Comments

  1. says

    For the convenience of readers, here are a few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2254277
    Sudan and Russia agreed “on everything” regarding creating a Russian naval base in the country – foreign minister of Sudan during his visit to Russia. […]

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2254276
    Switzerland has announced a $1.6 billion support program for Ukraine for 2025–2028. This program aimed at Ukraine’s recovery, reforms, and sustainable development.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2254273
    White House demands more money for border scheme amid funding freezes

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2254269
    Netanyahu warns ‘intense fighting’ will resume in Gaza if Hamas delays hostage release

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2254255
    In a bizarre and surreal Oval Office circus, Elon Musk and Donald Trump ratcheted up DOGE’s infiltration of the federal government.

  2. says

    This sure doesn’t bode well! Our new authoritarian overlords barred an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday, after the news agency declined a demand to use proper NEWSPEAK term for the Gulf of Mexico, which has now been decreed to be called the Gulf of UHMURICA followed by an eagle-screech sound effect. The offending guidance:

    The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.

    Oh, the stupid of it all. Trump can executive-order name changes to whatever federal lands and bodies of water inside the US that he wants to. He can call Denali Mount McKinley, or rename Mount Rushmore Mount MAGA or rename Lake Michigan The Kid Rock Basin of Liberal Tears. But the Gulf of Mexico, which has been called that even before there was a USA, borders two other countries, and international waters only extend 12 miles out to sea.

    The International Hydrographic Organization sets the standard for charting the seas by the agreement of its 100 member countries, and they aren’t changing the name. So calling the gulf a name that exists only in Trump’s box of whims and notions is a purity test based entirely in the Magalandia mind.

    And allowing journalists access to cover the government is some basic First Amendment stuff! How else will we know that Poppy Trump had to babysit Elon’s son X Æ A-Xii while the kid dug for treasures in his nostrils and told Trump to shush? (Why does Musk never rotate in any of his other kids?) [video at the link]

    The Associated Press is a nonprofit cooperative news agency sustained by licensing its content, and they’ve always taken great pains to remain politically neutral, no matter how criminal or batshit members of any particular party may appear. But neutral is no longer good enough!

    […] White House spokes-whatever Karoline Leavitt has also announced they will “restore the press passes of the 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration,” an accusation that appears to be entirely made up. The only press pass that almost got revoked was Simon Ateba, correspondent for Today News Africa, who got a warning letter that his credentials could be revoked after he repeatedly interrupted people to scream. Trump administration 1.0 sure revoked a lot of press passes though! Always projection, every time.

    […] neither Obama nor Biden ever barred Fox News from press briefings, no matter how many times Peter Doocy asked Karine Jean-Pierre trollish questions like “How long have you guys known that Vice President Harris does not think that President Biden is effective with his border?” […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/so-all-the-other-white-house-reporters

  3. says

    Amnesty International details gruesome impact of gang violence on children in Haiti

    “An estimated 30% to 50% of gang members in Haiti are now children, according to UNICEF.”

    Haiti’s children are increasingly caught in the crossfire of gang violence, forced to carry weapons, spy on police and rival gangs and run errands for gunmen, according to a report released Wednesday by Amnesty International.

    One of 51 children interviewed by the human rights group said he was constantly pressured by a gang to fight alongside it.

    “They killed people in front of me and asked me to burn their bodies. But I don’t have the heart for that,” the unidentified boy was quoted as saying.

    An estimated 30% to 50% of gang members are now children, according to UNICEF.

    Amnesty International said the children “had no choice, and that their involvement was predominantly out of hunger or fear.”

    Nearly two million people are on the verge of starvation in Haiti, and more than one million children are estimated to be living in gang-controlled areas, with 85% of the capital of Port-au-Prince under their rule.

    One unidentified boy, 16, said he’s paid to run errands for a gang.

    “(The gangs “are in control. And there is nothing you can do about it,” he was quoted as saying.

    If children refuse to follow a gang’s orders, they or their family would be killed, according to the report, which relied on a total of 112 interviews and research done from May to October last year.

    Children are not only in danger of gangs, but of vigilantes and police officers who believe they’re working for them, according to Amnesty International.

    Girls and young women also have been collectively raped by gang members and infected with sexually transmitted diseases, often ending up pregnant in a country where health care is extremely limited.

    One teen was raped by six men, and her sister by five others.

    “There was so much blood,” the unidentified younger sister said in an interview.

    Another teen recounted how she drank bleach to try and kill herself after having a baby after being raped by three men who then left her naked in public.

    “People found me on the street and put a dress on me,” she said.

    Amnesty International said many of those interviewed “scoffed at the idea of reporting their attacks to authorities.”

    A 16-year-old girl who was abducted and raped by several gang members said: “Are you kidding me? It’s not possible…There is no police…The only chief in town are the gang members.”

    The violence also has led to injury and death.

    One girl, 14, recounted how a ricocheting bullet pierced her lip in September 2024. Three months before that, her 17-year-old brother died from a stray bullet.

    “I lost a huge presence in my life. Since then, I don’t know how to be happy,” the girl said. […]

  6. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    On DOGE at the Treasury and freezing payments.
    Nathan Tankus reviewed recent days’ court filings.

    Regarding Marko Elez’s access:

    What you are being asked to believe is that the most sensitive systems in the world […] had “accidentally” been put under the full control of Marko Elez. You are also being asked to believe that this applied to only one system and the investigation launched was just to “make sure” nothing “bad” happened during this “accident”. And what do you know, they confirmed it! […] These documents also confirm that Elez had direct access to source code and even that he was changing source code but only in a “sandbox” environment.
    […]
    I find the convenience of these explanations preposterous but I want to emphasize […] I do not have specific information at the time of writing to facilitate refuting Treasury’s new stories. […] “Read only” access is still “catastrophic” and it does not matter very much whether dangerous, and possibly unconstitutional, code is put into testing and production by a DOGE employee themselves or ordered by DOGE and implemented by career civil servants

    Regarding payment freezing:

    the Krause statement is an admission, perhaps inadvertent, that they are pursuing using BFS systems to impound spending and they are going to rhetorically cover this by defining impounded spending as “improper payments [under Trump’s Executive Orders]”.
    […]
    What Vona Robinson is saying is that the Trump administration has already reached beyond stopping payments from agencies they do not like to stopping specific appropriations they do not like regardless of the agency doing the spending. […] a flagged payment file is left in the processing stage but a copy is produced [and sent to an administrative agency] reviewing them for “violations” of the president’s executive orders which unconstitutionally order sweeping spending freezes. Thus, this process is operationally elevating executive orders above all other laws. […] a government agency, a cabinet level one no less, was not involved in the review process of its own appropriations.
    […]
    Of course, reviewing payment files manually is a high effort process and will not scale […] Marko Elez was directly involved in writing code to automate operationally and unconstitutionally impounding appropriations.

    Conclusion:

    It appears that we may have avoided the worst case scenarios of system failure and Marko Elez breaking a system he does not understand. This is important and valuable. We truly were in a potentially apocalyptic scenario last week. My inclination is to believe that they are not going to have one of the 20 something DOGE employees mess around with these extraordinarily sensitive systems
    […]
    However, my inclination to believe we’ve avoided the worst case scenarios is based on my informed intuition that the leadership in this area, including Musk, are laser focused on impoundment. Thus the constitutional crisis has still intensified
    […]
    The focus on data privacy stemmed the bleeding but the Attorney Generals involved with this suit, or some other entities, need to figure out an effective lawsuit over the constitutional issue at hand.

  7. Reginald Selkirk says

    U.S. Navy fighter jet crashes near Shelter Island while attempting to land

    A military plane crashed into the San Diego Bay near Shelter Island while attempting to land, according to the U.S. Navy.

    According to a statement by the Navy around 12:15 p.m., the type of plane that crashed was an EA-18G Growler, a variant in the F/A-18 family of military aircraft that combines the F/A-18 “Super Hornet” with an electronic warfare suite…

    Military personnel have confirmed only two pilots were on the plane at the time. Authorities say both pilots on the plane have been rescued and were transported to UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest…

    Averaging one air disaster per week under the new administration.

  8. Reginald Selkirk says

    World’s biggest underground thermal lake discovered in Albania at bottom of 330-foot abyss

    Scientists have discovered the world’s largest underground thermal lake in a cave in southern Albania, the results of a new expedition confirm.

    Researchers from the Czech Republic first found the lake four years ago, but they did not have the right instruments to measure it at the time, according to a translated statement from the Neuron Foundation — an organization that promotes research by Czech scientists.

    Now, the team has announced it returned to the lake in 2024 with state-of-the-art 3D scanners, confirming that the hidden water body is the biggest of its kind known to science.

    The scientists named the lake “Neuron” after the foundation, which funded the recent expedition. The lake measures 454 feet (138 meters) long and 138 feet (42 m) wide…

  9. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Another review of the DOGE Treasury court filings.

    EmptyWheel – Marko Elez “resigned” the day his write access to payment systems was discovered

    The filing is a declaration from Joseph Gioeli […] a civil servant
    […]
    January 28, the Bureau gave Elez source code in a sandbox environment. Then, six days after giving him that sandbox access, using the same laptop, they gave him read-only access to first two and then one more systems. After he got that access, per a review of the logs, Elez copied some files from the active database onto his Bureau laptop, on which he had the source code. Then, on February 5, Elez got access to the payment system itself—again, with the same laptop on which he had source code. The next day, “it was discovered” (Gioeli does not say by whom, which means we’re not seeing a declaration from that person) that Elez actually “had mistakenly been configured” with read/write access, rather than “read only.”
    […]
    No one has asked Elez […] whether he knew he had write access to the payment system.
    […]
    Thomas Krause gave a very couched answer about whether Elez had has any ongoing access. “I currently have no reason to believe Mr. Elez retains access to any BFS payment data, source code, or systems.” […] Worse still, Thomas Krause declaration submitted in the NY case doesn’t even say that Elez has left Treasury—only that he has resigned from the [very specific] role
    […]
    Elez was made a Treasury employee — contrary to early reports, he was not a SGE. That may make it easier to shuffle him off somewhere else.
    […]
    What Gioeli describes is the panic that ensues when a guy who had high level access quits unexpectedly. And to date, we’ve never been given a formal explanation of why he quit—or whether he was asked to do so. We certainly can’t reconcile the claims that he has been reinstated with claims that he’s not doing what he was doing at Treasury.

    Everyone has always assumed that Elez quit because his racism was discovered. But given the timeline, we can’t rule out that he quit because of the access concerns (and ongoing investigation) at Treasury.

  10. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404media – Elon Musk’s Waste.gov is just a WordPress theme placeholder page

    A government website created by the Trump administration to “track government waste” has been left unupdated [since Feb 4] with a default WordPress sample page that includes language about an imaginary architecture firm. […] Notably, Waste.gov does not comply with various executive orders […] because it contains the word “diverse” […] After this article was published, Waste.gov was put behind a password wall.

  11. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    US State Department has budget line for ‘Armored Teslas’ worth $400 million

    But worry not; it was approved under the Biden Administration, so Elon Musk’s DOGE will undoubtedly eliminate this waste. Right? […] there are a few interesting lines that would give auditors second thoughts. […] Strangely, the item is listed under the NAICS code “311999—All Other Miscellaneous Food Manufacturing.”
    […]
    There are several other […] items that are linked to the wrong categories: You have “ARMORED SEDAN” under “Soft Drink Manufacturing,” “ARMORED BMW X5/X7” under “Bottled Water Manufacturing,” and finally, ARMORED EV (NOT SEDAN) under “Ice Manufacturing.” […] ($50 million, $40 million, and $40 million, respectively).

  12. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Roger Parloff (Lawfare):

    Judge O’Toole in Massachusetts dissolves his TRO against the “Fork in the Road” buyouts and denies a preliminary injunction.

    He found that the unions lacked standing (which might be fixable in other cases) but—more potentially far-reaching—also found that he lacked jurisdiction because anyone injured was limited to remedies provided under a federal labor-management law.

    * Rando: “Quick read (not a lawyer): plaintiffs (employee unions) lack standing and employees must exhaust administrative avenues before seeking relief through the courts.”

  13. JM says

    NY Post: Trump admin claws back $80M in FEMA migrant funds from NYC, setting up battle with new prez pal Mayor Adams

    The feds clawed back more than $80 million in migrant funds directly from New York City’s coffers, blindsiding Big Apple officials Wednesday – and setting up a potential battle between Mayor Eric Adams and his recent benefactor President Trump.
    Adams vowed to press the White House to recoup the controversial FEMA payments, which Department of Government Efficiency honcho Elon Musk claimed in an inaccuracy-filled tweet this week had been wasted on “luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.”

    It’s one thing to block payments, it’s another to take the money back. Even if FEMA payments had been miss used the Federal Government can’t be allowed to unilaterally take $80 million back from NY without warning.

  14. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Telegraph – US aid freeze claims first victims as oxygen supplies cut off

    Seventy-one-year-old woman dies after being sent home from USAID funded hospital. Others die after hospitals close in refugee camps.
    […]
    although “life-saving humanitarian assistance” is supposed to be exempt—as well as efforts to tackle diseases such as malaria, newborn deaths and malnutrition—many of these programmes are still waiting for confirmation they can continue.

    “Without confirmation, they risk incurring expenses that USAID then refuses to reimburse—a risk they literally can’t afford to take,” he said. “It’s also very unclear at this stage whether the programmes that have definitely been suspended pending review—those that are not providing “life-saving humanitarian assistance”—will be allowed to resume or cancelled.”

  15. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Trump advisers look to shift US foreign aid to wall street ally

    The new approach would see reduced humanitarian assistance and a greater role for private equity groups, hedge funds and other investors […] to invest in private-sector projects overseas alongside institutional investors.

    The proposal to shift resources is one of several different options being considered within the administration, a senior official said

  18. Bekenstein Bound says

    Switzerland has announced a $1.6 billion support program for Ukraine for 2025–2028.

    Wait, what? I must have misread that.

    Switzerland has announced a $1.6 billion support program for Ukraine for 2025–2028.

    Eh, it still looks the same.

    Switzerland has announced a $1.6 billion support program for Ukraine for 2025–2028.

    Switzerland? Has taken a side in a war?!

    This really is the end times, isn’t it.

  21. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @ comment 9.

    Everyday Americans are demanding answers on Elon Musk, by Rachel Maddow

    “As protests targeting Tesla dealerships grow, Republican lawmakers are inundated with constituent complaints about DOGE.”

    On Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C., hundreds of people turned out just outside the U.S. Capitol, in Upper Senate Park, to show their support for the civil service and to protest our government being dismantled by President Donald Trump and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk.

    That protest followed an equally large and energetic demonstration Monday outside the Washington headquarters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the Trump administration is attempting to unilaterally shut down, even though legally that does not appear to be within its power.

    It’s worth noting the CFPB handles consumer complaints, including hundreds about Tesla, the car company owned by Musk. It’s also the agency that would oversee a new project Musk just unveiled on his social media platform, X, which used to be called Twitter. Musk said he’s working to transform the platform to offer users a place to do their banking. What could possibly go wrong?

    […] Elon Musk now says he’s killed the agency, posting “CFPB RIP“ on his social media platform. But the president’s top campaign donor doesn’t get a unilateral say in that and those protesters doorstopping outside the CFPB on Monday told him as much, holding signs that read “Hands off our CFPB” and “Elon is stealing your data.”

    Outside of Washington, protesters gathered in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which, according to two sources who spoke to ProPublica, might be the next target of Musk’s flying wedge of government saboteurs. After Musk’s DOGE guys got their hands on the Treasury payments system — which is responsible for sending out Social Security checks, veterans benefits and secret payments from intelligence agencies to their assets and sources — they realized that there was another sensitive payment system called the Central Accounting Reporting System. That system is a part of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service which has offices in Parkersburg.

    After ProPublica reported Friday that Trump was sending Musk’s team out to Parkersburg, the ACLU of West Virginia, the Democratic Party of West Virginia, the Wood County Democratic Party and the people who work at the Treasury Department there quickly sounded the alarm and organized Tuesday’s protest.

    We’re also starting to see an upsurge in protests targeting Tesla dealerships and Tesla charging stations, as the corporate representation of Musk. Last week, there was a seemingly impromptu protest at Tesla charging stations in Waterville, Maine. But now it seems they’re happening everywhere. Over the weekend, protesters gathered in front of Tesla buildings in New York, California and Ohio.

    According to Forbes, Musk’s personal wealth has dropped more than $42 billion this month, as shares of Tesla have started to fall off a cliff. This follows earlier reports about how Tesla sales all over the world, and especially in Europe, are sinking like a stone, down as much as 60% in the most important European markets. Tesla’s stock price is down 19% in February alone. One prominent analyst warned that the “negative downturn in consumers’ perception” of Musk could result in a “headwind to sales” for Tesla.

    Republican members of Congress are even privately expressing concern about Musk. Reporters at The Bulwark got their hands on several letters sent by Republican representatives to their constituents about the billionaire. Sen. John Curtis of Utah wrote a letter to one voter thanking them for reaching out to share their thoughts about DOGE and “Elon Musk’s role in the new administration.” Curtis wrote, “It is important that DOGE operates with appropriate oversight to maintain transparency, prevent conflicts of interest, and ensure its work remains focused on serving the American people.” That’s what he’s telling his constituents but is he actually working to ensure that in the Senate?

    Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska told one of his constituents that they were “not the only one who has expressed concern” about Musk’s role. “The Treasury Secretary told me, to my face, that Mr. Musk absolutely does not have full access to the federal payment system,” Flood wrote. But Flood might want to check with the most recent court filing in the case over Musk’s actions at the Treasury Department. In the government’s filings, they admit that it wasn’t only read-only access. It was full access.

    Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida also assured a constituent that “Members of the DOGE team are being vetted to ensure qualifications are met and then monitored by Treasury officials throughout their work. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent … granted the DOGE team access to the Treasury’s payment system in a read-only capacity.”

    According to the government’s filing in the case, on the morning of Feb. 6, it was discovered that one DOGE employee’s database access to the payment system had “been configured with read-write permissions.” But all these members of Congress are assuring their — apparently quite angry and insistent — constituents that never happened.

    Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska told one of her constituents she understands “the Treasury Department’s payment system contains extremely sensitive and confidential data,” and that it “is critical for the Treasury Department to maintain its strict procedures to ensure that this data is protected.” So, what does she think those strict procedures are? Fischer insisted that one DOGE employee had “access to read-only data from the Department’s payment system” But, again, according to the government’s filing, that’s not true. Fischer ended the letter by assuring that constituent she would “continue to closely monitor this situation in the days and weeks ahead.” Well, I don’t know how closely the senator is monitoring it, but what she’s telling her constituents is happening, to reassure them, is not actually what’s happening.

    But, perhaps, the most important thing about what we’re seeing is that all these Republican senators and members of Congress now feel compelled to come up with some kind of explanation for what Trump and Musk are doing because their constituents are inundating them with complaints and concerns about it.

  22. says

    EXCLUSIVE: Judicial Branch Swept Up In Trump-Musk Lease Termination Spree
    Federal public defender offices given notice of possible lease cancellation

    Elements of the judicial branch, including public defender offices, have been caught up in the Trump administration’s headlong rush to terminate thousands of leases of government office space, TPM has learned. Unlike the vast majority of federal workers whose office leases are under review for termination, public defenders are not executive branch employees. They work for the judicial branch.

    The prospect of President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE infringing on judicial branch operations and prerogatives raises the constitutional stakes as the new administration sidelines Congress and unilaterally shutters agencies, purges federal workers, and imposes spending freezes.

    Some federal public defenders’ offices received a notice last week from the General Services Administration titled “Right-sizing the Federal Inventory.” The notice, obtained by TPM, was issued by acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian and asked recipients to indicate whether terminating the lease on a given office will leave their mission “irreparably compromised,” and whether the location “directly serves the public.”

    The possibility that the Trump administration’s opening salvo of aggressive and, in some instances, unlawful executive actions was impinging on the judicial branch was first alluded to by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) during a Monday tele-town hall with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). Kaine told listeners that “there are already some moves on some of the expenditures in the judiciary that [Trump] is trying to make unilaterally.”

    A TPM reporter on Wednesday tracked Kaine down on Capitol Hill to prompt him to clarify his remark. Kaine exclusively told TPM that his office had received a tip from a whistleblower saying that the Trump administration had told federal defenders and probation officers that it viewed their leases as immediately terminable.

    TPM was able to independently confirm that dozens of federal public defender offices have received the GSA notice about potentially terminating their government office leases. TPM was not able to independently confirm that probation offices had received similar notices.

    “Obviously any effort to fool around with the court system is very, very serious and I can’t imagine the courts will take that lying down,” Kaine told TPM.

    […] The GSA notices arrived at public defenders’ officers at the same time as Musk’s DOGE has taken the lead in seeking to terminate en masse federal government office leases nationwide. The Associated Press reported that, two weeks ago, regional managers for the GSA were ordered to begin terminating leases on the federal government’s entire, nationwide stock of 7,500 rented offices.

    It’s unclear if the notices sent to public defenders’ offices were part of the larger DOGE lease termination spree at GSA, or a separate initiative.

    Kaine told TPM that he believed it was likely linked to DOGE’s GSA sell-off.

    “It’s probably connected with the larger GSA effort,” he said. “Not specific to Article III, judicial branch, but it affects them.”

    It’s also not clear whether DOGE or the Trump administration more broadly recognized that the move had the potential to open conflict with the judicial branch.

    Accidental or not, it’s not the first time that DOGE initiatives have ruffled the feathers of the judicial branch. In the first week of the Trump administration, the Administrative Office Of the U.S. Courts rebuked the Office of Personnel Management for emailing the entire judicial branch workforce. Later, federal judges across the country received a “fork in the road” email, proffering the same dubious offer of deferred resignation that executive branch employees received.

    Read the letter here: [screen grab of the letter is available at the link]

  23. says

    Alarming, real life budget stuff:

    […]Here’s a breakdown of the key elements of the budget blueprint, which the House Budget Committee released the text of Wednesday:

    – House Republicans want to enact $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts over the course of the next decade, some of that will include extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts that provided the most benefits to wealthy Americans.

    – They propose $2 trillion in federal spending cuts.

    – Those spending cuts would offset the cost of the tax cuts, but only partially, meaning the entire proposal would actually end up adding trillions to the national deficit, roughly $3 trillion over 10 years, by the New York Times’ calculation.

    – That coupled with plans to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion has fiscal hawks in the House howling, Politico reported. Hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus are reportedly pressing for at least another $500 billion in spending cuts to be outlined in the proposal, plus they want to see work requirements (another GOP word for spending cuts) for Medicaid, food aid benefits and at least one other social safety net program made explicit in the resolution.

    – It is not entirely clear where the $2 trillion in cuts will come from, rather the House Budget Committee is proposing that various committees find enough savings to hit fixed spending reduction targets.

    So while it is not explicitly stated in the House Budget Committee’s document, Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs are the programs most directly in the crosshairs. Here’s why: The document charges the House Energy and Commerce Committee with finding $880 billion in ten-year savings, more than half of the total cuts outlined in the proposal. It also directs the House Committee on Agriculture to identify another $230 billion in cuts. The Energy and Commerce Committee oversees Medicaid spending and the Ag panel has jurisdiction over SNAP and other nutritional programs.

    While House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has pushed work requirement rhetoric in recent days when pressed on the nature of potential impending cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs, the magnitude of the spending reductions being proposed means cuts to Medicaid will have to extend far beyond Republicans simply imposing work requirements. That language has become a rhetorical catchall for Republicans for months as they sidestep engaging seriously on the political ramifications of cutting programs for low-income Americans to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.

    Per HuffPost:

    Republicans could for example try to introduce a “per capita cap” or some other mechanism that would limit federal spending on the program going forward, effectively ending the open-ended funding commitment Washington now makes to the states. Republicans could also roll back several reforms designed to make enrollment simpler, especially for children.

    “Cuts of the magnitude required of the Energy and Commerce Committee leave little doubt that the Budget Resolution sets the stage for deep cuts to Medicaid,” Allison Orris, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told HuffPost. “This is not a budget that protects Medicaid enrollees.”

    Republicans have been rhetorically creative about shielding their interest in slashing the social safety net for years. And as TPM has reported, even before the new Congress was sworn in this year, House Republicans made it clear Medicaid was on the chopping block, even as Trump vowed to protect Social Security and Medicare at all costs. [Don’t trust what Trump said.]

    In the new budgetary blueprint, they’re barely hiding the ball.

    Link

  25. says

    Followup to comment 23.

    House Republicans released a budget proposal Wednesday outlining plans to pay for President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the rich by forcing deep cuts to programs like food stamps and Medicaid.

    [I snipped Speaker of House Mike Johnson’s blather]

    The budget blueprint calls for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid—the program that provides health insurance to 72 million low-income Americans—over the next 10 years, which would require states to either come up with the money to fund it themselves or slash benefits for recipients.

    The budget also calls for $230 billion in cuts to food stamps, which the Center for American Progress says amounts to a 20% cut to the program that helps feed 42 million Americans annually. Many food stamp recipients live in red states that Trump won by large margins, such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, which have some of the highest populations of food stamp recipients in the country.

    And in recent days, Republicans and DOGE bro Elon Musk have suggested that they are coming for Social Security, the popular social safety net program that provides an income for retirees. Politicians have historically avoided cutting Social Security for fear of voter backlash. [Social Security is an earned benefit.]

    All of these cuts would be used to pay for the $4.5 trillion renewal of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest tax payers. A Tax Policy Center analysis found that the top 1% of earners received an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, while the bottom 60% received an average annual tax cut of just $500.

    The Republicans’ budget says that their ultimate goal is to reduce mandatory spending by $2 trillion—this includes Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and veterans benefits. […]

    Republicans plan to have a budget hearing on Thursday, with a goal of passing the budget by the end of the month, CNN reported.

    Republicans have admitted that those kinds of cuts will be “painful” for Americans. […]

    A January poll from the Democratic firm Hart Research found that 76% of voters have a favorable view of Medicaid, and that 78% disapprove of major Medicaid cuts. It also found that 82% of voters disapprove of making cuts to health care programs in order to pay for tax cuts.

    Democrats immediately lambasted the Republican budget proposal.

    “Senate Republicans’ partisan budget resolution would toss programs like SNAP and Medicaid into the woodchipper—all in service of passing tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington wrote on X.

    And Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina shared similar opposition to the GOP budget proposal in a post on X.

    “They have one agenda — stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.”

    Link

  26. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    Elon Musk called out for raking in $8 million a day from taxpayers.
    Video is 7:50 minutes long.

    Chris Hayes points out that Musk (as DOGE) really does not provide transparency —because, “Trump’s declaration allows Musk’s efficiency team to skirt Open Records laws.” Musk claimed in that circus-like press conference in the Oval Office that he does provide transparency. That’s a lie.

    “[…] And, crucially, he [Musk] can hide everything he is doing from the American public. You see, because Trump has designated his department’s initiative as Presidential Records, which is not what departments are, which means he is now able to skirt Open Records law.”

    Much more in the Chris Haye’s video.

  28. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Regarding the buyout emails.

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    OPM says on its website that the Deferred Resignation Program “is now closed.” “Any resignations received after 7:20pm ET, February 12, 2025 will not be accepted.”

    Randos: “7:20pm ET as in 4:20 pacific? Is he really that damn childish?”
    “You know he is.”

  29. Reginald Selkirk says

    Is It Time For a Change In GNOME Leadership?

    Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM writes:

    Command-line aside, Cinnamon is the most effective keeper of the Linux desktop flame — by not abandoning desktop and laptop computers. Yes, there are other desktop GUIs, such as MATE, and the lightweight Xfce, which are valuable options when low overhead is important, such as in LinuxCNC. However, among the general public lies a great expanse of office workers who need a full-featured Linux desktop.

    The programmers who work on GNOME and its family of supporting applications enrich many other desktops do their more than their share. These faithful developers deserve better user-interface leadership. GNOME has tried to steer itself into tablet waters, which is admirable, but GNOME 3.x diminished the desktop experience for both laptop and desktop users. For instance, the moment you design what should be a graphical user interface with words such as “Activities,” you ask people to change horses midstream. That is not to say that the command line and GUI cannot coexist — because they can, as they do in many CAD programs.

    I remember a time when GNOME ruled the Linux desktop — and I can remember when GNOME left those users behind. Perhaps in a future, GNOME could return to the Linux desktop and join forces with Cinnamon — so that we may once again have the year of the Linux desktop.

    I concur. I remember when Gnome 3 came out, and my windows started flying around my desktop unbidden. I started trying out other desktops: Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE.

  30. Reginald Selkirk says

    Serial “swatter” behind 375 violent hoaxes targeted his own home to look like a victim

    A teacher in high school once quoted an old proverb to me: “Do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life!”

    Perhaps 18-year-old Alan Filion encountered a similar teacher during his school years in California, because once Filion learned that he truly loved making fake “swatting” calls to law enforcement—well, he turned the crime into a job, using handles like “Nazgul Swattings” and “Third Reich of Kiwiswats.” Originally it was all about the “power trip,” but it soon became about “money and the power trip.”

    “Prices: $40-Gas leak/Fire for EMS/Fire/Gas Leak [$35 for returning customers],” Filion wrote in a 2023 advertisement that ran on various social media channels. “$50 for a major police response to the house [$40 for returning customers]; $75 for a bomb threat/mass shooting threat (they will shut down the school or public location for a day) [$60 for returning customers]. All swats will be done ASAP or present time.”

    He worked hard at the job. Between August 2022 and January 2024, for instance, when Filion offered his swatting service to others for money, he made 375 calls. That’s an average of 21 a month, which means that every day and a half, Filion was firing up his many VoIP services, turning on his VPNs, and activating his text-to-speech apps in order to cause mayhem across the US, UK, and Canada.

    To make sure everything worked smoothly—and by smoothly, I mean “cause maximum chaos”—Filion even tested his methods against his own home address in late 2022. He made numerous “self-swatting” calls, which he later wrote about. “I swatted myself like 3 times to test my methods,” he said. “It was hard keeping a straight face… When I swatted myself the cops’ extreme reaction was due to my special scenario.” …

  31. Reginald Selkirk says

    US-funded ‘social network’ attacking pesticide critics shuts down after Guardian investigation

    A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has said it has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash, after its actions were revealed by the Guardian and other reporting partners.

    The St Louis, Missouri-based company, v-Fluence, said it is shuttering the service, which it called a “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops.

    Among those profiled was Robert F Kennedy Jr, President Trump’s controversial pick for secretary of health and human services.

    The profiles – part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars – often provided derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children.

    They were provided to members of an invite-only web portal where v-Fluence also offered a range of other information to its roster of more than 1,000 members. The membership included staffers of US regulatory and policy agencies, executives from the world’s largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, academics and others.

    The profiling was one element of a push to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports…

  33. Reginald Selkirk says

    Measles outbreak in Texas rises to 24 cases as New Mexico reports illness

    The number of cases in a measles outbreak centered in Gaines County, Texas, has jumped to 24, as health officials in New Mexico investigate a case—the state’s first of the year—in neighboring Lea County.

    The Texas State Department of Health Services (TSDHS) said yesterday that the 24 patients, up from 6 reported on February 5, had symptom onsets within the last 2 weeks. All of the patients are unvaccinated and are residents of Gaines County. Sixteen of the patients are school-age children, and two are adults ages 18 and older.

    Nine patients have been hospitalized, and health officials are bracing for more cases. “Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in Gaines County and the surrounding communities,” the TSDHS said, adding that it is working with the South Plains Public Health District and Lubbock Public Health to investigate the outbreak…

  35. says

    ‘Very obviously Donald Trump’s fault’: Red states feel the pain of Trump’s heedless funding cuts
    Video is 11:17 minutes long.

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Donald Trump exposed as faithless ally as USAID workers abandoned by Trump become targets
    Video is 8:47 minutes long.
    “Dictators around the world are celebrating Donald Trump […] rightwing and autocratic governments have their knives out for USAID […]” Musk’s comments about USAID being a supposedly criminal organization have worldwide consequences.

    The presentations are from February 13, last night.

  36. Reginald Selkirk says

    “A sicker America”: Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary

    The US Senate on Thursday confirmed the long-time anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

    The vote was largely along party lines, with a tally of 52 to 48. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), a polio survivor and steadfast supporter of vaccines, voted against the confirmation, the only Republican to do so.

    Before the vote, Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) claimed that if there had been a secret ballot today, most Republicans would have voted against Kennedy. “But sadly, and unfortunately for America, Republicans are being strong-armed by Donald Trump and will end up holding their nose and voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy… What a travesty,” Schumer said…

  38. says

    White House struggles to back up baseless claims about ‘fraudulent’ spending

    “To hear Trump tell it, Elon Musk’s DOGE operation has already uncovered ‘massive’ fraud and waste. Reality tells a very different story.”

    White House officials seem to realize that there’s a serious controversy surrounding Elon Musk and his poorly named Department of Government Efficiency — the scope of their reach, the conflicts of interests, the controversial surrogates, etc. — but Donald Trump and his team want the public to know that the DOGE endeavor is already producing amazing results.

    For example, the president and his top campaign donor spoke to reporters in the Oval Office for more than a half-hour this week and mentioned the words “waste,” “fraud” or “abuse” literally dozens of times. By way of his social media platform, Trump has been just as aggressive, publishing a series of items assuring Americans that Musk and his operation have already found a “massive amount of FRAUD, WASTE, INCOMPETENCE, AND ABUSE.”

    How much money are we talking about? “Tens of billions of dollars” the president said Tuesday. True to form, Trump said the actual total might yet reach $500 billion. Moments later, he added: “It could be close to a trillion dollars that we’re going to find.”

    To be sure, that certainly sounded impressive. Less than a month into the new Republican administration, a controversial billionaire and his surrogates, none of whom appear to have extensive experience in auditing or federal expenditures, have already uncovered “tens of billions of dollars” in spending that shouldn’t have happened? A total that might yet reached $1 trillion? If that’s true, who’d take issue with results like these?

    The answer, of course, is that everyone should take issue — because the boasts aren’t true. A fact-check report in The Washington Post explained:

    The president’s numbers do not come anywhere close to matching figures posted on the DOGE account on X, Musk’s social media site…. We added up all the figures posted, taking most of them at face value, though virtually no documentation was presented. The numbers add up to about $6 billion a year.

    The Post gave the White House an opportunity to dispute the findings. It did not.

    Around the same time that fact-check report was published, reporters asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to substantiate the president’s excessive claims about the DOGE operation’s successes. Trump’s chief spokesperson waved around pieces of paper showing federal expenditures that the White House believes are at odds with the president’s agenda.

    The problem with that, of course, is that there’s a qualitative difference between stuff that Trump doesn’t like and actual waste. Indeed, pressed further on whether the spending items on her list constituted fraud or items “contrary to the president’s policies,” Leavitt replied, “I would argue that all of these things are fraudulent.”

    But the phrase “I would argue that …” was doing a lot of work in that sentence. Fraudulent government spending is a serious issue. For the White House to give it a new definition for the sake of political convenience is to fundamentally deceive the public.

    That said, if Trump and his team are serious about rooting out fraud and abuse, there’s nothing wrong with such a goal in the abstract. In fact, the president could start by rehiring the inspectors general that he fired without cause, while restoring the anti-corruption measures that his administration has kneecapped in recent weeks. [True.]

    If that’s too much to ask, Trump and his operation could also try coming up with a real list of fraudulent spending that Musk’s not-quite-real department has uncovered, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for one.

  39. says

    Why the details of this week’s Marc Fogel prisoner swap matter

    “Trump used to talk about his unique ability to free American detainees abroad without paying a price. The Marc Fogel prisoner swap helped prove otherwise.”

    Related video is available at the link.

    Last summer, the Biden administration pulled off an exceedingly difficult diplomatic feat, coordinating with several other countries — many of which do not get along — to bring home a group of U.S. residents who were wrongly imprisoned in Russia. Among those who returned to American soil were journalist Evan Gershkovich and Marine veteran Paul Whelan.

    It was, as an NBC News report put it, the kind of “major multinational prisoner exchange” unseen since the days of the Cold War.

    Donald Trump, watching the developments from the sidelines, quickly issued a hearty congratulations — to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Republican characterized the seven-nation deal as “horrible,” adding that when he was in the White House and wanted to bring American prisoners home, “I never paid anything.”

    He was, of course, lying about his own record — Trump agreed to pay $2 million to North Korea as part of Otto Warmbier’s release — but the bogus boast was nevertheless memorable: To take a rhetorical shot at the Democratic White House, Trump talked about his unique ability to free American detainees abroad without paying a price.

    It was against this backdrop that there was some great news worth celebrating this week: Marc Fogel, an American history teacher wrongfully detained in Russia, was released and returned to American soil. When a reporter asked Trump whether the United States had to give up anything in return for Fogel’s return, the Republican said, “Not much.”

    He did not elaborate or share any additional details.

    Soon after, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s struggled since arriving at Foggy Bottom, boasted, in reference to Fogel’s release, “I think it’s also important to note it was not in return for anything.”

    That wasn’t true. As NBC News reported:

    A trade executed Tuesday returned Marc Fogel to the United States after years of imprisonment in Russia in exchange for Alexander Vinnik, who pleaded guilty in the United States to money-laundering charges.

    The same report added, “Administration officials would not disclose what, if anything, else Moscow may have gained in the negotiations beyond Vinnik’s freedom.”

    In other words, Russia gave up an educator who did nothing wrong, while the United States gave up, at a minimum, a convicted “cybercrime kingpin.”

    Bragging to reporters on Tuesday night, the American president said the agreement that brought Fogel home was “not like deals you’ve seen” under other recent presidents. Reality, of course, points in the opposite direction: This was exactly like the deals seen under other administrations.

    True to form, Trump added, “We appreciate President Putin, what he did, he was able to pull it off.”

    Because if there’s one thing this president is good at, it’s expressing his gratitude to Russia’s autocratic leader.

  40. says

    As Bad As It Gets

    The dangerous co-optation of the Justice Department by the Trump White House continues in ways both substantive and symbolic.

    On the substantive side, NBC News’ Ryan Reilly is reporting that some holdover U.S. attorneys are being fired not by the Justice Department but directly by the White House. Removing U.S. attorneys at the start of a new administration is normal; the White House doing the firings directly is not normal.

    Tara McGrath, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney in San Diego, announced yesterday was her last day on the job. Her office’s press release explicitly noted the White House’s involvement: “As a Presidential appointee, Ms. McGrath was informed of her termination in a communication from the White House, at the direction of the President of the United States.”

    Of even deeper concern, Trump defense counsel Todd Blanche refused yesterday during his confirmation hearing for deputy attorney general to commit to recusing himself from matters involving the cases against Trump.

    Among the examples of symbolic erosion was the image of Attorney General Pam Bondi last week, on just her second day on the job, doing a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity from the White House lawn (a good catch by former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance). Most attorney generals kept their distance from the White House. Given the furor around the likelihood that Bondi would not maintain any firewall between Trump and the Justice Department, this provocative location was a choice: [image at the link]

    This is in addition to all of the other degradations of the DOJ over the past three weeks: dropping the Jan. 6, Mar-a-Lago, and Eric Adams cases; investigating the investigators and reporting on it directly to Stephen Miller; purging the Jan. 6 prosecutors and the FBI; and the list goes on.

    Link

  41. says

    Trump’s acting solicitor general says the administration is taking the position that laws protecting the independence of the NLRB, FTC, and Consumer Product Safety Commission are unconstitutional and will urge the Supreme Court to overrule any conflicting precedent.

    Same link as in comment 40.

    See also: Reuter’s link to the letter as a PDF.

    See also: Reuters link to “US Department of Justice to stop defending independence of FTC, NLRB, letter says.”

    […] Under a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent, FTC commissioners and members of many other bipartisan independent agencies can only be fired for cause, unlike executive branch agencies whose heads the president can fire at will.

    The DOJ will ask the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling to the extent that it protects regulators who wield “substantial executive power” from being fired by the president, Harris wrote, according to the letter. […]

  42. says

    After President Trump ousted President Biden’s appointees to the Kennedy Center board of trustees, the newly constituted board elected Trump as its chairman; terminated the performing arts institution’s longtime leader, Deborah Rutter; and replaced her with the oleaginous Ric Grenell.

    Same link as in comment 40.

  43. says

    I usually let the quote of the day speak for itself, but when the United States abandons the post-World War II security arrangement in Europe at the same time President Trump is undermining Ukraine’s defense of Russia’s invasion, it’s worth noting that this may be the most historically significant news of the past 24 hours:

    “I’m … here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”–Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO headquarters.

    Same link as in comment 40.

  44. says

    Dozens of Venezuelan migrants sent by the Trump administration to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are being guarded by troops rather than civilian immigration officers, according to people familiar with the operation.

    While the Trump administration has portrayed the detainees as legally in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, military guards and medics are handling them in practice, the people said.

    In doing so, the civilian law enforcement role of immigration detention is being essentially militarized as the government embarks on a new, legally uncertain course of moving people it intends to deport from U.S. soil into incommunicado detention at an offshore prison.

    “This is the first time we’ve seen the government send people from U.S. soil to an overseas camp, and it’s been unclear exactly what role the military is playing,” said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union immigrant rights lawyer. “All of this potentially raises legal issues we’ve never seen before.” […]

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/us/gitmo-migrants-trump.html

  45. says

    State Department buries massive payout to Tesla after public outcry

    The Trump administration is trying to hide plans to hand off $400 million in taxpayer funds to Tesla, the electric car company owned by the world’s richest man—Trump supporter Elon Musk.

    On Wednesday, a document published by the State Department laid out plans for the purchase of “armored electric vehicles” from Tesla during fiscal year 2025. But after reporting on the document emerged, it was edited at 9:12 PM and references to Tesla were removed without explanation.

    […] Despite the very clear potential for massive corruption, the White House has claimed that Musk will voluntarily excuse himself from any possible conflicts of interest that arise. But Musk has spent years already intertwined with the federal government thanks to the billions in federal contracts tied up in his other company, SpaceX.

    At the same time, the Trump administration has scaled back and stalled ongoing federal investigations of Musk’s companies that began under the Biden administration.

    While the State Department order did not specify what part of Tesla’s product line would be purchased, the armored description appears to point to Tesla’s widely derided Cybertruck. The brainchild of Musk, the unsightly Cybertruck has been plagued with endless flaws and multiple product recalls.

    Musk claims that he and Trump are working to create a more efficient and transparent federal government. Instead the two have lied and smeared for weeks. Yet Musk stands to make a lot of money thanks to the politician he bankrolled.

    That would be classic corruption.

    An armored Cybertruck would be really heavy. And they say it would be an electric vehicle. I foresee all kinds of problems emerging if they try to execute this plan … and that’s in addition to the “endless flaws and multiple product recalls” already associated with Musk’s Cybertruck.

  46. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #45….
    Apparently, the base Cybertruck weighs about 6600 pounds, or 3 metric tons. There is an enhanced motor option that adds about 250 lbs, and an extra battery pack option that adds another 1000 lbs. So…by the time you add armor, you’re probably looking a 4 tonne vehicle.

    (From what I’ve read, the sheer weight is why you need a truckers license to drive one in some European countries, and the UK has yet to approve them for public road use.)

  47. says

    whheydt @46, thanks for the additional details. That certainly makes the “armored Cybertruck” idea for military use look less likely to succeed. It will be government waste and fraud.

  48. says

    Followup to Reginald @36.

    Oh great, anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. officially in charge of health care now

    The Senate voted almost entirely along party lines on Thursday to confirm anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Democrats excoriated Kennedy during his recent Senate confirmation hearings, pointing out his long and terrible history of promoting junk science, especially around vaccines.

    Beyond his debunked anti-vaccine misinformation, the raw-milk-drinking rich guy has a penchant for acting in bizarre and seemingly unhinged ways, such as when he reportedly chainsawed the head off a dead whale and strapped it to the top of his minivan.

    As health secretary, Kennedy has promised to investigate vaccine safety, despite their already rigorous testing. He also wants to get rid of public water fluoridation, which is considered a public health victory in protecting young children from tooth decay and worse health outcomes.

    “Secretary Kennedy’s confirmation is an important opportunity to reaffirm the longstanding, overwhelming and settled science regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, which remain our best defense against many serious infectious diseases,” the Infectious Disease Society of America said in a statement. “We look forward to working with lawmakers to hold Secretary Kennedy to his promise to maintain our nation’s vaccine approval and safety framework, including the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the Vaccines for Children program and other public health vaccine programs.”

    Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the lone Republican vote against Kennedy’s confirmation. A survivor of polio, McConnell chastised Kennedy’s anti-vaccination misinformation career.

    “I will not condone the relitigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,” McConnell said.

    Kennedy’s evolution from a Democrat to an independent and then into a craven Donald Trump-endorsing minion is depressing, to say the least. He joins a Cabinet filled with unqualified, wealthy jackals—so he will likely fit right in.

  51. says

    Stars flee Kennedy Center groups after Trump seizes chair

    […] Trump’s ascension to chair of the Kennedy Center on Wednesday led to multiple departures from the Washington, D.C., institution.

    Trump last week announced he was replacing several members of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees and would name himself chair. On Wednesday, the new board elected Trump as chair of the board.

    At approximately the same time that Trump announced his takeover, musician Ben Folds said he would resign as artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, “given developments at the Kennedy Center.”

    “It’s been a wonderful 8 years” the former Ben Folds Five singer wrote on Instagram on Wednesday, saying he and the Kennedy Center’s staff encouraged “thousands of fresh new audiences to appreciate symphonic music.”

    Award-winning opera singer and actor Renée Fleming said she would depart from her role as artistic adviser at large to the Kennedy Center.

    She praised David Rubenstein, whom Trump replaced as chair, saying his leadership is “just one of the many ways he has contributed to America’s cultural and historic heritage. He is the greatest patriot I know.”

    Fleming also praised Deborah Rutter, whom the board fired Wednesday as president of the Kennedy Center, saying she “has been a tireless, creative leader, successfully expanding our National Center for the Arts in visionary ways.”

    Shonda Rhimes, the renowned television writer and producer, also reportedly resigned from the board after serving as the Kennedy Center’s treasurer.

    “Please be advised that as of today, Shonda Rhimes has resigned from the board of the Kennedy Center,” a spokesperson for Rhimes told Deadline.

  52. says

    ‘Betrayal’: Hegseth’s NATO speech sparks anger at home and abroad

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is being criticized for publicly embracing the notion that Ukraine might have to give up some of its sovereign territory to Russia.

    Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 and began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

    “We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” Hegseth said during a speech at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday.

    The statement was a reversal of U.S. policy and consensus from most of Europe that Russia should cease hostilities and restore Ukraine’s territory. He also failed to indicate any role for Ukraine or other European nations in the negotiation process.

    “Nothing about Ukraine can be decided without Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters after Hegseth’s speech, calling for European involvement in any peace process.

    […] EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas called the statement an “appeasement,” saying that the United States was giving Russia “everything they want even before the negotiations have started.”

    Foreign policy ministers for Germany and Spain also said that “no decision on Ukraine can be made without Ukraine,” which was also echoed by ministers from the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Poland, among others.

    Republicans have remained largely silent since Hegseth’s speech, but one notable criticism came from Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.

    “We should have moral clarity who started this war, who is bombing cities indiscriminately and who our real friend here is. There are consequences of rewarding the invader even if its leader foolishly led over 700,000 of its citizens to slaughter,” he wrote on X.

    Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called out Hegseth for abandoning Ukraine.

    “Surrender & betrayal—this SecDef Hegseth message amounts to abandoning Ukraine, & undercutting the security of our European allies,” he wrote on X.

    […] Trump has long made clear his allegiance to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he will continue to mold U.S. policy to avoid a clash with his political ally.

    Throwing away years of support from Ukraine […] had always been predicted of Trump’s second term. Now it is happening, and people are going to suffer.

  53. says

    Oh FFS.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other top Republican senators vowed to only vote for a permanent, rather than temporary, extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts […]

    “Let me just say that a 10-year extension of President Trump’s expiring provisions is over $4.7 trillion according to CBO,” Smith told reporters, referring to the Congressional Budget Office, the official legislative scoring body. “Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy.”

    Before budget cuts, which the House resolution puts at a goal of $2 trillion, the total cost of the Republican agenda could reach as high as $7 trillion, according to an estimate by Andrew Lautz of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

    Among other measures to reduce the effects on the deficit, Republicans had been considering shortening the window for extending the Trump tax cuts from ten years to five years.

    Link

    Sounds to me like Republicans are fighting over just how fucking bad they want this to be for most Americans, and just how great they want this to be for the new billionaire oligarchy in the USA.

  54. says

    Pam Bondi ARRESTS NEW YORK WITH LAWSUITS For Failure To Nazi Cheerfully

    Yesterday, Justice Department Nazi Barbie, AKA Attorney General Pam Bondi, got on her best mad face and convened a press conference to announce she had “filed charges against the state of New York, we have filed charges against Kathy Hochul, we have filed charges against Letitia James and Mark Schroeder, who is from DMV.”

    Wow, Pam Bondi filed charges against Governor Kathy Hochul, New York AG Letitia James, and Mark Schroeder from the DMV for some reason? Are they ARRESTED? Are they going TO JAIL?

    Whoa if true to all of this if it’s true! Whoa!

    Ahem.

    No. Pam Bondi has sued the state of New York, Hochul, James and Schroeder, which is different. You don’t say “filed charges” when you are talking about “filed a lawsuit.” There are two options here: 1) Pam Bondi totally knows this, but she was trying to sound big and scary […] about it. Or 2) Pam Bondi does not know this, and we must now reconsider every time we’ve ever referred to Pam Bondi in these pages as “a real lawyer.”

    Jesus Christ. [video at the link]

    The crime for which Pam Bondi is indicting charges of lawsuits? Failure to insufficiently join up with the Trump administration’s Nazi immigration crusade. […] Whatever you want to call it. And you totally can call it anything you want, because Pam Bondi clearly is.

    Bondi intoned: “This a new DOJ!” One that doesn’t words very good!

    “New York has chosen to prioritize the illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops today! As you know we sued Illinois, and New York didn’t listen, so now, YOU’RE NEXT.”

    At that point Bondi feigned beaucoups human emotions as she introduced an “angel mom,” which is the white supremacist Republican term for people whose children have been murdered by Spanish-speaking immigrants, which is somehow worse than getting murdered by a white American man, therefore it deserves its own term.

    After the “angel mom” spoke, Bondi, still extremely so very angry and tough, explained, “We did it to Illinois! Strike one! Strike two is New York! And if you are a state not complying with federal law, you’re next, get ready!” [OMFG. Bondi is practicing her bullying skills.]

    Bondi’s mangled language aside, the lawsuit appears to center around New York’s “green light” laws, which prohibit the DMV from LOL just kidding, you don’t have to know the details of the lawsuit until we feel confident that Bondi has actually read it herself. In essence, she sued them for failure to Nazi good enough, and failure to smile while doing it.

    Noticeably absent from this list of people who Pam Bondi has arrested with lawsuits is New York Mayor Eric Adams. Could that be related to how Pam Bondi’s DOJ just directed prosecutors in New York to drop the criminal case against Adams, but without prejudice, which means they could always bring charges back, saaaaaaaaaaay, if Adams did not enthusiastically go along with their Nazi-ing? Like, real criminal charges, even!

    This is a new DOJ! Pam Bondi is here to root out corruption! And take hostages for her boss Trump!

    “We’re hoping in New York that Mayor Adams is going to cooperate with us with the sanctuary cities and the illegal aliens,” said Bondi, corrupt-as-fuckly.

    She added, “That’s what we want! We don’t want to sue you! We don’t want to prosecute people! We want people to comply with the law!”

    We want you to want to Nazi with us! All are welcome.

    Relatedly, Adams is meeting today with Trump Border Gestapo chief Tom Homan, who very much hopes Adams will be on board with all the Nazi-ing, wink wink! Adams also reportedly met with New York City commissioners earlier this week and “ordered them not to say anything bad about the president and to give ICE agents in the city as much deference as possible.”

    Again, he’s Trump’s hostage, and he has to do whatever Trump says on this issue and all the other things Trump might decide to tack on to ensure his loyalty. (Brian Beutler argues this morning that it’s time for New Yorkers to literally run Adams out of office, and we wholeheartedly agree.)

    Kathy Hochul is making fun of getting arrested with lawsuits:

    In a lengthy statement released Wednesday night, Gov. Hochul called Bondi’s “dramatic” media briefing “smoke and mirrors.” The governor said the DOJ filed a “routine civil action” about a law passed in 2019 that has been upheld by the courts in the past.

    “Here are the facts: our current laws allow federal immigration officials to access any DMV database with a judicial warrant,” Hochul said in the statement. “That’s a common-sense approach that most New Yorkers support. But there’s no way I’m letting federal agents, or Elon Musk’s shadowy DOGE operation, get unfettered access to the personal data of any New Yorker in the DMV system […].”

    Hochul said she expects Bondi’s “worthless, publicity-driven lawsuit to be a total failure.”

    Meanwhile, Letitia James is one million times the lawyer Pam Bondi is, so we are sure she is popping some popcorn for guests who want to watch the smackdown she is about to deliver to the clownass Trump Justice Department.

    Elsewhere in Bondi’s press conference, in response to a reporter’s question, she started yelling “TWO MILLION DOLLARS IS GOING TO GUATEMALA FOR SEX CHANGES,” so if you somehow forgot over the course of this post that Pam Bondi is a serious person, you’re reminded now.

  55. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Hailing his executive order that welcomes “the extremely oppressed white people of South Africa” to America’s shores, Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that the move would help alleviate the US’s severe shortage of racists.

    “We have a racist shortage in this country like you wouldn’t believe,” Trump told reporters. “When I was putting together my Cabinet, there were barely enough racists to fill all the positions.”

    Vowing to “make apartheid great again,” Trump promised the Afrikaners that they would “go far” in America, noting, “My boss is from South Africa.”

    Link

    The Borowitz Report is satire.

  56. says

    Idaho news update from Reclaim Idaho:

    […] On the face of it, we suffered a few big setbacks today.

    First, in the morning, the House Health & Welfare Committee voted 8-7 to advance House Bill 138—a bill that would eliminate Idaho’s Medicaid Expansion program and rip away healthcare from 90,000 Idahoans.

    Then, in the afternoon, the Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee voted 6-3 to advance House Bill 93—a dangerous voucher bill that would put Idaho on a clear path to an Arizona-style voucher program that drains funding from public schools in order to subsidize private-school tuition.

    In both hearings, far more people showed up to testify against the bills than for them. But in both cases, the majority of committee members defied public testimony and voted to advance deeply flawed proposals that threaten Idaho’s quality of life.

    These committee hearings were big setbacks indeed. Both bills now advance to the next stage, moving Idaho a big step closer to a repeal of Medicaid Expansion and the enactment of a universal voucher program.

    And yet, there were also major victories today—victories that prove our work is not in vain.

    First, we lost the Medicaid Expansion decision by just one vote, and opposition to House Bill 138 was bold and bi-partisan. The two Democrats on the committee were joined by five Republicans, all of whom voted to protect Medicaid Expansion.

    And today’s hearing set the stage for the next phase of the debate. Our core message about the cost of repeal—both human cost and economic impact—resonated powerfully with legislators of both parties. Without a doubt, this is a debate that we can win.

    Similarly, in the afternoon, there was significant bi-partisan opposition to House Bill 93 (school vouchers). Republican Senator Treg Bernt joined with Democratic Senators Ali Rabe and Ron Taylor in opposition to the bill, and two other Republican Senators—Ben Adams and Kelly Anthon—suggested that they remain open to voting against HB 93 on the Senate floor.

    Neither of these bills is on an inevitable glide-path to becoming law. Our persistence in the days ahead will make a difference, and it could make all the difference.

    If you need one more reason to keep hope alive, here’s a big one:

    Earlier today we learned that SJR 101 (the proposed constitutional amendment that would gut Idaho’s ballot-initiative process) stalled out in the Senate.

    Instead of moving SJR 101 to the Senate floor for a debate and a vote, Senate leadership moved it to the amending order—likely because the proposal does not have the votes needed to pass.

    Back in 2021 and again in 2023, similar anti-initiative proposals sailed through the Senate with minimal opposition. This year is different. If SJR 101 remains stalled for the rest of the session—an outcome that appears likely—it will mark a major victory for the citizens of Idaho, made possible by our good work and the work of our allies.

    So take a deep breath and don’t give up. These fights are too important, and the stakes are too high. […]

  57. Reginald Selkirk says

    US aircraft carrier collides with ship in Mediterranean Sea

    The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman collided with a large merchant vessel Wednesday night in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea.

    “The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at approximately 11:46 p.m. local time, Feb. 12, while operating in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea,” a statement from the U.S Navy’s Sixth Fleet said.

    The collision involved a rare collision of two large vessels as the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier collided with the 53,000-ton merchant vessel Besiktas-M, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship.

    There are no reports of injuries, nor is there flooding, aboard the carrier, which carries a crew of 5,000 sailors, and the incident is under investigation…

  59. says

    Senate Republicans were supposed to protect us from nominees like RFK Jr. His confirmation is proof of their failure.

    With less than two weeks remaining before the Senate voted on his Cabinet nomination, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confronted the latest in a series of problems. The New York Times reported that the conspiracy theorist, in response to written questions from senators, “disclosed he had reached at least one settlement agreement with a company or individual that had accused him of ‘misconduct or inappropriate behavior.’”

    According to Mother Jones’ reporting, senators asked two specific questions: “Yes or no, have you ever reached a settlement agreement with an individual or organization that accused you of misconduct or inappropriate behavior?” and “Yes or no, have you ever agreed to or been subject to a non-disclosure agreement with any individual or organization?”

    Kennedy answered yes to both questions. He did not, however, elaborate, and no one on Capitol Hill — or the public at large — knows what the misconduct is.

    In a normal political environment, this would be the sort of development that would have put his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at risk. In fact, in a normal political environment, Kennedy wouldn’t have even been nominated. But in our current political environment, RFK Jr. was confirmed to the powerful position anyway. My MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained:

    The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy as health secretary on Thursday, putting one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in charge of running the country’s public health policy. Kennedy was confirmed on a 52-48 vote. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican who voted against Kennedy’s confirmation alongside Democrats.

    At this point, it’s tempting to go into great detail, making plain just how utterly bonkers this is. I could write thousands of words about Kennedy’s discredited ideas, bizarre conspiracy theories, opposition to vaccines, personal scandals, lack of experience, and well-documented record as an international menace on matters of science and public health. I’d add in some related thoughts, noting that were it not for his famous name and family, Kennedy would be considered a fringe figure with a handful of Substack subscribers, not a Cabinet secretary.

    But I’m going to assume that readers already know this. I’m instead going to shine a light on what I consider to be the single biggest concern about Kennedy and our near future: Americans might confront serious public health challenges during his tenure, and we won’t be able to count on the man leading HHS.

    The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a good column along these lines:

    One of the biggest potential threats to this country — albeit one difficult to gauge — is an avian flu pandemic, for bird flu is mutating and spreading to cows and other mammals. If there is a pandemic, then vaccines will be essential. … What would happen if there were a need for another Operation Warp Speed, but this time the point man on health was suspicious of vaccines — including those that arrested the last pandemic?

    The burgeoning H5N1 threat is serious, but it’s not the only public health challenge facing the nation. We’re also in the midst of a deadly flu season. Kansas is dealing with a tuberculosis outbreak. Texas is dealing with a measles outbreak. In the coming months, Americans might face any number of related threats that remain unpredictable.

    And that’s just in this country. There are countless areas around in the world — with populations that travel — with their own health emergencies.

    It’s against this backdrop that the Department of Health and Human Services will be led by a conspiracy theorist who has demonstrated a yearslong hostility toward science and evidence.

    Remember the names of the 52 Republican senators who decided to put aside everything they learned about Kennedy and voted to confirm him anyway. They might soon be asked a profoundly difficult question: “Why didn’t you protect us from RFK Jr. when you had the chance?”

  60. says

    […] Tulsi Gabbard’s lack of experience in intelligence, her habit of echoing Russian propaganda, her defense of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, and the unsubtle warnings that senators heard from former national security officials, common sense suggested that she’d face broad, bipartisan opposition. After all, even the most knee-jerk Republican partisans have their limits, don’t they?

    No, evidently they do not. […]

    The Senate voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence on Wednesday, elevating a former lawmaker with controversial foreign policy views to the head of the country’s spy agencies. […]

    […] Shane Harris had an interesting new report in The Atlantic that raised a related point: “Several foreign intelligence officials have recently told me that they are taking steps to limit how much sensitive intelligence they share with the Trump administration, for fear that it might be leaked or used for political ends.”

    […] the intelligence dynamic highlighted by The Atlantic and Time magazine was both striking and unfamiliar.

    Nearly every Senate Republican apparently didn’t care. They should have.

    Link

  61. says

    News summarized by Steve Benen:

    […] according to the president, election officials in California “just stopped counting their votes on the 2024 Presidential Election.” It’s unclear why Trump would believe such a claim: The state actually wrapped up the vote-counting process two months ago.

    Sources are Trump’s social media post and CNN.

  63. says

    Anti-vaccine, anti-science, pro-brainworm, acknowledged heroin user Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed today to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services, despite having no qualifications for the job other than being popular with similarly delusional Trump cultists who think modern medicine is a racket that should be replaced with quack cures and herbs.

    Yes, the United States Senate, and yes, the United States Health and Human Services Department, which is not only in charge of the nation’s public health and health research institutions but is also responsible for running Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, assuming any of those are still around in a few years.

    Because the US health system comprises so very many huge organizations, there will be additional Trump-appointed quacks working below Kennedy, like TV diet-pill merchant Dr. Mehmet Oz at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), former Republican congressman and current antivaxxer Dave Weldon at the CDC, and Actual Doctor But Fox News Weirdo Marty Makary at the Food and Drug Administration. If the Senate was willing to confirm Kennedy, none of those three has any worries, not even if one or more turns out to be a cannibal alien shapeshifter bent on extracting all Americans’ cerebrospinal fluid for export to another galaxy.

    All 47 Democrats in the Senate voted against Kennedy […] All Republicans voted to confirm him except for Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, who may mistakenly believe that taking a stand against Kennedy, whose antivax group pushed to discontinue the polio vaccine, might keep him out of Hell.

    Kennedy has promised that he will …

    Actually, why would we even credit what he says he wants to do? He’s a habitual liar who has repeatedly claimed that “no vaccine” is safe or effective, and then insisted he never said that, and that anyone pointing to recordings of him saying it is a liar. So no, we really don’t care what he says he’ll do at HHS. We can only hope he’s so incompetent that he can’t ruin much before he’s fired for calling the body of water between Texas and Florida “the Gulf of Mexico,” and even then he might have to do it on live TV, with Trump in the room.

    Unfortunately, we can’t take much hope in the prospect that Kennedy’s stupidity and incompetence will save us, because even if he spends his time in office dithering over what endangered animal he should try to strap to the roof of his car as a prank this time around, there doesn’t appear to be much chance that serious people will have a chance to run things normally while the nincompoops are exploring bringing back the study of bodily humours in medical schools.

    The effective silencing of the CDC suggests that it will be harder for real science to come out of the Trump administration, although we should note that today, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which was shut down after Trump took office, finally published one of three highly anticipated reports on bird flu that had been delayed, as well as a report on the first case of a new strain of monkey pox that’s made it to the Americas, after an infected traveler returned to California from East Africa in November. (The CDC had previously issued a brief news release when the infection was confirmed.)

    So, hooray for now, and where are the other two bird flu studies that were supposed to be published in January?

    The Washington Post, just to provide further evidence of its utter debasement, chirpily explains that Kennedy has some very enthusiastic allies who

    said they were elated to see him take up the helm of HHS, believing he’ll give a voice to people who are outside the mainstream.

    “I think we’re going to see a deterioration of just the influence of corporations on policy decisions and a return to better science,” said Jeff Hutt, spokesperson for the Make America Healthy Again political action committee and who was the former national field director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

    We need more people who don’t know what they’re doing or how science works, because they aren’t motivated by profits, so please go buy all their supplements. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jr-confirmed-by-senate-to-make

  64. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/republicans-fine-with-leopards-eating

    “Republicans Fine With Leopards Eating Their Constituents’ Faces First”

    If there’s one thing that’s sacred to your free-enterprise capitalist types, it’s a contract between a buyer and a seller, or a borrower and a lender. You make a commitment to sell widgets, you’d better deliver those widgets, and if not, you will be banished from Libertarian Eden and condemned to peddle inferior socialist widgets in Latvia in 1955. That’s how we remember the excitable free enterprise Young Republicans in college at least, when they weren’t trying to bludgeon us with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

    […] As The New York Times reports (gift link), that may come as a really unpleasant surprise to many in the red states that Trump relied on to win election, because now he’s decided to illegally block federal spending on anything related to clean energy, energy conservation, environmental protection, or people and geographic locations with the word “green” in their names. And as Yr Wonkette pointed out several times while Trump was preparing … OK, waiting, at least — to take office, a whole heck of a lot of the clean energy and manufacturing money from Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act ended up going to companies in red states. About 80 percent of it, as a recent analysis determined.

    Update: Just a reminder that this wasn’t by design: The tax incentives for manufacturers were agnostic as to location, and the siting location was up to the companies that took the deals. The south has cheaper labor because because of “right to work” (with no rights), so that was a big factor, as were other state-level incentives aimed at attracting bidniss.

    Now, when we pointed that out shortly after the election, back in our callow youth, we naively thought that, as with Pentagon contracts that send a little bit of every weapons system’s components to the home districts of key Congress members’ districts, that widely distributed IRA funding might mean support for keeping the legislation going. After all, local and federal electeds, and the companies getting the tax credits, would lobby hard to keep the money and jobs flowing.

    Thing is, even if those interests do want that to happen, Trump and Musk instead decided to bypass the Constitution and have Elon run the federal government. […]

    Red State Blues

    But even if red states haven’t squawked about it much, they’re definitely feeling the pinch. Since the IRA passed in 2022,

    private companies chasing the law’s tax breaks have announced plans to spend $165.8 billion to build factories that make solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and more, according to new data from Atlas Public Policy, a research firm.

    On top of the tax incentives, the IRA and the earlier Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have been the sources for tens of billions of dollars in grant money to businesses, state and local governments, and nonprofits. Those grants aren’t just a free bucket of money, they’re binding contracts that have spurred investments, led companies to buy land, hire people, and contract for services, all based on the contractual obligation that the government would reimburse them. That was the deal, right there on paper or PDF, probably both. Now, along comes Trump: [Darth Vader gif at the link]

    Since the federal spending freeze was announced January 27, federal courts have placed a hold on it, several times in fact. The most recent decision came Tuesday when an appeals court denied the administration’s request to pretty please let Trump withhold billions and billions of dollars in grants and congressional allocations. That hasn’t actually resulted in any of the funds being restored, however, and that’s been leading to layoffs and furloughs and smaller contractors closing up shop, far beyond the clean energy and tech fields we’re talking about in our story here.

    Prosperity On Pause

    For red parts of the country, the freeze on energy and climate spending is already taking a toll, per the Times:

    In Montana, a biofuels plant did not receive on time a $782 million payment it was owed, the first part of a $1.67 billion federal loan guarantee. In Georgia, $1 billion in projects to modernize the power grid are on hold. In Nevada, a half-dozen large solar projects on federal lands are caught in a permitting freeze

    That’s also going to mean trouble for clean manufacturing companies set to open in 2025, valued at roughly $30 billion. While some already faced delays or even cancellation due to factors other than the Trump freeze, the funding cutoff will kill a lot more if it remains in place.

    Here’s one such example that the Times didn’t cover: EV maker Rivian paused construction of a planned battery and EV factory in Georgia last year due to uncertainty about the market for its nifty electric pickups, SUVs, and those bulbous electric Amazon delivery vans. Business has since picked up, and in January, Rivian announced the factory was back on schedule, thanks to a new $6.6 billion loan from the US Department under the IRA. Hooray! Jobs! Prosperity! A factory to build the company’s new, more affordable (but let’s be honest, still luxury-market) R2 and R3 midsized models! And then, right on the tail of the happy news, the spending freeze slammed down. So far, Rivian hasn’t commented on whether its loan specifically was affected, but the timing of the loan and subsequent freeze certainly suggests Rivian will be feel the chill.

    Green New Schlemiels

    Democrats are already sounding the alarm and fighting for clean energy investment to go forward even if it is happening outside their districts, because it’s good for America and the planet. And Republicans are being Republicans.

