#repeat1968 — Public Fediverse posts

Finally Friday Reads: Letters from Occupied New Orleans

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Temple doesn’t have to be incensed that her Louisiana Swamp Dog breed isn’t part of the latest ICE raid in New Orleans, Louisiana.  It’s no longer called Catahoula Cut-off. It has now officially been renamed ‘Swamp Sweep’. That doesn’t make it easier to deal with. It’s hard to express the feeling that you have that your own country is basically sending a military invasion to your neighborhood. We have the basic statistics that these racists go after. We have women in our leadership positions. They represent our multicultural city. We’re terrifically liberal and blue as fuck. Trump and his ilk hate us.

I’m already part of the ‘good trouble’ we’ve got planned for them. Let me fill you in.

This is from Newsweek.”ICE To Target Mississippi, Louisiana in Major ‘Swamp Sweep’ Raid: Report. 

Roughly 250 federal border agents will deploy to New Orleans in a two-month operation called “Swamp Sweep,” which aims to arrest almost 5,000 people across Louisiana and Mississippi, The Associated Press has reported, citing internal documents and sources familiar with the matter.

Newsweek contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) via email outside of normal working hours for comment.

The upcoming Swamp Sweep operation represents one of the largest regional immigration enforcement actions under President Donald Trump to date.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander reported to be leading the new effort, has drawn scrutiny in the past. In Chicago, Bovino was publicly rebuked by a federal judge for misrepresenting threats by protesters and using tear gas and pepper balls without justification during disturbances. His involvement in the plan indicates that it is a major enforcement priority for the Trump administration.

According to planning documents obtained by The Associated Press and sources familiar with the operation, Swamp Sweep is scheduled to begin in early December and continue for two months.

It signals both an expansion of the administration’s immigration crackdown in key Southern states and an intensifying showdown between federal agencies and local governments in areas with divergent approaches toward immigration policy.

They are specifically targeting one of the smaller cities adjacent to Orleans Parish. It has long been a place where various diasporas have settled even thought it undoubtedly a White Flight Burb. The City of Kenner is high on the list and their police are aligned with the Governor and his anti-immigrant MAGA positions.  This is from the Louisiana Luminator. “In heavily Hispanic Kenner, some residents on edge ahead of Border surge. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly deploying 250 Border Patrol agents to the New Orleans area, echoing recent operations in Chicago and North Carolina.”

In Chicago, federal agents focused on heavily Hispanic suburban neighborhoods near the city’s northwest side, sparking allegations of racial profiling — including of U.S. citizens of color caught up in the sweeps — and excessive use of force.

Kenner, a suburb to New Orleans’ northwest, has the highest share of Hispanic residents — largely Honduran — of anywhere in the metro area. The city of about 66,000 is 30% Hispanic and is well-known for its concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses, particularly along Williams Boulevard.

Kenner has already seen immigration enforcement operations stepped up this year, including early this month, when the city’s police department partnered with ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Louisiana State Police for a nighttime raid at the boat launch in Laketown, which resulted in 15 immigration arrests.

In a video posted on the Kenner Police Department’s Facebook page, Kenner Police Department Chief Keith Conley said the operation was in response to years of nuisance complaints from city residents. Kenner PD was also one of the first local departments in Louisiana this year to ink a formal partnership pledging to work with federal immigration authorities.

In a phone interview with Verite News, Conley said the agency had not been briefed by their partners at ICE or anyone at U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the upcoming operation, adding that Kenner PD will work with federal immigration authorities if asked.

“From what I understand, they’re going to be operating independently. Certainly if they need our assistance for anything, we stand ready to assist and aid in their mission,” he said.

Conley said reports that fears over immigration enforcement are causing Hispanic residents to stay indoors might be overblown by social media.

“I don’t see any interruption in customers in restaurants and stores or anything like that,” Conley said. “If [residents] have any concerns or fears they’re more than welcome to call this office or to speak to any of our officers about it.”

But one business operator with locations in New Orleans and Kenner told Verite News that he is already seeing a drop in sales, even before the operation has officially begun.

“It’s a bad time,” said José Castillo, a manager at Norma’s Sweets Bakery, which is owned by his mother. “Business is down in Kenner, in New Orleans, in all our areas. … People are afraid to go out.”

Conley said Kenner PD has long been a good partner to federal immigration enforcement agencies. In March, the department signed an official agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the 287(g) program, which deputizes officers to carry out some ICE duties. President Donald Trump has urged departments across the country to enter into such partnerships, as has Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump ally and immigration hardliner.

The agreement allows KPD officers to draft their own “detainer” requests, authorizing local jailers to hold immigrants beyond when they might otherwise be released so that they can potentially be transferred into ICE custody.

In an investigation published in August, Verite News and Gulf States Newsroom found that Kenner PD traffic stops were creating a pipeline for immigrants from the city’s jail to federal immigration detention and even deportation. Between January and May ICE issued six times as many immigration detainer requests through Kenner PD than during the same time period in 2024.

As New Orleans area residents await the operation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been fairly tight-lipped about what to expect.

Here, in the city itself, several resistance groups have banded together to use some of the most successful strategies seen in Chicago. The biggest is the strategy of a whistle brigade.  These whistles are easy to assemble; anyone with a 3D printer can mass-produce them quickly and affordably. The whistles are distributed throughout the cities with instructions. The basic idea is to draw enough attention to a raid that it will disrupt its efficiency and alert people in the zone to an active raid. Everyone has instructions and can pick up the whistles at various locales in each neighborhood. There are also some mass protests in the wings.

The key is also to document and report the activity. Activists are primarily there to demonstrate a large community presence, use their cameras to capture the raid, and then report to key resistance groups with resources to engage lawyers and the press. Again, this has been successful in Chicago.

Another successful tactic is to embarrass and boycott any local businesses that are facilitating any part of the invasion and kidnapping. Marriott Hotels has been identified as a group that has allowed ICE agents to rent rooms.  Boycotting these entities is a key part of discouraging collaboration. The Washington Post has an article up today listing the 20 top billionaires who are influencing our politics. “The top 20 billionaires influencing American politics. Campaign donations from the country’s richest are soaring. But only 12 percent of the public says billionaires have a positive impact on society. This is reported by Clara Ence Morse and Eric Lau.

The 20 most prolific donors on the Forbes billionaires list have collectively given nearly $5 billion between 2015 and 2024, spending on everything from state ballot measures to congressional elections and presidential races. Some have concentrated on supporting issues of interest. Finance billionaire Jeff Yass has poured millions into supporting pro-school-choice candidates in his home state of Pennsylvania and across the country.

While some billionaires have given similar amounts to both parties, the most prolific donors gave almost exclusively to one party. In federal races, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman gave just under 90 percent of his total donations to Democrats and liberal committees; all the other top 20 donors were even more lopsided. Nobody gave over $5 million to both Republicans and Democrats.

The Post’s analysis was confined to billionaires identified by Forbes, so some prolific donors, such as conservative investor Tim Mellon, who donated $197 million to influence federal elections last year, are absent from the count.

You may read the list and accompanying names at the link. The Guardian reports that the FBI is spying on activists.  “The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal’. Exclusive: Agency accessed private conversations of New York ‘courtwatch’ group that was observing public hearings.”

The FBI spied on a private Signal group chat of immigrants’ rights activists who were organizing “courtwatch” efforts in New York City this spring, law enforcement records shared with the Guardian indicate.

The FBI, the documents show, gained access to conversations in a “courtwatch” Signal group that helps coordinate volunteer activists who monitor public proceedings at three New York federal immigration courts. The US government has repeatedly been accused of violating immigrants’ due process rights at those courts.

A “joint situational information report” from the FBI and the New York police department (NYPD), dated 28 August 2025, quoted from a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, and also characterized the court watchers as “anarchist violent extremist actors”. The two-page report was distributed to other law enforcement agencies across the US.

All of this reeks of autocracy.  Today, I started carrying my birth certificate with me. How’s that for making American great again?

What’s on your reading, action, and blogging list today?

 

 

#repeat1968 #ice #immigrationRaids #johnBuss #resisting #tactics

Finally Friday Reads: Letters from Occupied New Orleans

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Temple doesn’t have to be incensed that her Louisiana Swamp Dog breed isn’t part of the latest ICE raid in New Orleans, Louisiana.  It’s no longer called Catahoula Cut-off. It has now officially been renamed ‘Swamp Sweep’. That doesn’t make it easier to deal with. It’s hard to express the feeling that you have that your own country is basically sending a military invasion to your neighborhood. We have the basic statistics that these racists go after. We have women in our leadership positions. They represent our multicultural city. We’re terrifically liberal and blue as fuck. Trump and his ilk hate us.

I’m already part of the ‘good trouble’ we’ve got planned for them. Let me fill you in.

This is from Newsweek.”ICE To Target Mississippi, Louisiana in Major ‘Swamp Sweep’ Raid: Report. 

Roughly 250 federal border agents will deploy to New Orleans in a two-month operation called “Swamp Sweep,” which aims to arrest almost 5,000 people across Louisiana and Mississippi, The Associated Press has reported, citing internal documents and sources familiar with the matter.

Newsweek contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) via email outside of normal working hours for comment.

The upcoming Swamp Sweep operation represents one of the largest regional immigration enforcement actions under President Donald Trump to date.

Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander reported to be leading the new effort, has drawn scrutiny in the past. In Chicago, Bovino was publicly rebuked by a federal judge for misrepresenting threats by protesters and using tear gas and pepper balls without justification during disturbances. His involvement in the plan indicates that it is a major enforcement priority for the Trump administration.

According to planning documents obtained by The Associated Press and sources familiar with the operation, Swamp Sweep is scheduled to begin in early December and continue for two months.

It signals both an expansion of the administration’s immigration crackdown in key Southern states and an intensifying showdown between federal agencies and local governments in areas with divergent approaches toward immigration policy.

They are specifically targeting one of the smaller cities adjacent to Orleans Parish. It has long been a place where various diasporas have settled even thought it undoubtedly a White Flight Burb. The City of Kenner is high on the list and their police are aligned with the Governor and his anti-immigrant MAGA positions.  This is from the Louisiana Luminator. “In heavily Hispanic Kenner, some residents on edge ahead of Border surge. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly deploying 250 Border Patrol agents to the New Orleans area, echoing recent operations in Chicago and North Carolina.”

In Chicago, federal agents focused on heavily Hispanic suburban neighborhoods near the city’s northwest side, sparking allegations of racial profiling — including of U.S. citizens of color caught up in the sweeps — and excessive use of force.

Kenner, a suburb to New Orleans’ northwest, has the highest share of Hispanic residents — largely Honduran — of anywhere in the metro area. The city of about 66,000 is 30% Hispanic and is well-known for its concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses, particularly along Williams Boulevard.

Kenner has already seen immigration enforcement operations stepped up this year, including early this month, when the city’s police department partnered with ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Louisiana State Police for a nighttime raid at the boat launch in Laketown, which resulted in 15 immigration arrests.

In a video posted on the Kenner Police Department’s Facebook page, Kenner Police Department Chief Keith Conley said the operation was in response to years of nuisance complaints from city residents. Kenner PD was also one of the first local departments in Louisiana this year to ink a formal partnership pledging to work with federal immigration authorities.

In a phone interview with Verite News, Conley said the agency had not been briefed by their partners at ICE or anyone at U.S. Customs and Border Protection on the upcoming operation, adding that Kenner PD will work with federal immigration authorities if asked.

“From what I understand, they’re going to be operating independently. Certainly if they need our assistance for anything, we stand ready to assist and aid in their mission,” he said.

Conley said reports that fears over immigration enforcement are causing Hispanic residents to stay indoors might be overblown by social media.

“I don’t see any interruption in customers in restaurants and stores or anything like that,” Conley said. “If [residents] have any concerns or fears they’re more than welcome to call this office or to speak to any of our officers about it.”

But one business operator with locations in New Orleans and Kenner told Verite News that he is already seeing a drop in sales, even before the operation has officially begun.

“It’s a bad time,” said José Castillo, a manager at Norma’s Sweets Bakery, which is owned by his mother. “Business is down in Kenner, in New Orleans, in all our areas. … People are afraid to go out.”

Conley said Kenner PD has long been a good partner to federal immigration enforcement agencies. In March, the department signed an official agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the 287(g) program, which deputizes officers to carry out some ICE duties. President Donald Trump has urged departments across the country to enter into such partnerships, as has Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump ally and immigration hardliner.

The agreement allows KPD officers to draft their own “detainer” requests, authorizing local jailers to hold immigrants beyond when they might otherwise be released so that they can potentially be transferred into ICE custody.

In an investigation published in August, Verite News and Gulf States Newsroom found that Kenner PD traffic stops were creating a pipeline for immigrants from the city’s jail to federal immigration detention and even deportation. Between January and May ICE issued six times as many immigration detainer requests through Kenner PD than during the same time period in 2024.

As New Orleans area residents await the operation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been fairly tight-lipped about what to expect.

Here, in the city itself, several resistance groups have banded together to use some of the most successful strategies seen in Chicago. The biggest is the strategy of a whistle brigade.  These whistles are easy to assemble; anyone with a 3D printer can mass-produce them quickly and affordably. The whistles are distributed throughout the cities with instructions. The basic idea is to draw enough attention to a raid that it will disrupt its efficiency and alert people in the zone to an active raid. Everyone has instructions and can pick up the whistles at various locales in each neighborhood. There are also some mass protests in the wings.

The key is also to document and report the activity. Activists are primarily there to demonstrate a large community presence, use their cameras to capture the raid, and then report to key resistance groups with resources to engage lawyers and the press. Again, this has been successful in Chicago.

Another successful tactic is to embarrass and boycott any local businesses that are facilitating any part of the invasion and kidnapping. Marriott Hotels has been identified as a group that has allowed ICE agents to rent rooms.  Boycotting these entities is a key part of discouraging collaboration. The Washington Post has an article up today listing the 20 top billionaires who are influencing our politics. “The top 20 billionaires influencing American politics. Campaign donations from the country’s richest are soaring. But only 12 percent of the public says billionaires have a positive impact on society. This is reported by Clara Ence Morse and Eric Lau.

The 20 most prolific donors on the Forbes billionaires list have collectively given nearly $5 billion between 2015 and 2024, spending on everything from state ballot measures to congressional elections and presidential races. Some have concentrated on supporting issues of interest. Finance billionaire Jeff Yass has poured millions into supporting pro-school-choice candidates in his home state of Pennsylvania and across the country.

While some billionaires have given similar amounts to both parties, the most prolific donors gave almost exclusively to one party. In federal races, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman gave just under 90 percent of his total donations to Democrats and liberal committees; all the other top 20 donors were even more lopsided. Nobody gave over $5 million to both Republicans and Democrats.

The Post’s analysis was confined to billionaires identified by Forbes, so some prolific donors, such as conservative investor Tim Mellon, who donated $197 million to influence federal elections last year, are absent from the count.

You may read the list and accompanying names at the link. The Guardian reports that the FBI is spying on activists.  “The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal’. Exclusive: Agency accessed private conversations of New York ‘courtwatch’ group that was observing public hearings.”

The FBI spied on a private Signal group chat of immigrants’ rights activists who were organizing “courtwatch” efforts in New York City this spring, law enforcement records shared with the Guardian indicate.

The FBI, the documents show, gained access to conversations in a “courtwatch” Signal group that helps coordinate volunteer activists who monitor public proceedings at three New York federal immigration courts. The US government has repeatedly been accused of violating immigrants’ due process rights at those courts.

A “joint situational information report” from the FBI and the New York police department (NYPD), dated 28 August 2025, quoted from a chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, and also characterized the court watchers as “anarchist violent extremist actors”. The two-page report was distributed to other law enforcement agencies across the US.

All of this reeks of autocracy.  Today, I started carrying my birth certificate with me. How’s that for making American great again?

What’s on your reading, action, and blogging list today?

 

 

#repeat1968 #ice #immigrationRaids #johnBuss #resisting #tactics

Mostly Monday Reads: I come to Bury CBS, Not to Praise It

“How can we tire from all this winning?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

60 Minutes premiered on September 24th, 1968, with Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. I was barely a teenager when it premiered, but even then, I was growing into fully all the fringed suede and tattered blue jeans I could find with my guitar set filled with the likes of Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. However, I realized that I was watching something I’d watched for a very long time. Next year, I would buy that Woodstock Guitar strap and cut my first real studio audition. My best friend and I recorded a cover of “One Tin Soldier,” which was requested by Billy Jack for his second movie. Music and the News were the only things that got me through the banality of my life at that point. (Omaha, UGH!)

I spent my entire childhood watching and reading the news with my Dad, through the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and all those crazy times in the 1960s. It was a pivotal moment that led me to become the social justice activist I am today. Reasoner described 60 Minutes as a type of News Magazine, and we had just about all of them that went from our house to the customer service area of my Dad’s small Ford Dealership in a small town in Iowa. It was difficult to get the Washington Post during Watergate, but 60 Minutes was there in living color.

I haven’t really watched in a long time because so much has gone missing. Ever since I got my first newspaper subscription to the Manchester Guardian in High School, I have to say it was part of my education, right through to Graduate School. Now, during the time when I have ever been the least sanguine about our country’s future, I can only say RIP 60 Minutes. These are indeed bleak times. The U.S. Media has a grand old tradition dating back to Benjamin Franklin. It has lost its way to the same evil it sought to expose during World Wars and other events. It has a history of struggle between the powerful entities that seek to control the narrative and the writers who research and reveal the truth. In the age of Techbros and MAGA, Crypto and Virtual Cash, we see a barren landscape destroyed by greed.

I’ll start with the offending program, then offer some perspectives from a number of folks who used to have a place on TV news and are now relegated to the New Deal Blogosphere. I should mention that during that same period of becoming who I am, I wrote for both an underground Newspaper (The Aardvark) and two school newspapers. This blog is an extension of those of us who became very interested again in discussing the news during Dubya’s adventures in the Middle East and the hope we had of simply seeing a woman become president.

This is from CBS News, the former home of everyone’s Uncle Walter, and my personal favorite, Edward Bradley, who always showed up for the New Orleans Jazz Fest, sat with me in monitor world to hear his beloved jazz after I’d put all the microphones in their proper places and dealt with the talent. He always remembered to ask about my daughters by name. It hurts that the overseers used a woman to do this. “Read the full transcript of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with President Trump here.”

Editor’s note: On October 31, 2025, correspondent Norah O’Donnell spoke with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, and this is a transcript of that conversation. They started by discussing the president’s recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, we get along great, and we always really have. We had the COVID moment, which was not– attractive as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t so happy. But outside of that, we have always had a great relationship. He’s a powerful man. He’s a strong man, a very powerful leader.

And– we’ve always– had the best of relationships, probably the best of– I could– I think I could speak for him, just about as good as it gets from his standpoint and from my standpoint. And having that is important because of the power of the two countries.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got– no rare earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of– dollars pouring in– ’cause we have– very big tariffs, almost 50%. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapsed by the– by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.

By this time, the fact-checking should’ve begun, and some good old-fashioned interrupting with follow-up questions. It went on with none. Instead, we got mealy-mouthed clarifications.

But– we have– billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have– a great relationship with a powerful country. And I’ve always felt if we can make deals that are good, it’s better to get along with China than not, if you can’t make the right kind of a deal than not, because, you know, China, along with many other countries (they’re not alone in this), they’ve ripped us off from day one.

They’ve ripped us so much. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of our country. And now they’re– it’s the opposite. I mean, we’re doing very well with China, and hopefully they’re gonna do very well with us. But I do think it’s important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers. China had stopped buying the soybeans.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: As you mentioned, they were– China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to– to build submarines.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What– what was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiatior–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, when you say hurting–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –is President Xi–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –it was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because– I was takin’ in a lot of money from China. We’re doing very well against China. And all of a sudden they said, “You know, we have to fight back.” And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they’ve been accumulating it and– and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years.

Other countries haven’t. Now we are. I mean, we have tremendous rare earth, and it’s going to be– you know, it’s going to be– it’ll be a strength, but it won’t really be a strength if everybody has it. Everyone’s gonna have it pretty soon.

`I would call this full-throated propaganda allowed air time for way too long.  Here’s another example before I start telling Norah there’s something brown growing on her nose. It’s further on down the page. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think in two years, we’ll start opening up plants and we’ll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now we have almost none. We should have had a hundred percent. If we had par– if we had presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn’t.

We lost 50% of our automobile business. It’s all coming back. We lost a hundred percent of the chip– you know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in, and they stole our chip business, and we didn’t charge tariffs.

If we would have charged let’s say a 100% tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they’re all coming back, Norah, because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country, make their plant and make their product in our country, then it’s a very simple thing. They– they don’t have any tariff to pay.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

Well, she’s certainly not an heir to the Murrow Boys. Like so many, Medhi Hassan left a big desk on a 4-letter network because someone saw him as being a bit too much of a journalist and one of color. He has his own spot out here on his own website.

It’s similar to the choice of my first Newspaper: The Manchester Guardian, which I still read daily as The Guardian. His site, named Zeteo, can be found on Substack on the web, alongside other banished reporters and what used to be known as “Public Intellectuals” rather than influencers. Today’s offering is ” Factchecking Trump on ’60 Minutes’.” He’s taken the place of the major legacy newspapers. The lede is divine. ’60 Minutes’ of Shame and Submission.’

Having watched the whole ‘60 Minutes’ interview and read the entire transcript, too, I genuinely can’t decide what was worse: Trump’s endlessly dishonest answers or O’Donnell’s non-stop softball questions.

I kid you not, here is a short selection of some of the questions this award-winning, highly-paid, veteran news anchor chose to ask the most powerful man on Earth in her limited time with him:

• “Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?”
• “Who’s tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?”
• “Why won’t Putin end this war?
• “Do you worry about an AI bubble?”
• “What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years?”

Ooooohh! Tough stuff! The new owner of CBS, David Ellison, and the new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, must both be so proud. This is the kind of ‘balanced’ coverage I’m sure they were waiting for. Then again, to be fair to them, O’Donnell has a long history of softball interviewing that predates the recent takeover of her network by a MAGA billionaire. Remember her love-in with Saudi crown prince MBS in 2018?

But this isn’t just about O’Donnell or CBS. The ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Trump showcased everything that is wrong with US political interviews in general. The deferential tone. The lack of preparation. The failure to ask follow-up questions or dig deep into an interviewee’s answers. The inability (unwillingness?) to fact-check in real time.

At one point, Trump asked O’Donnell whether she knew “how many presidents have used the Insurrection Act,” to which the CBS anchor simply responded: “Tell me.” Trump then proceeded to lie about the proportion (“Almost 50% of ‘em,” he said, when the real proportion is 38%) and the absolute number (“some of the presidents, recent ones, have used it 28 times,” he said, when the most was actually only six times, and back in the 1870s).

But O’Donnell said nothing. She just moved on.

There were so many falsehoods and half-truths, and so little pushback, that after a while, I gave up. I stopped counting. Here’s what I did manage to catch, in terms of brazen lies, all of which were left unrebutted, uncorrected, unchallenged, by O’Donnell:

• “We had nine wars on our planet. I solved eight of ‘em.” I have debunked this nonsensical claim before.
• “We have no inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “It’s at 2%. It’s– it’s the perfect inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “Right now [grocery prices are] going down.” Grocery prices are up 1.4% since Trump came to office.
• “A year ago, we were a dead country.” Not only did the US have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in both 2023 and 2024, but the Economist magazine called it “the envy of the world.”
• “11,888 murderers were let into our country.” Not only is this number inaccurate, but many of the non-citizens convicted of homicide either here or abroad came in during Trump’s first term.
• “Washington, DC, was… almost like a crime capital of the world.” In 2023, per PolitiFact, “at least 49 other cities in the world had higher homicide rates.
• “[Biden] hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom.” Not only did Joe Biden visit roughly as many countries in his term of office as Trump did in his first term, but Biden was the first US president to visit an active warzone – Ukraine – not under the control of US forces.
• “I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years, they couldn’t do it.” There is no peace in Palestine, no peace deal in place, and it isn’t a 3,000-year-old conflict.
• “Communist, not socialist. Communist. He’s far worse than a socialist.” Zohran Mamdani is not a communist.
• “I can’t give them $1.5 trillion so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally.” The Trump/GOP claim that Democrats want to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants has been repeatedly debunked.
• “They emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylums– into the United States of America.” Asylum seekers don’t come from “insane asylums.” Obviously.
• “One thing I can tell you, the 2020 election was rigged.” It wasn’t. The courts agreed.
• “And a lotta people say when it’s rigged you’re allowed to do it again.” A lot of people don’t say this. The US Constitution doesn’t, for sure.

Please read it. The next section lists the questions O’Donnell should have asked as a follow-up. I will say that I believe Mehdi’s follow-up questions in every interview I’ve watched him do are stellar. He points out exaggerations and falsehoods, zeroes in on exactly what the issue with the response is, and just delivers it deliciously. I’m a Fan grrrl. And me, the teenage girl who had to sneak her friend Cathie into the Journalism workspace so she could lust after Kurt Anderson to keep her from going on about him all lunchtime long.

CNN had a more traditional take on said Interview by Daniel Dale. “Fact check: 18 false claims Trump made on ‘60 Minutes’.”

Trump told his usual lie that the free and fair 2020 election was stolen from him. He lied again that grocery prices “are down” even after CBS’ Norah O’Donnell informed him they are up. He declared once more that there is now “no inflation,” though there certainly is, and then that inflation is 2% or “even less than 2%,” though the most recent available Consumer Price Index figure is now up to 3%.

The president also deployed multiple other fictional numbers during his exchanges with O’Donnell, which were recorded Friday and released by CBS on Sunday.

• He falsely claimed “$17 trillion” is being invested in the US “right now,” though the $17 trillion figure is nearly double the White House’s own wildly inflated figure.
• He falsely claimed each alleged drug boat the US has attacked in recent weeks “kills 25,000 Americans,” though experts note this figure plainly does not make sense.
• He falsely claimed some recent former presidents invoked the Insurrection Act “28 times,” though no individual president has invoked it on more than six occasions with this record set by President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1800s.
• He falsely claimed he has ended “eight wars,” though his list includes two situations that were not wars at all and at least one war that continues.
• He falsely claimed CBS aired an edited interview with Trump’s 2024 opponent Kamala Harris “two days” before the election, though it was actually more than four full weeks before Election Day.
• He falsely claimed former President Joe Biden gave $350 billion in aid to Ukraine (the real number is well under half that) and allowed in “25 million” migrants (the real number here is well under half that, too).

And Trump made a variety of additional false claims on several subjects, including the government shutdown, the artificial intelligence boom, tariffs, his first impeachment and his former legal battle with “60 Minutes” itself.

I really wonder how many people besides you and me actually read this stuff and bring it up in normal conversation. I know that the MAGATs will never read or hear it.  I saved the best for last. This is from my precious Guardian reporting about the heavy-handed editing given to this latest 60 Minutes interview with Trump. Quelle Suprise, y’all! “CBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, cutting boast network ‘paid me a lotta money’. Trump said Paramount’s sale to David and Larry Ellison was ‘greatest thing that’s happened in a long time’ for free press.” This is reported by Jeremy Barr.

The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.

Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.

The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.

While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.

At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.

During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.

“Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

During another un-aired portion of the interview, Trump praised the sale of CBS to the Ellison family and said the network’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “great new leader”.

The US president said he didn’t know Weiss, but told O’Donnell: “I hear she’s a great person.

Well, this is getting long for a meager WordPress blog post.

 

“And that’s the way it is.” Can you believe he signed off when I was getting my first graduate degree? Wow!  I’m old!

 

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

 

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #NorahODonnell #SixtyMinutes #TalesOfATeenageReporter #TheLegacyMediaSucks #WalterCronkite

Mostly Monday Reads: I come to Bury CBS, Not to Praise It

“How can we tire from all this winning?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

60 Minutes premiered on September 24th, 1968, with Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. I was barely a teenager when it premiered, but even then, I was growing into fully all the fringed suede and tattered blue jeans I could find with my guitar set filled with the likes of Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. However, I realized that I was watching something I’d watched for a very long time. Next year, I would buy that Woodstock Guitar strap and cut my first real studio audition. My best friend and I recorded a cover of “One Tin Soldier,” which was requested by Billy Jack for his second movie. Music and the News were the only things that got me through the banality of my life at that point. (Omaha, UGH!)

I spent my entire childhood watching and reading the news with my Dad, through the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and all those crazy times in the 1960s. It was a pivotal moment that led me to become the social justice activist I am today. Reasoner described 60 Minutes as a type of News Magazine, and we had just about all of them that went from our house to the customer service area of my Dad’s small Ford Dealership in a small town in Iowa. It was difficult to get the Washington Post during Watergate, but 60 Minutes was there in living color.

I haven’t really watched in a long time because so much has gone missing. Ever since I got my first newspaper subscription to the Manchester Guardian in High School, I have to say it was part of my education, right through to Graduate School. Now, during the time when I have ever been the least sanguine about our country’s future, I can only say RIP 60 Minutes. These are indeed bleak times. The U.S. Media has a grand old tradition dating back to Benjamin Franklin. It has lost its way to the same evil it sought to expose during World Wars and other events. It has a history of struggle between the powerful entities that seek to control the narrative and the writers who research and reveal the truth. In the age of Techbros and MAGA, Crypto and Virtual Cash, we see a barren landscape destroyed by greed.

I’ll start with the offending program, then offer some perspectives from a number of folks who used to have a place on TV news and are now relegated to the New Deal Blogosphere. I should mention that during that same period of becoming who I am, I wrote for both an underground Newspaper (The Aardvark) and two school newspapers. This blog is an extension of those of us who became very interested again in discussing the news during Dubya’s adventures in the Middle East and the hope we had of simply seeing a woman become president.

This is from CBS News, the former home of everyone’s Uncle Walter, and my personal favorite, Edward Bradley, who always showed up for the New Orleans Jazz Fest, sat with me in monitor world to hear his beloved jazz after I’d put all the microphones in their proper places and dealt with the talent. He always remembered to ask about my daughters by name. It hurts that the overseers used a woman to do this. “Read the full transcript of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with President Trump here.”

Editor’s note: On October 31, 2025, correspondent Norah O’Donnell spoke with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, and this is a transcript of that conversation. They started by discussing the president’s recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, we get along great, and we always really have. We had the COVID moment, which was not– attractive as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t so happy. But outside of that, we have always had a great relationship. He’s a powerful man. He’s a strong man, a very powerful leader.

And– we’ve always– had the best of relationships, probably the best of– I could– I think I could speak for him, just about as good as it gets from his standpoint and from my standpoint. And having that is important because of the power of the two countries.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got– no rare earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of– dollars pouring in– ’cause we have– very big tariffs, almost 50%. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapsed by the– by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.

By this time, the fact-checking should’ve begun, and some good old-fashioned interrupting with follow-up questions. It went on with none. Instead, we got mealy-mouthed clarifications.

But– we have– billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have– a great relationship with a powerful country. And I’ve always felt if we can make deals that are good, it’s better to get along with China than not, if you can’t make the right kind of a deal than not, because, you know, China, along with many other countries (they’re not alone in this), they’ve ripped us off from day one.

They’ve ripped us so much. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of our country. And now they’re– it’s the opposite. I mean, we’re doing very well with China, and hopefully they’re gonna do very well with us. But I do think it’s important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers. China had stopped buying the soybeans.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: As you mentioned, they were– China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to– to build submarines.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What– what was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiatior–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, when you say hurting–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –is President Xi–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –it was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because– I was takin’ in a lot of money from China. We’re doing very well against China. And all of a sudden they said, “You know, we have to fight back.” And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they’ve been accumulating it and– and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years.

Other countries haven’t. Now we are. I mean, we have tremendous rare earth, and it’s going to be– you know, it’s going to be– it’ll be a strength, but it won’t really be a strength if everybody has it. Everyone’s gonna have it pretty soon.

`I would call this full-throated propaganda allowed air time for way too long.  Here’s another example before I start telling Norah there’s something brown growing on her nose. It’s further on down the page. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think in two years, we’ll start opening up plants and we’ll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now we have almost none. We should have had a hundred percent. If we had par– if we had presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn’t.

We lost 50% of our automobile business. It’s all coming back. We lost a hundred percent of the chip– you know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in, and they stole our chip business, and we didn’t charge tariffs.

If we would have charged let’s say a 100% tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they’re all coming back, Norah, because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country, make their plant and make their product in our country, then it’s a very simple thing. They– they don’t have any tariff to pay.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

Well, she’s certainly not an heir to the Murrow Boys. Like so many, Medhi Hassan left a big desk on a 4-letter network because someone saw him as being a bit too much of a journalist and one of color. He has his own spot out here on his own website.

It’s similar to the choice of my first Newspaper: The Manchester Guardian, which I still read daily as The Guardian. His site, named Zeteo, can be found on Substack on the web, alongside other banished reporters and what used to be known as “Public Intellectuals” rather than influencers. Today’s offering is ” Factchecking Trump on ’60 Minutes’.” He’s taken the place of the major legacy newspapers. The lede is divine. ’60 Minutes’ of Shame and Submission.’

Having watched the whole ‘60 Minutes’ interview and read the entire transcript, too, I genuinely can’t decide what was worse: Trump’s endlessly dishonest answers or O’Donnell’s non-stop softball questions.

I kid you not, here is a short selection of some of the questions this award-winning, highly-paid, veteran news anchor chose to ask the most powerful man on Earth in her limited time with him:

• “Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?”
• “Who’s tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?”
• “Why won’t Putin end this war?
• “Do you worry about an AI bubble?”
• “What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years?”

Ooooohh! Tough stuff! The new owner of CBS, David Ellison, and the new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, must both be so proud. This is the kind of ‘balanced’ coverage I’m sure they were waiting for. Then again, to be fair to them, O’Donnell has a long history of softball interviewing that predates the recent takeover of her network by a MAGA billionaire. Remember her love-in with Saudi crown prince MBS in 2018?

But this isn’t just about O’Donnell or CBS. The ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Trump showcased everything that is wrong with US political interviews in general. The deferential tone. The lack of preparation. The failure to ask follow-up questions or dig deep into an interviewee’s answers. The inability (unwillingness?) to fact-check in real time.

At one point, Trump asked O’Donnell whether she knew “how many presidents have used the Insurrection Act,” to which the CBS anchor simply responded: “Tell me.” Trump then proceeded to lie about the proportion (“Almost 50% of ‘em,” he said, when the real proportion is 38%) and the absolute number (“some of the presidents, recent ones, have used it 28 times,” he said, when the most was actually only six times, and back in the 1870s).

But O’Donnell said nothing. She just moved on.

There were so many falsehoods and half-truths, and so little pushback, that after a while, I gave up. I stopped counting. Here’s what I did manage to catch, in terms of brazen lies, all of which were left unrebutted, uncorrected, unchallenged, by O’Donnell:

• “We had nine wars on our planet. I solved eight of ‘em.” I have debunked this nonsensical claim before.
• “We have no inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “It’s at 2%. It’s– it’s the perfect inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “Right now [grocery prices are] going down.” Grocery prices are up 1.4% since Trump came to office.
• “A year ago, we were a dead country.” Not only did the US have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in both 2023 and 2024, but the Economist magazine called it “the envy of the world.”
• “11,888 murderers were let into our country.” Not only is this number inaccurate, but many of the non-citizens convicted of homicide either here or abroad came in during Trump’s first term.
• “Washington, DC, was… almost like a crime capital of the world.” In 2023, per PolitiFact, “at least 49 other cities in the world had higher homicide rates.
• “[Biden] hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom.” Not only did Joe Biden visit roughly as many countries in his term of office as Trump did in his first term, but Biden was the first US president to visit an active warzone – Ukraine – not under the control of US forces.
• “I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years, they couldn’t do it.” There is no peace in Palestine, no peace deal in place, and it isn’t a 3,000-year-old conflict.
• “Communist, not socialist. Communist. He’s far worse than a socialist.” Zohran Mamdani is not a communist.
• “I can’t give them $1.5 trillion so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally.” The Trump/GOP claim that Democrats want to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants has been repeatedly debunked.
• “They emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylums– into the United States of America.” Asylum seekers don’t come from “insane asylums.” Obviously.
• “One thing I can tell you, the 2020 election was rigged.” It wasn’t. The courts agreed.
• “And a lotta people say when it’s rigged you’re allowed to do it again.” A lot of people don’t say this. The US Constitution doesn’t, for sure.

Please read it. The next section lists the questions O’Donnell should have asked as a follow-up. I will say that I believe Mehdi’s follow-up questions in every interview I’ve watched him do are stellar. He points out exaggerations and falsehoods, zeroes in on exactly what the issue with the response is, and just delivers it deliciously. I’m a Fan grrrl. And me, the teenage girl who had to sneak her friend Cathie into the Journalism workspace so she could lust after Kurt Anderson to keep her from going on about him all lunchtime long.

CNN had a more traditional take on said Interview by Daniel Dale. “Fact check: 18 false claims Trump made on ‘60 Minutes’.”

Trump told his usual lie that the free and fair 2020 election was stolen from him. He lied again that grocery prices “are down” even after CBS’ Norah O’Donnell informed him they are up. He declared once more that there is now “no inflation,” though there certainly is, and then that inflation is 2% or “even less than 2%,” though the most recent available Consumer Price Index figure is now up to 3%.

The president also deployed multiple other fictional numbers during his exchanges with O’Donnell, which were recorded Friday and released by CBS on Sunday.

• He falsely claimed “$17 trillion” is being invested in the US “right now,” though the $17 trillion figure is nearly double the White House’s own wildly inflated figure.
• He falsely claimed each alleged drug boat the US has attacked in recent weeks “kills 25,000 Americans,” though experts note this figure plainly does not make sense.
• He falsely claimed some recent former presidents invoked the Insurrection Act “28 times,” though no individual president has invoked it on more than six occasions with this record set by President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1800s.
• He falsely claimed he has ended “eight wars,” though his list includes two situations that were not wars at all and at least one war that continues.
• He falsely claimed CBS aired an edited interview with Trump’s 2024 opponent Kamala Harris “two days” before the election, though it was actually more than four full weeks before Election Day.
• He falsely claimed former President Joe Biden gave $350 billion in aid to Ukraine (the real number is well under half that) and allowed in “25 million” migrants (the real number here is well under half that, too).

And Trump made a variety of additional false claims on several subjects, including the government shutdown, the artificial intelligence boom, tariffs, his first impeachment and his former legal battle with “60 Minutes” itself.

I really wonder how many people besides you and me actually read this stuff and bring it up in normal conversation. I know that the MAGATs will never read or hear it.  I saved the best for last. This is from my precious Guardian reporting about the heavy-handed editing given to this latest 60 Minutes interview with Trump. Quelle Suprise, y’all! “CBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, cutting boast network ‘paid me a lotta money’. Trump said Paramount’s sale to David and Larry Ellison was ‘greatest thing that’s happened in a long time’ for free press.” This is reported by Jeremy Barr.

The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.

Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.

The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.

While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.

At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.

During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.

“Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

During another un-aired portion of the interview, Trump praised the sale of CBS to the Ellison family and said the network’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “great new leader”.

The US president said he didn’t know Weiss, but told O’Donnell: “I hear she’s a great person.

Well, this is getting long for a meager WordPress blog post.   “And that’s the way it is.” Can you believe he signed off when I was getting my first graduate degree?  Wow!  I’m old!

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

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #NorahODonnell #SixtyMinutes #TalesOfATeenageReporter #TheLegacyMediaSucks #WalterCronkite

Mostly Monday Reads: I come to Bury CBS, Not to Praise It

“How can we tire from all this winning?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

60 Minutes premiered on September 24th, 1968, with Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. I was barely a teenager when it premiered, but even then, I was growing into fully all the fringed suede and tattered blue jeans I could find with my guitar set filled with the likes of Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. However, I realized that I was watching something I’d watched for a very long time. Next year, I would buy that Woodstock Guitar strap and cut my first real studio audition. My best friend and I recorded a cover of “One Tin Soldier,” which was requested by Billy Jack for his second movie. Music and the News were the only things that got me through the banality of my life at that point. (Omaha, UGH!)

I spent my entire childhood watching and reading the news with my Dad, through the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and all those crazy times in the 1960s. It was a pivotal moment that led me to become the social justice activist I am today. Reasoner described 60 Minutes as a type of News Magazine, and we had just about all of them that went from our house to the customer service area of my Dad’s small Ford Dealership in a small town in Iowa. It was difficult to get the Washington Post during Watergate, but 60 Minutes was there in living color.

I haven’t really watched in a long time because so much has gone missing. Ever since I got my first newspaper subscription to the Manchester Guardian in High School, I have to say it was part of my education, right through to Graduate School. Now, during the time when I have ever been the least sanguine about our country’s future, I can only say RIP 60 Minutes. These are indeed bleak times. The U.S. Media has a grand old tradition dating back to Benjamin Franklin. It has lost its way to the same evil it sought to expose during World Wars and other events. It has a history of struggle between the powerful entities that seek to control the narrative and the writers who research and reveal the truth. In the age of Techbros and MAGA, Crypto and Virtual Cash, we see a barren landscape destroyed by greed.

I’ll start with the offending program, then offer some perspectives from a number of folks who used to have a place on TV news and are now relegated to the New Deal Blogosphere. I should mention that during that same period of becoming who I am, I wrote for both an underground Newspaper (The Aardvark) and two school newspapers. This blog is an extension of those of us who became very interested again in discussing the news during Dubya’s adventures in the Middle East and the hope we had of simply seeing a woman become president.

This is from CBS News, the former home of everyone’s Uncle Walter, and my personal favorite, Edward Bradley, who always showed up for the New Orleans Jazz Fest, sat with me in monitor world to hear his beloved jazz after I’d put all the microphones in their proper places and dealt with the talent. He always remembered to ask about my daughters by name. It hurts that the overseers used a woman to do this. “Read the full transcript of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with President Trump here.”

Editor’s note: On October 31, 2025, correspondent Norah O’Donnell spoke with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, and this is a transcript of that conversation. They started by discussing the president’s recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, we get along great, and we always really have. We had the COVID moment, which was not– attractive as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t so happy. But outside of that, we have always had a great relationship. He’s a powerful man. He’s a strong man, a very powerful leader.

And– we’ve always– had the best of relationships, probably the best of– I could– I think I could speak for him, just about as good as it gets from his standpoint and from my standpoint. And having that is important because of the power of the two countries.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got– no rare earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of– dollars pouring in– ’cause we have– very big tariffs, almost 50%. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapsed by the– by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.

By this time, the fact-checking should’ve begun, and some good old-fashioned interrupting with follow-up questions. It went on with none. Instead, we got mealy-mouthed clarifications.

But– we have– billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have– a great relationship with a powerful country. And I’ve always felt if we can make deals that are good, it’s better to get along with China than not, if you can’t make the right kind of a deal than not, because, you know, China, along with many other countries (they’re not alone in this), they’ve ripped us off from day one.

They’ve ripped us so much. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of our country. And now they’re– it’s the opposite. I mean, we’re doing very well with China, and hopefully they’re gonna do very well with us. But I do think it’s important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers. China had stopped buying the soybeans.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: As you mentioned, they were– China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to– to build submarines.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What– what was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiatior–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, when you say hurting–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –is President Xi–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –it was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because– I was takin’ in a lot of money from China. We’re doing very well against China. And all of a sudden they said, “You know, we have to fight back.” And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they’ve been accumulating it and– and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years.

Other countries haven’t. Now we are. I mean, we have tremendous rare earth, and it’s going to be– you know, it’s going to be– it’ll be a strength, but it won’t really be a strength if everybody has it. Everyone’s gonna have it pretty soon.

`I would call this full-throated propaganda allowed air time for way too long.  Here’s another example before I start telling Norah there’s something brown growing on her nose. It’s further on down the page. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think in two years, we’ll start opening up plants and we’ll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now we have almost none. We should have had a hundred percent. If we had par– if we had presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn’t.

We lost 50% of our automobile business. It’s all coming back. We lost a hundred percent of the chip– you know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in, and they stole our chip business, and we didn’t charge tariffs.

If we would have charged let’s say a 100% tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they’re all coming back, Norah, because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country, make their plant and make their product in our country, then it’s a very simple thing. They– they don’t have any tariff to pay.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

Well, she’s certainly not an heir to the Murrow Boys. Like so many, Medhi Hassan left a big desk on a 4-letter network because someone saw him as being a bit too much of a journalist and one of color. He has his own spot out here on his own website.

It’s similar to the choice of my first Newspaper: The Manchester Guardian, which I still read daily as The Guardian. His site, named Zeteo, can be found on Substack on the web, alongside other banished reporters and what used to be known as “Public Intellectuals” rather than influencers. Today’s offering is ” Factchecking Trump on ’60 Minutes’.” He’s taken the place of the major legacy newspapers. The lede is divine. ’60 Minutes’ of Shame and Submission.’

Having watched the whole ‘60 Minutes’ interview and read the entire transcript, too, I genuinely can’t decide what was worse: Trump’s endlessly dishonest answers or O’Donnell’s non-stop softball questions.

I kid you not, here is a short selection of some of the questions this award-winning, highly-paid, veteran news anchor chose to ask the most powerful man on Earth in her limited time with him:

• “Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?”
• “Who’s tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?”
• “Why won’t Putin end this war?
• “Do you worry about an AI bubble?”
• “What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years?”

Ooooohh! Tough stuff! The new owner of CBS, David Ellison, and the new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, must both be so proud. This is the kind of ‘balanced’ coverage I’m sure they were waiting for. Then again, to be fair to them, O’Donnell has a long history of softball interviewing that predates the recent takeover of her network by a MAGA billionaire. Remember her love-in with Saudi crown prince MBS in 2018?

But this isn’t just about O’Donnell or CBS. The ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Trump showcased everything that is wrong with US political interviews in general. The deferential tone. The lack of preparation. The failure to ask follow-up questions or dig deep into an interviewee’s answers. The inability (unwillingness?) to fact-check in real time.

At one point, Trump asked O’Donnell whether she knew “how many presidents have used the Insurrection Act,” to which the CBS anchor simply responded: “Tell me.” Trump then proceeded to lie about the proportion (“Almost 50% of ‘em,” he said, when the real proportion is 38%) and the absolute number (“some of the presidents, recent ones, have used it 28 times,” he said, when the most was actually only six times, and back in the 1870s).

But O’Donnell said nothing. She just moved on.

There were so many falsehoods and half-truths, and so little pushback, that after a while, I gave up. I stopped counting. Here’s what I did manage to catch, in terms of brazen lies, all of which were left unrebutted, uncorrected, unchallenged, by O’Donnell:

• “We had nine wars on our planet. I solved eight of ‘em.” I have debunked this nonsensical claim before.
• “We have no inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “It’s at 2%. It’s– it’s the perfect inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “Right now [grocery prices are] going down.” Grocery prices are up 1.4% since Trump came to office.
• “A year ago, we were a dead country.” Not only did the US have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in both 2023 and 2024, but the Economist magazine called it “the envy of the world.”
• “11,888 murderers were let into our country.” Not only is this number inaccurate, but many of the non-citizens convicted of homicide either here or abroad came in during Trump’s first term.
• “Washington, DC, was… almost like a crime capital of the world.” In 2023, per PolitiFact, “at least 49 other cities in the world had higher homicide rates.
• “[Biden] hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom.” Not only did Joe Biden visit roughly as many countries in his term of office as Trump did in his first term, but Biden was the first US president to visit an active warzone – Ukraine – not under the control of US forces.
• “I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years, they couldn’t do it.” There is no peace in Palestine, no peace deal in place, and it isn’t a 3,000-year-old conflict.
• “Communist, not socialist. Communist. He’s far worse than a socialist.” Zohran Mamdani is not a communist.
• “I can’t give them $1.5 trillion so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally.” The Trump/GOP claim that Democrats want to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants has been repeatedly debunked.
• “They emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylums– into the United States of America.” Asylum seekers don’t come from “insane asylums.” Obviously.
• “One thing I can tell you, the 2020 election was rigged.” It wasn’t. The courts agreed.
• “And a lotta people say when it’s rigged you’re allowed to do it again.” A lot of people don’t say this. The US Constitution doesn’t, for sure.

Please read it. The next section lists the questions O’Donnell should have asked as a follow-up. I will say that I believe Mehdi’s follow-up questions in every interview I’ve watched him do are stellar. He points out exaggerations and falsehoods, zeroes in on exactly what the issue with the response is, and just delivers it deliciously. I’m a Fan grrrl. And me, the teenage girl who had to sneak her friend Cathie into the Journalism workspace so she could lust after Kurt Anderson to keep her from going on about him all lunchtime long.

CNN had a more traditional take on said Interview by Daniel Dale. “Fact check: 18 false claims Trump made on ‘60 Minutes’.”

Trump told his usual lie that the free and fair 2020 election was stolen from him. He lied again that grocery prices “are down” even after CBS’ Norah O’Donnell informed him they are up. He declared once more that there is now “no inflation,” though there certainly is, and then that inflation is 2% or “even less than 2%,” though the most recent available Consumer Price Index figure is now up to 3%.

The president also deployed multiple other fictional numbers during his exchanges with O’Donnell, which were recorded Friday and released by CBS on Sunday.

• He falsely claimed “$17 trillion” is being invested in the US “right now,” though the $17 trillion figure is nearly double the White House’s own wildly inflated figure.
• He falsely claimed each alleged drug boat the US has attacked in recent weeks “kills 25,000 Americans,” though experts note this figure plainly does not make sense.
• He falsely claimed some recent former presidents invoked the Insurrection Act “28 times,” though no individual president has invoked it on more than six occasions with this record set by President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1800s.
• He falsely claimed he has ended “eight wars,” though his list includes two situations that were not wars at all and at least one war that continues.
• He falsely claimed CBS aired an edited interview with Trump’s 2024 opponent Kamala Harris “two days” before the election, though it was actually more than four full weeks before Election Day.
• He falsely claimed former President Joe Biden gave $350 billion in aid to Ukraine (the real number is well under half that) and allowed in “25 million” migrants (the real number here is well under half that, too).

And Trump made a variety of additional false claims on several subjects, including the government shutdown, the artificial intelligence boom, tariffs, his first impeachment and his former legal battle with “60 Minutes” itself.

I really wonder how many people besides you and me actually read this stuff and bring it up in normal conversation. I know that the MAGATs will never read or hear it.  I saved the best for last. This is from my precious Guardian reporting about the heavy-handed editing given to this latest 60 Minutes interview with Trump. Quelle Suprise, y’all! “CBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, cutting boast network ‘paid me a lotta money’. Trump said Paramount’s sale to David and Larry Ellison was ‘greatest thing that’s happened in a long time’ for free press.” This is reported by Jeremy Barr.

