrats, will be the first of Trump’s unconventional cabinet picks to submit to formal scrutiny before a bipartisan panel of senators.

Hegseth’s path to winningthe job depends in large part on how he weathers the blistering questions he will face this week, with little hope of securing any Democratic votes andas several moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about his appointment.

As the secretary of defense, one of the senior-most positions in Trump’s incoming cabinet, Hegseth, a 44-year-old National Guard veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would oversee more than 3 million military and civilian personnel around the world, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, and an annual budget of more than $800 billion.

This is Rebecca Traister’s take on the New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. ” Pete Hegseth Is a Test Inside the Senate’s torturous debates over Donald Trump’s worst Cabinet nominee.”

Pete Hegseth is, by every measure, an abysmal nominee to run the American military. The Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News commentator has no experience managing enormous, complex organizations like the Pentagon and would, as secretary of Defense, be in charge of an $850 billion budget and 3 million active-duty and civilian personnel. His spotty professional record includes having been asked to step down from two nonprofit veterans’ groups whose budgets he reportedly ran into the ground. Questions about his personal behavior abound: He has been accused of rape (he reached a civil settlement with his accuser in 2017) and has a reported habit of excessive drinking, including while on the job and to the point of incapacitation in public. He has defended waterboarding and torture, advocated on behalf of alleged war criminals, and as recently as November he declared, “I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles.” Even Republicans haven’t been able to find much good to say about him. “If it were a secret ballot,” one moderate senator told me, “I don’t think he’d be confirmed.”

But the battle for his confirmation will not be secret; it will be glaringly public, with televised hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for Tuesday. It is the first serious test of Donald Trump’s newly invigorated strongman model of governance and of whether he can continue to bend the Republican Party to his will even as Hegseth breaks procedural precedents, including skirting a vetting process designed to protect national security. It is also a window into the influence that Trump’s heavy, Elon Musk, is exerting across Washington by threatening to bankroll primary challenges of anyone who defies Trump. And Hegseth’s nomination is a measure of just how strenuously Democrats are planning to fight back, at a moment when they are powerless to stop the Republicans in Congress and are second-guessing past resistance efforts that have been retrospectively cast as failures. Trump has singled out Hegseth as the figure he cares most about pushing through, his next administration’s big opening number, showcasing what he hopes will be his own party’s submission to his whims and the Democrats’ humiliating impotence in the face of his authority.

The Armed Services Committee is not one that has historically been the venue for explosive partisan warfare. “The thing to understand about it,” said one staffer, “is that it’s designed to have hearings about defense policy, draft the defense bill every year, and is sort of bipartisan.” But Hegseth is all but certain to cleave the group into partisan camps. His nomination has put an uncomfortable spotlight on Republican senators who might be persuaded to vote against his nomination, especially on Iowa’s Joni Ernst, a staunch Republican who is respected by her Democratic colleagues for her commitment to the committee’s work.

Is this the man you want commanding armed troops on your neighborhood streets if Trump gets his way?  Trump has started backtracking on ending the Ukraine Invasion by Russia by giving a lot of it away to Putin. This is from The New Republic. It’s reported by Hafiz Rashid. “Team Trump Suddenly Backtracks on Key Campaign Promise. Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy made a damning confession on the likelihood of the war ending.”

Donald Trump is backtracking on his big campaign promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, according to his special envoy to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Keith Kellogg told Fox News that the Russia-Ukraine war would come to a “solvable solution in the near term.”

“You know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level and professional level. I would say, let’s set it at 100 days and move it all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends,” Kellogg said.

A “near term” timeline is a marked difference from Trump’s bravado on the campaign trail, where he repeatedly bragged that he could end the war in a day or even sooner. Trump himself seems to realize this, telling Time magazine last month that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin has also thrown cold water on Trump’s promises, ignoring the president-elect’s “warnings.”

In just 7 days, the clown car returns.  We’ve seen a slight shuffle in some of the folks we’ve received news from. Jennifer Ruben announced she’s left WAPO and will be writing at The Contrarian at Substack with Norm Eisen.

Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy—Donald Trump—at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.

I therefore have resigned from The Post, effective today. In doing so, I join a throng of veteran journalists so distressed over The Post’s management they felt compelled to resign.