    Here’s how Rep. Michael Rulli (R-Ohio) bravely defended the $415 million in federal funding for his district, some of which will create 650 new jobs in an auto parts plant, but only if the plant opens: “There might be some things in there that are worth saving,” Ruli admits, possibly looking around furtively for one of Elon’s Dogboys. “That’s going to take a little time to figure out.”

    And then there are the Republicans who are delighted to see their constituents screwed, although they don’t say that openly; they just deflect. Rep. Rick Allen, whose Georgia district has seen $1.6 billion in private investments driven by the IRA, grumbled — with zero evidence of course — that maybe the federal grant process under Biden was improper, and shouldn’t we all be overjoyed that now everything is on hold, just to be sure? No, he didn’t have any proof, but it was Biden, it had to be corrupt. Binding contracts? Free enterprise? Well not if the contracts were corrupt! No, stop asking me for proof, I’m just asking questions. Please go bother a Democrat now

    We were amused that the Times says the freeze has put Republicans in a “tricky position” where they must defend Trump at all costs (must they?), even as they’re “working behind the scenes to protect their towns from the loss of new manufacturing jobs.” Not that any Republicans the Times talked to would go on the record and admit they’re making such “behind the scenes” efforts, of course.

    Instead, the accounts of quiet moves to protect jobs in Republican districts came from clean energy industry lobbyists who have been meeting with those politician, and say the Republicans definitely know how bad ending federal clean energy spending will by for their districts. One lobbyist, Bob Keefe of the nonpartisan business group E2, told the Times,

    “We just met with more than a dozen key Republican offices, and I can tell you nobody wants to kill jobs. They don’t want to have to go back and face constituents and tell them that the factory I just cut the ribbon on might not be coming. That’s going to put them in a hard place.”

    Just don’t say who those Republicans are, please, OK?

  65. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation as Health and Human Services Secretary on Thursday received a rousing thumbs-up from some of his most prominent supporters, the National Alliance of Funeral Directors.

    “For years, the funeral industry has suffered as a result of the Democratic Party’s unabashed anti-death agenda,” the group said in an official statement. “We are confident that Secretary Kennedy will make death great again.”

    But the confirmation drew a less enthusiastic reaction from one of Kennedy’s detractors, the worm who spent several years feasting on his brain.

    “As a worm, you’d expect me to be pro-death,” the worm said. “But this is insane.”

    In a more muted comment, Dr. Mehmet Oz said, “Well, at least I won’t be the biggest quack in the government.”

    Link

  66. Reginald Selkirk says

    Conservative writer who accused drag queens of “grooming” kids arrested for child molestation

    Aaron Craig Gleason, an anti-LGBTQ+ writer who has accused queer people of “grooming” children for sexual abuse, has been arrested and charged for molesting a child under the age of 12.

    Gleason, a 39-year-old middle school teacher and soccer coach who has written for the anti-LGBTQ+ media outlets The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and The Imaginative Conservative, was arrested on January 28 by police officers in Okaloosa, Florida. He has been charged with the “lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 12 by a person over the age of 18” and was held in jail on a $75,000 bond…

  67. Reginald Selkirk says

    Idaho Murders Suspect Bryan Kohberger ‘Could Walk Free’ Due To Bombshell DNA Evidence

    The defense lawyers for Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger are optimistic that newly uncovered DNA evidence will help prove his innocence.

    The genetic materials were found on a handrail at the home where the crime was committed, while the other was discovered on a glove…

    However, what seemed like an open-and-shut case took a new twist with the discovery of DNA from two other males at the crime scene, per the Idaho Statesman.

    One genetic sample was found on a handrail in the home, while the other was discovered on a glove just outside the same residence. Both pieces of evidence were blood-related, and their owners have yet to be identified.

    Given the discovery, Kohberger’s lawyer, Anne Taylor, argued at a hearing last month that the unidentified DNA might prove that Kohberger did not fatally stab the four students…

    Unfortunately for Kohberger, his DNA was found on a leather sheath for a fixed-blade knife found in the bed of the stabbing victim…

    That’s a big fat nothingburger. The presence of other men does nothing to negate the DNA evidence against Kohberger. The writer is trying to jerk the reader around. Here’s a different headline about the same thing:

    Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger’s bloody new defense claim could fall apart, profiler says

  68. Reginald Selkirk says

    JD Vance’s relative, 12, refused heart transplant over vaccine status

    A relative of Vice President JD Vance says an Ohio hospital has refused to put her 12-year-old daughter on its heart transplant waiting list over her vaccine status.

    Jeneen Deal, a mom-of-12 from Indiana who is related to Vance’s half-siblings through marriage, adopted Adaline from China as a 4-year-old knowing the little girl had two heart conditions, Ebstein’s anomaly and Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, that meant she would one day require a transplant.

    The girl has been receiving treatment from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, a leader in pediatric organ transplantation, for almost a decade.

    The facility requires that heart transplant patients receive vaccinations for Covid-19 and flu as recipients are at much higher risk of infection. Deal said Adaline’s doctor confirmed to the family that she was in heart failure on January 17.

    “My heart’s getting sick,” Adaline Deal told Local 12. “I get tired. My legs get [too] tired to stand.”

    Deal and her husband Brayton, who are both members of a non-denominational Christian church, said that the vaccines conflict with their religious and medical beliefs and that they would not be willing to inoculate their daughter.

    The pair have broadcast both their faith and vaccine-skepticism in posts on their Facebook pages.

    The parents made their decision after “the Holy Spirit put it on our hearts,” the mom told The Cincinnati Enquirer. The hospital, they say, would not honor their beliefs…

  69. Reginald Selkirk says

    Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith won’t run in 2026. Fellow Democrat Gov. Tim Walz and others eye the seat

    U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota said Thursday she won’t seek reelection in 2026, a decision that has set off a scramble by potential candidates in both major political parties to fill her open seat.

    Several Democrats said they would run or quickly signaled their interest, including Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and Secretary of State Steve Simon…

  70. Reginald Selkirk says

    Stars flee Kennedy Center groups after Trump seizes chair

    President Trump’s ascension to chair of the Kennedy Center on Wednesday led to multiple departures from the Washington, D.C., institution…

    At approximately the same time that Trump announced his takeover, musician Ben Folds said he would resign as artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, “given developments at the Kennedy Center.” …

    Award-winning opera singer and actor Renée Fleming said she would depart from her role as artistic adviser at large to the Kennedy Center…

    Shonda Rhimes, the renowned television writer and producer, also reportedly resigned from the board after serving as the Kennedy Center’s treasurer…

    Some of the board’s new members include “God Bless the U.S.A.” singer and ardent Trump supporter Lee Greenwood, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, second lady Usha Vance and senior adviser Dan Scavino, among others…

    I hear Ted Nugent is available.

  71. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to 11, 45, 46.

    Gizmodo – The $400 million armored Tesla story is a fake scandal

    This is money the State thinks it might spend but hasn’t committed yet. It says as much as the top of the webpage […] It’s possible, and even probable, that Tesla wouldn’t have done this work. […] no government contract had been awarded to Tesla or any other vehicle manufacturer. […] the Biden administration had asked it to look into how it might add armor to off-the-shelf electric vehicles and it was in the early stages of the project.
    […]
    A search of government databases for SpaceX and Tesla Motors returns hundreds of contracts worth billions
    […]
    “It should have been a generic entry ‘electric vehicle manufacturer,'” a State Department Spokesperson told me. I think that’s true, but I also think it’s weird that they did a stealth edit without issuing any kind of statement to the press beforehand. It reeks of ass-covering. Hell, it is ass-covering.
    […]
    There’s going to be a lot of bullshit over the next four years. […] getting worked up over phantom distributions to Tesla isn’t productive. There’s plenty of real graft to go around.

  72. says

    NBC News:

    The top federal prosecutor in New York and two senior federal prosecutors in Washington have resigned after refusing to follow a Justice Department order to drop the corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams, multiple officials said Thursday.

  73. says

    NBC News:

    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its broad freeze of federal funding, saying in a lawsuit that the effort has ‘jeopardized at least $5.5 billion that has been committed to Pennsylvania’ in federally appropriated money.

    Josh Shapiro has a good track record of winning court cases.

  74. says

    New York Times:

    When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month that lifesaving humanitarian work would be exempt from a freeze on foreign aid, global health workers breathed a collective sigh of relief.

    But a new directive has put such exemptions on hold.

    Several senior employees at the U.S.A.I.D. Bureau of Global Health received an email Tuesday telling them to “please hold off on any more approvals” pending further directions from the acting chief of staff, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.

    Senior officials at the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance received similar instructions during a meeting this week, according to a person familiar with what transpired.

    For weeks, U.S.A.I.D. officials and the organizations, contractors and consultants who partner with them have struggled to continue the kind of work that Mr. Rubio promised to preserve — “core lifesaving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and substance assistance.”

    […] the payments system called Phoenix that U.S.A.I.D. relies on to disburse financial assistance has been inaccessible for weeks. That means even programs that received waivers have struggled to continue, according to multiple employees of U.S.A.I.D. and the partner organizations that rely on the funding they distributed.

    […] On Tuesday, Elon Musk[…] told reporters in the Oval Office that the administration had “turned on funding for Ebola prevention and for H.I.V. prevention.” But in reality, the Ebola funding and virtually all of the H.I.V. prevention funding remains frozen, according to two U.S.A.I.D. employees and several aid groups.

    Young engineers working for Mr. Musk seized control of the agency’s payments system as they took over in recent weeks. And as part of the dismantling overseen by Mr. Musk, the State Department also recently circulated plans to reduce U.S.A.I.D. staff from about 10,000 workers to 611 who had been deemed essential personnel.

    Without access to funding, organizations that partner with U.S.A.I.D. have been unable to pay their workers and suppliers for projects that were dependent on U.S. government funding.

    The Norwegian Refugee Council, which does U.S.-backed humanitarian work in about 20 countries, said it has been unable to take advantage of the waivers because the agency’s payments had stopped. […]

    Link

  75. says

    NPR:

    Attorneys for a group of news organizations, including NPR, said in a legal filing on Tuesday that evidence used at the sentencing of a rioter charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol had ‘disappeared’ from an online government platform.

  76. says

    CBC:

    Asked later Wednesday in Brussels how he would classify Trump’s comments, [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau reiterated his past statement that there’s ‘not a snowball’s chance in hell’ that Canada will ever be the 51st state.

  77. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Sen Ron Wyden:

    My office is hearing that DOGE is now at the IRS. That means Musk’s henchmen are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America. And if your refund is delayed, they could very well be the reason.

     
    Follow-up to #10.
    David Gilbert (Wired):

    Elon Musk’s “maximally transparent” DOGE website has finally gone live… And it’s basically just a stylized version of the DOGE Twitter account.

     
    TPM – D’oh!: Musky Clown Show Temporarily Disrupts Firings at TTS

    [At TTS, the tech consultancy within GSA] I told you last night that the new leadership had started firing people yesterday starting with a few dozen probationers—people in their first year on the job who are easier to fire under Civil Service law. But apparently the new bosses are still learning […] how to fire people.
    […]
    Thomas Shedd, the Musk associate who was appointed as the new head of TTS, sent a message this afternoon to the whole team that it turns out… well, they’re not quite fired yet. “We don’t yet have the go-ahead from HR,”

  78. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Paraphrased for bevity.

    TPM – Judicial Branch Scrambles To Limit Spillover From Trump’s Executive Branch Rampage
    Return-to-office orders have led displaced executive staff to inquire about setting up shop in courthouses. A memo advised against this due to concerns over security, confidentiality, and congressional appropriations.

    The executive branch GSA gave notice that it may terminate leases on 160 judiciary locations and freeze new leases above $50k. A judicial Administrative Office of the US Courts is being made to justify all facilities, and they intend to continue operating them all unterrupted.

    An executive order directed executive-branch US Marshals to do immigration stuff, but Marshals leadership “assured” that judicial security remains their top priority.

    Another memo says court employees should be just as concerned as anyone about compromised privacy from DOGE’s breach at the Office of Personnel Management.
     
     
    /The possibility of street judges arrived quicker than I’d imagined. Not Dredd so much as left out on the street.

  79. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Added context for Lynna @72.

    TPM – Defiance in New York

    I should note [Danielle Sassoon, former acting US Attorney of SDNY,] is not some partisan Democrat lurking in the DOJ bureaucracy. She was chosen by the Trump administration to run the office while Trump’s choice, Jay Clayton, moves through the confirmation process. She’s a former Scalia clerk and a Federalist Society member.

    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    Holy Shit. They’re burning through people pretty fast now. After Sassoon refused/resigned, the next two people—heads of Public Integrity Section (DC) and the Criminal Division also refused/resigned. […] these are all ‘actings’, so they’re people the Trump crew chose.

  80. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #10, #77. Waste.gov had something before the placeholder page.

    Jacqueline Sweet:

    For at least an hour last night [Feb 12], the site did have this list of “waste,” according to an image on URL scan taken at 5 pm EST. An hour later it was this WordPress placeholder. [Screenshot]

    Rando: “‘Malaysian drug fueled gay sex app’ They’re just making this bullshit up as they go.”

    Urlscan isn’t a browsable archive, but it preserves dated copies of the page. It offers a screenshot, and it has tabs to dissect the page: notably the text content (in this case, the complete bullet list of ‘waste’) and links (its citations).
    * Lots of DailyCaller citations, DailyMail, some Heritage Foundation, Fox, NYPost.
    * Lots of usaspending.gov, like for “inclusion”. About as many as DailyCaller.

    Jacqueline Sweet also identified a “Peruvian ‘LGBT comic book'” claim on the list, which has a Snopes article (only the 2nd of 3 issues even had a gay protag and bf) because it’d circulated from Fox TV. The WH had pushed it, citing DailyMail.

  81. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    On the DOGE breach at USAID.

    Ryan Goodman (Former DoD Special Counsel):

    NEW This may be one of the most important cases.
    Doe 1-26 vs. Elon Musk and DOGE
    Complaint: “Attempted government takeover” in violation of the Appointments Clause.

    Pages 4-13 are USAID members’ testimony, then pages 14-36 are a timeline of DOGE events at various agencies.

    Docket, pages 5-6:

    J. Doe 2 is a USAID employee and has been with the agency for over 10 years […] cybersecurity and privacy. On January 30, 2025, J. Doe 2 was […] told to provide access to individuals from DOGE. J. Doe 2 conducted research and determined that the people who were trying to get access to these crucial systems were “hackers.” J. Doe 2 was alarmed and raised this issue […] However, […] DOGE personnel had already been given […] root access to these systems […]

    On Feb 1, 2025, DOGE personnel who did not have a security clearance, used their administrative rights to grant themselves access to restricted areas requiring security clearance. It is unclear what the DOGE personnel did with that access. DOGE personnel have also taken over delegate rights to every USAID mailbox. With this they have the ability to see every email, delete, and send email on behalf of every user within USAID. J. Doe 2 is also aware that there is rapid preparation to tear down the USAID network to create a condition where USAID employees will not have access to any facilities nor computing environment.

    On February 4, 2025, J. Doe 2 was put on administrative leave and lost all access to USAID systems. On February 10, 2025, J. Doe 2 was allowed back into the USAID system, apparently pursuant to a temporary restraining order […]

    J. Doe 2 understands that the DOGE personnel had administrative privileges into all the USAID systems and tools and that DOGE personnel took information out of the agency and sent it elsewhere.

    DOGE’s actions have caused J. Doe 2 emotional injury, as J. Doe 2 is aware of the extent of confidential information that has been breached and the privacy laws broken.

    UNDERSTATEMENT

    Page 29:

    February 1, Defendants demanded access to classified USAID systems without the required security clearances. This included Defendant Musk making direct calls to USAID’s leadership and security officials in which he demanded that DOGE team members receive access to private data and restricted areas. Defendant Musk threatened to call the U.S. Marshals service to gain access. USAID Director for Security John Vorhees and Deputy Director for Security Brian McGill attempted to block the DOGE team’s access and in turn were placed on administrative leave.

    On or around February 1, DOGE personnel gained [root] access to the USAID […] DOGE began blocking USAID employees from accessing their systems. Immediately thereafter, hundreds of USAID civil servants lost access to their emails without prior notification. That same day, USAID.gov went offline,

  82. StevoR says

    Just back from a dogwalk. Everything is so yellowed off and struggling in drought. Water levels so low and quite a lot of dead possums seen presuming high mortalityfrom recent extreme heat.

  83. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: StevoR @82:

    quite a lot of dead possums

    Got me imagining one possum playing dead, followed by a series of passersby getting spooked into forming a cluster of dead possums that grows ever spookier.

  84. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Waldo Jaquith (Obama/Biden tech):

    This is not a novel observation, but I’m just struck by it again: the administration of “merit, not DEI” has put a series of white male teenagers in charge of many federal agencies with resumes that consist entirely of internships at the Heritage Foundation or SpaceX or wherever.

    A 55-year-old Black woman in a position of leadership is a “DEI hire,” but a 19-year-old white kid in a position of leadership is “merit.”

    No, that’s institutionalized white nationalism.

  86. says

    EXCLUSIVE from NBC News

    DOGE software approval alarms Labor Department employees

    “Elon Musk’s DOGE subordinates received approval to use software at the Labor Department that could be used to transfer large amounts of data, two employees said.”

    Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has received approval from the Labor Department to use software that could allow it to transfer vast amounts of data out of Labor’s systems, according to records seen by NBC News and interviews with two employees.

    The approval for Musk’s team to use the remote-access and file-transfer software, known as PuTTY, has alarmed some of the Labor Department’s career employees. Musk, the head of DOGE, has dispatched subordinates throughout the government to radically overhaul or dismantle federal agencies with the backing of President Donald Trump.

    Many of the details around DOGE’s actions have remained secret, though it has moved to gain access to large swaths of data held in the computer systems of individual agencies.

    That access has become contentious, and a federal judge issued a restraining order Saturday temporarily forbidding DOGE’s access to sensitive Treasury data, a case that does not involve the Labor Department. Democrats, labor unions and privacy advocates have filed lawsuits trying to halt data access at other government offices. Their concerns include the alleged use of artificial intelligence to analyze federal data and the alleged use of a computer server not familiar to government employees.

    […] After the Labor Department approved DOGE to use PuTTY last week, the two department employees said that access was put on hold, at least temporarily, because of a lawsuit filed by several federal labor unions. NBC News was not able to determine whether Musk’s subordinates at DOGE had already used the software or transferred any data, but the possibility was enough to spark concern within the Labor Department about the security of sensitive information, the two employees said.

    The two employees said that they considered the authorization to be a red flag because the DOGE members were new arrivals who, in their view, lacked sufficient vetting and experience for the access they were getting.

    “We don’t know who they are, and we’re giving them free rein to extract whatever they want,” one employee said. “This is completely opposite of what we’d do to protect privacy.”

    When reached for comment, a White House spokesperson did not directly answer questions about the software access but said that those working with Musk were doing so in full compliance with federal law, with appropriate security clearances and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisers.

    The Labor Department’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.

    PuTTY is an open-source application that has been freely available for decades. Some technologists, including in government agencies, use it routinely in their jobs as a tool not only to transfer files but also to access computers remotely.

    But government departments tightly control who may install and use the app on office machines because there are strict rules and laws about the security of federal data, the two Labor Department employees said. In general, people who want to use PuTTY or other controlled software must seek permission from system administrators to ensure their use would comply with security rules, they said.

    The two Labor Department employees said that five DOGE workers were approved to use two pieces of software: PuTTY, commonly used for large file transfers, and an SQL studio program, used for editing and exploring certain databases.

    According to records seen by NBC News, the five people were: Sam Beyda, Derek Geissler, Cole Killian, Adam Ramada and Jordan Wick. Ramada identified himself as a DOGE employee in a sworn declaration in federal court last week, and Killian has been identified as a DOGE employee by news organizations, including NBC News. Wired magazine reported Saturday that Wick is affiliated with DOGE. The names of Beyda and Geissler have not been previously reported as working for either DOGE or the Trump administration.

    NBC News sent emails to DOGE email addresses and others with those names and did not receive responses. The White House declined to provide further information about the five people.

    The Labor Department has more than 50 electronic systems that include a diverse array of personally identifiable information, according to the department’s chief information officer. The systems hold data for offices such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the health of the economy; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, which enforces workplace rules; and the Employment and Training Administration, which provides billions of dollars in grant money annually, including to community colleges and apprenticeship programs. It is unclear which, if any, Labor Department databases the DOGE employees sought access to.

    Ramada, one of the DOGE employees, wrote in his court declaration last week that he and his colleagues would comply with all data security and privacy rules. He submitted the declaration in opposition to a proposed temporary restraining order, and he said he was one of three DOGE employees detailed to the Labor Department.

    “USDS employees detailed to the Department of Labor are required to be familiar with the legal rules governing access to Department of Labor data systems and are required to comply with those rules,” he wrote. (USDS stands for United States DOGE Service.)

    He also pledged to follow rules related to sharing data.

    “To the extent USDS-Department of Labor detailees wish to share information garnered during their work duties within the Executive Branch, they are required to comply with all applicable laws and regulations,” he wrote.

    He did not say in the declaration why DOGE would need to share data elsewhere within the executive branch. He said DOGE’s overall goal was “to inform policy decisions.”

    Musk has said that DOGE needs access to federal data in order to search for waste, fraud and abuse. He has also said that his office doesn’t have any personal data of Americans — an assertion that has been met by skepticism among government workers and Democrats in Congress.

    The Washington Post reported last week that DOGE had fed sensitive data from the Education Department into artificial intelligence software to examine the agency’s programs and spending, and citing two people familiar with the project, Wired magazine reported that DOGE was developing an AI chatbot about spending across the government. NBC News has not confirmed that reporting.

    The Labor Department’s databases likely include information about Musk’s own companies such as SpaceX and Tesla, both of which have been subjects of publicly reported OSHA inspections, as well as about companies that compete with Musk’s. Neither SpaceX nor Tesla responded to a request for comment on the potential for a conflict of interests. SpaceX has defended its safety record by pointing to training that it calls extensive, according to a 2023 investigation by Reuters into injuries at the company. Tesla has said its goal “is to become the world’s safest company by continuously integrating safety into the way we work.”

    DOGE employees turned their attention to the Labor Department last week, after previously causing upheaval at several federal offices, including the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

    Simon Tatham, a British coder who created PuTTY, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that DOGE employees might be using his software. The app is available to anyone under a creative-commons license, and it’s one of many apps that could be used to transfer data. He said it’s up to U.S. authorities to enforce data security laws if anyone violates them.

    Whether DOGE’s access to certain federal databases should be prohibited is now before U.S. District Judge John Bates, who’s hearing the lawsuit filed last week in Washington, D.C., by several labor unions. On Friday, Bates ruled against a request by the plaintiffs for a temporary restraining order, finding that they did not have legal standing to sue.

    Bates wrote, though, that he “harbors concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct.” He ordered additional briefing in the case, and the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint Tuesday naming other defendants, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    The plaintiffs say that the Labor Department’s systems contain personally identifiable information about employees and others, as well as classified information.

    “These employees face irreparable harm to their privacy interests if this information is improperly accessed or disseminated (such as by being downloaded to a private server). Once the information is improperly accessed and/or disseminated, recovery may be difficult, and information may already have been used for impermissible purposes,” the lawsuit says.

    The lawsuit doesn’t mention specific software programs, but it asks the court to direct the government “to remove any software installed by DOGE personnel on agency systems.”

    Justice Department lawyers wrote in response to the lawsuit that any allegations about transferring data were speculative.

    “Whether or not a particular effort to share specific types of information is lawful will depend upon the statutes and regulations that govern the use of those systems,” the lawyers wrote. “There is no basis for concluding, at this juncture, that any violation of the Privacy Act is forthcoming.”

  87. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    I looked into possums a bit, hoping that dehydration might trigger apparent death, but couldn’t corroborate beyond an untrustworthy site. Did find this though.

    Research finds ringtail possums tackle heatwaves by letting body temperature rise to conserve water

    “I found that when the temperature exceeds around 35 to 36 degrees Celsius, the possums begin losing water when actively cooling by licking their fur, thereby increasing evaporative water loss and thermal conductance. When the air temperature reaches 39 degree Celsius, possums are at risk of feeling the negative effects of dehydration in less than 20 hours.” […] “Although temperatures in Australia can exceed 38 degrees Celsius, during a heatwave possums in dreys are unlikely to be exposed to temperatures higher than this,” Dr Turner said. “Possums often nest in cooler places, such as in dreys located inside tree trunks and branches, which offer a buffer from the heat.”

    * They largely lack sweat glands.
    * I did see a couple Australia mortality and rescue stories due to heat waves.

  88. says

    […] Some of the federal agencies firing probationary employees on Thursday, February 13, 2025 (Source: News media and individual agency employees who received the termination emails on federal employee bulletin boards.)

    US Forest Service – 3,400 employees (10% of their workforce).

    All probationary NNSA employees terminated – At Department of Energy – Maintains the safety, security, and effectiveness of the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

    All USDA probationary employees.

    VA health researchers are being laid off in mass due to Term Appointments and hiring freeze.

    CNN: Scores of firings have begun at federal agencies, with terminations of probationary employees underway at the Department of Education and the Small Business Administration, federal employees and union sources told CNN.

    They just fired all probationary employees in OPM. They called a mandatory meeting at 1:30 ET for 2ET. Everyone sat on the call in silence.

    Politico reports: Energy Department set to fire probationary employees.The jobs of as many as 2,000 DOE staff. Link: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/13/doe-set-to-fire-at-will-employees-00204104

    Department of education fired all probationary employees yesterday. A lot of colleagues received an email around 5 pm noting termination: “…regret to inform you that your position has been terminated. See attached. Please coordinate with your supervisor to return your equipment and retrieve any belongings that may in the building. Best wishes.”

    Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Thursday that it was dismissing more than 1,000 employees. Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-administration-federal-agencies-fire-probationary-employees-rcna192149

    The Education Department began terminating dozens of probationary employees on Wednesday.

    Department of Housing and Urban Development were today to expect up to a 50% reduction in workforce at the housing agency. [end of list]

    […] WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday intensified its sweeping efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce, the nation’s largest employer, by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protection — potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers.

    Link to Associated Press story: https://apnews.com/article/trump-federal-workers-layoffs-doge-406752da1614755b8fabe9c94e0c71a8

    Link

  89. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber

    ‘Massacre’: Six DOJ officials resign in protest of ‘dangerous’ Trump abuse in widening scandal
    Video is 9:30 minutes long.

    Ari Melber covers the new developments. Six resignations today.

    […] “The resignations represent the most high-profile public resistance so far to Present Trump’s tightening control over the Justice Department.” [Melber quoting The New York Times.]

    […] “Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s [Mayor of New York, Eric Adams] advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment.” [Melber quoting Danielle R. Sassoon, who resigned. She is a Republican.] […]

    Melber also covers the fact that Trump lied when questioned about the resignations.

    More in the video.

  90. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404media – Anyone can push updates to the DOGE.gov website

    The doge.gov website that was spun up to track Elon Musk’s cuts to the federal government is insecure and pulls from a database that can be edited by anyone […] One coder added at least two database entries that are visible on the live site and say “this is a joke of a .gov site” and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro.”
    […]
    doge.gov is seemingly built on a Cloudflare Pages site that is not currently hosted on government servers. […] “Feels like it was completely slapped together […] Tons of errors and details leaked in the page source code.”

    Sam Curry (Car hacker):

    The DOGE website appears to be developed and hosted by Outburst Data, run by current DOGE employee Kyle Schutt.

    [An ID linked to his Cloudflare account was found throughout the doge.gov html. Googling the ID turned up the guy using his real name in a forum asking for help building a website.]

    the account was being used to a host a number of different Elon Musk related websites. […] AMERICA PAC, DOGE, and WinRed

    Commentary:

    Rando 1: What are the downsides of it being hosted on a private site?

    Rando 2: I mean, everyone in the world can hammer on the site for vulnerabilities, and your support team is the corner of the author techbro’s desk. Not to mention technical exploits on the servers, backend, or physical devices

  91. Bekenstein Bound says

    NASA Just Funded A Project to Blow Space Structures Out Of Glass

    Won’t they be too fragile? OK, sure, existing ones are more or less just giant aluminum cans, easily punctured. But at least they aren’t going to shatter when they get punctured, so you can limit depressurization to one compartment. You can’t do that if the entire outer hull disintegrates as soon as it gets any damage anywhere.

  93. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russian drone damages Chernobyl nuclear plant’s shelter, Zelenskyy says

    A Russian drone caused significant damage to the radiation containment shelter at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.

    Zelenskyy and the UN’s energy watchdog both said that radiation levels remained normal after the incident, which came as top U.S., Ukrainian and European officials gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the war in Ukraine.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed Ukraine’s claim as a “provocation”, saying that he did not have precise information on the alleged incident but that Russia does not attack nuclear infrastructure…

  94. Reginald Selkirk says

    First-ever atheist billboard in Africa unveiled in Ghana with FFRF support

    A groundbreaking moment for the secular community in Africa has arrived with the unveiling of the continent’s first-ever atheist billboard in Accra, Ghana.

    Sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) in partnership with Accra Atheists, this historic installation marks a significant milestone in visibility and advocacy for African humanists, atheists, agnostics and skeptics.

    The billboard, prominently displayed in the bustling downtown business district on Cantonments Road near Osu, Accra, reads: “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” It affirms the presence of secular individuals in Ghana and beyond. The display is part of an initiative aimed at fostering awareness, encouraging open dialogue about secularism, and supporting the growing community of freethinkers in the region. It features a photo montage of activities that Accra Atheists members have engaged in, even including a picture of group President Roslyn Mould being interviewed by FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor in FFRF’s studio in the United States…

  95. Reginald Selkirk says

    Floridians Are Complaining About Dense Fog That Smells Funny

    Florida has been struck with a phenomenon of dense fog that has what residents have described as a strange odor. In social media posts on Reddit and X, individuals have called the fog unusual from other fog common in Florida, much more dense and, well, smelly.

    The phenomenon has, of course, sparked conspiracy theories online in the absence of credible information, as cataloged by Futurism. Some Redditors have speculated the fog captured chemicals from manufacturing plants in the region, but there is no definitive evidence to prove the claim. The federal government is distracted these days with President Trump effectively shutting down organizations by the day and pressuring its workforce of 2 million to take early retirement offers. We might just be stuck with TikTok experts on this one.

    “I’m not the conspiracy type,” said one Reddit user, “but this is 100% happening in central Florida. I thought it was smoke at first, but it is fog. And it has a smell I cannot describe.” Another agreed, saying, “I usually laugh at the conspiracy theorists, but this fog IS weird. Smells off and doesn’t really look like any fog I’ve seen in my 30 years living here.” Another wrote the fog “smells kinda like a mixture of gasoline and rubber. Honestly, I cannot really describe it.” Geo-engineering practices, such as efforts to seed clouds and produce rain, only lend more credence to the conspiracy theories…

  97. johnson catman says

    re Reginald Selkirk @95: Have they checked to see if the Orange Turd is in the area? It has been reported by multiple sources that he smells bad. It would not be unimaginable that he could emit some kind of stinky fog from his body.

  99. says

    Trump has a new gift in mind for Putin amid ‘elation’ in Russia

    “[Trump] first tried to get Russia back into the G7 in 2018. He tried again in 2020. Evidently, Trump is hoping the third time’s the charm.”

    By any fair measure, Donald Trump ensured that Wednesday was a very good day for Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Republican president, among other things, publicly vouched for Putin’s interest in peace, despite the devastating war in Ukraine that the Russian leader began and can end at any time.

    Trump also declared that he expects Russia to keep at least some of the land Putin took from Ukraine by force, hedged on whether he considers Ukraine an equal member of the peace process, and again suggested that Russia’s invasion was Ukraine’s fault.

    As Wednesday came to an end, former White House national security adviser John Bolton told CNN, “Putin has scored a whole series of victories today. It’s hard to encompass them all.” The former Trump aide added, “They’re drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight. It was a great day for Moscow.”

    After another embarrassing display in the White House, the next day was pretty great for Moscow, too.

    Over the course of a single afternoon, Trump once again declared that Putin “wants peace,” all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding; once again vouched for the Russian leader’s trustworthiness; blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Joe Biden; suggested Barack Obama might also bear responsibility for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; and hedged when asked what Russia should give up in negotiations with Ukraine.

    In case that weren’t quite enough, Trump also apparently has a gift in mind for his counterpart in Moscow. NBC News reported:

    Trump lamented the fact that Russia was thrown out of the G8 international group as he answered questions from reporters in the Oval Office. “I’d love to have them back,” he said. “I think it was a mistake to throw them out.”

    Russia, of course, was suspended from the international organization after it annexed Crimea in 2014. The idea was to impose a diplomatic punishment. More than a decade later, the Republican president apparently prefers the idea of a diplomatic reward. [social media post and video at the link]

    Note, Trump added that Putin “would love to be back” in the G7. Though he didn’t elaborate on how, exactly, he knew this to be true, it suggests the two leaders spoke privately about the subject.

    For the record, this was not the first time the president broached the subject. Trump first called on the G7 to readmit Russia into the group in 2018, sparking domestic and international pushback. The American president made a related effort in 2020, which went nowhere.

    Trump has a notoriously short attention span, but it appears that on this issue, he’s persistent.

    The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that Trump has helped spark “elation in Moscow,” and there’s no great mystery as to why.

  100. says

    After confirmation votes, Trump’s offensive against McConnell gets uglier

    “It seemed hard to imagine the president’s relationship with the Kentucky senator getting much worse. Then Trump questioned whether McConnell had polio.”

    Even during Donald Trump’s first term as president, he didn’t exactly have a good relationship with Sen. Mitch McConnell. In fact, in 2017, he looked at the Kentucky Republican as someone who would simply follow the White House’s demands. When the GOP’s then-Senate leader tried to explain how government worked, a “profane shouting match” soon followed.

    After Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections, the relationship deteriorated further: Trump condemned McConnell as a corrupt “hack,” targeted his wife, practically begged GOP senators to oust him from his leadership role, said McConnell “has a DEATH WISH” for disagreeing with Trump’s legislative strategies, and told The New York Times, on the record, that he considered McConnell to be “a piece of s—.”

    It seemed unlikely that things could get worse — but [Trump] somehow found a way.

    About a month before Trump’s second inaugural, McConnell sent some unsubtle shots across the president’s bow, even drawing parallels between the “America First” slogan and the fascists who used the same phrase in the 1930s.

    [McConnell] has taken on a new and uncharacteristic role as the only GOP senator willing to oppose the White House’s most outlandish Cabinet nominees, voting against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    […] As too much of the Republican Party becomes a cult of personality, honoring Trump as The One True Leader, it’s nice to see at least one GOP senator willing to take steps that his colleagues are too afraid to take, opposing nominees who obviously don’t deserve to be confirmed.

    The other way to see McConnell’s shift is to acknowledge the fact that his sudden independent streak is far too late to matter, and it’s also proven inconsequential as Trump’s worst nominees cleared the Senate anyway. It’s easy to do the right thing in key moments when it doesn’t involve paying a price or making a practical difference.

    Relatedly, the longtime senator has had plenty of opportunities to rid his party of Trump, and in each instance, he’s demurred. As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones recently noted, McConnell has arguably been “among the biggest enablers of Donald Trump’s rise in the Republican Party and American politics.”

    Which of these perspectives is correct? By most measures, I’d say both are.

    […] Trump appears furious, knowing that he no longer has any leverage over McConnell [Trump] told reporters that McConnell is “not equipped mentally.”

    Reminded that McConnell is a polio survivor, making his vote against Kennedy something of a no-brainer, Trump apparently questioned whether the senator actually had polio. [social media post and video at the link]

    [McConnell] really did have polio — a detail he emphasized in his statement explaining his opposition to [RFK Jr.]

    […] none of his GOP colleagues followed his lead, and for his trouble, he faced a new round of condemnations from his party’s president. They probably weren’t the last.

  101. Reginald Selkirk says

    Very cold weather coming. US about to get 10th and chilliest polar vortex this winter

    The coldest burst of Arctic air this season is coming to put an icy exclamation point on America’s winter of repeated polar vortex invasions, meteorologists warn. And it will stay frozen there all next week.

    Different weather forces in the Arctic are combining to push the chilly air that usually stays near the North Pole not just into the United States, but also Europe, several meteorologists tell The Associated Press.

    This will be the 10th time this winter that the polar vortex — which keeps the coldest of Arctic air penned in at the top of the world — stretches like a rubber band to send some of that big chill south, said Judah Cohen, seasonal forecast director at the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research. In a normal winter, it happens maybe two or three times…

    ‽

  102. says

    Josh Marshall:

    […] Money is the essential factor in funding research. But if we imagine ten processes that are necessary for the money to flow, in many cases five or six have been disrupted even if the money, in theory, isn’t frozen. As you can see I’m talking at a high level of generality here. […] But I’ve communicated with enough people on the inside to have a pretty good read of the overall situation.

    There’s another level of the situation that is more elusive and has received, at least in the mainstream press, much less attention. There appears to be a concerted attempt to paralyze the various institutes and centers from within. This includes things like directives that one department can’t communicate with another or various directives against internal communication. Outside speakers aren’t allowed to come to discuss their research and vice versa. It’s very hard to imagine any benign intent behind these actions. They seem to be a mix of creating multiple layers of directives to halt all activity whatsoever combined with an effort to prevent one part of the organization from knowing what political appointees are shutting down or who they’re firing in another. […]

    what most civil servants are really in the habit of is getting clear direction and executing it. A lot must have changed, I said. “I don’t think we’ve ever felt hunted for sport before,” this person replied.

    But I’ve noticed a different note in these conversations over the last two or three days. And at least within NIH and its associated HHS research agencies that’s something along the lines of ‘where are the lawsuits’? Like where’s the cavalry? On a broad level there’s no opposition cavalry coming over the hill since the opposition is frozen out of all power at the federal level. As far as lawsuits go I suspect that part of the issue is that these are incredibly complicated bureaucracies in the sense that there are multiple centers and institutes and different agencies working on different things and often the nature of administrative law means each has to be litigated individually or perhaps the facts just differ enough in different places that different legal action is required.

    […] you have to find someone with standing to bring a suit. That all comes down to the complexities of the law generally and administrative law particularly. […] there’s more on the line here than empathy.

    Link

  104. says

    Followup to comments 89, 92 and 98.

    Who Resigned

    Danielle R. Sassoon, 38, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a career prosecutor who has been with the office since 2016. She has sterling credentials: Harvard undergrad, Yale law, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She is a Federalist Society member who was named to the acting role just last month by the Trump administration to fill the post until Jay Clayton is confirmed.

    Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the department’s Criminal Division who previously had been in the Public Integrity Section;

    John Keller, the acting head of the Public Integrity Section;

    Rob Heberle, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;

    Jenn Clarke, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;

    Marco Palmieri, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section.

  105. says

    Followup to comment 104.

    The Thuggery
    Bove’s letter responding to Sassoon’s resignation is as dastardly and villainous as anything I’ve ever seen come out of the Justice Department. It’s comic book villain material. Among the snarling remarks and acts of retaliation:

    – Bove put on administrative leave at least two other line prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan who had worked the Adams case, claiming without basis that the entire prosecution was politically motivated (improbably by a Democratic president against a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city).
    – Bove threatened Sassoon and the line prosecutors with internal investigation, by both the attorney general’s bogus “weaponization” group and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
    – Bove suggested that Sassoon’s oath to uphold the Constitution was superseded by “the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General.

    In her letter, Sassoon had revealed: (i) Bove cut her out of his negotiations with Adams’ lawyers of what she alleged was a quid pro quo arrangement; (ii) scotched one of the prosecutors from taking notes of the meeting with Adams’ lawyers; (iii) made his decision to drop the case despite knowing that a superseding indictment was in the works to add additional obstruction charges against Adams.

    MUST READ: The Dueling DOJ Letters
    Feb. 12: Danielle Sassoon’s letter to Bondi [There’s more in that letter than most media outlets are reporting. So far, I’ve only seen Rachel Maddow do it justice.]

    Feb. 13: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s response letter to Sassoon

    The Other DOJ Travesty
    In another flagrant disregard of the law, Attorney General Pam Bondi gave an affirmative green light to Google and Apple to ignore the plain language of the statutory TikTok ban upheld by the Supreme Court.

    Emil Bove’s Dirty Secret: He Investigated Jan. 6
    Former co-workers from Emil Bove’s brief time as an aggressive investigator of Jan. 6 spill the tea. […]

    Will The Courts Stand Firm Against Trump Lawlessness?
    Among the at least 70 lawsuits against the Trump administration and 14 court orders blocking executive actions, we’re tracking the most important rulings:

    – USAID: In the first USAID case, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols extended his order blocking the Trump administration from pulling workers worldwide off the job.
    – USAID: In a second USAID case, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered an end to the spending freeze.
    – Trans Care: U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson of Maryland blocked Trump’s executive order banning the federal government from offering gender-affirming care for trans kids.

    The Purges
    – Government-wide: Some 200,000 government workers on probationary status are being purged.
    – CFPB: Dozens of workers fired in after-hours blitz.
    – CFPB: Acting head Russell Vought established a “tip line” to snitch on financial regulators who are still doing their jobs despite a White House “stand down” order.
    – U.S. Forest Service: Some 3,400 federal employees still within their probationary period purged across every level of the agency beginning yesterday.

    Link

  106. says

    Louisiana Department of Health says it will no longer promote mass vaccination

    The Louisiana Department of Health will no longer promote mass vaccination, the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Ralph Abraham, told state health workers Thursday.

    “The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units, community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns,” Abraham wrote in a memo addressed to “LDH Team Members” and obtained by CNN. “While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.”

    The directive, first reported by the Times-Picayune, came the same day anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. It was timing that Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the Health Department for the City of New Orleans, said she didn’t think was a coincidence.

    “Now they have, in the ultimate health authority in America, someone who has been a champion of the same falsehoods that have been promulgated locally,” Avegno told CNN. “During his Senate confirmation hearings, [Kennedy] was given opportunities to walk back his stances on vaccines, and he really didn’t take them. … I think it gives folks who, for whatever reason, are in his way of thinking license to proceed.”

    Avegno said New Orleans has an independent health department and isn’t subject to the state’s directive, and “we will not be abiding.”

    “When you deprioritize, when you create confusion and doubt to any kind of medical information, then the fact is that folks don’t get it,” she said. “We’re already seeing that; our childhood vaccination rate has dropped in the last year or so, like many other states in the country.

    “When vaccination rates drop,” Avegno said, “you get worse outbreaks.”

    Louisiana has been struck particularly hard by flu amid a severe season for the whole country, Avegno said. […]

    More at the link.

  107. says

    Pentagon head [Pete Hegseth] offers crucial invite to antisemitic Pizzagate pusher

    Trump administration officials at the Pentagon invited antisemitic right-wing conspiracy theorist and serial hoaxer Jack Posobiec to accompany Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on his trip to Europe.

    The Washington Post reports that a planning document for Hegseth’s trip (where he provoked international ire by throwing Ukraine under the bus) included Posobiec among invited media, and that the decision to include the right-wing activist triggered “alarm among U.S. defense officials worried about the military being dragged into partisan warfare.”

    Posobiec is currently employed by the far-right Human Events as a “senior editor” and previously worked for the pro-Trump One America News Network. On his X social media account, Posobiec has on multiple occasions attacked Jewish journalists with antisemitic content.

    Posobiec used his account to single out reporters like CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who is Jewish, for harassment by white supremacists and also streamed video from the account mocking the Holocaust, during which 6 million Jewish people were murdered.

    Additionally, Posobiec was one of the leading promoters of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory which falsely claimed that a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant was a front for a child trafficking operation connected to Democratic politicians. Pizzagate conspiracies inspired a would-be shooter to travel to the restaurant with a gun, later telling police he planned to “self-investigate” the lie spread by Posobiec and other conservatives.

    Posobiec also took part in a hoax intended to help Trump and smear his critics during the 2016 election cycle. Trump supporters circulated images in November 2016 purporting to be anti-Trump protesters holding up a sign that read “Rape Melania.” The images went viral and the contents of the sign were condemned. But the sign was actually the handiwork of a group led by Posobiec, intending to discredit opposition to Trump.

    In addition to the travel plans with Hegseth, Posobiec also accompanied recently installed Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on his trip to Kiev, Ukraine. […]

  108. says

    Republicans have failed to schedule a confirmation vote for Rep. Elise Stefanik as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because her vote is needed as House Republicans cut the social safety net.

    […] Republicans are sitting on her nomination until they can figure a way out of the mess they created for themselves.

    At the moment, there are several international crises—some triggered by Donald Trump’s actions and rhetoric—that would benefit from a unified American response at the U.N. There is the war in Gaza (and Trump’s plan for ethnic cleansing), the war in Ukraine, and the international feuds that Trump has set off with Canada, Mexico, Denmark, and much of the European Union. […]

    The party needs Stefanik—or another Republican in her seat—so they can cut $880 billion from Medicaid alongside a 20% cut to food stamps. There is also a concern that Social Security cuts are an option.

    The state of paralysis once again shows that Republicans have prioritized the well-being of the wealthiest above everything else, even America’s role on the world stage.

    Link

  110. says

    Trump’s “Iron Dome” Looks Like Another Payday for Elon Musk

    “An American replication of Israel’s defense system doesn’t make sense. But, experts say, it will likely set up SpaceX for big government contracts.”

    When I first reported on President Donald Trump’s promise to “BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD,” an expert summed up the idea as “the insane ramblings of a senile old person.” But, with Trump in office, the “Iron Dome for America” plan is seemingly happening—and the project’s benefits for some of the most powerful people in the world are coming into focus.

    In late January, Trump announced details for the Dome. A land-based missile-interceptor system—like the one Israel has—would not be possible to build for a country the size of the United States. Instead, military commentators coalesced around another plan: build a cloud of “satellite missile interceptors” similar to former President Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated 1980s “Star Wars” proposal.

    In turn, the US Missile Defense Agency asked defense companies on January 31 to pitch space-based sensors and interceptors that could detect and defeat “advanced aerial threats” from low-space orbit. That means the proposed Iron Dome would almost certainly require thousands of satellites for putting interceptor weapons in space.

    The company that currently dominates the market for such equipment? Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

    “SpaceX is the only company that currently has the capacity to launch that many things,” Dr. Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists told Mother Jones. “They’re such a critical resource at this point that…if you’re going to launch a lot of things, SpaceX is going to be in the mix.”

    There are—according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who maintains a count of pretty much everything orbiting this planet—just over 11,000 working satellites in orbit. 6998 of them are Starlink satellites. That means 62 percent of all working satellites orbiting this planet belong to a company started byElon Musk, a drastic increase from only 5 years ago. More critically: SpaceX has the necessary launch capacity to send thousands of load-bearing satellites into orbit. They already handle the majority of NASA’s launches, for billions of dollars each year.

    […] A paper published in February by the National Security Space Association—a military-industrial think tank—highlights this further: though it might not be capable of efficiently stopping intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), a satellite missile-interceptor system like the proposed American Iron Dome cloud would be uniquely capable of getting Elon Musk paid. […]

    Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute put the likely cost at somewhere between $11 and $27 billion for such a system—and pointed out that despite all that money, the system would only be able to intercept up to two rockets at a time. […]

    “You need something like three interceptors to have a pretty good chance of taking down one incoming ICBM,” said John Erath, CACNP’s Policy Director. “So the numbers add up quickly, and the math isn’t good.”

    […] Grego, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the re-emergent idea a “fantasy,” more a branding attempt than a useful proposition.

    “Invoking Iron Dome is just marketing, trying to manufacture credibility for something that has never worked,” she said. Instead of wasting money on the unachievable, she said, US efforts would be better spent on nuclear disarmament—something Trump threw his support behind this week. But paying companies like SpaceX to create an “American Iron Dome,” Grego argued, would have the opposite of that effect.

    “Missile defenses are not a useful or long-term strategy for keeping the US safe from nuclear weapons,” she said.

  111. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/sounds-like-secretary-shtfaced-needs

    We don’t know how to tell you this, but Pete Hegseth isn’t doing a very good job as secretary of Defense. We know! We are shocked and surprised too. […]

    The other day, Hegseth opened his beerhole in a meeting at NATO HQ in Brussels and shared all his personal beliefs about Ukraine, specifically saying there was no reason to think about going back to Ukraine’s “pre-2014 borders” (AKA Ukraine’s actual borders) and that the United States definitely doesn’t think Ukraine should be in NATO. So don’t you worry about that, Putin […]

    Unfortunately those remarks got Hegseth into a wee bit of trouble! Turns out he was kinda talking out of his ass, as they say. What a stupid, stupid boy.

    Good thing this doesn’t affect anything important like national security! Oh wait.

    Specifically, Hegseth wasn’t really supposed to say the thing about “No Ukraines in NATO.” Of course Trump said it, like five minutes later, back in Washington. […] Trump said he just doesn’t know how “a country in Russia’s position” could let Ukraine join NATO. You know, because in Trump’s compromised dementia brain, Ukraine is not a sovereign state and must ask Russia permission to do things. Also, Trump might be consumed with other geographical pursuits like the “Gulf of America” and grabbing Greenland […] but there’s no reason “a country in Russia’s position” should be bothered by a nation on its border being in NATO. Poland and Finland and Latvia and Lithuania and Estonia are, after fucking all.

    But back to Hegseth, who is a loser and a failure and who is not getting the employee of the month parking spot at Trump’s Cabinet meetings. On Thursday, he was required to notify people that he is a little boy who needs to shut the fuck up, that Donald Trump is the president, and the president sets the policy, or at least implements the policy Putin tells the president to implement:

    Hegseth, in his remarks to media on Thursday, said he wanted to make clear that “these negotiations are led by President Trump. Everything is on the table in his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. What he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world — of President Trump.”

    Hegseth added that he is “not going to stand at this podium and declare what President Trump will do or won’t do, what will be in or what will be out, what concessions will be made or what concessions are not made.” He cast his previous assessment ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine as “what’s likely” and a recognition of “hard-power realities on the ground.” […]

    OK sure bud.

    Tommy Vietor, who is now one of the Pod Save guys and previously worked for President Barack Obama in the National Security Council, had this to say about Hegseth’s little tapdance: [social media post at the link: “This was a huge fuckup by Hegseth. There’s no walking back his initial comments that Ukraine won’t join NATO or gain back all the territory lost since 2014. He wrote Putin a big check that has already been cashed. Maybe don’t make an unqualified Fox News host @SecDef?]

    Meanwhile, Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Armed Services Committee and enthusiastically voted to confirm Hegseth, acted like he couldn’t have seen this coming, and oh boy, he is suddenly not mincing words about Hegseth’s original remarks:

    “Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”

    “I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” Wicker said, referring to the pro-Putin broadcaster.

    It’s funny to watch these people fight.

    Anyway, Wicker is “heartened” that Hegseth walked his original shit back (right before Trump basically said the same thing but whatever). He also offered this nugget of advice that Hegseth needs to know, whether he is the secretary of Defense, or whether he ends up with a job more suited to his skillset […]

    “Everybody knows … and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,” Wicker said, adding that he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments.

    Everybody knows. Everybody. […]

    Wicker, continuing to act like Republican senators are allowed to have independent streaks in Trump’s America, also confirmed that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal, should spend the rest of his life in prison, and that Russia should “absolutely not” be readmitted to the G7, despite how [Trump] is totally open to that idea.

    But back to Hegseth again!

    He really has said so many stupid things on this trip, it’s hard to keep track. He is just — OOF! — not a smart guy.

    There was this, which he said Thursday:

    “We can talk all we want about values. Values are important,” Hegseth said. “But you can’t shoot values, you can’t shoot flags, and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power. As much as we may not want to like the world we live in, in some cases, there’s nothing like hard power.”

    […] There are also reports that Hegseth thought it would be a cool idea in a press conference yesterday to essentially tell everybody that the US Navy isn’t tough enough to face the Russian navy, which is as stupid strategically as it is just plain wrong. [social media post at the link: “Pete Hegseith, Defense Secretary, just announced in Brussels at a press conference that the U.S. isn’t prepared to face Russia, particularly at sea [more at the link]]

    […] We would note that they are having a hell of a lot of fun mocking the skunk-headed dipshit on r/military over those remarks. […]

    In related humiliating news about bigots named “Hegseth,” apparently Pete Hegseth’s wife accompanied him to Brussels, and the American schools at NATO HQ removed posters of Harriet Tubman and removed origami cranes and removed rainbows in advance of her visit, because they were scared they might run afoul of Trump’s new bigot DEI orders. No really:

    Teachers were worried that they would be seen as signs of Black, Japanese and gay culture — and thus run afoul of the new rules from Washington. […]

    In the NATO schools preparing for Mrs. Hegseth, in the town of Mons, Belgium, Black history month materials were scrapped. Art displays with even vague references to rainbows — a symbol of gay pride — were removed. A cart at the middle school library held books related to sexual identity and gender issues — including titles like “Allies” and “Gracefully Grayson” — that were pulled from the shelves, based on a photo circulating among teachers and viewed by The New York Times.

    Oh how humiliating for all of us, until the end of days.

    That comes after earlier this week, when students at a school on a US military base in Stuttgart, Germany, greeted the Hegseths by staging a walkout protest of Trump’s backward Nazi bigot DEI policies. Students in Mons, Belgium, protested too.

    The whole world hates these trash people, and so do all decent Americans.

    This is where we are now.

  112. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/justice-department-massacre

    Oh boy breaking right now, Barb McQuade says that “DOJ leadership has put all Public Integrity Section lawyers into a room with 1 hour to decide who will dismiss Adams indictment or else all will be fired.” Update: Reuters reports that someone has volunteered as tribute.

    WHAT THE FUCK AND holy ghost of Richard Nixon! Looks like we’ve got another Saturday Night Massacre, (at least) seven people have resigned from the Justice Department, instead of following Pam Bondi and (acting) number two Emil Bove’s orders to drop charges against Eric Adams. Now with an extra side of collective punishment/the prisoner’s dilemma/game of “who’s going to be the Bork?”! Can’t Pammy Jo or Bove just do it themselves? Too embarrassing? But by now the “this is not political” horse has already left the barn, jogged around the block and given an interview to Fox & Friends.

    (The original Justice Department “Saturday Night” massacre was during Watergate in 1973, when Tricky Dick tried to fire special counsel Archibald Cox for refusing Nixon’s demand that he drop a subpoena for Nixon’s White House tapes. But the two guys he sent to fire Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, resigned instead. And Robert Bork ended up firing Cox.)

    So already this massacre is more than twice as big, and it hasn’t even been a month with this administration […]

    To rewind, it’s sure been a fast-moving week in the Eric Adams world:

    On Monday, Emil Bove, the current (acting) Justice Department number two, demanded that the DOJ dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in a letter that was wantonly quid pro quo-y: “the pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration.” And he demanded they dismiss the charges without prejudice, so that charges could be brought again if Adams refused to do any future bidding. Just get on your knees and worship the emperor, and all of your legal problems can poof, go away!

    Or, as the suckup New York Times calls it, “an extraordinary shattering of norms” and “a highly unorthodox argument.” Washington Post: “highly unusual.” Eye roll.

    The corruption Adams was allegedly up to was mighty balls-out; he was charged with five counts of taking at least $100,000 worth of goodies and straw-donor bucks from Turkish officials over the course of almost a decade. Which he helpfully documented in text messages that he tried to hide by changing the password to his phone then claiming he forgot what the new password was! Subtle. The straw donations also let him access $10 million in matching public funds for his 2021 campaign. And it appears that prosecutors had convened a second grand jury in January that was considering an obstruction charge.

    BUUUTT the (acting) US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Danielle R. Sassoon, who is so far right she clerked for Scalia, is a member of the Federalist Society, and was appointed by Trump just three weeks ago, refused to go along. When your scheme is too corrupt for somebody with that resume, you know it’s bad.

    In a letter to AG “Pamela Jo” Bondi, Sassoon said she couldn’t in good faith and with a straight face argue to a judge that the case should be dismissed because it was a weak case, or prosecutors misbehaved, or that dismissing it would be in the public interest, especially while Bove was over here saying out loud that dismissing charges would be in exchange for Adams doing the Trump administration’s bidding. Bove also lamely argued that Adams’s case was election interference because the next election is nine months away, LOL. Oh, and Sassoon said that in a meeting, Bove criticized one of her staff members for taking notes and collected those notes at the end.

    Holy Stringer Bell! [video at the link]

    Anyway, Sassoon offered to resign instead of trying to peddle that “breathtaking and dangerous precedent” bullshit, and that is what she ultimately did.

    And Bove responded with a letter, reported the WSJ:

    Under your leadership, the office has demonstrated itself to be incapable of fairly and impartially reviewing the circumstances of this prosecution. […] The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken in this matter.

    […] So anyway Bove and Pammy Jo tried to reassign the case to the public-integrity unit so they could drown it in a bucket. BUUTT the (acting) head of the division, John Keller, resigned, and so did Kevin Driscoll, the top official leading the criminal division (not to be confused with Brian Driscoll, head of the FBI, who’s been leading the anti-Bove resistance there). And then another three officials resigned. And so far, no motion for dismissal has been filed in federal court, so guess Pammy Jo is still trying to find someone willing to do it.

    Oh, and Friday morning a seventh resignation, Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the Adams investigation, writing in his letter:

    No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

    Yeah, if you haven’t noticed by now, “ordered liberty” is the opposite of what the Trump/Musk administration is trying to get going here.

    In gratitude, Adams said he’d put ICE agents in Rikers Island, and appeared on “Fox & Friends” with border czar Tom Homan like some kind of butt puppet. Homan’s words, not mine! [video at the link]

    In case there were any doubts about this being a quid-pro-quo/hostage situation. Just two months ago, Adams was singing a different tune.

    “I’m not a supporter of mass deportation. […] This is inhumane. […] This is a sanctuary city. Those laws are in place. I want people to continue to go to school. I want people to continue to use our hospital systems. I want people to continue to know that if they’re a victim of a crime, they should report those criminal actions against them.”

    But sometime between November and when he showed up to Trump’s inauguration, it seems Republican Jesus touched his heart […] He also has lawyers Alex Spiro and William A. Burck, who have defended Elon Musk against SEC complaints […]

    And as of now, Adams is still the Mayor of New York […]

    Governor Kathy Hochul told Rachel Maddow last night, “This just happened. I need some time to process this and figure out the right approach.” No mayor has ever been removed in New York, and no official has been removed since then-Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt dismissed New York County Sheriff Thomas Farley, a Tammany Hall leader who allegedly grafted more than $360,000 in 1931 dollars (or almost $6 million) from kickbacks in a gambling club he owned.

    Pressure is growing on her to do that, especially now that prosecutors are being collectively punished by being locked in a room, so, Judge Judy watch-tapping gif! [Gif at the link]

  113. says

    Followup to comment 112.

    Federal prosecutor will sign motion to dismiss Adams charges in bid to save colleagues’ jobs, sources say

    A federal prosecutor agreed on Friday to file a motion to dismiss the criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in a bid to spare other career staff from potentially being fired by the acting deputy attorney general, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

    The decision came amid pressure from Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who imposed a one-hour deadline on all public integrity attorneys on Friday to decide among themselves who would file the motion.

    I expect more details to leak to the press soon.

  114. says

    The key flaw in Trump’s executive order about school funding and vaccine mandates

    “The president signed an executive order to defund schools that require Covid vaccines for students and staff — but there’s an important catch.”

    Those who watched Donald Trump’s campaign stump speeches during the 2024 race know that he had a habit of straying from the script in his teleprompter. There were, however, a few lines he never forgot to deliver.

    Take this one, for example: “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”

    [Trump] pushed the line in Wisconsin. And Michigan. And Florida. And Washington, D.C. And Texas, Minnesota, and New Jersey. And Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and Virginia. In fact, Trump has made the same declaration, word for word, for over a year.

    For months, there was some discussion about whether he was referring specifically to Covid vaccine mandates or all vaccine mandates, and his political operation never made much of an effort to clarify matters. The public was only told that Trump intended to apply his policy to all public education “from kindergarten through college.”

    Nearly a month into the president’s second term, he’s now followed through on his misguided campaign vow. The Hill reported:

    President Trump signed an executive order Friday to defund schools and other education agencies that require COVID-19 vaccines for students and staff. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the head of the Department of Education are directed to create a plan to end these mandates and end federal funding for entities that do not comply.

    At first blush, this might sound alarming, but an Associated Press report highlighted a highly relevant detail: “The order is expected to have little national impact because COVID-19 vaccine mandates have mostly been dropped at schools and colleges across the United States, and many states have passed legislation forbidding such mandates.”

    The grand total of states requiring Covid vaccines for students and staff is zero.

    Of course, across the country, school districts require children to be fully immunized against, among other things, polio, measles, hepatitis B, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis before they can attend classes. These policies have existed for years; they’ve been incredibly effective; they enjoy the support of public health officials; and they haven’t been especially controversial.

    Will these policies change? At least for now, the answer appears to be no: Trump’s new order applies to Covid vaccine mandates, and nothing else.

    Then again, now that 52 Republican senators have made Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, the secretary of health and human services, vigilance is probably in order.

  115. says

    The White House’s ‘Gulf of America’ push takes a needlessly aggressive turn

    “There is an apparent expectation in the White House that news organizations will either use Trump-approved language, or they should expect to be punished.”

    Donald Trump and his team certainly appear excited about trying to convince people to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, but the public appears unconvinced: A national poll from Marquette Law School, released this week, found 71% of Americans oppose the name change. Other recent polling pointed in nearly identical directions.

    Evidently, the White House doesn’t care. The Washington Post reported:

    On Thursday, for the third day in a row, the White House prevented Associated Press reporters from attending official events, a spokesperson for the news organization confirmed to The Washington Post. An AP reporter was blocked from attending two afternoon events in the Oval Office, including a swearing-in ceremony for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    A day later, it happened for the fourth consecutive day.

    By way of an explanation, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday, “I was very upfront in my briefing on Day 1 that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.” She added, “And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that.”

    In other words, as far as the president’s chief spokesperson is concerned, it’s a “lie” to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico. Trump signed an order unilaterally changing the name of the body of water, the argument goes, so everyone has responsibility to just go along with the president’s one-man rebranding campaign.

    Two days later, Taylor Budowich, a White House Deputy chief of staff, published a related pitch via social media, accusing the Associated Press of “ignoring the lawful geographic name change,” which according Budowich, “exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation.”

    He did not appear to be kidding.

    I received a note a couple of days ago from a reader who suggested the whole “Gulf of America” campaign is too silly to care about. With all of the many abuses and burgeoning scandals surrounding the president and his administration, the reader argued, this is trivia worth ignoring.

    t’s not an unreasonable point. In fact, I generally don’t much care what names and phrases Trump comes up with for anything.

    But it’s worth appreciating the fact that this isn’t just about rebranding a body of water. Rather, this is about a White House that’s waging an aggressive campaign against the free press, and in this instance, is also trying to bully one of the nation’s leading news organizations into submission as part of an Orwellian campaign.

    There is an apparent expectation in the West Wing that news organizations will either use Trump-approved language, or they should expect to be punished.

    Welcome to the exciting new era for the First Amendment, in which people and businesses are free to use the words and phrases that Republicans like — or there will be consequences.

  116. says

    Asked about Musk’s conflicts, Trump offers an unintentionally amusing answer

    Donald Trump welcomed an important international visitor to the White House this week, holding a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. But as it turns out, the Republican president wasn’t the only one to get some facetime with the Indian leader.

    NBC News reported that Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, was also in the Oval Office during Trump and Modi’s comments to reporters. Soon after, the public learned about Musk having his own meeting with the prime minister. Modi said via social media that the two discussed “space, mobility, technology and innovation.”

    The New Republic added, “Several parts of Musk’s businesses concern India. The tech mogul is trying to get access for his Starlink satellite internet service in the country, and is fighting with Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who has competing interests. Musk also is trying to sell low-cost Tesla vehicles in India and get past the country’s tariffs on electric vehicles.”

    Was the billionaire meeting with the Indian prime minister in his businessman capacity, or as the head of a quasi-governmental “department”? When the president was asked this question, he replied, “I don’t know.”

    How reassuring.

    Around the same time, the public learned about Musk’s DOGE surrogates arriving at, of all places, NASA. Given the fact that Musk has a rocket company called SpaceX, the conflicts of interest seem rather obvious.

    Asked about the underlying problem last week, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “[I]f Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.”

    Or put another way, Team Trump’s plan to address Musk’s potential conflicts of interest, as of last week, was to allow Musk to police himself.

    This week, as The Washington Post reported, the president apparently has a new plan.

    President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed that he is personally checking to ensure that billionaire Elon Musk, whom he has tasked with leading the U.S. DOGE Service, is not engaging in government matters that pose a conflict of interest for his companies. … The president also claimed that he was personally checking to ensure that Musk had no conflicts of interest and said Musk answers to him.

    Ah. So the White House’s solution to Musk’s obvious conflict-of-interest problem is to have the sitting U.S. president — who, presumably, keeps pretty busy with his day job — personally familiarizing himself with the details of his megadonor’s business empire and government contracts, while simultaneously scrutinizing the individual decisions made by Musk and his many Department of Government Efficiency surrogates.

    I don’t mean to sound picky, but if this plan is intended to resolve the controversy, it’s badly flawed.

  117. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Elon Musk’s DOGE posts classified data on its new website

    with a feature allowing users to “trace your tax dollars through the bureaucracy.” People can navigate through all federal agencies and offices for details about their head counts, budgets and average ages of employees.
    […]
    DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms
    […]
    NOFORN stands for “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals,” meaning information in this category can’t be shared with any foreign governments, international organizations or foreign nationals without specific authorization.

    NRO appears to be the only intelligence agency with its data publicly available on DOGE’s website. […] Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.

  118. says

    Huffington Post link

    “Elon Musk’s DOGE Posts Classified Data On Its New Website”

    Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has posted classified information about the size and staff of a U.S. intelligence agency on its new website, raising bigger concerns about where Musk’s programmers got this information and what they are doing with it.

    DOGE […] launched its website on Wednesday night with a feature allowing users to “trace your tax dollars through the bureaucracy.” People can navigate through all federal agencies and offices for details about their head counts, budgets and average ages of employees.

    The website states in tiny print at the bottom that its database excludes information from U.S. intelligence agencies.

    But an easy search shows that DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community.

    “DOGE just posted secret NOFORN info on their website about [intelligence community] headcount, so currently people are scrambling to check if their info has been accessed,” said one Defense Intelligence Agency employee, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation from senior leaders.

    NOFORN stands for “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals,” meaning information in this category can’t be shared with any foreign governments, international organizations or foreign nationals without specific authorization.

    NRO appears to be the only intelligence agency with its data publicly available on DOGE’s website. The U.S. intelligence community is composed of 18 organizations, and HuffPost searched DOGE’s website for details on all of them. None of the others had any data.

    Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.

    Two Senate aides who work on intelligence matters confirmed that NRO’s headcount and budget are classified, though they noted there have been debates within the intelligence community as to whether they should be. The reason to keep this information private at all, they said, is because foreign adversaries could use it to extrapolate how much the U.S. is prioritizing certain intelligence activities.

    Nonetheless, DOGE sharing this information “is absolutely a problem under the current intelligence standards,” said one of the Senate aides.

    And the real concern is that Musk’s surrogates are bumbling around in classified programs. “These 25-year-old programmers, I don’t think they have enough experience to know what they don’t know,” said this aide. “Really, the question is: Where did they get this information and what are they doing with it?” […]

  119. says

    […] the president’s infamous booking shot—decorated with an ornate gold frame—now hangs in the White House near stately portraits of former presidents, like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

    At least one outlet, The Independent, has verified that the image is legitimate […]

    We already knew that Trump is a narcissist with a huge ego, but this might be a new low for him.

    The photo in question was taken by authorities at the jail in Fulton County, Georgia, on Aug. 24, 2023, after Trump was indicted on racketeering and conspiracy charges in an alleged scheme to overthrow the 2020 election results.

    Sadly, the convicted felon spent no time behind bars. Trump was released on a $200,000 bond less than 30 minutes after arriving at the Georgia-based facility […]

    Notably, it’s not just the mugshot that Trump has framed. He went one step further, hanging a copy of the New York Post’s front-page story about the mugshot. […]

    The framed mugshot suggests that—to no one’s surprise—Trump doesn’t feel any shame or guilt for his past actions and is continuing to politicize the image to his benefit.