The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.

Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.

The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.

While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.

At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.

During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.

“Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

During another un-aired portion of the interview, Trump praised the sale of CBS to the Ellison family and said the network’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “great new leader”.

The US president said he didn’t know Weiss, but told O’Donnell: “I hear she’s a great person.

Well, this is getting long for a meager WordPress blog post.

 

“And that’s the way it is.” Can you believe he signed off when I was getting my first graduate degree? Wow!  I’m old!

 

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

 

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #NorahODonnell #SixtyMinutes #TalesOfATeenageReporter #TheLegacyMediaSucks #WalterCronkite

Mostly Monday Reads: I come to Bury CBS, Not to Praise It

“How can we tire from all this winning?” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

60 Minutes premiered on September 24th, 1968, with Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. I was barely a teenager when it premiered, but even then, I was growing into fully all the fringed suede and tattered blue jeans I could find with my guitar set filled with the likes of Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. However, I realized that I was watching something I’d watched for a very long time. Next year, I would buy that Woodstock Guitar strap and cut my first real studio audition. My best friend and I recorded a cover of “One Tin Soldier,” which was requested by Billy Jack for his second movie. Music and the News were the only things that got me through the banality of my life at that point. (Omaha, UGH!)

I spent my entire childhood watching and reading the news with my Dad, through the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and all those crazy times in the 1960s. It was a pivotal moment that led me to become the social justice activist I am today. Reasoner described 60 Minutes as a type of News Magazine, and we had just about all of them that went from our house to the customer service area of my Dad’s small Ford Dealership in a small town in Iowa. It was difficult to get the Washington Post during Watergate, but 60 Minutes was there in living color.

I haven’t really watched in a long time because so much has gone missing. Ever since I got my first newspaper subscription to the Manchester Guardian in High School, I have to say it was part of my education, right through to Graduate School. Now, during the time when I have ever been the least sanguine about our country’s future, I can only say RIP 60 Minutes. These are indeed bleak times. The U.S. Media has a grand old tradition dating back to Benjamin Franklin. It has lost its way to the same evil it sought to expose during World Wars and other events. It has a history of struggle between the powerful entities that seek to control the narrative and the writers who research and reveal the truth. In the age of Techbros and MAGA, Crypto and Virtual Cash, we see a barren landscape destroyed by greed.

I’ll start with the offending program, then offer some perspectives from a number of folks who used to have a place on TV news and are now relegated to the New Deal Blogosphere. I should mention that during that same period of becoming who I am, I wrote for both an underground Newspaper (The Aardvark) and two school newspapers. This blog is an extension of those of us who became very interested again in discussing the news during Dubya’s adventures in the Middle East and the hope we had of simply seeing a woman become president.

This is from CBS News, the former home of everyone’s Uncle Walter, and my personal favorite, Edward Bradley, who always showed up for the New Orleans Jazz Fest, sat with me in monitor world to hear his beloved jazz after I’d put all the microphones in their proper places and dealt with the talent. He always remembered to ask about my daughters by name. It hurts that the overseers used a woman to do this. “Read the full transcript of Norah O’Donnell’s interview with President Trump here.”

Editor’s note: On October 31, 2025, correspondent Norah O’Donnell spoke with President Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL, and this is a transcript of that conversation. They started by discussing the president’s recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, we get along great, and we always really have. We had the COVID moment, which was not– attractive as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t so happy. But outside of that, we have always had a great relationship. He’s a powerful man. He’s a strong man, a very powerful leader.

And– we’ve always– had the best of relationships, probably the best of– I could– I think I could speak for him, just about as good as it gets from his standpoint and from my standpoint. And having that is important because of the power of the two countries.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got– no rare earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of– dollars pouring in– ’cause we have– very big tariffs, almost 50%. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapsed by the– by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous.

By this time, the fact-checking should’ve begun, and some good old-fashioned interrupting with follow-up questions. It went on with none. Instead, we got mealy-mouthed clarifications.

But– we have– billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have– a great relationship with a powerful country. And I’ve always felt if we can make deals that are good, it’s better to get along with China than not, if you can’t make the right kind of a deal than not, because, you know, China, along with many other countries (they’re not alone in this), they’ve ripped us off from day one.

They’ve ripped us so much. They’ve taken trillions of dollars out of our country. And now they’re– it’s the opposite. I mean, we’re doing very well with China, and hopefully they’re gonna do very well with us. But I do think it’s important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers. China had stopped buying the soybeans.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah.

NORAH O’DONNELL: As you mentioned, they were– China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to– to build submarines.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Sure.

NORAH O’DONNELL: What– what was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiatior–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, when you say hurting–

NORAH O’DONNELL: –is President Xi–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –it was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because– I was takin’ in a lot of money from China. We’re doing very well against China. And all of a sudden they said, “You know, we have to fight back.” And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they’ve been accumulating it and– and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years.

Other countries haven’t. Now we are. I mean, we have tremendous rare earth, and it’s going to be– you know, it’s going to be– it’ll be a strength, but it won’t really be a strength if everybody has it. Everyone’s gonna have it pretty soon.

`I would call this full-throated propaganda allowed air time for way too long.  Here’s another example before I start telling Norah there’s something brown growing on her nose. It’s further on down the page. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think in two years, we’ll start opening up plants and we’ll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now we have almost none. We should have had a hundred percent. If we had par– if we had presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn’t.

We lost 50% of our automobile business. It’s all coming back. We lost a hundred percent of the chip– you know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in, and they stole our chip business, and we didn’t charge tariffs.

If we would have charged let’s say a 100% tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they’re all coming back, Norah, because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country, make their plant and make their product in our country, then it’s a very simple thing. They– they don’t have any tariff to pay.

NORAH O’DONNELL: Uh-huh.

Well, she’s certainly not an heir to the Murrow Boys. Like so many, Medhi Hassan left a big desk on a 4-letter network because someone saw him as being a bit too much of a journalist and one of color. He has his own spot out here on his own website.

It’s similar to the choice of my first Newspaper: The Manchester Guardian, which I still read daily as The Guardian. His site, named Zeteo, can be found on Substack on the web, alongside other banished reporters and what used to be known as “Public Intellectuals” rather than influencers. Today’s offering is ” Factchecking Trump on ’60 Minutes’.” He’s taken the place of the major legacy newspapers. The lede is divine. ’60 Minutes’ of Shame and Submission.’

Having watched the whole ‘60 Minutes’ interview and read the entire transcript, too, I genuinely can’t decide what was worse: Trump’s endlessly dishonest answers or O’Donnell’s non-stop softball questions.

I kid you not, here is a short selection of some of the questions this award-winning, highly-paid, veteran news anchor chose to ask the most powerful man on Earth in her limited time with him:

• “Have some of these [ICE] raids gone too far?”
• “Who’s tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?”
• “Why won’t Putin end this war?
• “Do you worry about an AI bubble?”
• “What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years?”

Ooooohh! Tough stuff! The new owner of CBS, David Ellison, and the new head of CBS News, Bari Weiss, must both be so proud. This is the kind of ‘balanced’ coverage I’m sure they were waiting for. Then again, to be fair to them, O’Donnell has a long history of softball interviewing that predates the recent takeover of her network by a MAGA billionaire. Remember her love-in with Saudi crown prince MBS in 2018?

But this isn’t just about O’Donnell or CBS. The ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Trump showcased everything that is wrong with US political interviews in general. The deferential tone. The lack of preparation. The failure to ask follow-up questions or dig deep into an interviewee’s answers. The inability (unwillingness?) to fact-check in real time.

At one point, Trump asked O’Donnell whether she knew “how many presidents have used the Insurrection Act,” to which the CBS anchor simply responded: “Tell me.” Trump then proceeded to lie about the proportion (“Almost 50% of ‘em,” he said, when the real proportion is 38%) and the absolute number (“some of the presidents, recent ones, have used it 28 times,” he said, when the most was actually only six times, and back in the 1870s).

But O’Donnell said nothing. She just moved on.

There were so many falsehoods and half-truths, and so little pushback, that after a while, I gave up. I stopped counting. Here’s what I did manage to catch, in terms of brazen lies, all of which were left unrebutted, uncorrected, unchallenged, by O’Donnell:

• “We had nine wars on our planet. I solved eight of ‘em.” I have debunked this nonsensical claim before.
• “We have no inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “It’s at 2%. It’s– it’s the perfect inflation.” Inflation is at 3%.
• “Right now [grocery prices are] going down.” Grocery prices are up 1.4% since Trump came to office.
• “A year ago, we were a dead country.” Not only did the US have the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in both 2023 and 2024, but the Economist magazine called it “the envy of the world.”
• “11,888 murderers were let into our country.” Not only is this number inaccurate, but many of the non-citizens convicted of homicide either here or abroad came in during Trump’s first term.
• “Washington, DC, was… almost like a crime capital of the world.” In 2023, per PolitiFact, “at least 49 other cities in the world had higher homicide rates.
• “[Biden] hardly went anywhere. Guy couldn’t leave his bedroom.” Not only did Joe Biden visit roughly as many countries in his term of office as Trump did in his first term, but Biden was the first US president to visit an active warzone – Ukraine – not under the control of US forces.
• “I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years, they couldn’t do it.” There is no peace in Palestine, no peace deal in place, and it isn’t a 3,000-year-old conflict.
• “Communist, not socialist. Communist. He’s far worse than a socialist.” Zohran Mamdani is not a communist.
• “I can’t give them $1.5 trillion so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally.” The Trump/GOP claim that Democrats want to give free healthcare to undocumented immigrants has been repeatedly debunked.
• “They emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylums– into the United States of America.” Asylum seekers don’t come from “insane asylums.” Obviously.
• “One thing I can tell you, the 2020 election was rigged.” It wasn’t. The courts agreed.
• “And a lotta people say when it’s rigged you’re allowed to do it again.” A lot of people don’t say this. The US Constitution doesn’t, for sure.

Please read it. The next section lists the questions O’Donnell should have asked as a follow-up. I will say that I believe Mehdi’s follow-up questions in every interview I’ve watched him do are stellar. He points out exaggerations and falsehoods, zeroes in on exactly what the issue with the response is, and just delivers it deliciously. I’m a Fan grrrl. And me, the teenage girl who had to sneak her friend Cathie into the Journalism workspace so she could lust after Kurt Anderson to keep her from going on about him all lunchtime long.

CNN had a more traditional take on said Interview by Daniel Dale. “Fact check: 18 false claims Trump made on ‘60 Minutes’.”

Trump told his usual lie that the free and fair 2020 election was stolen from him. He lied again that grocery prices “are down” even after CBS’ Norah O’Donnell informed him they are up. He declared once more that there is now “no inflation,” though there certainly is, and then that inflation is 2% or “even less than 2%,” though the most recent available Consumer Price Index figure is now up to 3%.

The president also deployed multiple other fictional numbers during his exchanges with O’Donnell, which were recorded Friday and released by CBS on Sunday.

• He falsely claimed “$17 trillion” is being invested in the US “right now,” though the $17 trillion figure is nearly double the White House’s own wildly inflated figure.
• He falsely claimed each alleged drug boat the US has attacked in recent weeks “kills 25,000 Americans,” though experts note this figure plainly does not make sense.
• He falsely claimed some recent former presidents invoked the Insurrection Act “28 times,” though no individual president has invoked it on more than six occasions with this record set by President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1800s.
• He falsely claimed he has ended “eight wars,” though his list includes two situations that were not wars at all and at least one war that continues.
• He falsely claimed CBS aired an edited interview with Trump’s 2024 opponent Kamala Harris “two days” before the election, though it was actually more than four full weeks before Election Day.
• He falsely claimed former President Joe Biden gave $350 billion in aid to Ukraine (the real number is well under half that) and allowed in “25 million” migrants (the real number here is well under half that, too).

And Trump made a variety of additional false claims on several subjects, including the government shutdown, the artificial intelligence boom, tariffs, his first impeachment and his former legal battle with “60 Minutes” itself.

I really wonder how many people besides you and me actually read this stuff and bring it up in normal conversation. I know that the MAGATs will never read or hear it.  I saved the best for last. This is from my precious Guardian reporting about the heavy-handed editing given to this latest 60 Minutes interview with Trump. Quelle Suprise, y’all! “CBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, cutting boast network ‘paid me a lotta money’. Trump said Paramount’s sale to David and Larry Ellison was ‘greatest thing that’s happened in a long time’ for free press.” This is reported by Jeremy Barr.

The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.

Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.

The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.

While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.

At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.

During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.

“Actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said. “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.”

During another un-aired portion of the interview, Trump praised the sale of CBS to the Ellison family and said the network’s new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, was a “great new leader”.

The US president said he didn’t know Weiss, but told O’Donnell: “I hear she’s a great person.

Well, this is getting long for a meager WordPress blog post.   “And that’s the way it is.” Can you believe he signed off when I was getting my first graduate degree?  Wow!  I’m old!

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

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #NorahODonnell #SixtyMinutes #TalesOfATeenageReporter #TheLegacyMediaSucks #WalterCronkite

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture.  However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months.  Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly.  “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

• Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

• Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
• Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
• Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
• Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
• Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

More at the link.

MSNBC’s Maddow Blog has this analysis.  As usual, Steve Benen has the led.  “Trump picks a convenient time to change his tune about the Project 2025 agenda. Remember last year when Trump feigned ignorance about the right-wing governing blueprint? A year later, the president no longer bothers with the pretense.”

As the second full day of the latest government shutdown got underway, Donald Trump published an odd message to his social media platform, which raised plenty of eyebrows throughout the political world.

“I have a meeting today with [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat [sic] Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president wrote.

We don’t yet know what transpired at that meeting, but Trump’s weird phrasing was itself notable. For example, there are no federal departments or offices that should be called “Democrat Agencies.” There are only American agencies, which do work on behalf of the American people and which are currently led, at least in part, by Trump’s own appointees.

Similarly, the idea that federal agencies deserve to be condemned as “a political SCAM” is every bit as bizarre as it sounds. We’re talking about offices, some of which have been around for many years, that were created by Congress. Their existence is reinforced in federal law, which the president is required to enforce.

As for the possibility that Trump and the far-right head of his Office of Management and Budget might “permanently” weaken departments that the White House no longer likes, it’s worth keeping in mind that such efforts might very well be illegal.

But let’s also not brush past that other phrase: Vought, the president wrote, is “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” As The Associated Press summarized:

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Here’s some analysis from Time Magazine‘s Editorial Fellow Connor Greene. “Trump Is No Longer Denying Support for Project 2025: What to Know.”

President Donald Trump has changed his tune on the conservative policy plan Project 2025 after actively distancing himself from it for months during his reelection campaign.

Trump announced on Thursday that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” to decide which “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The post marks a significant shift from the President’s past disavowals of the unpopular right-wing policy blueprint, which was created by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation ahead of the 2024 election. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump said in a debate last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, however, he had close ties with a number of its authors, several of whom have served in his Administrations—including Vought. And since he returned to the White House in January his second Administration has taken steps to implement a number of the proposals detailed in the over 900-page document.

Now, amid the government shutdown, Trump is moving to further fulfill Project 2025’s goals of reducing the federal workforce and extending his executive powers—and, it appears, openly embracing the plan.

The big question sis what does this mean for the shutdown and the country?

Despite his criticisms of Project 2025, many of the Trump Administration’s actions since he returned to office have mirrored aspects of the blueprint. An analysis by TIME in January found that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s early executive actions reflected—in whole or in part—proposals in Project 2025.

Among the parts of the plan that Trump has carried out is its recommendation to aggressively reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Trump and hisDepartment of Government Efficiency moved quickly to cut more than 200,000 federal employees, though some of the layoffs have since been held up in the courts after being challenged by lawsuits. His Administration has also looked to slash federal funding through various freezes, clawbacks, cuts, and recissions.

Trump has announced plans to execute still more cuts amid the government shutdown. In the leadup to the deadline to fund the government this week, the White House directed agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event that Congress couldn’t reach a deal, rather than furloughing those not deemed essential as in past shutdowns.

The Administration has additionally used the shutdown to cancel $8 billion in green energy projects in Democratic-led states, withhold $18 billion in transportation projects in New York City, and pause $2.1 billion in infrastructure projects in Chicago.

Here’s a just a bit of the latest information on Russell Voight. This startling headline is from Politico. “Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’  The Senate majority leader spoke out as some Republicans express qualms about the White House slash-and-burn campaign.”  The reporter for this piece is Jourdain Carney.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.

“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.

Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”

“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”

This final suggested read is from Mother Jones. “Russ Vought Is Trump’s Shutdown Hero. His Neighbors Think His Work Is “Abhorrent.” The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.” This is reported by Isabela Dias.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a music video on Truth Social. In it, an AI-generated Russ Vought—Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 mastermind—is the grim reaper, carrying a scythe along a hallway lined with portraits of Democratic leaders. Vought, the video’s soundtrack explains, “wields the pen, the funds, and the brain” to enforce the president’s plans to axe federal workers.

“Everyone still remembers when he said he wanted to cause maximum trauma to federal workers,” the neighbor said. “And that’s hard to forget.”

Most of Vought’s neighbors I talked to for this article declined to speak on the record or asked to remain anonymous. Some said they didn’t want to create a rift in an otherwise cordial neighborhood, while others worried about retribution or negative repercussions from their employers.

“I just wish he would have gotten to know us,” Hunter said. “We consider ourselves good Americans, we have good values. And I don’t think he’s been interested in getting to know any of us, in hearing if we might have a difference of opinion.”

Last week, Vought sent around a memo blaming Democrats’ “insane demands” for the imminent lapse in funding and instructing agency heads to start making plans to cut non-mandatory programs “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and “use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force.” Appearing on Fox Business, Vought claimed an “authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government” during the shutdown.

He has since announced pauses to funding for infrastructure projects in New York—home state of House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who called Vought a “malignant political hack”—and slowdowns in clean energy projects in several blue states.

Vought, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on Fox News, “has been dreaming about and preparing for his moment since puberty.”

AsIwrote in a profile of Vought from 2024, the bespectacled official spent years as a Washington insider and government bureaucrat before becoming the architect of a supersized second Trump presidency.

An avowed Christian nationalist and dedicated America First warrior, he once described the job of OMB director as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent” and criticized the federal bureaucracy for standing in the way of the president’s agenda. During Trump’s first term, Vought tried to implement an executive order that would have made it easier for political appointees to fire career civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. Now, he’s getting to realize his vision while earning points with the president.

See what’s in the cards for us?  Read them and weep.  The Voight cartoons are from The Nation. They have a primar on Vought that you really should read. “Project 2025: Vought’s Your Problem? Not too bad to be true.”  Steve Brodner is the artist and his cartoons have descriptions of their design.  Go see the rest!

I’ve been a little late today, I’m sorry. I woke up late last night in a lot of pain and took some acetaminophen for relief. In my mind I was seeing it as some sort of ritual to defang Trump’s war on Health Care. I also got a call from youngest with my first grandson. Aiden, like his mémé is quite verbal.  I really worked on this piece because I wanted to get as many sources as I could on this abomination and put my time in it than usual. I was researching stuff like the researcher I am. I am vorasciously reading up on this and I suggest you do too.

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

#Repeat1968 #DestructionOfFederalAgencies #governmentShutdown2025m #JohnBuss #LousianaSCancerAlley #PeoplePower #Project25 #RussVought #StevenBrodner

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture.  However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months.  Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly.  “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

• Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

• Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
• Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
• Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
• Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
• Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

More at the link.

MSNBC’s Maddow Blog has this analysis.  As usual, Steve Benen has the led.  “Trump picks a convenient time to change his tune about the Project 2025 agenda. Remember last year when Trump feigned ignorance about the right-wing governing blueprint? A year later, the president no longer bothers with the pretense.”

As the second full day of the latest government shutdown got underway, Donald Trump published an odd message to his social media platform, which raised plenty of eyebrows throughout the political world.

“I have a meeting today with [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat [sic] Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president wrote.

We don’t yet know what transpired at that meeting, but Trump’s weird phrasing was itself notable. For example, there are no federal departments or offices that should be called “Democrat Agencies.” There are only American agencies, which do work on behalf of the American people and which are currently led, at least in part, by Trump’s own appointees.

Similarly, the idea that federal agencies deserve to be condemned as “a political SCAM” is every bit as bizarre as it sounds. We’re talking about offices, some of which have been around for many years, that were created by Congress. Their existence is reinforced in federal law, which the president is required to enforce.

As for the possibility that Trump and the far-right head of his Office of Management and Budget might “permanently” weaken departments that the White House no longer likes, it’s worth keeping in mind that such efforts might very well be illegal.

But let’s also not brush past that other phrase: Vought, the president wrote, is “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” As The Associated Press summarized:

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Here’s some analysis from Time Magazine‘s Editorial Fellow Connor Greene. “Trump Is No Longer Denying Support for Project 2025: What to Know.”

President Donald Trump has changed his tune on the conservative policy plan Project 2025 after actively distancing himself from it for months during his reelection campaign.

Trump announced on Thursday that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” to decide which “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The post marks a significant shift from the President’s past disavowals of the unpopular right-wing policy blueprint, which was created by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation ahead of the 2024 election. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump said in a debate last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, however, he had close ties with a number of its authors, several of whom have served in his Administrations—including Vought. And since he returned to the White House in January his second Administration has taken steps to implement a number of the proposals detailed in the over 900-page document.

Now, amid the government shutdown, Trump is moving to further fulfill Project 2025’s goals of reducing the federal workforce and extending his executive powers—and, it appears, openly embracing the plan.

The big question sis what does this mean for the shutdown and the country?

Despite his criticisms of Project 2025, many of the Trump Administration’s actions since he returned to office have mirrored aspects of the blueprint. An analysis by TIME in January found that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s early executive actions reflected—in whole or in part—proposals in Project 2025.

Among the parts of the plan that Trump has carried out is its recommendation to aggressively reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Trump and hisDepartment of Government Efficiency moved quickly to cut more than 200,000 federal employees, though some of the layoffs have since been held up in the courts after being challenged by lawsuits. His Administration has also looked to slash federal funding through various freezes, clawbacks, cuts, and recissions.

Trump has announced plans to execute still more cuts amid the government shutdown. In the leadup to the deadline to fund the government this week, the White House directed agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event that Congress couldn’t reach a deal, rather than furloughing those not deemed essential as in past shutdowns.

The Administration has additionally used the shutdown to cancel $8 billion in green energy projects in Democratic-led states, withhold $18 billion in transportation projects in New York City, and pause $2.1 billion in infrastructure projects in Chicago.

Here’s a just a bit of the latest information on Russell Voight. This startling headline is from Politico. “Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’  The Senate majority leader spoke out as some Republicans express qualms about the White House slash-and-burn campaign.”  The reporter for this piece is Jourdain Carney.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.

“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.

Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”

“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”

This final suggested read is from Mother Jones. “Russ Vought Is Trump’s Shutdown Hero. His Neighbors Think His Work Is “Abhorrent.” The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.” This is reported by Isabela Dias.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a music video on Truth Social. In it, an AI-generated Russ Vought—Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 mastermind—is the grim reaper, carrying a scythe along a hallway lined with portraits of Democratic leaders. Vought, the video’s soundtrack explains, “wields the pen, the funds, and the brain” to enforce the president’s plans to axe federal workers.

“Everyone still remembers when he said he wanted to cause maximum trauma to federal workers,” the neighbor said. “And that’s hard to forget.”

Most of Vought’s neighbors I talked to for this article declined to speak on the record or asked to remain anonymous. Some said they didn’t want to create a rift in an otherwise cordial neighborhood, while others worried about retribution or negative repercussions from their employers.

“I just wish he would have gotten to know us,” Hunter said. “We consider ourselves good Americans, we have good values. And I don’t think he’s been interested in getting to know any of us, in hearing if we might have a difference of opinion.”

Last week, Vought sent around a memo blaming Democrats’ “insane demands” for the imminent lapse in funding and instructing agency heads to start making plans to cut non-mandatory programs “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and “use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force.” Appearing on Fox Business, Vought claimed an “authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government” during the shutdown.

He has since announced pauses to funding for infrastructure projects in New York—home state of House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who called Vought a “malignant political hack”—and slowdowns in clean energy projects in several blue states.

Vought, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on Fox News, “has been dreaming about and preparing for his moment since puberty.”

AsIwrote in a profile of Vought from 2024, the bespectacled official spent years as a Washington insider and government bureaucrat before becoming the architect of a supersized second Trump presidency.

An avowed Christian nationalist and dedicated America First warrior, he once described the job of OMB director as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent” and criticized the federal bureaucracy for standing in the way of the president’s agenda. During Trump’s first term, Vought tried to implement an executive order that would have made it easier for political appointees to fire career civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. Now, he’s getting to realize his vision while earning points with the president.

See what’s in the cards for us?  Read them and weep.  The Voight cartoons are from The Nation. They have a primar on Vought that you really should read. “Project 2025: Vought’s Your Problem? Not too bad to be true.”  Steve Brodner is the artist and his cartoons have descriptions of their design.  Go see the rest!

I’ve been a little late today, I’m sorry. I woke up late last night in a lot of pain and took some acetaminophen for relief. In my mind I was seeing it as some sort of ritual to defang Trump’s war on Health Care. I also got a call from youngest with my first grandson. Aiden, like his mémé is quite verbal.  I really worked on this piece because I wanted to get as many sources as I could on this abomination and put my time in it than usual. I was researching stuff like the researcher I am. I am vorasciously reading up on this and I suggest you do too.

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

#Repeat1968 #DestructionOfFederalAgencies #governmentShutdown2025m #JohnBuss #LousianaSCancerAlley #PeoplePower #Project25 #RussVought #StevenBrodner

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture.  However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months.  Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly.  “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

• Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

• Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
• Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
• Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
• Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
• Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

More at the link.

MSNBC’s Maddow Blog has this analysis.  As usual, Steve Benen has the led.  “Trump picks a convenient time to change his tune about the Project 2025 agenda. Remember last year when Trump feigned ignorance about the right-wing governing blueprint? A year later, the president no longer bothers with the pretense.”

As the second full day of the latest government shutdown got underway, Donald Trump published an odd message to his social media platform, which raised plenty of eyebrows throughout the political world.

“I have a meeting today with [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat [sic] Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president wrote.

We don’t yet know what transpired at that meeting, but Trump’s weird phrasing was itself notable. For example, there are no federal departments or offices that should be called “Democrat Agencies.” There are only American agencies, which do work on behalf of the American people and which are currently led, at least in part, by Trump’s own appointees.

Similarly, the idea that federal agencies deserve to be condemned as “a political SCAM” is every bit as bizarre as it sounds. We’re talking about offices, some of which have been around for many years, that were created by Congress. Their existence is reinforced in federal law, which the president is required to enforce.

As for the possibility that Trump and the far-right head of his Office of Management and Budget might “permanently” weaken departments that the White House no longer likes, it’s worth keeping in mind that such efforts might very well be illegal.

But let’s also not brush past that other phrase: Vought, the president wrote, is “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” As The Associated Press summarized:

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Here’s some analysis from Time Magazine‘s Editorial Fellow Connor Greene. “Trump Is No Longer Denying Support for Project 2025: What to Know.”

President Donald Trump has changed his tune on the conservative policy plan Project 2025 after actively distancing himself from it for months during his reelection campaign.

Trump announced on Thursday that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” to decide which “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The post marks a significant shift from the President’s past disavowals of the unpopular right-wing policy blueprint, which was created by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation ahead of the 2024 election. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump said in a debate last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, however, he had close ties with a number of its authors, several of whom have served in his Administrations—including Vought. And since he returned to the White House in January his second Administration has taken steps to implement a number of the proposals detailed in the over 900-page document.

Now, amid the government shutdown, Trump is moving to further fulfill Project 2025’s goals of reducing the federal workforce and extending his executive powers—and, it appears, openly embracing the plan.

The big question sis what does this mean for the shutdown and the country?

Despite his criticisms of Project 2025, many of the Trump Administration’s actions since he returned to office have mirrored aspects of the blueprint. An analysis by TIME in January found that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s early executive actions reflected—in whole or in part—proposals in Project 2025.

Among the parts of the plan that Trump has carried out is its recommendation to aggressively reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Trump and hisDepartment of Government Efficiency moved quickly to cut more than 200,000 federal employees, though some of the layoffs have since been held up in the courts after being challenged by lawsuits. His Administration has also looked to slash federal funding through various freezes, clawbacks, cuts, and recissions.

Trump has announced plans to execute still more cuts amid the government shutdown. In the leadup to the deadline to fund the government this week, the White House directed agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event that Congress couldn’t reach a deal, rather than furloughing those not deemed essential as in past shutdowns.

The Administration has additionally used the shutdown to cancel $8 billion in green energy projects in Democratic-led states, withhold $18 billion in transportation projects in New York City, and pause $2.1 billion in infrastructure projects in Chicago.

Here’s a just a bit of the latest information on Russell Voight. This startling headline is from Politico. “Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’  The Senate majority leader spoke out as some Republicans express qualms about the White House slash-and-burn campaign.”  The reporter for this piece is Jourdain Carney.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.

“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.

Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”

“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”

This final suggested read is from Mother Jones. “Russ Vought Is Trump’s Shutdown Hero. His Neighbors Think His Work Is “Abhorrent.” The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.” This is reported by Isabela Dias.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a music video on Truth Social. In it, an AI-generated Russ Vought—Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 mastermind—is the grim reaper, carrying a scythe along a hallway lined with portraits of Democratic leaders. Vought, the video’s soundtrack explains, “wields the pen, the funds, and the brain” to enforce the president’s plans to axe federal workers.

“Everyone still remembers when he said he wanted to cause maximum trauma to federal workers,” the neighbor said. “And that’s hard to forget.”

Most of Vought’s neighbors I talked to for this article declined to speak on the record or asked to remain anonymous. Some said they didn’t want to create a rift in an otherwise cordial neighborhood, while others worried about retribution or negative repercussions from their employers.

“I just wish he would have gotten to know us,” Hunter said. “We consider ourselves good Americans, we have good values. And I don’t think he’s been interested in getting to know any of us, in hearing if we might have a difference of opinion.”

Last week, Vought sent around a memo blaming Democrats’ “insane demands” for the imminent lapse in funding and instructing agency heads to start making plans to cut non-mandatory programs “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and “use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force.” Appearing on Fox Business, Vought claimed an “authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government” during the shutdown.

He has since announced pauses to funding for infrastructure projects in New York—home state of House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who called Vought a “malignant political hack”—and slowdowns in clean energy projects in several blue states.

Vought, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on Fox News, “has been dreaming about and preparing for his moment since puberty.”

AsIwrote in a profile of Vought from 2024, the bespectacled official spent years as a Washington insider and government bureaucrat before becoming the architect of a supersized second Trump presidency.

An avowed Christian nationalist and dedicated America First warrior, he once described the job of OMB director as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent” and criticized the federal bureaucracy for standing in the way of the president’s agenda. During Trump’s first term, Vought tried to implement an executive order that would have made it easier for political appointees to fire career civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. Now, he’s getting to realize his vision while earning points with the president.

See what’s in the cards for us?  Read them and weep.  The Voight cartoons are from The Nation. They have a primar on Vought that you really should read. “Project 2025: Vought’s Your Problem? Not too bad to be true.”  Steve Brodner is the artist and his cartoons have descriptions of their design.  Go see the rest!

I’ve been a little late today, I’m sorry. I woke up late last night in a lot of pain and took some acetaminophen for relief. In my mind I was seeing it as some sort of ritual to defang Trump’s war on Health Care. I also got a call from youngest with my first grandson. Aiden, like his mémé is quite verbal.  I really worked on this piece because I wanted to get as many sources as I could on this abomination and put my time in it than usual. I was researching stuff like the researcher I am. I am vorasciously reading up on this and I suggest you do too.

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

#Repeat1968 #DestructionOfFederalAgencies #governmentShutdown2025m #JohnBuss #LousianaSCancerAlley #PeoplePower #Project25 #RussVought #StevenBrodner

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture.  However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months.  Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly.  “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

• Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

• Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
• Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
• Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
• Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
• Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

More at the link.

MSNBC’s Maddow Blog has this analysis.  As usual, Steve Benen has the led.  “Trump picks a convenient time to change his tune about the Project 2025 agenda. Remember last year when Trump feigned ignorance about the right-wing governing blueprint? A year later, the president no longer bothers with the pretense.”

As the second full day of the latest government shutdown got underway, Donald Trump published an odd message to his social media platform, which raised plenty of eyebrows throughout the political world.

“I have a meeting today with [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat [sic] Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president wrote.

We don’t yet know what transpired at that meeting, but Trump’s weird phrasing was itself notable. For example, there are no federal departments or offices that should be called “Democrat Agencies.” There are only American agencies, which do work on behalf of the American people and which are currently led, at least in part, by Trump’s own appointees.

Similarly, the idea that federal agencies deserve to be condemned as “a political SCAM” is every bit as bizarre as it sounds. We’re talking about offices, some of which have been around for many years, that were created by Congress. Their existence is reinforced in federal law, which the president is required to enforce.

As for the possibility that Trump and the far-right head of his Office of Management and Budget might “permanently” weaken departments that the White House no longer likes, it’s worth keeping in mind that such efforts might very well be illegal.

But let’s also not brush past that other phrase: Vought, the president wrote, is “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” As The Associated Press summarized:

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Here’s some analysis from Time Magazine‘s Editorial Fellow Connor Greene. “Trump Is No Longer Denying Support for Project 2025: What to Know.”

President Donald Trump has changed his tune on the conservative policy plan Project 2025 after actively distancing himself from it for months during his reelection campaign.

Trump announced on Thursday that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” to decide which “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The post marks a significant shift from the President’s past disavowals of the unpopular right-wing policy blueprint, which was created by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation ahead of the 2024 election. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump said in a debate last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, however, he had close ties with a number of its authors, several of whom have served in his Administrations—including Vought. And since he returned to the White House in January his second Administration has taken steps to implement a number of the proposals detailed in the over 900-page document.

Now, amid the government shutdown, Trump is moving to further fulfill Project 2025’s goals of reducing the federal workforce and extending his executive powers—and, it appears, openly embracing the plan.

The big question sis what does this mean for the shutdown and the country?

Despite his criticisms of Project 2025, many of the Trump Administration’s actions since he returned to office have mirrored aspects of the blueprint. An analysis by TIME in January found that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s early executive actions reflected—in whole or in part—proposals in Project 2025.

Among the parts of the plan that Trump has carried out is its recommendation to aggressively reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Trump and hisDepartment of Government Efficiency moved quickly to cut more than 200,000 federal employees, though some of the layoffs have since been held up in the courts after being challenged by lawsuits. His Administration has also looked to slash federal funding through various freezes, clawbacks, cuts, and recissions.

Trump has announced plans to execute still more cuts amid the government shutdown. In the leadup to the deadline to fund the government this week, the White House directed agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event that Congress couldn’t reach a deal, rather than furloughing those not deemed essential as in past shutdowns.

The Administration has additionally used the shutdown to cancel $8 billion in green energy projects in Democratic-led states, withhold $18 billion in transportation projects in New York City, and pause $2.1 billion in infrastructure projects in Chicago.

Here’s a just a bit of the latest information on Russell Voight. This startling headline is from Politico. “Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’  The Senate majority leader spoke out as some Republicans express qualms about the White House slash-and-burn campaign.”  The reporter for this piece is Jourdain Carney.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.

“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.

Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”

“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”

This final suggested read is from Mother Jones. “Russ Vought Is Trump’s Shutdown Hero. His Neighbors Think His Work Is “Abhorrent.” The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.” This is reported by Isabela Dias.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a music video on Truth Social. In it, an AI-generated Russ Vought—Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 mastermind—is the grim reaper, carrying a scythe along a hallway lined with portraits of Democratic leaders. Vought, the video’s soundtrack explains, “wields the pen, the funds, and the brain” to enforce the president’s plans to axe federal workers.

“Everyone still remembers when he said he wanted to cause maximum trauma to federal workers,” the neighbor said. “And that’s hard to forget.”

Most of Vought’s neighbors I talked to for this article declined to speak on the record or asked to remain anonymous. Some said they didn’t want to create a rift in an otherwise cordial neighborhood, while others worried about retribution or negative repercussions from their employers.

“I just wish he would have gotten to know us,” Hunter said. “We consider ourselves good Americans, we have good values. And I don’t think he’s been interested in getting to know any of us, in hearing if we might have a difference of opinion.”

Last week, Vought sent around a memo blaming Democrats’ “insane demands” for the imminent lapse in funding and instructing agency heads to start making plans to cut non-mandatory programs “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and “use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force.” Appearing on Fox Business, Vought claimed an “authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government” during the shutdown.

He has since announced pauses to funding for infrastructure projects in New York—home state of House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who called Vought a “malignant political hack”—and slowdowns in clean energy projects in several blue states.

Vought, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on Fox News, “has been dreaming about and preparing for his moment since puberty.”

AsIwrote in a profile of Vought from 2024, the bespectacled official spent years as a Washington insider and government bureaucrat before becoming the architect of a supersized second Trump presidency.

An avowed Christian nationalist and dedicated America First warrior, he once described the job of OMB director as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent” and criticized the federal bureaucracy for standing in the way of the president’s agenda. During Trump’s first term, Vought tried to implement an executive order that would have made it easier for political appointees to fire career civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. Now, he’s getting to realize his vision while earning points with the president.

See what’s in the cards for us?  Read them and weep.  The Voight cartoons are from The Nation. They have a primar on Vought that you really should read. “Project 2025: Vought’s Your Problem? Not too bad to be true.”  Steve Brodner is the artist and his cartoons have descriptions of their design.  Go see the rest!

I’ve been a little late today, I’m sorry. I woke up late last night in a lot of pain and took some acetaminophen for relief. In my mind I was seeing it as some sort of ritual to defang Trump’s war on Health Care. I also got a call from youngest with my first grandson. Aiden, like his mémé is quite verbal.  I really worked on this piece because I wanted to get as many sources as I could on this abomination and put my time in it than usual. I was researching stuff like the researcher I am. I am vorasciously reading up on this and I suggest you do too.

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

#Repeat1968 #DestructionOfFederalAgencies #governmentShutdown2025m #JohnBuss #LousianaSCancerAlley #PeoplePower #Project25 #RussVought #StevenBrodner

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture.  However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months.  Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly.  “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

• Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

• Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
• Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
• Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
• Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
• Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

More at the link.

MSNBC’s Maddow Blog has this analysis.  As usual, Steve Benen has the led.  “Trump picks a convenient time to change his tune about the Project 2025 agenda. Remember last year when Trump feigned ignorance about the right-wing governing blueprint? A year later, the president no longer bothers with the pretense.”

As the second full day of the latest government shutdown got underway, Donald Trump published an odd message to his social media platform, which raised plenty of eyebrows throughout the political world.

“I have a meeting today with [White House Budget Director] Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat [sic] Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” the president wrote.

We don’t yet know what transpired at that meeting, but Trump’s weird phrasing was itself notable. For example, there are no federal departments or offices that should be called “Democrat Agencies.” There are only American agencies, which do work on behalf of the American people and which are currently led, at least in part, by Trump’s own appointees.

Similarly, the idea that federal agencies deserve to be condemned as “a political SCAM” is every bit as bizarre as it sounds. We’re talking about offices, some of which have been around for many years, that were created by Congress. Their existence is reinforced in federal law, which the president is required to enforce.

As for the possibility that Trump and the far-right head of his Office of Management and Budget might “permanently” weaken departments that the White House no longer likes, it’s worth keeping in mind that such efforts might very well be illegal.

But let’s also not brush past that other phrase: Vought, the president wrote, is “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” As The Associated Press summarized:

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

For those who might benefit from a refresher, throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump realized that the Project 2025 agenda was so radical and unpopular that he treated is as radioactive. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” the Republican said over the summer about the blueprint largely written by members of his own team. He added, “I have nothing to do with them.”

Here’s some analysis from Time Magazine‘s Editorial Fellow Connor Greene. “Trump Is No Longer Denying Support for Project 2025: What to Know.”

President Donald Trump has changed his tune on the conservative policy plan Project 2025 after actively distancing himself from it for months during his reelection campaign.

Trump announced on Thursday that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame,” to decide which “Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The post marks a significant shift from the President’s past disavowals of the unpopular right-wing policy blueprint, which was created by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation ahead of the 2024 election. “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it,” Trump said in a debate last year with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, however, he had close ties with a number of its authors, several of whom have served in his Administrations—including Vought. And since he returned to the White House in January his second Administration has taken steps to implement a number of the proposals detailed in the over 900-page document.

Now, amid the government shutdown, Trump is moving to further fulfill Project 2025’s goals of reducing the federal workforce and extending his executive powers—and, it appears, openly embracing the plan.

The big question sis what does this mean for the shutdown and the country?

Despite his criticisms of Project 2025, many of the Trump Administration’s actions since he returned to office have mirrored aspects of the blueprint. An analysis by TIME in January found that nearly two-thirds of Trump’s early executive actions reflected—in whole or in part—proposals in Project 2025.

Among the parts of the plan that Trump has carried out is its recommendation to aggressively reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Trump and hisDepartment of Government Efficiency moved quickly to cut more than 200,000 federal employees, though some of the layoffs have since been held up in the courts after being challenged by lawsuits. His Administration has also looked to slash federal funding through various freezes, clawbacks, cuts, and recissions.

Trump has announced plans to execute still more cuts amid the government shutdown. In the leadup to the deadline to fund the government this week, the White House directed agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event that Congress couldn’t reach a deal, rather than furloughing those not deemed essential as in past shutdowns.

The Administration has additionally used the shutdown to cancel $8 billion in green energy projects in Democratic-led states, withhold $18 billion in transportation projects in New York City, and pause $2.1 billion in infrastructure projects in Chicago.

Here’s a just a bit of the latest information on Russell Voight. This startling headline is from Politico. “Thune warns Democrats about Russ Vought: ‘We don’t control what he’s going to do’  The Senate majority leader spoke out as some Republicans express qualms about the White House slash-and-burn campaign.”  The reporter for this piece is Jourdain Carney.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t endorsing the slash-and-burn campaign White House budget director Russ Vought has planned for the federal government during the pending shutdown.

But he says Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves.

“This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought,” the Senate majority leader said in an exclusive interview Wednesday in the Capitol, adding that “there should have been an expectation” among Democrats that Vought’s Office of Management and Budget could broadly target government workers and programs in a shutdown.

Thune spoke on the same day that several Republicans aired discomfort with Vought’s moves after the shutdown went into effect. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York spoke out against his decision to hold up major transportation projects in his state, while Reps. Blake Moore of Utah and Brian Babin of Texas spoke up on a private House GOP call with Vought raising qualms about potential mass layoffs.

Vought’s actions also risk being a distraction for Republicans, who have sought to stick to a simple message putting the onus on Democrats to reopen the government. Pressed on whether Vought was muddying the waters, Thune said, “The only thing I would say about that is yes, and we don’t control what he’s going to do.”

The White House has made no secret that its strategy is to inflict maximum political pressure on Democrats to try to get them to reopen the government. Vought warned ahead of the start of the shutdown that OMB would take aggressive steps beyond typical furloughs, where employees are brought back to work after the government reopens.

The budget office directed agencies in a memo first reported by POLITICO last week to put together plans for reductions-in-force — or firings — of federal employees. Vought himself told House Republicans during the Wednesday call that those firings would start in a “day or two.”

“I can’t control that,” Thune said about decisions made by OMB. “But the Democrats ought to think long and hard about keeping this thing going for a long time, because it won’t be without consequence, I’m sure.”

This final suggested read is from Mother Jones. “Russ Vought Is Trump’s Shutdown Hero. His Neighbors Think His Work Is “Abhorrent.” The people living near Trump’s “grim reaper” of government cuts have put up signs letting him know they stand with federal workers.” This is reported by Isabela Dias.

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a music video on Truth Social. In it, an AI-generated Russ Vought—Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 mastermind—is the grim reaper, carrying a scythe along a hallway lined with portraits of Democratic leaders. Vought, the video’s soundtrack explains, “wields the pen, the funds, and the brain” to enforce the president’s plans to axe federal workers.

“Everyone still remembers when he said he wanted to cause maximum trauma to federal workers,” the neighbor said. “And that’s hard to forget.”

Most of Vought’s neighbors I talked to for this article declined to speak on the record or asked to remain anonymous. Some said they didn’t want to create a rift in an otherwise cordial neighborhood, while others worried about retribution or negative repercussions from their employers.

“I just wish he would have gotten to know us,” Hunter said. “We consider ourselves good Americans, we have good values. And I don’t think he’s been interested in getting to know any of us, in hearing if we might have a difference of opinion.”

Last week, Vought sent around a memo blaming Democrats’ “insane demands” for the imminent lapse in funding and instructing agency heads to start making plans to cut non-mandatory programs “not consistent with the President’s priorities” and “use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force.” Appearing on Fox Business, Vought claimed an “authority to make permanent change to the bureaucracy here in government” during the shutdown.

He has since announced pauses to funding for infrastructure projects in New York—home state of House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who called Vought a “malignant political hack”—and slowdowns in clean energy projects in several blue states.

Vought, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said on Fox News, “has been dreaming about and preparing for his moment since puberty.”

AsIwrote in a profile of Vought from 2024, the bespectacled official spent years as a Washington insider and government bureaucrat before becoming the architect of a supersized second Trump presidency.

An avowed Christian nationalist and dedicated America First warrior, he once described the job of OMB director as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent” and criticized the federal bureaucracy for standing in the way of the president’s agenda. During Trump’s first term, Vought tried to implement an executive order that would have made it easier for political appointees to fire career civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. Now, he’s getting to realize his vision while earning points with the president.

See what’s in the cards for us?  Read them and weep.  The Voight cartoons are from The Nation. They have a primar on Vought that you really should read. “Project 2025: Vought’s Your Problem? Not too bad to be true.”  Steve Brodner is the artist and his cartoons have descriptions of their design.  Go see the rest!

I’ve been a little late today, I’m sorry. I woke up late last night in a lot of pain and took some acetaminophen for relief. In my mind I was seeing it as some sort of ritual to defang Trump’s war on Health Care. I also got a call from youngest with my first grandson. Aiden, like his mémé is quite verbal.  I really worked on this piece because I wanted to get as many sources as I could on this abomination and put my time in it than usual. I was researching stuff like the researcher I am. I am vorasciously reading up on this and I suggest you do too.

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

#Repeat1968 #DestructionOfFederalAgencies #governmentShutdown2025m #JohnBuss #LousianaSCancerAlley #PeoplePower #Project25 #RussVought #StevenBrodner

Mostly Monday Reads: Which Century are we in?

“Size matters.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Every time I get the grocery list together these days, I think about what I need to bulk order. It’s really hard to look at a finished consumer good and find all the value-added producers along with their various locations. I wonder how the distributors are going to sort this all out. I noticed prices creeping up in the usual items. I’m pretty sure my sister has hit Costco by now and filled up the pantry. I also watched the last of the Jazz Festers leave with relief.  I bet this was their last jaunt of the year.  You can see it in the numbers.

USA Today had this analysis by Betty Lin-Fisher. “How will Trump’s tariffs affect grocery store prices? We explain.”

While higher tariffs could still be coming after a 90-day-pause, the baseline 10% tariff on all goods, plus higher duties on Chinese products already in effect are a big increase in food costs for American’s budgets, said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at The Consumer Federation of America.

“The 10% ‘default’ tariffs alone represent a truly historic federal tax increase, maybe the largest in my lifetime, with a highly regressive impact,” Gremillion said.

The tariff only applies to the value of the product at the border, Ortega said. Then there are additional costs to the product, which are accrued domestically, like transporting the goods to the store, distribution, wholesale costs and retail markups. Those things are not subject to the tariff, Ortega said.

So that doesn’t mean that the price of a particular product will go up by 10% or whatever the tariff is, Ortega said.

Overall, 15% of the U.S. food supply is imported, including 32% of fresh vegetables, 55% of fresh fruit, and 94% of seafood, according to the Consumer Federation of America, citing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Some products, like coffee and bananas, are almost exclusively grown abroad.

Tariffs are causing uncertainty from families checking off their grocery lists to companies importing food, he said.

“For consumers, this can mean added difficulties in managing a food budget. For food companies, this means havoc on supply chains that could lead to more food waste and more food safety risk,” Gremillion said.

Yup. And the FDA will not be looking around for that food safety risk now. It’s also upending Health Care, but we can rest knowing that all those generic names for medicine and things will be gender neutral now.  I know I can’t even properly pronounce most of them, let alone identify their sexual preferences.  MEDTECHDIVE has this headline: Trump policies are upending healthcare technology. “Track the effect on the medtech industry here. Policies and actions reshaping the healthcare industry began pouring out of President Donald Trump’s White House nearly from day one. Follow the changes affecting the medical device industry.”

Did I mention the youngest son-in-law is a biomedical engineer who is in charge of designing medical, surgical, and prosthetic devices?  Plus, the oldest daughter and son-in-law are doctors.  It’s just me and my youngest daughter out here trying to figure out what the economy and financial markets are experiencing. The others are just trying to deal with that, and the usual helpful regulations are being replaced with crazy ones.

Since Trump took office in late January, multiple Food and Drug Administration webpages were removed (and then restored); employees were fired from the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (and some were asked back); and the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a plan to lay off approximately 10,000 employees, including about 3,500 at the FDA.

Meanwhile, the economy has whipsawed due to an unpredictable and aggressive tariff strategy. Later, however, pieces were delayed or walked back.

The Trump administration has reshaped the medtech industry in significant ways, and potentially long-term, in just a few months. Now that Trump has settled into power, new questions have arisen about what the many changes will mean for companies and patients, and what’s coming next.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

Also, lucky us, Medicare and Medicaid modernization with be the goal of TV snake oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz as he takes over both. This is also from the MEDTECHDIVE.

Dr. Mehmet Oz was sworn in as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator on April 18, cementing his role as head of the agency that provides insurance coverage to millions of Americans.

During a ceremony at the Oval Office, Oz, a physician and former TV personality, said he wanted to “save” the nation’s public health programs and focus on reducing chronic disease, “modernizing” Medicare and Medicaid, and targeting fraud, waste and abuse in government insurance offerings.

President Donald Trump reiterated that Republicans wouldn’t cut Medicare or Medicaid. “Just as I promised, there will be no cuts. We’re not going to have any cuts. We’re going to have only help,” he said during the ceremony.