The decay and compromised principles of corporate and billionaire-owned media underscore the urgent need for alternatives. Americans are eager for innovative and independent journalism that offers lively, unflinching coverage free from cant, conflicts of interest and moral equivocation.

Also, Rachel Maddow returns to her timeslot 5 times a week for FARTUS’ first 100 days, as reported by CNN.

The MSNBC prime time star is expanding her on-air presence for the first 100 days of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, the network announced Monday, injecting what may be a much-needed ratings boost into the progressive outlet’s lineup.

Maddow’s show, MSNBC’s highest rated program, has only aired once a week since 2022 when she stepped away to focus on other projects, including films, books and podcasts. Her temporary return to the anchor desk weeknights at 9 p.m. ET will see Alex Wagner, who currently anchors the timeslot Tuesday through Friday, deployed on special assignment to cover the impact of the president-elect’s policies.

So, there’s a lot more out there, and you may share it in the comments section. We may have to try to pull your comments out of the pending bin, so be patient.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FARTUS #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #massDeportations #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #USMilitaryOnUSStreets

Mostly Monday Reads: Seven days to Hell

Odorific John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

If there ever was a day to step away from the news, this is it.  There was a headline in Raw Story yesterday by Alternet’s Maya Boddie that explains the panic-inducing headlines I’m seeing today. “‘People are scared’: Trump ‘leaning heavily’ on this tactic to complete his first priority.”  The talk of having the military turned on our citizens and concentration camps for people deemed illegal has my stomach churning, frankly. Do we have to carry our birth certificates around with us until FARTUS determines a different manner of identifying citizens other than through birthright citizenship as outlined in our Constitution? When do those of us who actively write about him and his policies and protest his actions get the ticket to those same camps? What happens to the GLBTQ+ community? And why do I sound like I’m teaching a history class on Germany in the 1930s?

Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection, he made his plan to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Three sources familiar with the president-elect’s plans recently spoke with Rolling Stone senior political reporter Aswan Suesaeng about the MAGA administration’s strategy to implement the operation.

Per Suesaeng’s report, Trump “and several of his key lieutenants are aware that their desired, larger-scale crackdowns — which could involve a new network of militarized ‘camps‘ — will take significant time to execute.”

Therefore, “In the meantime, Trump and his incoming anti-immigration crew have plans to fill the gaps in part by leaning heavily into generating relentless propaganda and (as one Trump transition official puts it) ‘media spectacle’ that many of them hope will cause undocumented immigrants to flee the country and persuade migrants not to come to America,” Suesaeng reports.

“People are really scared,” immigration attorney Katie Kersh told the publication. Having run legal clinics for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio last year, Kersh added, “I think a lot of the Haitians are concerned that their rights will be violated. We are right now trying to make sure that people understand their rights, and allay their fears that they’ll be on a plane back to Haiti on Jan. 21, which is not how the law works.”

Suesaeng reports, “According to the three sources, there have been recent internal discussions within Trump’s government-in-waiting, including with the president-elect himself, not only about launching high-profile, big-city raids at the very beginning of the second term — but about how to inject those raids into the media ecosystem and social-media bloodstream as aggressively as possible.”

This, the politics reporter adds, would involve “tipping off friendly media, such as Fox News, to generate news footage of the actions; sending along the administration’s own camera crews; coordinating with, and pumping out video, photos, and announcements to top influencers on popular social media sites; having billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk wield his X platform (formerly Twitter) to whip up a MAGAfied propaganda loop highlighting these law-enforcement operations; and, of course, letting Trump boast garrulously on TV and online about these operations.”

This is from Politico. “‘I Think Things Are Going to Be Bad, Really Bad’: The US Military Debates Possible Deployment on US Soil Under Trump. Trump has said he wants to use active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?”  The last time this happened was when Poppy Bush sent the military to LA during the protests and riots after the Rodney King beatings.

According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

On Nov. 18, two weeks after the election, Trump confirmed he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for the mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear “rules of engagement” for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.

“Everything I hear is that our training is in the shitter,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Marvin Covault, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division in 1992 in what was called “Joint Task Force LA.” “I’m not sure we have the kind of discipline now, and at every leader level, that we had 32 years ago. That concerns me about the people you’re going to put on the ground.”