    He’s already profited off of the image. In fact, he made a whopping $7.1 million in the days after his booking photo went viral by selling koozies, mugs, posters, and T-shirts donning the image. […]

    Link

  121. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Many federal supervisors this week had just hours to send tweet-length justifications to save their employees’ jobs

    tell us why each of your recent hires should keep their jobs.
    […]
    at the Energy Department, a supervisor was given 20 minutes to turn around the justifications. They were limited to 200 characters per employee, including spaces. The directive came from the Office of Personnel Management and follows the human resources agency asking every agency for lists of employees still on their probationary periods [1-2 years]. […] That supervisor was also included on the list, and now fears for their job.
    […]
    Similar instructions were given to the Internal Revenue Service and at least some other agencies with an equally tight deadline

    Government workers describe their DOGE interviews

    “The interviews are anxiety provoking,” said a GSA supervisor whose employees were recently interviewed by a DOGE worker. The tension swells the moment a worker receives a calendar invite from a Gmail account, they said, “frequently with almost no notice and often scheduled over existing client meetings.”
    […]
    The DOGE crew’s questions led GSA staffers to believe the group was looking to cull employees who lacked technical skills or added bureaucratic layers to government operations, which some techies like Musk have sought to eliminate for rapid, unregulated innovation.

  122. Reginald Selkirk says

    @33

    Measles outbreak in undervaccinated Texas area doubles—again

    A measles outbreak in an area of Texas with abysmal vaccination rates continues to mushroom, with cases doubling since Tuesday and expanding into additional counties.

    A week ago, officials reported nine confirmed cases in Gaines County, at the border of New Mexico, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates among kindergartners in the state at just about 82 percent. On Tuesday, the cases climbed to 24, all in Gaines. In Friday’s update, the state health department reports that the case count has now reached 48 and spread to three nearby counties, which also have vaccination rates below the 95 percent threshold that prevent vaccine-preventable diseases from spreading onward.

    Gaines now reports 42 cases. There’s one case reported in Lynn County to the northeast, which has a 91 percent vaccination rate. Terry County, with a vaccination rate of 94 percent, reports three cases, and Yoakum County, with a vaccination rate of 92.5 percent, reports two cases. Terry and Yoakum are both directly north of Gaines…

  123. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nigeria angered after military chief denied Canada entry

    The Nigerian government has condemned Canada for denying visas to its senior military officers, including the head of the military.

    Chief of Defence Staff Gen Christopher Musa said half of his delegation, who were supposed to be in Canada for an official assignment on Wednesday, were left in Nigeria after not getting the correct paperwork.

    Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo condemned the action by Canadian officials, terming it “disrespectful” to the West African country.

    The Canadian High Commission in Nigeria said it was aware of the matter but declined to give further details for “privacy reasons” on the specific individuals involved…

    Speaking on Thursday, Gen Musa said how he and his colleagues were blocked from attending an event in Canada meant to honour war veterans.

    “We were invited along with our team, but while half of us got visas, the other half was denied. It’s very disappointing,” he added…

  125. Reginald Selkirk says

    Why the “President Elon Musk” mockery doesn’t seem to bother Donald Trump

    In response to billionaire Elon Musk’s unlawful takeover of the Treasury Department, about 1,000 citizens and elected Democrats gathered in Washington on Tuesday to protest. Demonstrators waved signs blasting “President Musk” or “King Elon,” noting that no one had elected the Trump adviser to serve as the power behind the throne. This meme of “President Musk” has also spread rapidly on social media, with even Kamala Harris’ former running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, joking, “Elon Musk is a terrible president.”

    Unfortunately, Musk gets a kick out of this, because the man is a Bond villain minus the intelligence and coolness. Yet the narrative persists, in part, as an effort to raise awareness about what looks very much like a coup, but also in the misguided hope of driving a wedge between Musk and the man who technically is the president, Donald Trump. He may be the only man in the world whose snowflake-fragile ego surpasses Musk’s. By pointing out that Musk is overshadowing him, the goal is to provoke narcissistic injury in Trump, causing him to lash out and kick the billionaire video game cheater out the door.

    It’s a smart theory, one based on basic psychology. Yet after months of taunting Trump with the “President Musk” meme, it doesn’t seem to be working. It has forced Trump to do some ego protection work, like unpersuasively insisting, “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval.” However, Trump seems mostly content to step back and let Musk run rampant. Trump even runs interference for Musk, making excuses and propping up distractions, like his trolling claim that he wants to occupy Gaza. Headlines claiming that Trump is restricting Musk’s antics are misleading. Sure, a court ordered Trump to rein Musk in, but that’s no guarantee he’ll do it.

    So why isn’t the notoriously thin-skinned Trump more upset at the younger, richer Musk for stealing his thunder?

    To understand Trump’s indifference, it helps to look back at the happiest time in his life: a reality TV stint pretending to be a successful businessman on NBC’s “The Apprentice.” Before becoming a reality TV host, Trump tried to make it as a real businessman, of course, but failed so spectacularly and often that he may qualify as the biggest business failure of all time. Leaked tax records show that he blew through the half-billion he inherited from his father, sold off huge chunks of his father’s genuinely successful real estate business to pay off debts and went bankrupt multiple times…

  126. Reginald Selkirk says

    World’s first pods that convert aircraft wind into energy installed at US airport

    JetWind Power Corporation, a company based in the United States, has installed first-of-its-kind Energy Capturing Pods (ECPs) at Dallas Love Field Airport.

    This technology is designed to capture aircraft-generated wind and transform it into renewable energy, marking a significant step forward in sustainable energy solutions for transportation infrastructures worldwide…

  127. says

    From text Reginald quoted in comment 122 about the measles outbreak in Texas:

    […] with cases doubling since Tuesday and expanding into additional counties […]

    That’s so alarming! Measles, as most people know, is highly contagious.

    Reginald @125, I think there are a lot of factors at play, but consider this: Musk is getting a lot of “work” done. Yes, it is destructive “work,” but Musk is doing something Trump can’t do. Trump is too incompetent to get all that done … but, Trump gets to take credit anyway. So, that’s part of why he puts up with the “President Musk” memes. Trump didn’t really do the work of putting “The Apprentice” reality show together, (Mark Burnett did that), but Trump took most of the credit.

  128. says

    Washington Post:

    Linda McMahon, testifying before a Senate committee considering her nomination to be secretary of education, said she did not know whether a school would be legally permitted to offer a Black history class or allow clubs centered on racial or ethnic identity.

  129. says

    Josh Marshall:

    This afternoon termination notices are going out to more than 300 employees at the National Cancer Institute. Locked out of access by the end of the day, four weeks paid leave, and that’s that.

  130. says

    Utah is doing its best to join President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the GOP’s national anti-diversity culture war. A new bill banning pride flags from schools, government buildings, or any government property while still allowing Nazi and Confederate flags to be used in classrooms, passed through the Utah House Education Committee.

    The HB77 bill bans pride flags but it does have a list of exemptions that include, “a historic version of a flag … that is temporarily displayed for educational purposes.” According to the Salt Lake Tribune, bill sponsor Rep. Trevor Lee explained to the committee what those exemptions would include.

    “There are instances where in classrooms, you have curriculum that is needed to use flags such as World War II, Civil War,” he said. “You may have a Nazi flag. You may have a Confederate flag, and so you are allowed to display those flags … as part of the curriculum, and that is okay.”

    Lee later claimed he never mentioned a Nazi flag during the committee meeting. “There is a difference between displaying flags in curriculum when you’re teaching on them,” Lee said, and added that schools should not “censor history.”

    The bill, which started out as simply a bigoted school bill, has been expanded to include all government buildings in the state.

    Lee and proponents argue that the bill keeps people’s “ideologies” out of the classroom. Opponents point out that the LGBTQ+ communities in Utah are people, and the only political symbol that a pride flag extols is that LGBTQ+ people deserve basic human and civil rights—which while “political” to bigots, is a constitutionally protected right (for now).

    During a hearing on the bill Millie Dworkin from the Salt Lake Center for Science Education called the ban “unconstitutional,” reported LGBTQ Nation.

    “You all argue semantics, but you all know this is wrong and immoral. Queer people commit suicide at a higher rate than everybody else,” she said. “This is not because they are inherently prone to commit suicide due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. It is because of how they are treated. If you pass this, you will have queer blood on your hands.”

    “This new language is likely unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment rights of governments to engage in free speech,” Equality Utah’s policy director Marina Lowe told Deseret News.

    Lee is your run-of-the-mill modern anti-choice, anti-climate-change Republican, yet he seems keen to up his profile and join the anti-DEI culture war sideshow the Republican Party is involved in. […]

    Link

  131. says

    MUNICH (The Borowitz Report)—Crediting the vice president with ushering in a new era of European solidarity, attendees at the Munich Security Conference left Friday’s session united in the belief that JD Vance is a prick.

    “I came to Munich full of skepticism that we as a group of nations could find common ground on anything,” Danish delegate Hartvig Dorkelson said. “That all changed the moment that asshat Vance opened his mouth.”

    Though he was grateful that all the nations of Europe could agree that Vance is a ginormous dick, Dorkelson warned against taking this historic consensus for granted.

    “I worry that our unity could be short-lived,” he said. “So we must invite that fucker to speak again next year.”

    Link

  132. says

    Followup to comment 131. Unlike The Borowitz Report, this is not satire:

    Vice President JD Vance tried to defend Elon Musk’s interference in the federal government by making a poorly received joke at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3li5hkskewv2m

    “I say this with all humor, if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” Vance said.

    He then paused for laughter. But there was only dead silence.

    Aside from Vance’s terrible comedic skills, the two situations aren’t remotely comparable.

    Musk is by far the wealthiest person on the planet. He owns one of the largest social media networks, has earned billions from government contracts, bankrolled the presidential campaign of the current president, and regularly amplifies antisemites, racists, and misogynists.

    Thunberg is an environmentalist and activist attempting to stop the climate crisis. She started her protests when she was in her teenage years, and she’s now 22. […]

    Musk is the head of a team dismantling key portions of the U.S. government—while making money from that same government.

    […] The bad joke wasn’t the only Vance fumble in Europe.

    While covering for Musk on his trip, Vance boosted far-right extremists in Germany, meeting with the leader of Alternative for Germany, or AFD—a party the country’s domestic intelligence service considers so extreme that it warrants surveillance. The party is well known for its antisemitism, ethno-nationalism, and use of Nazi slogans.

    Not only did Vance meet with the leader of AfD, he also publicly argued it is an eligible political partner.

    “I can tell you plainly: There can be no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people,” he said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference.

    “[W]e don’t have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them,” he added.

    Germany’s other political parties have formed a consensus not to work with AfD.

    “I don’t think it is right for foreigners, including those from friendly foreign countries, to interfere so intensively in an election campaign in the middle of an election period,” a spokesperson for the German government said in response to Vance’s remarks.

    Unsurprisingly, Musk has also made recent overtures to AfD, which shares his and Vance’s opposition to immigrants. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote in a post on X.

    During the recent presidential campaign, Vance earned a reputation for being “weird.” Despite protests from Republicans, his behavior as vice president is only boosting that perception.

    Link

    JD Vance is weird and clueless. And arrogant. And he praises NAZI wannabes, and then hangs out with them.

  133. says

    Followup to comments 112 and 113.

    Update, with a few more details:

    […] The Assistant USAO for the SDNY, Hagan Scotten has resigned rather than participate in the dismissal of Eric Adams. He is at least the seventh attorney to resign over this issue. You can read his one page blistering resignation letter HERE.

    Scotten briefly, but in devastating form, addresses the Musk/Trump DOJ’s justification for dismissal.

    “the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four differentU.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.”

    However, the conclusion is simply strongest exercise in lawyering courage I have ever seen.

    “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

    Link

    And there is this from NBC: Justice Department moves to dismiss Eric Adams case after extraordinary internal revolt

    The filing does not spell the end of the high-profile case. A federal judge must approve the decision to drop the charges.

    The Justice Department on Friday moved to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the latest move in a legal saga that has led to the resignations of at least seven federal prosecutors and plunged the department into crisis.

    The filing does not immediately end the high-profile case. A federal judge must approve the decision to drop the charges.

    The extraordinary mutiny from career Justice Department prosecutors was set in motion on Monday when acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered Danielle R. Sassoon, then the top prosecutor in Manhattan, to dismiss the charges. Bove argued in part that the case was interfering with Adams’ ability to help the administration tackle illegal immigration.

    […] After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case, Justice Department officials moved it to the agency’s Public Integrity Section in Washington, which oversees all federal public corruption cases, multiple sources said.

    But multiple prosecutors in the unit resigned rather than follow the directive to drop the charges. And on Friday, another top prosecutor in Manhattan also resigned, bringing the number of departures sparked by the order to seven.

    The filing to dismiss the case came hours after Bove and Antoinette Bacon, an official with the Justice Department’s criminal division, held a video meeting with members of the Public Integrity Section.

    One of the lawyers who ultimately signed the filing was Edward Sullivan, a senior litigation counsel with the section. Sullivan decided to sign it to protect his colleagues, a person familiar with the matter said. Bove and Bacon also signed it.

    […] even amid those calls and the turmoil at the Justice Department, Adams has not shied away from the spotlight.

    He appeared on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. Adams remained defiant, saying he was not going to resign and pledging to allow federal immigration agents to operate at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex.

    Homan celebrated Adams’ pledge.

    “I came to New York City and I wasn’t going to leave with nothing,” he said.

    But if Adams “doesn’t come through,” Homan warned, he would “be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”

    Yeah. That’s helpful. Homan confirmed that dismissing Adams’ case depended on [still depends upon] the mayor’s cooperation with Trump’s deportation assholery. In fact, the case against Adams can be renewed if he, at any time, fails to live up to his apparent promise of total fealty to Trump.

  134. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    GOP senator rips Hegseth’s Ukraine remarks: Could be written by ‘fool’ Tucker Carlson
    The segment, presented by Chris Hayes, is from tonight’s show, February 14.

    Hegseth’s attempt at a walkback was just hilariously bad. Chris Hayes shows an excerpt from the talkback video. John Brennan joined Chris to discuss just how badly the Munich conference was going, and just how far out of his league Pete Hegseth is. Also, Brennan mentions: “A lack of coordination within the Trump administration.” And, he says, “It has been an embarrassment [in Munich].”

    Brennan also discusses Trump’s claim that he is going to take over Gaza. The video is 7:06 minutes long.

    That segment is followed by See Trump’s ‘blatant quid pro quo’ with Eric Adams play out live on Fox News. The video is 10:53 minutes long.

    The number of resignations from the Justice Department is now up to seven.

  135. says

    Followup to comment 134.

    As Chris Hayes pointed out, Mayor Eric Adams asked Trump for a pardon. He did not get a pardon.

    Instead, Trump dangled (continues to dangle) freedom in front of Adams. Trump retains leverage over Adams.

    Chris Hayes interviews Andrew Weissmann and Paul Butler about the Public Integrity unit of the Justice Department, and all of the other aspects of the case.

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

  136. says

    https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-democracy-index-6ae

    Excerpts from “The Democracy Index” by Joyce Vance, posted today, February 14:

    The Courts

    […] Following the attacks on the judiciary by Vance, Musk, and other Senators, something previously unseen happened. A few Republican Senators decided that attacking judicial review was a bridge too far. They spoke up to say something that would have been unremarkable in any other area—that parties (including the government) who disagree with a judge’s decision can appeal it, but they must obey the orders of the courts:

    – Senator Josh Hawley told Business Insider, “‘Oh, we’re just going to completely ignore the decision?’ That, I think you can’t do.”

    – Senator Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley stated, “We’ve got a system of checks and balances, and that’s what I see working…I learned in eighth grade civics about checks and balances, and I just expect the process to work its way out.”

    – Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged to CNN that the judiciary serves to resolve differences between executive and legislative branches, and that he expects federal courts to play “the important role of ensuring that the laws in the country are followed.”

    These GOP responses provide encouraging signs of life, especially when viewed in concert with the majority of orders emerging from the judiciary. They are important gains for our rule of law. But we cannot be confident that they will be the final word. Any discussion of disregarding the courts is a profound concern and has the potential to move us closer to autocracy than democracy.

    All of the cases challenging Trump’s executive branch actions are still at a very early stage. Judges are freezing the status quo so litigation can proceed without irreparable harm to plaintiffs. As the cases move forward, Trump will win some, and he will lose some. The expectation is that courts will stand for the rule of law, and that presidents—who are not kings—will do things by the book, especially when that means seeking Congress’s approval…instead of assuming they have it with the stroke of a Sharpie.

    DOGE

    Despite Musk’s claims that he and his band of boys are looking for waste and fraud, he’s sent coders into agencies, not forensic accountants or investigators. It defies belief that in a couple of days, he and his tech apprentices have uncovered significant fraud. Instead, it seems increasingly likely that DOGE is a front for bulldozing parts of the federal bureaucracy that have run afoul of Trump or Musk’s sensitivities. […]

    There are now multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE’s activities. But the complaints about alleged unconstitutional conduct are coming from the lawyers and the left. Trump’s party has remained hushed, even as Musk and DOGE have intruded into the Department of the Treasury payment system and the Office of Personnel Management’s sensitive personnel records, while advocating for wholesale firings of career government employees and closure of entire agencies because of “waste.” […]

  137. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    Who is the Administrator of the United States DOGE service? No one seems to know. After a hearing on DOGE access to Treasury payment systems, […] I asked one of the DOJ attorneys who argued on behalf of the administration.

    “I don’t know the answer to that,” he replied.

    Yesterday, an amended complaint was filed in Lentini v. DOGE, a case […] that Musk/DOGE have violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The plaintiffs claim that Musk, while taking credit for DOGE’s activities, “is not the USDS administrator.”

    Despite purpoting to be the head of DOGE, taking credit for its activities, and making statements based on non-public information available to DOGE, Musk is not the USDS Administrator. “A White House record seen by Business Insider says his job is simply ‘unlisted’. Though Musk has a White House access badge […] the White House has not confirmed Musk’s title.

    Chris Geidner (Law Dork): “This is unreal. I was thinking earlier in the week that they couldn’t be this stupid, but I guess that’s on me.”

  139. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Alejandra Caraballo:

    Every web page ordered restored by the court that features anything related to gender now contains this notice. [Screenshot]

    […] Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate [blah blah…]

  140. KG says

    JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders. Vance’s spew of insults and lies will be welcome if it finally wakes European leaders (including Starmer) to the fact that the USA under Trump is not an ally, let alone a “friend”, but a fascist enemy, and ally of our other fascist enemy in the Kremlin, as well as the fascist threat from within. Democratic Europe’s situation is desperate, but not terminal if we actually face up to it.

  143. JM says

    JD Vance Says U.S. Troops Fighting Russia In Ukraine Is ‘On The Table’ In Stunning Reversal

    The Journal reported, “Vance said the option of sending U.S. troops to Ukraine if Moscow failed to negotiate in good faith remained ‘on the table,’ striking a far tougher tone than did Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who on Wednesday suggested the U.S. wouldn’t commit forces.”

    Hard to say if this is the US flip flopping or just chaos internally over what the US position is. With an outside chance Vance is trying to stake out his own more aggressive position because he knows Trump doesn’t really care and Vance is still looking at his own political future.

    Hegseth, the former Fox News morning show host, walked back comments he made during the NATO summit earlier in the week. On Thursday, he clarified that Ukraine joining NATO was still a possibility as part of peace negotiations — just a day after suggesting it was unlikely and argued that Europe should instead guarantee Ukraine’s security by building up its military capabilities. Hegseth also raised eyebrows across the globe by saying Ukraine returning to its pre-2014 borders was an “unrealistic” goal, effectively conceding territory to the invading Russians.

    Most of what Hegseth said is reasonably realistic but terrible to say in public. Starting negotiations with a hostile country by conceding most of their position is just bad. You would think a guy with a background in news reporting would understand that a lot of his job is actually publicity.
    Practically Ukraine is unlikely to get Crimea and other sections taken by Russia before the current invasion back. Joining NATO takes time and the NATO countries are not going to want such a messy border. And the US would certainly prefer the EU states provide the soldiers on the ground securing the border, though expecting them to provide all of the soldiers is also unrealistic.

  144. JM says

    @124 birgerjohansson: I have seen a lot of speculation about that sort of thing over the years. It is interesting but I don’t put much confidence in a model built from a sample size of 1. It’s way to easy for a person to write their assumptions into the model without even realizing it because with nothing to compare to they don’t even realize they are assumptions.
    I will agree that intelligent life is probably easier then early research said. It has become clear that several things originally thought to be big difficult evolutionary steps have happened multiple times on the Earth, suggesting they can’t be that hard. For a long time the development of multicellular life was assumed to be a big step but we know now it has happened many times.

  145. Bekenstein Bound says

    U.S. Forest Service: Some 3,400 federal employees still within their probationary period purged across every level of the agency beginning yesterday.

    But … but then who will rake the forests?

  147. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meta To Build World’s Longest Undersea Cable

    Meta unveiled on Friday Project Waterworth, a 50,000-kilometer subsea cable network that will be the world’s longest such system. The multi-billion dollar project will connect the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa, and other key regions. The system utilizes 24 fiber pairs and introduces what Meta describes as “first-of-its-kind routing” that maximizes cable placement in deep water at depths up to 7,000 meters.

    The company developed new burial techniques for high-risk areas near coasts to protect against ship anchors and other hazards…

  152. says

    Nope. There are no 150-year-olds on Social Security. It’s COBOL!

    lon Musk claimed that his team found 150-year-old people collecting Social Security! He implied there were dead people being sent benefits, with checks cashed by someone else.

    But no—the people getting paid are very much alive. They are collecting their own benefits. They’re not committing fraud. They’re just not 150 years old, of course. [video at the link]

    Reports say that his group at DOGE is made up of fairly young people. What those kids don’t realize is that Social Security uses VERY OLD computers. They’re programmed with an old version of the programming language COBOL.

    A bit of history. On May 20, 1875 a bunch of countries got together to create the International Bureau of Weight and Measures which established uniform standards of mass and length. Later on, the Bureau established rules for dates as well. The dates standard used a starting date of May 20 1875 to honor the creation of the Bureau.

    Old versions of COBOL use that date as a baseline. Social Security’s computers use that old version. Dates are stored as the number of days AFTER May 20 1875.

    So what happens if Social Security doesn’t know a birthdate? That field is empty in its records. Thus that person appears to have a birthday of May 20 1875—about 150 years ago.

    That’s why the crack team of youngsters Musk uses found 150-year-old people in Social Security getting benefits. It’s all really as simple—and as stupid—as that.

    You’d think that those bright MAGAheads would notice that ALL those 150 year olds have THE SAME BIRTHDAY: May 20, 1875.

    But they didn’t. Genius Elon Musk didn’t. And, of course, STABLE GENIUS Donald Trump didn’t either.

    Sigh.

    JFC. DOGE tech wizards = bunch of doofuses.

  153. says

    Consequences:

    The natural environment took an unprecedented pounding during the war in Gaza. And as the territory’s inhabitants have returned home since the ceasefire, the extent of the environmental devastation is becoming clear, raising crucial questions about how to reconstruct Gaza in the face of severe and potentially irreversible damage to the environment.

    The war has knocked out water supplies and disabled sewage treatment facilities, causing raw effluent to flow across the land, polluting the Mediterranean and underground water reserves essential for irrigating crops. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s farmland, including wells and greenhouses, has been damaged or destroyed by bombardment and military earthworks.

    Detailed satellite images taken since the ceasefire began on January 19 show 80 percent of Gaza’s trees lost. In addition, vital wetlands, sand dunes, coastal waters, and the only significant river, the Wadi Gaza, have all suffered extensively. The UN Environment Programme warns that the stripping of trees, shrubs, and crops has so badly damaged the soils of the once-fertile, biodiverse, and well-watered territory that it faces long-term desertification.

    Nature is the “silent victim of Israel’s war on Gaza,” says Saeed Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at the University of Reading in the U.K.

    […] Both wildlife and the human population have been sustained by its abundant underground water reserves. “The shallow sand wells provided an ample supply of the sweet life-giving water,” says Mark Zeitoun, director general of the Geneva Water Hub, which advocates for peace through diplomacy on water. This water, overlain by fertile soils, was why so many Palestinians fled to Gaza after being expelled from their homes by militias following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

    But Gaza’s population has since soared to more than 2 million inhabitants, making it one of the most densely populated places on Earth—it vies with Singapore, but without the high-rises. That has put immense pressure on the underground water. Extraction prior to the war was more than three times greater than recharge from rainfall and seepage from the Wadi Gaza, which had dwindled due to dams upstream in Israel.

    As water tables fall, salty seawater has infiltrated the aquifer. By 2023, more than 97 percent of Gaza’s once-sweet underground water was unfit for drinking, according to the World Health Organization. Increasingly, well water has been restricted to irrigating crops. Public water supplies have come largely from seawater desalination plants built with international aid, augmented by water delivered from Israel through three cross-border pipelines.

    […] Last October, the Palestine Water Authority reported that 85 percent of water facilities were at least partially out of action. Output from water-supply wells had fallen by more than a half, and desalination plants lacked power, while Israel had reduced deliveries down the pipelines.

    A survey found that only 14 percent of households still relied on public supplies. Most were taking water from potentially contaminated open wells or unregulated private tankers. In September, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN special rapporteur on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, charged that limiting access to clean water “is clearly employed as a weapon in Gaza against [the] Palestinian civil population.”

    Israel denies this […]

    the fate of the once-abundant underground water—the lifeline for both human and natural life—hangs by a thread. With most wells currently out of use for irrigated agriculture, withdrawals from the aquifer may have been reduced. But the war has increased contamination of what water remains.

    The threats are various. UNEP warns that Israeli efforts to use seawater to flood the estimated 300 miles of underground tunnels Hamas has dug beneath Gaza could be contaminating the groundwaters beneath. (The IDF has said on social media that it “takes into consideration the soil and water systems in the area” before flooding tunnels.) Meanwhile, sewage treatment has all but ceased, with facilities either destroyed by military action or disabled by lack of power. Even the solar panels installed at some treatment works have reportedly been destroyed.

    Raw sewage and wastewater spills across the land and into water courses or the Mediterranean—up to 3.5 million cubic feet every day, according to UNEP. The porous soils in most of Gaza mean sewage discharged onto the land readily seeps into underground water reserves. “The crisis threatens long-term environmental damage as contaminants seep into groundwater,” says the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

    The marine environment is also choking in sewage.[…]

    Link.

    More at the link.

  154. says

    National Archives Head Resigns as Trump Takes Control of Records

    “Sources name conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and far-right journalist John Solomon as potential replacements.”

    The acting head of the National Archives announced his resignation on Friday, paving the way for Donald Trump to continue his takeover of the government’s records and the agency that serves as custodian of the nation’s history.

    Deputy Archivist William Bosanko informed staff in an email Friday that he will step down on Tuesday. Bosanko, who has worked at the agency since 1993, has been the acting head of the National Archives and Records Administration for just a week, after Trump fired Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.

    Under federal law, a president can fire the archivist but must also “communicate the reasons for any such removal to each House of the Congress.” Trump did not do that. Over a week ago, the Trump White House moved to make Secretary of State Marco Rubio the acting archivist, despite standing law that the deputy archivist assumes those responsibilities if the position is vacant.

    Bosanko’s exit is part of a Trump putsch at the agency, which was deeply involved in the case of the top-secret documents Trump removed from the White House when he left office in 2021. According to two sources familiar with the situation, Bosanko was pushed out by Jim Byron, a 31-year old who was recently president of the Richard Nixon Foundation. Byron delivered Bosanko an ultimatum: Resign now or be fired next week. […]

  155. says

    Followup to comment 132.

    […] We would certainly love to listen to Vance try to explain how an environmental activist [Greta Thunberg] is in any way comparable in influence and authority to a ketamine-addled Nazi billionaire who has been empowered by the president of the United States to rampage through the nation’s bureaucracy, destroying decades of work that have made America a world leader in scientific research, medicine, space exploration, educational attainment, conservation of public lands, and about a million other areas of accomplishment that are currently being fed to an industrial shredder along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, causing immiseration and desperation for tens of millions of people, but we probably wouldn’t last five seconds before telling the bearded jackass to shut his word hole and go play with his toes while the adults try to figure a way out of this galactic mess he has helped get us into.

    Vance might as well have just been an AI chatbot trained on nothing but right-wing Twitter feeds and beamed in from a server farm in Modesto. […]

    The problem here, which everyone in the room except Vance realized, is that he was pushing for more tolerance of the same far-right xenophobia and bigotry that Europe has had more than enough experience with over the last couple of thousand centuries, thank you very much. Vance had just toured the concentration camp at Dachau. Yet somehow, he is incapable of making the connection.

    Then after he finished giving the speech, he met with Alice Weidel, leader of AfD, Germany’s most far-right political party since the Nazis were in power. Germany has national elections in nine days, and we guess Vance wanted to give AfD the Trump administration’s seal of approval.

    Vance did not meet with Germany’s Chancellor, which sends a message to German voters, and it is not a good one.

    So here is how we can summarize JD Vance’s trip to the Munich Security Conference this week: He toured Dachau, then almost immediately afterwards met with the leader of a far-right German political party full of neo-Nazi sympathizers. Not that we have a hell of a lot of respect for Vance’s intelligence, but does anyone else see a bit of intellectual inconsistency here?

    Unless the trip to Dachau was supposed to be somehow aspirational. […]

    One German leader, Defense Minister Boris Pistorious, was so incensed by Vance’s speech that he later abandoned his own prepared remarks so he could spend a few minutes excoriating [Vance]:

    “This is not acceptable,” Pistorius said. “This is not the Europe, not the democracy where I live and where I conduct my election campaign right now. And this is not the democracy that I witness every day in our parliament. In our democracy, every opinion has a voice.”

    No, it’s the Europe of right-wing fever dreams, the Europe JD Vance hears about from Twitter users with names like @cum69420. (Or maybe Jack Posobiec, who was allegedly in Germany as a guest of Pete Hegseth.) The Europe that is supposedly being overrun by foreigners of a duskier hue. The Europe that is ignoring its own (WHITE) people, and not catering to bigotry in ways sufficient enough to satisfy Vance.

    So congrats, [Vance]! You charmed everyone with 18 minutes of adolescent whining […] Next time […] leave the geopolitical policy-making to the grownups.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/american-vice-president-terrified

  156. says

    Here we see just one tip of the growing, menacing iceberg:
    https://azmirror.com/briefs/arizona-cattle-milk-test-positive-for-bird-flu/
    1)It is spreading
    2)Pasteurizing may?! kill it. But, when it mutates again?
    3)The magat in chief is ignoring it just like he did with covid.
    4)Let’s hope RFKjr and all those anti-science imbeciles drink lots of infected unpasteurized milk!
    5)The chicken and egg ‘question’ has already cost billions and it will only get worse

  157. says

    Washington Post link

    EXCLUSIVE
    Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next

    “A DOGE team plans to fire federal workers who are not in DEI roles and employees in offices that protect equal rights, internal documents show.”

    A team of workers from the U.S. DOGE Service developed step-by-step plans for carrying out […] Trump’s order to purge diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the federal government — and over the next six months intends to expand that campaign dramatically, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. DOGE aims to target staffers who are not in DEI roles and employees who work in offices established by law to ensure equal rights, internal DOGE documents show.

    […] DOGE has planned for the Trump administration to trim staff from dozens of offices across the executive branch, including those that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace. Among the groups targeted are a Veterans Affairs office that works to ensure all veterans receive equal access to care and an office within Health and Human Services that provides information about the health of minority populations.

    […] It is unclear precisely how DOGE intends to decide whether employees’ jobs are tied to DEI. Such a strategy will push, if not violate, the law and could draw legal challenge, team members wrote in the documents.

    The internal documents reveal the scope, speed and ambition of DOGE’s work. Over the past three weeks, DOGE has torn through one federal agency after another, gaining access to sensitive data and winning control of the flow of federal cash. […]

    But even before Trump took office, a DOGE team that included Elon Musk’s top aides — who have links to his companies but little to no government or political experience — was planning actions far beyond DOGE’s original remit of reducing the government’s size and spending. […]

    Help us report on DOGE
    The Washington Post wants to hear from people affected by DOGE activities at federal agencies. You can contact our reporters by email or Signal encrypted message.
    Hannah Natanson: hannah.natanson@washpost.com or (202) 580-5477 on Signal.
    Read more about how to use Signal and other ways to securely contact The Post. [embedded links are available at the main link]

    DOGE staffers developed a three-part plan for Trump’s anti-DEI campaign, internal documents show. “Phase 1” marked the first day of Trump’s presidency, when Trump signed an executive order stating that all DEI offices, positions and programs within the executive branch must be terminated within 60 days. The DOGE plan laid out how, on Inauguration Day, all federal agencies should begin placing DEI workers on paid leave and shutting down DEI websites and social media accounts. Those changes transpired almost exactly as DOGE laid out.

    The nation is now in DOGE’s “Phase 2,” which is scheduled to last until Wednesday, according to the documents. In this stage, DOGE planned for the Trump administration to place on leave some employees working at statutorily required offices. The administration is also supposed to cancel “DEI-focused” federal contracts and grants. And the administration is meant to identify workers across the government who hold non-DEI jobs but who can be tied to diversity initiatives through unspecified other means, according to the DOGE planning documents.

    […] At least some of Phase 2 appears to be underway, particularly at the Education Department. The department last month placed on leave nearly 100 employees in non-DEI roles after DOGE staffers unearthed personnel records showing most took a diversity training during the first Trump administration, The Post reported. As of this week, DOGE representatives at the department have directed the agency to cancel 29 “DEI training” grants at the department totaling $101 million, according to a post on X from DOGE. [List at the link]

    […] DOGE’s “Phase 3” starts later this month, on the 31st day of the administration, and lasts until the 180th day, which is in mid-July, according to the documents. That stage moves from placing workers on paid leave to calling for large-scale firings, the documents show. Ultimately, DOGE intends for the Trump administration to terminate all DEI-linked employees via a Reduction In Force (RIF) action — the federal form of layoffs — including some who work for legally mandated offices.

    Goals for Phase 3 are listed in brief bullet points in the DOGE document.
    […] One such option emerged this week. On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order paving the way for federal agencies to reshape or terminate offices legally mandated to exist.

    […] “The White House’s position is that we are ridding the federal government of DEI, full stop,” a White House spokesman said Friday. “DOGE is there as a collaborator ensuring that we get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. And if DEI is waste, fraud and abuse, it’s gone.” […]

    ‘Under what authority’
    DOGE has maintained a veil of secrecy, refusing to disclose the names of staff, what positions they hold or how much they are being paid. But The Post has reported that more than 30 people work closely for or with DOGE, about half of whom have ties to Musk or his companies.

    […] In early January, DOGE staffers started filling out spreadsheets tracking various diversity-related elements of the government, including DEI offices, contracts and spending, records and documents obtained by The Post show.

    The records show a handful of DOGE team members active in workshopping the plan: Stephanie Holmes, a former Jones Day lawyer who now runs human resources at DOGE; Anthony Armstrong, a banker who advised Musk on his acquisition of Twitter; Brian Bjelde, a 20-year SpaceX employee; and Noah Peters, an attorney who once worked at the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Holmes was the creator of many of the documents and spreadsheets, according to metadata reviewed by The Post.

    Armstrong, Bjelde and Peters have been heavily involved in DOGE’s work reshaping the Office of Personnel Management, The Post and other outlets have reported. Another frequent contributor to the planning was Adam Ramada, a DOGE team member whom Business Insider has identified as a Miami venture capital investor with a stake in a SpaceX supplier. Ramada has recently been active in efforts to slash spending and staff at the Education Department, according to records obtained by The Post. […]

    The DOGE team identified 131 agencies within the federal government, then assigned one of at least 30 reviewers to examine all the agency’s sub-offices and employees. DOGE staffers searched each agency’s structure and personnel for the terms “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” “DEI” and “justice.” Reviews were often completed within a day or two, records show.

    The group also compiled two lists, titled “DEI Grants to Eliminate” and “DEI 10 Contracts to Eliminate,” […]

    The documents also detail scripts for what Office of Personnel Management staff should say in calls to interim agency heads explaining the president’s anti-DEI executive order, as well as what those interim agency heads should say in calls to employees tasked with carrying out that order. The first set of calls were supposed to last 15 minutes each; the second were supposed to last 20 minutes, the scripts show. […] [Screengrab at the link]

    The DOGE documents further include suggested versions of the email agencies could send to inform employees in DEI roles that they were being placed on administrative leave.

    The emails sent to such employees in January matched a DOGE draft email nearly word for word, a Post examination found
    .
    A FAQ that DOGE created for agency heads showed that the team members did not always feel confident in the powers they were assuming. […]

    ‘Corrupted branches’
    Over the course of about three weeks, the DOGE team outlined a plan to radically reshape the government — including proposing shutting down offices required by law […]

    A DOGE document dated Jan. 9 identifies 225 DEI-related offices and councils across the federal government. Forty-two of these should be shuttered immediately under Trump’s day-one executive order, the document states. The rest — including civil rights and employment discrimination offices mandated by law — should be terminated later.

    […] But a later document, dated Jan. 13, walked that back. Under the revised plan, the DOGE team reduced the number of targeted DEI offices to 76. DOGE also shifted the plan: The aim would be to cut staff from offices required by law, rather than eliminate those offices outright.

    […] The new plan, the document shows, was to “identify the non-statutory branches / DEI employees and place them on administrative leave.”

    By Jan. 17, DOGE had reduced its goals still further, naming 33 offices protected by law that should be trimmed down to eliminate DEI elements. The list includes offices of equal employment opportunity at agencies including the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also includes 100-plus staff from the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Justice and Equity.

    As of last month, the total number of employees DOGE planned to cut in its DEI purge was at least 583, according to a spreadsheet — but is likely far more, since the DOGE staffers stopped filling out employee tallies for targeted offices a third of the way through the document.

    The ultimate goal is to fire all employees identified as doing DEI-related work, the documents make clear.

    DOGE staffers worked through several iterations of how they could do so without running afoul of the law, the records show.
    […] Another option was to reassign DEI staff to a new office; but that would delay their goal of overall staff reductions, according to the document.

    A third option, labeled “DOGE … Recommended,” suggested placing DEI employees on 10-day paid administrative leaves, then firing them. According to the document, this approach was best because it was “difficult to challenge”; “reasonable legal authority exists to extend beyond 10 days”; and it allows “time for legal preparation to anticipated challenges.”

    This appears to be the option agencies across the federal government are following.

    “Phase 3” of the Trump administration’s DEI purge is slated to begin Wednesday, according to the documents. That period lasts until July 19, or the 180th day of the presidency. […]

    The “Phase 3” period is supposed to include “three workflows,” per a DOGE planning document. First, the Trump administration will identify and place on leave “additional DEI-related employees” who do not work in a DEI office but are “dispersed through normal operating divisions.” Second, the administration will lay off DEI offices “in their entirety.” Third, the administration will lay off the “corrupted branches” of statutorily required offices that work on civil rights and employment discrimination: “We are exploring options for this,” the document reads.

    A set of bullet points headlined “Next Steps Underway” shows that DOGE staffers were actively looking for legal arguments to justify the planned firings.

    A spreadsheet from Jan. 17 suggests a path.

    There, under the heading “Broad Ideas,” is a proposal for presidential action: Trump could issue an executive order “to re-focus [Equal Employment Opportunity] offices on their statutory mandate, removing DEI from them.
    ”
    The executive order Trump signed this week may serve that goal.

    The order calls on federal agency heads to develop “reorganization plans.” Within 30 days, agency heads are supposed to produce a report identifying the laws that created their agency, as well as every agency office that is required by law.

    The order concludes: “The report shall discuss whether the agency or any of its subcomponents should be eliminated or consolidated.”

  158. says

    @154 lynna, OM posted: National Archives Head Resigns as Trump Takes Control of Records “Sources name conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and far-right journalist John Solomon as potential replacements.”
    I reply: They are trying to destroy recorded history everywhere. And, the magat in chief (in spite of his fugly dancing to ‘YMCA’) just proved he is an evil transphobe:
    https://truthout.org/articles/stonewall-monuments-transgender-history-scrubbed-by-trump-administration/
    Stonewall Monument’s Transgender History Scrubbed by Trump Administration
    “Let us be clear: Stonewall is transgender history,” the Stonewall Inn said in a response.

  159. says

    This is not hyperbole but it is terrifying:
    https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/14/occupied-america/
    Occupied America – Published by Tom Sullivan on February 14, 2025
      Suddenly, and not accidentally, people who work for the American federal government are having the same experience as people who find themselves living under foreign occupation. — Anne Applebaum
    More than a few of us not in federal employ feel the same. People I know have, like the refugees in Casablanca, fled the occupation. Except today it is the U.S. they are fleeing, not fleeing to.
      James Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, warned an audience this month at the Royal College of Art in London, “My country is in for a 50-year period of a new dark ages.”
    I remark: I told ya so!

  160. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Mueller, She Wrote – If you work for HHS, read this BEFORE you open certain emails

    HR Directors at HHS have been ordered to revoke access for employees after they open and read the email informing them they have been fired.

    DOWNLOAD ALL […] PAPERWORK YOU NEED BEFORE YOU OPEN THESE EMAILS.
    […]
    Again, do NOT open these firing notices until you have downloaded everything you need because your access will be revoked once you’ve read them. […] I do not know if this impacts other agencies, but it’s probably safer to download everything […] before you’ve read […] regardless of the agency you work for.

     
    Jonathan Kamens:

    A bunch of U.S. Digital Service employees (including me) were fired tonight. It’s still unclear exactly how many. There is no visibility whatsoever into what determined who was let go. Legacy USDS (i.e., pre-DOGE) leadership was not involved in the decision about whom to let go and was not notified in advance that people were going to be fired.
    […]
    I was in charge of information security for VA.gov, which has millions of users per month and stores and processes huge amounts of veterans’ personal information. I’ve been told by people I’ve worked with that I’m the best at what I do of anyone they’ve ever worked with. Now there will be _no one_ in charge of information security for VA.gov.
    […]
    I have connections to people who are involved in helping feds who were fired illegally take legal action, so any federal worker who is looking to get connected with legal representation is welcome to DM me […] while it’s true that probationary workers have fewer protections, they still can’t be fired without cause. All of the firings in the past few days have been illegal.

    Jonathan Kamens:

    There are certainly other people at VA working on infosec for VA.gov. They will certainly be able to backfill part of what I was doing there. But I was brought in to lead infosec there because they needed a leader with a security-focused approach rather than the compliance-focused approach which tends to dominate in government. […] There are very few people with my skills willing to take a pay cut to work for the government. […] all indications are that DOGE will do everything they can to stop agencies from hiring anybody at all.

     
    TPM – Important Note for Federal Civil Servants

    There are probationary employees who are new in government service and those who are labeled as probationary because of a job switch but who have continuous government service prior to their current job. If you are in that latter category, and if you are fired as a probationary employee in these category terminations taking place now, there is a good chance your termination was illegal. And it is illegal in a way that courts will vindicate.
    […]
    I say the above after conferring with someone who has relevant expertise

  161. says

    Washington Post link

    “Ukraine rejects initial Trump request for half its rare mineral wealth”

    “Ukraine is hoping to reach a deal on a counter-offer […]”

    MUNICH — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected a Trump administration request this week that Kyiv hand over 50 percent of its rare-earth mineral resources — an extraordinary demand that could significantly overshadow the value of aid that has been sent to Ukraine. Ukrainian officials are working on a counterproposal that would still offer Washington more access to the country’s natural resources but would bolster U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, four people familiar with the discussions said.

    Zelensky told reporters Saturday that he had not agreed to the Trump administration’s proposal “because it’s not ready yet.”

    He said that security guarantees were not part of the U.S. proposal, and that Ukraine needed that in any agreement with the United States.

    “We can consider how to distribute profits when security guarantees are clear. So far, I have not seen that in the document,” he told reporters at an annual gathering of U.S. and European security elite. [Yeah, Trump is trying to get something for nothing.]

    The request came when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited Kyiv on Wednesday, becoming the first Trump Cabinet official to meet the Ukrainian leader, according to two senior Ukrainian officials […]

    The offer and Ukraine’s consideration of it rippled through European diplomatic circles not only for its audacity but also because the war-ravaged country appeared to be seriously considering how to reach a deal in the hope of a commitment from the United States to help defend against Russia’s aggression.

    Ukraine’s rare-earth mineral resources could be worth trillions of U.S. dollars, with rising demand in electronics, defense systems, drones, and the clean-energy and automotive industries, among others. They are difficult to extract at scale, and while Ukraine has some reserves, it does not mine them at the moment. China currently produces the vast majority of rare-earth minerals. Many but not all of Ukraine’s reserves are in territory occupied by Russia.

    […] One of the senior Ukrainian officials said that Kyiv received the proposed U.S. mineral deal just four hours before Bessent met with Zelensky in Kyiv on Wednesday. In that meeting, the treasury secretary “insisted” that Zelensky sign it immediately. Zelensky did not, the official said. [Bessent is a trumpian bully.]

    The Ukrainians continued to discuss the proposal on Friday, when Zelensky met with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Munich. Ukraine has told the Trump administration that it cannot legally sign away its mineral resources in the way proposed by Washington, but Ukrainians have continued to discuss alternatives […]

    The Friday meeting was delayed for several hours when Rubio’s plane experienced mechanical difficulties and had to turn around — buying the Ukrainians valuable time to come up with a counterproposal, one of the officials said.

    Zelensky had only a few minutes to read the U.S. proposal before his Wednesday meeting with Bessent, said one person familiar with the discussions.

    […] Ukraine would expect any such deal to last for decades to come and wants such an arrangement to be ratified by its parliament.

    […] Zelensky first suggested providing the United States with the materials during a meeting with Trump in September, prior to the election.

    […] If the United States is granted Ukraine’s mineral wealth, Senator Lindsey Graham said, “we will have something to defend. We will have an economic interest in Ukraine we’ve never had. And that’s a nightmare for Putin.”

    “Investment now in the Ukrainian critical minerals sector could make a lot of sense. But President Trump’s initial offer seems unreasonable, exploitative, and unlikely to help end the war. This is not a good way to promote American interests.” said Simon Johnson, an economist at MIT who has been involved in helping Ukraine with its economic planning
    .
    “I expect the Ukrainian reaction to be dismay and disbelief,” he said.

  162. says

    Trump administration wants to un-fire nuclear safety workers but can’t figure out how to reach them

    “The individuals, who work in an agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear stockpile, had been fired on Thursday and lost access to their federal government email accounts.”

    WASHINGTON — National Nuclear Security Administration officials on Friday attempted to notify some employees who had been let go the day before that they are now due to be reinstated — but they struggled to find them because they didn’t have their new contact information.

    In an email sent to employees at NNSA and obtained by NBC News, officials wrote, “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.”

    The individuals the letter refers to had been fired on Thursday and lost access to their federal government email accounts. NNSA, which is within the Department of Energy and oversees the nation’s nuclear stockpile, cannot reach these employees directly and is now asking recipients of the email, “Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people’s personal contact emails.” [See Sky Captains’s comment 160.]

    […] Trump’s administration has acted with unprecedented speed — and in some cases, questionable legality — in seeking to cut large portions of the federal government, laying off staff and ending contracts. But that speed has resulted in complications, including firing people agencies actually want to keep. [“Complications”? That’s misleading. “Resulted in major fuckups that threaten national security” is a better description.]

    The emails come after multiple staff — all civil servants — at the NNSA received termination notices late Thursday, according to a source with direct knowledge of the notifications. NBC News reviewed the termination notification, which included the subject line: “Notification of Termination During Probationary/Trial Period.”

    The NNSA is tasked with designing, building and overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

    The termination notices, which read “effective today,” came within hours of a Russian drone striking the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. NNSA tracks nuclear risks in Ukraine, including through sensor systems.

    […] The federal cuts have been met with pushback from Democrats, labor unions and progressive organizations. More than 60 lawsuits against the Trump administration alleging executive overreach and other violations are pending.

  164. says

    Followup to comment 152.

    UPDATE:

    In the discussion below, there are questions about the baseline in COBOL being May 20 1875.

    There are many different versions of COBOL. Early versions used the standards set in ISO 8601:2004. Here’s the relevant info for that version from the Wikipedia link:

    The standard uses the Gregorian calendar, which “serves as an international standard for civil use”.[

    ISO 8601:2004 fixes a reference calendar date to the Gregorian calendar of 20 May 1875 as the date the Convention du Mètre (Metre Convention) was signed in Paris (the explicit reference date was removed in ISO 8601-1:2019). However, ISO calendar dates before the convention are still compatible with the Gregorian calendar all the way back to the official introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582.

    So what I posted was correct. (You doubters! I fart in your general direction!) The date was removed in later versions of the ISO standard. And it’s understandable that COBOL programmers didn’t know or didn’t remember this obscure fact. The information isn’t spelled out explicitly in the COBOL programming language—it’s simply part of the standard ISO definition used in the early versions of COBOL.

    Since SS stores your birth date as the number of days after the base date of 5/20/1875, when SS calculates your age it subtracts your birth date from today’s date. If your birth date is blank in the database, it shows as 5/20/1875 in the calculation. Thus you’re almost 150 years old. It’s not that COBOL itself has that info—it’s that the Gregorian calendar used by COBOL works that way.

    Also, probably the people Musk found are NOT actually getting benefits. They’re in the database, but SS has security methods to make sure that people who seem to be too old do not get benefits. I think the age limit is 114, but I’m not sure. I’m too lazy today to check.

    Many employed undocumented immigrants have fake Social Security numbers. They pay INTO SS but will never get payments FROM SS. SS welcomes their money. No one ever complains about that.

    Link

  165. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/house-dems-want-to-end-citizens-united

    “House Dems Want To End Citizens United So We Never Get Musked Again”

    In the last election cycle, Elon Musk spent more than $270 million on getting Donald Trump elected. For him, it was money well spent, because he is now $170 billion richer, is able to act as shadow president, and has been raking in huge amounts of money in government contracts. for his various businesses.

    Given that the average wealth of folks in the top 1 percent of the country is about $35.5 million, he’s just about one of the only people in the country who could afford to buy that much power and influence. But he really shouldn’t be able to.

    Unfortunately, ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, this has been allowed. Rather than being limited to the $3,300 cap on individual donations to federal candidates, corporations and billionaires like Musk are able to fund super PACS as much as they like. It’s almost as if that cap doesn’t even matter! Because of how it doesn’t.

    Thankfully, Democrats in the House are (once again) trying to get rid of that terrible decision, through the We The People Amendment, which would clarify that “the rights protected and extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only,” and that “artificial entities, such as corporations, shall have no rights under the Constitution and are subject to regulation.”

    “Corporations are not people and money is not speech,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who introduced the We The People Amendment in the House. “In every election cycle since the disastrous Citizens United decision, we have seen more and more special interest dark money poured into campaigns across the country — this year, with a billionaire paying millions to buy a seat as Shadow President. My We the People Amendment hands power back to the people by finally ending corporate constitutional rights, reversing Citizens United, and ensuring that our democracy is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people — not corporations.”

    The bill is cosponsored by Alma Adams (NC-12), Shontel Brown (OH-11), Salud Carbajal (CA-24), Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Judy Chu (CA-28), Yvette Clarke (NY-9), Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), Lloyd Doggett (TX-37), Maxwell Frost (FL-10), Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-7), Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. (GA-4), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Summer Lee (PA-12), Seth Magaziner (RI-2), Betty McCollum (MN-4), Seth Moulton (MA-6), Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Jimmy Panetta (CA-19), Scott Peters (CA-50), Delia Ramirez (IL-3), Andrea Salinas (OR-6), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Paul Tonko (NY-20), Juan Vargas (CA-52), Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-7), and Nikema Williams (GA-5).

    It’s not the first time Jayapal has attempted to pass a bill ending Citizens United, but it seems even more urgent today, given all of the Musk nonsense.

    There are reasons there are caps on campaign donations. It’s to prevent people from being able to buy influence the way Elon Musk has done. It’s to ensure that the rich don’t have far more say in our elections than the poor. Personally I’d like to see donations eliminated entirely in favor of publicly funded elections, which would also have the effect of making it easier for people who are not ridiculously wealthy themselves to run for office.

    But that would just make way too much sense.

    […] One poll found that 83 percent of Americans supported another bill that would have ended Citizens United, and another found that 88 percent disapproved of Citizens United — including 66 percent of Republicans.

    And yet, not a single Republican is cosponsoring. Shocking! Democrats don’t have the votes to get this passed by themselves, but even just introducing it (and introducing it over and over and over again) is important and helpful, because it lets Americans know who is on their side and who isn’t.

  166. says

    On MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Angelo Carusone discusses conservative media’s role in implementing Project 2025

    Carusone: “They’re going to blame the deep state, malicious implantation, right? And theyre going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power”

    Video at the link.

    JOY REID (HOST): It appears as though we have officially reached the ‘find out’ phase of Donald Trump’s presidency, as red states are starting to feel the pain of what actually happens when Trump’s plans are put into action. Popular Information is reporting that in Huntsville, Alabama, about 250 customers of a public utilities company received a letter informing them that their account has been debited $100. They say it is a direct result of an executive order signed by Trump that froze a grant meant to assist low income residents with their energy bills.

    […] all of Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of government programs and slashing federal funds, yeah, spoiler alert, that’s going to hurt red states, too. USAID, for example, has a program called Food for Peace, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars buying goods from American farmers and businesses to distribute around the world to help fight hunger. So, gutting the agency means hurting farmers in places like Kansas, where the program was founded. On top of that, you have Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, for years, probably Trump’s most notorious enabler, now warning his constituents in an op-ed that the tariffs Trump is promising could have negative consequences for the state’s 75,000 family farms that sell their crops around the globe, or the hardworking Kentuckians who craft 95% of the world’s bourbon, or our auto industry.

    Joining me now is Angelo Carusone, President and CEO of Media Matters, and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist. Who would have thunk it, Angelo, that a lot of these cuts willy-nilly being made by some 20-somethings and the “normalize Indian hate” guy are going to hurt Trump’s own base? Is that message, do you think, getting out beyond just local news? You watch the media.

    ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): It’s not yet, and that’s I think the top line takeaway here. […] that low income heating program where those people lost that money, that was straight out of Project 2025. I mean, right in the 900 page book, that was one of the programs that they were targeting. So, in effect, Trump is just implementing a lot of the things that they’ve already written and prepared for. Which means we know what’s coming next, and we know the people that are going to be affected by it, which means there’s no excuse for Democrats, for the news media not to be able to connect the dots.

    And your question is the important one here, because if we don’t help build that connective tissue from his actions to the harms that people are already experiencing, what’s going to happen is that, because they have narrative dominance and they have that massive megaphone, that when people start to ask questions — “Hey, why is this happening?” — they’re going to blame the deep state, malicious implementation, right? And they’re going to use that anger and kinetic energy and turn it right back around to gather more power for themselves. So, it is both an important opportunity, but we also need to make sure we’re telling this story so that we don’t — we actually prevent them from using it to get stronger. […]

    REID: Yeah. I mean, and by the way, who’s going to gain the most, Angelo, are, you know, Trump and his family. They’re already reaping money. They’re selling meme coins. […] enriching themselves. Elon Musk is signing himself up for contracts while canceling Medicaid money.

    CARUSONE: Yeah, I mean, 800,000 people lost money in that deal. You know, they thought they were going to get rich. They thought they were going to make some money off of Trump’s momentum and they lost it. And that’s the nature of a lot of these scams. And that’s a part, you know, that’s the part about this that makes this even more intense, is that it’s not just that they’re using policies to directly affect people and harm people and transfer wealth, they’re also then using their cultural and social influence to then fleece them and pick their other pocket, with the sort of with, you know, with these other gambits. […] then further line their pockets. And I mean, they are really successfully managing to double dip in the most odious ways. […]

    REID: Last word to you on this, Angelo, […] you said they were going to pivot and just blame someone. […]

    CARUSONE: They are. They are, and that’s a strategy. […] they organize power on the fringes. And when you bring all those people in from the fringes, now each of them get their small little piece of the puzzle. And there’s a very strong segment of the right-wing that wants to erase trans people. There’s a big push in right-wing media about two years ago that said that “this was the trans lie,” and that “it was only gay white men that were at Stonewall. There weren’t even anybody that wasn’t white there.” That is the narrative that they push. And part of it is to divide and to weaken. But it’s also a reflection of the fact that they are fighting a culture war here and recognize that politics is downstream from culture, which is partly why he hung that portrait of himself in that mugshot in the White House. It’s about culture, it’s about vibes.

  167. says

    Europe will not be part of Ukraine peace talks, US envoy says

    MUNICH, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Europe won’t have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy said on Saturday, after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.

    Trump shocked European allies this week by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin without consulting them or Kyiv beforehand and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.

    Trump administration officials have also made clear in recent days that they expect European allies in NATO to take primary responsibility for the region as the U.S. now has other priorities, such as border security and countering China.

    The U.S. moves have stoked fears that Europeans may be cut out of a peace deal that would also impact their own security, particularly if it is seen as too favourable to Russia.

    Kellogg told a global security conference in Munich that the U.S. would act as an intermediary in the talks, with Ukraine and Russia as the two protagonists.

    Asked about the prospects of the Europeans being at the table, Kellogg said: “I’m (from) a school of realism. I think that’s not gonna happen.”

    At a later event at the conference, Kellogg sought to reassure Europeans by declaring this did not mean “their interests are not considered, used or developed”.

    But European leaders said they would not accept being shut out of the talks.

    “There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb told reporters in Munich.

    […] Stubb said the questionnaire the U.S. sent to Europeans “will force Europeans to think”.

    A European diplomat said the U.S. document included six questions with one specifically for European Union member states.

    “The Americans are approaching European capitals and asking how many soldiers they are ready to deploy,” one diplomat said.

    France is discussing with its allies the possibility of holding an informal meeting among European leaders on Ukraine to discuss these matters, although nothing has been decided at this stage, a French presidency official said on Saturday. […]

    More at the link.

  168. says

    Zelensky floats unified European Army: ‘The time has come’

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday proposed that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine — which is nearing three years — shows the need for the European Union to create a unified army.

    “I really believe that time has come,” Zelensky said early Saturday, per The Associated Press. “The armed forces of Europe must be created.”

    “Three years of full-scale war have proven that we already have the foundation for a united European military force,” he added, according to the AP. “And now, as we fight this war and lay the groundwork for peace and security, we must build the armed forces of Europe.”

    His speech at the Munich Security Conference only bolstered the Ukrainian leader’s push for greater military and economic support from his EU counterparts, along with the U.S. He has also consistently warned that other parts of Europe could be vulnerable to the Kremlin’s expansion efforts. […]

    “Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement, and the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” Zelensky said, adding that “not once did (Trump) mention that America needs Europe at the table.” […]

  169. JM says

    @167 Lynna, OM: This seems close to a setup to sell out Ukraine. The other European countries won’t commit to much in negotiations they are not part of. There is a chance Putin and Trump are going to negotiate terms for dividing up Ukraine’s resources and call it a peace treaty. I’m not sure if Trump is doing this intentionally or just so easily manipulated but either way it could happen.
    There is a chance they are going to be disappointed though. I can see them writing up some terms and presenting them to the world and Ukraine and the EU tell them to shove it. That will result in Trump pulling US support but at this point the Russian army is weak enough I think Ukraine doesn’t need it any more. At the start of this war the US was the only army that could supply Ukraine fast enough for Ukraine to fight back. Now they are dominating Russia in most ways and their biggest problem is not having the man power to easily retake land from Russia.

  170. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TPM – Inside the ‘bizarre’ meeting with DOGE at the IRS

    [DOGE sent Gavin Kliger.] “Their interest […] included the operation of enforcements, it included taxpayer service in terms of function and the personnel footprint, and they wanted extensive system access […] What exactly that would look like, I’m not sure […] Levels of data protection at IRS are higher than at other agencies. Not only is improper disclosure illegal, but improper inspection of data internally is illegal. […] It’s hard to think about what extensive system access would look like for these guys that wouldn’t violate the law.”
    […]
    the DOGE staffer had a handful of phones, which struck the agency’s employees as “bizarre.” “He basically had the vibe of a McKinsey consultant and came in and asked about headcount and how many people are in each department […] He had a black Mac, which didn’t seem to be government issue, and five iPhones.”
    […]
    in the wake of Kliger’s meeting with the IRS, Trump administration officials were discussing plans to lay off roughly 9,000 employees at the tax agency
    […]
    the main thing DOGE is asking for is extensive access to the tax agency’s information and internal systems. “They’re just trying to snap up data right now,”
    […]
    “The weirdest thing was just the five iPhones,”

  171. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Copycats.

    Men claiming to be DOGE flee City Hall after demanding records on wasteful spending, fraud

    San Francisco City Hall […] The three men were wearing DOGE shirts and Make America Great Again hats […] The men, who had fled by the time sheriff’s deputies arrived, were carrying flash drives to copy the records. The city employees did not hand over the information, and authorities do not believe the individuals were actual DOGE workers.

  172. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @170,“The weirdest thing was just the five iPhones,”
    Standard criminal operating procedure?

    JM @169, basically, I agree. The fact that Trump and his lackeys can’t see that Putin is damaged and on his way to losing really irritates me. Still, Ukraine would have a very hard time “winning” (whatever that means) that war. They don’t have enough active soldiers.

  173. JM says

    Reuters: OPEC takes long-term view of global oil markets, aims for stability

    Decisions from oil producer group OPEC+ take a long-term view of the global markets and are aimed at providing market stability, Secretary General Haitham Al-Ghais said at the India Energy Week conference on Tuesday.
    The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly called on the producer group to increase oil production to help reduce prices.

    Ignoring the political babble about market stability this is simple. OPEC going for maximum profits, pushing up oil prices. With Russia cut off from the market OPEC has enough control over the volume for sale to push oil prices up for the first time in years. The invasion causes oil prices to spike way up. It has since dropped a bit but OPEC production cuts have kept it from dropping back to pre-war levels.

  176. says

    Politico link

    EXCLUSIVE
    “Trump team to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia”
    “A Ukrainian official said Kyiv wasn’t informed and doesn’t plan to attend.”

    MUNICH — Senior Trump administration officials are heading to Saudi Arabia to start peace talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, according to a Republican lawmaker and two U.S. officials familiar with the plan.
    However, a Ukrainian official told POLITICO that the announcement of the Saudi talks came as a surprise to Kyiv, and as of now there were no plans to send a delegation.

    Mike McCaul, a Republican lawmaker from Texas, confirmed the plans for Waltz and Witkoff to join Rubio in Saudi Arabia to start talks between the two warring sides during an interview at the POLITICO Pub on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

    Two U.S. officials, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiation matters, confirmed the plans but did not elaborate on other details about the meetings […]

    Trump on Wednesday told reporters he expects to hold a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia. “We ultimately expect to meet,” he said. “We’ll meet in Saudi Arabia, see if we can get something something done.”

    At the Munich conference, top European officials stressed Ukraine must be directly involved in any talks between Trump and Putin.

    “There will only be peace if Ukraine’s sovereignty is secured,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the conference on Saturday. “A dictated peace will therefore never find our support.”

    McCaul, who is former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, agreed. “The president wants peace. But it’s got to be a deal where the Ukrainians are at the table in this deal now,” he said.

    Hundreds of top foreign leaders and national security officials flocked to Munich for the annual security conference. The gathering underscored deep unease and anxiety among Europeans over future American commitment to the transatlantic alliance under Trump, laid bare after a fiery speech by U.S. Vice President JD Vance that shocked many attendees.

    European officials and U.S. lawmakers have stressed that any peace deal must be negotiated in a way that doesn’t simply pause the fighting and allow Russia to rearm and regroup to launch a new invasion in the future. [Yeah. Russian seriously needs a pause … so don’t give it to them.]

    […] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he does not trust that Putin is ready for genuine peace talks following three years of war. “Trump said to me that Putin wants to stop the war. I said to him ‘Putin is a liar. I hope that you will pressure him because I don’t trust him,’” Zelenskyy said at Munich. […]

  178. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Expanding upon a line in Lynna’s #105.

    Andrew Torrez (Law and Chaos):

    Judge Hurson (D.Md) just issued a comprehensive opinion & TRO prohibiting the Trump administration from enforcing its EO banning gender-affirming care.

    It’s not only a great result, it’s a roadmap for other judges reviewing Trump’s illegal actions.

    Calling it a “straightforward” separation of powers question, […] no President can place conditions on federal funds that Congress did not prescribe. “There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes a President to enact, amend, or repeal statutes.”

    The court cites […] the 1998 Supreme Court decision declaring the line-item veto unconstitutional because the President cannot unilaterally “effect the repeal of laws, for his own policy reasons.” Even if Congress wants him to.

    And that’s what most of these cases come down to […] To be clear: this is a nationwide injunction.
    […]
    p. 38 responds to the Trump admin’s bullshit arguments that courts can’t review executive orders with “oh really? I seem to recall you assholes cheering when the Roberts Court was striking down Biden EOs six months ago…” (slight paraphrase)

  179. says

    Justice Department fires multiple immigration judges amid case backlog

    “A union representing the judges said it “makes no sense” to make cuts to immigration courts as Trump promises to carry out mass deportations, which must go through the courts.”

    WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice fired multiple immigration judges on Friday, according to two sources familiar with the decision and a statement from one of the judges on LinkedIn. The move threatens to throw sand in the gears of an already strained immigration system as the Trump administration moves to rapidly reshape the federal workforce.

    The terminations were enacted by the acting director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review at the Justice Department, which oversees immigration courts.

    A union representing immigration judges said that since the start of the Trump administration, more than two dozen immigration judges, managers and new hires have been fired.

    Five midlevel assistant chief immigration judges and 13 candidates to become new judges received termination notices on Friday, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

    “You have a president now who campaigned on immigration and removing people from the country on the one hand. And on the other hand, he’s actually firing the very judges that have to hear these cases and make those decisions. So, it makes no sense. It’s a head scratcher,” said Matt Biggs, the president of the IFPTE.

    Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the administration has fired at least four top managers in the Executive Office of Immigration Review as well as a fifth senior manager, the union said.

    […] “There’s bipartisan support across the board to actually hire more immigration judges. I mean, there’s a backlog of almost 4 million cases as it is, so this administration, with these firings, they’ve been very successful in increasing the backlog,” Biggs said.

    […] Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan has recruited staff from several federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to aid ICE in making immigrant arrests.

    “It’s just not ICE. We had DEA, FBI, ATF, US Marshal Service, DOJ is all in,” Homan told NBC News following a mass deportation operation in Chicago in January.

    The Department of Homeland Security has asked the Internal Revenue Service to target businesses believed to be hiring immigrants working illegally in the country and investigate human trafficking, per a memo by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

    NBC News previously reported the administration is considering using Defense Department funding to hire contractors that would vastly expand the scale of immigrant arrests and deportations. The new funding would go toward paying civilian-run companies to expand and staff temporary detention facilities. […]

  182. Reginald Selkirk says

    World’s ‘first openly gay imam’ shot dead in South Africa

    Muhsin Hendricks, a pioneering figure dubbed the world’s first openly gay imam, has been shot dead in South Africa.

    The 57-year-old cleric ran a mosque in Cape Town intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims. He was killed on Saturday morning after the car in which he was travelling near the southern city of Gqeberha was ambushed.

    “Two unknown suspects with covered faces got out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots at the vehicle,” police said in a statement…

    Hendricks’ work challenged traditional interpretations of Islam and championed a compassionate, inclusive faith…

  183. says

    Trump goes after religious groups—and they’re fighting back

    […] That’s where this lawsuit comes in. Twenty-seven Jewish and Christian religious groups, representing national denominations and interdenominational associations with millions of members, sued to reinstate the sensitive locations policy and prohibit immigration enforcement actions in places of worship unless there are exigent circumstances. They contend that the government’s actions violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

    The RFRA was enacted in 1993 and provides for religious exemptions from federal laws.

    It prohibits the government from substantially burdening someone’s exercise of their religious beliefs, even if it stems from a generally applicable rule, unless the government shows that the burden is the least restrictive means of pursuing a compelling government interest.

    RFRA is a conservative fan favorite. Indeed, two powerhouse conservative legal organizations, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Becket Fund, were founded after RFRA’s passage just to litigate religious freedom cases, usually for evangelical Christians. The RFRA underpinned Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby’s holding that the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate violated the religious freedom of the evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby. The RFRA is what the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices routinely lean on when dissenting in cases that expand rights for LGBTQ people. Basically, Christian litigants trot the RFRA out every time they want to be exempt from any laws protecting reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights, and anything else they don’t like.

    But the RFRA has been used successfully by other religious litigants, including in the context of immigrants. In 2020, a federal judge threw out the convictions of three Unitarian Universalist church members who had been arrested for leaving food and water for migrants in the desert. The judge found they were exercising their sincere religious beliefs in leaving supplies and held that applying the criminal law to them violated the RFRA.