As I’ve spent most of this year being poked, prodded, pricked, shocked, MRI’d, Ultrasound’d, and EMG’d, I sure don’t feel good about any of this. I fret about someone disappearing all of that, plus my Social Security.

Speaking of crazy policy, I happened on this last night. This is from NBC News. “Trump says he will reopen ‘enlarged and rebuilt’ Alcatraz prison. Alcatraz Island hasn’t been used as a federal penitentiary since 1963. It had a capacity of roughly 300 people.”  I’m actually thinking this is another one of his threats to Judges since it’s way too small to hold many prisoners.  I suppose that’s one way to destroy a national park and the US Constitution in one sweep.

Alcatraz Island, a former military fortress and prison in San Francisco Bay, was turned into a federal penitentiary in 1934 and over the course of 29 years housed more than 1,500 people “deemed difficult to incarcerate elsewhere in the federal prison system,” according to the National Park Service.

According to aNational Park Service study, it was initially deemed unfit to serve as a federal institution because of its small size, isolated location and lack of fresh water. However, Sanford Bates, the director of the Bureau of Prisons in 1933,later found it “an ideal place of confinement for about 200 of the most desperate or irredeemable types.” It was formally opened as a federal penitentiary the next year.

Trump suggested in his post that he’d like to restore the facility to that purpose.

This is from Ed Mazza writing for HuffPo. This sounds a lot like his real estate deals to me. “‘Clearly Unhinged’: Critics Sink Trump’s ‘Asinine’ Plan To Reopen Alcatraz Prison. The president wants to turn the site back into a penitentiary despite the fact that it would cost a fortune.”

Alcatraz is currently part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and has about 1.2 million visitors per year. Those who tour the island in San Francisco Bay see facilities in various states of decay. The prison was crumbling even as it was still in operation, and the high cost of maintaining it was a key reason it was shuttered in 1963.

Given those realities, restoring Alcatraz and then expanding it, as Trump called for on his Truth Social platform, would likely cost a fortune ― and then another pile of cash would be needed to maintain it.

Reopening it as a prison would also mean the loss of the tourism revenue the island currently generates as well as a loss of habitat for its thriving bird population.

The president, however, said Alcatraz’s return to use as a prison would “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

His critics fired back that the idea would be an expensive boondoggle:

This just really sounds like how he’d run his business.  Also, he now wants tariffs on all incoming films.  This is about as insane as it gets.  “Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying.”

 President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the U.S.

In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to slap a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw” filmmakers and studios away from the U.S. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

The White House said Monday that it was figuring out how to comply with the president’s wishes.

“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” said spokesperson Kush Desai.

It’s common for both large and small films to include production in the U.S. and in other countries. Big-budget movies like the upcoming “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” for instance, are shot around the world.

Philip Bump–writing at WAPO–has an interesting Op-Ed up today. “America’s least American president. Donald Trump isn’t making America great again. He’s making it into something else entirely.”

On Sunday, NBC News aired an interview with Trump in which he expressed ignorance of the black-letter standards of justice established in the country’s founding document.

“The Constitution says every person, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process,” “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker pointed out. So why not bring Abrego García back to the U.S. and use legal avenues to potentially remove him?

“Well,” Trump replied, “I’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I’ll leave that to the attorney general of the United States.”

Welker noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had admitted that even immigrants had due process rights. Trump again downplayed the idea, saying that holding hearings would mean “we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.” This isn’t as big a hurdle as it may sound. In fiscal 2024, there were more than 900,000 immigration hearings completed. So far in fiscal 2025, there have been more than 460,000. More could be cleared if Trump hadn’t moved to fire a number of immigration judges.

Finally, Welker noted that Trump didn’t really have a choice.

“Even given those numbers that you’re talking about,” she asked, “don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

“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.”

You may recall that, in January, Trump put his hand on a Bible and affirmed to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that he would “faithfully execute” his role as president and to the best of his “ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But this has never been an oath he has appeared to actually take to heart.

Trump’s dismissiveness of the Constitution has manifested itself in a lot of ways. You may recall his lack of interest in leaving office when he lost the 2020 presidential election. You may be aware that he has readily, if not giddily, accepted personal income from foreign governments while serving as president. He views the law as a cudgel, not a constraint, issuing pardons for various political allies ensnared in criminal activity while directing federal law enforcement to fish for potential criminal charges against those who work against his political power.

At its heart, Trump’s approach to his role is rooted in his parochial sense of patriotism. He didn’t come to the White House after having worked his way up through lower offices, building consensus and working to appeal to a broad range of constituents. He had no appreciation for how legislation is crafted or for the hard work of reaching compromise. Perhaps most importantly, he has never indicated any robust understanding of American history or of the debates and agreements that led to the country’s creation.

In 2011, for example, Trump was asked by Stephen Colbert if he knew what the 13 stripes on the American flag represent. He said he didn’t.

More recently, Trump was asked by ABC News journalist Terry Moran what the Declaration of Independence (a copy of which the president recently had installed in the Oval Office) means to him personally.

“It means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration,” Trump replied. “A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.”

It is special to the country, of course, but not because it is a declaration of “love,” much less “unity.” As the name would suggest, it is precisely the opposite.

Trump doesn’t have the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office because he wants its message to serve as a guidepost for his administration. He doesn’t even appear to know its message. He has it there because it is A Famous American Thing, another decoration in the newly gilded room meant to send a message about his power, not the nation’s.

Dan Froomkin–writing for Press Watch–suggests we need to keep track of all Trump’s oddities. “We need a way to aggregate what Donald Trump is doing to this country.”

News organizations, along with good-government groups and other interested parties, are doing a commendable job of chronicling the damage the Trump regime is doing to the government, the country, and the world.

But none of them, individually, is in a position to give the public the full picture. It’s just too much.

This is a feature of Trump’s strategy of “flooding the zone.” No one entity can possibly keep up.

And as we go forward, how can any one organization keep tabs on all the fallout? It’s not possible.

What we need is a central repository of information so that the full extent of the damage can be found in one place and assessed by the public — and so that there’s a comprehensive record of what needs to be fixed and restored when the time comes to do so. (Sort of like a truth commission, but in real time.)

To aggregate all the existing information, organize it, and collect new data, we need a place, a process, and people.

It makes sense to me since Trump seems to want to undocument more than just people.  Who knows how many things Doge has destroyed in the wake of having all-access to every government database and more.  He’s disappearing people, children, scientific research, due process, and entire agencies and programs.

This is a site that I was just sent to by a Blue Sky Link. This  DNYUZ  link has an article by the NYT’s by Jack Goldsmith of Lawfare fame and Harvard Law School.  This has been an issue for many people in modern times, with both parties playing the role of enablers. “It’s Not Just Trump. The Presidency Has Become Too Powerful.”  So, I need to put this example of both siderisms into perspective. “Mr. Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general under George W. Bush, is an author, with Bob Bauer, of a newsletter about presidential and executive power.”

Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball second term has revealed the full latent power of the presidency. His administration has done this most clearly in its comprehensive elimination of legal and norm-based checks inside the executive branch, its systematic disrespect of judicial process, its extortionate abuse of government power to crush foes and its destructive rhetoric and nastiness.

Yet it is important to recognize that many of Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand the powers of the office build substantially on the excesses of recent presidencies. The overall pattern of presidential action over the past few decades reveals an escalation of power grabs that put the country on a terrible course even before Mr. Trump took office again.

The presidency needs reform, and Americans must consider ways — however implausible they may seem in the context of today’s politics — to get there.

Expansionist presidential acts go all the way back to George Washington, who invited charges of monarchism with his use of the Constitution’s broad yet undefined “executive Power.” From there the presidency, with its loose design, grew and grew, with major surges during the Civil War and New Deal era. That trend continued through the 20th century, aided by the rise of mass communication, substantial delegations of power from Congress and an approving Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump’s radical second presidency is, to an underappreciated extent, operating from a playbook devised by his modern predecessors.

His use of emergency powers to impose broad tariffs is similar to a move made in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. His claims of untouchable national security authority echo arguments made after the Sept. 11 attacks by the George W. Bush administration, in which I served.

Presidents for decades have issued pardons as political or personal favors or to avoid personal legal jeopardy. Mr. Trump took this practice to new extremes in his first term, and then President Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned his son and family as well as members of his administration and Congress, in a similar pattern. Mr. Trump in his second term has already issued many self-serving pardons.

Mr. Trump’s executive-order program is an heir of the strategy used by President Barack Obama for large-scale and sometimes legally dubious policy initiatives, including some (involving immigration) where Mr. Obama had earlier admitted he lacked authority to act. Mr. Biden also confessed a lack of power but then acted unilaterally in seeking to forgive student loans.

Mr. Trump has disregarded statutory restrictions to fire officials in independent agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board. But in 2021, Mr. Biden extended the Supreme Court’s unitary executive case law to fire the statutorily protected commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Mr. Biden was “the first unitary executive,” noted the legal writer Mark Joseph Stern in 2021.

Mr. Biden also purged the executive branch of Trump holdover officials who were not protected by statute, including members of arts and honorary institutions, the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Biden administration’s defense of these firings resulted in judicial precedents that Mr. Trump is now wielding to clean house on a broader scale.

The Trump administration has also built on past presidencies in not enforcing federal law — for example, in letting TikTok live on despite a congressional ban. This practice finds its modern roots in the Obama administration, which asserted broad nonenforcement discretion in high-profile cases involving immigration, marijuana and Obamacare, in effect changing the meaning of those laws.

Something similar has happened with spending. As one recent paper noted, “The past several presidents have all taken significant unilateral actions intruding on Congress’s control over federal spending.” The Trump 2.0 version greatly enlarges this unilateralist pattern.

There are a lot of examples here, and it’s worth thinking about.  The Unitary Executive Theory has been around for a while, and since the Reagan years, it has picked up steam in the Supreme Court. Here is a recent article from Democracy Docket explaining the theory and relating to it to Yam Tits. The analysis is written by Jacob Knutsen.  “What Is Unitary Executive Theory? How is Trump Using It to Push His Agenda?”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has executed a whirlwind of dismissals across the federal government that violated federal statutes and decreed numerous executive orders, including one that blatantly defied the plain language of the Constitution.

Behind the seemingly scatter-shot opening acts of his second administration, legal analysts see a common goal: to test a once-fringe legal theory which asserts that the president has unlimited power to control the actions of the four million people who make up the executive branch.

If courts — specifically the Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court — uphold arguments based on the so-called “unitary executive theory,” it would give Trump and subsequent presidents unprecedented power to remove and replace any federal employee and impose their will on every decision in every agency.

Rulings in favor of the Trump administration would also further jeopardize the independence of key regulatory agencies that are susceptible to conflicts of interest and political interference, like the Federal Election Commission, which oversees federal elections and campaign finance laws.

Trump and his administration have furthered the theory by repeatedly invoking Article II of the Constitution, which vests executive power in the president, to justify the recent dismissals of federal officials. They have framed the article as allowing the president to use the whole of the executive branch for his political ends.

For example, the White House Feb. 18 invoked the article to rationalize an executive order signed that same day that asserted the president’s authority over almost all regulatory agencies that were created by Congress to act independently, or semi-independently, from the president.

Frank Bowman, a scholar of constitutional and criminal law at the University of Missouri School of Law, told Democracy Docket he believes the executive order is a step toward “an open declaration of dictatorship.”

“In essence, what he’s saying is, ‘I am the law. My will is the law. My view of what the law is the only view that can ever be expressed,’” Bowman said.

I think this take on executive power is one we should get more familiar with since it’s really taken a powerful rise. The Center for American Progress features an analysis in its series on Project 2025.  This one was written back in October.”Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency. Far-right extremists have a plan to shatter democracy’s guardrails, giving presidents almost unlimited power to implement policies that will hurt everyday Americans and strip them of fundamental rights.”  It is an imperative read.  Trump knows that he can be both pope and king.

Project 2025 takes an absolutist view of presidential authority

To wholly reshape government in ways that most Americans would think is impossible, the Project 2025 blueprint anchors itself in the “unitary executive theory.”22 This radical governing philosophy, which contravenes the traditional separation of powers, vests presidents with almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy, including congressionally designated independent agencies or the DOJ and the FBI. The unitary executive theory is designed to sharply diminish Congress’ imperative role to act as a check and balance on the executive branch with tools such as setting up independent agencies to make expert decisions and by limiting presidents’ ability to fire career civil servants for purely political purposes.

The road map to autocracy presented in Project 2025 extends far beyond the unitary executive theory first promoted by President Ronald Reagan, and later espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney, largely designed to implement a deregulatory, corporatist agenda.23 Instead, as discussed further below, Project 2025 presents a maximalist version that does not nibble around the edges but aims to thoroughly demolish the traditional guardrails that allow Congress an equal say in how democracy functions or what policies are implemented. One noted expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Philip Wallach, said, “Some of these visions … start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says—and that’s just not the system the [sic] government we live under.”24

If Congress is robbed of its imperative role as a check and balance on a president’s power, and the judicial branch is willing to bestow a president with almost unlimited authority, autocracy results. And presidents become strongman rulers—free to choose which laws to enforce, which long-standing norms to jettison, and how to impose their will on every executive branch department and agency.

Well, all these pithy reads should keep you busy for the day.  I hope your week goes well. I’ve got 2 doctors’ appointments, but gladly no more procedures.  And I’d like just to add if they come for professors, that I’d rather be in the gulag that holds the country’s political cartoonists.  To think, I used to just use wonderful paintings.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all the wonderful folks of Mexican descent and to those of us who just enjoy the holiday!

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

 

#Repeat1968 #CampAlcatraz #CrazyFARTUSPolicies #DonaldTrump #JohnBuss #misogyny #SCOTUS #SocialSecurity #TheoryOfUnitaryExecutive #TrumpTariffs #unemployment

Mostly Monday Reads: Which Century are we in?

“Size matters.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Every time I get the grocery list together these days, I think about what I need to bulk order. It’s really hard to look at a finished consumer good and find all the value-added producers along with their various locations. I wonder how the distributors are going to sort this all out. I noticed prices creeping up in the usual items. I’m pretty sure my sister has hit Costco by now and filled up the pantry. I also watched the last of the Jazz Festers leave with relief.  I bet this was their last jaunt of the year.  You can see it in the numbers.

USA Today had this analysis by Betty Lin-Fisher. “How will Trump’s tariffs affect grocery store prices? We explain.”

While higher tariffs could still be coming after a 90-day-pause, the baseline 10% tariff on all goods, plus higher duties on Chinese products already in effect are a big increase in food costs for American’s budgets, said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at The Consumer Federation of America.

“The 10% ‘default’ tariffs alone represent a truly historic federal tax increase, maybe the largest in my lifetime, with a highly regressive impact,” Gremillion said.

The tariff only applies to the value of the product at the border, Ortega said. Then there are additional costs to the product, which are accrued domestically, like transporting the goods to the store, distribution, wholesale costs and retail markups. Those things are not subject to the tariff, Ortega said.

So that doesn’t mean that the price of a particular product will go up by 10% or whatever the tariff is, Ortega said.

Overall, 15% of the U.S. food supply is imported, including 32% of fresh vegetables, 55% of fresh fruit, and 94% of seafood, according to the Consumer Federation of America, citing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Some products, like coffee and bananas, are almost exclusively grown abroad.

Tariffs are causing uncertainty from families checking off their grocery lists to companies importing food, he said.

“For consumers, this can mean added difficulties in managing a food budget. For food companies, this means havoc on supply chains that could lead to more food waste and more food safety risk,” Gremillion said.

Yup. And the FDA will not be looking around for that food safety risk now. It’s also upending Health Care, but we can rest knowing that all those generic names for medicine and things will be gender neutral now.  I know I can’t even properly pronounce most of them, let alone identify their sexual preferences.  MEDTECHDIVE has this headline: Trump policies are upending healthcare technology. “Track the effect on the medtech industry here. Policies and actions reshaping the healthcare industry began pouring out of President Donald Trump’s White House nearly from day one. Follow the changes affecting the medical device industry.”

Did I mention the youngest son-in-law is a biomedical engineer who is in charge of designing medical, surgical, and prosthetic devices?  Plus, the oldest daughter and son-in-law are doctors.  It’s just me and my youngest daughter out here trying to figure out what the economy and financial markets are experiencing. The others are just trying to deal with that, and the usual helpful regulations are being replaced with crazy ones.

Since Trump took office in late January, multiple Food and Drug Administration webpages were removed (and then restored); employees were fired from the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (and some were asked back); and the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a plan to lay off approximately 10,000 employees, including about 3,500 at the FDA.

Meanwhile, the economy has whipsawed due to an unpredictable and aggressive tariff strategy. Later, however, pieces were delayed or walked back.

The Trump administration has reshaped the medtech industry in significant ways, and potentially long-term, in just a few months. Now that Trump has settled into power, new questions have arisen about what the many changes will mean for companies and patients, and what’s coming next.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

Also, lucky us, Medicare and Medicaid modernization with be the goal of TV snake oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz as he takes over both. This is also from the MEDTECHDIVE.

Dr. Mehmet Oz was sworn in as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator on April 18, cementing his role as head of the agency that provides insurance coverage to millions of Americans.

During a ceremony at the Oval Office, Oz, a physician and former TV personality, said he wanted to “save” the nation’s public health programs and focus on reducing chronic disease, “modernizing” Medicare and Medicaid, and targeting fraud, waste and abuse in government insurance offerings.

President Donald Trump reiterated that Republicans wouldn’t cut Medicare or Medicaid. “Just as I promised, there will be no cuts. We’re not going to have any cuts. We’re going to have only help,” he said during the ceremony.

As I’ve spent most of this year being poked, prodded, pricked, shocked, MRI’d, Ultrasound’d, and EMG’d, I sure don’t feel good about any of this. I fret about someone disappearing all of that, plus my Social Security.

Speaking of crazy policy, I happened on this last night. This is from NBC News. “Trump says he will reopen ‘enlarged and rebuilt’ Alcatraz prison. Alcatraz Island hasn’t been used as a federal penitentiary since 1963. It had a capacity of roughly 300 people.”  I’m actually thinking this is another one of his threats to Judges since it’s way too small to hold many prisoners.  I suppose that’s one way to destroy a national park and the US Constitution in one sweep.

Alcatraz Island, a former military fortress and prison in San Francisco Bay, was turned into a federal penitentiary in 1934 and over the course of 29 years housed more than 1,500 people “deemed difficult to incarcerate elsewhere in the federal prison system,” according to the National Park Service.

According to aNational Park Service study, it was initially deemed unfit to serve as a federal institution because of its small size, isolated location and lack of fresh water. However, Sanford Bates, the director of the Bureau of Prisons in 1933,later found it “an ideal place of confinement for about 200 of the most desperate or irredeemable types.” It was formally opened as a federal penitentiary the next year.

Trump suggested in his post that he’d like to restore the facility to that purpose.

This is from Ed Mazza writing for HuffPo. This sounds a lot like his real estate deals to me. “‘Clearly Unhinged’: Critics Sink Trump’s ‘Asinine’ Plan To Reopen Alcatraz Prison. The president wants to turn the site back into a penitentiary despite the fact that it would cost a fortune.”

Alcatraz is currently part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and has about 1.2 million visitors per year. Those who tour the island in San Francisco Bay see facilities in various states of decay. The prison was crumbling even as it was still in operation, and the high cost of maintaining it was a key reason it was shuttered in 1963.

Given those realities, restoring Alcatraz and then expanding it, as Trump called for on his Truth Social platform, would likely cost a fortune ― and then another pile of cash would be needed to maintain it.

Reopening it as a prison would also mean the loss of the tourism revenue the island currently generates as well as a loss of habitat for its thriving bird population.

The president, however, said Alcatraz’s return to use as a prison would “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

His critics fired back that the idea would be an expensive boondoggle:

This just really sounds like how he’d run his business.  Also, he now wants tariffs on all incoming films.  This is about as insane as it gets.  “Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying.”

 President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the U.S.

In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to slap a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw” filmmakers and studios away from the U.S. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

The White House said Monday that it was figuring out how to comply with the president’s wishes.

“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” said spokesperson Kush Desai.

It’s common for both large and small films to include production in the U.S. and in other countries. Big-budget movies like the upcoming “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” for instance, are shot around the world.

Philip Bump–writing at WAPO–has an interesting Op-Ed up today. “America’s least American president. Donald Trump isn’t making America great again. He’s making it into something else entirely.”

On Sunday, NBC News aired an interview with Trump in which he expressed ignorance of the black-letter standards of justice established in the country’s founding document.

“The Constitution says every person, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process,” “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker pointed out. So why not bring Abrego García back to the U.S. and use legal avenues to potentially remove him?

“Well,” Trump replied, “I’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I’ll leave that to the attorney general of the United States.”

Welker noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had admitted that even immigrants had due process rights. Trump again downplayed the idea, saying that holding hearings would mean “we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.” This isn’t as big a hurdle as it may sound. In fiscal 2024, there were more than 900,000 immigration hearings completed. So far in fiscal 2025, there have been more than 460,000. More could be cleared if Trump hadn’t moved to fire a number of immigration judges.

Finally, Welker noted that Trump didn’t really have a choice.

“Even given those numbers that you’re talking about,” she asked, “don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

“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.”

You may recall that, in January, Trump put his hand on a Bible and affirmed to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that he would “faithfully execute” his role as president and to the best of his “ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But this has never been an oath he has appeared to actually take to heart.

Trump’s dismissiveness of the Constitution has manifested itself in a lot of ways. You may recall his lack of interest in leaving office when he lost the 2020 presidential election. You may be aware that he has readily, if not giddily, accepted personal income from foreign governments while serving as president. He views the law as a cudgel, not a constraint, issuing pardons for various political allies ensnared in criminal activity while directing federal law enforcement to fish for potential criminal charges against those who work against his political power.

At its heart, Trump’s approach to his role is rooted in his parochial sense of patriotism. He didn’t come to the White House after having worked his way up through lower offices, building consensus and working to appeal to a broad range of constituents. He had no appreciation for how legislation is crafted or for the hard work of reaching compromise. Perhaps most importantly, he has never indicated any robust understanding of American history or of the debates and agreements that led to the country’s creation.

In 2011, for example, Trump was asked by Stephen Colbert if he knew what the 13 stripes on the American flag represent. He said he didn’t.

More recently, Trump was asked by ABC News journalist Terry Moran what the Declaration of Independence (a copy of which the president recently had installed in the Oval Office) means to him personally.

“It means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration,” Trump replied. “A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.”

It is special to the country, of course, but not because it is a declaration of “love,” much less “unity.” As the name would suggest, it is precisely the opposite.

Trump doesn’t have the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office because he wants its message to serve as a guidepost for his administration. He doesn’t even appear to know its message. He has it there because it is A Famous American Thing, another decoration in the newly gilded room meant to send a message about his power, not the nation’s.

Dan Froomkin–writing for Press Watch–suggests we need to keep track of all Trump’s oddities. “We need a way to aggregate what Donald Trump is doing to this country.”

News organizations, along with good-government groups and other interested parties, are doing a commendable job of chronicling the damage the Trump regime is doing to the government, the country, and the world.

But none of them, individually, is in a position to give the public the full picture. It’s just too much.

This is a feature of Trump’s strategy of “flooding the zone.” No one entity can possibly keep up.

And as we go forward, how can any one organization keep tabs on all the fallout? It’s not possible.

What we need is a central repository of information so that the full extent of the damage can be found in one place and assessed by the public — and so that there’s a comprehensive record of what needs to be fixed and restored when the time comes to do so. (Sort of like a truth commission, but in real time.)

To aggregate all the existing information, organize it, and collect new data, we need a place, a process, and people.

It makes sense to me since Trump seems to want to undocument more than just people.  Who knows how many things Doge has destroyed in the wake of having all-access to every government database and more.  He’s disappearing people, children, scientific research, due process, and entire agencies and programs.

This is a site that I was just sent to by a Blue Sky Link. This  DNYUZ  link has an article by the NYT’s by Jack Goldsmith of Lawfare fame and Harvard Law School.  This has been an issue for many people in modern times, with both parties playing the role of enablers. “It’s Not Just Trump. The Presidency Has Become Too Powerful.”  So, I need to put this example of both siderisms into perspective. “Mr. Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general under George W. Bush, is an author, with Bob Bauer, of a newsletter about presidential and executive power.”

Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball second term has revealed the full latent power of the presidency. His administration has done this most clearly in its comprehensive elimination of legal and norm-based checks inside the executive branch, its systematic disrespect of judicial process, its extortionate abuse of government power to crush foes and its destructive rhetoric and nastiness.

Yet it is important to recognize that many of Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand the powers of the office build substantially on the excesses of recent presidencies. The overall pattern of presidential action over the past few decades reveals an escalation of power grabs that put the country on a terrible course even before Mr. Trump took office again.

The presidency needs reform, and Americans must consider ways — however implausible they may seem in the context of today’s politics — to get there.

Expansionist presidential acts go all the way back to George Washington, who invited charges of monarchism with his use of the Constitution’s broad yet undefined “executive Power.” From there the presidency, with its loose design, grew and grew, with major surges during the Civil War and New Deal era. That trend continued through the 20th century, aided by the rise of mass communication, substantial delegations of power from Congress and an approving Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump’s radical second presidency is, to an underappreciated extent, operating from a playbook devised by his modern predecessors.

His use of emergency powers to impose broad tariffs is similar to a move made in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. His claims of untouchable national security authority echo arguments made after the Sept. 11 attacks by the George W. Bush administration, in which I served.

Presidents for decades have issued pardons as political or personal favors or to avoid personal legal jeopardy. Mr. Trump took this practice to new extremes in his first term, and then President Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned his son and family as well as members of his administration and Congress, in a similar pattern. Mr. Trump in his second term has already issued many self-serving pardons.

Mr. Trump’s executive-order program is an heir of the strategy used by President Barack Obama for large-scale and sometimes legally dubious policy initiatives, including some (involving immigration) where Mr. Obama had earlier admitted he lacked authority to act. Mr. Biden also confessed a lack of power but then acted unilaterally in seeking to forgive student loans.

Mr. Trump has disregarded statutory restrictions to fire officials in independent agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board. But in 2021, Mr. Biden extended the Supreme Court’s unitary executive case law to fire the statutorily protected commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Mr. Biden was “the first unitary executive,” noted the legal writer Mark Joseph Stern in 2021.

Mr. Biden also purged the executive branch of Trump holdover officials who were not protected by statute, including members of arts and honorary institutions, the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Biden administration’s defense of these firings resulted in judicial precedents that Mr. Trump is now wielding to clean house on a broader scale.

The Trump administration has also built on past presidencies in not enforcing federal law — for example, in letting TikTok live on despite a congressional ban. This practice finds its modern roots in the Obama administration, which asserted broad nonenforcement discretion in high-profile cases involving immigration, marijuana and Obamacare, in effect changing the meaning of those laws.

Something similar has happened with spending. As one recent paper noted, “The past several presidents have all taken significant unilateral actions intruding on Congress’s control over federal spending.” The Trump 2.0 version greatly enlarges this unilateralist pattern.

There are a lot of examples here, and it’s worth thinking about.  The Unitary Executive Theory has been around for a while, and since the Reagan years, it has picked up steam in the Supreme Court. Here is a recent article from Democracy Docket explaining the theory and relating to it to Yam Tits. The analysis is written by Jacob Knutsen.  “What Is Unitary Executive Theory? How is Trump Using It to Push His Agenda?”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has executed a whirlwind of dismissals across the federal government that violated federal statutes and decreed numerous executive orders, including one that blatantly defied the plain language of the Constitution.

Behind the seemingly scatter-shot opening acts of his second administration, legal analysts see a common goal: to test a once-fringe legal theory which asserts that the president has unlimited power to control the actions of the four million people who make up the executive branch.

If courts — specifically the Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court — uphold arguments based on the so-called “unitary executive theory,” it would give Trump and subsequent presidents unprecedented power to remove and replace any federal employee and impose their will on every decision in every agency.

Rulings in favor of the Trump administration would also further jeopardize the independence of key regulatory agencies that are susceptible to conflicts of interest and political interference, like the Federal Election Commission, which oversees federal elections and campaign finance laws.

Trump and his administration have furthered the theory by repeatedly invoking Article II of the Constitution, which vests executive power in the president, to justify the recent dismissals of federal officials. They have framed the article as allowing the president to use the whole of the executive branch for his political ends.

For example, the White House Feb. 18 invoked the article to rationalize an executive order signed that same day that asserted the president’s authority over almost all regulatory agencies that were created by Congress to act independently, or semi-independently, from the president.

Frank Bowman, a scholar of constitutional and criminal law at the University of Missouri School of Law, told Democracy Docket he believes the executive order is a step toward “an open declaration of dictatorship.”

“In essence, what he’s saying is, ‘I am the law. My will is the law. My view of what the law is the only view that can ever be expressed,’” Bowman said.

I think this take on executive power is one we should get more familiar with since it’s really taken a powerful rise. The Center for American Progress features an analysis in its series on Project 2025.  This one was written back in October.”Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency. Far-right extremists have a plan to shatter democracy’s guardrails, giving presidents almost unlimited power to implement policies that will hurt everyday Americans and strip them of fundamental rights.”  It is an imperative read.  Trump knows that he can be both pope and king.

Project 2025 takes an absolutist view of presidential authority

To wholly reshape government in ways that most Americans would think is impossible, the Project 2025 blueprint anchors itself in the “unitary executive theory.”22 This radical governing philosophy, which contravenes the traditional separation of powers, vests presidents with almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy, including congressionally designated independent agencies or the DOJ and the FBI. The unitary executive theory is designed to sharply diminish Congress’ imperative role to act as a check and balance on the executive branch with tools such as setting up independent agencies to make expert decisions and by limiting presidents’ ability to fire career civil servants for purely political purposes.

The road map to autocracy presented in Project 2025 extends far beyond the unitary executive theory first promoted by President Ronald Reagan, and later espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney, largely designed to implement a deregulatory, corporatist agenda.23 Instead, as discussed further below, Project 2025 presents a maximalist version that does not nibble around the edges but aims to thoroughly demolish the traditional guardrails that allow Congress an equal say in how democracy functions or what policies are implemented. One noted expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Philip Wallach, said, “Some of these visions … start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says—and that’s just not the system the [sic] government we live under.”24

If Congress is robbed of its imperative role as a check and balance on a president’s power, and the judicial branch is willing to bestow a president with almost unlimited authority, autocracy results. And presidents become strongman rulers—free to choose which laws to enforce, which long-standing norms to jettison, and how to impose their will on every executive branch department and agency.

Well, all these pithy reads should keep you busy for the day.  I hope your week goes well. I’ve got 2 doctors’ appointments, but gladly no more procedures.  And I’d like just to add if they come for professors, that I’d rather be in the gulag that holds the country’s political cartoonists.  To think, I used to just use wonderful paintings.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all the wonderful folks of Mexican descent and to those of us who just enjoy the holiday!

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

 

#Repeat1968 #CampAlcatraz #CrazyFARTUSPolicies #DonaldTrump #JohnBuss #misogyny #SCOTUS #SocialSecurity #TheoryOfUnitaryExecutive #TrumpTariffs #unemployment

Mostly Monday Reads: Which Century are we in?

“Size matters.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Every time I get the grocery list together these days, I think about what I need to bulk order. It’s really hard to look at a finished consumer good and find all the value-added producers along with their various locations. I wonder how the distributors are going to sort this all out. I noticed prices creeping up in the usual items. I’m pretty sure my sister has hit Costco by now and filled up the pantry. I also watched the last of the Jazz Festers leave with relief.  I bet this was their last jaunt of the year.  You can see it in the numbers.

USA Today had this analysis by Betty Lin-Fisher. “How will Trump’s tariffs affect grocery store prices? We explain.”

While higher tariffs could still be coming after a 90-day-pause, the baseline 10% tariff on all goods, plus higher duties on Chinese products already in effect are a big increase in food costs for American’s budgets, said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at The Consumer Federation of America.

“The 10% ‘default’ tariffs alone represent a truly historic federal tax increase, maybe the largest in my lifetime, with a highly regressive impact,” Gremillion said.

The tariff only applies to the value of the product at the border, Ortega said. Then there are additional costs to the product, which are accrued domestically, like transporting the goods to the store, distribution, wholesale costs and retail markups. Those things are not subject to the tariff, Ortega said.

So that doesn’t mean that the price of a particular product will go up by 10% or whatever the tariff is, Ortega said.

Overall, 15% of the U.S. food supply is imported, including 32% of fresh vegetables, 55% of fresh fruit, and 94% of seafood, according to the Consumer Federation of America, citing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Some products, like coffee and bananas, are almost exclusively grown abroad.

Tariffs are causing uncertainty from families checking off their grocery lists to companies importing food, he said.

“For consumers, this can mean added difficulties in managing a food budget. For food companies, this means havoc on supply chains that could lead to more food waste and more food safety risk,” Gremillion said.

Yup. And the FDA will not be looking around for that food safety risk now. It’s also upending Health Care, but we can rest knowing that all those generic names for medicine and things will be gender neutral now.  I know I can’t even properly pronounce most of them, let alone identify their sexual preferences.  MEDTECHDIVE has this headline: Trump policies are upending healthcare technology. “Track the effect on the medtech industry here. Policies and actions reshaping the healthcare industry began pouring out of President Donald Trump’s White House nearly from day one. Follow the changes affecting the medical device industry.”

Did I mention the youngest son-in-law is a biomedical engineer who is in charge of designing medical, surgical, and prosthetic devices?  Plus, the oldest daughter and son-in-law are doctors.  It’s just me and my youngest daughter out here trying to figure out what the economy and financial markets are experiencing. The others are just trying to deal with that, and the usual helpful regulations are being replaced with crazy ones.

Since Trump took office in late January, multiple Food and Drug Administration webpages were removed (and then restored); employees were fired from the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (and some were asked back); and the Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a plan to lay off approximately 10,000 employees, including about 3,500 at the FDA.

Meanwhile, the economy has whipsawed due to an unpredictable and aggressive tariff strategy. Later, however, pieces were delayed or walked back.

The Trump administration has reshaped the medtech industry in significant ways, and potentially long-term, in just a few months. Now that Trump has settled into power, new questions have arisen about what the many changes will mean for companies and patients, and what’s coming next.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

Also, lucky us, Medicare and Medicaid modernization with be the goal of TV snake oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz as he takes over both. This is also from the MEDTECHDIVE.

Dr. Mehmet Oz was sworn in as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator on April 18, cementing his role as head of the agency that provides insurance coverage to millions of Americans.

During a ceremony at the Oval Office, Oz, a physician and former TV personality, said he wanted to “save” the nation’s public health programs and focus on reducing chronic disease, “modernizing” Medicare and Medicaid, and targeting fraud, waste and abuse in government insurance offerings.

President Donald Trump reiterated that Republicans wouldn’t cut Medicare or Medicaid. “Just as I promised, there will be no cuts. We’re not going to have any cuts. We’re going to have only help,” he said during the ceremony.

As I’ve spent most of this year being poked, prodded, pricked, shocked, MRI’d, Ultrasound’d, and EMG’d, I sure don’t feel good about any of this. I fret about someone disappearing all of that, plus my Social Security.

Speaking of crazy policy, I happened on this last night. This is from NBC News. “Trump says he will reopen ‘enlarged and rebuilt’ Alcatraz prison. Alcatraz Island hasn’t been used as a federal penitentiary since 1963. It had a capacity of roughly 300 people.”  I’m actually thinking this is another one of his threats to Judges since it’s way too small to hold many prisoners.  I suppose that’s one way to destroy a national park and the US Constitution in one sweep.

Alcatraz Island, a former military fortress and prison in San Francisco Bay, was turned into a federal penitentiary in 1934 and over the course of 29 years housed more than 1,500 people “deemed difficult to incarcerate elsewhere in the federal prison system,” according to the National Park Service.

According to aNational Park Service study, it was initially deemed unfit to serve as a federal institution because of its small size, isolated location and lack of fresh water. However, Sanford Bates, the director of the Bureau of Prisons in 1933,later found it “an ideal place of confinement for about 200 of the most desperate or irredeemable types.” It was formally opened as a federal penitentiary the next year.

Trump suggested in his post that he’d like to restore the facility to that purpose.

This is from Ed Mazza writing for HuffPo. This sounds a lot like his real estate deals to me. “‘Clearly Unhinged’: Critics Sink Trump’s ‘Asinine’ Plan To Reopen Alcatraz Prison. The president wants to turn the site back into a penitentiary despite the fact that it would cost a fortune.”

Alcatraz is currently part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and has about 1.2 million visitors per year. Those who tour the island in San Francisco Bay see facilities in various states of decay. The prison was crumbling even as it was still in operation, and the high cost of maintaining it was a key reason it was shuttered in 1963.

Given those realities, restoring Alcatraz and then expanding it, as Trump called for on his Truth Social platform, would likely cost a fortune ― and then another pile of cash would be needed to maintain it.

Reopening it as a prison would also mean the loss of the tourism revenue the island currently generates as well as a loss of habitat for its thriving bird population.

The president, however, said Alcatraz’s return to use as a prison would “serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE.”

His critics fired back that the idea would be an expensive boondoggle:

This just really sounds like how he’d run his business.  Also, he now wants tariffs on all incoming films.  This is about as insane as it gets.  “Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying.”

 President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the U.S.

In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to slap a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw” filmmakers and studios away from the U.S. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

The White House said Monday that it was figuring out how to comply with the president’s wishes.

“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” said spokesperson Kush Desai.

It’s common for both large and small films to include production in the U.S. and in other countries. Big-budget movies like the upcoming “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” for instance, are shot around the world.

Philip Bump–writing at WAPO–has an interesting Op-Ed up today. “America’s least American president. Donald Trump isn’t making America great again. He’s making it into something else entirely.”

On Sunday, NBC News aired an interview with Trump in which he expressed ignorance of the black-letter standards of justice established in the country’s founding document.

“The Constitution says every person, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process,” “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker pointed out. So why not bring Abrego García back to the U.S. and use legal avenues to potentially remove him?

“Well,” Trump replied, “I’ll leave that to the lawyers, and I’ll leave that to the attorney general of the United States.”

Welker noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had admitted that even immigrants had due process rights. Trump again downplayed the idea, saying that holding hearings would mean “we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.” This isn’t as big a hurdle as it may sound. In fiscal 2024, there were more than 900,000 immigration hearings completed. So far in fiscal 2025, there have been more than 460,000. More could be cleared if Trump hadn’t moved to fire a number of immigration judges.

Finally, Welker noted that Trump didn’t really have a choice.

“Even given those numbers that you’re talking about,” she asked, “don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

“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.”

You may recall that, in January, Trump put his hand on a Bible and affirmed to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that he would “faithfully execute” his role as president and to the best of his “ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But this has never been an oath he has appeared to actually take to heart.

Trump’s dismissiveness of the Constitution has manifested itself in a lot of ways. You may recall his lack of interest in leaving office when he lost the 2020 presidential election. You may be aware that he has readily, if not giddily, accepted personal income from foreign governments while serving as president. He views the law as a cudgel, not a constraint, issuing pardons for various political allies ensnared in criminal activity while directing federal law enforcement to fish for potential criminal charges against those who work against his political power.

At its heart, Trump’s approach to his role is rooted in his parochial sense of patriotism. He didn’t come to the White House after having worked his way up through lower offices, building consensus and working to appeal to a broad range of constituents. He had no appreciation for how legislation is crafted or for the hard work of reaching compromise. Perhaps most importantly, he has never indicated any robust understanding of American history or of the debates and agreements that led to the country’s creation.

In 2011, for example, Trump was asked by Stephen Colbert if he knew what the 13 stripes on the American flag represent. He said he didn’t.

More recently, Trump was asked by ABC News journalist Terry Moran what the Declaration of Independence (a copy of which the president recently had installed in the Oval Office) means to him personally.

“It means exactly what it says. It’s a declaration,” Trump replied. “A declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot. And it’s something very special to our country.”

It is special to the country, of course, but not because it is a declaration of “love,” much less “unity.” As the name would suggest, it is precisely the opposite.

Trump doesn’t have the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office because he wants its message to serve as a guidepost for his administration. He doesn’t even appear to know its message. He has it there because it is A Famous American Thing, another decoration in the newly gilded room meant to send a message about his power, not the nation’s.

Dan Froomkin–writing for Press Watch–suggests we need to keep track of all Trump’s oddities. “We need a way to aggregate what Donald Trump is doing to this country.”

News organizations, along with good-government groups and other interested parties, are doing a commendable job of chronicling the damage the Trump regime is doing to the government, the country, and the world.

But none of them, individually, is in a position to give the public the full picture. It’s just too much.

This is a feature of Trump’s strategy of “flooding the zone.” No one entity can possibly keep up.

And as we go forward, how can any one organization keep tabs on all the fallout? It’s not possible.

What we need is a central repository of information so that the full extent of the damage can be found in one place and assessed by the public — and so that there’s a comprehensive record of what needs to be fixed and restored when the time comes to do so. (Sort of like a truth commission, but in real time.)

To aggregate all the existing information, organize it, and collect new data, we need a place, a process, and people.

It makes sense to me since Trump seems to want to undocument more than just people.  Who knows how many things Doge has destroyed in the wake of having all-access to every government database and more.  He’s disappearing people, children, scientific research, due process, and entire agencies and programs.

This is a site that I was just sent to by a Blue Sky Link. This  DNYUZ  link has an article by the NYT’s by Jack Goldsmith of Lawfare fame and Harvard Law School.  This has been an issue for many people in modern times, with both parties playing the role of enablers. “It’s Not Just Trump. The Presidency Has Become Too Powerful.”  So, I need to put this example of both siderisms into perspective. “Mr. Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general under George W. Bush, is an author, with Bob Bauer, of a newsletter about presidential and executive power.”

Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball second term has revealed the full latent power of the presidency. His administration has done this most clearly in its comprehensive elimination of legal and norm-based checks inside the executive branch, its systematic disrespect of judicial process, its extortionate abuse of government power to crush foes and its destructive rhetoric and nastiness.

Yet it is important to recognize that many of Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand the powers of the office build substantially on the excesses of recent presidencies. The overall pattern of presidential action over the past few decades reveals an escalation of power grabs that put the country on a terrible course even before Mr. Trump took office again.

The presidency needs reform, and Americans must consider ways — however implausible they may seem in the context of today’s politics — to get there.

Expansionist presidential acts go all the way back to George Washington, who invited charges of monarchism with his use of the Constitution’s broad yet undefined “executive Power.” From there the presidency, with its loose design, grew and grew, with major surges during the Civil War and New Deal era. That trend continued through the 20th century, aided by the rise of mass communication, substantial delegations of power from Congress and an approving Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump’s radical second presidency is, to an underappreciated extent, operating from a playbook devised by his modern predecessors.

His use of emergency powers to impose broad tariffs is similar to a move made in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. His claims of untouchable national security authority echo arguments made after the Sept. 11 attacks by the George W. Bush administration, in which I served.

Presidents for decades have issued pardons as political or personal favors or to avoid personal legal jeopardy. Mr. Trump took this practice to new extremes in his first term, and then President Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned his son and family as well as members of his administration and Congress, in a similar pattern. Mr. Trump in his second term has already issued many self-serving pardons.

Mr. Trump’s executive-order program is an heir of the strategy used by President Barack Obama for large-scale and sometimes legally dubious policy initiatives, including some (involving immigration) where Mr. Obama had earlier admitted he lacked authority to act. Mr. Biden also confessed a lack of power but then acted unilaterally in seeking to forgive student loans.

Mr. Trump has disregarded statutory restrictions to fire officials in independent agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board. But in 2021, Mr. Biden extended the Supreme Court’s unitary executive case law to fire the statutorily protected commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Mr. Biden was “the first unitary executive,” noted the legal writer Mark Joseph Stern in 2021.

Mr. Biden also purged the executive branch of Trump holdover officials who were not protected by statute, including members of arts and honorary institutions, the Administrative Conference of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. The Biden administration’s defense of these firings resulted in judicial precedents that Mr. Trump is now wielding to clean house on a broader scale.

The Trump administration has also built on past presidencies in not enforcing federal law — for example, in letting TikTok live on despite a congressional ban. This practice finds its modern roots in the Obama administration, which asserted broad nonenforcement discretion in high-profile cases involving immigration, marijuana and Obamacare, in effect changing the meaning of those laws.

Something similar has happened with spending. As one recent paper noted, “The past several presidents have all taken significant unilateral actions intruding on Congress’s control over federal spending.” The Trump 2.0 version greatly enlarges this unilateralist pattern.

There are a lot of examples here, and it’s worth thinking about.  The Unitary Executive Theory has been around for a while, and since the Reagan years, it has picked up steam in the Supreme Court. Here is a recent article from Democracy Docket explaining the theory and relating to it to Yam Tits. The analysis is written by Jacob Knutsen.  “What Is Unitary Executive Theory? How is Trump Using It to Push His Agenda?”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has executed a whirlwind of dismissals across the federal government that violated federal statutes and decreed numerous executive orders, including one that blatantly defied the plain language of the Constitution.

Behind the seemingly scatter-shot opening acts of his second administration, legal analysts see a common goal: to test a once-fringe legal theory which asserts that the president has unlimited power to control the actions of the four million people who make up the executive branch.

If courts — specifically the Republican-appointed majority of the Supreme Court — uphold arguments based on the so-called “unitary executive theory,” it would give Trump and subsequent presidents unprecedented power to remove and replace any federal employee and impose their will on every decision in every agency.

Rulings in favor of the Trump administration would also further jeopardize the independence of key regulatory agencies that are susceptible to conflicts of interest and political interference, like the Federal Election Commission, which oversees federal elections and campaign finance laws.

Trump and his administration have furthered the theory by repeatedly invoking Article II of the Constitution, which vests executive power in the president, to justify the recent dismissals of federal officials. They have framed the article as allowing the president to use the whole of the executive branch for his political ends.

For example, the White House Feb. 18 invoked the article to rationalize an executive order signed that same day that asserted the president’s authority over almost all regulatory agencies that were created by Congress to act independently, or semi-independently, from the president.

Frank Bowman, a scholar of constitutional and criminal law at the University of Missouri School of Law, told Democracy Docket he believes the executive order is a step toward “an open declaration of dictatorship.”

“In essence, what he’s saying is, ‘I am the law. My will is the law. My view of what the law is the only view that can ever be expressed,’” Bowman said.

I think this take on executive power is one we should get more familiar with since it’s really taken a powerful rise. The Center for American Progress features an analysis in its series on Project 2025.  This one was written back in October.”Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency. Far-right extremists have a plan to shatter democracy’s guardrails, giving presidents almost unlimited power to implement policies that will hurt everyday Americans and strip them of fundamental rights.”  It is an imperative read.  Trump knows that he can be both pope and king.

Project 2025 takes an absolutist view of presidential authority

To wholly reshape government in ways that most Americans would think is impossible, the Project 2025 blueprint anchors itself in the “unitary executive theory.”22 This radical governing philosophy, which contravenes the traditional separation of powers, vests presidents with almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy, including congressionally designated independent agencies or the DOJ and the FBI. The unitary executive theory is designed to sharply diminish Congress’ imperative role to act as a check and balance on the executive branch with tools such as setting up independent agencies to make expert decisions and by limiting presidents’ ability to fire career civil servants for purely political purposes.

The road map to autocracy presented in Project 2025 extends far beyond the unitary executive theory first promoted by President Ronald Reagan, and later espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney, largely designed to implement a deregulatory, corporatist agenda.23 Instead, as discussed further below, Project 2025 presents a maximalist version that does not nibble around the edges but aims to thoroughly demolish the traditional guardrails that allow Congress an equal say in how democracy functions or what policies are implemented. One noted expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, Philip Wallach, said, “Some of these visions … start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says—and that’s just not the system the [sic] government we live under.”24

If Congress is robbed of its imperative role as a check and balance on a president’s power, and the judicial branch is willing to bestow a president with almost unlimited authority, autocracy results. And presidents become strongman rulers—free to choose which laws to enforce, which long-standing norms to jettison, and how to impose their will on every executive branch department and agency.

Well, all these pithy reads should keep you busy for the day.  I hope your week goes well. I’ve got 2 doctors’ appointments, but gladly no more procedures.  And I’d like just to add if they come for professors, that I’d rather be in the gulag that holds the country’s political cartoonists.  To think, I used to just use wonderful paintings.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all the wonderful folks of Mexican descent and to those of us who just enjoy the holiday!

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

 

#Repeat1968 #CampAlcatraz #CrazyFARTUSPolicies #DonaldTrump #JohnBuss #misogyny #SCOTUS #SocialSecurity #TheoryOfUnitaryExecutive #TrumpTariffs #unemployment

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: MAGA-Extended Boxing Day

On this Boxing Day, let’s call it for what it is. Elder Abuse. John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and some of the commonwealth nations.  Boxing Day used to be a day to donate items and food to the needy, but like everything Decemberish, it has been melded into the Crassmas season and has become a shopping event. It was never a literal “boxing day,” although other sports events often coincide with the holiday.  It was also a day to share the haul with employees and tradespeople.  It’s been around since the 1740s but has morphed into just another day to go shopping for deals, much like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The original holiday dates back to the 1660s. It was generally a day that the aristocracy gave their servants a break to visit family and bring home a few leftovers and bestowed gifts.  Funny how those things morph the more that Corporations take things over.

I liked John’s cartoon take, and today, it seems more literal than usual since there is much unhappiness in the MAGA house as the rank and file learn more of the plans the Tech Dudes have for the country. I’ve always wondered how Kash and Vivek, with their swarthy complexions, sat with the obviously xenophobic and angry wipipo that make up the MAGA base. Maybe the base thought they were just an extension of the old Memsahib days of Colonial India.  After all, Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks certainly needs an entourage since he’s incapable of doing much of anything these days.

It appears, however, that Memsahib Laura Loomer recognized some boundary overstepping from Vivek even though it all popped up on Boxing Day when giving the help a break was in order.  Any job that takes more tha basic math and a lot of technological training does not have a large pool of Americans able to do the work. I experienced this first hand getting quite mathy degrees in Finance and Economics, which require the same kind of math that astrophysics, rocket science, engineering, and climatology require.  Grad school degree programs with heavy math are full of students from the Middle East and Asia. Most Americans wind up with an MBA where the courses really don’t even go beyond the early undergrad level. One of my grad school colleagues from Punjab was a great gift to me during my grad school year.  He lived with me after Katrina for a while and helped me get through the mathy parts of my qualifiers.  His first calculus class came in the 5th grade.  Imagine that!