In an interview, Covault said he was careful to avoid lethal force in Los Angeles by emphasizing to his soldiers they were now “deployed in the civilian world.” He ordered gun chambers to remain empty except in self-defense, banned all automatic weapons and required bayonets to remain on soldiers’ belts.

But Covault added that he set those rules at his own discretion. Even then Covault said he faced some recalcitrance, especially from U.S. Marine battalions under his command that sought to keep M16 machine guns on their armored personnel carriers. In one reported case a Marine unit, asked by L.A. police for “cover,” misunderstood the police term for “standing by” and fired some 200 rounds at a house occupied by a family. Fortunately, no one was injured.

“If we get fast and loose with rules of engagement or if we get into operations without a stated mission and intent, we’re going to be headline news, and it’s not going to be good,” Covault said in the interview.

The military patrols in front of my house after Hurricane Katrina: Hummers, guns, and soldiers

I remember when I first got back to New Orleans after Katrina and was met by an up-armored Humvee with a gun turret and a few guys popping their rifles at me. I smiled, lifted my coffee cup to them, and my dogs wagged their tale, but, wow, I was glad that acting Lt. General Russel L. Honoré had yelled, “Weapons down! Weapons down, damn it!” at the NOPD and the surrounding National Guards. I’m not sure I’d wish that experience on anyone. However, what I witnessed as the National Guard stayed and started coming to our locals and accompanied the police to crime scenes was that they kept the police in line.  What FARTUS is suggesting seems to go against the Constitution.

Ever so often, the media drags out some political has-been and gets their opinion. The Guardian has this to say about what Newt Gingrich says about the deportation efforts.  Remember, Chamber of Commerce Republicans love them some cheap and plentiful labor. “Trump’s deportation vows only for ‘rabid’ Republicans and will fail, says Newt Gingrich. Former US House speaker says documented people, Dreamers, mothers and children must not be deported‘They enrich our lives’: Newt Gingrich on immigrants and Trump’s mass deportation plan

Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker and presidential hopeful, said a section of his own Republican party was “rabid” over immigration and predicted Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could deport documented people as well as millions of undocumented people will not come to pass.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump’s return to the White House. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories began to come out “about mothers or babies or children being deported”.

The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He has chosen ultra-hardliners including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and has suggested his administration will attempt to remove children and documented people, telling NBC: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Also at issue is the fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when they were brought to the US, and Trump’s vow to remove birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th amendment but which Trump says he will strike down by executive order.

Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protest, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for the Dreamers”, a position that may put him less at odds with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion he might accept a deal on the matter.

Gingrich continued: “It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?

“ … I think [the Trump administration has to] to realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with, and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge.”

There’s already some discussion about the HB-1 VISAs supported by Trump’s buddy, the equally vile Elon Musk, who, by Trump’s standards, should be in line to be deported, Bannon has picked a fight with him over the issue, and it’s as bugfuck ugly as the two of them are physically.  This is from The New Republic. “Bannon’s Rage at Musk Suddenly Goes Nuclear as MAGA Meltdown Worsens. As the war between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk intensifies, a leading Never Trump writer explains what all this says about the horrors that Trump-MAGA have in store for us—and how Dems can fight back.”

Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen, a columnist at The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

Sargent: Steve Bannon gave this interview to an Italian newspaper in which he said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day. He will not have a pass to the White House…. He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy.” Bannon even says it’s his personal vendetta to take this guy down. Before we get into the guts of this dispute, what do you think of this, Mona?

Charen: It’s interesting because I published a piece that you were kind enough to mention last week where I was asking: Where are the Democrats who are calling upon Trump and others in the Republican Party to denounce Musk for his open promotion of basically reactionary movements in Europe, even fascist movements and other crimes and misdemeanors? And they’ve been oddly quiescent. Then, of all people, Steve Bannon comes out and he’s going out at it hammer and tongs. He’s accusing him of also racism, which I didn’t see coming. I don’t know, did you imagine that you were going to see Steve Bannon decrying the white South Africans and their influence on the MAGA movement? That was interesting too.