    […] the 27 groups suing to restore the sensitive location policy spend much of their complaint detailing how caring for immigrants is core to their faith. They reference that welcoming strangers, or immigrants, is central to the Torah and present throughout the Christian Gospels. They explain that their religion teaches that all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore deserve care. They state that as citizens of God’s kingdom, they reject all hierarchies of race, language, nationality, and legal status. [Well that doesn’t ring true.]

    They also detail their other actions to serve their communities, such as food distribution and preschools, and that providing those services is foundational to their religion. […] several plaintiffs explain that their faith requires them to worship together in person, an argument foundational to COVID-19-era challenges by conservative churches seeking exemptions from stay-at-home orders.

    Put simply, what all the plaintiffs are saying is that if ICE can come in and arrest immigrants in houses of worship, that substantially burdens their ability to exercise their religious beliefs that require them to serve and protect everyone. If the groups continue to serve undocumented persons, they are serving them up to ICE, which violates their religious duties of welcoming and care. […] Fewer people are attending services because of fear of ICE, clergy members are having to take time away from ministering to secure resources to keep undocumented congregants safe, and fewer community members are using services like soup kitchens.

    […] The government has not yet filed a response in this case. However, there’s no question their position will be that there is such a compelling interest in arresting undocumented people that it overrides the right of the plaintiffs to practice their religious beliefs. Any compelling interest the Trump administration will put forth, though, is based on their fiction that there is a border invasion of hardened criminals.

    Even if a court agrees with that fiction, plaintiffs should still prevail. That’s because the government has to show that the action they want to take—here, sending ICE agents into a church to arrest someone—is the “least restrictive” means of furthering that compelling interest.

    […] No one really knows what the federal courts will do when the sincere belief of millions of people runs headlong into the administration’s desire to terrorize immigrants. […]

    Link

  185. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/a-czar-is-born

    “A Czar Is Born”

    “Fentanyl czar, fentanyl czar, does whatever a fentanyl czar does.”

    There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s here to fight tariffs.

    Not fight the actual tariffs on Canadian goods America’s alleged commander-in-chief has been argle-bargling about ever since a bunch of billionaires bought him another election, but rather by being a shiny new object to wave in his face to hopefully get him off the path of mutually assured destruction he appears to have his black little heart set on.

    Former RCMP deputy commissioner Kevin Brosseau […] has been picked as Canada’s newly minted fentanyl czar and tasked with winning America’s war on drugs. Brosseau also served as deputy national security adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau […]

    As the feds’ new go-to guy on the fentanyl file, Brosseau is expected to work with US law enforcement agencies to “accelerate Canada’s ongoing work to detect, disrupt and dismantle the fentanyl trade,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. […] Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid doctors prescribe for pain but also cooked up in sketchy drug labs like the one under Lavandería Brillante in “Breaking Bad,” kills roughly 80,000 people each year across North America. The drug has a lot to answer for, not least for taking Prince from us, but it’s beyond ridiculous to insist it’s mostly coming from Canada.

    The White House recently announced that 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border last year, a “massive 2050 per cent increase” over the previous one, when a mere two pounds were discovered. This is meant to be cover for shaking down America’s former closest friend but they left out the part of a third of the haul having instead been seized in Spokane — roughly 100 miles from the border with British Columbia but close enough for government work — in a drug bust that led to charges against three Mexicans. (For comparison, more than 21,000 pounds are claimed to have been confiscated at the southern border over the same stretch of time.) Canadian border agents caught another 10 pounds of outbound down over the same period although it was mostly headed for the Netherlands […]

    The new gig was actually Canada’s own idea to sweeten existing plans to harden the world’s longest undefended border, which include spending the nearly one billion dollars we’d already agreed to with President Joe Biden but letting Dear Leader pretend was all due to him. Also we’re going to get some cool new Blackhawk helicopters and drones! And we agreed to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, which is sure to hurt their feelings if they ever show up. There have even been grassroots efforts to comply with his demand to have eyes on the border 24/7, including from a Manitoba family who had the bright idea to plant hockey sticks with googly eyes near the 49th parallel. [image at the link]

    Canadians tend to defer to British spelling, which would probably be a reason to invade if spelling was something Fox News expected viewers to care about, and normally we’d have to name a tsar instead. Wikipedia even defaults on searches for czar to tsar. It might’ve been fun to appoint a czarina instead but it’s obviously unrealistic to expect MAGA to work with a woman. Better to go with a square-jawed white dude straight out of central casting.

    Calling Brosseau a czar is actually a form of appeasement in itself as it’s essentially a made-up job title mostly used only by Americans. You will recall how Republicans successfully smeared Kamala Harris as the “border czar” even though she had nothing to do with border security.

    But it sure seems like a missed opportunity given “fentanyl sentinel” was sitting right there!

    The first record of the term being used in North America was as a description for Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was named commissioner of baseball after the Black Sox scandal in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series. It entered the political lexicon in the 1940s when FDR named special transportation, manpower, production, shipping, and rubber czars to oversee resources needed to fight the Nazis, which was the style at the time.

    It may seem a bit on-the-nose nowadays as a term associated with Russian monarchs but the Slavic word actually derives from “Caesar” as a title for bigshots. We should probably expect all of Orange Julius’s Cabinet picks to soon be referred to as czars […]

    But in Canada we prefer our caesars to have vodka and clamato juice, eh.

  186. says

    Scientists racing to discover the depth of ocean damage sparked by the LA wildfires

    “Fire debris and potentially toxic ash could make the water unsafe for surfers and swimmers, especially after rainfall that can transport chemicals, trash and other hazards into the sea.”

    On a recent Sunday, Tracy Quinn drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to assess damage wrought upon the coastline by the Palisades Fire.

    The water line was darkened by ash. Burnt remnants of washing machines and dryers and metal appliances were strewn about the shoreline. Sludge carpeted the water’s edge. Waves during high tide lapped onto charred homes, pulling debris and potentially toxic ash into the ocean as they receded.

    “It was just heartbreaking,” said Quinn, president and CEO of the environmental group Heal the Bay, whose team has reported ash and debris some 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the Palisades burn area west of Los Angeles.

    As crews work to remove potentially hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous materials from the Los Angeles wildfires, researchers and officials are trying to understand how the fires on land have impacted the sea. The Palisades and Eaton fires scorched thousands of homes, businesses, cars and electronics, turning everyday items into hazardous ash made of pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead, heavy metals and more.

    Since much of it could end up in the Pacific Ocean, there are concerns and many unknowns about how the fires could affect life under the sea.

    “We haven’t seen a concentration of homes and buildings burned so close to the water,” Quinn said.

    […] Scientists on board a research vessel during the fires detected ash and waste on the water as far as 100 miles (161 kilometers) offshore, said marine ecologist Julie Dinasquet with the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Things like twigs and shard. They described the smell as electronics burning, she recalled, “not like a nice campfire.”

    Runoff from rains also are a huge and immediate concern. Rainfall picks up contaminants and trash while flushing toward the sea through a network of drains and rivers. That runoff could contain “a lot of nutrients, nitrogen and phosphate that end up in the ash of the burn material that can get into the water,” said Dias, as well as “heavy metals, something called PAHs, which are given off when you burn different types of fuel.”

    […] Beyond the usual samples, state water officials and others are testing for total and dissolved metals such as arsenic, lead and aluminum and volatile organic compounds.

    They also are sampling for microplastics, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, that are harmful to human and aquatic life, and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a group of man-made chemicals shown to cause cancer in animals and other serious health effects. Now banned from being manufactured, they were used in products like pigments, paints and electrical equipment. […]

  187. says

    Washington Post link

    “It was the deadliest workplace in America. So why didn’t safety regulators shut it down?”

    “Inspectors issued more than 100 safety violations and millions in fines. Yet deaths and injuries continued.”

    The police lieutenant sounded unnerved as he stepped inside the old lumber mill. The power was off. The giant saws were quiet. […] In the darkened factory, sunlight streamed through jagged holes in the rusted metal walls as Lt. Marc Cutt walked across a machine that turned logs into lumber.

    “Has it been rendered safe?” Cutt asked another police officer as his body camera recorded the scene.

    “Safe is a relative term in this place,” the officer responded.

    The police knew this place well. So did federal safety inspectors.

    At Phenix Lumber Co., [in Alabama] workers had lost fingers, broken bones and been mangled by machines — at least 28 employees had reported injuries since 2010, at a company with only about 50 people on the payroll at a time. Three had died. A medical examiner’s report detailed how just 23 pounds of one employee was recovered after he was caught in a machine. It had reached the point, some former workers said, that they would pray before the start of their $9-an-hour shifts.

    Phenix Lumber was the deadliest workplace in America over the past five years. No other office or factory posted a higher rate of work-related fatal incidents per worker, according to a Washington Post analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration fatality reports since 2019. The analysis examined deaths by workplace location, rather than by company, using OSHA data on fatalities investigated by the agency, which generally does not cover small farms or federal workers.

    OSHA is tasked with ensuring that American work environments are safe. “There’s no way to characterize the history at this workplace as acceptable,” the agency said in a statement.

    The story of Phenix Lumber — drawn from thousands of previously undisclosed documents and recordings obtained by The Post, along with interviews with officials and former workers and managers — shows the limits of OSHA’s powers. It cannot shut down companies even after years of repeated violations and penalties, even when workers die. It even lacks the power to ask a judge to do so.

    It can request a shutdown from the court only in rare cases of “imminent danger,” such as a looming roof collapse. Causing the death of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor under federal law. The maximum sentence is six months in prison, less than the penalty for killing an endangered animal. In the past five years, OSHA sent fewer than 50 cases to the Justice Department for a criminal review, records show, and it’s unclear how many of those were prosecuted.

    […] Since at least 2003, federal safety inspectors have fined the company nearly $5.3 million. They issued more than 180 citations for health and safety violations, accusing the company of knowingly ignoring workers’ safety “for monetary gain.” A quarter of the violations were deemed “willful,” the most severe category. Phenix Lumber workers told inspectors that they were routinely instructed to put their hands into the jaws of stuck machines to clear jams — without first cutting the power, a clear hazard. And the machines were in such bad shape that they regularly broke down. [Graph at the link shows “Workers killed on the job jumped 15% from 2013 to 2023.”]

    […] “This must stop,” they repeatedly warned the mill’s owners — one of the wealthiest families in eastern Alabama.

    […] [Snipped description of one “accident.” Video at the link]

    […] An attorney for the lumber mill said in a court filing after Streetman’s death that his “negligence proximately contributed to cause the accident resulting in his death.”

    […] But change was finally coming for Phenix Lumber. It would just have nothing to do with federal safety regulators.

    Of all his companies, John Menza Dudley loved Phenix Lumber the most.

    “I come here at 7 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. every day,” he once told OSHA investigators.

    […]Johnny Dudley, as most people knew him, was one of Alabama’s largest private landowners […] He developed subdivisions. He owned a local bank.

    […] For years, Phenix Lumber had a reputation as a place to land a quick job, former workers said. The work was hard and hot. It was dangerous. […]

    [I snipped more descriptions of accidents, and details of the company’s failures to follow basic safety procedures. for example: “Before workers try to fix a machine, safety protocols require them to turn it off and secure the power source with a personal lock so it can’t be accidentally turned back on. It’s a common industrial practice. OSHA says it prevents 120 deaths and 50,000 injuries annually.”]

    […] Broadwater [Doug Broadwater, Dudley’s right-hand man] also blamed employees, saying that “they are lazy and don’t want to” follow the rules. [Yikes. Many of the workers are Black.]

    […] Mayor Eddie Lowe said he struggled to understand how OSHA had allowed Phenix Lumber to stay open despite its years of problems. […]

    That changed after city firefighters responding to Streetman’s death noticed a plastic pipe hooked to a yellow fire hydrant on the property, according to city officials. The mill appeared to be illegally tapping city water.

    A municipal investigation calculated that the mill owed Phenix City nearly $3.8 million in water and sewage fees — more than what Phenix Lumber had paid OSHA in fines over the years.

    City officials then took a step federal regulators couldn’t: They issued a cease-and-desist order that immediately closed down Phenix Lumber. The lumber mill couldn’t reopen until the building and fire code problems — such as the lack of proper permits and a sprinkler system — were fixed and the city was paid for the allegedly stolen water.

    […] Negotiations dragged on for weeks. In December, three months after Streetman’s death, the two sides clashed at a City Council meeting. Bill Finley, an attorney for the mill, said the city’s cease-and-desist letter was “not a pro-business decision.” He said Phenix Lumber had “hired folks that other folks won’t hire.” […]

    “I’m just going to be honest and frank,” Mayor Lowe said. “When it comes to safety, that has to be the number one thing for any council. […]

    The mayor and City Council voted unanimously to revoke Phenix Lumber’s business license.

    The mill closed. […] Dudley’s heirs [Dudley died in 2022] fought over his estate in court. The legal cases against Phenix Lumber in the workers’ deaths slowly worked their way through the courts. […]

    Last month, Phenix Lumber filed for bankruptcy. The company painted a dire financial picture, with assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of more than $50 million. That included $2.47 million in OSHA penalties in Streetman’s death and $3.78 million for its unpaid municipal water and sewer bill.

    OSHA needs more options for enforcement. Republicans have always worked against that. Now that Musk is involved, the difficulties regarding worker safety will be even worse. See below.

    See also: What Will DOGE’s Moves on Government Agencies Mean for OSHA? by Eyal Press, writing for The New Yorker.

    […] Dismantling the Department of Labor would be an audacious undertaking for a President who owes his second term, in no small part, to the support of working-class voters. The D.O.L.’s mission is to foster the welfare of working people and to safeguard their rights and benefits. Like a growing number of tech oligarchs, Musk appears to regard the very idea of empowering the government to perform such functions as an affront. […]

    Musk is unlikely to hold a more charitable view of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA], a branch of the Labor Department whose mission is to protect employees from hazardous working conditions and to hold employers who put them at risk accountable. In recent years, OSHA has repeatedly fined Musk’s companies for serious safety violations, including an incident at a SpaceX facility in Texas in which a worker fell to his death from a truck whose cargo had not been properly secured.

    […] in an exposé published in 2023 by Reuters which documented at least six hundred previously unreported injuries at the company; its facility in Brownsville, Texas, had an injury rate six times higher than the industry average. […] OSHA has also fined another of Musk’s companies, Tesla, for exposing workers to hazardous chemicals and has issued a fine for multiple violations involving chemical burns and other injuries sustained by employees at a third Musk-owned business, the Boring Company.

    […] Every year, five thousand workers in America are killed on the job and more than two million suffer injuries and illnesses. […] a reason for this is not that OSHA has too many federal inspectors on its payroll but too few: just one for every eighty thousand workers in the country. Yet Trump has never shown any inclination to address this problem. To the contrary, during his first term, forty-two per cent of the leadership positions at OSHA, including the job of chief administrator, were left vacant. The vacancies persisted at the start of the pandemic, when unions pleaded with Eugene Scalia, a corporate lawyer whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Labor, to issue an emergency temporary standard that would require employers to follow specific rules to protect their safety and slow the spread of covid-19. Scalia, who had devoted much of his career to helping corporations evade government regulations, brushed the appeals aside.

    […] despite receiving more than ten thousand complaints from workers alleging unsafe conditions at their workplaces in the months that followed, OSHA issued just two citations. […]

    […] when it comes to labor rights Trump and Musk appear to see eye to eye, a fact that may cause millions of workers irreparable harm in the years to come.

    More at the New Yorker link.

  188. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    From Bluesky:

    Surprising absolutely no one, the DOGE child hacker Gavin Kliger admits to being inspired to join DOGE by reading a Nazi’s screeds.
    [Screenshots from “Why I joined DOGE“, crediting Ron Unz.]
    [Screenshots from Wikipedia. A holocaust denier who endorsed blood libel.]

     
    RollingStone – DOGE’s ‘nerd army’ is breaking the government by threatening to snitch to Elon

    This has happened repeatedly […] It has become a cruel punchline within the federal bureaucracy […] that “some child” from the DOGE team “will threaten to call Elon Musk, if you don’t do what the child wants,”
    […]
    “It was so fucking stupid,” says another federal official, who was on the receiving end of the “Karen”-style DOGE threats about calling the cops—in this case, Elon Musk. “I can’t believe this is how they’re blowing up the Constitution, with this little nerd army… God help us. What else can I say?”

     
    Josh Marshall:

    just to give you a feel—frequent instances of people being fired by people who refuse to identify themselves, with letters that are unsigned or people refuse to sign. I just read one of those letters. Starts “Hello,” then please read this immediately and then “thank you for your service to America.” And that’s it. These don’t seem to be written by seasoned HR professionals let’s say.

  189. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Power staff departures raise concerns about Northwest electrical grid

    Bonneville Power Administration could lose nearly 20% of its workforce […] 200 of the agency’s more than 3,000 employees have accepted the Trump administration’s offer to resign and receive eight months of severance pay […] 90 job offers at BPA were rescinded as a result of the administration’s freeze on federal hiring. Chief financial officer is among the open positions […] another 350 to 400 probationary employees could be cut […] The employees taking the buyout include linemen, engineers, substation operators and power dispatchers—positions that take years of apprenticeship to learn.
    […]
    “The reliability impacts of this could be very serious. I mean the lights go out. Unplanned outages.” […] “We have several mission critical employees with decades of institutional knowledge who have accepted the offer.”
    […]
    the former BPA administrator, said he considered the Bonneville staff reductions to be ironic because the agency is self-funded. It receives no money from taxpayers and funds all of its staff and programs with its power and transmission sales. […] “It doesn’t save one penny towards reducing the Federal deficit.”

  190. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Jeff Legum:

    Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson just issued an order preventing the Trump administration from: 1. Deleting CFPB data. 2. Firing CFPB employees. 3. Transferring money from CFPB’s reserve fund.

    Right after the order was issued, nearly all CFPB employees were placed on administrative leave. Prior to this order, […] almost all of them would be terminated this afternoon.

     
    Will Stancil:

    Hearing that the DOGE chaos hurricane is hitting HUD soon, and the plan is to devastate federal housing funding. Let’s be clear: this would cause a cascade of catastrophic impacts nationwide, shutting down housing and dumping families into the street.
    […]
    incomprehensibly bad—projects will be frozen, die, or go under. Do you want to double homelessness overnight? Here’s how. Even from a pure cost-cutting standpoint this is insane, because dealing with families living on the brink of annihilation through emergency services alone is orders of magnitude more costly than maintaining existing housing programs.

     
    David Burbach (Professor of International relations and natsec):

    Trump admin threatens to rescind education funds over DEI

    so draconian it appears to give colleges 14 days to rehouse students in voluntary ethnic affinity groupings, to cancel or redo courses mid semester, probably to ban informal Cinco de Mayo parties, or else lose all financial aid and research funding. It also *requires* schools to use standardized tests in admissions, and casts grave doubts on the use of personal essays at all. Appears to be intended to apply to this year’s admission process which of course is already well underway.

  191. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Jeff Sharlet (Author of The Family):

    Hiding in Plain Sight: Disbarred Trump consigliere John Eastman’s *2006* report for Heritage Foundation laying out a legal attack on birthright citizenship that goes far beyond children of undocumented persons to establish a president/king’s power to take citizenship away from… anyone.
    […]
    Eastman begins w/ 1884 SCOTUS case Elk v. Wilkins, which he says “correctly” excluded Native Americans from birthright citizenship. Doesn’t mention in main text subsequent law that changed that. Erasure.

    Here’s the kicker: Eastman argues citizenship can be limited only to children of those w/ “total & exclusive allegiance” to the U.S. One parent holds, say, double citizenship in Ireland? Nixed. A parent once wrote, “Fuck the USA”? Possibly nixed. Who decides? Power decides.
    […]
    he claims birthright citizenship is really sort of a remnant of feudalism, subjects of a king’s lands.

  192. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bloomberg Law

    As many as 22 remaining Biden-appointed US attorneys had their government-issued devices deactivated Friday without being told they’ve been fired or provided an explanation […] now scrambling to figure out how they can continue performing their functions
    […]
    Some of the other remaining US attorneys appointed by Biden were fired Feb. 12 at the direction of […] Trump. […] Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who the US attorneys report to, has made a series of moves […] to seize tighter control of field operations. […] DOJ headquarters gave all US attorneys two business days to explain why prosecutors they’ve hired in the past two years who aren’t focused on Trump priorities such as immigration and public safety should be retained.

  193. Reginald Selkirk says

    @191 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain

    What they really meant to say:

    Here’s the kicker: Eastman argues citizenship can be limited only to children of those w/ “total & exclusive allegiance” to the U.S. Trump

    >

  194. says

    Check out the GOP’s pathetic excuses for Trump’s lawlessness this week

    Another week of Donald Trump’s presidency is in the rearview. And like the two weeks before it, it was filled with lawless actions, lies, and ridiculous behavior that Republicans lined up to defend.

    Trump threw Ukraine under the bus and appears likely to let murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin seize control of the sovereign nation. He also fired more independent watchdogs, let more corrupt politicians off the hook, slashed grants to medical research, and he even said he might ignore court rulings blocking his unlawful actions. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    And like the pathetic lapdogs they are, Republicans defended every move.

    After multiple federal judges of all ideological stripes blocked some of Trump’s executive actions, Republicans pushed the country further into a constitutional crisis by backing Trump when he suggested he’ll ignore those court orders and do whatever he wants.

    “It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So maybe we have to look at the judges. ‘Cause I think that’s a very serious violation,” Trump said on Tuesday.

    Trump likely got this idea from his own vice president, who wrote in an X post on Feb. 9 that judges shouldn’t be allowed to stop the president’s executive power. [Snipped Vance’s blather.]

    And other Republicans agreed with the false statement that the courts are not allowed to check the president’s power—when that’s exactly what the Constitution dictates.

    “Of course the branches have to respect our constitutional order but there’s a lot of game yet to be played. This will be appealed, we’ve got to go through the whole process, and we’ll get the final analysis. In the interim, I will say that I agree wholeheartedly with Vice President JD Vance, my friend, because he’s right,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a news conference on Tuesday.

    Later that day, he said that the courts should back off of Trump altogether.

    “I think that the courts should take a step back and allow these processes to play out. What we’re doing is good and right for the American people,” Johnson told reporters, specifically referring to the cuts co-President Elon Musk is trying to make with his fake agency, the Department of Government Efficiency.

    “I don’t believe judges, courts have the authority or power to stick their nose into the constitutional authority of the president,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said.

    “These judges need to back off and get out of the way of what the executive branch is doing to administer the government,” Roy said on Fox News.

    Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also expressed agreement that courts don’t have the power to challenge Trump’s executive orders.

    “These judges are waging an unprecedented assault on legitimate presidential authority, all the way down to dictating what webpages the government has. This is absurd,” he wrote on X.

    Rep. Darrel Issa, Republican of California, claimed that “nowhere in our Constitution is a single federal judge given absolute power over the President or the people of the United States.”

    But, of course, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark 1803 Marbury v. Madison case that the judiciary has the power to declare laws or actions unconstitutional.

    […] A handful of other Trump sycophants went a step further, saying that they would launch an impeachment effort against the judges who block Trump’s actions.

    “I’m drafting articles of impeachment for US District Judge Paul Engelmayer. Partisan judges abusing their positions is a threat to democracy. The left has done ‘irreparable harm’ to this country. President Trump and his team at @DOGE are trying to fix it,” Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona wrote on X, referring to the federal judge who blocked Musk from accessing Treasury data.

    And Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia wrote on X that he is backing Crane’s efforts.

    “The real constitutional crisis is taking place in our judicial branch. Activist judges are weaponizing their power in an attempt to block President Trump’s agenda and obstruct the will of the American people. [Crane] and I are leading the fight to stop this insanity,” he wrote.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called for the impeachment of another federal judge who blocked Trump’s freeze on congressionally appropriated federal funds.

    “This judge is a Trump deranged Democrat activist. Below is proof he is not capable of making good decisions from the bench. He should be impeached,” Greene wrote on X.

    Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio backed those efforts, saying the judges blocking Trump’s actions “should be mocked and ignored while articles of impeachment are prepared.”

    “These clowns are undermining every lower court, leaving the sole burden on SCOTUS. This is not sustainable. Sadly, excesses in judicial and executive authority are a symptom of the real problem: Congress keeps failing to take action. Time for #DeedsNotWords,” he wrote on X.

    Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, once a fierce defender of watchdogs, was fine with Trump axing the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development who said that Trump’s unlawful shuttering of the agency let hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food aid go to waste.

    Grassley said that he “should have been fired,” and gave Trump a workaround to make the firing legal.

    “I’m just trying to make the president’s job easier,” Grassley said, completely ditching his past watchdog advocacy to bow down to Trump.

    Other GOP lawmakers chose Trump over their own constituents, who are being directly harmed by the president’s actions.

    Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said that Trump’s decision to drastically cut back National Institutes of Health funding for medical research institutions is a good thing, even though it would decimate institutions in his own state and beyond.

    [snipped Moreno’s blather]

    And Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri said that Trump’s funding freeze, which is hurting farmers who are not being paid for contracts, is just a “little bit disruptive.”

    “But that’s what this administration promised whenever they were coming to Washington,” Smith said on CNN, “is that they would be disruptive.” [Social media post and video at the link]

  195. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Business Community Is Extraordinarily Stupid

    You may have noticed that wealthy international businessmen—the jet set class with the means to be anywhere—do not typically choose to live and headquarter their businesses in Russia. Nor do they choose to base themselves in Hungary, or El Salvador, or North Korea. No, you will find them most often in places like London and New York. This offers a hint to the answer of the question: What is it that businesses need to flourish?

    Here are some of the basic ingredients of a truly pro-business atmosphere: The rule of law; a functional and predictable court system; enforceable contracts; intelligible regulations; trustworthy and accurate government data; widely available well educated and healthy workers; and strong public services that create a customer base that is, itself, healthy and wealthy and flourishing enough to spend money freely. These are the things from which strong companies and economies grow. Encouraging and protecting these things is therefore in the interest of the business community writ large. If these things fall apart, you can be sure that business will, in aggregate, suffer…

  198. says

    Texas could sell 100 miles of border to feds, Abbott says

    More than 100 miles of Texas’ borderlands could be leased or sold to the federal government as part of the state’s partnership with […] Trump to harden the border, Gov. Greg Abbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune on Thursday.

    Abbott is in Washington this week to lobby Congress for $11 billion to compensate Texas for money spent on his Operation Lone Star initiative, which he said was needed to fill gaps in the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement. The three-term Texas governor said he was ready to hand over to the federal government more than 50 miles of constructed border wall, nearly 20 miles of planned border walls, 100 miles of easements to build more walls, over 2,000 military beds for National Guardsmen and 4,000 jail cells to detain migrants.

    The exchange of real estate and working border infrastructure built under Operation Lone Star differentiates this request from past appeals Texas has made to the federal government for border enforcement, Abbott said.

    “This is not really a reimbursement,” said Abbott during a 10-minute interview at his Washington hotel. “This is a payment for real estate assets and improvements provided by the state of Texas as payment for services rendered by the state of Texas that benefits everybody in the United States of America.”

    […] Abbott met with Texas Republicans and House Speaker Mike Johnson this week to make his case, as well as White House officials. Abbott also met with Trump last week.

    It remains to be seen if Congress will allocate the funds or if Trump will support the move. Slashing federal spending is among Republicans’ highest priorities this year. Abbott didn’t say if his meetings with Johnson or Trump yielded support, but he described them as “very appreciative of everything that Texas did, and they thank us for Texas holding the line during the four years of open border policies under [President] Joe Biden.”

    […] House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, presented a draft budget resolution Wednesday, which would include $300 billion for border security and defense spending. Arrington supports the payment to Texas, calling it “the right and responsible thing” to do. But he acknowledged he would need to make sure whatever mechanism to send out the money is fiscally responsible. That would mean collaborating with members outside of the Texas delegation.

    U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, one of the most hawkish conservatives on reining in spending, was supportive of the reimbursement, saying Texas invested in infrastructure the federal government should have built.

    […] U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, serves on the House Appropriations Committee and said he was confident all Republicans on the committee would support the effort. He said it would be an easier sell because the infrastructure is already in place.

    Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021 […]

    Abbott signed an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this month authorizing Texas National Guard soldiers to make immigration arrests as long as they work in tandem with federal agents. Abbott clarified Thursday that the agreement means they have the same authority as any ICE or Border Patrol agents, including “apprehending, arresting, jailing, and going through the deportation process.” He added Department of Public Safety officers were also working with ICE, embedding with ICE agents in their operations in Texas.

    […] His office later clarified that DPS agents were not directly arresting migrants but were partaking in ICE operations by creating security perimeters, investigating and using drones to locate migrants that ICE is targeting.

    […] many migrants without criminal records have reportedly been deported. The White House has recently said that all migrants who crossed into the country illegally should be treated as criminals and deported. Abbott said he agrees with Homan, who said migrants without criminal records could be arrested when searching for migrants who do.

    […] The sharpest decline in border crossings was from December of 2023 to January of 2024, from over 300,000 encounters to about 176,000. Crossings continued to decline into June 2024, hovering around 100,000 encounters a month after then, according to the Department of Homeland Security. […]

  199. Bekenstein Bound says

    The Business Community Is Extraordinarily Stupid

    Shhh! Don’t tell Morales! He’ll have a conniption! :)

  201. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Article/Audio: Trump Official Destroying USAID secretly met with Christian nationalists abroad in defiance of U.S. policy (11:42)

    [Context: Bosnia is 50% Muslim with large minorities of Serb Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic Croats.]
    On a 2018 visit to the Balkans, [Peter Marocco] secretly met with […] ethnonationalist Bosnian Serb separatist leaders. Those politicians had been working for years to defy their nation’s constitution and undermine the American-backed peace deal in an effort to promote a Christian Bosnian Serb state.
    […]
    After the State Department, the Trump administration sent Marocco to a senior post at [USAID], where he attempted to delay or halt dozens of programs—including those that benefited Bosnia and Herzegovina’s unified government—and reinvent the agency […] overtly militaristic and Christian nationalist. The complaints about Marocco alarmed agency leaders so much that they significantly curtailed his duties
    […]
    Marocco is now the director for foreign assistance at the State Department and has been delegated the power of deputy administrator of USAID—helping lead the two agencies that previously rejected him. And unlike last time, Marocco is now without strictures and answers to few […] Marocco drafted the order shutting down all of USAID’s programs and freezing foreign aid. He’s led the efforts to place nearly all of the agency’s staff on administrative leave
    […]
    seen inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, according to footage […] He was not charged with a crime
    […]
    Experts in and outside government now consider Marocco to be orchestrating the new Trump administration’s foreign aid policy largely by himself.

  202. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rick Perlstein (Historian of US conservatism):

    This is from a friend [emailing their senator].

    [I’m a] former FAA air traffic controller (26 years) and current Airline Transport rated commercial pilot.

    On Friday, hundreds of FAA technicians and engineers were terminated. […] They were identified as “probationary” and there is a reasonable speculation that AI was used to “find” probationary employees, assuming that meant that they were new hires. That is not an accurate assumption.

    A newly hired federal employee is probationary and may be subject to at will termination, but the term “probationary” is also applied to promotions […] if the promotion or transfer is not successful, the employee would return to the pre-promotion position. That allows the government to retain needed expertise. However, even that is not the case in these positions as workers were indeed succeeding in their new roles.

    FAA technicians undergo years of specialized training to maintain mission critical systems and cannot be replaced quickly. […] Once our aviation safety infrastructure is compromised, it will take decades to bring it back. Money will not be saved and lives may be lost.

  204. says

    Sky Captain @201 and 202, the number of dangerous errors Musk’s minions continue to make is just astounding. And, the number of Musk’s minions who have been caught cozying up to wannabe Nazis and Christian Nationalist (or other rightwing whackos) is equally astounding.

    The picture is clear if you put all the puzzle pieces together.

  205. says

    “Trump is unfairly detaining immigrants at Guantanamo as terrorists, families say,” by by Perla Trevizo and Mica Rosenberg, for ProPublica and Texas Tribune

    ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have identified nearly a dozen immigrants who have been flown to Guantanamo Bay. Government officials have refused to release the names of detainees or provide details about the crimes that landed them in detention.

    The military planes departed from Texas in quick succession, eight flights in as many days. Each one carried more than a dozen immigrants that the U.S. alleged are the “worst of the worst” kinds of criminals, including members of a violent Venezuelan street gang.

    Since Feb. 4, the Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrant detainees to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a facility better known for having held those suspected of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Officials have widely touted the flights as a demonstration of […] Trump’s commitment to one of the central promises of his campaign, and they’ve distributed photos of some of the immigrants at both takeoff and landing. But they have not released the names of those they’re holding or provided details about their alleged crimes.

    In recent days, however, information about the flights and the people on them has emerged that calls the government’s narrative into question. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have identified nearly a dozen Venezuelan immigrants who have been transferred to Guantanamo. The New York Times published a larger list with some, but not all, of the same names. [Embedded links are available at the main link.]

    For three of the Guantanamo detainees who had been held at an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, ProPublica and the Tribune obtained records about their criminal histories and spoke to their families. The three men are all Venezuelan. Each had been detained by immigration authorities soon after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and was being held in custody, awaiting deportation. In some cases, they had been languishing for months because Venezuela, until recently, was largely not accepting deportees. According to U.S. federal court records, two of them had no crimes on their records except for illegal entry. The third had picked up an additional charge while in detention, for kicking an officer while being restrained during a riot.

    Relatives of the three men said in interviews on Tuesday that they have been left entirely in the dark about their loved ones. They all said that their relatives were not criminals, and two provided records from the Venezuelan Interior Ministry and other documents to support their statements. They said the U.S. government has given them neither information about the detainees’ whereabouts nor the ability to speak with them.

    Attorneys say they have also been denied access. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, arguing that the U.S. Constitution gives the detainees rights to legal representation that shouldn’t be stripped away just because they have been moved to Guantanamo.

    […] [snipped details of some personal stories, and reactions of family members]

    […] In response to questions about the Guantanamo detentions, officials at the Department of Homeland Security insisted, without pointing to any evidence, that some — but not all — of the immigrants they have transferred to Guantanamo are violent gang members and others are “high-threat” criminals. “All these individuals committed a crime by entering the United States illegally,” an agency official said in a statement. Some detainees are being held in Guantanamo’s maximum-security prison while others are in the Migrant Operations Center that in the past has been used to house those intercepted at sea.

    DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, responding to the ACLU lawsuit, said in an email that there was a phone system that detainees could use to reach attorneys. Writing in all caps for emphasis, she added, “If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murders & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name.”

    […] Among the things law enforcement has used to identify members of the group have been certain tattoos, including stars, roses and crowns, though there’s disagreement on whether the practice is reliable. Lawyers have expressed concern that the government sometimes uses national security concerns as a pretext to avoid scrutiny.

    The Guantanamo detentions may be among the highest-profile moves the Trump administration has made as part of its mass deportation campaign, but federal agents have also fanned out across the country over the last several weeks to conduct raids in neighborhoods and workplaces. Data obtained by ProPublica and the Tribune shows that from Jan. 20 through the first days of February, there have been at least 14,000 immigration arrests. Around 44% of them were of people with criminal convictions, and of those, close to half were convicted of misdemeanors. Still, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has said that he’s not satisfied with the pace of enforcement.

    Government data obtained by the news organizations shows that the Trump administration has averaged about 500 deportations per day, well short of the more than 2,100 per day during the 2024 fiscal year under former President Joe Biden. However, the difference could be attributed to lower numbers of border crossings, which have been dropping since last year.

    Trump directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security last month to prepare 30,000 beds at Guantanamo and later said the site was for “criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”

    […] Palma said in Spanish of her brother. “Having tattoos is not a sin.”

    Palma, who is currently living in Ecuador, said her brother left Venezuela years ago, first living for a time in Ecuador and then in Costa Rica. He decided to try his luck in the United States last year, crossing with a group that included his wife and cousin, who were soon released into the U.S. to pursue asylum claims, they both said in interviews. All three women said Simancas was proud of his work on construction sites and shared TikTok videos he made showing the progress of some of his projects, set to music. Simancas called his cousin on Feb. 7 saying he was being taken to Guantanamo. “It is truly distressing,” his sister said. […]

    Duran’s father only learned of his son’s potential whereabouts after recognizing his face in a TikTok video with some of the images released by the U.S. government of men in gray sweats and shackles being led into military planes in El Paso.

    [snipped more personal stories and details]

    We are still reporting. Do you have information about the U.S. immigration system you want to share? You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201. Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can.

    DailyKos link to repost of ProPublica report.

  206. says

    Raw Story:

    Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on Sunday made what she called an “admission to MAGA” about immigrants taking jobs. […]

    “There’s an immigrant taking people’s jobs… his name is Elon Musk,” the lawmaker wrote. “He’s snatching farms, government jobs (even those in which they manage our national security), and definitely those whose jobs are to root out fraud (inspector generals), & those that are keeping us safe (FAA), meals on wheels workers, head start, and the list goes on, so I’ll be the bigger person and admit to MAGA that I was wrong when I said immigrants wouldn’t take our jobs. You were 1000 percent correct.”

  207. says

    Ukrainian forces have liberated the village of Pishchane in Donetsk Oblast, about 5 km south of Pokrovsk. Russian troops have also reportedly been pushed back from several nearby settlements. This is reported by spokesman for the Khortytsia Regional Administrative District Viktor Tregubov.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4aqzua5vsewimmusg66fyajl/post/3licbk3afdc23
    Map at the link.

    More good news from the area south of Pokrovsk. [….] Pokrovsk continues to be the most active area along the front.

    […] The General Staff reported that Russian troops stepped up their attacks on the battlefield significantly on 15 February, with 250 combat clashes as of 22:00. The largest number, 67, took place on the Pokrovsk front. The total number of assaults increased two and a half times compared to the previous day.

    […] Russia continues to burn through men and machines in an attempt to retake the Kursk area.

    […] First images of the destruction of the RF’s 155th Marine Brigade armored assault near #Nikiskii, #Kursk AO, earlier today. Note that the vehicles are flying the red soviet flag which is considered the “victory” flag.

    “Right now it’s just a complete mess near Nikolskoye. The 155th column, fucking hell, under red flags, like at a parade, went head-on into a swarm of Ukrainian drones along a mined road!!!! Don’t rub your eyes, we wrote everything correctly – precisely under the red flags of Victory…

    […] The 155th is also taking some heat for leaving the North Koreans high and dry.

    The Russians once again abandoned their North Korean allies. North Korean units and Russian Navy infantry staged a retreat from Nikolsky in the Kursk region, with 50-100 fighters leaving their positions. Z-channels blame the Russian 155th Brigade for mysteriously failing to provide support.

    […]

    Another state employee in #Russia, who just happened to oppose the war, also just happened to fall out of a window Artyom Primak, 44, from Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, who worked at #Khabarovsk city hall, died after “falling from the 9th floor” according to TASS.

    The Czech Republic steps up.

    🇨🇿🇺🇦 Czechia to continue initiative to supply artillery ammunition to Ukraine.
    Petr Pavel: “We have received enough resources from our allies to cover Ukraine’s needs until April 2025, and here at the conference I also held talks with allies to consider the possibility of providing more resources.”

    […] This loser was invited along with the Treasury Department team that visit Kyiv and tried to strong-arm Zelenskyy into signing away Ukraine’s mineral rights.

    Jack Posobiec said Bucha never happened, pushed the biolabs conspiracy and retweets Dugin. Trump has sent this man as part of his delegation to Ukraine. That’s all you need to know about the respect he has for Zelensky.

    Link

  209. John Morales says

    Yeah, Lynna. Details at link.

    “That turn toward international politics coincided with Musk’s first year owning X, formerly Twitter, a platform that not only allows him to sway public opinion globally but also exposes him to global disputes.”

    That was widely lambasted as an idiotic, money-losing, egoistic loss of face and money at the time.

    (Remember? Many posts about that right on this thread)

  210. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheConversation – Car brake dust can be more harmful than diesel exhaust

    Dust produced by wear of the road, tyres, and brakes, known as “non-exhaust emissions”, are now the major type of emissions from road transport, surpassing exhaust emissions […] brake dust is often the main contributor, but it’s not yet subject to regulation. […] We grew cells in the lab to mimic the lining of the lung, and exposed these cells
    […]
    interestingly, when we treated this brake dust with a chemical to neutralise copper, its toxic effects were diminished. […] Almost half of all copper in the air we breathe comes from brake and tyre wear.
    […]
    Unfortunately, while the switch to electric vehicles will eliminate exhaust emissions, […] because they tend to be heavier, electric vehicles can generate more non-exhaust dust than petrol or diesel vehicles
    […]
    Euro 7 emissions standards that will be introduced in November 2026 will place limits on brake dust emissions […] California and Washington have passed legislation to reduce copper content within brake pads, although this was primarily in response to concerns about the runoff of copper from brake dust into waterways, affecting aquatic life.

  211. birgerjohansson says

    I have not kept up with events.
    -Are Americans aware that the president has confused Gaza province, Mozambique, East Africa, with Gaza, Middle East?
    Biden’s administration apparently sent $ 59 million’s worth of condoms to Gaza, East Africa to curb the spread of HIV.
    The president went on TV claiming Biden had sent condoms for $ 50 million to Hamas, who are using them to make explosives.
    Two days later he repeated the claim, but now it was $ 100 millions.
    Are the mainstream media mentioning this at all?

  215. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 211

    Are the mainstream media mentioning this at all?

    Pfffft… No. Even if they did, it’s not as if the people will believe them. The “lie” of hard-earned America’ money being spent be sexually depraved liberals on behalf of “terrorists” is far more acceptable for the knuckle-dragging, willfully-illiterate masses.

  216. JM says

    Reuters: Judge calls rare hearing on a holiday in case against Musk’s DOGE

    A U.S. judge has scheduled a rare holiday court hearing on Monday, in a case brought by Democratic state attorneys general seeking to protect major federal agencies from Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting team known as DOGE.
    U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., on Sunday called the hearing for Monday, the Presidents Day holiday when federal courts are closed.

    There would be no reason to hear the case today unless Chutkan expected to issue an immediate order against Musk. If she thought it was up in the air it could at least afford to wait one day when the government is largely closed. The case in question is Democratic AGs asking for a pretty broad temporary restraining order preventing Dodge from accessing information at all from several important government departments.
    The issue at this point isn’t the ruling, it is what the judge is going to do to enforce it. The Trump administration has already violated a couple of orders and Trump is posting about how saving a country is never against the law. At some point a judge is going to have to step up and do something beyond asking the Trump administration from violating the law.

  217. says

    It’d be easier to the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda seriously if the White House weren’t moving quickly in the opposite direction.

    About a month after the 2024 elections, after Donald Trump announced plans to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a Cabinet post, a group of congressional Republicans had an idea. Five GOP senators — Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, Florida’s Rick Scott, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson — launched what they called the “MAHA Caucus.”

    The acronym, of course, stood for “Make America Healthy Again.”

    It wasn’t altogether clear that this Senate contingent would do, exactly, but the general idea was to champion the vision of the notorious conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist. (One member of the quintet, Kansas’ Marshall, was a medical doctor before getting into politics.)

    The Senate caucus will now apparently have a companion commission in the executive branch. NBC News reported on Kennedy and his new role chairing a new federal panel focused on addressing chronic disease.

    […] Trump established the commission Thursday with an executive order he issued just hours after the Senate confirmed Kennedy. The Make America Healthy Again Commission, as it’s called, will consist of several high-ranking federal officials, including the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    For now, let’s not dwell on the oddity of seeing someone lead a panel on addressing chronic ailments despite having no background whatsoever in science, medicine, health care, medical treatments, medical research, or policymaking at any level of government.

    Let’s instead consider why it’s difficult to take the “MAHA Commission” seriously.

    In the abstract, the idea behind the commission certainly seems worthwhile. Who would be opposed to making Americans healthier and assisting those with chronic diseases?

    The fine print, however, matters. Some of the language in the executive order creating the commission, for example, raised alarms among those on the lookout for an anti-vaccine agenda.

    What’s more, as The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell recently explained in a column, the policy agenda embraced by the Trump White House and congressional Republicans — which includes Medicaid cuts, cutting investments in nutritional programs, and dismantling environmental protections — would do little to make the public healthier. [True!]

    […] the public was confronted with a series of related reports, just from the past few days:
    – As the Trump administration fires scores of federal workers, among those who’ve been ousted are public-health officials, some of whom are responsible for emergency preparedness and response.
    – NBC News similarly reported on Team Trump ousting so-called “disease detectors”: officials at the Laboratory Leadership Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who work on supporting outbreak response efforts.
    – NBC News similarly reported that the White House has restricted communications that have hobbled public health officials’ response to a burgeoning bird-flu threat.

    Information from the CDC on influenza and H5N1 has been taken down from online resources without explanation.
    If administration officials wants to help make Americans healthy, perhaps they can stop taking steps in the opposite direction?

    Actions the Trump administration is taking will result in more people dying. That is not a formula for making American healthy again.

  219. says

    birger @211, about those condoms and the confusion about which Gaza:

    See: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2252830

    See: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-4/#comment-2253418
    Excerpt:

    […] And Russian media was like … ehhhhhhhhh, excellent Russian journalists cannot even with this one!

    RT News wrote that Alina Habba’s comment “leans on debunked claim USAID was sending $50m to embattled enclave for ‘bomb-making condoms.’” It added, “It was to Gaza in Africa.”

    And Julia Davis, Daily Beast reporter and prolific watchdog of the Russian state media, tweeted, “I’ve lived long enough to see RT fact check Alina Habba.” […]

    Even then RT doesn’t quite have it right, or at least elides its usual commitment to thorough factchecking. But saying “it was Gaza in Africa” is a piece of the truth about the origin story of this particular bullshit, if you are curious. There is a province in Mozambique called “Gaza” — kind of like how there is a Paris in Tennessee and a Rome in Georgia! — and it was the recipient of foreign aid, though “condoms” don’t actually appear in there, so the DOGE incels are either lying or they’re just ignorant.

    Forsooth, as the president of Refugees International explained on Twitter: [social media post at the link: “[…] $50m would be ONE BILLION condoms […]]

    But yes, if there is any sort of kernel of an origin for this, it is about the Gaza province of Mozambique:
    According to the HHS grants database, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Mozambique received more than $83m in funding since 2021 for reproductive health projects in two provinces: Inhambane and Gaza. […]

    See: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0krbdgz

    See: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5139292-usaaid-closure-impact-gaza/ “No, the US is not funding condoms for Hamas”

    See: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/29/politics/gaza-condoms-fact-check/index.html
    Fact check: $50 million for condoms in Gaza? Five big reasons to be skeptical Trump’s story is true

  220. says

    Farmers have earned a reputation as a reliable GOP voting bloc, which makes it all the more striking to see [Trump] undermining their interests.

    As the White House moves forward with plans for a broader trade war, there are reports that the European Commission is considering tough new restrictions on agricultural imports. As Reuters reported, Donald Trump was asked about the possibility, though he didn’t seem to care.

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday shrugged off the European Union’s reported push to block imports of U.S. soybeans and other foods made to different standards […] Trump, speaking to reporters after a quick trip to Daytona Beach for the Daytona 500 car race, said the U.S. was sticking to its plans to start implementing reciprocal tariffs.

    “That’s all right. I don’t mind,” Trump said. “Let them do it. Let them do it.” [video at the link]

    What the president did not acknowledge, of course, was that if EU limits agricultural imports from the United States, that would necessarily mean fewer consumers for American farmers.

    In isolation, that might not seem especially notable, but in the larger context, Trump and his White House team have made a variety of related moves that also undermine the interests of American farmers. The Washington Post reported last week, for example, on the millions of dollars in federal funding that the farmers were expecting but have not received.

    On his first day in office, President Donald Trump ordered the USDA to freeze funds for several programs designated by President Joe Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The freeze paused some funding for the department’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps farmers address natural resource concerns, and the Rural Energy for America Program, which provides financial assistance for farmers to improve their infrastructure.

    The Post’s report added that farmers “paid up front to build fencing, plant new crops and install renewable energy systems with guarantees that the federal government would issue grants and loan guarantees to cover at least part of their costs.” But when the Trump administration froze the funding, it left the farmers on the hook.

    The Post also published a separate report on the effects of the White House firing federal employees, some of whom worked specifically to benefit farmers.

    What’s more, the White House is trying to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and those efforts don’t just hurt vulnerable populations abroad. As a NOTUS report explained last week, “Over 40% of the food distributed through USAID programs is purchased from farmers in the U.S., amounting to about $2 billion per year.”

    Unfortunately, we can keep going: The White House’s anti-immigrant agenda is very likely to undermine the agricultural industry, which has long relied on migrant field workers, and the Trump administration’s haphazard approach to the burgeoning bird-flu threat is similarly poised to hurt, among others, farmers.

    It’s not exactly an electoral secret that the president and his party have fared well in rural areas in recent election cycles, and farmers have earned a reputation as a reliable GOP voting bloc. If Trump is aware of this, he appears uninterested in rewarding that political support. On the contrary, he and his team keep taking steps that will end up hurting farmers.

  222. birgerjohansson says

    A Different Bias: 
    “Reform UK Will Regret Talking About the Economy”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=HXRMPvhWyns

    Since the Tory newspapers work for a rival party, they will delight in reminding people Reform UK praised Trump’s economic  policies once they go bad.
    (Schadenfreude 😼☠️)

  223. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 220

    Farmers have earned a reputation as a reliable GOP voting bloc, which makes it all the more striking to see [Trump] undermining their interests.

    Oh please! They didn’t vote for Republicans due to their economic policies, but, like all backwoods hicks, for JEEZ-us, guns, and protecting the “white race” from the race-mixing, trans, Muslim commies.

  224. says

    Some Republicans have tried to defend the Justice Department’s alleged quid pro quo with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. It didn’t go well..

    The burgeoning controversy surrounding the Justice Department and New York City Mayor Eric Adams has one quality some of Donald Trump’s first-term scandals lacked: It’s incredibly simple.

    If the allegations raised by a former federal prosecutor are correct, the Trump administration effectively told a politician charged with corruption, “We’ll make your legal troubles go away if you play ball with us.” You don’t need a flow chart to understand the story. You don’t need a law degree to appreciate its significance.

    At issue is an alleged quid pro quo. The Democratic mayor was indicted; he wanted to get out of his legal mess; and so, according to the allegations, he, his lawyer, and a Trump appointee struck a backroom deal: Adams would help the White House on immigration policy, and in exchange, prosecutors would temporarily put aside put the felony charges. And while several key figures in the story have denied any wrongdoing, as controversies go, this one’s quite straightforward.

    What’s more, given that the controversy has led at least seven Justice Department officials to resign on principle, refusing to go along with the apparent agreement, it’s tough for partisans to pretend there’s nothing to the underlying story.

    […] as The Hill reported, some of the preliminary GOP lines are unusually weak.

    Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) on Sunday defended the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) order for federal prosecutors to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Well, I think the priority would be immigration,” Zinke said in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” when asked to explain why the order to drop charges is not an example of politicization at the DOJ in favor of President Trump.

    The Montana Republican — who served as a Cabinet secretary in Trump’s first term — went on to say, “The president looked at it, the priorities. He’s got to work with New York. He found a willing partner.” Zinke concluded, “Obviously, the Trump administration looked at it and said, ‘You know what? What’s more important right now is getting New York back to safety and getting the illegal immigration problem out of New York.’”

    So, Zinke’s defense was to effectively admit that the basic claims at the root of the controversy are true. Zinke’s argument, however, was rooted in the idea that Trump and his team were right to cut a backroom deal because undocumented immigrants in New York City are bad.

    On the other side of Capitol Hill, the reaction was, by some measures, worse. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a statement to HuffPost that the decision to drop the case against Adams was “evidence that President Trump feels Biden’s Justice Department was weaponizing itself against Mayor Adams, just like they used it against Trump.”

    This is the worst kind of partisanship: It’s just lazy.

    Indeed, the Iowa Republican — who ostensibly has a responsibility to take controversies surrounding federal law enforcement seriously — told overlapping falsehoods as part of his effort to pretend the Adams fiasco is unimportant. Grassley said the Biden-era Justice Department was “weaponized” (it wasn’t), and that prosecutors unfairly targeted Trump (they didn’t).

    What’s more, Grassley’s pitch was rooted in a baseless conspiracy theory — the Democratic administration was out to punish a Democratic mayor — that’s so wrong that even the Trump administration hasn’t peddled it. Similarly, the GOP senator’s claims have already been contradicted by prosecutors with sterling conservative credentials.

    In case that weren’t quite enough, both Zinke and Grassley appeared to concede that the president was directly involved in dismissing the charges against Adams, reinforcing the impression that there was direct political interference in the case that was in the hands of prosecutors.

    Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, added fresh weight to the allegations on Friday morning, appearing on Fox News alongside Adams. “If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said, pointing to the mayor, “I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” (Despite referring to an “agreement” with Adams, Homan later said it was “ridiculous” to allege a quid pro quo.)

  225. says

    Vance adds to the White House’s list of avoidable international incidents. Related video at the link.

    “It took generations of work to establish the foundations of the Western alliance, and Team Trump appears eager to take a sledgehammer to those foundations.”

    Donald Trump’s first term as president strained relations between the United States and our longtime allies, especially in Europe, and some of the reactions in Germany helped capture the severity of the circumstances.

    The European edition of Politico published a report in 2018, for example, that said, “It’s difficult to overstate just how enraged Germany is about Trump. By questioning and criticizing such bastions of the Western order as NATO, the World Trade Organization and even the EU, Trump has thrust Germany’s leadership into an existential torpor it has yet to escape.”

    Around the same time, a senior German official told The New Yorker’ Susan Glasser, “It took Germany the longest of all partners to come to terms with someone like Trump becoming president. We were very emotional, because our relationship with America is so emotional — it’s more of a son-father relationship — and we didn’t recognize our father anymore and realized he might beat us.”

    Seven years later, conditions appear considerably worse. Take this New York Times report from Saturday, for example.

    Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on Saturday accused Vice President JD Vance of unacceptably interfering in his country’s imminent elections on behalf of a party that has played down the atrocities committed by the Nazis 80 years ago. A day after Mr. Vance stunned the Munich Security Conference by telling German leaders to drop their so-called firewall and allow the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to enter their federal government, Mr. Scholz accused Mr. Vance of effectively violating a commitment to never again allow Germany to be led by fascists who could repeat the horrors of the Holocaust.

    The new American vice president made quite an impression during his appearance in Munich, lecturing our ostensible allies about democracy and democratic principles, downplaying the importance of threats from authoritarian powers, raising fresh doubts about U.S. support for Ukraine, and even cozying up to Germany’s right-wing AfD — a political party that’s monitored by the country’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism.

    Predictably, Trump publicly endorsed Vance’s remarks soon after.

    The intensity of the related diplomatic shockwave is still being measured. NBC News reported, “The past week has left America’s European allies reeling and searching for alternatives after the Trump administration seemingly set itself in opposition to a rules-based system that the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic friends have spent decades building together.”

    A New York Times reported that an “epochal breach appears to be opening in the Western alliance.”

    To be sure, this was hardly the new Republican administration’s first international incident. On the contrary, the last four weeks have featured one such incident after another, with avoidable incidents related to Ukraine, Gaza, Colombia, Canada, Greenland, and even Taiwan — which did not go unnoticed in Beijing.

    But by forcing new divisions between the United States and our Western allies, the scope of Trump’s damage is difficult to overstate. It took generations of arduous and bipartisan work to establish the foundations of the Western alliance, and the Republican appears eager to take a sledgehammer to those foundations for reasons he’s struggled to explain.

    The only apparent beneficiary of such a foreign policy is Vladimir Putin’s Russia — which Trump has been eager to reward, and which has long dreamed of a White House willing to break with the United States’ traditional European allies.

  226. birgerjohansson says

    A Different Bias: 
    “Tories Starting to Turn on Trump”
    (I am deliberately leaving the window open so you can read the headline)

  227. birgerjohansson says

    Dang! Not a good image.
    The text is “Anderson told to take Musk’s dick out of his mouth by tory MP.”
    Anderson is an asshole who defected from the conservatives to the even worse Reform UK. He naturally supports Musk and Trump as they betray Ukraine.

  228. says

    JFC.

    Republican bill would make Trump’s birthday a federal holiday

    Adding to the list of similarly sycophantic efforts, a GOP congresswoman unveiled an actual bill to make Donald Trump’s birthday a federal holiday.

    […] In case there are any doubts, this isn’t intended as satire. The New York Republican [Rep. Claudia Tenney] really did introduce an actual bill, H.R. 1395, which does not yet have any cosponsors, though it seems safe to assume other far-right GOP lawmakers will soon follow suit.

    By way of an explanation, Tenney issued a press statement saying that her proposal has merit because, as she put it, “No modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump. As both our 45th and 47th President, he is the most consequential President in modern American history.” The GOP congresswoman, in apparent seriousness, added that recognizing Trump’s birthday as a federal holiday would “recognize him as the founder of America’s Golden Age.”

    To be sure, it’s tempting to ignore this silly legislative effort, which will almost certainly go ignored, but there’s a larger pattern that’s worth appreciating.

    After all, Tenney’s bill comes on the heels of a bill intended to carve Trump’s face into Mount Rushmore, which came on the heels of another measure to allow Trump to seek a third term.

    There are also pending bills to rename Dulles Airport after Trump — an effort, incidentally, that Tenney has also endorsed — as well as legislation to “expunge” Trump’s first two impeachments.

    In the last Congress, a Republican pushed a bill to put Trump’s face on $500 bills, and while the effort hasn’t yet been reintroduced in the current Congress, it’s probably only a matter of time.

    As The New York Times recently summarized, “A competition of sorts has broken out for whom the Republican base will see as the most pro-Trump member.” From the article:

    The rush of flattering legislation, some of which even the lawmakers concede is unlikely to pass, stands apart from merely carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda. … “It shows the power that Donald Trump has within the Republican Party these days, and that Republican members want to stay on his good side,” said Sean M. Theriault, government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. […]

    This was published before a New York congresswoman pushed her proposal to make Trump’s birthday a federal holiday.

    I’m reminded anew of the response to the Ogles bill from Filipe Campante, a professor at Johns Hopkins University: “The reason why this is bad is the very fact that it’s transparently ridiculous: It shows how this is becoming a Kim Jong-Un-style cult of personality, where the sycophants try to outdo one another in their groveling to get the attention of Dear Leader.”

    That competition, alas, appears likely to get more intense.

  230. says

    Followup to comment 208.

    […] Only the Wall Street Journal dedicated feature-length coverage to Musk and Altman’s battle to control the future of America’s AI industry, and would you believe they fumbled the ball completely? Instead of digging into the huge power Musk would amass by controlling OpenAI and its main product, ChatGPT, the Journal instead focused on the high drama of two rich dudes at war. The media can’t help but turn a fight over the future of American information security into one more piece of vapid horse race coverage.

    Musk’s acquisition of OpenAI would make him undeniably the most powerful tech tycoon in the world. More importantly for Musk’s aims, it would also put him in charge of the world’s largest and best-funded generative AI platform at a time when disinformation and misinformation are major threats—and judging by Musk’s own Grok AI platform, priority No. 1 would involve shifting ChatGPT’s ideology sharply to the right and filling it with pro-Republican training data.

    A healthy democracy could depend on federal regulators to investigate any potential sale of OpenAI to Musk. That’s not the case in this hollowed-out Trump administration, where Alex Samuels reports that Musk has amassed even more control of federal policymaking. Without safeguards like the Federal Trade Commission to keep Musk from using federal influence to bully his rivals into selling their businesses, it’s anyone’s guess who owns OpenAI by this time next year. If it’s Musk, get ready for a tidal wave of disinformation crashing onto Americans’ screens just in time for the 2026 midterms. Yeesh.

    Link

  232. says

    cross-posted from paddington: Happy ‘American Emperor’s day’, everyone, as proclaimed by the two emperors themselves! /I’m choking on sardonic sarcasm

  233. says

    Republicans Once More Fixin’ To Let Babies Go Hungry, But In America This Time

    As they try to agree on a plan that will cut enough services out of the federal budget to cover at least some of the massive costs of extending Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the already obscenely rich, Republicans are again considering letting children in low-income families go hungry so that billionaires can profit. Republicans aren’t saying that upfront, of course, and the policy they’re kicking around doesn’t even make explicit mention of cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC.

    As Salon’s food editor Ashlie D. Stevens explains, it’s a very tricksy way to take food away from hungry children without actually cutting the budget for WIC. Instead, [they] are looking at making changes to two other safety net programs, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps.

    Currently, a process called “adjunctive eligibility” means that families can qualify for WIC if they’re enrolled in separate programs that are based on family income, like SNAP or Medicaid. You meet the income requirements for either of those, and you can sign up for WIC, because the income rules are roughly the same. Saves families headaches, and saves the federal government the cost and processing hassle of doing redundant paperwork.

    But Republicans want to save some money for billionaires by tightening eligibility for SNAP and Medicaid, and that would mean fewer families could use the shortcut for WIC. They’d need to submit a separate application, and whenever benefits get harder to qualify for, fewer people bother, and fewer get the benefits they’d otherwise qualify for.

    That’s the idea, of course, because Republicans are scum who like throwing up arbitrary barriers to poor people getting help even when they’re eligible for it.

    At the risk of causing your eyes to roll right out of their sockets, we must throw another abbreviation at you, but this one is essential to understanding what these creeps want to do. Republicans are discussing eliminating “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE)” in the SNAP program. That’s a provision that lets states provide SNAP benefits more widely by extending eligibility for the program to folks whose family income is just a little bit above the federal income threshold. BBCE gives families the ability to keep receiving SNAP — never a princely sum anyway — if they work a few more hours or otherwise go a tiny bit over the income limit. And remember, qualifying for SNAP also qualifies them for WIC under adjunctive eligibility […]

    A policy brief from the National WIC Association estimates that if BBCE were ended, it would toss 3.1 million people off SNAP. As a knock-on effect, Stevens notes,

    Given that 11.6% of SNAP recipients are preschool-aged children, this could mean that at least 359,600 infants and young children would lose their automatic WIC eligibility.

    Isn’t that a neat trick? Sure, some families would jump through the hoops to apply separately for WIC, but many wouldn’t.

    Now, Trump pushed to eliminate BBCE once before, back in 2019, although the change never went through. This time out, Republicans may be hoping nobody will notice one more slap in the faces of poor kids if they jam it into their big reconciliation bill among a lot of bigger, sexier awfulness.

    On top of changes to SNAP, the Big Bill will almost certainly make Medicaid more difficult to qualify for, especially if some Republicans achieve their dream of repealing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Since 80 percent of participants in WIC get their healthcare through Medicaid, making Medicaid harder to sign up for would — adjunctive eligibility again! — reduce the number of folks who automatically qualify for WIC, even if they still can get it by applying separately.

    Jesus Christ on a gyro-stabilized electric unicycle, you can already hear Republicans saying “well if they’re too lazy to do a little extra paperwork, maybe their kids aren’t all that hungry, now are they?”

    Mind you, SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC are only three of many safety net programs that Republicans are eyeing for cuts in their Big Billionaire Boosting Bill. All told, as this depressing brief from First Focus on Children details, Republicans are looking at a staggering menu of cuts to programs that help poor kids, which combined will drive more and more kids into poverty. And that’s sure to have terrible long-term costs for America that won’t simply be a matter of dollars and cents. [Additional embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    Child poverty is not just a policy decision — it is an economic liability. When children grow up in poverty, they are more likely to experience poor health, struggle in school, and require government assistance as adults. The costs associated with child poverty in the United States are staggering, estimated at up to $1.1 trillion annually in lost productivity, increased health care spending, and higher crime rates, according to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

    Republicans, of course, will explain that if people don’t want those problems, they should work harder and not be poor.

    […] Republicans always insist that big tax cuts help everyone, even though the reality is that they mostly help the already very wealthy become more obscenely wealthy. But hooray, megacorporations will be able to do stock buybacks, improving shareholder value very far away from those hungry kids and their annoying crying.

    The great part is that the people who write the changes into law, and the people who benefit, won’t ever meet the people who get hurt […]

  234. birgerjohansson says

    Lynna@ 219
    Myself @ 211
    “Fact-checking Elon Musk’s claims in the Oval Office – BBC News”
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyjz24ne85o
    .
    The Gaza province of Mozambique and Elon Musk: There are not even any condoms!
    The eejits read “HIV prevention” and thought “condoms”. They read “Gaza province” and thought “Middle East”.
    As team Musk passed the claim to Trump’s staff no one on either side bothered to check the facts before the predident went on TV to repeat the claim. This is the state of the administration of USA.
    .
    Gaza Province 
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Province

  235. Reginald Selkirk says

    @228

    There are also pending bills to rename Dulles Airport after Trump…

    So they want to call it Dullard Airport ‽

  237. says

    At least 10 dead in the Southeast after flooding and heavy rains

    “Storms battered parts of the eastern United States, with nine deaths in Kentucky and one in Georgia.”

    A powerful storm has killed at least 10 people as it batters parts of the eastern United States, prompting flash flood warnings in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee this weekend.

    “We are seeing dangerous and life-threatening conditions across the state, and things are only going to get tougher due to widespread flooding and incoming weather,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in a statement Sunday afternoon.

    The governor’s office said the confirmed deaths in Kentucky occurred across multiple counties: There were vehicle-related deaths of men in Hart and Nelson counties and floodwater-related deaths of a man in Clay County, a woman and a child in Hart County, two men in Pike County and a woman in Washington County. Beshear posted on social media later in the evening that another death had been confirmed in Pike County, bringing the state’s total to nine. [video at the link]

    Beshear said President Donald Trump approved an emergency disaster declaration for Kentucky, which makes federal funding available. [Hypocritical Trump]

    […] Before the storms, Trump launched a review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said last week that she would recommend that the president “get rid of FEMA the way it exists today.” She proposed allowing local officials to have more say about how federal aid is used after disasters. […]

  238. says

    Israeli forces to remain in five locations in southern Lebanon after removal deadline

    “Lebanon’s government has opposed any further delay in the Israeli pullout under the ceasefire agreement that ended fighting with the Hezbollah militant group.”

    Israeli forces will remain in five strategic locations in southern Lebanon near the border after Tuesday’s deadline for their full withdrawal, an Israeli official said Monday.

    The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

    Lebanon’s government has opposed any further delay in the Israeli pullout under the ceasefire agreement that ended fighting with the Hezbollah militant group. There was no immediate comment from Lebanese or Hezbollah officials. Earlier on Monday, an Israeli strike in Lebanon killed a senior Hamas leader.

    The news came as Israelis were marking the 500th day since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which ignited the war in the Gaza Strip and rippled across the region, eventually setting off a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah. [related video at the link]

    […] Peace Now, which favors a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of pressing ahead with settlement construction while dozens of hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack languish in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

    “The Netanyahu government is operating ‘on steroids’ to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise,” it said in a statement.

    […] The original withdrawal deadline was in late January, but under pressure from Israel, Lebanon agreed to extend it to Feb. 18. It remains unclear whether Israeli troops will complete their withdrawal by Tuesday.

    Since the ceasefire, Israel has continued airstrikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, saying it is targeting military sites containing missiles and combat equipment. Each side has accused the other of violating the truce.

    More at the link.

  239. says

    RFK Jr. guts health agencies even as measles cases surge in Texas

    Recently confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly laying off nearly half of the public health workforce, which handles responding to emergencies like the measles outbreak unfolding in Texas.

    Employees at the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a vaunted training program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are among the nearly 1,300 health workers being terminated. The EIS focuses on investigating disease outbreaks both domestically and internationally.

    “This will destroy the EIS, which is one of the absolute crown jewels of global public health,” Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, told State news.

    Along with firings at the National Institutes of Health, Politico estimates that RFK Jr., DOGE Chair Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump have targeted at least 3,600 federal health workers in a downsizing effort of administrative infrastructure. [That’s not a “downsizing effort.” It is destruction.] […]

    “This is absolutely tragic,” one CDC employee told NPR. “If we lose these people, we lose important capacity and in a very real sense we lose our CDC future.”

    “The country is less safe,” former top-ranking CDC official Anne Schuchat told CBS. “These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika.”

    Meanwhile, Texas is experiencing one of its worst measles outbreaks in decades. The number of confirmed cases, which started in the state’s under-vaccinated Gaines County, has routinely doubled—reaching 48 on Friday. [Map of measles outbreak]

    The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas health officials fear that 200 to 300 people have already been infected.