So, given that the Tech Bros need math geeks there was bound to be an issue inventually.  And this year’s Boxing Day has proven to be a MAGA match-up between the base and Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks and her entourage of Tech Bros.  With all things MAGA,  one’s race and nationality eventually become the screaming points.

I have to use The Times of London as my first source.  It just seems so fit for a replay of Victorian Colonial Politics and nativism.  I just hope they don’t take it out on the Indian Diaspora and their children, which includes my colleagues and family. “Maga’s uncivil war: Musk and Ramaswamy under fire in ‘culture war.’ Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, blamed American ‘culture of mediocrity’ for a lack of talented specialist workers.”  Ouch.  We may have put a man on the moon back in the day, but you may also remember that was due to many black women doing the math for the dudes.  We’re not what we used to be because of the long-term war on education by Republicans and their Fundamentalist crusaders who like those low educational attainment voters.

Elon Musk’s tech bros have clashed with the Maga rank and file over immigration for Silicon Valley workers, exposing the fragile alliance forged to put Donald Trump in the White House.

The chief executive of Tesla — who spent $277 million backing Trump and other Republicans during November’s election — believes America must attract top engineering talent to secure technological dominance over China.

Musk, 53, who has been put in charge of cutting government waste in Trump’s incoming administration, joined other prominent Silicon Valley figures in criticising a lack of highly-skilled workers to meet the industry’s demands at a time of intense competition over artificial intelligence.

Trump’s base — energised by the president-elect’s harsh rhetoric — is broadly opposed to immigration, however, whether skilled or unskilled, and argues that Americans should be prioritised over foreign workers.

Much of the debate is over H-1B visas, which Silicon Valley relies upon to bring in specialist workers with technical skills. Critics say that the visas have been exploited to allow in mediocre talent at the expense of Americans who demand higher wages.

Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out to back Trump, ignited a furious response on X by sharing a lengthy post outlining why he thought America lacked the necessary technical talent.

Ramaswamy, who will lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk, blamed culture for the perceived shortfall.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long — at least since the Nineties, and likely longer. That doesn’t start in college, it starts young,” he said.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy referenced the television shows Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell and Family Matters as examples where a bookish character played second fiddle to a cool kid to bolster his point.

Ramaswamy is not wrong about the culture here, but he really is not the best messenger for the MAGA crowd.  As I said, those of us in techy Grad School areas have known this since the 70s, although a huge number of my colleagues were from Iran or Hong Kong back then. That’s changed, obviously. However, if you really want to get down with the American brainiacs at University these day,s you need to speak with the women.  Black women are excelling in these areas. This Talking Points Memo article is a bit more explicit. “Who Got Duped? MAGA Activists Worry That Nativism And Tech Oligarchy May Not Go Hand In Hand.” Josh Kovensky has the analysis.

Over the past few days, a fight has erupted within the MAGA right over legal immigration, specifically about whether the country should admit more high-skilled immigrants.

On the one side, you have opportunistic tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and David Sacks. These are incredibly wealthy figures who are open about using their newfound influence in government to serve both their ideological and their private business interests. On the other are figures like Laura Loomer, Nick Fuentes, and other nativist (and often openly racist) online personalities who had been vocal Trump supporters long before the Silicon Valley right joined the coalition.

The two sides began to argue on Sunday, after Donald Trump appointed Sriram Krishan, a partner at Andreesen Horowitz, as a White House policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence to work with Sacks, the Trump administration’s crypto and AI czar.

This may seem like a relatively minor White House appointment. However, Krishan has also been a proponent of removing country caps on green cards and H1-B visas, which allow American companies to hire foreign workers for certain specializations.

To the far-right, nativist influencers that have from the start glommed onto Trumpian scapegoating of immigrants, Krishan’s position crossed a line. Loomer, an anti-immigrant provocateur who traveled with Trump during his campaign, called it “deeply disturbing.” Sacks replied, perhaps not fully understanding his audience, by noting that Indian immigrants face an 11-year wait for green cards.

This was catnip for Loomer, who replied by suggesting that Sacks was in on a new version of the great replacement theory, and spent the next several days making vile statements about immigrants, accusing those who disagree with her on H1-B visas of hating Americans, and demanding that senior Trump officials denounce their Silicon Valley allies. Sacks, whose recent political positions have included strident opposition to American support for Ukraine, denounced the “crude” attacks.

Soon, other Trump-involved tech oligarchs, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, jumped into the fray. Musk wrote that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

Ramaswamy swooped in on Thursday to explain his view that American companies were forced to hire foreign skilled labor due to a deficit in homegrown American culture itself.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote, adding later: “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers.”

As you might imagine, MAGA nativists of various stripes regard this Silicon Valley defense of skilled immigration with a paranoid and often racist eye. Fuentes, the groyper leader, described Ramaswamy’s position as an attempt to get “500 million indians to move here.” Others reacted to Ramaswamy’s premise that there may be something wrong with America. Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the nativist Claremont Institute, pushed back in a gentler fashion while still suggesting that Ramaswamy’s vision would “destroy the things that actually make America great.”

Ah, the fury of a mediocre white male! Never fear!   MAGA Super Karen Laura Lurid to the rescue! “‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’ over Indian migrants. The far-right provocateur is taking aim at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over their support of highly skilled workers from India, claiming that the country’s residents have a low IQ and describing Indians as “third-world invaders.”  This is from The Independent and was written by Justin Baragona.

Trump acolyte and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe”Laura Loomer is threatening to tell MAGA to “stay home” during the next midterm elections amid an escalating feud with “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign-born workers.

Loomer has engaged in a multi-day social media tirade over President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointment of Indian-American entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy adviser for AI, prompting the loyal MAGA supporter to rage about Krishnan’s support of H-1B visas for Indian immigrants.

With the Trump administration promising an immediate crackdown on immigration, Loomer has launched a series of attacks on Indians described as “racist” following Krishnan’s appointment, which she called “deeply disturbing.” Describing workers from India as “third-world invaders,” Loomer also took issue with Musk and Ramaswamy defending the tech industry importing “super talented engineers” from overseas.

“The average IQ in India is 76,” Loomer tweeted at one point, along with several other posts disparaging Indians and their home country.

Loomer, who previously sparked backlash for making bigoted remarks about Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage, has found supportamong what some have described as “OG MAGA” in her civil war against Trump-supporting tech entrepreneurs. In particular, she has received quite a bit of backing from “groypers,” the followers of notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Musk and other Tech Dudes actually joined the fray.  The Hill has this headline today. “Musk, Ramaswamy defend Silicon Valley’s foreign-born hires.”  Julia Shapero reports the story. Sorry this is taking me so long to write. I’m either spewing tea at the screen or peeing myself laughing so hard.  It’s making things complicated.  Someone forgot to tell them you can’t say that quiet part out loud.  The mediocre white guys get very angry.

Conservative tech leaders quickly jumped to Krishnan’s defense. David Sacks, who Trump has tapped to serve as White House AI and crypto czar, said the Andreessen Horowitz partner was arguing for the elimination of per-country caps on green cards.

“Sriram still supports skills-based criteria for receiving a green card, not making the program unlimited,” Sacks wrote on X. “In fact, he wants to make the program entirely merit-based. Supporting a limited number of highly skilled immigrants is still a prevalent view on the right. Sriram is definitely not a ‘career leftist’!”

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, also argued that Krishnan is “America First.”

“For USA to have the highest standard of living, generous govt services, and strongest military, we need to recruit the best and brightest and build the best companies,” Lonsdale said. “I’m against more low-end H1B immigrants; but let’s win at the talent game.”

The discussion of Silicon Valley’s hiring practices comes as Trump prepares to implement an ambitious and controversial immigration strategy, promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and potentially naturalized citizens. Musk and Ramaswamy have both voiced support for Trump’s immigration plans.

This just makes me go all Kipling with the thoughts of The White Man’s Burden.  You could also read Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” It’s actually a good Christmas reading.  I can’t believe we’re having these discussions again.   This headline is good for shits and giggles.   The Rolling Stone may be the guiding light this year in such a dark season. “Trump Ally Laura Loomer Says Elon Musk Is ‘Silencing’ Her Amid Immigration Spat.  As Loomer railed at Musk for backing legal immigration for skilled tech workers, his X platform took away Loomer’s blue-check verification badge.” Musk actually deactivated her account!   Here’s the story from Mediaiate. “Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’.”  Charlie Nash has the lede.

Several conservative critics of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk were stripped of their verification badges on X after publicly challenging Musk’s stance on immigration.

Trump ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s controversial remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders.

“[Musk] has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China,” wrote Loomer in a post on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

She continued:

Looks like Elon Musk is going to be silencing me for supporting original Trump immigration policies.

I have always been America First and a die hard supporter of President Trump and I believe that promises made should be promises kept. Donald Trump promised to remove the H1B visa program and I support his policy. Now, as one of Trump’s biggest supporters, I’m having my free speech silenced by a tech billionaire for simply questioning the tech oligarchy.

Elon has decided to retaliate by removing my blue check and demonetizing me.

I guess he doesn’t really believe in Free speech after all.

Loomer ended her post with a link to Truth Social – President-elect Donald Trump’s own social network.

While several Musk allies claimed Loomer had been stripped of her verification for changing her photo, Loomer dismissed those claims and called the move “retaliation.”

Responding to the suggestion that her verification check was removed for an unrelated reason, Loomer wrote, “I mean right after @elonmusk called me a troll today, my account verification was taken away, my subscriptions were deactivated and I was banned from being able to buy premium even though I was already paying for premium. Clearly retaliation.”

Where has she been that this is actually news to her? I’m going to finish with this analysis from The Daily Beast.  This comes under the heading of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to MEN. “All-Out MAGA Civil War Engulfs Trump Already. TECH BROS UNDER FIRE.  Trump’s winning electoral coalition couldn’t quite make it through the season of goodwill.”  Nico Hines has the analysis.  It’s a Skunk Fight!!!!  Even Matt Gaetz got into the rift!

Well, that didn’t take long.

The logic-twisting alliance between Silicon Valley’s new oligarchs and the home-spun patriotism at the heart of the Republican grassroots movement is shattering before our very eyes.

MAGA stalwarts like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz are already turning their fire on the tech bros who helped bankroll Donald Trump’s comeback bid for the White House before he is even sworn in as president for a second time.

It was always going to end in tears, but few observers predicted that an all-out MAGA civil war would erupt before we even reach the New Year.

Overnight, Trump cheerleaders have used Elon Musk’s platform to attack the world’s richest man—and many now claim Musk is using his social media omnipotence to shut them down.

“Never insult the monarch,” MAGA chronicler Mike Cernovic warned his 1.3 million followers. Musk replied: “I am constantly insulted on this platform.”

That was the final straw for Laura Loomer, a failed Republican congressional candidate who got so close to Trump during the campaign that she accompanied him on the plane to the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

“This is America. We don’t have a monarchy. This is outrageous,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after claiming that she was being censored on the platform by Musk.

Loomer waded into the Boxing Day culture war sparked by Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial post claiming that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” A debate over H1B visas has quickly descended into a bitter feud between those—led by the tech crowd—who believe importing highly skilled workers from abroad will boost the American economy and those—like Trump himself—who have long argued that the visas are being abused by companies seeking cheaper foreign labor to the detriment of American workers.

The traditional white working-class bedrock of the MAGA movement, which sprang from the Tea Party, has always been intensely focused on reducing immigration, something Trump championed during his first term, symbolized by his promised wall along the border with Mexico.

Musk tried to steer a path between the two sides, with a “clarification” of his DOGE partner’s comments by saying that H1Bs should only be used for the very top talents, but the MAGA majority appeared not to be placated.

Loomer claimed Musk and Ramaswamy infiltrated the movement for their own ends. “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real,” she said.

I can only imagine what watching this soap opera evolve as we get farther into January. Goddesses Bless us, Everyone!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968 #EloniaMusk #JohnBush #LauraLoomer #LauraLurid #MAGAInnerFighting #mediocreWhiteMen #NativismInTheGildedAge #TechBros #TechVISAs #VivekRamaswamy #Weirdo

Finally Friday Reads: MAGA-Extended Boxing Day

On this Boxing Day, let’s call it for what it is. Elder Abuse. John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and some of the commonwealth nations.  Boxing Day used to be a day to donate items and food to the needy, but like everything Decemberish, it has been melded into the Crassmas season and has become a shopping event. It was never a literal “boxing day,” although other sports events often coincide with the holiday.  It was also a day to share the haul with employees and tradespeople.  It’s been around since the 1740s but has morphed into just another day to go shopping for deals, much like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The original holiday dates back to the 1660s. It was generally a day that the aristocracy gave their servants a break to visit family and bring home a few leftovers and bestowed gifts.  Funny how those things morph the more that Corporations take things over.

I liked John’s cartoon take, and today, it seems more literal than usual since there is much unhappiness in the MAGA house as the rank and file learn more of the plans the Tech Dudes have for the country. I’ve always wondered how Kash and Vivek, with their swarthy complexions, sat with the obviously xenophobic and angry wipipo that make up the MAGA base. Maybe the base thought they were just an extension of the old Memsahib days of Colonial India.  After all, Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks certainly needs an entourage since he’s incapable of doing much of anything these days.

It appears, however, that Memsahib Laura Loomer recognized some boundary overstepping from Vivek even though it all popped up on Boxing Day when giving the help a break was in order.  Any job that takes more tha basic math and a lot of technological training does not have a large pool of Americans able to do the work. I experienced this first hand getting quite mathy degrees in Finance and Economics, which require the same kind of math that astrophysics, rocket science, engineering, and climatology require.  Grad school degree programs with heavy math are full of students from the Middle East and Asia. Most Americans wind up with an MBA where the courses really don’t even go beyond the early undergrad level. One of my grad school colleagues from Punjab was a great gift to me during my grad school year.  He lived with me after Katrina for a while and helped me get through the mathy parts of my qualifiers.  His first calculus class came in the 5th grade.  Imagine that!

So, given that the Tech Bros need math geeks there was bound to be an issue inventually.  And this year’s Boxing Day has proven to be a MAGA match-up between the base and Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks and her entourage of Tech Bros.  With all things MAGA,  one’s race and nationality eventually become the screaming points.

I have to use The Times of London as my first source.  It just seems so fit for a replay of Victorian Colonial Politics and nativism.  I just hope they don’t take it out on the Indian Diaspora and their children, which includes my colleagues and family. “Maga’s uncivil war: Musk and Ramaswamy under fire in ‘culture war.’ Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, blamed American ‘culture of mediocrity’ for a lack of talented specialist workers.”  Ouch.  We may have put a man on the moon back in the day, but you may also remember that was due to many black women doing the math for the dudes.  We’re not what we used to be because of the long-term war on education by Republicans and their Fundamentalist crusaders who like those low educational attainment voters.

Elon Musk’s tech bros have clashed with the Maga rank and file over immigration for Silicon Valley workers, exposing the fragile alliance forged to put Donald Trump in the White House.

The chief executive of Tesla — who spent $277 million backing Trump and other Republicans during November’s election — believes America must attract top engineering talent to secure technological dominance over China.

Musk, 53, who has been put in charge of cutting government waste in Trump’s incoming administration, joined other prominent Silicon Valley figures in criticising a lack of highly-skilled workers to meet the industry’s demands at a time of intense competition over artificial intelligence.

Trump’s base — energised by the president-elect’s harsh rhetoric — is broadly opposed to immigration, however, whether skilled or unskilled, and argues that Americans should be prioritised over foreign workers.

Much of the debate is over H-1B visas, which Silicon Valley relies upon to bring in specialist workers with technical skills. Critics say that the visas have been exploited to allow in mediocre talent at the expense of Americans who demand higher wages.

Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out to back Trump, ignited a furious response on X by sharing a lengthy post outlining why he thought America lacked the necessary technical talent.

Ramaswamy, who will lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk, blamed culture for the perceived shortfall.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long — at least since the Nineties, and likely longer. That doesn’t start in college, it starts young,” he said.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy referenced the television shows Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell and Family Matters as examples where a bookish character played second fiddle to a cool kid to bolster his point.

Ramaswamy is not wrong about the culture here, but he really is not the best messenger for the MAGA crowd.  As I said, those of us in techy Grad School areas have known this since the 70s, although a huge number of my colleagues were from Iran or Hong Kong back then. That’s changed, obviously. However, if you really want to get down with the American brainiacs at University these day,s you need to speak with the women.  Black women are excelling in these areas. This Talking Points Memo article is a bit more explicit. “Who Got Duped? MAGA Activists Worry That Nativism And Tech Oligarchy May Not Go Hand In Hand.” Josh Kovensky has the analysis.

Over the past few days, a fight has erupted within the MAGA right over legal immigration, specifically about whether the country should admit more high-skilled immigrants.

On the one side, you have opportunistic tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and David Sacks. These are incredibly wealthy figures who are open about using their newfound influence in government to serve both their ideological and their private business interests. On the other are figures like Laura Loomer, Nick Fuentes, and other nativist (and often openly racist) online personalities who had been vocal Trump supporters long before the Silicon Valley right joined the coalition.

The two sides began to argue on Sunday, after Donald Trump appointed Sriram Krishan, a partner at Andreesen Horowitz, as a White House policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence to work with Sacks, the Trump administration’s crypto and AI czar.

This may seem like a relatively minor White House appointment. However, Krishan has also been a proponent of removing country caps on green cards and H1-B visas, which allow American companies to hire foreign workers for certain specializations.

To the far-right, nativist influencers that have from the start glommed onto Trumpian scapegoating of immigrants, Krishan’s position crossed a line. Loomer, an anti-immigrant provocateur who traveled with Trump during his campaign, called it “deeply disturbing.” Sacks replied, perhaps not fully understanding his audience, by noting that Indian immigrants face an 11-year wait for green cards.

This was catnip for Loomer, who replied by suggesting that Sacks was in on a new version of the great replacement theory, and spent the next several days making vile statements about immigrants, accusing those who disagree with her on H1-B visas of hating Americans, and demanding that senior Trump officials denounce their Silicon Valley allies. Sacks, whose recent political positions have included strident opposition to American support for Ukraine, denounced the “crude” attacks.

Soon, other Trump-involved tech oligarchs, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, jumped into the fray. Musk wrote that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

Ramaswamy swooped in on Thursday to explain his view that American companies were forced to hire foreign skilled labor due to a deficit in homegrown American culture itself.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote, adding later: “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers.”

As you might imagine, MAGA nativists of various stripes regard this Silicon Valley defense of skilled immigration with a paranoid and often racist eye. Fuentes, the groyper leader, described Ramaswamy’s position as an attempt to get “500 million indians to move here.” Others reacted to Ramaswamy’s premise that there may be something wrong with America. Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the nativist Claremont Institute, pushed back in a gentler fashion while still suggesting that Ramaswamy’s vision would “destroy the things that actually make America great.”

Ah, the fury of a mediocre white male! Never fear!   MAGA Super Karen Laura Lurid to the rescue! “‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’ over Indian migrants. The far-right provocateur is taking aim at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over their support of highly skilled workers from India, claiming that the country’s residents have a low IQ and describing Indians as “third-world invaders.”  This is from The Independent and was written by Justin Baragona.

Trump acolyte and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe”Laura Loomer is threatening to tell MAGA to “stay home” during the next midterm elections amid an escalating feud with “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign-born workers.

Loomer has engaged in a multi-day social media tirade over President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointment of Indian-American entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy adviser for AI, prompting the loyal MAGA supporter to rage about Krishnan’s support of H-1B visas for Indian immigrants.

With the Trump administration promising an immediate crackdown on immigration, Loomer has launched a series of attacks on Indians described as “racist” following Krishnan’s appointment, which she called “deeply disturbing.” Describing workers from India as “third-world invaders,” Loomer also took issue with Musk and Ramaswamy defending the tech industry importing “super talented engineers” from overseas.

“The average IQ in India is 76,” Loomer tweeted at one point, along with several other posts disparaging Indians and their home country.

Loomer, who previously sparked backlash for making bigoted remarks about Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage, has found supportamong what some have described as “OG MAGA” in her civil war against Trump-supporting tech entrepreneurs. In particular, she has received quite a bit of backing from “groypers,” the followers of notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Musk and other Tech Dudes actually joined the fray.  The Hill has this headline today. “Musk, Ramaswamy defend Silicon Valley’s foreign-born hires.”  Julia Shapero reports the story. Sorry this is taking me so long to write. I’m either spewing tea at the screen or peeing myself laughing so hard.  It’s making things complicated.  Someone forgot to tell them you can’t say that quiet part out loud.  The mediocre white guys get very angry.

Conservative tech leaders quickly jumped to Krishnan’s defense. David Sacks, who Trump has tapped to serve as White House AI and crypto czar, said the Andreessen Horowitz partner was arguing for the elimination of per-country caps on green cards.

“Sriram still supports skills-based criteria for receiving a green card, not making the program unlimited,” Sacks wrote on X. “In fact, he wants to make the program entirely merit-based. Supporting a limited number of highly skilled immigrants is still a prevalent view on the right. Sriram is definitely not a ‘career leftist’!”

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, also argued that Krishnan is “America First.”

“For USA to have the highest standard of living, generous govt services, and strongest military, we need to recruit the best and brightest and build the best companies,” Lonsdale said. “I’m against more low-end H1B immigrants; but let’s win at the talent game.”

The discussion of Silicon Valley’s hiring practices comes as Trump prepares to implement an ambitious and controversial immigration strategy, promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and potentially naturalized citizens. Musk and Ramaswamy have both voiced support for Trump’s immigration plans.

This just makes me go all Kipling with the thoughts of The White Man’s Burden.  You could also read Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” It’s actually a good Christmas reading.  I can’t believe we’re having these discussions again.   This headline is good for shits and giggles.   The Rolling Stone may be the guiding light this year in such a dark season. “Trump Ally Laura Loomer Says Elon Musk Is ‘Silencing’ Her Amid Immigration Spat.  As Loomer railed at Musk for backing legal immigration for skilled tech workers, his X platform took away Loomer’s blue-check verification badge.” Musk actually deactivated her account!   Here’s the story from Mediaiate. “Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’.”  Charlie Nash has the lede.

Several conservative critics of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk were stripped of their verification badges on X after publicly challenging Musk’s stance on immigration.

Trump ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s controversial remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders.

“[Musk] has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China,” wrote Loomer in a post on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

She continued:

Looks like Elon Musk is going to be silencing me for supporting original Trump immigration policies.

I have always been America First and a die hard supporter of President Trump and I believe that promises made should be promises kept. Donald Trump promised to remove the H1B visa program and I support his policy. Now, as one of Trump’s biggest supporters, I’m having my free speech silenced by a tech billionaire for simply questioning the tech oligarchy.

Elon has decided to retaliate by removing my blue check and demonetizing me.

I guess he doesn’t really believe in Free speech after all.

Loomer ended her post with a link to Truth Social – President-elect Donald Trump’s own social network.

While several Musk allies claimed Loomer had been stripped of her verification for changing her photo, Loomer dismissed those claims and called the move “retaliation.”

Responding to the suggestion that her verification check was removed for an unrelated reason, Loomer wrote, “I mean right after @elonmusk called me a troll today, my account verification was taken away, my subscriptions were deactivated and I was banned from being able to buy premium even though I was already paying for premium. Clearly retaliation.”

Where has she been that this is actually news to her? I’m going to finish with this analysis from The Daily Beast.  This comes under the heading of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to MEN. “All-Out MAGA Civil War Engulfs Trump Already. TECH BROS UNDER FIRE.  Trump’s winning electoral coalition couldn’t quite make it through the season of goodwill.”  Nico Hines has the analysis.  It’s a Skunk Fight!!!!  Even Matt Gaetz got into the rift!

Well, that didn’t take long.

The logic-twisting alliance between Silicon Valley’s new oligarchs and the home-spun patriotism at the heart of the Republican grassroots movement is shattering before our very eyes.

MAGA stalwarts like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz are already turning their fire on the tech bros who helped bankroll Donald Trump’s comeback bid for the White House before he is even sworn in as president for a second time.

It was always going to end in tears, but few observers predicted that an all-out MAGA civil war would erupt before we even reach the New Year.

Overnight, Trump cheerleaders have used Elon Musk’s platform to attack the world’s richest man—and many now claim Musk is using his social media omnipotence to shut them down.

“Never insult the monarch,” MAGA chronicler Mike Cernovic warned his 1.3 million followers. Musk replied: “I am constantly insulted on this platform.”

That was the final straw for Laura Loomer, a failed Republican congressional candidate who got so close to Trump during the campaign that she accompanied him on the plane to the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

“This is America. We don’t have a monarchy. This is outrageous,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after claiming that she was being censored on the platform by Musk.

Loomer waded into the Boxing Day culture war sparked by Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial post claiming that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” A debate over H1B visas has quickly descended into a bitter feud between those—led by the tech crowd—who believe importing highly skilled workers from abroad will boost the American economy and those—like Trump himself—who have long argued that the visas are being abused by companies seeking cheaper foreign labor to the detriment of American workers.

The traditional white working-class bedrock of the MAGA movement, which sprang from the Tea Party, has always been intensely focused on reducing immigration, something Trump championed during his first term, symbolized by his promised wall along the border with Mexico.

Musk tried to steer a path between the two sides, with a “clarification” of his DOGE partner’s comments by saying that H1Bs should only be used for the very top talents, but the MAGA majority appeared not to be placated.

Loomer claimed Musk and Ramaswamy infiltrated the movement for their own ends. “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real,” she said.

I can only imagine what watching this soap opera evolve as we get farther into January. Goddesses Bless us, Everyone!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968 #EloniaMusk #JohnBush #LauraLoomer #LauraLurid #MAGAInnerFighting #mediocreWhiteMen #NativismInTheGildedAge #TechBros #TechVISAs #VivekRamaswamy #Weirdo

Finally Friday Reads: Another Fine Mess by the Butt-Wipers of Incontinentia Buttocks

“Updated version of an oldie. Probably will be doing a lot of that since it’s like deja vu all over again.” John Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I still have this dreadful sinus infection.  Last night, the temperature dropped to what usually doesn’t appear until the end of January here. The last two years have been insane, climate-wise.  We’ve got many active candidates for the next probable pandemic.  We’ve got an economy that’s currently the envy of the world.  The number of ongoing hot wars is frightening, with one being labeled a genocide by the well-respected Amnesty International.  “Polycrisis” is the term now used by folks who form the intellectual community of Strategic Advisors.   That would imply “military, geopolitical, economic, political, climate, and other crises.”

The convergence of all these crises creates a situation where we need to work globally more than ever.  So, the country, usually seen as the leader on the global stage, has a voting populace that just sent a clown car. Tom Nichols has this analysis written in The Atlantic.  “Trump Voters Got What They Wanted. Those who expect Donald Trump will hurt others, and not them, are likely to be unpleasantly surprised.”  The pathology of Trump voters is clearly stated in the clip below from The Bulwark Podcast. “The American people made their choice, and the fight to preserve the global democratic coalition against the global authoritarian movement continues. But maybe letting those voters see unadulterated Trumpism in the White House, without the baby bumpers—at least for a little while—is how we save America. Plus, the price of eggs v fascism, and Trump is going to inherit a great economy and claim responsibility for it.”

What do we do now that the lemmings are plunging over the cliff while chanting, “We really owned the libs”?

I think we can sum it up with a simple quote by George Carlin. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

So, given that we’re firmly in a state of Polycrisis, what can be made of Trump’s ill-suited cabinet choices? For one, we know they’re there to throw out every specialist in each Federal Department to cripple that department and to lessen the number of folks that carry out the mandates (i.e., laws) established by Congress over the years over a few centuries. Are we really going to be stuck with Patel of the Crazy Eyes and crazier thoughts? RFK jr, who is responsible for killing children in Samoa with his bizarre, unschooled thoughts on vaccines?  Will he really yank all the passports of his so-called enemies, and how long will that list eventually be? The entire west wing will be filled with sociopaths, narcissists, and conspiracy nuts at this rate.

So here’s Pete again.  Is Trump still trying to inflict him on our military?  You know, the ones that President-Reject Incontinentia Buttocks called ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’? Here are some thoughts by writer Cathy Young. “In Pete Hegseth’s Totalitarian Vision, Opponents of Christian Nationalism Are Commies and Political Enemies. Trump’s defense pick will help him pave the way to an authoritarian America.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is in trouble. While initial reactions to his nomination focused on the absurdity of this former Fox News anchor being elevated to second in command of the military, the main obstacles to Hegseth’s confirmation remain his various problems with women: a sexual assault allegation from 2017, disparaging comments about women in the military, and a newly surfaced 2018 email from his mother berating him for habitual mistreatment of the opposite sex.

But even more alarmingly: Hegseth is an ideological extremist who views political opponents as “the enemy” and political differences as war by another name. Worse, he’s a Christian nationalist of the stridently militaristic kind, which raises disturbing questions about his potential willingness to misuse the U.S. military for political purposes. This is not a characterization pieced together from the odd soundbite or two—Hegseth himself tells us who he is in his books. The image of Hegseth that emerges from The War on Warriors (2024), Battle for the American Mind (2022), and American Crusade (2020), is of a militant Christian extremist who is obsessed with the Crusades and whose highest aspiration is redesigning the U.S. military into his ideological mold.

The central idea of American Crusade is that the survival of the United States as a free country requires a “holy war” to achieve “a single paramount objective: the categorical defeat of the Left.” Hegseth accuses the left—by which he doesn’t just mean an extremist fringe but the Democratic Party and its supporters in general—of seeking the “utter annihilation” of true patriots. “We are two Americas; a house divided,” he declares, and the other half is full of people whose “ignorance and ideologies threaten America’s very survival.” Hegseth writes: “Only the categorical defeat of the Left will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. We must reelect Donald Trump in 2020 and continue the cultural counterattack until Leftists are no longer electorally viable.” The implication is clear: liberty requires one-party rule. This is far from an unrepresentative line. In The War on Warriors, complaining that “the Left has never fought fair,” Hegseth lists “electing Obama” among its dirty tricks, despite the fact that Obama won a greater share of both the popular and the electoral vote in 2008 and 2012 than Trump did in 2016 and 2024.

Amanda Marcotte also writes about his love affair with White Christian Nationalism, a truly perverse twist on the New Testament, at Salon.

The central idea of American Crusade is that the survival of the United States as a free country requires a “holy war” to achieve “a single paramount objective: the categorical defeat of the Left.” Hegseth accuses the left—by which he doesn’t just mean an extremist fringe but the Democratic Party and its supporters in general—of seeking the “utter annihilation” of true patriots. “We are two Americas; a house divided,” he declares, and the other half is full of people whose “ignorance and ideologies threaten America’s very survival.” Hegseth writes: “Only the categorical defeat of the Left will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. We must reelect Donald Trump in 2020 and continue the cultural counterattack until Leftists are no longer electorally viable.” The implication is clear: liberty requires one-party rule. This is far from an unrepresentative line. In The War on Warriors, complaining that “the Left has never fought fair,” Hegseth lists “electing Obama” among its dirty tricks, despite the fact that Obama won a greater share of both the popular and the electoral vote in 2008 and 2012 than Trump did in 2016 and 2024.

In addition to treating a broadly defined “Left” as the enemy, American Crusade also heaps scorn on ostensibly patriotic but overly complacent “fifty-fifty Americans.” The term comes from Theodore Roosevelt, who is quoted in the epigraph to the first part of the book: “There is not room in the country for any fifty-fifty American, nor can there be but one loyalty—to the Stars and Stripes.” The quote appears to be a garbled amalgam of several passages in Roosevelt’s speeches and writings, all of them from a very specific context: divided loyalties among some German-Americans during World War I. Hegseth’s “fifty-fifty American,” by contrast, refers to a well-meaning non-combatant in the culture war: a “squish” who disapproves of the perceived excesses of the progressive left but shrugs them off in the hope that “common sense will prevail,” or who doesn’t want to be “overly political,” or who thinks his or her local public school is great. For all his talk of reverence for America’s founding ideals, Hegseth’s version of Americanism sounds at times more like proto-totalitarian French Jacobinism, whose ideologues asserted that not only “traitors” but the “indifferent” and the “passive” must be punished.

After reading these analyses and their supporting citations, you can only be left with the idea that this man will have no problem turning the military on Americans out of step with his bizarre beliefs. I focus on this because Incontinentia Buttocks’ most recent picks have to do with ICE and his planned massive deportations and establishment of Concentration Camps.  This is from Politico‘s Myah Ward.  “Trump names ICE chief and makes another round of immigration announcements. The president-elect is planning an ambitious immigration agenda during his first 100 days.”

Trump said he was nominating Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott served for almost three decades in the Border Patrol, and as the chief of the agency during the last year of the Trump administration and beginning of the Biden administration. He helped implement Trump’s Remain in Mexico Policy, Title 42 and Safe Third Country agreements.

Trump also announced he was tapping Caleb Vitello, who’s currently the assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to serve as acting director of ICE.

And the president-elect picked Tony Salisbury, who serves as the special agent in charge for ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, to serve as the deputy homeland security adviser on the White House Homeland Security Council. Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents more than 17,000 Border Patrol Agents and support staff, was also announced as Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Chile.

Immigration was Trump’s top priority on the campaign trail, and in his first 100 days he plans to begin the process of deporting hundreds of thousands of people and to roll back President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Outside allies expect the administration’s immigration policy, similar to Trump’s first term, to be run out of the White House by incoming Border Czar Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.

So, what happens with those Concentration Camps once he starts outloading Hispanic Americans?  Also, will we ever rid ourselves of Biggest Dickus? More about his funding of the Trump campaign is coming out, and it’s horrifying!  This is from NBC. “Elon Musk spent a quarter-billion dollars electing Trump, including financing mysterious ‘RBG PAC’. The super PAC, which defended Trump on abortion, got its more than $20 million from the “Elon Musk Revocable Trust.”  This guy’s the Make American Apartheid South Africa freak!

Billionaire Elon Musk poured more than $20 million into a mysterious super PAC at the end of the 2024 campaign, part of more than $250 million he spent overall to boost President-elect Donald Trump, new campaign finance reports show.

Musk financed RBG PAC, according to the report the group filed Thursday night with the Federal Election Commission. The super PAC, which did not disclose its donors before the election, launched ads contending that Trump did not support a federal abortion ban.

All of the money the group pulled in — $20.5 million — came from a single donation from the Elon Musk Revocable Trust in Austin, Texas. RBG PAC spent almost all of its money on digital ads, mailers and text messages, according to the campaign finance report, which covered Oct. 17 through Nov. 25.

Robert Reich believes that Trump might just bring on a Civil War.  That’s a frightening thought that was discussed during his first term. But that was before he figured out how to blow things up. “How Trump could bring on a second civil war. “With his plans to use the military to root out undocumented immigrants and to use the Justice Department and FBI to punish his political enemies.”

Trump may force a second civil war on America with his plan to use the military to round up at least 11 million undocumented people inside the United States — even if it means breaking up families — send them to detention camps, and then deport them.

As well as his plan to target his political enemies for prosecution — including Democrats, journalists, and other critics.

What happens when we, especially those of us in blue states and cities, resist these authoritarian moves — as we must, as we have a moral duty to?

What happens when we try to protect hardworking members of our communities who have been our neighbors and friends for years, from Trump’s federal troops?

What happens when we refuse to allow Trump’s lackeys to wreak revenge on his political enemies who live within our states and communities?

Will our resistance give Trump an excuse to use force against us?

This is not far-fetched. We need to answer these questions for ourselves. We should prepare.

Trump has said he’ll use the Insurrection Act — which grants a president the power to “take such measures as he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”

He’s also said he’ll use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to end sanctuary cities. Such cities now limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Trump told Fox News’s Harris Faulkner that “we can do things in terms of moving people out.”

Those are all very good questions.  Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal are trying to get some changes made to the Insurrection Act right now.  The Brennan Center has this analysis. “The Insurrection Act: A Presidential Power That Threatens Democracy. Congress must reform the outdated law, which is ripe for abuse.”

When former President Trump says he would conduct mass deportations of millions of people if elected again, some of his advisers talk about deploying the states’ National Guard to help carry out the task, even in states that oppose this extreme immigration policy.

But would he have the legal authority to do that? The answer is yes, it is legally possible under the Insurrection Act, an outdated law that is in urgent need of reform to prevent abuses of power and adapt  to modern times.

The Insurrection Act is among the most powerful emergency powers at the disposal of a president, who can use it to deploy the U.S. armed forces and the militia to suppress insurrections, quell civil unrest or domestic violence, and enforce the law when it is being obstructed.

There are few constraints to this presidential power — neither Congress nor the courts play a role in deciding what constitutes an obstruction or rebellion — and the law does not limit what actions military forces may take once deployed.

The law, which was last amended in the 1870s, has been rarely invoked. But it has been both used and misused in the past. Past uses include enforcing civil rights laws, helping companies break strikes, and suppressing so-called “race riots.”

Currently, there are calls for President Biden to invoke it to gain control of the Texas National Guard and order it to stand down in the city of Eagle Pass, where National Guard soldiers have occupied a park along the southern border to militarize the border and deny federal border protection agents access.

And let’s not forget Trump’s supporters urged him to use it to impede the transition of power after the 2020 presidential election.

Although there is no question that Biden could turn to the Insurrection Act to respond to a deliberate obstruction that prevents the federal government from performing immigration duties, he should refrain from doing so and instead seek to assert federal authority through the courts. The act should be a tool of last resort, and any power of this magnitude requires robust checks and balances that it currently lacks.

That’s why the Brennan Center has proposed comprehensive reforms that would narrow the criteria for deployment, specify what actions are and are not authorized when the act is invoked, and give Congress and the courts approval and review authority to serve as checks against abuse or overreach.

The current changes asked for by Warren and Blumenthal are outlined here by the Washington Insider. “Democratic Senators Urge Biden to Restrict Military Deployment, Citing Concerns Over Trump’s Plans.” Stacy M. Brown reports the details.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have called on President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to issue a directive limiting the use of military personnel for domestic purposes, warning against potential misuse by President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20.

The senators stressed the importance of clear guidelines to prevent the military from being deployed against American citizens without explicit constitutional or congressional authorization.

The request is rooted in the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits using federal troops in domestic law enforcement unless authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

While the Insurrection Act provides a narrow exception in cases of insurrection, rebellion, or extreme unrest, Warren and Blumenthal called for further restrictions to prevent abuse.

“Any deployment of federal forces must occur only when state or local authorities are overwhelmed and unable to ensure public safety,” the senators wrote.

They also emphasized the importance of consulting Congress before deploying troops and ensuring service members understand their obligations to reject unlawful orders.

The senators’ letter notes growing concerns over Trump’s rhetoric and past actions.

During his first term, Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act to respond to Black Lives Matter protests, and some allies urged him to declare martial law after his 2020 election defeat. More recently, Trump has suggested using the military to deport immigrants without permanent legal status and relocating troops from overseas to the southern border.

Trump has picked a deputy for Kristy Noem at Homeland Security. This is reported by South Florida’s Channel 6 News. “Trump picks Miami HSI special agent in charge for deputy homeland security advisor. Anthony Salisbury is currently a Miami Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge.”

In his current role, Anthony W. Salisbury “manages all of HSI’s complex Federal Law Enforcement investigative programs related to National Security and smuggling violations, including counter-proliferation, financial crimes, commercial fraud, human trafficking, human smuggling, narcotics smuggling, transnational,” the former president shared in a post on Truth Social.

He has previously served as the acting deputy executive associate director of HSI in Miami, and supervised the activities of HSI offices throughout the Republic of Mexico as the deputy attaché.

In his post, Trump wrote: “Tony will bring his vast Law Enforcement, counter-narcotics, and counter-cartel experience to the White House where he will serve under Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor.”

Miller is Trump’s pick for deputy chief of policy, longtime adviser and an immigration hard-liner, AP News reports.

The more deeply these picks get embedded and embed The True Believers, the more difficult it will be to find and remove them as needed.  Again, I see most of the action needed to stop this lies within the courts and Congress.  Fortunately and unfortunately, the House and Senate are quite close even though they will be controlled by Republicans.  Are there enough sane people to stand up to these MAGA terrorists? The courts will likely follow the law until we hit  SCOTUS.  There are obviously embedded MAGA nuts there who continue to rewrite the Constitution and precedent.

We’ve got less than a month to develop a strategy that lets them know that We, the People, are not interested in becoming MAGA-compliant serfs. This won’t be pretty, but I’m not gonna quietly take it.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

S0, this is for all of you butt-wipers for Incontinentia Buttocks …

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968 #andOtherCrises #AssWipersForIncontinentiaButtocks #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #climate #economic #geopolitical #IncontinentiaButtocks #JohnBuss #military #political #Polycrisis #PosseComitatusAct #TheInsurrectionAct #TrumpCabinetRapeGang #TrumpCabinetWeirdos

Finally Friday Reads: Another Fine Mess by the Butt-Wipers of Incontinentia Buttocks

“Updated version of an oldie. Probably will be doing a lot of that since it’s like deja vu all over again.” John Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I still have this dreadful sinus infection.  Last night, the temperature dropped to what usually doesn’t appear until the end of January here. The last two years have been insane, climate-wise.  We’ve got many active candidates for the next probable pandemic.  We’ve got an economy that’s currently the envy of the world.  The number of ongoing hot wars is frightening, with one being labeled a genocide by the well-respected Amnesty International.  “Polycrisis” is the term now used by folks who form the intellectual community of Strategic Advisors.   That would imply “military, geopolitical, economic, political, climate, and other crises.”

The convergence of all these crises creates a situation where we need to work globally more than ever.  So, the country, usually seen as the leader on the global stage, has a voting populace that just sent a clown car. Tom Nichols has this analysis written in The Atlantic.  “Trump Voters Got What They Wanted. Those who expect Donald Trump will hurt others, and not them, are likely to be unpleasantly surprised.”  The pathology of Trump voters is clearly stated in the clip below from The Bulwark Podcast. “The American people made their choice, and the fight to preserve the global democratic coalition against the global authoritarian movement continues. But maybe letting those voters see unadulterated Trumpism in the White House, without the baby bumpers—at least for a little while—is how we save America. Plus, the price of eggs v fascism, and Trump is going to inherit a great economy and claim responsibility for it.”

What do we do now that the lemmings are plunging over the cliff while chanting, “We really owned the libs”?

I think we can sum it up with a simple quote by George Carlin. “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

So, given that we’re firmly in a state of Polycrisis, what can be made of Trump’s ill-suited cabinet choices? For one, we know they’re there to throw out every specialist in each Federal Department to cripple that department and to lessen the number of folks that carry out the mandates (i.e., laws) established by Congress over the years over a few centuries. Are we really going to be stuck with Patel of the Crazy Eyes and crazier thoughts? RFK jr, who is responsible for killing children in Samoa with his bizarre, unschooled thoughts on vaccines?  Will he really yank all the passports of his so-called enemies, and how long will that list eventually be? The entire west wing will be filled with sociopaths, narcissists, and conspiracy nuts at this rate.

So here’s Pete again.  Is Trump still trying to inflict him on our military?  You know, the ones that President-Reject Incontinentia Buttocks called ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’? Here are some thoughts by writer Cathy Young. “In Pete Hegseth’s Totalitarian Vision, Opponents of Christian Nationalism Are Commies and Political Enemies. Trump’s defense pick will help him pave the way to an authoritarian America.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is in trouble. While initial reactions to his nomination focused on the absurdity of this former Fox News anchor being elevated to second in command of the military, the main obstacles to Hegseth’s confirmation remain his various problems with women: a sexual assault allegation from 2017, disparaging comments about women in the military, and a newly surfaced 2018 email from his mother berating him for habitual mistreatment of the opposite sex.

But even more alarmingly: Hegseth is an ideological extremist who views political opponents as “the enemy” and political differences as war by another name. Worse, he’s a Christian nationalist of the stridently militaristic kind, which raises disturbing questions about his potential willingness to misuse the U.S. military for political purposes. This is not a characterization pieced together from the odd soundbite or two—Hegseth himself tells us who he is in his books. The image of Hegseth that emerges from The War on Warriors (2024), Battle for the American Mind (2022), and American Crusade (2020), is of a militant Christian extremist who is obsessed with the Crusades and whose highest aspiration is redesigning the U.S. military into his ideological mold.

The central idea of American Crusade is that the survival of the United States as a free country requires a “holy war” to achieve “a single paramount objective: the categorical defeat of the Left.” Hegseth accuses the left—by which he doesn’t just mean an extremist fringe but the Democratic Party and its supporters in general—of seeking the “utter annihilation” of true patriots. “We are two Americas; a house divided,” he declares, and the other half is full of people whose “ignorance and ideologies threaten America’s very survival.” Hegseth writes: “Only the categorical defeat of the Left will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. We must reelect Donald Trump in 2020 and continue the cultural counterattack until Leftists are no longer electorally viable.” The implication is clear: liberty requires one-party rule. This is far from an unrepresentative line. In The War on Warriors, complaining that “the Left has never fought fair,” Hegseth lists “electing Obama” among its dirty tricks, despite the fact that Obama won a greater share of both the popular and the electoral vote in 2008 and 2012 than Trump did in 2016 and 2024.

Amanda Marcotte also writes about his love affair with White Christian Nationalism, a truly perverse twist on the New Testament, at Salon.

The central idea of American Crusade is that the survival of the United States as a free country requires a “holy war” to achieve “a single paramount objective: the categorical defeat of the Left.” Hegseth accuses the left—by which he doesn’t just mean an extremist fringe but the Democratic Party and its supporters in general—of seeking the “utter annihilation” of true patriots. “We are two Americas; a house divided,” he declares, and the other half is full of people whose “ignorance and ideologies threaten America’s very survival.” Hegseth writes: “Only the categorical defeat of the Left will secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. We must reelect Donald Trump in 2020 and continue the cultural counterattack until Leftists are no longer electorally viable.” The implication is clear: liberty requires one-party rule. This is far from an unrepresentative line. In The War on Warriors, complaining that “the Left has never fought fair,” Hegseth lists “electing Obama” among its dirty tricks, despite the fact that Obama won a greater share of both the popular and the electoral vote in 2008 and 2012 than Trump did in 2016 and 2024.

In addition to treating a broadly defined “Left” as the enemy, American Crusade also heaps scorn on ostensibly patriotic but overly complacent “fifty-fifty Americans.” The term comes from Theodore Roosevelt, who is quoted in the epigraph to the first part of the book: “There is not room in the country for any fifty-fifty American, nor can there be but one loyalty—to the Stars and Stripes.” The quote appears to be a garbled amalgam of several passages in Roosevelt’s speeches and writings, all of them from a very specific context: divided loyalties among some German-Americans during World War I. Hegseth’s “fifty-fifty American,” by contrast, refers to a well-meaning non-combatant in the culture war: a “squish” who disapproves of the perceived excesses of the progressive left but shrugs them off in the hope that “common sense will prevail,” or who doesn’t want to be “overly political,” or who thinks his or her local public school is great. For all his talk of reverence for America’s founding ideals, Hegseth’s version of Americanism sounds at times more like proto-totalitarian French Jacobinism, whose ideologues asserted that not only “traitors” but the “indifferent” and the “passive” must be punished.

After reading these analyses and their supporting citations, you can only be left with the idea that this man will have no problem turning the military on Americans out of step with his bizarre beliefs. I focus on this because Incontinentia Buttocks’ most recent picks have to do with ICE and his planned massive deportations and establishment of Concentration Camps.  This is from Politico‘s Myah Ward.  “Trump names ICE chief and makes another round of immigration announcements. The president-elect is planning an ambitious immigration agenda during his first 100 days.”

Trump said he was nominating Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott served for almost three decades in the Border Patrol, and as the chief of the agency during the last year of the Trump administration and beginning of the Biden administration. He helped implement Trump’s Remain in Mexico Policy, Title 42 and Safe Third Country agreements.

Trump also announced he was tapping Caleb Vitello, who’s currently the assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to serve as acting director of ICE.

And the president-elect picked Tony Salisbury, who serves as the special agent in charge for ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, to serve as the deputy homeland security adviser on the White House Homeland Security Council. Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents more than 17,000 Border Patrol Agents and support staff, was also announced as Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Chile.

Immigration was Trump’s top priority on the campaign trail, and in his first 100 days he plans to begin the process of deporting hundreds of thousands of people and to roll back President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Outside allies expect the administration’s immigration policy, similar to Trump’s first term, to be run out of the White House by incoming Border Czar Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.

So, what happens with those Concentration Camps once he starts outloading Hispanic Americans?  Also, will we ever rid ourselves of Biggest Dickus? More about his funding of the Trump campaign is coming out, and it’s horrifying!  This is from NBC. “Elon Musk spent a quarter-billion dollars electing Trump, including financing mysterious ‘RBG PAC’. The super PAC, which defended Trump on abortion, got its more than $20 million from the “Elon Musk Revocable Trust.”  This guy’s the Make American Apartheid South Africa freak!

Billionaire Elon Musk poured more than $20 million into a mysterious super PAC at the end of the 2024 campaign, part of more than $250 million he spent overall to boost President-elect Donald Trump, new campaign finance reports show.

Musk financed RBG PAC, according to the report the group filed Thursday night with the Federal Election Commission. The super PAC, which did not disclose its donors before the election, launched ads contending that Trump did not support a federal abortion ban.

All of the money the group pulled in — $20.5 million — came from a single donation from the Elon Musk Revocable Trust in Austin, Texas. RBG PAC spent almost all of its money on digital ads, mailers and text messages, according to the campaign finance report, which covered Oct. 17 through Nov. 25.

Robert Reich believes that Trump might just bring on a Civil War.  That’s a frightening thought that was discussed during his first term. But that was before he figured out how to blow things up. “How Trump could bring on a second civil war. “With his plans to use the military to root out undocumented immigrants and to use the Justice Department and FBI to punish his political enemies.”

Trump may force a second civil war on America with his plan to use the military to round up at least 11 million undocumented people inside the United States — even if it means breaking up families — send them to detention camps, and then deport them.

As well as his plan to target his political enemies for prosecution — including Democrats, journalists, and other critics.

What happens when we, especially those of us in blue states and cities, resist these authoritarian moves — as we must, as we have a moral duty to?

What happens when we try to protect hardworking members of our communities who have been our neighbors and friends for years, from Trump’s federal troops?

What happens when we refuse to allow Trump’s lackeys to wreak revenge on his political enemies who live within our states and communities?

Will our resistance give Trump an excuse to use force against us?

This is not far-fetched. We need to answer these questions for ourselves. We should prepare.

Trump has said he’ll use the Insurrection Act — which grants a president the power to “take such measures as he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”

He’s also said he’ll use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to end sanctuary cities. Such cities now limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Trump told Fox News’s Harris Faulkner that “we can do things in terms of moving people out.”