Sargent: Just to clarify for listeners, that is something else that Bannon said in this interview. He decried the white South Africans, [saying] they’re real racists. Why are we letting the worst racists in human history, or something like that,dictate policy in the United States? Let’s talk a little bit about the real root of the feud between Musk and Bannon. Musk wants more high-skilled visas for tech workers, and Bannon, along with Stephen Miller, oppose this. They see big tech as part of a globalist plot to replace American workers, etc.

I do not know how so many privileged old white men can be so outraged about everything. All this is going on as Pete Hegseth’s hearings happen tomorrow.  This is from the falling apart at the seams Washington Post. “Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces tough confirmation test. The controversial former Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault and faces a grueling confirmation hearing on the path to becoming the next secretary of defense.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will appear for questioning Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in a public confirmationhearing that Democrats will use to interrogate his limited management experience, allegations of illicit and inappropriate conduct, and a long history of public commentary deriding women, minorities and people with opposing political views.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, who has called for a “full counterattack” to retake America’s military from “radical leftists” and Democrats, will be the first of Trump’s unconventional cabinet picks to submit to formal scrutiny before a bipartisan panel of senators.

Hegseth’s path to winningthe job depends in large part on how he weathers the blistering questions he will face this week, with little hope of securing any Democratic votes andas several moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about his appointment.

As the secretary of defense, one of the senior-most positions in Trump’s incoming cabinet, Hegseth, a 44-year-old National Guard veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would oversee more than 3 million military and civilian personnel around the world, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, and an annual budget of more than $800 billion.

This is Rebecca Traister’s take on the New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. ” Pete Hegseth Is a Test Inside the Senate’s torturous debates over Donald Trump’s worst Cabinet nominee.”

Pete Hegseth is, by every measure, an abysmal nominee to run the American military. The Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News commentator has no experience managing enormous, complex organizations like the Pentagon and would, as secretary of Defense, be in charge of an $850 billion budget and 3 million active-duty and civilian personnel. His spotty professional record includes having been asked to step down from two nonprofit veterans’ groups whose budgets he reportedly ran into the ground. Questions about his personal behavior abound: He has been accused of rape (he reached a civil settlement with his accuser in 2017) and has a reported habit of excessive drinking, including while on the job and to the point of incapacitation in public. He has defended waterboarding and torture, advocated on behalf of alleged war criminals, and as recently as November he declared, “I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles.” Even Republicans haven’t been able to find much good to say about him. “If it were a secret ballot,” one moderate senator told me, “I don’t think he’d be confirmed.”

But the battle for his confirmation will not be secret; it will be glaringly public, with televised hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for Tuesday. It is the first serious test of Donald Trump’s newly invigorated strongman model of governance and of whether he can continue to bend the Republican Party to his will even as Hegseth breaks procedural precedents, including skirting a vetting process designed to protect national security. It is also a window into the influence that Trump’s heavy, Elon Musk, is exerting across Washington by threatening to bankroll primary challenges of anyone who defies Trump. And Hegseth’s nomination is a measure of just how strenuously Democrats are planning to fight back, at a moment when they are powerless to stop the Republicans in Congress and are second-guessing past resistance efforts that have been retrospectively cast as failures. Trump has singled out Hegseth as the figure he cares most about pushing through, his next administration’s big opening number, showcasing what he hopes will be his own party’s submission to his whims and the Democrats’ humiliating impotence in the face of his authority.

The Armed Services Committee is not one that has historically been the venue for explosive partisan warfare. “The thing to understand about it,” said one staffer, “is that it’s designed to have hearings about defense policy, draft the defense bill every year, and is sort of bipartisan.” But Hegseth is all but certain to cleave the group into partisan camps. His nomination has put an uncomfortable spotlight on Republican senators who might be persuaded to vote against his nomination, especially on Iowa’s Joni Ernst, a staunch Republican who is respected by her Democratic colleagues for her commitment to the committee’s work.

Is this the man you want commanding armed troops on your neighborhood streets if Trump gets his way?  Trump has started backtracking on ending the Ukraine Invasion by Russia by giving a lot of it away to Putin. This is from The New Republic. It’s reported by Hafiz Rashid. “Team Trump Suddenly Backtracks on Key Campaign Promise. Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy made a damning confession on the likelihood of the war ending.”