    “HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking action to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government. This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard,” HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said in a statement to NPR. [Propaganda]

    The dismantling of public health under the Trump administration continues as the United States also faces an ongoing avian flu outbreak, affecting livestock across the country and resulting in egg shortages and skyrocketing prices.

    But don’t worry, without a public health or disease control apparatus, Trump’s team has a solution: “A better, smarter, perimeter.”

    On Sunday, Kevin Hassett, Trump’s former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that “what we need to do is have better ways with bio-security and medication and so on to make sure that the perimeter doesn’t have to kill the chickens. To have a better, smarter, perimeter … they’re killing chickens to stop the spread, but chickens don’t really fly.” [social media post and video at the link]

    Hassett, who referred to Americans as “our human capital stock” during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, blamed the Biden administration for killing chickens infected with the avian flu.

    His fix for public health issues seems to be creating a magic “perimeter” while killing all of the wild ducks and geese in the United States. Between that and RFK Jr.’s mass public health layoffs, what could possibly go wrong?

  240. birgerjohansson says

    A Different Bias:
    “Former Prime Minister
    John Major Attacks Free Speech Hypocrisy”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=Jlf4euOpp6s

    Hell just froze over. A leading tory said something that was both true and important.
    *It was 30 years since he was in power. The moral quality of tories have gone even worse since then.

  242. Reginald Selkirk says

    Who Invented the Ball Bearing?

    …
    Ancient Roman Innovation: The Earliest Ball Bearing Example
    Before delving into Leonardo da Vinci’s pivotal sketches, it’s essential to acknowledge an earlier instance of ball bearing usage. The earliest known example dates back to around 40 AD, discovered in a Roman shipwreck in an Italian lake. This ancient device, a rudimentary form of ball bearing, was part of a revolving table. It featured balls placed beneath the table surface, presumably to facilitate the rotation of the table, allowing diners to easily access different foods…

    An in-depth analysis of da Vinci’s sketches reveals a remarkable similarity to contemporary ball bearing structures. Notably, his conceptualization of a ‘cage’ to maintain the position and uniform distribution of the balls within the bearing assembly was a groundbreaking idea, demonstrating his foresight into the dynamics of friction and load distribution…

    A landmark in the history of ball bearings was the patent granted to Philip Vaughan in 1794. Vaughan, a Welsh inventor, conceptualized a design that laid the foundation for modern ball bearing technology. His design featured balls running along a groove in an axle assembly, a significant leap from earlier friction-reducing methods. This patent is often hailed as the first modern design of the ball bearing, marking a pivotal moment in the evolution of this crucial mechanical component…

  244. Reginald Selkirk says

    Plane crashes, overturns during landing at Toronto’s Pearson airport

    A plane crashed and flipped on its back at Toronto’s Pearson airport Monday afternoon, injuring at least 15 passengers and closing down the airport’s runways.

    Pearson airport’s runways are now closed until at least Tuesday, according to a notice to aviation officials.

    The airport didn’t immediately provide further information on the nature of the emergency, but a photo submitted to CBC from a passenger shows a plane flipped on its back.

    All passengers and crew are accounted for, the airport said in a post to X just before 3 p.m.

    Peel Region paramedics told Radio-Canada that 15 passengers in total were hurt, after initially saying they believed eight had been injured…

    A superintendent with the Peel Region paramedic service says all of the other roughly 80 passengers and crew are accounted for and not believed to be injured at this time…

    The Delta Air Lines plane, a Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR, has capacity for 95 seats and was built by Bombardier Inc., according to an aircraft registration posted on FlightAware, an online flight tracking platform. It has been registered to Delta Airlines since January 2010, according to the website.

    In an online update posted Monday afternoon, Delta Air Lines said it was aware of the crash involving flight 4819, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air…

    Fuckety, does the CBC have no competent journalists? I had to Google to find that flight originated in Minneapolis-St. Paul. On closer search of the article, the Minneapolis origin is mentioned once, in a photo caption.

  245. Reginald Selkirk says

    Police arrest apparent leader of Zizian group tied to killing of U.S. border agent near Canada

    The apparent leader of the Zizians has been arrested in Maryland along with another member of the radical online group, Maryland State Police said Monday.

    Jack Lasota, 34, was arrested Sunday along with Michelle Zajko, 33, of Media, Pa. They face multiple charges, including trespassing, obstructing and hindering, and possession of a handgun in the vehicle…

    The Zizians, who’ve been referred to as cult like, have been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent David Maland near the Canadian border on Jan. 20 and five other homicides in Vermont, Pennsylvania and California…

  247. Reginald Selkirk says

    January 6 Insurrectionists Take Trump Pardons to Horrifying Level

    Recently released January 6, 2021 insurrectionists are trying to argue that their presidential pardons should apply to separate crimes they were charged with while they were being investigated for storming the Capitol, The Wall Street Journal reports.

    Edward Kelley, who was pardoned after assaulting police at the Capitol, is also hoping to overturn a conviction for conspiring to murder FBI agents who investigated him, forming a “kill list.” He allegedly planned to use drones to bomb the FBI’s Knoxville, Tennessee, branch, and thinks that conviction should be thrown out.

    “In this instance, there can be no dispute that Kelley’s case in this court is related to the events of January 6th and is covered by the President’s executive action,” his lawyer Mark Brown wrote in a motion on January 27.

    Fellow rioter Andrew Taake, who served six months in prison for spraying officers at the Capitol with bear spray, was released from prison on January 27 even though he still had outstanding charges for solicitation of a minor in 2016. It took Houston police more than a week to track him down.

    The lawyer for David Daniel, who is facing child pornography charges, stated that “pretty much all” of the evidence of his client’s pornography crimes stemmed from Daniel’s house being raided due to his January 6 involvement, which, the attorney argues, means those charges should be null and void since he was pardoned for his actions on January 6 four years ago…

  248. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jewish man mistakes two Israeli tourists for Palestinians and opens fire on them in Miami

    A Jewish man in Miami Beach is facing charges of attempted murder following accusations that he opened fire on two men he believed were Palestinians but reportedly turned out to be Israeli visitors.

    According to arrest documents, at 9.30pm on Saturday surveillance video appeared to show Mordechai Brafman, 27, getting out of his truck and opening fire with a semiautomatic handgun at a vehicle as it passed. Brafman allegedly fired 17 times, striking one victim in the left shoulder and grazing the other’s left forearm.

    While in custody, Brafman spontaneously told detectives that while he was driving his truck, “he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both”, arrest documents said.

    Law enforcement officials did not confirm if the victims were in fact Palestinians and the Miami Herald reported that they were actually two vacationing Israelis, naming them as Ari Rabey and his father…

  249. says

    Protests are set to take place on Monday across the country to make it known that this President’s Day, Americans are pissed at President Donald Trump and unelected co-president Elon Musk’s power grab of democracy.

    The demonstrations, called “No Kings on Presidents Day” or “No Kings Day,” are led by 50501, an online grassroots activist group that started on Reddit. The group initially stood for “50 protests, 50 states, one day,” but it has morphed into “50 protests, 50 states, one movement.”

    The No Kings Day protest was the group’s ​​second wave of anti-Trump and Musk demonstrations. The first nationwide protests ​​took place on Feb. 5 across state capitols. The movement focused on the White House’s dismantling of government agencies and threatened prosecution for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. It explicitly targets Musk’s hostile takeover of sensitive personal data in the U.S. government.

    This time, 50501 partnered with Political Revolution to list nearly 80 events on its website. This allowed users to find a protest happening near them to attend. The group is a “leaderless” movement, which encourages others to create their own activist groups in their circles.

    According to a press release, 50501 states that the coalition was created to demand “justice,” “transparency,” and “accountability” to “uphold the Constitution” and end Trump and Musk’s “executive overreach.”

    Videos of protests began trickling in on social media on Monday. website. This allowed users to find a protest happening near them to attend. The group is a “leaderless” movement, which encourages others to create their own activist groups in their circles.
    [snipped details … video and photos are available at the link]

    Protests will take place at multiple state capitols and city halls throughout the day, including on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Multiple events are also scheduled across Washington state and California.

    This comes as another group of protesters targeted Tesla dealerships over the weekend. Musk’s Tesla sales have been in an unprecedented decline since he got on the right-wing political scene in support of MAGA.

    Ever the classy man, Trump announced his own President’s Day celebration by posting his mugshot—the same one he now keeps outside the Oval Office—and presidential photograph on Monday using the official White House Instagram account.

    […] Presidents Day was created in the 1880s to celebrate the birthday of President George Washington, but in Trump’s second term, it’s shaping up to be a day of resistance.

    “We stand firm at a critical moment in history, demanding that the American people be heard and that the White House be governed by the true will of the people—not by a tech billionaire who seeks to buy influence and control,” the group said in a press release.

    Link

  250. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/germany-tries-to-explain-history

    “Germany Tries To Explain History To Vice President [Vance]”

    What a great first overseas trip for American Reichsleiter — excuse us, American Vice President — JD Vance, the feral ignoramus the American people in their wisdom have chosen to put one 78-year-old heartbeat away from the world’s most powerful office. Well, second-most, next to whatever office Elon Musk occupies in the White House.

    We wrote the other day about Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany last week, when he excoriated European leaders for not listening to the Trump Nazis and white nationalists in their midst, while also whining that he had for going on a decade had to listen to the grating voice of Greta Thunberg and her crusade to try and keep Earth habitable for his children […]

    The speech drew a rebuke from Germany’s defense minister, engendered a lot of stunned talk at whatever cocktail parties were being held around Munich, and oh yeah, went a long way towards upending the post-World War II era of liberal democracy. It was a nice 80 years! Or at least a relatively nuclear-holocaust-free 80 years, which we personally appreciated. (And now European leaders are spending their Monday holding an emergency summit on confronting a future without an ally called “America.”)

    Vance followed up his idiot-bull-in-a-china-shop routine by snubbing a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the elected leader of the country, in favor of a get-together with Alice Weidel, leader of the neo-Nazi-adjacent Alternative for Germany party (AfD). In his own speech on Saturday, Scholz basically told the young whippersnapper to fuck all the way off, though he said it much more diplomatically.

    Here’s a little flavor from The New York Times:

    Mr. Scholz said the AfD had trivialized Nazi atrocities like the concentration camp at Dachau, which Mr. Vance visited on Friday. The chancellor said Germany “would not accept” suggestions from outsiders about how to run its democracy — or directives to work with such a party.

    “That is not done, certainly not among friends and allies,” Mr. Scholz said.

    Scholz also told his audience that the concept of “never again” and the AfD are not compatible, and that “this ‘never again’ is the historical mission that Germany as a free democracy must and wants to continue to live up to every day. Never again fascism, never again racism, never again war of aggression.”

    […] Elsewhere in the Times, one of its reporters ran down some facts that Vance missed. Such as that while the AfD is sitting at about 20 percent in the polls for this week’s parliamentary elections, no other party in Germany will consider forming a coalition with it for reasons that are obvious to everyone except current American leadership:

    German intelligence agencies have classified parts of the AfD as extremist. Members have been arrested in connection with multiple plots to overthrow the government. […]

    Decades of German law and political practice have revolved around the belief that to prevent another Hitler from coming to power, the government must ban hate speech and shun political parties deemed extreme.

    This way of thinking upsets Vance, who thinks of far-right voters as simply disaffected voices that people should listen to. That we have perhaps listened to them, found them to be a bunch of unappeasable bigoted shitheads whose views are harmful to a democratic society, and understand shunning them is also an exercise in free speech apparently never occurred to him.

    On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to defend Vance’s horseshit on “Face the Nation,” which he beamed into from somewhere overseas in what looked like a hostage video. […]

    “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan summarized Vance’s week and then asked Rubio what the vice president had accomplished “other than irritating our allies,” which is about as confrontational a question as we might have ever heard Brennan ask.

    Rubio replied:

    “Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies. The Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions.

    “And so, I think if anyone’s angry about his words, they don’t have to agree with him, but to be angry about it, I think actually makes his point.

    But see, Li’l Marco, that’s part of free speech. Vance is allowed to offer his opinion that Germany isn’t listening enough to the residual Nazi wing of its society, and Germans are allowed to respond with, Holy hell, […] There are several million reasons you might have heard about why Germany has laws against hate speech and has banned political parties deemed too extreme. You just visited Dachau the other day, did you get the mistaken impression it was some sort of day spa, or that we keep it around as a monument to German ingenuity? What is wrong with you […]

    Typical conservatives, they want all the benefits of free speech for themselves without the unavoidable fact that people might get pretty pissed at what they are saying. [True!]]

    What we would tell Rubio is that other nations might get less irritated if Vance speaks to them in a less condescending and more diplomatic manner […]

    Brennan also tried to explain to Rubio that Vance was standing in a country that had once weaponized free speech “to conduct a genocide.” Therefore, maybe there was some context for German speech laws and reactions that both men were forgetting about.

    Rubio, naturally, answered in a way reminding everyone that he used to play football and probably got hit in the head a lot:

    “Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they- they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition.”

    Holy hell, man, read a book. Do you think the Nazis sprung up fully formed at Germany’s founding? Of course they weaponized free speech to enable their rise to power. If the Weimar Republic had not allowed at least some free speech and freedom of association, the Nazi Party might never have gotten off the ground! Hitler would not have been able to come out of prison after the Beer Hall Putsch — which took place in Munich, no less — and picked up exactly where he had left off! He would not have been allowed to publish Mein Kampf! The Nazis used the levers of democracy to take power, and then ended it so Hitler could rule as a dictator. [Fairly accurate.]

    Also the idea that there was “no opposition” in Nazi Germany, good Lord. You don’t even have to read a book, you can just go to Wikipedia for a pretty definitive list of ways Hitler’s opponents tried to take him out after he took power.

    […] It’s good to know insulting people is still okay, though, because Rubio and Vance and the rest of the creatures in the White House of Dr. Moreau are giving us nonstop reasons to do it.

  251. Reginald Selkirk says

    Group Claims Washington Post Wouldn’t Run ‘Fire Elon Musk’ Advertisement/a>

    Tuesday’s edition of the Washington Post was supposed to feature a very straightforward message: Fire Elon Musk. Two advocacy groups teamed up to buy an ad placement that would have wrapped the paper in the call for Musk’s outing. But, according to one of the groups involved in the ad buy that spoke with The Hill, the Post backed out of the agreement and said it would not run the message on the outside of the paper.

    Common Cause, a nonprofit watchdog organization, teamed with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund on the advertisement. They claimed to The Hill to have signed a $115,000 agreement with the Post to full cover messages on the front and the back of the Washington Post’s Tuesday issue, along with a full-page ad inside the paper. The ads would have appeared on the papers of people working at Congress, the Pentagon and the White House…

    Meanwhile, vice fuhrer Vance is back from Europe, where he told European countries they need more free speech.

  252. says

    Washington Post link

    “Trump’s global funding freeze leaves anti-terror programs in limbo”

    “U.S. officials say now-suspended programs across Africa were designed specifically to respond to national security threats and contain the spread of terrorism.”

    […] Trump’s sweeping freeze on U.S. foreign assistance has threatened programs intended to counter al-Shabab bombmakers, contain the spread of al-Qaeda across West Africa and secure Islamic State prisoners in the Middle East, according to U.S. officials and aid workers.

    Hours after taking office last month, Trump put a 90-day pause on foreign aid programs, signing an executive order that said the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests” and “serve to destabilize world peace.”

    But four current and former U.S. officials, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared government retaliation, said that many of the affected programs were specifically designed to respond to national security threats, and that their suspension could endanger the United States and its international allies. [!!!]

    […] American security partners in Africa and the Middle East, which receive a much smaller share of the foreign aid budget, have seen vital security programs grind to a halt. [Graph at the link]

    Of particular concern is the Anti-Terrorism Assistance program, which the United States spent $264 million on in 2023 to improve the capacity of allies to respond to extremist threats. Other programs counter transnational organized crime and narcotics and strengthen local law enforcement. Almost all are now suspended.

    […] In Somalia, where Washington has supported the government in its long-running battle with al-Shabab, a powerful insurgent group aligned with al-Qaeda, a U.S. defense official said the sudden shutdown triggered security risks for some of the hundreds of American troops stationed there.

    Contractors responsible for building and maintaining bases for U.S.-trained Somali special forces, known as Danab, left so abruptly that U.S. soldiers had to scramble to pick up the slack, he said. Nearly 400 Danab graduates were left outside an American military base with no provision for food, fuel or electricity.

    Another private contractor, which conducts medevacs for wounded Somali soldiers, had personnel in a remote combat zone when the stop-work order came down, the U.S. defense official said. It was unclear if they would be reimbursed for the return flight or any subsequent medevacs.

    The funding freeze has also hit U.S.-supported laboratories in Mogadishu and Garowe, Somalia, that analyze ballistics, DNA, bombs and other evidence. Lt. Col. Mohamed Mohamud Ahmed, head of the police forensics team in the criminal investigation division, said the Mogadishu lab provided fingerprints and other crime scene data to Interpol and the FBI.

    […] Al-Shabab militants have launched deadly attacks over the years in neighboring Kenya, another staunch U.S. ally.

    […] A security expert who has worked extensively in Somalia put it bluntly: “If all U.S. money stops forever, this war [against al-Shabab] is over very fast,” he said.

    […] Also on hold now is a program to counter IEDs — including the creation of a database to detect patterns in bomb construction, forensically identify bombmakers and gather evidence for trials.

    Kenyan security forces have a long record of human rights abuses. But American funding and guidance has made a real difference, current and former officials say, and U.S. funds support an independent police watchdog that prosecutes rogue officers.

    […] Under Trump’s executive order, programs that deliver lifesaving assistance or are judged to be “mission-critical” are exempt from the freeze. But members of Congress are still in the dark about how the administration is granting exemptions, a congressional aide familiar with discussions said.

    “We’ve not seen criteria for the waiver process … and the few publicized waivers are barely being implemented,” the aide said. “We see no evidence of a review process.”

    The State Department has said it is terminating $1 billion worth of programs, he said, but Congress has “no way to assess the legal, financial, or national security risks.”

  253. says

    Josh Marshall: First IRS, Now DOGE Busts Its Way Into the Social Security Administration

    […] we just got through the headlines about DOGE demanding access to literally everybody’s and every companies’ tax returns at the IRS. It seems like they now have that access, though we don’t know that for certain. (We’re basically entirely dependent on leaks since DOGE works entirely in secret.)

    Now news just broke that the DOGErs appear to have busted their way into the Social Security Administration, forcing the resignation of the acting commissioner, Michelle King, when she resisted their demands to give DOGE access to the Agency’s most sensitive government records.

    According to the Post, the DOGErs or, nominally, President Trump had to pass over “dozens of other senior executives who sat higher on the agency’s leadership hierarchy” until they found a guy named Leland Dudek who had apparently been talking up DOGE on social media and thus seemed up for playing ball. […]

  254. says

    Followup to comment 253.

    Washington Post link

    “Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk’s DOGE over data”

    “Yet another top career staffer is leaving the administration amid a disagreement over a request by Elon Musk’s team for sensitive government information.”

    The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration left her job this weekend after a clash with billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service over its attempts to access sensitive government records, three people familiar with her departure said Monday.

    Michelle King, who spent several decades at the agency before being named its acting commissioner last month, left her position Sunday after the disagreement, the people said.

    President Donald Trump appointed Leland Dudek, a manager in charge of Social Security’s anti-fraud office, as acting commissioner while Frank Bisignano, the president’s nominee for permanent commissioner, is vetted by the Senate, according to three individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. A public announcement is expected this week. Dudek had posted positive remarks on social media about DOGE’s efforts to cut costs and search for fraud in federal agencies, according to two of the individuals.

    “President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement. “In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner. President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.” [Propaganda]

    In selecting Dudek, Trump bypassed dozens of other senior executives who sat higher in the agency’s leadership hierarchy, touching off alarm in and around the agency, which has already faced years of budget and staffing difficulties.

    “At this rate, they will break it. And they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits,” said Martin O’Malley, the Social Security commissioner under the Biden administration and a former Maryland governor.

    […] “What I know is that DOGE wanted access to SSA’s sensitive files — the same way they’re trying to do at Labor and Treasury — and the acting commissioner wouldn’t give it, and she was replaced,” said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a left-leaning group, citing conversations with several current officials at the agency.

    Musk has increasingly turned his attention to Social Security in recent days, arguing that the program is rife with fraud and erroneous payments without offering evidence for his claim.

    […] King, a career staffer, has worked at the agency since 1994, according to the agency’s website. She has also held senior positions in its Office of Retirement and Disability Policy and the Office of Budget, Finance and Management.

    […]The Social Security Administration’s records include all Social Security numbers, comprehensive medical records for those who have applied for disability benefits, bank information, earnings records and more, Altman said.

    “There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is,” she said.

  255. says

    In case anybody is interested:
    @245 Reginald Selkirk wrote about: Police arrest apparent leader of Zizian group tied to killing of U.S. border agent near Canada
      I remember when PZ posted about Rebecca Watson’s article about them:
    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/02/07/zizians/
    video by Rebecca Watson on them: https://youtu.be/M0hmXDY_HmI
    She has a lot of good articles
      Of course, right now, we are facing destruction of our government and society by a more dangerous cult. There doesn’t seem to be any person or group that can or will stop this MUMP cult and its evil little minions. I wish this was all just a terrible nightmare from which we could awaken. I fear for our decades long investments in Social Security and Medicare and I am so angry that these evil little nightcrawlers may now have our personal info. WTF

  258. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #137 on Musk’s title.

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    Last week, Elon Musk appeared alongside Trump in the Oval to defend the work of DOGE. Looking directly at Musk, Trump asked, “Could you mention some of the things *your team* has found?” [Video]

    Tonight, the government claimed that Musk isn’t in charge of DOGE & isn’t a DOGE employee.

    In a new filing, an official in the Trump Administration says that Elon Musk is not the Administrator in charge of DOGE. He’s a Senior Advisor to the President, per declaration. [Docket image]

    It remains unclear who actually runs DOGE. The filing doesn’t say.

    Katie Phang (MSNBC):

    So if Musk doesn’t run DOGE, and DOGE isn’t a real government agency, then no one has to listen to Musk or do what the DOGE bros tell them to do, right?

    Wait, so Trump lied?!

    Ryan Goodman (Politico):

    President Trump: “I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk … will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE”)” […]

    Elon Musk in WSJ oped with Vivek: “President Trump has asked the two of us to lead a newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE”

  262. StevoR says

    Plus also via PBS Newshour :

    President Trump’s social media post over the weekend that implied he is above the law triggered alarm bells from experts who were already concerned about the legal and constitutional boundaries tested during his first few weeks in office. Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss for our new series, “On Democracy.”

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-the-start-of-trumps-second-term-looks-like-some-autocracies

  265. Reginald Selkirk says

    @256 Bekenstein Bound
    Any word yet on the cause of this latest crash of an American plane flight?

    It is questionable to call it an “American plane flight.” It was an international flight, originating in Minneapolis-St. Paul and landing in Toronto, where the incident occurred. The carrier was USAian, but the jet itself was a Bombardier CRJ-900, from a Canadian manufacturer.

    A Delta flight crashed then flipped upside down while landing in Toronto. Here’s what we know

    …
    Video obtained by CNN shows the rear landing gear of the jet buckling and the right wing shearing away in a fireball after the plane landed hard on the runway.

    The plane briefly skids on its belly before flipping over, sending smoke and loose snow shooting into the air…

    Video of the crash does not appear to show the usual “flare” of the jet, where the pilot pulls the nose up just before landing, exposing the wings to more air resistance.

    “There was no attempt to flare at all, which slows the plane down,” said CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation…

    “What we can say is the runway was dry, and there was no crosswind conditions,” Aitken, the airport fire chief said.

    However, an air traffic controller told the Endeavour pilot that there were winds of 26 mph gusting up to 38 mph, blowing across the plane’s path at a 40-degree angle, according to a recording of airport tower radio traffic. The wind at Pearson was reportedly blowing snow into the air with a visibility of five miles.

    The weather conditions may have become treacherous before the pilots were able to adapt, said retired jet pilot Les Abend. ..

  266. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    ‘The IRS is freaking out’: Trump pushes to give Musk acolyte access to Americans’ personal tax data
    Video is 4:32 minutes long. Maddow also mentions the DOGE incursion into the Social Security system.

    Debunked explanations for Musk’s reckless firings expose true goal of wrecking the government
    Video is 8:27 minutes long.

    ‘Have you considered resigning?’: Maddow calls out Trump staffers who fired nuclear safety personnel
    Video is 7:02 minutes long.

  267. says

    If his social media feed is any indication, Elon Musk has been thinking about Social Security a lot lately. In fact, Donald Trump’s biggest campaign donor and the head of the quasi-governmental DOGE operation, keeps tweeting bizarre claims about alleged fraud and “inconsistencies“ he thinks he’s identified in the Social Security system.

    Those claims have invariably collapsed under scrutiny, necessarily raising questions about whether the billionaire is genuinely confused about the basics or content to mislead the public.

    Either way, the bottom line remains the same: Musk and his team have arrived at the Social Security Administration. For those concerned about the integrity of the system and its future, that doesn’t appear to be encouraging news. The Washington Post published this striking report on Saturday, for example:

    Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is seeking access to a heavily guarded Internal Revenue Service system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country, according to three people familiar with the activities, sparking alarm within the tax agency.

    […] the DOGE operation is positioned to gain access to the highly sensitive Integrated Data Retrieval System (IDRS), “which enables tax agency employees to access IRS accounts — including personal identification numbers — and bank information. It also lets them enter and adjust transaction data and automatically generate notices, collection documents and other records.”

    The IRS, the Post added, is “under pressure from the White House” to make this happen.

    It’s against this backdrop that NBC News reported that the interagency dispute became so severe that Michelle King, the top official at the SSA, “left her position this weekend after she refused a request from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access sensitive government records at the agency.”

    For advocates of the Social Security system, and those concerned about privacy rights, these developments raise all kinds of red flags. But in terms of the political implications, it’s worth appreciating the fact that White House officials have also made public comments about Musk, DOGE and Social Security benefits.

    Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Musk and his surrogates “suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments.”

    There is no reason to take such a figure seriously, and no one at the White House has even tried to substantiate the claim with evidence.

    As part of the same on-air appearance, the president’s chief spokesperson added, “Rest assured to all of the people watching your show tonight, if you paid into the system honestly, you will continue to receive your Social Security checks.”

    But that wasn’t quite as reassuring as Leavitt probably intended.

    Whether he understands the basic governing details or not, Musk is already claiming that many Social Security beneficiaries are receiving checks they’re not entitled to. Such comments suggest the Trump administration is likely to go after the alleged irregularities, which may or may not exist.

    With this in mind, the White House press secretary effectively told Fox viewers that if Trump and Musk believe you paid into the system honestly, “you will continue to receive your Social Security checks.” What could possibly go wrong?

    Even most congressional Republicans tend to see Social Security as a political third rail to be avoided at all costs to prevent an electoral backlash. Keep this in mind as DOGE arrives at the SSA, and Musk makes highly dubious claims about Social Security checks.

    Link

  268. says

    Trump taps ‘Stop the Steal’ activist to be D.C.’s top prosecutor

    “[Trump] wants a longtime Republican operative to be the top prosecutor in the nation’s capital. Given Ed Martin’s recent record, that’s not good news.”

    It might seem like ages ago, but about a month after Election Day 2024, Donald Trump had a specific employment plan in mind for Ed Martin: The longtime Republican operative was poised to serve as the White House Office of Management and Budget’s chief of staff.

    At the time, this was a controversial move, given Martin’s record as a far-right anti-abortion activist, organizer for the misguided “Stop the Steal” movement and lawyer representing Jan. 6 criminals. But Trump made the call anyway.

    It wasn’t long, however, before Martin took on even greater responsibilities. A month after being chosen for the OMB role, Martin learned that Trump had also tapped him to serve as the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. And a month after that, the president has apparently decided that the word “interim” should be removed from Martin’s title. NBC News reported:

    […] Trump has nominated the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — a “Stop the Steal” organizer who advocated for Jan. 6 defendants — to be the district’s top prosecutor on a permanent basis.

    Announcing the nomination by way of his social media platform, the president described Martin as “highly respected” — a phrase Trump has long used to refer to people who agree with him — adding that during Martin’s tenure as the interim U.S. Attorney in the nation’s capital, the Republican lawyer “has been doing a great job … fighting tirelessly to restore Law and Order.”

    As it happens, that’s not quite how I would describe Martin’s work over the last four weeks. As the interim head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., the former “Stop the Steal” organizer:
    – launched a wildly unnecessary “Project 1512” initiative, in order to review the prosecutions of Jan. 6 rioters;
    – made a creepy public vow to wield his prosecutorial powers against those who get in Elon Musk’s way;
    – engaged in a truly brazen display of conflict of interest, effectively taking on both sides of a criminal case involving a Jan. 6 defendant;
    – and kicked off an unnecessary investigation into Jack Smith and a law firm that gave the former special counsel pro bono legal services.

    Or put another way, when the president said Martin “has been doing a great job,” perhaps he was grading on an overly generous curve.

    For the record, we’re talking about a Republican who didn’t just endorse Trump’s anti-election conspiracy theories after his 2020 defeat. Rather, Martin called on “die-hard true Americans” to work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal” in a speech at the U.S. Capitol on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

    In a normal administration, he might struggle to step foot in Main Justice. In this administration, this is the lawyer/activist Trump now wants to lead one of the nation’s most important prosecutorial offices. [!]

    This is a Senate-confirmed position, and Martin’s confirmation hearing is bound to be interesting. Watch this space.

  269. says

    The Purges
    The most sweeping phase of the mass purges of federal workers ramped up Friday and into the weekend against some 200,000 probationary employees, who enjoy lesser levels of civil service protection. The WaPo obtained internal documents that map out an expanding purge over the next six months. Among the reported purge targets:

    – NIH and other HHS agencies and components;
    – a key office handling bird flu response;
    – FAA staff;
    – the Bonneville Power Administration

    In an sign of the chaos and haphazard nature of the purges, the Trump administration raced to try to recall fired nuclear safety workers but was struggling to figure out how to reach them.

    The Resignations
    Alongside the purges are forced resignations or resignations under duress, among them:

    – Social Security Administration: Michelle King, the acting commissioner who was handpicked by the Trump administration last month, resigned after Elon Musk’s DOGE sought access to American’s sensitive personal data.
    – National Archives: The acting archivist of the United States and several senior staff members have resigned.
    – FDA: A top official resigned over the widespread cuts across the agency.

    Link

  271. says

    Fired Federal Workers Protest Being Purged By Benevolent King Trump

    Thousands turned up to protest the Trump administration in Washington DC and across the United States yesterday. Dubbed “Not My President’s Day,” people in DC rallied at the Capitol Reflecting Pool outside of the US Capitol Building and called for Congress to exert its constitutional authority to act as a check on Donald Trump’s blatant flouting of longstanding laws.

    In other words, this was DC area residents, many of them veterans and federal workers, calling on elected officials to do their goddamn jobs.

    A retired Army officer, who spent 40 years in the service, refused to give their name, MOS (job), age or area of residency because, she said, “I’m afraid if I tell you anything, they could come after my pension and benefits.”

    The young, unelected employees Elon Musk brought in as staffers for “DOGE,” his unincorporated, non-governmental organization with no legal authority — “TraitorTots,” as one sign read — have generated an exhaustive slew of headlines by attacking federal workers. In less than 30 days, they have attempted to fire civil servants en masse, canceled domestic and foreign aid programs, and illegally clawed back federal spending. [“TraitorTots” is a good description.]

    It’s scaring the hell out of people who spent their careers forgoing high-paying private sector gigs in favor of lower-paying government jobs where they could do the dirty work of actually making the world a better place.

    Alex, 30, of Maryland, worked for the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). Last week he was suddenly fired by the DOGE team. Alex was carrying a sign that simply read, “I kept pacemakers safe.”

    ”CDRH makes sure things like pacemakers don’t kill people,” Alex said. “It’s complicated to explain everything CDRH does really quickly, but it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t really cost taxpayers any money, and saves lives.”

    It was a something I heard repeatedly throughout the day. Someone’s rather nerdy and boring job was not easy to explain in a short, sexy sentence, but it was important because it prevented unnecessary death and suffering. How, they wondered, could anyone want to lower the quality of life for humanity in the name of personal profit? [Yeah, that’s what I’ve been wondering.]

    Sara Bernard, 46, of DC, is a retired lieutenant commander in the US Navy. “This is an injustice, what’s happening today,” Bernard said while holding a sign that read, “Vets stand united with USAID.”

    “There’s a complete lack of process and procedure. People don’t realize what they [DOGE, Trump, Musk, et al.] are doing.”

    Nobody seemed more concerned than actual residents of DC. The recently introduced “BOWSER Act,” so named after DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, would repeal what little governing authority the city has. The 1973 DC Home Rule Act gave DC some governing autonomy, and the city bitterly fought and won for some budgetary authority in 2017. But there is always some petty and ignorant congressman who insists on screwing with DC residents like a feudal lord.

    “If they wanted, they could turn our schools into for-profits,” said David Magee, 41, a life-long DC resident and a teacher in DC public schools. “Erasing accountability at every level does not seem to be making things any better. Why not try to fix what we have?” […]

    Lots of photos at the link.

  272. says

    Sky Captain @258, so they are trying to protect Elon Musk from prosecution over actions taken by DOGE?

    In other news: Poll: Majority of GOP voters would reject checks, balances to give Trump more power

    For democracy advocates, Donald Trump and much of his agenda is rather terrifying. […] “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law” [Trump posted] — described by The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie as “the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president.”

    Meanwhile, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital, Americans see a Republican-led Congress that’s grown far more interested in glorifying Trump personally than conducting oversight or honoring the legislative branch’s proper role in a checks-and-balances system. [All too true.] Indeed, GOP lawmakers routinely shrug their shoulders with indifference in response to White House abuses and excesses.

    t’s reached the point at which Steve Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University, told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent that Americans should recognize the contemporary Republican Party as “an authoritarian political party. “

    The question then becomes how much of the party’s base would mind. The latest national Pew Research Center survey included some striking findings:

    In contrast, a 59% majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say many of the country’s problems could be addressed more effectively if Trump didn’t need to worry so much about Congress or the courts. Republicans who say they ‘strongly’ identify with the GOP are particularly likely to say the nation’s problems could be more effectively addressed by giving Trump more power: 78% say this.

    [Aiyiyiyiyi]

    The partisan divisions were enormous: 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents concluded it would be “too risky” to give Trump more power without checks and balances, but according to the Pew data, a majority of GOP voters came to the opposite conclusion.

    (The survey was conducted from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 2025.) [more details at the link]

    […] The Associated Press reported last spring on a national AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey, which found that 57% of Republicans endorsed the idea of Trump “taking action on the country’s important policy issues without waiting for Congress or the courts.” [!!]

    […] Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter has maintained a very low public profile since stepping down from the high court in 2009, but as longtime readers might recall, he delivered some memorable remarks in 2012 about his broader political fears.

    “I think some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are partly a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function,” Souter said. “It is a product of civic ignorance.”

    After quoting Benjamin Franklin’s admonition about democracy struggling to survive “too much ignorance,” the retired justice added, “I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion. I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military, as has happened in some of the places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough … some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell.” [!!]

    Souter concluded, “If we know who is responsible, I have enough faith in the American people to demand performance from those responsible. If we don’t know, we will stay away from the polls. We will not demand it. And the day will come when somebody will come forward, and we and the government will in effect say, ‘Take the ball and run with it. Do what you have to do.’ That is the way democracy dies. And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night.”

    The results of the national Pew Research Center poll renewed the relevance of the retired justice’s warning.

  273. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @258: Who’s to blame for the DOGE disasters? Not Musk, says White House

    The so-called Department of Government Efficiency—the advisory commission that […] Trump tasked co-President Elon Musk to run in order to find ways to cut the federal budget—has been an abject disaster.

    Indiscriminate firings of federal employees are leading to national security threats. Staff purges, largely spearheaded by DOGE, are putting safety of the country’s air travel, food supply, air and water quality, and personal health at risk. And unqualified and unvetted DOGE staffers’ access to critical government payments systems and Americans’ personal information has led to concerns about the security of Americans’ private information.

    Yet, as states, unions, research universities, and federal employees sue to try and stop DOGE’s destruction, the Trump administration is now claiming that Musk’s DOGE has nothing to do with the firings.

    “Nowhere have my friends offered a shred of anything, nor could they, to show that Elon Musk has any formal or actual authority to make any government decisions himself,” a Department of Justice lawyer told a federal judge on Monday during a hearing on a lawsuit that seeks to block Musk and DOGE from accessing government data and carrying out mass firings.

    The judge, Tanya Chutkan, basically told the DOJ they were liars. “I think you stretch too far,” she said. “I disagree with you there.”

    All evidence points to the fact that Musk and DOGE are leading to the cuts.

    Trump signed an executive order on Day 1 of his disastrous second term that created DOGE, and put Musk in charge. Since then, the unelected billionaire has given news conferences from the Oval Office to provide updates on DOGE’s actions, has tweeted hundreds of times a day—often with lies or misinformation—about DOGE’s actions, and Trump himself has said Musk is the one working to find cost reductions. [Good points.]

    “I’m going to tell [Elon Musk] very soon, like maybe in 24 hours, to go check the Department of Education,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News that aired ahead of the Super Bowl. “He’s going to find the same thing … Then I’m going to go, go to the military. Let’s check the military.”

    So far, DOGE has been a disaster.

    For example, in the name of cost savings, Musk and DOGE spurred a mass firing of government workers. That led the administration last Thursday to fire more than 300 people at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Realizing this was a mistake with potentially devastating implications, the Trump administration scrambled to rehire those workers. But according to CNN on Monday, only 25 of the 300 have been reinstated. [Whoa. That’s a small number of National Nuclear Security Administration personnel.]

    What’s more, after receiving criticism for its opaqueness, DOGE then created a website to show the cuts it’s made. But according to Wired, the website is a “security mess,” with anyone on the internet able to edit its databases.

    DOGE also blew through its own self-imposed deadlines to release information on what exactly it has cut and how much money it has supposedly saved taxpayers. But now that the information is on the website, DOGE has posted personal information of people whose contracts have been canceled.

    The website also claims it has saved $55 billion. However, Daily Kos reviewed the savings DOGE listed on its website, and the two categories of receipts it provides (contracts and real estate) total less than half of what DOGE claims to have saved. The site says there are “savings” in other categories, like workforce reductions and fraud elimination, but it doesn’t currently provide data for those, so it is impossible to verify their top-line claim of $55 billion.

    What’s more, even if DOGE has saved $55 billion, that is only 0.8% of the $6.75 trillion federal budget in fiscal year 2024. Much of those savings are from slashing the U.S. Agency for International Development, an action that has directly led to human suffering, including the pregnant wife of one USAID worker who was abandoned by the Trump administration while suffering a life-threatening pregnancy complication.

    Those supposed savings also don’t take into account how much money DOGE is spending on its own staff, nor how much money the federal government has to spend to defend against the bevy of lawsuits DOGE is being hit with. [True.]

    With DOGE in destructo mode, Democrats are urging their constituents to call their lawmakers and show up to lawmaker events to voice their concerns, as lawmakers react to public outcries.

    “They only win if their tactics convince us to stay silent,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on Friday. “We have power in numbers and solidarity. If we respond by getting LOUDER, instead of going silent like they want, we send a clear message that they can’t win. Show up more. Organize more. Post more.”

  274. says

    Wow. Cognitive dissonance.

    There are a lot of contradictions involved in the anti-vaccine movement. People who would rather watch their children die from measles than have autism. People who would rather die themselves than get a vaccine, because they think the vaccine will harm their health in some capacity.

    That’s the category Ken Long of Eaton, Ohio, falls into, because the 54-year-old veteran is literally choosing to die rather than get a vaccine so he can get a heart transplant … because he thinks the vaccine will give him heart problems. Also because of his “personal religious beliefs.”

    “When I decide something, I mean it, and if it takes dying, it’s what it is,” Long told KOMO TV. “They don’t know enough about it, and plus it’s already done a lot of damage. People have said blood clots. There are known cardiac issues.”

    “And our personal religious beliefs!” his wife Christina added, without explaining what on earth those religious beliefs are. Given that even Christian Scientists are not opposed to vaccines and the couple doesn’t appear to be either Hasidic or Amish, it’s unclear what those would even be.

    Via KOMO:

    “I don’t want to die because I got a granddaughter and my wife and everything and my kids, but I believe so hard with not taking the vaccine that I’m willing to die for,” Long said.

    By sharing his story, Long hopes to influence hospitals to change their vaccination policies.

    “I’m 54 years old, but there are kids out there right now that are sick, and they’re over there with beliefs of not vaccinating, and that’s why I’m doing this,” Long said. “It’s more important for these kids to have the opportunity to live.”

    Except for how having a heart transplant affects one’s immune system, meaning that a kid “with beliefs of not vaccinating” would have a far greater chance of dying from COVID (or measles, or the flu, or any illness really).

    Long is far from the first to pull this. Just last week, 12-year-old Adaline Deal, a distant family member of JD Vance, was denied a heart transplant because her parents claimed it was against their religion as “non-denominational Christians.” There is not, to anyone’s knowledge, a single thing in the Bible about vaccines.

    Because the hospital could not, in good conscience, give Long a heart, they gave him a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to pump blood to his heart.

    “I can hardly do anything. If the power goes out, I have to worry about my batteries and my charger,” Long said. “You can’t get wet, so showering is an issue.”

    So this man is willing to die […] just to avoid getting a vaccine. And, if you can believe it, it gets even more stupid than that! While Christ Hospital refuses to give him a heart transplant, there are, apparently, some places that will. Long, however, will not go to them, because he wants to make a point.

    “Do we want to switch hospitals to save his life? No,” Christina said. “We would hope that Christ would continue to see him and grant him a transplant and recognize that this is his personal choice.”

    In a video interview with Long and his wife Christina, Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom President Stephanie Stock called the situation “vaccine status discrimination” and suggested that the treatment Long received was “punishment” for not taking the vaccine. Because, of course, what doctors are concerned about is hurting his feelings or ensuring that Bill Gates can track his whereabouts at any given time. Not that it’s literally a health issue or anything.

    As Christ Hospital explained:

    At The Christ Hospital Health Network, the goal with any organ transplant is to focus on helping each patient have long-term success and live a long and healthy life post surgery.

    Our expert multidisciplinary team of physicians, psychologists, care coordinators and social workers carefully evaluate each individual to determine their eligibility and placement on the waiting list. Organ donation is a gift from another patient and family, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the gift is used with the maximum chance of success once transplanted.

    Patients who receive transplants will be immunosuppressed for the rest of their lives. Vaccines play a vital role in mitigating a patient’s risk of life-threatening infections especially in the first year after transplant. Decisions about eligibility for transplantation involve discussions between our providers, the patient and their family and are always made in the best interest of the patient following established national guidelines for organ transplant.

    There are lots of reasons why someone might be denied a heart transplant. If they have a drug problem, if they have other health problems, then they can’t get a transplant, because there just is not an endless supply of quality organs for those who need them, and they need to go to the people they will help for the longest amount of time.

    We all understand that these people think vaccines are bad, that they think they will cause them harm of some kind, but that’s not factually true and no one should have to waste a heart because they want to have their ridiculous beliefs coddled.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/anti-vaxxer-thinks-hes-a-big-hero

  275. says

    MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Vladimir Putin has entered into negotiations with Elon Musk over the ownership of Donald J. Trump, the Kremlin confirmed on Tuesday.

    Those negotiations, however, are proving contentious, as the Russian president is arguing that, having fully owned Trump between 2017 and 2021, he is entitled to a majority stake now.

    For his part, Musk claims that he purchased Trump outright by spending nearly $300 million on his 2024 campaign.

    In one heated exchange, Musk reportedly told the Russian leader, “You’re being greedy, Vlad—you already own Tulsi.”

    Link

  276. KG says

    Actions the Trump administration is taking will result in more people dying. That is not a formula for making American healthy again. – Lynna, OM@217

    Maybe the idea is that if you kill off those who are most vulnerable, the average health of the living will improve. That, after all, was the approach of co-president Musk’s heroes.

  277. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/dear-leader-watch-who-outdid-who

    “Dear Leader Watch: […] Sucking Up To Trump Lately?”

    […] We have watched for years as Donald Trump’s sycophants have fallen all over themselves to praise Dear Leader like eager puppies begging for treats. Watching his Cabinet secretaries in his first term open meetings by slobbering all over his baby-carrot knob in front of television cameras remains one of the more grotesque sights of the millennium. And his enablers in Congress and in right wing media spend so much time on Fox News or OANN lauding his genius that we now have a Dramamine IV permanently hooked into our veins.

    Yet still — still! — we regularly roll across odes and encomiums to the God-King’s greatness that bring us up short. Are we living inside a TV set in North Korea? We don’t think so! Although it might explain why our house smells like kimchi all the time. It’s that or a rage-stroke.

    So here we present Dear Leader Watch, a recurring feature we could probably write every single day but will probably only do when stuck in the clutches of either overwhelming self-hatred or a Dramamine high.

    First up: We knew someone was going to suggest making Trump’s birthday a federal holiday at some point. We didn’t think it would be only a month into his second term, but hell, there are a lot of things we didn’t think would happen this fast: [social media post at the link]

    Trump’s birthday, June 14, is already recognized as Flag Day, so that date would henceforth be the Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day holiday. Truth be told, we’re shocked Tenney didn’t suggest moving Flag Day to a different date. Or maybe suggest we celebrate Trump’s birthday on Christmas. Is there anyone besides Jesus who is worthy of sharing Donald Trump’s birthday with him? And even Jesus would think it was a toss-up.

    In a statement, Tenney said that “no modern president has been more pivotal for our country than Donald J. Trump.” Which might wind up being true, but certainly not for the reasons Tenney thinks.

    And that might not be the dumbest bill anyone has introduced in the House in the last few weeks with the express purpose of enshrining Trump in the pantheon of our greatest presidents. In January, Rep. Andy Ogles introduced a bill to rewrite the 22nd Amendment to allow Trump to run for a third term in office. But only Trump. The proposed change would only allow a third term if someone served the first two non-consecutively. Presumably, this is so Barack Obama doesn’t get any funny ideas about 2028.

    Could this bill have had anything to do with Andy Ogles being under federal investigation for campaign finance violations, which Trump could make go away with one tweet aimed at his attorney general? Heaven forfend we imply there might be some corruption in the Trump administration.

    Not to be outshone in the race for biggest suck-up amongst House Republicans, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida introduced a bill to carve Trump’s face into Mt. Rushmore:

    “President Trump’s bold leadership and steadfast dedication to America’s greatness have cemented his place in history. Mount Rushmore, a timeless symbol of our nation’s freedom and strength, deserves to reflect his towering legacy—a legacy further solidified by the powerful start to his second term,” said Congresswoman Luna. “He will be forever remembered among the great like Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.”

    Trump had been in office for all of eight days when Luna introduced this bill, which makes mentioning the “powerful start to his second term” even more blatantly sycophantic. Which is a Luna specialty.

    Anyway, leave Mt. Rushmore alone. We white people have defaced the mountain enough without adding Outer Borough Pol Pot to it.

    Other incidents have been a bit more subtle. So subtle, in fact, that we are almost loath to point out this recruitment ad for the Army that premiered over the weekend. Watch to the end and see if you can guess what jumped out at us: [video at the link]

    So okay, all the soldiers in this ad are wearing numbers on their breastplates for some reason. And the Army has strict rules about appearing partisan.

    But the soldiers wearing “47” when Donald Trump just became the 47th president and wingnuts have been slapping the number “47” on hats and bumper stickers and tattooing it on their foreheads really seemed to get very noticeable placement, did they not?

    It is a measure of how much sycophancy is flowing to Trump now that this few seconds in a one-minute ad caught our eye. And sure, it could be a coincidence. Or … ha ha ha, who are we kidding, it was totally on purpose.

    But for pure, uncut, he’s-not-breathing-call-911 suck-up-age, we’re not sure anything could possibly beat Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s run on Fox News on Monday: [video snippets at the link: "Watching President Trump in the beast, leading the pace car, leading the field of the most talented drivers in the world, kicking off the entire Nascar season for America, when he was doing that it reminded me of how he's actually leading the world. He was courageous during his first term, but this time he's fearless. He's operating at a next level. He's at a different gear ... His ideas are brilliant, and they're powerful, and they're simple."]

    Holy hell. That was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the balls. The amount of dignity people will surrender just for the opportunity to gut the National Park Service is really remarkable.

    There’s probably a whole bunch of other Dear Leader crap that we missed that we’ll put in a new edition in a few days, except by that point there will be approximately 27,549 new atrocities to choose from. Like, for instance, we didn’t even mention Rep. Buddy Carter’s bill to let Trump seize Greenland and change its name to — wait for it — Red, White and Blueland.

    Everything is going great.

  278. KG says

    Lynna, OM@228,

    These should-be-satire-but-isn’t efforts by Republican congresspersons to get their tongues unprecedented distances up Trump’s fundament are all too reminiscent of those of ultra-sycophantic senators under the Roman Empire. I wonder who will be the first to propose voting him divine honours? Or slightly less extreme, the title “Augustus”, which Octavian, recognised historically as the first Emperor, took because taking the title of “King” would have risked unpopularity – th Romans having, like today’s Americans, having got rid of their kings some time earlier. This would fit with the USA’s penchant for appointing “tsars” of various policy areas. The tile “tsar” derives from the name “Caesar”, and under the 3rd century Emperor Diocletian, the Empire was divided into Eastern and Western halves, each with its own “Augustus”, and each of these Augusti had a “Caesar” as second-in-command and intended heir – although this aspect of the system never really worked.

  279. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@248,
    There are of course Palestinian citizens of Israel (around 20% IIRC), so the racist shooter could have been right even if the victims were Israeli tourists (although perhaps Palestinian citizens of Israel avoid foreign travel in case they are not allowed back in). In this case it’s clearly not so, and indeed one of the victims reportedly posted “death to Arabs” on social media after the shooting, blaming antiemitism for the attack. But even Yahoo doesn’t appear to realise that there are, indeed, Palestinian Israelis.

  280. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @272:

    so they are trying to protect Elon Musk from prosecution over actions taken by DOGE?

     
    EmptyWheel – Why Elon Musk can’t run DOGE [sic] anymore

    let me talk about the various kinds of lawsuits filed so far against Trump’s attacks.

    [*snip*: enumeration of plaintiffs and violated statutes]

    The injury suffered by each set of plaintiffs and legal theory largely limits the ability of judges to weigh in. So, for example, if a suit is arguing only Privacy Act violations, a judge can do no more than limit the dissemination outside of authorized channels of the data of the plaintiffs, something that has been ineffective once agencies started giving DOGE formal authorization to access computer servers. If a suit worries about firings, but the government instead puts tons of people on paid leave (as happened with USAID), then the plaintiffs are not yet suffering an irrevocable injury.

    Here’s how the Appointments Clause theory, arguing that Elon is exercising powers that need to be created by Congress and confirmed by them, looks in the complaint. […] You can see why the White House has decided that Elon is boxed away inside the White House with no direct control over the dismantling of government […] the right wing judges on SCOTUS feel very strongly about the Appointments Clause. And Trump is on the record relying on it, most spectacularly in convincing Aileen Cannon that Jack Smith had to be confirmed by the Senate before he could indict Trump.

    In practice, Trump is saying Elon can dismantle entire agencies without Senate confirmation, but Jack Smith couldn’t prosecute him as a private citizen without it. Or he was. Now he’s arguing that all this is happening without Elon’s personal direction.
    […]
    before DOJ gave this answer and blew off Judge Chutkan’s order to provide details of the ongoing firing spree, she seemed inclined not to grant a restraining order to stop all this.

    It’s unclear whether this defiance will change that. […] What is clear is that the White House recognizes a real risk if Elon is held accountable for all the things Elon has done.

  281. KG says

    Biomarker panel offers hope for early pancreatic cancer detection – birgerjohansson@260

    Well that’s good news of course, but the biomarkers relate to pancreatic cystic lesions, and it sounded like you’d probably need to get samples from those cysts, and although some of the markers are in blood, you’d still need to test for them. I lost a friend to pancreatic cancer last year: he went to his doctor with severe abdominal pain – no previous symptoms – was diagnosed within a few weeks, and died little more than a year after that. Still, it’s a step on the way to a routine test I guess.

  282. says

    KG @278, yes, trumpian cult followers can go to even further extremes of ridiculousness in order to worship him (or appear to worship Trump). It does make me wonder what defect in the human brain feeds that need to have a god-figure to worship. It must be powerful if they will settle for a doofus like Trump. Maybe any doofus will do?

    Intended heirs include Donald Junior and Barron? Ivanka seems to have rejected the role. It was disturbing to see how hard and long Republican audiences cheered and applauded for Barron at events leading up to the election.

  283. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @280:

    What is clear is that the White House recognizes a real risk if Elon is held accountable for all the things Elon has done.

    Yes, that was my conclusion.

    In other news: Yet another prosecutor resigns in protest: DOJ’s criminal division chief in D.C. quits

    Mass resignations among federal prosecutors are incredibly rare in the American tradition, which made last week’s developments in New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ case so extraordinary. Donald Trump’s Justice Department allegedly struck an improper deal with the mayor to make the corruption charges against him go away, and the agreement was so brazen that at least seven prosecutors resigned in protest.

    The Washington Post published a report soon after, noting that in the current moment, the prosecutors’ courage “could create a precedent for further acts of resistance if Trump orders other government officials to do things they find inappropriate or believe would violate their legal responsibilities.”

    It was against this backdrop that, four days after the Adams case prompted a slew of principled resignations, it appears to have happened again. The New York Times reported:

    A veteran federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., responsible for overseeing major criminal cases in one of the nation’s most important offices abruptly resigned on Monday, according to an email sent to colleagues. Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, resigned rather than carry out a directive from the office’s Trump-appointed leadership, according to several people with knowledge of her actions who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

    The specific details surrounding Cheung’s departure are still coming into focus, but Reuters reported that she wrote in her resignation letter to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin that she’d been ordered to investigate a government contract awarded during the Biden administration and pursue a freeze of the recipient’s assets.

    […] according to Cheung, the directive “was not supported by evidence.”

    As for the nature of the contract, the Washington Post published a related report […] that said Cheung’s principled resignation stemmed from “a Justice Department effort to assist President Donald Trump’s new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who said last week that he would try to rescind $20 billion in grants awarded by the Biden administration for climate and clean energy projects, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.”

    The Post added that the Justice Department has the authority to freeze assets, “but it can only take that step when it has evidence suggesting the assets can be traced to a crime,” and in this instance, Cheung and Martin “disagreed over whether halting releases was inappropriate and unethical without such evidence, or whether she was disobeying the department’s leadership and investigative strategy of stopping releases and looking for evidence.”

    Martin, of course, is the Republican activist the “Stop the Steal” organizer whom Trump has nominated as the permanent U.S. attorney to serve as the top prosecutor in the nation’s capital.

    Or put another way, we probably haven’t heard the last of this story.

  284. says

    Josh Marshall:

    […] ProPublica has the list of all the DOGE people and there are lots of people with a lot more professional experience, either lawyers or longtime employees of Musk’s firms. So why does it continue to be this really small group of guys? [“the dozen or so under 25 techies – as the landing parties who go in and actually force their way into these departments”] They almost all have connections as interns at Musk companies. But interns, not people he’s worked with for years and presumably knows at a deep level.

    As I was sitting here yesterday evening it came to me. I think Musk keeps using these guys because they’re willing to do things these other more experience people are not. I want to be crystal clear. This isn’t something I’m reporting. I think it’s just the most logical reading of the available evidence.

    The big picture bad act here is that the Congress had the power of the purse. This whole operation involves seizing that power away from Congress. That’s the big bad act. But in the mechanics of how this is being carried out there appear to be a lot of more granular and specific criminal conduct – how you treat confidential information, authorization to take certain actions, cancel contracts, fire people, take possession of computer systems, offload government data to private servers. It’s hard to know precisely because everything is intentionally opaque. […]

    But back in the real world there are still laws. And if you’ve got a career and a family a mortgage, maybe you say you believe [Musk and Trump’s] theories but that’s still not the same as being perfectly happy to just walk into these places and just do absolutely anything Elon tells you to do. Because sure Trump has your back today. But tomorrow is a long time. And there are state courts and bar associations and civil suits. […] Lawyers cost money. […]

    The federal government is really, really big. Musk doesn’t care about any of these agencies. But even if you’re intent is to break them, some basic understanding of how they work would help. None of these kids have any of that. Having seven or eight guys slowly work their way through the federal bureaucracy with all its different agencies is going to take time. Why not have one DOGE lead hit every agency on Day One? Again, I think this is the reason. These guys aren’t concerned about the consequences.

    Link

  285. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    From Twitter:

    Rando 2: White people with freckles, welcome to the resistance

    Rando 1: The Trump admin has placed a ban on Julianne Moore’s children’s book ‘Freckleface Strawberry’ for being related to DEI.
    [Affecting 160 DoD schools for military families.]

    It’s about a little girl who dislikes her freckles but eventually learns to live with them when she realizes that she is different ‘just like everybody else’

    –
    Rando 3: I have so longed for this day where we pasty faced people get our moment in the shade.

    * Pulled from shelves pending review for potential DEI violation. Not yet officially a permanent ban.

  287. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel:

    We’re moving from deliberate recession to deliberate depression territory.

    And also, it makes the import of Pam Bondi covering up for corrupt banks the LAST time this all crashed more important.
    [Bloomberg Law]

    The Trump administration is planning to lay off at least 40% of the workers at the [Federal Housing Administration] that provides mortgage insurance on loans for people who otherwise wouldn’t qualify […] The FHA is one of the largest mortgage insurers in the world

    * TheAmericanProspect – When Pam Bondi protected foreclosure fraudsters

  289. JM says

    Reporting from Ukraine: BEGINNING OF THE END! Russian Forces ARE EXHAUSTED!
    Ukraine has continued to carefully push Russian forces away from Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is an important target for Russia and they have spent much of the last year slowly advancing towards it. Ukraine is now retaking some key areas near Pokrovsk. They have kept this up for several weeks now. Combined with a small advance by Ukraine in Kursk, it shows that Russian forces are spread too thin.
    Russians are not getting supplies and fresh units to the front and weak spots in their lines are showing. Part of the Russians problem is that Ukrainian drones are forcing Russians to keep their supplies and personal further and further from the front. Supply gets hard when Russian soldiers have to walk kilometers back and forth to get supplies.

  290. whheydt says

    Re: JM @ #289…
    Some recent Russian milbloggers were posting reports that the roads are under 24/7 drone observation, the roads are mined, and the troops have to walk 18Km to get from their staging area to the front. Slava Ukraini!

  291. KG says

    JM@269,
    I’m somewhat wary of such sites (I’m not familiar with that particular one, but some report imminent Ukrainian triumph/Russian collapse every day), but there do seem to be a few signs the Russian offensive is grinding to a halt. The overall dynamics of the war may resemble (at a very different technological level) WW1, which saw see-saw campaigns on several fronts, with the attackers exhausting themselves, often for small gains, and the other side then attacking and gaining ground but becoming exhausted in turn. Both then and now, the defenders appear to have big advantages (attackers tend to need more troops and take more casualties in most situations, but by how much varies a lot). Then, the defenders relied mainly on barbed wire, trenches, machine guns and mines; now, mines and trenches or similar linear defences again, but also drones. Those dynamics won’t last forever now any more than they did then – first on the eastern front as Russia collapsed following a failed offensive, then in the Balkans where Bulgarian forces collapsed, then on the western front when the final German offensive ran out of steam and the Entente counterattack, reinforced by fresh American troops (and more important, financial support), forced the Germans to ask for an armistice. The great danger now is, as a comment on the site says, that Trump pulling the plug on the Ukrainians – as he clearly intends to do – will be what tips the balance. Western Europe must replace American support as far as it can – but does it have the will and the political space to do so? Ironically, the outrageous lies and insults of Trump, Vance and Musk might just give the European leaders both.

  295. says

    Not satisfied with buying himself a president, Elon Musk is now buying judges and legislators:

    As 2024 got underway, Elon Musk’s electoral perspective was hardly a mystery. The billionaire was not only using the social media platform he owns to condemn Democrats and praise Republicans, he was also cozying up to Donald Trump in unsubtle ways.

    But in early March, Musk nevertheless made a public declaration that didn’t appear to offer any wiggle room: In the 2024 elections, the world’s wealthiest individual wrote online, he wouldn’t be “donating money to either candidate” for president.

    That was a promise he did not keep. The Washington Post recently published a final tally, based on Federal Election Commission filings, which concluded that Musk spent “at least $288 million to help elect President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates” in last year’s election cycle. Despite his public vow 11 months ago, Musk became the president’s single biggest donor.

    The investments, however, did not mark the end of the contributor’s interest in campaign spending. On the contrary, it appears Musk was just getting started writing checks to advance his electoral preferences.

    About a month after Election Day 2024, for example, Trump’s most generous megadonor said he was prepared to start financing primary campaigns against Democratic incumbents in Congress whom he didn’t like.

    Now, as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, a Musk-backed effort is also starting to invest in a closely watched state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.

    Conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel said just recently he was hoping conservative third-party groups would start buying up TV time in the state ‘very soon.’ Ask and you shall receive. Federal records show Building America’s Future, an Elon Musk-backed dark money group, began buying TV time in Wisconsin on Monday.

    According to the local report, […] the Musk-backed organization “has already purchased more than $670,000 of air time for the next two weeks on TV stations throughout the state.”

    That might not sound like a lot of money, especially given the sums spent in 2024, but in an off-year state Supreme Court race, that’s a significant expenditure, and there’s no reason to assume it’ll be the last.

    “Musk is trying to buy off Brad Schimel and take over control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court so that Schimel can rubber-stamp an extreme agenda of banning abortion and cozying up to corporations,” a Crawford campaign spokesperson told the Journal Sentinel. […]

    The election in Wisconsin is scheduled for April 1, and it will pit Susan Crawford, generally supported by the left, and Schimel, who’s backed by the right. (The contest is technically non-partisan, which is why there are no labels related to party affiliation.) The outcome will dictate the majority on the state Supreme Court. Watch this space.

    Link

  297. says

    In an email circulated today by the federal Department of the Interior, the Trump administration has issued a stop-work order for organizations providing legal services, funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, to unaccompanied minors entering the United States. The order will lead to 25,000 minors losing the legal representation they now have, as well as about a hundred thousand missing out on programs designed to educate them about their rights.

    The new order comes little more than a week after the Trump administration rescinded an earlier stop-work order and funding freeze for four programs providing legal services to undocumented immigrants. I previously reported on how this funding freeze was not only an attack on the rights of immigrants, but also on Congress’ “power of the purse”:

    Following a flurry of anti-immigrant executive orders by Donald Trump on his first day in office, the Department of Justice sent emails last Wednesday ordering legal service providers in immigration courts to “stop work immediately.” The order was sent to organizations working within four federally funded programs designed to help people navigate the complex immigration court system, through assistance outside the courtroom—like going over legal paperwork and court date requirements—and inside the courtroom, through direct legal representation….

    Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel, chief of staff at immigrant rights organization Acacia Center for Justice, said via email that “members of Congress from both sides of the aisle” in both Republican and Democratic administrations “have agreed that these vital programs help individuals better understand their rights and obligations while they are in immigration proceedings.” She adds, “Particularly as the administration announces plans to ramp up detention and enforcement operations around the country, it is more vital than ever that people have access to due process protections, afforded to everyone in the U.S – regardless of immigration status – under the Constitution.”

    Lukens sees the recent executive action to defund and ban immigration support as another clear violation of the constitutional “power of the purse,” a key plank of the Constitution which gives Congress power over how federal funds are spent. “The executive branch is obligated to spend funds that have been appropriated,” Lukens says. “That’s just basic constitutional law.” His organization is moving forward with the lawsuit; he hopes for a verdict that will make those obligations even clearer, and prevent future attempts to bar immigrants from receiving legal services.

    That lawsuit, which challenges the Trump administration’s previous attempt to usurp Congress’ constitutional power over how federal funds are spent, is still ongoing. And even though those four programs are restored for now, as I wrote in that previous article, there was no reason to believe Trump wouldn’t attempt something similar in the future—as he now looks to have done.

    Link

  298. says

    “Chutkan refuses to block Musk, DOGE from 7 federal agencies.”
    https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5151676-chutkan-musk-doge-federal-agencies/

    U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Tuesday refused the request of 14 Democratic state attorneys general to immediately impose wide-ranging restrictions on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

    The coalition of states, led by New Mexico, claims Musk’s far-reaching role heading DOGE is unconstitutional since he was not confirmed by the Senate, and the states sought to block DOGE from accessing seven federal agencies.

    Chutkan refused their demand to do so at the current stage of the case, saying they had not made the necessary showing of irreparable harm.

    “Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.

    “In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority,” she continued. “Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO [temporary restraining order], especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard.”

    However, in a footnote, the judge suggested that the Justice Department may have stretched the truth in court filings regarding the breadth of DOGE’s power over personnel issues. […]

    This bad news might be temporary. Chutkan gave the plaintiffs a roadmap to bring the case back to her court. I hope the request of the 14 Democratic state attorneys general is amended promptly and resubmitted.

  299. says

    “Federal judge reinstates employee appeals board member fired by Trump”
    Link
    Related video is available at the link.

    A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily reinstated a member of a three-person federal employee appeals board who was fired by President Trump.

    U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said Cathy Harris, who chaired the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) during the Biden administration, must be reinstated to her position and returned full access to the benefits of her office until further order of the court. The judge also barred recognizing any other person as a member of the MSPB in Harris’s position.

    “The Court concludes that Harris has established a strong likelihood of success on the merits, that irreparable harm is likely to occur in the absence of injunctive relief and that the public interest weighs in favor of enjoining Defendants’ actions,” Contreras wrote. “Harris has thus carried her burden to establish that a temporary restraining order is warranted here.”

    Harris was fired via a one-sentence email from the Presidential Personnel Office last week. She had four years left in her seven-year term on the MSPB, from which the president can only remove members for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

    Linda Correia, a lawyer for Harris, called Trump’s directive “illegal” and indicated Harris and the board itself stand to suffer irreparable harm over her removal.

    “Every day she is not in that position is a day she cannot exercise her deliberate judgment,” Correia said during a hearing Thursday. “And those are days she can never get back and no court can restore.”

    Justice Department lawyer Madeline McMahon said any order barring Harris’s removal would create a “significant imposition” on Trump’s executive power, contending that the president must be able to remove MSPB members at will.

    The litigation stands to reach the Supreme Court, challenging key precedent that lets Congress make presidents show cause before firing board members overseeing independent agencies.

    Overturning the 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that established that precedent would vastly expand presidential powers and clear the way for firings of critical watchdogs.

    “Because the MSPB falls within the scope of Humphrey’s Executor, Congress has the power to specify that members of the MSPB may serve for a term of years, with the President empowered to remove those members only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” Contreras wrote.

    “The President did not indicate that any of these reasons drove his decision to terminate Harris,” he continued. “The Court thus concludes that Harris has demonstrated that she is likely to show her termination as a member of the MSPB was unlawful.”

  300. says

    It’s so cute when Republicans pretend to care, as we’re now seeing since American farmers have started complaining to Republican members of Congress about the economic hit that shutting down foreign aid is delivering to those farmers. As we’ve mentioned previously, some 40 percent of the food that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) sends to poor nations is purchased from American farmers, to the tune of about $2 billion annually. Also, more than 80 percent of companies that provide contract services to USAID are based in the USA.

    […] the disruptions have been so bad that they aren’t just hurting the criminals and communists who hurt America by investigating Elon Musk, but also decent Americans in Republican districts, prompting some Republicans to bleat — very carefully, without implying any fault on the behalf of Trump or His Chosen Billionaire — that maybe we should keep some aid going, not for Those People Over There, who can probably die for all they care, but for Our Brave Farmers.

    “President Trump and his team need to turn this stuff back on. You know, it’s one thing to find a few programs that are bad or being mismanaged, but just a blanket turn off impacts our farmers,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, told NOTUS.

    Bacon expressed surprise that leopards appeared to be eyeing his own face, even though he is named after a delicious pork product.

    Despite a promise from thoroughly spineless Trump henchman Marco Rubio, who is somehow the secretary of State, that some emergency food and medical aid would receive waivers so it could be delivered, the waivers seem more of a fictional fig leaf than anything

    […] Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, [said] “This food is going places, and I love it. I mean, it’s packaged with an American flag printed on it. […] It’s good diplomacy, and quite frankly, if we can address food insecurity, it reduces the likelihood of us having to do any intervention abroad if there’s terrorism or war.”