Those are all very good questions.  Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal are trying to get some changes made to the Insurrection Act right now.  The Brennan Center has this analysis. “The Insurrection Act: A Presidential Power That Threatens Democracy. Congress must reform the outdated law, which is ripe for abuse.”

When former President Trump says he would conduct mass deportations of millions of people if elected again, some of his advisers talk about deploying the states’ National Guard to help carry out the task, even in states that oppose this extreme immigration policy.

But would he have the legal authority to do that? The answer is yes, it is legally possible under the Insurrection Act, an outdated law that is in urgent need of reform to prevent abuses of power and adapt  to modern times.

The Insurrection Act is among the most powerful emergency powers at the disposal of a president, who can use it to deploy the U.S. armed forces and the militia to suppress insurrections, quell civil unrest or domestic violence, and enforce the law when it is being obstructed.

There are few constraints to this presidential power — neither Congress nor the courts play a role in deciding what constitutes an obstruction or rebellion — and the law does not limit what actions military forces may take once deployed.

The law, which was last amended in the 1870s, has been rarely invoked. But it has been both used and misused in the past. Past uses include enforcing civil rights laws, helping companies break strikes, and suppressing so-called “race riots.”

Currently, there are calls for President Biden to invoke it to gain control of the Texas National Guard and order it to stand down in the city of Eagle Pass, where National Guard soldiers have occupied a park along the southern border to militarize the border and deny federal border protection agents access.

And let’s not forget Trump’s supporters urged him to use it to impede the transition of power after the 2020 presidential election.

Although there is no question that Biden could turn to the Insurrection Act to respond to a deliberate obstruction that prevents the federal government from performing immigration duties, he should refrain from doing so and instead seek to assert federal authority through the courts. The act should be a tool of last resort, and any power of this magnitude requires robust checks and balances that it currently lacks.

That’s why the Brennan Center has proposed comprehensive reforms that would narrow the criteria for deployment, specify what actions are and are not authorized when the act is invoked, and give Congress and the courts approval and review authority to serve as checks against abuse or overreach.

The current changes asked for by Warren and Blumenthal are outlined here by the Washington Insider. “Democratic Senators Urge Biden to Restrict Military Deployment, Citing Concerns Over Trump’s Plans.” Stacy M. Brown reports the details.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have called on President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to issue a directive limiting the use of military personnel for domestic purposes, warning against potential misuse by President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20.

The senators stressed the importance of clear guidelines to prevent the military from being deployed against American citizens without explicit constitutional or congressional authorization.

The request is rooted in the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits using federal troops in domestic law enforcement unless authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

While the Insurrection Act provides a narrow exception in cases of insurrection, rebellion, or extreme unrest, Warren and Blumenthal called for further restrictions to prevent abuse.

“Any deployment of federal forces must occur only when state or local authorities are overwhelmed and unable to ensure public safety,” the senators wrote.

They also emphasized the importance of consulting Congress before deploying troops and ensuring service members understand their obligations to reject unlawful orders.

The senators’ letter notes growing concerns over Trump’s rhetoric and past actions.

During his first term, Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act to respond to Black Lives Matter protests, and some allies urged him to declare martial law after his 2020 election defeat. More recently, Trump has suggested using the military to deport immigrants without permanent legal status and relocating troops from overseas to the southern border.

Trump has picked a deputy for Kristy Noem at Homeland Security. This is reported by South Florida’s Channel 6 News. “Trump picks Miami HSI special agent in charge for deputy homeland security advisor. Anthony Salisbury is currently a Miami Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge.”

In his current role, Anthony W. Salisbury “manages all of HSI’s complex Federal Law Enforcement investigative programs related to National Security and smuggling violations, including counter-proliferation, financial crimes, commercial fraud, human trafficking, human smuggling, narcotics smuggling, transnational,” the former president shared in a post on Truth Social.

He has previously served as the acting deputy executive associate director of HSI in Miami, and supervised the activities of HSI offices throughout the Republic of Mexico as the deputy attaché.

In his post, Trump wrote: “Tony will bring his vast Law Enforcement, counter-narcotics, and counter-cartel experience to the White House where he will serve under Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor.”

Miller is Trump’s pick for deputy chief of policy, longtime adviser and an immigration hard-liner, AP News reports.

The more deeply these picks get embedded and embed The True Believers, the more difficult it will be to find and remove them as needed.  Again, I see most of the action needed to stop this lies within the courts and Congress.  Fortunately and unfortunately, the House and Senate are quite close even though they will be controlled by Republicans.  Are there enough sane people to stand up to these MAGA terrorists? The courts will likely follow the law until we hit  SCOTUS.  There are obviously embedded MAGA nuts there who continue to rewrite the Constitution and precedent.

We’ve got less than a month to develop a strategy that lets them know that We, the People, are not interested in becoming MAGA-compliant serfs. This won’t be pretty, but I’m not gonna quietly take it.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

S0, this is for all of you butt-wipers for Incontinentia Buttocks …

#JohnbussBskySocial #Repeat1968 #andOtherCrises #AssWipersForIncontinentiaButtocks #CabinetOfIncompetentImbeciles #climate #economic #geopolitical #IncontinentiaButtocks #JohnBuss #military #political #Polycrisis #PosseComitatusAct #TheInsurrectionAct #TrumpCabinetRapeGang #TrumpCabinetWeirdos

Finally Friday Reads: We have a Kakistocracy* coming. Let’s not keep it!

“Make America Garbage Again,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

After sleeping through last week, I have finally decided that PTSD has kicked in, and I’m in survival mode.  At least I woke up to find the word that best describes what we’re watching unfold.  From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

*kakistocracy  noun

kak·​is·​toc·​ra·​cy ˌkakə̇ˈstäkrəsē

plural kakistocracies

:government by the worst people

Greek kakistos (superlative of kakos bad) + English -cracy

The Cambridge Dictionary is more blunt. It evidently was coined sometime in the 17th century.  Now we know how far we’re going to fall back.

A government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country:   Who rules in a kakistocracy?   We are living in a new era of kakistocracy.

  Fewer examples:

• Kakistocracies are governments ruled by the stupid and ignorant.
• What we have here is the world’s only kakistocracy.
• The total lack of integrity of the administration is proof that we now live in a kakistocracy.

 

This is what we will have after January 20,2025, which is, ironically enough, not only the inauguration of the first felon to ever hold office but also the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King.  Somewhere, the Greek Muses have entered the realm of Greek Tragedy.  All we need is a chorus.

I turned to some TV news last night to watch the faces of the political class chatter about the proposed cabinet members with the look of teenagers stuck in a summer camp horror film. Yes, this all does feel like a very bad movie or dream that you want to be over when you awaken. However, it is more like the idea of the tyranny of the masses that Alexis de Tocqueville dreamed of while writing his book Democracy in America. He was very afraid of the unwashed masses, and now we know why.

The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals. In Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, “Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument with a variety of well-chosen constitutional, historical, and sociological examples.

I love that last part because it comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a history class curriculum prepared for teachers on the topic.  Quick, go read it or get your copy of the book before both are banned and defunded. It’s an independent agency, like the Fed, and we’ll see how long into the kakistocracy that remains to be true for both.  I imagine I would never get grants to be funded as I did in 1982 to bring Kate Millet and Betty Friedan to Omaha and funds to expand our Women’s Festival to include black women presenters. That was even during the Reagan years.  He must have been damned woke or completely asleep, drooling on the Resolute desk to miss that opportunity.

“Matt is the man selected to hide all the criming, appropriate.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Okay, so let me really depress you now with some headlines. This is from Public Notice‘s Lisa Needham.  “Trump moves to burn down the rule of law. His cabinet nominations are obscene and augur dark days to come.”  And you thought I was being a bummer!

When the sordid history of the second Trump administration is written, should we all survive that long, it will be difficult to sort out which of his early cabinet picks were the most atrocious. And while handing over control of the military to a weekend Fox News host or putting an anti-vax creep in charge of America’s top public health agency are really bad, it will be hard to sink lower than Matt Gaetz being nominated as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Let’s pretend, for just a moment, that Gaetz isn’t just being given this job because he’s a lib-triggering Trump crony and evaluate him on the merits. Gaetz’s legal experience, such as it is, seems to consist of a stint at a small firm in Florida, Anchors Garden, where he worked after graduating from law school in 2007. The firm currently has only nine attorneys, and Gaetz devotes precisely one line to the experience in his self-servingly weird House bio, saying, “Prior to serving in Congress, Matt worked as an attorney in Northwest Florida with the Keefe, Anchors & Gordon law firm, where he advocated for a more open and transparent government.”

Advocating for a more open and transparent government sounds pretty important, right? But while the firm does have a government affairs and public records practice, when Mother Jones did a deep dive into Gaetz’s experience there, what they turned up instead was that he working on things like debt collection and representing a homeowners’ association over a dispute about a beach volleyball net. It isn’t even entirely clear when Gaetz stopped working at the firm. His House bio skips ahead to his 2010 election to the Florida House, and his legal work is never mentioned again.

This is not the biography of someone you would hire to be an assistant district attorney in a mid-size American city, much less the head of the entire Department of Justice.

Compare Gaetz to Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general pick during his previous term. Sure, Sessions was so racist that he couldn’t get confirmed as a judge. But he also spent 12 years as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and two years as the Alabama attorney general before being elected to four consecutive Senate terms. During his time in the Senate, he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming its ranking member in 2009. Sessions was a repulsive and retrograde choice for AG, but he wasn’t a demonstrably unqualified one.

That’s a sunny note to start your weekend on. Wait, there’s more!  If you want to see real pearl-clutching, you must go to WAPO or NYT.  But they’re a  little too late for me.  Here’s something from The Bulwark. I’ve suddenly gone all in for the alt-press like I did in 1970 when I started writing for Omaha’s underground Newspaper, The Aardvark, to write terrible things about Richard Nixon. “Gaetz Begins Lobbying Lawmakers, Hoping He Hasn’t Burned All the Bridges/ The congressman and his team are trying to convince Senators to overlook a potentially damning ethics report and his history of political histrionics.” This analysis is coauthored by Mark Caputo and Joe Perticone.

Though Trump has made a slew of controversial picks (the latest being Thursday’s nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services), Gaetz stands out as a singularly polarizing figure because of the investigations into his conduct, the accusations against him, and his strained personal relationship with fellow Republican members of Congress he has torched, including allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose ouster he masterminded.

“We have 53 senators and we might not have 50 votes to confirm right now. It’s really up in the air,” said a member of Trump’s team briefed on its preliminary vote-counting. “Gaetz can be a real asshole. But he can be a great guy. The senators need to see the great guy and kind of hear the asshole apologize and tell them why all this stuff about sex crimes isn’t true.”

The push to confirm Gaetz is the latest test of his ability to survive crises that would have ruined any other politician. It also will provide an early indication of Trump’s ability to bend the Senate to his will. The president-elect has quickly moved to force votes on high-profile nominees that no other person in his position would have dared put forward. And as a fallback, he is pressuring incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune into giving him the right to bypass the Senate to make temporary appointments.

Doing so would get Trump’s cabinet in place. But it could come at a political cost if it perceived that the president is jamming through highly-controversial nominees. On Thursday, ABC reported that the woman at the center of the sex-crimes case had told House investigators that Gaetz had paid to have sex with her in 2017 when she was a minor. Gaetz was also allegedly implicated in paying other women for sex, which he has denied, and in illicit drug use.

The succession of nominations and reporting left Republican senators in an uncomfortable spot. Some, including those on the Senate Judiciary Committee—which would first vote on Gaetz’s nomination—said they wanted to see the House ethics report into Gaetz.

A quick look at several of the appointments finds quite a few rapists and serial adulterers. Trump obviously wants mini-mes.  The BBC has this list up to date and is waiting for more. “Who has joined Trump’s team so far?”  Some of the appointees are not getting sanguine coverage.’

This article is specific to Gaetz and was written by North American Correspondent Anthony Zurcher. “Trump picking Gaetz to head justice sends shockwaves – and a strong message.”

Donald Trump’s nomination of congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is Gaetz making most headlines. The Florida firebrand is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my bingo card.”

Gaetz is playing Rocky and is already running up and down the Capitol stairs trying to find the few people that like him.  But even the New York Post is taking on the RFK appointment to HHS.  I know, I can’t believe  I’m doing this.   It’s even it’s Editorial Board.  “Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine.”

The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm.

We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule.

Maybe he’s sworn to focus narrowly on areas where he clearly can help — inspiring Americans to embrace healthier diets and more exercise, etc.

I wonder where eating roadkill and fish laded with mercury comes into that equation?

But wait! There are reasons to question every one of his appointments.  This is from The Guardian.  “Trump defense secretary nominee involved in 2017 sexual assault investigation, no charges filed – report.”

Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump nominated to be defense secretary, was involved in a sexual assault investigation in California seven years ago, but no charges were filed against him, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The incident happened in 2017 at a hotel and golf course in the city of Monterey, but there were few details of how Hegseth was involved, or what happened. Here’s more, from the Chronicle:

In a brief statement late Thursday, the city manager’s office in Monterey confirmed the sexual assault investigation, but provided few details.

The city said the incident was reported to have happened between almost midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. the next morning at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, less than a mile from Monterey Bay and across Highway 1 from the Naval Postgraduate School.

“The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” the city said. It said the victim’s name was confidential and that the alleged assault was reported on Oct. 12, 2017. The city said no weapons were involved, but that there was a report of “contusions to right thigh.”

The city declined to release the police report, saying it was exempt from public disclosure, and said it would not make any further remarks on the probe.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did not reply to a request for comment late Thursday, but an online database indicated no criminal charges had been filed against Hegseth in that county.

Vanity Fair reports that news of the allegation sent Trump’s transition team scrambling over the past few days:

Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017.

According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.

On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

That guy puts the sleaze in sleazy.  Plus, he was investigated for war crimes and would be in charge of dealing with war criminals. This is from Time Magazine. “Pete Hegseth’s Role in Trump’s Controversial Pardons of Men Accused of War Crimes.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense in his second term has already stirred controversy.

Hegseth, a military veteran, staunch defender of Trump’s “America First” agenda, and an outspoken critic of what he calls the military’s “woke” culture, has built a career around challenging the military establishment. He held an influential role in advocating for Trump to intervene on behalf of service members in three cases involving war crime accusations in 2019—cases that divided the military and ignited fierce debates over the limits of executive power and military accountability.

Now, if he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, Hegseth will oversee 1.3 million active-duty service members and manage military strategy at a time of global instability, raising questions about how his past approach towards accused war criminals will impact his military leadership and discipline.

During Trump’s first term in office, Hegseth lobbied for the pardons of Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, and pushed to support Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, each of whom were facing charges or convictions related to alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth’s advocacy on behalf of the three service members appeared to pay off: in Nov. 2019, Trump granted pardons to Lorance and Golsteyn, and reversed a demotion of Gallagher, citing Hegseth and Fox News when he tweeted about his decision to review one of the cases.

Hegseth’s vocal defense of these men as victims of overzealous prosecution raised eyebrows in the military community, where such interventions by civilians are seen by some as a threat to the integrity of the justice system. “These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a job to defend us and made tough calls on a moment’s notice,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends in May 2019. “They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors.”

Lorance had been convicted by a military court in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan men during a military operation in 2012 in which he ordered his soldiers to open fire on a group of unarmed Afghan civilians he suspected of being insurgents. Lorance served six years of a 19-year sentence before Trump, after lobbying from Hegseth and others, granted him a pardon in Nov. 2019, arguing that he was unfairly targeted by military prosecutors and that his actions were justified in a combat environment where split-second decisions were often necessary for survival.

This is from Military.com. ‘He’s Going to Have to Explain It’: Surprise Defense Secretary Pick’s History Takes Center Stage.”

He has repeatedly called to ban women from serving in combat roles in the military.

He advocated extensively to gain pardons for troops accused and convicted of war crimes.

And he was one of a dozen troops turned away from serving on the National Guard mission to defend the Capitol, allegedly over tattoos that are popular with neo-Nazi and far-right groups.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise pick to be the next defense secretary, has an extensive history of combat in the culture wars that have been brewing over the military for the past decade.

Prior to Trump’s announcement Tuesday evening that he was nominating Hegseth, the National Guard veteran was most known as a co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox and Friends,” one of Trump’s favorite TV shows. But in choosing Hegseth, Trump landed on a defense secretary nominee with a record of public statements that line up with the promises Trump made on the campaign trail to root out alleged “wokeness” within the military.

Senators from both parties tasked with considering his nomination responded Wednesday by saying that they have a lot of questions about Hegseth’s history and those past statements, but broadly insisted they were reserving judgment.

“I’m going to have to visit with him about those remarks,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate’s first female combat veteran who was rumored to be in the running for Trump’s defense secretary, told reporters Wednesday when asked about Hegseth’s opposition to women in combat.

“Even a staff member of mine, she is an infantry officer. She’s back in Iowa now. She is a tumble. So he’s going to have to explain it,” Ernst added, though she did not answer when Military.com asked whether she would vote against Hegseth over the issue.

So, this is basically a band of misfits and less than mediocre wipipo.   But I’ll just let Muse tell it like it is.  Yes, there are a lot of f-bombs in the lyrics!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #MattGaetzWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RFKJrWeirdo #TrumpSCabinetPicksBandOfMisfits #WeAreFuckingFucked

Finally Friday Reads: We have a Kakistocracy* coming. Let’s not keep it!

“Make America Garbage Again,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

After sleeping through last week, I have finally decided that PTSD has kicked in, and I’m in survival mode.  At least I woke up to find the word that best describes what we’re watching unfold.  From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

*kakistocracy  noun

kak·​is·​toc·​ra·​cy ˌkakə̇ˈstäkrəsē

plural kakistocracies

:government by the worst people

Greek kakistos (superlative of kakos bad) + English -cracy

The Cambridge Dictionary is more blunt. It evidently was coined sometime in the 17th century.  Now we know how far we’re going to fall back.

A government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country:   Who rules in a kakistocracy?   We are living in a new era of kakistocracy.

  Fewer examples:

• Kakistocracies are governments ruled by the stupid and ignorant.
• What we have here is the world’s only kakistocracy.
• The total lack of integrity of the administration is proof that we now live in a kakistocracy.

 

This is what we will have after January 20,2025, which is, ironically enough, not only the inauguration of the first felon to ever hold office but also the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King.  Somewhere, the Greek Muses have entered the realm of Greek Tragedy.  All we need is a chorus.

I turned to some TV news last night to watch the faces of the political class chatter about the proposed cabinet members with the look of teenagers stuck in a summer camp horror film. Yes, this all does feel like a very bad movie or dream that you want to be over when you awaken. However, it is more like the idea of the tyranny of the masses that Alexis de Tocqueville dreamed of while writing his book Democracy in America. He was very afraid of the unwashed masses, and now we know why.

The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals. In Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, “Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument with a variety of well-chosen constitutional, historical, and sociological examples.

I love that last part because it comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a history class curriculum prepared for teachers on the topic.  Quick, go read it or get your copy of the book before both are banned and defunded. It’s an independent agency, like the Fed, and we’ll see how long into the kakistocracy that remains to be true for both.  I imagine I would never get grants to be funded as I did in 1982 to bring Kate Millet and Betty Friedan to Omaha and funds to expand our Women’s Festival to include black women presenters. That was even during the Reagan years.  He must have been damned woke or completely asleep, drooling on the Resolute desk to miss that opportunity.

“Matt is the man selected to hide all the criming, appropriate.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Okay, so let me really depress you now with some headlines. This is from Public Notice‘s Lisa Needham.  “Trump moves to burn down the rule of law. His cabinet nominations are obscene and augur dark days to come.”  And you thought I was being a bummer!

When the sordid history of the second Trump administration is written, should we all survive that long, it will be difficult to sort out which of his early cabinet picks were the most atrocious. And while handing over control of the military to a weekend Fox News host or putting an anti-vax creep in charge of America’s top public health agency are really bad, it will be hard to sink lower than Matt Gaetz being nominated as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Let’s pretend, for just a moment, that Gaetz isn’t just being given this job because he’s a lib-triggering Trump crony and evaluate him on the merits. Gaetz’s legal experience, such as it is, seems to consist of a stint at a small firm in Florida, Anchors Garden, where he worked after graduating from law school in 2007. The firm currently has only nine attorneys, and Gaetz devotes precisely one line to the experience in his self-servingly weird House bio, saying, “Prior to serving in Congress, Matt worked as an attorney in Northwest Florida with the Keefe, Anchors & Gordon law firm, where he advocated for a more open and transparent government.”

Advocating for a more open and transparent government sounds pretty important, right? But while the firm does have a government affairs and public records practice, when Mother Jones did a deep dive into Gaetz’s experience there, what they turned up instead was that he working on things like debt collection and representing a homeowners’ association over a dispute about a beach volleyball net. It isn’t even entirely clear when Gaetz stopped working at the firm. His House bio skips ahead to his 2010 election to the Florida House, and his legal work is never mentioned again.

This is not the biography of someone you would hire to be an assistant district attorney in a mid-size American city, much less the head of the entire Department of Justice.

Compare Gaetz to Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general pick during his previous term. Sure, Sessions was so racist that he couldn’t get confirmed as a judge. But he also spent 12 years as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and two years as the Alabama attorney general before being elected to four consecutive Senate terms. During his time in the Senate, he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming its ranking member in 2009. Sessions was a repulsive and retrograde choice for AG, but he wasn’t a demonstrably unqualified one.

That’s a sunny note to start your weekend on. Wait, there’s more!  If you want to see real pearl-clutching, you must go to WAPO or NYT.  But they’re a  little too late for me.  Here’s something from The Bulwark. I’ve suddenly gone all in for the alt-press like I did in 1970 when I started writing for Omaha’s underground Newspaper, The Aardvark, to write terrible things about Richard Nixon. “Gaetz Begins Lobbying Lawmakers, Hoping He Hasn’t Burned All the Bridges/ The congressman and his team are trying to convince Senators to overlook a potentially damning ethics report and his history of political histrionics.” This analysis is coauthored by Mark Caputo and Joe Perticone.

Though Trump has made a slew of controversial picks (the latest being Thursday’s nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services), Gaetz stands out as a singularly polarizing figure because of the investigations into his conduct, the accusations against him, and his strained personal relationship with fellow Republican members of Congress he has torched, including allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose ouster he masterminded.

“We have 53 senators and we might not have 50 votes to confirm right now. It’s really up in the air,” said a member of Trump’s team briefed on its preliminary vote-counting. “Gaetz can be a real asshole. But he can be a great guy. The senators need to see the great guy and kind of hear the asshole apologize and tell them why all this stuff about sex crimes isn’t true.”

The push to confirm Gaetz is the latest test of his ability to survive crises that would have ruined any other politician. It also will provide an early indication of Trump’s ability to bend the Senate to his will. The president-elect has quickly moved to force votes on high-profile nominees that no other person in his position would have dared put forward. And as a fallback, he is pressuring incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune into giving him the right to bypass the Senate to make temporary appointments.

Doing so would get Trump’s cabinet in place. But it could come at a political cost if it perceived that the president is jamming through highly-controversial nominees. On Thursday, ABC reported that the woman at the center of the sex-crimes case had told House investigators that Gaetz had paid to have sex with her in 2017 when she was a minor. Gaetz was also allegedly implicated in paying other women for sex, which he has denied, and in illicit drug use.

The succession of nominations and reporting left Republican senators in an uncomfortable spot. Some, including those on the Senate Judiciary Committee—which would first vote on Gaetz’s nomination—said they wanted to see the House ethics report into Gaetz.

A quick look at several of the appointments finds quite a few rapists and serial adulterers. Trump obviously wants mini-mes.  The BBC has this list up to date and is waiting for more. “Who has joined Trump’s team so far?”  Some of the appointees are not getting sanguine coverage.’

This article is specific to Gaetz and was written by North American Correspondent Anthony Zurcher. “Trump picking Gaetz to head justice sends shockwaves – and a strong message.”

Donald Trump’s nomination of congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is Gaetz making most headlines. The Florida firebrand is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my bingo card.”

Gaetz is playing Rocky and is already running up and down the Capitol stairs trying to find the few people that like him.  But even the New York Post is taking on the RFK appointment to HHS.  I know, I can’t believe  I’m doing this.   It’s even it’s Editorial Board.  “Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine.”

The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm.

We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule.

Maybe he’s sworn to focus narrowly on areas where he clearly can help — inspiring Americans to embrace healthier diets and more exercise, etc.

I wonder where eating roadkill and fish laded with mercury comes into that equation?

But wait! There are reasons to question every one of his appointments.  This is from The Guardian.  “Trump defense secretary nominee involved in 2017 sexual assault investigation, no charges filed – report.”

Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump nominated to be defense secretary, was involved in a sexual assault investigation in California seven years ago, but no charges were filed against him, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The incident happened in 2017 at a hotel and golf course in the city of Monterey, but there were few details of how Hegseth was involved, or what happened. Here’s more, from the Chronicle:

In a brief statement late Thursday, the city manager’s office in Monterey confirmed the sexual assault investigation, but provided few details.

The city said the incident was reported to have happened between almost midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. the next morning at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, less than a mile from Monterey Bay and across Highway 1 from the Naval Postgraduate School.

“The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” the city said. It said the victim’s name was confidential and that the alleged assault was reported on Oct. 12, 2017. The city said no weapons were involved, but that there was a report of “contusions to right thigh.”

The city declined to release the police report, saying it was exempt from public disclosure, and said it would not make any further remarks on the probe.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did not reply to a request for comment late Thursday, but an online database indicated no criminal charges had been filed against Hegseth in that county.

Vanity Fair reports that news of the allegation sent Trump’s transition team scrambling over the past few days:

Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017.

According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.

On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

That guy puts the sleaze in sleazy.  Plus, he was investigated for war crimes and would be in charge of dealing with war criminals. This is from Time Magazine. “Pete Hegseth’s Role in Trump’s Controversial Pardons of Men Accused of War Crimes.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense in his second term has already stirred controversy.

Hegseth, a military veteran, staunch defender of Trump’s “America First” agenda, and an outspoken critic of what he calls the military’s “woke” culture, has built a career around challenging the military establishment. He held an influential role in advocating for Trump to intervene on behalf of service members in three cases involving war crime accusations in 2019—cases that divided the military and ignited fierce debates over the limits of executive power and military accountability.

Now, if he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, Hegseth will oversee 1.3 million active-duty service members and manage military strategy at a time of global instability, raising questions about how his past approach towards accused war criminals will impact his military leadership and discipline.

During Trump’s first term in office, Hegseth lobbied for the pardons of Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, and pushed to support Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, each of whom were facing charges or convictions related to alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth’s advocacy on behalf of the three service members appeared to pay off: in Nov. 2019, Trump granted pardons to Lorance and Golsteyn, and reversed a demotion of Gallagher, citing Hegseth and Fox News when he tweeted about his decision to review one of the cases.

Hegseth’s vocal defense of these men as victims of overzealous prosecution raised eyebrows in the military community, where such interventions by civilians are seen by some as a threat to the integrity of the justice system. “These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a job to defend us and made tough calls on a moment’s notice,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends in May 2019. “They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors.”

Lorance had been convicted by a military court in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan men during a military operation in 2012 in which he ordered his soldiers to open fire on a group of unarmed Afghan civilians he suspected of being insurgents. Lorance served six years of a 19-year sentence before Trump, after lobbying from Hegseth and others, granted him a pardon in Nov. 2019, arguing that he was unfairly targeted by military prosecutors and that his actions were justified in a combat environment where split-second decisions were often necessary for survival.

This is from Military.com. ‘He’s Going to Have to Explain It’: Surprise Defense Secretary Pick’s History Takes Center Stage.”

He has repeatedly called to ban women from serving in combat roles in the military.

He advocated extensively to gain pardons for troops accused and convicted of war crimes.

And he was one of a dozen troops turned away from serving on the National Guard mission to defend the Capitol, allegedly over tattoos that are popular with neo-Nazi and far-right groups.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise pick to be the next defense secretary, has an extensive history of combat in the culture wars that have been brewing over the military for the past decade.

Prior to Trump’s announcement Tuesday evening that he was nominating Hegseth, the National Guard veteran was most known as a co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox and Friends,” one of Trump’s favorite TV shows. But in choosing Hegseth, Trump landed on a defense secretary nominee with a record of public statements that line up with the promises Trump made on the campaign trail to root out alleged “wokeness” within the military.

Senators from both parties tasked with considering his nomination responded Wednesday by saying that they have a lot of questions about Hegseth’s history and those past statements, but broadly insisted they were reserving judgment.

“I’m going to have to visit with him about those remarks,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate’s first female combat veteran who was rumored to be in the running for Trump’s defense secretary, told reporters Wednesday when asked about Hegseth’s opposition to women in combat.

“Even a staff member of mine, she is an infantry officer. She’s back in Iowa now. She is a tumble. So he’s going to have to explain it,” Ernst added, though she did not answer when Military.com asked whether she would vote against Hegseth over the issue.

So, this is basically a band of misfits and less than mediocre wipipo.   But I’ll just let Muse tell it like it is.  Yes, there are a lot of f-bombs in the lyrics!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #MattGaetzWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RFKJrWeirdo #TrumpSCabinetPicksBandOfMisfits #WeAreFuckingFucked

Finally Friday Reads: We have a Kakistocracy* coming. Let’s not keep it!

“Make America Garbage Again,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

After sleeping through last week, I have finally decided that PTSD has kicked in, and I’m in survival mode.  At least I woke up to find the word that best describes what we’re watching unfold.  From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

*kakistocracy  noun

kak·​is·​toc·​ra·​cy ˌkakə̇ˈstäkrəsē

plural kakistocracies

:government by the worst people

Greek kakistos (superlative of kakos bad) + English -cracy

The Cambridge Dictionary is more blunt. It evidently was coined sometime in the 17th century.  Now we know how far we’re going to fall back.

A government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country:   Who rules in a kakistocracy?   We are living in a new era of kakistocracy.

  Fewer examples:

• Kakistocracies are governments ruled by the stupid and ignorant.
• What we have here is the world’s only kakistocracy.
• The total lack of integrity of the administration is proof that we now live in a kakistocracy.

 

This is what we will have after January 20,2025, which is, ironically enough, not only the inauguration of the first felon to ever hold office but also the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King.  Somewhere, the Greek Muses have entered the realm of Greek Tragedy.  All we need is a chorus.

I turned to some TV news last night to watch the faces of the political class chatter about the proposed cabinet members with the look of teenagers stuck in a summer camp horror film. Yes, this all does feel like a very bad movie or dream that you want to be over when you awaken. However, it is more like the idea of the tyranny of the masses that Alexis de Tocqueville dreamed of while writing his book Democracy in America. He was very afraid of the unwashed masses, and now we know why.

The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals. In Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, “Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument with a variety of well-chosen constitutional, historical, and sociological examples.

I love that last part because it comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a history class curriculum prepared for teachers on the topic.  Quick, go read it or get your copy of the book before both are banned and defunded. It’s an independent agency, like the Fed, and we’ll see how long into the kakistocracy that remains to be true for both.  I imagine I would never get grants to be funded as I did in 1982 to bring Kate Millet and Betty Friedan to Omaha and funds to expand our Women’s Festival to include black women presenters. That was even during the Reagan years.  He must have been damned woke or completely asleep, drooling on the Resolute desk to miss that opportunity.

“Matt is the man selected to hide all the criming, appropriate.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Okay, so let me really depress you now with some headlines. This is from Public Notice‘s Lisa Needham.  “Trump moves to burn down the rule of law. His cabinet nominations are obscene and augur dark days to come.”  And you thought I was being a bummer!

When the sordid history of the second Trump administration is written, should we all survive that long, it will be difficult to sort out which of his early cabinet picks were the most atrocious. And while handing over control of the military to a weekend Fox News host or putting an anti-vax creep in charge of America’s top public health agency are really bad, it will be hard to sink lower than Matt Gaetz being nominated as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Let’s pretend, for just a moment, that Gaetz isn’t just being given this job because he’s a lib-triggering Trump crony and evaluate him on the merits. Gaetz’s legal experience, such as it is, seems to consist of a stint at a small firm in Florida, Anchors Garden, where he worked after graduating from law school in 2007. The firm currently has only nine attorneys, and Gaetz devotes precisely one line to the experience in his self-servingly weird House bio, saying, “Prior to serving in Congress, Matt worked as an attorney in Northwest Florida with the Keefe, Anchors & Gordon law firm, where he advocated for a more open and transparent government.”

Advocating for a more open and transparent government sounds pretty important, right? But while the firm does have a government affairs and public records practice, when Mother Jones did a deep dive into Gaetz’s experience there, what they turned up instead was that he working on things like debt collection and representing a homeowners’ association over a dispute about a beach volleyball net. It isn’t even entirely clear when Gaetz stopped working at the firm. His House bio skips ahead to his 2010 election to the Florida House, and his legal work is never mentioned again.

This is not the biography of someone you would hire to be an assistant district attorney in a mid-size American city, much less the head of the entire Department of Justice.

Compare Gaetz to Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general pick during his previous term. Sure, Sessions was so racist that he couldn’t get confirmed as a judge. But he also spent 12 years as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and two years as the Alabama attorney general before being elected to four consecutive Senate terms. During his time in the Senate, he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming its ranking member in 2009. Sessions was a repulsive and retrograde choice for AG, but he wasn’t a demonstrably unqualified one.

That’s a sunny note to start your weekend on. Wait, there’s more!  If you want to see real pearl-clutching, you must go to WAPO or NYT.  But they’re a  little too late for me.  Here’s something from The Bulwark. I’ve suddenly gone all in for the alt-press like I did in 1970 when I started writing for Omaha’s underground Newspaper, The Aardvark, to write terrible things about Richard Nixon. “Gaetz Begins Lobbying Lawmakers, Hoping He Hasn’t Burned All the Bridges/ The congressman and his team are trying to convince Senators to overlook a potentially damning ethics report and his history of political histrionics.” This analysis is coauthored by Mark Caputo and Joe Perticone.

Though Trump has made a slew of controversial picks (the latest being Thursday’s nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services), Gaetz stands out as a singularly polarizing figure because of the investigations into his conduct, the accusations against him, and his strained personal relationship with fellow Republican members of Congress he has torched, including allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose ouster he masterminded.

“We have 53 senators and we might not have 50 votes to confirm right now. It’s really up in the air,” said a member of Trump’s team briefed on its preliminary vote-counting. “Gaetz can be a real asshole. But he can be a great guy. The senators need to see the great guy and kind of hear the asshole apologize and tell them why all this stuff about sex crimes isn’t true.”

The push to confirm Gaetz is the latest test of his ability to survive crises that would have ruined any other politician. It also will provide an early indication of Trump’s ability to bend the Senate to his will. The president-elect has quickly moved to force votes on high-profile nominees that no other person in his position would have dared put forward. And as a fallback, he is pressuring incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune into giving him the right to bypass the Senate to make temporary appointments.

Doing so would get Trump’s cabinet in place. But it could come at a political cost if it perceived that the president is jamming through highly-controversial nominees. On Thursday, ABC reported that the woman at the center of the sex-crimes case had told House investigators that Gaetz had paid to have sex with her in 2017 when she was a minor. Gaetz was also allegedly implicated in paying other women for sex, which he has denied, and in illicit drug use.

The succession of nominations and reporting left Republican senators in an uncomfortable spot. Some, including those on the Senate Judiciary Committee—which would first vote on Gaetz’s nomination—said they wanted to see the House ethics report into Gaetz.

A quick look at several of the appointments finds quite a few rapists and serial adulterers. Trump obviously wants mini-mes.  The BBC has this list up to date and is waiting for more. “Who has joined Trump’s team so far?”  Some of the appointees are not getting sanguine coverage.’

This article is specific to Gaetz and was written by North American Correspondent Anthony Zurcher. “Trump picking Gaetz to head justice sends shockwaves – and a strong message.”

Donald Trump’s nomination of congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is Gaetz making most headlines. The Florida firebrand is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my bingo card.”

Gaetz is playing Rocky and is already running up and down the Capitol stairs trying to find the few people that like him.  But even the New York Post is taking on the RFK appointment to HHS.  I know, I can’t believe  I’m doing this.   It’s even it’s Editorial Board.  “Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine.”

The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm.

We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule.

Maybe he’s sworn to focus narrowly on areas where he clearly can help — inspiring Americans to embrace healthier diets and more exercise, etc.

I wonder where eating roadkill and fish laded with mercury comes into that equation?

But wait! There are reasons to question every one of his appointments.  This is from The Guardian.  “Trump defense secretary nominee involved in 2017 sexual assault investigation, no charges filed – report.”

Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump nominated to be defense secretary, was involved in a sexual assault investigation in California seven years ago, but no charges were filed against him, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The incident happened in 2017 at a hotel and golf course in the city of Monterey, but there were few details of how Hegseth was involved, or what happened. Here’s more, from the Chronicle:

In a brief statement late Thursday, the city manager’s office in Monterey confirmed the sexual assault investigation, but provided few details.

The city said the incident was reported to have happened between almost midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. the next morning at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, less than a mile from Monterey Bay and across Highway 1 from the Naval Postgraduate School.

“The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” the city said. It said the victim’s name was confidential and that the alleged assault was reported on Oct. 12, 2017. The city said no weapons were involved, but that there was a report of “contusions to right thigh.”

The city declined to release the police report, saying it was exempt from public disclosure, and said it would not make any further remarks on the probe.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did not reply to a request for comment late Thursday, but an online database indicated no criminal charges had been filed against Hegseth in that county.

Vanity Fair reports that news of the allegation sent Trump’s transition team scrambling over the past few days:

Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017.

According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.

On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

That guy puts the sleaze in sleazy.  Plus, he was investigated for war crimes and would be in charge of dealing with war criminals. This is from Time Magazine. “Pete Hegseth’s Role in Trump’s Controversial Pardons of Men Accused of War Crimes.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense in his second term has already stirred controversy.

Hegseth, a military veteran, staunch defender of Trump’s “America First” agenda, and an outspoken critic of what he calls the military’s “woke” culture, has built a career around challenging the military establishment. He held an influential role in advocating for Trump to intervene on behalf of service members in three cases involving war crime accusations in 2019—cases that divided the military and ignited fierce debates over the limits of executive power and military accountability.

Now, if he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, Hegseth will oversee 1.3 million active-duty service members and manage military strategy at a time of global instability, raising questions about how his past approach towards accused war criminals will impact his military leadership and discipline.

During Trump’s first term in office, Hegseth lobbied for the pardons of Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, and pushed to support Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, each of whom were facing charges or convictions related to alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth’s advocacy on behalf of the three service members appeared to pay off: in Nov. 2019, Trump granted pardons to Lorance and Golsteyn, and reversed a demotion of Gallagher, citing Hegseth and Fox News when he tweeted about his decision to review one of the cases.

Hegseth’s vocal defense of these men as victims of overzealous prosecution raised eyebrows in the military community, where such interventions by civilians are seen by some as a threat to the integrity of the justice system. “These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a job to defend us and made tough calls on a moment’s notice,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends in May 2019. “They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors.”

Lorance had been convicted by a military court in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan men during a military operation in 2012 in which he ordered his soldiers to open fire on a group of unarmed Afghan civilians he suspected of being insurgents. Lorance served six years of a 19-year sentence before Trump, after lobbying from Hegseth and others, granted him a pardon in Nov. 2019, arguing that he was unfairly targeted by military prosecutors and that his actions were justified in a combat environment where split-second decisions were often necessary for survival.

This is from Military.com. ‘He’s Going to Have to Explain It’: Surprise Defense Secretary Pick’s History Takes Center Stage.”

He has repeatedly called to ban women from serving in combat roles in the military.

He advocated extensively to gain pardons for troops accused and convicted of war crimes.

And he was one of a dozen troops turned away from serving on the National Guard mission to defend the Capitol, allegedly over tattoos that are popular with neo-Nazi and far-right groups.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise pick to be the next defense secretary, has an extensive history of combat in the culture wars that have been brewing over the military for the past decade.

Prior to Trump’s announcement Tuesday evening that he was nominating Hegseth, the National Guard veteran was most known as a co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox and Friends,” one of Trump’s favorite TV shows. But in choosing Hegseth, Trump landed on a defense secretary nominee with a record of public statements that line up with the promises Trump made on the campaign trail to root out alleged “wokeness” within the military.

Senators from both parties tasked with considering his nomination responded Wednesday by saying that they have a lot of questions about Hegseth’s history and those past statements, but broadly insisted they were reserving judgment.

“I’m going to have to visit with him about those remarks,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate’s first female combat veteran who was rumored to be in the running for Trump’s defense secretary, told reporters Wednesday when asked about Hegseth’s opposition to women in combat.

“Even a staff member of mine, she is an infantry officer. She’s back in Iowa now. She is a tumble. So he’s going to have to explain it,” Ernst added, though she did not answer when Military.com asked whether she would vote against Hegseth over the issue.

So, this is basically a band of misfits and less than mediocre wipipo.   But I’ll just let Muse tell it like it is.  Yes, there are a lot of f-bombs in the lyrics!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #MattGaetzWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RFKJrWeirdo #TrumpSCabinetPicksBandOfMisfits #WeAreFuckingFucked

Finally Friday Reads: We have a Kakistocracy* coming. Let’s not keep it!

“Make America Garbage Again,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

After sleeping through last week, I have finally decided that PTSD has kicked in, and I’m in survival mode.  At least I woke up to find the word that best describes what we’re watching unfold.  From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

*kakistocracy  noun

kak·​is·​toc·​ra·​cy ˌkakə̇ˈstäkrəsē

plural kakistocracies

:government by the worst people

Greek kakistos (superlative of kakos bad) + English -cracy

The Cambridge Dictionary is more blunt. It evidently was coined sometime in the 17th century.  Now we know how far we’re going to fall back.

A government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country:   Who rules in a kakistocracy?   We are living in a new era of kakistocracy.

  Fewer examples:

• Kakistocracies are governments ruled by the stupid and ignorant.
• What we have here is the world’s only kakistocracy.
• The total lack of integrity of the administration is proof that we now live in a kakistocracy.

 

This is what we will have after January 20,2025, which is, ironically enough, not only the inauguration of the first felon to ever hold office but also the holiday celebrating Martin Luther King.  Somewhere, the Greek Muses have entered the realm of Greek Tragedy.  All we need is a chorus.

I turned to some TV news last night to watch the faces of the political class chatter about the proposed cabinet members with the look of teenagers stuck in a summer camp horror film. Yes, this all does feel like a very bad movie or dream that you want to be over when you awaken. However, it is more like the idea of the tyranny of the masses that Alexis de Tocqueville dreamed of while writing his book Democracy in America. He was very afraid of the unwashed masses, and now we know why.

The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals. In Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, “Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument with a variety of well-chosen constitutional, historical, and sociological examples.

I love that last part because it comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a history class curriculum prepared for teachers on the topic.  Quick, go read it or get your copy of the book before both are banned and defunded. It’s an independent agency, like the Fed, and we’ll see how long into the kakistocracy that remains to be true for both.  I imagine I would never get grants to be funded as I did in 1982 to bring Kate Millet and Betty Friedan to Omaha and funds to expand our Women’s Festival to include black women presenters. That was even during the Reagan years.  He must have been damned woke or completely asleep, drooling on the Resolute desk to miss that opportunity.

“Matt is the man selected to hide all the criming, appropriate.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Okay, so let me really depress you now with some headlines. This is from Public Notice‘s Lisa Needham.  “Trump moves to burn down the rule of law. His cabinet nominations are obscene and augur dark days to come.”  And you thought I was being a bummer!

When the sordid history of the second Trump administration is written, should we all survive that long, it will be difficult to sort out which of his early cabinet picks were the most atrocious. And while handing over control of the military to a weekend Fox News host or putting an anti-vax creep in charge of America’s top public health agency are really bad, it will be hard to sink lower than Matt Gaetz being nominated as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Let’s pretend, for just a moment, that Gaetz isn’t just being given this job because he’s a lib-triggering Trump crony and evaluate him on the merits. Gaetz’s legal experience, such as it is, seems to consist of a stint at a small firm in Florida, Anchors Garden, where he worked after graduating from law school in 2007. The firm currently has only nine attorneys, and Gaetz devotes precisely one line to the experience in his self-servingly weird House bio, saying, “Prior to serving in Congress, Matt worked as an attorney in Northwest Florida with the Keefe, Anchors & Gordon law firm, where he advocated for a more open and transparent government.”

Advocating for a more open and transparent government sounds pretty important, right? But while the firm does have a government affairs and public records practice, when Mother Jones did a deep dive into Gaetz’s experience there, what they turned up instead was that he working on things like debt collection and representing a homeowners’ association over a dispute about a beach volleyball net. It isn’t even entirely clear when Gaetz stopped working at the firm. His House bio skips ahead to his 2010 election to the Florida House, and his legal work is never mentioned again.

This is not the biography of someone you would hire to be an assistant district attorney in a mid-size American city, much less the head of the entire Department of Justice.

Compare Gaetz to Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general pick during his previous term. Sure, Sessions was so racist that he couldn’t get confirmed as a judge. But he also spent 12 years as the US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and two years as the Alabama attorney general before being elected to four consecutive Senate terms. During his time in the Senate, he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, becoming its ranking member in 2009. Sessions was a repulsive and retrograde choice for AG, but he wasn’t a demonstrably unqualified one.

That’s a sunny note to start your weekend on. Wait, there’s more!  If you want to see real pearl-clutching, you must go to WAPO or NYT.  But they’re a  little too late for me.  Here’s something from The Bulwark. I’ve suddenly gone all in for the alt-press like I did in 1970 when I started writing for Omaha’s underground Newspaper, The Aardvark, to write terrible things about Richard Nixon. “Gaetz Begins Lobbying Lawmakers, Hoping He Hasn’t Burned All the Bridges/ The congressman and his team are trying to convince Senators to overlook a potentially damning ethics report and his history of political histrionics.” This analysis is coauthored by Mark Caputo and Joe Perticone.

Though Trump has made a slew of controversial picks (the latest being Thursday’s nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services), Gaetz stands out as a singularly polarizing figure because of the investigations into his conduct, the accusations against him, and his strained personal relationship with fellow Republican members of Congress he has torched, including allies of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, whose ouster he masterminded.

“We have 53 senators and we might not have 50 votes to confirm right now. It’s really up in the air,” said a member of Trump’s team briefed on its preliminary vote-counting. “Gaetz can be a real asshole. But he can be a great guy. The senators need to see the great guy and kind of hear the asshole apologize and tell them why all this stuff about sex crimes isn’t true.”

The push to confirm Gaetz is the latest test of his ability to survive crises that would have ruined any other politician. It also will provide an early indication of Trump’s ability to bend the Senate to his will. The president-elect has quickly moved to force votes on high-profile nominees that no other person in his position would have dared put forward. And as a fallback, he is pressuring incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune into giving him the right to bypass the Senate to make temporary appointments.

Doing so would get Trump’s cabinet in place. But it could come at a political cost if it perceived that the president is jamming through highly-controversial nominees. On Thursday, ABC reported that the woman at the center of the sex-crimes case had told House investigators that Gaetz had paid to have sex with her in 2017 when she was a minor. Gaetz was also allegedly implicated in paying other women for sex, which he has denied, and in illicit drug use.

The succession of nominations and reporting left Republican senators in an uncomfortable spot. Some, including those on the Senate Judiciary Committee—which would first vote on Gaetz’s nomination—said they wanted to see the House ethics report into Gaetz.

A quick look at several of the appointments finds quite a few rapists and serial adulterers. Trump obviously wants mini-mes.  The BBC has this list up to date and is waiting for more. “Who has joined Trump’s team so far?”  Some of the appointees are not getting sanguine coverage.’

This article is specific to Gaetz and was written by North American Correspondent Anthony Zurcher. “Trump picking Gaetz to head justice sends shockwaves – and a strong message.”

Donald Trump’s nomination of congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general has arrived like a thunderclap in Washington.

Of all the president-elect’s picks for his administration so far, this is easily the most controversial – and sends a clear message that Trump intends to shake up the establishment when he returns to power.

The shockwaves were still being felt on Thursday morning as focus shifted to a looming fight in the Senate over his nomination.

Trump is assembling his team before he begins his term on 20 January, and his choice of defence secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and intelligence chief, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, have also raised eyebrows.

But it is Gaetz making most headlines. The Florida firebrand is perhaps best known for spearheading the effort to unseat then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last year. But he has a history of being a flamethrower in the staid halls of Congress.

In 2018, he brought a right-wing Holocaust denier to the State of the Union, and later tried to expel two fathers who lost children in a mass shooting from a hearing after they objected to a claim he made about gun control.

His bombastic approach means he has no shortage of enemies, including within his own party. And so Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too – his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned.

Gasps were heard during a meeting of Republican lawmakers when the nomination for America’s top US prosecutor was announced, Axios reported, citing sources in the room.

Republican congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho reportedly responded with an expletive.

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski said. “This one was not on my bingo card.”

Gaetz is playing Rocky and is already running up and down the Capitol stairs trying to find the few people that like him.  But even the New York Post is taking on the RFK appointment to HHS.  I know, I can’t believe  I’m doing this.   It’s even it’s Editorial Board.  “Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine.”

The overriding rule of medicine is: First, do no harm.

We’re certain installing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services breaks this rule.

Maybe he’s sworn to focus narrowly on areas where he clearly can help — inspiring Americans to embrace healthier diets and more exercise, etc.

I wonder where eating roadkill and fish laded with mercury comes into that equation?

But wait! There are reasons to question every one of his appointments.  This is from The Guardian.  “Trump defense secretary nominee involved in 2017 sexual assault investigation, no charges filed – report.”

Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who Donald Trump nominated to be defense secretary, was involved in a sexual assault investigation in California seven years ago, but no charges were filed against him, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The incident happened in 2017 at a hotel and golf course in the city of Monterey, but there were few details of how Hegseth was involved, or what happened. Here’s more, from the Chronicle:

In a brief statement late Thursday, the city manager’s office in Monterey confirmed the sexual assault investigation, but provided few details.

The city said the incident was reported to have happened between almost midnight on Oct. 7, 2017, and 7 a.m. the next morning at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course, less than a mile from Monterey Bay and across Highway 1 from the Naval Postgraduate School.

“The Monterey Police Department investigated an alleged sexual assault at 1 Old Golf Course Road,” the city said. It said the victim’s name was confidential and that the alleged assault was reported on Oct. 12, 2017. The city said no weapons were involved, but that there was a report of “contusions to right thigh.”