Donald Trump is backtracking on his big campaign promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, according to his special envoy to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Keith Kellogg told Fox News that the Russia-Ukraine war would come to a “solvable solution in the near term.”

“You know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level and professional level. I would say, let’s set it at 100 days and move it all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends,” Kellogg said.

A “near term” timeline is a marked difference from Trump’s bravado on the campaign trail, where he repeatedly bragged that he could end the war in a day or even sooner. Trump himself seems to realize this, telling Time magazine last month that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin has also thrown cold water on Trump’s promises, ignoring the president-elect’s “warnings.”

In just 7 days, the clown car returns.  We’ve seen a slight shuffle in some of the folks we’ve received news from. Jennifer Ruben announced she’s left WAPO and will be writing at The Contrarian at Substack with Norm Eisen.

Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy—Donald Trump—at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.

I therefore have resigned from The Post, effective today. In doing so, I join a throng of veteran journalists so distressed over The Post’s management they felt compelled to resign.

The decay and compromised principles of corporate and billionaire-owned media underscore the urgent need for alternatives. Americans are eager for innovative and independent journalism that offers lively, unflinching coverage free from cant, conflicts of interest and moral equivocation.

Also, Rachel Maddow returns to her timeslot 5 times a week for FARTUS’ first 100 days, as reported by CNN.

The MSNBC prime time star is expanding her on-air presence for the first 100 days of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, the network announced Monday, injecting what may be a much-needed ratings boost into the progressive outlet’s lineup.

Maddow’s show, MSNBC’s highest rated program, has only aired once a week since 2022 when she stepped away to focus on other projects, including films, books and podcasts. Her temporary return to the anchor desk weeknights at 9 p.m. ET will see Alex Wagner, who currently anchors the timeslot Tuesday through Friday, deployed on special assignment to cover the impact of the president-elect’s policies.

So, there’s a lot more out there, and you may share it in the comments section. We may have to try to pull your comments out of the pending bin, so be patient.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FARTUS #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #massDeportations #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #USMilitaryOnUSStreets

Mostly Monday Reads: Seven days to Hell

Odorific John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

If there ever was a day to step away from the news, this is it.  There was a headline in Raw Story yesterday by Alternet’s Maya Boddie that explains the panic-inducing headlines I’m seeing today. “‘People are scared’: Trump ‘leaning heavily’ on this tactic to complete his first priority.”  The talk of having the military turned on our citizens and concentration camps for people deemed illegal has my stomach churning, frankly. Do we have to carry our birth certificates around with us until FARTUS determines a different manner of identifying citizens other than through birthright citizenship as outlined in our Constitution? When do those of us who actively write about him and his policies and protest his actions get the ticket to those same camps? What happens to the GLBTQ+ community? And why do I sound like I’m teaching a history class on Germany in the 1930s?

Throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for reelection, he made his plan to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Three sources familiar with the president-elect’s plans recently spoke with Rolling Stone senior political reporter Aswan Suesaeng about the MAGA administration’s strategy to implement the operation.

Per Suesaeng’s report, Trump “and several of his key lieutenants are aware that their desired, larger-scale crackdowns — which could involve a new network of militarized ‘camps‘ — will take significant time to execute.”

Therefore, “In the meantime, Trump and his incoming anti-immigration crew have plans to fill the gaps in part by leaning heavily into generating relentless propaganda and (as one Trump transition official puts it) ‘media spectacle’ that many of them hope will cause undocumented immigrants to flee the country and persuade migrants not to come to America,” Suesaeng reports.

“People are really scared,” immigration attorney Katie Kersh told the publication. Having run legal clinics for Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio last year, Kersh added, “I think a lot of the Haitians are concerned that their rights will be violated. We are right now trying to make sure that people understand their rights, and allay their fears that they’ll be on a plane back to Haiti on Jan. 21, which is not how the law works.”

Suesaeng reports, “According to the three sources, there have been recent internal discussions within Trump’s government-in-waiting, including with the president-elect himself, not only about launching high-profile, big-city raids at the very beginning of the second term — but about how to inject those raids into the media ecosystem and social-media bloodstream as aggressively as possible.”