    Yes, that’s always been the rationale, but again, is, um, that happening? Since last Thursday, when a judge ordered aid work resume, we haven’t seen any reports of the aid actually being unlocked, delivered, moved from ships to refugee camps, or even converted to biodiesel or dumped because it spoiled. […]

    Last week, several Republicans who are fans of USAID’s “Food For Peace” program, its biggest aid program internationally, introduced a bill to move Food For Peace from USAID directly to the Department of Agriculture, which hasn’t been shut down just yet, possibly because Elon Musk doesn’t currently own any farms. Supporters of the change made some muted mouth noises about how the program “fits” better with USDA, but also didn’t deny that they hoped changing its institutional mailing address might help spare it, and the farmers who sell it food, from the DOGE axe. […]

    Ag Committee chair Thompson [said] it was just too bad that, umm, the “temporary” freeze had become all “political,” but you bet we need to make sure any aid is proper and not fraud, OK?

    Other Republicans, like Ag Committee member Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin), were all in on Trump halting foreign aid, because he’s pretty sure taxpayer funds for USAID might be “feeding terrorists. And USAID is a pit of vipers,” he added, without pointing out any particular vipers other than those libs who definitely want to feed terrorists […]

    Everything is fine, OK? Just take a relaxing flight on an airplane and stop worrying so much, OK?

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trumps-evil-usaid-cuts-hurting-farmers

  301. says

    Washington Post link

    “U.S. weighs destroying $500 million in stockpiled covid tests”

    “The government is reviewing proposals to shut down the program that ships free covid tests to American households and is considering destroying 160 million tests.”

    The Trump administration has been evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of coronavirus tests that would otherwise be provided free to Americans, according to two officials at a federal public health preparedness agency and internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
    Internal documents show that officials in the Department of Health and Human Services have been considering two options: either disposing of or continuing to ship more than 160 million tests, valued at more than half a billion dollars. Only a small fraction of the tests are expired, according to the officials.
    Documents also show that employees were asked Tuesday to identify initiatives, projects and webpages related to covid-19 as part of a process to comply with an executive order. President Donald Trump signed an order rescinding many of President Joe Biden’s executive orders, including some on the covid response and increasing the testing supply.

    […] The agency is proposing to shut down one of the channels for distributing them, COVIDTests.gov, Tuesday night, according to the agency officials and internal documents. That is the government website where consumers can order free tests to be shipped to their households.

    Consumers would still be able to purchase tests over the counter.

    […] The pending decision on coronavirus tests represents yet another turning point in the fight against a virus that has posed political and public health challenges for Trump since the pandemic began five years ago.

    Trump initially touted his coronavirus response as a defining moment of his first presidency, labeling himself a “wartime president” as the virus surged in early 2020 and the nation reeled.

    But he came to resent the advice provided by public health experts, accusing them of attempting to politically damage him by encouraging shutdowns. Trump has since distanced himself from the government’s coronavirus response, including signing an executive order last week aimed at ending Biden-era coronavirus vaccination mandates in schools and universities. The anger toward public health agencies has helped fuel his new assault on the federal bureaucracy.

    The program to ship free coronavirus tests directly to American households has been paused and revived more than a half-dozen times since it began, in keeping with the threat posed by the virus. It was paused, for example, in March 2024 and revived in September for the seventh time, in advance of the winter respiratory illness season.

    Public health experts agree that there is no urgent need for free tests to be sent to American households now, given low levels of covid-19. But they said keeping the tests on hand is an insurance policy in case the virus evolves to cause a large outbreak again.

    Since January 2020, ASPR has provided more than 2 billion free over-the-counter tests, according to a news release. It is best known for the more than 900 million tests sent directly to households that requested them on COVIDTests.gov in a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service. ASPR also provides free tests to community organizations that distribute them locally, such as nursing homes and health departments. The fate of that program is unclear.

    “Destroying an asset that was paid for by the American people, that doesn’t make any sense,” said Tom Inglesby, who was White House national coordinator for coronavirus testing from the end of 2021 to April 2022. In the event covid becomes resurgent again, “we need to be able to figure out who is sick, who is not sick, who needs medicine, who is, in fact, contagious, who may be someone who’s vulnerable. These diagnostics really help you make really good decisions, help families make good decisions about how to stay healthy.”

    […] Ashish Jha, who led the White House covid-19 response from March 2022 to April 2023, said the stockpiled tests are valuable to have on hand.

    “The virus is not posing a major public health threat now,” Jha said. But he added that trashing the tests “feels like an act of self-destruction here. It’s going to be expensive. And it takes away a tool that the administration would want to use in the scenario that we get a highly immune-evasive variant.”

    The Biden administration policy was to stockpile enough tests to last six to eight weeks, so the country would never again experience the shortages that hit the United States in late 2021, “when no one could find an over-the-counter test,” O’Connell said. […]

    I know people who have recently used those tests to help them to distinguish between the flu and COVID. One did have COVID and was treated with Paxlovid.

  302. says

    New York Times link

    “After Walking a Fine Line With Trump, Zelensky Shows His Annoyance”

    “Left out of a meeting between American and Saudi officials, the Ukrainian leader also canceled a trip to Riyadh.”

    Shortly after the United States’ opening meeting with Russian officials on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine lashed out at the Trump administration’s negotiating tactics in his harshest terms yet for excluding Ukrainians from talks on their own country’s fate.

    The meeting in Riyadh ended with an agreement to establish teams to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and normalize relations, and with upbeat statements and pledges for closer ties between the United States and Russia — continuing a thaw in relations that Kyiv and European allies have found unnerving.

    Mr. Zelensky protested his exclusion from the discussions by canceling his own planned trip to the Saudi capital.

    “Decisions on how to end the war in Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine, nor can any conditions be imposed,” Mr. Zelensky said from Turkey, where he had traveled as part of a planned tour of the Middle East. “We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us, I think for many others as well.” [Why does The New York Times characterize that as “lashing out”? Sounds more like a reasonable assessment of the changing conditions for negotiations.]

    Ukraine, he said, learned of plans for the gathering from the media. Mr. Zelensky suggested that he had intended to meet American officials after the gathering in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on a previously scheduled state visit to Saudi Arabia.

    “I don’t know who will stay, who will leave, or who is planning to go where. To be honest, I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t want coincidences, and that’s why I will not go to Saudi Arabia.” [Yep, good assessment.]

    Ukraine has been seeking talks that would provide it protection against future aggression by Russia, with a commitment of membership in NATO or peacekeepers deployed into the war zone. Ukraine has also asked nations to consider prosecutions for Russian war crimes and reparations for a conflict that has leveled whole cities and killed and wounded tens of thousands of civilians, as well as about a million soldiers on both sides.

    Those kinds of demands were nowhere near the conversation in Riyadh, where American negotiators instead focused on “the incredible opportunities” that would come with an improved relationship with Moscow, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

    […] The pointed remarks represented a shift from Mr. Zelensky, who has tried to walk a fine line in the face of Trump administration pronouncements, avoiding direct criticism. He has offered praise in recent speeches and interviews, over the weekend telling NBC that President Trump could succeed in pressuring Russia into a settlement because the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, feared him.

    But as the meeting in Riyadh came together, he sharpened his criticism of the negotiating process.

    In an interview with the German broadcaster ARD on Monday, Mr. Zelensky said the United States was seeking a quick cease-fire by “saying things that Putin really likes.” The aim of the American negotiators, he said, was to move quickly to a presidential summit with Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin and announce a truce.

    “But what they want, just a cease-fire, is not success,” Mr. Zelensky said.

    The United States and European nations, he has said, should first outline the terms of postwar security in Ukraine, and he has insisted that Russia accept security guarantees to prevent violations or a resumption of the war.

    […] Mr. Zelensky has also been rebutting accusations from Mr. Putin that he is an illegitimate leader because Ukraine has not held elections (it cannot do so while it is under martial law).

    Asked whether the United States supports Russia’s demand that Ukraine hold elections before any final peace settlement, Mr. Trump said it was his administration that is pressing for Ukraine to have new elections soon, not Russia.

    “Yeah, I would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, like, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election?” he said. “That’s not a Russia thing, that’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. You know, Ukraine is just being wiped out.”

    Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Zelensky’s approval rating had declined because of the destruction in Ukraine and falsely suggested that the Ukrainian president was to blame for the devastation caused by Russia. [OMFG. Trump is just spouting Putin’s talking points.]

    […] “At this point, it is clear that neither side will win this war on the battlefield,” Mr. Zelensky said on Tuesday. “Russia wanted this, it failed. No one believed in Ukraine, yet we proved ourselves and defended our independence at an incredibly high cost in the lives of our soldiers, our people. This proves that a shift toward diplomacy must happen, but it must lead to a just peace.”

    Mr. Zelensky has said he hopes to reach an agreement with the Trump administration that would exchange a share of profits from natural resources for military aid. A Trump administration proposal had demanded half of the government’s proceeds from natural resources, an official familiar with the proposal said.

    Mr. Zelensky had balked at the deal, saying it did not detail any security commitments from the United States in exchange.

    “This is a very important issue for us, and we are highly interested in signing an agreement” with the United States, Mr. Zelensky said in a video call with reporters in Kyiv on Monday from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

    Mr. Zelensky, though, said that Europe was also interested in investing in Ukraine. “I told our American partners that we also have offers from Europe,” he said. Mr. Zelensky has said any deal on resources in Ukraine should consider other backers of the Ukrainian war effort.

    By choosing words like “annoyance” and “lashing out,” I think that the NYT demeans President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  303. says

    Followup to comment 302.

    […] Going into the talks, Lavrov [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] said his job was to “listen” to the American proposals and report back to the Kremlin.

    State Department spokesperson Bruce similarly said the U.S. was there to determine how serious Moscow was about finding a negotiated settlement.

    Yet Lavrov made clear in advance he would reject any notion of returning land annexed by Russia back to Ukraine.

    “They say we should probably give territorial concessions — but what for?” said Lavrov. “So ethnic Russians who live there can be destroyed?” alluding to alleged atrocities by Ukrainian troops that have not been independently verified.

    […] The U.S. negotiators’ work was further complicated by statements out of the White House even before the talks began.

    […] Trump has publicly said any peace rested on Ukraine ending its NATO ambitions and relinquishing territory seized by Moscow — in essence ceding to two key Russian demands. [JFC]

    Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, tells NPR he expects Trump’s America First agenda means the U.S. president has little interest in the specific terms of a settlement.

    “Trump wants to end the war,” said Markov, adding that beyond that “the only thing which Trump is concerned about is his image. He has the image of a strong guy. He shouldn’t look like a loser.”

    Putin has extended an invitation for Trump to visit Moscow in the near future. The gesture has caused speculation Trump could join Putin on Red Square this May — when Russia commemorates the 80th anniversary of its victory in another war: World War II.

    Link
    More at the link.

    It looks to me like Russia is not conceding or compromising on any of their demands. Meanwhile, Trump is making all kinds of concessions, while also dutifully spouting Putin’s talking points. It’s disheartening to watch this.

  304. says

    NBC News:

    The United States and Russia agreed in high-level talks Tuesday to re-establish embassy staffing […], fueling fears in Kyiv and building up Moscow’s hopes of re-entering the international mainstream.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that both countries had agreed to re-establish ‘the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and Moscow’ and that Washington would create a high-level team to work on a path to ending the war in Ukraine.

  305. says

    NBC News:

    A freeze on the hiring and onboarding of thousands of federal firefighters could have deadly consequences as the national wildfire response operates at a ‘diminished capacity,’ a federal firefighting captain told NBC News.

    The federal hiring freeze ordered last month by […] Trump will hinder the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to “deliver the lifesaving service that Americans deserve,” said Capt. Ben McLane, who serves in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in southern Washington.

    The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service employ more than 15,000 career and temporary seasonal firefighters who conduct fuel management, fight wildland fires and assist other agencies in emergencies under the National Incident Management System.

    Hiring federal firefighters is a lengthy process because federal background checks are required, raising concerns among McLane and other high-ranking firefighters that the federal force will be understaffed going into the 2025 fire season, which technically begins next month but in practicality has become year-round. […]

  306. says

    Steve Benen summarizes news from Politico’s report:

    The struggling Pentagon chief has no evidence to substantiate this conspiracy theory:

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Monday accused the Biden administration of orchestrating a last-minute audit of him and his wife by the IRS before last month’s transition of power.

  307. says

    Washington Post:

    Mexico is threatening to take Google to court over its ‘Gulf of America’ name change on maps for users in the United States, pointing out that much of the body of water lies outside U.S. maritime borders in regions controlled by Mexico and Cuba.

  308. says

    Oh FFS.

    Trump’s First-Term Inside Man [Jeffrey Clark] At The DOJ Has Scored A Top Post At The CFPB

    Remember Jeffrey Clark, the former acting assistant attorney general in the Trump DOJ’s environmental division? He became infamous in the first days of 2021, when Donald Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to install him as attorney general mid-coup attempt. Now, Clark is reportedly back in government, in a top post at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s an agency that Trump, Elon Musk and other allies have taken steps to paralyze in recent weeks.

    You’ll recall Clark was behind efforts to use the power of the Justice Department to pressure Georgia lawmakers to throw out President Joe Biden’s win in the state not long after the 2020 election. While his name was ultimately dropped as a co-conspirator, Clark was initially indicted in Georgia as part of Fulton County’s racketeering case against Trump and his allies for attempts to overturn the results of the election there. Clark’s law license was also suspended for two years, and he faces threats of disbarment in D.C. for his efforts to help Trump subvert the will of the voters in 2020.

    Now, according to new reporting from American Banker, Clark has been installed as a senior adviser to attorney Mark Paoletta, the CFPB’s new chief legal officer. Per American Banker:

    Clark and at least five other new hires showed up in the CFPB’s email directory this weekend, according to people familiar with the situation. They are now listed as part of the CFPB’s front office working under acting CFPB Director Russel Vought, who is head of the Office of Management and Budget.

    Clark’s placement at the CFPB comes as other Trump loyalists within the bureau push forward with plans to effectively shutter the agency. The ubiquitous Russ Vought took over as acting director earlier this month, and halted all of the agency’s investigations and even closed the building. In the past week, the Trump administration began purging employees.

    On Friday, CFPB employees were alerted that they’d been placed on indefinite administrative leave. Those reports emerged just before the Trump administration agreed in court to a temporary pause on terminating staff. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday issued an order stating the Trump administration had agreed to not fire more staff, delete agency data or transfer money out of its reserves — at least not until March 3. That’s when Berman Jackson will hold a hearing on a lawsuit that the National Treasury Employees Union filed on behalf of ousted CFPB staff. It is one of a handful of lawsuits that have been filed by former employees and other agency advocates in response to purges.

    Musk and his cronies at DOGE have had their sights set on dismantling CFPB for weeks. Musk made those intentions public when he tweeted “CFPB RIP” earlier this month.

    It is unclear what role Clark will play in his position at the bureau, which was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), to monitor banking systems and protect Americans from financial scams. But Clark, Paoletta and Vought all worked together both in the first Trump administration, and also at a right-wing think tank they set up that advocates for expanding executive authority, the Center for Renewing America. The group recently published a piece — written by “CRA staff” — advocating for the bureau to be “shut down” and explaining how best to do it.

    Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.

  309. JM says

    @291 KG: I suppose I should put a warning on some of what I link to. When I’m looking for a link to include usually I search a bit for a good article. Reporting from Ukraine is very pro-Ukraine and slanted but there is also not much that is as current as their daily updates.
    Russia’s current offensive is in bad shape and seems to be that way because of lack of rested manpower and supplies. It is a very big leap to saying Russia as a whole is in trouble or that they can’t eventually recover. Historically a bunch of people have made that mistake and paid for it. Though Ukraine is better prepared to handle the winters.

  310. JM says

    @303 Lynna, OM:

    Putin has extended an invitation for Trump to visit Moscow in the near future. The gesture has caused speculation Trump could join Putin on Red Square this May — when Russia commemorates the 80th anniversary of its victory in another war: World War II.

    Oh crud. Trump’s going to see another big military parade and want one for himself.

  311. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    404media – Musk ally demands admin access to system that sends mass texts

    Musk ally Thomas Shedd requested “admin/root access to all components of the Notify.gov system,” which is a government system used to send mass text messages to the public […] Shedd is a former Tesla engineer who now runs Technology Transformation Services (TTS), a group of coders and software engineers within the GSA, who is closely allied with […] DOGE.
    […]
    this would allow Shedd to “view all personally identifiable information (PII) moving through […] for members of the public.” […] Shedd “would be able to download and store this data without anybody else receiving a notification.”
    […]
    “Someone at TTS resigned rather than surrender a vast trove of data to Thomas Shedd,” one employee said. “I’m scared that we’ll run out of people who will tell him no.” […] “Notify contains […] names, phone numbers, and the status of participating in public benefit programs which are based on financial status.”
    […]
    [By statute, it is legally required] that to provide someone access to a system they must go through an Authorization to Operate (ATO) process that determines who should have access to what systems, and for what reasons. The resigning worker said […] they had been “instructed to skip that process and place the system in non-compliance.”

    * Shedd was the guy who proposed violating privacy consent for login.gov and asked the TTS devs to help him make AIs that could code, so he could replace employees (such as themselves). Then screwed up firing them.

  312. Bekenstein Bound says

    So soon Musk will be able to spam the entire nation with whatever he wants to force Americans to read, whether or not they are Twitter users.

    Lovely.

  313. says

    Some waste DOGE could cut:

    […] Oddly, DOGE hasn’t tried to cut the wasteful trips Trump himself has taken during his first month in office that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars, according to estimates crafted by Daily Kos.

    Since he took office, Trump has traveled to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida three separate times—the weekend of Jan. 31, the weekend of Feb. 7, and the weekend of Feb. 14—to golf and be showered with fawning adoration from the cultists who shell out stupid sums of money to join his gaudy club. In fact, he spent this Tuesday morning golfing instead of working, even while ordering federal employees to head back to the office—often without enough work space for them to actually do their jobs.

    A Government Accountability Office report from 2019 said that four Trump trips to Mar-a-Lago totaled $13.6 million for the travel and security costs. If you do the math, that means Trump’s three trips to Mar a Lago in the first month of his second term tallied up to at least $10.2 million.

    Trump has taken two other superfluous trips, including attending the Super Bowl and going to a NASCAR race on Sunday—neither of which did anything to help the American people, but did a whole lot to stroke Trump’s very large ego.

    According to calculations by the fact-checking outlet Snopes, Trump’s Super Bowl trip cost taxpayers at east $1 million just for the air travel and regular Secret Service detail that travels with the president. But the trip likely cost much more than that, given the need for extra law enforcement officers and security measures to ensure Trump’s safety for the event, which he left before the game was over.

    Trump’s trip to the NASCAR event was even more ridiculous.

    He flew less than 200 miles from Mar-a-Lago to Daytona, where he took a joy ride around the race track in the presidential limousine while babbling on the radio to the race car drivers.

    “This is your favorite president. I’m a big fan. I am a really big fan of you people,” Trump said.

    The field trip to the Daytona 500 event—where he stayed for roughly 90 minutes—likely cost taxpayers at least $373,000, according to Daily Kos calculations.

    That’s based on the fact that it costs $177,843 per hour to operate Air Force One, according to information the outlet the War Zone obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request in 2022. White House pool reports said the flight times between Daytona and Mar-a-Lago were roughly an hour each, plus the daily cost of $17,520 for the Secret Service detail, per Snopes, and you land at the $373,000 figure.

    In all, Trump’s travel during his first month in office cost taxpayers at least $11.4 million.

    Limiting Trump’s ridiculous trips would be a great cost savings, don’t you think? We’ll be sure to @ Elon Musk on X to let him know.

    Link

  315. says

    Watch Stephen Miller lose his sh-t trying to defend Musk

    Yep. He really did lose it.

    White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller appeared on CNN in an interview that took no time at all to go off the rails.

    The uncharismatic Miller, who was being interviewed by Brianna Keilar to discuss Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, went on a spiel that resembled anything but answers to her questions.

    When asked about the recent firings of hundreds of nuclear security workers—who were then asked to return to work when DOGE realized what it actually did—Miller made a pathetic attempt to underplay the seriousness of the issue.

    “Well, I wouldn’t use the term ‘mistake,’” Miller said. “I would say that it’s pretty standard when you’re downsizing government. You make cuts, you assess those cuts, you see who needs to be rehired, who needs to be kept, who needs to be—”

    “That’s not what happened here,” Keilar cut him off. “These aren’t normal things.”

    As Miller rambled on in an ill-conceived semantics game, Keilar patiently explained the seriousness of mass firing the people responsible for safeguarding the country’s nuclear stockpile.

    Moving on, Keilar asked Miller about reports of a federal worker who was fired while deployed. Members of the military make up around 30% of the federal workforce, and their civilian jobs are protected under the Uniformed Services and Employment and Reemployment Rights Act while they are deployed.

    Miller feigned confusion, questioning whether or not Keilar was making up a law. Of course, she wasn’t.

    Reeling, Miller then balked at Keilar’s simplest of questions: “Does your administration understand who is in the federal workforce?”

    Having sufficiently embarrassed himself, Miller lost it and accused Keilar of saying things that she had not in fact said.

    Looks like it’s tough for guys like Miller to maintain their composure when interviewed by someone who isn’t doling out Fox News-style back rubs.

    All of the moments described above are backed up with video at the link.

  316. says

    Associated Press:

    Louis DeJoy, the head of the U.S. Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.

    In a Monday letter, Postmaster General DeJoy asked the Postal Service Board of Governors to begin looking for his successor.

    “As you know, I have worked tirelessly to lead the 640,000 men and women of the Postal Service in accomplishing an extraordinary transformation,” he wrote. “We have served the American people through an unprecedented pandemic and through a period of high inflation and sensationalized politics.”

    DeJoy took the helm of the postal service in the summer of 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term. He was a Republican donor who owned a logistics business before taking office and was the first postmaster general in nearly two decades who was not a career postal employee.

  317. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ProPublica – Trump’s GSA hired a real estate tax scammer

    the [GSA] has appointed a senior adviser whose firm used to specialize in tax transactions that […] the IRS branded as “abusive” and among the worst of the worst tax scams.” The adviser has been battling the tax agency in court over $4 billion in disallowed deductions
    […]
    The IRS, the Justice Department and Congress struggled for years, through public warnings, hundreds of audits, tax court cases and criminal prosecutions, to shut down the scheme. […] The practice was finally curbed through legislation passed in late 2022 […] Schuler’s exact role in the government is unclear.

  324. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘Uber for Armed Guards’ Rushes to Market Following the Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO

    Protector, an app that lets you book armed goons the same way you’d call for an Uber, is having a viral moment. The app started doing the rounds on social media after consultant Nikita Bier posted about it on X.
    (redacted because we don’t link Nazis)
    Protector lets the user book armed guards on demand. Right now it’s only available in NYC and LA. According to its marketing, every guard is either “active duty or retired law enforcement and military.” Every booking comes with a motorcade and users get to select the number of Escalades that’ll be joining them as well as the uniforms their hired goons will wear.

    Protector is currently “#7 in Travel” on Apple’s App Store. It’s not available for people who use Android devices. Sorry Google phone fans, if you want your own armed goons you’ll have to resort to more traditional methods of goon employment…

  326. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Rachel Maddow Show segments from last night:

    Trump oddly squeamish under questioning about contact with Putin
    Video is 7:55 minutes long.

    Musk’s clueless job slashing backfires again; principled protest resignations stymie Trump’s agenda
    Video is 5:06 minutes long.

    ‘Biggest mistake of my life’: Regret sets in for Trump voters as Republican politicians panic
    Video is 6:55 minutes long.

  327. says

    Followup to Reginald @323.

    Trump suggests Ukraine started the war that Russia started

    “Trump’s latest rhetoric about the war in Ukraine is so outlandish, the president sounds like he’s reading from a Kremlin-written script.”

    So that’s what Trump has been speaking to Putin about. (Reference to the Maddow segment: “Trump oddly squeamish under questioning about contact with Putin” as mentioned in comment 326.) Trump has been memorizing the lines that Putin wants him to spout.

    Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, there could be no doubts, here or abroad, about the United States’ unambiguous position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Kyiv six months ago. The nation’s top American diplomat added at the time, “Our support will not wane. Our unity will not break.”

    Six months later, the U.S. position has undergone a terrifying metamorphosis. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, with Donald Trump in power, the White House has effectively switched sides. The New York Times published a compelling analysis of the new landscape.

    As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, Russia is not responsible for the war that has devastated its neighbor. Instead, he suggests that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion of it. To listen to Mr. Trump talk with reporters on Tuesday about the conflict was to hear a version of reality that would be unrecognizable on the ground in Ukraine and certainly would never have been heard from any other American president of either party.

    [Trump] has had a great deal to say of late about the devastating conflict, but he broke new ground this week declaring, “You should have never started it.”

    In context, Trump was referring, of course, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launching a war that Vladimir Putin started.

    The American president made the comments as members of his administration began preliminary discussions with Russian officials about the future of the war in Ukraine — diplomatic discussions that the Trump administration did not invite Ukrainian representatives to participate in.

    After the same comments in which Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war that Russia started, [Trump] also publicly mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s approval rating and suggested that Ukraine did not deserve “a seat at the table.”

    A day later, by way of his social media platform, Trump described Zelenskky a “modestly successful comedian” and a “Dictator without Elections.” The American added that his his Ukrainian counterpart “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won.”

    […] Indeed, let’s not forget that, as offensive Trump’s latest rhetoric has been, it’s part of a larger series. It was, after all, just last week when [Trump]publicly vouched for Putin’s interest in peace, despite the devastating war in Ukraine that the Russian leader began and can end at any time.

    Trump also declared that he expects Russia to keep at least some of the land Putin took from Ukraine by force and hedged on whether he considers Ukraine an equal member of the peace process.

    As last Wednesday came to an end, former White House national security adviser John Bolton told CNN, “Putin has scored a whole series of victories today. It’s hard to encompass them all.” The former Trump aide added, “They’re drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight. It was a great day for Moscow.”

    It was a day later when Trump said he also has a new gift in mind for Putin: […] he wants to welcome Russia back into the G7.

    One can only speculate as to who put these ideas in Trump’s head, but he has a history of private interactions with Putin, and he’s been awfully cagey of late about his recent conversations with the Russian autocrat. [Again, see Rachel Maddow’s presentation to get the full picture of Trump’s weird and squeamish demeanor when asked about Putin.]

    Among the many problems with the White House’s line is that Trump is leaving little doubt that he has no interest in serving as a fair arbiter or honest broker as the diplomatic process inches forward. Indeed, after the American president blamed Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, Zelenskyy said that Trump appears trapped in a “disinformation bubble.”

    Or put another way, the more Trump takes Russia’s side, the more difficult it is to believe that he’ll play a constructive role in negotiating an end to the devastating war.

    Meanwhile, longtime U.S. allies are reassessing what they can expect from a White House they’re now struggling to respect or believe. In the Czech Republic, for example, Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said via social media, in reference to Trump blaming Russia’s war on Ukraine, “I’m afraid we’ve never been this close to Orwell’s ‘war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength’ before.”

  328. says

    Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley suggested Congress is powerless to stop cuts by DOGE. That’s plainly untrue.

    As Elon Musk and the White House’s DOGE operation continue to dismantle incrementally parts of the federal government, targeting spending and firing government workers, the developments have not gone unnoticed among congressional Republicans. Some of them, evidently, have a few concerns.

    Axios reported, for example, that some GOP lawmakers, recognizing the impact of the DOGE agenda on their states, districts and constituents, are “growing unnerved” by the tactics. The Washington Post published a related report, describing a truly ridiculous governing dynamic with no real precedent in the American tradition: “Republican senators find themselves in an unusual position these days: begging Trump officials to release funds they themselves appropriated.”

    The Post’s report added that in recent days, senators from the president’s own party have been reduced to making their case to administration officials, “trying to finagle exceptions to President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive orders or cuts made by billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service that freeze hundreds of billions of dollars, including money for farmers and infrastructure projects.”

    It was against this backdrop that Politico highlighted an especially unfortunate comment from a longtime senator who really should know better.

    Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley said Congress is powerless in the face of cuts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. ‘Congress can’t do anything except complain’ about the slashing of the federal government at the hands of Musk and his allies, Grassley said during a press call on Tuesday, according to a report from RadioIowa.

    [Maybe he wants to think he is powerless so that he won’t have to admit what a coward, and a stupid coward at that, he is.]

    For those unfamiliar with the Iowa Republican’s career, Grassley, who’ll turn 92 in September, began his Senate career around this time 44 years ago. He’s not only the longest-serving GOP member in the chamber, he’s literally the longest-serving Republican senator in the history of the institution.

    In other words, Grassley, the president pro tempore of the Senate, has been around a long while. In that time, he’s learned quite a bit about the many powers available to members.

    The question then becomes why the Iowan seems so reluctant to exercise that power.

    Last week, for example, Grassley conceded that he disapproved of Trump ignoring legal restrictions related to firing inspectors general, but the senator didn’t indicate any plans to act on his concerns. This week, he reportedly added, “Congress can’t do anything except complain.”

    But that’s plainly untrue. Grassley is, after all, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is a powerful position. He could, at his discretion, take all sorts of steps. The senator could:
    – call a hearing and demand Musk’s testimony;
    – issue subpoenas to the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency;
    – introduce legislation limiting DOGE’s authority;
    – file lawsuits;
    – sign onto amicus briefs filed in courts;
    – impose Senate holds until his concerns are addressed;
    – vote against nominees and bills until his concerns are addressed.

    This list isn’t comprehensive. It’s just a sampling of the kinds of steps Grassley and his other concerned GOP colleagues could take at any time. Complaining is certainly one option, but to see it as the only option is to overlook what members of the Senate could choose to do.

    It’s not a matter of power; it’s a matter of will. As things stand, Trump, Musk and the White House are effectively treating Congress as a doormat. If elected lawmakers want that to change anytime soon, they’re going to have to abandon the fiction that “Congress can’t do anything except complain.”

  329. says

    The White House characterized a new executive order on IVF as “promises made, promises kept.” The fine print in the order proves how absurd this is.

    In the closing weeks of the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump made all kinds of strange boasts and promises, but among the most striking related to, of all things, in vitro fertilization.

    In fact, in mid-October, [Trump] declared on Fox News that he considered him “the father of IVF” — a bizarre claim, even by Trump standards — while conceding that he’d only learned what the medical treatment was earlier in the year. The on-air comments came on the heels of Trump telling NBC News that, in a second term, he would have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service.

    The good news for IVF proponents is that the president didn’t forget about the issue. The bad news for IVF proponents is that [Trump] signed an executive order that doesn’t appear to do much. USA Today reported:

    […] Trump signed an executive order to expand access to and reduce the cost of in vitro and other fertilization treatments. The order directs his domestic policy advisers to make recommendations on how to lower costs for IVF, both for patients using health insurance and those paying out of pocket. The order signed Tuesday has no immediate impact on the cost of IVF or expanding access to reproductive treatments.

    In other words, the executive order effectively directed his domestic policy team to try to think of something that would help “aggressively” lower the costs of IVF treatments.

    […] as executive orders go, this one is effectively meaningless, and it has no practical real-world effects. It’s precisely why a report in The New Republic described the executive order as “toothless.”

    After the president signed the largely meaningless directive, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt published a social media item that read, “PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT.” And while I understand why Team Trump would like the public to believe this, what Trump promised was a system in which either the government or insurance companies cover IVF costs — and there’s literally nothing in the new executive order that keeps that promise.

    At a Mar-a-Lago press conference, the president boasted, in reference to IVF policy, “I’ve been saying that we’re gonna do what we have to do. And I think that the women and families, husbands, are very appreciative of it.”

    The rhetoric would’ve been far more meaningful if the president had actually done something dramatic in his executive order, but that’s clearly not what happened.

  330. says

    Trump gives Musk green light for corruption during Fox News interview

    In a joint interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump said that he would allow Elon Musk to police himself on conflicts of interest and other possible corruption while leading the Department of Government Efficiency. […]

    Musk and Trump also attempted to deflect criticism of DOGE’s egregious activities and promoted the conspiracy that there is an “unelected bureaucracy” running the country that DOGE has been uncovering.

    DOGE is not an official government agency. It is an advisory commission authorized by Trump to lead an ongoing effort to purge government agencies and invade the privacy of millions of Americans via the IRS and Social Security systems. DOGE’s actions have triggered multiple lawsuits alleging that the group has broken federal laws.

    The assertions from Trump and Musk were not challenged by Hannity, a longtime Trump cheerleader who has been described in the past by Trump staffers as the president’s “shadow chief of staff.”

    Contrary to Trump and Musk’s claims, the unelected billionaire has already financially benefitted from Trump returning the presidency.

    Existing government investigations into the actions of Musk’s companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and X (formerly Twitter) have been stalled under Trump. Agencies charged with oversight of those companies have also been the subject of DOGE-initiated staff reductions.

    Musk, who is the wealthiest man in the world and whose companies have a record of dodging taxes, is leading the team cutting back on IRS resources. […]

    Democrats have raised the issue of these conflicts and recently launched a portal for whistleblowers to file reports on abuse of power, threats to public safety, and wrongdoing that may emerge from the actions of Trump and Musk.

    At the same time, Trump is allowing Musk to punt on producing public financial disclosures during his time with DOGE, further obscuring how he could be profiting from his role.

    In the cordial interview with Hannity, Trump also claimed that DOGE was uncovering “massive” amounts of waste within the government. But independent investigations of these claims have repeatedly shown that this isn’t true. For instance, DOGE recently asserted that $8 billion had been saved in the cancellation of a single government contract. In reality, the contract was for $8 million—99.9% less than the initial claim.

    Hannity, however, was busy calling the two men “brothers” instead of challenging their false assertions that affect the lives of potentially billions of people.

  331. says

    Trump targets national parks [and other federal lands]

    The future of the National Park System is in doubt as Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze has put popular sites like Yosemite National Park in limbo and opened the door to privatizing federal monuments and lands.

    Trump’s heavy-handed freeze not only stopped the hiring of workers, it rescinded employment for many who had already received job offers. The staffing situation was characterized as “catastrophic” by former Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher.

    Summer camping reservations are on hold, impacting park sites from June 15 to July 14. This news comes on the heels of Yosemite officials’ announcement that a new reservation system has been delayed indefinitely. […]

    During Trump’s first administration, big business pressured Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to jettison environmental science policy when leasing lands to private interests. Trump then allowed Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments to be drilled by a Canadian mining company. America first, and all that.

    Trump spent a good deal of time during his first administration signaling his willingness to hand our national parks over to private interests—specifically ones that threw money at him. He even diverted much-needed National Park resources in order to fund a parade for himself.

    Now, Trump has teamed up with billionaires and the authors of Project 2025 to craft a much more robust plan to dismantle our country’s administrative state, which includes carving up as much federal land as possible. Their interests are far more naked and ambitious than those of Trump’s first administration.

    The cabal is targeting a repeal of the 1906 Antiquities Act, which protected national sites such as the Grand Canyon from becoming mines. Doing so would roll back fundamental protections on national monuments.
    […].

  332. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel:

    These are the excuses Pete Marocco is using to cut virtually all foreign aid. We don’t DO democracy anymore, peeps.

    [DEIA; Unnecessary reliance on third-party consultants, contractors, and orgs; General waste; Unrelated to core mission or life-saving aid; “Democracy Promotion”, sustainability and climate change, Trump no likey.]

    They’re all for privatizing gov services, yet they also snub contractors.
     
    Sen Patty Murray (Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee):

    here is a non-exhaustive overview of what is frozen by Trump’s actions and in jeopardy. [Table: At least $396 billion in congressionally enacted funding.]

  334. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel – Emil Bove throwing gold bars off the Titanic

    Denise Cheung, resigned yesterday after refusing orders from Ed Martin and Emil Bove to order a bank to freeze appropriated EPA funds based on probable cause (as opposed to just the possibility) that a crime was committed. […] Cheung was asked to open a criminal investigation […] When she refused, she was ordered to resign.
    […]
    After eight years of Republican insistence that one should never predicate an investigation solely on oppo research, and less than two weeks after SDNY closed a criminal investigation into Project Veritas based on suspicion they committed crimes in pursuit of political hit jobs, DOJ was pressuring prosecutors to open an investigation relying primarily on a Project Veritas video.

  335. says

    White House posts despicable video of immigrants being deported

    The White House posted a dehumanizing video Tuesday using the sound of detained immigrants being deported with the caption “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight.”

    The video features a faceless person being arrested and patted down in front of an airplane over the sounds of plane engines, handcuffs being laid on the cement, and the chains on their feet clinking as they board the flight.

    This comes as […] Trump, who has been in office for less than a month, is already straining government resources—with a lack of funds, detention space, and officers—as he tries to ramp up mass deportations.

    […] in January, Trump began sending detained immigrants to the infamous military prison, Guantanamo Bay.

    ASMR, which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, became a popular audible relaxation method in the 2010s. Videos feature people biting into pickles, scratching microphones, whispering, and tapping surfaces, and they have amassed billions of views and a cult-like following.

    The White House’s video clearly amused co-president and Sieg Heil fan Elon Musk, who retweeted it saying, “Haha wow.”

    Even more shameful—and frankly embarrassing for the American people—is that Trump chose to share the degrading video on the official White House X account, which was previously used as a dignified government platform for formal announcements.

    Now that Trump has hit a wall with his inefficient immigration raids, he’s seemingly pivoted to mocking and dehumanizing immigrants instead. Though, making a vicious joke at the expense of another person’s misfortune is the kind of sick perversion on which Trump and his ilk have built their political brand.

    Like much of Trump’s presidency thus far, this move is purely cruel for the sake of being cruel.

  338. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/doj-prosecutor-wont-use-project-veritas

    “DOJ Prosecutor Won’t Use Project Veritas Fever Dream Sequences To Open Fake Invesigations, Resigns”

    Another top-level resignation!

    The head of the criminal division in the US attorney’s office in DC and a 24-year-veteran, Denise Cheung, resigned Tuesday morning rather than cosign illegal orders that would have required her to lie, as she alleges was demanded of her by the election-denying ham-faced dick that is (acting) US attorney Ed Martin.

    Cheung claims Martin instructed her to write a letter to freeze a federal contractor’s bank accounts with grant money in them, and open a CRIMINAL investigation and convene a grand jury to find something illegal about an EPA funding decision made under […] Biden’s administration. The evidence? A Project Veritas video that new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin saw. Yes, the same Project Veritas you’re thinking of. Do some people think <a href="Project Veritas isn’t a serious organization that is full of truth-telling and integrity?

    And behold the stupid of this press release about it! (By the way, Zeldin would desperately like to make the nickname “The Legend of Zeldin” stick. Kind of like “Legend of Zelda,” get it? […])

    From the press release:

    … tens of billions of dollars went out the door during the Biden administration that we want accountability for. Between the time President Trump was elected and sworn in, a Biden political appointee was on video talking about how here at the EPA they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic. He says it four or five times in this Project Veritas video, even saying that there was a desire among the Biden political appointees to give out the final billions of dollars with an eye toward getting jobs at the recipient NGOs.

    And Denise Cheung was like, nooooo, some Project Veritas video —still the same Project Veritas — that some guy saw where an employee uses a metaphor is not enough evidence to convene a grand jury and indict somebody for something. Nooooooo. Bless your hearts, noooooo.

    Also, FWIW, the poor caught-on-tape-with-a-cocktail EPA employee guy says nothing about a quid pro quo for any job. Project Veritas is really slacking off with these ding-dong gotchas. Maybe they should skip the hassle of trying to be superspies at some bar and just make people’s lips move to say what they want with AI? Anyway, here’s the video, judge for yourself. NEFARIOUS?! [video at the link]

    Trying to allocate the funds that Congress has appropriated, quelle horreur! The funds in question were EPA grants for clean energy. The grants have been awarded, the contracts have been signed, and the money is sitting in accounts at Citibank. But Legend of Smellin’ would like to claw $20 billion of it back. However, the only way he can do that is if something illegal went on, and that’s where Martin apparently hoped Cheung would step in and do him a favor […] and work with the Washington Field Office of the FBI to claim that there was evidence of some kind of wire fraud conspiracy on somebody’s part and demand that Citibank freeze the accounts.

    The FBI told Cheung that they would send the bank a letter, but first needed her to say that there was some kind of probable cause, which, of course, there wasn’t. Not even the name of a person or a specific allegation! But she held her nose anyway and drafted:

    Based upon the information we received from [the Office of the Deputy Attorney General] and public-source materials, including a video of statements by a former [executive agency] official, USAO-DC believes that there may be conduct that constitutes potential violations of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States) and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1343 (wire fraud) that merits additional investigation.

    “Video of statements” is doing a lot of hard work there, because we are still talking about a Project Veritas video.

    But that was still not good enough for Martin; according to Cheung he wanted her to DEMAND a freeze on the money, and open an investigation into somebody. From Cheung’s resignation letter:

    You expressed your dissatisfaction about the adequacy of the FBI-WFO letter and criticized that the language merely “recommended” that a freeze of the accounts take place, notwithstanding that the same language was used in the draft I sent to the [Principal Assistant US Attorney] earlier in the day. You also directed that a second letter be immediately issued to the bank under your and my name ordering the bank not to release any funds in the subject accounts pursuant to a criminal investigation being run out of USAO-DC.

    When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence. You also accused me about wasting five hours of the day “doing nothing” except trying to get what the FBI and I wanted, but not what you wanted. As I shared with you, at this juncture, based upon the evidence I have reviewed, I still do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described, including sufficient evidence to tell the bank that there is probable cause to seize the particular accounts identified. Because I believed that I lacked the legal authority to issue such a letter, I told you that I would not do so. You then asked for my resignation.

    I remain committed to the oath that I took, and it has been an honor of a lifetime to be an AUSA in this Office. I know that all of the AUSAs in the Office will continue to uphold that pledge they have taken, following the facts and the law and complying with their moral, ethical, and legal obligations.

    You can read the full epic resignation letter here. Future quitters, take note of how she documented in her letter the illegal stuff that Martin was willing to say to her over the phone, but not willing to put in writing. That’s how it’s done!

    Martin sniffed in a statement, “Refusing a basic request to pause an investigation so officials can examine the potential waste of government funds is not an act of heroism – just a failure to follow chain of command.”

    There was no investigation to pause, and Cheung did follow the chain of command. She just wasn’t willing to make up accusations against individuals or organizations out of thin air. [I snipped comparison to seven prosecutors who resigned rather than abet Eric Adams quid pro quo with Trump administration.]

    As with (acting) Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in last week’s Thursday Afternoon Massacre, why did Ed Martin not simply type up a bunch of lies to send a freeze letter himself, and gin up some charges himself? Lazy? Doing a loyalty test? Realizes that at some point he’d have to defend his action in court and does not want to incur the wrath of a judge when he shows up with his only evidence being a clip of a Project Veritas video of a guy drinking a cocktail with a spring of rosemary in it who is saying nothing illegal whatsoever? Take your pick!

    Tough choices for the folks in the FBI and DOJ right now. Do you pretend to go along and sacrifice some integrity now so you can hopefully throw sand in the works of the fascism later, and you don’t leave important cases that you’re currently working on out to dry? Or do you jump off the bus before it and your integrity crash into a tree? There’s really no good answer there, and we sure don’t envy them.

  340. Reginald Selkirk says

    Brazil’s former President Bolsonaro charged over alleged coup that included a plan to poison Lula

    Brazil’s prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and kill a Supreme Court judge.

    Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others participated in a plan to remain in power. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Lula and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.

    “The members of the criminal organization structured a plan at the presidential palace to attack institutions, aiming to bring down the system of the powers and the democratic order, which received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger,’” Gonet wrote in a 272-page indictment. “The plan was conceived and taken to the knowledge of the president, and he agreed to it.” …

  341. birgerjohansson says

    Trump Unveils Bold New Country Names
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=S6ekVq4UAjs
    Personally, I think these changes are not bold enough. Obviously, the Victoria Falls are now Trump Falls, just as Mount Everest is Donald Peak. And South Africa is Muskhome. The Pacific is Great White Shark Sea and Australia is Crocoland, or maybe Jump Around Land. India is Browndudes and the part further east is Allookthesamia .

  344. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-and-rfk-jr-are-coming-for-your

    “Trump And RFK Jr. Are Coming For Your SSRIs, As If The Next Four Years Won’t Be Miserable Enough”

    After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services, the first thing Donald Trump did was to put out yet another executive order, this time “Establishing The President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission.”

    Shockingly, it does not include anything about helping people get access to medical care, so much as it appears to actually discourage medical care and encourage suspicion of doctors and medicines, including those that have been proven safe and effective for decades.

    Rather, they want to redirect the HHS’s focus to “fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, the effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety.” The latter being slightly ironic given the fact that the food safety chief of the FDA literally just resigned because all of the firings made it impossible for him to do his job. […]

    While many of these things are just fine and dandy, they’re not a substitute for actual medical and mental health care. It’s also concerning that it very clearly comes from the Armchair Medical School of All You Need To Do Is To Eat Right, Get Some Fresh Air And Exercise And Get Off Your Dang Phone.

    From now on, the HHS’s primary function will apparently be to provide deeply satisfying explanations and narratives for cranky internet trolls. […] People who want to be told that the increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses is because of vaccines, not because there is new diagnostic criteria for it and both lay people and professionals understand it better than they did a few years ago. People who want to be told that ADHD is not real, and all those kids need is to run around and tire themselves out (or be disciplined). […] People who want to be told that overweight people are just lazy and unable to say no to junk food. People who, more than anything, just desperately want to be reassured that their own “common sense” is just as valid as any medical degree.

    And, of course, the people who think depression and anxiety can be overcome with sheer willpower, that taking medication to manage them is just “the easy way out” and also poisonous to the human body in some capacity.

    One of the key goals of the HHS, the order says, is to “assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs.” Because what could possibly go wrong with that?

    While the order only mentions them in the context of being prescribed to children, Kennedy has certainly made it clear that he is very opposed to whatever it is he thinks SSRIs are.

    He has falsely suggested SSRIs might be “responsible” for the increase in school shootings, and said he knows people “who’ve had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than people have getting off heroin” (which is what he was previously on). In reality, very few school shooters were ever prescribed SSRIs, and while it’s best to titrate off of SSRIs under the supervision of a doctor, heroin is still heroin. He still wants these things “studied” the way he wants vaccines to be “studied,” the way he wants everything to be “studied” until they finally just give him the answer he wants.

    The fact is, they’ve been studied for years, and while there are side effects, the FDA has determined that the benefits for most people outweigh any risks, as they do for any medication that is approved to go on the market.

    […] Ever since the pandemic, conservatives have decided that all medicine other than Ivermectin is suspect and have landed on SSRIs, in particular, as a target. Kind of an interesting take given that they also regularly claim that “mental health” and not guns is at the root of why we have so many school shootings.

    […] SSRIs save lives, there is no question about that, and there should be no shame whatsoever in taking them. There are thousands upon thousands of people who will tell you so from personal experience, myself included. There are also people who needed to try something else or who had bad side effects, because we’re all different and the whole point of treatment is to find what works for you and your body. The least weak thing on earth is seeking out help and treatment for mental health issues […]

  346. says

    Ukrainians from across the political spectrum rallied behind President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, decrying President Donald Trump’s claims that he was failing, unpopular, illegitimate and to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that has killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

    In a post Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump went on to describe Zelensky as “a Dictator without Elections,” who was soon going to lose his country. The comment was immediately the top of the news in Russian media outlets.

    […] The day before, fellow Trump officials broke a long policy of nonengagement with Russia, meeting for talks in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine.

    Zelensky shot back at Trump’s earlier accusations that his ratings stood at 4 percent, calling it disinformation “coming from Russia.” [True.]

    […] “I wish Trump’s team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine.”

    […] Elections were supposed to be held in 2024, but Ukrainian law says voting cannot happen during martial law.

    Holding a fair election that meets international standards would be nearly impossible with at least a fifth of the country occupied by Russia, millions of Ukrainians living outside the country and tens of thousands of others deployed to fight.

    In his remarks late Tuesday, Trump was asked about Ukraine’s complaints about being excluded from the meetings amid fears that Washington and Moscow will impose a settlement on Ukraine. “Today I heard, ‘Oh, we weren’t invited,’” Trump said.

    “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it,” Trump said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” Ukraine did not start the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
    He also suggested Ukraine must hold elections after falsely claiming that Zelensky’s approval ratings sit at 4 percent. [Mind-boggling stupid Trump speaking is captured on video and is available at the link.]

    A survey published Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, a prominent Ukrainian polling organization, said 57 percent of Ukrainians trust Zelensky, an increase of five percentage points from a survey in December. [Better poll ratings than Trump’s ratings in the USA.]

    […] Trump’s comments “exactly echoed what Putin wanted,” former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said, and served as a further warning to Europe that the alliances that governed the West for decades could unravel in Putin’s favor.

    “It sounds like there was a handout prepared by Lavrov given to Rubio, and now they’re just reading it,” he said, referring to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met Tuesday.

    Trump’s remarks also elicited bafflement from allies, with French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas calling them “diverse, varied and often incomprehensible.” […]

    The comments unleashed a firestorm of support for Zelensky in Ukraine […]

    “They couldn’t break us from the outside, so now they’ll try to destabilize us from within — through elections,” she [Maria Berlinska, a prominent military volunteer] wrote. “And now they want to tell us when to vote? Putin, who has never won a real election in his life, and Trump, who spent four years in court over his own elections — these two are going to lecture us on fair elections?”

    […] As the political back-and-forth was taking place, Russian forces continued their aerial assault on Ukraine’s cities. Overnight Tuesday, Kremlin troops launched 167 drones, of which all but five were shot down or failed to reach their targets, Ukraine’s air force said on social media.

    In remarks Wednesday, Putin praised the meetings of the U.S. and Russian top diplomats in Riyadh as “friendly” and described how different the U.S. representatives were from their predecessors in the Biden administration. […]

    “I would love to meet with Donald. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” Putin said with a chuckle. “I would love to meet with him now, as well. I think he will, too.”</blockquote

    Washington Post link

  347. says

    As errors pile up, Musk and DOGE appear increasingly incompetent

    “The Trump White House has long billed the DOGE endeavor as a hyper-competent initiative. Those claims now lie in tatters.”

    Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week, Elon Musk conceded, “Some of the things that I say will be incorrect.” As it turns out, the word “some” was doing a lot of work in that sentence.

    For example, the quasi-governmental operation called the Department of Government Efficiency is starting at least to try to document some of its work. To that end, DOGE claimed this week that it has saved American taxpayers $55 billion in federal spending so far, which sounds like a considerable sum.

    But as Bloomberg News reported, according to the accounting available through the DOGE website, the actual total is $16.6 billion, which is roughly a third of advertised total.

    Still, $16.6 billion might strike some as a significant figure! But roughly half of that total is the result of an apparently careless mistake. The New York Times reported:

    Almost half of those line-item savings could be attributed to a single $8 billion contract for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But the DOGE list vastly overstated the actual value of that contract. A closer scrutiny of a federal database shows that a recent version of the contract was for $8 million, not $8 billion.

    […] we’re talking about a DOGE operation filled with officials who have little background in auditing, federal expenditures and/or how government agencies actually function, making errors even more likely.

    But the White House has long billed the DOGE endeavor as a hyper-competent initiative, led by private sector giants who’ll show rascally bureaucrats what mighty Silicon Valley executives can do.

    Roughly a month into that endeavor, however, the American public has an overwhelming list of reasons not to take any DOGE claims at face value. They’ve gotten claims about the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) wrong. And claims about Social Security wrong. And claims about the child tax credit wrong. And claims about news organizations wrong.

    And now DOGE officials apparently flubbed the difference between $8 million and $8 billion. (They were only off by a factor of 1,000.)

    Common sense might suggest that Musk, Trump and their colleagues would feel a degree of embarrassment after cultivating a record like this — perhaps even demonstrate some humility going forward. That clearly isn’t happening.

    As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump summarized, “Instead of then realizing the gaps in that knowledge and tempering future comments, Musk builds a defensive position around his claims, constructed of partisan tropes and attacks on his critics. […]”

    Are Musk and DOGE making mistakes because they don’t know what they’re doing, or are Musk and DOGE engaged in mis- and disinformation campaigns intended to deceive the public?

    Both.

  348. says

    Over the course of roughly half a day, the Republican president both vowed to oppose cuts to Medicaid and endorsed a plan to make deep cuts to Medicaid.

    When it comes to the nation’s largest and most popular social-insurance programs, Donald Trump has long said he would leave Social Security and Medicare alone. [Project 2025 does NOT promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone.] The president has not, however, always championed Medicaid with the same vigor.

    With this in mind, [Trump’s] on-air comments during his latest Fox News interview with host Sean Hannity raised a few eyebrows. NBC News reported:

    Trump said during tonight’s interview with Elon Musk on Fox News that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would largely be left untouched as his administration moves to cut federal spending and reshape the government. “Social Security won’t be touched, other than this fraud or something we’re going to find,” Trump said. “It’s going to be strengthened, but won’t be touched. Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched.”

    The comments came nearly three weeks after the president told reporters that Medicaid would be among the social insurance programs that his White House would “love and cherish” during his second term.

    He’s not only the only Republican making comments along these lines. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for example, said this week, “I don’t like the idea of massive Medicaid cuts.” Similarly, media personality Steve Bannon warned GOP officials last week, “Medicaid, you gotta be careful. Because a lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid, I’m telling you. If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong.”

    Given all of this, it would appear at face value that Medicaid proponents have reason to feel some cautious optimism about the near future. After all, Democrats remain steadfast supporters of the program, and the Republican president just told a national television audience that Medicaid “won’t be touched.”

    There is, however, a catch.

    The morning after Trump’s latest Fox News interview was aired, he used his social media platform to endorse a controversial House budget plan — which would, among other things, slash investments in Medicaid.

    In other words, over the course of roughly half a day, the Republican president both vowed to oppose cuts to Medicaid and endorsed a plan to make deep cuts to Medicaid.

    The obvious question, of course, is why in the world he would do this, and it’s a difficult question to answer with confidence. Maybe he was lying during his Fox interview. Maybe he doesn’t know what’s in the House GOP plan he endorsed. Maybe he assumes the public won’t notice the contradiction.

    Whatever the explanation, Trump’s incoherence both complicates his own party’s legislative strategy and imperils the future of a health care program that helps protect tens of millions of Americans.

  349. says

    Followup to comment 346.

    […] Even Republicans who usually kneel before Trump are against the idea of forcing Ukraine to have elections.

    Trump toady Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said Russia wants Ukraine to have elections “because they want to meddle in them.”

    Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a GOP member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a post on X that “Putin is now asking for a new election in Ukraine, conducted in a specific manner that he can influence, so that he can install his puppet and accomplish that which he couldn’t militarily.”

    Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska posted on X to remind people that “While Russia is demanding elections in Ukraine hoping for a leadership change, we should remind ourselves that Putin has murdered or exiled all his political rivals.”

    And Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) wrote in a post on X that the Russian demand for elections in Ukraine is ridiculous.

    “With respect to elections, of course Ukraine should have free and fair elections—but that demand coming from Putin and Russia is both comical and self-serving. Russia has continued to influence and interfere with elections throughout Eastern Europe and must not be allowed to install a Putin puppet and apologist simply to seize control from within,” Lawler said.

    Of course, none of these GOP lawmakers criticized Trump—who is openly siding with a murderous dictator over an American ally. So it’s unclear what they will do to stop Trump from allowing Putin to take over a sovereign nation.

    Since taking office in January, Trump said he has spoken to Putin directly.

    In the aftermath of those conversations, Trump has taken Russia’s side, saying that his idea for ending the war is forcing Ukraine to surrender and let Putin encroach on Europe. […]

    This has forced Zelenskyy—who has tried to have a friendly relationship with Trump in order to save his nation—to criticize the American president, saying that Trump is “living in a disinformation space” and in a “circle of disinformation.”

    Democrats, for their part, are clearly calling Trump out for his embrace of Russia over Ukraine.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy are “disgusting after how this man has fought so hard and so valiantly.“

    “It is shameful to hear the president repeat Putin’s propaganda while laying the groundwork for negotiations that favor Russia at Ukraine’s expense,” Schumer said, according to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic.

    “If Trump abandons Europe and surrenders Ukraine to Putin, he will go down as the biggest loser of the 21st Century,” said Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

    But given that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, it’s incumbent upon the GOP to stand up to Trump.

    Ultimately, the speed with which Trump sided with Putin over Ukraine is yet more evidence that Trump is a Russian asset.

    Link

  350. says

    On Tuesday, one of Donald Trump’s minions, White House staff secretary Will Scharf, got up and announced, essentially, that the president is now a king.

    It was part of a weirdly low-energy afternoon affair where Trump stood by while Scharf plowed his way through a prepared statement that the executive order Trump was signing “reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.” [video at the link]

    This is, of course, not a longstanding norm. It’s not something being reestablished. There’s no history of the president or the attorney general being the only people who can say what the law is. […]

    Declaring that only the president can say what the law is thoroughly tramples the check and balance of judicial review, whereby the courts, not the president, have the authority to determine if laws are constitutional. It also puts the president above the law. What possible law can bind Trump if he has unfettered power to simply say the law means something else?

    While Scharf made his little speech about how Trump is the law, the bulk of the executive order is actually about eliminating the “independent” part of independent federal agencies.

    Independent federal agencies are those where Congress has determined they should have some level of insulation from presidential power. These include the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, among nearly two dozen others.

    Typically, officials are appointed for fixed terms and can only be removed for reasons detailed in statute, such as malfeasance or failure to perform their duties. This allows those agencies to function independently of presidential whim and ensures there will always be commissioners from both political parties.

    […] The new executive order sweeps the independence of those agencies out of existence, even though Congress created such independence in duly passed laws governing those agencies.

    Instead, according to Trump, the federal government is only truly accountable to the American people if all executive branch officials wielding “vast power” are “supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President.”

    This stance would not only allow Trump to undo existing agencies’ independence but also prevent Congress from creating similarly independent agencies in the future. The assertion here is that it’s unconstitutional for Congress to try to create any agency that is in any way independent of the president’s whims.

    Instead of a robust, independent, nonpartisan regulatory state, what Trump believes the Constitution requires is that the Office of Management and Budget treat appointed agency heads like middle managers who need to be put on an improvement plan.

    The order directs Russ Vought, the head of OMB and one of the architects behind Project 2025, to “establish performance standards and management objectives for independent agency heads” and to report to the president on their “performance and efficiency in attaining such standards and objectives.” The agencies must also establish a White House liaison and regularly consult with OMB and the White House to coordinate policies.

    Vought also gets the power of the purse over the formerly independent agencies, with Trump’s order giving him the authority to adjust those agencies’ apportionments “as necessary and appropriate, to advance the President’s policies and priorities.” That “adjustment” can include stopping those agencies from spending appropriated funds.

    […] Last week, Trump’s acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin declaring that the Department of Justice has determined that for-cause removal provisions for members of the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are unconstitutional.

    Harris also said that the DOJ intends to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 90-year-old precedent that held that then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt could only remove FTC members for reasons specified by Congress.

    […] having absolute authority over who to hire and fire doesn’t go far enough for what Trump wants. He also wants absolute authority over how to spend money.

    The final part of the executive order feels almost tacked on at first glance, given that the remainder specifically focuses on the destruction of independent agencies. But this is where the White House really swings for the fences, saying that the president and the attorney general “shall provide authoritative interpretations of law” for the executive branch and that their opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees.

    […] Under this order, that power of interpretation would rest only in the hands of Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi. So, while Congress can pass laws and appropriate funds, for example, Trump is asserting absolute authority to say that his interpretation of the law allows him to redirect or freeze funding—exactly what he is already trying to do.

    […] Unfortunately, the Republicans in Congress seem perfectly fine with letting Trump usurp their constitutional authority. […]

    The conservatives on the Supreme Court spent the last term inventing presidential immunity out of whole cloth to protect Trump, and at least two of them—Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas—have already said they’d overrule their own precedent in Humphrey’s Executor and give Trump the right to remove whoever he wants. […]

    Link

  351. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-and-putin-think-youre-too-stupid

    “Trump And Putin Think You’re Too Stupid To Remember Who Invaded Ukraine”

    […] Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff (Trump’s real estate pal/golf buddy with no international diplomatic experience and Middle East “special envoy”), and Florida man National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have now had their meeting-that-should-have-been-a-phone-call in Saudi Arabia with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov and Russian businessman Kirill Dmitriev in Saudi Arabia.

    (And if the name KIRILL DMITRIEV is making your Trump/Russia sensors go apeshit, your sensors are working. Please click below to brush up!)

    Neither Ukrainian nor European representatives were invited, and now President Bone Spurs has re-invigorated a direct-from-Russian-propaganda lie that Ukraine started the whole thing. […]

    All that time on the airplane and it sounds like Little Marco and friends came away with nothing […] while the Russians walked away with assurances that embassies in Washington and Moscow were going to get re-staffed; possibilities for the easing of sanctions; maybe economic and investment opportunities with Russia; talk of restoring broader diplomatic ties, plus; according to RT, a promise that Vlad and Donbas Don would meet together […] in person real soon.

    In honor of the incredible bargain of Russia being on the verge of getting everything it wants plus some kind of serving size of Ukraine’s land, Art O’Deal took to his presidential podium yesterday to incoherently blame Ukraine and Europe for starting the war. [video at the link]

    […] Today, the failed gameshow host took to his failing social media platform to pound out some more thoughts:

    Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is “MISSING.” [Trump is blatantly lying.] He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.” A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..

    Holy ghost of John Foster Dulles, is that some switching sides to lie and help Russia! “Not have a country left”? Just straight-out saying he is planning to throw Ukraine to the Russians, as hard as his weak little arms will allow?

    Zelenskyy was democratically elected, though Ukraine has been under martial law since the war started in 2022, and elections have been suspended on account of a third of the population being displaced right now. Joe Biden did try quite hard, with everything from supplying them arms to putting a freeze on Russian assets, which Trump is subverting by firing the force tasked with finding and freezing them. [Trump] also went on the air to moan that Zelenskyy’s approval rating is four percent, when in fact iii s 57 percent, higher than Trump’s has ever been.

    […] And it is not a “gravy train” to help defend our allies from Russian aggression. It is honoring the security agreement that the US, Russia and the UK made in 1994, that Ukraine’s sovereignty would be respected in exchange for Ukraine giving up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. But that’ll teach everybody to take the US at its word again! “Half of the money missing” is false, and Trumpsky just making shit up, as is his way. Most of the money actually went to US, to train Ukrainian fighters and replace the old weapons we sent them.

    And though the war’s casualties are hard to calculate—Russia does not report them—the number is not millions. Though of course any number is too high, because Russia violated international law six ways to воскресенье by invading Ukraine unprovoked. Oh, and RUSSIA IS AN ENEMY OF DEMOCRACY. But so is Trump. […]

    Trump’s feelings are also apparently hurt that Zelenskyy spoke with reporters yesterday with this accurate assessment: “I would like to have more truth with the Trump team. […] Unfortunately, President Trump — I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us — unfortunately lives in this disinformation space.”

    […] In reality, Russia is weaker now than it has ever been. It’s broke, suffered massive casualties, and continues to lose. And Ukraine is not going to give up, no matter what Trump’s golf buddy might be assuring the Russians from his cushion at Prime Minister Bonesaw’s palace. […] it’s probably definitely time to start having serious conversations again about whether or not Putin literally owns Trump. Or at least shares joint ownership with Elon Musk, who has his own truly bizarre relationship with Putin.

    Remember all of the secret talks that Trump was always having with Putin during his last administration? His businesses so thick with dirty Russian money that came out laundered and clean? How Paul Manafort shared polling data in 2016 with Konstantin Kilimnik, a literal Russian spy, according to the MARCO-RUBIO-LED Senate Intelligence Committee? “Russia, if you’re listening”? The Mueller Report? The even stronger conclusions of the report from the MARCO-RUBIO-LED Senate Intelligence Committee, in case we forgot to mention three sentences ago?

    All of those boxes of documents that he toted around, including to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency? How a former spy told The Guardian that Trump had been a Russian asset for 40 years, and there were parties in Moscow after Trump won? And more, so much more. This is just what we know, so you can only imagine what is worse that we don’t know. And now Elon Musk’s got the payroll for all the spies, too, now.

    So, we guess America is a Russian franchise now and Vlad is calling the shots. [..]

  352. says

    From Reclaim Idaho:

    […] Moments ago, after 2 hours of debate on the House floor, the Idaho House of Representatives voted 38 to 32 in favor of House Bill 138—a bill that would eliminate Medicaid Expansion and rip away healthcare from 90,000 Idahoans. 
     
    We are now in a do-or-die moment for the future of Medicaid Expansion, and we need thousands of Idahoans to get engaged in this fight. That’s why we’re launching an online petition demanding that lawmakers protect Medicaid Expansion, and we’re aiming to collect at least 10,000 signatures before the end of the month.
     
    If HB 138 gets approved by the Senate and then signed by the Governor, the result will be catastrophic. Idaho’s economy will lose over $1 billion in annual federal investment; 90,000 Idahoans will lose their healthcare; and rural hospitals across Idaho will be at risk of closure. […]

  353. says

    Youngkin fails to stand up to Trump as federal cuts threaten thousands in Virginia, by Rachel Maddow

    “Although some Republicans can’t seem to bear what the president is doing to their states, they’re too scared to say they’re against it.”

    Something to watch as Donald Trump’s second administration seems to only get wilder and more off-the-chain with each passing day is whether there’s any sign of a limiting instinct coming from the Republican Party, of which this president is ostensibly the leader.

    Take, for example, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who, as the Republican governor of a purple state, was once thought of as someone with a bright future in the party. When the Republican Party briefly considered the possibility of running someone other than Trump for president, Youngkin was seen as probably the most electable non-Trump choice they could make. The Republican Party, though, did not go down that road. They picked Trump and Youngkin melted back into the scenery, plodding along as governor of Virginia.

    In Virginia, you have to consider politics along a slightly different timeline than everywhere else, because Virginia has off-year elections. This year, in fact just a few months from now, voters in Virginia will elect a whole new legislature and a new governor. That election will be the first big partisan test of how Americans are feeling about the country, about politics and about the two parties now that Trump is back in office.

    You may remember that on Jan. 27, Trump issued a memo ordering an immediate freeze of federal funding. That freeze was especially concerning for many Virginians since the state has nearly 145,000 civilian federal government employees and even more people who work as federal contractors. Virginia also gets more contract money from the federal government than any other state in the country, with $100 billion a year in federal contracts paid to various businesses and other entities in the state.

    The day after that freeze went into effect, Youngkin wanted to hold an event to announce a new round of Virginia school test results — but what do you think people wanted to ask him about instead?

    As The Washington Post reported:

    [Youngkin] had a message early Wednesday for everyone claiming President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again, on-again freeze on trillions of dollars in federal spending would create chaos. … “The steps that President Trump is taking are steps … that he told everyone he was going to do and received a massive, massive vote of confidence by the American people to do,” Youngkin told reporters at an event rolling out Virginia school test scores.

    “There may be some disruption to Virginians along the way and I’m very empathetic to those concerns,” Youngkin continued. “We can get through this.”

    However, later that day, the administration rescinded the funding freeze order. So, in the end, Youngkin had to eat it politically. He already told his constituents that he accepted what the Trump administration was doing, even though it was causing a lot of harm to his state — and then the White House changed its mind anyway.

    Understandably, Youngkin hasn’t been poking his head above the parapet much in the few weeks since that disastrous appearance. But he did try again on Tuesday, attempting to hold a news conference about the looming winter storm barreling its way toward Virginia.

    Youngkin was, once again, confronted with questions about the administration’s actions, including its mass purge of federal workers. The governor said his state was preparing an aid package for Virginians who lost their jobs due to the cuts. However, he also defended the president’s actions, which have disproportionately impacted his state. “We first need to recognize that this process that the federal government is going through is needed because of the inefficiency and bloat of the federal government,” he told reporters.

    The governor said he wanted Virginians to know “we understand and … we’re here to help.” He promised the state “will have the ability to support [federal workers] through any job dislocation.” However, he declined to provide details about what kind of help they are prepared to offer. Youngkin said that when the plan is ready, “I want to communicate it in a package. We’ll have a good one for you.”

    Youngkin is telling the people in his state not to worry, a “package” is on the way. In the meantime, he’s also making it clear that he stands fully behind Trump. While also assuring Virginians he’s trying to figure out a way to clean up the giant deliberate mess the president has made of people’s lives in his state … for which, he wants them to know, he is very empathetic.