The city declined to release the police report, saying it was exempt from public disclosure, and said it would not make any further remarks on the probe.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did not reply to a request for comment late Thursday, but an online database indicated no criminal charges had been filed against Hegseth in that county.

Vanity Fair reports that news of the allegation sent Trump’s transition team scrambling over the past few days:

Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017.

According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.

On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

That guy puts the sleaze in sleazy.  Plus, he was investigated for war crimes and would be in charge of dealing with war criminals. This is from Time Magazine. “Pete Hegseth’s Role in Trump’s Controversial Pardons of Men Accused of War Crimes.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense in his second term has already stirred controversy.

Hegseth, a military veteran, staunch defender of Trump’s “America First” agenda, and an outspoken critic of what he calls the military’s “woke” culture, has built a career around challenging the military establishment. He held an influential role in advocating for Trump to intervene on behalf of service members in three cases involving war crime accusations in 2019—cases that divided the military and ignited fierce debates over the limits of executive power and military accountability.

Now, if he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, Hegseth will oversee 1.3 million active-duty service members and manage military strategy at a time of global instability, raising questions about how his past approach towards accused war criminals will impact his military leadership and discipline.

During Trump’s first term in office, Hegseth lobbied for the pardons of Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, and pushed to support Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, each of whom were facing charges or convictions related to alleged war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth’s advocacy on behalf of the three service members appeared to pay off: in Nov. 2019, Trump granted pardons to Lorance and Golsteyn, and reversed a demotion of Gallagher, citing Hegseth and Fox News when he tweeted about his decision to review one of the cases.

Hegseth’s vocal defense of these men as victims of overzealous prosecution raised eyebrows in the military community, where such interventions by civilians are seen by some as a threat to the integrity of the justice system. “These are men who went into the most dangerous places on earth with a job to defend us and made tough calls on a moment’s notice,” Hegseth said on Fox & Friends in May 2019. “They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors.”

Lorance had been convicted by a military court in 2013 for the murder of two Afghan men during a military operation in 2012 in which he ordered his soldiers to open fire on a group of unarmed Afghan civilians he suspected of being insurgents. Lorance served six years of a 19-year sentence before Trump, after lobbying from Hegseth and others, granted him a pardon in Nov. 2019, arguing that he was unfairly targeted by military prosecutors and that his actions were justified in a combat environment where split-second decisions were often necessary for survival.

This is from Military.com. ‘He’s Going to Have to Explain It’: Surprise Defense Secretary Pick’s History Takes Center Stage.”

He has repeatedly called to ban women from serving in combat roles in the military.

He advocated extensively to gain pardons for troops accused and convicted of war crimes.

And he was one of a dozen troops turned away from serving on the National Guard mission to defend the Capitol, allegedly over tattoos that are popular with neo-Nazi and far-right groups.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s surprise pick to be the next defense secretary, has an extensive history of combat in the culture wars that have been brewing over the military for the past decade.

Prior to Trump’s announcement Tuesday evening that he was nominating Hegseth, the National Guard veteran was most known as a co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox and Friends,” one of Trump’s favorite TV shows. But in choosing Hegseth, Trump landed on a defense secretary nominee with a record of public statements that line up with the promises Trump made on the campaign trail to root out alleged “wokeness” within the military.

Senators from both parties tasked with considering his nomination responded Wednesday by saying that they have a lot of questions about Hegseth’s history and those past statements, but broadly insisted they were reserving judgment.

“I’m going to have to visit with him about those remarks,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate’s first female combat veteran who was rumored to be in the running for Trump’s defense secretary, told reporters Wednesday when asked about Hegseth’s opposition to women in combat.

“Even a staff member of mine, she is an infantry officer. She’s back in Iowa now. She is a tumble. So he’s going to have to explain it,” Ernst added, though she did not answer when Military.com asked whether she would vote against Hegseth over the issue.

So, this is basically a band of misfits and less than mediocre wipipo.   But I’ll just let Muse tell it like it is.  Yes, there are a lot of f-bombs in the lyrics!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #MattGaetzWeirdo #PeteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #RFKJrWeirdo #TrumpSCabinetPicksBandOfMisfits #WeAreFuckingFucked

“They’re back…”, John Buss, @repeat1968

Hello, Dear Sky Dancers!

Farewell, Cruel X!  You will not locate Sky Dancing, JJ, or me on that site.  The accounts have been deleted.  We’re shifting to our Blue Sky Accounts. We set them up about a year ago, but it’s more promising now that Jack Dorsey is gone. The CEO is a woman, Jay Graber. It’s also a Public Benefit Corporation. I feel better about it. It’s also open source. There seems to be quite the exodus to that site.  Most of the journos I follow have headed there with the note they will only be posting publications on what I hope will become the Zombie site. We’ve also seen an uptick from our neighbors in the Fediverse.  The blog is there and active.  JJ and I also maintain an active presence there. You have alternatives. Now is a good time to check them out.

Our election sent another “shot heard round the world” and not in a particularly promising way.  This is from CNN. “Eyeing Trump support, Israeli minister pushes for West Bank settlement annexation.”  

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, who is in charge of the settlements, said on Monday that he had instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty.”

It is unclear whether his long-standing desire to apply full Israeli law in West Bank settlements has any chance of being implemented soon. His announcement was likely motivated in large part by staking out political ground in Israel’s fractious domestic politics.

Still, his announcement drew swift condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, whose foreign affairs ministry characterized such comments as “a blatantly colonial and racist extension of the ongoing campaign of extermination and forced displacement against the Palestinian people.”

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority’s presidency, said the comments confirmed “the Israeli government’s intention to finalize its plans for taking control of the West Bank by 2025” and said he held both the “Israeli occupation authorities” and the US administration responsible for allowing Israel to “persist in its crimes, aggression and defiance of international legitimacy and international law.”

Smotrich told the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, that US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US election “brings an important opportunity for the State of Israel.”

Young girl, a French Resistance fighter. 20 August 1944. © AP Photo

I am pretty certain that many in the Jewish community here and in Israel itself do not support this.  But, this election is like Pandora’s box.  It will release things we are really not prepared for.  Also, in the news is something we’ve all been dreading. This is also from CNN.  It is reported by Alayna Treene. “Trump expected to announce Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy.”

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to announce in the coming days that Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser, will serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Trump and was his lead speechwriter during his first administration, has been a leading advocate for a more restrictive immigration policy and is expected to take on an expanded role in the president-elect’s second term. He’s been closely involved in Trump’s transition process and will have a key role in future staffing decisions. During the campaign, he frequently traveled to rallies with Trump on his private plane and was increasingly visible as a speaker at events in recent months.

Miller is also a lead architect of the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He has said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the number of deportations to more than 1 million per year. In an interview on Fox News last week, Miller expressed eagerness at the prospect of beginning mass deportations as soon as possible.

“They begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office,” he said.

Asked about the expected announcement, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN, “President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon. Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

A longtime hardliner on immigration, Miller was instrumental in setting up immigration restrictions during the first Trump administration, advocating for child separation in migrant detention facilities and a travel ban targeting people from majority-Muslim countries.

After Trump left office, Miller started an advisory group called America First Legal, which went on to contribute to Project 2025, the sweeping conservative blueprint for the next Republican president created by the Heritage Foundation. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, claiming that he had no idea who was behind it, despite its close ties to Miller and other crucial figures in Trump’s orbit.

In an interview with The New York Times last year, Miller said that under a second Trump term, the military would build detention centers to house immigrants who have been arrested and are facing deportation. The new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border,” he told The Times.

Miller told The Times that Trump’s immigration plans are being designed to avoid having to create new substantial legislation. During Trump’s first term, he relied heavily on executive orders to implement immigration policy. Many of those moves were challenged in the courts, something Miller acknowledged would likely happen again in a second Trump term.

In his comments last year, Miller was up-front about his belief that Trump would not hesitate to implement harsh immigration measures in a second term.

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller said at the time.

French refugees living in the quarries, 26 July 1944. © AP Photo

I’m glad I’m teaching from home these days because I would hate to work for some place where this happens. “Trump ‘border czar’ says administration will conduct workplace immigration raids.”   It’s written at The Hill by Rafael Bernal.

Incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said Monday that President-elect Trump’s administration will crank up workplace raids as part of its broader immigration crackdown.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends,” the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said workplace raids would address labor and sex trafficking.

“Where do we find most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? At worksites,” Homan told Steve Doocy.

But advocates say that approach is unlikely to help combat trafficking.

“He’s conflating the traffickers with the people being trafficked,” said Heidi Altman, director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center.

“Tom Homan is skilled at using public safety rhetoric to justify vicious tactics that tear families apart.”

Homan, an early proponent of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents in the first Trump administration, said he will prioritize “public safety threats and national security threats” for deportation as border czar.

But Homan said foreign nationals with orders of deportation “became a fugitive,” suggesting immigrants without criminal records but with final orders of deportation would be high on the list of deportation priorities.

There’s more information about this piece of shit human being at CBS. “What to know about Tom Homan, Trump’s new “border czar”.”

Between 1940 and 1944, 6,700 women were deported from occupied France, the vast majority of them Resistance members ,

None of this will not be pretty.  The Guardian has more details on the plans for the Justice Department. It also has other appalling bits and pieces come out of all the secret machinations going on in Southern Florida updating live as they become available

Conservative attorney Mark Paoletta, who is helping plan Donald Trump’s transition, warned lawyers at the justice department that those who refuse to work on advancing Trump’s agenda should resign or risk being fired.

Paoletta, in a post on X responding to a Politico story on widespread fear among the DoJ, wrote:

“Once the decision is made to move forward, career employees are required to implement the President’s plan.”

Lawrence Tribe–speaking to Ali Velshi on MSNBC–has this to say. 

Unlike the sudden slide into authoritarianism seen in other countries, the United States benefits from a decentralized government that can serve as a strong counterweight to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. It’s within this space — the system of checks and balances — that the resistance will emerge, argues Harvard’s Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the foremost constitutional law experts in the country. The Constitution is not just a “remarkable piece of prose,” says Tribe, and he underscores the prominent role that state legislatures will play in resisting Trump. Civil society, like journalists and educators, will also play a crucial role in creating a cultural-political resistance to any attempts to erase democratic norms. “It’s not over,” says Tribe. “We are about to see all of the institutions activated in a way that we haven’t had to see before.” The law is “an area where reality bites,” says Tribe.

The thing that worries me most is what happens when anything hits the Roberts court. Pema Levy–writing for Mother Jones–has this to say.  “How John Roberts Brought Back Donald Trump. The Supreme Court empowered billionaires, blocked voters, and ran interference.”

There will be endless ink spilled over the 2024 election, trying to sort out the overlapping reasons why the world’s oldest democracy placed its fate in the hands of a would-be strongman who promises to dismantle democratic norms. There are many culprits—rising costs, raw white supremacy—but among them, let’s not forget the role of Chief Justice John Roberts and the US Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has become a major force in American politics in recent years. Increasingly, it has stepped in not just to decide questions of legal importance, but to resolve heated partisan disputes. From abortion and gun rights to gerrymandering and voting rights, the justices have become the arbiters of our toughest political questions. This wasn’t a sudden change, though it has accelerated in the last four years, leaving Americans as the proverbial frog in the pot. The water is now boiling.

Why Americans chose a demagogue to helm their democracy may be partially explained by the fact that, in many ways, the United States isn’t a democracy any longer—and in many ways, that’s thanks to the Roberts court. Our system was never perfect; on a basic level, the US only became a democracy in 1965 when it finally gave all Black people the right to vote.

But for nearly two decades, Roberts and his colleagues have done immense damage to the underpinnings of the democracy Americans painstakingly built. They have reallocated political power from ordinary citizens to billionaires, worsened congressional paralysis, and transformed many elections into meaningless exercises. If you are looking to explain why America picked Trump, you could do worse than look to these five Roberts-era Supreme Court cases that weakened our democracy and faith in government. After all, voters seem to have decided that when there’s so little to protect, there’s much less to lose.

Young Maquisade South of France Getty Images

Levy looks at the major decisions recently that did this to it and it’s worth look into the detail of decisions like Citizens’ United, Shelby County, Rucho v. Common Cause, Biden v. Nebraska, and Trump v. United States in particular.  Read about these decisions in the link above.  More horrid appointments are coming.  “Trump chooses Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, a staunch defender of Israel, is the president-elect’s first Cabinet pick for his second term.”  All of this makes me wonder what some of his voters were thinking about.  This comes from NBC news.   I have to mention that I cannot watch anything on tv with moving pictures and sound.  It’s all too nightmarish.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped House Republican Conference chair and longtime ally Rep. Elise Stefanik, of New York, to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, a Trump transition official confirmed to NBC News on Monday.

Stefanik is Trump’s first Cabinet pick for his second term in the White House.

“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement.

The news was first reported by CNN. NBC News has reached out to Stefanik’s office for comment.

Stefanik, 40, has been a staunch defender of Israel in its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and has been outspoken over the last year about antisemitism on college campuses. A day before last week’s election, Stefanik reiterated her call for the defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East because she alleges it has been infiltrated by Hamas.

Israel has accused staff members of the organization of participating in the Oct. 7 terror attacks, prompting it to fire at least 10 people. Israel’s parliament voted in late October to ban the organization’s operations.

French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin; women of the Maquis; Greek partisans.

I’m just waiting for them all to don brownshirt uniforms in solidarity with the historical NAZIs.  HuffPo has this reaction from Ruth Ben-Giat, an expert on facism. “Authoritarianism Expert Shatters A Trump ‘Illusion’: ‘One Of The Biggest Scams Of All’. Ruth Ben-Ghiat said this reason for voting for Trump would have “very sad” consequences.” This is reported by Lee Moran.

Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat spoke on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” about one particular appeal that President-elect Donald Trump had for some voters that resulted in his decisive 2024 election victory ― and how the “illusion of competency” is “one of the biggest scams of all” of authoritarian leaders.

Many people “would like to be relieved of the burden of choice” when it comes to voting in elections, and that is what Trump promised during the campaign to evangelical Christians, Ben-Ghiat noted.

“They are not afraid of being relieved of that burden of choice and letting somebody else make the decisions,” she explained. “And so, in fact, often authoritarian personalities who are like the big boss at home or in the workplace, the bullies, they are the ones who are glad in the political ground to give up their agency and voice to somebody else.”

Trump promised voters that “I alone can fix it,” Ben-Ghiat recalled.

“This is reassuring to some people,” she continued, calling it “very sad” because, throughout history, people have all eventually discovered “that this brought disaster upon the country.”

“The illusion of competency is very important,” she added. “That’s why they’re going to put their trust in him to solve their problems because they think he’s competent. And that’s one of the biggest scams of all.”

Great Lady Of The Resistance: Yvette Lundy
Codename: Possum. Yvette Lundy was a French schoolteacher and resistance fighter who saved Jewish families and survived two Nazi concentration camps.

This analysis from Richard Seymor at The Guardian reminds us that the US isn’t the only country looking towards its hard right. “Far-right leaders are winning across the globe. Blaming ‘the economy’ or ‘the left-behinds’ won’t cut it. The economy matters, but the likes of Trump succeed by offering voters revenge for problems both real and imagined”  I always felt there was something else.

Donald Trump, for the first time, won a majority of the popular vote. He took the US presidency with huge swings in his favour, increasing his share of first-time voters, young voters, black voters and Latino voters. And he gained among voters earning under $100,000, while wealthier voters preferred Harris – a reversal of the class alignments in 2020. Current voting tallies suggest the swing to the Republicans was largely caused by mass abstention among Democrat voters. This result echoes global trends. Trump and his new coalition will now head a loose alliance of far-right governments from India to Hungary, Italy, the Philippines, Argentina, the Netherlands and Israel.

The rhythm of far-right successes began with Viktor Orbán’s landslide in Hungary’s 2010 parliamentary election. Since Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2014 Indian general election, it has scarcely paused: Trump’s first ascent to the White House, the Brexit vote and Rodrigo Duterte’s success in the Philippines all took place in 2016. Two years later, Jair Bolsonaro scored an upset in Brazil. Since the pandemic, the Brothers of Italy won the Italian general election in 2022 and Javier Milei took the Argentinian presidency in 2023. For most of this period, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud has ruled Israel in coalition with far-right parties. Even where it is not in power, the far right is gaining, as in France and Germany. In the long view, the defeat of Trump in 2020 and Bolsonaro in 2022 were predictable oscillations in a general pattern of ascent.

Why does the far right keep winning? Is it “the economy, stupid”, as James Carville put it during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run? The idea that far-right voting reflects a protest by the economically “left behind” is quite popular.

There is a kernel of truth to this: the state of the economy was the single biggest motive for Trump voters in 2024. Liberals, snarking about the “vibecession” – the mistaken belief by the public that the economy is in recession – say GDP is growing and inflation is modest at 2.4%. But headline figures don’t reflect how most people experience the economy. Prices are 20% higher than before the pandemic and, more importantly, prices for essentials such as food are up 28%. Household debt was a major stress factor. Biden also cut a raft of popular benefits established during the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, most people don’t believe the headline figures.

Yet this narrative barely scratches the surface. First, the evidence suggests that people don’t always vote with their wallets: studies from the 20th century up to the present show that simple measures of economic self-interest aren’t a very good predictor of voting behaviour. The economy matters, of course, but not as a simple metric of aggregate wellbeing. It is a space in which people judge their personal standing relative to how they perceive the state of society. Personal setbacks are generally only politicised when they are perceived as part of a wider crisis. Second, while the far right can’t win without gaining some working-class support, in the US, Brazil, India and the Philippines, it relies on a bedrock of middle-class support. Besides, millions regularly have their economic lives wrecked without going far right: the poorest in most societies generally aren’t very susceptible to their message. Third, in strictly material terms the economic offer of today’s far right is paltry, yet incumbency has been incredibly forgiving for nationalist governments.

In India, after average consumer expenditure fell, Modi was re-elected in 2019 with a 6% swing. In the Philippines, as the number of “poor” Filipinos surged, Duterte’s successor Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr won 58% of the vote in 2022 – an increase of almost 20 points. Even in defeat, they do surprisingly well. Average incomes rose more slowly under Trump than his predecessor, yet he added 10 million voters to his base in 2020. And if people voted with their wallets, why would many working-class Americans back a candidate committed to cutting taxes for the rich?

The political effects of economic misery are more indirect than “It’s the economy, stupid” implies. Economic shocks are mediated by the existing emotional currents in society. The middle-class and more affluent workers can identify with the rich and resent the poor, migrants and “spongers” who threaten their lifestyle. Mostly resentment results in impotent complaint. Hit by shocks, most people are ill-placed to confront their causes and tend to withdraw from politics.

Today’s far right offers a different answer – what the political theorist William Connolly calls a “politics of existential revenge”. It replaces real disasters with imaginary disasters. Trump warns of “communist” takeover and amplifies the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. His supporters rail against “white genocide” and satanic child-molesting elites. Instead of opposing injustice, they vilify those who threaten social hierarchies like class, race and gender. Instead of confronting systems, they give you enemies you can kill. This is disaster nationalism.

It runs deeper than elections. Rising from the cauldrons of cyberfascism, “lone wolf” murders have increased since 2010. Pogroms have erupted in Delhi and the West Bank. In the US, vigilantes attacked Black Lives Matter protesters. Britain and Ireland have been shaken by racist riots. And in recent years, there have been bungled “insurrections” such as the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021 and the trucker blockades intended to block Lula’s accession to power in Brazil.

This is a global social contagion. And far from being discredited by outbursts of collective violence, the new far right is galvanised by it. Modi’s rise to power began with an anti-Muslim pogrom in his home state of Gujarat. Trump’s 2020 campaign was electrified by vigilante violence. Bolsonaro came from nearly 20 points behind to almost winning after a summer of deadly violence.

There’s more at the link.

So, that’s about all I can take today. I’ve been hibernating like a bear these last few days.  I can’t decide if I like the reality of my dreams better than waking up to the reality in this reality or not.  We are not alone.

We need to do what we can to ensure this will not stand.

 

 

 

 

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/11/11/mostly-monday-reads-the-light-brigade/

#Repeat1968 #IsraelMilitaryTakeOverOfTheLeftBank #JohnBuss #massDeportation #TrumpSFrighteningAppointments #ViveLaRésistance

“They’re back…”, John Buss, @repeat1968

Hello, Dear Sky Dancers!

Farewell, Cruel X!  You will not locate Sky Dancing, JJ, or me on that site.  The accounts have been deleted.  We’re shifting to our Blue Sky Accounts. We set them up about a year ago, but it’s more promising now that Jack Dorsey is gone. The CEO is a woman, Jay Graber. It’s also a Public Benefit Corporation. I feel better about it. It’s also open source. There seems to be quite the exodus to that site.  Most of the journos I follow have headed there with the note they will only be posting publications on what I hope will become the Zombie site. We’ve also seen an uptick from our neighbors in the Fediverse.  The blog is there and active.  JJ and I also maintain an active presence there. You have alternatives. Now is a good time to check them out.

Our election sent another “shot heard round the world” and not in a particularly promising way.  This is from CNN. “Eyeing Trump support, Israeli minister pushes for West Bank settlement annexation.”  

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, who is in charge of the settlements, said on Monday that he had instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty.”

It is unclear whether his long-standing desire to apply full Israeli law in West Bank settlements has any chance of being implemented soon. His announcement was likely motivated in large part by staking out political ground in Israel’s fractious domestic politics.

Still, his announcement drew swift condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, whose foreign affairs ministry characterized such comments as “a blatantly colonial and racist extension of the ongoing campaign of extermination and forced displacement against the Palestinian people.”

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority’s presidency, said the comments confirmed “the Israeli government’s intention to finalize its plans for taking control of the West Bank by 2025” and said he held both the “Israeli occupation authorities” and the US administration responsible for allowing Israel to “persist in its crimes, aggression and defiance of international legitimacy and international law.”

Smotrich told the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, that US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US election “brings an important opportunity for the State of Israel.”

Young girl, a French Resistance fighter. 20 August 1944. © AP Photo

I am pretty certain that many in the Jewish community here and in Israel itself do not support this.  But, this election is like Pandora’s box.  It will release things we are really not prepared for.  Also, in the news is something we’ve all been dreading. This is also from CNN.  It is reported by Alayna Treene. “Trump expected to announce Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy.”

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to announce in the coming days that Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser, will serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Trump and was his lead speechwriter during his first administration, has been a leading advocate for a more restrictive immigration policy and is expected to take on an expanded role in the president-elect’s second term. He’s been closely involved in Trump’s transition process and will have a key role in future staffing decisions. During the campaign, he frequently traveled to rallies with Trump on his private plane and was increasingly visible as a speaker at events in recent months.

Miller is also a lead architect of the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He has said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the number of deportations to more than 1 million per year. In an interview on Fox News last week, Miller expressed eagerness at the prospect of beginning mass deportations as soon as possible.

“They begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office,” he said.

Asked about the expected announcement, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN, “President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon. Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

A longtime hardliner on immigration, Miller was instrumental in setting up immigration restrictions during the first Trump administration, advocating for child separation in migrant detention facilities and a travel ban targeting people from majority-Muslim countries.

After Trump left office, Miller started an advisory group called America First Legal, which went on to contribute to Project 2025, the sweeping conservative blueprint for the next Republican president created by the Heritage Foundation. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, claiming that he had no idea who was behind it, despite its close ties to Miller and other crucial figures in Trump’s orbit.

In an interview with The New York Times last year, Miller said that under a second Trump term, the military would build detention centers to house immigrants who have been arrested and are facing deportation. The new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border,” he told The Times.

Miller told The Times that Trump’s immigration plans are being designed to avoid having to create new substantial legislation. During Trump’s first term, he relied heavily on executive orders to implement immigration policy. Many of those moves were challenged in the courts, something Miller acknowledged would likely happen again in a second Trump term.

In his comments last year, Miller was up-front about his belief that Trump would not hesitate to implement harsh immigration measures in a second term.

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller said at the time.

French refugees living in the quarries, 26 July 1944. © AP Photo

I’m glad I’m teaching from home these days because I would hate to work for some place where this happens. “Trump ‘border czar’ says administration will conduct workplace immigration raids.”   It’s written at The Hill by Rafael Bernal.

Incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said Monday that President-elect Trump’s administration will crank up workplace raids as part of its broader immigration crackdown.

Speaking on “Fox & Friends,” the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said workplace raids would address labor and sex trafficking.

“Where do we find most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? At worksites,” Homan told Steve Doocy.

But advocates say that approach is unlikely to help combat trafficking.

“He’s conflating the traffickers with the people being trafficked,” said Heidi Altman, director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center.

“Tom Homan is skilled at using public safety rhetoric to justify vicious tactics that tear families apart.”

Homan, an early proponent of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents in the first Trump administration, said he will prioritize “public safety threats and national security threats” for deportation as border czar.

But Homan said foreign nationals with orders of deportation “became a fugitive,” suggesting immigrants without criminal records but with final orders of deportation would be high on the list of deportation priorities.

There’s more information about this piece of shit human being at CBS. “What to know about Tom Homan, Trump’s new “border czar”.”

Between 1940 and 1944, 6,700 women were deported from occupied France, the vast majority of them Resistance members ,

None of this will not be pretty.  The Guardian has more details on the plans for the Justice Department. It also has other appalling bits and pieces come out of all the secret machinations going on in Southern Florida updating live as they become available

Conservative attorney Mark Paoletta, who is helping plan Donald Trump’s transition, warned lawyers at the justice department that those who refuse to work on advancing Trump’s agenda should resign or risk being fired.

Paoletta, in a post on X responding to a Politico story on widespread fear among the DoJ, wrote:

“Once the decision is made to move forward, career employees are required to implement the President’s plan.”

Lawrence Tribe–speaking to Ali Velshi on MSNBC–has this to say. 

Unlike the sudden slide into authoritarianism seen in other countries, the United States benefits from a decentralized government that can serve as a strong counterweight to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. It’s within this space — the system of checks and balances — that the resistance will emerge, argues Harvard’s Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the foremost constitutional law experts in the country. The Constitution is not just a “remarkable piece of prose,” says Tribe, and he underscores the prominent role that state legislatures will play in resisting Trump. Civil society, like journalists and educators, will also play a crucial role in creating a cultural-political resistance to any attempts to erase democratic norms. “It’s not over,” says Tribe. “We are about to see all of the institutions activated in a way that we haven’t had to see before.” The law is “an area where reality bites,” says Tribe.

The thing that worries me most is what happens when anything hits the Roberts court. Pema Levy–writing for Mother Jones–has this to say.  “How John Roberts Brought Back Donald Trump. The Supreme Court empowered billionaires, blocked voters, and ran interference.”

There will be endless ink spilled over the 2024 election, trying to sort out the overlapping reasons why the world’s oldest democracy placed its fate in the hands of a would-be strongman who promises to dismantle democratic norms. There are many culprits—rising costs, raw white supremacy—but among them, let’s not forget the role of Chief Justice John Roberts and the US Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has become a major force in American politics in recent years. Increasingly, it has stepped in not just to decide questions of legal importance, but to resolve heated partisan disputes. From abortion and gun rights to gerrymandering and voting rights, the justices have become the arbiters of our toughest political questions. This wasn’t a sudden change, though it has accelerated in the last four years, leaving Americans as the proverbial frog in the pot. The water is now boiling.

Why Americans chose a demagogue to helm their democracy may be partially explained by the fact that, in many ways, the United States isn’t a democracy any longer—and in many ways, that’s thanks to the Roberts court. Our system was never perfect; on a basic level, the US only became a democracy in 1965 when it finally gave all Black people the right to vote.

But for nearly two decades, Roberts and his colleagues have done immense damage to the underpinnings of the democracy Americans painstakingly built. They have reallocated political power from ordinary citizens to billionaires, worsened congressional paralysis, and transformed many elections into meaningless exercises. If you are looking to explain why America picked Trump, you could do worse than look to these five Roberts-era Supreme Court cases that weakened our democracy and faith in government. After all, voters seem to have decided that when there’s so little to protect, there’s much less to lose.

Young Maquisade South of France Getty Images

Levy looks at the major decisions recently that did this to it and it’s worth look into the detail of decisions like Citizens’ United, Shelby County, Rucho v. Common Cause, Biden v. Nebraska, and Trump v. United States in particular.  Read about these decisions in the link above.  More horrid appointments are coming.  “Trump chooses Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, a staunch defender of Israel, is the president-elect’s first Cabinet pick for his second term.”  All of this makes me wonder what some of his voters were thinking about.  This comes from NBC news.   I have to mention that I cannot watch anything on tv with moving pictures and sound.  It’s all too nightmarish.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped House Republican Conference chair and longtime ally Rep. Elise Stefanik, of New York, to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, a Trump transition official confirmed to NBC News on Monday.

Stefanik is Trump’s first Cabinet pick for his second term in the White House.

“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement.

The news was first reported by CNN. NBC News has reached out to Stefanik’s office for comment.

Stefanik, 40, has been a staunch defender of Israel in its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and has been outspoken over the last year about antisemitism on college campuses. A day before last week’s election, Stefanik reiterated her call for the defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East because she alleges it has been infiltrated by Hamas.

Israel has accused staff members of the organization of participating in the Oct. 7 terror attacks, prompting it to fire at least 10 people. Israel’s parliament voted in late October to ban the organization’s operations.

French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin; women of the Maquis; Greek partisans.

I’m just waiting for them all to don brownshirt uniforms in solidarity with the historical NAZIs.  HuffPo has this reaction from Ruth Ben-Giat, an expert on facism. “Authoritarianism Expert Shatters A Trump ‘Illusion’: ‘One Of The Biggest Scams Of All’. Ruth Ben-Ghiat said this reason for voting for Trump would have “very sad” consequences.” This is reported by Lee Moran.

Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat spoke on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” about one particular appeal that President-elect Donald Trump had for some voters that resulted in his decisive 2024 election victory ― and how the “illusion of competency” is “one of the biggest scams of all” of authoritarian leaders.

Many people “would like to be relieved of the burden of choice” when it comes to voting in elections, and that is what Trump promised during the campaign to evangelical Christians, Ben-Ghiat noted.

“They are not afraid of being relieved of that burden of choice and letting somebody else make the decisions,” she explained. “And so, in fact, often authoritarian personalities who are like the big boss at home or in the workplace, the bullies, they are the ones who are glad in the political ground to give up their agency and voice to somebody else.”

Trump promised voters that “I alone can fix it,” Ben-Ghiat recalled.

“This is reassuring to some people,” she continued, calling it “very sad” because, throughout history, people have all eventually discovered “that this brought disaster upon the country.”

“The illusion of competency is very important,” she added. “That’s why they’re going to put their trust in him to solve their problems because they think he’s competent. And that’s one of the biggest scams of all.”

Great Lady Of The Resistance: Yvette Lundy
Codename: Possum. Yvette Lundy was a French schoolteacher and resistance fighter who saved Jewish families and survived two Nazi concentration camps.

This analysis from Richard Seymor at The Guardian reminds us that the US isn’t the only country looking towards its hard right. “Far-right leaders are winning across the globe. Blaming ‘the economy’ or ‘the left-behinds’ won’t cut it. The economy matters, but the likes of Trump succeed by offering voters revenge for problems both real and imagined”  I always felt there was something else.

Donald Trump, for the first time, won a majority of the popular vote. He took the US presidency with huge swings in his favour, increasing his share of first-time voters, young voters, black voters and Latino voters. And he gained among voters earning under $100,000, while wealthier voters preferred Harris – a reversal of the class alignments in 2020. Current voting tallies suggest the swing to the Republicans was largely caused by mass abstention among Democrat voters. This result echoes global trends. Trump and his new coalition will now head a loose alliance of far-right governments from India to Hungary, Italy, the Philippines, Argentina, the Netherlands and Israel.

The rhythm of far-right successes began with Viktor Orbán’s landslide in Hungary’s 2010 parliamentary election. Since Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2014 Indian general election, it has scarcely paused: Trump’s first ascent to the White House, the Brexit vote and Rodrigo Duterte’s success in the Philippines all took place in 2016. Two years later, Jair Bolsonaro scored an upset in Brazil. Since the pandemic, the Brothers of Italy won the Italian general election in 2022 and Javier Milei took the Argentinian presidency in 2023. For most of this period, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud has ruled Israel in coalition with far-right parties. Even where it is not in power, the far right is gaining, as in France and Germany. In the long view, the defeat of Trump in 2020 and Bolsonaro in 2022 were predictable oscillations in a general pattern of ascent.

Why does the far right keep winning? Is it “the economy, stupid”, as James Carville put it during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run? The idea that far-right voting reflects a protest by the economically “left behind” is quite popular.

There is a kernel of truth to this: the state of the economy was the single biggest motive for Trump voters in 2024. Liberals, snarking about the “vibecession” – the mistaken belief by the public that the economy is in recession – say GDP is growing and inflation is modest at 2.4%. But headline figures don’t reflect how most people experience the economy. Prices are 20% higher than before the pandemic and, more importantly, prices for essentials such as food are up 28%. Household debt was a major stress factor. Biden also cut a raft of popular benefits established during the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, most people don’t believe the headline figures.

Yet this narrative barely scratches the surface. First, the evidence suggests that people don’t always vote with their wallets: studies from the 20th century up to the present show that simple measures of economic self-interest aren’t a very good predictor of voting behaviour. The economy matters, of course, but not as a simple metric of aggregate wellbeing. It is a space in which people judge their personal standing relative to how they perceive the state of society. Personal setbacks are generally only politicised when they are perceived as part of a wider crisis. Second, while the far right can’t win without gaining some working-class support, in the US, Brazil, India and the Philippines, it relies on a bedrock of middle-class support. Besides, millions regularly have their economic lives wrecked without going far right: the poorest in most societies generally aren’t very susceptible to their message. Third, in strictly material terms the economic offer of today’s far right is paltry, yet incumbency has been incredibly forgiving for nationalist governments.

In India, after average consumer expenditure fell, Modi was re-elected in 2019 with a 6% swing. In the Philippines, as the number of “poor” Filipinos surged, Duterte’s successor Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr won 58% of the vote in 2022 – an increase of almost 20 points. Even in defeat, they do surprisingly well. Average incomes rose more slowly under Trump than his predecessor, yet he added 10 million voters to his base in 2020. And if people voted with their wallets, why would many working-class Americans back a candidate committed to cutting taxes for the rich?

The political effects of economic misery are more indirect than “It’s the economy, stupid” implies. Economic shocks are mediated by the existing emotional currents in society. The middle-class and more affluent workers can identify with the rich and resent the poor, migrants and “spongers” who threaten their lifestyle. Mostly resentment results in impotent complaint. Hit by shocks, most people are ill-placed to confront their causes and tend to withdraw from politics.

Today’s far right offers a different answer – what the political theorist William Connolly calls a “politics of existential revenge”. It replaces real disasters with imaginary disasters. Trump warns of “communist” takeover and amplifies the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. His supporters rail against “white genocide” and satanic child-molesting elites. Instead of opposing injustice, they vilify those who threaten social hierarchies like class, race and gender. Instead of confronting systems, they give you enemies you can kill. This is disaster nationalism.

It runs deeper than elections. Rising from the cauldrons of cyberfascism, “lone wolf” murders have increased since 2010. Pogroms have erupted in Delhi and the West Bank. In the US, vigilantes attacked Black Lives Matter protesters. Britain and Ireland have been shaken by racist riots. And in recent years, there have been bungled “insurrections” such as the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021 and the trucker blockades intended to block Lula’s accession to power in Brazil.

This is a global social contagion. And far from being discredited by outbursts of collective violence, the new far right is galvanised by it. Modi’s rise to power began with an anti-Muslim pogrom in his home state of Gujarat. Trump’s 2020 campaign was electrified by vigilante violence. Bolsonaro came from nearly 20 points behind to almost winning after a summer of deadly violence.

There’s more at the link.

So, that’s about all I can take today. I’ve been hibernating like a bear these last few days.  I can’t decide if I like the reality of my dreams better than waking up to the reality in this reality or not.  We are not alone.

We need to do what we can to ensure this will not stand.

 

 

 

 

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/11/11/mostly-monday-reads-the-light-brigade/

#Repeat1968 #IsraelMilitaryTakeOverOfTheLeftBank #JohnBuss #massDeportation #TrumpSFrighteningAppointments #ViveLaRésistance

“The End Times are nigh. The Prodigal Son returns to Madison Square Garden.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I was lucky that working with students last night interfered with any attempt to turn on the Fascist Rally at the World’s Most Famous Arena. This wasn’t exactly Ali against Frazier or Holyfield vs Lewis. This was more like #DonOld vs the Majority of the country. The opening bouts were lame.

My short take on this is it was basically a Crazy Old Cult Leader warming his brood up for the Ultimate Kool-Aid moment.  Unfortunately, we previewed that on January 6, so I hope that law enforcement agencies are prepared. The Ultimate Chaos Agent is making his play for a coup

This brings me to this dangerous conspiracy theory making the rounds.  To think, I was simply walking the dog around the block!  I got told a conspiracy theory by a short-order cook at a local bar who has said crazy things before, so I thought I’d look into it to prove him wrong.   His favorite spiel is that the right wing and the left wing are the same, and the government is corrupt. Which is partially correct.  Look at Jill Stein and Robert Kennedy hooked up with the Fascists and Putin. If you take populism to its furthest corners of the right and the left, they eventually bump butts with each other.  However, the left wing and the right in the United States do not wield the same power, and they are not of equal size.  There’s no real leftist power in this country. The billionaire class has been funding the extreme right-wing for decades now, and it shows. Polls on issues show that most Americans agree on the major things.  The problem is that the political system does not play towards consensus.

This guy insisted the DOD is sneaking a policy to Congress to approve the use of military force on civilians. Now, if DJT was in power, I believe he’d try that, although it would take a lot more than a policy of the DOD or an act of Congress to amend the Constitution.  Even when I came back to show him the actual act to show him it says nothing of the kind, he insisted he’d read it, and that’s what he said. But when I invested it, I thought, wow, that looks like the will of the Ultimate Chaos Agent!

This link leads to DOD DIRECTIVE 5240.01 (DOD INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE-RELATED ACTIVITIES, AND DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE COMPONENT, ASSISTANCE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AND OTHER CIVIL AUTHORITIES.) It’s short, and the language is easy to comprehend. So, I did some research, and now I think it’s important enough of the conspiracy theory in light of the Prepare for War rally in Madison Square. Here’s what I found with a little dank rabbit hole exploring.  “Far-Right Suggests Military Just Authorized Lethal Force Against Americans Ahead of the Election. It Didn’t.  As Trump warns about an “enemy from within,” a Defense Department directive set off a firestorm on alt-tech social media. But the Insurrection Act is the real threat, experts say.”  This is from a Blog Called The War Horse and it’s written by Sonner Kehrt.

Just as former president Donald Trump told Fox News  last week that he wanted to use the U.S. military to “handle” what he called the “enemy from within” on Election Day, an obscure military policy was beginning to make the rounds on social media platforms favored by the far right.

The focus? Department of Defense Directive 5240.01.

The 22-page document governs military intelligence activities and is among more than a thousand different policies that outline Defense Department procedures.

The Pentagon updated it at the end of September. Although military policies are routinely updated and reissued, the timing of this one—just six weeks before the election and the same day Hurricane Helene slammed into the Southeast—struck right-wing misinformation merchants as suspicious.

They latched onto a new reference in the updated directive—“lethal force”—and soon were falsely claiming that the change means Kamala Harris had authorized the military to kill civilians if there is unrest after the election.

That’s flat-out not true, the Pentagon and experts on military policy told The War Horse.

“The provisions in [the directive] are not new, and do not authorize the Secretary of Defense to use lethal force against U.S. citizens, contrary to rumors and rhetoric circulating on social media,” Sue Gough, a Department of Defense spokesperson, said Wednesday night.

But as Trump doubles down on his “enemy from within” rhetoric, DOD Directive 5240.01 continues to gain traction among his supporters as ostensible proof that Harris, not Trump, wants to use the military against American citizens.

By early last week, “5240.01” began to spike on alt-tech platforms such as Rumble, 4chan, and Telegram, as well as on more mainstream platforms like X, according to an analysis by The War Horse and UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center.

On Ron Paul’s Liberty Report, a YouTube show, the former Texas congressman told viewers that the policy meant that the country is now a “police state.” Republican Maryland congressman Andy Harris told Newsmax host Chris Salcedo last Wednesday that he was concerned the Defense Department was pushing through policies without congressional oversight.

“This is exactly what the Democrats said Trump would do. And they’re doing it,” he said. “This means that after an election, they could declare national emergency and literally call out the Army in the United States.”

Former Trump national security adviser and retired Army Lieutenant Gen. Michael Flynn tweeted the policy update out to his 1.7 million followers, just as he shared the week before a video suggesting the military had manipulated the weather to focus Hurricane Helene’s deadly fury on Republican voters in the South.

“Republican election fraud season is in full swing.” John Buss, @repeat1968

I really see this as a way to ensure their well-armed militia shows up at the local courthouse or state house well-armed when the vote count starts meaningfully leaning towards a Harris/Walz Administration.  The ACLU has had this policy firmly in its FOIA grip since 1982.  The documents are out there with no commentary or urgent lawsuits filed.  You would think they’d be interested.

The Center for Informed Policy at the University of Washington is more interested in those conspiracy theories. “Rumors rapidly spreading about reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01” explains the right wing’s angst on this one in its 2024 U.S. ELECTIONS RAPID RESEARCH BLOG.

Key Takeaways

• Early last week, rumors started to spread between multiple social media platforms and across political communities online about a recently reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01 that documents procedures when there is a potential use of lethal force.
• Some online communities have speculated that the directive’s changes are timed with the upcoming election, with some suggesting without evidence that the intent behind the change is that the government is planning to use force against Americans.
• The viral spread could be exploiting a data void – a situation where there is no reliable information about a topic in search results — given there are no published fact-checks or traditional journalist coverage of the directive’s changes.

Just Security calls it “Much Ado About Nothing.” Oddly enough, this was an article my neighborhood weirdo was about to show me when he read the title and then suddenly closed it, and just as I said oh, Just Security is a reliable source.  They conclude with this, which is similar to a thought in The War Horse. That’s the real danger is the Insurrection Act that Trump used to go after George Floyd Protestors with the National Guard. His stated goal was to support local law enforcement in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2020.  You probably will remember this culminating with the upside-down bible event. The ACLU is very interested in that event.

To be sure, there are good reasons to be concerned about the federal government’s power to use the armed forces domestically against Americans, but the new language in Directive 5240.01 is not one of them. The Insurrection Act represents a far greater danger. It gives the president broad discretion to use the military as a domestic police force and contains virtually no safeguards to prevent abuse. The Brennan Center for Justice, where we work, has put forward a comprehensive proposal for reforming the Insurrection Act, and a bipartisan group of former national security officials convened by the American Law Institute has similarly called for Insurrection Act reform. Those who are currently sounding the alarm about Directive 5240.01 would do well to refocus their energies on that critical task.

I just messaged it off to one of the MSNBC Anchors I chat with on occasion, so I’m about to see if I can get someone serious journalism on it with the hope of getting rid of the data void.

So, before I tackle the main event, I have one more nerdy article to suggest.  This is about the odds makers.  This is from Good Authority. The analysis is provided by Josh Clinton. “Poll results depend on pollster choices as much as voters’ decisions. Simple changes in how to weight a single poll can move the Harris-Trump margin 8 points.”

There is no end of scrutiny of the 2024 election polls – who is ahead, who is behind, how much the polls will miss the election outcome, etc., etc. These questions have become even more pressing because the presidential race seems to be a toss-up. Every percentage point for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump matters.

But here’s the big problem that no one talks about very much: Simple and defensible decisions by pollsters can drastically change the reported margin between Harris and Trump. I’ll show that the margin can change by as much as eight points. Reasonable decisions produce a margin that ranges from Harris +0.9% to Harris +8%.

This reality highlights that we ask far too much of polls. Ultimately, it’s hard to know how much poll numbers reflect the decisions of voters – or the decisions of pollsters.

The 4 key questions for pollsters

After poll data are collected, pollsters must assess whether they need to adjust or “weight” the data to address the very real possibility that the people who took the poll differ from those who did not. This involves answering four questions:

1.   Do respondents match the electorate demographically in terms of sex, age, education, race, etc.? (This was a problem in 2016.)

2.   Do respondents match the electorate politically after the sample is adjusted by demographic factors? (This was the problem in 2020.)

3.   Which respondents will vote?

4.   Should the pollster trust the data?

To show how the answers to these questions can affect poll results, I use a national survey conducted from October 7 – 14, 2024. The sample included 1,924 self-reported registered voters drawn from an online, high-quality panel commonly used in academic and commercial work.

After dropping the respondents who said they were not sure who they would vote for (3.2%) and those with missing demographics, the unweighted data give Harris a 6 percentage point lead – 51.6 % to 45.5% – among the remaining 1,718 respondents.

You may read more details about those factors at the link.  I try not to put my students to sleep during statistics lectures, so I certainly won’t do it to you.  The reporting and clips on the Madison Square Garden Rally kept me up most of the night. I felt like the child in grade school watching the teacher thread the film through those blue projectors only to see things my Dad didn’t want to remember about World War 2. I don’t know about you, but my school district did not hold back on the World War 2 experience. One of my high school teachers wrote a book on his experience as a prisoner taken during the Battle of the Bulge.  I was surrounded by friends’ parents and my parents’ friends who were Veterans.  We watched the films of the 1936 Olympics and heroes like Jesse Owens and, of course, all the Hitler and Mussolini public speeches. If you were like little me, I couldn’t understand who could fall for any of that.

I also saw films of the United States turning away Jewish people in ships fleeing Europe and films of the internment of Japanese-Americans. All of these seemed surreal to me at the ripe old age of 11.

Now, I know more. Now I can identify people that just love to goosestep with whom I would not share the location of any modern day Anne Frank.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

CNN Analyst Stephen Collinson has this analysis. “Trump unveils the most extreme closing argument in modern presidential history.”  The MAGA movement is about hating and eliminating everyone who isn’t like them.

Donald Trump anchored his bid to win a second White House term next week on searing anti-migrant fear at a rally at Madison Square Garden, doubling down on his promise for a massive deportation program on Day 1 to reverse an “immigrant invasion.”

As the ex-president’s allies defend him against Democratic claims he is a “fascist” and an authoritarian in waiting, based in part on warnings by his ex-chief of staff John Kelly, Trump on Sunday delivered a screed that may augur the most extreme presidency in modern history if he beats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on November 5.

“The United States is an occupied country,” Trump said, as Democrats projected messages on the exterior of the storied New York City arena, reading “Trump is Unhinged” and “Trump praised Hitler.”

The huge rally was billed as the launch of the final stage of Trump’s bid to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in American political history after trying to overturn the result of the last election and leaving office in disgrace in 2021. Before he spoke, some of the ex-president’s top supporters flung race-based and vulgar rhetoric. Former congressional candidate David Rem called Harris the “antichrist” and “the devil,” while others lashed out at Hillary Clinton, “illegals” and homeless people. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

This is from Politico. The analysis is by Andrew Howard. “Fallout spreads from racist rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally. “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race-baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Monday.”

Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday evening was supposed to provide his closing argument against Kamala Harris. Instead, Trump and his supporters are being forced to answer for hateful and racist rhetoric delivered from the podium Sunday night with just eight days left in the campaign.

The comments, while reminiscent of many made by Trump in the campaign’s final weeks, were made by a comedian early in the night’s schedule and were supposed to be jokes. Now, they are dominating the news cycle and putting Trump’s campaign on the backfoot with just under a week until the election.

Longtime Trump adviser Peter Navarro is calling the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, “the biggest, stupidest asshole that ever came down the comedy pike” after he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of hot garbage” during his often-vulgar opening set.

And Trump’s opponents are using the rally as proof of the former president’s divisiveness, going as far as likening the rhetoric from Sunday’s rally to the sinister 1939 Nazi rally that took place in the same venue.

“My reaction is that was a combination of 1933 Germany, 1939 Madison Square Garden last night,” former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday morning. “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), called Sunday night’s event a “hate rally.”

“This was not just a presidential rally, this was not just a campaign rally. I think it’s important for people to understand these are mini January 6 rallies, these are mini Stop the Steal rallies,” she said on “Morning Joe.”

Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds blamed the media for the backlash surrounding Sunday’s rally during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday, saying the media is too focused on “fear-mongering” and not “the facts and the substance.”

“So to the New York Daily News, is it a racist rally if you have a Black man from Florida who’s originally from New York speaking at the rally? I don’t think so,” Donalds said. Still, Donalds distanced himself from Hinchcliffe’s comments.

“I didn’t agree with what the comedian said. None of us did,” Donalds said. “When it came out, we were all like, ‘Wait what? Who? Did that get out? No, no, no.’ Nobody agreed with that. Nobody.”

Last night, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, up for reelection this year in a state heavily populated with Puerto Ricans, wrote on social media that the “joke bombed for a reason,” and “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”

Yet another Floridian, GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar, was also quick to condemn the comedian. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values,” she wrote in a post on X Sunday evening.

Early Monday morning, the Harris campaign was quick to jump in, highlighting headlines in 17 newspapers, eight clips from TV shows, and 29 other statements from politicians, celebrities and journalists.

Famous Puerto Ricans rushed to bolster Harris, including pop-phenom Bad Bunny, along with Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin.

Hinchcliffe’s backlash-inducing comments were not limited to Puerto Rico. The comedian also made a crude remark about “carving watermelons” after seeing a Black man in the audience. Another opener, businessman Grant Cardone, likened Harris’ advisers to “pimp handlers.”

And Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who has shaped many of Trump’s immigration policies, said Americans are having their jobs “looted and stolen from them” and sent to foreign countries.

I always turn to Historian Heather Cox Richardson for the final thoughts.

I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way.

It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight.

There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.

Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.

Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024.

On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.

Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.

We could see the signs that he knew he probably wouldn’t win the minute Biden backed out. We could taste the panic in the air. We know his campaign is already spending more time in the Court trying to fuck with elections than with the ground game he delegated to Musk, who is out there basically running a personal game show with a million-dollar giveaway for attention.

Marc Elias and his team have been in court for the Harris/Walz campaign, which has been fighting Trump’s legal team that is  “flooding the zone” with lawsuits and election tricks.   #DonOld is clearly not physically or mentally capable of carrying on a campaign that requires giving cogent speeches and long hours. The only thing he excels at is creating chaos.  “Marc Elias, Voting Rights Attorney, joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with a look at the work that Trump allies and attorneys are doing ahead of the 2024 Election in order to create doubt and confusion which will enable Donald Trump to deny the results of the 2024 Election should he lose again. ”

Here are the arguments for the Ultimate Chaos Agent in the Wallace/Elias interview.