This, the politics reporter adds, would involve “tipping off friendly media, such as Fox News, to generate news footage of the actions; sending along the administration’s own camera crews; coordinating with, and pumping out video, photos, and announcements to top influencers on popular social media sites; having billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk wield his X platform (formerly Twitter) to whip up a MAGAfied propaganda loop highlighting these law-enforcement operations; and, of course, letting Trump boast garrulously on TV and online about these operations.”

This is from Politico. “‘I Think Things Are Going to Be Bad, Really Bad’: The US Military Debates Possible Deployment on US Soil Under Trump. Trump has said he wants to use active-duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?”  The last time this happened was when Poppy Bush sent the military to LA during the protests and riots after the Rodney King beatings.

According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

On Nov. 18, two weeks after the election, Trump confirmed he plans to declare a national emergency and use the military for the mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear “rules of engagement” for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.

“Everything I hear is that our training is in the shitter,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Marvin Covault, who commanded the 7th Infantry Division in 1992 in what was called “Joint Task Force LA.” “I’m not sure we have the kind of discipline now, and at every leader level, that we had 32 years ago. That concerns me about the people you’re going to put on the ground.”

In an interview, Covault said he was careful to avoid lethal force in Los Angeles by emphasizing to his soldiers they were now “deployed in the civilian world.” He ordered gun chambers to remain empty except in self-defense, banned all automatic weapons and required bayonets to remain on soldiers’ belts.

But Covault added that he set those rules at his own discretion. Even then Covault said he faced some recalcitrance, especially from U.S. Marine battalions under his command that sought to keep M16 machine guns on their armored personnel carriers. In one reported case a Marine unit, asked by L.A. police for “cover,” misunderstood the police term for “standing by” and fired some 200 rounds at a house occupied by a family. Fortunately, no one was injured.

“If we get fast and loose with rules of engagement or if we get into operations without a stated mission and intent, we’re going to be headline news, and it’s not going to be good,” Covault said in the interview.

The military patrols in front of my house after Hurricane Katrina: Hummers, guns, and soldiers

I remember when I first got back to New Orleans after Katrina and was met by an up-armored Humvee with a gun turret and a few guys popping their rifles at me. I smiled, lifted my coffee cup to them, and my dogs wagged their tale, but, wow, I was glad that acting Lt. General Russel L. Honoré had yelled, “Weapons down! Weapons down, damn it!” at the NOPD and the surrounding National Guards. I’m not sure I’d wish that experience on anyone. However, what I witnessed as the National Guard stayed and started coming to our locals and accompanied the police to crime scenes was that they kept the police in line.  What FARTUS is suggesting seems to go against the Constitution.

Ever so often, the media drags out some political has-been and gets their opinion. The Guardian has this to say about what Newt Gingrich says about the deportation efforts.  Remember, Chamber of Commerce Republicans love them some cheap and plentiful labor. “Trump’s deportation vows only for ‘rabid’ Republicans and will fail, says Newt Gingrich. Former US House speaker says documented people, Dreamers, mothers and children must not be deported‘They enrich our lives’: Newt Gingrich on immigrants and Trump’s mass deportation plan

Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker and presidential hopeful, said a section of his own Republican party was “rabid” over immigration and predicted Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could deport documented people as well as millions of undocumented people will not come to pass.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump’s return to the White House. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories began to come out “about mothers or babies or children being deported”.

The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He has chosen ultra-hardliners including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and has suggested his administration will attempt to remove children and documented people, telling NBC: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Also at issue is the fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when they were brought to the US, and Trump’s vow to remove birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th amendment but which Trump says he will strike down by executive order.

Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protest, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for the Dreamers”, a position that may put him less at odds with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion he might accept a deal on the matter.

Gingrich continued: “It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?

“ … I think [the Trump administration has to] to realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with, and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge.”

There’s already some discussion about the HB-1 VISAs supported by Trump’s buddy, the equally vile Elon Musk, who, by Trump’s standards, should be in line to be deported, Bannon has picked a fight with him over the issue, and it’s as bugfuck ugly as the two of them are physically.  This is from The New Republic. “Bannon’s Rage at Musk Suddenly Goes Nuclear as MAGA Meltdown Worsens. As the war between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk intensifies, a leading Never Trump writer explains what all this says about the horrors that Trump-MAGA have in store for us—and how Dems can fight back.”