    Did I mention that Virginia has elections this year? In just a few months? So we’re going to keep watching this dynamic: Republicans who cannot actually bear what Trump is doing to their states but seem too scared to say they’re against it.

    Youngkin is squirming.

  354. birgerjohansson says

    He Shot Two Israelis… Thinking They Were Palestinian
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=PUr0qjQe28g
    This video puts the institutionised hate against Palestinians into context. A jew shoots two jews thinking they are palestinian. And the two victims assume he is an Arab and write “Death to Arabs”.

  356. Reginald Selkirk says

    Fast-food giant KFC leaves Kentucky home for Texas

    KFC, the fast-food restaurant chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is moving its corporate headquarters in the US from Kentucky to Texas, its owner has announced.

    Yum Brands said it will shift the office from Louisville to Plano though KFC will keep some operations in Kentucky, including its KFC Foundation.

    However, Andy Beshear, governor of the state of Kentucky, said: “I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company’s founder would be, too.

    In recent years, many companies have relocated to Texas attracted by the state’s lower taxes and business-friendly policies.

    The decision by Yum Brands is part of a plan to have two headquarters for its main brands. KFC and Pizza Hut will be in Plano while Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill will remain in Irvine, California…

  358. Reginald Selkirk says

    Subsea fibre optic cable deliberately cut for the 2nd time between N.S. and N.L.

    Telecommunications giant Bell is exploring surveillance options in the Gulf of St. Lawrence after one of its subsea fibre optic cables between Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland’s west coast was recently severed for the second time.

    David Joice, the company’s director of networks, said it’s suspected that an anchor or a piece of gear, such as a trawling net, snagged the cable last Dec. 24. He said the cable was then brought to the surface along with the gear, and deliberately cut by someone.

    “The telltale sign that we have is that there’s almost like a cut, or like an angle grinder cut, through the cable,” Joice said in a recent interview with CBC Radio’s Information Morning Cape Breton.

    “That’s a pretty tough thing to do because … it’s just not like a fibre optic cable that you’d see on the poles or going to your home, but it’s actually wrapped in steel. So it takes a lot of effort to actually cut.”

    The 140-kilometre cable, which runs from Dingwall, N.S., to Codroy, N.L., was also sliced in a similar way in December 2023. Who cut the cable and why remains a mystery in both cases…

  359. Reginald Selkirk says

    High-speed rail line with 300 km/h trains will run between Toronto and Quebec City, Trudeau announces

    The Liberal government launched a six-year, $3.9-billion design and development plan Wednesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says will eventually connect Quebec City and Toronto with a high-speed rail line.

    “Today I’m announcing the launch of Alto, the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history,” Trudeau said from Montreal. “A reliable, efficient, high-speed rail network will be a game-changer for Canadians.”

    Trudeau said the new rail network will run all-electric trains along 1,000 kilometres of track, reaching speeds of up to 300 km/hour, with stops in Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City. ..

    Construction on the new line will not begin until the design phase is done, which could take four to five years. Funds are to be allocated at the end of that time period, so it’s possible a future government could modify or cancel the project…

  361. Reginald Selkirk says

    So many Americans died from COVID, it’s boosting Social Security to the tune of $205 billion

    As the U.S. approaches the fifth anniversary of the official start of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research finds so many Americans died from the virus that the nation’s Social Security trust fund will see a net increase of hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of retirement benefits that will not be paid out.

    The working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that approximately 1.7 million excess deaths among Americans 25 and older occurred between 2020 and 2023 related to the pandemic. Premature deaths related to COVID mean Social Security will not make retirement payments to those individuals in the future, reducing payments by about $294 billion, the researchers found.

    At the same time, some of that gain is offset by the lost tax revenue from those individuals, as well as increased survivor benefits to spouses and children of the deceased, resulting in an estimated $205 billion less in future outlays.

    Many of the people who died were seniors older than 65 who were already drawing retirement benefits or would soon, and had paid into the system for many years. While most of the excess deaths were white Americans, Black and Hispanic populations saw the highest excess deaths per capita, as did those with lower educational attainment…

  362. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former Vice President Kamala Harris Signs With CAA

    Former Vice President Kamala Harris has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation in all areas, with a focus on speaking engagements and publishing, the agency announced on Tuesday.

    The agency will work closely with Harris on her post-White House initiatives, creating strategic opportunities that expand her platform in support of the issues she has championed throughout her decades-long career in public service…

  363. Reginald Selkirk says

    Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Republican had no right to bring lawsuit challenging mobile voting

    A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Republican Party official lacked the standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the use of a mobile voting van in 2022.

    The lawsuit sought to ban the use of mobile voting vans in any future election in the presidential battleground state. The court did not address the legality of mobile voting sites in its ruling, meaning mobile voting vans could be used in future elections.

    A single van has been used only once — in Racine in a primary election in 2022. It allowed voters to cast absentee ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election. Racine, the Democratic National Committee and others argue that nothing in state law prohibits the use of voting vans. City officials said that in light of the state Supreme Court ruling, they plan to use the van again during the state’s elections in April, calling it an important tool for ensuring all voters can cast their ballots.

    The court did not rule on the merits of the case. Instead, it ruled 4-3 to dismiss the case, with four liberal justices in the majority and three conservative justices dissenting…

  364. says

    KIEV (The Borowitz Report)—Bowing to Donald J. Trump’s demand, on Wednesday Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would call an immediate election with the condition that it be held in the United States and he be permitted to run for president.

    “For almost 250 years, the USA has been a beacon of democracy and freedom,” he said. “It should have a president who respects those ideas, and I will gladly relocate from Ukraine to do the job.”

    He was optimistic about his chances of defeating Trump, adding, “I have heard his approval rating is 4 percent, and most of that comes from Elon Musk’s children.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/zelenskyy-agrees-to-hold-immediate

  366. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna @347 regarding DOGE’s claimed savings.

    EmptyWheel:

    DOGE is claiming credit for killing Jimmy Carter.

    Her blog

    On a page titled “Savings,” DOGE claims that its “total estimated savings are $55 billion.” The page lists eight actions that DOGE has taken to achieve these savings: […] To date, the data [they provide] only describes one of these actions: cancelled contracts and leases.
    […]
    One row describes a lease terminated for an “agency” called “Allowance to Former Presidents.” Additional information shows that the property is 7,682 square feet, costs $128,233 per year, and is in Atlanta, Georgia. The GSA maintains a database of property leased by the federal government. Cross-referencing the information on DOGE’s website with GSA’s database reveals that the federal government was leasing this property from “The Carter Center, Inc.” […] Carter, who died on Dec. 29, 2024.

    The benefits to Carter under the Former Presidents Act expired upon his death. […] DOGE did not produce these “savings” […] DOGE appears to be repackaging publicly-available data and displaying it on its website. […] Some spending cuts likely reflect business as usual.

  367. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #258 on Musk’s title.

    Chris Geidner (Law Dork):

    DOJ filed a document Tuesday in E.D. Va. acknowledging that “the Acting U.S. Digital Service Administrator” is a defendant in a lawsuit.

    DOJ does not disclaim the existence of such a person, but DOJ also does not name the person or mention that role again in their brief.

    * Trump had dubiously redesignated USDS to DOGE.

    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    “Filed by Acting U.S. DOGE Administrator”
    WHOMST?????????

    (To be clear: The plaintiffs have filed to proceed pseudonymously, not the acting DOGE administrator. I’m just pointing out that the government keeps filing things on behalf of the “Acting US DOGE Administrator”… yet we don’t know who that is!!

    Anna Bower:

    TWO DAYS AGO, a government employee declared in a court filing that Elon Musk is actually not in charge of *or* an employee of DOGE.

    MINUTES AGO, the [POTUS] said: “I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.” [Video]

    Brad Moss (National security attorney):

    That sound you hear is twelve different lawyers updating their pleadings.

    Of course, for […] Trump 1.0, you will remember that DOJ routinely managed to convince judges that Trump’s comments were irrelevant carnival barking.

  368. says

    Reuters:

    President Donald Trump has vowed to destroy Mexican cartels and end the U.S. fentanyl epidemic, but his sweeping freeze on foreign aid has temporarily stopped U.S.-funded anti-narcotics programs in Mexico that for years have been working to curb the flow of the synthetic opioid into the United States.

  369. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    Bernie: Elon wants you to think ‘government stinks’—so he can privatize it
    video is 5:27 minutes

    Ex-FTC chair Lina Khan on the anti-monopoly ‘hunger’ in America
    video is 8:51 minutes

    [Elizabeth] Warren: Before Elon Musk robs the bank, he’s firing all the cops
    video is 6:00 minutes

  371. says

    Lithuania steps up:

    🇱🇹🇺🇦 Lithuania has delivered a new package of military aid worth $80 million to Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Defense said. It includes trucks, thermal imaging sights and other essential equipment.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4aqzua5vsewimmusg66fyajl/post/3lijsdkufr22c

    Ukraine says Putin is full of crap.

    The General Staff stated that, amid general “sour moods” on Ukrainian social media, Russians are trying to spread additional disinformation, such as claims of advancements through Ukrainian defenses in Kursk Oblast and mass incursions into Ukrainian territory. These statements do not correspond to reality, Lykhovii emphasised.

    Lykhovii stated that as of 15:00, there had been 12 combat engagements in Kursk Oblast since the start of the day, three of which were still in progress. One of the repelled attacks occurred about 06:00, when a Russian unit attempted to advance towards the Ukrainian state border in the direction of Nikolaevo-Daryino-Zhuravka.

    […] ◾️ Russian minister of economic development, Maxim Reshetnikov, said that the Russian economy is slowing down, and there is no more money to support industry. This means there will be no advanced growth, only a “balanced decline.” The food industry, chemical industry, woodworking, and mechanical engineering are leaders in the decline.

    There is not enough money left in Russia to both support “the special military operation” or to try to revitalize the economy.

    ◾️ Russia’s financial system is inflating an unprecedented bubble.

    The money supply has grown by 50 trillion rubles ($545,5 billion)in 3 years,reaching 117.2 trillion rubles ($1,3 trillion). In the past 25 years,there has not been a single episode of such growth in such a short period of timeIn other words,Russia printed cash, but the economy didn’t add goods.

    On paper, Russian citizens have become “richer” by as much as 31 trillion rubles, although this is felt only in the new price tags in stores.The Central Bank tried to turn things around by raising interest rates, but this only slowed down the catastrophe.

    ◾️Russian National Welfare Fund is almost completely empty -former Russian Finance minister Zadornov. Before the full-scale war,it used to amount to 7,4% of the Russian GDP.Currently,it’s less than 2% of the GDP.The money was basically spent on the war -it was used to finance defense procurement

    Link

    Text above is excerpted from a longer report that presents a lot of Ukraine/Russia news.

  372. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna’s storry on the hobbling of CISA.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    Edward “Big Balls” Coristine of DOGE now has digital access to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)

    * Wikipedia: “responsible for infrastructure protection across all levels of government […] against private and nation-state hackers.”
    * “Big Balls” Coristine recap – He’s the 19yo cybergang member who ran a skeezy anonymous image website, as well as Russian and Chinese sites, and leaked info.

  373. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    DOGE in Social Security.

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner stepped down bc she wouldn’t comply w/ DOGE. Lower-level staffer Leland Dudek replaced her.

    In a now-deleted LinkedIn post (pre-promotion) shared w/ me, he said he was placed on admin leave bc he “circumvented the chain of command” to help DOGE. [Screenshots]

    I had been put on administrative leave pending an investigatiuon […] for cooperating with DOGE. […] I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. […] I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done. […] I won’t reveal [personally identifying info], [federal tax info], or sensitive information. I educate.

    […]
    I’ve reached out to former commissioner Michelle King to ask if she put Dudek on administrative leave before he was fired but haven’t heard back. But going from low-level guy to acting commissioner overnight because of breaking the law for DOGE is crazy, though certainly not unbelievable.

    When he was promoted at SSA, Dudek sent out an odd email to staff (which I reviewed, and makes much more sense now). [Screenshot]

    My first call was to our Inspector General’s office to provide them an opportunity to oversee and review any & all agency activities, including my actions past, present, and future.

    […]
    SSA just put out a statement from Acting Commissioner Dudek that’s similar to his weird email from Monday but expands on it. And it has surprisingly tough words re: DOGE. Overcompensating, perhaps. [Screenshots]

    * DOGE personnel CANNOT make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information. They only have READ access.
    * DOGE personnel do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future.
    * DOGE personnel must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.

    oh my god the Daily Wire has opted to frame Dudek as a hero [Screenshot]

    * The first post also included: “I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team to examine Direct Deposit Fraud.” (Manipulated contractor funds to appear fradulent!?)

  374. StevoR says

    Via a friend on fb (one of many possible sources for all this info but the one I specifically saw it on in this instance) sa long and disturbing but informative summaruy of what is being inflicted upon the people of the not very United States and some other places :

    CW Daily TRUMP DECLARES HIMSELF KING (No, I am not making this up!)
    February 19, 2025 By Connie Willis

    Okay, so this probably wasn’t the most consequential thing that happened today. Then again, maybe it was. It certainly seems to be related to a path we’ve been on, what with Elon Musk’s Nazi salute and then Trump’s Napoleon quote. Anyway, here it is: Today Trump posted on the White House official website on Twitter a picture of a fake Time Magazine cover. It shows Trump with a crown on and the caption, “Long Live the King.”

    –It accompanied a post he made saying, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York is SAVED! LONG LIVE THE KING!”

    –The message referred to a letter sent by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to Governor Hochul pulling approval for congestion pricing, which New York City recently instigated in an attempt to put a lid on the huge amounts of traffic. (They have congestion pricing in London and other cities.)

    –This twitter post came three days after he quoted Napoleon, saying the laws do not apply to him.

    –It also comes a day after Trump signed an executive order claiming power over all independent agencies–the FCC, the FTC, and the SEC–and putting Russell Vought in charge of all of them.

    –NBC News: “President Donald Trump is branding himself a monarch…The posts come as critics have accused him of exceeding his constitutional authority during his first weeks in office.”

    –The response is pretty…ummm…vehement. Governor Hochul of New York said in a press conference: “I’m here to say New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we are not–we sure as hell are not going to start now. The streets of this city, where battles were fought, we stood up to a king and we won then and we will now. In case you don’t know New Yorkers, when we’re in a fight, we don’t back down, not now, not ever…We’ll see you in court.”

    –She announced at the press conference that the MTA is filing suit to keep the congestion pricing program, and a New York City Councilman said, “Doesn’t matter what you think of congestion pricing, federal government doesn’t get to make this decision. NY State passed a law. USDOT approved it. No matter what corrupt deal Donald Trump made with the Mayor, he isn’t king. Only fools concede to false power.”

    –Vice-Chair of the Democratic Party shot back at Republicans who have accused Dems of overreacting by calling Trump a king by retweeting the picture with the caption: “Literally the White House twitter account.”

    –Joe Blow Esq: “All hail King Donald the First! May he follow in the footsteps of King Charles I of England, Louis XVI of France, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.”

    –Robert Jones: “George Washington refused the title of king. Instead a group of ignorant delusional morons called MAGA, decided to vote for someone who WANTS to be a king.”

    –But what no one seems to be saying is that this is another sign that Trump is not trying to make a joke or didn’t really mean it, you know, he just says stuff. He is not trying to own the libs or push the limits of his executive power. He’s serious about this, as witness his most recent executive orders. AND HE IS BATSHIT CRAZY! WE ARE NOW IN GEORGE III TERRITORY!

    –Oh, wait, here’s what jfromga just posted: “I think that Trump’s tweet might be proof that this wasn’t a rational substantive decision by the federal government, but a sign of mental illness in the President.”

    –bettyb: “Absolutely. I mean it is traitorous, too, but it seems most like a psychotic break.”

    In other almost as disturbing news:

    –Trump has endorsed the House budget plan, which includes gutting Medicaid.

    –Trump has told schools that they have 14 days to cut all their DEI programs or lose all their federal funds.

    –10% of the employees at the National Science Foundation have been fired. (The NSF is who does all kinds of programs to help and educate and encourage science teachers, who are in really short supply, particularly in rural schools. My husband got his masters’ in physics along with 2 dozen other physics teachers, all of whom then taught physics in the public schools until they retired.)

    –Musk has fired all the employees at Nebraska’s U.S. Meat Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska and shut the facility down.

    — Musk has shut down the Fish and Wildlife Department.

    –Musk has fired all the USDA employees who were working on reviewing Musk’s Neuralink (his brain implants project.)

    –Musk mistakenly fired the Department of Energy’s entire power marketing administration, Their job is to sell and develop low-cost power from federal hydroelectric dams to customers in 34 states. DOGE is now scrambling to rehire them. (Sound familiar?)

    –Musk has now announced he wants access to Ft. Knox. (What could possibly go wrong?)

    –DOGE ordered the destruction of $500 million dollars worth of COVID tests that the government has been sending free to people.`

    –Musk was all set to fire all the 2-year-and-under NASA employees and then at the last minute decided not to terminate them.

    — Kansas City, a major hub of government jobs, does not have enough available jobs to make up for all the local federal workers getting laid off by Trump.

    Elon Musk asked Americans to “brace for financial hardship.”

    — Jill Lawrence: “Watching Trump, Musk, and their band of arsonists set fire to the shining city on a hill. They are slashing and trashing employees, programs, livelihoods, and futures without having the slightest clue about who does what and the consequences that could follow.”

    –Samanthab: ‘When you drown the federal government in the bathtub, the water starts draining fast. Imagine being so economically illiterate that you can’t foresee that mass firings will impact the larger economy. But that’s where a majority of our voters seem to be.”

    In pushback news:

    –A government employee at Notify.gov, the system used by government agencies to send mass texts to the public, resigned in protest after Elon Musk demanded root access to it. That would have included giving him phone numbers and private information. (And a great way to spread propaganda to the entire country under the aegis of the government.)

    –900 former federal prosecutors signed an open letter to prosecutors in the DOJ to remember their oath and come forward if Trump appointees demand they do something unethical. “Some of you have been ordered to make charging decisions based expressly on considerations other than the facts and the law, including to serve solely political purposes.”

    –The Catholic bishops have sued over Trump’s suspension of refugee admissions.

    In FAFO news :

    –The Wall Street journal re-interviewed some people who’d voted for Trump, and the results were surprising. (Especially because this is a Rupert Murdoch newspaper):

    –Emily Anderson: “I feel so stupid, guilty, regretful–embarrassed is a huge one. I am absolutely embarrassed that I voted for Trump.” She called it “the biggest mistake of my life.”

    –Gary Dickson: “You’re like, holy shit, he’s gonna start a war!”

    –And yet another voter said, “When we said safe borders, I thought he was thinking, let’s stop the drugs from coming into the country. I didn’t know he was going to start raiding places. Now I’m like, dang, why didn’t I just pick Kamala?”

    –One-third of all federal jobs are retired military. They assumed that the hiring preferences of veterans for federal jobs also meant they’d be protected from termination. This has not been the case, and they are shocked that they’re being fired. 65% of veterans voted for Trump.

    –Republican Senators and Representatives are beginning to discover that they’ve FAFO’d, too, as their states are affected. Mike Simpson is upset about the firings in the national parks in his state, Jerry Moran is upset about the farmers who have been affected by the USAID firings, Bill Cassidy is unhappy about the firing of FBI agents, and Lisa Murkowski is worried about what the gutting of the agencies overseeing energy projects and wildlife management.

    –Dan Cluchey: “Whole lot of folks, drenched by misinformation, are about to figure out that the deep state they’ve been taught to despise are actually civil servants who keep our planes in the air, stop diseases from ravaging our communities, prevent banks from preying on us, etc.”

    In Ukraine news:

    –The UK says it’s willing to send British troops to Ukraine.

    –3 Baltic states have disconnected from the Russians’ electrical grid and have merged with the European grid, giving Russia much less power over them.

    –The peace deal is a mess. Kellogg, who was originally assigned to handle the negotiations, had been doing just that, but he wasn’t allowed to go to the talks in Saudi Arabia. Instead, they sent Trump lackeys like Marco Rubio, who don’t have any experience.

    –Of course, Zelenskyy wasn’t allowed at the talks either. But in a really smart move, Zelenskyy went to Turkey the same day, lining up his allies and showing he’s not just going to be rolled.

    –There have been two more explosions on Russian tankers.

    –Meanwhile, back home, Republican Senators are up in arms over J.D. Vance’s and Hegseth’s speeches at the Munich conference.

    –The Geogre says Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine is “Some sovereign nations aren’t really sovereign if they don’t have as many people or guns in them as their greedy neighbors. (Or Donald Trump’s desire for rare earths.)”

    –Garry Kasparov: “To be fair (to Pete Hegseth) you don’t really need a functional Department of Defense if you’re going to surrender to your greatest enemy in your first month in office.”

    –Rick Wilson: “Trump joins the wrong side in World War III.”

    –NPR: “Let’s be clear. Russia started the war when it invaded Ukraine 3 years ago by surprise.”

    Best comment of the day, from James Baldwin: “For nothing is fixed, forever and ever, it is not fixed; the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold to each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

    Source : https://www.facebook.com/cwdailynews .

  375. StevoR says

    Via ABC news :

    The relationship between the United States and key ally Ukraine is dissolving before our eyes.

    Donald Trump’s social media diatribe on Wednesday, local time, in which he described the country’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who’s “done a terrible job”, was just the latest deterioration.

    It’s been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the new US president has made it clear he’d rather deal with Moscow than Kyiv when it comes to finding a way to end the conflict.

    To understand why that could be a big mistake, let’s rewind one day to when the US and Russia got back on speaking terms, publicly at least.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-analysis-after-zelenskyy-spray/104953186

  376. Bekenstein Bound says

    Trump stood by while Scharf plowed his way through a prepared statement that the executive order Trump was signing “reestablishes the longstanding norm that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is.”

    Enabling Law II: Electric Boogaloo.

    What came next, the previous time around? The Night of the Long Knives, was it?

    Louis DeJoy, the head of the U.S. Postal Service, intends to step down

    So now we’re rid of him, at the worst possible time, when he’s sure to be replaced by someone even worse. Wonderful.

    Subsea fibre optic cable deliberately cut for the 2nd time between N.S. and N.L.

    They’re attacking Canadian cables, not just in and around the Baltic area?!

    LONG LIVE THE KING!

    Please let there be a Valkyrie Plot 2: Electric Boogaloo as well. With better luck than the original edition.

  377. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: StevoR @374:

    DOGE ordered the destruction of $500 million dollars worth of COVID tests

    Per Lynna @301, destroying tests was *considered* in order to comply with a Trump EO rescinding Biden’s testing EO. (not DOGE)
     
    Follow-up: that article has since been updated and retitled.
     
    WaPo – U.S. reverses plan to shut down free covid test program

    A half-hour before the planned shutdown, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon sent a statement […] that COVIDtests.gov would shut down at 8 p.m. Tuesday. But he said the tests would not be destroyed and “will remain in inventory until they meet their expiration date.”
    […]
    Then, 12 minutes before the site’s planned shutdown, Nixon sent a new statement saying COVIDtests.gov would not be pulled offline at this time.

    So nothing happened.

  378. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bloomberg – Musk’s DOGE to lead Trump’s purge of federal regulations

    The order will require all agencies to review all regulations to ensure they align with the administration’s policies and billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE effort […] DOGE and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget will develop a regulatory agenda to rescind or scale back rules that don’t align with Trump’s vision […] The order calls on agencies to not prioritize enforcement actions that “stretch statutory authority […] The goal is to reduce the federal bureaucracy to the “minimum level of activity,”

    Effectively granting Musk the DOGE admin authority to make sweeping executive orders of their own, without needing Trump to do a photo op to sign.

  379. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anecdotes of weepy Republican panics and breakdowns. And yet Democrats manage while being PoC, Muslim, Jewish, or cis women, or trans women.

    VanityFair – The threat of political violence informing Trump’s grip on Congress

    Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources […] In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.

    “They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.
    […]
    Still, some say Republicans are using the threats of violence as cover. Bill Kristol, cofounder of the Never Trump outlet The Bulwark, tells me Republicans could ignore the threats if they wanted to. Kristol was subject to online harassment in early February after Elon Musk falsely promoted claims on X that Kristol received money from USAID […] “I never read the comments or notifications […] Senators can probably get quite a bit of protection if they need it, so I’m a little less sympathetic.”

  380. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – USDS Engineering Director Resigns

    Anne Marshall, the now former director, spent more than a decade as an engineer at Amazon before joining USDS in September 2023. In December, she was promoted to director of data science and engineering, but only served around two months in the role before resigning on Wednesday.

    Yesterday [Feb 18], legacy USDS employees [were told] anyone not already terminated would be considered part of the DOGE team going forward […] Multiple legacy USDS employees tell WIRED they have no idea who the acting administrator is, despite requesting their identity multiple times.
    […]
    “I do not believe that DOGE can continue to deliver the work of USDS, based on their actions so far,” Marshall wrote. “I am leaving by choice, no forks, no forced exits, just actively, sadly, walking away. This is not the mission I came to serve.”

  381. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Litigation trackers for all the Trump II lawsuits. Currently 79.

    JustSecurity’s Tracker
    * Has sections for each executive action’s suits.
    * Lots of attached court documents. Multiple mirrors for docs, including Wayback.

    Lawfare’s Tracker
    * Click through a “Legal Challenges” button.
    * Left-clicking on a case often leads to a “blocked” notice. But you can instead right-click a link to open in a new tab (or middle-click), and that’ll work. They lead to courtlistener, a site that must not like hotlinking. (Which would explain the other tracker’s mirrors.)

  388. Reginald Selkirk says

    The United States is almost sunk.

    Historic Ocean Liner Departs Philadelphia On Voyage To Become the World’s Largest Artificial Reef

    The SS United States, a historic ocean liner that once held the transatlantic speed record of 36 knots (41 mph / 66 kph), has departed Philadelphia to be transformed into the world’s largest artificial reef off Florida’s Gulf Coast. The move is part of a $10 million project to boost tourism by creating a unique diving attraction while preserving the ship’s legacy as a symbol of American innovation and engineering. The Associated Press reports: …

  389. whheydt says

    Re: Reginald Selkirk @ #388…
    The original crew of the SS United States was trained at the Maritime Service Training Center at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY when my father was an instructor there.

  392. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

    Trump apparently oblivious to political damage of his embrace of Russia
    video is 6:34 minutes

    Maddow: To block Trump’s agenda, help Republican politicians find their spines
    video is 7:48 minutes

    Trump stunts on national stage cause headaches for Republicans dealing with local fallout, outrage
    video is 5:39 minutes

    Appeals court declines to reinstate Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order
    video is 4:29 minutes

  394. says

    Whoops. Not sure what happened with comments 392 and 393. My apologies for the repetition.

    In other news:

    Donald Trump’s willingness to condemn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and align his administration with Russia’s Vladimir Putin sparked an immediate international controversy so severe that even some congressional Republicans carefully expressed disagreement with their party’s president and his dangerous radicalism.

    But some of the most notable GOP rebukes came from former members of Trump’s own team. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, said the president’s comments describing Zelenskyy as “a dictator” are “classic Russian talking points.”

    The South Carolinian — Trump’s principal rival for the GOP nomination last year — added that her former boss’ position is “exactly what Putin wants.”

    Haley wasn’t alone. Mike Pence, the president’s former vice president, also took issue with Trump’s ridiculous claim that Ukraine “started” the war that Putin started. NBC News reported:

    “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war,” Pence wrote in a post on X. “Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.” … “The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth,” Pence wrote.

    For good measure, the Indiana Republican added a link in his online missive to a Fox News article from February 2022 with a headline that read, “Russia Invades Ukraine in Largest European Attack Since WWII.”

    […] This was not a one-off. As a report in The Hill noted, Pence also criticized Trump on Ukraine earlier this month, warning that Kyiv could be under Russian control if the U.S. abandons it.

    “Mr. President, Ukraine will only ‘be Russian someday’ if the United States abandons them to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal invasion. As you just said, ’When America is Strong the World is at Peace.’ Stand Firm,” Pence wrote. “If Ukraine falls, it will only be a matter of time until Russia invades a NATO ally our troops will be required to defend,” he added.

    [snipped details of Pence opposing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Cabinet nomination.]

    This, of course, came on the heels a 2024 campaign season in which Pence — whose life Trump put in danger on Jan. 6, 2021 — refused to back his party’s presidential ticket, urged Republicans to reject the “protectionist tariffs” that Trump is so fond of, and told a group of voters in New York, “I have real concerns about the direction of the Republican Party today.”

    It’s not exactly a secret that Trump has achieved a dominant level of power and control over the contemporary GOP, but he still faces some pockets of partisan resistance. In a dynamic without precedent in the American tradition, one of the president’s most notable intraparty foes is the former Republican vice president who served at his side for four years.

    Link

    Sure took Mike Pence a long time to get there.

  395. Reginald Selkirk says

    Research Reveals Data on Which Institutions Are Retraction Hotspots

    Chinese hospitals dominate a first-ever analysis of scientific paper retractions worldwide, with some institutions having retraction rates 50 times higher than the global average, according to data published in Nature.

    Jining First People’s Hospital in Shandong leads with more than 5% of its research output from 2014-2024 being retracted — over 100 papers. The hospital had disciplined 35 researchers for publication fraud in late 2021 amid a broader Chinese government crackdown on paper mills selling fake manuscripts.

    The analysis, based on data from three research integrity firms, found that about 60% of retracted articles over the past decade had authors affiliated with Chinese institutions. Other retraction hotspots include universities in Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and Ethiopia…

  398. says

    lumipuna @297, I agree. :-)

    Here’s a new Borowitz Report:

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling the birds’ behavior “a disgrace,” on Thursday Donald J. Trump threatened to deport the nation’s chickens unless they act immediately to lower the price of eggs.

    “We are not going to be held ransom by some birds that are, quite frankly, disgusting,” he said. “This should never be allowed to happen in this country.”

    Trump vowed retribution against the poultry, calling the birds “far left radical Trump haters.”

    Noting that egg prices had skyrocketed since he took office, he remarked, “The chickens have been treating me very unfairly.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-threatens-to-deport-chickens

  399. says

    Ignoring backlash, Trump leans into false claim about Zelenskyy being a ‘dictator’

    “Presidents only get so much political capital, and Trump has decided to invest his finite capital into supporting Putin’s authoritarian regime in Moscow.”

    Before Election Day 2024, Donald Trump took a variety of unsubtle steps in Russia’s direction, suggesting that Ukraine bore responsibility for Russia’s invasion, while repeating rhetoric that appeared designed to please Vladimir Putin.

    Nearly four months later, however, [Trump’s] posture is vastly worse.

    On Tuesday, the American president broke new ground by declaring that Ukraine “started” the war that Putin started. As part of the same set of comments, Trump also publicly mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s approval rating and suggested that Ukraine did not deserve “a seat at the table” as diplomatic talks get underway about Ukraine’s future.

    As the comments sparked international reverberations, Trump decided it’d be smart to go even further a day later, using his social media platform to accuse Zelenskyy — but not Putin — of being a “dictator.”

    All of this rhetoric positioned the American president as an effective mouthpiece for Kremlin-backed talking points, and it came just days after Trump publicly vouched for Putin’s interest in peace, declared that he expects Russia to keep at least some of the land Putin took from Ukraine by force, said he wants to welcome Russia back into the G7.

    As Wednesday came to an end, and much of the world tried to come to terms with the fact that the White House had effectively switched sides, aligning the United States with our adversary and against our ally, Trump leaned into his offensive again. NBC News reported on comments Trump made at the Future Investment Initiative Institute’s PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach, Florida.

    “President Zelenskyy talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war that basically couldn’t be won,” Trump said. “The only thing he was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle. He played him like a fiddle.” Trump repeated his characterization of Zelenskyy as a “dictator” and asserted without clear evidence that Zelenskyy is refusing to hold an election because he is losing the support of his citizens.

    Trump delivered the unscripted remarks with the confidence of a man who didn’t appear to care at all about the geopolitical or electoral consequences.

    It’s worth emphasizing, of course, that Trump’s rhetoric isn’t just dangerously bizarre, it’s also wildly at odds with reality. The American president’s anti-Ukraine lies have also drawn international rebukes from traditional U.S. allies, and even some congressional Republicans have carefully expressed disagreement with Trump’s radical nonsense.

    There’s even reason to believe the White House is not on board with the broad American mainstream. The latest national poll from Quinnipiac University asked respondents, “Do you think the United States should trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, or not?” At a point in our history in which the public is deeply divided on many issues, 81% of Americans don’t agree on much, but in this survey, 81% of people said the United States should not trust Russia’s authoritarian leader. […] [Video at the link.]

    I won’t pretend to know what Trump understands, but at some level, it stands to reason that he’s aware of the backlash, here and abroad, that he’s created by cozying up to Putin — again.

    But he’s doing it anyway. Presidents only get so much political capital, and for reasons Trump has never made any meaningful effort to explain, he’s decided to invest his finite political capital into supporting the authoritarian regime in Moscow. […]

  400. says

    DOJ Run Amok

    The Justice Department under new Attorney General Pam Bondi continues its steep decline, setting new precedents almost daily for supplication to the White House, corrupt and unethical conduct, and dubious representations to judges.

    Yesterday was its own special, to use the legal term of art, shitshow.

    The acting deputy attorney general appeared all alone in federal court in Manhattan to try to seal the deal on his corrupt scheme to dismiss criminal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. The deputy attorney general runs the Justice Department on a day to day basis; yet here was Emil Bove by himself at the counsel table, with apparently no other DOJ lawyer willing to sit with him. Behind him providing visible support was Todd Blanche, the nominee for deputy attorney general who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Both men until last month were personal attorneys to Donald Trump.

    After the hearing (no ruling yet on the motion to dismiss from U.S. District Judge Dale Ho), Bove sent a tone-deaf, Trumpian message to DOJ employees trying to turn his solo appearance in court from a personal humiliation into a model of diehard MAGA-tude. In a snarky conclusion that is astonishing coming from a DAG, Bove said that anyone who wasn’t onboard the Trump train could resign and pointed them to the letters penned by their colleagues who resigned over Bove’s order to dismiss the Adams case: [Social media post at the link shows Emil Bove’s arrogant message.]

    As that unprecedented scene was playing out in NYC, President Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. attorney in DC was further showering himself in disgrace. Ed Martin, who is the acting USA for the moment, sent another one of his wildly inappropriate emails to colleagues that was apparently promptly leaked again.

    Martin for the third time that we know of made grand and obsequious gestures toward Elon Musk’s DOGE: “We will protect DOGE,” he declared: [Social media post shows the text.]

    Most alarming was Martin’s willingness to launch pseudo-investigations of prominent Democrats and to castigate them in politicized terms while touting his own bonafides in going after them. Among the Democrats targeted by Martin: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).

    “Operation Whirlwind” is what Martin is calling his effort to prosecute anyone who targets public officials, but it appears to be more of an effort to stifle First Amendment expression and intimidate opposition leaders than to protect officials from the wave of actual threats that Trump himself has stirred up in recent years.

    Link

  401. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @137 and 258. Comment 258 is particularly applicable here. Some of the text below repeats information Sky Captain already posted, but it is good to have backup from other sources in this case.

    Trump Screws Up His Own Shell Game

    As the White House continues to refuse to say who is heading up DOGE, except to insist to judges and the press that is most definitely not Elon Musk, President Trump outright said it is Elon Musk. Video at the link.

    DOGE Watch

    – President Trump issued a new executive order putting DOGE in charge of a sweeping effort to weaken federal regulations.
    – DOGE is now reportedly ensconced at the Pentagon, CISA, and FAA. [Embedded links available at the main link.]
    – The data DOGE released about federal contract savings doesn’t add up, NPR reports.

  402. says

    Link for text quoted in comment 401.

    From that same link:

    USAID Crisis May Be Coming To A Head In Court

    The latest on the two USAID lawsuits in DC:
    – U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols has given the Trump administration until noon today to clean up the “mess” created by contradictory statements to the court by Trump official Peter Marocco about how overseas aid workers would be treated.
    – U.S. District Judge Amir Ali has given the Trump administration until 1 p.m. ET to respond to a motion seeking to hold it in contempt for failing to abide by his temporary restraining order that lifted the USAID spending freeze.

    IMPORTANT

    Charlie Savage:

    The Trump administration is systematically exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, accounts by officials and court filings show, despite restraining orders from judges who have told agencies to disregard the directives.

    The administration’s strategy is to have political appointees embedded in various agencies invoke other legal authorities to pause spending, while posturing as if those officials had undertaken the efforts independent of President Trump’s original directives. [!]

    […] EXCLUSIVE

    Texas Observer: ICE Prosecutor in Dallas Runs White Supremacist X Account

    ‘It Looks Like A Zoo, There Are Fenced Cages’

    NYT: Migrants, Deported to Panama Under Trump Plan, Detained in Remote Jungle Camp

    An excerpt from the NYT article referenced above:

    […] Conditions at the site are primitive, the detainees said. Diseases, including dengue are endemic to the region, and the government has denied access to journalists and aid organizations.

    “It looks like a zoo, there are fenced cages,” said one deportee, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old migrant from Iran, after arriving at the camp following a four-hour drive from Panama City. “They gave us a stale piece of bread. We are sitting on the floor.”

    The group includes eight children, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the record. Lawyers have said it is illegal to detain people in Panama for more than 24 hours without a court order.

    Panama’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Ruiz-Hernández, confirmed that 97 people had been transferred to the camp. “They are not detainees,’’ he said. “It’s a migrant camp where they will be taken care off — not a detention camp.”

    Mr. Ruiz-Hernández said the camp was the best option available to the government for housing migrants and noted that the migrants had food, water and access to medical and psychological care. He said there were no cages. […]

  403. says

    Followup to comment 401.

    Josh Marshall:

    […] There’s no question Elon Musk is driving this train. Trump has licensed it. He is approving what happens after the fact. I have no doubt he’s enjoying the pain he’s seeing inflicted. And a good bit of it overlaps with the goals of his existing entourage. But Musk is driving this train and I don’t think anyone really knows entirely where he’s going.

    Link

  404. says

    Trump may try to buy off Americans with DOGE refund scam

    […] Trump said Wednesday that he’s considering sending money directly to Americans, using funds from the claimed savings of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

    “We’re thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens and 20% down to pay back debt,” Trump said at a conference of business executives in Florida. “If it were a real-estate balance sheet, the debt is tiny, but we still, we still want to pay it down.”

    Even if DOGE’s recovered savings could be split among the American people and the federal deficit—with 20% going toward each—it’s unclear what the president’s plans are for the leftover 60%.

    And that’s not even the biggest issue immediately facing this alleged plan.

    For starters, despite persistent vows for transparency, it’s unclear how much money DOGE has actually eliminated—or will claim to save despite evidence to the contrary. After all, the advisory committee’s website has published misleading information about the amount of money it claimed to have recouped, including an erroneous $8 billion figure. (The figure was actually $8 million.)

    And if Trump were to proceed with this, that would suggest he’s taking policy advice from Musk, who holds no direct governmental power and is sourcing ideas from strangers on X, the social media platform he owns. Earlier this week, James Fishback, CEO of the investment firm Azoria, suggested on X that the federal government issue tax refund checks based on supposed savings identified by DOGE. [!]

    Musk seemed enthusiastic about the idea, replying that he would “check” with Trump about it—and apparently, he did. [!]

    If Trump is indeed getting ideas for governing from Musk, it raises the question of who is truly running the U.S. government. […]

    It makes sense Trump would want to send checks to Americans. He may not genuinely care about the average person, but he certainly savored seeing his name on stimulus checks issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential recipients of the checks probably like the idea, too. Even people who despise the federal government know its checks will clear.

    While it’s a politically seductive idea, there are several issues with it.

    First off, Fishback’s plan (per his post on X) is based on the assumption that DOGE can eliminate $2 trillion of supposed federal waste—something Musk himself said isn’t possible. In fact, that number has since been halved, according to Musk.

    “Well, the overall goal is to try to get $1 trillion out of the deficit,” Musk said Tuesday night during a Fox News interview that Trump also attended. “If the deficit is not brought under control, America will go bankrupt. This is a very important thing for people to understand.”

    Additionally, DOGE’s so-called savings aren’t really cash we’re getting back. As various federal budget experts told NOTUS, it’s unlikely that the federal government will be able to unilaterally direct congressionally appropriated funds away from agencies, meaning those dollars saved won’t make their way into taxpayers’ pockets or be used to pay down the national debt.

    Furthermore, Fishback’s proposal acknowledged that households would receive checks only if they are “net payers of federal income tax,” which would seemingly exempt millions of (largely low- or no-income) people. [As is usual with Trump’s plans.]

    Then there’s the complication that a direct stimulus payment to Americans would require congressional approval, and even some Republicans are skeptical of the idea.

    Republican Rep. Josh Hawley of Missouri told Business Insider that he’d prefer any DOGE-related savings to go toward the child tax credit. Democrats, including Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, have dismissed the idea, calling it a “con.”

    Regardless, it’s alarming that the president is considering ideas from two unelected individuals whose understanding of government data has been mediocre at best. In any case, the idea still has a long way to go, so don’t expect a DOGE check with Musk and Trump’s signatures anytime soon.

  405. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Regarding Trump claiming Musk runs DOGE.
    Owen Barcala (Civil litigator):

    I’d like just one federal judge to say, “So is the President’s statement controlling, or was all of that unitary executive talk just convenient BS?”

     
    Follow-up to #378.
    WhiteHouse.gov misspelled “ECEXUTIVE ORDER” below the title of that DOGE regulatory review announcement.
     
    Adam Bonica (PoliSci Prof):

    The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. [Image: Scatterplot chart]
    […]
    I combined data on agency firings with measures of agency ideology—based on federal executives’ perceptions of agency leanings—employee size, and total annual budget.
    […]
    The hardest hit agencies are those that regulate industry, protect public health, and expand access to education. Meanwhile, conservative-leaning agencies remain largely untouched.

    If this were about efficiency, we’d expect an even spread. Instead, we see clear ideological bias.

  406. says

    […] Trump and his co-president, Elon Musk, are planning to fire 6,000 employees at the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday [today], which tax experts say could delay Americans’ tax return payments and lead the government to lose out on tax revenue.

    Richard Pon, a certified public accountant in San Francisco, told USA Today that firing thousands of IRS employees in the middle of filing season could cause tax return payment times to “double, triple, or quadruple.” As it stands, the average time it takes to receive a return is 21 days for taxpayers who file electronically and six to eight weeks for those file by paper, so these firings could delay tax returns by months.

    […] The New York Times reported that many of the jobs set to be cut are in tax enforcement, which surely means fewer tax cheats will be caught and the government could lose out on revenue—the opposite of the cost savings Trump and Musk promised they’d achieve with Musk’s advisory commission, known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

    […] “An underfunded IRS significantly benefits unidentified, noncompliant taxpayers at the direct expense of compliant taxpayers.”

    Trump and the GOP have long wanted to decimate the IRS.

    In December, Trump nominated a new commissioner of the tax-collecting service who wants to abolish the IRS altogether. And newly minted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Wednesday night in an appearance on Fox News that Trump wants to abolish the IRS and replace it with an “External Revenue Service”—which would collect tariffs.

    “His goal is very simple. … His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Lutnick said, misunderstanding that it is not foreign governments who pay tariffs but rather the U.S. companies importing the foreign goods.

    But experts say that there is no universe in which the government can function on tariff revenue alone.

    “It is literally impossible for tariffs to fully replace income taxes,” the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan think tank, wrote in a June 2024 report. […]

    Democrats are slamming Trump and Musk’s plan to decimate the IRS workforce.

    “In the smack middle of filing season, the richest man in the world and his unqualified Muskateers are gearing up to gut the agency tasked with processing your returns, getting you a timely and fair refund, and making sure billionaires pay what they owe,” Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said in a Thursday post on X. “Rigged BS.”

    Link

  408. says

    Ukraine Update: Trump And Putin Negotiate The Destruction Of The West, by Mark Sumner.

    Since the election—and especially since the inauguration—many people have been waiting for the moment Donald Trump begins arguing with Elon Musk. Those people are likely to be waiting a long time.

    Yes, Musk has assumed most of the authority of the White House. Yes, he’s running on his own agenda, closing down whole departments and parking his anklebiter corps in one agency after another. He’s assumed power beyond that legally available to the entire executive branch. It seems like the sort of thing that should create a conflict with the guy who is supposed to be running this clown show.

    Except Trump doesn’t care about running the government. He has never cared. As long as people continue to buy Trump’s meme coin and the cameras are always on whenever he opens his mouth, Musk can do as he pleases. [Good points.]

    Trump is never subtle. He’s vocal about his actual concerns. Right now the thing he cares about is simple: Real Estate.

    Trump is serious about his ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza. He’s serious about his screw-NATO plan for taking over Greenland. And he’s serious about shredding the treaty that recognized that the Panama Canal should belong to the nation where it was built.

    He’s also serious about Molotov-Ribbentrop 2.0, now underway in Saudi Arabia.

    The original 1939 pact, is mostly remembered for putting a line down the middle of Poland to split the nation between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. However, it also divided the rest of Europe. It handed over five other European nations to Stalin. Everything else was Hitler’s to destroy.

    Change the names, and we’re right back there again. [Good historical references.]

    The discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will not just agree on a division of Ukraine, but fundamentally alter the alignment of forces in Europe. [Good point.]

    The purpose of this meeting is two-fold:
    – Divide Ukraine in a way that benefits both Russia and the United States, with the ultimate goal of making Ukraine into a Russian state [True.]
    – Destabilize and isolate Europe so that authoritarian great powers can exploit divisions, weaken Western democracy, and seize resources [True.]

    Ukrainian officials have been deliberately excluded from this meeting that will theoretically decide their fate. European leaders have also been shut out of the discussions.

    This comes just a week after J.D. Vance attended a meeting of NATO members intended to discuss security in the region and used it to attack America’s allies over their failure to embrace fascism. And it comes a week after a group of Republican congressmen presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a White House ultimatum demanding half the nation’s mineral wealth in exchange for continued friendly relations with America.

    Zelenskyy did not sign on to the theft of his nation. European leaders refused to go along with surrendering to Nazis.

    Trump responded by blaming Ukraine, and specifically Zelenskyy, for starting Russia’s unprovoked, illegal invasion. [snipped Trump’s blather.] [video at the link]

    Trump has no interest in peace and even less in a fair solution that recognizes Russia as an illegal aggressor. Not only does Trump view Putin as his greatest ally, he sees the invasion of Ukraine as a gift.

    Decades after the world had agreed that military invasion for territorial gain was immoral and impermissible, and decades after millions of Americans and Europeans died thinking they were making this concept untenable for all times, Putin invaded Ukraine. To say the response of America and most of Europe was half-hearted is giving us way too much credit.

    […] The world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations left their fighting to the poorest nation in Europe; a nation that had already surrendered its nuclear arsenal on the promise that, should it be attacked, those wealthy, powerful nations would be there to help.

    Putin invaded Ukraine. […] Now Trump is here to negotiate their murder. He doesn’t want to punish Putin for his invasion. He wants to reward him.

    Trump wants to Make Invasions Great Again because has a long and growing list of potential invasion targets. He’s made it clear that he intends to own Gaza. He’s continued his claims that the U.S. needs to control both Greenland and the Panama Canal, leading to concerns that Trump will order a military invasion.

    […] Trump wants to legitimize Putin’s invasion of Ukraine so it can serve as precedent.

    Meanwhile, Musk also has some interest in Ukraine. As with Greenland, he sees much of the world in terms of resources that he can [exploit]. Trump invades, Musk exploits, and the government buys the end product. Circle of life. Or at least, circle of corruption.

    But that’s not Musk’s biggest reason for being interested in what Rubio brings home from his trip to Riyadh. The world’s wealthiest man has also taken time away from torturing the world’s poorest children to show his continued interest in wrecking European democracy and supporting the new generation of fascists who are calling for Germany to get in on the action by making nice with Russia.

    Like Trump, Musk sees Putin as his natural ally […]

    For Musk and Trump, a leader motivated by something other than unenlightened self-interest is incomprehensible. And their joint response to anything they don’t understand is simply to crush it.

    No matter what gets written into the Lavrov—Rubio Pact, there’s little doubt about where this is going: The United States will emerge as Ukraine’s enemy, siding with Russia in an effort to get Zelenskyy to surrender all or part of Ukraine’s territory and give up hope of being part of a wider security agreement. Russia will dangle the promise of resources in exchange for Trump’s assistance.

    Don’t be surprised if Trump doubles down by threatening any European nation that continues to pledge support to Ukraine with tariffs. Or worse. NATO, as far as the U.S. is concerned, is over.

    […] Ukraine needs our help, but they would likely survive our negligence. It’s Vladimir Putin who desperately requires Trump’s aid to salvage his failing invasion and hold together his fractured economy. [True.]

    As the Independent reports, Russia is currently experiencing 21% inflation along with shortages of everything from food to car parts. Holding onto even a pretense of normality has drained the Kremlin’s coffers with little chance of an improvement. Their military situation is also looking precarious.

    Putin needs Trump to salvage his disastrous invasion. Trump needs Putin’s invasion to look like a good idea. Everyone else is just trying to survive these two assholes and their useful idiots like Musk.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine keeps fighting.

    REMINDER: RUSSIA IS LOSING

    As of this writing, we are five days away from the third anniversary of Putin’s second illegal, unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. This is a good time to remember the most important fact of the last 35+ months — Russia is losing. […]

    Within hours of the invasion’s launch, Russia had occupied the airport outside Kyiv. On hearing this, the United States contacted Zelenskyy and offered him transportation out of Ukraine. “The fight is here,” said Zelenskyy. “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

    Try to imagine Trump or Musk saying those words. Try to imagine Putin.

    By the first week of March, Russia was on the edge of Kyiv, occupying suburbs like Hostomel and Bucha, where Russian soldiers strolled past Ukrainian bodies left to rot in the streets. Russia had crossed the bridge to occupy the city of Kherson. Russian troops held much of the Kharkiv Oblast, with convoys moving toward the heart of Ukraine from the north, northeast, and east. Russian forces were right outside the city of Kharkiv, dosing the city in waves of artillery fire.

    Russia lost all of that after Ukraine began a series of counteroffensives in April. They lost at Kyiv. They lost at Kherson. They lost at Kharkiv.

    For almost two years now, Russia has been mostly dug in, holding onto the territory that it captured in the first few weeks […] The one area of Russian advance in the last year has been a breakthrough that began near Avdiivka and has stretched toward Pokrovsk in Donestk Oblast. Russia advanced steadily, if slowly, with their combination of massive numbers and heavy artillery seeming unstoppable. But in recent weeks, something has changed. As in, they’ve kind of been stopped.

    Here’s Pokrovsk on Jan 18. [map at the link]

    Pokrovsk region. Jan 18, 2025 [map at the link]

    This map is little changed since updates published in December. The bright yellow areas indicate areas of Russian activity over the previous week, but these are small areas on a high-resolution map.

    Here’s the Pokrovsk area a month later. [map at the link]

    Over the last month, Russia managed to keep some–though not all–of the area where it had been advancing along the highway in January. However, Ukraine has launched multiple counterattacks into the line southeast of the city, successfully liberating some areas that had been under Russian control and diverting Russian efforts to advance to the west. Russia is less prepared to assault Pokrovsk now than it was a month ago. [!]

    Over that same period, Ukraine has significantly expanded its presence in the Kursk region of Russia. That includes driving Russian forces from the town of Malaya Loknya as Ukrainian control has expanded to both the north and east. [map at the link]

    This map is actually at a lower resolution than the one at Pokrovsk because the scale of actions in this area has been larger.

    Ukraine has made advances in this area despite Russia injecting thousands of North Korean troops into this fight. At least 3,000 of those North Korean troops were killed or wounded in January. Reportedly they have not been seen in Kursk during February and may have been withdrawn.

    The word “culminated” is extremely dangerous to deploy at any time in an invasion, and it’s certainly been misused multiple times in this war. But boy … it is tempting.

    Update: Reports from the Lavrov–Rubin negotiations on Thursday suggest that Russia has offered Trump access to mineral resources in exchange for help in destroying Ukraine. Stay tuned.

    So much reality-based assessment from Mark Sumner. Someone should read that to Trump … and then read it to him again.

  409. says

    Followup to comment 408.

    Posted by readers of the Ukraine update, including an additional comment from Mark Sumner:

    As Ukrainian Pravda reports, Putin is offering Trump a deal that includes an invitation for U.S. oil companies to engage in fracking in Russia and an agreement on splitting up Arctic resources made accessible by climate change. There doesn’t seem to be an explicit promise to hand over Ukraine’s resources — yet. [Mark Sumner]
    ————————–
    Putin probably can’t deliver on promises to hand over Ukrainian minerals just now. He has to promise what he has at home. Not the minerals under an active battlefield.
    ——————————–
    a delay of some sort in the momentum may be enough. Trump also works on procrastination
    ————————-
    Poland have been increasing equipment purchases and inventory for 3 years straight. They are currently spending by far the highest % of GDP on military needs in NATO. They are taking the threat far more seriously than the rest of Europe.
    ————————-
    Ukraine is currently fighting troops from Russia and North Korea. So continuing with this betrayal would put the US on the side of North Korea as well. No one voted for that.
    ————————–
    Western companies are not keen doing any business in Russia to begin with. My former company was Finnish and they had a sales office in St. Petersburg that closed after the invasion. All business in Russia was cash in advance because they were so corrupt.

  410. JM says

    @399 Lynna, OM

    But he’s doing it anyway. Presidents only get so much political capital, and for reasons Trump has never made any meaningful effort to explain, he’s decided to invest his finite political capital into supporting the authoritarian regime in Moscow.

    One of the reasons Trump likes the idea of absolute presidential power is that he doesn’t want to have limited political capital. He doesn’t want to negotiate, he doesn’t want to actually cut deals, he certainly doesn’t want to be limited by the law or what he said previously. He wants to order things done and have his underlings scurry to do them.

  411. says

    Lowering food prices

    “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1,” Trump repeatedly promised supporters. Many voters cited the price of gas and groceries as reasons they voted for Trump. Instead, grocery prices are up since Trump took office.

    Most notably, egg prices have hit a record high—which has been attributed to the spread of the H5N1 bird flu. Trump could make the problem even worse, because in his zeal to purge the federal workforce, his team got rid of the very employees tasked with developing the government’s response to the flu. […]

    Link

  412. says

    JFC

    Senate confirms Kash Patel to lead FBI

    The Senate on Thursday confirmed Kash Patel to serve as the head of the FBI, approving a pick with a string of controversial statements who has been accused by Democrats of directing a purge of bureau employees.

    Patel was confirmed in a 51-49 vote. Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (Main) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), voted against confirmation.

    […] Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Patel “likely committed perjury” when he denied having insight into FBI firings that came the very next day.

    Durbin in a lengthy floor speech at turns called Patel “vindictive,” “dangerously politically extreme,” and warned Republicans “will come to regret this vote, probably sooner rather than later.”

    “When I think of giving this man a 10-year tenure as director of the leading criminal investigative agency in the world, I cannot imagine a worse choice. You want the person has that job and that power to destroy people simply by investigation to show some temperament and some judgment,” Durbin said. “Kash Patel shows just the opposite.” […]

  413. says

    Why Elon Musk is the wrong guy to boast about ‘full transparency’

    “Trump’s biggest donor boasted about the “full transparency” of the DOGE operation. The closer one looks, the more misguided the claim appears.”

    The fact that Donald Trump and Elon Musk sat down together for a joint appearance on Fox News was itself extraordinary. Never before have Americans seen a nationally televised interview featuring an incumbent president and his top campaign donor.

    Nevertheless, toward the end of the interview, host Sean Hannity asked Musk whether he intended to remain in his White House position for the entirety of Trump’s four-year second term. The question went largely unanswered, but as part of the exchange, the president said Musk is “under a pretty big microscope.” His megadonor agreed:

    The possibility of me getting away with something is 0% — 0.0. I’m scrutinized to a ridiculous degree. And the other thing is, you know what’s better than saying ‘trust me’ is just full transparency. So, what we’re doing with the DOGE, just go to DOGE.gov. You can see every single action that’s being taken.

    [That’s not Elon Musk being “misguided,” that’s him blatantly lying and gaslighting the public.]

    The idea of “full transparency” at the White House and the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency certainly sounds nice. […]

    But there’s no reason to take Musk’s rhetoric seriously. […] the same billionaire who said identifying DOGE employees by name is “illegal.” The White House has also said that Musk is effectively responsible for privately self-policing his own conflicts of interest, which is a far cry from “full transparency.”

    What’s more, Bloomberg Business’ Jason Leopold recently noted, “The lack of transparency surrounding DOGE’s efforts is off the charts. The DOGE team members appeared at the agency’s Washington headquarters, and carried out work in a basement conference room where they covered its windows in paper.”

    A couple of days earlier, The New York Times reported that the entire DOGE initiative has been “operating in deep secrecy.” The article added, “Mr. Musk himself is a ‘special government employee,’ which, the White House has said, means his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.”

    It led The Atlantic’s Jon Chait to note that the fact that Musk’s financial disclosures will remain hidden allows “the shadow president to direct vast swaths of government policy with enormous stakes for his personal fortune without the public knowing the precise areas of overlap.”

    The day the Times report was published, the White House announced that its visitor logs will also be kept under wraps, out of public view.

    […] “Transparency” does not mean “saying a bunch of things in public.”

    A White House that takes “full transparency” seriously would be doing largely the opposite of what Trump and Musk are doing now.

  414. says

    […] Trump took time away from golfing to speak to a group of billionaires at the Saudi Public Future Investment Initiative Institute summit in Miami, during which he complained about remote work.

    “All federal employees must once again show up to work. It’s a new phenomenon. You know, since COVID. Show up to work in person like the rest of us. “You can’t work at home. They’re not working. They’re playing tennis, they’re playing golf, or they have other jobs, but they’re not working or they’re certainly not working hard. You could never build a company or a country with that,” he said. [video at the link]

    One of Trump’s first edicts was to issue a memo demanding all federal workers to return to the office while he went … golfing.

    Since then, Trump’s itinerary has included trips to the Super Bowl, a publicity stunt at the Daytona 500, and a lot more golfing—all at taxpayers’ expense.

    It isn’t surprising. While billionaire Elon Musk is busy dismantling U.S. administrative functions, Trump is picking up where his first administration left off: spending time at his many estates and playing a lot of golf.

    […] As for the federal workers who haven’t been fired or placed on administrative leave, research shows that remote work benefits both workers and employers. There is also evidence that women and minority groups are negatively impacted the most by a lack of remote or hybrid work options.

    But as long as Trump’s golf game isn’t affected […]

    Link

  415. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/sorry-elon-al-gore-was-not-the-original

    “Sorry, Elon, Al Gore Was Not The Original DOGE. You Idiot.”

    Right-wing fans of Donald Trump and de facto President Elon Musk have discovered yet another example of the most outrageous hypocrisy on the part of Democrats since that time Joe Biden petted a search dog in Maui and libs did nothing to stop him. [photo at the link]

    The new supposed hypocrisy stems from some [people] rediscovering the fact that during the Clinton administration, then-Vice President Al Gore led a “Reinventing Government” commission (formally called the “National Partnership for Reinventing Government,” often shortened to “ReGo”). And that commission sought to streamline government operations and cut down on waste, exactly like Elon Musk’s DOGE thing!

    But instead of calling Gore’s ReGo project a “constitutional crisis,” nasty Democrats and Big Corporate Media cheered it for cutting waste and inefficiency! Even after it resulted in the elimination of some 380,000 jobs!!!!!!!1!! But when Elon Musk does the very same thing, all we hear about is laid off workers and starving children and the “nuclear stockpile” not being “kept safe”! — What a bunch of deranged hypocrites!

    Here’s the slumming DOGE billionaire being amazed at the hypocrisy a few days ago, insisting that

    What DOGE is doing is similar to Clinton/Gore Dem policies of the 1990s.

    The current Dem party has just gone so crazy far left that it isn’t recognizable anymore!

    [social media post from Musk is available at the link]

    As you can see, Musk was responding to a long Twitter post insisting that Democrats and the media should “set aside their irrational opposition” and support Ketamine Hitler, “just as they once backed Bill Clinton and Al Gore.” It included a collection of snippets of Clinton and Gore talking up their work, including the screenshot bit here where Clinton discussed his executive order to cut 100,000 federal jobs. See? Just like Elon! Except, oops, the post above the video leaves it to potential viewers to notice Clinton saying the staff reductions would be decided by the agencies in a process that would be spread over four years. Details, details.

    We won’t go into all the details of how Reinventing Government is different from Musk’s wrecking crew, because while there are plenty, they mostly stem from a single key distinction: ReGo was a carefully thought out government process that stayed within the law, involving both Congress and the agencies that were going to be affected.

    At no point did Al Gore invite a team of unvetted employees of Clinton’s biggest campaign donor to simply run roughshod through federal agencies, firing thousands of people at whim and declaring them corrupt. […]

    You might as well say that military medical teams in combat zones are pretty much the same as the Cleveland Torso Murderer, since both removed limbs from people. […]

    Reinventing And Blowing Shit Up Are Different

    Let’s just start with a great big obvious difference, which matters a lot: Al Gore was elected to office, unlike some prancing dipshit billionaires we could name here […]

    Now, as Subpresident Trump has amply demonstrated in just one month […], being elected doesn’t guarantee you’ll act within the law, but Gore’s efforts were, from the start, very much in line with how previous government commissions worked. The effort started right after Clinton and Gore took office, in March 1993, […] It was a six-month review that included both government agencies and input from the public, which resulted in a formal report that made some 400 recommendations for making the federal government more efficient, through things like computerizing many processes, possibly combining some agencies, and yes, cutting staff.

    […] ReGo Was Not Rocket Surgery (And Wasn’t Done With A Chainsaw)

    Also, Clinton and Gore took a slightly different approach than Musk when it came to enacting the report’s recommendations. As we say, they didn’t just dispatch a bunch of Nazi-friendly incels to lock the doors at agencies, demand access to classified files, arbitrarily fire federal workers and lock them out of their workstations, or refuse to let members of Congress into agency buildings.

    Instead, Clinton gradually implemented many of the report’s recommendations over time, with Gore serving as a kind of team lead to meet with Congress and speak to the public, taking care that government services wouldn’t be interrupted, which again reflects the fundamental difference between ReGo and Doge, which was that Team Clinton saw agencies and Congress and the public as partners in making things work better, not as enemies, perpetrators of fraud, or even “traitors” who must be rooted out to allow the co-emperors to rule without opposition. […]

    Hey, remember all the lawsuits and court orders finding that ReGo had overstepped the bounds of executive authority? Of course not, […] It’s because Clinton and Gore went by the book and did it right, with Congress, resulting in four straight years of budget surpluses. It also gave us that dumb line at the 1996 State of the Union address where Clinton, trying to out-Reagan Reagan, proclaimed “The era of big government is over.”

    Then Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took the House in 1994, declared Democrats literal demons who hate America, fucked everything up, and put us on the road to endless tax cuts, higher debt, Citizens United, and the fascist dystopia where we currently reside, where their rightwing heirs to lunacy insist with straight faces that there’s no difference at all between Gore and Musk […]

    […] Hilariously, or at least HOLLOW MORDANT LAUGHTER-ly, right now in 2025 marks the very first time any right-wing pundits have pretended — in extremely bad faith — to respect Clinton and Gore’s reform efforts. But that’s only because it’s rhetorically convenient, in an online trolling way, for them to do so. As with their endless attempts to insist Martin Luther King hated affirmative action, they’re now pretending there’s no difference between an effort within government to streamline operations, and Trump’s desire to drown democracy in a bathtub.

  416. says

    […] House Bill 807, the “Save MO Babies Act,” was introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Amato, who says he imagines it would also work as an “EHarmony for babies” that would set up those prospective adoptive parents with those who might have an abortion.

    The Division [of Maternal and Child Resources] is required to establish a “Missouri Adoptive Resources Services System” for the entire state, the function of which is to promote the safe and healthy birth of children in the state through the utilization of existing resources; coordinate community resources and provide assistance or services to expecting mothers identified to be at risk for seeking abortion services; and prevent abortions through the adoption of children by fit and proper adoptive parents.

    But wait! It gets weirder!

    The Division is required to make and maintain a central registry of each expecting mother who is at risk for seeking an abortion and a central registry of each prospective adoptive parent who has successfully completed certain screenings, background checks, home studies, and other investigations to ensure the fit of the prospective parent to adopt a child. The registries must be made available to the party or parties of the other registry.

    So … if the government deems you “at risk” of seeking an abortion, people who might want to adopt your kid will be made aware of that so they can, I don’t know, pressure you to give birth so they can adopt your child?

    You are probably wondering what it is that the state would actually do with this information. Well, one thing we know for sure is that they’d share it with law enforcement, because that is specifically mentioned in the bill.

    The Division can share records, information, and findings with federal, state, or local child welfare agency personnel and law enforcement agencies, including those outside of this state, in the performance of the Division’s duties.

    To be clear, “EHarmony for babies” is already a thing. There are already many websites and services that set up those who wish to give their children up for adoption with parents who are looking to adopt. It’s just, you know, the kind of thing people seek out and choose for themselves. Like normal people who don’t live in some freaky dystopian society.

    There’s also nothing wrong with providing resources and assistance to pregnant people. Personally I think being pregnant, giving birth and postpartum care should be entirely free and that the government should subsidize parental leave afterwards (and childcare and also all healthcare in general). But there’s a difference between that and the government giving you that information because they think you might have an abortion, which is none of their damn business.

    What could possibly go wrong with that?

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/creepy-missouri-goper-wants-to-set

  417. says

    At CPAC, Vance finally gets the reception he wishes he got in Munich

    “Surrounded by allies, the vice president basked in his role as culture-warrior-in-chief.”

    OXON HILL, Maryland — When Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech in Europe last week that marked a hairpin turn away from decades of American foreign policy, he couldn’t have had a less receptive audience.

    But on Thursday, Vance brought that globalism-bashing, culture warrior message stateside — and solidified his role as the America First movement’s communicator-in-chief.

    “I’m glad you guys liked it. Not everybody liked it, you guys liked it,” Vance told the CPAC crowd of the speech he gave last week in Munich. There, it had generated more groans than applause, but here, just a short mention of it caused the crowd of thousands to whistle and stand.

    “I’ll take a standing ovation for a speech I already gave,” Vance said. “Two for the price of one.”

    Exactly one month into his vice presidential tenure, as the first guest at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, Vance praised President Donald Trump for his fire hose of early executive actions and frequently returned to the administration’s priorities to “secure the southern border,” “drill baby drill” and “spend the American people’s tax money on the American people’s priorities.”

    But surrounded by the bastions of the conservative movement he and Trump helped shape into its present-day iteration, Vance also appeared empowered to not just platform the administration’s achievements, but to bask in his role as a MAGA prince.

    CPAC is familiar and friendly ground for Vance, a hero of the “new right” who has been attending the conservative confab each year since he was first sworn in as a senator in 2023. The audience was a sea of MAGA hats. […]

    And Vance was their culture warrior.

    American culture “wants to turn everybody, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same,” he said. “We actually think God made male and female for a purpose and he wants you guys to thrive.”

    The vice president, who at 40 is just over half Trump’s age, is widely viewed as the GOP’s heir apparent to take over from a term-limited Trump in 2028. He must thread a fine line between staying visible without stealing Trump’s spotlight […]

    When moderator Mercedes Schlapp asked Vance what the White House would do to “defend the unborn,” Vance began by praising Trump for setting up a Supreme Court that could overturn Roe v. Wade, delivering the question of abortion back to the states — the standard Trump administration messaging on an issue where going further proved a political liability.

    But speaking as a “devout Christian,” Vance continued, “We’ve got to persuade our fellow citizens that unborn life is worthy of protecting. It is sacred in the eyes of God, and it should be sacred in the eyes of man too.”

  419. Bekenstein Bound says

    But wait! It gets weirder!

    The Division is required to make and maintain a central registry of each expecting mother who is at risk for seeking an abortion

    “Weird” isn’t quite the right word for this; try “creepy”. “Creepy to the max,” even.

  420. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #416 and Bekenstein Bound @ #419…
    “Intrusive” at the very least. How do they propose to determine who is “at risk” for seeking an abortion? For that matter, how do they expect to find out that a given woman is pregnant?