The question is, will creating chaos be enough to bring the Republic and the voting and judicial systems to their knees?  Can he knock out the Constitution, or will We the People knock him out on November 5th.  We need the KO. These things keep me awake at night with my stomach churning and jumping like a kid about to take his ACTs.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/10/28/mostly-monday-reads-squall-at-the-square/

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #electionFraud #Fascist #HeatherCoxRichardson #JohnBuss #MadisonSquareGardenTrumpRally #MAGARacists #MarcElias #OctoberSurprises #posseComitatus #TheUltimateChaosAgent #voterSuppression #WhiteChristianNationalists #Xenophobes

“The End Times are nigh. The Prodigal Son returns to Madison Square Garden.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I was lucky that working with students last night interfered with any attempt to turn on the Fascist Rally at the World’s Most Famous Arena. This wasn’t exactly Ali against Frazier or Holyfield vs Lewis. This was more like #DonOld vs the Majority of the country. The opening bouts were lame.

My short take on this is it was basically a Crazy Old Cult Leader warming his brood up for the Ultimate Kool-Aid moment.  Unfortunately, we previewed that on January 6, so I hope that law enforcement agencies are prepared. The Ultimate Chaos Agent is making his play for a coup

This brings me to this dangerous conspiracy theory making the rounds.  To think, I was simply walking the dog around the block!  I got told a conspiracy theory by a short-order cook at a local bar who has said crazy things before, so I thought I’d look into it to prove him wrong.   His favorite spiel is that the right wing and the left wing are the same, and the government is corrupt. Which is partially correct.  Look at Jill Stein and Robert Kennedy hooked up with the Fascists and Putin. If you take populism to its furthest corners of the right and the left, they eventually bump butts with each other.  However, the left wing and the right in the United States do not wield the same power, and they are not of equal size.  There’s no real leftist power in this country. The billionaire class has been funding the extreme right-wing for decades now, and it shows. Polls on issues show that most Americans agree on the major things.  The problem is that the political system does not play towards consensus.

This guy insisted the DOD is sneaking a policy to Congress to approve the use of military force on civilians. Now, if DJT was in power, I believe he’d try that, although it would take a lot more than a policy of the DOD or an act of Congress to amend the Constitution.  Even when I came back to show him the actual act to show him it says nothing of the kind, he insisted he’d read it, and that’s what he said. But when I invested it, I thought, wow, that looks like the will of the Ultimate Chaos Agent!

This link leads to DOD DIRECTIVE 5240.01 (DOD INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE-RELATED ACTIVITIES, AND DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE COMPONENT, ASSISTANCE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AND OTHER CIVIL AUTHORITIES.) It’s short, and the language is easy to comprehend. So, I did some research, and now I think it’s important enough of the conspiracy theory in light of the Prepare for War rally in Madison Square. Here’s what I found with a little dank rabbit hole exploring.  “Far-Right Suggests Military Just Authorized Lethal Force Against Americans Ahead of the Election. It Didn’t.  As Trump warns about an “enemy from within,” a Defense Department directive set off a firestorm on alt-tech social media. But the Insurrection Act is the real threat, experts say.”  This is from a Blog Called The War Horse and it’s written by Sonner Kehrt.

Just as former president Donald Trump told Fox News  last week that he wanted to use the U.S. military to “handle” what he called the “enemy from within” on Election Day, an obscure military policy was beginning to make the rounds on social media platforms favored by the far right.

The focus? Department of Defense Directive 5240.01.

The 22-page document governs military intelligence activities and is among more than a thousand different policies that outline Defense Department procedures.

The Pentagon updated it at the end of September. Although military policies are routinely updated and reissued, the timing of this one—just six weeks before the election and the same day Hurricane Helene slammed into the Southeast—struck right-wing misinformation merchants as suspicious.

They latched onto a new reference in the updated directive—“lethal force”—and soon were falsely claiming that the change means Kamala Harris had authorized the military to kill civilians if there is unrest after the election.

That’s flat-out not true, the Pentagon and experts on military policy told The War Horse.

“The provisions in [the directive] are not new, and do not authorize the Secretary of Defense to use lethal force against U.S. citizens, contrary to rumors and rhetoric circulating on social media,” Sue Gough, a Department of Defense spokesperson, said Wednesday night.

But as Trump doubles down on his “enemy from within” rhetoric, DOD Directive 5240.01 continues to gain traction among his supporters as ostensible proof that Harris, not Trump, wants to use the military against American citizens.

By early last week, “5240.01” began to spike on alt-tech platforms such as Rumble, 4chan, and Telegram, as well as on more mainstream platforms like X, according to an analysis by The War Horse and UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center.

On Ron Paul’s Liberty Report, a YouTube show, the former Texas congressman told viewers that the policy meant that the country is now a “police state.” Republican Maryland congressman Andy Harris told Newsmax host Chris Salcedo last Wednesday that he was concerned the Defense Department was pushing through policies without congressional oversight.

“This is exactly what the Democrats said Trump would do. And they’re doing it,” he said. “This means that after an election, they could declare national emergency and literally call out the Army in the United States.”

Former Trump national security adviser and retired Army Lieutenant Gen. Michael Flynn tweeted the policy update out to his 1.7 million followers, just as he shared the week before a video suggesting the military had manipulated the weather to focus Hurricane Helene’s deadly fury on Republican voters in the South.

“Republican election fraud season is in full swing.” John Buss, @repeat1968

I really see this as a way to ensure their well-armed militia shows up at the local courthouse or state house well-armed when the vote count starts meaningfully leaning towards a Harris/Walz Administration.  The ACLU has had this policy firmly in its FOIA grip since 1982.  The documents are out there with no commentary or urgent lawsuits filed.  You would think they’d be interested.

The Center for Informed Policy at the University of Washington is more interested in those conspiracy theories. “Rumors rapidly spreading about reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01” explains the right wing’s angst on this one in its 2024 U.S. ELECTIONS RAPID RESEARCH BLOG.

Key Takeaways

• Early last week, rumors started to spread between multiple social media platforms and across political communities online about a recently reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01 that documents procedures when there is a potential use of lethal force.
• Some online communities have speculated that the directive’s changes are timed with the upcoming election, with some suggesting without evidence that the intent behind the change is that the government is planning to use force against Americans.
• The viral spread could be exploiting a data void – a situation where there is no reliable information about a topic in search results — given there are no published fact-checks or traditional journalist coverage of the directive’s changes.

Just Security calls it “Much Ado About Nothing.” Oddly enough, this was an article my neighborhood weirdo was about to show me when he read the title and then suddenly closed it, and just as I said oh, Just Security is a reliable source.  They conclude with this, which is similar to a thought in The War Horse. That’s the real danger is the Insurrection Act that Trump used to go after George Floyd Protestors with the National Guard. His stated goal was to support local law enforcement in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2020.  You probably will remember this culminating with the upside-down bible event. The ACLU is very interested in that event.

To be sure, there are good reasons to be concerned about the federal government’s power to use the armed forces domestically against Americans, but the new language in Directive 5240.01 is not one of them. The Insurrection Act represents a far greater danger. It gives the president broad discretion to use the military as a domestic police force and contains virtually no safeguards to prevent abuse. The Brennan Center for Justice, where we work, has put forward a comprehensive proposal for reforming the Insurrection Act, and a bipartisan group of former national security officials convened by the American Law Institute has similarly called for Insurrection Act reform. Those who are currently sounding the alarm about Directive 5240.01 would do well to refocus their energies on that critical task.

I just messaged it off to one of the MSNBC Anchors I chat with on occasion, so I’m about to see if I can get someone serious journalism on it with the hope of getting rid of the data void.

So, before I tackle the main event, I have one more nerdy article to suggest.  This is about the odds makers.  This is from Good Authority. The analysis is provided by Josh Clinton. “Poll results depend on pollster choices as much as voters’ decisions. Simple changes in how to weight a single poll can move the Harris-Trump margin 8 points.”

There is no end of scrutiny of the 2024 election polls – who is ahead, who is behind, how much the polls will miss the election outcome, etc., etc. These questions have become even more pressing because the presidential race seems to be a toss-up. Every percentage point for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump matters.

But here’s the big problem that no one talks about very much: Simple and defensible decisions by pollsters can drastically change the reported margin between Harris and Trump. I’ll show that the margin can change by as much as eight points. Reasonable decisions produce a margin that ranges from Harris +0.9% to Harris +8%.

This reality highlights that we ask far too much of polls. Ultimately, it’s hard to know how much poll numbers reflect the decisions of voters – or the decisions of pollsters.

The 4 key questions for pollsters

After poll data are collected, pollsters must assess whether they need to adjust or “weight” the data to address the very real possibility that the people who took the poll differ from those who did not. This involves answering four questions:

1.   Do respondents match the electorate demographically in terms of sex, age, education, race, etc.? (This was a problem in 2016.)

2.   Do respondents match the electorate politically after the sample is adjusted by demographic factors? (This was the problem in 2020.)

3.   Which respondents will vote?

4.   Should the pollster trust the data?

To show how the answers to these questions can affect poll results, I use a national survey conducted from October 7 – 14, 2024. The sample included 1,924 self-reported registered voters drawn from an online, high-quality panel commonly used in academic and commercial work.

After dropping the respondents who said they were not sure who they would vote for (3.2%) and those with missing demographics, the unweighted data give Harris a 6 percentage point lead – 51.6 % to 45.5% – among the remaining 1,718 respondents.

You may read more details about those factors at the link.  I try not to put my students to sleep during statistics lectures, so I certainly won’t do it to you.  The reporting and clips on the Madison Square Garden Rally kept me up most of the night. I felt like the child in grade school watching the teacher thread the film through those blue projectors only to see things my Dad didn’t want to remember about World War 2. I don’t know about you, but my school district did not hold back on the World War 2 experience. One of my high school teachers wrote a book on his experience as a prisoner taken during the Battle of the Bulge.  I was surrounded by friends’ parents and my parents’ friends who were Veterans.  We watched the films of the 1936 Olympics and heroes like Jesse Owens and, of course, all the Hitler and Mussolini public speeches. If you were like little me, I couldn’t understand who could fall for any of that.

I also saw films of the United States turning away Jewish people in ships fleeing Europe and films of the internment of Japanese-Americans. All of these seemed surreal to me at the ripe old age of 11.

Now, I know more. Now I can identify people that just love to goosestep with whom I would not share the location of any modern day Anne Frank.

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

CNN Analyst Stephen Collinson has this analysis. “Trump unveils the most extreme closing argument in modern presidential history.”  The MAGA movement is about hating and eliminating everyone who isn’t like them.

Donald Trump anchored his bid to win a second White House term next week on searing anti-migrant fear at a rally at Madison Square Garden, doubling down on his promise for a massive deportation program on Day 1 to reverse an “immigrant invasion.”

As the ex-president’s allies defend him against Democratic claims he is a “fascist” and an authoritarian in waiting, based in part on warnings by his ex-chief of staff John Kelly, Trump on Sunday delivered a screed that may augur the most extreme presidency in modern history if he beats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on November 5.

“The United States is an occupied country,” Trump said, as Democrats projected messages on the exterior of the storied New York City arena, reading “Trump is Unhinged” and “Trump praised Hitler.”

The huge rally was billed as the launch of the final stage of Trump’s bid to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in American political history after trying to overturn the result of the last election and leaving office in disgrace in 2021. Before he spoke, some of the ex-president’s top supporters flung race-based and vulgar rhetoric. Former congressional candidate David Rem called Harris the “antichrist” and “the devil,” while others lashed out at Hillary Clinton, “illegals” and homeless people. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

This is from Politico. The analysis is by Andrew Howard. “Fallout spreads from racist rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally. “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race-baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said Monday.”

Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday evening was supposed to provide his closing argument against Kamala Harris. Instead, Trump and his supporters are being forced to answer for hateful and racist rhetoric delivered from the podium Sunday night with just eight days left in the campaign.

The comments, while reminiscent of many made by Trump in the campaign’s final weeks, were made by a comedian early in the night’s schedule and were supposed to be jokes. Now, they are dominating the news cycle and putting Trump’s campaign on the backfoot with just under a week until the election.

Longtime Trump adviser Peter Navarro is calling the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, “the biggest, stupidest asshole that ever came down the comedy pike” after he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of hot garbage” during his often-vulgar opening set.

And Trump’s opponents are using the rally as proof of the former president’s divisiveness, going as far as likening the rhetoric from Sunday’s rally to the sinister 1939 Nazi rally that took place in the same venue.

“My reaction is that was a combination of 1933 Germany, 1939 Madison Square Garden last night,” former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday morning. “What you saw last night is a divisive America. That’s race baiting. It’s all the things that we were doing in the ‘30s and ‘40s.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), called Sunday night’s event a “hate rally.”

“This was not just a presidential rally, this was not just a campaign rally. I think it’s important for people to understand these are mini January 6 rallies, these are mini Stop the Steal rallies,” she said on “Morning Joe.”

Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds blamed the media for the backlash surrounding Sunday’s rally during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday, saying the media is too focused on “fear-mongering” and not “the facts and the substance.”

“So to the New York Daily News, is it a racist rally if you have a Black man from Florida who’s originally from New York speaking at the rally? I don’t think so,” Donalds said. Still, Donalds distanced himself from Hinchcliffe’s comments.

“I didn’t agree with what the comedian said. None of us did,” Donalds said. “When it came out, we were all like, ‘Wait what? Who? Did that get out? No, no, no.’ Nobody agreed with that. Nobody.”

Last night, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, up for reelection this year in a state heavily populated with Puerto Ricans, wrote on social media that the “joke bombed for a reason,” and “Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”

Yet another Floridian, GOP Rep. María Elvira Salazar, was also quick to condemn the comedian. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values,” she wrote in a post on X Sunday evening.

Early Monday morning, the Harris campaign was quick to jump in, highlighting headlines in 17 newspapers, eight clips from TV shows, and 29 other statements from politicians, celebrities and journalists.

Famous Puerto Ricans rushed to bolster Harris, including pop-phenom Bad Bunny, along with Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin.

Hinchcliffe’s backlash-inducing comments were not limited to Puerto Rico. The comedian also made a crude remark about “carving watermelons” after seeing a Black man in the audience. Another opener, businessman Grant Cardone, likened Harris’ advisers to “pimp handlers.”

And Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who has shaped many of Trump’s immigration policies, said Americans are having their jobs “looted and stolen from them” and sent to foreign countries.

I always turn to Historian Heather Cox Richardson for the final thoughts.

I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any coherent way.

It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight.

There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.

Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power and inspire his base to violence.

Apparently in anticipation of the rally, Trump on Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to support Trump again in 2024.

On Saturday the Trump campaign released a list of 29 people set to be on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans, including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric, and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.

Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not, according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.

We could see the signs that he knew he probably wouldn’t win the minute Biden backed out. We could taste the panic in the air. We know his campaign is already spending more time in the Court trying to fuck with elections than with the ground game he delegated to Musk, who is out there basically running a personal game show with a million-dollar giveaway for attention.

Marc Elias and his team have been in court for the Harris/Walz campaign, which has been fighting Trump’s legal team that is  “flooding the zone” with lawsuits and election tricks.   #DonOld is clearly not physically or mentally capable of carrying on a campaign that requires giving cogent speeches and long hours. The only thing he excels at is creating chaos.  “Marc Elias, Voting Rights Attorney, joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with a look at the work that Trump allies and attorneys are doing ahead of the 2024 Election in order to create doubt and confusion which will enable Donald Trump to deny the results of the 2024 Election should he lose again. ”

Here are the arguments for the Ultimate Chaos Agent in the Wallace/Elias interview.

The question is, will creating chaos be enough to bring the Republic and the voting and judicial systems to their knees?  Can he knock out the Constitution, or will We the People knock him out on November 5th.  We need the KO. These things keep me awake at night with my stomach churning and jumping like a kid about to take his ACTs.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/10/28/mostly-monday-reads-squall-at-the-square/

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #electionFraud #Fascist #HeatherCoxRichardson #JohnBuss #MadisonSquareGardenTrumpRally #MAGARacists #MarcElias #OctoberSurprises #posseComitatus #TheUltimateChaosAgent #voterSuppression #WhiteChristianNationalists #Xenophobes

Finally Friday Reads: The Russian Limbaughs

“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.

Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.

Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.

YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.

You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”

“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.

…

McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”

McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.

“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”

The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.

The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.

I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.”  The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.

I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.

On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.

But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.

“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”

It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.

That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.

And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.

But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,

The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.”  Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.

I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.”  This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.

A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.

Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.

Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.

Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”

Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.

Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.

News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”

Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”

Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.

Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.

So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.

Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”

The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.

Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.

The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.

A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.

The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.

I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo

“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.

Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.

Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.

YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.

You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”

“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.

…

McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”

McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.

“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”

The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.

The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.

I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.”  The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.

I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.

On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.

But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.

“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”

It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.

That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.

And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.

But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,

The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.”  Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.

I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.”  This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.

A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.

Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.

Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.

Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”

Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.

Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.

News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”

Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”

Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.

Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.

So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.

Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”

The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.

Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.

The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.

A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.

The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.

I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/06/finally-friday-reads-the-russian-limbaughs/

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo

Finally Friday Reads: The Russian Limbaughs

“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.

Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.

Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.

YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.

You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”

“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.

…

McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”

McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.

“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”

The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.

The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.

I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.”  The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.

I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.

On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.

But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.

“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”

It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.

That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.

And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.

But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,

The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.”  Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.

I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.”  This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.

A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.

Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.

Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.

Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”

Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.

Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.

News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”

Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”

Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.

Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.

So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.

Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”

The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.

Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.

The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.

A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.

The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.

I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo

“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.

Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.

Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.

YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.

You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”

“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.

…

McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”

McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.

“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”

The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.

The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.

I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.”  The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.

I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.

On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.

But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.

“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”

It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.

That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.

And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.

But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,

The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.”  Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.

I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.”  This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.

A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.

Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.

Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.

Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”

Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.

Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.

News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”

Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”

Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.

Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.

So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.

Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”

The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.

Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.

The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.

A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.

The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.

I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/09/06/finally-friday-reads-the-russian-limbaughs/

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo

Finally Friday Reads: The Russian Limbaughs

“Trump’s Trickle Down,” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

No one should be surprised that Russia has gone deep into the MAGA end zone to influence the outcome of this election. Republican Congress members are among Putin’s most useful idiots. Russia has always been fond of trying to corrupt U.S. elections by using anything to turn us against each other. The DonOld’s political career trajectory shows how successful they have been recently. We will undoubtedly hear more about the Russian hoax from the dotard since his mind seems incapable of being cogent this election. However, this should get people thinking more.

Again, we must rely on independent media to hear the entire story. Lisa Needham of Public Notice has this succinct article today on the recent DOJ indictment of Tenet Media. “Russia’s useful idiots. The MAGA influencer ecosystem is even shadier than we thought.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice indicted two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, a Russian state-run media outlet, for covertly shoveling millions of dollars at MAGA influencers happy to do Russia’s bidding.

This has led to the delightful specter of high-profile rightwing commentators loudly insisting they were too stupid to know that Russian money was behind the wildly exorbitant sums they received for producing content.

While watching Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson scramble is hilarious, the indictment is no joke.

Indeed, it confirms that Russia continues to manipulate American politics via willing right-wingers — the exact thing Trumpers have long insisted isn’t happening.

The indictment names Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, aka Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, aka Lena, as the RT employees who laundered close to $10 million through foreign shell companies, ultimately raining all that money down on an unnamed American media company, US Company-1, who then passed it along to unnamed commentators 1-6.

Though unnamed, the company and several commentators are easily discernible to anyone paying attention to the rightwing media grift. The company is most definitely Tenet Media, and its founders are most definitely Lauren Chen, who was also at BlazeTV until the indictment dropped and they fired her, and her husband, Liam Donovan.

And the commentators? Tenet’s ridiculous website describes them as “heterodox commentators” and “creators who question institutions that believe themselves to be above questioning.” That would be Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Matt Christiansen, and Tayler Hansen.

I watched some of these Russian-backed videos on the news yesterday. These guys are basically Russian Limbaughs but are pleading ignorance about their Russian Payroll Masters. This is from Mother Jones today. “Tenet Media Shutters After Being Accused of Taking $10 Million in Covert Kremlin Funding
Nothing to see here!” Senior Reporter Anna Merlan has the lede.

Tenet Media’s founders, Canadian conservative YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan, have not publicly commented on the allegations against Tenet. Nor has Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern, a Tenet contributor who appeared in many of their videos. Other prominent contributors to the site, including far-right commentator Tim Pool, described themselves as “victims” in the Tenet scandal, who were unaware that employees of RT, the Russian state media entity, were secretly funding the company. Pool announced on Thursday that he has been contacted by federal investigators, writing, “The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance in this matter.”

The Daily Beast reported that Chen’s contract with Blaze TV, where she also made regular appearances, has been terminated. The company has also deleted her page on their website and wiped episodes of her podcast, “Pseudo-Intellectual,” from Spotify.

YouTube told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that it had deleted Tenet Media’s channel and four others operated by Chen in light of the indictment and “after careful review,” writing the steps were part of “ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations.”

For now, Tenet Media’s Twitter profile, Instagram page, TikTok, and Rumble pages all remain online—though none have been updated since the indictment was announced.

You may remember that last April, a Republican Congressman complained his colleagues were spouting Russian Propaganda on the House floor. “GOP Rep. Mike Turner: Russian propaganda is ‘being uttered on the House floor.’ House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner on Sunday said several of his GOP colleagues have repeated Russian propaganda on the House floor.” It’s evident that Putin’s plan is succeeding and that Republicans are besotted with Russian talking points. The news story was reported by NBC News.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.”

“We see directly coming from Russia … communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not,” he added.

…

McCaul, a Texas Republican, told Puck News that he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner and McCaul each tied Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, to other authoritarian leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

“[The propaganda] makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle, which is what it is,” Turner told CNN, adding, “President Xi of China, Vladimir Putin himself have identified as such.”

McCaul described explaining to colleagues that the threat of Russian propaganda is similar to threats made by other U.S. adversaries.

“I have to explain to them what’s at stake, why Ukraine is in our national security interest,” he said. “By the way, you don’t like Communist China? Well, guess what? They’re aligned [with Russia], along with the ayatollah [of Iran]. So when you explain it that way, they kind of start understanding it.”

The committee chairs’ remarks about Russian propaganda came as they spoke about the need for Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine.

The snips I saw on news media yesterday were primarily Tim Pool screaming that Ukraine was our enemy and that we owed Russia an apology. He was pretty hysterical and shrieked a lot about our soldiers going there to die shortly. These are similar talking points made by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz during funding discussions early this year. This incident makes it even more clear that we need to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to preserve NATO and our National Security.

I found the Tenet Media story the most disturbing this week, although what really caught my attention was the speech DonOld made to the Economic Club of New York. This is from Phillip Bump at the Washington Post. “Following Trump’s train of thought as it derails on a child care question. Trump sought out an applause line as if it were the sole exit in a flame-filled room.”  The audience is supposed to have knowledge in the fields of finance and economics. Their clapping was disturbing as he rattled on about childcare as if it were an abstract notion, and his take on tariffs is basically the opposite of reality. He rambled on with a series of incomplete sentences and just weirdness. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. Period. They caused the Great Depression. The folks in the room know better. They should say something.

I’m sure these folks are getting richer by every tick of the Wall Street clock and know we’re not in an economic disaster. They’re also aware that what’s driving the entire thing is record corporate profits, too. The last equity market highs were set just 7 days ago. But, hey, tax cuts for billionaires are where it’s at! Back to Phillip Bump.

On Thursday, his push to be elected for a second term as president brought him to the Economic Club of New York. The organization prides itself on its sober, informed assessments of the economic and political worlds, meaning that Trump was already somewhat disadvantaged. His politics are not predicated on his grasp of policy but on appeals to the politically disaffected. His descriptions of how things are working are much more effective with people who don’t know how things work.

But the question that tripped him up, the one that launched a thousand criticisms and not a few memes, was one focused on something that he should theoretically have had a grasp on: child care.

“If you win in November,” a panelist asked, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable and if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

Here is Trump’s entire answer, verbatim.

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, uh, somebody, we had Sen. Marco Rubio [(R-Fla.)] and my daughter, Ivanka, was so, uh, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.”
“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t — you know, it’s something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.”“But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to but they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.”
“Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s gonna take care. We’re gonna have — I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time. Coupled with, uh, the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country — because I have to say with child care, I want to stay with childcare, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth.”
“But growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, uh, that I just told you about. We’re gonna be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re gonna take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about: Make America great again. We have to do it, because right now we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question.”

I know I have a doctorate in Financial Economics, teach it at the graduate level, and have worked in the industry during the Dark Reagan years, but really, as just a mother with that issue back in the day, WTF? This is one of those questions that every working family deals with and knows the parameters. This man stumbled through because he undoubtedly had children but didn’t have to think of childcare because wives and wealth. The answer was buffoonish and completely unintelligible. Digby says it all here at Salon.”Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage.”

It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.

That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report, in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden’s disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.

And it’s true that he’s always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he’s “like, really smart,” he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he’s talking about.

But Trump’s getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they’re just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,

The good news is here at CNBC. “Eighty-eight corporate leaders endorse Harris in new letter, including CEOs of Yelp, Box.”  Looks like some business leaders want their business to thrive and not just their personal portfolios.

I’m hoping BB will really get into the weeds on this one, but I had to put the news about the Sentencing Hearing that was supposed to happen on Monday. This is from CBS News, as reported by Graham Kates. “Judge delays sentencing in Trump’s New York criminal case, pushing decision past election.”  This is the hush money case in case you can’t keep them all straight like me.

A New York judge has delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing date in his criminal case for a second time, allowing Trump to wait until after the election to learn his fate after his conviction in his “hush money” case.

Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Sept. 18. His attorneys asked on Aug. 14 for his sentencing to be pushed back until after the presidential election, arguing that a delay is necessary to resolve ongoing legal challenges to his conviction.

Justice Juan Merchan issued an order on Friday delaying sentencing until Nov. 26.

Merchan wrote that he made the decision “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he continued, adding that the postponement “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”

Trump was convicted in May by a unanimous jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors said Trump signed off on a scheme to hide reimbursements to a lawyer who wired a $130,000 “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denied the encounter and pleaded not guilty.

Merchan has wide leeway in determining Trump’s sentence. The charges carry a maximum sentence of up to four years in jail, but Merchan can also hand down a sentence that involves a variety of alternatives to incarceration, including probation. Most legal observers expect Trump to avoid jail time, given his status as a first-time offender and sentences handed down for the same crime in other cases.

Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that date was pushed back after he filed a motion seeking to set aside his conviction following a landmark Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. The judge’s decision on that effort is expected on Sept. 16.

News on his federal election interference case also became available this week. This is from MSNBC, as reported by Jordan Rubin. “Judge Chutkan doesn’t find Judge Cannon’s ruling on Jack Smith’s appointment ‘particularly persuasive’ The judge in Trump’s D.C. case didn’t sound impressed with the Florida judge’s ruling. Ultimately, it may be the Supreme Court’s view that counts.”

Donald Trump’s federal election interference case is finally back in the trial court, where U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan held a hearing Thursday mainly to discuss how to proceed after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. But the hearing also gave Chutkan an opportunity to criticize U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed.

Chutkan didn’t sound impressed with Cannon’s July 15 ruling, which cited Justice Clarence Thomas’ solo concurring opinion in which he questioned Smith’s appointment just a couple of weeks earlier in the immunity decision. Chutkan said on Thursday, “You have an opinion filed by another district judge in another circuit which, frankly, this Court doesn’t find particularly persuasive.”

Still, the Republican presidential nominee’s legal team is pressing the issue in the Washington, D.C., case, alongside their immunity claims and other arguments. It makes sense for them to do so, even though there’s binding precedent in the D.C. Circuit that knocks down the unlawful appointment claim. While that precedent means that Trump is unlikely to prevail on the subject in Washington lower courts as he has in Florida (so far), it would be strange for the defense not to press the issue at this point, especially after a Supreme Court justice raised it.

Evidently, the defense team considers Justice Clarence Thomas to be part of its team. The Judge was not amused. We’ll probably hear more analysis today and over the weekend on both cases.

So, there is certainly a lot going on right now. One bit of good news since polling will start being a little more relevant now. I just tend to see if there’s a trend vs. just random variation, which is normal in every data series over time. Emerson College Polling released this today. ” September State Polling: California, Florida, Ohio, Texas.”

New Emerson College Polling/The Hill statewide polls find Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris by ten in Ohio, 53% to 43%, five in Florida, 50% to 45%, four in Texas, 50% to 46%, while Harris leads Trump in California 60% to 36%. Races in Florida and Texas are within the polls’ margin of error, while California and Ohio fall outside the polls’ margin of error.

Here’s the take from The Hill‘s Jared Gans. “New poll shows Florida, Texas within margin of error in Harris-Trump race.”

The results are a bit closer than what some other polling has found on the races but not completely out of sync with recent polls that have shown a tighter race in those states.

Not much independent polling from major institutions has been done on Texas and Florida since Harris became the Democratic nominee.

Winning either Florida, which Democrats had carried in 2008 and 2012 before the state voted for Trump twice in a row, or Texas, which Democrats have held increasing hopes about flipping blue in recent years, would be an uphill battle for Harris.

The forecast model from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ gives Trump an 83 percent chance of winning Texas and a 75 percent chance of winning Florida. But Florida is only rated as “lean Republican,” and some polls for both states have had Trump leading by single digits.

A Florida Atlantic University poll from last month had Trump’s lead in the Sunshine State at just 3 points, and a poll from two Texas universities had Trump leading in the Lone Star State by 5 points.

The Emerson poll showed Harris just behind Trump in favorability rating for the states. His net favorability rating was positive 2 points in both, while the vice president’s in both was negative 2 points.

I just think it’s good news that both Florida and Texas are at play. The Harris/Walz campaign is covering rural areas and all bases in these now in play states. This NPR article is important if you’re still following the Arlington Cemetary debacle. “Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup.”

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials.

I think the Trump campaign has basically let all the rabid dogs off their leashes and that the former “guard rails” have left the building. I imagine it’s going to get worse the closer we get to the election. I just hope the nation has had it with this nasty, incompetent, incoherent orange thing. Wow, this post is long! Have a great weekend!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#DonOld #Repeat1968 #JohnBuss #RussianLimbaughs #TenetMediaAndRussianElectionInterference #TrumpBlatherNYEconomicsClub #TrumpTrials #TrumpSIncoherentSpeeches #Weirdo

Trump’s theatrics intensified over the weekend. He was photographed at a car race with his entourage in tow. His co-conspirator and personal Valet is now carrying a large briefcase. Got me thinking what was inside… John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Just when I think that Donald’s supporters can’t be any more idiotic, the groupthink leads them to some next-level crazy.  Their latest efforts are wearing adult diapers outside their jeans and touting the masculinity of diaper-wearing by adult men.  Seriously, who thought this up?  Well, here’s one explanation by FirstPost explainers. “Oh, S**t! Why are Trump’s supporters wearing nappies to rallies?”

After Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen nicknamed him ‘Von ShitzInPantz’, the Republican candidate’s supporters are making diapers great again…or at least trying to. They are thronging rallies wearing nappies; some are donning T-shirts and holding placards with slogans like ‘Real Men Wear Diapers’ and ‘Diapers over Dems’

Just when you think US presidential elections can’t get more bizarre, they throw up a surprise. Donald Trump’s supporters do not disappoint. They are showing up at his rallies wearing nappies and shirts that read “Real Man Wear Diapers”.

But why?

Trump supporters, aka MAGAs, are responding to recent developments in the former president’s hush money trial case, where his lawyer Todd Blanche read out a string of offensive posts by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen in the courtroom.

It’s not exactly on the same level as turning “Let’s Go Brandon” into Dark Brandon, is it? SkyNews reports that “Donald Trump supporters have started wearing nappies. They also have a new slogan: Real Men Wear Diapers.” Something tells me that not one of these folks was ever the cool kid or the nerdy kid in school.

The peculiar new craze began after Mr Trump was described as “Von ShitzInPantz”.

Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, said in a post on X last month: “Hey Von ShitzInPantz…your attacks of me stink of desperation. We are all hoping that you take the stand in your defence.”

He added, a couple of days later: “Oh… Von ShitzInPantz. Keep whining, crying and violating the gag order you petulant defendant!”

On Thursday, during Mr Trump’s hush money trial, the prosecution alleged he had further violated a gag order connected to the case.

On Tuesday, he was fined $9,000 (£7,100) and held in contempt by the judge for breaches of the same order.

But Mr Trump’s defence lawyer, Todd Blanche, said his client was the victim of attacks by both Mr Cohen and the media.

Mr Blanche also referred to comments from President Joe Biden, referring to Donald Trump experiencing “stormy weather”.

Since then, Trump supporters have apparently been trying to get back at Mr Cohen by wearing nappies and declaring that “real men” do the same.

If this is the best they can do to “own the libs,” then count me ROFLMAO.  Can you imagine what that kid in the red shirt would do if his mom made him do it for any other reason?   There are so many conspiracy theories out there that you just wonder if there’s a movement to drop Republican babies repeatedly on their heads.  This article from Salon is just eye-opening. “Who believes the most “taboo” conspiracy theories? It might not be who you think. White men with graduate degrees, a new study finds, are highly likely to hold especially noxious beliefs.”  Paul Rosenburg is the writer and provides some insight into the study.

Like Henry Ford before him, Elon Musk has emerged as America’s top conspiracy spreader. But he’s hardly alone. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the conspiracy-theory candidate for president, and as Paul Krugman observed last summer, was attracting “support from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley”:

Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter, has endorsed him, while some other prominent tech figures have been holding fund-raisers on his behalf. Elon Musk, who is in the process of destroying what Dorsey built, hosted him for a Twitter Spaces event.

Krugman didn’t focus on conspiracy theory as such but on something closely related: distrust of experts and skepticism about widely accepted facts. He described this tendency as the “brain rotting drug” of reflexive contrarianism, quoting economist Adam Ozimek.

That wasn’t exactly scientific, but a new paper entitled “The Status Foundations of Conspiracy Beliefs” by Saverio Roscigno, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine, is. Its most eye-catching finding is the discovery of “a cluster of graduate-degree-holding white men who display a penchant for conspiracy beliefs” that are “distinctively taboo.”

Specifically, Roscigno writes, “approximately a quarter of those who hold a graduate degree agree or strongly agree” that school shootings like those at Sandy Hook and Parkland “are false flag attacks perpetrated by the government,” which is “around twice the rate of those without graduate degrees.” Results are similar for the proposition that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust “has been exaggerated on purpose.”

These findings are striking for many reasons. Most obviously, they go against the common belief — long supported by research — that conspiracist beliefs are more common among lower-income and less-educated individuals. They also challenge the  formulation popularized by Joseph Uscinski that “conspiracy theories are for losers,” and should be understood as “alarm systems and coping mechanisms to help deal with foreign threat and domestic power centers” that “tend to resonate when groups are suffering from loss, weakness, or disunity.”

Von ShitzinPants, by @deAdder

What follows the introduction is an interview with Roscigno that is quite enlightening.  Follow the link to read more.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has laid out some important election messaging. “‘If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall,’ says Jeffries in stressing importance of elections.”  This is reported by Nick Robertson at The Hill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) emphasized the stakes of the 2024 election in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, warning that much more than abortion rights are at risk if former President Trump gets a second term.

He told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell that reproductive freedom will be an “incredibly significant” issue in the race.

“And the extreme MAGA Republicans have set in motion the erosion of reproductive freedom,” he said. “We’re gonna fight for it with everything that we’ve got at our disposal.”

“If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall,” he continued. “Social Security can fall. Medicare can fall. Voting rights can fall. And God help us all, but democracy itself can fall. If Roe v. Wade can fall, then anything can fall.”

Jeffries’ comments come as Democrats turn their sights on battleground states focusing on abortion rights arguments, as Arizona, Florida, Montana and others prepare for abortion rights ballot issues.

GOP state lawmakers in Arizona overturned a Civil War-era abortion restriction last week after multiple attempts and mass criticism from Democrats, while another strict abortion law went into effect in Florida on Wednesday.

But Jeffries also said that Democrats need to run on a positive message, in addition to warning about what Republicans could take away. He pointed to the gun safety regulation and investments in manufacturing as the “real results.”

However, most Americans still perceive the Biden economy as weaker than the economy under President Trump, according to polls, as the Biden campaign struggles to change the narrative.

The biggest problem is that many Americans believe completely untrue things. That last sentence shows just one.  Here’s another lie that Donald spins constantly.

"…crime in the United States has dramatically decreased — 73 percent, to be precise — over the last thirty years. 2023 saw the biggest national drop in murder rates ever recorded…"

Crime is not on the rise — so why do so many Americans think it is?https://t.co/wWEN8dwcTI

— Portia ♍️ McGonagal Same On 🐳 (@PortiaMcGonagal) May 6, 2024

Given that crime is a staple element of tabloid news, coverage of local tragedies, rather than seeming to occur at a distance, brings the specter of mayhem into communities that experience little or no crime. As Gideon Taffe of Media Matters reported in January 2023, Fox produced “a misleading narrative” about the United States being in the grip of a crime wave in 2022, devoted 11 percent of its reporting to the topic in advance of the midterm election. But that crime wave was “largely created by its own relentless coverage,” Taffe writes. “By focusing on racist stereotypes, smearing progressive prosecutors and pushing conspiracy theories, Fox made crime one of the biggest perceived ailments in the country and pushed far-right policy prescriptions ahead of the election.

The only sane policy responses, Fox hosts proclaimed, were those embraced by the Party of Trump. And these “draconian solutions” meant a return to policies forcibly ended in the courts as civil rights violations:

”Fox personalities began arguing for a return to “Broken Windows” policing, which involves aggressive enforcement and harsher sentences for lower level crimes. In reality, there is no evidence that this strategy works as a deterrent to reduce crime, and other heavy-handed policing tactics based on the broken windows theory have been found to significantly discriminate against Black Americans and other minority groups.

But as Taffe also pointed out, crime in the United States has dramatically decreased — 73 percent, to be precise — over the last thirty years. 2023 saw the biggest national drop in murder rates ever recorded (6 percent) and murders in cities dropped 12 percent. Yes, there are periodic crime spikes. (There was one during the pandemic). But overall, the trend is towards less crime.

The Atlantic’s crime reporter, Jeff Asher, pointed out that less crime doesn’t mean no crime. Yet “declining murder does not mean there were not thousands upon thousands of these tragedies this year,” he wrote on his Substack:

Nor does it mean that there was an acceptable level of gun violence, even in places seeing rapid declines. It simply means that the overall trend was extraordinarily positive and should be recognized as such.Detroit is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1966 and Baltimore and St Louis are on pace for the fewest murders in each city in nearly a decade. Other cities that saw huge increases in murder between 2020 and 2022, like Milwaukee, New Orleans and Houston, are seeing sizable declines in 2023. There are still cities like Memphis and Washington, DC, that are seeing increasing murders in 2023, but those cities are especially notable because they are the outliers this year, not the norm.

How can Jeffries and others get through the roar of Donald and Fox News(sic)  lies? Trump spent the weekend in Florida fundraising and propping up his propaganda machine while moaning about the unbearable whiteness of being. He just can’t get any breaks, can he? This is from the Washington Post. “After big weekend in Palm Beach, Trump returns to N.Y. courtroom.”

A donor luncheon at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate over the weekend provided the former president a chance to size up his potential 2024 running mates, several of whom were in attendance, and to escalate attacks on prosecutors in his four criminal cases. On Monday, he is back in a New York courtroom as a trial continues in one of those cases. Trump has been charged with falsifying records to cover up paying hush money to an adult-film actress during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Two potential VEEP candidates are not doing well in the media spotlight.  We all know now about poor Cricket’s demise at the hands of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.  Now, Tim Scott is looking worse all the time. This is from CNN. “‘A very chilling signal’: Ex-Trump DHS official reacts to Tim Scott’s answer about accepting election results

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a potential vice presidential pick for Donald Trump, refused to commit to saying he would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the US Department of Homeland Security, says it is part of Scott’s audition to be Trump’s running mate.

Both display a worrying lack of character, much like Trump supporters show few signs of higher brain function.  It really gets to me after a while.  Last night, some crazy drunk guy emptied two clips near a Bed and Breakfast catering to the gay community where there was a courtyard full of partiers.  One of my neighbors found out that he was mad that his car broke down.  It was less than a block from me.  Thankfully, the police got him immediately, and no one was hurt. Two other shootings in the city were reported, but not this one.  I’m waiting for the rationale behind this, even though none exists.  Our governor and his legislature just removed all the civil rights gains we made in criminal law and policing here.   We also are now a state that no longer requires permits for any kind of gun ownership.

I heard the first round while sitting here at my desk.  I heard the second round of shots, and then there was the loud, short sound of a police siren.  Temple, eager for her last walk, and I stuck our heads out the door and saw that there were at least 10 police cars but no SWAT van, EMS, or Coroner.  The amazing number of blue lights made me tip-toe out of my gate and up to the bar on the corner.  I had a nice conversation with the two guards at the abandoned navy base and found out as much as I could.  I didn’t sleep well last night and am still slightly shaky as I write this.  The number of shots that came from each clip was beyond imagination.

Among all the other things we need, like access to proper healthcare, criminal justice reform, respect for differences, and such, we really need sensible gun laws.

And, ah, the burden of whiteness!!

Assholes

CNN – Black voters won a big victory in Louisiana. Some White voters said it violated their ‘personal dignity’https://t.co/y8guTSXoHk

— Lola Gayle (@LolaGayleC) May 6, 2024

In the current phase of the dispute, a three-judge trial judge panel sided with a group of 12 self-described “non-African American” voters who alleged that their “personal dignity” had been injured because the new map with two Black-majority districts “racially stigmatizes,” “racially stereotypes” and “racially maligns” them.

Their lawsuit said that the congressional plan amounted “to the application of affirmative action in redistricting, unseen in previous racial gerrymandering” cases and violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Last week, the two Trump-appointed judges in the majority rejected arguments from the state that the lawmakers had other reasons besides race for drawing the plan the way they did. The state had pointed to the desires by state lawmakers to protect certain congressional incumbents.

I hope your week goes well. Mine is starting off a bit weird. All hugs are appreciated!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/05/06/mostly-monday-reads-the-blinding-white/

#DeAdder #Repeat1968 #DiaperDonald #ItSTimesLikeThese #JohnBuss #MichaelDeAdder

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/

#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo

Friday Reads: Twilight’s Last Gleaming

““No Mortal Man is Above the Law,” sayeth the Supremes. Enjoy your Independence Day; if the Conflicted Convicted Felon is elected, it’ll be our last.” John Buss, Repeat 1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday, and it’s my youngest daughter’s too. When we lived in the Quarter, we would always walk our 2 blonde labs to the Mississippi River Bank and watch the left and east bank boats launch a huge fireworks display.  Down here in the Bywater, it’s still the same short walk to the riverbank, but the Poland Avenue Wharf or the newest Crescent Park are the favorite places to go.  Cars always turn to our local NPR station for patriotic music and blast it loud. You can tell when it’s time for the display because all the bars and houses empty into the streets and head south to the banks of the Mississippi River. I have always wondered what past celebrations were like, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.

I spent the pre-show hours with friends listening to his industrial band livestream their efforts while sitting in their driveway patio.  It seemed like a normal fourth.  While everyone headed to the river, I headed home to Temple to let her dig a burrow under me to hide from the noise. No displays for me in the last 10 years.  Just time at home in bed comforting Temple. The weird thing this year was the fireworks didn’t seem to bother her, and she spent most of the time spooning me.  Maybe she sensed that my fear was far greater than hers today.  It’s a thought.

Twilight’s last gleaming from last night at my neighbor’s driveway patio.

The swiftboating of the democratic candidate season has begun. My friend who owns the bar on the corner told me she’s hearing from others besides me who are looking for places to become expats.  Given the Le Pen elections, I’m researching the south of France right now, although they may soon have their counter-revolution.  Russia is happy about that one.  I’m sure they have high hopes for us.

If you haven’t seen this little speech, you really should. “Leader of the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution.  Kevin Roberts said the revolution will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”  This is from the AP but sourced at Politico.

The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made the comments Tuesday on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back.”

Democrats are “apoplectic right now” because the right is winning, Roberts told former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, one of the podcast’s guest hosts as Bannon is serving a four-month prison term. “And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Roberts’ remarks shed light on how a group that promises to have significant influence over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump is thinking about this moment in American politics. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, a sweeping road map for a new GOP administration that includes plans for dismantling aspects of the federal government and ousting thousands of civil servants in favor of Trump loyalists who will carry out a hard-right agenda without complaint.

His call for revolution and vague reference to violence also unnerved some Democrats who interpreted it as threatening.

“This is chilling,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson wrote on the social platform X. “Their idea of a second American Revolution is to undo the first one.”

James Singer, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, pointed to this week’s Fourth of July holiday in an emailed statement.

“248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at our expense,” Singer said, adding that Trump and his allies are ”dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.”

Roberts, whose name Bannon recently floated to The New York Times as a potential chief of staff option for Trump, also said on the podcast that Republicans should be encouraged by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling.

Bannon is in jail right now, serving time for contempt of Congress.  The New Republic‘s Parker Malloy has a good point here.  “Why Does the Media Insist on Helping Steve Bannon Act the Martyr? NBC and ABC snagged pre-prison interviews with the far-right globalist. But to what end? They became tools in his propaganda machine.”  The press just falls right in line by normalizing this behavior.

NBC News’s Vaughn Hillyard and ABC News’s Jonathan Karl recently made a journalistic misstep by interviewing Steve Bannon right before he reported to prison. This move, which might seem innocuous at first glance, actually elevates Bannon’s “political prisoner” narrative, a misleading storyline that does little but bolster the War Room host’s victim complex.

By interviewing Bannon just before he heads to prison, both NBC and ABC are essentially giving him a platform to paint himself as a martyr.

It allows Bannon to control the narrative. This plays directly into the hands of Bannon and his supporters, who are eager to cast any legal action against them as part of a broader conspiracy to silence dissent. It’s a classic tactic: position yourself as a victim to garner sympathy and rally support.

But Bannon is not going to prison for his political beliefs or his support for Donald Trump. He’s going to prison because he defied a congressional subpoena. By allowing Bannon to put some focus on his claims of political persecution, these interviews shift attention away from his actual misconduct and the legal consequences of that misconduct. This undermines the rule of law and gives credence to the idea that powerful individuals can evade accountability by crying foul.

Beyond that, it normalizes extremist rhetoric. In his interview with Karl, Bannon doubled down on his inflammatory language, discussing “retribution” and the need for investigations and potential imprisonments of political figures. Bannon listed former FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr as people who should be “very worried” about prosecution under a second Trump administration. Bannon defended his use of the slogan “Victory or Death!” at the recent Turning Point Action convention and rolled his eyes at Karl for even asking him about his 2020 comments about beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Also, from TNR is this headline about the black man running for governor on the insanity platform. “MAGA Gov Candidate’s Ugly, Hateful Rant: “Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, has a long history of incendiary comments. But he may have topped himself this time.”

Mark Robinson, the extremist GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, appeared to endorse political violence in a bizarre and extended rant he delivered on June 30 in a small-town church.

“Some folks need killing!” Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, shouted during a roughly half-hour-long speech in Lake Church in the tiny town of White Lake, in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”

Robinson’s call for the “killing” of “some folks” came during an extended diatribe in which he attacked an extraordinary assortment of enemies. These ranged from “people who have evil intent” to “wicked people” to those doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping” to socialists and Communists. He also invoked those supposedly undermining America’s founding ideals and leftists allegedly persecuting conservatives by canceling them and doxxing them online.

In all this, Robinson appeared to endorse lethal violence against these unnamed enemies, particularly on the left, though he wasn’t exactly clear on which “folks” are the ones who “need killing.”

Robinson, a self-described “MAGA Republican,” has a long history of wildly radical and unhinged moments. He has linked homosexuality to pedophilia, called for the arrest of trans women, pushed hallucinogenic antisemitic conspiracy theories, endorsed the vile “birther” conspiracy about Barack Obama, described Michelle Obama as a man, hinted at the need to violently oppose federal law enforcement and the government, and posted memes mocking and denying the brutal, violent assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, among many other things.

My belief is he said the quiet part out loud. My governor isn’t calling for the death penalty for anyone who doesn’t fit the White Christian Nationalist mold or stays quiet, afraid, and hidden, but I do believe he’d do it if any other MAGA governor started the trend.  As JJ says, fear for people you love.  As to the swiftboating of Biden for a cold, let’s show you this oldie but goodie of just a smidgen of the swiftboating of Hillary. “Remember when Hillary Clinton had pneumonia and showed up anyway at a 9/11 memorial & media ripped her for that?”  (via @joannebamberg with Karolic Kuns and me in the amen corner.)

Even New York Magazine is in on it. “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden. The president’s mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters.”  Biden, meanwhile, is on a prove-them all full of a shit tour of duty.  Here’s another ‘nattering nabob of negatism’ NBC News. (With no apologies to rotten apple dead Spiro Agnew.)

 President Joe Biden will hold a rally Friday in Wisconsin and then sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance last week, events could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.

The interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos of ABC News is shaping up to be one of the most high-stakes moments for a president or a candidate in many years. Democratic elected officials, donors and voters will be closely watching to see whether he can still deliver in an adversarial setting and turn in a performance worthy of being the party’s nominee to defeat Donald Trump this fall.

The interview will “air in its entirety as a primetime special” at 8 p.m. ET Friday, ABC said, adding that a “transcript of the unedited interview will be made available the same day.”

Before that, Biden is expected to speak this afternoon at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. At the rally, Biden will “underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy,” a campaign official said. Also speaking will be Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., among others.

The White House said the interview team from ABC “will be with us all day in Wisconsin” and able to cover the rally event and to observe the president as he participates in his schedule, and said it has “some flexibility” around the length of the sit-down but “no exact estimate” of the duration of the conversation.

Read the next paragraph, which I will not print here, and try not to bang your head against your desk, wall, or coffee table.  Law Professor Richard W. Painter is floating a Constitutional Amendment on X.

Const. Amend. 28: “The President and the judges of the United States courts including the Supreme Court, shall be bound by the criminal laws of the United States and also by financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws enacted by Congress.” So who votes against?