Over the weekend, Steve Bannon’s fury at Elon Musk truly went off the rails. Bannon, who has been feuding with Musk over immigration, vowed that he will run Musk out of the MAGA movement by Inauguration Day, suggesting this battle will continue once Donald Trump is in office. This battle exposes major divisions in the MAGA movement—yet Democrats aren’t really trying to exploit them. Why not? We talked to Mona Charen, a columnist at The Bulwark, who has a good new piece arguing that Democrats need to find their footing as a loyal opposition. She explains what the feud says about Trump, the MAGA movement, and the rise of global authoritarianism and fascism—and how Democrats can rise to the moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

Sargent: Steve Bannon gave this interview to an Italian newspaper in which he said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day. He will not have a pass to the White House…. He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy.” Bannon even says it’s his personal vendetta to take this guy down. Before we get into the guts of this dispute, what do you think of this, Mona?

Charen: It’s interesting because I published a piece that you were kind enough to mention last week where I was asking: Where are the Democrats who are calling upon Trump and others in the Republican Party to denounce Musk for his open promotion of basically reactionary movements in Europe, even fascist movements and other crimes and misdemeanors? And they’ve been oddly quiescent. Then, of all people, Steve Bannon comes out and he’s going out at it hammer and tongs. He’s accusing him of also racism, which I didn’t see coming. I don’t know, did you imagine that you were going to see Steve Bannon decrying the white South Africans and their influence on the MAGA movement? That was interesting too.

Sargent: Just to clarify for listeners, that is something else that Bannon said in this interview. He decried the white South Africans, [saying] they’re real racists. Why are we letting the worst racists in human history, or something like that,dictate policy in the United States? Let’s talk a little bit about the real root of the feud between Musk and Bannon. Musk wants more high-skilled visas for tech workers, and Bannon, along with Stephen Miller, oppose this. They see big tech as part of a globalist plot to replace American workers, etc.

I do not know how so many privileged old white men can be so outraged about everything. All this is going on as Pete Hegseth’s hearings happen tomorrow.  This is from the falling apart at the seams Washington Post. “Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces tough confirmation test. The controversial former Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault and faces a grueling confirmation hearing on the path to becoming the next secretary of defense.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will appear for questioning Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in a public confirmationhearing that Democrats will use to interrogate his limited management experience, allegations of illicit and inappropriate conduct, and a long history of public commentary deriding women, minorities and people with opposing political views.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, who has called for a “full counterattack” to retake America’s military from “radical leftists” and Democrats, will be the first of Trump’s unconventional cabinet picks to submit to formal scrutiny before a bipartisan panel of senators.

Hegseth’s path to winningthe job depends in large part on how he weathers the blistering questions he will face this week, with little hope of securing any Democratic votes andas several moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about his appointment.

As the secretary of defense, one of the senior-most positions in Trump’s incoming cabinet, Hegseth, a 44-year-old National Guard veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, would oversee more than 3 million military and civilian personnel around the world, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, and an annual budget of more than $800 billion.

This is Rebecca Traister’s take on the New York Magazine’s Intelligencer. ” Pete Hegseth Is a Test Inside the Senate’s torturous debates over Donald Trump’s worst Cabinet nominee.”

Pete Hegseth is, by every measure, an abysmal nominee to run the American military. The Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News commentator has no experience managing enormous, complex organizations like the Pentagon and would, as secretary of Defense, be in charge of an $850 billion budget and 3 million active-duty and civilian personnel. His spotty professional record includes having been asked to step down from two nonprofit veterans’ groups whose budgets he reportedly ran into the ground. Questions about his personal behavior abound: He has been accused of rape (he reached a civil settlement with his accuser in 2017) and has a reported habit of excessive drinking, including while on the job and to the point of incapacitation in public. He has defended waterboarding and torture, advocated on behalf of alleged war criminals, and as recently as November he declared, “I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles.” Even Republicans haven’t been able to find much good to say about him. “If it were a secret ballot,” one moderate senator told me, “I don’t think he’d be confirmed.”

But the battle for his confirmation will not be secret; it will be glaringly public, with televised hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee scheduled for Tuesday. It is the first serious test of Donald Trump’s newly invigorated strongman model of governance and of whether he can continue to bend the Republican Party to his will even as Hegseth breaks procedural precedents, including skirting a vetting process designed to protect national security. It is also a window into the influence that Trump’s heavy, Elon Musk, is exerting across Washington by threatening to bankroll primary challenges of anyone who defies Trump. And Hegseth’s nomination is a measure of just how strenuously Democrats are planning to fight back, at a moment when they are powerless to stop the Republicans in Congress and are second-guessing past resistance efforts that have been retrospectively cast as failures. Trump has singled out Hegseth as the figure he cares most about pushing through, his next administration’s big opening number, showcasing what he hopes will be his own party’s submission to his whims and the Democrats’ humiliating impotence in the face of his authority.

The Armed Services Committee is not one that has historically been the venue for explosive partisan warfare. “The thing to understand about it,” said one staffer, “is that it’s designed to have hearings about defense policy, draft the defense bill every year, and is sort of bipartisan.” But Hegseth is all but certain to cleave the group into partisan camps. His nomination has put an uncomfortable spotlight on Republican senators who might be persuaded to vote against his nomination, especially on Iowa’s Joni Ernst, a staunch Republican who is respected by her Democratic colleagues for her commitment to the committee’s work.

Is this the man you want commanding armed troops on your neighborhood streets if Trump gets his way?  Trump has started backtracking on ending the Ukraine Invasion by Russia by giving a lot of it away to Putin. This is from The New Republic. It’s reported by Hafiz Rashid. “Team Trump Suddenly Backtracks on Key Campaign Promise. Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy made a damning confession on the likelihood of the war ending.”

Donald Trump is backtracking on his big campaign promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, according to his special envoy to Ukraine.

On Sunday, Keith Kellogg told Fox News that the Russia-Ukraine war would come to a “solvable solution in the near term.”

“You know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level and professional level. I would say, let’s set it at 100 days and move it all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends,” Kellogg said.

A “near term” timeline is a marked difference from Trump’s bravado on the campaign trail, where he repeatedly bragged that he could end the war in a day or even sooner. Trump himself seems to realize this, telling Time magazine last month that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin has also thrown cold water on Trump’s promises, ignoring the president-elect’s “warnings.”

In just 7 days, the clown car returns.  We’ve seen a slight shuffle in some of the folks we’ve received news from. Jennifer Ruben announced she’s left WAPO and will be writing at The Contrarian at Substack with Norm Eisen.

Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission — defending, protecting and advancing democracy. The Washington Post’s billionaire owner and enlisted management are among the offenders. They have undercut the values central to The Post’s mission and that of all journalism: integrity, courage, and independence. I cannot justify remaining at The Post. Jeff Bezos and his fellow billionaires accommodate and enable the most acute threat to American democracy—Donald Trump—at a time when a vibrant free press is more essential than ever to our democracy’s survival and capacity to thrive.

I therefore have resigned from The Post, effective today. In doing so, I join a throng of veteran journalists so distressed over The Post’s management they felt compelled to resign.

The decay and compromised principles of corporate and billionaire-owned media underscore the urgent need for alternatives. Americans are eager for innovative and independent journalism that offers lively, unflinching coverage free from cant, conflicts of interest and moral equivocation.

Also, Rachel Maddow returns to her timeslot 5 times a week for FARTUS’ first 100 days, as reported by CNN.

The MSNBC prime time star is expanding her on-air presence for the first 100 days of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, the network announced Monday, injecting what may be a much-needed ratings boost into the progressive outlet’s lineup.

Maddow’s show, MSNBC’s highest rated program, has only aired once a week since 2022 when she stepped away to focus on other projects, including films, books and podcasts. Her temporary return to the anchor desk weeknights at 9 p.m. ET will see Alex Wagner, who currently anchors the timeslot Tuesday through Friday, deployed on special assignment to cover the impact of the president-elect’s policies.

So, there’s a lot more out there, and you may share it in the comments section. We may have to try to pull your comments out of the pending bin, so be patient.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FARTUS #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #massDeportations #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #USMilitaryOnUSStreets