    At one time, there was an effort to determine the “out of wedlock” birth rate. California showed very high numbers. The numbers were way off reality. There were two problems.. First, California birth records don’t (or, at least didn’t) indicate whether or not the parents were married, This led to those doing the research to take every kid where the parents had different surnames as out of wedlock. Second, California has/had a very high percentage of married women who have NOT changed their surname to that of their husbands. As a result, a large portion of the supposed out of wedlock births weren’t.

    Really good odds that whoever wrote the bill hasn’t thought it through.

  421. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    I’ve confirmed the DOGE staffers at [Social Security Administration]. They are Marko Elez[,] Ethan Shaotran, Nikhil Rajpal, and Gautier Cole-Killian.

     
    ProPublica – DOGE’s millions

    Most of DOGE’s [funding] has come in the form of payments from other federal agencies made possible by a nearly century-old law called the Economy Act […] as if it were a federal agency. And by dispatching members of its staff to other agencies and having those staffers issue edicts about policy and personnel, DOGE has also behaved as if it has agency-level authority.

    The use of the Economy Act would seem to subject DOGE to the same open-records laws that cover most federal agencies […] However, DOGE has refused to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, saying it operates with executive privileges. Musk has also flip-flopped about whether DOGE’s staff members are paid. Initially he said they were not, but earlier this week he said some of them were.
    […]
    If DOGE is a federal agency, it can’t shield its records from the public. If it’s not an agency, then DOGE’s tens of millions of dollars in funding weren’t legally allocated and should be returned
    […]
    ProPublica found, more than $39 million has been earmarked to DOGE in the Trump administration’s first month. […] For perspective, in recent years Congress had allocated around $50 million a year for the IT modernization initiative that DOGE supplanted
    […]
    The Trump administration has not yet released enough details to trace the exact source of the funding flowing into DOGE or said who is being paid.

    EmptyWheel: “DOGE is far more expensive than the USDS that it pretends to be.”
     
    Meanwhile at CPAC.
    Aaron Rupar:

    wearing sunglasses inside and following an event where he at times had a hard time speaking coherently, Elon Musk walks off the CPAC stage waving around a chain saw. this is the guy currently running our government. Congrats, America! [Video]

    * More stupid chainsaw footage. The bar has a mirror silver polish, antithetical to its purpose, doubt it’s even oiled or operable. He just shouts “Chainsaw!”

  422. says

    Sky Captain @421, Thank you finding sources like Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket) that keep us up to date on DOGE’s activities. I appreciate the detail.

    In other news: A news conference between Zelenskyy and Trump’s Ukraine envoy is canceled amid growing tensions

    KYIV, Ukraine — A news conference that was planned to follow talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy was canceled Thursday as political tensions deepened between the two countries over how to end the almost three-year war with Russia.

    The event was originally supposed to include comments to the media by Zelenskyy and retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg , but it was changed at the last minute to a simple photo opportunity where the two posed for journalists. They did not deliver statements or field questions as expected. The change was requested by the U.S. side, Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhii Nikiforov said.

    […] Dozens of journalists gathered at Ukraine’s presidential office in Kyiv after being invited to take photos and observe a news conference with Zelenskyy and Kellogg. As the meeting began, photographers and video journalists were allowed into a room where the two men shook hands before sitting across from each other at a table.

    Journalists were then informed that there would be no news conference with remarks by the leaders or questions from reporters. Nikiforov gave no reason for the sudden change except to say that it was in accordance with U.S. wishes.

    […] Zelenskyy had previously said he looked forward to explaining what was happening in Ukraine and showing it to Kellogg.

    […] Writing on his Telegram channel, Zelenskyy said the meeting with Kellogg was a “good conversation, lots of details.” He said they discussed security guarantees for Ukraine and the return of Ukrainian prisoners from Russian custody.

    […] “Ukraine is ready for a strong, truly beneficial agreement with the President of the United States on investments and security.”

    Zelenskyy and Trump have traded rebukes in recent days.

    […] Zelenskyy was unhappy that a U.S. team opened the talks without inviting him or European governments that have backed Kyiv.

    When Trump claimed Zelenskyy was deeply unpopular in Ukraine, the president said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space,” suggesting he had been duped by Putin.

    But Zelenskyy “retains a fairly high level of public trust” — about 57 percent — according to a report released Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

    […] Trump also suggested that Ukraine was to blame for the war .

    Russia’s army crossed the border on Feb. 24, 2022, in an all-out invasion that Putin sought to justify by falsely saying it was needed to protect Russian-speaking civilians in eastern Ukraine and prevent the country from joining NATO.

    On Wednesday, Trump warned Zelenskyy that he “better move fast” to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or risk not having a nation to lead. [Oh FFS. Trump is such a bully … and a stupid one at that.]

    European leaders quickly threw their support behind Zelenskyy.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz whose country has been Kyiv’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the U.S., said it was “wrong and dangerous” to deny Zelenskyy’s democratic legitimacy.

    Ukraine has been defending itself for nearly three years against a merciless war of aggression — day after day,” Scholz told news outlet Der Spiegel.

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Zelenskyy on Wednesday and expressed support for him “as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader,” Starmer’s office said, adding that it was “perfectly reasonable” to postpone elections during wartime.

    Russian officials, meanwhile, are basking in Washington’s attention and offering words of support for Trump’s stance. […]

    Amid the diplomatic clamor, Ukrainian civilians continue to endure Russian strikes. Russia fired 161 Shahed and decoy drones and up to 14 missiles of various types at Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to military authorities.

    A Russian glide bomb struck an apartment block in the southern city of Kherson on Wednesday night, killing one person and wounding six, including 14-year-old twins, authorities said.

    The southern port city of Odesa also came under a Russian drone attack for the second consecutive night, leaving almost 50,000 homes without electricity in freezing winter temperatures, officials said.

    Text quoted above contains excerpts from an Associated Press report.

  423. says

    Associated Press:

    Hoping to head off a potential trade conflict, a top European Union official stressed the importance of active engagement and fairness in trade during a four-hour meeting with Trump administration officials.

  424. says

    Washington Post:

    The Trump White House and Treasury Department officials have agreed to prohibit the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing personal taxpayer data, according to two people familiar with the arrangement, heading off a brewing privacy crisis at the tax agency.

    Well, we can live in hope, but I would not trust DOGE at all. I do not trust them to stick to an agreement.

    Regarding that CPAC footage of Musk waving around the bedazzled chainsaw, the guy looks and sounds a bit addled. Musk certainly seemed to be claiming to be in charge of “chainsawing” various agencies of the federal government.

  426. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    A frustrated Trump wants his new Air Force One planes pronto

    [Trump] has empowered Elon Musk to explore drastic options to prod Boeing to move faster, including relaxing security clearance standards for some who work on the presidential planes.
    […]
    Mr. Trump regards Boeing as almost a lost cause, according to people close to him. He often laments how far the company has fallen, wondering aloud what happened to the jet maker and why it seems incapable of building things anymore.

    * Why indeed. All those layoffs made Boeing so efficient. /s
    * NPR – Boeing’s biggest blunder? Financial engineering

    [In 1997] McDonnell Douglas executives took over […] aggressive cost management, and distributing money to shareholders. So number one is pushing costs down. For Boeing, this meant layoffs, freezing out suppliers that refused to discount their prices and evaluating managers based on their ability to cut costs. […] outsourcing more manufacturing.

  427. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – Trump expected to take control of USPS

    Trump is expected to issue an executive order as soon as this week to fire the members of the Postal Service’s governing board and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick […] the board retained outside counsel and gave instructions to sue […] would probably violate federal law […] Trump, at Lutnick’s urging, has mused about privatizing the Postal Service
    […]
    From its founding in 1775 until 1970, the U.S. mail system was a political organ of the White House. […] But the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the product of a crippling nationwide mail strike, led Congress to split the agency off into a freestanding organization, purposefully walling it off from political tinkering.

  428. says

    Washington Post link

    EXCLUSIVE
    “Trump expected to take control of USPS, fire postal board, officials say”

    “The move threatens to upend trillions of dollars in e-commerce business and the 250-year-old Postal Service.”

    […] Trump is preparing to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and absorb the independent mail agency into his administration, potentially throwing the 250-year-old mail provider and trillions of dollars of e-commerce transactions into turmoil.

    Trump is expected to issue an executive order as soon as this week to fire the members of the Postal Service’s governing board and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to six people familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals.

    The board is planning to fight Trump’s order, three of those people told The Washington Post. In an emergency meeting Thursday, the board retained outside counsel and gave instructions to sue the White House if the president were to remove members of the board or attempt to alter the agency’s independent status.

    […] Trump’s order to place the Commerce Department in charge of the Postal Service would probably violate federal law, according to postal experts. Another executive order earlier this week instructed independent agencies to align more closely with the White House, though that order is likely to prompt court challenges and the Postal Service by law is generally exempt from executive orders.

    Members of the Postal Service’s bipartisan board are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

    Trump, at Lutnick’s urging, has mused about privatizing the Postal Service, and Trump’s presidential transition team vetted candidates to replace Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a retired logistics executive and GOP fundraising official who took office in 2020 during Trump’s first term.

    “There is a lot of talk about the Postal Service being taken private,” Trump said in December. “It’s a lot different today, between Amazon and UPS and FedEx and all the things that you didn’t have. But there is talk about that. It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time.”

    […] “This is a somewhat regal approach that says the king knows better than his subjects and he will do his best for them. But it also removes any sense that there’s oversight, impartiality and fairness and that some states wouldn’t be treated better than other states or cities better than other cities,” said James O’Rourke, who studies the Postal Service at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “The anxiety over the Postal Service is not only three-quarters of a million workers. It’s that this is something that does not belong to the president or the White House. It belongs to the American people.”

    […] the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the product of a crippling nationwide mail strike, led Congress to split the agency off into a freestanding organization, purposefully walling it off from political tinkering.

    Americans consistently rank the Postal Service among their most-beloved government agencies, second only to the National Park Service. A 2024 study by the Pew Research Center found more than 70 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the agency, a view that was similar among Democrats and Republicans. [I snipped details regarding Trump’s threats to Post Office service in his first term. Ditto for details regarding DeJoy’s tenure and its struggles with on-time delivery.]

    Republicans have grown wary of DeJoy and the Postal Service’s close ties to the Biden administration. The two partnered to deliver nearly 1 billion coronavirus test kits, the largest expansion of postal capabilities in a generation, and to fund a fleet of more than 60,000 electric mail delivery vehicles, though those were plagued by delivery delays.

  429. says

    Sky Captain @427, I stepped on your toes a bit. Both of us posted about the Post Office and Trump’s proposed takeover.

    In other news: EXCLUSIVE from NBC
    Trump administration has cleared migrants out of Guantánamo Bay

    The administration flew almost all of the migrants it had held in the facility in Cuba to Honduras, and one to detention in the U.S., NBC News has learned.

    […] In response to a lawsuit, the Trump administration said that there were 178 immigrants, all from Venezuela, housed at Guantánamo Bay as of early Thursday.

    A senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that 177 of the 178 migrants at Guantánamo Bay were deported on Thursday. The one other person was sent to a detention facility in the U.S., the official said.

    Also Thursday, Honduras’ foreign ministry announced that the country had accepted a flight with what it said were 174 Venezuelan immigrants from the U.S. on board, who would immediately be removed from Honduras to Venezuela.

    The official also said that the varying numbers between the administration and Honduras could just be a discrepancy.

    […] The senior DHS official told NBC News that it plans to send more immigrants to Guantánamo, and that the base is being seen as a “staging area” to get migrants to other countries. But two sources familiar with the matter said that DHS has asked the Department of Defense to look for alternative locations, and that DOD is considering other places like Fort Bliss in Texas. [In other words, they still have figured out that to do nor how to do it. They do not know what the fuck they are doing.]

    […] The removal raises new questions about what rights immigrants have once in custody in Guantánamo Bay. Lawyers from immigrant rights’ groups sued the Trump administration to have in-person access to detainees and 72 hours notice before planes carrying migrants to or away from Guantánamo took off.

    In response, Justice Department lawyers representing the Trump administration argued on Thursday that migrants could request to speak to lawyers by phone […] Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer for the ACLU challenging the Trump administration in the lawsuit, told NBC News: “We will have to verify what type of access is going to be able to be given by phone and make sure it is meaningful. We will also seek in-person access where necessary.”

    “It’s ironic to say the least that they are now telling us they have phone access but it appears that our clients have been removed,” Gelernt said. […]

    The Trump administration scrambles when a new lawsuit against them pops up … or at least they did in this case.

  430. says

    ASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced his retirement on Thursday, declaring, “My work destroying this country is done.”

    Stating, “I want to spend more time rolling back progress for my family,” the senator told reporters, “I retire with my head held high, knowing that I am leaving the country in smoldering ruins.”

    “From torpedoing gun laws to boosting sexual assailants onto the Supreme Court, I have been tireless in my effort to make this land unfit for human habitation,” he said.

    McConnell marked the solemn occasion with a minute-long moment of silence in the middle of a sentence.

    According to experts, McConnell’s retirement means that Rand Paul will become the worst person in Kentucky.

    Link

  432. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CNN – Military families rocked by Trump’s federal government cuts

    Military spouses and their families move involuntarily every two to three years, on average. As a result, it’s not unusual for those who work in the federal government to frequently change positions or even organizations within their agencies. Many are perpetually probationary employees—the category of worker the Trump administration targeted in its recent first round of firings. […] A number of these military spouses are veterans themselves.
    […]
    [The return-to-work EO was a lifestyle-upending mess as well, with mixed messages for exemptions. Workers are burdened to advocate for themselves to supervisors, referencing historically-protective regulations.]
    […]
    The overwhelming sense of uncertainty and stress pervading the federal workforce is also driving out military spouses who anticipate they will be fired.
    […]
    “It makes [my husband] want to get out [of the military], to be perfectly honest,” […] “I can’t have a career,”

  433. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #373, DOGE in Social Security.

    The Handbasket – The curious case of Leland Dudek

    Before his big promotion, Dudek was a management analyst in a non-supervisory role […] The New York Times reported Dudek was overseeing the agency’s anti-fraud office, but I’ve been told this is an inflation of his actual role. He was, I’m told, a GS-15 employee, which means he was at the highest government pay grade below Senior Executive Service (SES). But he was “so junior,” according to Nancy Altman, President of the nonprofit Social Security Works, that her sources at the agency were not familiar with him.

    Going from a sub-SES position to Acting Commissioner overnight is unheard of
    […]
    Another staffer who previously worked in the same office as Dudek described him as someone who thinks very highly of himself and can be condescending.
    […]
    elevation to folk hero status became official when Elon Musk himself posted about Dudek’s miraculous ascension.
    [“Leland was fired … for helping DOGE … now HE is upper management”]
    […]
    There is no evidence Dudek was actually fired, or was ever officially put on leave given the decision came late Friday and Monday was a federal holiday. Based on the Vacancies Act, anyone currently working at an agency can be tapped as an acting leader […] Musk is lying.
    […]
    an SSA source told me. “Every one of us swears to serve and protect the Constitution in our Oath of Office […] They want a Dudek in every single organization within the federal government.”

  434. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    The Trump admin is moving to terminate Temporary Protected Status for half a million Haitians in the United States, seemingly illegally moving up the expiration date from next February to August of this year. In a single day, 500,000 people could lose work authorization and deportation protections. […] The economic impact could be staggering. Florida in particular would be hit badly, as many Haitians with TPS live and work there legally.
    […]
    The goal is to strip status from people who are here legally so that they will become undocumented and then hopefully choose to leave voluntarily—but Haitians are not going to self-deport to Haiti! The country is in utter chaos and people are dying left and right.

  436. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna in January on $MELANIA memecoin.

    The team that launched Melania’s memecoin was the same team launched Libra coin, which got Argentia’s President Javier Milei in trouble. Allegedly Milei had only tweeted to promote it then retracted without profiting himself—the retraction crashed Libra. In both cases that crypto team did insider trading. They “sniped”, buying cheap immediately then selling when it’s trendy. A 26 year old on the team walked away with over 100 million dollars.

    Coindesk wrote a short article to this effect.
    Coffeezilla (Anti-cryptofraud YouTuber) said as much in 21 minutes, with interviews of the team just admitting it.
     
    Javier Milei was the guy at CPAC who gifted that chainsaw to Elon Musk. (#421)
    Background via Lynna.

    Milei is a former TV pundit who gained attention with radical-right theories of economics—and detailed explanations of “the joy of tantric sex” that included informing the public of his ejaculation schedule. He has a pack of five huge Mastiff dogs, all of whom are clones. He has frequently campaigned as libertarian superhero “General AnCap” […] He has also appeared on stage with running chainsaws

  439. Reginald Selkirk says

    Snow Storm Causes More Than 1,000 Crashes In North Carolina Just On Wednesday Alone

    Winter storms swept through much of the South yesterday (Wednesday), and while the amount of snow dropped on North Carolina likely wouldn’t have bothered areas of the U.S. that regularly see more snow, it was enough to cause more than 1,000 crashes throughout the state. One particularly bad wreck even caused a series of other collisions behind it, resulting in at least 53 cars being involved in “dozens of crashes,” WRAL reports. While car wrecks are pretty common in the U.S., that figure is far higher than you’d expect on any given day. For comparison, the state reportedly only saw 185 wrecks the day before..

  440. Reginald Selkirk says

    California takes steps toward officially recognizing Bigfoot

    California may soon have an official mythical creature — and naturally, it’s Bigfoot. Assemblymember Chris Rogers, who represents a stretch of the North Coast that has long been considered Sasquatch territory, introduced Assembly Bill 666 on Feb. 14, 2025. The bill aims to designate Bigfoot as the state’s official cryptid, a term for creatures that some people believe to exist despite a lack of proof. Rogers’ district spans Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma and Trinity counties, a region known as the epicenter of Bigfoot lore…

  442. birgerjohansson says

    (Looks at Gary Larson cartoon)
    -If California has Bigfoot as official state cryptid, can Tennessee have Elvis?

  443. birgerjohansson says

    Colbert says there will be wind chill factors as low as 0° Fahrenheit in parts of Texas.
    Not a good thing if their electric grid should go down now.

  444. birgerjohansson says

    One of the California fire chiefs that falsely were accused of being a “DEI hire” and causing the fires has been murdered. This is on Trump and Fox News. 😡☠️🤬

  445. birgerjohansson says

    I jumped the gun. This particular homicide seems to have been a case if domestic violence.

  446. Reginald Selkirk says

    Georgia congressman confronted by angry crowd over support for Trump’s agenda

    U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was peppered with boos and catcalls throughout a town hall meeting in Roswell late Thursday, as hundreds of critics jeered the Republican for backing President Donald Trump’s agenda during his first month in office.

    The Suwanee Republican’s staff expected a robust turnout for his first town hall since Trump took office. But they seemed caught off guard by the massive crowd of hundreds that gathered outside Roswell City Hall…

  448. says

    Followup to birger @438 and me @447

    Trump generously makes up an approval rating for himself, defying reality

    “Why is the president brazenly lying about his public support? It’s not just about ego, it’s about the success of his political agenda.”
    Related video mentioned in previous comments is also available at the link above.

    Donald Trump’s approach to public opinion research has never been altogether healthy. The president has long insisted, for example, that polls are “fake,” unless he likes the results, in which case they’re real.

    It’s the sort of perspective that led [Trump] to argue before the 2024 election that it should be “illegal” to release polling data he disapproves of, followed by Trump filing an actual lawsuit against a news organization after the election for publishing the results of a survey that bothered him.

    [Trump’s] perspective on polls has reached the point at which he’s generously making up an approval rating for himself. HuffPost noted:

    […] Trump’s honeymoon period in the polls seems to be over ― but he thinks he’s more popular than ever. “I had an approval rating today of 71 and another one of 69,” Trump bragged at the Republican governors dinner in Washington on Thursday. “I have not heard of those numbers before.”

    [JFC and LOL]

    For the record, he did not appear to be kidding. [Social media post and video at the link.]

    Of course, the reason the president has “not heard of those numbers before” is that the polls he referenced do not exist outside of his imagination.

    There’s plenty of survey data available, but literally none of the publicly available data has Trump’s approval rating anywhere close to 70%. On the contrary, several major recent polls have shown the president’s support slipping below 50% — which is practically unheard of one month out from Inauguration Day.
    – The latest national poll from the Pew Research Center found Trump “underwater,” with 47% approving of the president and 51% disapproving.
    – The latest national poll from Quinnipiac University pointed in a similar direction: 45% approve, 49% disapprove.
    – The latest national poll from Gallup also pointed in a similar direction: 45% approve, 51% disapprove. The report on the results added, “Trump’s job approval rating is 15 points below the historical average for all other elected presidents in mid-February since 1953.”
    – The latest national Washington Post-Ipsos poll also pointed in a similar direction: 43% approve, 48% disapprove.
    – The latest national poll from CNN also pointed in a similar direction: 47% approve, 52% disapprove.
    – The latest national Reuters/Ipsos poll also pointed in a similar direction: 44% approve, 51% disapprove.

    The significance of this extends well beyond Trump’s routine dishonesty. After all, it’s not as if his approval rating is the only thing the president is lying about. What’s more, this isn’t just about ego or [Trump’s] apparent obsession with being liked.

    Rather, the reason this matters is that he needs people to believe the lie. His political success depends on it. As we’ve discussed, members of Congress — who, unlike the incumbent president, have to worry about re-election — care a great deal about the prevailing political winds.[…]

    In other words, the more voters turn against Trump, the harder it becomes for him to get his way, and the greater his need to make up approval ratings out of whole cloth, hoping people will fall for the transparent con.

  449. says

    Followup to comment 448.

    News summarized by Steve Benen, from Washington Post reports:

    In remarks to the Republican Governors Association, Trump said he’s expecting a “big surprise” in the 2026 midterm elections. Hours earlier, a national Washington Post-Ipsos poll found Democrats with a 7-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot, with 53% saying they want the next Congress “controlled by Democrats to act as a check on Trump,” while 46% said want the next Congress to “controlled by Republicans to support Trump’s agenda.”

  450. says

    It Hurts To Watch What’s Happening To DOJ

    It goes against my basic nature to overstate things, but I don’t think it’s overdramatic to observe that the Justice Department has already been lost to the Trump II rampage. There are no guardrails, limits, or independence any longer – and it’s going to take some time for us to internalize this new reality. Days like yesterday may help hasten our acceptance of the new reality:

    – Kash Patel was confirmed by the Senate, 51-49, as FBI director – words I can scarcely believe I’m typing.

    – DOJ suddenly shifted its interpretation of President Trump’s Jan. 6 acts of clemency, broadening them to cover unrelated crimes – like illegal weapons possession – discovered in the course of the FBI’s investigation.

    – DOJ deleted a database tracking federal police misconduct.

    – In a mark of just how bad things are, the sitting attorney general, Pam Bondi, showed up at the annual right-wing confab CPAC and spewed vitriol against Joe Biden and his “drug addict son”: [video at the link]

    Link

  451. says

    DOGE’s Millions: As Musk and Trump Gut Government, Their Ax-Cutting Agency Gets Cash Infusion

    This article was first published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

    While Elon Musk and his underlings demand budget cuts and layoffs across the federal government, funding for their agency — the Department of Government Efficiency — has soared to nearly $40 million, ProPublica found in a review of Office of Management and Budget records.

    Billionaire investor Musk has called DOGE “maximally transparent.” […] Trump has said that some 100 people work for the group, but his administration has refused to make information about DOGE’s spending and operations public. In an effort to gain a clearer understanding of DOGE’s inner workings, ProPublica has gathered the names and backgrounds of the people employed there. We’ve identified some 46 people, including 12 new names we are adding to the list today.

    Trump and Musk have defended DOGE as a tool for trimming fat from what they see as a bloated bureaucracy. The effects of those cuts have proved crippling, bringing a halt to programs that provided essential services to vulnerable populations across the country and the world.

    […] Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told ProPublica she didn’t believe DOGE had the legal authority for the actions it’s taken. She called it a “made-up federal department” that’s wasting taxpayer dollars.

    […] conflicting stances put the Trump administration in a bind, legal experts say. If DOGE is a federal agency, it can’t shield its records from the public. If it’s not an agency, then DOGE’s tens of millions of dollars in funding weren’t legally allocated […]

    A federal judge presiding over one of the many DOGE-related lawsuits also recently grilled the administration’s lawyers about its conflicting stances. In a recent hearing, U.S. District Judge John Bates characterized the government’s position as “we’re not an agency where we don’t want to be an agency, but we are an agency this one instance where we want to be.”

    […] At the Department of Education, DOGE staffers are exploring how to expand the agency’s reliance on AI to both identify potential waste and interact with student loan recipients. At the EPA, they have reportedly gained access to contracting databases. Some staffers serve in executive-level roles while others have ambiguous titles, such as “senior adviser,” leaving unclear the nature of their work.

    One of the names newly added to the tracker, Katherine Armstrong Loving, is the sibling of crypto executive Brian Armstrong, who runs the industry leader Coinbase. Coinbase donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and Armstrong met with Trump to discuss appointments to administration posts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    […] The Trump administration began funding DOGE soon after it took office. It started by tapping $750,000 from a White House fund for information technology initiatives in late January.

    Since then, the funding has ballooned; the most recent apportionment came on Feb. 8 and included a $14 million chunk described as part of a “software modernization initiative.” In all, ProPublica found, more than $39 million has been earmarked to DOGE in the Trump administration’s first month.

    […] The Trump administration has not yet released enough details to trace the exact source of the funding flowing into DOGE or said who is being paid. The money could be coming from agency budgets that have money set aside for IT upgrades or other services. It’s also not yet clear what timeframe the allocation covers or whether it has funded salaries.

    […] DOGE’s operating method “leaves questions about possible violations of the purpose statute,” said Christie Wentworth with the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “If DOGE uses funds that are available only for IT-related purposes for initiatives that have nothing to do with IT, that use could violate federal law.”

  452. says

    Followup to comment 402.

    Trump administration hasn’t complied with order to halt foreign aid freeze, judge says

    The Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

    U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week ordered the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance after hearing claims from federal contractors challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.

    Ali determined that a “blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid” had caused irreparable harm to the contractors and was likely not allowed under the Administrative Procedure Act.

    Earlier this week, the administration said in a notice of compliance that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development had reviewed the thousands of contracts and grants it had canceled as part of the aid freeze and determined that “substantially all” of the terminations were allowed under the terms of the contracts.

    In response, Judge Ali suggested Thursday that the administration was not fully abiding by his court order pausing the funding freeze and instead searching for new ways to justify its pause on large amounts of aid. [True]

    “By enjoining Defendants and their agents from implementing any directives to undertake such blanket suspension, the Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” Ali wrote. [burn]

    The judge said the Trump administration has yet to offer evidence to rebut the charge that its blanket suspension of foreign aid will cause irreparable harm or that it has fully considered the implications the pause could have on interests that rely on the aid.

    The Court stands prepared to consider such arguments and evidence at the preliminary injunction stage,” Ali wrote. “However, to the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it.”

    The judge stopped short of holding the administration in contempt. [related video at the link looks at the impact of freezing US foreign aid in Cambodia]

    The day of his second inauguration, Trump signed an executive order pausing all “foreign development assistance” funding for 90 days. […]

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio, days after being confirmed, ordered an immediate stop to nearly all foreign assistance funded through the State Department and USAID.

    The foreign aid pause case is not the first time of his second term that the Trump administration has been found by a judge to be in violation of a court order. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the Trump administration had violated his order halting a broad federal funding freeze, which included a pause to foreign aid but also to domestic grants and loans. The memo enacting that pause, which came from the Office of Management and Budget, was rescinded in late January.

  453. birgerjohansson says

    As the destruction is so total, it seems obvious the timid and often downright feckkess old leaders of the Democratic party need to step aside and leave way for more able men and women.
    And if the will not step aside, do what Republican voters do to impopular representatives: dump them in the primary elections.
    I am sure most of the legacy Democrat leaders have worked hard and accomplished good things. But it is not enough. When Chamberlein stepped down, it was no coincidence the Brits chose the pugnacious Churchill over other candidates.

  454. says

    More details regarding Elon Musk’s weird stint at CPAC:

    Elon Musk made a bizarre appearance at the conservative CPAC conference on Thursday and promoted a racist anti-immigration conspiracy theory in the process.

    Musk walked on stage and was gifted a chainsaw by Argentine President Javier Milei. […]

    The multibillionaire then turned to one of his core issues: promoting racist conspiracy theories.

    Musk accused the Biden administration of being lax on immigration enforcement as part of a plot to seed Latino voters who will eventually vote for the Democratic Party throughout the country.

    “The incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country, that is why the Biden administration was pushing to get as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible to—because every one of them is a customer,” Musk said.

    The theory that there is part of a plot to replace white voters with Latino ones through immigration is a debunked right-wing conspiracy theory known as “The Great Replacement.” The theory has made the rounds in extremist circles for decades and has been popularized in recent years by leading Republicans like Trump and conservative outlets like Fox News. The shooter who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2023 cited the Great Replacement as justification for his act of mass murder.

    Musk also lied and said that the Biden administration created the CBP One app used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to facilitate easy immigration.

    In fact, CBP One was launched in 2020 under Trump and has been used to more efficiently process migrants seeking asylum within the U.S. by scheduling appointments as part of the immigration parole procedure, but it is far from a fast or easy process. Trump and Vice President JD Vance have also promoted conspiracies related to CBP One.

    Musk claimed that the purported immigration activities pursued by Biden were an act of “treason,” which is a crime punishable by death. […]

    Link

  455. says

    More grifters and anti-vaccine doofuses join the Trump fiasco:

    […] Trump’s second ex-wife, Marla Maples, may not be the first lady, but she still seems to have a role in the White House: pushing anti-vaccine misinformation.

    The mother of Tiffany Trump has been spotted traversing West Palm Beach’s Mar-a-Lago and posing for photos at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing. But it’s Maples wellness organization, Global Wellness Forum, that raises some eyebrows in particular.

    At first glance, the organization’s website claims to be “committed to creating exponential change to advance truth, sovereignty and wellness and freedom.” Whatever that means.

    But just below the surface of Maples’ carefully curated site is a treasure trove of names of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, including the infamous Sherri Tenpenny. And its co-founder, Sayer Ji, is known for spewing anti-vax theories, including his most recent rant that the measles outbreak in Texas is actually caused by the vaccine itself.

    RFK Jr. seems to have a history with Maples and Ji. Not only does the shirtless grifter follow the two on Instagram, but he’s also included in a photo on Ji’s account.

    Sketchy friendship aside, RFK Jr. has already weaseled his way into the White House after blatantly denying that he ever said vaccines were bad, even though it is well documented that he did.

    Now the brain-wormed bozo is already getting to work doing what he planned to do all along, including working to remove members of a panel that advises the federal government on vaccine approvals.

    He has also instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt a flu vaccine campaign, even as cases are skyrocketing.

    As for Maples, it’s no surprise to see more of the Trump family tree meddling in government affairs.

    From Charles Kushner—Ivanka’s father-in-law—landing a role as ambassador to France, to Kimberly Guilfoyle—Don Jr.’s ex-fiancée—getting ambassador to Greece, it’s only fitting that Maples too has popped up in Trumpland.

    Link

  456. says

    Elon Musk called Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen “fully r*t*rd*d” and an “idiot” on Thursday after he blasted Musk’s repeated false claims that the stranding of two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station was a Democratic political strategy. [Musk spelled out the R-word slur.]

    Responding to a clip of Musk and […] Trump repeating the false claims during an interview on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Mogensen called out Musk’s hypocrisy.

    “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media,” he wrote on X.

    Musk then responded by calling Mogensen the slur and repeating his false claims that the Biden administration decided to leave astronauts at the ISS in an effort to win the 2024 election.

    “You know as well as I do, that Butch [Wilmore] and Suni [Williams] are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September,” Mogensen, who piloted a NASA mission aboard the SpaceX Dragon last year, said. [Social media posts at the link]

    Musk continued his meltdown on social media, calling for the early deorbiting of the ISS and resorting to I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I defenses. [More social media posts at the link]

    On Thursday, Musk repeated the lie, albeit less coherently, while being interviewed at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

    “We obviously could have brought them back sooner, but they didn’t want to. Didn’t want anyone who supported President Trump to look good,” he said. [video at the link]

    Musk continues to exhibit behavior that certainly proves we don’t live in a meritocracy. [True.]

    Link

  457. says

    Excerpts from what Trump said today:

    […] “I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said of Zelensky. “He has no cards. And you get sick of it.”

    “So, I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you,” Trump added. “He makes it very hard to make deals.”

    Trump suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He claimed Putin did not necessarily have to negotiate a ceasefire, because if he wanted, he’d get “the whole country.”

    “Every time I say, ‘Oh, it’s not Russia’s fault,’ I always get slammed by the fake news,” Trump told Kilmeade. “But I’m telling you, Biden said the wrong things. Zelensky said the wrong things. They got attacked by somebody that’s much bigger and much stronger.” […]

    “I’ve had very good talks with Putin,” Trump said, and “not such good talks with Ukraine.”

    Link

  458. says

    Followup to comment 457.

    Conservative pundit Mark Levin of Fox News on Wednesday sought to defend Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has come under days of criticism from President Trump over the Ukraine war.

    Levin said Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, is to blame for the war and defended its president and Parliament.

    “The [Ukrainian] Parliament — with all parties in the Parliament — support what he’s doing. They’re trying to survive,” Levin said on his Wednesday broadcast.

    “Ukraine did not invade Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine.”

    “Elections have consequences, so be it. But I want to make sure the facts are on the table and you, the American people, draw your own conclusion,” he continued.

    “MAGA doesn’t support Putin,” Levin added. […]

  460. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 458

    “MAGA doesn’t support Putin,” Levin added.

    I suppose all those MAGA supporters who have been singing Putin praises for the last 15-20 years simply MUST have been imaginary.

  461. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/nazi-salutes-custom-chainsaw-caesar

    “Nazi Salutes! Custom Chainsaw! Caesar Trump! Guy Who Likes To Punch Other Dudes In The Junk!”

    “This CPAC has everything.”

    And now let us strap on our sturdiest hip-waders to slog through the sewer that is the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)! It’s like a homecoming dance for conservatives, led by dick-schlapping Matt Schlapp, who just cannot keep his hands off of other men’s junk, allegedly.

    This hootenanny from hell kicked off on Wednesday at National Harbor in Maryland, with some controversy! Pardoned Proud Boys were turned away at the door, including Enrique Tarrio and Dominic Pezzola (the first rioter to breach the Capitol after smashing a window with a stolen police shield), and Richard Barnett, the guy who carried a cattle prod into the Capitol and put his filthy feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. So they threw a “don’t you know who I am!” Karen-fit, of course, and eventually got in. […] CPAC organizers issued a groveling apologetic statement. “CPAC has been a constant supporter of this persecuted community and we support wholeheartedly President Trump’s pardons of the J6 victims.” Persecuted victims! But I thought the rioters were ANTIFA FEDS? Sad chortle.

    Also Wednesday, […] JD Vance admitted nobody is going to be getting cheaper groceries, it will “take some time” to bring down prices, because Joe Biden, somethingsomethingmumblemumble. Vance also [complained] that the Europeans aren’t embracing free speech for neo-Nazis enough, which sure went over better here than it did in Munich! Then House Speaker Mike Johnson elicited some boos at the prospect of more funding for Ukraine. “There’s no appetite for that. What do you think?” BOOO! […]

    Then Thursday was when the real action was, namely Elon Musk in wraparound shades, a gold chain and a direct-from-Hot Topic edgelord outfit, hours after Grimes, mother of three of his children two mothers-of-his-children ago, was pleading with him on Xitter to respond to her about a medical crisis one of their kids was having:

    “I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention. If you don’t walk to talk to me can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move forward on solving this. This is urgent, Elon.” In another post: “I’m not giving any details but he won’t respond to texts call or mails and has skipped every meeting and our child will suffer life long impairment if he doesn’t respond asap, so I need him to fucking respond and if I have to apply public pressure then I guess that’s where we are at.”

    […] But Musk had bigger priorities, which included flailing around with some kind of custom chrome chainsaw with “Long live freedom, Goddammit!” emblazoned in Spanish on it, a gift from that Argentinian President Javier Milei. Also clanking his gold chain on the mic, lying about Democrats importing illegal immigrants to vote for them, and generally blathering hallucinatory nonsense like: “when you add caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars, sometimes just in an hour.”

    And, “I am become meme. I was living the meme. It’s just — I was living the dream, and I was living the meme, and that’s, pretty much what’s happening.” […]

    So many insights from the world’s richest man! “So, like, I mean, the sort of the left wanted to make comedy illegal, you know, you can’t make fun of anything. So this is, like, comedy suuuuuucks. It’s like, nothing’s funny. You can’t make fun of anything,” rambled the guy who said three days ago that the staff of 60 Minutes should all be thrown in prison.

    The Verge has helpfully provided an entire transcript of his jabbering, and there’s really no other way to do justice to the insane episode that CPAC attendees clapped and larfed at […]

    Oh, and there was Steve Bannon doing that “Roman salute” again. [Video at the link.]

    Which was enough to make the president of France’s National Rally (RN) party, Jordan Bardella, cancel his appearance. You’re too far-right for a party founded by Holocaust deniers, former Nazi soldiers and Vichy regime collaborators, well, that is quite something! Said Bardella:

    Yesterday, while I was not present in the room, one of the speakers out of provocation allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology. I therefore took the immediate decision to cancel my speech that had been scheduled this afternoon.

    Bardella’s statement triggered Bannon to huff that Bardella was “unworthy to lead France, he’s a boy, not a man. If he took what the mainstream media said … I did that exact same wave at Front National seven years ago when I gave a speech to them, okay? If he’s that worried about it, and wets himself like a little child, then he is unworthy, and will never lead France.”

    Steve Bannon can’t even lead a gazoinked-out Elon Musk, but whatever. […] When you watch the video, like Laura Ingraham, he moves around jussst enough for plausible deniability. It’s true he has been doing that wave for a while, though he’d usually throw in a point or wiggle his fingers a little bit so and everybody is like, huh, maybe he is just happens to wave like that, who can say?

    Oh, and then white supremacist pizzagate-ranter Jack Posobiec did it too. But slowly, for that deniability. So yep, sieg heiling, that is what they are doing now. [photo at the link]

    And, there’s all kinds of talk about Trump just staying on in office with a “Third Term Project for Trump 2028 and Beyond” that supports Rep. Andy Ogles’s bill to rewrite the 22nd Amendment to allow Trump to run again. Because of course that’s where all of this is headed, Caesar Trump, dictator for life! Though why even bother to run, why not just declare an “emergency” and not hold an election? Save a step.

    (Hey, remember that time the FBI was investigating Andy Ogles for stealing $300k from his campaign, and money that was supposed to go for a children’s cemetery?) Anyway, there were banners portraying Trump as a Caesar, […] [photo at the link]

    It didn’t always end well for the Caesars, except maybe Sid, and you’d think people obsessed with the Romans would know that, but never mind.

    Anyway, you can watch the whole disgusting spectacle live here if you want. Keep that puke bucket handy! It all goes on until Saturday. [video at the link]

  462. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/jd-vance-does-some-real-manly-whining

    “JD Vance Does Some Real Manly Whining About How No One Will Let Men Be Manly Anymore”

    “Apparently we are forcing everyone to be ‘androgynous idiots.’ ”

    ]…] Joe My God’s got the transcript:

    I think that our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge. […] You should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place.

    And I think that my message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you’re competitive.

    The cultural message — and I think the president’s and mine is the exact opposite –but our cultural message is I think that it wants to turn everybody, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same.

    We actually think God made male and female for a purpose. And we want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women. And we’re going to help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.

    No one has said that men are not allowed to be manly. […] No one has said anyone is a bad person because they are a man, and certainly not because they “tell a joke.”

    Though it certainly does depend on whether or not the joke is actually funny.

    No one has said it’s bad for anyone to have a beer with their friends or even to be competitive, as long as they are not being drunk assholes who won’t let anyone else have a turn at the skee-ball lanes.

    No one is demanding that anyone become an “androgynous idiot,” though we do love that one Green Day song.

    In fact, allow me to enter into evidence my lewk for a Valentine’s Day event at the Field Museum last week, which involved a goddamned pink fuzzy dress covered in bows.

    What we have said is that men should not feel compelled to adhere to some definition of “manly” invented by someone else and should instead be whoever the hell they want, so long as that person is not an asshole. If people do want to adhere to that, if they feel that God demands that they crush beer cans up against their heads or do whatever it is that they think is super macho, that is their business (again, so long as they are not assholes to other people).

    What we do want is for there not to be a culture that tells men they have to adhere to strict rules for being a man that are ultimately harmful to them, or that they are failing at masculinity for enjoying things that society has coded as “feminine.”

    None of this is hard! If people want to adopt an androgynous aesthetic, they should do that. If people want to get their gender performance on, they should do that. Or sometimes do one and other times do the other. This is America! Which is why I can be a full-on professional feminist while also liking makeup and dresses, and Tucker Carlson can self-tan his balls with abandon (which, really, is one of the least objectionable things about his entire personality).

    Personally, I think the weakest shit on earth is complaining that no one will let you be manly. This is why JD Vance, for all his talk about masculinity, still comes across as a fucking twerp.

    Ultimately Vance’s war is not against any kind of enforced androgyny or childlessness, it’s against people deciding for themselves who they are and want to be. He doesn’t want to live in a world where people can do that, he wants a culture in which gender roles are enforced, where homogeneity is enforced, and there are social repercussions for failing to fit the mold — because he’s an extremely boring and weak person who, sorry to say, hates our freedoms.

  463. says

    Akira @460, I agree. There are some MAGA people who admire Putin.

    In other news: “Trudeau says ‘you can’t take our country’ after hockey win over U.S.”

    “The tense game, punctuated by taunts from Trump and Trudeau, featured boos, a protest-tinged Canadian anthem and a thrilling overtime goal.”
    Washington Post link

    Canada scored an unusually symbolic win as it defeated Team USA in the championship of the 4 Nations Face-Off, a tournament whose intensity was ratcheted up by recently strained relations between the neighboring nations prompted by U.S. tariff threats and President Donald Trump’s calls to annex Canada as the 51st state.

    “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on X after Canada won in overtime.

    […] Ignoring the boos, singer Chantal Kreviazuk used the anthem to send a subtle message about Trump’s talk of annexing Canada, inserting a line in French into her rendition of “O Canada” and changing a lyric from “in all of us command” to “that only us command.” The Grammy-winning artist posted on Instagram a photo of the amended lyrics scrawled on her hand and said that she inserted the French line to “bring some balance to our nation’s history.”

    “We should express our outrage in the face of any abuses of power,” she wrote. “Canada, not unlike Ukraine, is a sovereign nation. Period.”
    [video at the link]

    […] Ahead of Thursday’s game, Trump doubled down on his vision for a Canadian state, posting on Truth Social that Canada “will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State.” He went on to refer to Trudeau as a governor rather than prime minister.

    After Connor McDavid scored an overtime goal that won the game for Canada 3-2, coach Jon Cooper acknowledged that not just his team but all of Canada needed a win: “This one was different. This wasn’t a win for themselves. This was a win for 40-plus million people.”

  464. says

    [Trump] picked a fight with Gov. Janet Mills [Maine’s Democratic governor] over transgender student-athletes. It didn’t go well for him, though the exchange was illuminating.

    It’s not exactly a secret that Donald Trump has made transgender Americans one of his favorite political targets, but the degree to which the president is leaning into this ugly campaign is increasingly stunning.

    At a White House event for the National Governors Association, for example, Trump apparently thought it’d be a good idea to claim that there were two female boxers in the 2024 Olympics who were transgender. As he really ought to know by now, this was not true, though there was little to suggest that he cared.

    But as The Hill reported, that’s not all he said at the event.

    President Trump and Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills briefly quarreled Friday at a National Governors Association session at the White House after Trump told a meeting of Republican governors he would withhold federal funding from the state over its refusal to comply with an executive order on transgender athletes.

    Unprompted, the president referenced his recent executive order on transgender student-athletes and said that he had learned that Maine intended to ignore his directive. He then asked if Maine’s governor was in the room. [social media post and video at the link]

    When Mills spoke up, he asked her directly whether her state would comply with his demands. The two-term Democratic governor — who also served as Maine’s attorney general for several years — told the president she would comply with state and federal laws.

    Trump replied, “Well, we are the federal law.”

    Trump then said, “You better do it, you better do it,” adding that he’s prepared to cut off federal funding for Maine’s public schools.

    “See you in court,” the governor replied.

    It was a fascinating exchange, in part because the president seemed to think he could bully Mills into submission, and in part because the back-and-forth offered a timely reminder about just how preoccupied Trump is with student-athletes’ gender identity. (One can only wonder when he’ll take a comparable interest in keeping his campaign promises about lowering prices and addressing consumer costs.)

    But of particular interest was his “we are the federal law” declaration. To be sure, Trump isn’t a lawyer, and he has never demonstrated even a rudimentary understanding of the limits of presidential authority. Whether he understands this or not, executive orders tend to be glorified press releases, not federal statutes.

    Trump is free to sign these directives […] but that doesn’t make them federal laws.

    What’s more, the president’s “we are the federal law” assertion came just two days after Trump described himself as a “king,” which came just four days after the Republican similarly declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

    Can a “L’etat c’est moi” claim be far behind?

  465. says

    Republicans silent after Trump reportedly slashes funds for Alzheimer’s center, by Rachel Maddow.

    “If you’re looking for a poster child for something this administration is doing that has no apparent support from anyone, I think you’ve got your winner.”

    For 26 years, the state of Missouri was represented in Congress by Republican Roy Blunt. He began as Rep. Blunt, serving in House Republican leadership for years, before becoming a senator.

    Blunt, among everything else he did during his time in office, was a persistent advocate for funding Alzheimer’s research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). When Blunt announced in 2021 that he was retiring from office, the NIH decided to dedicate their very important Alzheimer’s research center to him. They called it the Roy Blunt Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Research.

    At the dedication ceremony, in 2022, Blunt talked about the importance of NIH funding and Alzheimer’s research funding specifically. A bunch of other Republicans from Congress showed up as well and stressed how important it was to fund that specific program. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma told the crowd, “To be able to do what we’ve done, a fivefold increase in Alzheimer’s and dementia research is a very special thing.”

    “This is our most expensive disease,” he continued. “And you can look at the trendline of what it costs to pay for Alzheimer’s and you’ll pretty quickly make the point that it’s cheaper to try and cure it, or at least manage it and delay it, than it is to deal with it. And that has really guided the investments here more than anything else.”

    Cole made the point that funding this specific Alzheimer’s center is not just a good thing to do, it also saves the government money in the long run. But, you can probably guess where this is headed.

    This week, The New Republic reported that the Trump administration has now slashed funding to that Republican-beloved Alzheimer’s center. Approximately one-tenth of the center’s workers have now been let go, including its incoming director, “a highly regarded scientist credited with important innovations in the field,” people familiar with the situation told The New Republic.

    On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said senior scientists and the center’s acting director were fired by the Trump administration.

    Cole’s office did not respond to a request for comment about these reported cuts, but Michael Greicius, a neurologist at Stanford University, explained to The New Republic the devastating impact closing the center would have on Alzheimer’s research. “[The center] has developed infrastructure and a brain trust that’s really unmatched in the world, in terms of its advances in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” he said. “Weakening [it] will set Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research back substantially.” [video at the link]

    If you’re looking for a poster child for something this administration is doing that has no apparent support from anyone — and that can be expected to have not just public opposition and expert opposition but specifically Republican opposition — I think you’ve got your winner.

  466. says

    New York Times caught passing off GOP flack as average Black voter

    The New York Times published a story pushing the idea that support for President Donald Trump from a young Black man was organic, but the paper hid a key fact from its readers.

    On Thursday night, I read the story headlined “What 11 Black Voters Think About Trump’s Actions in His First Month.” One of those voters is Javon Evans, whom the Times simply identified as an “artificial intelligence start-up worker in Houston” who “grew up in a politically diverse family on Long Island and moved to Texas after college in 2021.” [Screengrab at the link]

    “I think the first month has been excellent,” Evans told the outlet, which mentioned that he supported Trump’s actions to roll back pro-diversity efforts.

    The quote set off red flags for me. I’ve covered politics and media issues for a long time, and the way in which Evans was positioned—perfectly reflecting what conservatives and the mainstream media insist is an accurate portrayal of how Black people relate to conservatism—didn’t sit right with me.

    I googled Evans’ name and “Trump,” not expecting to find anything. After all, there are Black people who are Republicans and voted for Trump. They exist.

    But most of them aren’t partisan operatives. And Javon Evans is. On the very first page of Google results for Evans is his X profile. His profile identifies him as the communications director for the Houston Young Republicans.

    A few Google results below that led to the Facebook page for the Houston Young Republicans, where a quick look at their photos reveals a post showing their 2025 executive board. Marked very clearly is Javon Evans as the group’s communications director.

    I posted my findings to my Bluesky account on Thursday just after 10 PM ET. I didn’t have confirmation that the Times’ Javon Evans and the Houston Young Republicans’ Javon Evans were the same person, but the Times has a well-documented history of passing off Republican operatives as just average citizens. [True.]

    I checked the Times story on Friday morning, only to find that it had been altered. The story now notes that Evans “is the communications director for Houston Young Republicans.”

    Other than a dateline reading “Updated Feb. 21, 2025, 10:37 a.m. ET,” the story does not indicate what was changed. There is no correction notice. The Times’ stealth edit significantly alters the impact of the section on Evans and calls into question the article’s overall credibility. [Screengrab at the link]

    Stories like this distort important issues affecting the lives of not just Black Americans but also all Americans. Trump is attempting to roll back many of the civil rights gains that people died to secure for future generations. He is attacking diversity in education, the armed forces, the civil service, and multiple other facets of American life.

    Presenting the views of a partisan operative—particularly one who is Black—without context helps to give Trump a permission slip to further erode those gains.

    Trump is an unrepentant racist who has said Black immigrants come from “shithole” nations. He has praised police brutality and called for the killing of innocent young Black men. Black voters largely do not support Trump. In the 2024 election, he received only 13% of the Black vote and did even worse among Black women, with only 7% voting for him, according to exit polls.

    Evans’ views do not represent those of even half of the Black electorate, but the Times has shown over the years a steadfast dedication to presenting “both sides” to issues that don’t have two equally distinct points of view. It’s the same mindset that led the post to endlessly harp on Hillary Clinton’s emails and Joe Biden’s age while giving short shrift to concerns about Trump’s bigotry, corruption, and decaying mind.

    The New York Times’ slogan is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” but in this instance and too many others, that news pushes right-wing propaganda. And when they get caught, they try to clean up the evidence and pretend nothing happened.

    Editor’s note: After the publication of this story, the Times added a correction acknowledging that the original article was edited to add background information on the partisan source they quoted. [screengrab at the link]

    The New York Times should be called out every time they try to get away with this misleading bullshit.

  467. says

    The Associated Press sued White House officials Friday for restricting the wire service’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One over its refusal to use “Gulf of America” in its Stylebook.

    Claiming the restrictions violate the outlet’s First Amendment rights and due process protections under the Fifth Amendment, the lawsuit asks a federal judge to restore the AP’s access to spaces made available to other White House press pool members.

    “The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the lawsuit states. “The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.”

    The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the nation’s capital, names White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt as defendants.

    The case was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of President Trump.

    In its influential style guidance issued last month, the AP said it would continue to refer to the body of water “by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.” The guidance is used by news outlets industry-wide. […]

    “We are taking this action on behalf of all independent global media organizations and people who have the freedom of speech,” AP stated.

    […] “Now, the Associated Press, as you know, has been very, very wrong on the election, on Trump, and the treatment of Trump, and other things having to do with Trump and Republicans and conservatives,” Trump said while speaking at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week.

    “And they’re doing us no favors, and I guess I’m not doing them any favors. That’s the way life works,” he continued.

    Link

  468. says

    Judge gives go ahead for Trump administration to gut USAID’s workforce

    “The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.”

    A federal judge Friday paved the way for the Trump administration to move forward with plans to remove thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers from their jobs.

    U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols denied a request from labor groups to issue a preliminary injunction after the Trump administration said thousands of USAID employees would be placed on administrative leave and ordered agency personnel abroad to return to the U.S. within 30 days.

    “Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges. Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction,” Nichols wrote.

    Earlier this month, the judge had paused the administration’s move to place 2,200 USAID staff on administrative leave. He also rescinded leave for 500 workers, and paused efforts to expedite evacuations for personnel abroad. The temporary restraining order on those actions extended until the judge’s ruling on Friday

  469. Reginald Selkirk says

    Keene man arrested for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 rejects Trump’s pardon

    On his first day in office this week, President Donald Trump pardoned all rioters at the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Jason Riddle served time in jail for his participation in the 2021 riot where he stole a bottle of wine and a book on Senate procedure.

    He told NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley that he is rejecting Trump’s pardon.
    (interview format)
    …
    And you ended up serving time for stealing the government property, [a] book and the liquor during the riot, you ended up spending 90 days in jail. How did that experience affect you?

    So by then I actually had some sobriety under my belt and things were starting to change in my head. I remember feeling like, ‘All these guys in the red hats, they’re kind of jerks.’ But then I got to prison, and I was treated like a celebrity for having stormed the Capitol building. Not just from the inmates, but from the staff as well. The first thing a correctional officer said to me when I reported in the booking was, ‘Let’s go, Brandon.’ So I definitely clung on to this patriot hero nonsense.

    At what point did you stop supporting Donald Trump?

    After I got out of prison, Trump had gotten indicted and he put on social media asking people to come out and protest for him. And I remember thinking, ‘What are you doing, Trump? Remember what happened at the riot? Someone might get hurt. Why would you ask people to protest?’

    And that’s when I had the epiphany, the duh moment, where I’m like, ‘He asked this because he doesn’t care about anybody other than himself.’ That’s when on the inside I knew and I stopped supporting him.

    One thing, too — One thing I did not believe in was change before this experience…

  470. Reginald Selkirk says

    @459, 461

    French far-right leader cancels speech, accusing Bannon of ‘Nazi’ gesture

    French far-right leader Jordan Bardella cancelled a planned speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, after Donald Trump’s former top adviser made a hand gesture on stage that Bardella and others likened to a Nazi salute.

    Steve Bannon yelled “fight, fight, fight” before extending his right arm, fingers pointed and palm down, during his CPAC speech on Thursday evening.

    Bardella, who leads France’s National Rally party, was already in Washington and had been scheduled to speak at the event on Friday. He said in a statement that he was cancelling his appearance over what he called a “gesture referring to Nazi ideology”. …

    Interesting that the French far right is not in with Nazism.

  471. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ex-Proud Boys leader arrested outside US Capitol

    The former leader of the far-right Proud Boys was arrested on Friday outside the US Capitol, police said.

    Enrique Tarrio, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol, was arrested not long after holding a news conference on Friday.

    Protesters attempted to drown out the event, held near the site of the riot, but Tarrio’s remarks to media went ahead as planned.

    In a statement, US Capitol Police said that after the event concluded and the Proud Boys were leaving the area, a woman put a phone near Tarrio’s face. Officers allegedly saw him strike the phone and the woman’s arm…

    That’s it? I’m not sure if those charges will stick.

  472. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Dow plunges 750 points as bad economic news piles up fast

    U.S. stocks plummeted on Friday on poor economic news. Consumer confidence weakened to the lowest level since November 2023, even as long-run inflation expectations rose to the highest since 1995. The services purchasing managers’ index fell into contractionary territory and January home sales contracted by more than expected.

    As the day ended, the Dow Jones Industrial Index plunged by 748 points, or 1.6%. The S&P 500 slid 1.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite index fell 2.2%. Adding to the negative sentiment: UnitedHealth (UNH) fell almost 7% on news of a Justice Department investigation…

  473. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tesla Cybertruck Body Panels Are Flying Off While Driving, And This Wrap Shop Owner Figured Out Why

    …
    Reid Tomasko owns Shock Auto Styling, a New Hampshire car-wrapping business that has reportedly worked on dozens of Cybertrucks. Tomasko is also an owner, and unfortunately for him, his experience with the issue was especially dangerous. As he told Road & Track, not only did the boomerang-shaped piece of trim on the roofline fall off, it did so while he was driving, putting other drivers in serious danger. You don’t have to take Tomasko’s word for it, either. He also managed to capture it on video. After looking at what happened to his truck and others, he posted a video on his YouTube channel explaining what he thinks is happening…

    According to Tomasko, Tesla attaches these body panels to plastic frames that are bolted to the body of the truck. Instead of bolting the panels to the frames, though, Tesla uses an adhesive to stick them on. And so far, none of that is particularly concerning. Fancy glue tech has come a long way over the years, and you may be surprised just how strong those bonds can be. They even use adhesives to bond steel beams used in building construction. That said, whether Tesla cheaped out on the adhesive it used or didn’t have the proper process in place to ensure proper bonding, the adhesive appears to be what failed when Tomasko’s giant boomerang-shaped trim piece fell off.

    It isn’t just that particular trim piece that’s the problem, either. Tomasko told Road & Track he believes it’s an issue with the actual body panels themselves, including two of his quarter-panels and the tailgate. To the tailgate’s credit, though, it also has a few welds that should help hold it in place even if the adhesive doesn’t hold, so at least you don’t have to worry about the Cybertruck you see on the road dropping metal off the back of its tailgate and killing you. Just the other body panels and trim pieces. ..

  474. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Regarding the trans sports ban withholding school funding.

    Trump addresses governors at the White House.
    Aaron Rupar:

    TRUMP: The NCAA has complied immediately. That’s good. But I understand Maine—is the governor of Maine here?

    JANET MILLS: Yeah I’m here.

    TRUMP: Are you not gonna comply?

    JM: I’m going to comply with state and federal law.

    T: You better do it bc you’re not gonna get any federal funding at all

    [JM: See you in court.]
    [Video]

    Matthew Segal (ACLU): “Usually when states go to court alleging federal coercion in violation of the 10th Amendment there is not a literal video of the President doing it.”

  475. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    On the buyout emails.

    A FEMA chief of staff took Musk’s resignation offer. He was fired anyway.

    Four hours after this article was published, and the accompanying video went online, Scott Curtis received an email […] telling him his firing was being reversed.
    […]
    The email is at odds with the termination notice Curtis received earlier this week in which the acting administrator of FEMA Region 7 said he did not qualify for Elon Musk’s resignation program precisely because he was a probationary employee.
    […]
    “I don’t know who in their right mind would apply for a federal job right now,”

  478. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    DOGE staffer “Big Balls” Coristine is grandson of turncoat KGB spy

    In 1980, KGB officer Valery Fedorovich Martynov was sent to the US to serve undercover at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. […] In April 1982, the FBI recruited Martynov as an agent. He stayed in place and began feeding Soviet secrets to his FBI handlers.
    […]
    But KGB counterintelligence officer Victor Cherkashin […] had found his own sources in US intelligence [to] unmask a number of moles and traitors in its midst, leading to their executions. […] he would have to find an excuse to have Martynov recalled back to Moscow without tipping him off.
    […]
    In August 1985, Vitaly Yurchenko, a KGB officer [was] on an operation in Rome when he slipped away to the American embassy and announced his intention to defect. Yurchenko was a major prize—the highest ranking defector in KGB history—and was soon spirited to the United States

    [*snip*: long digression about the defector’s antics.]

    Yurchenko next appeared at the Soviet embassy, where, in a wild press conference, he claimed that he had been drugged and kidnapped by American agents. The United States had a policy of allowing defectors who changed their minds to return home […] Cherkashin told the unsuspecting Martynov that he would be a member of the KGB honor guard escorting Yurchenko back home to a hero’s welcome. […] After eventually pleading guilty, Valery Martynov was executed on May 28, 1987.
    […]
    In 1994, Natalya Martynova, still mourning her husband, […] contacted the U.S. embassy, requesting assistance. […] Martynova moved with her two children to the United States, where she started a new life. Her son became a Virginia police officer who sometimes posts comments on blogs about his historically famous father. Her daughter became a financial professional who married Charles Coristine, the proprietor of LesserEvil, a snack company. Among their children is a 19-year-old […] who currently wields an unknown amount of power and authority over the inner-workings of our federal government.

    This was more of a framing story around the defector tale. The part about the granddad being a turncoat feeding info was one sentence!

  479. Bekenstein Bound says

    A frustrated Trump wants his new Air Force One planes pronto
    [Trump] has empowered Elon Musk to explore drastic options to prod Boeing to move faster

    I’ve an idea. Let’s all chip in for a nice lil’ present for him, so he wakes up one morning soon to a shiny new 737-MAX sitting on the White House lawn with a cute bow on top.

  480. StevoR says

    The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder clip here – Elon Musk Out Of His Mind And Slurring His Words At CPAC (20 mins) covers a lot more ground than the title suggests including how he is ignoring a potentially life-changing health crisis of one of his children by Grimes having refused to communicate with her, Musks’ messed up idea of coemdy and it being “illegal” now and more. Plus footage of Argentina’s fascist leader being a subserviant,sycophantic utter fool for Musk. Musks clear drug abuse is the least of it really.

  482. JM says

    NBC News: Judge blocks Trump administration from terminating DEI-related grants

    A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from terminating federal grants and contracts related to DEI as called for in executive orders signed by President Donald Trump.
    The ruling bars the administration from requiring federal contractors and grant recipients to certify that they do not engage in any “equity-related” programs, a term the court found too vague to be enforced.
    “Plaintiffs have amply established a likelihood that they will succeed in proving that the Termination Provision invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement over billions of dollars in government funding,” U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson in Maryland ruled.

    Sorry if this has already been posted, there are too many suits in flight at once to keep track.
    Simple to rule, hard to enforce. With Doge looking over their shoulders too many people will find a way to kill anything with DEI rather then have to deal with this mess and people applying will make sure nothing gets mentioned even if they have a diversity program. The only thing this will do is save some existing programs.
    Assuming it actually does anything at all. Trump has already essentially ordered government officials to ignore the court and follow his rules, when somebody does the court is going to have to step up and figure how to enforce their rulings.

  484. StevoR says

    From Phys dot org of all places :

    A month in, and it is clear even to conservatives that US President Donald Trump is attempting to fundamentally reshape the role of the American president. Trump and his supporters sees the natural authority of the American president in broad terms, similar to those of the Russian president, or a king. Trump, in fact, has already likened himself to a king.

    This desire to “Russify” the presidency is not an accident: Trump and many of his supporters admire the king-like power that Vladimir Putin exercises as Russian president. Understanding how Trump is attempting to transform presidential power is key to mobilizing in the most effective way to stop it.

    Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-02-trump-king-putin.html

  485. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    From Mastodon:

    Elon forcing companies to advertise on X lest he block their mergers

    A lawyer at advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group fielded a phone call in December from a lawyer at X. The message was clear[:] Get your clients to spend more on Elon Musk’s social-media platform, or else.

    Obviously it’s extortion, but could this be the most effective antitrust measure we’ve seen since Lina Khan? [Biden FTC chair]

     
    Business Insider – If Elon Musk’s X threatened a big ad company with government interference, that’s not OK (Heh, retitled from “that’s very bad”.)

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Yaccarino and her lieutenants have been pressing Interpublic Group, one of the world’s biggest ad agencies, to get its clients to spend more money on X. Hanging over IPG’s head: a proposed deal to sell itself to its rival Omnicom, which may need regulatory approval in the US.

    “We now see brands returning in quite significant numbers, because the easiest route is to just spend a minimum viable amount on the platform,” said [an advertiser consulting firm CEO]. “Not because they want to advertise there and run their ads adjacent to the content on X, but because they are afraid of legal and political ramifications of not doing so.”

  486. StevoR says

    University of California, Los Angeles researchers have discovered that chronic stress flips brain activity between two amygdala-striatal pathways, disrupting flexible decision-making and promoting inflexible habits.

    …(snip).. Chronic stress impairs goal-directed decision-making, often leading to rigid, habitual behaviors that underpin several psychiatric conditions. Understanding the neuronal circuits involved could illuminate vulnerabilities in disorders like substance use, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression.

    In the study, “A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit,” published in Nature, researchers used a systems neuroscience approach in male and female mice to uncover the underlying brain activity mechanisms.

    Source : https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-stressed-mind-prone-rigid-mouse.html

  488. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @424:

    White House and Treasury Department officials have agreed to prohibit the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing personal taxpayer data

    I would not trust DOGE at all. I do not trust them to stick to an agreement.

     
    Kyle Cheney (Poltico):

    A federal judge has granted an even more extensive block of DOGE’s access to Treasury systems, saying there is a “realistic danger” that the “rushed” process to access sensitive payment systems has compromised data.

    * From the linked docket: The preliminary injunction indefinitely extends the TRO, barring Treasury from granting DOGE members access to “any payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees.” The Court will review later if DOGE gets better at safeguarding data.

  490. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CNN – Elon Musk’s private security detail gets deputized by US Marshals Service

    It was not immediately clear how many members […] they have more rights and could be authorized to carry weapons on federal grounds. It also means that if something went awry with the detail, the Marshals Service could be held legally liable
    […]
    Some people close to Trump’s White House have been taken aback by the scale of security that has surrounded Musk since he became a regular presence in Trump’s orbit last year. The detail rivaled only that of the president himself, the sources observed.

    Musk […] has become increasingly concerned with his security since Trump took office a month ago and has told those around him that the level of death threats against him has increased
    […]
    The Marshals Service has deputized security details before […] deputizing private security is unusual, particularly because those individuals are not current members of law enforcement.

    Not concerned enough to stop abusing everyone else.
     
    Gizmodo – U.S. government removing EV chargers from all federal buildings because they are ‘not mission-critical’

    chargers will be taken out of service and “turned off at the breaker,” seemingly noted in the email to emphasize just how much they want the chargers gone.
    […]
    perhaps Musk is fine with getting rid of chargers because it would help keep Tesla’s Supercharger network front-and-center.
    […]
    If we are being charitable, there is one case to be made for getting rid of chargers on government property, […] they are not very good. […] many of the chargers located at federal buildings are of the slower Level 2 variant, and utilize CHAdeMO or similar defunct charging plugs—and employees still had to pay to charge, they were not free. […] it would be nice to actually see real functional charging equipment on federal property, but it does not seem likely they will be coming back soon.

  491. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Latin Times – Over 40% of all migrants arrested in the first weeks of February didn’t have criminal charges

    Further, […] detention centers are at the upper limits of their capacity. The number of people detained went from 39,238 in early February to 41,169 in mid-February. ICE’s detention capacity nationwide is 41,500, according to NBC. It’s unclear how many people who had been in detention were deported or were released
    […]
    Less than 0.5% of the 1.8 million cases in immigration courts during the past fiscal year—involving about 8,400 people—included deportation orders for alleged crimes other than entering the U.S. illegally

     
    NBC – Trump administration reassigning acting ICE director

    Vitello’s removal comes after both border czar Tom Homan and President Donald Trump have expressed anger that the number of people being deported is not higher.

  494. birgerjohansson says

    Cultural differences between the US and Scandinavia (in this case Sweden, but it could be any of the Scandinavian countries)
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=_tswjX5jzTM
    (The maker of these podcasts recently had surgery, and has also posted about the experience of a non-US hospital)

  495. Reginald Selkirk says

    The seemingly indestructible fists of the mantis shrimp can take a punch

    The mantis shrimp comes equipped with its own weapons. It has claws that look like permanently clenched fists that are known as dactyl clubs. But when it smashes the shells of its prey, these fists come out of it undamaged.

    When throwing punches, mantis shrimp can strike at the speed of a .22 caliber bullet (about 1,316 kmph or 818 mph)—one of the fastest movements in the animal kingdom. That generates a force over a thousand times their body weight. However, unleashing that much energy can backfire because the shockwaves it produces could seriously damage an animal’s soft tissue. None of that seems to affect the mantis shrimp. Now we finally know why.

    When a team of researchers from Northwestern University studied the dactyl clubs of one mantis shrimp species, they found that they have layered structures that selectively block sound waves, acting as protective gear against vibrations that could otherwise harm the shrimp. These types of structures, known as phononic mechanisms, filter out sound waves that could otherwise cause nerve and soft tissue trauma…

  496. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mark Zuckerberg’s Makeover Didn’t Make People Like Him, Study Shows

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:

    A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about 54% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of Musk, 67% feel negatively toward Zuckerberg. […] But Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, is more universally disliked, though he draws more ire from the left-leaning demographic. While 60% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents hold an unfavorable view of Zuckerberg, 76% of their Democratic counterparts share that sentiment.

  500. StevoR says

    Really American host Tony Hinderman breaks down Elons unhinged meltdown on Twitter after a decorated Astronaut calls out his
    nonsense here. 9 mins long.