If you want a real shock, go see The Economist Cover Picture today with the heading “No way to Run a Country.”  The attached story is “Biden Must Withdraw.”   This is from a country where the General Election just kicked the Conservative PM (a hedge fund manager) and replaced him with a Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Labour Party.  Fourteen years of Conservative Rule has just been tossed for something different.  Of course, CNN has joined the swiftboating effort. This is from Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN. “It’s time for President Biden to undergo detailed cognitive and neurological testing and share his results.”

So, I have to share this one from the New York Times even though I’m about to cancel my subscription. “Biden Tells Governors He Needs More Sleep and Less Work at Night.  The president’s opening remark to a group of key Democratic leaders — that he was in the race to stay — chilled any talk of his withdrawal, participants said.”  The usual suspects, Reid J. Epstein and Maggie Haberman, reported it.

President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 p.m., according to two people who participated in the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.

The remarks on Wednesday were a stark acknowledgment of fatigue from the 81-year-old president during a meeting intended to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of his job and capable of mounting a robust campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Biden’s comments about needing more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noticed that the president’s lapses over the past few months have become more frequent and more pronounced.

But Mr. Biden told the governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he was staying in the race.

He described his extensive foreign travel in the weeks before the debate, something that the White House and his allies have in recent days cited as the reason for his halting performance during the debate. Initially, Mr. Biden’s campaign blamed a cold, putting out word about midway through the debate amid a series of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.

Mr. Biden said that he told his staff he needed to get more sleep, multiple people familiar with what took place in the meeting said. He repeatedly referenced pushing too hard and not listening to his team about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what took place at the meeting.

After Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, a physician, asked Mr. Biden questions about the status of his health, Mr. Biden replied that his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with what took place — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, according to a person close to her. But at least one governor did not, and was puzzled by it.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign chair, who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he had said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly making a joke.”

So, I fully admit to being depressed and worried.  I know that BB stopped her NYT subscription.  I hope John Buss doesn’t mind. I shared this bit he posted to his FaceBook about canceling his. I seriously worry about him in North Carolina, too.  None of us in the old Confederate States are safe right now.

This is from a poll taken in April and reported by the AP on May 1. “Half of US adults mistrust media coverage of 2024 elections, a poll finds. About half of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. According to a poll, 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. (AP Video: Serkan Gurbuz)”

I think it’s likely that if they redid that this month, they’d find a statistically significant increase in the number of people saying that.  However, I admit that I live in the Southern City that promptly surrendered when Captain David Farragut of the Union Navy bombed two forts and arrived at the port.  We are a haven for the GLBT community.  We also have a strong Jewish presence and are well known for being a place of refuge for many diasporas.  Our new governor hates us and wants to take away our city charter, which is the legal means by which we don’t become the rest of the state.  You have to wonder how many cities like ours will come under direct attack if MAGA either gets its way or doesn’t.

The only way out of this is to VOTE and get everyone you know to VOTE because our lives depend on it.

I really hope you got to enjoy a little celebration on Independence Day.  I’m still on board with ensuring liberty and justice for all.  I am also standing by the Biden/Harris ticket.  Again, you realize that I have had a lot of gripes in the past about Biden and what happened to Anita Hill. It is somewhat karmic that what is going on now is somewhat built in by the bad decision he, Teddy Kennedy, and John Kerry made about Clarence Thomas. Forty-eight percent of the Senate was against his confirmation. He should’ve been Borked.  That, unfortunately, is toxic water under the bridge of democracy, but we have what we have now, and it is what it is.  Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin and fight for it.  The Roberts Supreme Court just took down the republic.

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

–Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A

#Repeat1968 #aRepublicIfYouCanKeepIt #CoupAttempt #democracy #IndependenceDay #insurrection #JohnBuss #LeonardCohen #MediaAndSwiftboating #Project2025 #Swiftboating

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.

I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.

This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us  There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. 

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

 On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.

All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench.   I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night.  Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so.  Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people.  His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred.  Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved.  They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation.  Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys.  They all want absolute immunity.  we have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable.  Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.

It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ rump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”

… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.

But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.

After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”

Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.

It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”

At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?

Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic.   This is from Adam Sewer writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”

The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.

“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”

“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.

The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law

This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true.   shift to the other SCOTUS shit show this week.   N has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver, or who knows what her outcome may have been. Dr  Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho.  P gnant women are gestational containers there. Th s analysis is provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.

In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.

The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.

To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.

The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.

Follow the link to the list of take-aways.  While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers.  Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid.  H  can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid!  C  we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil?  A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever

So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.

The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…

— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent

Pecker was a great witness for just that
 
I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS

— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in.  I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about.  I m  feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House.  We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Guess who John Prine wrote this about?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/

#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/

#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/

#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo

“I know they wanted JFK Jr, but RFK Jr is a nice addition to the trump campaign.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trumplican Party continues to devolve. I doubt my father would even recognize it if he were alive.  The latest example is the addition of RFK Jr., a conspiracy nut with habits that the word eccentric can’t even begin to describe.  This headline from The Wrap, written by Stephanie Kaloi, is something regular folks can’t wrap their head around. “RFK Jr.’s Daughter Says Dad Cut Off a Whale’s Head, Drove It 5 Hours Home. When they would accelerate, “whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy explained to Town & Country Magazine.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy may or may not be spending time with Jennifer Lopez’s estranged husband Ben Affleck (as reported by Page Six), but she certainly spent time with Town & Country Magazine for a profile that has been resurfaced and made waves on social media, in which she shared an anecdote about her father and a dead whale that still checks out with what we know about the odd politician — especially when it comes to his love for dead animals.

When she was 6, her dad chopped off the head of a whale that washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Due to RFK Jr.’s love of studying animal skulls and skeletons, they then strapped the dead whale’s head to the car and spent five hours driving it to their home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kennedy said. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

RFK Jr. made headlines earlier this month when he shared the story of taking a dead bear that he found as roadkill, intent on saving it to eat, before ultimately dumping it in a bizarre prank in New York City’s Central Park. On Friday, the independent candidate dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. approached the Harris/Walz campaign, but they didn’t answer his calls. That’s just some American common sense with nothing to do with political savvy. What possible benefit could his addition add to a campaign?  But he’s just another (yawn) Maga Sideshow full of weirdos who generally wind up in trouble with the law, one way or another.  His J6 “gala” next month will undoubtedly highlight the number of criminals that actually might actually violate his terms of release.  Also, Rudy Guilliani will be there.  He is definitely on the Trumplican weirdo and felon list. This information popped up on Alternet, and I just had to share it.  “Trump’s ‘gala’ honoring ‘courage and sacrifice’ of J6 rioters may violate his terms of release” is written by Carl Gibson and answers my call out to all the parole officers in charge of these folks.

Convicted felon and 45th President of the United States Donald Trump is planning on hosting a gathering of other convicted felons next month. One legal expert is pointing out that the event may frustrate his efforts to remain a free man.

According to NJ.com, the ex-president is hosting a “J6 awards gala” at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club next month. Progressive group MeidasTouch reported that on September 5, Trump will be joined by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and MAGA influencer Anthony Raimondi at the event, where he is expected to personally address participants in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

…

However, if Trump follows through with the gala, it may complicate his own legal situation. According to attorney Tristan Snell – who prosecuted the former president over his sham Trump University while at the New York Attorney General’s office — New York state law would prohibit such an event given the expected guest list.

“Someone should alert Trump’s probation officer — because convicted felons are legally prohibited from associating with other felons,” he tweeted.

While Trump has been convicted by a jury on 34 class E felony counts, he won’t be sentenced until September 18. At that point, assuming the former president isn’t ordered to serve time behind bars (Judge Juan Merchan has the ability to sentence him to as much as 20 years in prison), he will then be issued a probation officer, who he will be required to check in with on a regular basis. This means the September 5 event will be legal, though it likely won’t help his case when he appears before Merchan less than two weeks later.

The former president narrowly dodged the ire of prosecutors at last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade pointed out that some of the convention’s attendees included indicted “fake electors,” and that Trump seen associating with them may have resulted in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and/or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis petitioning the court to incarcerate Trump prior to his trial for consorting with criminal defendants.

DonOld is facing new lawsuits from musicians who don’t want their music to be associated with MAGA craziness.  The first to take action was the son of Issa Hayes.  This is reported in the Daily Beast by Clay Walker. “Isaac Hayes Estate Marks Victory in Suit Against Trump.” The candidate and the campaign continue to act like laws don’t matter.

The estate of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes is moving forward in their lawsuit against Donald Trump for using a song co-written by the artist. “The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” the late singer’s son, Isaac Hayes III, wrote on X Friday. According to Hayes III, Trump himself will have to appear in court in September. The lawsuit was originally filed earlier this month and sought $3 million for the former president’s campaign’s unauthorized use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a 1960s song originally performed by duo Sam & Dave, more than 100 times. Prior to the filing, the Trump campaign was asked to discontinue the use of the song, but things came to a head on August 10, the anniversary of the singer’s 2008 death, when Trump used it again at a Montana rally. “Donald Trump represents the worst in integrity and class with his disrespect and sexual abuse of Women and racist rhetoric. We will now deal with this very swiftly,” Hayes III wrote on X.

Next up in court is the band Foo Fighters. This is from The Hill. “Trump campaign disputes Foo Fighters claim song use was unauthorized.” Laura Sforza writes on the Foo Fight.

 A spokesperson for the Foo Fighters said in a statement to The Hill late Sunday the band did not give permission to the Trump campaign to use the song at a Friday campaign rally in Arizona. The spokesperson said any royalties the band earns off the song would be donated to Vice President Harris’s campaign.“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were they would not have granted it,” the spokesperson said.

However, the Trump campaign said it had permission to play the song.

“We have a license to play the song,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to The Hill.

He also took to the social platform X to dispute the claim.

“It’s Times Like These facts matter, don’t be a Pretender. @foofighters,” he wrote, referring to two other songs by the band.

“My Hero” could be heard playing at Trump’s rally in Glendale on Friday as the former president introduced former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign earlier in the day and threw his support behind Trump.

And there’s more in the Weirdos and Felons news. We have this from the LGBTQ Nation.  Seriously, we’ve gone way past the deplorable basket at this point.  “MAGA ex-GOP party chair calls gay lawmaker a “f*g” on social media. She called Pete Buttigieg a “weak little girl” in 2022, before she got indicted.” This is written by Alex Bollinger.

A former high-ranking state Republican official who has been indicted in an alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election used an anti-gay slur to describe a gay Democratic lawmaker.

Meshawn Maddock used to be the head of the Michigan Republican Party until shortly after she was charged in connection to a scheme to make Michigan’s votes go to Donald Trump in 2020 instead of President Joe Biden, who won the state. Now she is now using slurs on social media.

She was responding to a post on X from Michigan state Rep. Jason Morgan (D), who is an out gay lawmaker and the vice chair of the state’s Democratic Party. Morgan posted a picture of the Michigan congressional delegation at the DNC last Friday, where they were smiling and holding American flags.

“F*gs and hags,” Maddock responded. X responded by reducing the visibility of her post due to a potential violation of the platform’s Hateful Conduct policy. However, the post has not been deleted by the platform.

Stay Classy you god-fearing Christians you! I have to agree with this Op-Ed headline at The Hill.  “The right’s killjoy politics only fuel Harris’s momentum.”  It’s written by Svante Myrick.

It’s been a couple of days since I flew home after attending the Democratic National Convention. And at the risk of sounding corny, I think I could have done it without the plane. To attend that convention was to experience a sense of joy so powerful that it made you feel like you had wings.

My organization, People for the American Way, was very excited to bring to the convention posters designed especially for us by the artist Victoria Cassinova, which we felt represented the pride and hopefulness of this campaign.

The posters featured a portrait of Harris with the single word: “Freedom.”

We had fun posting them all over the city. We were thrilled to see lots of residents and convention-goers admiring them and taking pictures and selfies. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) shared hers on Instagram.

Then, on the third night of the convention, something sad happened. A group calling itself Artists for Kennedy and Trump defaced a wall of these Harris portraits.

Capturing themselves on video, the vandals spray-painted crimson streaks across the images, focusing on the portrait’s face and eyes. They used words like “war” to describe what they were doing.

It was an ugly but galvanizing reminder of what we’re up against in this race.

I — we — have had enough of creepy authoritarians trying to censor art, ban books and steal our joy.

Because while art does give joy, it also gives strength. It has always been a tool to challenge injustice and enforced conformity, to resist oppression and authoritarianism. That’s why dictators down through history have suppressed and banned art and even murdered artists.

It’s why artists and creators face an enormous threat today, not just from vandals roaming the streets of Chicago but from the deadly serious, powerful operatives behind Project 2025, who are intent on stigmatizing and suppressing vast numbers of artworks by calling them “pornography.”

I remember being shocked and stunned by Trump stalking Hillary on the debate stage and the lack of response to it by the debate’s moderators.  Now I think we know exactly how low they go, and as far as I can tell, there is no bottom. If they stage an insurrection and try to nullify votes, they’ll do anything, and we should all be prepared.  So, the Harris/DonOld debate with ABC is now in jeopardy.  I bet we all had this on our bingo card.  This is from Marianne Levine, who is writing for the Washington Post. “Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with Harris. The Sept. 10 debate with ABC is the only one both campaigns have agreed to.”

Former president Donald Trump suggested Sunday evening that he might skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (D), after agreeing earlier this month to participate.

“I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s (K?) ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton (who was fantastic!), and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump asked in a social media post Sunday evening.

During a campaign stop Monday after visiting Arlington National Cemetery, Trump reiterated his criticism of ABC News, calling it “the single worst network for unfairness” and saying that ABC “really should be shut out.”

The Sept. 10 debate is the only one that both campaigns have officially committed to. Trump’s renewed questioning of the ABC News debate comes as Harris has increased her lead in national polls and is gaining ground in key swing states. As of Sunday, The Washington Post polling average has the vice president leading in Wisconsin by three percentage points, in Pennsylvania by two points and in Michigan by less than one point. Trump continues to lead in four Sun Belt swing states, but Harris has significantly narrowed the gap.

The latest rift between the campaigns is about the terms and conditions about how the debate would work. Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser for communications, said in a statement that the campaign has told ABC and other networks that “both candidates’ microphones should be live throughout the full broadcast.”

“Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” Fallon said.

When asked by a reporter Monday about whether he wanted his microphone muted, Trump replied, “Doesn’t matter to me, I’d rather have it probably on.”

Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said the campaign agreed to the “the ABC debate under the exact same terms as the CNN debate,” referring to a June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, before Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Oh, I officially quit the New York Times a while ago.  I would like to say that seeing the headline on a guest’s op-ed today reinforced my excellent decision. Here’s a brief statement: I agree with her.  I can’t say

more because I refuse to read it. Rich Lowry can bite his crank for  writing “Trump Can Win on Character.” RIFF NYT.  Rest in Fuckery and Failure.

Now, back to the normal news.  This is from Salon’s Charles R. Davis.  As the Vice President said, she’s been a prosecutor and knows his type. “”He’s now terrified of debating her”: Trump’s debate flip-flop is a sign Harris has him figured out. The former president suggested Sunday that he would not attend his scheduled Sept. 10 debate with Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump is not feeling great. This year alone he’s been found liable by a jury for sexual assault, convicted by another jury on 34 felony counts of fraud, and shot at by a young registered Republican at a campaign rally, the one previously safe space where the president could comfortably rant and complain to certain applause. Then he had to spend a week at home watching Democrats pull off their convention without a hitch, just a month after an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket.

The former president’s own campaign is publicly predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris will now surge in the polls (after already leading, nationally, by an average of about 3.6%). In a similar situation, the current president and his team decided it was time to debate, saying a televised contest would “reset” the race; the subsequent performance cost Joe Biden the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps that’s why Trump himself is doubting his own commitments.

“Why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” Trump posted on social media Sunday night, complaining about an ABC News interview with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and panel discussion earlier that day, saying the former was “biased” and the latter full of “Trump Haters.” The Republican nominee filled the rest of his post with tedious name calling — “Crooked,” “Marxist” — and attacks on the insufficiently fawning journalists of ABC.

“They’ve got a lot o questions to answer!!!” Trump posted just after 10 p.m. Eastern. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS, and even CNN? Stay tuned!!!”

The former president already agreed to debate Harris on Sept. 10, which was originally slated to be the second of two televised confrontations with Biden. He did so after previously trying to pull out of the event when Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, initially claiming the debate was off because Biden was out of the race and then trying to move it to the friendlier waters of Fox News, a media platform that was forced to pay out $787 million after admitting that it cynically aired what its knew to be MAGA lies about the 2020 election.

This last read is from the New Republic‘s Michael Tomasky. “Finally, the Democrats Have Found Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: Ridicule Him. Kamala Harris gets it. Yes, we should fear Trump—but we should also mock him mercilessly because it drives him nuts.”

Donald Trump is in free fall. Read this description from Sunday’s Washington Post of how the GOP nominee spent last week: “[A]ides did not want a situation where he was watching the convention every night, getting angry, and then just golfing all day and stewing, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions. Trump also had grown annoyed with the news coverage that depicted him as not working as hard as his opponent, one person who talked to him said.”

If you didn’t know that the article was about Trump and you just read it cold without knowledge of the context, you might think it was a description of parents trying to figure out how to handle an ungovernable four-year-old. So they convinced Trump to get out of Bedminster and hit the road, trading suck-ups with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In the past, Trump has called Kennedy the “dumbest member” of the Kennedy family and a “radical left lunatic.” Kennedy has called Trump a “terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath.”

Will RFK’s endorsement get Trump a few votes? It might. But these two unprincipled freakos deserve each other, and if it ever looks like RFK might matter, all Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to do is say something like that.

Harris’s campaign so far has been a work of genius on several levels, but maybe the most ingenious stroke of all has been the decision to mock Trump—to present him not only as someone to fear but also to ridicule. Harris perfectly encapsulated this two-pronged attack in these memorable lines from her acceptance speech: “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences—but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.… Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.”

But the emphasis has been on ridicule (Tim Walz’s “weird” comment, Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s jab at Trump’s bone spurs, Barack Obama’s hilarious hand gesture when he was talking about Trump’s obsession with crowd size). It’s great on three levels. The first is that it must drive Trump nuts, and when he goes nuts, he says especially nutty things. Second, it’s arguably more persuasive to swing voters than calling Trump a fascist. Trump is a fascist, make no mistake. But he’s also ridiculous. Mocking him over his Hannibal Lecter obsession will stick in apolitical people’s minds far more strongly than warning about his plans to wreck the Justice Department, and in its way, it’s just as disqualifying. Do we really want a president who thinks an eater of human flesh, however fictional, was misunderstood?

And third and most of all: Sustained ridicule has the potential to reinforce the downward spiral Trump is now in. He probably likes it when we call him a fascist or authoritarian, because it expresses fear of him, and he aches to be feared. It acknowledges his power. This motivates him and makes him stronger.

Ridicule makes him weaker. Ridicule makes him small. Ridicule makes him desperate. He’ll try to respond with ridicule of his own, but he is not a clever man. He’s a stupid man. He has no wit. He has no sense of mischief. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t think beyond first reactions. These nicknames of his, which the press has made such a big deal of over the years—they’re nothing. They’re dick contests put into words. Little Marco, Sleepy Joe. There’s nothing remotely clever about any of them.

And now he reportedly thinks he’s come up with a great one in “Communist Kamala.” Well, it’s alliterative, I’ll give him that. But I doubt very much that it’ll play beyond the base. First of all, people under 40 barely know what a communist was. Even for older people who do know, is communism the specter it once was?

Brilliant!  When he goes low, we make fun of him and call him weird.  He becomes lethargic and fussy.  He says weird things and makes weird decisions.  That’s a daily event in Day Cares everywhere and evidently in not-so-posh Jersey Golf Clubs with Galas for Criminals.  This is getting fun.

Embrace the JOY!!!!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/08/26/mostly-monday-reads-the-weirdo-trifecta/

#2024ABCPresidentialDebate #2024PresidentialCampaign #Repeat1968 #DonOldWeirdo #J6FelonsGala #JDVanceWeirdo #JohnBuss #KamalaHarrisForThePeople #RFKJrWeirdo

“So it begins, a proud moment in our history. Another trump first. MAGA.” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m moving a little slow today. I woke up to Temple snuggled utterly beside me.  She usually sleeps down by my feet.  She stood up, looking like she was trying to assume the position, then darted off the bed. Fortunately, she got down there.  I spent the wee hours of the morning cleaning up the floor.  She seemed much better when we went for our morning walk, but dawn is always too early for me.  I’m used to lecturing and gigging at night.

I did check the phone.  BB had texted me this.  It totally changed my thoughts about what I share with you today.  Of course, I’d planned on covering one of the most historical trials in history, and we’ll get to that.  I’m not sure this excitement will start until after the jury is seated. However, it’s Trump, and who knows what the overgrown toddler will do. So, back to the matter at hand. This is from Vox’s Ian Millihiser. “The Supreme Court effectively abolishes the right to mass protest in three US states. It is no longer safe to organize a protest in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas.”

This is especially key down here.  #SCOTUS just decided that there is basically no right to protest in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi. Welcome to the first massive step to undoing democracy. That follows up well with what the Louisiana D’ohvenor just did. If you see a peaceful protest, and it’s in your way, just slam the pedal to the floor and run right over them. That crime is allowed, but if someone sabotages your protest by throwing a rock. All bets are off, and the organizers pay for all damage.  Here are just some of those headlines.  “Louisiana could outlaw protests near residences, despite First Amendment concerns.”  This was written just 5 days ago when there were First Amendment Concerns.  Then there is this. “New legislation aims to offer protection to drivers who hit protesters that are performing road-blocking maneuvers. “GOP politicians across the US are proposing increased penalties for demonstrators who run onto highways and legal immunity for drivers who hit them.”

Baton Rouge, 2016. Jonathan Bachman/Reuters. This evidently isn’t protected speech now. 

So, forced birth advocates can do whatever shenanigans they want and be protected by some warped take on religious freedom and freedom of speech.  The rest of us may be liable for things others did that take away our freedom and strip us of all our assets.  This is from Ian’s analysis.

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear Mckesson v. Doe. The decision not to hear Mckesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a mass protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South.

For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016.

The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock.

Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”

The reason Claiborne protects protest organizers should be obvious. No one who organizes a mass event attended by thousands of people can possibly control the actions of all those attendees, regardless of whether the event is a political protest, a music concert, or the Super Bowl. So, if protest organizers can be sanctioned for the illegal action of any protest attendee, no one in their right mind would ever organize a political protest again.

Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963 [Source: Library of Congress]

The fact that the outcome may be temporary does not preclude a chilling effect on the historical importance of demonstrations in U.S. History.  Think about the Boston Tea Party or the March on Washington Dr. Martin Luther King led.  Amy Howe, writing for SCOTUSblog has this analysis. “Court declines to intervene in lawsuit against Black Lives Matter organizer.”

The case is one with which the justices were already familiar. In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowed the officer’s lawsuit to go forward. Mckesson then appealed to the Supreme Court, where he argued that the lawsuit against him was barred by the First Amendment and the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., which limited the NAACP’s liability for a nonviolent protest that it organized.

In November 2020, the court sent the case back to the 5th Circuit with instructions to seek guidance from the Louisiana Supreme Court on whether state law would in fact allow Mckesson to be held liable.

After the Louisiana Supreme Court issued an opinion indicating that, under the facts alleged by the officer, a protest leader could be sued for negligence, a divided 5th Circuit issued a new opinion allowing the lawsuit to go forward. Doe had alleged, the majority wrote, that Mckesson had “organized and directed the protest in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk that one protester would assault or batter” the officer.

Judge Don Willett dissented from the panel’s ruling. He agreed that Doe “deserves justice” and should be able to sue the person who actually injured him. But he rejected the idea that Doe can sue Mckesson, arguing that the theory on which the majority relied was “foreclosed — squarely — by the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.”

Mckesson returned to the Supreme Court last fall, asking the justices to weigh in. But after considering the case at seven consecutive conferences, the justices denied review.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a statement regarding the court’s decision to deny review. She noted that since the court of appeals issued its decision, the Supreme Court in Counterman v. Colorado “made clear that the First Amendment bars the use of an objective standard like negligence for punishing speech, and it read Claiborne and other incitement cases as demanding a showing of intent.” Because the Supreme Court may turn down cases “for many reasons,” Sotomayor stressed, the denial of review in Mckesson’s case “expresses no review about the merits of” his claim. Moreover, she added, the court of appeals should “give full and fair consideration to arguments regarding Counterman’s impact in any future proceedings in this case.”

Demonstrator at the Vietnam Moratorium, 1969 [Source: Library of Congress]

Evidently, the right-wing judges in the case fear protestors at their steps more than they truly believe in the intent of the Bill of Rights.  It also makes me wonder about the protests on January 6.  Does this mean that everyone there can be sued for the resulting damage?  I guess I’m just going to have to wait to hear the legal minds talk about it on the News tonight. They’re already on overtime given the start of the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Case today.

As with all Trump Trials, the days before the trial began, we had more Trumpertantrums.  This is from Nick Robertson writing for The Hill. “Trump rages at judge hours before hush money case begins.” 

Former President Trump railed against the judge in his criminal hush money case early Monday, just hours before the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president is set to begin.

Repeating complaints he has made for months, Trump argued that Judge Juan Merchan is corrupt and the charges against him are political in nature and baseless, and he dubbed the entire effort a “witch hunt.”

“The Radical Left Democrats are already cheating on the 2024 Presidential Election by bringing, or helping to bring, all of these bogus lawsuits against me, thereby forcing me to sit in courthouses, and spend money that could be used for campaigning, instead of being out in the field knocking Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the History of the United States,” he wrote in one early morning Truth Social post. “Election Interference!”

Trump’s criminal hush money trial will start jury selection Monday in Manhattan, where prosecutors claim the former president illegally covered up payments made to hide a previous affair during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump also again denounced the gag order placed against him, which was expanded after he berated Merchan’s wife and daughter in prior social media posts.

“I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional!” Trump wrote. “The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!”

It is unclear if Trump will testify during the trial, though he is expected to attend it in person, including Monday’s session.

Sorry, dude, if you protest too much and damages result, you will have to pay for everything.  Ask your SCOTUS buddies.   The New York Times has live updates on its website today.

As the first criminal trial of an American president headed toward jury selection on Monday, the judge overseeing the case against Donald J. Trump once again declined to step aside, and prosecutors sought to punish the former president for possibly violating a gag order.

Before beginning the arduous process of choosing a jury for the landmark trial — on allegations that Mr. Trump falsified documents to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star — the judge announced his decision to remain on the case, rejecting Mr. Trump’s latest effort to oust him.

Michael Tomasky has this delightful headline at The New Republic. “We May Finally Get to Write: “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.” The former president’s lawlessness has dodged many an obstacle over the years, but he’s facing a new challenge now: a jury of his peers.”  Tomasky asks my favorite question, and I am paraphrasing.  How the fuck does Trump get away with all of this continually?

We’re finally here. This week, Donald Trump will sit in a courtroom and face criminal charges. The courtroom has not been kind to Trump this year: A Manhattan jury found the Trump Organization guilty on 17 counts of tax fraud last December, and E. Jean Carroll won that hefty judgment against Trump for sexual abuse, but these were civil proceedings. So mark this down as the week the criminal justice system finally managed to haul Trump before the bar of justice.

The only real question here is why this took so long. It’s not as if it wasn’t obvious in 2015 that Trump had total contempt for the law. That was easy for all to see. How has he gotten away with it for this long?

It’s partly due to an utterly docile Republican Party, whose leaders know very well that Trump’s a brigand but are afraid to say so. It’s partly Trump’s reliance on an old Roy Cohn legal strategy—delay, deny, accuse the other side of what you yourself have done, conjure up totally fictional defenses that should be laughed out of court but at least slow down the proceedings. And conservative judges have played their role, such as Aileen Cannon and the U.S. Supreme Court.

But crucially, this is also a media story—more precisely, it’s the story of our two medias, the mainstream and the right-wing. The mainstream media have consistently held Trump to a lower standard of behavior than other politicians, and the right-wing media have held him to no standard of behavior, making excuses for everything.

It’s so important to understand this phenomenon. We have two medias in this country. One wakes up every morning looking for a fight, and the other, with some exceptions, wakes up every morning looking for nuance and rationalizations. It’s a huge part of the story of how we got here.

Take this now completely forgotten tale from the very early days of the Trump administration. On January 24—Trump’s fourth day in office—then–national security adviser Mike Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his Russia connections. On January 26 and 27, Sally Yates of the Justice Department told the White House about her department’s suspicions about Flynn.

That same night of January 27—the first week of his presidency—Trump had dinner with then–FBI director James Comey. The FBI was investigating Flynn. It was also, we learned shortly thereafter, investigating Trump’s 2016 campaign.

What was said at that dinner? We don’t know everything, but that May, Trump admitted that he asked Comey if he, Trump, was under investigation. The mere asking of the question, as Lawrence Tribe said at the time, was a high crime and misdemeanor—an attempt to intimidate and to obstruct justice.

That should have launched a congressional investigation at the very least. But the Republicans controlled the House at the time, so that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, then-Speaker Paul Ryan came out and called Comey compromised, backing Trump all the way.

And the media? Oh, it was a story all right, I wouldn’t deny that it was. But while I haven’t done a content analysis, I’d bet you that Bill Clinton’s tarmac visit with Loretta Lynch inspired more outrage in both medias than this episode did. Naturally, I’m not defending what Clinton did. But he was an ex-president with no power over Lynch. Trump was the sitting president will all power over Comey—which he exercised that May by firing him.

This is one of dozens of examples in which Trump flagrantly violated norms and standards. It made a little stink for a moment or two, but it eventually faded away, quietly departing the front pages, blending into the blurry background of half-remembered Trumpian lies and outrages that have proven to be too numerous for the media watchdogs to actually keep track of, leaving one feeling overwhelmed.

That’s why this week is different. This, finally, is a court of criminal law. There will be facts submitted for the record. There will be testimony, under oath. And eventually, in an estimated six weeks or so, there will be a verdict from a jury of Trump’s peers.

Let’s hope just does, in fact, prevail.  I’m not a lawyer, so I must listen to them. However, I should know about equities, as I’ve never seen anything like this before.

I have no words about this last move on DJT stock other than, what is wrong with NASDAQ and the people holding this stock?  It already has a negative P/E ratio, and you want to further decimate shareholder value?  At the very least, it’s unethical, but is this legal? This is from CNBC.  Kevin Breuninger has the analysis. “Trump Media shares plunge more than 15% after company files to issue additional DJT stock.”   This plan sounds fishy and appears based on allowing Trump to cash out when allowed.  The use of warrants here is legal but off.  People need to dump this stock quickly and learn a lesson or fifty.

Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 15% on Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock.

Trump Media’s dramatic slide came as Donald Trump sat in a Manhattan courtroom for the start of his criminal trial on hush money-related charges. Trump is the majority stakeholder in the company.

Trump Media, which created the Truth Social app and trades under the stock ticker DJT on the Nasdaq, fell nearly 20% last week.

Since the company began public trading on March 26, its share price has fallen more than 62%, from an opening price of $70.90 that day down to around $27 on Monday.

As a result, its market capitalization has been slashed by nearly $6 billion, leaving it at around $3.7 billion as of Monday.

The company’s intent to issue more common stock was disclosed in a preliminary prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The shares cannot be issued until a registration statement with the SEC takes effect.

The filing describes a plan to offer more than 21.4 million shares of common stock, issuable “upon the exercise of warrants,” the filing shows. Stock warrants give their holder the ability to buy shares at a predetermined price within a certain time frame.

Trump Media predicted in the filing that it will receive “up to an aggregate of approximately $247.1 million from the exercise of the Warrants.”

The closing price of Trump Media’s warrants was $13.69 as of Friday, according to the filing. The warrants are being traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker “DJTWW.” That ticker was down more than 8% as of 11 a.m. ET.

The company also seeks to offer the resale of up to 146.1 million shares of stock from “selling securityholders,” 114.8 million of which are held by Trump himself. Trump owns 78.8 million shares of the company, and stands to obtain 36 million “earnout shares” if the stock stays above $17.50 for enough trading days.

Trump’s current stake in the company — nearly 60% of its shares — was worth more than $2.2 billion at Monday morning’s share price. Trump is not allowed to sell his shares until a six-month lockup period expires.

So, another week under the glare of the Orange Crashing Meteor.  Please let all of this end so we can return to being the country we should be.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/15/mostly-monday-reads-supreme-court-upends-the-constitution-again/

#Repeat1968 #AmericanRequiemBeyonce #BillOfRights #BlackLivesMatterProtests #CorruptSupremeCourtJustices #JohnBuss #MckessonVDoe #RightToAssemble #StormyDanielsHushMoneyTrial #TrumpStockCrashing

Filling a void while living the dream. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Back in 1982, I was finishing up my first Masters in 1982,  taking a much-needed vacation to Europe to celebrate the event, trying to save the Savings and Loan Industry after the rug was pulled out of fixed rate assets with 30-year obligations, yet Congress decided in 1980 to let their liabilities be “open to the market” which was running amok with double-digit inflation.  I also was pregnant with my oldest. I had a modest two-story, two-bedroom townhouse with a 30-year loan fixed at 16.7% but mercifully put to 12% because I worked at the Lender. I also could do nothing to stop them from heading to bankruptcy.  I’d worked at a small commercial bank where the problem was having to pay interest now on checking accounts. This upset of the status quo left over from the Depression Days basically threatened homeownership and business.  Repricing their liabilities more to market was a killer but considered necessary because savings funds were going to money market accounts.  I also spent some time trying to explain these things to Congress. The only good advice I got there was never to get in an elevator with Strom Thurmond. The eighties economy was a mess, but you’d never know if you had read anything besides economic studies in journals. It didn’t really get better until we got what we call a regime change.

I planned on attending law school, taking the exams while noticeably pregnant with my oldest daughter, getting accepted to several, etc. I visited the University of Chicago as an undergrad.  All I could think was there were too many damn lawyers around the country. So, I became a Financial Economist with eyes on my doctorate. I missed this seminal event in American History where a group of people worked to undermine the Justice System to benefit the wealthy.  The Federalist Society, nicknamed FedSoc, was founded that same year.  I don’t often rely on Wikipedia, but when I do, I make sure they’ve got citations.

The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by a group of students from Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and The University of Chicago Law School with the aim of challenging liberal or left-wing ideology within elite American law schools and universities. The organization’s stated objectives are “checking federal power, protecting individual liberty and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning”,[1] and it plays a central role in networking and mentoring young conservative lawyers.[5] According to Amanda Hollis-Brusky, the Federalist Society “has evolved into the de facto gatekeeper for right-of-center lawyers aspiring to government jobs and federal judgeships under Republican presidents.”[8] It vetted President Donald Trump‘s list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees; in March 2020, 43 out of 51 of Trump’s appellate court nominees were current or former members of the society.[10]

In 2018, Politico Magazine wrote that “it is no exaggeration to suggest that it was perhaps the most effective student conference ever—a blueprint, in retrospect, for how to marry youthful enthusiasm with intellectual oomph to achieve far-reaching results.”[13] The society states that it “is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”[2]

The society looks to Federalist Paper Number 78 for an articulation of the virtue of judicial restraint, as written by Alexander Hamilton: “It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature … The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.”

“Trump is an expert in lawfare, and his life has revolved around manipulating the judicial system. He’s out on bail while facing 54 more criminal charges and awaiting sentencing for conviction of 34 felonies. It is entertaining listening to MAGA whine about the corrupt DOJ while the corruption is all Trump.” John Buss @repeat1968

That sounds almost mundane, doesn’t it?  The virtue of judicial restraint?  Protecting individual liberty?  However, we now have judges so far off the rails of restraint that it’s not even funny.  Some of them are now vehemently anti-MAGA and Donald, but they’re still very much at the root of the problem. I found this ironic when I read it last year at WAPO.  “Conservative Case Emerges to Disqualify Trump for Role on Jan. 6.  Two law professors active in the Federalist Society wrote that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible to hold government office.”

Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

“When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was,” Professor Baude said. “People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

He summarized the article’s conclusion: “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”

Yet, this is the same group that vetted all of Trump’s appointments. But it didn’t start there, and it doesn’t end there.  This is from The New Republic.  “Clarence Thomas Is Hiding Even More Money Than We Knew. The justice has received millions of dollars worth of gifts, far more than his colleagues, but only reported a fraction of it.”   These judges are not only activists whose findings are not based on anything in the Constitution or precedent, but they take cash for their positions.  The news on Clarence Thomas is so bad that I cannot believe Dick Durbin won’t open an investigation or call him and his enablers to a hearing.

Crime doesn’t pay, but it seems that Justice can get you millions.

A new report from Fix the Court, a judicial watchdog and advocacy group, found that justices on the U.S. Supreme Court received close to a total of $3 million in gifts, at least, over the last 20 years—with more than $2.4 million of those gifts being directed solely to Justice Clarence Thomas.

Thomas has repeatedly been the focus of ethical scrutiny over reports that he received exorbitant gifts and vacations from Republican billionaires, never paid back a loan for his beloved R.V., and cavorted with the Koch brothers, while failing to adequately disclose many of the perks he’s received. All of this has been reported on extensively by publications such as ProPublica. Now, Fix the Court has worked to add it all up.

Fix the Court was able to identify 103 gifts that Thomas received between 2004 and 2024, totaling a value of $2,402,310. Overall, it found 193 when counting some gifts that were received before that period. These gifts could be a number of things: often meals or lodging, with a free flight counting as one gift and a round-trip journey counting as two.

The court’s gift-reporting threshold has slowly risen over the course of 20 years. In 2004, it was $285, and in 2023, it was $480. Of those 193 gifts, Thomas only disclosed receiving 27.

Fix the Court was also able to identify 101 “likely gifts”—mostly trips to exclusive clubs Bohemian Grove and Topridge—Thomas received during those 20 years, which added an additional value of $1,787,684. Including those “likely gifts,” Thomas has reportedly received $4,189,994 worth of perks.

For context, in January 2001, an associate Supreme Court justice like Thomas would’ve made $194,300, a sum that has since risen to $285,400, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Through gifts, Thomas has roughly doubled his official published income from the last 20 years, which would sit at approximately $4,747,700. To Thomas, being bought and paid for appears to be a second job altogether. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

When counting “likely gifts” furnished to Thomas, justices seated on the U.S. Supreme Court received an astounding 445 gifts valued at $4,780,720. Without those “likely gifts,” the justices’ tallies still hit 344, worth $2,993,036.

Here’s the report from Fix the Court, which details the massivCourtunts of grift.  Of course, it’s the darlings of FedSoc that run amok with the bribes.

The tally captures the value of Thomas’ yacht trips to Russia, the Greek Isles and Indonesia, as well as some new information on the Thomas flights Tony Novelly paid for and the Scalia and Alito fishing trips Robin Arkley paid for that’s included in the congressional record. The value of the gifts Scalia received on his ill-fated trip to Marfa, Tex., in 2016 are also included.FTC estimated the value of most of the medals, plaques and trophies the justices received over the years and didn’t list on their disclosures — and there were several dozen, including 62 accepted by O’Connor — at $200, i.e., under the gift-reporting threshold. Several similar awards were accepted by Ginsburg, many of which have been auctionedoff by the Potomack Company to benefit various charities. That said, in some instances — namely for three of Ginsburg’s recent awards, two of which appear to be above the reporting threshold — FTC reached out to the gift-givers to inquire about value and is waiting to hear back.

Other awards unearthed by FTC include a blanket and gift basket Minnesota Law gave to Chief Justice Roberts; personalized Louisville Slugger bats given to Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett by the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center; silver julep cups given to Gorsuch by UK’s Heyburn Initiative; and football “gear” (likely a sweatshirt) and a skybox ticket given to Justice Kagan by the University of Wisconsin. Vague gifts from FTC’s open records requests — a photograph UF Law sent to Thomas, an “engraved gift” URI sent to Sotomayor and a something UW sent to Kagan — are also included.

FTC notes that several entities Thomas listed on his 2000 and 2002 disclosures as “reimbursing” him for “private plane” travel did not, in all likelihood, own private planes at the time (e.g., high schools, small colleges, civic organization, etc.). Those flight-legs were then gifts, 20 in total.

A fairly significant portion of several justices’ gift haul came in the form of honorary memberships at various golf, tennis and social clubs. These types of free memberships were largely outlawed by a law Congress passed in 2008, which is why they mostly drop off the tally after that year.

The reason FTC is focusing on the last 20 years is two-fold: first, it was 20 years ago that the L.A. Times filed its oft-referred to report on the justices’ gifts, and second, the record of the justices’ disclosures gets a bit fuzzy before 2004, since throughout the 1980s and 1990s and into the early 2000s, the justices’ disclosures were typically only available for inspection at the Supreme Court and were only later distributed by the judiciary on paper, in a thumb drive or on a database.

In terms of crunching the numbers, the tally counts “meals” and “lodging” as two separate gifts, and FTC counted each leg of a round-trip flight as one gift, so it’s two gifts per round-trip. Unless otherwise stated, FTC assigned the cost per hour of a flight on a private plane to be $10,000 (can range from $5,000 to $25,000-plus, depending on plane size and other circumstances). Awards accepted by retired justices were not included.

Newsweek has three charts that give you an idea of who was a crook and who took their job more conventionally.

According to Fix the Court’s analysis, Justice Clarence Thomas received the largest portion of gifts, identifying 193 for the George H.W. Bush appointee who has served since 1991.

Second was the late Sandra Day O’Connor with 73, who died last year. O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, by then President Ronald Reagan, and served from 1981 to 2006.

The late Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were third and fourth with 67 and 61 identified gifts respectively. Scalia served 29 years on the court, and Ginsburg 27.

David Souter, who spent 18 years on the court before he retired in 2009, and Brett Kavanaugh received just one gift, according to the findings.

Thomas led here as well, with likely gifts totaling $4,042,286.

Justice Samuel Alito is alleged in the findings to have received just over $170,000 worth of gifts.

The Supreme Court justices with the lowest total value of gifts were Kavanaugh, Souter and Amy Coney Barrett, with $100, $349, and $500 respectively.

More importantly, the Newsweek report shows the split between disclosed and undisclosed gifts.

According to Fix the Court, Thomas was the worst offender on this front. The watchdog believed he openly disclosed just 8.5 percent of all gifts he received.

Kavanaugh and Barret disclosed none of their gifts, however, the report estimates the pair only received $600 worth of gifts between them.

Souter and the late John Paul Stevens were the only two SCOTUS justices to disclose 100 percent of their gifts.

Thomas filed his disclosure report last week. Here’s the coverage from the Washington Post.  “Justice Thomas discloses two 2019 trips paid for by Harlan Crow. 2023 financial disclosure reports for Supreme Court justices also show six-figure book payments for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Jackson.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has disclosed for the first time trips to Bali and to a private club in California in 2019 paid for by his friend and benefactor, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to financial disclosures released Friday for eight of the nine justices.

The required annual reports, covering activity in 2023, also show three justices — Brett M. Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson — received six-figure book payments.

Jackson also accepted four tickets worth nearly $4,000 from Beyoncé to one of her concerts, and two pieces of art worth $12,500 to display in her chambers.

“Justice Jackson is Crazy in Love with Beyoncé’s music. Who isn’t?” said court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor reported a star turn as a cartoon character on the PBS children’s show “Alma’s Way,” an animated series about a Puerto Rican girl and her family from the Bronx. The justice was paid about $1,900 for voice work on one episode in which she played herself.

The reports show several justices earning additional income from teaching at law schools and accepting free travel to speak at events at universities and legal organizations.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension to file his report, as he has received in past years.

Many Judges and Justices take their jobs seriously and do not go in with a political agenda. As BostonBoomer has reported, Judge Loose Cannon is one of those Judges who seems devious and incompetent simultaneously.  This is from CNN. “Isolated and inexperienced: A portrait of the judge overseeing Trump’s documents case from veterans of her courtroom.”

Since Trump was first indicted a year ago, Cannon has dragged out the proceedings in ways that have flummoxed legal scholars and put a trial initially scheduled to begin last month on hold indefinitely.

Several attorneys who have practiced in front of Cannon – and who spoke to CNN for this story – pointed to her isolation as one explanation for her conduct. Cannon’s solitary post in the Fort Pierce courthouse, one that rarely sees high-profile action, deprives her of the informal, day-to-day interactions with more seasoned judges who sit at the other courthouses and could offer her advice, the lawyers told CNN.

They also said Cannon’s lack of trial experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, is apparent. In her seven years as a Justice Department attorney, Cannon participated on the trial teams of just four criminal cases.  And on the bench, she’s only presided over a handful of criminal trials – and Huck took over one of them.

For this account of Cannon’s judicial demeanor, CNN spoke to ten attorneys who have had cases – both criminal and civil – before her. The lawyers spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because of the professional and ethical risks of speaking to press about a sitting federal judge in front of whom they practice.

To corroborate their characterizations of Cannon’s approach, CNN reviewed the public dockets of scores of cases that have traveled through her courtroom.

The attorneys described Cannon as extremely diligent and well prepared, a tough questioner who accepts nothing at face value, and thoughtful in her rulings. But they also said that some of her habits that have raised eyebrows in Trump’s case have plagued her approach from the bench more generally.

Those tendencies include a penchant for letting irrelevant legal questions distract from core issues, a zero-tolerance approach to any technical defects in filings, and a struggle with docket management that allows the type of pretrial disputes that other judges would decide in weeks go unresolved for months.

“She is not efficient,” said one attorney who practices in south Florida. “She is very form over substance.”

Another attorney described her as “indecisive.”

A third attorney who’s had cases before Cannon said, “She just seems overwhelmed by the process.”

The Senate needs to take its review of judges much more seriously.  This has been going on since Thomas sat on the court, and it’s the one thing I can never forgive Biden for, along with his coziness with Southern Senators on the busing issue, which also bothered me.  We’ll lose more personal liberties if we don’t do something now.  One more interesting article which outlines the results of a study.  This is from PsyPost. “Why do Republicans stick with Trump? New study explores the role of white nationalism.”

A new study explores why many Americans, particularly Republican voters, continue to support former President Donald Trump despite serious charges against him. Researchers found that white nationalism and political views play crucial roles in shaping public attitudes towards these charges. The study, published in The British Journal of Criminology, sheds light on the interplay between racial attitudes and political allegiances in contemporary America.

The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters resulted in significant consequences, including fatalities, injuries, extensive property damage, numerous arrests, and psychological trauma. The subsequent investigation by the United States House Select Committee aimed to determine the role of Trump in inciting this attack and whether criminal charges were warranted.

Despite the evidence against Trump, polls indicated that a significant portion of Republican voters continued to support him. The study aimed to understand why this segment of the population remained loyal to Trump despite the serious allegations.

This introduction is followed by a thorough list of their control variables. Here are some of the specific findings.

The results demonstrated a clear interaction between participants’ racial and political views and their support for the Select Committee’s recommendations. White nationalists and individuals with conservative political views showed strong support for the Committee when it found no evidence against Trump and recommended no charges. However, their support drastically declined when the Committee recommended criminal charges based on incriminating evidence.

On the other hand, individuals who did not hold white nationalist views and those with liberal political views were overwhelmingly supportive of the Committee’s recommendations when charges were proposed but showed little support when no charges were recommended.

For example, 82% of white nationalists supported the Committee if it found no evidence against Trump, but only 35% to 39% supported the Committee when charges were recommended. In contrast, 76% to 80% of participants without white nationalist views supported the Committee when it recommended charges, but only 34% supported it when no charges were recommended.

The researchers found that right-wing political views mediated the relationship between white nationalism and support for the Committee. White nationalist attitudes were strongly associated with right-wing political views, which in turn influenced reactions to the Committee’s findings. This suggests that individuals with white nationalist beliefs are more likely to align themselves with conservative politics, and this political alignment significantly shapes their responses to the Committee’s recommendations.

“Our experiment suggests that for a non-trivial number of Americans, the desire to keep the United States a ‘white nation’ appears to be stronger than their desire to ensure that the country is led by a law-abiding president,” the researchers concluded.

John Buss has been a roll, and I’m using it!  Lucky John graduated with Ginnie Thomas from our high school. I only had to put up with it for about a year. But wow,  she was a hot mess then. She didn’t rebel against her Bircher parents, that’s for sure.  What should be done with her and Alito’s wife?  Ginnie’s help with the insurrection should be investigated.  I have a feeling that a few of those leaks from the SCOTUS came from Martha Bombthrower.

Anyhow, have a great weekend, and see you on Monday!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/06/07/finally-friday-reads-judicial-just-ice/

#Repeat1968 #FedSoc #IsJusticeJUSTICE_ #JohnBuss #JusticeDelayedIsJusticeDenied #JusticeLooseCannon #SlowWalkingCases #SupremeCourtGrifting #TheFederalistSociety

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.

I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.

This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us  There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. 

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

 On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.

All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench.   I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night.  Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so.  Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people.  His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred.  Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved.  They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation.  Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys.  They all want absolute immunity. We have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable.  Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.

It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ Trump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”

… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.

But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.

After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”

Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.

It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”

At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?

Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic.   This is from Adam Sewer, who is writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”

The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.

“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”

“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.

The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law

This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true.   I am shifting to the other SCOTUS shit show this week.  CNN has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver. Who knows what her outcome may have been? Dr. Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho.  Pregnant women are gestational containers there. This analysis was provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.

In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.

The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.

To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.

The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.

Follow the link to the list of take-aways.  While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers.  Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid. How can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid!  Can we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil?  A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever

So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.

The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…

— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent

Pecker was a great witness for just that
 
I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS

— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in.  I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about.  I m  feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House.  We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Guess who John Prine wrote this about?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/

#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.

I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.

This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us  There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. 

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.

 On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.

However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.

All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench.   I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night.  Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so.  Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people.  His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred.  Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved.  They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation.  Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys.  They all want absolute immunity.  we have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable.  Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.

It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ rump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”

… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.

But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.

After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”

Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.

It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”

At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?

Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic.   This is from Adam Sewer writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”

The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.

“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”

“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.

The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law

This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true.   shift to the other SCOTUS shit show this week.   N has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver, or who knows what her outcome may have been. Dr  Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho.  P gnant women are gestational containers there. Th s analysis is provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.

In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.

The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.

To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.

The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.

Follow the link to the list of take-aways.  While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers.  Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid.  H  can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid!  C  we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil?  A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever

So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.

The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…

— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent

Pecker was a great witness for just that
 
I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS

— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in.  I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about.  I m  feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House.  We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Guess who John Prine wrote this about?

https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/

#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito