Comments

  2. says

    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-6/#comment-2256598 
    HR McMaster says Trump is being manipulated by Putin

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-6/#comment-2256594
    A pathetic and humiliating walkback from the would-be destroyers of CFPB, who know they’ve lost in court and can’t kill the agency.

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-6/#comment-2256593
    Trump has ordered a pause on U.S. aid going to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

  4. StevoR says

    Scott Manley’s discussion and analysis on the Blue Ghost lunar landing here – 17 and a half minutes long.

  5. StevoR says

    There’s also this via PBS news when it comes th the BlueGhost landing and more :

    The Blue Ghost lunar lander, built by the company, Firefly Aerospace, stuck the landing safely early Sunday, making it the first commercial spacecraft to do so. It’s carrying a number of experiments for NASA as part of a larger effort to have private companies make deliveries. Miles O’Brien reports.

    &

    He’s (Musk -ed) not a big fan.

    But, interestingly, he does have a key part to play in Artemis. His Starship is — would be modified and used to actually do the last bit and land on the lunar surface. But the space launch system itself, he’s described as inefficient, a jobs program, not a results program.

    And he said he wants to go straight to Mars,the moon is a distraction. So that lends itself to a lot of speculation right now that Artemis could very well be on the chopping block. But we will have to wait and see. The future administrator, the potential administrator, I guess we would expect him to be the administrator, Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who is slated to do that, has hearings.

    And at that time, we will hear a little bit more about his thoughts on it. But he also calls it a very expensive way to go. So we will see what happens.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/blue-ghost-lunar-landing-highlights-nasas-partnership-with-the-private-sector

  6. StevoR says

    Nobel Peace Prize laureate and journalist Maria Ressa has long fought for global press freedom. Her book, “How To Stand Up To A Dictator,” detailed her experience running the news site Rappler under the autocratic regime of President Duterte in the Philippines. Ressa joined Amna Nawaz to discuss parallels between the Philippines and the U.S. under President Trump for our series, On Democracy.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/nobel-peace-prize-winner-maria-ressa-discusses-state-of-u-s-democracy

  7. says

    After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump.

    Blackmail seems likely.

    Pee-tape theory is back in play.

  8. Reginald Selkirk says

    RFK Jr.’s Spokesperson Resigns After Fight on Deadly Measles Outbreak

    A leading spokesperson in the Department of Health and Human Services announced his resignation Monday after stark disagreements with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over how to manage the growing measles outbreak.

    Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Thomas Corry resigned effective immediately on Friday only two weeks after starting the job, he posted on LinkedIn, wishing his colleagues in the department “the best and great success.” Corry reportedly butted heads with Kennedy and Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, over how to manage the department, according to Politico.

    Specifically, Corry was not happy with Kennedy’s initial response to Texas’s growing measles outbreak, which has infected at least 146 people and caused the first measles death in the United States in 10 years. Last week, Kennedy said during a Cabinet meeting that measles outbreaks were not unusual, despite the fact that measles had been declared eliminated in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

  10. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tennessee Supreme Court Rules Vanity Plates Are Not Protected Free Speech, Revokes Plate Woman Had For Over A Decade

    Personalized license plates can be a dicey subject that get drivers into trouble. Often they’re used to say things that state DMVs don’t really think is appropriate, be it speaking out against a political entity they don’t agree with or just simply being vulgar just to be vulgar. Some states have banned personalized license plates from saying vulgar things, while others have ruled that they’re not protected speech, as the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled recently.

    In 2010, Tennessee resident Leah Gilliam applied to have a custom license plate at the state’s DMV. She wanted the plate to read “69PWNDU,” a reference to an online gaming term that means “owned you,” used if you best an opponent in a gaming match. The plate was approved, but ten years later in May of 2020, she suddenly received word that her plate had been rejected by the state, who called the term offensive. She was threatened with a fine and jail time if she didn’t surrender the plate. So Gilliam sued, claiming that the rejection of her plate was an infringement on her First Amendment free speech rights.

    Now four years later, Nashville’s Fox 17 and The Tennessean report that the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled against Gilliam. In a far-reaching decision, the court says that because plates are issued by government agencies, they’re government speech, not free speech, and therefore aren’t protected under the first amendment. From The Tennessean:…

  12. JM says

    CBS News

    President Trump announced on Monday a pause in the provision of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Ukraine — aid that had been promised by former President Biden before he left office. It will affect deliveries of ammunition and other vital supplies as Ukraine fights to defend itself from Russia’s ongoing, three-year full-scale invasion that has seen President Vladimir Putin’s forces occupy roughly 20% of eastern Ukraine.

    The announcement was met with immediate trepidation in Ukraine, but quickly welcomed by Moscow, where Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it “a decision that could actually push the Kyiv regime toward a peace process.”

    Trump is going the whole way, suspending all military aid. Moscow is celebrating. We are now traveling in uncharted territory with a president who has no idea what they are doing. It isn’t clear if Trump is a collaborator or a puppet but either way the situation is terrible. We will hear tonight what Trump thinks he is doing. Likely he thinks he is pressuring Ukraine into peace. I don’t know if he can get it.
    No matter what happens Trump has upended the entire order of the world in one action.

  14. birgerjohansson says

    JM @ 12
    I assume some mental processes keep ticking on inside Tr*mp’s mind, but if there is any overarching strategy it may come from Stephen Miller and the other hangers-on. We are finally in Ark B territory, without relatively sane or competent people trying to rein in Trump’s impulses.
    As for Musk, the less said of him the better.
    One day we may find out what is the result of narcissism and what is ordinary corruption. Something for historians to untangle for the next generation.

  15. says

    The scary subtext behind the ‘paid protester’ line from Trump and Republicans

    “For Trump and too many Republicans, Americans who disagree with them are effectively an impossibility that can only be explained through illicit payments.”

    As members of Congress confront angry constituents at town halls nationwide, Republicans are increasingly invested in the idea that the dissatisfied Americans are insincere — and well compensated.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, declared last week that he’d seen the videos from recent public events, but was confident that in “many” communities there were “paid protesters.” The Louisiana Republican, naturally, offered no evidence in support of his claim.

    A few days later, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas held a town hall meeting with constituents that went so badly, the Republican gave up and ended the event early. The senator soon after suggested that he believed his detractors were paid.

    As NBC News reported, Donald Trump took a related message to his social media platform.

    “Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings. It is all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION, it’s not going to work for them!” Trump said on Truth Social.

    Putting aside the inconvenient fact that the president did not, in reality, win by a “landslide” — he never did reach 50% of the popular vote — Trump’s rhetoric might sound familiar. There’s a good reason for that.

    As regular readers might recall, it was nearly nine years ago when Trump’s 2016 candidacy inspired protests, at which point he assumed that the people involved couldn’t possibly be sincere in their dislike of him. They were, he said at the time, “paid agitators.”

    After he prevailed on Election Day 2016, there was related anti-Trump activism. Those involved, he said in November 2016, were “paid protesters.” Months later, after his inauguration, the activism continued. Trump assured the public once more that these Americans deserved to be ignored — because, he assumed, they were “paid protesters.”

    The following year, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination inspired another round of progressive activism. The protesters, Trump insisted, were “paid professionals.”

    For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that Russia’s Vladimir Putin has embraced the same tactic. Let’s instead consider the unavoidable bottom line: For Trump and too many in his party, Americans who disagree with them are effectively an impossibility that can only be explained through corrupt schemes and illicit payments.

    Indeed, it’s hardly a stretch to draw a straight line from “paid protesters” rhetoric to election denialism: Americans who side with Trump and Republicans are real, while Americans who disagree must necessarily be seen as inauthentic.

    For his part, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries saw the president’s missive and responded by way of Bluesky. “We don’t need paid protestors,” the New York Democrat wrote. “The American people are with us.”

    I am reminded that Trump paid actors to pretend to support him when he first rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in NYC to announce that he was running for president. Trump also paid people to pretend to be union workers when he gave a speech about supposedly supporting unions. Etc. Yep, that is Trump’s modus operandi.

  16. says

    The Trump White House presents Ukraine’s Zelenskyy with absurd demands

    It’s been nearly eight years since Donald Trump’s summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, which was one of the ugliest low points of the president’s first term. After a private meeting with the autocratic leader, in which the American president took an interpreter’s notes for reasons that were never explained, Trump held a disastrous press conference in which he defended an American adversary, took cheap shots at his own country, and sided with Putin over the judgment of American intelligence professionals.

    Soon after, The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials “were unanimous in saying that they and their colleagues were aghast at how Mr. Trump had handled himself with Mr. Putin.” One official summarized a consensus view, concluding that it was clear whose side Trump was on and “it isn’t ours.”

    As regular readers might recall, in the aftermath of the event, Axios spoke with one of Trump’s own former National Security Council officials who described the situation as “a total [effing] disgrace,” adding: “The president has lost his mind.” Sen. John McCain, a month before his death, called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” The Arizona Republican added, “The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” [A statement that still rings true today.]

    In fact, by all appearances, Team Trump is proud of the disgraceful event, even bragging about it and hoping to build on its foundation.

    With this in mind, Fox News reported that the White House expects the Ukrainian leaders to go “in front of cameras” in order to make “an explicit public apology for the way he behaved.”

    It’s not altogether clear exactly what Zelenskyy did that was so offensive — it apparently has something to do with his “body language” and fashion choices — but the bottom line remains the same: The White House doesn’t just expect the Ukrainian president to go along with administration’s agenda, it expects Zelenskyy to grovel. [There are no guarantees that even an abjectly groveling Zelenskyy would appease Trump, nor would it make Trump change the course he is on (pleasing Putin and doing everything Putin wants.]

    […] White House national security adviser Mike Waltz made multiple on-air appearances, insisting that Team Trump expects Zelenskyy to express “regret,” adding that this is what “we need to hear.”

    As for the vice president who helped instigate Friday’s fracas, NBC News reported on JD Vance’s expectations for the road ahead.

    Vice President JD Vance said tonight that Zelenskyy can return to the White House when he has a “serious proposal” for peace between his country and Russia. “There are details that really matter, that we’re already working on with the Russians. We’ve already talked to some of our allies. He needs to engage seriously on the details. I think once that happens then, absolutely, we want to talk,” Vance said in a taped interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

    The closer one looks at the comments, the worse they appear. To hear the Ohio Republican tell it, the White House has worked with Russia on details surrounding Ukraine’s future. He now wants Zelenskyy to come up with some kind of proposal, too.

    In effect, Vance’s line is “Tell us what you’re prepared to give Russia, in response to Russia invading your country, and we’ll tell you whether or not we deem it ‘serious.’”

    This need not be complicated: Russia could end the war at literally any time. Putin started the conflict when he sent his military into a neighboring country without provocation, and Putin could reverse course at will […]

    If Vance is looking for a “serious proposal,” there it is. Russia can withdraw from Ukraine, at which point the violence would end.

    That outcome, evidently, is not in line with the White House’s expectations. Rather, Trump, Vance and their team have a different vision in which Ukraine’s president begs for forgiveness on camera, abandons its NATO ambitions, and rewards Russia with territory.

    No wonder Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy struggled to get along.

  18. says

    […] Consider what all of these recent moves have in common:

    – The Trump administration halted cyber operations and information operations against Russia.

    – Trump upbraided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while peddling Kremlin-style talking points.

    – Trump suggested Putin was a victim of the 2016 Russia scandal.

    – The Trump administration is terminating an initiative to protect Ukraine’s energy grid.

    – Trump is prepared to reward Russia by welcoming it back into the G7.

    – The Trump administration disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.

    – The Trump administration pared back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    – The Trump administration disbanded the Justice Department’s program responsible for enforcing Russian sanctions and targeting oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

    – The Trump administration slashed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

    – The Trump administration targeted U.S. intelligence officials as part of its mass firing campaign.

    – Trump’s delegation to the United Nations voted with Russia — and against U.S. allies — on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine.

    And did I mention that Senate Republicans, at Trump’s behest, confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as the nation’s director of national intelligence, despite her habit of echoing Russian propaganda? Because that happened, too.

    What’s more, this list might yet grow. Reuters reported that the Republican administration is also eyeing an overhaul to existing U.S. sanctions on Russia.

    Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which Putin spoke privately to Trump and provided the American president with a to-do list. Would it look much different than the White House’s agenda from the last six weeks?

    Link

    Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.

  19. Reginald Selkirk says

    Lindt to supply chocolate to Canada from Europe to sidestep tariff hit

    Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli (LISN.S)
    , opens new tab will supply chocolate to Canada made in Europe to avoid Canadian tariffs imposed to counter the higher U.S. customs duties imposed by President Donald Trump.
    President Trump announced new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada would take effect from Tuesday, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying Ottawa would respond with immediate 25% tariffs.
    Lindt produces 95% of the chocolates it sells in the United States at its five factories in the country, which also supply Canada and could be affected by the U.S. tariffs.
    CEO Adalbert Lechner said Lindt was taking action to prevent its business in Canada, one of its top ten markets, from being caught in the cross fire of the trade conflict.
    “The volumes that we source currently for Canada can all be shifted to Europe,” Lechner said after Lindt reported its full-year results…

  20. says

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slammed President Trump’s tariffs on his country, reiterating a message from The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board that the taxation plan was “dumb.”

    “Now, I want to speak directly to one specific American,” Trudeau said Tuesday in an address. “Donald, in the over eight years you and I have worked together, we’ve done big things. We signed a historic deal that has created record jobs and growth in both of our countries. We’ve done big things together on the world stage, as Canada and the U.S. have done together for decades, for generations. And now, we should be working together to ensure even greater prosperity for North Americans in a very uncertain and challenging world.

    Trudeau then highlighted a recent op-ed from the Journal’s editorial board that said Trump’s tariff plan was the “dumbest tariff plunge” that is hurting the country’s friends.

    “It’s not in my habit to agree with The Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do,” Trudeau said.

    The Prime Minister urged the U.S. president to see that the neighboring, allied countries fighting is exactly what international adversaries want to see.

    Trudeau then addressed his fellow Canadians, who will experience economic disruption as the flow of goods between countries will spike prices.

    “I won’t sugar coat it, this is going to be tough, even though we’re all going to pull together because that’s what we do,” he said. “We will use every tool at our disposal so Canadian workers and businesses can weather this storm.”

    Trudeau promised that the Canadian government will protect its citizens and Canadian businesses from attacks and takeovers from the tariffs.

    […] Speaking directly to the American people, Trudeau warned that prices would rise because of the Trump administration’s actions and said their is “absolutely” no need or justification for the tariffs on allies.

    “We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don’t want to see you hurt either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” he said, later adding, “They have chosen to launch a trade war that will, first and foremost, harm American families.”

    Link

  21. says

    So, those tariffs that Trump promised then put on hold for 30 days have kicked in, with another batch set to take effect on April 2, including on all imported cars and agricultural products. There’s a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, plus an extra 10 percent on China on top of the 10 percent he’d already ordered on February 1, making US tariffs the highest they’ve been since 1943. And a 10 percent tax on Canadian energy imports such as natural gas and oil. Canada supplies about 70 percent of our oil, so prepare to put “I DID THAT” Trump stickers next to all the pumps.

    Why did tariffs go down in the ‘40s? Because they were an economic disaster! THEY ARE A TAX ON PRODUCTS that gets passed on to consumers. They are not paid by foreign governments, nor the tooth fairy. [Hawley-Smoot tariff video from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off]

    While the guy who bankrupted six businesses is not exactly a scholar of history, he already tried setting fire to NAFTA with tariffs in his first term to “solve the opioid crisis.” It reduced US real income by $1.4 billion a month, and tanked the stock market back then too (and, surprise, did not “solve the opioid crisis”). Then he was forced to spend $28 billion to bail out US farmers. But he thinks this will be fun for them! [Trump’s social media posts are available at the link]

    But as much “fun” as it might be to try, US farmers can’t do things like grow avocados in January. And considering that only 19 kilos of fentanyl, or just under 42 pounds, came across the border from Canada last year, the opioid excuse doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Plus, Canada and Mexico already did the performative things he demanded. Mostly before he even asked!

    So what is this really about? Maybe how Putin doesn’t only want Ukraine, he wants America to burst into flames like a self-immolating Tesla, and finest-asset Trump is happy to oblige. If any Trump action appears to be a mystery, “this helps Putin” is usually the answer. Coincidentally, the White House is also reportedly working to lift some Russian sanctions, at the same time it punishes our biggest trade partners.

    And tariffs are a quick and easy way to sink the economy and alienate our friends, so Putin likey! Watch the Dow plunge in real time while the stable genius rambles! “X” user Armand Doma added a soundtrack. [video at the link]

    The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite also fell, along with stock markets around the world. Don’t check your retirement funds! The tariffs will be the equivalent of an estimated extra $800 a year tax hike on US consumers, and are expected to cost about 330,000 jobs. Are we great again yet?

    And they are violating existing trade laws, for what that’s worth. China has made a complaint to the World Trade Organization, though nothing is expected to come of that, because the WTO’s effectively non-functional these days.

    Retaliation is already happening. China is immediately imposing extra tariffs of 15 percent on US chicken, wheat, corn, and cotton, and 10 percent on sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, seafood, fruits, vegetables, and dairy. And they wrote up a blacklist of 15 companies on an export-control list, and banned trade with the US biotech company Illumina, the world’s leading producer of gene-sequencing machines.

    Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed that Canada will implement $155 billion worth of retaliatory tariffs against the United States on exports including orange juice, peanut butter, wine, coffee, cars, trucks, steel, and aluminum, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will cut off the US’s electricity. [video at the link]

    “If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face, and I’m encouraging every other province to do the same. […] They rely on our energy. They need to feel the pain.”

    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she’ll announce retaliatory measures on Sunday. And the European Parliament has expressed bafflement and disgust. Chair Bernd Lange: “It is incomprehensible why the US puts illegal and completely unjustified tariffs on its allies, thereby disrupting entire North American value chains and completely undermining the operations of companies. Make no mistake, American companies, workers and consumers will suffer too. There is no winner in a trade war, only losers. Of course the additional tariffs on China also don’t seem to be based on an objective analysis.” The EU has also said it will take “firm and proportionate” measures in response to 25 percent US tariffs on steel and aluminum due to take effect March 12.

    Hey, Jeff Bezos said that the Washington Post opinion pages were going to be “writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” Crippling tariffs is the most un-free-market thing there is, I am sure the Washington Post opinion page has a lot to say about it! LOL JK, crickets.

    If you’ve been putting off buying a car, phone, washing machine, or giant bag of avocados from Costco, today is a good day to splurge.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-hunger-games-here-come-more

  22. Reginald Selkirk says

    Caitlin Clark’s Return to Iowa for Brazil Matchup Sells Out in Under One Hour

    Caitlin Clark is returning to the Carver-Hawkeye Arena at her alma mater Iowa on May 4, but this time she’ll be sporting an Indiana Fever uniform. And, it sounds like Iowa fans are extremely excited to have No. 22 come back to where her stardom began.

    Clark’s Fever will be competing in a preseason exhibition game vs. Brazil at Iowa’s arena, and tickets for the game sold out in 42 minutes, the school said on Thursday. All 15,000 available tickets were accounted for in under an hour. Hawkeyes fans don’t joke around, especially when it comes to Clark…

  23. JM says

    CNN: Zelensky describes Oval Office meeting as ‘regrettable,’ says he is ready to negotiate peace

    “I would like to reiterate Ukraine’s commitment to peace,” Zelensky said on X, addressing his remarkable sit-down with Trump directly. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky during the meeting, angrily accusing him of “gambling with World War Three” and telling him: “Your country is in big trouble.”

    Zelensky is trying to work with Trump without caving on any of Ukraine’s positions. He has obviously put some thought into how to do this and gotten advice, likely by a lot of people. How well this goes remains totally unclear. No matter which way Zelensky goes he is making some gambles because Trump is so unreliable.

  24. says

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/putin-scolds-trump-i-got-you-elected

    MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—In a testy meeting at his Kremlin office on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin scolded Donald J. Trump for failing to show proper gratitude for getting him elected president of the United States.

    For almost an hour, Trump was on the receiving end of blistering attacks from Putin and his vice president, JD Vasilevsky.

    “I got you elected and you haven’t said thank you once,” Putin shouted. “When you were running for president, you didn’t have any cards. With me, you had cards.”

    Attempting to mend fences, Trump offered to let Putin run his next Cabinet meeting instead of Elon Musk.

  26. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/democrats-strike-at-heart-of-gop

    “Democrats Strike At Heart Of GOP Darkness, Kill Anti-Trans Sports Bill”

    “In the moment Death stepped on the Senate floor to claim S9, Tuberville reportedly whispered, ‘The horror. The horror.’ ”

    In the 19 long, bitter decades since Trump issued Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out Of Women’s Sports,” generations have been born, come of age, and died buried away from the sun, divided by uncrossable rivers. Few could conceive of the darkness of the soul in those times who have not lived them.

    And so our forgotten years of hope reflecting off the waters of that most colonial of rivers, the Potomac, produced the most unexpected flicker yesterday: a filibuster victory in the Senate, blocking the codification of 14201 into law and ban trans participation in girls’ and women’s school sports. To quote Erin Reed:

    Republicans called it the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.” Democrats dubbed it “The GOP Child Predator Empowerment Act”. The Senate clerk said it didn’t have the votes.

    […] The vote was not quite so positive as The Hill would have you believe: They reported that “all Democrats voted against” the bill, recorded as S. 9. While zero Democrats voted for it, two Dems known to waffle in the face of anti-trans attacks did abstain. The Senate’s two independents (both of whom caucus with Democrats), Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both voted against. The final margin of 51-45 included two abstentions from Republicans as well, Shelley Capito (R-WV) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Though Trump hasn’t ruled on the prior state of these Senators as blastocysts, both do appear to be women, curiously enough.

    The defeat of S9 marks a rare moment in the 119th Congress in which Democrats hung together. On other votes including prominent Senate confirmations and measures in both the Senate and the House, there have been significant defections. HR 28, the House version of this bill, snagged two Democratic votes (both Texas centrists and both men). In a time when Democratic voters and other lefties have been crying out for principled obstructionism to be waged against Trump and the MAGA agenda, blocking S9 was a largely unexpected win. Calling out trans participation in girls’ and women’s sports has been a particularly effective form of attack by the GOP, even when lying their asses off, as Tommy Tuberville did on FOX:

    “We’re getting to a point now where women and girls’ sports and getting ready to be extinct. Because already in states across this country, we have high school teams that are made up of totally boys participating against girls. […]”

    [Blatant lie.]

    […] Kate Starbird, former NCAA basketball standout, former professional baller in the ABL and WNBA, and current University of Washington professor, had this to say about Tuberville’s demented lie:

    “As a former athlete & current researcher of online rumors & disinfo, today’s atrocious example of the ‘right wing bullshit machine’ in action — anchored on a truly idiotic claim from a football coach turned GOP senator about trans girls making girls sports ‘extinct’ — enrages along both dimensions.”

    […] To be clear, under the filibuster rules, which could change if the GOP thinks abandoning this Senate tradition is important enough, the bill needed 60 votes to clear a procedural step — cloture — that would then allow an up-or-down vote on enactment. That final vote would have needed only the barest majority, and a tie can be split by the Vice President. But Republicans are not currently talking about eliminating cloture votes, and as long as the filibuster survives, the Protection of Women & Girls in Sports Act is dead.

    Despite this victory depending on the GOP maintaining the filibuster and the fact that Republicans are constantly launching other attacks on immigrants, people of color, teachers, and many others, there’s good reason to celebrate the Dems acting like they know how to win. And many people are celebrating, including another former professional athlete and generally decent person, Chris Kluwe:

    “I support and am happy the party came together to stop this.”

    Of course the party pooper had to add:

    “However, this is what they should be doing on EVERYTHING. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – we are in an existential crisis as a country. We’re either going to emerge as Americans, or as something else.”

    And that is, indeed, where we are. Like a flash of lightning in the clouds, we are glimpsing an ephemeral brightening of hope. We live in the flicker, may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. […]

    ACTION ITEM!
    What can you do in these horrible times? The Department of Education has opened a feedback portal for people to Linda Tripp their local schoolteachers. The DoEd has promised to investigate any whiff of DEI in the submission to the EndDEI tipline, but unfortunately some are already flooding the five-day old effort with Lewis Carrol-level nonsense and multiple copies of the Bee Movie script. Obviously new Ed Secretary Linda McMahon could use the help of good Americans willing to do their patriotic duty.

  27. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/guess-retired-republicans-are-so

    “Guess Retired Republicans Are So Rich They Don’t Need Social Security Checks!”

    “Because there might be a problem with that soon.”

    Last week, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill in the Senate that would have made Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, literally with “one weird trick.” This week, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the entire system just might implode, thanks to the startling (purposeful) ineptitude of Elon Musk and his band of teenage edgelords.

    Weirdly enough, people who don’t really have to consider the need for Social Security, either because they are one of the richest people in the world or because they are high school juniors, don’t have a lot of reason to be too careful with the program. And they haven’t been! Right now, it seems like the general plan is to just shred the entire program to pieces and then, when it implodes, post a bunch of cutesy memes about how totally cool they are for dismantling the whole thing.

    Seven thousand Social Security employees are set to be fired this week — with plans to ultimately eliminate half of its entire 60,000 person workforce (which is reportedly chronically understaffed). [embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link]

    Social Security offices are closing all over, especially in southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This is probably at least a fair place to start, being that these states are largely Republican. After all, what kind of stupid people would vote Republican if they were relying on Social Security or other social safety net programs to survive?

    The new acting head of the Social Security Administration is Leland Dudek. Dudek was a middle-management staffer prior to literally being put on leave by previous leaders due to his efforts to “assist” DOGE — which he described in a since-deleted post on LinkedIn as his having “bullied agency executives” and “moved contractor money around” in order to help Musk with his dismantling of the 90-year-old institution relied upon by 70 million Americans.

    Martin O’Malley, the former Social Security commissioner under the Biden administration, told CNBC this weekend that this absolutely will lead to some unfortunate consequences, like people not getting their benefits on time for the very first time in history.

    “Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

    O’Malley also suggested that people “start saving now” in preparation for that happening, so they don’t find themselves eating cans of Grey Gardens paté.

    This will have even greater impact on those who are filing claims for retirement or disability for the first time.

    Via CNBC:

    For example, if a woman files for a survivor benefit after her husband dies, she needs to provide a copy of her marriage license. A Social Security employee then needs to code the system to verify they have seen that document and the applicant is eligible for benefits, [Jill] Hornick, [a union official at the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1395] said.

    “Not everybody can do things electronically,” particularly the older adults and disabled individuals who the Social Security Administration serves, said Maria Freese, senior legislative representative at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

    “If you don’t have people to run an agency that requires hands-on customer service, then of course there’s a risk that you could end up with benefits being either denied or interrupted,” Freese said.

    This particular trash fire would not exactly be a grand departure from what they’ve been doing. DOGE’s destruction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution to Americans scammed by financial institutions sitting in limbo instead of going out.

    [I snipped details bout the Social Security Fairness Act — which President Biden signed on January 5]

    This means that a whole lot of people can expect to get a pretty serious boost to their Social Security checks. Compare and contrast! Which thing do people like better? Getting more money for retirement, or not getting their checks at all?

    […] Meanwhile, Musk is out here calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” which is just a really weird thing to claim about a system that has kept the elderly and the disabled out of poverty for the last 90 years. Compare that to capitalism, which is literally a pyramid scheme that requires a portion of the population to live in poverty, while also creating people like Elon Musk who hoard more money than they or their 47 children or grandchildren could ever spend in their lifetimes, even if they bought literally every politician in the United States, and then make it their mission to destroy every single program that helps anyone anywhere.

    […] people will probably notice if Granny’s kisses start smelling like cat food.

  28. says

    Putin’s Chew Toy. Tabs, Tues., March 4, 2025

    Hello, good morning, it’s bad!

    Donald Trump has halted aid to Ukraine. It is “temporary.” You know, so he can extort Ukraine into reinstating it, or so he can extort Ukraine into agreeing to a “peace deal.” Obviously this is illegal, because the man doesn’t know how to breathe without committing crimes, betraying people, betraying our allies, betraying the United States of America. […]

    It must be noted what “peace” means, which is the same thing it has always meant in this context:

    “Peace” is a code word for “surrender to Putin.” It always always always has been.

    It was a code word in the 2016 campaign when Paul Manafort was talking about peace plans for Ukraine.

    This plan has been in our faces for a fucking decade and still hack Beltway journalists don’t get it.

    […] Trump is going to remove the sanctions from Russia, because of course he is. […] [Reuters]

    [Embedded links are available at the main link.]

    Hahahaha, here comes your TRUMP RECESSION! You see, Trump announced the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods will begin today — we’ll see! — and immediately the stock market just fucking died. It’s almost like the stock market isn’t filled with senile delusions about what tariffs do, the way Trump is. [CNN Business]

    The Wall Street Journal is worried it wasn’t mean enough to Trump last time about his tariffs, is trying to rectify that. [WSJ]

    Dammit why did Joe Biden do the stock market dirty like that, and just immediately after Trump made his tariffs announcement? That’s what babbling dumbfuck Larry Kudlow would like to know. [Aaron Rupar: “KUDLOW: What’s left of the Biden economy is slumping so badly

    LEAVITT: Truly, this administration is working around the clock to bring down the cost of living for the American people”]

    But yeah no really bad economy recession all the indicators very bad. [Josh Marshall TPM newsletter]

    […] Everything is going awesome at Robert F. Kennedy’s HHS, anyway his top spox just resigned after just two weeks on the job, it’s probably fine, oh wait it was because Kennedy thinks measles are just marvelous, which is not quite the scientific consensus? [Politico]

    Here are estimates directly from a USAID employee on all the killing, disease and other mayhem Donald Trump and Elon Musk will be directly responsible for and, if there is a God, accountable to God for, as a result of their decision to, as Elon memorably worded it, put USAID in the “woodchipper.” The employee responsible for the report went ahead and sent it as soon as he found out they were firing him. [New York Times]

    Defense Secretary […] Pete Hegseth announced his plan to restore the confederate name of another base, this time renaming Fort Moore back as Fort Benning. He did it the same way he did last time, playing cutesy by saying oh we’re not naming it after the CONFEDERATE Benning. We’re naming it after this OTHER GUY Benning! He’s doing this because Hegseth is nothing more than a white supremacist troll […] Anyway, if you check out the comments on military news websites and military forums, people are hoo boy pissed. [JoeMyGod]

    […] Yay! Grandma Wrestlemania was confirmed as the new Education secretary, and now she is free to GRANDMA WRESTLEMANIA THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO THE GROUND! No really, that’s what’s happening, it’s bad. [Marisa Kabas]

    Trump is going to cut down all the trees in America, surprise all his reasons are delusional, stupid, evil and did we mention fucking stupid, because Trump is the stupidest person who ever lived? [Guardian]

    And here is your happy video to make it all better. It is a dumbass Cybertruck in the Orpheus parade at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and people are booing it. The comments say there were four of them, all of them got booed […] [video at the link]

  29. says

    Trump orders swathes of US forests to be cut down for timber

    “President’s move to expand tree cutting across 280m acres evades rules to protect endangered species”

    Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US.

    The president, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands, claiming that “heavy-handed federal policies” have made America reliant on foreign imports of timber.

    “It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security,” the order adds.

    Trump has instructed the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to increase logging targets and for officials to circumvent the US’s Endangered Species Act by using unspecified emergency powers to ignore protections placed upon vulnerable creatures’ habitats.

    […] The order also stipulates logging projects can be sped up if they are for purported wildfire risk reduction, via “thinning” of vegetation that could ignite. Some scientists have said that aggressively felling forests, particularly established, fire-resistant trees, actually increases the risk of fast-moving fires. [!]

    “This Trump executive order is the most blatant attempt in American history by a president to hand over federal public lands to the logging industry,” said Chad Hanson, wildfire scientist at the John Muir Project.

    “What’s worse, the executive order is built on a lie, as Trump falsely claims that more logging will curb wildfires and protect communities, while the overwhelming weight of evidence shows exactly the opposite.”

    […] Environmental groups decried Trump’s latest attempt to circumvent endangered species laws that shield about 400 species in national forests, including grizzly bears, spotted owls and wild salmon, and warned an increase in logging could pollute the water supply relied upon by millions of Americans.

    […] “This is a particularly horrific move by Trump to loot our public lands by handing the keys to big business.”

    The future of some of America’s most prized forests now appears uncertain. Under Joe Biden, the US committed to protecting the last fragments of old-growth forest, which contain some of the grandest and oldest trees on Earth. As trees soak up planet-heating carbon dioxide, protecting the oldest, most carbon-rich trees is seen as a way to help address the climate crisis. […] Biden, under pressure from Republicans and the timber industry, halted the old-growth protection plan in January and Trump officially killed off the executive order in his first day back in the White House.

    […] [I snipped details describing Trump’s choice of a corporate lobbyist to run the Forest Service.]

  30. says

    New York Times:

    Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued “wall of receipts,” erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers.

    Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent of all the contracts listed on its site last week. The deleted items included five of the seven largest savings that it had claimed credit for just last week.

  31. says

    Trump agencies drop dozens of Biden-era cases against crypto, other companies

    A new watchdog report warns that the Trump administration is “going soft” on corporations that break the law by moving to pause or drop investigations of companies accused of foreign bribery, safety violations, unfair labor practices and environmental crimes.

    […] In a little more than a month, the new administration has halted or tried to dismiss cases or investigations against at least 89 companies, according to a report by the nonprofit group Public Citizen obtained exclusively by NPR. That’s a quarter of the prominent investigations and enforcement the group was tracking at the end of the Biden administration.

    “Trump is handing ‘get out of jail free’ cards to corporate lawbreakers,” said Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen. “The consequences for the public when corporations face a diminished threat of enforcement are disastrous.” […]

    the new SEC is moving away from policing cryptocurrency businesses. Just on Monday, Kraken, a large cryptocurrency exchange, said the SEC, without any penalties, had agreed in principle to abandon a case that accused it of acting as an unregistered securities exchange.

    […] Last week, the administration agreed to dismiss a case against Coinbase, another crypto exchange that had spent millions of dollars on political donations during the 2024 election cycle.

    Trump has cast crypto businesses as victims of the “weaponization” of the government due to the previous administration’s cases against them.

    Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and now acting director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, used similar rhetoric recently, writing, “More to come but the weaponization of ‘consumer protection’ must end,” when the administration moved to dismiss a case against SoLo Funds.

    SoLo is an online lender that had been accused of lying to consumers and deceiving them into paying high fees. A news release when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought the case last year is no longer available online. […]

    More at the NPR link.

  33. JM says

    CNN: China and Canada immediately retaliate against Trump’s tariffs. Mexico is next

    President Donald Trump’s blanket 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada took effect on Tuesday, an extraordinary action aimed at bringing America’s top trading partners to heel. But it threatens to weaken the North American economy, including that of the United States, at a time of significant stress for inflation-weary consumers.

    The Trump administration said the tariffs were necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

    The fentanyl lie is weak even for the Trump administration. Not that fentanyl isn’t a problem but the Trump solution is aiming a shotgun at your own foot to deal with an ingrown toenail.

    Beijing retaliated on Tuesday by announcing 15% tariffs on chicken, wheat, corn, and cotton imports from the US, according to a statement from the State Council Tariff Commission. Additionally, a 10% tariff on “sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products,” was also imposed, it said.

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Tuesday in a press conference that Canada “will not back down from a fight.” He said he would implement a 25% tariff on C$30 billion ($20.7 billion) of US goods immediately, followed by an additional C$125 billion ($86.2 billion) in 21 days’ time.
    “This is a very dumb thing to do,” he said, in remarks he said were directed at Trump. “We two friends fighting is exactly what our opponents around the world want to see.”

    The retaliation was inevitable. No country can afford to let another impose that sort of across the board tariffs on only one side. It’s suppressing trade from that country while allowing trade too that country. In the long run that turns it into a wealth extraction scheme.
    CNBC: Trump vows more tariffs on Canada after Trudeau’s retaliation

    President Trump threatened to raise Canada tariffs again after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau retaliated against new U.S. levies.
    “Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!” Trump said Tuesday in a social media post.

    This is Trump not understanding how trade wars spiral out of control and believing he can just impose terms on other countries. Just like Trump thought he could negotiate peace in the Russian/Ukraine war without Ukraine being involved, he thinks he can impose trade terms and Canada can’t react.

  34. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/we-need-to-talk-about-peace-plans

    “We Need To Talk About ‘Peace Plans’ For Ukraine”

    “ATTN: mainstream media! Here are some things you’ve missed the past 10 years.”

    We need to talk about “peace plans” for Ukraine. We need to talk about how that sounds like a really nice thing — give peace a chance! — but it’s not, because the people pushing for it and using that language want to hurt Ukraine and leave it to the whims of its abuser Russia.

    We need to talk about what this “peace plan” coded language really means, and how the people saying it have been working on this project for a full decade, yet the mainstream media largely can’t be bothered to figure out what it’s all about.

    Yesterday, the belligerent felon in the White House let it be leaked that he would be putting a “pause” on all funding supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, which Russia started fully unprovoked. He would be doing this until that rude boy Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy came to his senses and apologized for not treating Dear Leader as God’s chosen best boy on earth, and for not complimenting Vance on how his new Ozempic ass looks in pants now. And he didn’t say thank you. (You know, except for all the millions of times Zelenskyy is always saying thank you to the US and everybody else.)

    And of course, the pause is until Zelenskyy agrees to whatever terms of “peace” Trump and the Russians come up with. Zelenskyy just has to show that he’s “ready to go to peace,” National Security Advisor and MAGA asslicker Mike Waltz said on TV Monday night. Babbling Russian propaganda spigot and Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville said on Newsmax yesterday that Ukraine’s future will be whatever “Putin and President Trump” decide it is, and that Zelenskyy “isn’t even in the game.”

    It’s not that Zelenskyy doesn’t want peace. Of course he does. One really good way of achieving that would be for Putin to pull his troops out of the war he started and stop murdering, raping and kidnapping Ukrainian women, babies and children. Zelenskyy said in his address to the nation Monday night, “We need peace — real, fair peace — not endless war. And we need security guarantees.”

    Meanwhile, Kremlin spox Dmitry Peskov is positively jizzing himself over these developments. “If it’s true, then this is a decision which could really push the Kyiv regime to a peace process,” he said in response to Trump’s announcement last night.

    A peace process. You know, the kind where Russia gets everything it wants and Ukraine gets nothing. […]

    This has been going on since loooooong before the end of the Olympics in China in 2022, when Putin barely waited until the togetherness flame was extinguished to cross the border into Ukraine and start mass murdering everyone. Go all the way back to 2014, when Putin invaded Ukraine the first time and successfully occupied and stole Crimea.

    If you’ll remember, way back when, President Barack Obama stuck all these sanctions on Russia for its illegal invasion, and during the 2015-16 campaign, getting those sanctions lifted was big talk among the Trump associates who were colluding with Russians to help steal that election. (No collusion? No collusion? [Read] the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, which was signed off on by a man named Marco Rubio.)

    During the 2016 campaign and shortly after, Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort — who you’ll remember was mysteriously chairing the campaign for “free” after doing similar work to install pro-Russian stooge Viktor Yanukovych in power in Ukraine in 2010 — was shopping a “peace plan” for Russia and Ukraine, which would include sanctions relief and letting Russia carve out whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. (Important context: Putin blamed the United States, and specifically Hillary Clinton, for orchestrating the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests that toppled Yanukovych. Invading and seizing Crimea directly after was his temper tantrum response.)

    Manafort lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators about that, specifically about his conversations with his Russian spy buddy Konstantin Kilimnik about the “peace plan.” That plan was to make Eastern Ukraine “autonomous,” in order to set it up for Russia eventually just taking it. Kilimnik was, of course, the same Russian spy Manafort was handing Trump campaign modeling data about the Rust Belt to, to hand over to their oligarch buddy Oleg Deripaska.

    In the first year of Trump 1.0, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen met with certain folks — a Russian emigre named Felix Sater and a pro-Russian Ukrainian named Andrii Artemenko — and delivered to the White House a genius “peace plan” for Russia and Ukraine, which would settle how much of Ukraine Russia was allowed to steal.

    […] To bring peace to Ukraine by making sure poor Vladimir Putin felt safe and sound and in possession of all the Ukrainian real estate his heart desired, and with no more of those stinky sanctions he got as punishment for stealing it in the first place!

    Michael Flynn lied to the FBI and said he didn’t discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador. He did, though.

    The Russians were up Donald Trump Jr.’s ass in Trump Tower in 2016 about sanctions relief. As Wonkette noted at the time, we are sure that dumbfuck Junior had no idea what the Russian lady was talking about, but Paul Manafort was in the room for that meeting and he sure did.

    It was always the sanctions, and the “peace plan.” So many peace plans! It has been the center of this story from the beginning.

    As the 2020 election approached, and as it became clear that Joe Biden was probably best positioned to compete for the Democratic nomination, win it, then beat Trump’s ass, Trump became fixated on getting dirt on the Bidens, and deputized Rudy Giuliani to do that for him in Ukraine. And when Zelenskyy wouldn’t play ball and announce made-up investigations into the Bidens in order to help Trump steal that election, he got on the phone with Zelenskyy and started extorting him with the military assistance Ukraine desperately needed to protect itself from Russia. “I would like you to do us a favor, though.”

    Trump had such a tantrum over it that he indeed pulled aid that Congress had already appropriated for Ukraine, in order to try to force Zelenskyy to do his will. Otherwise Trump was ready to leave Ukraine to Putin’s whims.

    Sound familiar?

    That was what led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment, it was so nakedly criminal. And now here we are again, and history’s stupidest criminal is doing it again in everybody’s faces. This time Ukrainian minerals are involved, they’re the precious treat Donald Trump wants to steal. But the outlines are the same. Trump is extorting Zelenskyy for protection, to agree to a “peace” which would be nothing less than a love gift to Putin tied up with a bow.

    In many ways this is the culmination of Trump’s entire decade of treason. […] In 2023, we wrote, after Donald Trump Jr. just blabbed it out loud, that “thanks to Donald Dumbfuck Junior, we know what the plan is. Surprise, it is to ‘peace deal’ Ukraine by cutting off all funding and forcing Ukraine to come to the negotiating table with Russia.”

    Junior said then, “Until we say ‘enough is enough,’ no one’s coming to the table! Until we say we’re not funding this crap anymore, no one has an incentive to negotiate!”

    Our 2023 piece continued:

    Reminder: “This crap” is that Russia attacked Ukraine unprovoked because Vladimir Putin has delusions in his brain that Ukraine does not exist, and because Putin is consumed with shame over the rotting husk of nothingness Russia has become in the last several decades and dreams of lording over a “Russian world” that does not exist. Much of this is due to his shitty leadership.

    In summary and in conclusion, the Trump plan is for America to fuck Ukraine over and “force” it to come to Russia (the country that attacked it) and beg it to stop, giving away whatever sovereign Ukrainian territory or treasure Russia wants in the process.

    In other words, everything Putin wanted when he invaded Ukraine unprovoked and started bombing babies.

    Here we are. Even Trump’s co-president Elon Musk has been on the “peace plans for Ukraine” bandwagon the past couple years! Surprise, they are exactly the peace plans Vladimir Putin wants.

  35. says

    Text I accidentally left out when I posted comment 34:

    We’ll end by quoting ourselves yet again, also in 2023, about what a real and just peace would actually look like in Ukraine:

    There will be no “peace” without Ukraine beating the living shit out of Russia to the point that Russia will never again think of even looking at Ukraine or any other former Soviet satellite or nearby NATO nation funny. (Here’s an article about Putin’s plan to go after Moldova next. Here’s one about his plans to officially steal Belarus.) All else is Russian propaganda dedicated to making you think Russia has some sort of valid opinion here, some kind of legitimate foreign policy aims. Putin wants to conquer and kill in the name of his warped fantasies of Making Russia Great Again.

    There is no “peace plan,” Elon Musk. There is no “peace plan,” Donald Trump. There is no “peace plan,” MAGA trash.

    You want peace? You help Ukraine win.

    Donald Trump is pulling the United States out of that project, placing us on the side of the bad guys. We guess it’s up to Europe and whoever else is left in the world that’s decent.

    Slava Ukraini.

  36. says

    NBC News:

    The head of the FBI’s New York field office was forced out Monday, a month after he urged his employees to “dig in” after the Trump administration removed senior FBI leaders and requested the names of all agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, five sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. In an email to FBI staff members in New York on Monday, James Dennehy confirmed that he had been ordered to leave.

    Commentary:

    […] The backstory on this makes the developments all the more striking.

    In early February, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove — a former Trump defense attorney rewarded with a powerful position in the Justice Department — made an outrageous request: Bove wanted the FBI to turn over the names of every employee who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Given the number of investigations into alleged and convicted Jan. 6 criminals, such a list would’ve been enormous.

    Just as importantly, it also raised the prospect of thousands of firings across the rank-and-file FBI staff, because assorted agents had the audacity to do their jobs in the wake of insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    Dennehy balked.

    “Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own as good people are being walked out of the FBI,” Dennehy wrote in an email to his staff after receiving Bove’s demand. “And others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.”

    He added, “Time for me to dig in.”

    In other words, Dennehy, confronted with an apparent abuse, took a stand in support of FBI agents who had done nothing wrong. NBC News’ report noted, “It is widely believed inside the FBI that the resistance by Dennehy — along with the acting director, Brian Driscoll, and the acting deputy director, Rob Kissane — prevented a mass firing of thousands of FBI officials who worked on the Jan. 6 cases.”

    A month after writing that email, Dennehy, a Marine Corps veteran who joined the bureau after the Sept. 11 attacks, was told that he could either resign or be fired.

    “Dennehy’s removal is likely to reignite fears of mass retaliation,” NBC News’ report added. That seems like a safe bet.

    Link

  40. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/mackenzie-scott-nice-time-update

    “MacKenzie Scott Nice Time Update!”

    “Turns out that the way she gives money is a really good way.”

    And now let us check in with breath-of-fresh-air MacKenzie Scott, the heart-of-gold billionaire who spun her share of her divorce from Jeff Bezos after he cheated on her into philanthropy and Yield Giving, a foundation that has so far given out almost $20 billion in unrestricted gifts for social justice, human services (like abortions and health care), education, LGBTQ+ services, playgrounds, historically Black colleges and universities, a total of 2,450 excellent causes […]

    Turns out, according to a three-year-analysis by the Center for Effective Philanthropy of 800 of the donations her foundation has made, the no-strings-attached way she gives out money is quite effective!

    When Scott started handing out unrestricted gifts in 2019, the world of philanthropy got shook. The usual way to go about doling out large sums of cash with a foundation is to give restricted gifts […]

    Donors like to direct exactly where their money goes. And they like to have their names on stuff […]

    And foundations usually give out grants in response to proposals. This usually starts with announcing the grant: The Betsy VonThundersnatch Foundation For The Arts intends to award $5 million to bring drag brunches to underserved populations. Then nonprofits that work in that area respond with a proposal that assesses the need, lays out project with objectives, includes a step-by-step timetable, detailed budget estimate for renting a van, buying wigs and champagne etc., a pitch of why their organization is the most capable one to meet the need, what the benchmarks for measuring success will be, and so on.

    Then after a grantee gets the money, they’re usually required to regularly report back the details of their benchmark-hitting to a board. What some might call micromanaging and others might call responsible stewardship helps foundations and charities solicit gifts, because donors want to know exactly where their money is going and be reassured that it’s not going to get blown fast. Which makes sense! But all of that takes time, and wig money. It can be many months and sometimes even years between when a grant is announced and an awardee can cash a check, and charities have to pay overhead for people to look for grants to apply to, and write the proposals.

    But MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Foundation does the opposite of this! They skip the solicitation-and-proposal part entirely, quietly and secretly researching organizations’ track records. And then the foundation cuts a surprise check, with no spending-timetable or strings attached, and lets the nonprofit roll with it. It is bold! It is brave! It is trusting!

    And here’s the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s report on how it’s going: The grantees are actually not blowing all of the money. Most are using it to shore up longer-term stability and plan to spend it within two to five years. […]

    Like the South Texas Food Bank. They were able to give their employees free health care, and also nearly doubled the amount of food they distributed to eight counties and one tribal nation in south Texas with the $9 million Scott’s foundation gave them. Also Kaboom! They build playgrounds, and with Scott’s $14 million they have quadrupled the size of their playgrounds, and have gotten into advocacy too, pushing for elimination of the use of toxic chemicals on playground surfaces.

    Eighty-five percent of nonprofit recipients said that Scott’s gifts have helped them improve or expand their programming, and 52 percent reported a greater capacity to respond to the needs of the communities they serve. […]

    […] And, though the grants don’t require them to, 70 percent of the recipients are tracking the impact of the money, some say even better than they actually were before, because now they have better capacity to do that. […]

    And what an impact! Samples from the survey: 33,521 loans for a total of $1.26 billion to low-income households to buy homes, start or capitalize businesses, and address their financial needs. Health care for 100,000 new patients. Legal orientation for more than 12,000 refugees, and 200 unaccompanied immigrant minors re-unified with their families, and millions of meals served in the US and other countries.

    And her freewheeling gifts are having an impact on other foundations also. More than half of foundation leaders surveyed said that they now thought that their foundations should consider giving out large, multiyear, unrestricted support, too. […]

    That MacKenzie! She is so humble, it is hard to find pictures of her anywhere, unless they’re from her as Bezos’ plus-one in the old days. And while her ex is out here kissing Trump’s behind, whoring out the newspaper he bought and swanning around Aspen with his affair partner, she is making a difference in a good way. And still the 5th-richest woman in the world. […]

  41. says

    Say what now? I’ve seen so many iterations of the OPM threats/attempts to fire federal government workers that I’m wondering how long this latest iteration will last. Also, I’m questioning whether or not this is a real change.

    OPM walks back memo on firing probationary employees, leaving decision to agencies

    The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday updated its guidance to department heads that demanded the firing of federal workers, adding that it’s up to the agency on whether to boot their hires.

    The slight shift in the memo updates a Day 1 order from the OPM directing all government agencies to pull together a list of all employees still in their probationary period, those who were either hired or promoted within the last year or two — a period that varies by agency.

    “Please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees. Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions,” the OPM wrote in the Tuesday update.

    The tweak comes after unions scored a court victory Thursday after suing over the Trump administration plans to fire probationary workers

    “OPM’s revision of its Jan. 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings,” the American Federation of Government Employees said in a statement Tuesday.

    “Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”

    While the suit was only brought on behalf of employees at six agencies, Alsup ordered OPM to rescind the memo, finding the termination of the employees was likely unlawful.

    “[The] Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees within another agency,” Alsup said.

    […] It’s not clear whether the update by the OPM complies with the judge’s order, which calls for the memo to be rescinded.

    “OPM’s January 20 memo, February 14 email, and all other efforts by OPM to direct the termination of employees,” he wrote, listing the six agencies, were “unlawful, invalid, and must be stopped and rescinded.” […]

    My feeling is that Russell Vought, Musk and the DOGE minions will continue down the same road—firing a lot of people without good reasons (and illegally), but they will just make a better (more elaborate?) effort to obscure or hide what they are doing.

  42. Reginald Selkirk says

    Polish space agency says it’s investigating a cyberattack

    Poland’s space agency (POLSA) says it is working to restore services following a cybersecurity incident.

    POLSA, the Polish government agency responsible for the country’s space activities, said in a post on X that it had “immediately disconnected” its network from the internet after detecting the cyberattack on Sunday. POLSA’s website remains offline at the time of writing.

    Poland’s digital minister Krzysztof Gawkowski confirmed in a separate post that state cybersecurity services had detected “unauthorized access to the Polish Space Agency’s IT infrastructure,” and were working to identify who was behind the cyberattack.

    The nature of the incident is not yet known and POLSA did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s questions…

  43. Reginald Selkirk says

    Anger over Vance ‘random country’ peacekeeping remark

    The US vice-president has sparked a row with his comments about a potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

    UK opposition politicians accused JD Vance of disrespecting British forces after he said a US stake in Ukraine’s economy was a “better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.

    The UK and France have said they would be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

    Vance has since insisted he did not “even mention the UK or France”, adding that both had “fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond”.

    However, he did not specify which country or countries he was referring to…

  44. Reginald Selkirk says

    Fight between bald eagle and Canada goose in Burlington bay ‘very symbolic,’ says photographer

    A bald eagle may have thought it spotted an easy lunch in a Canada goose sitting on an icy bay in Burlington, Ont., but according to Mervyn Sequeira — who watched and photographed a 20-minute battle between the two birds — the goose held its own…

    The bald eagle made “several attempts” to attack the goose, Sequeira said.

    “When we thought that it was really over for the goose, strangely, the bald eagle just gave up and left,” said Sequeira, who’s from Oakville, Ont.

    “The goose was spared that day.” …

  45. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mike the Mad Biologist:
    The Kennedy Op-Ed: Don’t Ignore the Dog Whistles

    Over the weekend, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy wrote an op-ed suggesting that parents vaccinate their kids with the MMR vaccine, and has widely been seen as a change of heart. But if you have been following anti-vaxxers for a long time, the op-ed is full of dog whistles.

    It is clear Kennedy was forced into writing this by the Trump administration: one dead child from measles can be explained away as an unfortunate, freak tragedy, but multiple dead kids are a pattern. That said, the op-ed is full of dog whistles for anti-vaxxers, and it’s shown by the structure.

    You’ll note that he describes the frequency of measles deaths in the op-ed:

    Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in the 1960s, virtually every child in the United States contracted measles. For example, in the United States, from 1953 to 1962, on average there were 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths, a case fatality rate of 1 in 1,205 cases.

    This followed by a description which includes vaccinated people who contracted the measles:

    The current Texas outbreak has predominantly affected children, with 116 of the 146 cases occurring in individuals under 18 years of age. The DSHS reports that 79 of the confirmed cases involved individuals who had not received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, while 62 cases had unknown vaccine status. At least five had received an MMR vaccine.

    This, of course, isn’t shocking: 5/146 vaccinated people getting breakthrough measles infections is no different than the expected 97% efficacy.

    After some boilerplate about working with state and local officials, we get to this old anti-vaxxer bromide of how measles infections are caused by poor diet, specifically vitamin A deficiency, and can be mitigated with vitamin A supplementation:
    …
    To those who haven’t followed anti-vaxxers for years (unlike you dear reader, I have sucky hobbies…), the article seems like a reasonable endorsement of vaccination. To an anti-vaxxer though, it, in a watered-down form, replicates the following argument:

    1) Measles is very rare.
    2) The measles vaccine does not provide perfect protection, so why risk a dangerous shot.
    3) The kids who die had other pre-existing conditions–note the “Ten of thousands died with, or of, measles” phrasing. It’s the same bullshit we heard during the pandemic: did they die with COVID or from it?
    4) Vitamin A supplementation will stop the measles, not a dangerous shot.

    A final point: nowhere does he explicitly say vaccination is safe. It’s not in there; the op-ed does say, “This includes ensuring that accurate information about vaccine safety and efficacy is disseminated”, but it doesn’t say what that accurate information actually is…

  48. Reginald Selkirk says

    Kroger Chairman and CEO resigns following investigation into personal conduct

    Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen has resigned after an internal investigation into his personal conduct.

    Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, said Monday that the investigation into McMullen’s personal conduct was unrelated to the business, but was found to be inconsistent with its business ethics policy…

    The article contains no information, not even guesses, about what that “personal conduct” was. It can’t be rape because he hasn’t been offered a position in the Trump cabinet.

  49. Reginald Selkirk says

    Construction Workers Accidentally Discovered A Stonehenge-Esque Ritual Site

    Many archaeological discoveries make themselves known to the world by mere accident, and construction workers in Denmark have added another major discovery to that list. During the building of a housing development in the Danish town of Aars, workers unearthed a site reminiscent of the mysterious and iconic Stonehenge.

    Further excavation revealed the remnants of wooden posts that had been arranged in a circle, which initially stumped Vesthimmerlands Museum curator Sidsel Wåhlin. Along with excavation leader Andreas Bo Nielsen and his research team, the team deduced that the collection of wooden posts was most likely a ritual structure similar to the legendary Stonehenge and its neighbor, Woodhenge…

  51. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump’s pick as NATO ambassador says US commitment to the alliance is ‘ironclad’

    President Donald Trump’s pick as NATO ambassador reassured senators at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s commitment to the military alliance was “ironclad.” …

    Matt Whitaker, an acting attorney general in Trump’s first term, told senators that a key part of his mission would be to push the 32 NATO allies to meet Trump’s demand to increase their own defense spending…

  52. birgerjohansson says

    Chickenshit Elon Musk has already backed out of his interview with Jon Stewart.

  53. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – Some DOGE staffers are drawing six-figure government salaries
    A list of specific staffers’ salaries.

    CNN – DOGE wants to charge one federal agency millions of dollars

    The Office of Personnel Management was asked to pay [$4.1 million] for 20 full-time positions in Musk’s department for work between January 20 and July 4, 2026 […] The draft agreement requires OPM to pay in advance each month for that work […] It’s unclear if any payments have been made
    […]
    would be funded at the highest of 15 possible grades on the federal general pay schedule—usually reserved for senior managers—and at the fifth highest of 10 possible steps within that grade. […] that base rate is $141,817 annually, but it increases based on location and is $189,950 in the Washington, DC, area.
    […]
    “It’s like having a contract with an entity to perform services, except this is forced on us […]”

     
    Rando:

    the Trump admin is complying with court orders in some places, but seemingly not in other places. […] there’s one type of court order being ignored that I find interesting, and that’s the payment stuff. Elon’s all defensive about it, lots of payments appear to be… well, broken.

    In other words: I am starting to wonder if the government *can’t* pay USAID/NIH contractors, etc.

    EmptyWheel:

    I’ve had the same suspicion re: USAID: that the DOGE boys broke it and are stalling to fix it. Here’s the most recent Marocco declaration (in response to a bunch of USAID people debunking him, & risk he’ll personally be held in contempt which if the shoe fits…).

    He basically says, Sure I said $250M would be paid but… then something happened.

    Although authorized at the time, the majority of those payments were delayed due to specific, independent, high-level policy decisions and events that postdated by declaration.

  55. says

    Well. Sigh. I think I suffer from a failure of imagination. I thought I had accurately imagined how bad Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress would be. I failed. It’s much worse … and still going as write this.

    A rancid stew of lies, including some debunked lies about 150 year old recipients on Social Security roles. Trump spent an amazing amount of time telling us exactly how many people over 129, over 139, over 150 etc. that Musk found on those disbursement roles. Do Trump’s lies get better if he adds more details? None of that is true. Musk and minions are misunderstanding older COBOL computer programming.

    Interestingly, Trump stated that Musk is in charge of DOGE. In fact, Trump repeated several times that Musk is running DOGE. Several courts and judges will be following up no doubt.

    Trump interspersed tales of young women and children being raped and/or beaten by “illegal” immigrants throughout this rancid presentation. Trump enjoys that. He had some female faces in the audience as guests so we could see real people being manipulated. Trump tied some of his recitation to executive orders that he has signed.

    More later.

  56. says

    Here are some excerpts from NBC News’ coverage:

    Fact check: Is the share of Americans who think country on ‘right’ track at record high?

    TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.”

    VERDICT: This is false.

    ANALYSIS […] it seems likely he’s pointing to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll showing that 47% saying America’s on the “right track.”

    Rasmussen is a right-wing poll that regularly partners with conservative authors and outlets to sponsor its polling. And it’s controversial — the polling aggregation site FiveThirtyEight removed the poll from its averages last year over concerns about its partisanship and its methodology. […]
    —————————
    Trump again invokes himself as the victim of political targeting, claiming that certain jurisdictions had “virtually ceased” enforcing the law against repeat offenders “while weaponizing law enforcement against political opponents like me.”
    ——————————
    Fact check: Are millions of people older than 100 — including some older than 160 — collecting Social Security?

    TRUMP’S STATEMENT: “We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors”

    VERDICT: This is false.

    ANALYSIS:Trump alleged in his speech that millions of senior citizens over the age 100 — including some he maintained were older than 160 — were collecting Social Security checks, according to Social Security Administration data.

    Trump specifically said that SSA records indicated that 4.7 million people between 100 and 109 were getting checks; that 3.6 million 110 to 119 were; that 3.47 million between 120 and 129 were; that 3.9 million between 130 and 139 were; that 3.5 million fro 140 to 149 were; that 1.3 million from 150 to 159 were — and that even 130,000 people older than 160 years old were still getting checks.

    He also alleged that several hundred people older than 220 years old were still getting checks, according to SSA data — and that “one person is listed at 360 of age.”

    The alleged fraud that Trump — and DOGE chief Elon Musk — have pointed to doesn’t exist. Rather, the numbers they refer to a product of a known problem with the government’s data.

    There are millions of people over the age of 100 in the Social Security Administration’s database, but the vast majority aren’t receiving benefits.

    The issue has been repeatedly identified by inspectors general at the agency, but the Social Security Administration has argued that updating old records is costly and unnecessary.

    An SSA IG report from 2023 showed 18.9 million people listed as 100 years or older — but not dead — were in the database. But “almost none” currently receives SSA payments.

    The SSA’s inspector general also released report in July that found that from 2015 to 2022, only 0.84% of benefits payments were improper. This 0.84% of benefits payments being improper totaled $71.8 billion dollars over 8 years. The report also says most of these improper payments were overpayments — not to deceased or people who didn’t qualify.

    In addition, per the agency’s online records, just 89,106 people — not tens of millions — over the age of 99 received retirement benefits in December 2024, out of the more than 70 million people who receive benefits each year.
    ———————————
    Trump says Canada and Mexico are allowing fentanyl to come into the United States at “levels never seen before.” However, almost none of the fentanyl intercepted at U.S. borders comes from Canada.

    U.S. customs data shows that in 2024, the amount of fentanyl seized at the northern border wouldn’t even fill a carry-on suitcase — just 43 pounds, or about 0.02% of the more than 20,000 pounds the Drug Enforcement Administration seized at both the Canadian and Mexican borders.

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday that, thanks to his country’s enhanced drug enforcement efforts, the amount of fentanyl seized at the Canadian border had fallen a further 97% from December to January, to 0.03 pounds.
    —————————–
    Some Democrats laughed out loud when Trump said the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over, and some stood up and pointed to Musk.
    ———————————
    As Trump claims to have found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud,” even the highly dubious accounting of the DOGE “wall of receipts” shows only $105 billion in estimated total savings. The numbers don’t add up. Neither has anyone been charged with fraud or any such case been publicly opened or referred.

    Link

    More at the link.

  57. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Boston Globe – The Vermont-Quebec border runs right through this library. Kristi Noem used it to stoke tensions.

    “[The US Secretary of Homeland Security] stood on the American side and said, ‘USA No. 1.’ Then she crossed the line and said, ‘The 51st state,'” Bishop said. “She did it at least three times and was very clear in saying, ‘USA No. 1,’ and didn’t even say ‘Canada.’ Just, ‘The 51st state.'”

    Rando 1: “And then she grabbed the book, Old Yeller, off the shelf and shot it.”

    Rando 2: “Why are they all like this? Craven, stupid, and mean. And just so completely unlikeable. At least GWB was a dude you could sit down and have a beer with and it would probably be a somewhat enjoyable hour. These people just suck. Period.”

    Sidenote: All nine tribal nations of South Dakota had banned Kristi Noem from their land in 2024, about 12% of the state. At least two tribes have lifted their bans this year. She had to apologize for asserting Mexican cartels were using reservations as safe havens to distribute drugs in the Midwest.

  58. says

    Excerpts from MSNBC’s coverage:

    As Trump rambles about purported criminals casting a pall over the United States, I might note the irony that this is the first time a president who has been convicted of felonies has delivered a joint address to Congress.
    ——————
    When talking about the impact of his economic policies, Trump briefly noted that there would be a little bit of hardship from his tariffs.
    ——————–
    Former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn wasn’t pleased with Trump’s line, posting to social media: “Dude says we have to take care of our law enforcement … YOU PARDONED OUR ATTACKERS.”
    ———————-
    Several House Democrats, including Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Maxwell Frost, stood up and removed their blazers to show slogans written on the back of their shirts, including “RESIST” and “NO MORE KINGS.” Instead of being escorted out by the sergeant-at-arms, they walked out of the chamber.

    Reps. Andrea Salinas and Maxine Dexter later followed suit and left while Trump was speaking.
    ————————
    Trump claimed to have the best economy ever of any president in American history. In fact, Joe Biden easily outpaced him in job creation and economic growth.
    —————————–
    The president just claimed that Social Security is sending out benefits to millions of Americans who, he said, are over 100 years old. This claim, which came via Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, was already debunked last month. In fact, fewer than 90,000 Americans over the age of 99 receive Social Security, and as of 2015 the Social Security Administration automatically deems anyone in its system over 115 as deceased. Trump’s lie likely stems from a misunderstanding of the Social Security system’s programming.
    ————————
    Trump played this portion of his speech for laughs, listing things he claims the government shouldn’t be paying for — making sure to leave a beat for Republican laughter.

    “Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesooto, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said.

    Perhaps that’s because Lesooto isn’t a country — Lesotho is. The entire spectacle highlighted the conservative movement’s arrogance and ignorance — with Trump at the helm — in not understanding the world around them.
    ——————————-
    Trump tells one of his most obvious lies yet. “I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America,” he said.

    As I’ve reported, his administration has opened up dubious probes into media outlets that Republicans have complained about, including NPR and PBS. They’ve also targeted a media outlet for reporting on ICE immigration raids, and his so-called border czar has threatened criminal prosecution against a sitting lawmaker for talking about civil rights. Trump’s administration has also restricted the Associated Press’ access over its decision to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America.” Despite his claims, Trump is leading an administration that’s waging an assault on free speech.
    ————————-
    “A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy,” said the president — a statement that’s nonsensical both mathematically and strategically. The February report for the consumer price index found energy prices had risen just 1% over the last year.

    But even if, like Trump, one makes up the math as one goes along, Trump’s specific approach of increasing oil production ignores the economy he inherited. Under Joe Biden, the U.S. was already producing more oil than any country ever (for which Biden was rightly criticized by environmental groups). In fact, oil producers have been reluctant to “drill, baby, drill” precisely because, they claim, prices are too low to justify new investment.
    ————————-
    Trump told Congress that he was ending “persecution” that Biden attempted against his political enemies. “Like me,” he said with a grin. “How did that work out? Not too good.”

    This wink at his dodging any accountability for his scheming and alleged crimes engendered wild applause from Vance and the other Republicans in the room.
    ———————————
    Trump claimed an unprecedented “mandate” for a president, but the numbers say otherwise. He received less than 50 percent of the popular vote; his winning margin of roughly 1.6% is one of the smallest in American history, and his 312 votes in the electoral college are well below what presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama received.

  59. says

    Excerpts from coverage by The Washington Post:

    Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) held up a Ukrainian flag as Trump started discussing Ukraine, drawing cheers from the Democratic side. Other Democrats engaged in more subtle displays of support for Ukraine. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pennsylvania) wrapped a blue-and-gold scarf — the colors of Ukraine’s flag — around her neck.

    Democrats aren’t the only ones in the chamber backing Ukraine. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) is wearing a pin on his lapel featuring the Ukrainian and American flags in a show of support for the country.
    —————————-
    Trump is saying that “I appreciate” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public statement earlier Monday that they are ready to talk about peace, and he claims that Russia says it’s ready too. It’s Trump’s first sign that he’s willing to patch things up with Kyiv after kicking Zelensky out of the White House after an explosive Oval Office meeting Friday.
    —————————–
    Trump just repeated his threat to reclaim control over the canal; Panama’s president has said he won’t be returning it.
    ————————-
    As Democrats clapped for Ukraine aid, Trump lashed out at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) using a derogatory nickname based on her minor Native American ancestry. Some Democrats booed. Warren kept clapping.
    —————————-
    Trump’s now declaring his desire to claim Greenland, to laughter in the chamber. No modern president has tried to expand the size of U.S. territory. Danish and Greenlandic policymakers believe the president is entirely serious — and they are extremely unsettled.
    ——————————–
    Trump is asking a lot of Congress, now hoping that they direct enough funding to build a “Golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland.” Congress is working to trim the size of the government and curb spending, a herculean task for House Republicans who have struggled to find consensus on federal spending over the past two years. (It’s why they have had to rely on House Democrats to keep the government operable.) Many fiscal hawks actually hope to reduce spending on defense, and Trump’s latest ask would require billions of dollars more.
    ———————————
    Trump just gave Congress a new directive: Pass a law that criminalizes parents who allow their children to undergo a sex-change operation.
    ——————————
    Trump tells the story of a family whose child, he said, was secretly transitioned to a new gender at school. [lie]
    ———————————–
    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) walked out of Trump’s speech.
    ————————————-
    In perhaps the warmest moment of tonight, Trump just awarded honorary Secret Service agent status to 13-year-old DJ Daniel, a cancer survivor who is attending the event with his father. DJ looked shocked as Secret Service Director Sean Curran handed him the badge as the crowd applauded.
    ———————————–
    As the speech is going on, the White House press operation has been peppering reporters every few minutes with emails that tout key themes of the speech. The emails are also packed with links that expand on Trump’s points. Among those emails:
    “President Trump is Removing Killers, Rapists and Drug Dealers from Our Streets”
    “President Trump is Putting American Workers First — And Bringing Back American Manufacturing”
    “President Trump is Making Government Work for You Again”

  60. says

    Excerpts from New York Times coverage:

    Trump referred in the speech to a “letter” from Zelensky. What he described was the social media post from the Ukrainian president — which was, nonetheless, the note of submission and gratitude that Trump was looking for.
    —————————–
    “Oh my God,” Nancy Pelosi mouthed to her seat mate, Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, when Trump asserted he was saved by God during the assassination attempt last year in order to “Make America Great Again.”
    ——————————-
    Trump, after announcing that Zelensky was ready to sign a peace and minerals deal, said “we’ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace.”
    ——————————–
    In his speech, Trump suggested that Greenland would be welcomed into the United States “if you choose.” Moments later, he added “I think we’re going to get it one way or the other. We’re going to get it.”
    ——————————-
    “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States — many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world. Because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies, they are now strongly embedded in our country. But we are getting them out and getting them out fast.”
    ———————————
    “Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad,” Trump said, without specifying what exactly he was referring to. “It’s gone. It’s gone.”
    ——————————
    Democrats are shouting “January 6” at Trump as he talks about law and order and protecting the police.
    ——————————–
    Trump has been talking for nearly an hour now. His speech is familiar to those of us who have been covering him the past few years. He has described the America he inherited from Joe Biden as a wasteland full of roaming violent undocumented immigrants and supermarkets stocked with overpriced goods. He has claimed that a new golden age is underway under his leadership.

    The two concrete policies he has spent most of his time focusing on are his immigration enforcement — one of the most successful aspects of his early administration, resulting in very low border arrivals — and Elon Musk’s DOGE effort, which has been chaotic and has caused a great deal of concern, even quietly inside the G.O.P.

    Throughout the speech he has tried to use culture war issues to divide Democrats, and his team has tried to emphasize the fact that they are not applauding for his pronouncements about “law and order” and transgender issues.
    —————————–
    Trump asks Congress to send him funding to advance his deportation agenda “without delay.”
    ——————————-
    Lots of free-market types in the G.O.P. like to say that Trump likes tariffs only as a negotiating tool. But actually Trump views tariffs as a good in and of themselves — and unlike most economists, he thinks more aggressive use of them will enrich America.
    ———————————
    Some Republicans are talking about tariffs as a temporary tactic. But that is not at all how it sounds when Trump is talking. He says they are about “protecting the soul of our country.”
    ———————————
    “I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization.”
    ———————————
    It’s striking to hear Trump talking so much about the debt. He added roughly $8 trillion to the national debt in his first term and his planned tax cuts stand to add trillions more.
    ———————————
    “We ended all of Biden’s environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable. And importantly, we ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our autoworkers and companies from economic destruction.” — President Trump

    This is false.

    While Mr. Trump has issued executive orders aimed at rolling back some of the Biden administration’s climate regulations, the Trump administration has not initiated the legal proceedings to do so. That can take years to complete. For now, all those regulations remain on the books.

    Additionally, there is no electric vehicle mandate, though the Biden administration did enact a set of regulations that would, in effect, compel automakers to sell more electric vehicles. Those rules also remain intact, for the moment.
    ———————————
    The Biden administration “closed more than 100 power plants.”— President Trump

    This is false.

    The number of utility-scale electric power plants in the nation actually increased during the Biden administration. There were 11,070 in 2020 compared with 13,257 in 2023, the last year for which numbers were available from the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistical arm. Mr. Trump might have been referring to the number of coal-fired power plants, which dropped to 227 from 284 during that same time. The number of renewable energy plants rose to 7,684 from 5,918.
    ———————–
    Trump says he inherited an “economic catastrophe” from Biden. The U.S. had the strongest economy in the world when Trump took over, with inflation easing, but it has been showing signs of strain in recent weeks from federal funding cuts and tariffs.
    ————————-
    The early stages of this speech are heavy on the culture wars. Trump is invoking a number of symbolic actions he has taken, including his declarations that there are two genders, that English is the country’s official language, that he is renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, that he is renaming Denali in Alaska as Mount McKinley. “Our country will be woke no longer,” he sums it all up.

  61. Bekenstein Bound says

    It has been suggested that Canada and the EU retaliate against tariffs by ceasing to honor American copyrights and patents, and (especially) by repealing laws against circumventing copy protection schemes.

  62. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AP – GSA releases list of hundreds of federal buildings targeted for potential sale

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    This is almost every major federal building in DC, and even includes the HEATING PLANT that supplies steam and cold water to government buildings.

    The list includes the headquarters of the FBI, the DOJ, the USDA, HUD, HHS, DOL, DOE, FAA, GSA, FTC, State, ACF, and the VA. It also includes the Court of Military Appeals, the building housing the DC Public Defender Service, the Diplomacy Museum, and the literal goddamn steam tunnels.

    The list also includes a *port of entry* into the United States, which is just such a sloppy and stupid idea. No one is going to buy that, it’s literally custom-built as a customs station, it cannot be anything else!

    I genuinely think a bunch of DOGE idiots like Big Balls himself rolled into GSA and were like “okay we can just get rid of all these buildings, no problem.” They’ll probably walk back nearly all of these once people figure out and raise hell.

    I went through the GSA’s sell-off list and cross-referenced it against immigration courts. In total, they list 11 buildings housing immigration courts (and often ICE offices), in Baltimore, Boston, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Tucson, Portland, Sacramento, Seattle, and Van Nuys.

    Rando (Ex fed civil servant):

    The IRS National Computer Center in Martinsburg is on the list of buildings to sell. An IRS without a mainframe would be a disaster. The federal building in Cleveland is designated too which would knock out the 9th district coast guard admiralty and DFAS-Navy. Are these people insane?

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

    UPDATE: All DC buildings appear to have been removed from this list, including all of the agency headquarters (and the steam tunnels).

     
    Randos

    Can we please get together a consortium of malicious leftists to buy this [heating plant] and supply Trump with only ice cold water?

    Cannot wait to see what The Pentagon will look like as a Spirit Halloween.

    Canada, buy it. Now!

    It only took *six weeks* to get to the ‘ripping the copper wiring out of the walls’ phase.

    I call dibs on Area 51.

    It also includes Border Patrol facilities along the Texas-Mexico border.

    I take it back: this may be even stupider than Brexit.

    Hours after firing many of the GSA employees whose job it is to evaluate the heritage impact of the disposition of federally owned historic buildings (NHPA Section 106/110), Musk proposes the fire sale of hundreds of iconic public buildings including some of our nation’s most historic places.

    This is surely another gambit to grift the American people. Billionaires will buy up all the government property and lease it back at exorbitant rates.

    Venture capital and private equity love the idea of selling property and leasing it back, and it always ends up sucking.

    Nathan Newman (Writer, Criminal justice professor): Dem leaders should announce every item on this list will be taken back by eminent domain the second a Democrat is elected—and the occupants evicted and investigated for assumed criminal corrupt dealing given the seller.

  63. StevoR says

    Good satirical~isah take here

    Does the Trump ascendancy formally liberate the C-suite cavemen who were hiding under their desks this whole time? Or are these urgent new corporate hobbies (mixed martial arts, belchin’, fartin’, scratchin’, hog-shootin’) just the best roll of the dice for a broligarch all too whimperingly aware that his day job right now is to abase himself completely

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-05/trump-oligarchs-masculinity/105009952

  64. StevoR says

    … among the cheeseburger wrappers at the feet of a 78-year-old reality TV star?

  65. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    A trove of emails posted tonight in court reveal the utter chaos unleashed at the CFPB after Acting Director Russ Vought ordered a total work stoppage on Feb. 10. Mass cancelation of contracts soon followed. The order set off panic and confusion among staff with legally required responsibilities
    […]
    after a lawsuit was filed describing the potential illegality of the stoppage, Vought’s top allies at CFPB scrambled to restart legally required work and unfreeze contracts. Just two days ago (on a Sunday), Mark Paoletta, a close Vought ally and chief legal officer for CFPB, wrote an explicit memo telling everyone to start doing work required by law.

    Then things got really ugly: A supervisor responding to Paoletta’s email told colleagues that the message was NOT an invitation to resume legally required supervisory work [monitoring financial institutions] [see below]. Her email found its way into a Reuters story. Paoletta replied angrily earlier this afternoon, accusing her of severely undermining the agency’s leadership and his message. She replied that it was not her intention and she didn’t know who leaked the email.

    In a separate tranche of emails and texts, also filed with the court, a top CFPB person says it was Acting Director Vought—not DOGE—who decided to break CFPB’s homepage. And another, showing the damage done by the abrupt work-stoppage, which can’t be automatically fixed by simply turning the agency back on. Even as of Tuesday morning, CFPB did not have authorization from leadership to restore its home page.

    Rando:

    people talk about bureaucratic resistance and this is something people not well-versed in it might not see: this is the opposite of a CYA letter. this is a letter recognizing that you have been given an unlawful order and confirming that you will follow it, in a way which becomes public record.

  66. StevoR says

    On Cyclone Alfred hitting north-eastern Oz now :

    While it’s not unheard of for three tropical cyclones to form out of the same trough, it is rare, especially in the South Pacific.

    ..( Snip)… “It was very active across the southern hemisphere, it wasn’t just what happened in the South Pacific,” Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Monash University Liz Ritchie-Tyo said. “Two cyclones formed around Madagascar, the other end of the South Indian Ocean, so there was actually a lot going on all at once.” There’s a lot we don’t know about tropical cyclones, largely because before the existence of satellites they were difficult to measure and track. “Until we got satellites up there, we didn’t even know about half of them were out there,” Dr Ritchie-Tyo said.

    ..( Snip)…

    Nearly 1,000 km of the east coast is under coastal hazard warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology, from Forster in New South Wales all the way to Sandy Cape, near Bundaberg. Waves of over 10 metres have already impacted the K’gari and Rainbow Beach regions of Queensland.

    …(Snip)..

    Dr Ritchie-Tyo said Alfred had managed to find itself in a meteorological sweet spot, where all the ingredients were coming together to keep it alive and close to the coast, with winds causing it to take a U-turn back toward the mainland. She said this in itself made Alfred an “unusual cyclone”.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-05/cyclone-alfred-unusual-triplet-storm-climate-change-factors/105008704

  75. birgerjohansson says

    Hate Of the Nation speech:

    If you enter an incomplete birthdate, the computer system will automatically give you a birth date in the 18-hundreds to make it obvious to everyone but an idiot that it is an error.
    So Trump stood before congress and claimed a hundred thousand people on welfare were 160 years old…

  76. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cod liver oil embraced amid Texas measles outbreak; doctors fight misinfo

    US Health Secretary and long-standing anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing criticism for his equivocal response to the raging measles outbreak in West Texas, which as of Tuesday has grown to 159 cases, with 22 hospitalizations and one child death…

    But, Kennedy’s emphasis has spurred a general embrace of vitamin A and cod liver oil (which is rich in vitamin A, among other nutrients) by vaccine-hesitant parents in West Texas, according to The Washington Post.

    A Post reporter spent time in Gaines County, the undervaccinated epicenter of the outbreak, which has a large Mennonite community. At a Mennonite-owned pizzeria in Seminole, the county seat of Gaines, a waitress advised diners that vitamin A was a great way to help children with measles, according to the Post.

    A Mennonite-owned health food and supplement store a mile away has been running low on vitamin A products as demand increased amid the outbreak. “They’ll do cod liver oil because it’s high in vitamin A and D naturally, food-based,” Nancy Ginter, the store’s owner, told the Post. “Some people come in before they break out because they’re trying to just get their kids’ immune system to go up so they don’t get a secondary infection.” …

  77. JM says

    ABC News: AG Bondi faces heat from White House, Trump allies over Epstein files release

    Attorney General Pam Bondi and her team did not inform White House officials in advance that she planned to distribute the binders, which contained almost no new information regarding convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein — and now the move has ruffled feathers among those closest to President Donald Trump, including his senior White House staff, sources tell ABC News.

    It appears that the influencer event had been organized to celebrate some right wing influencers that the Trump administration thought had helped them during the campaign. Handing out some Epstein files was not the reason they came together. That explains the weirdness of handing the information out to some group of influencers first.
    White house staff is blaming all of this on Bondi but she may just be a designated fall person. If there is one thing the Trump administration is good at it is picking people to blame. It will be interesting to see if anything further gets released.

  78. Akira MacKenzie says

    @ 76

    JEEZ-us! What’s next? Bleeding? Leeches? Balancing humors?

    Why do we allow our people to get THIS DUMB?

  80. Reginald Selkirk says

    Florida Opens Criminal Investigation Into Andrew Tate and His Brother

    Florida has launched an investigation into misogyny influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan just days after the pair arrived in the United States. The Tate brothers have dual U.S. and British citizenship and were facing charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania as well as charges of rape, human trafficking, and tax evasion in Britain.

    In a post on X, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said he’d told the cops to launch a preliminary inquiry into the Tate brothers. “Based on a thorough review of the evidence, I’ve directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the now-active criminal investigation into the Tate brothers,” he said.

    Uthmeier didn’t mince words about the nature of the investigation when talking to local reporters later. “These guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” he said. “Many of these victims coming forward, some of them minors. People can spin this however they want, but in Florida this kind of behavior is viewed as atrocious. We’re not going to accept it. They chose to come here and set their feet down in this state.” …

    Unless some of their crimes happened in Florida, it might not be possible to prosecute them there. But if there is credible evidence of criminal activity elsewhere, I think they could be deported back to Romania. IANAL.

  81. says

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

    ‘Buffoon of a president’: Trump exposes ignorance of U.S. farming in speech to Congress
    Video is 5:03 minutes

    ‘We’re a country of no kings’: Rep. Frost talks walking out on Trump’s speech
    Video is 6:42 minutes

    ‘They just want to serve’: Fired federal workers still seeking answers after Trump speech
    Video is 8:17 minutes

    ‘For the record…’: Rachel Maddow sets the record straight on Trump address falsehoods
    Video is 4:35 minutes

    ‘The work is really falling apart’: Fired federal workers reflect on what they left behind
    Video is 4:35 minutes

  82. says

    USA Today:

    The Justice Department has fired all of Jan. 6 special counsel Jack Smith’s staff and is working to ‘root out’ anyone at the department and FBI who it believes doesn’t like President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi has confirmed. … Over eight minutes, she described a scorched-earth effort currently underway to purge the 115,000-employee Justice Department of any staffers involved in investigating Trump during or after his first term in office and other perceived enemies of the president.

    Commentary:

    […] “Well, first and foremost, we got rid of the Jack Smith team. Gone. Those people are gone,” the increasingly hyper-partisan attorney general said. “We’re still trying to find … a lot of people in the FBI and also in the Department of Justice who despise Donald Trump, despise us, don’t want to be there.”

    Bondi added, “[W]e’re going to root them out. We will find them, and they will no longer be employed.” [video at the link]

    [What was that Trump said during his speech about no longer weaponizing government to conduct partisan politics?]

    Just so we’re all clear, the nation’s chief law enforcement official isn’t talking about identifying Justice Department employees who are necessarily bad at their jobs. Rather, Bondi appeared to describe a process in which law enforcement personnel who disagree with Trump will be hunted down and kicked out of the department.

    When it comes to matters of law and politics, I tend not to agree with National Review’s Ed Whelan on much, but the conservative lawyer’s take on the attorney general’s comments rang true.

    “Career DOJ lawyers who do their jobs (most of which have nothing to do with politics) should not be rooted out because they ‘despise’ the president,” Whelan explained online. “That’s true of those who despised Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden just as it’s true of those who despise Trump. It’s very bad that AG Bondi either doesn’t understand this or needs to pretend she doesn’t.”

    [Trump got what he wanted in Pam Bondi.]

    […] here we are, watching Merrick Garland’s successor infuse her office with partisan politics at a breathtaking pace.

  83. Reginald Selkirk says

    @82

    “We’re still trying to find … a lot of people in the FBI and also in the Department of Justice who despise Donald Trump, despise us, don’t want to be there.”

    Not exactly. They don’t want you to be there.

  84. says

    Trump’s tariffs and burgeoning trade war add to economic chaos

    “Six weeks into Trump’s second term, the president and his team appear at times to be going out of their way to deliver intensifying economic uncertainty.”

    As a rule, business leaders and investors appreciate as much stability and certainty in the economy as possible. Six weeks into Donald Trump’s second term, the president and his White House team appear at times to be going out of their way to deliver the opposite.

    There’s a looming government shutdown deadline. There are mass firings throughout the executive branch. Congressional Republicans are pushing a radical agenda, featuring massive domestic spending cuts and even larger tax breaks for those who don’t need them. There’s credible evidence that the national economy, which was the envy of the world in 2024, is starting to cool.

    It’s against this backdrop that Trump imposed sweeping new tariffs on the United States’ largest trading partners […]

    The president’s burgeoning trade war, predictably, has already sparked a backlash and generated a rather dramatic decline on Wall Street. But as the major indexes fell, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on Fox Business and said Trump will “probably” announce some kind of compromise-driven reversal. NBC News reported:

    The potential agreements would likely involve scaling back at least part of Trump’s brand new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, [Lutnick] added. … The compromise with Canada and Mexico will likely be revealed as soon as Wednesday.

    Can the public be confident that the White House will, in fact, back off? Lutnick didn’t say. How much of a scale back should people expect? Lutnick didn’t say. What will be the basis for the change? Lutnick didn’t say. When will the prospective shift be announced? Lutnick didn’t say.

    […] Imagine being an American executive at a company that relies on imports and exports. As part of your day-to-day responsibilities, you have to make decisions about product purchases, shipping, staffing and investments that will shape your business’ future.

    Then imagine you’re watching your own country’s White House erratically threaten costly trade tariffs, impose costly trade tariffs, and make veiled assurances about “probably” scaling back costly trade tariffs directly impacting your business.

    Could you do your job effectively? Could anyone in your industry do their jobs effectively?

    A striking number of American business leaders are making their displeasure with Trump known. It shouldn’t surprise anyone when their ranks continue to grow.

    As Semafor reported, the developments have not gone unnoticed among prominent private-sector executives.

    “A difficult time to invest.” “Everybody’s paralyzed.” “I’m sorry I can’t be particularly positive.” “The chaos that is reigning right now is causing everyone to sit on their hands.” That’s Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, ON Semiconductor CEO Hassane El-Khoury, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, and Nasdaq Private Market CEO Tom Callahan on the world of Donald Trump right now. Their comments over the past week capture a growing disquiet among business leaders, a month into a presidency that many of them had cheered.

    I will add a point that was made by a guest, Michele Norris, featured during Rachel Maddow’s coverage of Trump’s speech: farmers are businessmen too. Trump’s tariffs will not just hurt some farmers, it will put some commodity farmers out of business.

  85. Reginald Selkirk says

    Archivists preserve the pre-Trump CDC website

    RestoredCDC.org mirrors the Centers for Disease Control website as it was before the current administration removed critical information about HIV, reproductive, vaccine, and transgender-related healthcare. While some pages on the real CDC site have since been restored under court order, many now feature a yellow banner rejecting “gender ideology.”

    The team behind RestoredCDC says its goal is to provide critical information “from before the potential tampering occurred.”

  88. says

    Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * The latest national Reuters/Ipsos poll — the first conducted entirely after Friday’s Oval Office debacle — found Donad Trump’s approval rating dipping to 44%. The same survey found only 34% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction. [good news in that a measure of reality is reestablished]

    * Speaking of polling, the latest statewide survey in Ohio, conducted by the Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network and YouGov, found failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy leading the Republicans’ gubernatorial field with 61% support, well ahead of state Attorney General Dave Yost’s 24%. [bad news]

    * Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas died last night, just two months into his first term on Capitol Hill. A Texas Tribune report added, “Gov. Greg Abbott can call a special election to fill Turner’s congressional seat for the rest of his term. State law does not specify a deadline to call a special election, but if it is called the election is required to happen within two months of the announcement.”

    * In Michigan, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg hasn’t yet announced his electoral plans, but Politico reported that he met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last week about a possible Senate campaign next year.

    * Nicole Shanahan, who was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate in last year’s presidential election, has apparently found a new focus: The very wealthy lawyer is reportedly helping finance a recall campaign targeting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

    * Elon Musk amplified some dubious claims last week about Democratic voter registration data in Philadelphia. Local election officials soon after set the record straight.

    * And while Gov. Tim Walz has ruled out a U.S. Senate campaign in 2026, the Minnesota Democrat suggested to The New Yorker that he’s open to a 2028 presidential campaign. Walz, of course, was his party’s vice presidential nominee in the 2024 race.

    Link

  89. Reginald Selkirk says

    @69

    Gödel’s theorem debunks the most important AI myth. AI will not be conscious.
    Roger Penrose (Nobel laureate)

    Roger Penrose may have a Nobel in physics, but he is not a cognitive scientist nor a biologist, and I wouldn’t put any value in anything he had to say on the topic of consciousness. He took a long ride on the “microtubules = consciousness” train.

  90. says

    Trump’s address to Congress was built on a foundation of lies

    “The problem is not just that Trump lied throughout his national address. The problem is made worse by the apparent fact that he felt like he had to lie.”

    A few days after Donald Trump’s first term ended and he grudgingly left the White House, The Washington Post published a memorable report on the number of false or misleading claims he’d made during his first term. The total was incredible: “By the end of his term,” the report explained, “Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.”

    […] To know anything about Trump is to know that he effectively has an allergy to the truth. This was true during his 2016 candidacy; it was true throughout his first four years in the White House; it was true in the wake of his 2020 defeat; it was true during his 2024 candidacy.

    It was also true during his first national address of his second term. During his painfully long remarks before a joint session of Congress, Trump peddled so many brazen falsehoods that it was difficult to keep up with them all. The president and his speechwriters must’ve known that his lies would be fact-checked by independent news organizations, but by all appearances, they were comfortable throwing caution to the wind.

    Trump said, “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe.” This wasn’t true.

    Trump said, “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, were “destroyed” by immigrants. That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, in reference to Europe and aid to Ukraine, “[W]e’ve spent perhaps $350 billion, and they’ve spent $100 billion.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, “For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, in reference to Biden-era inflation, rates were the worst “perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.” They are sure and that wasn’t true.

    Trump said the Biden administration imposed an “electric vehicle mandate.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, “I’ve stopped all government censorship.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.” Don’t believe it, because that wasn’t true.

    Trump said the Biden administration “closed more than 100 power plants.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said, “The presidential election of Nov. 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades.” That wasn’t true.

    Trump said that his first term economic agenda produced “the most successful economy in the history of our country.” That wasn’t true.

    These dozen whoppers are, of course, just a sampling of the most outrageous and obvious deceptions.

    But stepping back, the problem is not just that Trump lied repeatedly throughout his remarks. The problem is made worse by the apparent fact that he felt like he had to lie — likely aware of the unavoidable fact that the truth about his record and his vision simply isn’t good enough to stand on its own.

    […] his avalanche of lies gave away the game: If he’d earned the right to boast about his accomplishments, he wouldn’t have had to lie quite so much.

    White House officials probably hope that the public won’t see the fact-check reports, and that many Americans will simply believe what they’re told to believe. […]

    But this doesn’t change the fact that a presidential vision built on a foundation of falsehoods will inevitably falter. It’s one of the reasons Trump’s first term was such a spectacular failure, and it’s one of the reasons his second term is on a similar trajectory.

    Embedded links to sources that debunk Trump’s lies are available at the main link.

  91. says

    DOGE D’oh: Nuclear Waste Facility Edition, by Josh Marshall

    As DOGE continues it’s federal government wilding spree, purportedly searching for examples of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, we seem to have had another case of keyword search gone awry. One of the leases DOGE decided to cancel is the lease for Skeen-Whitlock Building in Carlsbad, New Mexico, a 90,000 square foot facility which manages the nation’s only storage area for DOD-created nuclear waste and the only operating deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the world.

    I’m not the first one to report this. It’s been a big issue in New Mexico. The local congressman, Gabe Vasquez, has been all over it. But as far as I can tell NOTUS is the only national outlet to mention it so far. […] [The building is the facility where they process the nuclear waste before putting it in the super deep nuclear storage hole.

    […] A statement from Carlsbad Mayor Richard Lopez said that he “learned [Tuesday] that the miscommunication has been resolved, and the lease remains intact.” But maybe not? As of this morning DOGE still lists the lease as canceled.

    So who knows?

  92. says

    Donald Trump Personally Thanks John Roberts For Keeping Him Out Of Jail: ‘I Won’t Forget It’

    The Most Memorable Moment Of Trump’s Speech
    It wasn’t Rep. Al Green (D-TX) being escorted out of the House chamber after his disruptive protest, and it wasn’t the long list of Trump absurdities cobbled together into an endless speech. Nope, it was Trump rubbing Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ face in their mutual corruption: [video at the link: "“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” Trump says while shaking the hand of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts after his address to Congress."]

    Let’s stipulate that we’re reasonable people who can see this for what it is: a reference to the Supreme Court’s disastrous ahistoric discovery of vast presidential immunity from criminal prosecution that saved Trump from going to jail.

    Trump’s mob boss mentality has led to other moments like this, where he extravagantly highlights the moral and ethical compromises that a sycophant has made on his behalf as a way of demonstrating that they really are no better than he is and of lashing them even more firmly to his side. […]

    But this time Trump did it to the sitting Supreme Court chief justice in public on the floor of the House.[!] Whatever high regard John Roberts still held himself in has been directly challenged in the most excruciating and a dignity-robbing way. Trump has a way of doing that to everyone who comes in contact with him. Roberts had it coming. No pity for him.

    If you needed a moment that singularly captured the rot that has subsumed the Republican Party […]

  93. says

    The Purges

    IRS: The Trump administration is drafting plans to cut the 90,000-person IRS workforce by as much as half.

    OPM: Under court order, the Office of Personnel Management rescinded its previous guidance on terminating probationary federal workers and emphasized that agencies not OPM have ultimate authority in personnel matters.

    CDC: Dozens of purged CDC scientists were reinstated – at least for now.

    Fired government workers with top security clearances were not given the usual exit briefings after being terminated, Reuters reports.

    The Destruction

    Federal Buildings: The General Services Administration first posted online a list of federal buildings for sale, including DOJ, DOL, and Census Bureau headquarters before revising the list and then ultimately removing it from the GSA website. [That’s an update to information posted previously.]

    Universities: Trump threatened to withhold federal funding for universities over “illegal protests,” an apparent reference to pro-Palestinian campus protests. Columbia University is already in the crosshairs of a joint probe by HHS, DoE, and GSA.

    Clean Air: The Trump administration has effectively shut down a global air quality monitoring program.

    Vaccines: “As a measles outbreak expands in West Texas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, on Tuesday cheered several unconventional treatments, including cod liver oil, but again did not urge Americans to get vaccinated,” the NYT reported.

    NIH: NIH reels with fear and uncertainty about the future of scientific research

    Funny Math Is Going To Be A Trump II Theme

    The Trump administration has disbanded two expert committees that advised the Commerce Department on producing accurate economic statistics, the WSJ reports.

    Trump DOJ Will Abandon Idaho Abortion Case

    The Trump Justice Department is poised to drop the Biden-era challenge to Idaho’s abortion ban as a violation of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, meaning abortions in Idaho will become unavailable in nearly all circumstances.

    Black Lives No Longer Matter

    DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is poised to cave to a threat from Hill Republicans to deny the District of Columbia at least $185 million in transportation funding if it doesn’t paint over a Black Lives Matter mural and change the name of Black Lives Matter Plaza to Liberty Plaza.

    Trump’s Ukraine Travesty

    Trump’s repugnant withdrawal of American support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion continues apace, even if America can’t bring itself to believe that it’s cutting and running:
    – Trump has now cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, the Financial Times reports. [!]
    – Trump’s cessation of U.S. military aid leaves Ukraine vulnerable to Russian air attacks.
    […] For the second time in two weeks, Trump nominees to the Pentagon deflected when asking during their Senate confirmation hearings whether Russia had invaded Ukraine.

    Same link as in comment 92.

  94. says

    Trump’s terrible speech by the batsh-t crazy numbers

    he convicted felon who occupies the White House addressed Congress Tuesday night with a speech that was historically long and predictably terrible.

    There was plenty of bashing: of Democrats, of immigrants (though he never called them that; he only called them “illegal aliens”), of trans kids—and of course, of former President Joe Biden.

    In fact, he was rather obsessed with Biden throughout the speech and mentioned him 13 times. [Video at the link.]

    He had more to say about Biden, in fact, than about families (4), jobs (5), or health care (0)—though he did brag about pulling out of the World Health Organization and a new “Make America Healthy Again” commission led by anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that will, among other things, investigate the conspiracy theories about the cause of childhood autism.

    His only mention of eggs was to blame Biden for the soaring cost of them, even though he’s made it clear he doesn’t really care about the eggflation happening on his watch.

    He mentioned “workers” five times, though two of those mentions were to bash federal workers for working from home and bragging about forcing them back to the office to “reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy.”

    Trump went full steam ahead with his dystopian, nationalist fever dream. His only mention of “rights” in his big dumb speech was to tout that he withdrew from the “anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council” and to praise the “warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle and gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom.”

    He mentioned “education” only twice. First, he eviscerated the Department of Education for granting “DEI contracts,” then promptly patted co-President Elon Musk on the back for all of the “scams” and “billions of dollars of fraud” that he has supposedly found. Then he praised Melania Trump’s “Fostering the Future” initiative for helping a young woman in attendance complete her education.

    You can watch the lowlights of his dreadful speech, but here’s a breakdown by the numbers:

    Biden: 13
    Families: 4
    Constitutional: 1
    Civil rights: 0
    Freedom: 3
    Elon: 3
    Democrat(s): 5
    Republican(s): 2
    Health care: 0
    Education: 2
    Jobs: 5
    Workers: 5
    Tariff(s): 18
    China: 6
    Mexico: 5
    Russia/Russian(s): 7
    Ukraine/Ukrainian(s): 11
    Border/Border Patrol: 19
    Illegal aliens: 5
    Immigrants: 0
    Beautiful: 17
    Egg(s): 2
    Inflation: 7
    “I” statements: 116

    Trump’s speech really had it all, in the worst way: random right-wing influencers in attendance, desperate attempts at self-glorification, the ejection of a Democratic lawmaker for daring to dissent, and the world’s richest unelected bureaucrat trying to convince us he’s saving us money. All that was missing were the tears from an eagle.

    Trump demonstrated once again that his administration is batshit crazy. And we’re all paying the price.

    Embedded links are available at the main link.

  96. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what is being called a historic performance, on Tuesday night Donald J. Trump set a new world record for delivering the longest speech that did not include a single fact.

    Congressional Republicans were awestruck by their leader’s ability, at the age of 78, to give such a sustained fact-free oration.

    “To stand up there for 99 minutes and not accidentally slip up even once by saying something true?” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. “He’s still got it.”

    Republicans contrasted Trump’s address favorably with the Democratic response of Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who spoke only briefly but whose remarks were riddled with facts.

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-sets-record-for-longest-speech

  97. says

    The Supreme Court in a 5-4 emergency ruling Wednesday refused to halt a judge’s decision ordering the Trump administration to immediately release nearly $2 billion in foreign aid payments owed under existing contracts.

    It hands a loss to the administration in the first time that Trump’s efforts to drastically reshape federal spending, agency by agency, have reached the high court.

    Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court’s three liberals to side against the administration.

    Four of the court’s conservatives — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — dissented.

    “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned,” Alito wrote, joined by the three others.

    The Supreme Court’s emergency decision keeps in place a lower judge’s order enforcing his directive that the administration maintain foreign aid agreements that existed before Trump took office.

    U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, an appointee of former President Biden, had found the Trump administration wasn’t complying with his order to resume the unpaid USAID contracts and grants. Last week, Ali demanded the funds be released by the end of the following day.

    […] The Justice Department quickly went to the Supreme Court after Ali’s order, warning the administration couldn’t comply so rapidly and asking for an emergency intervention.

    “The Executive Branch takes seriously its constitutional duty to comply with the orders of Article III courts,” the Justice Department wrote in court filings. “The government is undertaking substantial efforts to review payment requests [Wait. Why do they think they have the right to “review” payment requests?] and release payments. Officials at the highest levels of government are engaged on this matter.”

    […] The group of USAID contractors suing warned they will soon shutter without access to the funds. They urged the justices to deny the government’s application, saying the judge acted within his “sound discretion.”

    “The government comes to this Court with an emergency of its own making,” their attorneys wrote.

    Link

  98. Reginald Selkirk says

    Elon Musk loses initial attempt to block OpenAI’s for-profit conversion

    A federal judge rejected Elon Musk’s request to block OpenAI’s planned conversion from a nonprofit to for-profit entity but expedited the case so that Musk’s core claims can be addressed in a trial before the end of this year.

    Musk had filed a motion for preliminary injunction in US District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming that OpenAI’s for-profit conversation “violates the terms of Musk’s donations” to the company. But Musk failed to meet the burden of proof needed for an injunction, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled yesterday.

    “Plaintiffs Elon Musk, [former OpenAI board member] Shivon Zilis, and X.AI Corp. (‘xAI’) collectively move for a preliminary injunction barring defendants from engaging in various business activities, which plaintiffs claim violate federal antitrust and state law,” Rogers wrote. “The relief requested is extraordinary and rarely granted as it seeks the ultimate relief of the case on an expedited basis, with a cursory record, and without the benefit of a trial.”

    Rogers said that “the Court is prepared to offer an expedited schedule on the core claims driving this litigation [to] address the issues which are allegedly more urgent in terms of public, not private, considerations.” There would be important public interest considerations if the for-profit shift is found to be illegal at a trial, she wrote…

  99. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/wait-what-was-trump-lie-babbling

    “Wait, What Was Trump Lie-Babbling About Stacey Abrams Last Night?”

    Photo of three doofuses tops the page: note how insufferably smug both Vance and Mike Johnson look.

    Let’s get this out of the way right up front: The really remarkable thing about this story is how very little Stacey Abrams actually has to do with it. There’s no scandal or corruption in it, either, but when has that ever stopped right-wing media from Benghazi-ing about a non-scandal for years and years?

    And since Donald Trump decided to include it in his not-the-state-of-the-union speech last night, it’ll probably be cemented as an eternal truth in the minds of wingnuts, too.

    What’s All This Then?

    First, as ever, let’s get a slice of Context Bread and some Fact Fillings so we can make a tasty Truth Sandwich before we get to all the lies, shall we? As you know, Trump and unelected copresident Elon Musk are trying to undo every last bit of Joe Biden’s climate policies, much of which they shouldn’t legally be able to do because so much of it was passed by Congress. That’s the case with $20 billion in grants approved by the EPA in April 2024 as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, one of the many initiatives in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

    Once the Trump people took over, they started looking for chances to claw back — again, illegally! — any Biden climate funds that had been awarded but not actually delivered to the businesses and nonprofit organizations that had gone through proper channels to apply for the grants. Yeah, you and I might call those contracts that had to be honored, but since climate change is now illegal, the grants are fraudulent too, don’t you see?

    One of the grants in that $20 billion package was the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, which distributed IRA funds to nonprofits that then financed clean technology and other climate-helping programs. The smallest of three grants in that fund was for $2 billion, to a project called Power Forward Communities (PFC), which would use the money to offer loans to businesses, homeowners, and community groups to do clean energy projects, especially in low-income communities. For shorthand purposes, it was a kind of “green bank” that would loan money and then use the payback on those loans to loan more money.

    Here’s The Really Stupid Shit

    When Trump was inaugurated, the $20 billion in EPA funds were still parked at Citibank before being disbursed to grantees, in a completely normal funding arrangement for such “public-private partnerships.” That’s where the truly batshit part of the story comes in […] Acting US attorney Ed Martin, arguably the dumbest (acting) US attorney ever, ordered an investigation into the grants because Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin saw a video made by Project Veritas. Yes, those guys.

    In the “undercover” video, an EPA guy told a fake reporter about the Biden administration’s efforts to get as much legally-awarded IRA money out the door as possible before Trump took office — a pretty common thing when there’s a change of administration. But the EPA guy used a metaphor that sounded very suspicious, likening the effort to throwing “gold bars off the Titanic.” Zeldin excitedly announced that the Power Forward Communities grant was one of those “GOLD BARS,” and he vowed to claw back the funds without any evidence that they were granted improperly. Hey, it was Biden, and maybe the money could still be grabbed from the bank, so he called it fraud and forwarded his accusations to Martin, the (acting) US attorney.

    When Martin ordered Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the DC US Attorney’s office, to freeze the funds and open a criminal investigation, she resigned instead of doing it, telling Martin that a video from Project Veritas is not enough evidence to convene a grand jury. [LOL]

    Martin — whose only qualification for his job is that he represented a bunch of January 6 felons pardoned by Trump — then pursued the investigation all on his lonesome, insisting that in all that bullshit, there surely had to be a fraudulent pony, because he can’t tell one metaphorical quadruped from the metaphorical scat of another.

    Umm, Wait, Where’s The Stacey Abrams Part? Haha, There IS NO STACEY ABRAMS PART

    By now you may be asking yourself, what about Stacey Abrams? What is that large automobile? How do I work this? You are right to ask, because there is no water at the bottom of this ocean.

    Stacey Abrams literally had nothing, zero, naught, nada, bugger-all, not a whit, nuffin guvna to do with Power Forward Communities. She never worked for the PFC project, didn’t get paid by PFC, and obviously never saw a cent of the grant, because did we mention she isn’t part of Power Forward Communities and never was?

    But if you don’t know how logic or linear time work, this is as close as there is to a “connection”: Abrams did work from 2023 to 2024 as an attorney and consultant for the big national energy transition nonprofit Rewiring America. And Rewiring America is one of five housing and clean energy nonprofits that set up Power Forward Communities. That’s it, that’s the “connection.” And remember, there’s absolutely no indication the grant was improper in the first place.

    The other four groups in PFC included the United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and a couple of community development nonprofits you’ve never heard of. So far, no wingnuts have claimed that Jimmy Carter, the notorious hammer-wielding do-gooder who also loved solar energy was in on the scam of applying for a clean energy financing grant through proper channels.

    On the other hand, by attaching the name of a Black woman who lots of right-wingers hate, hate, hate because she was guilty of Running for Georgia Governor While Black, the story gets a lot more of what passes for credibility in right-wing media.

    […] the original bullshit “connection” seems to have been made way back in January 2024 by some cleverly lying staffer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, before the grants had been formalized, although at that time, the committee at least noted that Rewiring America was one of five groups that created PFC. The story spread quickly through the right-wing disinformation-sphere, from Old School Wingnut Queen Pam Geller to Crazy Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok, even to lying old grifter Dinesh D’Souza, who tried to suggest that the grant to an organization not connected to Abrams at all was part of an even more scandalous scandal! The poor grifty asshole is still pimping his 2000 Mules conspiracy even though the book and movie were pulled from distribution for being full of lies. [D’Souza social media post is available at the link.]

    And that, Charlie Brown, is how we got to Donald Trump lying like a lying liar last night, during his fake speech, in which he promoted a whole list of scandals that never actually happened. [video at the link]

    Lied Trump, lyingly,

    “$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee, headed up — and we know she’s involved — just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?”

    […] Power Forward Communities was indeed formed for the purpose of seeking the IRA grant, but that was perfectly legal, and it was the work of five well-established nonprofits, including Rewiring America, which Abrams was not the head of. And of course, there’s no evidence at all that the grant was improper.

    Oh, and in case you were wondering, there also wasn’t any $8 million grant to the NIH to create transgender mice, either.

    Update: Article updated after I realized that I dopily misnamed Rewiring America as “Rewire America” which was wrong, and also replaced CNN link on mice with a more complete “everybody got it wrong” explanation of Trump’s transgender mice lie.

  100. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @88:

    Speaking of polling, the latest statewide survey in Ohio, conducted by the Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network and YouGov, found failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy leading

    YouGov has put out some counterintuitive results lately (CBS/YouGov: Trump’s return greeted with optimism), so I looked a little into them.

    Wikipedia says they use: “an invited group of Internet users […] relying on nonprobability sampling instead of random sampling.”

    Random sampling aspires to be like tasting a spoon of stirred soup. YouGov isn’t that.

    YouGov – Panel Methodology

    Qualtrics – What is non-probability sampling?

    non-probability sampling doesn’t focus on accurately representing all members of a large population within a smaller sample group of participants. As a result, not all members of the population have an equal chance of participating […] Instead, you may opt to select a sample based on […] subjective judgment, sheer convenience, volunteers, or […] referrals from hidden members of society willing to speak out.
    […]
    The largest disadvantage would be the presence of sampling bias […] The results from non-probability sampling are not easily scaled up and used to make generalizations about the wider population.

    YouGov seems to farm out pools of respondants for partner news outlets to ask questions. They weight their arbitrary respondents to resemble proportions of overall demographics.

    HuffPo – HuffPo/YouGov Methodology

    HuffPost/YouGov […] share responsibility for survey content and the costs of data collection. […] using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia to match the demographics
    […]
    Typically, telephone polls work by randomly sampling working numbers (or numbers sampled from an official list of registered voters). For polls conducted on the internet, there is no comparable mechanism for drawing a random sample of all email addresses or other online accounts. YouGov approaches this problem by recruiting a large panel of internet users who have agreed to participate in online surveys. This panel is itself not representative of the U.S. population, but samples are drawn from that panel to match a random sample of respondents drawn from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey

  101. says

    Is This What They Held Over Joni Ernst’s Head To Make Her Confirm Pete Hegseth?

    There is no honest person or American patriot who believes Pete Hegseth AKA Secretary Shitfaced is qualified or fit to run the Pentagon. He’s an absolute joke, a radicalized religious extremist covered with white supremacist tattoos, a reputed drunk and abuser of women, and an offense to God, the founding fathers, and at one point literally his mommy.

    And yet he was confirmed, including by two Republican senators who were at one point rumored to be major holdouts who could tank the whole thing.

    Donald Trump reportedly bullied Thom Tillis into flipping with primary challenge threats, even after Tillis assured Hegseth’s former sister-in-law that if she came forward with what she knew about Hegseth’s alcohol abuse and general monster behavior toward Hegseth’s ex-wife, that it would matter, that his nomination would fail. Also there were credible death threats against Tillis, reportedly. He was the deciding vote on the nomination.

    And then there was Joni Ernst, a powerful woman on the Senate Armed Services Committee, a military veteran who back in a previous life allegedly cared about fighting against sexual assault in the military. She caved early under severe MAGA threats.

    But was there something else she was threatened with? Maybe something somebody threatened to reveal if she didn’t fall in line? Now that Donald Trump has turned this country into Putin’s America, we are curious, because you know how the Russian authoritarians love their kompromat.

    A story just broke about Joni Ernst that sure does make us wonder.

    ProPublica reports that Ernst — again, one of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate when it comes to military stuff — has had some, shall we say, highly questionable relationships with some very influential Pentagon brass, the types of relationships that could suggest serious conflicts of interest and ethical concerns.

    (So no, this isn’t just a story about whether Ernst, who is divorced, has been having big old sex with some hot military guys. That would be fine and Wonkette would be Team GO JONI.)

    ProPublica:

    Earlier this year, the Air Force revealed that the general who oversaw its lobbying before Congress had inappropriate romantic relationships with five women, including three who worked on Capitol Hill.

    Maj. Gen. Christopher Finerty’s colleagues told investigators the relationships were “highly inappropriate” as they could give the Air Force undue influence in Congress. “I honestly felt sick to my stomach,” one said, according to a report about the investigation, “because it just felt so sleazy.”

    The Air Force inspector general’s report redacted the names of the women who worked on the Hill.

    But one of the women whose relationship with Finerty was scrutinized by the inspector general was Sen. Joni Ernst, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation.

    It ain’t just that. ProPublica has three other sources who say Ernst had an affair in 2019 “with a legislative affairs official” for the Navy. ProPublica has lots of sources for this whole article, sounds like.

    Could this be bad? Oh yeah, it sure could:

    A former legislative affairs official for the military told ProPublica that people in that role aren’t officially “lobbyists but for all intent and purposes that’s their job. … From an ethics standpoint, it’s severely problematic.” A former Air Force officer who worked for Finerty said the perception in the office was that his relationship with Ernst “absolutely gave the Air Force undue influence.”

    Dang.

    She ain’t deny it either, at least not the relationships. From her spox:

    “The fake news media is clearly too busy gossiping to report the real news that Senator Ernst is focused on cutting waste at the Pentagon. Her votes and work in the Senate are guided by the voices of Iowans who elected her and her constitutional duty alone. Any insinuation otherwise by tabloid ‘journalism’ is a slanderous lie — full stop.”

    LOLOLOLOLOLOL OK. Pardon us, we are laughing so hard because Senator Ernst is on the DOGE committee. You know, where they’re cutting the waste! Joni Ernst can’t talk right now, because she’s cutting waste!

    It is funny because fuck off.

    Anyway, you can read all the details if you want, but our question is just the one we asked above. It sounds like in certain military circles, this was an open secret. Were there threats that if Ernst didn’t come to MAGA Jesus and vote for Secretary Shitfaced — and in so doing abandon all claim to ever caring about eliminating sexual assault in the military — then maybe some of these secrets might spill out, and not in the pages of ProPublica?

    We are just asking.

    Did we mention that the IG report with these [redacted] allegations about Finerty arrived in Congress in January, right in the middle of the Hegseth confirmation fight? And that Ernst caved on Hegseth in mid-January?

    Because ProPublica happened to mention that.

    They also mentioned this:

    Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who served in administrations of both parties, said of the relationships with officials advocating before Ernst’s committee: “It kind of takes your breath away.”

    The relationships, Canter said, make Ernst vulnerable to being extorted if people learned of them and could give someone undue influence over her.

    Compromising information does tend to compromise people.

    We could be wrong. This thing could have absolutely nothing to do with that thing. Joni Ernst might just be a craven shitbag who doesn’t love America or the military, therefore Hegseth.

    But in Trump’s Russian satellite state of MAGAstan, one must ask.

  102. says

    Sky Captain @100, thanks for that additional information.

    Text quoted by Sky Captain:

    […] What is non-probability sampling?

    non-probability sampling doesn’t focus on accurately representing all members of a large population within a smaller sample group of participants. As a result, not all members of the population have an equal chance of participating […] Instead, you may opt to select a sample based on […] subjective judgment, sheer convenience, volunteers, or […] referrals from hidden members of society willing to speak out.
    […]
    The largest disadvantage would be the presence of sampling bias […] The results from non-probability sampling are not easily scaled up and used to make generalizations about the wider population.

    YouGov seems to farm out pools of respondants for partner news outlets to ask questions. They weight their arbitrary respondents to resemble proportions of overall demographics. […]

    I had no idea.

    “[The] largest disadvantage would be the presence of sampling bias […]” Yeah, I would think so.

    “YouGov seems to farm out pools of respondants for partner news outlets to ask questions.” Uh, that sounds fishy. I understand the problem that, as HuffPost points out, YouGov its trying to solve when it samples internet respondents, but it still sounds like a methodology ripe for error.

    Relying on polling to predict any outcome is becoming more problematic. I should be more careful about polling results that I post here.

  104. says

    And so it begins. Trump is already modifying his tariff threats.

    Trump grants one-month tariff delay for U.S. automakers

    “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had spoken Wednesday with the ‘Big 3’ American automakers, Ford, GM and Stellantis.”

    […] Trump continued to send mixed signals about his tariffs plan Wednesday, granting U.S. automakers a one-month reprieve on new 25% duties imposed on Canada and Mexico, while continuing to deem Canada’s efforts to tackle drug and migrant flows insufficient.

    [Trump] said that after speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he had decided that the improvements Trudeau mentioned toward halting fentanyl and undocumented persons from entering the U.S. were “not good enough” to lift the duties. [FFS]

    […] Trump had spoken with the “Big 3” American automakers — Ford, GM and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) — and granted them a one-month exemption on paying the 25% duties on autos produced in their Canadian or Mexican facilities.

    […] In his address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump indicated he would not relent on his tariffs scheme.

    “We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before,” the president told Congress in the first State of the Union speech of his second term. [Gaslighting the public.]

    […] “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” he said. “There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”

    Shortly before markets opened, ADP reported that private sector job creation slowed in February, with companies adding just 77,000 workers, far below the 186,000 jobs added in January and below the 148,000 Dow Jones consensus estimate. Education and health services had some of the weakest job growth last month, while manufacturing, construction and leisure and hospitality showed strength, the data showed. [What did they expect, considering what Trump is doing and saying?]

    Businesses including automakers, alcohol producers and major retailers, like Target, have warned that the added costs for companies to import goods from Canada and Mexico will have wide-ranging implications across the American economy and lead to higher prices for consumers.

    Tariffs are paid by the U.S.-based company importing the goods into the country. Those companies can either pass the added costs on to their customers in the form of higher prices, absorb the tariffs by cutting costs elsewhere or take a hit on profits.

    […] Last month, Trump said he would be enacting tariffs on the two countries on Feb. 4, only to announce he was delaying the move by a month the day before the tariffs were set to be collected. […]

    One month is not much time. Trump is still repeating his bullying threats.

    Nobody really knows what the fuck will happen next when it comes to tariffs.

  105. JM says

    @96 Lynna, OM: One true bit did slip in. Trump stated that Elon Musk is the head of DOGE. This directly contradicts the position the government is taking in court but it is clearly the case that Musk is running DOGE.
    I fully expected either Trump or Musk would do this after somebody else was stated as administrator of DOGE but I had thought they would at least try to maintain the fiction for a while.

  106. says

    Trump has offended his rightwing friends in Europe.

    ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong’: Trump’s far-right allies in Europe fault his Ukraine stance

    “The president often alarms Europe’s political establishment. Now, his tactics over the war are also unnerving the populist upstarts who tend to support him.” Related video at the link.

    […] Trump’s […] hard-line Ukraine tactics have this week unnerved some of his political allies on the far right, too.

    The White House this week paused aid to Ukraine, which is fighting off Russia’s invasion, after Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

    Dutch anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders — often referred to as the “Dutch Trump” because of his flamboyant blond hair and anti-immigration politics — said Saturday that he stood by Ukraine “with conviction.” He reacted to Trump’s Oval Office clash with Zelenskyy by posting on X that it was “fascinating TV, but not necessarily the best way to end the war, gentlemen.”

    Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, called the decision to halt aid “brutal,” “cruel” and reprehensible,” speaking to the Le Figaro newspaper Tuesday.

    And Britain’s Nigel Farage, a longtime friend and ally of Trump’s, said Tuesday that Vance was “wrong, wrong, wrong” after the vice president appeared to ridicule the idea of Britain sending peacekeepers to Ukraine.

    Only Britain and France have offered to send such a force, but Vance denied he was referring to those countries when he derided he idea of “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”

    Cue uproar in Britain, which lost 457 and 179 troops fighting U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively.

    The comments are notable because these are Trump’s natural allies in geopolitics: insurgents attacking the political establishment from the right with a mix of populism, extreme opposition to immigration and, critics say, authoritarianism.

    […] Like many far-right figures in Europe, Le Pen, Farage and Wilders have all faced past accusations of being too close to the Kremlin — which they have all denied.

    […] Le Pen is trying to distance herself from her party’s far-right roots, presenting a more mainstream image ahead of a 2027 presidential election […]. In a speech Saturday, she paid tribute to the “Ukrainian people” who “heroically resist the indefensible Russian aggression,” Le Figaro reported. S[…]

    Meanwhile, Wilders’ People’s Party has pivoted not only to supporting Ukraine aid — but also to the idea that Europe needs to gain military independence from the U.S.

    […] Farage, meanwhile, despite his friendship with Trump, has found a political foe in his adviser Elon Musk, who said Farage “did not have what it takes” to lead Britain’s Reform UK party. […]

  107. says

    JM @105, true.

    I expect that courts (and judges) with cases involving DOGE will remember that Trump said in his speech that Musk is in charge.

  109. says

    Federal Judge Poised To Block NLRB Firing Bristles At ‘Extreme’ Attempt To Expand Trump’s Power</>

    A federal judge instructed the lawyers before her to walk through the history of the National Labor Relations Board and the long effort to degrade agency independence, providing a bird’s-eye primer for the public on President Donald Trump’s attempt to put the entire executive branch under his direct control.

    “I recognize that for both sides, this court is merely a speed bump for you all to get to the Supreme Court,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee in Washington D.C., said Wednesday, adding: “The issue at stake is of extreme importance, given that the NLRB is far from the only multi-member, independent, executive branch agency with statutory removal protections. That’s why I’ve chosen to have this public hearing.”

    The case stems from the unlawful firing without cause of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, who quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court. Her case, running parallel to other challenges of plainly illegal firings of members of independent agencies, is ultimately bound for the Supreme Court, as the Trump administration aims to get the justices to overturn current precedent that protects her from at-will firing.

    The Trump DOJ is candid about that posture.

    Judge Howell ticked through fundamental facts of the case:

    -Both parties agree that Wilcox was not removed for malfeasance or neglect, the causes Congress permits her to be fired for (“correct,” said DOJ attorney Harry Graver);

    – Wilcox was not given the notice or hearing the law demands (“correct”);

    – The Justice Department does not argue that her removal was inconsistent with existing law (“we’re not relying on the statutory standard,” Graver agreed);

    – Humphrey’s Executor, the Supreme Court precedent establishing that Congress can put limits on presidential removal powers for agencies like the NLRB, is still good law that binds the court (“100 percent”).

    While Howell concluded the hearing without issuing her ruling, the Justice Department expects her to conclude that Wilcox’s firing is unlawful, as another federal judge did Tuesday in a similar case. […]

    To underscore how radical this conception of presidential power is, Howell highlighted an amicus brief filed in support of Trump by the state of Tennessee, which pointed out that the English king could fire executive officers at will.

    “Is the tradition of the British king with unfettered removal power — not only to remove somebody working in the government but probably to slice off his head — is that the model?” Howell asked incredulously. “Maybe Tennessee is recommending it for us Americans, but is that model that we should be turning to?” [Good point!]

    […] “That means the Federal Reserve Board,” Howell said after asking which agencies Graver considers vulnerable to at-will firings. “That is the purest, most extreme form of the unitary theory of the presidency I’ve ever heard: Anybody in the executive branch is subject to removal by the President.”

    She pondered what Congress could do under a maximal expression of the unitary executive theory, if it wanted to establish an agency protected from political whims. Would it have to stash it in the judicial or legislative branches, where it’d be free from the president’s reach?

    She walked through the history of the theory, observing that even pro-presidential-power figures like William Howard Taft, himself a president-turned-Supreme Court chief justice, allowed for limits on the removal power.

    “It’s no longer theoretical for the academy,” she said of the maximal vision of presidential power, “it’s here for us on how we’re gonna be governed.”

  110. Rob Grigjanis says

    Guardian cryptic crossword clue of the day:

    Trumped-up ideas he fed to right-wingers behind the very same crime (10,8)

    Answer: Conspiracy theories

  111. says

    Media normalizes Trump speech and downplays GOP suppression of dissent

    Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was filled with falsehoods and bigotry and featured Republicans working to suppress dissenting voices—but in the mainstream media, these issues were largely glossed over, and the spectacle was presented as mostly normal, despite the decidedly abnormal state of the union.

    The Republican roster of guests at the address included hateful right-wing influencers and bigots, there to amplify key Trump themes, like transphobia and opposition to immigration. They stood in stark contrast to the Democratic guests, which included federal workers purged at the command of Trump’s billionaire benefactor Elon Musk, who loomed over Trump from the balcony.

    Republican Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas set the tone early when he ripped a sign reading “This is not normal” out of the hands of Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico as Trump walked by. The hostility to dissent skyrocketed as House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the removal of Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, who protested during Trump’s speech, noting that the president does not have a mandate for his extremism. House Republican leaders are now pushing to unjustly censure Green over his protest.

    But in the headlines of the mainstream media, everything was more or less normal, and Trump was the belle of the ball.

    The New York Times: “A Combative Trump Says ‘America Is Back’ and Taunts His Political Rivals” [JFC]

    The Washington Post: “Defiant Trump signals full speed ahead on divisive policies” [JFC]

    Politico: “Trump celebrates disruption and defies backlash” [JFC]

    […] The tone of the coverage is even more remarkable when compared with the right-wing New York Post (owned by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch): “Trump hails his whirlwind, six-week ‘common sense revolution’—as downbeat Dems protest address to Congress.”

    The so-called “liberal media” is essentially in lockstep with the most pro-Trump media conglomerate around. [Yep]

    The tone of the coverage does not reflect the reality of the moment. Trump is engaged in an unprecedented right-wing attack on core American institutions, including the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs, the FBI, and even the U.S. Postal Service.

    The mainstream press has clearly decided to bend their collective knees to Trump. […]

    The minimal coverage of Trump’s absurdities and of Republican attempts to squash opposition voices is turning “sanewashing” from an election sideshow to the main event—and freedom suffers because of it.

  112. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @107:

    I expect that courts (and judges) with cases involving DOGE will remember that Trump said in his speech that Musk is in charge.

    And he said it right to SCOTUS’ faces. =)

    (Roberts, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett attended.)

  113. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    It’s been evident that Musk/Trump/DOGE are trying to make federal workers as miserable as possible as they’re forced to return to working in person.

    Someone in a fed agency shared these bullet points they received about upcoming changes to the office setup. “Chairs are limited.”

    -Some cubicles will be modified to be 2-person workstations.
    -Standing desks will be removed from some cubicles and some seating in common areas will be moved to create workspaces.
    -Chairs are limited. Some staff may temporarily have to use side chairs as their main seating.
    -Some conference space will be converted to workstations and will not be available for reservations.

    Rando 1: “I’ve heard from some people I know that some agencies are making people come back but have thousands fewer parking spots than they need for everyone because they explicitly never planned to have this many people all in office.”

    Rando 2: “Wait, while ‘chairs are limited’ they’re also removing some standing desks? So… two people shoved into a work station meant for one will have to work standing up but hunched over to reach their desk? They’re going to see a flood of workers’ comp claims, I bet.”

  114. says

    Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk, by Susan Glasser, writing for The New Yorker

    “In a Castro-length speech to Congress, the President claimed victory, while proving that even the most unhinged address can be boring if it goes on long enough.”

    Six weeks and two days after returning to the Oval Office, Donald Trump headed back to the Capitol, the site of his very recent swearing-in ceremony, to declare victory—again and again and again. Over Joe Biden. Evil foreign gangs. Canada. In his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, Trump claimed that he had done more in his first wild weeks back in power, with his “swift and unrelenting action,” than any President ever, including George Washington.

    A flood of words followed, so many that Trump, channelling his inner Fidel Castro, easily broke the modern record for a Presidential address to Congress: Bill Clinton’s one-hour-and-twenty-eight-minute stem-winder in 2000. And yet there was little news in it, beyond the frisson of excitement at the beginning when Al Green, a Texas Democrat, was thrown out of the chamber for protesting.

    Trump made little effort to explain his disruptive moves to jettison America’s traditional alliances and assault the federal government at home, preferring instead to string together greatest hits from his campaign rallies and brickbats aimed at his predecessor, “the worst President in American history.” Much of what Trump said was inflammatory, radical, and dangerous. But it was also familiar, his by-now-standard mix of braggadocio and self-pity, partisan bile and patently absurd lies. It turns out that even the most unhinged of Presidential speeches can seem kind of boring if it goes on long enough. [LOL, and true.]

    There’s no doubt that Trump, in just six weeks, has compiled a most unusual list of accomplishments to boast about—much of it a result of allowing the world’s richest man to take a chainsaw to the federal government, cutting hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and unilaterally shutting down federal programs and contracts worth billions of dollars in defiance of Congress. The lawless rampage of the second Trump Administration has already touched everything from rangers at America’s treasured national parks to the very pillars of the decades-old transatlantic alliance.

    But you wouldn’t have known it from hearing Trump wind his way through nearly a hundred minutes of mostly standard-issue Fox News culture-war talking points and alpha-male American exceptionalism. (Sample: “Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone. It’s gone,” he said. “Don’t we feel better?”) […] Theatrical displays arranged for the night included Trump signing an executive order mid-speech to rename a national wildlife refuge after a twelve-year-old murder victim, a thirteen-year-old cancer survivor being inducted as an honorary Secret Service agent, and a young man in the House gallery learning of his acceptance to West Point from Trump.

    No amount of performative distraction, though, could erase the sense of the world in a state of Trump-induced chaos, […] The day of the speech, after all, had begun with a Trump-prompted market plunge as his long-threatened twenty-five-per-cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico took effect. […]

    how is it that one man acting alone could upend so much in the world? And just why, exactly, has Trump decided to turn Canada from America’s best friend to its enemy? “The United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend,” Trudeau—who is routinely insulted by Trump as the would-be “governor” of America’s “fifty-first state”—said. “At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”

    Trump can’t and he won’t. The remarkable thing, as Tuesday’s speech showed, is that he doesn’t even seem to think he needs to.

    Before the speech, there were indications from Trump’s team that just maybe he was playing a familiar Trump game with the tariffs, a sort of scare-the-shit-out-of-everyone-and-then-quickly-climb-down approach that appears nowhere in any statecraft manual of which I’m aware but is no doubt painfully familiar to many of Trump’s former business associates. […]

    In the speech itself, however, Trump waxed almost poetic about the beauties of the tariff as a tool of national power. “Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs,” Trump said. […]

    As for the geopolitical consequences of alienating America’s allies, abandoning Ukraine, and pivoting U.S. foreign policy to a decidedly Putin-esque view of the world, Trump hardly mentioned it. On the eve of the speech, the Trump Administration announced that it was immediately suspending all remaining aid to Ukraine […] But in the speech Trump skipped over this move entirely, choosing instead to mention a conciliatory new letter Zelensky had sent him and portraying himself as a would-be peacemaker. It was one of those tree-falls-in-a-forest moments with Trump; if he blows up the liberal international order but doesn’t explain why America is now on Russia’s side, how do you know if it happened at all?

    […] half the House chamber applauded rapturously at Trump’s words and half sat stone-faced, looking as if the world had ended.

    Which is why, for me, the scene of the night came even before Trump started talking, as he walked down the aisle and was, briefly, confronted by a Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico, Melanie Stansbury, wielding a small, hand-lettered sign. “This is Not Normal,” it said. Almost as soon as she flashed it, a Republican congressman from Texas, Lance Gooden, ripped the sign out of her hands and threw it in the air. Call it the Trump era’s new normal, where members of Congress fight like toddlers on the House floor while Putin gloats over the greatest self-own in modern history. It’s a golden age, of bunk. ♦

    More at the link.

  115. says

    The Supreme Court just handed a victory to … raw sewage?

    Most people, it is safe to say, prefer that America’s lakes, rivers, and oceans are not chock full of raw sewage. Indeed, that’s why, when it passed the Clean Water Act, Congress required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate pollutants like raw sewage and ensure water quality standards are met.

    Most people, however, are not on the Supreme Court of the United States, where five conservative appointees just made it easier to dump overflow poop into the water.

    […] The Clean Water Act makes it presumptively illegal to discharge pollutants into the waters of the United States. However, entities can obtain permits that allow for some level of discharge. For San Francisco, when the city gets heavy rain, its wastewater treatment facilities, which also process stormwater, can overflow. That discharges untreated water, including raw sewage, into the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay.

    San Francisco had two duties, broadly speaking, to receive a permit from the EPA for these discharges. First, there were technological requirements for how it treats and cleans wastewater. Second, any discharge must not violate any water quality standard for the body of water it flows into.

    Now, there’s no dispute that the EPA has the authority to set limitations, “including those necessary to meet water quality standards.” It would be hard to dispute that, because it’s literally the text of the law about this sort of pollutant discharge. But, according to San Francisco, that requirement is too vague and too hard to meet, and the EPA should only be allowed to regulate the amount and type of harmful material that might be released.

    In order to agree with San Francisco and take another opportunity to kneecap the Clean Water Act, Justice Samuel Alito had to tie himself in knots and essentially say that while the law allows the EPA to set limitations, it can’t set a general limitation about how polluters must meet water quality standards.

    We get to take a trip through multiple dictionaries so that Alito can torture the definitions of common words like “implement” and “meet” and “limitations” to get his preferred result: The EPA cannot require polluters to comply with the water quality standards of the body of water they’re sloshing poopwater into despite the EPA’s authority to regulate water quality standards.

    […] Ever eager to solidify his reputation as a troll in a robe, Alito also threw in this cute little bit about how the EPA needs to just buckle down and get to work: “The EPA may itself determine what a facility should do to protect water quality, and the Agency has ample tools to obtain whatever information it needs to make that determination. If the EPA does its work, our holding should have no adverse effect on water quality.”

    Last week, in his first Cabinet meeting, Trump declared that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator and foe of the environment Lee Zeldin “thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental.” The administration later clarified that Trump only meant he’d cut the agency’s budget by 65% and fire some large-ish, but unspecified, amount of personnel, as if that sounds any better.

    To be fair, this stance is slightly better than what Trump promised in his first term, which was to eliminate the agency almost entirely, leaving “only tidbits” intact. The notion that an eviscerated agency run by Zeldin and the crew of pollution enthusiasts Trump appointed to top positions will somehow vigorously pursue water quality efforts is comical, and Alito knows it.

    Alito also reminded everyone that the sole power to determine what the law means and how to implement that law lies with the Court now. Last year’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo eliminated the Chevron doctrine, a 40-year precedent that had required courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of an unclear statute.

    People who actually want things like clean water understand that career scientists and policy experts would be in the best position to implement environmental laws. People who don’t want things like clean water, though, won this battle, so now randos like Alito get to decide instead.

    […] The whole “dumping raw sewage straight into the water supply” thing at issue here isn’t theoretical or just something San Francisco was worried would be a future problem. As Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained in her dissent—yes, Barrett sided with the liberals on the court and wrote the opinion?!—discharge from San Francisco’s sewer system has already led to “discoloration, scum, and floating material, including toilet paper, in Mission Creek.” Yum.

    The Supreme Court’s conservatives had already significantly weakened another part of the Clean Water Act two years ago in a ruling that limited the EPA’s ability to protect wetlands—118 million acres of wetlands, to be exact. With this, the Court also drastically limited the EPA’s ability to protect our lakes, rivers, and oceans.

    This is a hands-down victory for polluters—and for raw sewage, apparently. But it’s also a hands-down victory for the Trump administration, which made a commitment to allowing more raw sewage in your drinking water back in his first term.

    More broadly, the majority’s smug willingness to ignore science and substitute their own judgment in a fashion that somehow always ends up on the side of the polluters is exactly what Trump needs going forward as he takes a hatchet to all the environmental protections the nation has.

  117. says

    Followup to comment 99.

    Stacey Abrams invokes Musk in rebuking Trump allegations

    Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams defended herself after President Trump invoked her name in his address Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress.

    When speaking about wasteful spending, Trump said his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) found $1.9 billion was used to form a committee focused on the decarbonization of homes. That committee, he claimed, was headed up by Abrams.

    “We know she’s involved — just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams,” he told the crowd. “Have you ever heard of her?”

    The prominent Democrat shot back in a post on social platform X late Tuesday, suggesting the president was too focused on cutting taxes for billionaires such as his senior adviser Elon Musk, rather than on delivering for the American people.

    “I’m proud of my work protecting civil rights & lowering energy costs for Georgians,” Abrams wrote on X.

    “Someone has to deliver — because Trump is taking our hard-earned money to cut Elon Musk’s taxes,” she added.

    The president’s claim has been labeled as “exaggerated” by a New York Times fact-checker. PolitiFact also deemed a version of the claim — that Abrams “stole $2 billion from taxpayers” — as “false.”

    The claim stems from a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that directed Congress to give grants to organizations across the country to make energy-efficient home improvements.

    Power Forward Communities, a coalition of five organizations focused on decarbonizing housing, received one of those grants for $2 billion. Abrams served for one year as a senior adviser to one of the five organizations that make up the coalition but did not lead the group.

    In an interview on CNN on Wednesday morning, Abrams gave a wider response when asked to respond to Trump’s mention of her name.

    “He is trying to distract Americans from his failure to deliver on any of his promises, and instead of doing his work, he’s going after those of us who are actually doing the work of the American people,” Abrams told host John Berman.

    […] “I did not work for the entity that received the grant,” she continued later. […]

    “What is not there,” Abrams added, “is Donald Trump and his lackeys’ willingness to actually let American people get the benefit of these services.”

  118. says

    Reuters:

    The United Nations has launched an emergency appeal to raise $11.2 million to help fund Uganda’s response to an Ebola outbreak that has killed two people, after the country’s health budget was strained by U.S. cuts to foreign aid.

  119. says

    New York Times:

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is moving to terminate Pentagon offices and positions that focus on preventing and responding to civilian harm during U.S. combat operations, according to three defense officials.

  120. says

    Washington Post:

    The State Department on Tuesday halted efforts to monitor air quality levels around the world, ending a program that had provided data about a major global health risk.

  121. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AP – Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from Veterans Affairs, according to internal memo

    The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top-level officials at the agency Tuesday that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. […] an agency-wide reorganization in August […] It also calls for agency officials to work with [DOGE]

    Marisa Kabas: “I do not understand how a single member of the military supports this administration.”

  122. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Brett Murphy (ProPublica):

    One of the smallest federal agencies in government, the African Development Foundation (budget ~$40 million) is putting up a fight and denying DOGE + Pete Marocco—the State Dept official dismantling USAID—access to their building.

    [From USADF Prez/CEO to DOGE, Cc:USADF Board]:
    about your plan to visit […] Unfortunately, I am out of the office today. In my absence, I have specifically instructed staff of USADF to adhere to our rules and procedure of not allowing any meetings of this type without my presence.
    […]
    USADF is an independent agency […] and report directly to Congress […] That said, we have fully cooperated to date with the President’s request that we temporarily cease disbursing funds
    […]
    I will look forward to working with Mr. Marocco after such time that he is nominated for a seat on the Board and his nomination is confirmed by the Senate. Until these legal requirements are met, Mr. Marocco does not hold any position or office with USADF, and he may not speak or act on the Foundation’s behalf.

    Getting more dramatic now. They are trying to get into the office but the agency won’t let them. Here is a video [a brief pan across] of Marocco and some of the DOGE folks outside the elevators.

    Looks like the standoff has ended for now. They never made it into the office and left the building

  123. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC – House Speaker Mike Johnson’s chief of staff arrested on DUI charge after Trump speech

    backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.
    […]
    While most crimes in Washington are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia [Ed Martin], DUI offenses are prosecuted by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, an office headed by D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb. […] Last month, the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington sent an [assault] arrest warrant for Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., but Martin’s office did not sign off.

  124. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    IndyStar – State Sen Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington, Minority leader):

    Indiana’s Statehouse Republicans have spent a better part of this legislative session focused on the people of Illinois.

    You read that right. Instead of addressing the needs of Hoosiers, Republican leaders are pushing an unprecedented effort to redraw state borders and annex Illinois counties that voted to secede. This isn’t a joke—it’s a real legislative priority for them. And it does absolutely nothing to help struggling families in our state.

    Adding to the absurdity, this entire effort is being justified by a ballot initiative in Illinois—where voters got a say in their own future. Yet, in Indiana, Statehouse Republicans refuse to give Hoosiers that same power. Our state is one of the few where citizens can’t put issues on the ballot, no matter how much public support they have. […] Indiana Republicans are bending over backwards to listen to the needs of Illinois voters.
    […]
    Indiana’s Statehouse Republicans have already gerrymandered our state beyond recognition—rigging maps to keep themselves in control year after year. Now, they are reaching beyond our borders, cherry-picking voters […] And make no mistake—Hoosier taxpayers will foot the bill. […] if these Illinois counties were their own state, they would be the second-poorest in the nation. The residents that Indiana Republicans want to absorb currently pay less than $3,000 in taxes per year while requiring over $5,000 in government support. If this annexation were to happen, Indiana’s per capita income ranking would immediately drop three spots nationally and Hoosiers would be forced to pay an additional $2 billion in taxes to subsidize the costs. […] Indiana Statehouse Republicans are proposing a plan that would increase taxes on Indiana families to bankroll services for residents of another state.

  125. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Chaser for #123:

    Ryan Reilly (NBC):

    Mike Johnson tweeting about DUIs yesterday:

    It is an honor to host Olivia Hayes tonight. Olivia’s husband Wesley was taken too soon when he was killed by an illegal immigrant in a drunk-driving accident […] Tonight, we will honor Wesley’s memory.

    Rando 1: “He doesn’t have the alcohol accountability app for his staffers?”

    Rando 2: “Here is a tip. If you have been drinking, don’t back into cop cars.”

    /Yep, it was Capitol Police vehicle.

  126. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reuters – Fired US government workers with top security clearances were not given exit briefings

    Dismissed employees with top-secret clearances are normally given a final security briefing reminding them of non-disclosure agreements they signed when they got the clearance. They would also sign forms acknowledging that disclosing any kind of classified information is illegal and turn in their laptops
    […]
    they dealt with secret information on everything from [Dept of Energy] managing nuclear weapons to protecting the power grid from influence by adversaries and ensuring the safety of [USAID] staffers
    […]
    Both DOE sources said the laptops of fired workers had been cut off from access to department data but that they were not immediately required to hand those in. […] It is not known how many were fired by DOGE without being given the final security debriefing.
    […]
    “Foreign spies routinely pose as commercial head-hunters on professional networking sites to target individuals for recruitment or information gathering purposes,”

  127. StevoR says

    Antarctic sea ice has again fallen to a near-record low as a new study shows the system is undergoing a significant “structural change”.

    Scientists have been using satellite images over the past 45 years to track the extent of sea ice on the fringe of the continent. During that time, sea ice has fallen below 2 million square kilometres on four occasions — 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 — according to the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP). This year’s data, captured on March 1, was the third-lowest annual daily minimum on record, it said.

    Will Hobbs, an AAPP sea ice researcher at the University of Tasmania, said the recent repeated lows were part of a downward trend observed since about 2016. “What’s alarming about it is how we’re not alarmed anymore, because this is now the new normal,” Dr Hobbs said.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-06/antarctic-sea-ice-falls-to-near-record-low/105008392

  129. Reginald Selkirk says

    Germany Rebukes Elon Musk’s Far-Right Election Meddling, Tesla Sales Drop 76 Percent

    It sure looks like most of Germany’s EV-buying public are not fans of the fact that Tesla CEO Elon Musk cozied up to the country’s far-right AfD party during their recent election. Sales dropped 76 percent to just 1,429 cars in February, according to the German Federal Motor Transport Authority. You might think that means overall EV sales were down as well, but that’s just not the case — it was up 31 percent in the second month of the year…

  130. Reginald Selkirk says

    Massive botnet that appeared overnight is delivering record-size DDoSes

    A newly discovered network botnet comprising an estimated 30,000 webcams and video recorders—with the largest concentration in the US—has been delivering what is likely to be the biggest denial-of-service attack ever seen, a security researcher inside Nokia said.

    The botnet, tracked under the name Eleven11bot, first came to light in late February when researchers inside Nokia’s Deepfield Emergency Response Team observed large numbers of geographically dispersed IP addresses delivering “hyper-volumetric attacks.” Eleven11bot has been delivering large-scale attacks ever since.

    Volumetric DDoSes shut down services by consuming all available bandwidth either inside the targeted network or its connection to the Internet. This approach works differently than exhaustion DDoSes, which over-exert the computing resources of a server. Hypervolumetric attacks are volumetric DDoses that deliver staggering amounts of data, typically measured in the terabits per second…

  131. Reginald Selkirk says

    12 Chinese hackers charged with US Treasury breach — and much, much more

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today it has criminally charged 12 Chinese nationals it says are behind attacks that hit more than 100 US organizations, including the Treasury, in a string of attacks going as far back as 2013.

    The DOJ accuses the people of carrying out their attacks either on their own or at the behest of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS). It says two are officers of the MPS, while eight others are employees of an “ostensibly private” Chinese company called i-Soon, which allegedly had the capability to hack Gmail and Microsoft Outlook inboxes, as well as Twitter and X, using the latter to help the Chinese government monitor public opinion overseas. It called that last tool the “Public Opinion Guidance and Control Platform,” according to the government’s indictment.

    The last two are members of a group called APT27, or Silk Typhoon, which has been behind hacks of organizations like healthcare systems and universities, according to the DOJ. The group has more recently focused on IT systems that include management software, recent Microsoft research concluded. Such software was the target of the Treasury hack reported in late December…

  132. KG says

    The Supreme Court just handed a victory to … raw sewage? Lynna, OM@115, quoting Daily Kos

    Simply a matter of professional courtesy.

  135. says

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

    Maddow warns of likelihood of Trump admin cooking economic stats to hide poor performance
    video is 8:21 minutes

    Trump power grab tripped up by distinctly American resistance
    video is 11:36 minutes

    YouTube link to Maddow warns of likelihood of Trump admin cooking economic stats to hide poor performance

    Rachel Maddow points out a suggestion made by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Fox News that he could change the way economic data is calculated in order to make the shortcomings of the economy under Donald Trump look better. Jared Bernstein former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, joins to discuss the vital necessity of accurate economic data, and his concerns about Trump disbanding the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee, two agencies devoted to assuring the accuracy of economic data.

  137. JM says

    Politico: Gavin Newsom breaks with Democrats on trans athletes in sports

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights who decades ago upset leaders in his own party when he defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, suggested Democrats were in the wrong in allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports.

    Either positioning for a presidential run or giving up on ever making one.
    Trans sports is an incredibly toxic issue so cutting it loose makes sense as a candidate. He is treading on very dangerous ground though and doing this while talking with Charlie Kirk was a mistake. He is cutting into his own credibility as a democrat and if he goes too far he won’t be able to win a Democratic party primary.

  138. says

    Even some Republicans express concern about the White House’s vetting process

    “As the number of Trump officials with bigoted online records grows, the White House’s vetting process is facing bipartisan pushback.”

    It was just two weeks into Donald Trump’s second term when the public learned that a man with a history of using racist rhetoric had been appointed to key post at the State Department. Days later, the public learned that a member of Elon Musk’s DOGE operation also had a history of using racist rhetoric.

    And now this week the public has learned about Kingsley Wilson, who was recently tapped to serve as the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary. A Mother Jones report summarized Wilson’s record this way: “She’s also an overt internet troll with a long history of bigoted, xenophobic, and deliberately provocative s—posting.”

    It’s reached the point where even some congressional Republicans are raising public concerns about the White House’s vetting process. Politico reported:

    The backlash over a top Pentagon aide who has touted antisemitic views, white supremacist conspiracy theories and Kremlin-like statements on social media grew wider on Wednesday in a sign of increasing frustration among Republicans about the Trump administration’s seemingly unvetted appointees. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson’s posts — which include comparing the murders of Israeli babies during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to abortion and spreading the far-right ‘great replacement theory’ — have angered lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

    [snipped examples of remarks from Republicans]

    The problem, of course, isn’t that the White House has no vetting process, but rather, that Team Trump has the wrong vetting process.

    The Wall Street Journal reported last month, for example, that the Republican operation vetted prospective employees through a series of “loyalty tests,” asking applicants about whether they agreed with Trump’s positions — even on issues wholly unrelated to the jobs they were seeking […]

    The Washington Post had a related reported on the tests being applied to candidates for top national security positions.

    […] applicants for positions within the intelligence community, who were asked to give “yes” or “no” responses to questions such as: Was Jan. 6 “an inside job”? And was the 2020 presidential election “stolen”?

    The same article went on to note that at least two individuals in FBI field offices who were being interviewed for senior positions were asked who the “real patriots” were on Jan. 6.

    In other words, those seeking jobs in the administration have too often been pressed on their allegiance to Trump and Trumpism instead of being pressed on whether they’ve published racist and antisemitic content online

    How to hire all the best people.

  139. says

    Democrats said the Republican budget would slash Medicaid. GOP leaders disagreed. The Congressional Budget Office just settled the debate.
    Related video at the link.

    When House Republicans advanced their far-right budget plan, congressional Democrats raised all kinds of concerns about the GOP’s misguided blueprint, but much of the focus was on one specific program: Medicaid. Republican leaders pushed back in a deeply misleading way.

    “It doesn’t even mention Medicaid in the bill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said of his party’s budget. “The word ‘Medicaid’ is not even in this bill,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise added. “This bill doesn’t even mention the word ‘Medicaid’ a single time.”

    […] While the literal text of the bill didn’t reference specific Medicaid cuts, the GOP plan directed the congressional committee that oversees Medicaid to find $880 billion in cuts that can only be found in Medicaid.

    A week later, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed that Democratic criticisms were true. NBC News reported:

    House Republicans can’t meet their own budget target that is necessary to pass President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda without making significant cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, the official budget scorekeeper confirmed Wednesday.

    Rep. Brendan Boyle [said], “Their plan would force the largest Medicaid cuts in American history — all to pay for more tax giveaways to billionaires. […] The American people deserve to know just how much pain Republicans are willing to inflict on their own constituents to reward their billionaire donors.”

    […] Donald Trump has said, publicly and without equivocation, that Medicaid would go untouched during his presidency. He’s also endorsed the House GOP blueprint, which would lead to dramatic cuts to Medicaid.

    As for the House speaker and his leadership team, who’ve invested too much time in a shell game, pretending their budget wouldn’t lead to Medicaid cuts, it’s time for a new set of talking points.

  140. says

    Josh Marshall:

    This article from the Post is just one jaw-dropper after another. Musk met yesterday with Republican senators and then the House GOP caucus. Notionally it’s about communication. The folks on the Hill are getting a bit unhappy there’s a “lack of communication” about DOGE plans to shut down departments and unilaterally rewrite the federal budget. The Republicans want more details about what Musks doing, which – setting aside the infinite absurdities of this moment – would seem reasonable enough. They’re Congress after all. They’re literally in charge of this stuff. Read this graf …

    Musk told a group of Republican senators in a closed-door lunch that he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns, senators said. Some senators were given Musk’s phone number during Wednesday’s meeting, and the entrepreneur said he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get problematic cuts reversed quickly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.

    […] wait … Musk is going to set up a system where Republican members of Congress can call and ask to “get problematic cuts reversed quick.”

    What the fuck?

    First of all, why are Republicans the only ones finding out what’s even happening in the government? That’s a good question. But set aside the privileged position of Republicans here. How on earth are we in this position where members of Congress, the ones who write the budget, appropriate and assign the money, now have to go hat in hand to beg for changes or even information from the guy who actually seems to be running the government? Elon isn’t just the President. In the realm of administering the fundamental structures of the state he’s something quite a bit more than the President. It’s impossible to capture the level of constitutional perversion this represents.

    Later Elon told folks in the House he’d set a special line for them too. “We have been operating so far just through Marjorie [Marjorie Taylor Greene] and her connections with Elon, with the Trump administration,” said Eric Burlison (R-MO).

    […] I mean really, WTF, but let’s move on from the Marjorie Greene part of this.

    […] You don’t need to feel sorry for these clowns. It’s all on them. This is all happening because Trump is allowing Elon to run free. And Trump is all powerful because Republicans control Congress – the locus of the true power to restrain a renegade president – and they refuse to place any limits on him. But for all of that these are elected members of Congress begging this constitutional monstrosity, a metastasis on the state, to allow them to have back some of what Congress already mandated as a matter of law. It is perverse and grotesque.

    But the real story comes into view in an unassuming paragraph.

    The gist of the whole story is that DOGE is making these guys nervous. They’re hearing from constituents who are upset. They don’t really know what’s happening. So they’re worried about more and worse surprises. The Senate and kinda the House is saying this is ultimately our choice. They’re kinda sorta trying to assert control. But not really. Here’s the key graf …

    But it remains unclear if Republicans are willing to vote to support Musk. Some lawmakers are worried about the political price they could pay for DOGE, as constituents deluge their offices with angry phone calls and show up in droves to town halls that leaders have urged lawmakers to avoid. Some members have resented that lack of communication.

    […] But if you have to vote for it then it all gets written down. You can’t say ‘Oh I don’t know what Elon’s doing.’ It’s all there in a bill and you have to vote yes or no. Then you’re really on the line. That’s really the rub with all of this.

    We say very rightly that the Congress proposes a budget, appropriates money. They make a law with the amounts of money and what it’s far. This is our constitutional system. But there’s an equally consequential, in a way more fundamental part of this process sitting there in plain sight which gets less attention. Politics and democratic decision-making can happen becomes there’s a public discussion of the things that might happen. People have to vote yes or no on certain written out decisions. And then they’re responsible for those decisions at elections. Each stage of that process allows people to make their opinions and desired choices known.

    […] the key is that the budget is being changed without anyone actually knowing what’s happening. Even members of Congress. It’s important to note that literally nothing DOGE is doing is public. Everything we think we know is from press reporting based on leaks. So no one knows what’s happening and no one who is accountable to anyone at an election is actually doing it. […] USAID and CFPB and huge swaths of the federal government have already been shut down. So for calendar 2025 the decision has already been made. And to a great extent DOGE is creating faits accompli into the future. Once you fire everyone and cancel all the contracts you can’t just flip a switch and it comes back into existence. […]

    Once things become public, once elected officials have to own things then stuff slows way down? […] These guys don’t want to know. They want to say they’re uninvolved, have no say. Once this comes out […] then everything changes. If it [comes out].

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-wapo-piece-on-post-constitutional-america

  141. Reginald Selkirk says

    5 convicted of plotting to overthrow German government and kidnap the health minister

    A German court on Thursday convicted five people of plotting to overthrow the government in a far-right coup and kidnap the former health minister.

    The Koblenz Higher Regional Court sentenced the four ringleaders to prison sentences between five years and nine months to eight years. A fifth defendant received a sentence of two years and 10 months, German news agency dpa reported.

    The defendants, four men aged 46 to 58 and a 77-year-old woman, were accused of founding or being a member of a terrorist organization called “United Patriots” and of preparing a highly treasonous enterprise against the German government.

    Federal prosecutors said during the trial that the group was linked to the so-called Reich Citizens scene that rejects the legitimacy of Germany’s postwar constitution and has similarities to the Sovereign Citizens and QAnon movements in the United States…

  142. Reginald Selkirk says

    New Zealand fires top diplomat in London for questioning Trump’s grasp of history during Ukraine chat

    New Zealand fired its top diplomat in London after he made a “deeply disappointing” remark questioning President Trump’s grasp of history, the foreign minister said Thursday. High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Phil Goff questioned whether the U.S. president “really understands history” during a panel discussion about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The comments were “deeply disappointing”, said a spokesman for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, adding: “They do not represent the views of the NZ government and make his position as High Commissioner to London untenable.”

    Peters later said he would have fired Goff if he made the same remarks about any other world leader…

  143. Reginald Selkirk says

    Authorities at Naval Air Station Pensacola responding to active shooter situation

    Authorities are responding to an active shooter situation at a military base in Pensacola, Florida. Officials said on social media that U.S. Navy security forces and local law enforcement were responding to the incident at Naval Air Station Pensacola’s Corry Station.

    “Our Security team is responding swiftly and expertly with our local law enforcement partners,” Capt. Chandra Newman, commanding officer of the base, said in a statement. “Our concern is always the safety and welfare of our service members and their families.”

    This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

  144. says

    Why Elon Musk and Ben Shapiro want Trump to pardon George Floyd’s murderer

    “The video depicting Floyd’s murder hasn’t changed in five years. But the Republican Party has.”
    Related video at the link.

    Shortly after the video of George Floyd’s death went viral in May 2020, a popular conservative pundit released an online video in which he decried Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for kneeling on Floyd for “four straight minutes,” even though Floyd, bystanders and even other police officers told Chauvin that Floyd couldn’t breathe.

    This pundit pointed to video of the incident to dismiss the argument that Floyd was resisting arrest. It’s “really ugly and really bad,” he said, adding that Chauvin should be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law” and should “go to jail” and that “everyone should be on the same side of this.” […]

    That pundit was the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro. This week, Shapiro called on Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin on the federal charges he faced for causing Floyd’s death. [Hypocrite]

    […] context doesn’t help — it makes it all a lot worse. Even as he condemned Chauvin’s brutality, Shapiro also scolded activists, racial justice advocates and protesters for claiming that what Chauvin did was commonplace or racially motivated. He chastised critics who argued that police brutality is systemic. George Floyd’s killer would be prosecuted, Shapiro promised, and that would prove the system works.

    Shapiro seemed particularly offended at the very idea that other police officers or conservatives like him would defend Chauvin. [!] Everyone condemned Chauvin’s actions, he assured us — from him to police groups around the country to President Donald Trump. The mere fact that so many people on the right had condemned a white cop for killing a Black man was, he argued, in and of itself proof that systemic racism is a myth.

    What a difference five years makes. Now Shapiro claims that Chauvin’s trial was a farce and that his “conviction represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics. […] Shapiro’s plea achieved particular significance after it was amplified by Elon Musk […]

    [video: ‘Everything that’s happening continues to normalize violence’: Gov. Whitmer condemns Trump pardons.]

    The campaign to retroactively exonerate Chauvin and reverse the progress made by George Floyd protests began with a video produced and co-written by a former TV host who is married to the former head of the Minneapolis police union. It was then distributed by a far-right advocacy group that poses as a news organization. Among other risible claims, the documentary accuses the FBI of pressuring Minneapolis officials to manufacture evidence to implicate Chauvin. […]

    the documentary slowly gained purchase in online right-wing culture, first with MAGA influencers on social media, then with far-right personalities like Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson […]

    as is also the case with far-right mythology, the true believers aren’t interested in reality. They want validation. So the “documentary” is now MAGA canon.

    The video depicting George Floyd’s murder hasn’t changed in five years. It’s as harrowing as ever. Bystanders, other police officers and Floyd himself plead with Chauvin. They tell him Floyd isn’t breathing. They cry out to Chauvin that Floyd doesn’t have a pulse. Chauvin callously ignores them. And George Floyd dies.

    What has changed is the right’s posture toward racism and political violence. The gutter politics of people like Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Nick Fuentes is now part of the Republican Party’s core. People who were too racist for the first Trump administration have been rehired or promoted in the second. [Snipped list of such people.]

    Donald Trump has always valorized political violence. […]

    The political right has now fully embraced that ethos. [snipped examples] [video: Authoritarianism 101: Maddow explains how Trump’s embrace of violence follows a type.]

    Shapiro himself acknowledges that Trump can pardon Chauvin only on the federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights. The more serious charges came in state court, where Trump has no clemency power.

    This means Shapiro’s demand has nothing to do with the alleged injustice done to Chauvin. It’s purely symbolic […]

    When we contrast the two Ben Shapiros, five years apart, the right’s grim trajectory over that time comes into focus. The 2020 Ben Shapiro argued that the right’s near-universal condemnation of Chauvin was proof that his side takes police brutality seriously, that its support for the prosecution of a white cop for killing an unarmed Black man was proof that it isn’t racist and that Chauvin’s inevitable prosecution was proof of its belief that the criminal justice system is fair and just. The 2025 Ben Shapiro — along with much of the right — now says that Chauvin’s killing of Floyd was justified, that his prosecution should never have happened and that his conviction was political and vindictive. […]

  146. says

    Criminalizing Higher Education

    In another reckless, unethical, and highly politicized move, acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is implicitly threatening Georgetown Law School with criminal investigation and explicitly blackballing its students unless the university ends all DEI efforts.

    Martin’s threats against the Jesuit university came in a letter to the law school dean dated last month but apparently misaddressed and re-sent this week. (Well done, Ed, well done.)

    “At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered,” Martin wrote.

    Martin’s letter is similar to others he has sent over the past six weeks that abuse the power of his office to wade into political arenas and cast a pall of criminal suspicion over his targets.

    The Georgetown letter is on Martin’s official letterhead and asserts his official position in the opening line, as if DEI is criminal and a federal prosecutor has any business being involved here: “As United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, I receive requests for information and clarification. I take these requests seriously and act on them with letters like this one you are receiving.” It concludes by giving Georgetown a deadline (or else what?) to respond and this prepackaged language: “I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request.”

    The assault on the First Amendment rights of a private, religious university by a federal prosecutor using intimidation tactics that suggest a criminal dimension to his inquiry is far beyond anything we’ve seen from the Justice Department in modern times.

    Link

  147. Reginald Selkirk says

    Denmark postal service to stop delivering letters

    Denmark’s state-run postal service, PostNord, is to end all letter deliveries at the end of 2025, citing a 90% decline in letter volumes since the start of the century.

    The decision brings to an end 400 years of the company’s letter service. Denmark’s 1,500 post boxes will start to disappear from the start of June.

    Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen sought to reassure Danes, saying letters would still be sent and received as “there is a free market for both letters and parcels”…

  148. says

    You can kiss public education goodbye—Trump’s about to kill it

    […] Trump could sign an executive order as early as Thursday [today] that would begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education, CNN reported. The move could lead to cuts in educational services for low-income districts and disabled students across the country, as well as issues for Americans to obtain student loans.

    […] Of course, Trump cannot eliminate a Cabinet department by executive decree. The Department of Education was created in 1979 by an act of Congress—much to the chagrin of Republicans—and would thus require another act of Congress to shut it down. Education Secretary Linda McMahon admitted as much in her confirmation hearing for the role that she is not qualified to hold.

    It’s why the executive order Trump plans to sign as early as Thursday merely says that McMahon should “take all necessary steps” to close the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” the Washington Post reported.

    Because McMahon cannot merely shutter the department and its functions, the Washington Post reported that McMahon will instead make cuts to “staff, programs, and grants.” That will almost certainly cause issues in the department carrying out its congressionally mandated role of distributing funding to low-income schools, students with disabilities, and administering student loans and grants.

    “My vision is aligned with the president’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” McMahon wrote in an email to staff of the DOE after she was sworn in to her role of leading the Cabinet agency. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, said that her organization will sue the Trump administration for trying to end the DOE.

    “The department is legally required to distribute funds that help 26 million kids living in poverty (Title I), 7.5 million students with disabilities (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), 10 million students who need financial aid to attend college or pursue a trade (Pell grants) and 12 million students who benefit from career and technical education (Perkins grants). Any attempt by the Trump administration or Congress to gut these programs would be a grave mistake, and we will fight them tooth and nail,” she said in a statement.

    National Education Association President Becky Pringle said eliminating the DOE would have devastating impacts on low-income districts, many of which are in red and rural states that Trump won in 2024. Those Title I districts rely on federal funding to keep teachers employed.

    […] “If you look at the states that rely the most on Title I funding as a share of their per-pupil education spending, it’s actually a bunch of red, rural states that get the largest share,” Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, told NPR. “You run into opposition not just from Democrats … But actually a lot of congressional Republicans have real concerns about it because they see the threat that it poses to their own constituents.” […]

  149. says

    Trump ORDERS UK Not to Share Intel with Ukraine

    I didn’t believe this when I first saw it, so I checked several British media.

    Express: Trump deals Zelensky another blow as UK banned from sharing US intel with Ukraine

    The Sun: Trump ‘BANS Britain from sharing war intelligence with Ukraine’ after US aid axed – and may let UK take LEAD of Nato

    London Economic: Donald Trump bans UK from sharing any US military intelligence with Ukraine

    It is now being reported that all UK intelligence agencies and military outlets have received explicit orders forbidding them from sharing US-generated intel with Ukraine.

    And apparently it applies to other Five Eyes nations, too:

    Western nations such as the UK, New Zealand and Australia would have shared this information with Ukraine in the past, but are now unable to do so.

    Canada — the only one of the Five Eyes not mentioned — appears not to be under the same order, but they had already started shifting their intel arrangements: Canada looks to shift intelligence sharing from U.S. as Washington diverges on foreign affairs (Feb 25, 2025).

    Trump’s authority extends only to the intelligence that the US gathered and supplied to these countries, but intel is somewhat fungible and it can be hard to separate out. So no intel at all is likely to be given to Ukraine now. This is Trump’s way of bullying not just Ukraine but our closest allies. (Well, they used to be allies, up until a month ago.)

    Ukraine needs this intel to plan troop movements and missile and drone strikes. But it goes in the other direction, too: The US needs intel from these countries to spot and head off terrorist attacks on our nation. How much longer will the UK share its intel with us, and how much longer before they decide that allying with the US under Trump isn’t worth the humiliation and abuse. […] I’m sure Putin thought of it.

    Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.

    Posted by readers of the article:

    The UK can and should do whatever is its best interest. The clown show here is likely too incompetent to figure it all out anyway. Hopefully, some of the good people in our intelligence agencies will continue to do their important work despite the traitor in the White House.
    ———————–
    They don’t have to obey…but they will lose our intelligence, especially the intelligence from our satellite systems which are crucial to them for their drone targetting and detecting incoming drone swarms from the orcs. Guess who owns many of those satellites?
    —————————-
    It is not a matter of these countries obeying Trump. Basically Trump is forbidding US intelligence agencies from sharing any intelligence gathered by us that relates to Ukraine. If those countries develop their own intelligence than Trump cannot stop them from providing that to Ukraine. Of course we have the satellites and surveillance systems so most useful intelligence comes from us.
    —————————–
    Hey Donnie, you telling me that the folks at M16 haven’t figured out a way around your silly edict not to share? Every day in every way you continue to demonstrate your profound stupidity.
    ———————
    While the US has also formally blocked its allies from sharing US intelligence with Ukraine, two officials said that recipients with assets inside the country were likely to continue passing on relevant intelligence to Kyiv. But that would not apply to time-sensitive and high-value intelligence, such as that needed for Ukraine to conduct precision strikes on moveable Russian targets.
    ——————————-
    A) To be considered reliable, intel needs multiple sources, so most has at least confirmation from non-US sources. B) Those sources can share as they will, they don’t need to share anything received from the US to pass their own as believable without stating confirmation came from us.

    And as has been noted for at least weeks, any intel not intended for receipt by Vlad won’t be shared with the US if that can be avoided, anyway.
    —————————-
    I believe this is mostly about satellite intel used by Ukraine for targetting their drone strikes and detecting incoming drone strikes from Russia. And many of these satellites are Starlink. Owned by the first buddy, Musk. And this intelligence is very time sensitive, useful mostly if it’s real time intel. This will be catastrophic to Ukraine.
    —————————–
    At the Australian press club before inauguration a reporter asked ambassador Caroline Kennedy if Australia should trust continuing to share intelligence with the US.

    She diplomatically said the countries would still share interests to cooperate, but the risk has been obvious so behind the scenes governments must be making provisions.

    That’s at least sort of a “no” from France:

    French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, meanwhile, said on France Inter that his nation was sharing intelligence resources with Ukraine following the U.S. freeze.

    Link

  150. says

    After bragging about his tariff plan, Trump bails on his tariff plan

    Just days after using his prime-time address to a joint session of Congress to tout his tariffs on Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump has found himself in the middle of a humiliating situation as he walks back those very tariffs. [I don’t think Trump is capable of embarrassment. He’ll just claim that this is what he intended all along. He’ll tell some lies about it and then move on. It is, however, nice to see him being brought to heel.]

    In his speech on Tuesday, Trump hailed tariffs and looming trade wars with China, Mexico, and Canada as a surefire pathway to economic success.

    “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance. We’re okay with that. It won’t be much,” he said.

    But less than 48 hours later, Trump announced that he postponed the tariffs on most Mexican goods after speaking on the phone with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

    Despite Trump’s bravado, Sheinbaum said they “had an excellent and respectful call in which we agreed that our work and collaboration have yielded unprecedented results.”

    The retreat on tariffs against Mexico echoes Trump’s near-simultaneous concession to Canada.

    On Wednesday, the Trump administration was discussing plans to exempt automakers from Canadian tariffs after a devastating Fox Business report that featured the owner of an auto dealership explaining that Trump’s tariffs would increase the cost of a car by $20,000. This isn’t the first time that Trump, an avid fan of Fox, has made a policy decision based on a segment from the network.

    And on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced in a CNBC interview that Trump was going to concede on his tariffs. [video at the link]

    “It’s not likely to be just the automakers. I think it’s likely that it will cover all USMCA compliant goods and services,” he said.

    “USMCA” is the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement that was signed in 2018 and enforced in 2020.

    Trump’s cold feet on his tariffs comes on the heels of a terrible few days for the stock market. In reaction to Trump’s tariffs, the Dow average fell 1,300 points in just two days as the market began assessing how consumers will deal with massive price hikes.

    For all of Trump’s false bravado, the leaders of China, Mexico, and Canada immediately responded to his tariffs either with tariffs of their own or future plans for retaliatory tariffs.

    “Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a press conference.

    Trump’s trade war with China during his first term failed, triggering a farmer bailout. Now just weeks into his second term, he has proven that he didn’t learn a thing from his past mistakes.

    Trump is incapable of learning.

  151. says

    Trump Will Let Idaho Refuse Life-Saving Abortions

    https://jessica.substack.com/p/trump-will-let-idaho-refuse-life

    We knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating: The Trump administration is set to drop the federal case against Idaho over its abortion ban, paving the way for hospitals there to deny women life-saving abortion care.

    According to the Associated Press, court papers filed by Idaho’s St. Luke’s Health System suggest the case could be dropped as soon as tomorrow.

    For those who need a refresher: The Biden administration sued Idaho because its ban violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)—the federal law requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide life-saving and stabilizing care, including abortions.

    Republican leaders in the state insisted their ban was just fine, even as Idaho hospitals were forced to airlift patients out of state to save their lives. Attorney General Raúl Labrador went as far as accusing doctors and hospital administrators of lying about having to evacuate patients, claiming that they were trying to make a “political statement.”

    The suit made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where American women were treated to the distinct horror of watching lawyers debate just how many organs would be acceptable for them to lose before the state should be required to give them care.

    In the end, the justices dismissed the case as “improvidently granted”—a technical way of saying they shouldn’t have taken it in the first place. The good news? That meant a lower court ruling allowing emergency abortions in Idaho remained in place. The bad news was that without a final ruling on the merits, the Court left pregnant patients’ humanity up for debate.

    Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said it best:

    “This Court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price.”

    What’s important to know is that this isn’t just about Idaho. By dropping this case, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that anti-abortion states don’t have to adhere to EMTALA by giving pregnant patients life-saving care. […]

  152. says

    A new DOJ memo argues that immigration judges can be stripped of civil service protections. That could lay the groundwork for firing them if they don’t rule the “right” way.

    For weeks now, […] Trump’s propagandists have relentlessly glorified his mass deportations, even posting images of defeated-looking migrants getting frog-marched onto shiny military planes. If this is supposed to make the Audience of One feel strong and powerful, it has failed. Trump has privately raged about the supposedly inadequate pace of expulsions, and last month, that prompted officials to demand that officers hit wildly inflated arrest quotas. Yet deportations continue to remain stubbornly below what he hopes for.

    Now, however, Trump’s angry zeal for mass removals appears to be helping to produce a particularly unnerving outcome.

    The Trump administration is effectively declaring that the nation’s roughly 700 immigration judges can no longer count on civil service rules that safeguard their independence by protecting them from arbitrary removal, according to a Department of Justice memo that was sent to the judges. The memo from DOJ—which oversees the immigration courts—was flagged for me by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, or IFPTE, the judges’ union, which believes this will make it far easier to fire judges without cause.

    The judges and their representatives fear that this is designed to pave the way for the removal of judges who don’t consistently rule against migrants in deportation and asylum cases—and thus frustrate Trump and his hard-line immigration advisers. Replacing them with judges who will more reliably rule against migrants could theoretically speed up the pace of deportations.

    “What they want to do is fire immigration judges that don’t issue rulings to their liking,” said Matthew Biggs, the president of IFPTE, “and replace them with judges that will simply rubber-stamp what President Trump wants.”

    […] Translated into plain English, this means that if restrictions on removing immigration judges are “determined” by the DOJ to be unconstitutional, they will no longer apply, immigration lawyers say. It’s only a matter of time until this “determination” is made.

    “They’re saying they can fire judges without cause,” Tom Jawetz, a former senior lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security, told me.

    There are good reasons for immigration judges to enjoy protections from at-will firing. Right now, they cannot be fired unless the administration can cite a strong rationale. The restrictions on removals are rooted in statute, procedure, and precedent, and if the DOJ goes forward with the idea that they’re unconstitutional—in keeping with an expansive reading of Trump’s authority to fire subordinates—it will trigger a major legal battle.

    These judges, who annually decide hundreds of cases apiece, often rule on whether migrants are subject to deportation or if they’re entitled to some form of relief, including humanitarian protections such as asylum. These rulings should be based on law and facts and not colored by each administration’s general ideological views about immigration. As Jawetz put it, protections against at-will removal allow judges to make “independent” rulings and safeguard “the basic integrity of the proceedings and uphold the rule of law.”

    […] As all this demonstrates, Trump and Miller don’t want a system that doles out impartial legal rulings for migrants. What they want is a system that does not do this. Their holy grail is the removals of as many migrants as possible, even if that means entirely eviscerating due process for them—or especially if it does.

    More at the link.

  153. says

    EXCLUSIVE

    Trump considering major NATO policy shift

    “The president has discussed possibly favoring members of the alliance that spend a set percentage of their GDP on defense, sources told NBC News.”

    […] Trump is considering a major change to the U.S.’ participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to three current and former senior U.S. officials and one congressional official.

    […] As part of the potential policy shift, the U.S. might not defend a fellow NATO member that is attacked if the country doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold, the officials said. If Trump does make that change, it would mark a significant shift from a core tenet of the alliance known as Article 5, which says that an attack on any NATO country is an attack on all of them.

    The president is similarly considering a policy change in which the U.S. may choose to prioritize military exercises with NATO members that are spending the set percentage of their GDPs on defense, the officials said. His administration has already signaled to America’s European allies that the U.S. could reduce its military presence in Europe, and one option now under consideration is to reposition some U.S. troops in the region so they are focused in or around NATO countries that have scaled their defense spending to meet the specific percentage of their GDPs, the officials said.

    […] NATO countries agreed more than a decade ago to set the spending goal for each of them at 2% of GDP. But Trump has pushed to increase that percentage. Most recently he said NATO members should spend 5% of their GDP on defense, though the U.S. does not currently do that.

    [Trump is posturing in a way. Threatening, and making impossible demands. I think he is just looking for excuses to withdraw from NATO, excuses that would let him blame other members of NATO.]

    “NATO has to pay more,” Trump said in January after taking office. “It’s ridiculous because it affects them a lot more. We have an ocean in between.”

    According to NATO’s most recent statistics, last year 23 NATO members’ defense spending exceeded 2% of their GDP. Five of those nations — Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland and the U.S. — spent more than 3% on defense. Poland had the highest percentage, dedicating 4.12% of its GDP to defense.

    […] Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his first term and has questioned the merits of Article 5 for the U.S. […]

  154. Reginald Selkirk says

    Norovirus vaccine hints at defusing explosive stomach bug in early trial

    In an early clinical trial, an experimental norovirus vaccine given as a pill produced defensive responses exactly where it counts—in the saliva of older people most vulnerable to the explosive stomach bug.

    The results, published this week in Science Translational Medicine, are another step in the long effort to thwart the gruesome germ, which finds a way to violently hollow out innards wherever people go—from restaurants to natural wonders and even the high seas. It’s a robust, extremely infectious virus that spreads via the nauseating fecal-oral route. Infected people spew billions of virus particles in their vomit and diarrhea, and shedding can last weeks. The particles aren’t easily killed by hand sanitizers and can linger on surfaces for up to two weeks. Exposure to as few as 10 virus particles can spark an infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus causes an average of between 19 and 21 million cases of acute gastroenteritis in the US every year, leading to 109,000 hospitalizations and 900 deaths. This racks up an economic burden estimated to be $2 billion to $10.6 billion…

  155. Reginald Selkirk says

    Scientists discover new part of the immune system

    A new part of the immune system has been discovered and it is a goldmine of potential antibiotics, scientists have said.

    They’ve shown a part of the body known to recycle proteins has a secret mode that can spew out an arsenal of bacteria-killing chemicals.

    The researchers in Israel say it transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection.

    And gives a new place to look for antibiotics to tackle the growing problem of superbugs that resist our current drugs.

    The discovery centres on the proteasome – a tiny structure that is found in every cell of the body.

    Its main role is to chop up old proteins into smaller chunks so they can be recycled to make new ones.

    But a series of experiments, detailed in the journal Nature, shows the proteasome detects when a cell has been infected by bacteria.

    It then changes structure and role. It starts transforming old proteins into weapons that can rip open the outer layer of bacteria to kill them…

  156. Reginald Selkirk says

    Sweden is ‘no longer a country that cannot be trusted’

    War, cross-border conflict and geopolitical upheaval are rarely deemed good for business.

    Yet that appears to have been the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on two of the aggressor’s neighbours to its west – Finland and Sweden.

    Not directly, of course. Rather, it was the two Nordic nations’ response to the invasion that turned fear into hope.

    Both countries applied for membership of the Western defence alliance Nato in May 2022, some three months after the winter invasion.

    Less than three years later, they’re both full members and already reaping the benefits, in terms of both national security and economics.

    “We’re no longer a country that cannot be trusted,” observes Micael Johansson, chief executive of Swedish defence company Saab, in reference to the nation’s previous historic neutrality.

    He points out that in the year since Sweden joined Nato in March 2024, Saab has already negotiated framework agreements with the Nato Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The NSPA is the body that organises Nato’s ordering from defence firms.

    Mr Johansson adds it is now much easier to gain insights into what’s going on inside the alliance. “We couldn’t access NSPAs before,” he says.

    Jukka Siukosaari, Finland’s Ambassador to the UK, agrees. “Being part of Nato brings us on an equal footing with all the other allies. It enlarges the possibilities for Finnish companies in the defence sector and beyond.” …

  157. Reginald Selkirk says

    ‘We are Canadian’: 25 years later, Joe Canada is back with a new patriotic video

    The man behind an iconic Canadian beer ad is back, 25 years later, with a new patriotic rallying cry.

    But this time, it’s not about selling drinks.

    Jeff Douglas, from Truro, N.S., became a national sensation after starring as flannel-wearing Joe Canada in Molson Canadian’s 2000 ad “The Rant,” which was a huge success for the beer company and popularized the slogan, “I am Canadian!”

    On Wednesday, a new video appeared on YouTube featuring Douglas, back on stage in flannel, this time defending Canada from attacks by U.S. President Donald Trump, before launching into a similar string of boasts about his home country…

  159. JM says

    Politico: Trump puts new limits on Elon Musk

    According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.

    Trump posted about the meeting later so some meeting happened. The real question is how much impact it has. Is Trump just trying to silence critics and deal with some legal problems or has he really limited Musk’s power? Likely in between, the DOD, State and other departments that not even Trump wants to entirely kneecap will have more power to refuse “suggestions”. The ones Trump wants to disband can listen to Musk or they can get the same suggestions later from Trump.

  160. says

    JFC.

    Trump to revoke legal status for 240,000 Ukrainians as US steps up deportations

    WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, a senior Trump official and three sources familiar with the matter said, potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation.
    The move, expected as soon as April, would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration.

    […] A Trump executive order issued on January 20 called for DHS to “terminate all categorical parole programs.”

    The administration plans to revoke parole for about 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans as soon as this month, the Trump official and one of the sources familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The plan to revoke parole for those nationalities was first reported, by CBS News.

    Migrants stripped of their parole status could face fast-track deportation proceedings, according to an internal ICE email, seen by Reuters.

    […] In addition to the 240,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, and the 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, these programs covered more than 70,000 Afghans escaping the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

    […] The Trump administration last month paused processing immigration-related applications for people who entered the U.S. under certain Biden parole programs – placing Ukrainian Liana Avetisian, her husband and her 14-year-old daughter, in limbo. Avetisian, who worked in real estate in Ukraine, now assembles windows while her husband works construction.

    The family fled Kyiv in May 2023, eventually buying a house in the small city of DeWitt, Iowa. Their parole and work permits expire in May. They say they spent about $4,000 in filing fees to renew their parole and to try to apply for another program known as Temporary Protected Status.

    Avetisian has started getting headaches as she worries about their situation, she said.

    “We don’t know what to do,” she said.[…]

    More at the link.

  161. says

    During the night, Russia hit a hotel in Kryvyi Rih with a ballistic missile, where volunteers from humanitarian organizations, citizens of Ukraine, the USA, and the UK had checked in the day before.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3ilzhrzkar3icae4mfyupmqp/post/3ljpcv7rmns25

    Video at the link.

    Volunteers from US and UK in the hotel in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine on the night of russian missile attack. Here is their story:

    “We were just having dinner. One woman said: ‘I got notification on my phone, we need to leave now.’..

    “..I’m telling you, we got up – and bang! It happened in like 5 sec. It was crazy,” Adam said. He came to Ukraine for the 3rd time since full-scale invasion, all the way from Denver, Colorado (Adam’s to the left on 📸), to bring medicines for hospitals in Ukraine […]

    https://bsky.app/profile/margogontar.bsky.social/post/3ljpnw4hzbc2k

  162. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Handbasket – FEMA’s top lawyer placed on leave after less than a week in role

    Stanton was asked sometime this week to write a memo stating that the mid-February seizure of $80 million from the city of New York meant for migrant shelters had legal justification; this was despite the fact that it almost certainly did not. The money that was taken back was lawfully obligated by FEMA pursuant to congressionally allocated funds. Stanton reportedly refused to write such a memo, […] and then he was put on leave. It’s not clear at this point if the refusal to write the memo is the reason he was placed on leave.
    […]
    There’s speculation among FEMA staffers that this move is connected to a lawsuit [by] former FEMA Chief Financial Officer Mary Comans [for wrongful termination]. […] And now that Comens is suing because of her termination in connection to those impounded funds, it appears FEMA realized it needs a solid legal basis for its actions. That’s where it seems they’d hoped Stanton would come in.
    […]
    Before Stanton took over the role, it was occupied by Adrian Sevier who had served the agency since 2000. He was FEMA’s Office of Chief Counsel’s longest serving chief. Sevier announced his retirement last week. […] While Sevier’s resignation was voluntary, as far as I can tell, Stanton’s immediate succession and then dismissal suggests that perhaps Sevier, too, refused to write the memo
    […]
    A culture of fear has paralyzed FEMA, perhaps even more so than other federal agencies. Random physical screenings have reportedly increased at headquarters. Staffers have received strict warnings not to talk to the press […] Trump has openly threatened that he would recommend they “go away”. […] the agency is run by Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL and Trump loyalist […] Hamilton, “has embraced false Republican narratives that FEMA ‘depleted’ its disaster aid by helping migrants and blocked supplies to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene,” […] His X account is a hodgepodge of quotes from the bible, America First propaganda, and a celebration of Trump’s major cuts to the federal government.

    Marisa Kabas: “Stanton is a career fed who succeeded another career fed who retired last week. [Not installed by Trump.] He has not made his politics publicly known.”
     
    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    On Feb. 4, FEMA paid […] approx. $80 million to NYC […] reimbursement for costs associated with providing shelter to “noncitizens migrants who have been encountered and released by DHS.” But seven days after NYC received the money from the federal government, the Trump Administration took it back.
    […]
    the government has said the Feb. 4 $80 million payment was an “error” or a “mistake.” An oopsie. The idea is that the money *was not* “clawed back” bc of a substantive policy change. Rather, the government says the payment was cancelled bc it was mistakenly sent to begin with.
    […]
    Now compare the government’s argument to Mary Comans’s recollection […] According to Comans, she participated in a meeting with DHS and DOGE team members on Feb. 5—shortly after the money was sent to NYC. She says DOGE wanted to ensure that FEMA wasn’t sending grant money to *NGOs* that aided undocumented immigrants. Importantly, during this meeting, one of the DOGE representatives—Brad Smith—asked whether FEMA had continued to make payments to *local and state governments.* A FEMA representative said that they had. Smith, wagging his finger for emphasis, said “That’s the right answer.” […] No indication—even from a DOGE rep—that FEMA was not authorized to disburse such funds.

    Days later, though, there’s a sudden change of course.

    On Feb. 9, Comans says a DOGE team member embedded at Treasury flagged that FEMA had recently paid NYC millions of dollars for housing migrants. Hours later, Musk tweets about it, claiming that a “clawback” demand will be made that day.

    Comans says she spent that day, Feb. 10, working with Treasury to recoup the funds. The next day, on Feb. 11, Comans was terminated from her job along with other FEMA staffers. A DHS spox claimed they were terminated for “circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments.”
    […]
    But Comans says […] “I know the changed policy was not a decision made by FEMA leadership […] I believe that this decision was made by Mr. Musk and/or DOGE,”

  163. says

    🚀 Eutelsat is in talks with the EU to expand satellite internet access in Ukraine, per Reuters. The Franco-British satellite group may provide an alternative to Starlink, with OneWeb satellites stepping in.

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4aqzua5vsewimmusg66fyajl/post/3ljl3qsoijc2i

    Eutelsat in talks with EU to ramp up satellite internet to Ukraine, as shares soar

    […] Shares of the Franco-British satellite group have more than tripled in value over the past two days, adding over 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion) to their market capitalisation. […]

  164. Reginald Selkirk says

    @159:

    Trump posted about the meeting later so some meeting happened.

    I do not share your confidence in Trump’s attachment to reality.

  165. says

    EXCLUSIVE

    Trump raids will now target migrant families who entered the U.S. with their children

    “New plans for operations across the country show that they will target families and unaccompanied children, even those who do not have criminal histories, NBC News has learned.”

    U.S. immigration agents are planning a new operation to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown, according to three sources familiar with the planning.

    The operation will target adults and minor children who entered the country together and have orders of deportation, the source said. After the families are arrested, agents will place them into detention before they are removed.

    A separate operation to find children who entered the United States unaccompanied and were released without court dates is also underway, the sources added.

    The sources said lawyers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement are now working to secure warrants to enter homes and conduct the arrests.

    Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump and border czar Tom Homan said that plans for mass deportations would initially focus on migrants who had committed crimes. The new plans for national operations show that many of the families and children to be targeted do not have criminal histories.

    As the plans take shape, the Trump administration is also working with private prison companies to bring back family detention centers that were closed under the Biden administration, NBC News has reported.

    On Wednesday, one private prison group, Core Civic, said it would reopen its family detention center in Dilley, Texas. The facility holds up to 2,400 people at a time. […]

    More at the link.

  166. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Lynna @146 regarding DEI at Goergetown University.

    Josh Chafetz (Law Professor at Georgetown Law):

    I’m sharing Dean Treanor’s response to Ed Martin’s letter:

    [This university] prohibits discrimination and harassment in its programs and activities and takes seriously its obligations to comply with all federal and local laws. […] The First Amendment […] guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach […] The Supreme Court has continually affirmed that […] The Department of Education confirmed last week that it […] is statutorily prohibited from “exercising control over the content of school curricula.”

    Your letter informs me that your office will deny our students and graduates government employment opportunities until you, as Interim United States Attorney […] approve of our curriculum. […] the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear

    […] I *love* that Martin keeps referring to himself as “United States Attorney” and Treanor repeatedly refers to him as “Interim United States Attorney”.

  167. Reginald Selkirk says

    US House Republicans aim for vote to avert government shutdown on Tuesday

    Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson aims to hold a vote on Tuesday on a bill to fund the government through September 30, a move needed to avert a partial shutdown of agencies late next week, he told reporters on Thursday.

    The bill, a continuing resolution, or CR, that would fund the government at current levels for the remainder of fiscal year 2025, could be unveiled as soon as Friday, said Johnson, who leads a narrow 218-214 majority…

  168. says

    Sky Captain @165, thanks for that additional information. Dean Treanor’s response is well written.

    Other news (satire):

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In one of the more ominous moments from his speech to Congress on Tuesday night, Donald J. Trump blamed a surge in transgender mice on “Haitians eating all the cats.”

    “For four years, mice swarmed over the border, looking for sex-change operations that Sleepy Joe Biden would pay for,” he alleged. “These mice had nothing to fear because they knew that all the cats had been eaten.”

    Vowing to usher in what he called a “golden age for cats,” he vowed to use billions in tariff revenue to establish a Strategic Cat Reserve.

    Trump spent the rest of his speech listing his second-term accomplishments, boasting, “I have already caused more damage than all other presidents put together.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-warns-of-increase-in-transgender

  169. says

    I’m SO ANGRY. The magat circus in front of congress the other night just got worse. I am developing a deep and abiding hatred of those that control this death spiraling country. And, that includes the useless, corporate, ping-pong paddle democraps, too.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-votes-censure-rep-al-green-disrupting-trumps-speech-congress-rcna195020
    House votes to censure Rep. Al Green for disrupting Trump’s speech to Congress
    The vote was 224-198, with 10 Democrats joining all Republicans in approving the resolution.
    And, now, in addition, those aholes margarine failure greene and buthead boebert want to strip Al Green of his committee memberships, too. They were more disruptive and NOTHING happened to them. There is no rule of law in this death spiraling country.

  170. Reginald Selkirk says

    A 40-day Target boycott starts today. It couldn’t come at a worse time for the company

    Target is facing a 40-day consumer boycott starting Wednesday over the company’s shift away from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

    “We’re asking people to divest from Target because they have turned their back on our community,” Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent Atlanta-area megachurch pastor who started the boycott, said in an interview with CNN.

    The boycott, which begins during the start of Lent, comes more than a month after Target made changes to its DEI programs and at a difficult period for the company as it faces an onslaught of tariffs in the middle of a challenging economy.

    On January 24, days into Donald Trump’s presidency, Target announced it was eliminating hiring goals for minority employees, ending an executive committee focused on racial justice and making other changes to its diversity initiatives. Target said it had a new strategy called “Belonging at the Bullseye,” which it first introduced last year, and the company remained committed to “creating a sense of belonging for our team, guests and communities.” Target also stressed the need for “staying in step with the evolving external landscape.” …

  171. Reginald Selkirk says

    Alito “Stunned” By Court Exercising Judicial Power He Championed & Expanded Just Months Ago

    Here’s a puzzle: When does a Supreme Court justice believe courts can review executive branch decisions? The answer, at least for Justice Alito, appears to be “whenever a Democrat is president, but only then.”

    There is plenty of commentary making the rounds regarding yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision confirming that of course a judge can issue a Temporary Restraining Order to maintain the status quo and require USAID pay out the money that it owes to contractors for work already done. But beneath the straightforward legal question lies a revealing pattern of inconsistency from some of the Court’s conservatives.

    The eye-opening thing about Alito’s dissent is how completely it contradicts positions he took just months ago. And not in subtle ways — we’re talking about fundamental questions of judicial power that Alito seems to view entirely differently depending on which party controls the White House.

    To understand this claim — and how there’s basically no other explanation — we need to look at what actually happened here. Elon Musk and his DOGE crew went into USAID and halted nearly all payments, which created an interesting legal problem that had been mostly theoretical prior to the current administration. Congress has “the power of the purse” and requires the executive branch to spend money as directed. Not spending appropriated money (known as “impoundment”) is pretty clearly illegal.

    While this has kicked off a bunch of lawsuits, the one at issue here involves two contractors — AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council — who pointed out that they already completed the work for which they have contracts, and they are owed money on those contracts. Musk freezing the payouts violated the law.

    The judge in the District Court, Amir Ali, agreed that this seemed like a pretty big issue and issued a Temporary Restraining Order. TROs are supposed to be used in rare situations, mainly to return things to the status quo to avoid irreparable harms. In this case, contractors not getting paid by the US government for work they already performed, on contracts and appropriations already blessed by Congress and the executive branch, could do real damage. And thus, Ali ordered them to proceed to abide by the contracts and the constitutionally required situations in which the executive branch does, in fact, pay out the money that Congress has appropriated.

    However, after doing so, the White House ignored the order and did not pay out the money. Judge Ali brought the DOJ back into court two weeks later to ask WTF, followed by issuing an order that they pay out the money they owed by that very night. This is when the DOJ tried to appeal, which quickly bumped its way up to the Supreme Court. With little time to spare, Chief Justice Roberts issued an “administrative stay” on the TRO, basically putting it on hold.

    This administrative stay created an oddity worth examining. The whole point of both TROs and administrative stays is generally to “preserve the status quo” while the court can look at things more closely. But which status quo? The one where the government follows the law and pays its bills to contractors who already did the work? Or the one where Musk’s DOGE team is illegally impounding funds denying lawfully contracted work from being paid for? It sure feels like the former is the only status quo worth preserving.

    After sitting on the issue for nearly a week, the Court finally ruled 5-4 in support of Judge Ali’s basic position, though they told him to come up with a new implementation plan since the original payment deadline had passed. But the really appalling part isn’t the majority ruling — it’s Alito’s dissent, which reads like it was written in an alternate universe where a bunch of other opinions, many of which Alito supported, don’t exist.

    Alito’s dissent starts with what might charitably be called selective amnesia, both of the facts of this case, as well as recent Supreme Court jurisprudence that he supported:

    Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.

    Stunned, are you?

    Let’s pause here and note what Alito is doing. He’s framing this as a question of judicial power over executive spending. Which would be a reasonable framing, if not for two rather enormous elephants in the room: First, Congress has already directed this spending, as its power under the Constitution. Second, Alito himself has repeatedly insisted that courts must enforce such congressional directives against presidential overreach — at least when Democrats are in office.

    Look, I know some people (including Chief Justice John Roberts) will get mad that I suggest Alito is an extreme partisan, but that paragraph, combined with some recent rulings that went in the other direction when Joe Biden was President, seem to make it pretty clear that Alito’s guiding philosophy is “When Republicans are in power, the president is a king; When Democrats are in power, presidents have no power at all.”

    Let’s call out two previous rulings, both written by the Chief Justice, but to which Alito readily signed on. First was Biden v. Nebraska, the case in which the Supreme Court said that the President has no authority to cancel student loan debt without an act of Congress. In that case, the Court repeatedly made clear: the executive branch has zero authority to reinterpret or ignore an act of Congress, especially involving funds.

    As Roberts wrote in that case, and which all of the Justices in the dissent on yesterday’s case agreed to:

    The dissent is correct that this is a case about one branch of government arrogating to itself power belonging to another. But it is the Executive seizing the power of the Legislature

    Or how about this part of that same ruling:

    … our precedent— old and new—requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy.

    Does that not apply equally in this case? Then why is Alito somehow stunned that the lower court made the same ruling that Alito agreed to less than two years ago?

    Okay, so maybe that’s too far back in history. Let’s consider last summer’s ruling in the Loper Bright case, that got rid of Chevron deference. This case was also about separation of powers and whether the judiciary has the right to step in and overrule the executive branch…

  172. says

    MSNBC:

    “An American President is not a king, “a federal judge wrote in ruling against President Donald Trump on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in the District of Columbia made the stark statement in rejecting Trump’s bid to fire Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.

    NBC News:

    A federal appeals court Wednesday said President Donald Trump can fire a top government watchdog in the latest round of a legal fight over the authority to dismiss federal officials. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., put on hold on a lower court’s ruling that found Hampton Dellinger’s termination at the Office of Special Counsel was ‘unlawful.’ The court said it would expedite its review of the ruling, but in the meantime Dellinger can be removed from his post.

    USA Today:

    A U.S. judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out steep cuts to federal grant funding for research that universities and Democratic-led states warn would lead to layoffs, lab closures and a curtailment of scientific and medical studies.

  173. says

    Politico:

    President Emmanuel Macron has warned that France needs to prepare for the possibility of the United States disengaging from Europe by increasing spending on defense needs and rethinking how the country uses its nuclear deterrent.

  174. says

    New York Times:

    The Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Trump’s criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche to take the No. 2 position at the Justice Department, where he has vowed to end the kind of investigations and prosecutions that led to indictments against his client.

  175. says

    NBC News:

    The Social Security Administration wrote in a Thursday morning email that employees can no longer read news websites on work devices.

  176. says

    MAGA loyalists seethe after ‘Hamilton’ cancels shows over Trump

    The creators of “Hamilton” refuse to let their hit musical be performed next year at the Kennedy Center, where a now-canceled 8-week run was slated to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—and this snub has MAGA acolytes seeing red.

    […] Trump purged the board of the performing arts center in February and has since been made chairman, which caused an exodus of board members and performers.

    “This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda said in a joint interview via The New York Times with lead producer Jeffrey Seller. “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.”

    […] the president’s loyalists aren’t very happy.

    “Let’s be clear on the facts,” Richard Grenell, a Trump administration diplomat, said in a post via X. “Seller and Lin Manuel first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans. This is a publicity stunt that will backfire.”

    Grenell—who recently campaigned on behalf of accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate—then argued that arts are for both sides of the aisle and “not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with.”

    […] Grenell’s comments come at an interesting time, given that Miranda and Seller pulled the show partly because of Trump’s sudden ousting of Democrats from the previously bipartisan board at the Kennedy Center.

    “Our cancellation is also a business decision,” Seller wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “‘Hamilton’ is a large and global production, and it would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of ‘Hamilton’ if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement.”

    He added, “The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted.” [True, quite true.]

    It’s likely Seller was referring to Trump’s firing of Deborah Rutter, the center’s longtime president. Trump also fired multiple board members, replacing them with his own supporters.

    […] “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth—THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation,” Trump added, though he’s admitted to never having seen a Kennedy Center show.

    As Trump has brought his loyalists, those on the other side of the aisle have made their exit.

    Singer-songwriter Ben Folds resigned from his role as artistic advisor to the center’s National Symphony Orchestra, as did TV legend Shonda Rhimes as a board member.

    “Hamilton” has a history of butting heads with the Trump administration, with cast members personally pleading to former Vice President Mike Pence onstage in mid-November 2016 to do right by the American people.

    “We, sir—we—are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” actor Brandon Victor Dixon, playing Vice President Aaron Burr, said to Pence from the stage. “We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

    While “Hamilton” won’t be gracing the stage and several other performers have canceled in protest, most of the Kennedy Center’s schedule appears to remain intact.

    One other play, “The Story of a Rose,” however, relocated to Northern Virginia. The World War-I themed concert was said to have been moved due to seating capacity, per the New York Times. […]

  177. says

    Now it’s the CDC’s turn to beg fired workers to please come back

    It’s time to acknowledge that the DOGE bros have no clue what they are doing.

    After Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency abruptly fired around 180 probationary employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the department sent a new round of emails Tuesday—this time requesting them to come back to work.

    “Read this e-mail immediately,” the subject line demanded, according to the Associated Press.

    “You should return to duty under your previous work schedule. We apologize for any disruption that this may have caused,” the email said.

    It’s not clear how many employees have actually returned to their roles.

    The sudden about-face comes amid a rapidly escalating bird flu crisis and measles outbreak […]

    In mid-February, Kennedy fired nearly half of the public health workforce. And recently, members of his own staff have been jumping ship in response to his lackluster leadership.

    Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, which is home to the CDC headquarters, railed against the firings in February, citing the danger of Kennedy.

    “The moment at which you put the CDC and Nazi death camps in the same statement, and you’re the secretary nominee for HHS, Houston, Georgia, America, we have a problem. And that problem is Robert Kennedy,” he said.

    On Thursday, Warnock expressed relief over the CDC rehirings, but he also warned about the risks DOGE’s role in the federal government poses to the United States.

    […] The CDC fiasco is only the latest chapter in Musk’s heavy-handed and incredibly reckless mass purge of federal agencies under the guise of “government efficiency,” [snipped examples]

    The CDC whiplash is just the latest in a series of embarrassing reversals from MAGA. It’s almost as if these goons are entirely unqualified to run the U.S. government.

  178. says

    AI chatbots infected with Russian disinformation

    The world’s most popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are infected with Russian disinformation, according to a study published Thursday.

    The research done by the news monitoring service NewsGuard found that the Moscow-based disinformation network dubbed Pravda — which is Russian for “truth” — has been spreading falsehoods on the internet, including attempts to influence AI chatbots and the results they spell out to users.

    “By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how large language models process and present news and information,” NewsGuard said in the lengthy report, adding it results in massive “amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda.”

    The world’s leading AI chatbots have repeated false narratives trafficked by the Pravda network 33 percent of the time, NewsGuard said in its audit.

    NewsGuard stated it tested 10 prominent AI chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini. It sampled 15 false narratives that have been pushed by a network of 150 “pro-Kremlin Pravda websites” from April 2022 through last month.

    The news rating service said its findings confirmed the American Sunlight Project’s February 2025 report, which warned that Pravda was set up to “flood large-language models with pro-Kremlin content.”

    “The long-term risks–political, social, and technological–associated with potential LLM [large-language model] grooming within this network are high. The larger a set of pro-Russia narratives is, the more likely it is to be integrated into an LLM,” the American Sunlight Project wrote in the 22-page report released Feb. 26.

    Pravda does not churn out original content. It aggregates content from government agencies, pro-Kremlin influencers and Russian state media “through a broad set of seemingly independent websites,” according to NewsGuard, adding that it found Pravda has spread a “total of 207 provably false claims, serving as a central hub for disinformation laundering.” […]

  179. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: JM @159:

    [Article]: Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You’re in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.

    Then Friday at the White House to Fox…

    Aaron Rupar:

    Trump on his cabinet members: “We’re gonna be watching them. And Elon and the group are gonna be watching them. And if they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting.” [Video clip]

  180. says

    Sky Captain @179, that made me laugh. I thought that was what Trump was doing … he made a show of saying department heads were in charge. And then Trump promptly undercut that authority and handed it back to Musk.

    In other news, here are some excerpts from a New Yorker article written by Robin wright.

    […] Trump has also been increasingly combative about seizing the Panama Canal—militarily, if necessary.

    It’s an odd obsession, or first fight to pick, given that Panama has been a democracy, and a strategic ally, since 1989. In December, he posted, “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal.”

    His threats escalated during his Inaugural Address. Trump called the two treaties, signed in 1977, that gave Panama control of the canal by 2000—as long as it pledged neutrality on global shipping and ran the costly waterway—a “foolish gift.” […] “China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China,” he said. “We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” He also claimed that American ships, including U.S. Navy vessels, have been “severely overcharged.”

    […] José Raúl Mulino, the President of Panama, hit back. “Nonsense,” he said. “There is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal, for the love of God.” There is “no possibility” of discussing a discount on tolls for the U.S., he added, since the treaties pledged “no discrimination against any nation, or its citizens or subjects, concerning the conditions or charges of transit, for any other reason.” Tolls, Mulino noted, are “not set at the whim of the president or the [canal] administrator.” The waterway, he said, was “not a concession or a gift.”

    In 2016, Panama opened a new set of locks in a third lane for giant container ships. [snipped details, including a list of countries that use the Panama Canal]

    As for the claim that Chinese soldiers are operating the canal? At the Senate confirmation hearing for his appointment as Secretary of State, Marco Rubio acknowledged that technically Panama has not turned over control of the strategic waterway to a foreign power. It is operated exclusively by the independent Panama Canal Authority. However, he added, “a foreign power today possesses—through their companies, which we know are not independent—the ability to turn the canal into a choke point and a moment of conflict.”

    […] Two months before the United States ceded control of the canal, in 1999, U.S. intelligence concluded that the company’s [Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based company] presence did not threaten canal operations or American interests in Panama. Its operations were “limited to loading and unloading and storing cargo containers.” The assessment also “found no information to substantiate” concerns that the company, a multibillion-dollar enterprise that had operated in Hong Kong for more than a hundred and fifty years, was a front for the Beijing government.

    […] In 2021, Panama granted a twenty-five-year extension to Hutchison’s operations at the canal.

    […] One way to defuse tensions would be for Panama to cancel its leases with the company, although that could lead to legal challenges and steep costs. Last month, Panama began an “exhaustive audit” of Hutchison’s operations.

    […] As a footnote to the brewing crisis, Trump has a troubled financial history in Panama. In 2018, the majority stakeholder in a Trump-branded Panama City hotel sought to sever ties for “utterly incompetent management.” The dispute went to the courts and later led to fisticuffs between the investor’s team and Trump security personnel. Police intervened. The silver letters of Trump’s name were eventually pried off the building, dumped in a plastic container, and driven away in a Hyundai hatchback. My guide in Panama City repeatedly pointed out where the President’s hotel had been; it has become a part of national lore. As with so many of Trump’s policy pursuits, an element of personal pique may be at play, too.

  181. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    The head of the US African Development Foundation is suing Peter Marocco and DOGE—and he is describing in detail the standoff

    Docket

    On February 21, President Trump issued an Executive Order describing USADF as “unnecessary.” Within days, Defendants launched a full-on assault against USADF. First, DOGE gained access to the agency under the false pretenses of modernizing and streamlining USADF’s computer systems. When USADF learned that DOGE was there to kill the agency, USADF staff refused DOGE access to cancel all grants and contracts. DOGE employees began threatening members of the Board—telling them that unless they carried out DOGE’s plans to strip USADF to its core, the Board would be fired. When that didn’t work, USADF was told that President Trump did not need to follow the required process for advice and consent of the Senate and instead had appointed Pete Marocco as the sole board member (despite there still being four properly appointed board members, none of whom had received any notification of termination).

    Yesterday, Wednesday, March 5, DOGE staff and Marocco attempted to access USADF’s offices. Plaintiff Brehm had told them that he was President of USADF and that he had instructed staff to not allow Defendants access as they had no legal authority. Undeterred, Marocco and DOGE threatened a security guard with a lawsuit and told the building’s property manager that they would bring in U.S. Marshals and the Secret Service unless they were given access to USADF. Their threats were unsuccessful.

    Defendants have made clear their intentions: ignore statutory requirements, pretend that leadership of the agency does not exist, and shutter USADF. That is precisely what they did to USADF’s sister agency, the Inter-American Foundation (IAF). Using the same bullying tactics, they attempted to get access to IAF’s grants and contracts. When that failed, they purported to fire IAF’s President and then announced by fiat that Marocco had been appointed sole board member (despite the IAF board also not having been fired). In a closed-door board meeting last Friday, February 28—which consisted of just Marocco in the IAF lobby—Marocco appointed himself acting President of IAF. That night, at Marocco’s direction, Treasury cancelled all but a handful of IAF’s contracts. And two days ago, purporting to act as both President and sole board member, Marocco directed DOGE to cancel all but a few of IAF’s grants, shut employees out of the IT systems, laid off almost the entire IAF staff, and shut down IAF’s website.

  183. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dow Jones Futures: Trump Blames ‘Globalists’ For Market Dive; Palantir Plunges As Broadcom Jumps Late

    Dow Jones futures rose overnight, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures, with the February jobs report on tap amid growth concerns. Broadcom (AVGO)and Costco Wholesale (COST)

    The stock market suffered significant losses Thursday, with the Nasdaq back below the 200-day line amid Trump tariff fatigue. The S&P 500 undercut its 200-day line as well as Tuesday’s low. Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA) and Palantir Technologies (PLTR) were big losers.

    More resilient stocks began to buckle, with Netflix (NFLX) and DoorDash (DASH) tumbling below their 50-day lines…

    Trump told reporters that the recent tariff reprieves aren’t related to market woes. The president, who would often cite a rising Dow Jones in his first term, said he is “not looking at the stock market.” Trump blamed “globalist countries and companies” for the sell-off…

  184. Reginald Selkirk says

    Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite Follow-Up Takes On Trump. It’s a Blast.

    Mickey 17, writer-director Bong Joon Ho’s long-delayed follow-up to the internationally acclaimed, Best Picture–winning Parasite, arrives at a moment so apropos that its allegory lines up with our reality like a cutout dress on a paper doll. Had the film been released in March 2024 as planned, its darkly comic vision of a planetary labor colony ruled by an authoritarian billionaire (who also hosts a glitzy nightly TV show) still might have seemed like an urgent warning of what could be, rather than an unblinking depiction of what somehow now is.

    Mickey 17, an adaptation of the 2022 graphic novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, begins in the year 2054 on the frozen planet of Niflheim…

  185. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Badbox botnet is back, powered by up to a million backdoored Androids

    Human Security’s Satori research team says it has found a new variant of the remote-controllable Badbox malware, and as many as a million infected Android devices running it to form a massive botnet.

    The infosec outfit spotted the first Badbox outbreak in 2023, when it found off-brand Android-powered internet-connected TV devices – knockoffs of kit like Apple TV, Roku, or Amazon Fire Sticks – contaminated with malware that participated in a colossal ad-fraud network called Peachpit. Around 74,000 devices participated in the first Badbox cluster.

    Badbox 2.0 apparently again targets Android, this time hardware running the base Android Open Source Project, aka AOSP, and has been spotted in cheap off-brand phones, more net-connected TV boxes, tablets sold for use in cars, and digital projectors.

    Gavin Reid, CISO of Human Security, told The Register the botnet’s herders sometimes spread their software nasty by intervening in the supply chain to buy cheap hardware, rebadge it, install their evil code in either firmware or an app users are likely to use often, then resell the poisoned products.

    The Human Security researchers also said they found more than 200 apps infected with malware that participates in the botnet, all hosted on third-party Android app stores. Most are “evil twins” of legit programs submitted to Google’s Play Store. After those legit apps appear, crooks create and publish very similar packages on third-party software souks – complete with the malware. Users of third-party app stores – which are big in the developing world – are fooled into downloading and installing the evil twins…

    International cops seize ransomware crooks’ favorite Russian crypto exchange

    A coalition of international law enforcement has shut down Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, a favorite of now-defunct ransomware crew Conti and others criminals for money laundering.

    “The US Secret Service has seized website domains associated with the administration and operation of Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex as part of an ongoing investigation,” Nate Herring, a spokesperson for the service, told The Register. “We are unable to provide additional comments at this time and will release additional information when available.” …

  186. StevoR says

    What could be the world’s oldest-known impact crater has been discovered in the remote north-west of Australia.
    The crater, located near the Pilbara town of Marble Bar, is thought to have been created 3.47 billion years ago. The site, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, has been dubbed North Pole Crater by geologists from Curtin University. Such an impact eclipses a previous claim for oldest crater, Yarrabubba in WA’s Mid-West, discovered by the same team, by more than 1 billion years.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2025-03-06/oldest-known-crater-pilbara-geology-3-47-billion-years-old/105019606

  187. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all

    Stacey Abrams blasts Trump tariff whiplash: It’s ‘like a Ponzi scheme’
    Chris Hayes interviews Stacey Abrams.
    Video is 6:05 minutes

    ‘Appalling’: Pentagon press secretary faces calls to resign over anti-semitic posts
    Video is 4:01 minutes

    ‘Try something!’: Hayes has advice for the anti-Trump resistance
    Video is 8:11 minutes

  189. says

    IKEA beds? Dressers? Inside the ‘exceedingly odd’ DOGE office setup

    “Details of the arrangements at GSA offer a window into the lifestyle of DOGE workers.”

    […] even DOGE workers need to slow down and sleep — and they’re increasingly doing so in a federal office building, an arrangement that ethics experts said could break longstanding agency rules.

    At the General Services Administration’s towering federal office building in downtown Washington, workers have set up at least four separate rooms on the 6th floor for sleeping, complete with beds from IKEA, lamps and dressers, according to two career GSA employees.

    These rooms share office space with conference rooms and are accessible only with high-security clearances, said the workers, who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

    The agency is also considering spending about $25,000 to install a washer and dryer on the building’s 6th floor, according to a Feb. 25 invoice obtained by POLITICO. There is also a child’s play area decorated with a stuffed animal and toys, according to a photo of the room shared with POLITICO.

    “People are definitely … sleeping there,” said one GSA staffer.

    […] Details of the arrangements at GSA — a federal building on 18th and F Street NW where more than 1,000 staffers work — offer a window into the lifestyle DOGE workers are creating, even as they work to cut staff and slash spending across the federal government.

    Musk himself has embraced the idea of sleeping and even living at work. The tech billionaire revealed at an investment conference in New York last year that Tesla factories in California and Nevada served as his “primary residences” for three years. Musk said he crashed on couches and underneath his desk on the factory floor to motivate staff. And as the head of X, formerly Twitter, Musk had workers sleeping in the social media company’s offices, too.

    Now, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO — and Trump’s top adviser — is reportedly hunkering down at work again, this time at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just steps away from the White House.

    […] Ethics experts say the arrangements are murky, unprecedented in D.C. and raise questions about DOGE’s intentions. A bulletin GSA released in 2019 states that sleeping in agency offices is prohibited “except when expressly authorized by an agency official.”

    But Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said that guidance only allows workers to sleep in a federal building if “directed by a supervisor,” if it’s necessary, there’s an emergency or there is “imminent danger to human life or property, where persons are directed to shelter-in-place.”

    “This administration is firing career workers, federal employees, eviscerating civil service protections for government employees, but is also so desperate for work that it is allowing other government employees to, or directing other government employees, to sleep at work,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

    […] “It’s exceedingly odd,” said Jeff Nesbit. “I’ve run the public affairs offices of five different Cabinet departments or agencies under four different presidents, two Republicans and two Democrats. I have never heard of any such thing. I can’t even imagine what the purpose is, other than to terrorize the civilian workforce.” [And to perhaps maintain a cult-like atmosphere among DOGE workers?]

    […] “The hallway has been blocked off with a special access list of people who can’t get back here.”

    Subramanyam [Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a member of the House Oversight Committee] said he’s raised the issue at an Oversight hearing and on the House floor […]

    “This is the problem with DOGE,” he continued. “[…] they kind of just do whatever they want without needing to even identify themselves, much less explain why they’re doing things, like staying in federal buildings.”

  190. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    KrebsOnSecurity – Who is the DOGE and X technician Branden Spikes?

    At 49, [he’s] one of the oldest technologists [in DOGE] whose Russian ex-wife was once married to Elon’s cousin. […] It is difficult to find another person connected to DOGE who has stronger ties to Musk than Branden Spikes.
    […]
    Spikes […] recently decided to head back home and focus on his job as director of IT at X. [“I loved it,”] Spikes said of his tenure at DOGE. “After a couple of months it became clear that to continue helping I would need to move to DC and commit a lot more time, so I politely bowed out.”
    […]
    When asked about his ex-wife’s history, Spikes said she has a good heart and bears no ill-will toward anyone. […] “Elon’s intentions are good and you can trust him,” Spikes assured.

    Jacqueline Sweet:

    Spikes and his ex-wife were involved with Russian diaspora websites and groups linked to pro-Kremlin KSORS players, Russian state media while he was at SpaceX.

    Spikes’ former wife was previously married to one of Elon Musk’s cousins. Spikes and his ex Natalia Haldeman registered websites and nonprofits tied to [Russian Orthodox Church] causes and the Congress of Russian Americans which lobbied against Russian sanctions and pushed a pro-Kremlin agenda since Crimean invasion.

    [The Insider – How Russian diaspora serves Kremlin in USA (2022)]

    Emigrants have been actively used to advance Kremlin propaganda and sometimes to serve the needs of Russian intelligence. In the U.S., where diaspora organizations were extremely active, they were eventually dealt with by the FBI

  193. birgerjohansson says

    Among other crimes, Tywin apparently trapped Morpheus aka Dream. That actor really gets about.

  194. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meet Rayhunter: A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying

    At EFF we spend a lot of time thinking about Street Level Surveillance technologies—the technologies used by police and other authorities to spy on you while you are going about your everyday life—such as automated license plate readers, facial recognition, surveillance camera networks, and cell-site simulators (CSS). Rayhunter is a new open source tool we’ve created that runs off an affordable mobile hotspot that we hope empowers everyone, regardless of technical skill, to help search out CSS around the world.

    CSS (also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers) are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower…

    To fill these gaps in our knowledge, we have created an open source project called Rayhunter.1 It is developed to run on an Orbic mobile hotspot (Amazon, Ebay) which is available for $20 or less at the time of this writing. We have tried to make Rayhunter as easy as possible to install and use, regardless of your level of technical knowledge. We hope that activists, journalists, and others will run these devices all over the world and help us collect data about the usage and capabilities of cell-site simulators (please see our legal disclaimer.)

    Rayhunter works by intercepting, storing, and analyzing the control traffic (but not user traffic, such as web requests) between the mobile hotspot Rayhunter runs on and the cell tower to which it’s connected. Rayhunter analyzes the traffic in real-time and looks for suspicious events, which could include unusual requests like the base station (cell tower) trying to downgrade your connection to 2G which is vulnerable to further attacks, or the base station requesting your IMSI under suspicious circumstances…

  195. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mysterious unmanned warship spotted off of Washington state coast

    A state-of-the-art unmanned warship designed for autonomous naval missions has been spotted in waters off of Washington state.

    The USX-1 Defiant was being pushed by tug boat earlier this week through the Saratoga Passage in Puget Sound, just a few miles from the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Station Whidby Island, according to The War Zone.

    The 180ft, 240-ton unmanned surface vessel, a type of drone, was completed last month after a five-year development.

    It has been constructed as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s “No Manning Required Ship” program alongside private maritime and operations company Serco – the primary contractor for the Defiant…

  198. says

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

    ‘Old-fashioned, simple scam’: Trump hypes ‘strategic crypto reserve’
    video os 4:24 minutes

    ‘Rapid unscheduled disassembly’: Another Musk SpaceX rocket explodes, interrupting air traffic
    video is 2:56 minutes

    How one man took on Trump’s improper firings and saved the jobs of thousands of people
    video is 12:12 minutes

  200. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nate Silver on the Demise of FiveThirtyEight

    FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver, on the site’s demise:

    Last night, as President Trump delivered his State of the Union address, the Wall Street Journal reported that ABC News would lay off the remaining staff at 538 as part of broader cuts within corporate parent Disney…

  202. says

    Canadians are so f-cking done with Donald Trump’s aggression

    […] “Hey, I know it’s in our nature to cut a guy some slack. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Like, maybe he was confused or just joking. But this isn’t that guy. These aren’t those people,” he says as images of Trump and his Cabinet of dunderheads flash behind him.

    “They mistake our modesty for meekness. Our kindness for consent. Our nation for another star on their flag. And our love of a hot, cheesy poutine with their love of a hot, cheesy Putin,” Douglas says. “Are we perfect? No, but we are not the 51st anything!” [video at the link]
    […]

  203. says

    New justification for Trump’s trade war with Canada makes no damn sense

    White House trade adviser and ex-convict Peter Navarro told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Wednesday, that “Canada has been taken over, Bret, by Mexican cartels. They bring up these pill presses and printers, and the medicines that they fake, you can’t tell the difference.”

    Navarro was running interference for his boss, who walked back his big trade war tariffs against Canada and Mexico in less than 48 hours. (Though he continues to flip-flop on the tariffs at a breakneck pace.) President Donald Trump chose to continue his attack on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—after folding like a cheap suit—by claiming that fentanyl smuggling was an enormous problem along the Canadian border.

    According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, only 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the Canadian border in 2024. During that same period, more than 21,000 pounds were seized along the Mexican border. So, of the more than 21,043 pounds of fentanyl seized at our country’s borders in 2024, approximately 0.2% of it came through Canada.

    Navarro’s wonderlandian assertion was quickly parroted, albeit with less hyperbole, by Trump’s other minions. White House press secretary, and front-facing lie machine, Karoline Leavitt had this to say when she was presented with those facts by Senior White House Correspondent for NBS News Gabe Gutierrez.

    Gutierrez: Respectfully. It’s just 43 pounds that were found last year. That’s less than a carry-on suitcase. Is that a lot of fentanyl compared to, say, Mexico? The vast majority of the fentanyl is brought in through Mexico, not Canada. So what else does Canada need to do?

    Leavitt: Well, I just told you, last year alone, there was a 2,000% increase in illegal fentanyl. If you’re asking me, you’re asking me for what the president’s justification is for these tariffs. It’s not up to you. You’re not the president, Gabe.”

    […]

    Video at the link.

  204. says

    Trump tries to eliminate the source of the Steele Dossier

    This firm has over 1,000 lawyers, over $1 billion in revenue in 2023, and 21 offices. Started in Seattle in 1912. What did they do to deserve Trump’s wrath?

    An executive order aimed at a private entity is completely unprecedented. It’s called: “Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP.”

    Trump is acting as judge, jury, and executioner. This time, he may have chosen the wrong enemy. They have more lawyers than he does.

    “The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP has affected this country for decades. Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election.”

    I’m sure you’re starting to get an idea of why this executive order has been generated.

    Fusion GPS is an opposition research and strategic intelligence firm. It has a complicated history as you might imagine. In 2015 they were retained by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, to do opposition research into Trump and other conservative candidates. When Trump became the sole runner, the Beacon stopped the research.

    Then Hillary Clinton’s campaign retained Perkins Coie, who contacted Fusion GPS and continued research into Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then retained the services of Christopher Steele, a private corporate intelligence investigator and former MI6 agent. He was to investigate any Russian connections by Trump. He produced a series of 35 memos of uncorroborated information.

    Christopher Steele is the man behind the infamous Steele dossier, which Trump has always called a hoax.

    The lead election lawyer at Perkins Coie was Mark Elias. Fusion GPS gave him the dossier. Marc left Perkins Coie in 2021 to form his own law election law firm, Elias Law Group. He testified about the dossier in 2017 in front of the House Intelligence Committee.

    You can actually read the dossier here. It’s a PDF of photos taken of the pages with passages highlighted with a yellow marker. Item 3 on page 2 has Trump at the Moscow Ritz Carlton with prostitutes and the “golden shower” in a room wired for sound and video.

    Page 18 is about Michael Cohen’s secret liaison with the Kremlin. Page 20 Paul Manafort. Lots of interesting stuff.

    The executive order went on to say:

    “Perkins Coie has worked with activist donors including George Soros to judicially overturn popular, necessary, and democratically enacted election laws…” […] “…Perkins Coie racially discriminates against it own attorneys and staff, and against applicants.”

    Later on, the order plainly states that their problem is with diversity, equity, and inclusion at Perkins Coie.

    As a result, they should not get any federal funds or contracts, and any existing security clearances are revoked. Any Security Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) have to be shut down and removed.

    Government contractors have to divulge if they have contact of any kind with Perkins Coie.

    […] Perkins Coie employees are banned from entering any federal buildings.

    Agencies will not hire former Perkins Coie employees.

    All this because Hillary Clinton’s campaign hired Perkins Coie, who hired Fusion GPS, who hired Christopher Steele, who created the dossier and gave it to Marc Elias which/who caused years of headaches for Trump.

    What will Perkins Coie do in response? They have worked primarily with Democrats, so businesswise, it would have a negligible effect. They could sue for due process if they feel anything is worth defending.

    […] It’s a story to follow because it brings up the Steele Dossier which had faded into oblivion. Trump has just brought up into people’s minds again that maybe it wasn’t so far fetched and that there must be information in it that was real.

    Which parts, Mr. Trump? Which parts?

  205. rorschach says

    Looking through PZ’s posts the last few weeks, and I’m thinking good ol’ times when we were all just talking about atheism. My internet friend Leslie, an established Infosec professional, has just arrived in Melbourne/AU after fleeing Trump and Elon’s USA, and I wonder how many others are doing or considering doing the same. Especially the scientist brain drain will be enormous.

  207. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ford Issues Storm Of Recalls On Maverick, F-150, Expedition, Navigator, Escape, Corsair, Mach E, Lightning, And Ecosport Models

    Ford issued an incredible eight recalls in a single day, affecting tens of thousands of vehicles dating back as far as 2020. Five of the eight recalls are aimed at Ford’s diminutive Maverick pickup, though half a dozen other models from Ford and Lincoln are affected as well. Most of the vehicles in the recall are simply getting called into a dealer for a check to some component or another, or an update to the software installed. Ford has made an effort in recent years to reduce quality concerns and require fewer recalls, but it seems the company hasn’t made much progress on that front. All but three of these recalls were issued to fix something that should have been fixed on a previous recall. What’s going on with that?

    None of these recalls come with an attached stop-use notice, so they probably aren’t anything to be drastically worried about, but if your vehicle is affected, you should pop into your Ford dealer and get it looked at when you get a chance. OK, let’s dig into these recalls and see where things stand, shall we?
    …

  208. says

    Trump offers pathway to citizenship for South African farmers, families

    […] Trump is offering an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship to some South African farmers, calling their treatment in the country “terrible.”

    “They are confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT,” he wrote in a Friday morning post on Truth Social.

    Trump signed an executive order last month halting federal aid to South Africa over property laws he said impose “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaner farmers.

    “To go a step further, any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship,” he wrote Friday. “This process will begin immediately!”

    He didn’t provide additional details about the immediate plan, but Trump wrote in his February order that the U.S. would “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation” and directed his Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to prioritize their resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program.”

    Afrikaners are a white predominantly Dutch ethnic group that makes up less than 7 percent of South Africa’s total population.

    The South African government has rejected claims of racial discrimination and accused Trump of having a distorted take on its land law that went into effect in January. The majority Black country’s Parliament passed the law to “to redress the results of past racial discriminatory laws or practices,” including apartheid and European colonialism. It’s currently being challenged in court, and no land has been taken.

    Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Trump, hails from South Africa. Musk, who is white, has lambasted the land law on social media and claimed on his social platform X on Friday that his company Starklink can’t operate in his home country “because I’m not black.”

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has spoken with Musk amid the dispute, alluded to Trump’s attack on the law during a speech to Parliament last month.

    “We will not be bullied,” he said. “We will stand together as a united nation and we will speak with one voice in defense of our national interests, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy.”

  209. Reginald Selkirk says

    The many faces of JD Vance.

    His distorted face has been inescapable on social media — blown up and tinted like a blueberry, smooth and textureless, edited as a Minion and Furby. What began as “an easy own” has spiraled into a full-blown meme of making the vice president look like a child with a propeller hat and candy. Vance, apparently, is definitely not mad and is laughing, actually.

    (Article includes links to all those examples)

  210. says

    Trump Trying To Do Secret Coups For Putin In Ukraine Too? Why Wouldn’t He!

    […] Donald Trump despises our small-D democratic allies around the world, and he is clearly beholden to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, which makes him “Putin’s ho” or whatever you want to call him. (“Traitor” is probably the most efficient term.)

    And oh boy, does he hate Ukraine and its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, both on behalf of Putin, and because Zelenskyy possesses the easy confidence, integrity, and strength of a man Trump is physically incapable of being. He’s in the process of cutting off military aid to Ukraine, for Putin. He’s stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, for Putin. […]

    Why wouldn’t he also be behind the scenes (maybe even along with his buds in the Russian government?) trying to mount a coup in Ukraine to get Zelenskyy out of power, and install maybe a more subservient pro-Russian leader — you know, somebody else who is Putin’s [B-word] — so Putin can just go ahead and seize the nation he thinks he’s entitled to?

    Reporting in Politico Europe suggests that’s precisely what’s happening.

    In a lot of ways the story rhymes with pretty much every other story that features Donald Trump and Ukraine. Before he chaired Trump’s 2016 campaign “for free,” Paul Manafort worked for years under a Russian oligarch, among other things to install a pro-Russian stooge as Ukraine’s president. During Trump’s first term, he was constnatly sniffing the asses of Zelenskyy’s pro-Russian rivals trying to get fake dirt on the Bidens to help him steal the 2020 election.

    Now Trump’s reportedly sniffing their asses trying to get rid of Zelenskyy himself.

    [Four senior] Trump allies held talks with Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, a remorselessly ambitious former prime minister, and senior members of the party of Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s immediate predecessor as president, according to three Ukrainian parliamentarians and a U.S. Republican foreign policy expert.

    The discussions centered on whether Ukraine could hold quick presidential elections. These are being delayed in line with the country’s constitution because Ukraine remains under martial law. Critics of holding elections say they could be chaotic and play into Russia’s hands, with so many potential voters serving on the front lines or living abroad as refugees.

    Wait, didn’t the Ukrainian parliament just unanimously affirm that elections will wait as long as Russia is attacking it unprovoked? It did.

    Also, isn’t Zelenskyy’s approval rating higher than Donald Trump’s, maybe higher than ever since Trump and JD Vance tried to play a tag-team game of Daddy Who Beats Me with Zelenskyy in the Oval, since Ukrainians tend to rally around the president when enemies threaten him? Also yes, despite how Trump has been brainwashed by the Kremlin lies he wants to believe, that Zelenskyy’s approval rating is four percent, that he’s the real dictator, that people just haaaaate him.

    Sounds like the Kremlin’s fluffers in the Trump administration are high on the borscht too:

    The Trump aides are confident that Zelenskyy would lose any vote due to war fatigue and public frustration over rampant corruption. Indeed, his poll ratings have been in decline for years, although they have picked up in the wake of last week’s Oval Office brawl, when the Ukrainian leader was shown the door after being berated by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The most recent poll shows Zelenskyy still comfortably ahead in the race for the presidency. […]

    Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has falsely accused Kyiv of canceling the election. (In response to the news in this article, Elon Musk tweeted: “Ukraine needs to hold an election. Zelensky would lose by a landslide.”)

    […] Politico quotes the most recent polling: 44 percent say they’d support Zelenskyy to continue as president. […] Trump’s team are talking to some other guy entirely, who’s more than 20 points behind Zelenskyy.

    Poroshenko? Ten percent. Tymoshenko? 5.7.

    Also, if you read the quotes from those folks in the Politico article, you’ll note that neither Poroshenko nor Tymoshenko seems quiiiiite on board with what Trump and Putin clearly want to happen here. You can sense some jockeying and some both-sides-playing, but they don’t sound exactly like they’re the puppets Trump and Putin would want them to be.

    But sure! We’re talking about Trump and Russia! Surely they can figure out a way to fake election results and install some kind of Putin’s [B-word] in the Ukrainian presidency, yeah?

    So they’re reportedly cooking up this drug deal to see if they can do a presidential election really, really fast, like as soon as there’s a ceasefire, but before they really start talking about a peace agreement.

    […] “The idea of an early presidential election is also being pushed by the Kremlin,” says Politico, as if we’re talking about two different things.

    […] Politico notes that in the US, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Senator Lindsey Graham are huffing and puffing that Zelenskyy needs to be removed if he can’t learn to play nice with Stupid Hitler. (They don’t call him Stupid Hitler, we do.)

    As for other Ukrainians, it’s clear they’ve just been shoved into a really fucked up place by the Russian vassal Trump and the belligerent pile of human butthair and Nazi eyes that serves as his vice president. They know how fucked they might be if they can’t get Trump and the US back to the table. They have to care first about the safety of Ukraine. […]

    For some perspective, Politico quotes Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Ukrainian parliament, on why Trump (Putin) really wants Zelenskyy gone:

    “I believe Trump doesn’t care about whether Ukraine has elections or not. It’s Putin’s narrative, Putin’s goal. Trump is being used by Putin to impose elections on Ukraine with only one purpose, to undermine us from within. He wants to remove Zelenskyy because he is a symbol of our resistance. Putin understands that an election campaign during times of war will be destructive for our unity and for our stability,” he said.

    And anything that’s destructive to Ukraine is for the benefit of Putin and for MAGA traitor Republicans and for Trump.

    […] That polling of Ukrainians says literally only 17 percent of them have a favorable view of Trump?

    God be with those people, they’re smarter than half the dipshits in America.

  211. rorschach says

    “Trump offers pathway to citizenship for South African farmers, families”

    We’ve been through this in Australia too, it’s essentially a racist dogwhistle. In the US, it’s somewhat funnier because the guy calling for it is an illegal immigrant from South Africa.

  212. birgerjohansson says

    Some medicine-related news stories.

    Katrin Svensson, Stanford: 
    Naturally occurring molecule rivals Ozempic in weight loss, sidesteps side effects
    https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-naturally-molecule-rivals-ozempic-weight.html

    Anti-obesity drugs found to benefit kidney transplant recipients with type 2 diabetes
    https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-anti-obesity-drugs-benefit-kidney.html

    Discovery of lung-based blood stem cells may transform transplant therapies
    https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-discovery-lung-based-blood-stem.html

  214. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/tip-you-cant-spell-tariffs-without

    “Tip: You Can’t Spell ‘Tariffs’ Without ‘FFS’ ”

    “Yes, we stole that from BlueSky. But it’s a helpy spelling reminder all the same.”

    On Tuesday, Donald Trump started a bit of a stock market panic by going ahead with 25 percent tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on stuff from China. He even said in his Tuesday night rant to Congress that US automakers loved the tariffs because they’d protect their business, which turns out to have been a fib, because even before the speech, execs from Ford, GM, and Stellantis had begged Trump in a phone call to not do the tariffs.

    The brilliant business genius president was apparently the last person in North America to know that US cars are actually built with a supply chain that includes Canada and Mexico, a tiny detail that he should probably have picked up in the big beautiful US-Mexico-Canada Agreement he signed himself to replace NAFTA. He has since said that all our trade agreements were obviously negotiated by idiots, and every time he does, an aide has to kick his shin to remind him of the USMCA.

    So what the hell, on Wednesday, Trump said tariffs for automakers could wait another month, and then to avoid tariffs, all the giant corporations would simply have to move all their supply chains to the USA, because building entire factories is exactly like setting down a little red plastic hotel on a Monopoly board. […]

    Then on Thursday, Trump changed his mind some more and decided to exempt a wide range of goods from Canada and Mexico to avoid the 25 percent tariffs after all, as long as they were covered by the USMCA. Around half of Mexican imports fall under the agreement, and a bit under 40 percent of those from Canada. Energy imports aren’t covered under the USMCA, so oil and electric power from Canada will still have a 10 percent import tax.

    Trump also insisted that he hadn’t delayed or modified anything, and hadn’t been reacting to the stock market mess, because he’s perfect, his plan is perfect, shut up.

    […] Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained in a speech Thursday that it’s time we Americans stop lollygagging around and enjoying affordable consumer goods, because excuse me, America is not about that, it’s about struggle and competition, OK? Speaking to the Economic Club of New York, Bessent straightened us out about a thing or two:

    “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent said. […] “The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”

    Why yes, that was a defense of the higher prices that are going to result from Trump’s tariffs, at least those he doesn’t roll back, at least until he reimposes them, at least until a donor squeaks about it and he rolls them back again.

    Translated into Free Market Bullshit, Bessent simply wants Americans to remember that “living well and being able to afford things” is the result of getting rich through hard work, no, much more hard work than you’re doing. Once you become prosperous enough, you can then buy stuff you want! Ergo, making things “affordable” by importing them is actually cheating, so if you have a big-screen TV made in Korea or Malaysia you should probably feel bad that you didn’t instead get one that cost five times more and was made in America. Except there aren’t any, although some brands are assembled here. […]

    In conclusion, that’s just how it goes, why are you Americans so spoiled, and where did you get the ridiculous notion that Donald Trump would bring down prices? […]

    In conclusion we will just remind you that the Economic Club of New York is the very place where, near the end of the campaign, Trump “replied” to that question about how he would make daycare affordable with a long, disjointed, rambling rant about tariffs, and isn’t that a funny parallel?

    Trump and Musk are expected to reverse themselves on at least another hundred things between now and whatever horrific Friday Night News Dump is coming this evening, and we’re sure we’ll catch up with it eventually. Or not.

  215. says

    The Right’s Trump Derangement Syndrome

    New York Times link to an essay by Michelle Goldberg.

    Shortly before the last election, Scott Bessent, now Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary, assured The Financial Times that Trump had no interest in reducing international trade and that his threats to impose sweeping, 20 percent tariffs on foreign goods were simply a “maximalist” negotiating position to be watered down during trade talks. “My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” said Bessent.

    A few weeks later, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Howard Lutnick, now Trump’s commerce secretary, whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could become secretary of health and human services. “Of course not,” said Lutnick, treating the question as if it were absurd.

    During the transition, Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, acted indignant when Democrats asked Pam Bondi, now Trump’s attorney general, if she and the president-elect might consider blanket pardons for Jan. 6 insurrectionists. “I was the last member out of the Senate on Jan. 6,” said Tillis. “I walked past a lot of law enforcement officers who were injured. I find it hard to believe that the president of the United States, or you, would look at facts that were used to convict the violent people on Jan. 6 and say it was just an intemperate moment.”

    Just last month, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, who is both a Trump apologist and a supporter of Ukraine, insisted that when Trump trashes Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, it’s actually a sign of affection. “Trump tends to talk that way to his friends,” said Crenshaw. “He tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he’s talking to you that way, it still means you’re his friend.”

    [Layers and layers of delusion.]

    Some of these men may have been deliberately dishonest, but I suspect there’s also a degree of self-deception at work here. In the four years Trump was out of office, an eerie amnesia about his erratic rule settled over the country, allowing people to project onto him hopes that were utterly untethered from reality. You might call this phenomenon, to appropriate a phrase, Trump Derangement Syndrome.

    The right invented the term Trump Derangement Syndrome to dismiss analysis of Trump’s autocratic tendencies, compulsive lying and generally detestable character as liberal hysteria. For conservatives who don’t want to engage with substantive criticism of their leader, it functions as a thought-terminating cliché, a term often used by people who study cults to describe ideological formulations that short-circuit critical thinking. […]

    But the real derangement lies in either the refusal or the inability to see Trump clearly. A few months ago, if people had predicted that Trump would cut off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, destroy U.S.A.I.D., free all the Jan. 6 convicts, put his lackey Kash Patel in charge of the F.B.I. and turn us into a despised enemy of Canada, they’d have been accused of unhinged political hatred. […]

    I’d argue that the doomsayers were also right about Trump’s first term, which was full of sadism, incompetence and corruption, and culminated in a coup attempt. But if it wasn’t as catastrophic as it could have been, it was because establishment figures often restrained him. The periods of relative stability provided by the adults in the room lulled people into complacency about how much damage an unfettered Trump could do.

    […] Trump’s defenders are still pretending — perhaps to themselves as well as to the rest of us — that there’s order amid the chaos. After Trump berated and tried to humiliate Zelensky, the radio host Glenn Beck explained that he was really playing five-dimensional chess against Russia.

    […] In some ways, it’s understandable that Republicans would impute secret virtues to Trump given both his historic political successes and his rapidly increasing wealth. Trump’s opponents have repeatedly underestimated his connection with a large segment of the American electorate, and his improbable victories have made him seem, at least to his allies, like an almost mystical figure. And if you truly believe that America’s capitalist system rewards merit rather than audacity and grift, the riches Trump has extracted from his office imply a measure of genius. He keeps winning. Surely he must know what he’s doing?

    It should be obvious, however, that extraordinary skill as a demagogue does not necessarily translate to wisdom as a ruler. If Trump’s lickspittles refuse to see that, it could be because facing up to reality — that they are party to the deconstruction of a once-great superpower — is at once shameful and frightening. Far easier to invent a Trump who isn’t there, a canny savant whose policy lurches are driven by some unseen strategic logic.

    Speaking at the New York Times DealBook summit in December, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Trump had grown over the past eight years. “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time — more confident, more settled,” Bezos said. Sounds like Trump Derangement Syndrome to me.

  216. says

    Measles outbreak surpasses 200 cases in Texas and New Mexico

    “Many people in the community are forgoing testing, a health official said.”

    The measles outbreak in West Texas has soared to 198 cases, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported Friday. In New Mexico, 30 cases have been reported in Lea County, which borders Gaines County, of as Friday.

    Twenty-three people — mostly unvaccinated children — have been hospitalized in West Texas.

    A 6-year-old in Texas died last week, and on Wednesday, Lea County health officials reported a suspected measles death in an adult.

    The reported number of cases is likely a large undercount because many people aren’t getting tested, said Katherine Wells, director of public health at the health department in Lubbock, Texas. […]

    A health food store in Seminole has become a gathering place for families with visibly sick children seeking medical advice. They’re often given cod liver oil, a supplement rich in vitamin A that’s been touted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

    While studies have shown that people with a vitamin A deficiency have worse outcomes from measles and its complications, “vitamin A in and of itself does not treat measles,” said Dr. Alexandra Yonts, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

    In the U.S., “most of us get enough vitamin A,” Yonts said. “Therefore taking any additional vitamin A will unlikely give you any benefits against complications of measles.”

    “It absolutely cannot prevent you from getting measles,” she added.

    […] Gaines County has one of Texas’s highest vaccine exemption rates, at nearly 18%.

    In an editorial published Sunday on Fox News’ website, Kennedy said “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one.” He has not urged the public to get the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

    Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at preventing measles, according to the CDC. The first dose is given to children 12 to 15 months old, and the second when they are 4 to 6 years old. On Thursday, the Texas Health Department notified families in the area that they could consider an early dose of the MMR vaccine for babies 6 to 12 months.

    “The vaccine is our best tool to protect individuals against measles,” said Dr. Tina Tan, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. […]

  217. says

    “Job growth falls short of expectations in the early months of 2025

    “Given all of his pre-election boasts about his economic prowess, the new job totals don’t do Donald Trump any favors.”

    Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 170,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in February. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals fell a little short of expectations. NBC News reported:

    The United States added 151,000 jobs in February as employers in a range of industries continued making hires, while the federal government slashed its workforce by 10,000. The fresh employment data reported Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics missed expectations for 170,000 new roles, but last month’s job gains exceeded the revised 125,000 posted in January.

    The nation’s unemployment rate also inched a little higher, climbing from 4% to 4.1%.

    After some amazing jobs reports in the closing months of 2024, the tallies from January and February might seem a bit of a letdown, but all things considered, the latest data isn’t bad. And any time the nation’s unemployment rate is around 4%, it’s tough to complain.

    That said, as a political matter, the numbers don’t do Donald Trump any favors. The president, whose job totals in his first term were easily eclipsed by Joe Biden’s totals, spent the final months of 2024 insisting that he deserved credit for the good news in the employment market. As the Republican argued, employers were so excited about his glorious return to the White House and the economic nirvana he’d create upon reclaiming power, that they started hiring quickly.

    That never made any sense, and the short-of-expectations totals from January and February make his claims look even worse.

  219. says

    I meant to add this quote to comment 218:

    [Trump added], in reference to our international NATO partners, “If the United States was in trouble and we called them … you think they’re going to come and protect us? They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure.”

    JFC

    Remember September 11, 2001 when NATO partners came to the aid of the USA.

  220. says

    File this one under “What could go wrong?” and also “Oh, hell no.”

    It was only a week ago that […] Trump seized from the FBI the documents he had stolen and whisked away to Mar-a-Lago when he was booted from office in 2021. Those documents were evidence in one of his many criminal cases until his hand-picked judge waved a magic wand to make that go away and the Supreme Court ruled that he can do whatever he wants because … whatever.

    Now The Atlantic reports he’s got his eye on an even bigger prize: the Declaration of Independence.

    To be clear, Trump isn’t looking to display the sacred founding document that belongs to all Americans in his tacky Mar-a-Lago bathroom where he stashed his stolen classified documents. At least, not that we know of.

    Instead, according to reporting, Trump is interested in removing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where anyone can visit and pay homage—for free—and instead display it in the Oval Office like the head of an elephant he killed on safari.

    The declaration is carefully housed in a dimly lit room behind thick glass to protect it from deterioration. Recreating that kind of protection in the White House would be an enormous expense—but maybe Trump could beg Elon Musk for an efficiency waiver because while the federal workers who guard our nukes and protect us from epidemics might be considered a waste of money, surely giving Trump any trophy he wants is an excellent use of taxpayer dollars.

    The very tiniest glimmer of hope is that unnamed aides say Trump has perhaps moved on from the idea of getting his greedy little hands on the original Declaration of Independence and is flirting with the idea of displaying a copy in the Oval Office instead.

    “President Trump strongly believes that significant and historic documents that celebrate American history should be shared and put on display,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told The Atlantic.

    That’s not a lot of reassurance because we actually do know how Trump feels about national documents that belong to the country, not to him. And we also know the extent of Trump’s respect for the critical work the National Archives does is approximately zilch, which is why he fired the head of the National Archives last month.

    And while the idea of a president stealing a sacred founding document from the American public sounds like a very bad Nicholas Cage movie, we’ve all been here before so anyone who’s hoping The Atlantic’s reporting is wrong or that Trump would never actually be so brazen, well, don’t hold your breath.

    Link

  221. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/pentagon-disappears-non-white-military

    “Pentagon Disappears Non-White Military Photos Like A Common Joe Stalin”

    In yet another part of the Trump administration’s Make America White Again agenda — and if you think we’re being hysterical, they announced this week that they would now allow military contractors to segregate their workforces — the Pentagon is scrubbing its websites of tens of thousands of photos and posts referencing anything that might be seen as “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” (If you’re wondering what the fuck that means, it means Black people, gay people, and women. Really, that’s it.) […]

    That’s why a database of photos and posts has tens of thousands of items flagged for deletion, many of which have been deep-sixed already. Among the items flagged are photos of Medal of Honor recipients, “the first women to pass Marine infantry training,” and even photos and references to the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, nicknamed the “Enola Gay” after the wife of its pilot, Paul W. Tibbets Jr.

    […] How stupid is it? VERY FUCKING STUPID:

    Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California were marked for deletion, apparently because a local engineer in the photo had the last name Gay. And a photo of Army Corps biologists was on the list, seemingly because it mentioned they were recording data about fish — including their weight, size, hatchery and gender.

    […] As the AP reports, the number of photos and posts marked to be sent down the Memory Hole is only likely to expand from the roughly 26,000 images flagged so far:

    One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to eliminate anything that highlights diversity by Wednesday, but because the Pentagon is the biggest agency in the government, there were still plenty of terribly offensive websites and photos accurately depicting American military diversity.

    […] for instance, the National Museum of the US Air Force site still has a completely honest multi-part history of World War II’s 99th Pursuit (later “Fighter”) Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen. As of right now, it still has this dangerously correct, and therefore divisive, introduction to some of America’s greatest heroes, even though it may make white children hate themselves somehow:

    Reflecting American society and law at the time, the U.S. military remained racially segregated during World War II. Most African American soldiers and sailors were restricted to labor battalions or other support positions. One experiment in the U.S. Army Air Forces, however, demonstrated conclusively that African Americans — if given equal opportunities and training — could fly in, command and support combat units as well as anyone. These men, known as the “Tuskegee Airmen,” served with distinction in combat, and they contributed to the eventual integration of the U.S. armed services, with the U.S. Air Force leading the way.

    My God, the Army Air Corps was overrun with wokeness! Even in March 1941, when that DEI hire, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, visited the flight school at Tuskeegee Institute and backed the formation of a corps of Black aviators, even before Pearl Harbor.

    Then again, as the AP notes, perhaps that will be allowed, because “historical content.”

    The Air Force briefly removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen soon after Trump’s order. That drew the White House’s ire over “malicious compliance,” and the Air Force quickly reversed the removal.

    Thing is, nobody knows for sure, because “history” certainly didn’t prevent the National Park Service from scrubbing all mention of trans people (including the letter T in LGBTQ) from its page on the Stonewall Uprising. That’s the fun thing about fascism — you never know what may suddenly go from allowed to verboten on any given day. [True]

    Like Hegseth’s January 31 order declaring Black History Month and other “Identity Months Dead at DoD,” the Pentagon is also purging any posts mentioning Women’s History Month and other commemorations that make bigots sad. But despite the Wednesday deadline, the deletions seem to still be a work in regress:

    In some cases, the removal was partial. The main page in a post titled “Women’s History Month: All-female crew supports warfighters” was removed. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C-17 crew could still be accessed. A shot from the Army Corps of Engineers titled “Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month” was deleted.

    Other photos flagged in the database but still visible Thursday included images of the World War II Women Air Service Pilots and one of U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot.

    It’s a hell of a lot of work removing all the diversity from the military’s vast online presence, but the Pentagon wants everyone to pitch in. Like other Trumpfuckery, though, it may be hampered by the lack of staff available to do it; the Marines have only one civilian staffer available to cleanse thousands of pages and images, many of which are hosted on “social media sites were military base or unit support groups created years ago and left idle. No one still has the administrative privileges to go in and change the content.” But by Crom, they will finish the mission, or just say fuck it and set everything aside:

    On Feb. 26, the Pentagon ordered all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that “promote diversity, equity and inclusion.”

    If they couldn’t do that by Wednesday, they were told to “temporarily remove from public display” all content published during the Biden administration’s four years in office.

    Gosh. It’s almost as if that last bit gives away the game a little bit, doesn’t it? Purge the entire military of “DEI.” Or failing that, purge it of the previous president. Close enough for fascist government work.

  222. says

    Oh FFS.

    Trump says the U.S. may place reciprocal tariffs on dairy and lumber from Canada

    “A day earlier, Trump pulled back new tariffs that had gone into effect on Mexico and Canada earlier in the week.”

    […] Trump warned that he may implement tariffs on Canadian dairy and lumber as early as Friday, in what amounts to the latest broadside by his administration in the brewing trade war between the United States and Canada.

    Trump has whipsawed on tariffs in recent days, imposing sweeping levies on Tuesday before paring back some of them, including goods from Mexico and Canada covered under the countries’ USMCA trade agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau slammed the new tariffs as “very dumb” earlier this week.

    Trump, however, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, said there is more to come on tariffs, and possibly soon, over policies he said are hurting American dairy farmers.

    “Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products,” Trump said, and cited what he said was Canada’s roughly 250% tariff on dairy products “which is taking advantage of our farmers” and which he promised to match.

    “We may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday,” Trump said. “We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair. It never has been fair, and they’ve treated our farmers badly.” […]

  223. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Lynna @214:

    making things “affordable” by importing them is actually cheating

     
    Bloomberg – America is finding out it’s very difficult to import eggs

    US officials are searching across oceans to find enough eggs to ease a shortage that’s sent prices soaring […] Their short shelf life and fragile shells make eggs inherently challenging to ship […] and some nations are battling bird flu cases of their own. […] Some nations say they would need to crack, dry or freeze their stock to sell it across an ocean. […] Differences in standards over washing or handling eggs is another trade hurdle, as is the need to obtain permits.

     

    we will just remind you that the Economic Club of New York is the very place where […] Trump “replied”

    Oh, I’ve been remembering that a lot lately.

    Lawrence O’Donnell: “think about how stupid you have to be to clap for that.“

  224. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #122, #181 about USADF vs DOGE.

    TPM – What I’m trying to figure out

    this afternoon [Mar 6] Marocco and DOGE showed up with US Marshals and forced their way into the Foundation’s offices, changed the locks and took over. The issue here is the US Marshals. The US Marshals are part of the Justice Department. But their primary function is to protect the federal judiciary and execute its orders. They also have statutory authority to enforce certain laws. They are not a police force working for the White House and they certainly aren’t a police force for DOGE. As far as I know there’s no court order here. So under what authority did any of this happen?

  225. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Reacting to the decision by the producers of “Hamilton” to withdraw the show from the Kennedy Center, Donald J. Trump announced on Thursday that he would replace the production with a new musical, “Burr.”

    The show, which will star Ted Nugent as Aaron Burr, will be produced by a new patron of the arts, The National Rifle Association.

    “‘Hamilton,’ quite frankly, is no great loss,” Trump said. “It was an unsuccessful musical that no one wanted tickets for.”

    “Burr is my kind of American hero,” he added. “He shot a guy.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/kennedy-center-to-replace-hamilton

  226. says

    Followup to comment 204.

    Jamie Raskin calls the White House’s campaign against law firms ‘dangerous as hell’

    “When Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting a private law firm, it was seen as an outrageous abuse. It didn’t stop him from doing it again.”

    Donald Trump and his team weren’t content to simply go after former special counsel Jack Smith, they also targeted career Justice Department officials who worked on Smith’s team. There was no evidence they’d done anything wrong or failed to do their jobs effectively, but they were a stop on the president’s revenge tour.

    As if that weren’t quite enough, Trump even signed an executive order punishing a private law firm that had assisted with Smith’s investigations. The New York Times described the move as “a breathtaking escalation.”

    And then he did it again. The Washington Post reported:

    In an Oval Office ceremony, the president signed an executive order hitting the large international law firm Perkins Coie with a sweeping directive that bans the federal government from hiring it, or from using contractors who work with it, except in limited circumstances. The order also bars Perkins Coie employees from entering federal buildings and suspends their security clearances.

    In politics, Perkins Coie is known for, among other prominent things, representing Hillary Clinton.

    The Post’s report added, “The move could have a chilling effect on law firms’ willingness to take on clients and cases that run counter to the Trump administration, challenging a fundamental tenet of the rule of law in the United States that everyone should have access to legal representation, experts said.”

    Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a statement describing the White House’s campaign as “dangerous as hell.”

    Raskin, a constitutional scholar, added, “By stripping security clearances from attorneys at Perkins Coie, Trump wants to make an example of lawyers who stand up for the law, which is what lawyers do. If you defend other people’s rights, even if it’s your job, the President of the United States will retaliate against you. These lawyers will be supported by Democrats in Congress as they do their work and celebrated for their courage in not being deterred by outrageous political bullying.”

    The Democratic congressman concluded, “By threatening to seek costs and damages from private litigants, Donald Trump is trying to scare Americans out of court. Thanks to our Founders, we have a right to get lawyers to challenge the Administration’s blatantly unlawful efforts to freeze funds to essential government programs like wildfire prevention, scientific research and food assistance. We have a right to get brave lawyers to challenge MAGA and DOGE when they fire thousands of government workers and shut down agencies that defend American consumers against frauds and scams.”

    Time will tell how and whether the relevant firms respond to the Republican’s offensive, but Raskin’s point is a good one. […] it’s worth pausing to appreciate that steps like these aren’t supposed to be part of politics in the United States. The president is using the power of his office to punish private law firms, not because they did something improper or illegal, but because he disapproves of the firms taking on matters that affected him personally.

    Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who also had his security clearance revoked by Trump, told the Times last week that the president’s first executive order on this was “a disgraceful affront to the entire legal and national security system.”

    The fact that Trump then did it again makes matters vastly worse.

  227. Reginald Selkirk says

    Bulgarians guilty of spying for Russia in the UK

    Three Bulgarian nationals have been found guilty of spying for Russia, in what police have described as “one of the largest” foreign intelligence operations in the UK.

    Vanya Gaberova, 30, Katrin Ivanova, 33, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, who were all living in London, were part of a group who travelled Europe carrying out surveillance on journalists, a former politician and a US military base in Germany between 2020 and 2023.

    While the trio had day jobs as a beautician, a healthcare worker, and a decorator, the cell they were part of plotted to kidnap and kill targets, as well as planned to ensnare them in so-called honeytraps.

    The methods they used were the sort of thing you would “expect to see in a spy novel”, said the Metropolitan Police’s Cdr Dominic Murphy…

  228. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up on Lynna’s post about Musk’s sleep deprivation

    Futurism – You can see when Elon Musk actually sleeps by analyzing his tweets, and it’s terrifying

    a graph compiled by The Economist that tracked Musk’s tweets from 2014 until November 2024 […] [He appears] to mostly sleep between 3 and 10 am—[if] he actually stops tweeting and gets to sleep at all.
    […]
    he admitted to CNBC that getting fewer than six hours took a toll on his mental state. […] it appears that Musk has retreated further and further into that lack of sleep […] Unfortunately, we don’t have an updated dot matrix graph […] for Musk’s tweets since Trump took office again—but it’s clear that he entered this chaotic post-election period in a state of rage-fueled sleep deprivation

  229. birgerjohansson says

    The Nielsen ratings for Trump’s speech are in.
    It has the lowest ratings of all his state of the union speeches, ten million less than the previous one.
    It seems people increasingly have his number, they are not fascinated anymore.

  230. says

    Sky Captain @228, and you can add Ketamine use to the problem of sleep deprivation. This makes Musk even less reliable … if that’s possible.

    In other news, but still related to Musk’s bad judgement: If the GOP is trying to intimidate judges, it’s clearly not working

    “The more Republicans condemn members of the judiciary, the less jurists seem to care. ‘An American President is not a king,’ one reminded Trump this week.”

    The more the White House loses court fights, the more Elon Musk targets federal judges who dare to rule in ways he doesn’t like. As Jay Willis summarized at Balls and Strikes, the Republican megadonor has been “posting incessantly, calling for the impeachment of ‘fake,’ ‘corrupt,’ ‘activist’ judges for ‘violating the will of the people.’ His timeline … is littered with conspiratorial screeds about the dastardly ulterior motives that these judges must have had for preventing an unelected billionaire from assuming the power of the legislative and executive branches all for himself.”

    But while Donald Trump’s top campaign donor can apparently do quite a bit through his DOGE endeavor, he can’t launch impeachment campaigns against members of the judiciary. At least for now, that power still rests in the hands of Congress.

    The trouble, of course, is that Musk’s ideas are finding favor among some Republicans on Capitol Hill. [snipped example]

    […] in the House, there are now four separate pending impeachment resolutions targeting sitting federal judges, including two sponsored by Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee. […]

    Ogles appeared alongside a caption that read “Woke Judge Hunter.” A clip of the event was promoted soon after by Musk himself.

    […] if Republican proponents of the campaign are trying to intimidate judges into submission, they’re apparently failing. My MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin highlighted a brutal judicial smackdown:

    “An American President is not a king,” a federal judge wrote in ruling against President Donald Trump on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., made the stark statement in rejecting Trump’s bid to fire Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.

    It was quite a ruling. “The President does not have the authority to terminate members of the National Labor Relations Board at will, and his attempt to fire plaintiff from her position on the Board was a blatant violation of the law,” Howell wrote. She added, “The Framers, anticipating such a power grab, vested in Article III, not Article II, the power to interpret the law, including resolving conflicts about congressional checks on presidential authority. The President’s interpretation of the scope of his constitutional power — or, more aptly, his aspiration — is flat wrong.”

    In a message that appeared designed specifically for the Oval Office, the jurist concluded, “An American President is not a king — not even an ‘elected’ one — and his power to remove federal officers and honest civil servants like plaintiff is not absolute, but may be constrained in appropriate circumstances, as are present here. … A President who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a ‘dictator,’ perhaps as his vision of effective leadership, fundamentally misapprehends the role under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.”

    Ouch.

    This came on the heels of a ruling from last month in which U.S. District Judge John Coughenour — named to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan — not only rejected Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, he also took aim at the president’s twisted approach to the law.

    “It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” Coughenour wrote. “The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain. Nevertheless, in this courtroom and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow.

    “The Constitution,” the judge added, “is not something the government can play policy games with.”

    These are hardly the only recent examples of Trump facing judicial eloquence in the midst of a legal setback — some of the rulings in Jan. 6 cases are especially notable — and given the scope of the lawsuits surrounding the White House’s agenda, it probably won’t be the last.

    Ogles might very well add to his “impeachathon” list, but there’s little to suggest members of the judiciary are feeling intimidated.

  232. says

    Six weeks ago, the president threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia. Now, he’s doing it again. There is, however, an important flaw with the plan.

    As Donald Trump aligns the White House with Russia on the war in Ukraine, [he] has been going to breathtaking lengths to deliver the kinds of outcomes that Vladimir Putin wants to see. […] Reuters reported that the administration was even exploring sanctions relief for Moscow.

    A few days later, however, the president seemed to send the opposite signal. NBC News reported:

    After weeks of distancing the U.S. from Ukraine, President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose expanded “large scale” sanctions and tariffs on Russia until it reaches a peace agreement with Ukraine.

    “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED,” Trump wrote in a message published via his social media platform. “To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”

    If readers are feeling a sense of déjà vu, that’s understandable. Roughly 48 hours into his second term, [Trump] issued a very similar statement, threatening to impose “high levels” of sanctions on Russia and tariffs on imports if the country did not reach a settlement in the war in Ukraine.

    As online missives go, this was an odd one, which began by Trump expressing his “love” for the Russian people and included inflated claims about Russian fatalities during World War II. Eventually, however, he got around to writing, “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”

    More than six weeks later, nothing came of the threat — which the president is apparently now reviving.

    There is, however, one rather serious flaw with the plan: The United States has already imposed a series of sanctions on Russia and effectively cut off trade with the country years ago. A country cannot impose tariffs on a rival when there is no trade between the nations.

    In other words, Trump’s threat — for lack of a better word — is that he’s once again “strongly considering” taking a step that Joe Biden already took.

    To be fair, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of New York this week that he believes the Biden administration imposed “weak sanctions” on Russia’s energy sector, and it’s possible the Trump administration is prepared to find new ways to go further.

    But it’s also possible that Trump, who has a habit of backing down from threats in exchange for nothing, wants to give the impression that he’s getting tough with the Kremlin, without having to worry about actually doing anything meaningful to punish Putin or his government.

    Yeah. That last paragraph describes my take on this development.

  233. says

    Followup to comment 232.

    Say what now?

    “Anybody” would step up the attack, Trump said of Russia’s first major missile assault on Ukraine since the U.S. paused intelligence sharing with the embattled country.

    Washington Post link

    […] Trump expressed understanding Friday for Russia’s stepped-up attacks on Ukraine after the White House halted military and intelligence aid to Kyiv this week, saying that he would resume help for the beleaguered country only when Ukrainian leaders agree that “they have to settle.”

    The U.S. cutoff of aid to Ukraine has made the country significantly more vulnerable to Russian attack. With Kyiv no longer able to depend on U.S. intelligence assistance to aid its targeting or give it warning about Russian attacks, the Kremlin unloaded a massive missile assault on Ukraine overnight Thursday into Friday.

    “I actually think he’s doing what anybody else would do,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday, asked whether he was upset that Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the U.S. halt in aid for Ukraine. “Probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now. He wants to get it ended. And I think Ukraine wants to get it ended […]”

    Trump was asked whether he would consider stepping up help for Ukraine in the face of the Russian assault by giving Kyiv more air defense munitions. That form of assistance would not enable further Ukrainian attacks on Russian positions but would be purely defensive. But Trump indicated he would not give Ukraine those defensive munitions. “I have to know that they want to settle. I don’t know that they want to settle. If they don’t want to settle, we’re out of there.”

    Trump added that his goal was to “stop death,” although Russia’s overnight assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure injured at least eight people.

    Trump’s sympathetic comments toward Putin contrasted with his social media post hours earlier [You think?!] threatening “large scale” sanctions on Russia because of the attack. Trump said he also wanted the Kremlin to come to the table. […]

    “I believe him [believes Putin wants peace],” Trump said. “I think we’re doing very well with Russia, and right now they’re bombing the hell out of Ukraine. I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. They don’t have the cards.”

    […] The wide-ranging halt in assistance has partially blinded Ukraine’s military, with even commercially available satellite imagery now covered by the U.S. ban.

    Maxar, a leading U.S. provider of commercial satellite imagery, said Friday it had cut off a stream of assistance to Ukraine at the direction of the Trump administration. The U.S. government funds a contract that provides Ukraine access to Maxar’s orbital imaging services through a program called Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery.

    The halt also affected other commercial satellite companies who produce imagery through the program, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters. It was unclear when or whether services would resume.

    The suspension was immediately felt by soldiers in the Ukrainian military, which relies on fresh imagery to plan attacks, study terrain and assess the efficacy of artillery strikes.

    […] According to Ukraine’s air force, 67 missiles were fired in the latest attack, accompanied by 194 drones.

  235. says

    […] It clearly remains the case that DOGE’s missives aren’t merely suggestions and that the overall goals of slashing the heart out of the federal government remain the same. It follows, then, that these periods of strategic retreat aren’t evidence of the Trump team’s changing its mind or even about fixing its previous errors. It’s about finding the most plausible and/or least malicious-sounding justification for continuing down the same path.

    […] The administration never says, “Oh, we shouldn’t do this,” only “How can we better get away with this?” Through it all, the MAGA strategy remains consistent; it’s only the tactics and public rationale that are changing.

    As a result, we are seeing the administration play a shell game with the courts and media, forcing judges and reporters to keep their eyes on specific orders or expressed motivations. But in the end, the game remains fixed in favor of Trump’s getting the same outcome each time.

    Link

    Related video presentation by Lawrence O’Donnell, and additional details are available at the link.

  236. says

    Trump’s crypto reserve is a dream come true for his oligarch donors

    “It amounts to a massive giveaway to tech billionaires at Americans’ expense.”

    Related video presentation, hosted by Ari Melber, is available at the link.

    With inflation up and consumer sentiment down, working Americans don’t have much to celebrate after […] Trump’s first six weeks in office. Billionaires, however, couldn’t be more pleased with their return on investment. After handing the federal government’s keys and wallet to unqualified billionaire Elon Musk, Trump announced the creation of a “strategic” cryptocurrency reserve fund. On Friday, the president is hosting the who’s who of the crypto industry at a White House summit. The reserve would purchase crypto tokens with taxpayer dollars as a theoretical future source of emergency assets. In practice, it amounts to a massive giveaway to tech billionaires at Americans’ expense.

    The crypto reserve is a dream come true for Trump’s oligarch donors, many of whom would benefit from this fund. Other strategic reserves — like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Strategic National Stockpile — store valuable assets the U.S. may need in an emergency. But a crypto reserve has no value to anyone but the crypto industry. While Trump and Musk gut agencies that protect consumers and plan to take a chainsaw to Medicaid, tech billionaires are set to receive hundreds of billions in a direct transfer from American taxpayers. [Good points.]

    Crypto is a grift in both theory and practice. Its backers promise high returns on a product that has no economic or real-world value. Because the price of crypto rises as the public’s interest in it does, crypto companies are prone to clever marketing that postures crypto as the magic solution to all that ails the U.S. economy. But many of these firms’ claims are misleading. In fact, crypto’s inherent volatility and popularity with fraudsters and criminals make it, at best, a highly risky gamble for working people interested in investing. At worst, it is the source of significant loss of wealth for millions of Americans and a risk to U.S. financial stability. And like many corporate schemes, crypto backers disproportionately prey on populations that have been locked out of more traditional wealth-building opportunities.

    Sacks has a track record of demanding taxpayer help: When Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed in spring 2023, Sacks — whose firm’s investment companies included clients of SVB — was was one of the first and most vocal advocates for a taxpayer-funded bailout above and beyond the FDIC’s guarantee on bank deposits. That bailout cost $22 billion. In the case of the run on SVB, at least, the crisis threatened to spiral and hurt the livelihoods of millions of working Americans. This time, though, Sacks and others are creating the very conditions for a future crypto crisis to spread. [!]

    Andreessen, in addition to advising the presidential transition and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has primed the Trump administration for an orchestrated crypto resurgence. His firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has invested billions in crypto ventures. Last year, Andreessen Horowitz donated tens of millions to pro-crypto super PACs ahead of the presidential election. Now that Trump is in office, he’s been on a media blitz, decrying crypto regulations as “sanctions.”

    And then there’s the classic Trump self-enrichment — the president and his sons, Don Jr., Eric and Barron, all hold positions at World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform that bought millions of the same tokens Trump pumped in his Truth Social post, including bitcoin and ether. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission halted a civil fraud investigation into a crypto entrepreneur who had invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial.

    Most obviously, Trump’s crypto reserve is good for Trump, his family and his wealthy backers. But this move also endorses crypto as a safe investment for everyday Americans with the backing of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. When the scheme inevitably goes belly up, the government will then have a vested interest in bailing out the industry.

    Proposing to use taxpayer funds to buy crypto at the same time that Elon Musk and Republicans in Congress try to cut vital programs like Medicaid, disaster relief and food assistance confirms yet again that Trump’s loyalties are not with the voters who elected him, but the billionaire donors who funded him. This crypto reserve, if created, would lay the groundwork for the largest bailout in history — with taxpayers footing the bill.

  237. says

    Followup to comment 236.

    Crypto bros are the latest to be screwed by Trump

    “Not so fast,” I would say in regard to that headline. See details below.

    There is a strong correlation between Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, and crypto bros. So you could imagine the bros’ elation on Thursday when Trump announced a national “bitcoin reserve,” funded by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies taken in federal government seizures.

    One wrinkle: Trump’s “crypto czar” (and Musk lackey) David Sacks wrote on X, “The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime.”

    The expectation in crypto circles had seemingly been that the federal government would buy bitcoin to populate a national reserve, just like it buys oil for its petroleum reserves—which, thanks to the power of supply and demand, would raise the price of bitcoin (and other currencies). But announcing the government wouldn’t make additional purchases has led to a sharp drop in crypto prices. [Yep.]

    The proposal isn’t all bad for the bros. Sacks announced that the government would simply hold on to the seized coins, not sell. Take supply out of the market, and the demand side gets a boost; hence, prices are stabilized for crypto assets that have little to no inherent value. But that wasn’t enough to quell the fury from the crypto community.

    As a result, the Trump administration is doing one of its patented walkbacks. “[Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent, in an interview, said seized crypto assets would go into the reserve first ‘then we’ll see what the way forward is for more acquisitions for the reserve,’” reported Reuters on Friday.

    […] So you see, the reserve won’t cost taxpayers a dime, except they’re looking for “more acquisitions” that will certainly cost taxpayers a dime [!!] (and likely far more), but it will all be “budget neutral” and feature “no incremental costs” on taxpayers.

    I know bullshit market manipulation when I see it. [!]
    […]

    More at the link, including a roundup of responses from the crypto subreddit.

  238. says

    Followup to comments 236 and 237.

    BBC:

    […] Nonetheless, Charles Edwards of the Capriole Fund, a Bitcoin and digital assets hedge fund, called Thursday’s announcement “a pig in lipstick” in response to Sacks’ post on X.

    “No active buying means this is just a fancy title for Bitcoin holdings that already existed with the government,” he said. […]

    Posts in response to articles:

    If a computer containing crypto private keys is confiscated, the government has the keys.
    If a hardware wallet containing crypto private keys is confiscated, the government has the keys.
    If a Post-It note containing crypto private keys is confiscated, the government has the keys.
    ——————————-
    Trump is intervening in an internecine crypto war and will want his cut of the profits.

    You can see a bit of the maneuvering in today’s Secret Service announcement that it has helped to seize Guarantex, a crypto exchange website used by international criminals to launder money. Guarantex even concealed themselves from Russian law enforcement.

    The lesson is that when you’re a crypto bro who is on Putin’s bad side, Trump will go after you. But if you give Trump (and presumably a Putin) a cut, you’ll be fine.

    See Luke Barr’s, “US seizes Russian crypto exchange websites, charges head of site with money laundering” in ABC News today.
    ——————————-
    And now you have bros cheering a government—the world’s largest economy, no less—actively meddling in the crypto market and making moves that clearly manipulate prices.
    —————————–
    When I hear “budget neutral”, what I hear is that:

    my taxes remain the same
    the money to buy bit coin comes from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid cuts
    and I am screwed
    —————————–
    Posts headlined “In your opinion, is crypto’s primary purpose for this administration to just launder money from foreign entities?” and angry memes abound.
    —————————
    The basic problem is that regular voters hate the idea of their tax dollars going to criminals, to help them evade taxes and launder drug money.
    —————————-
    Paul Krugman has a good story on this.
    Trump Is Planning the Biggest Heist in History

  239. says

    Excerpts from Paul Krugman’s article, Trump Is Planning the Biggest Heist in History:

    Look, there’s a lot going on, most of it terrible. Even so, I’m surprised that we’re just starting to get widespread coverage of the biggest theft in world history — at least so far. And as I’ll explain, a related but even bigger theft, promoted by Donald Trump, is in progress as you read this.

    Here’s the story: last month hackers looted Ethereum coins worth $1.5 billion from Bybit, a Dubai-based crypto exchange — apparently the most money anyone has ever stolen in a single caper. The FBI believes that the North Korean regime was behind the hack. Most of the coins have already been laundered into Bitcoin, and will eventually be turned into real money that will be used to sustain Kim Jong Un’s brutal dictatorship.

    It’s quite a story, yet it has only recently begun to get major coverage. The likeliest explanation of this lag is that crypto-related fraud and theft is so rife that reporters and editors have grown blasé.

    But small investors continue to lose large sums in crypto scams, like “rug-pulls.” And the biggest rug-pull yet is underway: Donald Trump’s plan for a “strategic crypto reserve.”

    What’s a rug-pull? A textbook example just happened in Argentina, where Javier Milei, the president, touted a new cryptocurrency called $Libra. The currency’s price soared as thousands of small players bought in, while insiders sold their holdings for huge profits. Then the price collapsed, leaving small players owning worthless bits of code.

    Does this sound familiar? It should: the $Trump coin, introduced with great fanfare by Trump in January, attracted billions in dollars from MAGA fans, then quickly lost more than 80 percent of its value. The great bulk of $Trump coins were initially bought by a handful of “whales,” large investors, although it’s not clear whether their intent was to scam small buyers or simply to bribe the president.

    While both Milei and Donald Trump deny that they personally profited from the rug-pulls they enabled, I seriously doubt that anyone believes them. And if Trump manages to establish a federal “strategic crypto reserve,” paid for by US tax dollars, the scams associated with $Libra and $Trump will look like chump change.

    While a “strategic crypto reserve” sounds a lot like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a national stockpile of oil to be drawn down in the event of an energy crisis — it would consist of nothing but a hackable string of ones and zeroes on servers. It’s important to understand that although cryptocurrencies have been around for a while — Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 — no one has yet found significant legal uses other than pure speculation. As far as I can tell, actual transactions involving cryptocurrencies almost always involve criminal activity, such as money laundering or paying ransom to extortionists.

    Which cryptocurrency do criminals prefer? Most apparently use Tether, a “stablecoin” whose value is kept fixed in U.S. dollars. Tether is able to do this because it holds a stock of U.S. Treasury bills with Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank that has itself invested in Tether. Cantor’s former CEO, Howard Lutnick, is now Donald Trump’s secretary of Commerce.

    Some people say that the crypto industry has undue influence with the Trump administration. I wonder why?

    But back to the strategic crypto reserve: What would the U.S. government do with this reserve? Make payoffs to gangsters? Buy favors from rogue governments like North Korea? […]

    So what’s this about? I think this is best seen as one kind of rug pull, a hack pump-and-dump.

    In a traditional pump and dump, shady investors buy an obscure stock, then drive its price up with false rumors while quietly selling off their holdings. In the “hack” version, the gang hacks into computers at brokerage houses, getting them to buy the target stock without investors’ knowledge — although some individual investors may also be sucked in by the rising price. Again, the perpetrators sell out before the crash.

    In the case of the strategic crypto reserve, scammers haven’t hacked into computers. Instead, they’ve hacked into the Trump Administration, inducing the president and those around him to announce a plan to use US tax revenue to buy huge amounts of cryptocurrencies with no discernible strategic value. The mere announcement of the plan drove up crypto prices, which plunged after Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico: [graph at the link]

    […] Why should we put our taxpayer dollars into such an extremely volatile entity? Why are we funding a mega-casino where small investors are sure to lose?

    It’s true that cryptocurrencies have proved to be remarkably durable even though their only serious uses seem to be in enabling criminal activity. Yet experience shows that the most likely outcome of a strategic crypto reserve is that it will go the way of $Libra and $Trump — yielding huge profits for a few big players and huge losses for both taxpayers and low-information investors.

    Does Trump know that he’s participating in a giant pump-and-dump that will benefit insiders while effectively stealing small investors’ savings? I have no idea, but there’s no reason to believe that it would bother him if he did know.

    For it’s more obvious every day that we now have government of, by and for crooks. [Dire Straits music video.]

    At the time wrote this, Paul Krugman may not have been aware of subsequent remarks: including the claim that it “will not cost the taxpayers a dime,” swiftly followed by t”hen we’ll see what the way forward is for more acquisitions for the reserve.”

    In essence, Krugman is right. But first, Trump, Musk and the other doofuses like Sacks will play a little game to obscure their future plans with today’s misinformation sewage.

  240. says

    NBC News:

    A day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called new U.S. tariffs ‘a very dumb thing to do,’ Trump struck an ‘abusive’ tone in his call with Trudeau, according to a Western government official. […]

    See comment 222.

  241. Reginald Selkirk says

    Gene Hackman died of heart disease, Betsy Arakawa died of hantavirus: Medical examiner

    Authorities determined a cause of death for actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, New Mexico chief medical examiner Heather Jarrell announced Friday.

    “I’d like to begin by stating that it is unprecedented for the office of the medical investigator to make public statements about death investigations,” Jarrell said at a news conference. “However, the circumstances surrounding these two deaths require accurate dissemination of important information.”

    On Feb. 27, the day after the 95-year-old actor and his 64-year-old wife were found dead, the office performed autopsies.

    Hackman’s cause of death was determined to be hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He was in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s disease, Jarrell said, explaining that he might have died without knowing about his wife’s condition. He did not show signs of dehydration.

    Arakawa’s cause of death was determined to be hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

    Hantavirus is a rare disease that can be transmitted to people through rodent urine, droppings or saliva. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it can cause respiratory failure, and symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath…

    There were no findings of trauma or other viruses. Carbon monoxide poisoning had previously been ruled out. Pills found at the scene were thyroid medication being used as prescribed…

    A dog named Zinna was also found deceased, and authorities are still awaiting necropsy results to determine a cause of death. Arakawa picked Zinna up from the vet on Feb. 9, which may explain why the dog was in a crate…

  242. Reginald Selkirk says

    Tesla stock falls 45% from record high, a ‘gut check moment’ that has Wall Street bulls doubling down

    Tesla (TSLA) stock fell nearly 11% this week, bringing its losses from a record close to nearly 50% as it continues to see its post-election rally fade…

    Tesla stock closed at a record of over $479 on Dec. 17. Shares have fallen roughly 45% from that high, ending Friday’s trading session at roughly $263, their lowest closing price since Nov. 5…

  243. Reginald Selkirk says

    Marco Rubio Finally Loses It at Elon Musk in Trump Cabinet Meeting

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio, alongside other miffed agency heads, laid into billionaire bureaucrat Elon Musk during Thursday’s meeting of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, according to The New York Times.

    During the meeting, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency complained that Rubio had fired “nobody,” despite the sweeping government layoffs recommended by his organization.

    The secretary of state, who was already seething after Musk had axed USAID, an agency within Rubio’s purview, unleashed onto Musk in front of the president’s entire Cabinet.

    Rubio claimed that Musk was lying, conveniently forgetting the 1,500 officials who had taken the government’s offer for deferred resignation. Rubio even asked whether Musk wanted him to hire all of them back, just so he could fire them in a more outrageous fashion, according to the Times. Rubio then tried to lay out his plans to reorganize his agency, which didn’t impress the DOGE czar, either…

  244. Reginald Selkirk says

    Kennedy and influencers bash seed oils, baffling nutrition scientists

    Until recently, most Americans had never heard the term “seed oils,” even though they’ve likely cooked with and consumed them for decades.

    It’s the catchy description coined by internet influencers, wellness gurus and some politicians to refer to common cooking oils — think canola, soybean and corn oil — that have long been staples in many home kitchens.

    Those fiery critics refer to the top refined vegetable oils as “the hateful eight” and claim that they’re fueling inflammation and high rates of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary, has said Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils and has called for fast-food restaurants to return to using beef tallow, or rendered animal fat, in their fryers instead…

  245. Reginald Selkirk says

    Utah senator announces he’s leaving the Republican party, joining Utah Forward Party

    A Republican Utah senator says he’s had enough of a party that he believes is becoming disconnected from Utahns and straying from true conservative and freedom-focused principles.

    Standing in the Utah Capitol rotunda, Sen. Dan Thatcher, of West Valley City, told a group of reporters Friday — the final day of the Legislature’s 2025 session — that he would be unaffiliating from the Republican Party.

    Instead, he said he’ll be joining the Utah Forward Party — a centrist party that has the slogan “Not left. Not right. Forward.”

    Standing alongside a handful of Forward Party leaders, Thatcher said he and his wife had been discussing the change for “a really, really long time.” But he said the Utah Legislature’s 2025 session (which has included legislation focused on facilitating the Trump administration’s deportation goals, restricting voting by mail, banning LGBTQ+ flags from schools and public property, and more) was the final straw — or bale of hay, as he put it — that broke the camel’s back.

    “Yes, this legislative session did accelerate the program, but I think this was always the way,” Thatcher said. “Because I can’t be a part of this anymore.” …

  248. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    RollingStone – New DOGE staffer has ties to a sanctioned Russian oligarch

    two DOGE representatives, Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, have been at the IRS […] Corcos demanded “detailed taxpayer and vendor information” when he arrived at IRS headquarters late last week […] IT workers at the agency initially refused, based on Corcos’ lack of background and tax checks. By the end of the day, Kliger and Corcos were discussing the idea of an “omnibus” agreement that would allow agencies across the government to access taxpayer data
    […]
    Corcos is the CEO of the health care start-up Levels. Corcos, 36, founded Levels in 2019 with a former SpaceX lead engineer and Dr. Casey Means. Means is a holistic doctor with ties to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Corcos’ brother interned at SpaceX
    […]
    Corcos’ wife, Varvara Russkova Corcos, spent three years at the VC firm GVA Capital, which was previously exposed as a vehicle for one of the richest oligarchs in Russia, Suleyman Kerimov, to funnel his money into various American companies. [GVA used an elaborate web of shell companies.] […] Kerimov invested in SpaceX in 2017, holding what was then 1 percent of the company […] even after he was first sanctioned […] in 2018 […] she worked with the firm from 2016 to 2019 […] Corcos and Russkova married some time after 2020. […] Russkova Corcos, was also involved in another GVA-funded crypto venture with [GVA’s founder]. That venture began in 2017
    […]
    There is no evidence that Russkova Corcos committed any wrongdoing while working with GVA Capital. […] In recent years, Russkova Corcos has posted critically about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in support of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalany on Facebook.

  249. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):

    The National Cancer Institute (part of NIH) released new guidelines for “controversial, high-profile or sensitive” keywords that require “review prior to publication” if included in a product or materials.

    Keywords include abortion, obesity, and peanut allergies. [Screenshot also includes: cancer moonshot, vaccines, flouride, covid, bird flu, measles, autism, opioids, marijuana, stem cells, and any discussion of federal policy / investigations, congressional legislation / attention.]

    Commentary:

    The *NCI* is not allowed to talk about the Cancer Moonshot?

    Fun fact: “Cancer Moonshot” is short for the “Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative”, which was championed by Joe Biden when he was VP. It covers a wide range of cancer research.

    Cannot talk about congress, cannot talk about federal policies?? what???

    peanut allergies????

    I hate that peanut allergies are listed here because it *will* lead to the death of someone’s child, and the death of even one child because of this is repugnant and unacceptable.

     
    RFK Jr. says environmental toxins caused allergies in 5 of his 6 children.

    In the past, Kennedy has suggested that aluminum in vaccines is responsible for allergies in children. “You wonder why a whole generation of children is allergic to stuff,” he said on the MP podcast in 2021. “It’s because we’re inducing allergies, pumping them full of aluminum.” (There is no credible evidence to suggest that’s true.)

  250. JM says

    NYTimes: Inside the Explosive Meeting Where Trump Officials Clashed With Elon Musk

    You have fired “nobody,” Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
    Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting on Thursday in front of President Trump and around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest.
    Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department.

    Rubio is probably the first one out. Trump is not going to drop Musk yet unless he becomes too much of a legal liability. Most of the rest of the cabinet are puppets. Rubio is a classic empty suit Republican, he wants to gather power by building his empire so cutting staff is not what he wants to do. He also does have enough sense to realize just how much the kinds of cuts Musk wants will kneecap US power.
    Musk appears to want to create a libertarian paradise, which would cripple the US.

    CNN: Trump says “no clash” between Musk and Rubio after New York Times report about Cabinet meeting

    President Donald Trump said Friday there was “no clash” between Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after The New York Times reported the pair had it out in a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
    “No clash, I was there. You’re just a troublemaker,” Trump said, referring to the reporter who asked the question. “Elon gets along great with Marco and they’re both doing a fantastic job. There is no clash.”

    Even for Trump this is an unlikely lie. He has enough experience at this point to know to just say “no comment” and move on, this was at an event for FIFA and he easily could have just ignored the question. But Trump doesn’t do that, he is annoyed when a newsperson asks him a question that he doesn’t want to hear and wants to punish them somehow.

  251. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TPM – Trump makes aggressive new claim of executive power to circumvent the Senate

    “Here what you have is a President who’s saying, well, the position’s vacant, so I’m allowed to temporarily appoint someone to that position without advice and consent of the Senate, but that’s not how this works,”

    Independent agencies like USADF are explicitly exempted from vacancy acts and their founding statute lacks a mechanism for presidents to appoint ‘acting’ stooges… Trump is not allowed to do the thing, which would be a gap in his “inherent authority”, therefore Trump CAN do the thing. Y’know, to ensure the agency is running and in compliance with his executive orders.
     
    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    they’re saying Trump has a lot of “inherent authority” as president and the parts of the constitution that say he doesn’t are wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ […] there’s me and the constitution and ones gotta go and it aint me.

  252. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Forbes – DOGE’s latest casualty: The government’s texting service

    This government tool, which was created in 2023 […] to send out important warnings and reminders to citizens regarding federal public benefits, for example, to let them know that their Medicaid coverage is expiring.
    […]
    As of Thursday, a line appeared in the source code that read: “The Notify.gov text-messaging service is no longer available. Last modified: March 6, 2025.” However, the Notify.gov website still appears as it did before, indicating that the code change, or “pull request,” has not yet been implemented. Two GSA sources confirmed to Forbes that the page showing the source code change is authentic.

  253. says

    Blue state attorneys general won’t let up on Trump

    Since […] Trump was sworn in, blue state attorneys general have banded together to oppose the White House’s many unlawful actions. Their latest push: defending fired federal employees.

    A coalition of 20 attorneys general filed a lawsuit Thursday against numerous federal agencies for conducting mass layoffs of federal probationary employees without giving the lawfully required 60-day notice to state governments. They are asking a Maryland court to reinstate unlawfully fired employees, stop further similar terminations, and identify impacted employees.

    “​​These large-scale, indiscriminate firings are not only subjecting the plaintiff states and communities across the country to chaos. They are also against the law,” the complaint states.

    Democratic attorneys general, the Democratic Party, and labor unions are tying the White House up in the courts with lawsuits—and they have already scored two victories against a draconian federal funding freeze and an unconstitutional birthright citizenship ban.

    The firings have been so sweeping that they have reportedly overwhelmed the unemployment benefits system. [!] […]

    After Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency instituted indiscriminate layoffs across federal agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. experienced commercial plane crashes and a surge in measles. The White House responded by having agency supervisors beg fired employees to come back.

    Democratic lawmakers have also resisted​​ the DOGE-directed firings, introducing legislation that reinstates fired veterans. Some Democrats invited laid-off employees as their guests during Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday to highlight their plights.

    […] The mass firings are impacting more than just the workers: States are also having to pick up the slack.

    According to a press release from Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, the mass purge is causing “irreparable burdens and expenses on the part of the states” which have to support recently fired workers with unemployment benefits and review and adjudicate their claims.

    […] In addition to New Jersey, Rhode Island and Michigan, attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin also joined in Friday’s lawsuit.

    While the Trump administration won’t reveal the exact number of employees fired so far, the Associated Press reports that the number is in the hundreds of thousands.

    And although the exact number of lawsuits filed against Trump’s White House isn’t known, The New York Times’ analysis shows that there have been dozens—with at least 41 rulings temporarily pausing some of the president’s actions.

  254. says

    Scientists rally in DC against Trump’s cuts to research

    Hundreds of people gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Friday afternoon to protest […] Trump’s recent cuts to government spending on research institutions.

    The Trump administration has taken steps to disrupt operations at the country’s top federal research institutions since late January, freezing grants issued by the National Institutes of Health and issuing executive orders on sex and gender and diversity, equity and inclusion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrubbed its health data from its site in order to comply with those orders.

    Most recently, the administration issued a policy to cut government funding to the National Institutes of Health by reducing the amount of grant funding that can go toward overhead costs.

    NIH is the largest biomedical funder in the world and spent $35 billion on grants for research last year alone. About $9 billion of those funds went toward “indirect costs” like fees associated with facility maintenance and compliance and administrative worker salaries.

    NIH capped the “indirect cost” rate at 15 percent of a total grant. Many universities and research institutions in the past have used 30 percent to 60 percent extra in their grant funding to cover these expenses.

    Researchers have decried the move, arguing that lowering the “indirect cost” rate will halt life-saving research on illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

    “I love my country, and I’m worried about my country right now,” said Francis Collins, former head of the NIH, to a sea of protesters waving signs that read “science prevents brain worms,” “divide cells not countries,” or “literally trying to cure multiple sclerosis but okay.”

    Collins was one of lengthy lineup of speakers that included Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md), former NASA Administrator and Sen. Bill Nelson, Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and former television personality and scientist Bill Nye.

    Speakers also included former federal scientists, lay scientists, students, health care workers and disability advocates admonishing Trump and his Cabinet, and particularly Elon Musk and his work as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

    All had the same point: Attacks on science are attacks on Americans.

    “While moving fast and breaking things might be an appropriate mantra for Silicon Valley … Let’s go with ‘first, do no harm,’” said Collins. Six days ago, Collins stepped down from his position at NIH without giving an explanation for his departure.

    Friday’s rally was seen as a sort of revival of the “March for Science,” which took place during Trump’s first term in the White House. A series of satellite protests across the country took place while people gathered in Washington. [See PZ’s post ]

    Collins stressed that a robust funding for scientific research and agencies is needed now more than ever given the growing concern around H5N1 bird flu, the measles outbreak in the Southwest and a “mystery disease” plaguing the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    […] Nye, commonly referred to as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” urged lawmakers to “stand up for science,” bashing the Trump administration’s attempt to suppress references to climate change. He suggested there should be legal safeguards to prevent political interference with research and that scientist should be able to communicate their findings freely.

    “Science is part of the American story,” he said. “If the United States is to lead the world, science can not be suppressed.”

  255. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to remove the head of the U.S. African Development Foundation until at least Tuesday while litigation over efforts to remove him and dismantle the agency play out.

  256. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Bloomberg – How Elon Musk muscled his way into the FAA

    Two weeks ago, SpaceX engineer Ted Malaska showed up at the Federal Aviation Administration’s headquarters in Washington to deliver what he described as a directive from his boss Elon Musk: The agency will immediately start work on a program to deploy thousands of the company’s Starlink satellite terminals to support the national airspace system.

    Malaska told those in attendance that the employees had up to 18 months to get the new program up and running, an unsettling timeline for aviation safety employees accustomed to a more deliberate pace. Anyone who impeded progress, Malaska said, would be reported to Musk and risked losing their jobs
    […]
    the fate of Verizon’s contract is up in the air as the agency considers whether to cede part of it to SpaceX. […] Musk’s team is moving so fast that Verizon executives are still trying to understand what’s happening inside the FAA and whether it would affect their business.
    […]
    [Malaska] holds regular meetings with several high-ranking officials inside the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization. He instructs officials on minutiae, including what equipment to procure […] During at least one meeting, Malaska stepped out several times to take calls that he said were from Musk himself […] Musk has said he’d provide [4,000] Starlink terminals to the FAA at no cost to taxpayers, but the terms surrounding any such transaction—including how any usage or maintenance costs would be paid—remain unclear.
    […]
    The FAA is “testing multiple communication technologies, including satellites, fiber and wireless to ensure the safety of the national airspace system,” the agency said in a statement. “Beyond that, no decisions for other deployments have been made. [Terminals currently in Oklahoma and Alaska.]”
    […]
    Malaska vowed not to compromise safety, two people familiar with the matter said, but he made it clear that he was uninterested in following the FAA’s arduous, bureaucratic procedures that could lead to long delays.
    […]
    Unless Verizon hears otherwise, though, it’s business as usual [upgrading copper to fiber on a 15-year contract from 2023].

    No mention of orders to find tens of millions of dollars for Starlink. (reported Mar 2)

  258. Bekenstein Bound says

    The *NCI* is not allowed to talk about the Cancer Moonshot?

    Not if it has Biden cooties, apparently. <smh>

  259. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – DOGE deployed its GSAi custom chatbot for 1,500 federal workers at GSA

    GSAi is meant to support “general” tasks, […] like ChatGPT […] The DOGE team hopes to eventually use it to analyze contract and procurement data […] The chatbot has been in development for several months
    […]
    “How can I use the AI-powered chat?” reads an internal memo about the product. “[…] draft emails, create talking points, summarize text, write code.” The memo also includes a warning: “Do not type or paste federal nonpublic information […] as well as personally identifiable information as inputs.”
    […]
    Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer […] announced that the GSA’s tech branch would shrink by 50 percent over the next few weeks after firing around 90 technologists last week. Shedd plans for the remaining staff to work on more public-facing projects like Login.gov and Cloud.gov, which provide a variety of web infrastructure for other agencies. All other non-statutorily required work will likely be cut, Shedd said.

    A pretext for layoffs that also degrades quality of work, introduces security issues, and adds another institutional dependency on big tech companies.
     
    Wired – The US Army is using ‘CamoGPT’ to purge DEIA from training materials

    Developed last summer […] CamoGPT currently has around 4,000 users […] on a daily basis […] The tool is used for everything from developing comprehensive training program materials to producing multilingual translations
    […]
    officials are likely inputting a large number of documents into CamoGPT and asking the LLM to scan for targeted keywords like “dignity” or “respect” (which, yes, the Army is currently using to screen past digital content) […] “We’re competing with ‘control+F’ in Adobe Acrobat,” [said a CamoGPT data engineer.]

    Commandline tools already existed to dump text from pdfs, then search for desired words/phrases—and get exactly what you requested, without hallucinations of AI, and consume fewer resources. It would’ve been easy to write a frontend script for end users.

    I’ve done that myself, for searching a collection of TTRPG sourcebooks.

    Ctrl-F may well be what DOGE means by “analyze contracts” too. Or they might ask less-straightforward questions of the BS generator about the documents.

  260. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – ‘Startup Nation’ groups say they’re meeting Trump officials to push for deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’

    the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
    […]
    Startup nations outside the US have largely relied on the creation of special economic zones (SEZs) […] Notably, the current government of Honduras considers Próspera and its special economic status to be illegal. The country’s previous president, Juan Orlando Hernández, gave Próspera a permanent charter to operate on its own terms. However, many Honduran citizens opposed Próspera, arguing that it has increased poverty and worsened biodiversity in the area. The Honduran Congress passed a law in 2022 repealing the allowance of SEZs, and Próspera sued
    […]
    Gil Duran, a former political consultant and author of the Substack newsletter Nerd Reich, warns […] “These are going to be cities without democracy,” he claims. “These are going to be cities without workers’ rights. These are going to be cities where the owners of the city, the corporations, the billionaires have all the power and everyone else has no power. That’s what’s so attractive […] they will actually be anti-freedom cities.”

    Rogue libertarian sovereignties have such an illustrious track record. /s

    I’d say they’re overexcited cranks who purchased meaningless attention from the WH, but who knows anymore.

  261. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Forbes – A top Pentagon DOGE official looks like a successful founder. His story doesn’t always add up.

    [32yo Justin Fulcher’s] Singapore-based telehealth company, RingMD, for instance, went bankrupt after he raised more than $10 million from investors. His attempt to restart it in the U.S. led to litigation with a business partner, who claims Fulcher owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the half-billion-dollar manufacturing facility promoted by the Biden administration […] never materialized. […] Fulcher also claims a doctorate [from a school with no record of him.]
    […]
    Forbes couldn’t determine how Fulcher was connected to the DOGE team, or whether he has a security clearance. […] Since 2020, Fulcher has donated almost $40,000 to Republican lawmakers and political action committees

    He was previously at the VA, where he slowly charmed his way to access, before attacking the servers and commencing layoffs.

  265. Reginald Selkirk says

    Archaeologists Find Creepy 2,400-Year-Old Puppets Atop El Salvador Pyramid

    A recent discovery at the top of a pyramid in El Salvador challenges the notion that pre-Columbian Salvadorans were isolated from more advanced civilizations.

    A pair of archaeologists has unearthed five 2,400-year-old ceramic figurines at the top of the largest pyramid of the San Isidro archaeological site. As detailed in a study published today in the journal Antiquity, the artifacts suggest that the pre-Columbian people of El Salvador were indeed connected to other civilizations, challenging the notion that they were less developed than their neighbors.

    At the top of the pyramidal structure, University of Warsaw’s Jan Szymański and Gabriela Prejs unearthed what may have been a funerary deposit. Instead of human remains, however, they found five ceramic figurines, three of which have articulated heads akin to modern dolls.

    “This finding is only the second such a group found in situ [on site in original position], and the first to feature a male figure,” Szymański explained in an Antiquity statement. Szymański and Prejs theorize that the figurines were a form of puppets intentionally arranged at the site to represent a long-lost message. Given their striking location, they may have played a role in public rituals, according to the researchers.

    “One of the most striking features of the puppets is their dramatic facial expression, which changes depending on the angle that we look at them from,” Szymański said. “Seen from above they appear almost grinning, but when looked at from the level angle they turn angry or disdainful, to become scared when seen from below. This is a conscious design, perhaps meant to enhance the gamut of ritual performances the puppets could have been used in.”

    The figurines, along with other artifacts found in the funerary deposit—such as jade pendants—suggest connections to other regions. The figurines’ style, for example, has also been noted in western El Salvador and southern Guatemala. Similar jade pendants have been documented in parts of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The people who frequented San Isidro 2,400 years ago seem to have shared customs with other Central American cultures, implying at least some level of contact.

    “This discovery contradicts the prevailing notion about El Salvador’s cultural backwardness or isolation in ancient times,” Szymański concludes. “It reveals the existence of vibrant and far-reaching communities capable of exchanging ideas with remarkably distant places.”

    It also provides new insights into an ancient culture whose archaeological sites are difficult to investigate due to the region’s volcanic activity and population density.

    “Very little is known about the identities and ethnolinguistic affiliations of the creators of [these] ancient settlements that predate the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th century,” said Szymański. “This gets worse the further back in time we look.”

    Unlike some modern dolls, these ancient puppets can’t talk—but they have a lot to say.

  266. Reginald Selkirk says

    DOGE Cuts Efficiency Programs in the Name of ‘Efficiency’

    You would think, given Elon Musk’s apparent disgust for government waste, that he would be thrilled to see staffers who have dedicated their careers to making things within the federal government work better. But, according to Wired, he and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency have opted instead to just fire them unceremoniously and abandon their projects to streamline how the government functions.

    Per Wired, Musk’s chainsaw-style of cutting has effectively cost the General Services Administration (GSA) and United States Digital Service (USDS) about 200 technologists—including at least 90 at 18F, a digital services agency started during the Obama administration that has quietly helped update and improve systems throughout the government, who got let go via email on a Saturday morning.

    What were those technologists working on that Musk and his crew of college-age edgelords found to be so wasteful or corrupt? Well, among those who lost their job last week were the staffers who built IRS Direct File program, which finally gave taxpayers a way to file their taxes directly to the government without paying a third-party to play middleman—a decision that’ll likely make it harder to roll that service out to more people.

    Others were working at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs to build a system to more efficiently process passport applications. Another group of employees were helping the National Weather Service (NWS) update Weather.gov to make its API more stable and accessible for weather apps and other services. Technologists from other departments have also been pushed out, including ones working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who were upgrading the agency’s Disease Surveillance system that tracks pathogens and illness trends.

    If Musk’s team took a look at the track record of 18F, they’d see one of the most effective and efficient offices around that has fudamentally changed the way citizens interact with the federal government. In addition to the IRS Direct File system, 18F built Login.gov, which unified access to multiple major government services through a single sign-in. It fixed Healthcare.gov, which had a disastrous rollout but is now an extremely navigable platform for accessing healthcare options. Plus, it’s made innumerable changes behind the scenes that have standardized and modernized government IT. It’s kinda really good at what it does, which is make the government more efficient.

    Musk has, on multiple occasions, insisted that “Any given law will do the opposite of its name.” So it might be worth looking at his Department of Government Efficiency through that same lens. If it was really all that efficient, would it have to insist it was in the name? Just something to consider.

  267. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chatbots Convinced Idiots They Cracked the Code on a Sculpture in the CIA’s Backyard

    Near the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, there is a sculpture known as Kryptos. It has been there since 1990 and contains four secret codes—three of which have been solved. The final one has gone 35 years without being decrypted. And, according to a report from Wired, the sculptor responsible wants everyone to know that you are not solving the damn thing with a chatbot.

    Jim Sanborn, who has created sculptures for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in addition to his work outside CIA HQ, has reportedly been inundated with people who are absolutely positive they’ve solved K4, the final panel of unsolved code that he encoded with knottier techniques. But these code crackers aren’t the actual cryptanalysts, professional or otherwise, who have been obsessed with decoding the message since it first appeared. No, these are just some people who ran the code through a chatbot and have taken its word on the answer…

  271. says

    Sky Captain @256, apart from the other bad news that shows up in the details of the Starlink/Elon Musk/FAA debacle, it also clearly shows that Musk is in charge. He’s the boss.

  272. says

    EXCLUSIVE: Trump Makes Aggressive New Claim of Executive Power To Circumvent The Senate

    “In email obtained by TPM, White House claims that Trump can appoint whoever he wants – absent Congress.”

    That means Trump can appoint DOGE doofuses wherever and whenever. Including Peter Marocco.

    This issue was also covered by Chris Hayes in an interview with Josh Marshall of TPM. See comment 269

    The Trump White House has taken its attempt to seize direct control over the entire executive branch to a new level and laid out a startling legal rationale for the move in a previously unreported email obtained by TPM. If successful, Trump would be making a dramatic end run around the Senate’s advice and consent power for certain appointed positions.

    Trump’s wide-ranging effort to bring independent agencies firmly under his control provoked a dramatic confrontation this week at the DC office of the U.S African Development Foundation. The White House Presidential Personnel Office and elements of Elon Musk’s DOGE team moved to oust the board of USADF and purported to install a new acting chairman of the board, a step that legal experts tell TPM is unlawful.

    The full extent of the confrontation at USADF became public when the president of the independent agency filed a lawsuit Thursday trying to block the White House’s assault on its independence. The lawsuit refers to a Feb. 28 missive to USADF management from the White House Presidential Personnel Office claiming to appoint Pete Marocco – a Trump official known for helping strangle USAID from within – as “acting chair” of USADF’s board.

    TPM has obtained the email in question, which contains the broadest assertion of presidential power over independent agencies yet made by the second Trump administration. In it, Trent Morse, deputy assistant to the President and deputy director of presidential personnel at the White House, stakes out a legal position that would undercut the Senate’s power to confirm new officers at agencies like USADF, experts say. Trump, Morse asserted, would have the “inherent authority under Article II” to appoint acting officials without going through the Senate’s process of advice and consent.

    Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor at Stanford Law School, called the argument “so much more of an executive power claim than a lot of what they’ve done.”

    […] The Trump White House’s move against USADF, whose board refuses to recognize Marocco’s appointment as legal, set off alarm bells within the legal community.

    While the Senate has broad advice and consent powers, Congress has delegated some of its confirmation authority to the executive branch. Legislators have done so via a series of vacancies acts, the first of which was passed in 1792.

    The most recent vacancies act, passed in 1998, exempts several independent agencies from its provisions, meaning that, in those cases, the Senate retained control over the ability to confirm appointments to the boards of these agencies. USADF is one of the excluded agencies.

    […] the question of whether the president can appoint new officials where Congress has not delegated the authority to do so via a vacancies statute is untested, in part because it contravenes centuries of practice.

    […] In the email, Morse asserts that “given the President’s inability to supervise the activities of the Board-less USADF, he has inherent authority to designate an acting Chairman of the Board.”

    From there, the Trump official says that because the USADF is exempted from vacancies reform legislation, and because there is no mechanism in the statute that created USADF for appointing an acting official, he then faces a gap in his “inherent authority.”

    “Therefore, the President currently has no way of ensuring the agency is running, or complying with his executive order, unless he directs an temporary official using inherent authority under Article II,” the message reads. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, Peter Marocco has been temporarily appointed acting chairman and board member of the USADF.”

    To O’Connell, the Stanford law professor, the implications of the Trump White House’s power grab are extremely broad.

    The White House did not define what it intended “temporary” to mean in the email, she noted, and such an appointment could last the entire term. Nor did it say if it believed it would apply to every agency that is exempted from federal vacancies legislation.

    O’Connell said that the White House’s line of reasoning could create an opening for the Trump administration to bypass the Senate and install commissioners and board members at agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Election Commission.

    […] The full text of the Morse email:

    Given the President’s inability to supervise the activities of the Board-less USADF, he has inherent authority to designate an acting Chairman of the Board. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act [FVRA] excludes the USADF because its members are confirmed by the Senate and sit on a board “composed of multiple members” which controls a “Government corporation.” 5 U.S.C. 3349c(1). But the FVRA also appears to exempt the USADF from the requirement that the FVRA serve as the “exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official.” Id. 3347(a), 3349c. Additionally, the USADF’s organic statute does not include any mechanism for the President to designate acting officials. See 22 USC 290h. Therefore, the President currently has no way of ensuring the agency is running, or complying with his executive order, unless he directs an temporary official using inherent authority under Article II.

    On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, Peter Marocco has been temporarily appointed acting chairman and board member of the USADF.

  273. says

    […] After failing at so many endeavors, from airlines to casinos to pandemic management to his lifelong struggle with the wily umbrella, I think Trump may have finally found his one true calling, with this “Judas” thing.

    He’s certainly thrown himself into the work, pausing military aid and intelligence sharing, even pressuring private companies to cut off Ukraine’s access to satellite imagery, to say nothing of ordering a halt to cyber operations targeting Russia. Sources say he’s gone so far as to forward his piss hooker invoices to Kyiv, in Zelensky’s name. To show his appreciation, Putin launched a missile at a hotel containing U.S. citizens.

    Oh, and in a bit of fuckery so inspired, it earned a round of applause from Harlan Crow’s sculpture garden, the vindictive little turd disabled targeting on the HIMARS deployed on the front fuckin’ lines. I guess American weapons come with a JUST KIDDING LOL button. Yeah, it’s right next to the Diet Coke button. You gotta read the fine print on that shit, “Seller reserves the right to switch sides mid-battle.”

    Oddly enough, our oldest, closest allies no longer feel comfortable sharing intel with us. Huh.

    Wanna hear something adorable? Secretary Rubio genuinely convinced himself that the guy who relentlessly mocked him as “Little Marco” would allow him to run the snack counter at Foggy Bottom, let alone the whole dang State Department. Bless his heart.

    Now reports say Marco is all pouty that he’s rarely consulted on matters of diplomacy. Why, he didn’t even know to bring his own knife to the Zelensky ambush. […]

    Also on the diplomatic front, JD Vance just keeps on winning friends n’ influencing people, with his uniquely doughy brand of nationalistic braggadocio. Nothing a few billion in new tariffs can’t fix, surely.

    […] Incidentally, Trade War II (III? IV? XXXVII? Who can keep track anymore?) lasted almost a day this time, before the Dotard relented, rolling back the lion’s share of the 25% tariffs he imposed on our neighbors/largest trade partners/potential 51st states. Just long enough to obliterate a few trillion dollars in market value.

    Now, the intentional destruction of our own economy was always gonna be a tough sell, but the messaging sure shifted from “lower prices on day one” to “lie back and try to enjoy the recession” in a hurry, didn’t it?

    […] Exempted from the tariffs is precious, Canadian cod liver oil, essential to combat the measles outbreak we have somehow managed to dumbfuck our way into in this, the third decade of the twenty-first century. My advice to our erstwhile allies is to restructure your economies around treatments for long-eradicated diseases. […]

    Honestly, it’s hard to blame Republicans for hiding from their constituents. What’re you gonna say at a town hall? “While the Dipshit-in-Chief is indeed doing massively damaging things for incomprehensibly stupid reasons, I am obviously far too cowardly to stand up to him”?

    […] Mike Johnson always looks so pleased when he’s spreading the Soros-funded paid protesters hoax, have you noticed that? Positively beams. You know “blame widespread backlash to my party’s mismanagement on the Jews” was at the very top of his bucket list.

    But if you really wanna see Speaker Moses’ eyes twinkle, wait till the conversation turns to Elon’s Magical Mystery Algorithm, an all-seeing, all-knowing Computer Thingamajig that roots out fraud n’ waste because COMPUTERS.

    Now, is this the same algorithm that decided we don’t need any silly “technicians” overseeing our nuclear arsenal? It sure is. But it told Mike there’s zero waste in a Chief of Staff who drives drunk, so his faith remains unshakable.

    Meanwhile, Musk has become Schrödinger’s Oligarch, simultaneously leading the crusade against the dastardly deep state personally, and humbly offering mere counsel to Cabinet secretaries who are Definitely in Charge of Their Own Departments and Making These Decisions Themselves as is Required by Law™️, depending on the needs of the moment.

    In Maine, you can no longer get a Social Security number for your newborn at the hospital, because Elon fired the public servants who did that job. Why? Because Elon enjoys firing people. (Especially veterans!) Sure, these folks provided a necessary service, but not firing them wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun as firing them.

    Perhaps the Holy Algorithm is designed to maximize not efficiency, but opportunities for a megalomaniac to play God. I’ve heard that if you shoot ketamine directly into your eyeball at the precise moment you destroy a weather forecaster’slife, the rush is fucking intense, man.

    I confess I was initially skeptical of DOGE’s rampage, but that was before I heard about the STRATEGIC CRYPTO RESERVE. Look, you have to admit we’ve fallen woefully behind in the stockpiling of imaginary resources. [LOL]

    […] Over at the Pentagon, they’re in such a mad, sloppy rush to purge every trace of DEI, they’re deleting references to the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. And it’s about time. To this day, the Enola Gay turns as many as 75% of visitors to the National Air and Space Museum homosexual.

    Perhaps this was the work of DoD’s new deputy press secretary, Kingsley Wilson, though in her defense, her history of racist and anti-Semitic tweets is probably not particularly uncommon on Pete Hegseth’s staff.

    In this brave new world of populism triumphant, all any red-blooded American needs to get a one-on-one meeting with the President of the United States is five million dollars. […]

    I guess English is America’s official language now, but did you read the fine print? It’s like…almost English, but not quite. There’re all these random, nonsensical capitalizations, and misspellings, like “stollen” and “smocking.” Damndest thing.

    I see acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is still having an Enola Gay old time abusing the powers of his office, demoting January 6th prosecutors, and threatening law schools. I’m already looking forward to Susan Collins’ indignant speech, as she casts the decisive vote to confirm him to Supreme Court.

    If disgraced wrestling promoter Linda McMahon truly wants to dismantle the Department of Education, she should give her shitbag husband an office near the break room; shouldn’t take more than a week to accumulate enough sexual harassment lawsuits to bankrupt the joint.

    So, yeah…lots going on. And I didn’t even get to the ebola outbreak or the purge of US immigration courts or the attacks on free speech and Social Security and also I guess Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels, that seems important.

    Oh, right! I’m told a man in an ill-fitting suit, apparently suffering from dementia, gave some sort of speech? I dunno, I watched Daredevil that night.

    Link

    Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.

  274. says

    Detailing all of the things Elon Musk and Trump are deliberately trying to wreck and loot is a full time job — but the predictable attack on Amtrak is no surprise. Jim Mathews of the Rail Passengers Association has a few words. (pdf file) The President and CEO of the passenger advocacy organization doesn’t pull any punches:

    So now Elon Musk thinks Amtrak should be privatized because it’s not as good or as fast or as extensive as China’s high-speed rail network. Tell me you don’t know what you’re talking about without saying the words, “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

    He appeared at a Morgan Stanley investment conference and was quoted as saying, “Amtrak is a sad situation. If you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It can leave you with a very bad impression of America.” Musk also trotted out the old anti-Amtrak talking point that Amtrak operates at a net loss and relies on Federal subsidies. All those other national railways which Musk implies are better…ALSO operate at a net loss and rely on state subsidies.

    Musk then went on to extol the virtues of China’s impressive high-speed rail network to make the case that Amtrak needs to be privatized. […]

    […] Mathews goes on to tear apart the nonsense Musk is spouting. It’s a good read.

    Let me add a few observations. As Mathews points out, high speed rail in China is NOT a product of private interests. It’s the product of an authoritarian government that operates in ways not possible in the U.S. — neither under the form of democracy we supposedly have, or the kleptocracy now in charge. There are things we could learn from China, but it’s not a simple copy and paste job.

    Amtrak was formed because private rail interests couldn’t make a profit on passenger rail and were dropping it as fast as they could get permission from Federal regulators. This came about while the country was investing heavily in the competition — highways and aviation, while letting the rail industry collapse. Amtrak was expected to fade away at the time it was created (under President Nixon) but it has managed to survive and even thrive when given the resources it needs.

    When Musk complains that Amtrak should be better, he has no plans to make it so — he just wants to kill it off.

    As someone working with Solutionary Rail, let me point out that we could see massive improvements in passenger as well as freight rail just by investing in upgrading the current rail infrastructure we have now. We could also make huge gains in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. See the basic concept here. [embedded links available at the main link]

    It can be done faster, and yield real gains for far less money. The technology is already available with a proven track record. High Speed rail is the bright shiny object — but it does not replace the need for better conventional rail anymore than building a superhighway replaces the need for good city streets. [Good point]

    Joe Aiello, director of Community Engagement & Organizing, has a few things to add to Mathews remarks […] He’s responding to an Op Ed coming out of the Heritage Foundation’s former Town Hall. Aiello concludes it with this:

    The last thing I will “clap back” on is the author’s notion that “today’s travelers often seek scenic and enjoyable train experiences over ordinary transportation”

    I will actually agree with part of this comment – the train can be quite scenic and enjoyable, but that is not the only reason passengers “often” choose this mode. Clearly, the author is buying into the “land cruise” fallacy. Less than 12% of passengers go end to end on Amtrak service. And even then, not all of them are taking their vacation on the train to enjoy the sights.

    You can spew the line all you want that “the way passenger trains have operated for the last 79 years is obsolete.” That’s its “outdated policy.” Throw out whatever anti-rail talking point you can dig up.

    Then go hop on the train in Chicago (as I do frequently), going in nearly any direction, and see the Amish families heading home. The students going to and from school. The grandparents traveling to see their grandkid’s play. The veteran trying to get care at a VA hospital, often the only one in the state.

    These aren’t opinions. These are facts of life. And you can go see them for yourself on any given day on nearly any given train in the U.S.

    Still waiting for Elon to take his hyperloop to catch a ride on his next Starship launch. Meanwhile, consider supporting the Rail Passengers Association. It’s one more place to take a stand.

    Link

  276. JM says

    ISW: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 7, 2025

    Ukrainian forces will likely have to be more selective in intercepting strikes as their stock of interceptors decreases with no resupply on the horizon, and successful Russian strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities will likely have lasting effects on Ukraine’s ability to generate power for DIB and civilian use.

    Russia continues to ramp up drone bombing, so far it hasn’t had much impact. Without continued support from the US Ukraine will run out of air defense. I don’t know if any European country has an equivalent system that they could supply to Ukraine because they largely use NATO US air defense systems.

    Russian forces recently advanced into northern Sumy Oblast for the first time since 2022 – when Ukrainian forces pushed Russian forces from significant swathes of Ukrainian territory following the initial months of Russian advances. Russian forces likely intend to leverage limited advances into Sumy Oblast to completely expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast among other objectives.

    Russia is trying to force Ukraine out of Kursk by cutting Kursk off. As usual, Russia is making slow fitful progress at great cost to manpower. On the ground the other European countries can support Ukraine better but the conversion will take some time. Vehicles and supplies from European countries is already reaching the front.

    Russian forces also recently intensified offensive operations aimed at seizing Chasiv Yar and attacking Kostyantynivka – the southernmost settlement of Ukraine’s fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast.

    Russia has been trying to seize Chasiv Yar for months, both sides have troops in the town and fighting has been back and forth. The Ukrainians have been taking advantage of superior movement and intelligence to make small strategic strikes across several areas of the front.

    Russian officials continue to explicitly reject making any concessions in future peace negotiations or accepting any US, European, or Ukrainian peace proposals. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter in Moscow, reported on March 7 that Russian officials told US officials in a bilateral meeting in Riyadh on February 18 that “Russia is willing to discuss a temporary truce in Ukraine provided there is progress toward a final peace settlement.”

    Russians are very good at saying they are interested in peace without agreeing to give anything up. This is where Marco Rubio could help if he actually had Trump’s ear but Trump isn’t listening. A truce while US supplies are cut off would just help the Russians resupply their front line troops.

    NBC News: Trump threatens to impose ‘large scale’ sanctions on Russia until a peace agreement with Ukraine is reached

    “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

    There are no more sanctions or tariffs that the US can apply to Russia. What trade Russia is making now is with countries that don’t care what the US says or through the black market. This sort of statement just makes clear the Trump doesn’t understand what the situation is. The only pressure the US can apply to Russia at this point is with supplying Ukraine or taking even more direct hand in the war.

  278. birgerjohansson says

    I like posting links to Save A Fox, apart from cuddly animals having fun it shows there are people out there to do something about cruelty to snimals.

  280. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump Turnberry vandalised by pro-Palestinian group

    A pro-Palestinian group has vandalised parts of Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.

    Palestine Action posted photographs on social media showing red paint daubed across one of the buildings at the Ayrshire course.

    The words “Gaza is not for sale” are sprayed across one green and another green appears to have been dug up.

    A further photograph shows a damaged lamp post at the resort owned by the Trump Organisation. A spokesperson said it was a “childish, criminal act”…

  281. says

    Injustice for All: Trump targets lawyers, and a First Amendment fumble

    Donald Trump is yanking security clearances for law firms who have committed the terrible crime of working with people Donald Trump doesn’t like. That won’t just punish those firms—it will also likely make it harder for some of the federal employees illegally fired by Trump to get lawyers.

    Federal employees who work with sensitive information or whose employment is covert can’t hire just any lawyer. Here’s how Mark Zaid, who represented the intelligence officer who blew the whistle on Trump’s “perfect call” to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, explained it.

    For a covert CIA officer, even the fact they work for the CIA is secret, and it would be a crime for them to tell someone who doesn’t have proper clearance. If that CIA officer needs an attorney, the attorney needs a security clearance too.

    This isn’t just an issue for spies. Any federal employee who works with classified material can encounter this if an employment dispute requires discussing that material. Without an attorney who has clearance, that person is out of luck.

    Zaid was among the first attorneys to be stripped of their security clearances for the crime of irritating Trump. Well … maybe. In early February, Trump told the New York Post he was revoking clearances for a laundry list of people, including Zaid. However, there’s been no official notification about it, even a month later.

    On Feb. 25, Trump issued an order suspending clearances for anyone at Covington & Burling who provided services to former special counsel Jack Smith. The man charged with investigating Trump’s election interference and mishandling of classified documents received about $140,000 in pro bono assistance from the prominent Washington law firm in preparation for Trump’s inevitable legal attacks on him. There’s no allegation the firm did anything improper regarding clearances or classified information. Their only offense was working with Smith.

    A new order dropped on Thursday suspending clearances for everyone at another law firm, Perkins Coie. [See comments 204 and 226.] Trump has been mad at that firm since 2016 for its role in hiring the firm that commissioned the Steele dossier, an opposition research report […] The order also limits the firm’s access to federal buildings and, for good measure, accuses the firm of discrimination in hiring because it uses diversity, equity, and inclusion practices […]

    As of 2019, the last year for which data is available, 1.25 million federal employees, contractors, and others held top-secret clearances. The mass firings driven by Trump’s co-President Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have been so chaotic that people are not even receiving the customary security exit briefings. Still, the administration is nonetheless moving forward with plans to ax probationary CIA employees after purging the FBI weeks ago. Thanks to Trump, those fired people will face a dwindling pool of lawyers allowed to represent them.

    Making sure federal employees can’t fight back

    In the span of just a few days in February, Trump removed Susan Grundmann, chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees federal-sector labor issues; Cathy Harris, head of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which shields federal employees from partisan actions and hears appeals over firings and demotions; and Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistleblowers.

    Each is an independent federal agency, where people are appointed to fixed terms rather than serving at the president’s pleasure like Cabinet heads do. They can’t be removed except for the reasons specified by Congress in statute, like neglect of duty or malfeasance. Trump removed them anyway, in part because he’s deliberately trying to tee up a Supreme Court case where the conservative justices would agree that he has absolute authority over the entire executive branch, but also because he’s cutting off avenues of recourse for fired federal employees. [!]

    Grundmann sued over her removal, but the court has not yet ruled on her motion to be restored to her position. Harris just prevailed at the lower court, with the judge ruling that Trump had no authority to remove her, but the administration has already appealed. Dellinger won at the lower court, but after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Trump’s request that Dellinger remain removed while litigation continues, Dellinger dropped his challenge to his firing.

    Federal employees can’t meaningfully rely on the functionality or independence of these agencies now, which is the whole point. […]

    Ed Martin is unclear on the First Amendment

    When interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin isn’t protecting a MAGA congressman from being arrested or threatening Democrats on behalf of Elon Musk, he’s busy showing how little he understands the Constitution.

    On Thursday, Martin sent a letter to William Treanor [See Sky Captain’s comment 166.], dean of Georgetown University’s law school, complaining that the school “continues to teach and promote DEI” and that doing so is “unacceptable” […]

    It’s unclear […] whether Martin understands the First Amendment, which solidly prohibits the government from telling Georgetown, a private school, what to teach.

    Treanor, who (unlike Martin) is an actual constitutional scholar, sent a return letter patiently explaining basic legal concepts like academic freedom and private schools. Treanor also told Martin that since the First Amendment protects Georgetown’s right to determine its curriculum, refusing to hire students based on disdain for that curriculum is also unconstitutional.

    For good measure, Treanor highlighted that Georgetown’s commitment to open discourse stems from its status as a Catholic and Jesuit institution. This might seem unnecessary until you learn that Martin is an ostentatiously devout Catholic whose official bio highlights that he attended a Catholic college and worked for the St. Louis Archdiocese. […]

    A shining new era of grift

    Republicans are racing to create a world where Elon Musk doesn’t have to follow any pesky regulations. On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled Senate passed a resolution that would undo a Biden-era rule that gave the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the authority to regulate online payment platforms. The House also needs to pass the resolution, but since that chamber is also under GOP control, the rule’s demise seems likely.

    The CFPB enforces consumer financial laws, protecting people from fraud and unfair practices. It’s remarkably good at this, having obtained close to $20 billion in relief for consumers since its founding in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The agency has always had the authority to oversee traditional financial institutions like banks, but only under Biden did it expand to digital payment platforms such as Zelle and CashApp.

    This poses a problem for Musk, who wants to turn X into a digital payment platform and already has an agreement with Visa. Musk isn’t a fan of regulation, and this move would allow him to run a financial institution without any annoying oversight. There’s no telling whether there’s a huge appetite for an unregulated digital payment app on a site already overrun by Nazis and crypto bots, but we’re about to find out.

  282. says

    Here comes the House

    On Monday morning, I had my coffee while turning the pages of the House Minority’s first major entry into the litigation battles against authoritarianism. Over two hundred members of the caucus led by Jeffries and Rep. Maxine Waters filed a brief in the case to stop the Trump Administration’s gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). That agency protects all Americans—above all, average folks—from financial scams and abuses. Trump and his cronies have in effect shut it down, ignoring the command of Congress that it continue. Good for the minority for speaking out boldly in court, where it counts. I hope and trust that it will be the first of many swipes at the Administration’s efforts to stiff-arm Congress.

    Bookending the week, on Friday afternoon one of the last things I read heading into the weekend was leader Jeffries’ Dear Colleague letter, which takes a strong stand against the Republican introduction of a “continuing resolution,” which would effectively entrench Trump’s and Musk’s twisted priorities. The government is not funded past March 14. This CR would grant funding and avoid a shutdown—but with utterly reprehensible conditions. Jeffries’ words refusing to go along are powerful:

    “Republicans have decided to introduce a partisan continuing resolution that threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year. That is not acceptable.

    “House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts.

    “We cannot back a measure that rips away life-sustaining healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of the Republican scheme to pay for massive tax cuts for their wealthy donors like Elon Musk. Medicaid is our redline.”

    Jeffries hit a crucial point there: the impact of Trump and Musk’s autocratic chaos on Americans. He’s ready for this moment because of his experience guiding House Democrats through dysfunction and institutional disarray. Consider what he’s had to deal with in the shambolic, Republican-run House of Representatives for the past two years: the ousting of Speaker McCarthy, a first in our history; regular continuing resolutions to fund the government that relied wholly on Democratic votes to succeed; the marathon effort to expel fraudster Rep. George Santos; and ludicrous, baseless Republican efforts to impeach President Biden—to name but a few of the headaches.

    […] On a rinse-and-repeat cycle, House Republicans wrought havoc; then Jeffries cleaned up the mess. […]

    We cannot pretend that the corruption and controversy of the current president and his spineless party will simply blow over […] while this week delivered a flurry of challenges, it also offered us windows into Americans’ enduring spirit of resilience. The Contrarian covered it all for you—and if you’re a subscriber, we did it with your help. […]

    A bit too laudatory regarding Jeffries, but otherwise some good points were made.

  283. Reginald Selkirk says

    Scientists date remains of an ancient child that resembles both humans and Neanderthals

    Scientists have dated the skeleton of an ancient child that caused a stir when it was first discovered because it carries features from both humans and Neanderthals.

    The child’s remains were discovered 27 years ago in a rock shelter called Lagar Velho in central Portugal. The nearly complete skeleton was stained red, and scientists think it may have been wrapped in a painted animal skin before burial.

    When the humanlike child was discovered, scientists noted that some of their attributes — including body proportions and jawbone — looked Neanderthal. The researchers suggested that the child was descended from populations in which humans and Neanderthals mated and mixed…

    But trying to figure out when exactly the child lived has been difficult. Small roots had grown through the bones and contamination — from plants or other sources — made it impossible for scientists to use traditional carbon dating to measure the child’s age. They instead dated the charcoal and animal bones around the skeleton to between 27,700 and 29,700 years ago.

    Techniques have improved, and researchers reported Friday in the journal Science Advances that they were able to date the skeleton by measuring part of a protein that’s found primarily in human bones.

    Examining part of a crushed arm, they revealed that the earlier estimate was in the ballpark: the skeleton was from between 27,700 and 28,600 years ago…

  284. Reginald Selkirk says

    North Korea unveils nuclear-powered submarine for the first time

    North Korea unveiled for the first time a nuclear-powered submarine under construction, a weapons system that can pose a major security threat to South Korea and the U.S.

    The state media agency on Saturday released photos showing what it called “a nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine,” as it reported leader Kim Jong Un’s visits to major shipyards where warships are built.

    The Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, didn’t provide details on the submarine, but said that Kim was briefed on its construction.

    The naval vessel appears to be a 6,000-ton-class or 7,000-ton-class one which can carry about 10 missiles, said Moon Keun-sik, a South Korean submarine expert who teaches at Seoul’s Hanyang University. He said that the use of the term “the strategic guided missiles” meant it would carry nuclear-capable weapons…

  285. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Intercept – We found Elon Musk’s DOGE email address and we’re fighting to reveal his messages

    FOIA works best when requests are as specific as possible. The U.S. government sometimes plays games with journalists, researchers, and other watchdogs, rejecting asks it considers too vague—such as requests for correspondence that fail to include an official’s government email address.

    That’s why The Intercept is publishing Musk’s government email address.

     
    Alejandra Caraballo (Civil rights attorney):

    My Twitter account was permanently suspended for briefly posting Elon’s government email. The reason cited was “private information.” Funny, Elon never had issue with libs of tiktok posts with government emails. The so called free speech absolutist strikes again.

    [Screenshot: “Testing erm71{at}who.eop.gov”]
    This was the post. It was up for an hour as I was testing if searching for the email was shadow banned. It was.

    Alejandra Caraballo

    Lol, Elon responded to my suspension.
    [Screenshot: Musk tells a rando, “Temporary suspension for doxxing. Same rules as everyone else.”]

    Grok, is this doxing?
    Grok: “no.”

     
    Alejandra Caraballo:

    It’s the entire email list for all DOGE employees. Have fun!
    This is strictly for FOIA purposes. Please do not send any unsolicited emails to these addresses, that would not be cool!

    Most end in "doge.eop.gov"
    Adam.Ramada@...            Joshua.A.Hanley@...
    Akash.N.Bobba@...          Joshua.Fox@...
    Alexandra.T.Beynon@...     Justin.W.Aimonetti@...
    Anthony.J.Armstrong@...    Keenan.D.Kmiec@...
    Ashley.S.Boizelle@...      Kendall.M.Lindemann@...
    Austin.L.Raynor@...        Kyle.L.Schutt@...
    Brad.M.Smith@...           Luke.E.Farritor@...
    Christopher.J.Young@...    Marko.Elez@...
    Christopher.Stanley@...    Nicholas.Lahera@...
    Edward.H.Coristine@...     Nikhil.Rajpal@...
    Emily.L.Bryant@...         Noah.Peters@...
    Ethan.Shaotran@...         Riccardo.N.Biasini@...
    Gautier.C.Killian@...      Stephanie.M.Holmes2@...
    Jacob.R.Altik@...          Steven.M.Davis@...
    James.Burnham@...          Susan.S.Wiles@who.eop.gov
    Jennifer.Balajadia@...     erm71@who.eop.gov
    Jordan.M.Wick@...

    * Steps she took to verify at the link.
    * Elon is erm71. Yeah, initials and birth year, nonstandard.
    * who = White House Office
    * eop = Executive Office of the President
    * The NYT DOGE roster is a bit longer than this.

    Rando: “Odd that Elon Musk has a DOGE email address but the administrator of DOGE, Amy Gleason, does not.”

  286. Reginald Selkirk says

    Undocumented ‘Backdoor’ Found In Chinese Bluetooth Chip Used By a Billion Devices

    “The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains an undocumented ‘backdoor’ that could be leveraged for attacks,” writes BleepingComputer.

    “The undocumented commands allow spoofing of trusted devices, unauthorized data access, pivoting to other devices on the network, and potentially establishing long-term persistence.”
    …

    ‽

  288. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #190.

    Jacqueline Sweet:

    More on Branden and Natalia Spikes’ Russian connections

    The DOGE guy had hobnobbed at events cohosted by Natalia’s orgs and US-Russia Chamber of Commerce, which included oligarchs, aristocrats, and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

  289. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – HHS grants DOGE access to child support database

    The government database—created to help enforce child support payments and overseen by the Administration for Children and Families, or ACF—contains substantial amounts of personal income data linked to nearly all U.S. workers. […] DOGE’s agents sought “read-only access” to the system and were required “to take all necessary trainings” before being granted permission
    […]
    A career civil servant had initially objected […] but that person is no longer at the health department […] Some HHS officials told The Post that there already are safeguards in place to check for fraud
    […]
    DOGE was particularly interested in a component of the system known as the National Directory of New Hires, which draws on data reported by employers and state agencies.
    […]
    “It is essentially an end-run around the confidential taxpayer information protected by the IRS,” Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and colleagues wrote

    Missing the Point: “Well, they won’t find any information on Elon Musk there.”
     
    The National Directory of New Hires: An overview

    that contains personal and financial data on nearly every working American, as well as those receiving unemployment insurance benefits.
    […]
    The NDNH was originally established to help states locate noncustodial parents living in a different state so that child support payments could be withheld from that parent’s paycheck. […] authority to access the NDNH has been extended to several additional programs and agencies to verify program eligibility, prevent or end improper payments, collect overpayments, or ensure that program benefits are correct. […] the NDNH does not include data on non-wage workers (e.g., independent contractors)

  290. Bekenstein Bound says

    the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

    Oh, wonderful. More Galt’s Gulches. Anyone want to lay odds how soon one of them ends up in roughly the same condition as Pripyat?

    Gil Duran, a former political consultant and author of the Substack newsletter Nerd Reich, warns […] “These are going to be cities without democracy,” he claims. “These are going to be cities without workers’ rights. These are going to be cities where the owners of the city, the corporations, the billionaires have all the power and everyone else has no power. That’s what’s so attractive […] they will actually be anti-freedom cities.”

    Company towns and selling your soul to the company store? That’s soooo 1875. Get with the times, people!

    The Russian Orthodox Church has called for not celebrating March 8, since the holiday is associated with women’s freedom and “does not correspond to tradition

    Fucking misogynists.

  291. birgerjohansson says

    If you live in Florida and other hurricane-prone states, firing the meterologists and scientists of NOAA may not be a good thing for your welfare.

  293. birgerjohansson says

    BTW, oil supply:
    USA has been the world’s top oil producing nation since the Obama years. And it is the top oil exporting nation.
    The oil companies are choosing to not drill more to keep their costs down.
    Any Republican talking points on the issue are straight-out lies.

    Tr*mp us trying -and failing – to get Saudi Arabia to increase their production to bring costs down (and help reduce the US inflation).
    But as Saudi Arabia needs to keep the prices at the current level to pay for their various government services, it is a big NO.

  294. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 292

    Here in the commie atheist hellhole of Europe (sark) the daylight savings time arrives a bit later.

  297. StevoR says

    The Trump administration has begun cancelling visas retroactively as part of preparations to reinstate a controversial travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries, US sources told The New Arab’s Arabic language edition, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. American embassies in multiple countries have notified some visa holders – including those already in the United States – that their visas have been revoked. These individuals have been instructed to report to their respective US embassies for further interviews.

    The move is reportedly linked to Donald Trump’s upcoming travel ban, which is expected to target citizens from several Muslim-majority countries as soon as next week. The decision follows an executive order issued by Trump on 20 January titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security Threats”.

    Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/us-cancels-visas-trump-seeks-revive-muslim-travel-ban

  298. Reginald Selkirk says

    Secret Service shot armed man in confrontation near White House

    An armed adult man was shot by US Secret Service personnel on Sunday morning outside the White House, the agency announced shortly after the incident.

    President Donald Trump was not at the White House Sunday morning.

    According to Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi, USSS received information about a “suicidal individual” who was traveling to DC from Indiana. Guglielmi said in a statement that USSS members saw a person matching the description near the White House and found their parked car.

    “As officers approached, the individual brandished a firearm and an armed confrontation ensued, during which shots were fired by our personnel,” Guglielmi said.

    The person was taken to the hospital, and his condition remains unknown…

  299. Reginald Selkirk says

    A ‘Real Super Female’: 310-Mile Stretch of Seaweed May Be World’s Biggest Clone

    Researchers previously believed that a small, bushy seaweed in the Baltic Sea belonged to a species called narrow wrack. New research reveals they’re actually individuals within a giant seaweed clone—perhaps the largest clone known to science.

    In a study published February 17 in the journal Molecular Ecology, University of Gothenburg researchers disproved the previous assumption that 310 miles (500 kilometers) of algae in the Baltic Sea were narrow wrack seaweed. Genetic analyses revealed that they are not only a different species—common bladderwrack—but also a giant clone, which has implications for the species’ resilience to threats like climate change…

  301. JM says

    AP: Russian forces walked inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian troops from the rear in Kursk

    According to Telegram posts by a Ukrainian-born, pro-Kremlin blogger, Russian operatives walked about 15 kilometers (9 miles) inside the pipeline, which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe. Some Russian troops had spent several days in the pipe before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near the town of Sudzha, blogger Yuri Podolyaka claimed.

    Final word on the attack’s success isn’t available yet but Ukraine claims to have dealt with it. In addition Russian bloggers have gone from being gleeful about the surprise attack to being upset at the loss of special forces. It’s really amazing how bad Russian information control is, for those that know Russian following the Russian war bloggers is a good source of information if you read between the lines a bit.

  302. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/science-nerds-demand-americas-new

    Science Nerds Demand America’s New God-King Give Back Their Lunch And Cancer-Research Money

    On Friday, nerds all over the US staged rallies to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to federal funding research. Thousands rallied on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC to plead about the benefits of funding science and research in the knowns, known-unknowns, and unknown-unknowns.

    Like so many DC rallies before it, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were transformed into a temporary stage. There wasn’t a big, black riser with rows of cameras and media crews. There weren’t throngs of journalists roaming around and shoving microphones in the faces of flag waving attendees. The crowd didn’t have any kind of uniform apparel, like colored hats and/or armbands.

    With a few exceptions, like Bill Nye the Science Guy, and patients who owe their lives to federally funded medical research, a number of speakers were fairly boring. They stood awkwardly at podium and told corny jokes that fell flat. At one point, some of the older folks sang out-of-tune folk songs.

    These were scientists. They proudly identify as nerds. They’ve dedicated their careers to saving lives and the planet we’ve all been mucking up for generations. And now many of them were facing unemployment because a merry band of bigots, buffoons, and bros decided science is, like, queer, or whatever.

    People in the crowd cheered on speakers — their colleagues and fellow researchers — who lamented the loss of funding that didn’t just help find cures for cancers and disease, create new technologies, or reveal secrets of the universe; they were pissed there was no money for things like coolant used in specialized freezers that preserve decades of biological specimens. [!]

    “This will lead to more deaths,” summarized Dr. Allison Agawu, Professor of Adult and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Science is a beautiful art built on a canvas of ideas. The best science comes from diverse ideas, from diverse people with diverse perspectives, spurring innovation and progress … We collectively reject that inclusion, diversity, equity and access are bad words. In fact, programs championing these ideals should be celebrated and expanded, as that is how we get the best science and the best outcomes.” [Good points]

    […] Lloyd Franklin, 64, stood at the front of the stage wearing a blue NASA jacket. He is a retired aerospace engineer who, like many kids, grew up wanting to be an astronaut. He held a sign with a photo of Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan from 1972. Cernan is taking a selfie while holding the American flag as the Earth, a pale blue dot, floats in over his shoulder. It was the last time humans walked on the Moon.

    Above the photo on Franklin’s sign were the words: “Science gave us this.”

    “I know this is important,” Franklin said. “I know we have to make a stand.”

    […] Mustering a sizable crowd on short notice in the middle of the week in DC can be a Herculean task, but they have been showing up to protest regularly since congressional Republicans turned a blind-eye to Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to federal agencies.

    If they get any media attention, it’s from struggling freelancers or niche bloggers. National broadcasters or their local affiliates are not really showing up to show hundreds of federal workers protesting on the evening news. [MSNBC is an exception.] There’s a massacre being carried out in broad daylight and the pathetic reality is that much of the DC press corps is either too scared to do their jobs, or they just don’t care.

    “It’s bad optics,” a colleague said.

    Photos and video at the link.

  303. says

    Trump wants to see more than just a minerals deal to restart aid and intel to Ukraine

    “U.S. and Ukrainian officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia this week, with Trump focused on Zelenskyy’s willingness to make concessions in negotiations.”

    Related video at the link.

    As U.S. and Ukrainian officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia this week, […] Trump has privately made clear to aides that a signed minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv won’t be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing with the war-torn country, according an administration official and another U.S. official.

    Trump wants the deal, which would give the U.S. a stake in Ukraine’s mineral resources, signed. But he also wants to see a change in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attitude toward peace talks, the officials said, including a willingness to make concessions such as giving up territory to Russia. Trump also wants Zelenskyy to make some movement toward elections in Ukraine and possibly toward stepping down as his country’s leader, the officials said. [That’s Putin’s list of demands.]

    Elections in Ukraine have been paused under the country’s constitutional provision for martial law, which has been in effect since Russia invaded in 2022.

    […] Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine in the aftermath of the U.S. pause in equipment and intelligence sharing this week, making Friday one of the deadliest days for civilians this year, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Most of the casualties occurred in the Donetsk region, in territory controlled by Ukraine. Casualty numbers have been higher so far in 2025 than in 2024, the monitoring agency said.

    […] Congressional Republicans are applying pressure on the White House to restart both aid and intelligence, and the two officials said they are optimistic the flow of weapons and equipment and sharing of intelligence could be restored as early as next week, especially after Zelenskyy pronounced that Ukraine is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.” The Ukrainian president also said he and his team “stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.” [Buttering up the orange buffoon, a good tactic.]

    The officials said the U.S. is still sharing defensive intelligence with Ukraine — that is, information that helps Ukraine’s self-defense against attacks — explaining that they still have a duty to warn. But they are not providing targeting information against Russian targets. That means the U.S. can warn Ukraine when intelligence shows that Russians are preparing an attack, but they can no longer provide the targeting coordinates for Ukraine to strike first.

    The U.S. has provided Ukraine with targeting information, satellite imagery and signals intelligence for most of the past three years. European allies are now working to bridge some of the gaps, but the lack of U.S. intelligence is already having an impact on Ukraine every day, according to a Western official.

    “Every day hurts Ukraine, and every day gives Russia a more favorable position,” the official said.

  304. says

    ‘Bloody Sunday’ 60th anniversary marked in Selma with remembrances and concerns about the future

    “The annual commemoration paid homage to those who fought to secure voting rights for Black Americans and brought calls to recommit to the fight for equality.”

    Related video at the link.

    Charles Mauldin was near the front of a line of voting rights marchers walking in pairs across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.

    The marchers were protesting white officials’ refusal to allow Black Alabamians to register to vote, as well as the killing days earlier of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a minister and voting rights organizer who was shot by a state trooper in nearby Marion.

    At the apex of the span over the Alabama River, they saw what awaited them: a line of state troopers, deputies and men on horseback. After they approached, law enforcement gave a warning to disperse and then unleashed violence.

    “Within about a minute or a half, they took their billy clubs, holding it on both ends, began to push us back to back us in, and then they began to beat men, women and children, and tear gas men, women and children, and cattle prod men, women and children viciously,” said Mauldin, who was 17 at the time.

    Selma on Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of the clash that became known as Bloody Sunday. The attack shocked the nation and galvanized support for the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965. The annual commemoration paid homage to those who fought to secure voting rights for Black Americans and brought calls to recommit to the fight for equality.

    For foot soldiers of the movement, the celebration comes amid concerns about new voting restrictions and the Trump administration’s effort to remake federal agencies they said helped make America a democracy for all.

    […] “At this moment, faced with trouble on every side, we’ve got to press on,” Jeffries said to the crowd that included the Rev. Jesse Jackson, multiple members of Congress and others gathered for the commemoration.

    U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., said they are gathering in Selma for the 60th anniversary “at a time when the vote is in peril.”

    Sewell noted the number of voting restrictions introduced since the U.S. Supreme Court effectively abolished a key part of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to pre-clear new voting laws with the Justice Department

    Sewell this week reintroduced legislation to restore the requirement. The proposal has repeatedly stalled in Congress. The legislation is named for John Lewis, the late Georgia congressman who was at the lead of the Bloody Sunday march. […]

    Mauldin, who took a blow to the head, said he believes law enforcement officers were trying to incite a riot as they attacked marchers. […]

    Dr. Verdell Lett Dawson, who grew up in Selma, remembers a time when she was expected to lower her gaze if she passed a white person on the street to avoid making eye contact.

    Dawson and Mauldin said they are concerned about the potential dismantling of the Department of Education and other changes to federal agencies. Trump has pushed to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government.

    Support from the federal government “is how Black Americans have been able to get justice, to get some semblance of equality, because left to states’ rights, it is going to be the white majority that’s going to rule,” Dawson said.

    “That that’s a tragedy of 60 years later: what we are looking at now is a return to the 1950s,” Dawson said.

    Photos at the link.

    NBC reposted the Associated Press report.

  305. says

    Israel says it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza

    “The new letter from Israel’s energy minister to the Israel Electric Corporation tells it to stop selling power to Gaza.”

    srael says it is cutting off its electricity supply to Gaza. The full effects of that are not immediately clear, but the territory’s desalination plants receive power for producing drinking water.

    Sunday’s announcement comes a week after Israel cut off all supplies of goods to the territory to over 2 million people. It has sought to press Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire. That phase ended last weekend. Israel wants Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.

    Hamas has pressed to start negotiations on the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase instead, which would see the release of remaining hostages from Gaza, the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a lasting peace. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 35 others.

    The militant group on Sunday said it wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators without changes to its position, calling for an immediate start of the ceasefire’s second phase.

    The new letter from Israel’s energy minister to the Israel Electric Corporation tells it to stop selling power to Gaza. Israel had warned when it stopped all supplies that water and electricity could be next.

    Gaza has been largely devastated by the war, and generators and solar panels are used for some of the power supply.

    […] Now, with the cutoff of all supplies to Gaza, Palestinians are reporting sharp price increases for dwindling items as fears grow again. […]

  306. says

    France to use interest from frozen Russian assets to finance arms for Ukraine

    Reply from Moscow: “You will still have to … return what was stolen.”

    France will use interest from frozen Russian assets to fund an additional €195 million in arms for Ukraine, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said.

    Lecornu told La Tribune in an interview published Sunday that Paris will provide the Ukrainian army with older equipment from the French army, in particular AMX-10RC tanks and armored front-end vehicles.

    “In addition, this year, thanks to the interests of frozen Russian assets, we will mobilize a new envelope of €195 million, which will make it possible to supply 155-mm shells as well as AASM glide bombs that arm the Ukrainian Mirage 2000s,” Lecornu added.

    After the publication of the interview, a response came from Russia: “You will still have to answer for your actions and return what was stolen,” Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said.

    Last year, the G7 countries agreed to provide Ukraine with $50 billion via a series of bilateral loans that Kyiv could pay off using windfall profits from frozen Russian state assets.

    In the interview, Lecornu also noted that he considers the U.S. an ally of France, “despite its great unpredictability,” and he called for calm, even while Europe faces a threat from Russia.

    “I’m not one of those who say there will be a third world war,” the minister said.

    “We just have to realize that everything we have known up to now is being called into question, and this is being accelerated by the unpredictability of the American partner. That is why we have to strengthen our defensive efforts in order to guarantee peace on our continent,” stressed Lecornu.

  307. Reginald Selkirk says

    Flabbergasted Wisconsin elections officials to depose Madison workers over uncounted ballots

    Wisconsin election officials voted Friday to force Madison city workers to sit for depositions as they try to learn more about how nearly 200 absentee ballots in November’s election went uncounted.

    The uncounted ballots in the state’s capital city didn’t affect any results, but the Wisconsin Elections Commission still launched an investigation in January to determine whether Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated state law or abused her discretion. She didn’t notify the elections commission of the uncounted ballots until December, almost a month and a half after the election and well after the results were certified on Nov. 29.

    The commission hasn’t made a decision yet on whether Witzel-Behl acted illegally or improperly, but commissioners appeared flabbergasted at the failure to count the ballots as they reviewed the investigation during a meeting Friday. Chair Ann Jacobs was particularly incensed with Witzel-Behl for not launching her own in-depth probe immediately…

  310. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up on the DOGE takeover of Social Security.
    I paraphrased screenshots of the docket.

    David Dayen (The American Prospect):

    Extraordinary filing released tonight in a case about access to Social Security data from Tiffany Flick, fmr chief of staff to Acting Commissioner Michelle King. It details the unusual urgency the DOGE boys had in getting to SSA data & what they were looking for:

    untrue allegations of deceaced recipients; single SSNs receiving multiple benefits which is normal for families; payments to folks lacking a SSN.

    Akash Bobba ended up getting read-only access to SSA information that he worked with offsite with non-SSA DOGE employees. But they demanded more.

    Michael Russo (chief information officer, DOGE-aligned appointee) repeatedly stated Bobba needed access to “everything, including source code”. Russo was evasive as to why or for which system. Generally access is job-dependent: we wouldn’t give such access even to our most highly trained experts.

    DOGE went over SSA’s head to get full access to the data (which includes loads of personal information).

    Acting Commissioner King requested detailed justification from Russo. Instead of a response, the WH named Leland Dudek to replace the Acting Commissioner. Dudek had been on administrative leave (he’d been harassing personnel to let DOGE in), and his immediate supervisor had not lifted it. Upon hearing of this, Flick retired.

    So now the DOGE bros have access to all SSA data, and Flick explains her concerns about that, up to and including breaking the benefit payment system:

    privacy risks; rushed onboarding of Russo and Bobba; no confidence in their skills/training; Bobba is working from OPM offices surrounded by unvetted untrained people, who could also leak; disregard for “least-privileged” access; disinterest in understanding the systems; old programming requiring specialized knowledge; agency brain drain would hinder restoring services if broken; even read-only access has already been abused for disinformation.

    The whole thing reminds me of that moment on January 6 where the insurrectionists find papers in the Senate desks and start rifling through them as if they’re going to find some evidence of a rigged election, and it’s clear they have no idea what they’re looking at

  312. says

    The Trump administration is gutting colleges’ best tools to fight antisemitism

    “The White House has put schools in a “can’t win” situation.”

    Related video at the link.

    On Friday, the Trump administration announced it was canceling approximately $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University because of what the Department of Education called “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The decision is rich in irony, given the Trump administration’s promotion of antisemitism.

    I am not referring to Elon Musk’s Nazi-adjacent “hand gestures,” or Vice President JD Vance’s speech supporting Germany’s far-right AfD party, or the president’s decision to grant clemency to openly antisemitic perpetrators of the Jan. 6 riots — as alarming as all those actions were. Rather, even as the administration blasts Columbia for failing “to protect students from anti-Semitic harassment,” it is simultaneously pushing colleges and universities to gut the programs and policies they use to fight antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.

    According to the Education Department, the administration is canceling grants to Columbia “in light of ongoing investigations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.” Title VI prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded institutions. Since 2004, the Department of Education has extended Title VI protections to Jews, Muslims and other religious groups that “face discrimination on the basis of shared ethnic characteristics.”

    In the weeks and months after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, the Department of Education in President Joe Biden’s administration opened dozens of Title VI investigations into antisemitism. These probes seek to determine whether students have faced a hostile environment because of their membership in the law’s protected categories. In some cases, a school may be found responsible for creating such an environment, but even absent that, schools that fail to ameliorate these environments stand in potential violation of Title VI.

    What tools can schools use to fix hostile campus climates? The same ones that President Donald Trump’s Department of Education have now branded toxic and impermissible according to a “Dear Colleague Letter” and a subsequent FAQ issued last month.

    The two documents amount to a wholesale assault on the programs and policies schools have created over the last half-century to comply with Title VI. In the letter, acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor characterizes universities as the source of “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” and pledges that the Education Department will no longer tolerate any explicit or implicit program that “treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race.” Pointing to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that struck down racial preference in admissions, Trainor takes particular aim at DEI programs as “a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history” and slams discussions of “systemic and structural racism” themselves as agents of discrimination.

    New offices to safeguard Jewish students who believe they are victims of antisemitism; mandatory training programs for staff or students to gain sensitivity about antisemitism; anti-bias response teams installed to handle antisemitism complaints: All of these efforts, according to the letter and FAQ, would appear impermissible.

    Trainor’s citation of the Supreme Court is tendentious at best. The court’s decision was limited to admissions, and anti-discrimination initiatives remain valid and are even required under both federal law and Supreme Court precedent. But scared of reprisals to come, many institutions may feel they have no choice but to comply. Already, over 250 schools in 36 states including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and the University of North Carolina have taken steps to change or dismantle some of their DEI programs.

    In other words, in an attempt to abide by the government’s directive, colleges and universities are cutting the offices and programs that hosted many of their proactive efforts to address antisemitism. And as the cancelation of Columbia’s grants shows, not only is the Trump administration prohibiting schools from using the tools many instituted at the behest of Title VI to fight antisemitism, it is also putting them on notice that they will be penalized for failing to act.

    The Trump White House has put schools in a “can’t win” situation. Schools that are rushing to shutter DEI programs can later be investigated for violating Title VI, yet those that preserve their programs or create new ones to fight discrimination can also be accused of violating Education Department guidelines. Taken together, Title VI will surely be hollowed out, as the Trump administration plans to abolish the Department of Education and endorses policies to criminalize student protest and free expression.

    Make no mistake, the Trump administration is using antisemitism as an excuse to obliterate Title VI, undermine civil rights and incapacitate higher education. If Jewish safety were the point, then the constructive efforts to improve universities’ responses to incidents and allegations of antisemitism would be sacrosanct. If Jewish safety mattered, our government would seek to strengthen universities where Americans can learn about the past and think about how to create a better future, and our elected officials would fight to preserve democracy. American Jews may disagree about the best way to combat antisemitism, but there should be no disagreement from our elected officials that American Jews are American and deserve equal protection — no more and no less.

  313. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @310:

    So now the DOGE bros have access to all SSA data, and Flick explains her concerns about that, up to and including breaking the benefit payment system:
    privacy risks; rushed onboarding of Russo and Bobba; no confidence in their skills/training; Bobba is working from OPM offices surrounded by unvetted untrained people, who could also leak; disregard for “least-privileged” access; disinterest in understanding the systems; old programming requiring specialized knowledge; agency brain drain would hinder restoring services if broken; even read-only access has already been abused for disinformation.

    Emphasis added is mine.

    Such bad news! And I’m sure we haven’t seen the last shoe to drop when it comes to DOGE infecting SSA data.

    “Disinterest” is a good choice of words here. The DOGE lackeys do not really care if they damage or break the system.

  314. says

    regarding the info from @310 Sky Captain and @313 Lynna, OM:
    It’s as bad as if it were the wicked witch’s evil flying monkeys being loose in the nuclear missile control room. Destruction and disasters caused by ignorance can be just as bad as those caused by malevolence. When you combine both, you get the state of our nation today.

  315. says

    Can Ukraine—and America—Survive Donald Trump?

    “The historian Stephen Kotkin analyzes what a President who governs in the style of professional wrestling gets wrong—and right—about an unstable world.”

    Excerpts from a New Yorker” article written by David Remnick.

    Audio version available at the link.

    The first time I met Stephen Kotkin, I was a young Moscow correspondent covering the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era for the Washington Post. Steve was an energetic young professor of history at Princeton, who was studying what he called “Stalinist civilization.” […] Kotkin certainly knew many dissidents and prominent Communist Party apparatchiks, editors, and security officials, but he also cultivated connections in the nascent world of Russian business and elsewhere. Early in his career, his canvas was the steel city of Magnitogorsk, in the Urals, where so much of Stalin’s war machine was built. In recent years, he has been at work on a three-volume biography of Stalin; he is working now to complete the final installment of that masterly work.

    Kotkin is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a scholar of prodigious research and linguistic facility. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine three years ago, we have had a series of conversations for The New Yorker Radio Hour. Our latest discussion came just a few days after Donald Trump and J. D. Vance’s tag-team assault on the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Oval Office. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

    You are hardly a fan of Donald Trump, but your tendency has been to try to look past, or around, his performances, which you’ve compared to professional wrestling. When it comes to Ukraine and American policy, though, what’s behind the performance? What do you think Trump actually wants in Ukraine? Or is that too hard to discern?

    Trump is of the opinion that America has been on the wrong side of a lot of deals, not just the Ukrainian deal, and that a rebalancing is necessary. Now, Trump’s style is very off-putting—some would say disgraceful. […] In his mind, the means don’t matter as long as you get to the ends, which is a massive rebalancing of U.S. relationships across the world.

    Let’s remember: once upon a time, the left had a view of Russia, which was that Stalin—yes, Stalin—was forging a new world, a new world of abundance and social justice and peace, that the Soviet Union was the future. The left was all in—not the entire left, but a really big part of it—on this fantasy of the Soviet Union as the future, while everybody was either starving or being murdered, as you know.

    Now we have a fantasy Russia on the right: that Russia is about traditional values, that Russia is defending Western civilization, that Russia is the future, that Russia is our friend. And this fantasy is complete rubbish, if we can use a technical term. We went from a fantasy on the left to a fantasy on the right about Russia. I don’t share either fantasy. They’re not equivalent fantasies, certainly, but they’re nasty regimes in the Stalin case on a world-historical scale, and less so, but nasty, in Putin’s case. I don’t like these fantasies, but those fantasies are big drivers of a lot of our politics.

    You’re right that in the thirties, there were people on the left who were pro-Soviet, pro-Stalinist. But you also know that a huge part of the left was anti-Stalinist.

    O.K., that left that was pro-Stalinist was in my field until recently. They were the dominant trend in part of my field that I’ve been in for forty years. The right today also has people who are anti-Putin, I need to add.

    Do you not share the view—and it’s my view—that if taken to its logical or worst extent, that the events in the White House last week could constitute a moral and strategic U-turn for the United States, which would be a disaster?

    Presidents rarely turn a ship as big as the United States during a four-year term […] The seventies were really bad. And then what happened? America came back and had some of its best decades. So, it’s recuperable. […] Trump has revealed some truths about American power and America’s place in the world, and the European place in the world here, that are valuable truths. And he did it in his Trumpian fashion.

    What are those truths?

    So the truths are as follows: Zelensky is looking for security guarantees, which means that not just Ukrainians will die—that people from other countries, European countries especially, will die. The Europeans have not sent a single soldier to the front during the war, and they’re fighting over whether they’re going to send any soldiers, even if there’s a peace deal, an armistice. Poland, which is Ukraine’s biggest backer, has refused to agree to promise to send peacekeepers after the fighting stops, let alone during the fighting. […] Trump, for all his Trumpy qualities, […] has nonetheless shown that it’s put up or shut up on the European side. […]

    I have the President that I have and I have the Europe that I have. And Europe just had a meeting where the principal public comment was that maybe they would get an armistice for a month, but it wouldn’t be an armistice on the battlefield. And nobody would send troops. I mean, what is this charade that we’re talking about? Trump exposed this. Now what are we going to do about it—first and foremost, as Europeans?

    […] It could be that the situation worsens. But the situation was not going well. […] let’s get on a trajectory that’s succeeding.

    You’ve written and talked extensively about the dimensions and resiliency of American power since as early as 1880. When you hear people, including me, say that the encounter between Trump and Zelensky and the White House could really take us to a horrible place, do you think that’s alarmist?

    Yes. I mean, you know American history. You know the Presidency of Andrew Jackson. You know that we had the Civil War. America has been berserk […] Now we have social media, and it’s more visible than it was before. Not only is it surfaced but it’s encouraged because it’s the business model, right? Extremism, outrage, performance—all of this is now how you make money, not just how you show your resentment and your outrage.

    America is a place that—few people are willing to admit—is the most powerful country ever in recorded history across all dimensions: hard power, economic power, innovation power, energy superpower, soft power, alliance power. We could go on. There’s never been a power in world history on this level. The U.S. is five per cent of the global population and twenty-five per cent of global G.D.P. since 1880, more or less. That wasn’t caused by government—it wasn’t caused by Presidents. It can’t be suppressed and strangled by Presidents, no matter what they do, and they do a lot of things that I think are detrimental to American standing in the world.

    And so the question for us is, going forward, how much of this American power is going to be used effectively, competently, as the world is changing, and how much can America rely on others? Because, let’s be honest, European power has declined, Japanese power has declined. It’s not American power that’s declining. It’s our alliances, our allies, who are declining. Our adversaries are not necessarily declining. We can argue about Russia, how deep its decline might be, but in the case of China, we clearly have a peer adversary.

    And so what’s the plan? There’s unlimited demand for American power. Hey, let’s bring Ukraine into nato! Hey, let’s do a security treaty with the Saudis! Everybody wants more and more American power, but American power can’t fulfill all its current commitments, let alone make new ones. […]

    Trump is revealing, and in some cases accelerating, a process, where America’s commitments exceed our capabilities, not because we’re in decline but because the alliances that we’re in—those countries, Germany, Japan, and a few others—are not punching at their weight. You can say that Trump is wrong in his analysis of the world. You can say that Trump’s methods are abominable. But you can’t say that American power is sufficient to meet its current commitments on the trajectory that we’re on—and we didn’t even get to the fiscal situation. [Not sure I agree with that assessment.]

    How is Vladimir Putin reading this situation? How is he watching Washington, and what does he want?

    Russian grand strategy for, I don’t know, three centuries has been the following: West decline! Have the West implode and collapse, and then we’ll survive. That’s Russian grand strategy. Things are bad in Russia. They’re horrible in Russia, but, hey, if the West implodes—if the West defeats itself, if the West is undermining its own policies and strengths—then Russia will be O.K. This is your fear. This is what you’re talking about: that Trump is doing Putin’s work for him.

    […] Trump is playing with fire here.

    You not only follow the statements and thinking of the Russian leadership but you’re reading everyday sources, like Signal, in Russian. What does that tell you?

    That they’re hoping that this abominable war ends.

    Who is “they,” Steve—

    The Russian population. So let’s remember: since the fall of 2022, when the Russians were evicted from Kharkiv, it was really just riot police that were chased out of Kharkiv province. It was not some combined arms operation that the Ukrainians beat—but nonetheless it was successful and impressive. Since then, Russia has controlled nineteen per cent, roughly, of Ukrainian territory, more or less. That’s more than two years. They’ve lost seven hundred thousand people [dead and wounded], gaining nothing in those two-plus years.

    Now, you ask yourself: How sustainable is that over the really long term? And the answer is, Putin keeps throwing lives into the meat grinder—now it’s North Korean lives—because the Ukrainians have fewer lives to throw up against him. Ukraine doesn’t need Abrams tanks. They got them and they didn’t help. It doesn’t need F-16 planes because they can’t fight in the battlefield against Russian anti-aircraft. Ukraine needs five hundred thousand eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds, and nobody’s sending them. But again, Russia needs the same thing. They need either to get Ukraine to capitulate, which it’s refused to do, remarkably, or they need to get others to force Ukraine to capitulate, which I don’t think anybody can do. So Russia’s in this holding action. Putin is willing to go as long as it takes, but Russian society—maybe not.

    Then how does this end?

    Who thinks it’s going to end? It started under Catherine the Great, when, in 1783, she conquered Crimea. We’re in the middle of a longer-term trajectory here. […]

    In other words, the outcome that’s possible, and that ends the meat grinder, is like a divided Korea: a divided Ukraine.

    That’s the good outcome. The bad outcome is Ukraine loses its sovereignty; it recognizes Russian annexations of the territory that Russia controls and even beyond the territory Russia currently controls; it’s forced to put limits on the size of its military so it’s defenseless; it cannot join an international security alliance or form any security alliance whatsoever. Those limits on Ukrainian sovereignty amount to capitulation. That’s not peace; that’s peace-on-the-knees, right? That’s what Putin is now “willing to negotiate.” […]

    the K.G.B. brought [Mikhail] Gorbachev to power. You think Gorbachev got to power himself? He was an apparatchik in Stavropol province, and [Yuri] Andropov contrived his promotion to Moscow, even though agriculture in Stavropol province had not necessarily been on the highest level. Gorbachev was inserted into the leadership because the K.G.B. was worried about the trajectory of the Soviet Union […]

    even if it doesn’t work, it puts the pressure on the regime to come to the table, and say, I’m going to preserve the regime over continuing the self-defeating war. […]

    Trump plays good cop with all your strongmen and faux strongmen, and he then has his staff play bad cop with them; and he plays bad cop with all of our allies, our treaty allies, and he has his staff play good cop with them.

    That seems like an awfully optimistic reading of Trump’s strategic wiles.

    Again, Trump: this is World Wrestling Entertainment. This is television. DOGE is “The Apprentice,” with Musk sitting in temporarily for Trump, firing people. “You’re fired!” This is a version of government that’s news-cycle-driven, that’s attention-driven, that’s Trump-centric. That’s the reality that you have, some of which is sincere and some of it is reversible, even in sometimes the same news cycle. You work with that—that’s what you have.

    […] we have this larger problem, where there’s not enough American power in the world, and hard choices have to be made—not because America’s in decline but because, forty years ago, thirty years ago, the G-7 was seventy per cent of the global economy, and now it’s much less. […]

    you tell me that you can predict what’s going to happen, Trump vis-à-vis China, and I’ll crown you king of the world. […]

    I don’t quite understand why Xi Jinping, in the current circumstances, would not make a move on Taiwan. It’s not entirely clear that the United States would rush to defend Lithuania or Estonia or Poland, nato countries. Why would it intervene with Taiwan, which is so many thousands of miles more away?

    Because Xi Jinping knows more about the People’s Liberation Army than you do. The P.L.A. is corrupt top to bottom, inside out, left to right, right to left. Is it a reliable instrument? When you roll “the iron dice,” as Bismarck called them, and you launch a war, you’d better be sure that you can win, because otherwise, your regime might fall. He’d be rolling the iron dice with the fate of the Communist regime in China. […]

    So you’re talking about the ultimate risk. It’s existential. […] Which is why many analysts—and I sign on to their analysis—are more worried about quarantine than they are worried about amphibious attack across the strait. […]

    in the real world, that we’re living in, you have a government leadership that is now led by not only Donald Trump, who has his own character, but Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and on and on. Does your confidence in the stability and the resilience of the system survive that kind of leadership?

    […] We’ll live to see the answer to your question.

    My view is pretty clear. The society is unbelievably strong, resilient, and dynamic. It’s incredible what you can get with American society […] There’s many, many issues that we can talk about. You know them all. […] And those are all worrisome […] Nonetheless, over all, American society is really impressive. […]

    But my point being: we’ve been through a lot before. We need to remember that. That’s not necessarily an excuse for incompetence, violation of the law, or anything else. […] a couple of years pass, and the American people punish the hell out of them—for their failures, for their incompetence, and just for their ideological excesses.

    We have the berserk—that’s just inherent in who we are as a nation and a people—but we also have a middle ground where common sense prevails, where coalitions are necessary, where legislation passes […] That’s happened in the past; therefore, it’s possible to get there. Again, it’s not going to be easy and simple, because the media environment has been radicalized. […]

    Now we have social media, which is much more radical and disruptive, because everybody is a publisher now. Everybody has a megaphone now. It’s been massively destabilizing, and we’re worried that the authoritarians are gaining the upper hand, just like it happened with Mussolini and Goebbels in radio; just like it happened with television. And it turned out that we mastered and assimilated those as a free society, and now we have to do the same with social media. […]

    How do we keep a free society while assimilating this massively disruptive technology? I don’t know the answer to that, but I believe that in the short run, we’re all dead. China attacks, Russia attacks, Iran gets the bomb. But, in the long run, we’re good. Because we have the better system, we have corrective mechanisms, we have a free and open society, we’ve got a judiciary that still works, and we can do this because we’ve done it before. […] And certainly I wouldn’t bet on the authoritarians in the long run, even if the short run can be very messy and maybe worse than messy.

  316. says

    shermanj @314

    Destruction and disasters caused by ignorance can be just as bad as those caused by malevolence.

    I agree.

  317. Reginald Selkirk says

    Carlos Slim orders to cancel his collaboration with Elon Musk’s Starlink

    In a significant business development, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has decided to cancel his collaboration with Elon Musk’s Starlink. The decision comes after a series of tensions between the two magnates, culminating in Slim’s choice to invest in his own infrastructure rather than relying on Starlink’s satellite technology.

    Slim’s company, América Móvil, announced plans to invest $22 billion over the next three years to enhance its telecommunications infrastructure. This move is seen as a strategic effort to strengthen its position in the market and reduce dependency on external partners like Starlink. The decision is expected to have a substantial financial impact on Musk’s company, which had anticipated a lucrative partnership in Latin America.

    The fallout between Slim and Musk was further exacerbated by a controversial tweet from Musk, which implied connections between Slim and organized crime. This accusation, although unproven, added fuel to the already strained relationship between the two business tycoons.

    By opting to develop its own infrastructure, América Móvil aims to maintain control over its operations and ensure the reliability of its services. This decision marks a significant shift in the dynamics of the telecommunications industry in Latin America, highlighting the competitive nature of the market and the strategic maneuvers of its key players.

  318. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Wired – Pentagon cuts threaten programs that secure loose nukes and weapons of mass destruction

    According to a draft working paper […] cuts could hobble the fight against organized crime in South America, impair the battle against the Islamic State, increase the likelihood of a rogue state producing and using chemical weapons, and defund pandemic surveillance measures.

    The working paper is in response to […] Pete Hegseth, asking agencies to assess the consequences of four levels of staff reduction—25 percent, 50 percent, and 75 percent cuts, or outright abolition. This cost-cutting exercise is being conducted in response to a January 20 executive order
    […]
    the DOD review is going well beyond foreign aid. According to the working paper, the Defense Department looks set to make cuts to all humanitarian assistance, security cooperation, and cooperative threat-reduction efforts.
    […]
    cost-savings of these cuts would be relatively marginal compared to the Pentagon’s $850 billion budget. […] Because many of these programs are funded via congressional earmark, it’s not clear the Pentagon has the authority to cut and reappropriate […] A final decision is due in mid-April
    […]
    DTRA was formally created […] to both track and destroy chemical and biological threats while also helping other nations do the same. For its work, DTRA has been targeted by Russian disinformation efforts, with Moscow accusing America of producing biological weapons in these DTRA-funded labs. [Echoed by Tulsi Gabbard & Rand Paul (qua Covid), RFK Jr. (qua WTF).]
    […]
    Investigating and attributing these attacks [to an aggressing country] is a form of deterrence […] “it means you’re going to see a lot more chemical weapons used.”

     
    Cheryl Rofer (Retired nuclear scientist):

    My work in Kazakhstan helped pave the way for DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency), one of those threatened, to recover 100 kilograms of metallic plutonium from the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, just ahead of the metal scavengers.
    […]
    I am more optimistic that we won’t see much proliferation than many of the people writing on it. But Trump is so erratic that it’s hard to know what tomorrow will bring.

  320. Reginald Selkirk says

    Air Force intercepts aircraft flying in a restricted zone near Mar-a-Lago

    Air Force fighter jets intercepted a civilian aircraft flying in the temporarily restricted airspace near Donald Trump’s Florida home Sunday, bringing the number of violations to more than 20 since the president took office on Jan. 20.

    North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement that Sunday’s incident, which took place as Trump finished a round of golf at his West Palm Beach golf course, saw F-16s deploy flares to get the attention of the civilian pilot. Jets also conducted an intercept on Saturday morning shortly after Trump arrived at the course from his private Mar-a-Lago club and residence.

    The airspace intrusions in the heavily congested south Florida airspace have prompted fighter jet intercepts but did not alter Trump’s schedule or impact his security, officials said. NORAD says the flares may have been visible from the ground but that they burn out quickly and don’t pose danger.

    Federal officials maintain a permanent flight restriction over Trump’s club that expands to a radius of 30 nautical miles when the president is in residence.

    Violations, and intercepts, are relatively routine, but NORAD is raising alarm over the frequency of the intrusions since Trump’s inauguration, saying it has responded to more than 20 incidents and blames civilian pilots for not following regulations requiring them to check for airspace restrictions before taking off…

  321. Reginald Selkirk says

    Pro-Ukraine protesters dispute JD Vance’s account of confrontation he claims left his daughter, 3, ‘anxious and scared’

    Vice President JD Vance claims he was confronted by pro-Ukraine protesters in Cincinnati on Saturday while out walking with his three-year-old daughter, who became “increasingly anxious and scared” by their shouts, he said.

    “Today while walking my 3 year old daughter a group of ‘Slava Ukraini’ protesters followed us around and shouted as my daughter grew increasingly anxious and scared,” Vance wrote on X.

    “I decided to speak with the protesters in the hopes that I could trade a few minutes of conversation for them leaving my toddler alone. (Nearly all of them agreed.),” he continued.

    “It was a mostly respectful conversation, but if you’re chasing a 3-year-old as part of a political protest, you’re a s*** person,” he added…

    If you’re using a 3-year-old as a human shield, you are a s*** person. Also, other people have children too. People living in Ukraine, for instance.

    But protesters say Vance’s account is a fabrication, and that they had spontaneously passed by the vice president on their way to a nearby protest.

    A nearly three-minute video from the incident appears to show Vance surrounded by Secret Service while protesters ask him about Russia’s war in Ukraine and the withdrawal of U.S. support…

    “When [congressman Ro Khanna] brought up children JD accused him of emotional manipulation,” Miller wrote. “Two weeks later he’s using his 3 year old as a shield for the disastrous policies he’s implanting. Keep it.”

    Journalist John Harwood wrote: “If you endanger a group of immigrants by telling outrageous lies about them, or withhold intelligence to make it easier for Russia to kill innocent Ukrainians, you’re a s*** person.” …

  322. Reginald Selkirk says

    Small plane crashes with 5 aboard in Pennsylvania

    A Beechcraft Bonanza crashed in Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoon with five people aboard, according to the Federal Aviation Authority.

    The small aircraft went down near a retirement village south of Lancaster Airport, the Manheim Borough Police Department told ABC News.

    The plane crash occurred around 3 p.m., according to the FAA…

    According to audio from Air Traffic Control, the pilot told the Lancaster Airport control tower that his plane “has an open door we need to return for landing.”

    ATC then cleared the plane to return, but a few seconds later the controller told the plane to “pull up,” the audio revealed…

  323. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – Atomic detectives who inspect Iran sites are affected by Trump’s aid freeze

    The president’s halt of foreign aid upended two U.S. programs that help the International Atomic Energy Agency find clues about Iran’s drive to build atomic bombs. […] undermining his own goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. Though one of the programs has since been restored, the outcome of the actions has been to weaken confidence
    […]
    The inspection unit of the [I.A.E.A.], which is part of the United Nations […] has long received aid from Washington […] The two frozen programs recruit atomic inspectors, train them, supply them with equipment, teach them advanced methods of environmental sampling […] Both American programs, though located at Energy Department labs, are funded by the State Department.
    […]
    Early in 2023, the Heritage Foundation published its “Mandate for Leadership,” a force behind its Project 2025 […] The document called on the next administration to “end ineffective and counterproductive nonproliferation activities like those involving Iran and the United Nations.”
    […]
    current and former government nuclear experts said that the State Department reinstated the entire Oak Ridge lab program in late February. […] the Brookhaven program received a few waivers to resume work on specific efforts related to Iran, but most of its work and funding for other global nonproliferation programs remain on hold. […] they expected that in the coming weeks, the full Brookhaven program would be unblocked. […] The freeze reversals, they added, were rooted in Trump administration officials’ coming to see the importance of the I.A.E.A. in monitoring Iran’s secretive moves to make atomic bombs.

    The Guardian – US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt

    its nuclear weapons, which are designed, manufactured and maintained in the US under a deal rooted in a 1958 agreement. Britain had 50 missiles left as of 2008 […] “It may be that Britain can fire weapons independently of the US, but below that, the entire infrastructure covering missile compartments on submarines, the missiles themselves, all are supplied by the Americans.”

  324. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    CNN – A US-run system alerts the world to famines. It’s gone dark after Trump slashed foreign aid.

    The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) monitors drought, crop production, food prices and other indicators in order to forecast food insecurity in more than 30 countries. Funded by USAID
    […]
    FEWS NET has no funding to pay staff in Washington or those working on the ground. The website is down. And its treasure trove of data that underpinned global analysis on food security—used by researchers around the world—has been pulled offline.
    […]
    USAID recently indicated that the humanitarian waiver issued by the State Department would apply to FEWS NET […] But aid workers did not have any specifics yet on what activities would resume, when or how
    […]
    The system going dark means that “even other governments that were using our [US] data to try to provide food relief to their own people can’t even access this,”

    Imagined Fox coverage: “Trump ends world hunger!” with some hosts demanding he get the Nobel Prize and other hosts arguing to bring hunger back cuz America First.

  325. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC – HHS sends all employees a $25,000 voluntary buyout offer

    80,000 employees received an unsigned email Friday night offering them a “voluntary separation incentive payment,” [to resign] with a deadline to respond set for Friday, March 14.
    […]
    The Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, also known as the buyout authority, allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 as an incentive

  327. birgerjohansson says

    A heads-up to the total lunar eclipse the night between Thursday and Friday. Visible from the western hemisphere.

  328. birgerjohansson says

    @ 323
    So, this is the golden opportunity for Iran to do whatever they want with their nuclear arsenal. And if they complete a successful test, they will be immune the way North Korea is immune.

  329. birgerjohansson says

    After nine months of intense fighting in Toretsk, Ukrainan forces have made additional advances in the ruins of the town, making the frontline look distinctly fractal. Meanwhile, the Russians are in trouble at Pokrovsk, too. The changes of the front line are small, but consistent. The Russian army may be larger but the high-quality units are depleted.

  331. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russian forces walked inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian troops from the rear in Kursk

    Russian special forces walked inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian units from the rear in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s military and Russian war bloggers reported, as Moscow claimed fresh gains in its push to recapture parts of the border province that Kyiv seized in a shock offensive…

    According to Telegram posts late Saturday by a Ukrainian-born, pro-Kremlin blogger, Russian operatives walked about 15 kilometers (9 miles) inside the pipeline, which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe. Some Russian troops spent several days in the pipe before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near Sudzha, blogger Yuri Podolyaka claimed…

    Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed Saturday evening that Russian “sabotage and assault groups” used the pipeline in a bid to gain a foothold outside Sudzha. In a Telegram post, it said Russian troops were “detected in a timely manner” and that Ukraine responded with rockets and artillery…

    Sounds like a perfect justification to blow up Russian oil & gas infrastructure, as it clearly constitutes a military target.

  332. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    AP – ICE arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests

    Federal immigration authorities arrested a Palestinian graduate student […] Mahmoud Khalil was inside a university-owned residence Saturday night near Columbia’s Manhattan campus when several [ICE] agents entered his apartment and took him […] acting on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too
    […]
    the first known actions under […] Trump’s pledge to deport international students who joined the protests against the war in Gaza
    […]
    they also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant […] authorities declined to say why Khalil was being arrested […] The were initially told he was transferred to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. But when his wife tried to visit Sunday, she learned he not there—and may have been transferred as far away as Louisiana
    […]
    A Columbia spokesperson said law enforcement agents must produce a warrant before entering university property, but declined to say if the school had received one […] In a message shared on X Sunday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio [posted a photo of Khalil and] said the administration “will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” The Department of Homeland Security can initiate deportation proceedings against green card holders for a broad range alleged criminal activity, including supporting a terror group. It would ultimately be up to an immigration judge
    […]
    Khalil served as a negotiator for students as they bargained with university officials over an end to the tent encampment erected on campus last spring, a role that made him one of the most visible activists in support of the movement

    Reuters

    Khalil and his fellow protesters have demanded for several years that Columbia end investments of its $14.8 billion endowment in weapons manufacturers and companies that support Israel’s military. Columbia said it was willing to expedite consideration of the students’ demands through its advisory committee on socially responsible investing.
    […]
    Columbia issued a revised protocol this week for […] immigration agents seeking to enter private school property. The school said ICE agents without a judicial arrest warrant may be allowed to enter its private property in “exigent circumstances,” which it did not specify.

    Zeteo
    https://zeteo.com/p/breaking-dhs-detains-palestinian

    Khalil and his wife […] had just unlocked the door to their building when two plainclothes DHS agents pushed inside behind them. The agents allegedly did not identify themselves at first, instead asking for Khalil’s identity before detaining him. The agents proceeded to tell Khalil’s wife that if she did not leave her husband and go to their apartment, they would arrest her too.
    […]
    [On Khalil’s phone] The attorney had circled back to demanding to see a warrant when the agents apparently instead hung up the phone.
    […]
    All the while, Columbia is maintaining a shadowy process to discipline students who are critical of Israel, including, apparently for writing op-eds.

    Drop Site
    https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/dhs-detains-columbia-university-student-gaza

    On Sunday evening, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin sent a follow-up statement confirming ICE “arrested” Khalil “for activities aligned to Hamas” […] McLaughlin did not answer questions about where Khalil is being held.

     
    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    This is actually depressingly common. A lot of people arrested in the NY metro area get sent to Louisiana or other parts of the Deep South where there are many big detention centers.

     
    Dave Bennion (Immigration lawyer):

    ICE can’t unilaterally revoke someone’s green card, even if some ICE agents think they can. ICE agents in general don’t know much about immigration law because they don’t have to. They just detain people and let the courts sort it out.

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

    the Secretary of State has no authority to “revoke” green cards. While the State Department CAN revoke *visas* with very little legal process involved, stripping someone of a green card is done by DHS (not the State Department) and requires filing formal charges alleging a violation of immigration law and a removal hearing in front of an immigration judge.

    He elaborated on the hearings process here.

    Prem Thakker (Zeteo): “DHS—whose officers conducted this detention—did not answer questions. It instead directed us to the White House.”
    [The White House did not immediately respond.]

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “This is quite bad. The White House should not be directly involved with specific arrests.”

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

    Yes, this is a REALLY important exception to what I’ve said earlier […] There IS a law which authorizes deportation when the Secretary of State PERSONALLY says the person should be deported.

    If INA 237(a)(4)(C) is the ground of removability, then Rubio must personally determine that Mr. Khalil’s removal would “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest,” and must notify Congress and explain his rationale. But the removal *process* would not be different or expedited.

    Evan Bernick (Law professor):

    This thing seems facially unconstitutional. Vagueness, procedural due process, maybe even nondelegation. Even if Rubio is invoking it, which doesn’t seem clear. Yes, there’s a case. […] if and when this provision gets invoked, let fly with the arguments that the district court accepted.

    He cites a Massieu v. Reno (1996) where District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry (Donald’s sister) ruled a deportation unconstitutional for those reasons, but on appeal, Alito decided it was instead a lack of jurisdiction.
     
    Rando: “Kidnapping students for thought crimes is not something democracies do.”

    Max Kennerly (Lawyer): “If DHS can barge in, say your visa was revoked, be told you have a green card, say it’s revoked too, and then disappear you so that neither your lawyer nor your family can find you, then all the guardrails are gone. There is no policy, practice, or law protecting anyone.”

    southpaw (Lawyer): “The ADL celebrates the Trump admin orchestrating the disappearance of a permanent resident and his transportation across state lines as retaliation for his politics”

    Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket): “I am mired in terrifying news every day and this manages to stand out.”

  333. Bekenstein Bound says

    The ribotoxic stress response drives acute inflammation, cell death, and epidermal thickening in UV-irradiated skin in vivo

    https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(24)00884-0

    Upshot: RNA damage, not DNA damage, triggers inflammation and other symptoms in sunburn.

    I’m not sure why they’re so surprised by this. Supposing, as a cancer-resistance measure, you design a mechanism to detect radiation damage to the skin and trigger the premature retiring of affected epidermis (the disposable layer). Any DNA-damaging radiation will also damage RNA, as it is chemically very similar and somewhat more fragile. There’s also a lot more of it in a given cell than there is DNA. You can therefore make a much more sensitive radiation sensor by monitoring RNA (or both) for structural damage than by monitoring DNA, and so one that will go off earlier, and for weaker (but still potentially dangerous) exposure events. This should have been anticipated.

    Does your confidence in the stability and the resilience of the system survive that kind of leadership?

    […] We’ll live to see the answer to your question.

    I wonder just how many of us will live exactly 20 minutes longer than that …

    Small plane crashes with 5 aboard in Pennsylvania

    Until and unless this regime is overthrown and order is restored, particularly at the FAA and in air traffic control towers, I don’t want to go anywhere near American aircraft or American airspace.

    When people warn you, you should listen.

    “You’re the one in danger.” #shorts #viralvideo #tv

    [Youtube link elided]

    Erm, we need a bit more to go on, before we’ll click through to random links. Please provide a capsule summary of what this is about.

    So, this is the golden opportunity for Iran to do whatever they want with their nuclear arsenal. And if they complete a successful test, they will be immune the way North Korea is immune.

    Still doubt that a neoPersian Empire is a nearish term geopolitical possibility? :)

  334. Bekenstein Bound says

    The ADL celebrates the Trump admin orchestrating the disappearance of a permanent resident and his transportation across state lines as retaliation for his politics

    Fools. Do they not understand that if an environment is created in which minorities can be disappeared for thoughtcrimes that they can easily turn that against Jews next? Do they really trust such a power with a government whose unelected president performed a Nazi salute on live TV during his inauguration and whose bizarre, senile orange-hued veep likes to hang around with known antiSemites like Sebastian Gorka and keeps a Hitler quotations book under his pillow?

    They’re going to have to amend Niemoller’s poem: “First they came for the Palestinians, and I let out a loud cheer! Then they came for the trans people, and the trade unionists, and the communists, and so on, and I said nothing … When they come for me, who will be left to speak for me?”

  336. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NBC – Elon Musk’s Starlink has a growing footprint in the federal government

    At least seven federal offices including the Defense and Commerce departments were already established customers of Starlink when Trump took office […] $4.1 million in federal contracts in 2022 and $1.9 million in 2023.
    […]
    [A GSA office] had installed Starlink by mid-February. The service was being used by [DOGE] […] Starlink was installed within days of the DOGE team’s request […] a more typical process should take weeks or months for reviews concerning security, procurement, business needs and more
    […]
    It’s not clear exactly when the FAA began considering the use of Starlink. […] A second agency is Customs and Border Protection, which has issued internal paperwork to authorize an evaluation of Starlink to help monitor the U.S. border […] CBP’s interest in Starlink goes back at least to 2023 […] officials at a third [unnamed] federal agency are comparing Starlink to Verizon as a tool for communicating during a catastrophe […] That process was initiated in February and appears to be under consideration as part of a normal process […] None of the three agencies appears to have made a final decision.
    […]
    In January, Musk said he was using Starlink from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort
    […]
    The Navy has been testing out Starlink on its warships but hasn’t made a large deployment yet. In 2023, senior crew on one ship broke Navy rules when they acquired a Starlink setup and used it while deployed at sea, leading to the court-martialing of at least one senior crew member

  337. Trickster Goddess says

    Meanwhile in Canada…

    Mark Carney has won the federal Liberal leadership race in a landslide, getting 86% of the votes on the first ballot against 3 other candidates. He will be sworn in as Canada’s new Prime Minister in the next couple of days.

    Carney is new to politics but his previous work experience includes being Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008 and saving the Canadian economy from melting down during the subprime mortgage crisis, then later as the Governor of the Bank of England saving the British economy from melting down post Brexit. He is probably the best qualified person for getting Canada through this bullshit tariff crisis.

    While he could theoretically wait until as late as October before having an election, it is likely he will call for one in the next week or two, with election day probably sometime in late April.

    2 months ago the Conservatives lead by trump-wannabe Pierre Polievre were about 25 points ahead in polls. Now since Trudeau announced his resignation and Trump was inaugurated and started threatening Canada with an existential crisis, that lead has completely disappeared.

    Liberal leadership race results [CBC]
    Mark Carney Wikipedia profile

  338. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Financial Times – Chinese investors privately take stakes in Musk’s companies

    With a sluggish domestic economy, wealthy Chinese are looking abroad
    […]
    Some Chinese have paid a price for openly buying stakes in Musk’s ventures. Leo Group, a Chinese company, made headlines in 2021 when it announced plans to invest $50mn in SpaceX through […] a California-based private equity fund. Less than a week later, Leo’s US partner revoked the transaction, citing SpaceX’s discomfort with public disclosure of the Chinese stake
    […]
    In response, Chinese have turned to special-purpose vehicles [specifically designed to avoid disclosure]. Asset managers pool investors’ funds into a Cayman Islands-registered entity, which invests the money in US-based funds managed by western private equity firms, which are already existing investors in Musk’s ventures.

     
    AP – Her parents were injured in a Tesla crash. She ended up having to pay Tesla

    Tesla’s record in China shows how Musk has thrived in a system in which regulators, the media and the courts—which must all ultimately answer to the ruling Communist Party—are, by design, somewhat intertwined.

    Tesla has profited from the largesse of the Chinese state, winning unprecedented regulatory benefits, below-market rate loans and large tax breaks. With a few pointed exceptions, Tesla has enjoyed ingratiating coverage in the Chinese press, and journalists told AP they have been instructed to avoid negative coverage of the automaker.

    Tesla’s windfall has extended to the courts—and not just in legal actions Tesla has brought against customers. In a review of public court documents, AP found that Tesla won nearly 90% of civil cases over safety, quality or contract disputes brought by customers.

    “The government gave Tesla a super status that put consumers in a very vulnerable position,” said Qiao Yudong, a former lawyer for American sports car company Saleen Automotive […] “That’s why some consumers had to resort to extreme actions.” One of those desperate customers was [Zhang Yazhou].

    [*snip*]

    Tesla’s commercial and political success in China has hinged on the support of a powerful patron: Li Qiang, the former party boss of Shanghai who is now China’s premier, second in rank only to President Xi Jinping. It was under his watch, in 2019, that Tesla built its first overseas factory […] China got what it wanted, too: Tesla was a potent catalyst for domestic production and consumption.

  339. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    Drunk on power and ketamine. This is Musk and the foreign minister of Poland. This is what I mean about Musk as the “over-mighty subject”. His power is too great for anyone else to be fully free.

    Radoslaw Sikorski: Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year. The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.

    Musk: […] my Starlink is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off. […]

    –
    Musk: Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.

    * Josh Marshall wrote a thread about that term for Musk last month.

  341. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to #332.

    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (American Immigration Council):

    delays of less than 24 hours for people to show up in the ICE detainee locator system. What happened with Mahmoud Khalil “disappearing” temporarily when transferred to a different detention center was very normal given the agency’s tech.

    Dara Lind (Former immigration journalist): Mahmoud Khalil is being held in an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana

    Felipe De La Hoz (NY Daily News, Innigration journalist):

    Another clarifying point: an ICE ERO [Enforcement & Removal Ops] arrest is not like a criminal arrest. No need for a judicial warrant (Needed to, for example, enter a private residence, but not to take someone into custody). Such detention is “pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States.”

    The Supreme Court has generally held that ICE can detain people for about six months before it must show either that it will imminently remove them or let them go. Nonetheless it did, in Garland v. Gonzalez, rule that detained immigrants are not entitled to bond hearings after that six-month mark

    Rando: So ICE doesn’t need a judicial warrant to arrest someone, but you can still refuse to let ICE into your house unless they have a judicial warrant?

    Yes, exactly. They have authority to take people into custody on the basis of administrative warrants but not otherwise enter private property without permission.

  342. Reginald Selkirk says

    That galaxy next door? It’s home to a monster black hole

    A new study of super-fast-moving stars suggests that they were accelerated by a monster black hole that’s been lurking unseen in the galaxy next door.

    This appears to be the closest supermassive black hole outside our Milky Way galaxy, according to a report that’s appearing in The Astrophysical Journal.

    While scientists think that most galaxies have a giant black hole at their centers, until now no one knew that one of these beasts resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that’s right near the Milky Way.

    “Now that there is strong evidence that it should be there, you can rest assured that we are very excitedly following up,” says Jesse Han of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, who led the study. “The search is on and we’re using all the telescopes we can to look for it.” …

  343. Reginald Selkirk says

    Professor Ends Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest After 43 Years

    Slashdot covered the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in 2008 and 2010 — though it’s been running since 1983. Entrants competed to write the worst-possible first sentence for a novel, in a contest started by English professor Scott E. Rice at San Jose State University (which sponsored the contest). In its first year it drew over 10,000 entries!

    Over the years the bad first sentences were even collected into actual books (that were edited by Rice). But after 43 years, Rice delivered his own disappointing first sentence. “It is with deep regrets that I announce the conclusion of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.”
    …

  344. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – DOGE is driving Social Security cuts and will make mistakes, acting head says privately

    In a meeting Tuesday with his senior staff and about 50 legal-aid attorneys and other advocates for the disabled and elderly, acting SSA commissioner Leland Dudek [said] “DOGE people are learning and they will make mistakes, but we have to let them see what is going on at SSA […] I am receiving decisions that are made without my input. I have to effectuate those decisions.”
    […]
    Dudek said the old ways of “setting goals, doing studies, discussion, getting information and data before making decisions” are gone. Those in charge now “will make mistakes, but I need to move them in a direction that is best for SSA,”
    […]
    Dudek issued a news release on Wednesday that referred to “significant progress” in identifying and correcting records of people 100 years or older whose date of death was not listed in agency databases […] Dudek thanked Trump for “highlighting these inconsistencies.”
    […]
    Dudek has only raised more alarms by issuing news releases touting cuts. In his missive to staff over the weekend, he said the agency would outsource “nonessential functions to industry experts,”
    […]
    Wait times for basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours […] Delays in reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative law judges are already starting. […] Phone backups have prevented the staff from processing retirement claims. […] Meanwhile, supervisors have little time to give guidance or advice […] because they are constantly pulled into lengthy meetings to dissect the latest guidance from the Trump administration on return-to-office orders, firing of probationary employees and a Musk-led campaign requiring federal workers to send weekly bullet points
    […]
    Because of a DOGE-driven spending freeze on federal credit cards, some offices can’t pay phone bills […] one office was forced last week to cancel three disability hearings because the staff could not […] pay for interpreters who speak foreign languages or American Sign Language. One claimant has a terminal illness, and another is in danger of losing their house […] No new hearings have been scheduled.

    Meanwhile, a DOGE-led campaign to cancel contracts [ended] a contract that paid for medical experts to testify at disability hearings […] along with another contract for mold removal from offices.
    […]
    for a mandated return to in-office work, space constraints […] have left supervisors to consider assigning employees to work at desks in supply closets

  345. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dow tumbles 300 points, S&P 500 falls to the lowest since September on recession fears

    Stocks dropped on Monday as the selling pressures that dragged Wall Street last week persisted, with investors worried about an economic slowdown after President Donald Trump didn’t rule out a recession with U.S. tariffs being implemented.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    dropped 325 points, or 8%. The S&P 500 shed 1.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite

    lost 3.5%. Both the 500-stock S&P and tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped to their lowest levels since September 2024…

  346. says

    Text quoted by Sky Captain @344:

    he said the agency would outsource “nonessential functions to industry experts,”

    I have thought all along that a push to hand government functions over to private industry would accompany Trump’s second administration. I expect the states to follow suit and to attempt to privatize a lot of state government functions. Might be okay in some instances, but a disaster in others.

    They want to privatize a lot of functions in order to hand more money to oligarchs.

    Just as one example of negative results, private prisons have a terrible reputation. The incentives are all backwards. A lot of private prisons get paid according to how many people they incarcerate. Some private prisons have shareholders whose main incentive is to reduce costs so they can make money.

  347. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 319 “Shut Up About Egg Prices”

    I think Bart from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency should be the Democratic leader
    (fans of the TV series will know what I mean)

  348. Reginald Selkirk says

    @346

    From a consumer’s perspective, profit is just another form of waste.

  349. says

    Followup to Sky Captain @323.

    As Trump betrays traditional U.S. allies and kowtows to the Kremlin, officials throughout Europe are looking for a new umbrella under which to shelter.

    […] Donald Trump’s policy toward Iran and the international nuclear agreement with Tehran was one of his most dramatic and consequential mistakes. By abandoning a multi-nation deal that was working effectively, the Republican inadvertently made Iran more dangerous, and prompted an adversary to ramp up its nuclear program. [True]

    Last week, the president tried to reopen negotiations. His efforts were immediately rejected.

    Of course, even if officials in Tehran were receptive to the outreach — they’re not, but if they were — it’s difficult to see how a new policy would even work. The New York Times reported, “Starting in late January, President Trump suspended two programs that provide American aid to international nuclear inspectors, potentially undermining his own goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal.”

    But while Trump struggles to deal with the consequences of his failure, and Iran moves forward with its rapidly expanding nuclear program, the White House also has to contend with a broader, evolving international conversation about nuclear proliferation. The Associated Press reported last week:

    French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday he will discuss with European allies the possibility of using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats, amid concerns over potential U.S. disengagement. France is the only nuclear power in the European Union. Macron, in a televised address ahead of a special European summit Thursday, described Russia as a “threat to France and Europe,” and said he had decided “to open the strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent by our (nuclear) deterrent.”

    [!]
    That was soon followed by a related report in The Wall Street Journal out of Berlin.

    […] Trump’s embrace of Russia is causing Europeans to rethink their security and giving currency to an idea the U.S. has long sought to avoid: a nuclear-armed Germany. Friedrich Merz, who is poised to become Germany’s next chancellor, said Berlin should start talks about expanding the French and British nuclear deterrents to cover Europe, according to an interview the conservative politician did with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly.

    Asked specifically if Germany should pursue its own nuclear arsenal, Merz didn’t rule it out, saying “there is no need for this today.”

    Later that day, The New York Times had a related report of its own, this time out of Warsaw.

    Warning that a “profound change of American geopolitics” had put Poland, as well as Ukraine, in an “objectively more difficult situation,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland on Friday said his country must drastically increase the size of its military and even “reach for opportunities related to nuclear weapons.” Mr. Tusk, in a detailed speech on security to the Polish Parliament, did not explicitly propose developing a nuclear arsenal, but said that “it is time for us to look boldly at our possibilities of having the most modern weapons” and explore options for nuclear and “modern unconventional weapons.”

    The Polish prime minister went on to say his government was “talking seriously” with France about the possible extension of a French nuclear umbrella that could cover other European countries. [!]

    When Trump began taking a series of overt steps to align the White House with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the impact on Ukraine was obvious and dramatic. But the reverberations also extend to the rest of the continent.

    For many years, Europe — especially NATO members — felt confident that the United States and its nuclear arsenal created a deterrent that didn’t just protect Americans; it also protected U.S. allies throughout the West.

    But as Trump betrays traditional U.S. allies and kowtows to the Kremlin, even creating an environment in which the White House is prepared to reward Moscow for trying to take part of Eastern Europe by force, it’s hard to blame officials in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and elsewhere for looking for a new umbrella under which to shelter.

    “Europe’s future does not have to be decided in Washington or Moscow,” Macron said last week, insisting that “the innocence of the last 30 years” which followed the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, is “now over.”

    It was Trump who decided to end that generational innocence. American voters might not have realized that nuclear proliferation was on the ballot last fall, but here we are. [!]

  350. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: birgerjohansson @347:

    Wikipedia

    Bart Curlish, a “holistic” assassin who believes that the universe leads her to people she has to kill […] Because of her tendency to directly or indirectly murder people around her

    *Taps the sign*
    Lynna last reminded you of the rule in January.

  351. says

    Why does it appear the secretary of state has been sidelined? It might have something to do with the fact that Rubio and Trump disagree on a whole lot.

    There were a variety of odd moments in Donald Trump’s national address last week, but among the most peculiar was the point at which the president singled out Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump reiterated his interest in taking the Panama Canal, adding that he’d put the former senator in charge of the endeavor.

    “Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong,” the president said. [WTF? Oh, well. Trump set someone else up to the the blame for his bad idea.]

    As part of the same aside, Trump referenced the fact that Rubio was confirmed unanimously in the Senate. “I’m either very, very happy about that or I’m very concerned about it,” Trump added.

    Nearly a week later, it’s still not altogether clear what exactly the president was trying to say, though the comments, which seemed unscripted, suggested that Trump and the nation’s chief diplomat were not necessarily on the same page.

    A few days later, The New York Times published a much-discussed behind-the-scenes report on the latest gathering of the White House Cabinet, which focused considerable attention on the secretary of state.

    Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the secretary of state, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world. … Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired “nobody,” Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

    The Times’ report, based on interviews with five people with knowledge of the events, added that Rubio had been “privately furious” with Musk for weeks, and he said at the meeting that the president’s top campaign donor wasn’t being truthful. […]

    Musk, according to the account, told Rubio that he was good on TV, “with the clear subtext being that he was not good for much else,” and “the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time.”

    Trump reportedly allowed the back-and-forth to continue, “as if he were watching a tennis match,” before eventually intervening […]

    Indeed, just a few days before Times’ article was published, Vanity Fair reported, “Rubio is privately frustrated that Trump has effectively sidelined him. According to four prominent Republicans close to the White House, Rubio … has told people he is upset by his lack of foreign policy influence despite being, on paper at least, the administration’s top diplomat.”

    The article from Gabriel Sherman added that Rubio “is often the last to know when foreign policy decisions are made in the White House.”

    For his part, Trump has denied any internal tensions and appeared to be quite upset last week when an NBC News reporter asked about the alleged Rubio-Musk clash.

    But the fact remains that there’s a foundational problem that the administration has made little effort to address: The president and the secretary of state disagree — often.
    – Rubio is a longtime Russia hawk; Trump wants to align the White House with the Kremlin.

    – Rubio has long championed the U.S. Agency for International Development; Trump has condemned USAID and taken steps to gut it. (Rubio, either willingly or not, is going along with the White House’s demands.)

    – Rubio used to celebrate the work of the Ronald Reagan-founded International Republican Institute; under Trump, the IRI has furloughed most of its staff and started shuttering its overseas offices.

    – Rubio has long rejected the idea of territorial conquest, writing, “America is the first power in history motivated by a desire to expand freedom rather than its own territory.” Trump wants to acquire Canada, Greenland, the Gaza Strip, and the Panama Canal.

    – Rubio supported deportation protections for Venezuelans in the United States; Trump stripped the protections away.

    In case the policy disagreements weren’t enough, there are also instances in which the secretary of state was simply left out of the loop on major developments. Last month, for example, the administration brought home Marc Fogel to the United States after years of imprisonment in Russia. Rubio boasted, in reference to Fogel’s release, “I think it’s also important to note it was not in return for anything.”

    That was soon contradicted by the White House — and the Kremlin.

    About a month ago, I made the case that Rubio’s tenure was off to a dreadful start. There can be no doubt that conditions have deteriorated since.

    The week before Inauguration Day, Politico published a report that predicted Rubio wasn’t “likely to last long” in his position. […]

  352. says

    The Trump administration took new steps to hollow out the Justice Department and bring it more firmly under White House control with a new round of purges of senior officials Friday.

    The purges appeared to be directed by former Trump attorney Todd Blanche, who took over as deputy attorney general last week and signed at least some of the termination notices. The DAG generally runs the Justice Department day to day.

    Among those purged:
    – Jeffrey Ragsdale, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, DOJ’s in-house ethics watchdog;
    – Liz Oyer, the U.S. pardon attorney;
    – Tara Twomey, the head of the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees
    – Melissa MacTough, who headed the office of intelligence in the National Security Division;
    – Brad Wiegmann, who headed the law and policy section in the National Security Division; and
    – Scott Damelin, the executive officer of the National Security Division.

    The personnel removed were career officials entitled to civil service protections, and they were reportedly not given reasons for their terminations.

    In related news, the Trump DOJ put on administrative leave two Manhattan prosecutors involved in the prosecution of NYC Mayor Eric Adams. They were identified as Andrew Rohrbach and Celia Cohen, both of whom were experienced federal prosecutors. They were escorted out of the building by federal law enforcement [!], NBC News reports, after receiving letters from Blanche.

    Link

  353. says

    Turning Jan. 6 On Its Head

    “A team of lawyers is preparing to sue the federal government on behalf of hundreds of people pardoned by President Trump for their role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, claiming that the rioters were mistreated by agencies like the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons,” the NYT reports.

    Trump Org sues Capital One for closing its accounts after Jan. 6

    Trump DOJ continues to argue that Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons cover post-Jan. 6 crimes. [!]

    Same link as in comment 352.

  354. says

    DOGE Watch

    – U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington, D.C., declined to limit DOGE’s access to a Treasury Department payment system.

    – Social Security official who resigned under DOGE onslaught describes the hostile takeover by Elon Musk’s team in a new lawsuit seeking to block DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data.

    – How DOGE’s cuts to the IRS threaten to cost more than DOGE will ever save.

    – The Trump administration is overriding internal HHS objections in giving DOGE access to sensitive child support database. […]

    Same link as in comment 352. Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.

  355. says

    House Republicans on Saturday released a plan to fund the government that, if passed, would make massive cuts to social safety net programs, infrastructure projects, and even veterans’ health care programs.

    Democrats tried to work for months with Republicans to come up with a bill to fund the government. However, the House Republican bill left Democrats out and [the Republican plan is] a partisan plan that increases funding for […] Trump’s deportation plans while largely axing funding for infrastructure projects, a fund to help veterans exposed to toxic chemicals, and disaster-mitigation efforts, among other things.

    For example, Politico reported that the legislation did not renew $40 million in funding for over 70 programs to benefit children and families, including $5 million for homeless shelters in Alaska.

    From the Politico report:

    Also forgone are $890 million in grants for health care facilities and equipment. Again, the fiscal 2024 funding had been distributed on a bipartisan basis: GOP Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Roger Wicker of Mississippi were among those who requested funding for clinics and hospitals in their states.

    Bipartisan emergency preparedness and disaster mitigation projects funded through $293 million of earmarked FEMA dollars are also not renewed, as well as $116 million in Small Business Administration funding and $107 million in workforce development projects. Clean water projects, law enforcement grants and tribal assistance are also targeted in the bill.

    House Democrats say the funding bill does not include $22.8 billion for the Toxic Exposures Fund, which provides assistance to help veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances during their service. They also said it cuts rent subsidies by more than $700 million, which Democrats said would allow landlords to “evict more than 32,000 households including veterans, survivors of domestic violence, seniors, and families with disabilities.”

    Also missing is $20 million in funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which, according to the Department of Agriculture, “helps supplement the diets of people with low income by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost.” Cuts to that program come as Trump’s tariffs are expected to raise the cost of food even higher. [Are Republicans determined to starve to death some low income people/]

    And the funding bill would also lead to $1 billion in cuts to the District of Columbia, which city officials told The Washington Post could lead to cuts to the police force, teaching staff, and more.

    [I snipped some responses from Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. See comment 282.]

    Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a news release that the Republican funding bill also does not rein in Trump co-President Elon Musk from making unilateral cuts to the government that has caused chaos across the country.

    “This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” DeLauro said. “Veterans will suffer with higher housing costs, poorer quality of health care at the VA, and no advance funding for treatment from exposure to toxic chemicals. It makes the cost of living worse for so many hardworking people. It raises rents for many low-income families. With reduced staff and closure of Social Security offices, seniors will struggle. This bill also cuts Army Corps of Engineers construction projects by more than 40%, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX program gets special treatment across the government.”

    [I snipped more comments from Democrats.]

    House Republicans plan to vote on the legislation on Thursday—one day before the government is set to shut down.

    Republicans apparently hope that if they pass the bill and leave town, it will cause voters to blame Democrats if the Senate doesn’t pass the legislation. In the Senate, the bill needs 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, meaning that even though Republicans control the chamber, Democrats are needed for passage.

    […] That would require House Republicans to keep nearly their entire conference together in voting for the funding bill since they have a razor-thin majority in the chamber. […]

    In December, the last time the House voted for a funding bill, 34 Republicans voted against it—a number that is more than enough to tank the new legislation.

    Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky appears to be a firm no. And Politico reported that three other GOP lawmakers—Reps. Tony Gonzales, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Cory Mills—are on the fence.

    Trump told Republicans to vote for the spending bill, which could get the House GOP onboard as they often blindly do whatever he wants. [I snipped Trump’s blather.]

    T-minus four days until shutdown.

    Link

  357. Reginald Selkirk says

    Canada Slaps 25% Tariff on Electricity to Americans in Three States

    The leader of Ontario, Canada, made good on his threats to slap a 25% tariff on electricity sent to neighboring U.S. states on Monday. The tariffs are a direct response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canada, a form of economic coercion with the goal of making Canada a state or territory of the United States.

    The announcement of the 25% tariff on electricity to the U.S. was made by Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, and energy minister, Stephen Lecce, at a press conference Monday. The electricity being imported to the U.S. primarily goes to three states: New York, Michigan, and Minnesota, though customers in other neighboring states like Wisconsin will also feel the impact. At least 1.5 million Americans will see the price hike, according to Canada’s CBC…

  358. says

    @356 Lynna, OM beat me to posting a link to the Tom Tomorrow comic. It’s funny but it is more true than funny.
    Also, I’d like to draw your attention to:
    https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/10/youre-living-in-the-past-its-a-new-generation/
    about the fossil DNC

    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/113214/the-universities-are-next
    Friends, Trump is following Putin’s, Xi’s, and Orban’s playbook. Of particular interest to PZ and any one who values education.

    https://crooksandliars.com/2025/03/employees-fired-migrant-camps-shut-down John Oliver wonderful vid: at https://youtu.be/5Hpgu7wSUQQ

  359. says

    Paul Krugman just put together an explainer on Social Security — in large part because A) Elon Musk has attacked it directly, and B) Republicans in Congress are desperate to slash safety net spending to ‘pay’ for more tax cuts for the rich. It’s a great piece, very readable, and it covers many of the lies and misconceptions about the program.

    Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall, so I’ll try to hit the highlights from “The Clean Little Secret of Social Security — It’s a pretty good program and we can afford it.”

    Social Security is in the crosshairs of the Musk/Trump administration. First Musk came out with the claim that tens of millions of dead people are still receiving benefits. This claim has been thoroughly debunked, but still made its way into deputy president Trump’s big speech Tuesday. Then Musk began declaring that the 90-year-old program is a Ponzi scheme.

    The first claim seems to reflect the fact that the Dunning-Kruger kids — the mostly very young staffers DOGE sent into the Social Security Administration, too incompetent to see their own incompetence — didn’t know how to interpret SSA databases. The second claim showed that Musk doesn’t understand what Social Security is or how it works.

    To be fair, however, Musk isn’t alone in his lack of understanding, although he may be unique in his combination of arrogance and ignorance. So I thought I’d devote this week’s primer to the basics of Social Security. Beyond the paywall you’ll find:

    1. How Social Security works from workers’ point of view

    2. How it’s financed

    3. Why the challenge of keeping the system going isn’t as hard as you think

    Emphasis added.

    Krugman does a good job explaining why Social Security looks like a pension plan (it was meant to) but isn’t. It has two important differences. Everyone pays 6.2 percent of of their paycheck, up to a maximum of $176,100, and on reaching retirement age (62 — 67 depending on what level of benefits they want) they start getting payments.

    Where it differs is 1) while how much you get back depends on how much you paid in, it’s not a one for one deal and it’s adjusted to give low wage earners more. (Krugman has a graph and numbers to show how this progressive intent has worked well to make poverty among seniors far less of a problem than it used to be.) [Important]

    2) Social Security has few assets to back up its obligations compared with a standard defined benefits pension plan. It’s the continuing flow of money coming in from FICA taxes that keeps it solvent.

    […] This is where people get concerned. If there aren’t enough people paying in to cover the money going out, won’t the program collapse?

    Krugman discusses how we pay for it.

    The government takes in money in the form of taxes, and pays it out in services and expenditures. Sometimes there are shortfalls and the government can resort to temporary borrowing or look for ways to increase revenue. It’s not all one big pot of money though.

    There are dedicated taxes that fund specific things, like the Highway Trust Fund that gets money from taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel plus some other vehicle related fees. Dedicated taxes are set up that way because it’s easier to persuade voters to vote for them if they see a direct benefit from them — and increase them if needed.

    That’s actually what happened under Ronald Reagan. An increase in the FICA tax was enacted anticipating the retirement of the Baby Boom generation (born between 1946-1964). The idea was the program would run a surplus during the years they were working to build up reserves for their coming retirement — and it did.

    ​​​​​​​The Social Security Trust Fund had peak reserves of $2.9 trillion, and it’s still $2.7 trillion today according to Krugman. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be sufficient going forward, but Krugman points out something that too many people don’t get.

    Even if there wasn’t enough money coming in from FICA to fully fund benefits, there would still be enough coming in to meet at least 77% of obligations. The system would NOT collapse overnight.

    So, how could Social Security continue to fully meet all of its obligations?

    Krugman discusses several solutions. One is to remove the cap on taxed income. He notes that only 6% of workers hit the current limit, but they include some who exceed it by a lot — and that would make a difference.

    He’s not locked in on that alone though because there are wealthy Americans whose income doesn’t come from payroll checks. Lifting the limit on taxing payroll income would not touch them. Congress could find other ways to raise the money. […]

    How much do we need? Krugman observes that while it seems like a huge amount, it is around 1.3% of GDP. How big is that? Krugman points out that House Republicans in Congress recently passed a resolution calling for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts mainly for the rich over the next ten years — which turns out to be roughly 1.2% of GDP based on economic projections. Connecting the dots makes the solution obvious.

    While Krugman doesn’t bring it up, conservatives have hated the idea of Social Security from day one. It’s an effective, efficient government program that makes lives better for millions of people, doesn’t contribute to the national debt, and might make people ask what else government could do for them.

    They’d far rather see the money run through private retirement plans that would allow them to extract profits and fees along the way [!], with doubtless defaults and worse, propped up by government ‘rescue’ if they go under — or not. (Anyone with a 401k pension depending on the stock market to back it up has to be sweating bullets lately.)

    Krugman closes with these takeaways:

    1. Social Security isn’t a Ponzi scheme or a scam; it’s just a government program supported by a dedicated tax, which is perfectly normal

    2. It’s a highly successful program, which has vastly improved older Americans’ lives

    3. It faces a financial shortfall, but the shortfall isn’t that big, and sustaining Social Security is well within America’s means.

    [Embedded links are available at the main link, including a link to subscribe to Paul Krugman.].

    Link

  360. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Popular Info – Veterans Administration therapists forced to provide mental health counseling in open cubicles

    now required to work in-person, but the facilities do not have enough private offices. The VA therapists are deeply concerned about the ethics and legality
    […]
    Health and Human Services, which is responsible for enforcing HIPAA, advises that therapists engaging in telehealth must take “reasonable safeguards to protect patient health data.” […] an open cubicle almost certainly violates this rule.

    Therapists can face criminal penalties of “$50,000 and one year of imprisonment for wrongful disclosure” of personal health information. Most states have health privacy laws that mirror HIPAA, leaving VA therapists doing work in an open cubicle vulnerable to state prosecution as well.

     
    CNBC – After Amy Gleason’s sudden rise to prominence, mystery surrounds the DOGE acting administrator

    her daughter […] diagnosed with a rare and potentially life-threatening autoimmune disorder […] Gleason will be inadvertently complicit in cuts to programs that have personal significance to her—including research for rare disease funding.
    […]
    friends and former colleagues describe her as apolitical. […] Others were also surprised by her DOGE title. […] “I was shocked to hear of her appointment to DOGE, having been a fierce and committed patient advocate […] To go from such a position of kindness, to a position that eliminates jobs for thousands of working parents, seems like such a dichotomy in values.”

     
    About those “What did you do last week?” emails.

    Josh Marshall (TPM):

    the ElonMail pretty clearly did NOT go out this weekend. But the second one did say basically keep doing this forever. But a lot of feds are interpreting no email as okay that’s done, etc, absent explicit guidance from depts.

    This is funny. Some depts DID send out guidance to respond again. But guidance I’ve seen framed the guidance around continuing to respond to the new email. But no email was sent. So nothing to respond to.

    Rando: “a well-oiled machine”

  361. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-is-trump-fcking-over-ukraine

    “How Is Trump F*cking Over Ukraine Today?”

    […] Saudi Arabia is hosting talks between Marco Rubio’s people and a Ukrainian team in Jeddah Tuesday, as in tomorrow, and in the future home of Trump’s next hotel multiplex.

    But it already seems clear where this is headed. Over the weekend Trump proudly stopped sharing intelligence and weapons with OUR ALLY Ukraine, you know, the country the US agreed to support against Russia in exchange for them giving up nuclear weapons. He even ordered US aerospace company Maxar Technologies to disable Ukraine’s access to its satellite images. Because surrendering to Putin is what he always planned to do [yep], and his staged fight with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office was some Wrestlemania-level bad-acting kayfabe. [Link to backstory.]

    With Russia thus emboldened, over the weekend they attacked Ukraine with a reported 264 drone and missile strikes within 48 hours, including Ukrainian energy facilities, multiple residential buildings, and emergency services that were responding to attacks, killing at least 20 people. And full of class, man-of-peace Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, sneered that Ukraine brought this all “on themselves,” and the intelligence “pause” was to get their attention, “sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose.”

    And Trump also fumed that this was all Ukraine’s fault.

    “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don’t have the cards,” Trump snotted. “In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia.” AGAIN WITH THE CARDS.

    And he made more sympathetic noises to Russia. Putin, he said, was “hitting them harder than he’s been hitting them and I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.” Gee, how did they GET INTO THAT POSITION? Trump would like the world to ignore that part.

    And he made some performative rrr-ggrrr noises at Russia too:

    Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale banking sanctions, sanctions, and tariffs on Russia until a cease fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.

    To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!

    Tweeted the guy who just disbanded the task force that enforces the Russian sanctions already in place. [!] What other sanctions could he even mean? He does not know, Poppy is just saying words.

    Trump topped off his weekend of surrender by getting super pissed at a Washington Post reporter who wondered if maybe Trump felt disrespected by how Putin was not, in fact, making peace, but bombing Ukraine harder than ever, thanks to Trump rolling on over like a puppy and letting him. [video at the link]

    […] Not to be outdone embarrassing America, Marco Rubio and Elon Musk also got into a fight with the Polish foreign minister on Twitter, like dignified people do. Poland is of course worried that they will be the next stop on Putin’s imperialism tour of Europe. So they are expanding their weapons cache, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk says they’re preparing to require every adult male to undergo “large-scale military training” to more than double the size of the army. Because they are NOT going back behind that iron curtain for anything. It stinks like old pierogies back there, the movies are terrible, and the lack of human rights is zero out of 10 stars.

    So Elon Musk, probably gronked out of his bazonkadonk, bragged that his Starlink service was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” and Ukraine’s “entire front line” would collapse without it. To which the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski responded:

    Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year. The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.

    Yeah, probably a good idea! Then Li’l Marco chimed in, huffing that Sikorski was “just making things up… no-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink. And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”

    America’s top diplomat, everyone!

    Tag-teamed Elon: “Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.”

    Nice way to treat a customer who spends millions with your company! Of course now that Musk has the ability to empty the bank account of anybody in America with direct deposit for their tax refund, and is embedded in the government like a tick, he does not have to worry about attracting customers any more.

    And Musk called Senator Mark Kelly a “traitor” for visiting Ukraine.[!] [social media post and photo at the link]

    Well, let’s hope there IS an alternative to Starlink, because operation “hang Europe out to dry and tell Ukraine to go fuck itself” is clearly underway. Europe is buying more weapons and the UK is building a “coalition of the willing,” but it is quite clear America is not going to be helping out anymore.

  362. Reginald Selkirk says

    Elon Musk blames X outages on “massive cyberattack”

    After DownDetector reported that tens of thousands of users globally experienced repeated X (formerly Twitter) outages, Elon Musk confirmed the issues are due to an ongoing cyberattack on the platform.

    “There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk wrote on X. “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

    Details remain vague beyond Musk’s post, but rumors were circulating that X was under a distributed denial-of-services (DDOS) attack…

  364. says

    Jeff Bezos takes another pathetic step in his march toward MAGA

    Amazon announced on Monday that it will begin streaming old episodes of “The Apprentice,” the reality competition show that helped President Donald Trump sell himself as a national figure before becoming a politician.

    This move is the latest in a series of pro-Trump decisions by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who has recently pivoted his companies and personal wealth to benefit Trump and the Republican Party.

    “I look forward to watching this show myself—such great memories, and so much fun, but most importantly, it was a learning experience for all of us!” Trump said in a press release.

    After years of Trump business failures—including a shuttered casino, airline, and steak company—“The Apprentice” created a mythological image of Trump as a successful businessman while also making him millions, allowing him an escape from his financial quagmire.

    The decision to stream the show now, and likely provide a financial pipeline to the president, highlights the growing relationship between Bezos and Trump.

    As the announcement broke, longtime Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus announced that she is leaving the paper in response to Bezos’ recent decision to pivot the opinion section to the right.

    “Jeff’s announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what the owner has deemed acceptable,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

    Marcus had been with the paper for more than four decades.

    imilarly, according to NPR, more than 75,000 of the Post’s digital subscribers canceled their subscriptions after Bezos announced in February that it would no longer publish pieces from across the ideological spectrum.

    Marcus told NPR that Will Lewis, opinion editor of the Post, had spiked a column of hers because it dissented from “Jeff’s edict.”

    And at Bezos’ behest, the Post also spiked an endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election.

    Other financial ties to Trump include Amazon’s $40 million deal to produce a Melania Trump documentary and Bezos’ personal contribution to Trump’s inauguration, which he attended in January.

    Bezos—along with DOGE bro Elon Musk and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg—is among the most prominent of the wealthy media and tech oligarchs offering up their services to Trump in the last few months … even as Trump claims to fight for the middle class.

  365. says

    Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon doesn’t cover rioter’s plot to kill FBI agents, judge rules

    “A federal judge ruled that Jan. 6 rioter Edward Kelley’s actions after his initial arrest were ‘separated from the defendant’s conduct in the D.C. Case by years and miles.’ ”

    […] Trump’s sweeping pardon of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot does not extend to the separate crimes of one rioter who plotted to murder the law enforcement agents who investigated him, U.S. District Judge Thomas A. Varlan ruled Monday.

    Edward Kelley, who was convicted on Jan. 6 charges after the government presented extensive evidence showing he was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol after assaulting law enforcement, was pardoned by Trump along with more than 1,500 other convicted rioters. But Kelley had separately been charged with plotting to murder law enforcement officers involved in the investigation in a separate case. Kelley was convicted on those charges by a federal jury in Tennessee in November, and he is set to be sentenced on May 7.

    The Justice Department has flip-flopped on the extent of Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon in other cases involving guns found in the homes of Capitol rioters, arguing that the president’s action should also give defendants a clean slate on other crimes or charges discovered in the course of Jan. 6 investigations.

    But the Justice Department has consistently maintained that Trump did not intend to pardon Kelley for his plot to murder FBI special agents and other members of law enforcement. [Duh. Obvious.]

    Varlan, who was appointed to the bench in the Eastern District of Tennessee by former President George W. Bush, ruled Monday that Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon “does not apply to defendant’s convictions for conspiracy to murder employees of the United States (Count 1), solicitation to commit a crime of violence (Count 2), and influencing a federal official by threat (Count 3).” He wrote that the pardon “does not encompass defendant’s Tennessee Case because this case involved separate offense conduct that was physically, temporally, and otherwise unrelated to defendant’s conduct in the D.C. Case and/or events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    Kelley’s conduct in the murder plot “was separated from the defendant’s conduct in the D.C. Case by years and miles” and could not reasonably be expected to be covered by the language of Trump’s mass pardon, the judge ruled.

    […] Late last month, a federal judge in Washington grilled an assistant U.S. attorney about the new contention that Trump’s pardon covered charges related to guns that were found when federal agents searched Jan. 6 defendant Dan Wilson’s home in 2023. U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Trump appointee, has yet to rule in that case, but the judge said in court that pardons “have to have a fixed meaning” and that Trump’s intent when he issued the pardons on Jan. 20, 2025, “cannot evolve over time as new cases are brought to his attention.” [Duh. More obvious conclusions.]

    “I don’t think you can just have an open pardon,” Friedrich said. “It can’t be ‘we know it when we see it.'”

    Good news, but really we should not be having to deal with this.

  366. Reginald Selkirk says

    Coeur d’Alene prosecutors dismiss citation against woman dragged from town hall, city revokes security company’s business license

    City prosecutors will dismiss a misdemeanor battery citation issued to the Post Falls woman who plainclothes private security guards dragged out of a legislative town hall Saturday, and the city of Coeur d’Alene has revoked the security company’s business license.

    “The city prosecuting attorney’s office has moved to dismiss the citation against Borrenpohl in the interest of justice,” said a news release issued Monday afternoon by the Coeur d’Alene Police Department.

    The legislative town hall organized by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee and held in the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium devolved into chaos when Kootenai County sheriff took Teresa Borrenpohl by the arm and attempted to pull her from her seat when she declined to leave the event for speaking out of turn.

    Three security guards with LEAR Asset Management, who refused to identify themselves or for whom they worked, then pulled Borrenpohl from her seat and dragged her out of the auditorium…

  367. says

    Followup to comment 346.

    Sunday’s focus of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” was the (big) business of our immigration detention systems. The terror unleashed by […] Trump and his Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparatus has made an already problematic immigration system even worse, as people who are dependent on our broken immigration laws find themselves dragged into detention.

    Oliver breaks down the main reason why the unjust system has continued to thrive: the big business of private prisons, which houses more than 90% of ICE’s undocumented detentions. Private prison companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic have watched their stocks soar since Trump won the election.

    “I’ve worked at CoreCivic for 32 years,” CEO Damon Hininger boasts in one clip. “And this is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career with the company.”

    “Look, as a general rule, if something happens that causes a private prison company to get really excited, that thing was bad,” Oliver remarks. […]

    ICE’s website points out that detention is supposed to be “non-punitive,” a claim Oliver jokes is like saying, “that the ocean is not wet […] It is a bold assertion, sharply undercut by empirical evidence.”

    The GEO Group is fighting in court to avoid paying minimum wage to the detainees being forced to work under threat of solitary confinement or the withholding of food. Oliver plays audio of an exchange between a GEO Group lawyer and the judge, where the judge characterized the private prison’s argument about detainees as the same as slavery.

    “When a judge is likening your client’s practices to slavery, that’s generally a pretty bad sign for your case,” Oliver says. “There really shouldn’t even be a verdict at that point. A trapdoor should just open up beneath you while they pull the next case in.”

    […] “Simply being undocumented is a civil violation, not a criminal one,” Oliver points out of Leavitt. “That is an important distinction that her boss should frankly understand, given that he has committed both.”

    Video at the link.

  368. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ship carrying highly toxic chemical hit tanker transporting jet fuel for US military

    Thirty-six people have been brought ashore after a cargo vessel collided with an oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast

    One crew member from the cargo vessel is missing, the operator says, but the coastguard has not yet confirmed if anyone is still missing

    It’s emerged that the cargo ship was carrying 15 containers of the toxic chemical sodium cyanide

    The tanker was carrying jet fuel for the US government, some of which is spilling into the North Sea

    The incident occurred before 10:00 GMT, with the Stena Immaculate tanker apparently hit while at anchor by the container Solong, tracking data analysed by BBC Verify suggests

  369. Reginald Selkirk says

    JD Vance’s cousin criticises him for ‘belittling’ Zelensky

    US Vice-President JD Vance’s cousin has criticised him and President Donald Trump for “belittling” Volodymyr Zelensky during the three men’s Oval Office showdown in February.

    “There’s a certain level of decorum that I expect from political leaders, especially in front of cameras,” Nate Vance told BBC’s PM programme on Monday.

    It follows comments he made in an interview in which he said Trump and Vance were acting like “useful idiots” for President Vladimir Putin in their handling of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine…

  370. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chinese rapeseed meal, oil contracts surge after 100% tariffs on Canadian imports

    Zhengzhou rapeseed meal and oil contracts jumped on Monday, the first day of trade since China decided to impose 100% tariffs on imports of those products from Canada…

    Canada’s exports of rapeseed oil, oil cakes and peas were worth roughly $1 billion last year. The tariffs, effective March 20, come in tandem with a 25% duty on Canadian aquatic products and pork, worth $1.6 billion in 2024.

    The levies follow 100% and 25% tariffs Canada imposed on Chinese-made electric vehicles and steel last year.

    The new tariffs are expected to raise the cost of Canadian canola oil, easing domestic oversupply pressure and helping to stabilise rapeseed oil prices, said China Grain Net, an information provider affiliated with state stockpiler Sinograin.

    However, analysts say the price spike may not last long…

  371. Reginald Selkirk says

    Saudi Arabia’s 100-Mile Skyscraper Is Turning Into a Disaster

    The Saudi crown family’s megalomaniac dreams of building a gigantic city of the future in the middle of the desert are getting a brutal reality check.

    Saudi Arabia’s plans for Neom, a futuristic fever dream which includes a massive all-inclusive resort on the coast, a second ski resort in the mountains, and an up to 106 miles-long pair of 1,600-foot skyscrapers called The Line, is running into major financial problems.

    As the Wall Street Journal reports, capital expenditure estimates to build Neom to what officials call its “end-state” by 2080 have ballooned to $8.8 trillion, which is over 25 times the kingdom’s annual budget.

    Worse yet, an audit report reviewed by the newspaper found that officials were trying to fudge the numbers to hide evidence of the project’s ballooning costs. The audit found “evidence of deliberate manipulation” of finances by “certain members of management.” …

  372. Reginald Selkirk says

    Musk calls Sen. Kelly a ‘traitor’ over trip to Ukraine, Kelly hits back

    Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, called Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly a “traitor” in a post on X after Kelly posted that he had visited Ukraine over the weekend.

    Kelly, in a thread on X Sunday night, posted photos of his visit to Ukraine and wrote that “Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin.”

    In a reply to the thread, Musk responded, “You are a traitor.” …

    Hey chucklefuck:
    Ukraine is actually an ally.
    Kelly is actually an elected political leader, which you are not.

  373. Reginald Selkirk says

    @242

    Tesla stock is still a sell after its 40% plunge, UBS warns

    UBS analyst Joseph Spak reiterated his 12-month Sell rating on Tesla shares on Monday, voicing considerable concern on the near-term demand outlook for the Model 3 and Model Y. He slashed his price target on Tesla to $225 from $259.

    The consensus price target on the Street is $239, according to Yahoo Finance data.

    The stock tanked 8% to $242 in early trading alongside a broader hit to markets due to tariff concerns…

  374. Reginald Selkirk says

    Joe Walsh: Trump could ‘stop the midterms,’ run again

    Former Rep. Joe Walsh (III.), an ex-GOP member-turned-pundit, speculated Sunday that President Trump could “stop” the midterm elections scheduled for next fall, or even run for president again in 2028.

    “He tried to overthrow an American election four years ago. I have no doubt that he could try to stop the midterm elections,” Walsh said of Trump during an appearance on MSNBC.

    Speaking on “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Walsh, who was a presidential candidate in 2020, said Trump poses a threat to America’s democracy…

  375. says

    NBC News:

    Russia launched heavy aerial attacks on Ukraine for a second night Saturday after the United States stopped sharing satellite images with the Ukrainian government, officials said. At least 22 people have been killed.

    Why is Trump so sure that Putin in interested in peace. Maybe Trump is just lying?

  376. says

    Associated Press:

    The country’s preeminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by […] Trump’s administration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that National Fire Academy courses were canceled amid a “process of evaluating agency programs and spending to ensure alignment with Administration priorities,” according to a notice sent to instructors, students and fire departments. Instructors were told to cancel all future travel until further notice.

    Add to the list of the Trump administration’s bad ideas.

  377. says

    Washington Post:

    The Environmental Protection Agency is rewriting a rule providing safeguards to prevent accidents at chemical plants, according to a motion filed Thursday in federal court, a move that would affect nearly 12,000 chemical facilities around the country.

  378. says

    The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would hear an attempt to overturn Colorado’s ban of conversion therapy for minors.

    Conversion therapy attempts to change LTGBTQ patients’ gender identity or orientation, and leading medical organizations have long criticized the discredited practice as deeply harmful, especially for young people. Dozens of states and Washington D.C. have similar bans.

    The Court brushed up against state conversion therapy bans as recently as 2023. Then, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh said they would have taken up the case, Thomas and Alito arguing that the law infringes on speech rights. That group has now found at least its fourth, as it takes the votes of four justices to hear a case. That shift, in this climate, is ominous.

    The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a professional counselor, backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a now infamous right-wing law firm that has pushed many major culture war cases at the Supreme Court. Chiles claims that the ban infringes on her freedom of speech as a Christian who “believes clients can accept the bodies that God has given them and find peace.” The right-wing Supreme Court majority has often acted aggressively in defense of supposed Christian persecution. [Several layers of bad news there.]

    Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser (D) called conversion therapy “unsafe and ineffective,” and defended the state’s right to protect patients from substandard treatment.

    Adding a layer of irony, the right has waged constant battle in recent years against gender affirming care for minors under the auspices of protecting them from activist and ideological health care providers. [!]

    […]That it only took a year and a half for Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh to recruit at least one other justice to their side speaks to the pitch of the anti-trans movement, particularly after Donald Trump’s reelection on a platform that was particularly fixated on rolling back protections for trans youth.

    Link

  379. says

    Musk says DOGE is in almost every federal agency and plans to double staff

    “[Musk] also indicated he wasn’t leaving government soon as he faces growing pushback to his chainsaw-style budget cutting.”

    Trump adviser and tech billionaire Elon Musk said Monday that he plans to double the size of his staff in the Department of Government Efficiency, which he noted is already working inside nearly every federal agency.

    Musk’s comments about DOGE came in an interview on Fox Business as his budget-cutting team has faced growing pushback not only from the courts and congressional Democrats but also from members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

    Musk said that DOGE has about 100 staff members and that he planned to increase it to about 200.

    “We’re trying to act broadly across all departments, so it’s not just one department at a time,” he told Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business host who worked in the first Trump administration.

    Kudlow asked whether DOGE was in all federal departments. Musk responded, “Pretty much, yeah.”

    […] Musk spoke about DOGE’s direction Monday despite not having the title of DOGE administrator. The White House has said another administration employee, Amy Gleason, is DOGE’s acting administrator, though it has also said Musk is overseeing the office. Trump has said Musk is in charge.

    In the interview, Musk kept up his attacks on Social Security, repeating claims about fraud that have been debunked by The Associated Press. Musk alleged that 10% of Social Security expenditures are fraud, although a report last year from the Social Security inspector general estimated improper payments at less than 1%. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    Musk indicated on Fox Business that he did not plan to leave government any time soon, even though he serves in a time-limited type of position known as “special government employee.”

    “You gonna go another year?” Kudlow asked.

    “Yeah, I think so,” Musk responded.

    A special government employee is expected to perform temporary duties for no more than 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days. Musk did not say whether he expects a change in his appointment status.

    Musk acknowledged that his sprawling business empire has come under strain since he joined the Trump administration. Shares in Tesla, where Musk is CEO, have declined every week since he went to Washington, and they fell more than 15% Monday. Several Tesla locations have been the sites of anti-Musk demonstrations in recent weeks, and fires have damaged Tesla Cybertrucks in Seattle and Tesla charging stations near Boston.

    “How are you running your other businesses?” Kudlow asked.

    “With great difficulty,” Musk responded. He then laughed briefly, sighed and took a long pause.

    “But there’s no turning back, you’re saying?” Kudlow asked.

    Musk pivoted the conversation back to his government role, saying, “I’m just here trying to make government more efficient.”

    In another part of the interview, Musk said he believed disruptions on his social media app, X, earlier Monday were caused by a cyberattack tied to Ukraine-based IP addresses, though he provided no evidence.

    JFC

  382. says

    New Lincoln Project ad

    Video at the link.

    The audio simulates a VA hotline after DOGE cuts of “waste” have rendered in-person counseling unavailable. A troubled veteran is offered counseling by AI instead, “powered by Grok, an X company.” The automated voice tells him Trump and Musk both thank him for his service — good to get both names in there — and that he can leave a message. An AI assistant will call back, “if your problem is deemed unwasteful.” It closes with stats about veterans suicides and citing DOGE cuts. […]

  383. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/-weak-weenies-wreck-economies-nicolle-wallace-reacts-to-stocks-tanking-after-trump-s-comments-233995845550

    Vaughn Hillyard, NBC News White House Correspondent, Charlie Sykes, MSNBC Contributor and Columnist, and John Heilemann, Chief Political Columnist at Puck joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction to the stock markets beginning to sell off in reaction to Donald Trump’s comments on tariffs and his lack of clarity and confidence in how the economy will react to his own policies.

    https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/fast-trump-slump-markets-plunge-after-tariffs-and-maga-panics-as-47-won-t-rule-out-recession-234022469667

    The stock market slumped over the first two months of Trump’s administration, and Trump is refusing to rule out a recession resulting from his tariffs and cuts to government. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports.

  384. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The impoundment argument.

    Josh Chafetz (Law professor):

    This is wildly illegal. That is not a question on which reasonable legally informed folks can disagree.

    It doesn’t fucking matter that he ran on doing illegal things. They are still illegal. And striking at Congress’s power of the purse is worse than illegal. It’s anti-constitutional.

    [Aaron Rupar]: Vought: “We’re gonna use all of our executive tools to make those savings permanent. We can use rescissions, the president ran on impoundment…” [Video clip]

    If he’s allowed to get away with this—with simply ignoring statutes he doesn’t like—then there are no checks on him beyond the military and law enforcement refusing to carry out his orders.

     
    From the campaign.
    Trump on YT – Agenda47, Using Impoundment (4:39, 2023-06-20)

    For 200 years […] it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment. […] Thomas Jefferson famously used this power, as did many other presidents after, until it was wrongfully curtailed by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
    […]
    I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court and, if necessary, get Congress to overturn it. […] I will then use the president’s long-recognized impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy
    […]
    Just as importantly, bringing back impoundment will give us a crucial tool with which to obliterate the deep state […] and the globalists […] I alone can get that done.

     
    Josh Chafetz was a guest on this podcast.
    Amarica’s Constitution – Impounding Impoundment (mp3, 1:06:00, 2025-02-19)

    (9:35): One of the main documents that comes out of the Glorious Revolution is the 1689 Bill of Rights. And it’s worth noting the first two declarations […]:

    the pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal

    and the second is

    the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal

    […] The Crown […] has to do what Parliament tells it to do. This is not only a basic fundamental fact of the British constitution going forward into the 18th century, but […] the American colonists are following all of this very closely. Indeed in the 18th century, the American colonists are constantly looking back to parliament’s clashes with the Stuarts as their own constitutional heritage.

    So the idea that the American founders would have thought that a president would have a right to just ignore a statute […] because he feels like it would have been not only alien […] They would’ve regarded it as anti-constitutional.

    (37:49): This claim that in 1803 that Thomas Jefferson impounds money that was appropriated to buy gunboats […] They are dead wrong about that. […] If you go back to the actual statute itself, the appropriation is for “a sum not exceeding $50k” for the purchase of “a number not exceeding 15 gunboats”, so this is a paradigmatic example of a statute where Congress gave the president discretion over how many boats to buy and how much to spend on them. […] That is simply not an example of an impoundment.
    […]
    There have been things […] called “routine impoundments”. These are situations where Congress has specified exactly what is to be purchased, and the president can get a better deal […] They happened throughout the 19th century. […] where there’s no change in policy—it is okay. […] It doesn’t go back to Jefferson, but there is this history of routine impoundments. But there’s also a history of strong opposition to any kind of impoundment in policy disagreements.
    […]
    You don’t really get any “policy impoundments” until after WWII. […] not something that happens with any great [frequency / consequence / expense] until you get to Richard Nixon. […] Anything that he doesn’t to spend money on, he impounds. […] Both of the other branches react immediately. […] Congress in 1974 passes the Impoundment Control Act. […] it actually is more permissive of impoundment than the background constitutional rule. […] The Impoundment Control Act says there are certain situations in which we want to allow presidents NOT to spend money. It divides it into 2 categories: one is a rescission and the other is a deferral. […] If he wanted to do a policy impoundment, he had to do it via rescission, and that’s what requires affirmative congressional consent.

    (46:13): [Folks tried to enact a federal “line-item veto”. SCOTUS struck it down. Both would’ve been silly if anyone thought presidents inherently could ignore statutes.]

    (57:25): [Trump et al’s] argument boils down to “There’s a long history of this.” They refer to the 1803 Jefferson incident (They don’t go back to the statute to see what it actually says). And they refer to the history of routine impoundments. And say that justifies finding the existence of an entire Article II power. They say the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. […] (The Impoundment Control act is actually permissive.) […] I haven’t seen any serious legal scholars making the argument that the president in the current day has this unbounded right to impound.

    Looks like Republicans have pivoted to USING the Act’s rescission clause rather than repealing it. No one on the podcast knew offhand whether a rescission attempt would be subject to the filibuster 60 vote threshold.

    An extra bit after the interview.

    JD Vance: “Stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.'”

    (1:15:11): What JD Vance said is not true. […] apocryphal […] He never refused to comply with the Supreme Court order. That quote is from Worcester v. Georgia. It didn’t involve the executive branch at all. The Supreme Court never issued a directive to the president.

  385. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an emergency address from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Donald J. Trump commanded the American people not to check their 401k accounts.

    “Anyone caught checking their 409s (sic) can and will be deported,” he warned.

    Asserting that he was issuing this order “for your own good,” Trump added, “Elon says there’s a virus in the stock market and if you check your stocks it will spread to your body.”

    Though he claimed that “nothing bad is happening on Wall Street,” he promised the American people that, in the event of a stock market crash, “I will fix it with my Sharpie.”

    Link

  386. Bekenstein Bound says

    Mark Carney has won the federal Liberal leadership race

    Oh, lovely, it was the bankster. Because of course it was.

    Still, undoubtedly he’d be a better PM than Oilievre.

    While he could theoretically wait until as late as October before having an election, it is likely he will call for one in the next week or two, with election day probably sometime in late April.

    Dropping the writ too soon would be a bad mistake. Right now 338canada (our version of fivethirtyeight) is predicting a toss-up between a conservative minority government and a liberal minority government, with a majority unlikely but a conservative majority likelier than a liberal one. The trend, however, favors the liberals (though we’ll see how Carney’s ascension affects that soon enough). The smart move for Carney would be to wait until liberals are either polling in majority territory or seem to be plateauing, then drop the writ.

    The NDP can force it earlier by blowing up the government on a money bill or by explicitly calling for a vote of no confidence. However, they actually have more policy clout right now than they’ve had in literally decades, and the polling doesn’t currently favor the NDP still being in a position to be kingmaker in a minority government situation after an election. Triggering one now would reduce their seat count and pretty much eliminate their power outright. It would also hurt their constituents, who would be likelier to end up suffering under Tory misrule than if they waited until later or left it to Carney to trigger it. Their best move would seem to be to wait until liberals are polling well enough for the projected combined liberal and NDP seat count to enter majority territory, with still poor odds of a straight-up liberal majority. Then they’d have a decent shot to retain significant clout in Parliament, unlike in either any Tory government or a liberal majority, and the worst case (Tories, especially with a majority) for their constituents is very unlikely.

    We, the below-median-income half of Canada, want two things from any election outcome: a Lib or (especially if Carney will be PM) a Lib/NDP government; and a bad enough defeat for the Tories that they’ll take Oilievre out back behind their woodshed and then rethink their whole recent “pivot to Trumpism Lite” strategy. Let them return to being bog-standard business conservatives barely distinguishable from the Carney wing of the Grits except for their use of the color blue.

    In the longer term, we really need an activist trustbuster, a Lina Khan North. Better yet, a whole fucking army of them. We won’t get that from Carney, I don’t think, and certainly never from any Tory. Unfortunately even the NDP’s influence for the past four years hasn’t gotten us this, or the entire country wouldn’t still be largely owned by Bell and Rogers …

    Another clarifying point: an ICE ERO [Enforcement & Removal Ops] arrest is not like a criminal arrest. No need for a judicial warrant

    The Fourth Amendment would seem to disagree: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” It doesn’t say “citizens”, just “the people”. There’s no exception if the target is an immigrant, nor if the reason is immigration-related. The Founding Fathers were quite clear on this.

    (Needed to, for example, enter a private residence, but not to take someone into custody).

    And, in the instant case, they did enter a private residence.

    Really, the state shouldn’t be able to upend anyone’s life, no matter what the reason, without a warrant signed by a judge who had a good faith belief the state had probable cause; except if to stop someone in the very act of causing irreversible damage, e.g. an active shooter.

    The Supreme Court has generally held that ICE can detain people for about six months before it must show either that it will imminently remove them or let them go.

    The Supreme Court has held a lot of silly things lately, sweetie.

    I don’t know what it will take to restore it to some semblance of non-partisan-hackiness, nor to make it respect the Constitution again, but there is very definitely nothing in the Constitution that grants the state the power to detain anyone for six bloody months without formal charges or an opportunity to mount a defense. Quite the opposite. Rights to due process, habeas corpus, and a speedy trial are all quite explicit.

    I think Bart from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency should be the Democratic leader
    (fans of the TV series will know what I mean)

    Actually, it’s a book series.

    From a consumer’s perspective, profit is just another form of waste.

    Nail. Head.

    Details remain vague beyond Musk’s post, but rumors were circulating that X was under a distributed denial-of-services (DDOS) attack…

    Couldn’t have happened to a nicer site.

    The Onion comments on support for liberties.

    Why is this accompanied by a link not to the Onion but to Youtube?

    Chinese rapeseed meal, oil contracts surge after 100% tariffs on Canadian imports

    Wait, what? Canada and China have gotten into a trade war? How the hell did this happen? Is it somehow Trump’s fault?

    The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a professional counselor

    Her credentials should immediately be revoked by the ethics bar for her profession. Once that had occurred, it opens the door for getting the suit thrown out for lack of standing, in turn.

    Random notes:

    It was a mistake for the mobile operating system companies to allow interactive ads. The advertising APIs on iOS and Android should have only provided a straightforward video player, with advertisers being able to provide just an mp4 file (or similarly) and a website link. The player widget would run the ad until conclusion or until user abort, and on conclusion leave the last video frame displayed until user exit or interaction. Interaction other than exit would invoke the advertiser-supplied URL in the configured default browser on the device. The app embedding the ad would make a blocking call to the advertising API, then get a boolean return value true or false. It would be false if the user aborted before the ad video concluded or 30 seconds had passed, whichever was shorter, or the video didn’t load due to any cause other than an HTTPS error code from the server or a timeout (likely indicating ad-blocking); true if the video concluded, ran at least 30 seconds, or failed due to a server side error or timeout (likely indicating a cockup by the advertiser or their server is overloaded and not up to the task). The app could withhold a reward (e.g. boosts in a game) if the boolean returned was false, but should always grant it if the return was true. The use of https would prevent client-side ad blocking or firewalls (e.g. PiHole) at the user’s end from spoofing server errors like a 404. That seems like it would be been a reasonable compromise among the interests of users, app developers, and advertisers.

    Instead, what we got was carte blanche for advertisers to do basically anything, up to and including crashing the host app on lower-spec devices, trying to trap the user in the ad without any clean way to exit (short of killing the host app along with it and potentially losing data, game progress, or etc.), and other nasty things both by accident and out of malice. I’m surprised they aren’t trying to use the malleability of ads on these platforms to interrogate users afterward for proof that they saw the ad instead of walking away to make coffee and denying them the app’s reward (whatever that might be) if they guess and get it wrong. No doubt that will be coming at some point.

    At least some app developers are slightly nice and provide some (usually unobvious) way of their own to abort a frozen or otherwise problematic ad, sometimes even providing the reward if enough time elapsed first (commonly 10 seconds).

    The Steam store’s blanket rejection of any in-game advertising-for-rewards of this sort is laudatory, given the current state of play on mobile.

  387. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: Bekenstein Bound @386:

    Actually, it’s a book series.

    Dirk Gently was adapted for TV.

    Why is this accompanied by a link not to the Onion but to Youtube?

    The Onion has a YouTube channel.

  388. StevoR says

    Former Philippino President Duterte has been arrested on ICC charges! Some acocuntability at least :

    Mr Duterte was arrested after arriving from Hong Kong and police took him into custody on orders of the ICC, President Ferdinand Marcos’s office said in a statement. The court has been investigating the former president’s deadly “war on drugs” that killed thousands of Filipinos.”Upon his arrival, the prosecutor general served the ICC notification for an arrest warrant to the former president for the crime of crime against humanity,” the government statement said. “He’s now in the custody of authorities.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-11/ex-philippine-president-rodrigo-duterte-arrested/105037542

    If the Phillipines can do it hopefully maybe Israel and the USoA can do likewise too?

  389. StevoR says

    Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte arrested in Manila over ‘war on drugs’

    ABC news

    Posted link a second ago but didn’t go through..

  392. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    A federal judge in NY has blocked any effort by the Trump administration to deport Mahmoud Khalil—whose arrest and imminent deportation Trump celebrated on Turth Social today—until further proceedings play out.

    Khalil’s lawyers have also filed a motion to compel to return him to Manhattan, where his habeas petition was originally filed.
    […]
    Trump’s Truth Social post on Khalil makes an appearance in his motion to compel his return to NY.

    retaliatory and punitive motives have since been confirmed

    Proceedings were supposed to happen first anyway, so this was a precaution.

    The Verge – The disappeared Columbia student is the start of a surveillance nightmare

    Zeteo – Mahmoud Khalil asked Columbia for protection a day before he was detained

    A stray observation.
    Jacqueline Sweet: “the ICE officer arresting Khalil appears to be the special agent Trump invited to the SOTU in 2019 [Elvin Hernandez]”

  393. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Good news.

    Kyle Cheney (Politico):

    A federal judge [Abelson] clarifies that his order barring enforcement of Trump EO on “DEI” funding applies to *all* federal agencies, not just those named in the lawsuit.

     
    Adam Klasfeld (MSNBC):

    A federal judge partially GRANTS a preliminary injunction in the case brought by USAID contractors opposing the Trump admin’s foreign aid funds freeze.

    It’s a win, but not a wholesale victory […] Judge Ali finds the Trump admin must pay the congressionally appropriated funds, but he can’t dictate how they staff or spend that money.

    It may well be that the only or most practical way for Defendants to carry out their duty to spend the funds is to revive existing partnerships […] both the Constitution and Congress’s laws have traditionally afforded the Executive discretion on how to spend within the constraints set by Congress.

    Judge Ali gives the Trump admin a Schoolhouse Rock-level overview of the separation of powers, slamming its “overreach” and “unbridled view” of exec power

     
    Politico – Judge orders urgent release of DOGE records

    U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the vast and “unprecedented” authority of DOGE […] combined with its “unusual secrecy” warrant the urgent release of its internal documents under the Freedom of Information Act. […] He is ordering “rolling” productions of DOGE records to begin within weeks.
    […]
    It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil […] [Government] lawyers offered virtually nothing in the way of evidence about DOGE’s operations or management.

     
    Jamie Dupree (Capitol Hill correspondent):

    We are starting to see reports of National Weather Service workers being told to come back to work—with pay—as they have been sent letters saying they were fired ‘in error.’ This is another example of the DOGE cuts being reversed. [Screenshot]

    Rando: “‘You must return to duty’ is downright hilarious”

  395. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Business Insider – We found a DOGE guy at NASA because his Google Calendar was public

    revealing his connections to the Trump administration initiative, the names of fellow DOGE staffers, and scheduled interviews at companies including Tesla, Palantir, and Anduril.

    Riley Sennott, 26, is listed as a “senior advisor” in an internal NASA directory, similar to the nebulous titles given to some DOGE staff in other agencies. His name and involvement with DOGE have not been previously reported. […] Anyone with the address could see every appointment Sennott had on the calendar going back to 2016.
    […]
    In 2022, Sennott worked in crypto; archived versions of his LinkedIn and X profiles refer to him working at Syndica, a startup that creates software for blockchain developers

    He was/is job hunting at Silicon Valley venture capital and at AI / drone / surveillance military contractors. Thiel was an early investor or founder of most of them (except Booz, I think).

  396. StevoR says

    Musktrump’s proposed budget cuts will be killing or at least badly maiming NASA :

    “If this is implemented, it would be nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for The Planetary Society. “Losing this much money, this fast, has no precedence in NASA’s history. It would force terrible decisions, including turning off scores of active, productive, irreplaceable missions, halting nearly all new mission development, and decimating the country’s space science workforce.”

    Plus :

    “The budget also proposes a 50 percent reduction in NASA Science programs and spending, reducing their misguided Carbon Reduction System spending and Global Climate Change programs,” Vought’s organization wrote in its report published in December 2022. Despite Vought’s desire, however, NASA is expressly charged with studying our planet.

    The congressional act that created NASA in 1958 calls for the space agency to expand human knowledge about Earth’s atmosphere and space, and the agency’s Earth observation satellites have substantially increased our understanding of this planet’s weather, changing climate, and land use.

    Even if NASA’s Earth science budget were taken to zero, cutting the overall science budget in half would still dramatically reduce funding in planetary science as well as other research areas. Scientists told Ars that NASA would be forced to make difficult decisions, likely including shutting off extended missions such as the Voyager and Curiosity probes on Mars, and possibly even the Hubble Space Telescope.

    In addition to

    The president establishes budget priorities, but Congress actually sets funding levels and authorizes spending. However, to date, the US Congress has shown little appetite to oppose President Trump’s policy priorities. Moreover, a lot of NASA’s key science centers are located in Democratic-leaning states such as California, Maryland, and New York, which do not have a lot of power in the current Congress.

    Source : https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/white-house-may-seek-to-slash-nasas-science-budget-by-50-percent/

  399. says

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

    Republicans struggle to answer for Trump, Musk to alarmed constituents back home
    Video is 4:36 minutes

    Trump puts U.S. at risk with increasing reliance on Musk and Starlink
    Video is 6:45 minutes

    ‘Serious mistakes’: Kelly sounds alarm on Trump handling of Ukraine; Nails Musk on ‘traitor’ gibe
    video is 8:57 minutes

  400. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump takes aim at Canada with doubled tariffs on metals

    President Donald Trumpon Tuesday doubled his planned tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum products from Canada to 50%, in response to the province of Ontario’s decision to place a 25% tariff on its electricity exports to the U.S…

    Note that the U.S. metals tariff is on incoming goods.
    Canada’s tariff on electricity is on outgoing goods.
    In both cases, it means higher prices for U.S. customers.

    “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

  404. says

    Trump buying a Tesla:

    During his 2024 presidential candidacy, Donald Trump had a variety of villains he targeted with great enthusiasm. The Republican was against Democrats. And immigrants. And journalists. And scientists. And the FBI. And the LGBTQ+ community. And Americans who disagree with him. The list goes on (and on).

    But Trump also took care to let voters know that, as far as he was concerned, electric vehicles belong on the GOP’s party’s list of villains, too.

    Trump told one audience, for example, that people who own electric cars become “somewhat schizophrenic” because they can only drive their cars for 10 minutes. Around the same time, he insisted that gas-powered cars are better for the environment than EVs. (They’re not.) In another instance, the GOP candidate added that electric vehicles don’t “go far” and have to be recharged “every two minutes.”

    In June 2024, a Washington Post report noted that the Republican had made “bashing EVs a cornerstone of his campaign.”

    That, of course, was before the election. Now that the president is in the White House, however, he claims he’s going to purchase an electric vehicle for himself. CNBC reported:

    […] Trump shared his intent to purchase a Tesla on Tuesday to support Elon Musk as the electric vehicle maker’s sales and share price face pressure from the CEO’s foray into global politics, most notably as head of Trump’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency.

    In an online item published shortly after midnight, the president claimed that “Radical Left Lunatics” are “trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla.” Trump added, “I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???”

    At this point, we could talk at some length about the fact that it’s not “illegal” for consumers to boycott a company — a fact Trump ought to know, given that he’s launched a wide variety of boycotts. We could also talk about the degree to which Elon Musk’s “skills” are anything but “tremendous.”

    But let’s instead consider the circumstances with the proper nouns removed.

    Imagine a scenario in which a hyper-wealthy campaign donor helps put a politician in the White House. Soon after, the politician rewards his benefactor with unprecedented governmental power and authority, seemingly indifferent to the megadonor’s expansive conflicts of interests.

    Then imagine these circumstances help spark a public backlash against one of the donor’s businesses, which contributes to a sharp decline in the value of the company’s stock.

    At that point in our little hypothetical, the beneficiary of the hyper-wealthy campaign donor’s generosity decides to use the power of his unique position to issue a testimonial of sorts to publicly endorse the contributor’s business.

    Under normal circumstances, such a scenario would be described — at a minimum — as an ethics nightmare, if not outright corruption. And yet, here we are.

    Link

  405. says

    The Trump administration’s approach to food safety is tough to swallow

    “The good news is that the Trump administration’s controversial approach to food safety only matters to Americans who eat food.”

    It’s been nearly 20 years, but during George W. Bush’s second term, historian Rick Perlstein coined a memorable phrase: “E. coli conservatism.” The slogan coincided with a rash of food safety controversies that were tied to lax governmental safeguards.

    The point of the phrase, of course, was to convey a larger policy point: When government pulls back on regulations that protect the public, there are often hazardous consequences. […]

    Years later, there’s another Republican administration with some risky ideas about food safety […]. The Washington Post reported:

    Two federal committees tasked with advising policymakers on food safety have been disbanded as part of the administration’s cost-cutting and government-shrinking goals, according to advocates and one committee member. The elimination of the panels, whose members included experts from academia, industry and nonprofits, has raised alarms among some food-safety advocates, who point to large-scale outbreaks in recent years as a reason for needing even more attention and modern science around the issue.

    […] comes on the heels of related reporting from The New York Times, which noted that the Trump administration eliminated the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

    The reports noted that the panels have been working on everything from identifying foodborne pathogens to examining contamination of powdered infant formula. […]

    Brian Ronholm, the director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said in a statement, “The termination of these two important advisory committees is very alarming and should serve as a warning to consumers that food safety will not be a priority at U.S.D.A. in the foreseeable future.”

    […] This news out of the Department of Agriculture dovetails with related news from the Department of Health and Human Services, which recently sent out emails asking most of its workforce to consider an offer to quit their jobs in exchange for $25,000. The list included food inspection workers at the FDA.

    And did I mention that the Trump administration appointed Donald Trump Jr.’s hunting buddy to serve to the FDA’s Human Foods Program, overseeing all nutrition and food safety activities? Because that happened, too. His predecessor, Jim Jones, resigned last month, citing misguided firings across the agency. […]

    I suspect many Americans who supported the GOP ticket last fall didn’t realize they were voting to scrap the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, but that’s what they’re getting.

  406. says

    […] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke to Fox Nation for a fairly long interview, and as The New York Times noted, the HHS secretary “outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments.”

    He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research. He asserted that natural immunity to measles, gained through infection, somehow also protected against cancer and heart disease, a claim not supported by research. He cheered on questionable treatments like cod liver oil, and said that local doctors had achieved ‘almost miraculous and instantaneous’ recoveries with steroids or antibiotics.

    Writing for MSNBC, Dr. Kavita Patel, a teaching professor of medicine at Stanford University, added that Kennedy, as part of his Fox interview, abandoned “any pretense of scientific rigor.” She added that the HHS secretary promoted “pseudoscientific alternatives.”

    This follows a report in The Washington Post about Kennedy focusing on vitamin A to combat the growing measles outbreak, “raising concerns among public health experts, who fear he is sending the wrong message about preventing the highly contagious disease and distracting from the critical importance of vaccination.”

    All of this is, of course, dreadful. But it is not surprising. Kennedy wrote just four years ago that he believed measles outbreaks “have been fabricated to create fear.” He added that, as far he’s concerned, Americans had been “misled … into believing that measles is a deadly disease.”

    Kennedy is also on record suggesting there might be some health benefits to getting the dangerous contagion.

    Obviously, the HHS secretary has earned reproach for his reckless and anti-scientific approach to this growing public health threat. It’s equally obvious that qualified physicians, scientists and public health officials are right to ring the alarm about Kennedy’s dangerous irresponsibility.

    But when assigning blame, spare a thought for the 52 Republican senators who decided to put aside everything they learned about Kennedy and voted to confirm him anyway.

    That an unqualified, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is behaving like an unqualified, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is painfully predictable. The fact remains, however, that 52 GOP senators were given an opportunity to protect Americans from RFK Jr. and they failed spectacularly.

    Link

  408. JM says

    CNN: Rubio says the US wants to hear what concessions Ukraine is willing to make at Saudi meeting

    The United States wants to hear what concessions Ukraine would be willing to make in negotiations to end the war with Russia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of a high-stakes meeting between the two nations on Tuesday.
    “We really want to sort of ascertain where they stand on this and what they’re willing to do in order to achieve peace,” Rubio told reporters on Monday.

    Lots of talk about Ukraine making concessions, with just a cursory mention of Russia. The Trump administration also considers the mineral rights deal a major point, they are willing to keep promises and protect allies only when paid.
    It’s hard to say what will happen because Ukraine does want a peace deal but they are also serious about having an actually workable one. Vague promises of protection are not going to cut it.
    There is a real possibility that the Trump administration and Russia will cut a deal and Ukraine and Europe will reject it. The Trump administration will be aware of this, if only because Russia warned them, but it makes negotiations complex.

  409. JM says

    The Hill: Democrats release their own stopgap funding bill as House GOP plows forward

    Congressional Democrats rolled out their own short-term funding patch to keep the government running beyond Friday’s shutdown deadline, as House Republicans barrel forward with a Trump-endorsed plan in the face of staunch opposition from the other side of the aisle.

    The bill would keep the government funded through April, a sharp contrast to the roughly six-month stopgap being pushed by Republicans and President Trump.

    The Democratic bill has no chance of passing right now, that situation may change in the hours before the shut down or afterwards. It is interesting to see what the Democrats are proposing. The Democrats want a very short term bill that would just give enough time to negotiate a bigger bill with more support. I don’t think a bigger bipartisan is workable because the Republicans are themselves entirely divided on what to do, an actually supported bipartisan bill is likely impossible.
    From a political point of view it is important that the Democrats are proposing something. It will be interesting to see what major news organizations mention it.

  410. JM says

    Politico: Judge orders urgent release of DOGE records, citing ‘unprecedented’ power and ‘unusual secrecy’

    A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is wielding so much power that its records will likely have to be opened to the public under federal law.
    U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the vast and “unprecedented” authority of DOGE, formally known as the U.S. Digital Service, combined with its “unusual secrecy” warrant the urgent release of its internal documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

    This will get appealed immediately but the judge is right. The US government is not allowed to play two step games, where a body required to make records public delegates the real work to a private organization that doesn’t have to keep public records. DOGE isn’t even a private outside company, it’s part of the government. The Trump administration is just trying to transfer lots of real power to DOGE without any reporting requirements or legal limitations.

    Cooper also offered some criticism of the way the Trump administration litigated the case, noting that its lawyers offered virtually nothing in the way of evidence about DOGE’s operations or management.
    “Indeed, the Court wonders whether this decision was strategic,” Cooper said, noting that Trump administration lawyers had taken competing positions — including that DOGE qualifies as an “agency” under some sections of law but not others — “when it suits it.”

    Those are awfully harsh words for a federal judge issuing an order against the government.

  411. says

    Inside the DOGE Threat to Social Security

    “A day in the life of a claims rep for America’s largest government program.”
    By E. Tammy Kim, writing for The New Yorker

    When the claims representative, whom I’ll call Steven, sat down at his computer around 7:15 a.m. last week, he had already been awake for an hour and a half. […] He had joined the Social Security Administration two decades ago, and came to specialize in one of its more complex and lesser-known functions: providing a form of welfare called Supplemental Security Income, or S.S.I., to people who are disabled or extremely poor. But the S.S.A. is so understaffed that Steven does a bit of everything.

    “My job is to be kind of like an octopus,” he said. The agency’s administrative budget had not kept up with its rising workload as more people aged into retirement. […] Musk’s DOGE outfit, planned to fire up to half of the agency’s sixty-thousand-odd employees.[…] DOGE had also gained access to S.S.A. databases. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here,” Steven said. […] Trump had delivered a long self-congratulatory speech to Congress, in which he accused the S.S.A. of “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud.”

    […] Three days a week, Steven is at a cubicle in a regional field office, one of twelve hundred across the U.S. The other two days, he works from home, at a plastic folding table in the corner of his bedroom. He was on the early shift. His laptop was propped up on a neon-green bin, the kind typically used to store Legos or crayons.[…]

    The day officially started when Steven logged on to a dozen software programs. […] His primary task was to conduct nonmedical “redetermination” interviews (code: “RZ”)—part of the S.S.A.’s process for insuring that current recipients are still eligible to receive benefits. More than seven million Americans of all ages count on S.S.I., and sixty-eight million seniors receive earned retirement payments. Social Security is the largest government program in the country and most recipients’ main source of income. […] “Redeterminations are the highest priority,” Steven said. “We should have three to five people on them at every office. Sometimes there’s only one.”

    He put on a wireless headset that connected to his laptop and an online phone system. The first redetermination call was with a parent who was receiving S.S.I. on behalf of a disabled child. “Hi, this is Steven, from Social Security Administration,” he said. “I’m just calling to see if you’re able to do the redetermination appointment.” His stomach growled. The bottom-right corner of his center screen flickered with notifications. He stayed with the caller. Date of birth? Marriages? Job placements? He clicked “yes” and “no” bubbles and typed in numbers. He had much of the script memorized. “Any items held for potential value?” he asked. “Promissory notes, real property or business property, or able accounts?” S.S.I. is allocated based on an applicant’s income, assets, family size, and other factors. It often takes a year, and the help of a lawyer, to get a decision. (Earlier in Steven’s career, the time frame had been three to six months.) If an application is rejected, the case can be appealed to an administrative-law judge, and the wait for those hearings is around two years.

    “That was the last amount verified,” Steven continued. “Has that changed?” While waiting for the program to advance to the next screen, he glanced at e-mails on his rightmost monitor. There were more from headquarters and human resources and the employees’ union than usual. Since November, three S.S.A. commissioners or acting commissioners had come and gone: Martin O’Malley, Carolyn W. Colvin, and Michelle King. The guy in charge now was Leland Dudek, whom Trump had elevated from a middle-management role for his eagerness to help DOGE access S.S.A. files, a vast library of individual medical, housing, family, and financial records. Dudek announced plans to eliminate six out of ten regional headquarters; several directors left the agency. In an all-staff e-mail, Dudek wrote:

    [… The latest e-mail from headquarters stated that, “effective today,” employees were prohibited from engaging in “Internet browsing” of “general news” or “sports” on “government-furnished equipment.”

    […] “I’m trying really not to go off the deep end,” he said. If his office closed, and the neighboring offices closed, many people would have no way of getting benefits. For one thing, applications for Social Security cards and certain forms of S.S.I. had to be submitted in person.

    Steven worried about his own well-being, too. His kids were on his health insurance. He and his wife had to take care of his father. S.S.A.’s human-resources division had sent an e-mail titled “Organizational Restructuring—Availability of Voluntary Reassignment, Early Out Retirement, and Separation Incentive Payments to ALL ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES—No Component or Position Exceptions,” which seemed to pressure workers to leave. “A lot of this stuff is intentionally degrading,” Steven said. “They’re trying to do whatever they can to get people to resign.” Recently, he and other field-office staff were told that their jobs were safe because they were “mission critical.” That was reassuring, but only “a little bit.”

    […] The work is surprisingly personal. A Social Security file contains a lot of intimate information. […]

    Next, Steven had to get “on the phones.” Fielding random calls on the S.S.A. hotline isn’t technically part of his job, but he didn’t question the assignment. For several weeks, everyone had been required to help out. “Good morning. Social Security. This is Steven,” he said. “What is your Social Security number, please? All right, starting with your name and date of birth . . .” He wrapped up his first few calls rather quickly. He sent out a missing tax document, scheduled a father for an in-person appointment to get a Social Security card for his baby, and confirmed bank information for a recipient’s direct deposit. […]

    Steven later received two mass e-mails. The first reminded all S.S.A. employees to send their “mandatory weekly assignment”—the “What Did You Do Last Week” e-mail, with five bullet points summarizing what they had worked on—directly to the government’s Office of Personnel Management, not to anyone in their actual agency. The second one was yet another plea for workers to quit or take early retirement. […]

    “I just keep wondering, How long can I be doing this?” Steven said. Many years before Trump and DOGE, there was a period when he could not sleep. “The job would cause me to wake up in the middle of the night,” he said. […] He was troubled by certain cases—a girl who had been abused in foster care, only to end up with a grandmother who stole her S.S.I. checks. He was also haunted by the need to reach case quotas, never explicitly stated but often implied. “Cutting corners happens in this industry, when representatives are trying to just get something off their list,” he said. “So then it’s like, ‘I got that done.’ But did you really help the person?” His latest sources of worry were a news article in which O’Malley, the former S.S.A. commissioner, predicted “system collapse and an interruption of benefits” within “thirty to ninety days” and an affidavit by a former agency official that described DOGE’s violation of privacy protocols and the likelihood of “critical errors that could upend SSA systems.”

    Steven has never been a zealot for anything except his favorite football team, but now he believes that he and his co-workers are part of an “underground movement” to prevent the destruction of Social Security. Trump and Musk, and more conventional Republicans, talk obsessively about rooting out fraud at the S.S.A. Mistakes and overpayments do occur, but the agency’s inspector general recently found that less than one per cent of benefits distributed between 2015 and 2022 were improper. Steven believes that mass layoffs will result in vulnerable Americans not getting the money they’re entitled to. […] “People heading into retirement, surviving spouses, widows, widowers. It used to be we’d get complaints from the public. We’d start off a call by apologizing. ‘We’re understaffed!’ ” Now, he went on, “people are apologizing to us.”

  412. says

    Trump DOJ Befools Itself Over Restoring Mel Gibson’s Gun Rights

    Another Lethal Weapon Sequel

    We knew that the U.S. pardon attorney was fired by the Trump Justice Department on Friday in a new purge of senior attorneys. Now we know why.

    In a interview with the NYT, Elizabeth G. Oyer says she was terminated hours after she refused to go along with a rushed, last-minute attempt to put actor Mel Gibson on a list of people who would have their gun rights restored.

    Gibson cannot legally carry a firearm after a 2011 domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.

    Oyer describes a careful deliberative process to come up with a list of people whose gun rights could be safely restored then her growing dismay as that process was circumvented to try to add Gibson, who had not been vetted.

    Oyer said she came under increasing pressure to sign off on Gibson, culminating in a call from a senior official in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: “He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,” she said.

    Oyer still declined to endorse adding Gibson to the list.

    The entire episode took place over two days: The list was submitted Thursday and later that day the pressure began on Oyer to add Gibson to it. She resisted. Blanche fired her Friday. DOJ told the NYT that the Gibson incident played no role in Oyer’s firing.

    The rule of law has eroded to the barest standard: “a personal relationship with President Trump.”

  413. says

    Elon Musk Watch

    Musk went on national TV with false and baseless claims about widespread fraud in Social Security and Medicare while calling the programs key targets for spending cuts.

    Musk assigned three private equity veterans – Antonio Gracias, Scott Coulter, and Michael Russo – to the DOGE team rampaging through the Social Security Administration.

    U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of Washington, D.C., ruled that Elon Musk’s DOGE is likely subject to FOIA and must preserve and produce documents to a watchdog group.

    Same link as in comment 411.

  414. says

    […] Trump announced in a rambling Truth Social post Tuesday that he is putting a 50% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, a retaliatory move that has once again spooked investors and sent the stock market tumbling.

    Trump’s new tariffs are in response to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the United States, which will increase energy prices in Michigan, Minnesota, and New York.

    Ford said that the energy surcharge is in direct response to Trump’s first round of tariffs and that if Trump puts more tariffs on Canada, he might “shut the electricity off completely.”

    “Believe me when I say I do not want to do this. I feel terrible for the American people who didn’t start this trade war. It’s one person who is responsible, it’s President Trump,” Ford said.

    In response, Trump said that, if Canada doesn’t drop other tariffs, he will take more retaliatory moves—including a “substantial” increase on automobile tariffs that will “permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.” [graph at the link]

    Trump also reiterated his desire to annex Canada—again.

    “The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” he wrote on Truth Social.

    “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that,” he added.

    But Ford is confident that Canada will never become part of the United States.

    “We will never become the 51st state. Canada is not for sale. And we want a great trading partner. We have the greatest neighbors in the world in the U.S., and it’s not the American People. They didn’t vote President Trump in on this kind of mandate. He had a mandate to lower inflation, lower the cost of living, create more jobs, and it’s backfired on him. Inflation is going up, … he’s taking more money out of Americans’ pockets, and for what reason? We’re still trying to figure this out,” Ford said on CNN.

    Canada isn’t the only country that Trump is targeting with tariffs, which end up hurting Americans the most anyway.

    According to The New York Times, Japanese officials were unable to get assurances from Trump that they’d be exempt from his steel and aluminum tariffs.

    Ultimately, Trump’s ridiculous trade war has sent the stock market into another downward spiral.

    As of writing this, the Dow Jones industrial average is down nearly 400 points after falling nearly 900 points yesterday. [graph at the link] […]

    Link

  415. says

    Followup to comment 411.

    Top DOJ Official Fired After Refusing To Say Nutbag Mel Gibson Should Get To Play With Guns

    Mel Gibson is a homeless-looking old racist piece of rotted trash who made a couple good-ish movies once, and is most well-known for screaming antisemitisms while drunk.

    [I snipped other movie details.]

    And now, Mel Gibson is the likeliest reason the Justice Department pardon attorney has been fired, because she wouldn’t recommend he be allowed to have back his gun rights, which he lost after a domestic violence charge in 2011. (He pleaded no contest.)

    Why is the Trump White House so concerned with giving domestic abusers guns? Uhhhhh, we don’t know, maybe because there were no Cabinet positions left?

    Also Mel Gibson is Trump’s personal and beloved friend, and in clownfucking patrimonial governments, that is all that matters.

    […] Elizabeth Oyer was her name, and she was the person in DOJ who until Friday would either put her imprimatur or not put her imprimatur on potential pardons. As we all know, Donald Trump has the utmost respect for what the professionals think, and definitely thinks about eventually consulting them while he’s pardoning 1,600 terrorists who attacked the United States Capitol.

    They didn’t specifically say they were taking her job because she refused to give Gibson back his (gun) freedom, but she kind of knew:

    A spokesperson for Oyer said that she was not told why she was terminated but that because of the sequence of events she believes her refusal to carry out a request from officials in the deputy attorney general’s office to add Gibson’s name to a list of people to have their gun rights restored may have played a role. […]

    “Unfortunately, experienced professionals throughout the Department are afraid to voice their opinions because dissent is being punished,” she said. “Decisions are being made based on relationships and loyalty, not based on facts or expertise or sound analysis, which is very alarming given that what is at stake is our public safety.”

    As the New York Times explains, Oyer kind of saw the writing on the wall during the preceding events, regarding the gun rights of […] Mel Gibson. NBC News has sources saying different things; one says it definitely wasn’t about Mel Gibson, another says while it may or may not have related to a specific thing, it’s “part of a very concerning set of personnel moves across the federal government and at DOJ” to basically get rid of anybody who might tell Mad King Shithole no.

    “[S]ystematically, the political leadership of this administration is doing their best to take away the institutional guardrails,” said an anonymous DOJ official.

    NBC News goes through the details of how this got on Oyer’s desk in the first place, if you’re interested. […]

    She was asked whether her position was flexible, to which she responded it was not. Oyer was then, according to her spokesperson, told that “Mel Gibson is a friend of the president and that should be justification enough.”

    Over the 15-minute conversation, the official quickly became very aggressive, and the tone “approached the line of bullying,” the spokesperson said, adding that no specific threats were made.

    Pam Bondi’s and Donald Trump’s Justice Department, ladies and gentleladies.

    Oyer stood her ground. She gave them the info she had on Gibson, but didn’t make the recommendation. […] NBC News says she told her colleagues, “I really think Mel Gibson is going to be my downfall.”

    That was Friday morning. Friday afternoon she was gone. […]

    The massacres will continue until there’s nobody left to be massacred, we guess.

    The Times notes that several high-ranking DOJ people got fired on Friday. Blanche and Bove are publicly attacking the prosecutors on the Eric Adams case, to undermine them further. The head of the criminal division in the US attorney’s office in DC resigned because she wouldn’t literally make up crimes […]

    If you are a patriotic person of integrity and you work for the US government, they are going to find you […]

  416. Reginald Selkirk says

    President Trump Says Boycotting Tesla Is Illegal

    On Monday night, just a couple of months after taking office, Donald Trump has determined that it’s unAmerican for anyone to not own a Tesla electric vehicle. While Joe Biden failed for four years to institute an electric vehicle mandate at the federal level because he never tried, Trump is built different–mostly out of cognitive dissonance. He can end Biden’s non-existent EV mandate and trash already-paid-for EV infrastructure plans while simultaneously declaring Tesla the real patriot’s automaker without breaking a sweat.

    In fact, if you don’t already own a Tesla in 2025, the President of the United States of America has unilaterally determined that you are committing the heinous crime of boycotting and colluding against Tesla, a great American institution and Elon’s “baby.” …

  418. says

    BREAKING NEWS

    WAR IN UKRAINE

    “U.S. to restart intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine immediately”

    The United States will immediately lift a pause on intelligence sharing and resume providing security assistance to Ukraine after meetings in Saudi Arabia where delegates from Kyiv agreed to accept the Trump administration’s proposal for a 30-day interim ceasefire with Russia.

    “Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties,” according to a joint statement issued on Tuesday.

    “The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace,” the joint statement added.

    The future of U.S. support for Kyiv has been in grave doubt since an extraordinary on-camera spat between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Feb. 28. In the wake of that confrontation, Trump’s administration paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv.

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration has made a series of policy moves heralding a more cooperative stance towards Russia, traditionally considered a key geopolitical foe of the West. Trump, for his part, falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war and called Zelenskyy — not Vladimir Putin — a dictator.

    This is a developing story. Expect updates.

  419. Silentbob says


    Rebecca Watson calls for solidarity with transgender Americans – drawing obvious parallels with Jews in 1930s Germany.
    If you’ve ever asked yourself how you would have behaved then – “would I have gone along with the crowd or would I have resisted?” – the answer is what you are doing to stand up for trans people today.

  420. says

    Followup to comment 405.

    […] Because he’s so much more responsible than the CDC, RFK Jr. went and talked to the frontline doctors to see what they were doing about the outbreak, and he said they’ve been treating people with a steroid called budesonide (which you are very specifically not supposed to take if you have measles ) as well as an antibiotic called clarithromycin (which has literally no effect on the measles, because the measles are a virus).

    Yes, just like how people wanted to treat COVID with antibiotics and anti-parasitic treatments, he wants to treat the measles, a virus, with an antibiotic. At this point, I am starting to think it’s some kind of religious thing I don’t understand.

    But RFK Jr. is very upset that the HHS and the CDC haven’t been “talking to the frontline doctors and see what is working on the ground, because those therapeutics have really been ignored by the agency for a long time.”

    It’s an interesting choice, I think, that he keeps saying “frontline doctors.” America’s Frontline Doctors, as you may recall, were/are a group of crazy-ass anti-COVID-vaccine doctors, many of whom had lost their licenses. Just saying!

    Of course, his favorite cure, which we’ve all been hearing so much about, is cod liver oil.

    […] Now, this is not to say it doesn’t have some good properties. It’s good for inflammation, and it’s high in Vitamin A. In some countries, where kids are more likely to experience malnutrition, it is recommended to take Vitamin A to prevent or ameliorate the measles. However, as with all vitamins and minerals, taking more than you need does not do jack shit if you are not deficient (this also goes for B-12, in case anyone was wondering).

    Unlike with vaccines, we actually do know that there are health risks when it comes to taking too much Vitamin A. It’s no joke of a chemical. If you put it on your face because you don’t want acne or wrinkles, and you don’t use sunscreen, you can get some serious sun damage. If you put too much of it in your body because you think that’s how you’re going to avoid getting the measles, you could end up with serious liver damage, bone density issues, skin and hair issues, etc.

    Children are especially sensitive to Vitamin A toxicity, and can have adverse effects from levels as low as 1,500 mcg of Vitamin A a day. Your average Flintstone Vitamin has about 400 mcg of Vitamin A, a teaspoon of cod liver oil (RFK’s fave) has about 1350 mcg. Then, add in carrots, sweet potatoes, leafy greens, fish and other foods that have Vitamin A in them, and you do this over a long period of time … you’re gonna have some problems.

    Of course, RFK Jr. claims that it’s fine to take as much cod liver oil as you want because it’s “from food” and therefore there’s no toxicity issue. […]

    It’s the dose that makes the poison […]

    And you know what’s never, ever happened in the history of the world? Adult onset autism. Or late-childhood onset autism. Yes, there are adult diagnoses of autism, but only of people who have actually had it all their lives. So even if you really, really believe, despite all available evidence, that MMR vaccines are turning the babies autistic, you’d have to at least understand that they will not turn your school-age child autistic, because that is not even a thing (this is also a pretty potent argument against the idea that the MMR vaccine causes autism, but that’s a little advanced for these types).

    To his credit, Dr. Marc Siegel pushed back on a surprising amount of Kennedy Jr.’s claims (and even helpfully explained that unless people are malnourished, more Vitamin A isn’t going to do anything for them) and cautiously suggested that they might want to get out there to Gaines County and push for people to get the vaccine, so as to increase community immunity for those who can’t take it.

    Jr., of course, insisted that they were, but also that he felt bad because no one wanted to listen to the Mennonites about their “vaccine injured” people (which seems sus because the Mennonites have never been big on vaccines either way). He also doubled down on this idea that the vaccines haven’t really been tested for safety.

    “We don’t know what the risk profile is for these products. We need to restore government trust. And we’re going to do that by telling the truth, and by doing rigorous science to understand both safety and efficacy issues,” he said.

    This is a lie. It’s an outright lie. These vaccines have been studied for decades. At this point, the entire world is a study for these products. We know they work, we know that serious side-effects are extremely rare […] and that the side-effects are never, ever “autism.”

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jr-will-cure-measles-by-pouring

  421. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Follow-up to Reginald Selkirk @362, Lynna @379.

    What really happened with the DDoS attacks that took down X

    a pro-Palestinian group known as Dark Storm Team took credit for the attacks within a few hours. Later on Monday, though, Musk claimed […] the attacks had come from Ukrainian IP addresses.
    […]
    Botnets are typically dispersed around the world […] and they can include mechanisms that make it harder to determine where they are controlled from. […] DDoS attacks are common, and virtually all modern internet services experience them regularly and must proactively defend themselves.
    […]
    Kevin Beaumont and other analysts see evidence that some X origin servers, which respond to web requests, weren’t properly secured behind the company’s Cloudflare DDoS protection and were publicly visible. As a result, attackers could target them directly. X has since secured the servers. “The botnet was directly attacking the IP and a bunch more on that X subnet yesterday. It’s a botnet of cameras and DVRs,” Beaumont says.
    […]
    one researcher from a prominent firm […] noted that they did not even see Ukraine in the breakdown of the top 20 IP address origins involved in the X attacks. If Ukrainian IP addresses did contribute to the attacks, though, numerous researchers say that the fact alone is not noteworthy.

  422. KG says

    The Guardian – US support to maintain UK’s nuclear arsenal is in doubt – CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@323

    The UK’s so-called “independent nuclear deterrent” has always depended on American maintenance, and the UK lacks the facilities needed to replace the aging Trident system; and if any war involving the UK turns nuclear, we’re fucked whether or not we have our own nukes. Arms spending would be much better directed at replacing the ammunition, air defence, drones and military transport vehicles the UK has (rightly) supplied to Ukraine.

    As for the possibility raised in the article of nuclear cooperation with France, it’s in my view a non-starter as (a) all our nuclear-related systems are predicated on relaiance on the USA*; (b) France is most unlikely to give the UK its nuclear secrets; and (c) in 2027 we could well be facing a fascist France.

    *The same is of course true of other military systems, but probably to a lesser degree.

  423. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #419…
    The issue with Vitamin A toxicity… There are two broad classes of vitamins. Some are water-soluble and some are oil-soluble. Your body body can easily get rid of excess water-soluble vitamins. They just get excreted with urine. The same is not true of oil-soluble vitamins. Those build up and your body can’t get rid of the excess. So…you have to watch out for overdoses of oil-soluble vitamins, like A and D. You don’t really need to worry about overdoes of water-soluble vitamins like C, because your body will just dump the excess.

  424. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    The Guardian – USAid employees told to destroy classified documents

    The email, sent by the acting USAid secretary, Erica Y Carr, instructs staff on procedures for clearing “classified safes and personnel documents” through shredding and the use of “burn bags” marked “SECRET” throughout the day on Tuesday.

    ““Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,”
    […]
    When federal agencies are dissolved or restructured, their records are typically transferred to successor agencies or the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) in accordance with the Federal Records Act (FRA). During the US’s hasty exit out of Afghanistan in 2021, Nara sent a reminder to safely and lawfully discard sensitive documents.

    But compliance with the FRA in this situation is deeply in question, since the law explicitly prohibits the destruction of government records before their designated retention period—typically a minimum of three years. There’s also lingering concern that it risks permanently eliminating evidence needed for ongoing Freedom of Information Act (Foia) requests and future oversight investigations.

    * This is occurring at the Ronald Reagan Building in DC, not overseas.

    Jesse Eisinger (ProPublica):

    [My reporter Brett Murphy] asked Kel McClanahan, a national security attorney, if this was legal. “No it is not,” he said. It breaks the Federal Records Act. “Classified records are still federal records.”

     
    Kel McClanahan (National Security Counselors):

    This is insanity. Sent this off immediately.

    [To unauthorizeddisposition{at}nara.gov]: Please take immediate measures to stop this destruction of vast quantities of federal records in violation of a large number of applicable records schedules.

    Adam Klasfeld (MSNBC):

    Labor groups suing the Trump admin file an emergency motion for a TRO blocking the “imminent and ongoing destruction of evidence.” [Docket]

    Defendants are, as this motion is being filed, destroying documents with potential pertinence to this litigation.

     
    Rando: “My ‘Not involved in destroying secret documents’ burn bag has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my burn bag.”

  425. Reginald Selkirk says

    @measles update

    Texas measles outbreak spills into third state as cases reach 258

    Two people in Oklahoma have likely contracted measles infections linked to a mushrooming outbreak that began in West Texas, which has now risen to at least 258 cases since late January.

    On Tuesday, Oklahoma’s health department reported that two people had “exposure associated with the Texas and New Mexico outbreak” and then reported symptoms consistent with measles. They’re currently being reported as probable cases because testing hasn’t confirmed the infections.

    There was no information about the ages, vaccination status, or location of the two cases…

  426. says

    Sky Captain @420, thanks for that additional information. It looks like Elon Musk is lying about the origin(s) of the DDoS attack against X. (Musk lied about the attack coming from Ukraine … and he did that on Fox News!) Furthermore, Musk did not have standard protections installed.

    Repeating text quoted by Sky Captain:

    […] Botnets are typically dispersed around the world […] and they can include mechanisms that make it harder to determine where they are controlled from. […] DDoS attacks are common, and virtually all modern internet services experience them regularly and must proactively defend themselves.

    […] some X origin servers, which respond to web requests, weren’t properly secured behind the company’s Cloudflare DDoS protection and were publicly visible. As a result, attackers could target them directly. X has since secured the servers. “The botnet was directly attacking the IP and a bunch more on that X subnet yesterday. It’s a botnet of cameras and DVRs,” Beaumont says.
    […]
    one researcher from a prominent firm […] noted that they did not even see Ukraine in the breakdown of the top 20 IP address origins involved in the X attacks. If Ukrainian IP addresses did contribute to the attacks, though, numerous researchers say that the fact alone is not noteworthy.

    Musk is looking more and more like a single-minded doofus who is also ignorant … and he is not competent when it comes to managing any large organization.

  428. says

    KG @421: “Arms spending would be much better directed at replacing the ammunition, air defence, drones and military transport vehicles the UK has (rightly) supplied to Ukraine.”

    I agree.

  429. says

    Under Trump, the Supreme Court’s protection of free speech is at risk”

    The once-fringe idea that the Sullivan precedent could be overturned has now gone mainstream.” By Rachel Maddow

    It started with an advertisement in The New York Times. On March 29, 1960, the paper ran a full-page ad soliciting donations for Martin Luther King Jr. and for the college students in the South who were fighting segregation.

    The fundraising appeal, entitled “Heed Their Rising Voice,” listed numerous ways in which the students were allegedly being harassed and terrorized. It also accused Southern officials of committing acts of violence and intimidation and violating the U.S. Constitution.

    Soon, L.B. Sullivan, a city commissioner in Montgomery, Alabama, one of the cities mentioned in the ad, filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, accusing the paper of libel. Although he was not named in the ad, Sullivan claimed the Times had defamed him — a Southern official — because, he said, some details in the ad were exaggerated or incorrect. At the time, a headline in the local Montgomery paper summed it up this way: “State Finds Formidable Legal Club To Swing at Out-of-State Press.”

    In his new book, “Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful,” New York Times reporter David Enrich describes what happened next:

    Sullivan’s lawsuit went to trial in the Montgomery courtroom of Judge Walter Jones, who maintained segregated seating, was a devout promoter of all things Confederacy, and believed in what he called “white man’s justice.” … As the Sullivan trial was about to get underway, some prospective jurors showed up to court in Confederate costumes, toting pistols … It took the jurors barely two hours to return a verdict against the Times. The newspaper was ordered to pay Sullivan $500,000. It was the largest libel judgment in the state’s history.

    [JFC]

    ​“For racist Southerners, this was the equivalent of a green light,” Enrich writes. “The courts could be used to scare the press into silent submission … The Times, fearing a tidal wave of litigation, barred its reporters from setting foot in Alabama, and its lawyers urged staff members not to write articles about the state’s racism.”

    But that was not the end. The Times eventually got its case with Sullivan before the United States Supreme Court. And in 1964, the Supreme Court surprised everybody with a landmark, unanimous decision that would change journalism in this country forever.

    In the simplest terms, the court ruled that there cannot be free speech and a free press if news outlets can be sued into oblivion over mistakes or good-faith errors. The court established a new standard: A public figure suing a media outlet for libel would have to prove that the outlet knowingly lied, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

    As Enrich describes, the Sullivan decision “helped usher in a new age of American journalism devoted to exposing malfeasance, questioning authority and promoting the public interest.” He writes that shortly after the court’s ruling:

    Reporters uncovered wrongdoing in Vietnam, the White House, and the Pentagon. It was not a coincidence that the Washington Post cracked open Watergate in the years after Sullivan; if the burden of proof in a defamation case had still rested with the defendant, and if even honest mistakes had remained punishable under the law, the costs of publishing such a series of investigations might have been prohibitive. (As his presidency circled the drain, Richard Nixon blamed Sullivan and had his administration craft legislation that he hoped would supersede the precedent and put the media back in a pen.)

    ​Nixon did not succeed at putting the media back in a pen. But he would not be the last to try.

    More than six decades after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, Enrich makes a compelling and alarming case that the legal protections that undergird the free press in this country are on much shakier ground than we may realize.

    Trump and his allies make no secret of their desire to criminalize the media, with constant attacks on the press as the enemy and an explicit campaign promise from Trump that he would somehow “open up” the nation’s libel laws. Trump has already sued several media outlets and his billionaire supporters have also threatened to launch aggressive legal attacks of their own. These lawsuits risk bankrupting those outlets and shutting them down, something Trump’s allies have had some success with in the past. And a once-fringe right-wing idea, that the whole Sullivan precedent could be overturned, is now publicly supported by two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

    [Emphasis added. Note that embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.]

    The attack on this foundational protection for the free press in this country has been a long time coming. But it looks like it may have finally arrived.

  431. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #426…
    Depends on what–and how much–is in them. A real case of “Read the label.” Applies to adult vitamins, too, some of which are gummy chewables.

  433. whheydt says

    Minor note for anyone interested… Kileaua is actively erupting as I write this. Early this morning, USGS report lava fountains to 500 feet. (The record for lava fountains is M.t Etna which, during one eruption, had fountains running 1500 to 2000 meters. Yikes!)

    In other volcanic news (see Iceland Monitor, mbl.is) one Icelandic volcanologist thinks their next eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula will start on or about 20 March.

  436. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dalai Lama says his successor to be born outside China

    The Dalai Lama’s successor will be born outside China, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says in a new book, raising the stakes in a dispute with Beijing over control of the Himalayan region he fled more than six decades ago.

    Tibetans worldwide want the institution of the Dalai Lama to continue after the 89-year-old’s death, he writes in “Voice for the Voiceless”, which was reviewed by Reuters and is being released on Tuesday.

    He had previously said the line of spiritual leaders might end with him.

    His book marks the first time the Dalai Lama has specified that his successor would be born in the “free world”, which he describes as outside China. He has previously said only that he could reincarnate outside Tibet, possibly in India where he lives in exile…

  438. birgerjohansson says

    Podcast; “Refreshingly Swedish”

    -An American settling down in Scandinavia talks about her experiences. She had to undergo some surgery recently, and this is the story.

    “Hospital Release & Bill Reveal!”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=WNrw5z84hks

    (After reaching a cost of 1450 Skr/ 145 $ the rest of the health care will be free for the next six-month period)

  439. birgerjohansson says

    Me @ 437
    The part about the billing for the hospital stay & surgery begins at 10.30, if you want to skip the medical details.
    BTW other Scandinavian countries have compareable systems.

  440. birgerjohansson says

    “CANADA Blocking US Free Access to ALASKA and Cutting Off ELECTRICITY?”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=6r9kZYR1Y48
    .
    Tr*mp seems to have started the trade war because he thinks the trade deficit somehow is the same as paying Canada cash for nothing. But when two nations do trade with each other, the flow of goods and services are never exactly the same in both directions. And he has now this fix idea of making Canada a part of USA.

    The most unnecessary trade war ever.

  441. birgerjohansson says

    Meidas Touch
    “Scared White House Holds CATASTROPHIC Press Briefing”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=yUSei4gjvJg

    They still claim the foreign countries will pay the US tariffs for goods entering USA. There may still be some rural groups in isolated villages who believe that, but this scam is clearly failing as far as the majority is concerned.
    We are ‘living in interesting times’.

  442. JM says

    @439 birgerjohansson: Somebody probably explained the reason for trade tensions with China to Trump during his first term and he has confused that with for the situation with Canada/Mexico. These countries trade situations are fundamentally different. China’s government subsidizes exports while limiting imports across the board. That is unfair trade and is taking some money from the US by limiting our economy. One result of this is the large trade deficit with China but that isn’t the actual reason there are trade issues, it’s just a visible symptom. Trump latched on to this one obvious thing and thinks the same thing is happening with Canada and Mexico. It isn’t, with Canada and Mexico the trade is fairly free. We import more then we export just because we have a much bigger GDP and have more money to buy stuff.

  443. Reginald Selkirk says

    @440 birgerjohansson

    They still claim the foreign countries will pay the US tariffs for goods entering USA…

    The USA imposed a 25% import tariff on Canadian aluminum and steel, which raises prices on good for USA customers.
    Canada responded by putting an export tariff on electricity they supply to the USA, which raises prices for customers in the USA.
    Trump’s response was to raise the import tariff on aluminum and steel to 50%, which raises prices for customers in the USA.

    It’s like doesn’t even realize he is punching himself in the face.

  444. says

    New York Times:

    A federal judge found on Monday that Elon Musk’s government-cutting unit is likely subject to public disclosure laws and must promptly turn over documents to a group that had sued for access to its internal emails.

  445. says

    Trump hosts awkward infomercial to hawk Teslas from White House driveway

    Photos, social media posts and video at the link.

    Donald Trump tried to help […] Elon Musk stem the bleeding at his flailing car company on Tuesday by holding an infomercial in front of the White House and claiming he was buying one of Musk’s overpriced, unsafe, and increasingly unpopular electric cars.

    “It’s a great product, as good as it gets,” Trump said, holding a literal list of talking points about the cars as Musk and one of Musk’s many children stood alongside him. “This man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he’s been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people.” [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with photo: “holy shit — Trump was reading from a literal Tesla sales pitch, complete with pricing, during his White House event with Elon Musk. (Andrew Harnik/Getty)”]

    Trump, who said he’s not going to use the car he buys because he hasn’t “driven a car in a long time,” got into the vehicles and proved that he’s an out-of-touch 78-year-old geezer when he declared, “Everything’s computer!”

    Trump also threatened anyone who protests at Tesla dealerships, which is an increasingly popular pastime, saying he will label them domestic terrorists.

    “Law enforcement is out there watching everybody. We don’t want this to happen,” Trump said. [More video]

    Trump’s boosting of his buddy’s struggling car company started in the early hours of Tuesday with another infomercial on his Truth Social platform in which he encouraged Republicans to buy Teslas to help Musk out.

    “To Republicans, Conservatives, and all great Americans, Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for,” Trump wrote at 12:14 AM ET. “They tried to do it to me at the 2024 Presidential Ballot Box, but how did that work out? In any event, I’m going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American. Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???”

    Tesla’s stock price has fallen nearly 30% over the past month, as Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have been the public face of the Trump administration’s chaotic, destructive, and dangerous cuts to the federal government and federal workforce.

    […] During a Monday night interview on Fox news, the multibillionaire said that he is coming for Social Security and Medicare—two of the most popular government programs that help older Americans afford health care and retirement.

    In that same interview, Musk complained about the difficulties his business empire is facing since he joined the Trump administration.

    […] In an effort to comfort his friend, Trump said he is writing an $80,000 check for a red Model S sedan, which he will leave at the White House for staff members to drive. And this isn’t the president’s first Tesla purchase.

    Trump said he also purchased a Tesla Cybertruck, which starts at $80,000 but can go much higher, for his granddaughter Kai about a year ago. According to a list of talking points Trump held about the cars on display, the Cybertruck displayed at the White House cost a whopping $114,000.

    Even Fox News reporters were aghast at Trump’s efforts to help Musk’s company, with trusty Trump sycophant Peter Doocy asking how Americans—who are watching their retirement portfolios crater as Trump policies help tank the stock market—will feel seeing Trump shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a new car that he won’t even drive. […] [more video]

    Ultimately, Trump’s car commercial at the White House is just the latest instance in which he’s defiling the office of the presidency, trying to help line the pockets of the richest man in the world, who also happens to be his largest political benefactor—all while on taxpayer-owned property.

    [I snipped details of Trump’s past goofy stunts at the White House.]

    […] Trump hawking the vehicles could ultimately do more harm than good for Musk and his company.

    But that’s beside the point.

    Trump used the White House to try to help his top crony benefit financially. That is a sick perversion of the presidency that should disturb people of all political stripes.

  446. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all
    Chris Hayes’s segments from today.

    Trump admin loses in court as judge blocks deportation of Mahmoud Khalil
    video is 8:19 minutes

    DOJ official fired over Mel Gibson gun rights request speaks out
    video is 7:55 minutes

    Trump turns White House into Tesla showroom as Musk gets ‘government bailout’
    video is 4:18 minutes

  447. Bekenstein Bound says

    Moreover, a lot of NASA’s key science centers are located in Democratic-leaning states such as California, Maryland, and New York, which do not have a lot of power in the current Congress.

    Guess where else a lot of NASA stuff can be found? Texas and Florida, the two states most thoroughly entwined with MAGA, both with Trump mini-mes as governors.

    In any event, given there might be drastic and irreversible consequences to a NASA funding shutoff, they’d be able to make a very strong case for an emergency injunction in court.

    [RFK Jr.] cheered on questionable treatments like cod liver oil, and said that local doctors had achieved ‘almost miraculous and instantaneous’ recoveries with steroids or antibiotics.

    Where did he get his MD again? Kinko’s?

    Kennedy wrote just four years ago that he believed measles outbreaks “have been fabricated to create fear.”

    Let me guess: the people, mostly children, presently suffering and dying in Texas are crisis actors?

    Haven’t we already been through all this, clear through to a jury verdict that soaked Alex Jones for billions? I would have thought RFK Jr. would have noticed these events and decided he preferred to keep his money, but evidently not.

    Dog interacts with Trump

    Please, please let him follow RFK Jr’s advice on how best to disinfect the bites.

    Kevin Beaumont and other analysts see evidence that some X origin servers, which respond to web requests, weren’t properly secured behind the company’s Cloudflare DDoS protection and were publicly visible. As a result, attackers could target them directly.

    I wonder how much of this incompetence was the result of Musk’s firing most of Twitter’s engineering team? (Schadenfreude!)

    Musk lied about the attack coming from Ukraine … and he did that on Fox News!

    Wait, what? A lie? On Fox News?! Perish the thought!

    And a once-fringe right-wing idea, that the whole Sullivan precedent could be overturned, is now publicly supported by two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

    Aka “Harlan Crow’s left hand in a sock” and “Harlan Crow’s right hand in a sock”.

    I can certainly understand why that old buzzard would wish to be able to silence unfavorable press stories about him, after everything he’s been through in the past few years. Can’t a guy pop out to the store to purchase a few Supreme Court justices in peace, without all those reporters with their cameras shouting questions, shoving microphones in his face, and turning the whole thing into a three-ring circus? So annoying.

    White House rolls back 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium to 25%

    Follow the bouncing ball … just don’t pay any attention to what Trump is doing with his other hand while he distracts and dazzles with his magic appearing disappearing tariffs. He’s probably groping either himself, some nonconsenting blonde from the White House press pool or Fox News (if those are even still distinct), or your pocketbook. For his next trick, watch him make your 401(k) disappear! Or maybe your virginity.

    US intel shows Russia and China are attempting to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say

    This foreign intelligence coup brought to you by the coupmeister himself, Mr. ELON MUSK!!1!

    Can we just fast-forward over the next few years to the juicy bit, the verdict in his treason trial? (Oh, I know what the outcome will be, I just want to see if the courtroom is in the midst of some post-apocalyptic ruins and what color and shape of radiation suits will be in fashion.)

    The USA imposed a 25% import tariff on Canadian aluminum and steel, which raises prices on good for USA customers.
    Canada responded by putting an export tariff on electricity they supply to the USA, which raises prices for customers in the USA.
    Trump’s response was to raise the import tariff on aluminum and steel to 50%, which raises prices for customers in the USA.

    It’s like doesn’t even realize he is punching himself in the face.

    And we’re the ones who made him do that.

    I wonder what we’ll do if he tries to make us the 51st state? Make him nuke himself in the face?

    Probably not that difficult. Just tell him that CSIS has evidence of a jihadist terror cell at a place called “Mar al-Ago” and give him a set of missile coordinates, and suggest for his own safety that he keep away from DC until a while after the bombs have dropped, just in case they have already set some plot in motion there …

    I think it would be very inadvisable for Trump to continue messing with Canada, given his track record thus far.

  448. KG says

    An amusing occurrence among the far right in the UK. Nigel Farage has fallen out badly with one of the other 4 Reform UK Party Ltd. MPs, Rupert Lowe (“Lowe by name, low by nature”). Lowe criticised Reform and Farage, accidentally telling the truth for once, as “A protest party lead by the Messiah”, and expressed scepticism as to whether Farage would ever become PM. Farage suspended the whip from Lowe, and the “party” announced an investigation into accusations of bullying and harassment against him, and a referral to the police over a claim he assaulted the party chairman [sic] Zia Yusuf (Reform likes to have a few ethnic minority individuals in prominent positions to combat accusations of racism). Lowe claims the investigation and referral were retaliation for criticising Farage, Reform claims they were already in the works and it’s pure coincidence they came out just after that criticism. In policy terms, Farage is in the unlikely position of appearing as the “moderate” in this stooshie – Lowe is explicit about wanting mass deportations, and speaks respectfully of “Tommy Robinson” (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), the well-known racist criminal, currently in jail for contempt of court (repeating libels against a teenage boy of Syrian origin). Elon Musk recently dissed Farage as “not having what it takes” to lead Reform, and suggested Lowe as his replacement, Farage’s dislike of “Robinson” being one of the points at issue. Lowe has suggested a meeting with Farage to resolve the issue, but may end up leaving Reform altogether and either joining the rump of Ukip (which has moved so far right its leader’s right arm has to be strapped to his side), or founding his own party.

    This is a kerfuffle in which it’s realistic to hope that both sides will lose! The only possible downside is that if Reform disintegrates completely it could benefit the Tories, but Kemi Badenoch is sufficiently incompetent that she’s unlikely to be able to take full advantage of such an event.

  449. Reginald Selkirk says

    @446 Bekenstein Bound

    Guess where else a lot of NASA stuff can be found? Texas and Florida, the two states most thoroughly entwined with MAGA, both with Trump mini-mes as governors.

    Don’t forget Alabama. Imagine having Katie Britt as your second stupidest Republican senator.

    Marshall Space Flight Center

  450. says

    Here’s a Bluesky Posting showing how to handle sexual harassment of a colleague (and how not to respond to being called out for sexual harassment).

    Special mentions to Congressman Bill Keating of Massachusetts, for standing up to the misogynistic, transphobic bully Keith Self. And all the love to Sarah McBride.

  451. Reginald Selkirk says

    CISA worker says 100-strong red team fired after DOGE cancelled contract

    A penetration tester who worked at the US govt’s CISA claims his 100-strong team was dismissed after Elon Musk’s Trump-blessed DOGE unit cancelled a contract – and that more staff at the cybersecurity agency have also been let go.

    “On Friday, February 28, 2025, at 1600 hours, the government contract I supported with CISA (Dept of Homeland Security) was terminated due to DOGE,” senior penetration tester Christopher Chenoweth wrote on LinkedIn.

    “DOGE cut our entire red team and all support roles — over 100 people impacted. The following Wednesday, DOGE cut a second CISA red team also doing mission-critical work. As a result, I and many other experienced red team operators are now seeking new opportunities.” …

  452. Reginald Selkirk says

    Despite everything, US EV sales are up 28% this year

    With all the announcements from automakers planning for more gasoline and hybrid cars in their future lineups, you’d think that electric vehicles had stopped selling. While that might be increasingly true for Tesla, everyone else is more than picking up the slack. According to analysts at Rho Motion, global EV sales are up 30 percent this year already. Even here in the US, EV sales were still up 28 percent compared to 2024, despite particularly EV-unfriendly headwinds…

  454. Reginald Selkirk says

    Nokia Put a 4G Cellular Network on the Moon but Couldn’t Make a Phone Call

    If everything went to plan on March 6, there’d be a small 4G LTE network on a tiny area of the moon right now. The first lunar 4G network—from Nokia—would have provided connectivity for several rovers as a part of the IM-2 mission. The work was supposed to pave the way for NASA’s Artemis III in 2027, the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972, where Nokia and Axiom Space will integrate 4G LTE communications capabilities into astronaut spacesuits.

    Unfortunately, Intuitive Machine’s lander, Athena, landed on her side—a fate that befell the original IM-1—not to mention 250 meters from its intended landing site at the lunar south pole. The orientation of the solar panels, direction of the sun, and cold temperatures in the crater it landed in all contributed to the fact that Athena couldn’t recharge. The company announced on March 7 that the mission quickly concluded. (IM-2 wasn’t the only craft to recently land on the moon—earlier this week, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully touched down.)

    While Nokia’s 4G network couldn’t be deployed as planned, the company is still claiming it “delivered the first cellular network to the moon” since it “validated key aspects of the network’s operation.” Inside Athena were several instruments and rovers along with Nokia’s Network in a Box (NIB). In an interview at Mobile World Congress 2025, John Dow told WIRED this box is comprised of the radio, base station, routing, and core, all integrated into a compact system. He’s the general manager of Nokia Bell Labs’ Space Communications Systems…

  455. StevoR says

    A boulder displayed in a rural Queensland school foyer for more than a decade has been revealed to have one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints recorded in Australia. University of Queensland palaeontologist Anthony Romilio said the fossil offered an unprecedented glimpse into early Jurassic period dinosaurs — a time from which no dinosaur bones had been found in the country. The fossil has 66 dinosaur footprints, covering almost one square metre, from the Anomoepus scambus dinosaur.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-12/biloela-high-school-boulder-contains-jurassic-era-footprints/105040610

  458. says

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

    Where Republicans are avoiding constituent town halls, Democrats are happy to step in
    video is 4:12 minutes

    House Republicans literally alter time to avoid responsibility for Trump wrecking the economy
    video is 7:16 minutes

    Trump fires 1,300 at Department of Education; programs expected to suffer with staff gutted
    video is 7:56 minutes

  459. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Offering a new must-have collectible for the MAGA faithful, on Wednesday Donald J. Trump began selling Trump Eggs (TM) at a price of $60 an egg.

    Trump called his offer a “rare chance to own eggs that were inspected by the USDA before RFK Jr. fired all the egg inspectors.”

    The eggs, which are being sold for $720 a dozen, come packaged in a carton inscribed with the lyrics of “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood.

    “Seven hundred twenty dollars may seem like a lot for a dozen eggs,” Trump said. “But they’re a much better investment than the stock market.”

    Link

  460. says

    Trump-appointed prosecutor pursues one of the president’s longtime targets

    “Interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin’s interest in Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman is tough to defend. The larger context makes it even worse.”

    Related video at the link: Velshi interviews Vindman.

    Last summer, during a campaign event in Virginia, Donald Trump singled out “the Vindman twins” as “the worst people.” Pointing to Republican congressional candidate Derrick Anderson, Trump added, “We got to win that race. You got to teach the Vindmans. We got to get them out.”

    He was referring, of course, to Eugene and Alexander Vindman, who played critical roles in the 2019 Ukraine scandal that led to the president’s first impeachment. Trump invested considerable energy into trying to smear and discredit the decorated military veterans, but those efforts ultimately fell short: Eugene Vindman narrowly won a congressional race last fall, and the Virginia Democrat is now a couple of months into his first term on Capitol Hill.

    Now the new congressman has apparently captured the attention of interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin. The Washington Post reported:

    Interim D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin has sent another letter to a Democratic congressman and critic of President Donald Trump, demanding information in what Democratic lawmakers say is a potential abuse of his prosecutorial power.</blockquote.
    In a written statement provided to The Rachel Maddow Show, Vindman said, “Since he’s become President, Trump’s been focused on weaponizing government and lying to intimidate and silence public servants like me, and it’s not going to work.”

    The targets of Trump’s “dangerous and deeply disturbing” effort, Vindman added, are “people who believe in democracy like my constituents — FBI agents, prosecutors, military officials, federal workers, and intelligence agency leaders who disagree with him.” The Democratic lawmaker added, “Those who wrote and encouraged this weird attempt at intimidation are lying.”

    As best as I can tell, Vindman has not been credibly accused of wrongdoing, but Martin — who sent a letter on Feb. 4 that began, “Dear Eugene” — said he’s “received requests” for “clarification” about the Virginian’s financial disclosures. The interim U.S. attorney did not elaborate as to who, exactly, had made those “requests.”

    It might be easier to give Martin the benefit of doubt were it not for everything we’ve learned about the hyper-partisan prosecutor and former “Stop the Steal” organizer. Indeed, his interest in Vindman dovetails with a lengthy series of similar efforts launched by the Republican lawyer, who has no prosecutorial experience.

    Martin’s greatest-hits package features misguided fights with the dean of Georgetown University’s law school, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California. During his brief tenure, Martin has also:
    – demoted multiple senior officials involved in Jan. 6 insurrection cases;
    – falsely described himself as one of the president’s lawyers;
    – weighed in on a civil case involving the White House, which had literally nothing to do with his office;
    – intervened in a dubious Environmental Protection Agency investigation;
    – made a dubious decision in the case involving Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida;
    – launched the wildly unnecessary “Operation Whirlwind”;
    – also launched the wildly unnecessary “Project 1512” initiative;
    – made a creepy public vow to wield his prosecutorial powers against those who get in Elon Musk’s way;
    – engaged in brazen conflict of interest in a Jan. 6 case, in which he effectively took both sides of a criminal case;
    – and kicked off a radically unnecessary investigation into Jack Smith and a law firm that gave the former special counsel pro bono legal services.
    [Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.]

    In a piece for New York magazine, Elie Honig recently described the lawyer as Trump’s “dangerous and ridiculous pet prosecutor.” Martin seems to be going out of his way to prove his many critics right.

    What’s more, The New York Times reported that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary counsel to investigate Martin, arguing that the Trump-appointed Republican has “abused” his prosecutorial powers.

    Trump has nevertheless nominated Martin to be the permanent U.S. attorney in the nation’s capital — one of the nation’s largest prosecutorial offices — and his Senate confirmation hearing is bound to be interesting. Watch this space.

  461. says

    The Destruction

    “The whole system of finding, diagnosing and treating tuberculosis — which kills more people worldwide than any other infectious disease — has collapsed in dozens of countries across Africa and Asia” since President Trump froze foreign aid, the NYT reports.

    Johns Hopkins University is planning layoffs after the Trump administration cancelled $800 million in grants to the school, mostly through USAID, the WSJ reports.

    The Trump administration is considering cancelling the government’s lease of the main support office for the Mauna Loa Observatory, which maintains the longest continuous record of measurements of atmospheric CO2 and contributed the data for the Keeling Curve, Reuters reports.

    The Trump administration has slashed the GSA division in charge of preserving and maintaining some 26,000 pieces of public art, the WaPo reports.

    Link

    Text quoted above is one of many news reports included in TPM’s Morning Memo.
    Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.

  462. says

    Followup to comment 460.

    “Johns Hopkins has bet very heavily on a century and a quarter of partnership with the federal government. If the federal government decides it doesn’t want to know things anymore, that would be bad for Johns Hopkins and devastating for Maryland.”–Dr. Theodore Iwashyna, a critical-care physician at Johns Hopkins University

  464. JM says

    Reuters: UK ship crash captain is Russian national, owner says

    The captain of a ship that hit a U.S. tanker off northeast England is a Russian national, the company which owns the vessel said, as police continued their inquiries into the accident and fears over the environmental impact of the crash eased.
    The Solong container ship crashed into the Stena Immaculate, a tanker carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military, on Monday. A day later, British police arrested Solong’s captain on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.

    To early to make any accusations but seems an odd coincidence.

  465. says

    Canada hits U.S. with $21B of retaliatory tariffs as global trade war heats up

    Canada’s announcement comes despite a détente having been reached Tuesday over the threat of a 25% surcharge on U.S. electricity consumers.

    Related video at the link.

    The first shots of […] Trump’s global trade war have been fired.

    Canada on Wednesday announced new retaliatory trade duties on some $21 billion worth of U.S. goods, a response to Trump implementing universal steel and aluminum tariffs.

    Canada’s retaliatory measures follow ones announced Wednesday by the European Union targeting a range of U.S. goods worth $28 billion, including beef, motorcycles and whiskey alongside American-made steel and aluminum. China, too, signaled it was readying a response.

    After weeks of threats and negotiations, the tariffs are among the first new, large-scale duties to actually be imposed by the countries, even as Trump has threatened many more. Besides supplemental duties totaling 20% on Chinese goods, Trump has suspended other menaced tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

    he back-and-forth threatens to ignite a global trade war that could throttle economic growth prospects worldwide. The Trump administration has sought to downplay the immediate fallout from the trade volleys while also acknowledging there would be an economic “transition” or “detox” as the president implemented his policy goals.

    So far, the consequences have been significant, at least as measured by markets. Broad stock indexes have now erased their post-electoral gains as investors rebel against the prospect of higher costs.

    […] The tariff battle with Canada pits the U.S. against its biggest trading partner. America’s northern neighbor is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S., and experts have warned Trump’s duties would be passed on to consumers.

    In a news conference Wednesday announcing the retaliatory duties, a Canadian government spokesman called Trump’s tariffs “completely unjustified, unfair and unreasonable.”

    “The U.S. administration is once again inserting disruption and disorder into an incredibly successful trading partnership and raising the costs of everyday goods for Canadians and American households alike,” said François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and industry. […]

    America’s allies hit back as the Trump administration imposes 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports

    The Trump administration raised tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports to 25% Wednesday as […] Trump and his administration dig in on trade policies that have rocked financial markets.

    Allies of the U.S., such as the European Union, responded in kind with a hail of criticism and reciprocal tariffs. The EU announced retaliatory tariffs early Wednesday on $28 billion-worth of a wide range of U.S. goods imported to Europe such as boats, motorbikes and alcohol.

    […] Calling the new U.S. tariffs “unjustified,” the European Commission said that the levies would kick in on April 1, with additional countermeasures introduced in mid-April.

    […] The S&P 500 is down almost 9% from its February high, putting it in correction territory.

    While Trump has suggested he wants to negotiate a broader trade agreement with the U.K., Britain did not escape the taxes. U.K. business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds called the levies “disappointing,” but said his country was “focused on a pragmatic approach” and negotiating a broader deal.

    […] In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump called Canada a longtime “tariff abuser,” going beyond his metals threats to say that “The United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” and that “We don’t need your Cars, we don’t need your Lumber, we don’t your Energy, and very soon, you will find that out.”

    Australia, which had been hoping for the same exemption from steel and aluminum tariffs it received during the first Trump administration, said it would not retaliate. [video at the link]

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the tariff “entirely unjustified,” but added that imposing reciprocal tariffs “would only push up prices for Australian consumers,” and that Australia would impose no new tariffs on U.S. goods.

    Perhaps the sharpest response came from China, the world’s largest steel producer and second-largest economy, which had already been slapped with a 20% blanket tariff on Trump’s return to office, and announced new tariffs in return.

    Beijing’s foreign ministry accused the U.S. of violating World Trade Organization rules and said it would take “all necessary measures” to protect its rights and interests.

    “No one wins in a trade war or a tariff war, a view widely shared by the international community,” spokesperson Mao Ning said at a media briefing.

    America’s Asian allies in South Korea and Japan — both are major steel producers — were also hit. […]

    The auto tariffs, Trump warned, without citing evidence, “essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.” He also doubled down on some of his recent rhetoric about making Canada part of the United States.

    […] Newly appointed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney subsequently called Trump’s threats “an attack on Canadian workers, families and businesses.”

    He said Canadian tariffs on U.S. goods would remain “until the Americans show us respect and make credible, reliable commitments to free and fair trade.”

    Morgan Stanley analysts warned that because the United States is a net importer of steel and aluminum from Canada, the tariffs would lead to higher domestic prices.

  466. JM says

    CNN: Trump imposes sweeping 25% steel and aluminum tariffs. Canada and Europe swiftly retaliate

    President Donald Trump imposed sweeping 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imported into the United States Wednesday, a policy aimed at leveling the playing field for US manufacturing but a move that threatens to drive up prices on a broad range of consumer and industrial goods for Americans.

    It’s a day with the letter ‘a’ in it so another change in the Trump administration tariff policy. I have lost track but this is something like 7 major changes in trade policy with Canada in a month. With Trump imposing tariffs, delaying or reversing tariffs and then imposing more tariffs.
    This is all imports of steel and aluminum so lots of targets, not just Canada/Mexico/China. However it will mostly effect Canada, which is the US’s biggest source of imports for both steel and aluminum.

  467. Reginald Selkirk says

    Chinese university designed ‘world’s first silicon-free 2D GAAFET transistor,’ claims new bismuth-based tech is both the fastest and lowest-power transistor yet

    A research team from Peking University has published its findings on a two-dimensional, low-power GAAFET transistor, the first of its kind in the world. Led by Professor Peng Hailin and Qiu Chenguang, the multi-disciplinary team published in Nature, with some team members calling the discovery nothing short of a monumental breakthrough.

    The Peking team has fabricated what the paper describes as a “wafer-scale multi-layer-stacked single-crystalline 2D GAA configuration.”

    “It is the fastest, most efficient transistor ever”, said Peng of his team’s new transistor. “If chip innovations based on existing materials are considered a ‘short cut, ’ then our development of 2D material-based transistors is akin to ‘changing lanes, ’” continues Peng in a statement for Peking University’s website (accessed via South China Morning Post)…

    GAAFET transistors are nothing new; the transistor technology is essential for fabricating microchips at 3nm and below. Peking’s major innovation comes from the two-dimensional nature of their transistors, facilitated by using an element other than silicon.

    Bi₂O₂Se, or bismuth oxyselenide, is a semiconductor material studied for its use in sub-1nm process nodes for years, largely thanks to its ability to be a 2D semiconductor. Two-dimensional semiconductors, like 2D Bi₂O₂Se, are more flexible and sturdy at a small scale than silicon, which runs into reduced carrier mobility at even the 10nm node…

  468. says

    Judge appears likely to grant request to reinstate thousands of fired probationary workers

    A federal judge in Maryland suggested Wednesday that he might direct that thousands of fired federal workers get their jobs back, at least temporarily, after hearing arguments that their layoffs were unlawful.

    “This case isn’t about whether or not the government can terminate people. It’s about if they decide to terminate people, how they must do it,” U.S. District Judge James Bredar said at the hearing on the abrupt firings of thousands of probationary employees. The government has let go roughly 200,000 probationary employees — workers who are either recent hires or had taken new positions.

    […] A coalition of states with Democratic attorneys general urged Bredar to sign a temporary restraining order that would restore the status quo from before the firings, which they maintain were illegal — meaning the fired workers would get their jobs back. The states argue the move is necessary because the government ignored proper procedure for the mass termination of federal employees, known as a “reduction in force.”

    Under a RIF, “agencies are required to provide advance notice to affected employees and, in circumstances relevant here, to states and local governments. An employee ‘may not be released’ as part of a RIF ‘unless’ they receive 60 days’ ‘written notice’ that provides information on reemployment and career transition assistance,” among other requirements, the states contended in a court filing.

    […] The government’s lawyer, Eric Hamilton, denied the firings were a RIF.

    “It was a termination of probationary employees,” Hamilton said.

    The judge asked him how many had been fired, and Hamilton said he could not give him a number. Asked if it was more than 100, Hamilton said, “I would imagine so.” Asked if it was over 1,000, he said he didn’t know.

    “Does anyone in the government know?” the judge pressed.

    “I don’t know,” Hamilton replied.

    In a court filing last week, the plaintiffs estimated that at least 24,000 probationary employees had already been fired “and that more terminations are expected any day.”

    Hamilton urged the judge to reject the states’ request for a temporary restraining order, arguing they didn’t have legal standing to bring a claim. “This is not the sort of dispute designed for federal courts,” Hamilton said, noting that courts refused to take action in two similar cases brought by the workers’ unions.

    The judge repeatedly expressed skepticism that the firings were not a RIF, and said he would issue a written ruling “promptly.” […]

  469. says

    ‘The President Wanted It And I Did It’: Recording Reveals Head Of Social Security’s Thoughts On DOGE And Trump

    This story first appeared at ProPublica.

    Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica. He also said that it “would be catastrophic for the people in our country” if DOGE were to make changes at his agency that were as sweeping as those at USAID, the Treasury Department and elsewhere.

    Dudek’s comments, delivered to a group of senior staff and Social Security advocates attending both in person and virtually, offer an extraordinary window into the thinking of a top agency official in the volatile early days of the second Trump administration. The Washington Post first reported Dudek’s acknowledgement that DOGE is calling the shots at Social Security and quoted several of his statements. But the full recording reveals that he went much further, citing not only the actions being taken at the agency by the people he repeatedly called “the DOGE kids,” but also extensive input he has received from the White House itself. When a participant in the meeting asked him why he wouldn’t more forcefully call out […] Trump’s continued false claims about widespread Social Security fraud as “BS,” Dudek answered, “So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?” [!]

    Throughout the meeting, Dudek made alarming statements about the perils facing the Social Security system, but he did so in an oddly informal, discursive manner. It left several participants baffled as to the ultimate fate of the nation’s largest and most popular social program, one that serves 73 million Americans. “Are we going to break something?” Dudek asked at one point, referring to what DOGE has been doing with Social Security data. “I don’t know.” [!]

    But then he said, in a more reassuring tone: “They’re learning. Let people learn. They’re going to make mistakes.” [WTF? Don’t have people learning on the Social Security system!]

    Dudek embodies the dramatic whipsawing of life as a public servant under DOGE. For 25 years, he was the ultimate faceless bureaucrat: a midlevel analyst who had bounced between federal agencies, ultimately landing at the Social Security Administration and focusing on information technology, cybersecurity and fraud prevention. He was largely unknown even within the agency. But in February, he suddenly vaulted into the public eye when he was put on leave for surreptitiously sharing information with DOGE. It appeared that he might lose his job, but then he was unexpectedly promoted by the Trump administration to the position of acting commissioner. At the time, he seemed unreservedly committed to the DOGE agenda, writing — then deleting — a bellicose LinkedIn post in which <b he expressed pride in having “bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done.”

    Now, only weeks into his tenure, he was taking a far more ambivalent posture toward not just DOGE but Trump. On multiple occasions during last week’s meeting, according to the recording, Dudek framed the choices that he has been making in recent weeks as “the president’s” agenda. These choices have included [I snipped the list of changes.]

    “I work for the president. I need to do what the president tells me to do,” Dudek said, according to the recording. “I’ve had to make some tough choices, choices I didn’t agree with, but the president wanted it and I did it,” he added later. (He didn’t name specific actions that Trump did or did not direct.)

    [I snipped more comments from Dudes along the same lines.]

    Dudek also more than once dismissed Trump’s claims about Social Security fraud, which the president amplified just hours after Dudek’s meeting in a speech to Congress in which he implied that millions of probably-dead people over the age of 100 are receiving Social Security benefits. […]

    […] The other official said that DOGE’s narrative about dead people receiving benefits “got in front of us” but that “it’s a victory that you’re not seeing more [misinformation], because they are being educated.” [Bullshit. Trump is repeating the same lies.]

    […] Many said that because the recent cuts at the agency have been carried out in a piecemeal fashion, the public doesn’t seem to be grasping the totality of what is happening to the program, which is having its 90th anniversary this year.

    The layoffs — and the looming specter of potentially thousands more employees taking a buyout by a Friday deadline — have meant even less attention to the complicated casework of low-income elderly people and people with physical and intellectual disabilities, as ProPublica has reported.

    Meanwhile, DOGE, which Musk has portrayed as a squad of techno-efficiency geniuses, has actually undermined the efficiency of Social Security’s delivery of services in multiple ways, many employees said. Under DOGE, several Social Security IT contracts have been canceled or scaled back. Now, five employees told ProPublica, their tech systems seem to be crashing nearly every day, leading to more delays in serving beneficiaries. This was already a problem, they said, but it has gotten “much worse” and is “not the norm,” two employees said.

    And under a policy that DOGE has applied at many agencies, front-line Social Security staff have been restricted from using their government purchase cards for any sum above $1. This has become a significant problem at some field offices, especially when workers need to obtain or make copies of vital records or original documents — birth certificates and the like — that are needed to process some Social Security claims, one management-level employee said.

    […] Dudek, who had been scheduled to speak for only 15 minutes, according to a copy of the agenda, instead spoke for around an hour, talking about everything from his upbringing by a disabled mother who’d depended on Social Security, to a 1989 book titled “Bureaucracy” that mentions Trump. […]

    “I actually like having the DOGE kids around,” he said, adding that although they were unfamiliar with the “nuances” of Social Security, he was trying to get them to be more thoughtful. “They’re thinking about work differently.”

    He confirmed that the DOGE team members had broad access to Americans’ Social Security numbers and other personal data, but he claimed that if they were to do anything illegal with that information, he’d have them investigated and potentially prosecuted. He said he wanted to bulk up resources for field offices and customer service, even as front-line workers received buyout offers just like other staffers. [speaking with forked tongue]

    […] Dudek will eventually be replaced by Frank Bisignano, Trump’s long-term pick to run the Social Security Administration. At times, Dudek sounded fatalistic.

    “I’m the villain,” he said in the recording. “I’m not going to have a job after this. I get it.”

  470. says

    Elon Musk is not done buying Donald Trump

    […] Trump and […] Musk are not even trying to hide their blatant corruption anymore.

    The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Musk’s team recently told Trump’s advisers that he wants to inject $100 million into super PACs controlled by Trump’s political team. Such a large donation would give the president a massive amount of resources to play with in the 2026 midterm elections. [!]

    From The New York Times report:

    Associates of both Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have talked in recent days about Mr. Musk’s planned donation to a Trump-controlled entity. Mr. Musk has signaled he wants to make the donations not to his own super PAC, which is called America PAC and has spent heavily on Mr. Trump in the past, but to an outside entity affiliated with the president.

    The groups that are leading Mr. Trump’s outside activities include Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC, and Securing American Greatness, a political nonprofit. It is not clear if the money would go to those groups or to a new entity the Trump team could create.

    The Times’ report arrived on the same day as Trump held an infomercial for Musk’s flailing Tesla car company in the White House driveway, in which Trump used a sheet of talking points to praise its vehicles and say he would go after people who protest in front of Tesla dealerships by labeling them domestic terrorists.

    That event alone was corrupt enough.

    But the fact that while Trump was doing Musk a solid by hawking his cars, Musk was considering giving Trump a massive amount of money to engage in the midterm elections is a level of corruption that’s hard to fathom.

    “Outright corruption,” Democratic Rep. Nadia Velazquez of New York wrote about the news in a post on X.

    “Even though it’s out in the open, corruption is corruption,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said in a video post on X.

    But don’t expect the Department of Justice to investigate the donation if it hits the pockets of Trump’s operation.

    NBC News reported on Tuesday that the DOJ is “gutting the Justice Department’s unit that oversees prosecutions of public officials accused of corruption.”

    From NBC’s report:

    The unit, the Public Integrity Section, has overseen some of the country’s most high-profile and sensitive prosecutions. Now, though, only a small fraction of its employees will remain, and the unit will no longer directly handle investigations or prosecutions, two sources said.

    Prosecutors in the unit, which had housed dozens of employees, are being told to take details to other positions within the department. Its current cases will be reassigned to U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country.

    David Laufman, a former head of the DOJ’s counterintelligence, told NBC News that the move raises, “serious questions about whether future investigations and prosecutions will be motivated by improper partisan considerations.” [True]

    That turned out to be a prescient comment from Laufman since a Republican lawmaker on Tuesday used her power to demand the FBI and Department of Justice go after people who are protesting at Tesla dealerships.

    “Attacks on Tesla must be investigated as domestic terrorism!” Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote in a post on X. “Today, my @DOGECommittee colleagues and I sent a letter to @AGPamBondi and @FBIDirectorKash asking for an investigation into the wave of organized attacks targeting @elonmusk, @Tesla, and the @DOGE effort. Who is behind it? Who is funding it? Is there a link with Democrat-leaning NGOs? We look forward to exposing these terrorists and bringing them to justice!”

    To lay it all out: The richest man in the world, whose empire is built on billions of taxpayer subsidies, spent at least $260 million to get Trump elected, and is now using Trump to advertise his car company from the White House in exchange for potentially even more money to benefit Trump’s political ambitions. […]

  471. says

    Trump’s top trade adviser tries—and fails—to downplay his economic mess

    Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has a lot of damage control to do these days—and he seems to be fraying at the edges. His boss’s ill-advised and destructive trade war with our ally Canada and the general chaos surrounding the second Trump administration have brought enormous uncertainty into our economy.

    Navarro’s current job description seems to consist of stringing together a series of excuses for why tariffs, which hurt working families, are beneficial to Americans. […]

    On Tuesday, he had his work cut out for him after Trump went on a social media rant and threatened a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum from Canada, which sent the stock market into a nosedive.

    During a press briefing, Navarro had a tough time answering a Sky News reporter who asked him a series of simple questions about the contradictory messages coming out of the White House regarding its trade war with Canada.

    Navarro: So stop with the rhetoric. Okay? Just stop that crap.

    Reporter: But [Trump] does seem to be changing his mind all the time—

    Navarro: Stop that crap.

    [raised eyebrows]

    Navarro threatened to end the press conference and whined over reporters wanting clarity about WTF Trump is doing. [video at the link]

    He then appeared on CNBC to try and calm market watchers, again blaming Canada for its reaction to Trump’s continued attacks on its sovereignty. Navarro pointed the finger at Ontario Premier Doug Ford for responding to Trump’s initial 25% tariff with his own surcharge on electricity being exported from Ontario.

    “This guy’s firing these big cannons at us,” Navarro boasted after Ford temporarily suspended the planned 25% surcharge on electricity. “He got a bazooka back at him,” Navarro said. That “bazooka” was Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick capitulating and agreeing to renew trade talks.

    Navarro added that Ford and other Canadian officials need to “tamp down the rhetoric.” [more raised eyebrows]

    […] A frazzled Navarro ended the day by appearing on Fox News, where creepy sexist Jesse Watters asked the trade adviser to soothe his audience.

    “You get some panic there. The day traders make out, and then the media kind of amplifies it—run around with their hair on fire,” Navarro said. “We are in the most beautiful bullish time right now. We’re moving in a transition clearly from Bidenomics.” [video at the link]

    Is anyone feeling soothed yet?

  472. says

    The Department of Homeland Security says its immigrant detention centers are at capacity, housing about 47,600 individuals.

    Speaking to reporters Wednesday on background, DHS officials said they are working with the Marshals Service, Department of Defense and Federal Bureau of Prisons to increase bed space as they ask Congress for more funding.

    Arrested individuals are also being released from detention on a case-by-case basis using ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program based on medical or humanitarian concerns, they said.

    The senior DHS and ICE officials also provided new arrest data cataloging Trump’s first 50 days back in office. According to DHS data, from Jan. 20 to March 10, 2025 ICE has arrested 32,809 individuals.

    According to officials, of those, 14,111 were convicted criminals, 9,980 have pending criminal charges and 8,718 have only immigration-related violations.

    “We expect these ICE arrests and removal numbers will only go up as we unleash an agency that has had its hands tied behind its back for the past four years,” said acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. […]

    Since being appointed as White House border czar, Tom Homan has sought cooperation from local and state governments to assist ICE in immigration-related arrests. On Wednesday, Homan visited lawmakers in Albany, New York, and slammed so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that limit cooperation with ICE.

    “So sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want, more agents in the community and more collateral arrests, because you have forced us in the community, because you have failed to let us in the jail,” Homan said.

    Link

  474. birgerjohansson says

    First measels fatality in a decade.
    RFK: The six-year-old didn’t exercise enough.
    Too bad Luigi is locked up.

  477. says

    “Attacks on Tesla must be investigated as domestic terrorism!” demanded margarine failure greene.
    I react: WTF, how about all the domestic terrorism being inflicted on the populace by tRUMP, the cowardly draft dodging, illegal immigrant muskrat, mofo mikey and his house of horrors, not to mention all the magat hordes?
    Oh, wait, I forgot, they are all sociopaths and we should just let them push this country and all of us down the death spiral.
      Lynna, (and others here) I know and appreciate how important all the info is, but it is scary depressing with no respite in sight!
      Climbing down off my soap box and shutting up for now.

  478. birgerjohansson says

    “Born in the Wrong Country: How I Discovered I was a Swede”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=2lpJ-YAuDqA

    -If you have recurring health issues, a Scandinavian country is certainly safer. This lady later had to do surgery,  and it got done in Karolinska Hospital , the place where they appoint the Nobel laureates in Medicine.
    (I am not trying to get you to emigrate: you need to vote the crooks and incompetents out of power. Then, you can emigrate if you want) 

  479. JM says

    NBC News: Ukraine-U.S. ceasefire talks took 7 hours. The hard part will be getting Russia to agree.

    The Kremlin said that it was wary of “jumping the gun” following the talks, and that it would wait to hear from Washington directly about the possibility of a call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin this week.

    Russia is likely stalling. Ukraine has pulled back some in Kursk and Russia is probably hoping they can force Ukraine out before negotiating. For it’s part Ukraine seems to be trading land in Kursk for progress against Russia on other fronts. Ukraine almost surely felt that pulling back was necessary when US supplies got cut and on a more strategic level they may figure they will have to give up Kursk no matter what so backing out of Kursk while retaking land in Ukraine is their best bet.
    Obviously the best time for Russia to negotiate is when Putin and Trump are on the phone personally. Putin can manipulate Trump easily.

    Putin has so far offered zero concessions to end the war, nor has Trump asked for any, instead suggesting that Ukraine may have to give up the fifth of its territory controlled by Russia, while agreeing never to join NATO.

    Russia is still demanding that Ukraine hand over the partially occupied regions of Ukraine, not just stop fighting at the current line or any retreat on Russia’s part. It must be remembered that Russia has a lot of experience with international treaty negotiations and a highly disciplined diplomatic corp, their actual position may be unrelated to their public one.
    One thing that will make negotiations hard is that both sides seem to believe they can win given enough time as long as their supplies hold up.

    Russia has a well-documented history of violating. ceasefires with Ukraine over the past decade. Putin says he does want a truce, but only on terms that amount to little more than Ukrainian surrender.

    This is the other big complication to negotiations. There have been several treaties between Russia and Ukraine and Russia has violated them all. Ukraine will not be interested in a peace without some strong enforcement. And the US’s recent behavior means that a promise by the US to support Ukraine isn’t going to cut it.

  481. Reginald Selkirk says

    As the Texas outbreak grows, how contagious is measles, really?

    … Well, the first thing to know is that measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth — more than Ebola, smallpox or just about any other infectious disease…

    The R naught for measles ranges from 12 to 18. In other words, if one person is infected, they will infect as many as 18 others on average. That’s much higher than with other infectious diseases, such as Ebola with an R naught of 2.

    However, R naught is a theoretical number. “It’s not some magical constant,” says Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.

    It assumes that no one has immunity to a given disease. That’s what the “naught” refers to, as in zero immunity. It’s useful for comparing the infectious potential of different diseases. But in the real world, a lot of different factors can alter how easily measles transmits.

    This brings us to a concept known as the effective reproduction number. That’s the number of people that a sick person can infect in a given population at any specific time. It changes as more people become immune through infection or vaccination.

    It also changes depending on how people behave. Do infected people isolate? Are vulnerable, unvaccinated people clustered together, socializing with each other? That kind of situation “gives an opportunity for the virus to exist in a place,” Lessler says.

    And, the most effective firewall against transmission is vaccination.

    The graphic below shows how much a lower vaccination rate can affect measles’ spread in a theoretical group of kindergartners who cluster together every weekday in a classroom…

  483. says

    Reuters:

    A U.S. judge has agreed to temporarily block implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order to strip security clearances and take other actions against prominent law firm Perkins Coie over its policies promoting workforce diversity and its work for his 2016 election rival Hillary Clinton. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell at a hearing in Washington on Wednesday said she would grant Perkins Coie’s request for a temporary restraining order against Trump’s order.

  484. says

    NBC News:

    A party that has sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s threat to take over Greenland secured a surprise election victory Tuesday in the Danish territory, but it may have to govern with a partner with a far warmer view of the U.S. president.

    The center-right, pro-business Demokraatit party, which favors a gradual move toward independence from Denmark, won 30% of the total vote share, not enough to single-handedly rule the Arctic territory. The party will instead need to partner with opponents to form a coalition.

    Foremost among those other parties is the second-placed opposition party Naleraq, which won a quarter of the vote share, favors rapid independence and has reserved warm words for the Trump administration.

    The victory of two parties who favor independence — seceding from Denmark is broadly popular in Greenland — may be taken as a positive in Washington, where interest in the world’s largest island has sharply jumped since President Trump began his second term. […]

    Link

    More at the link.

  485. says

    Reuters:

    More than 30 army chiefs among Washington’s closest allies met in Paris on Tuesday without their U.S. counterparts, seeking to take on more responsibility over the Ukraine war given President Donald Trump’s unpredictability and rapprochement with Moscow. The closed-door gathering of 34 army chiefs, including NATO alliance and EU members as well as Japan and Australia, was a rare — and possibly unprecedented — convening without the U.S.

    Without Pete Hegseth.

  486. says

    Washington Post:

    A U.S. district judge has ruled that the Trump administration must quickly pay nearly $2 billion in foreign assistance owed to its humanitarian partners around the world, saying the administration probably violated the Constitution by blocking money allocated by Congress. U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali gave the Trump administration until Friday to provide a status report on payment of thousands of invoices owed to relief groups for work performed before Feb. 13.

  487. says

    MSNBC:

    A House Republican [Keith Self] abruptly ended a congressional hearing he was chairing Tuesday after his Democratic colleague called him out for misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender lawmaker in Congress. The confrontation occurred during a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe hearing, when Rep. Keith Self of Texas called on the Delaware Democrat to speak and introduced her as “Mr. McBride.” […]

    To which McBride replied, “Thank you, Madam Chair.”

    Link

    Video at the link.

  488. says

    Washington Post link

    EXCLUSIVE

    “Document prepared for Kremlin outlines hard-line negotiating stance”

    “The document, written in February by a Moscow-based think tank close to Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, lays out Russia’s maximalist demands.”

    Russia should work to weaken the U.S. negotiating position on Ukraine by stoking tensions between the Trump administration and other countries while pushing ahead with Moscow’s efforts to dismantle the Ukrainian state, according to a document prepared for the Kremlin.

    The document, written in February by an influential Moscow-based think tank close to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), lays out Russia’s maximalist demands for any end to the conflict in Ukraine. It dismisses President Donald Trump’s preliminary plans for a peace deal within 100 days as “impossible to realize” and says that “a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis cannot happen before 2026.”

    The document also rejects any plan to dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine, as some in Europe have proposed, and insists on recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over the Ukrainian territories it has seized. It also calls for a further carve-up through the creation of a buffer zone in Ukraine’s northeast on the border with Russian regions such as Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine near Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. The latter would affect the Odessa region.

    In addition, the document discusses the need for “the complete dismantling” of the current Ukrainian government.

    The document, which was obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post, highlights the challenges still facing Trump in reaching any agreement with Russia for a peace deal, now that Kyiv has endorsed Washington’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, appearing to bridge a divide between the two countries.

    While Russia has yet to signal that it would sign up for any ceasefire, analysts warned that Moscow still had a multitude of ways it could drag out agreeing to even a temporary pause in hostilities and said the road to any long-term peace agreement was still treacherous.

    Russia is “not interested in an early resolution of the Ukraine crisis,” said Thomas Graham, a senior director for Russia at the National Security Council under George W. Bush and now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They consistently talk about the root causes, which, as you know, are about the domestic politics in Ukraine, and even more important than that, the European security architecture, which would be the role of NATO. And a simple ceasefire which doesn’t take that into account is of no interest to Russia. And Trump doesn’t appear to understand.”

    Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin “was not aware of such recommendations,” calling them “extremely contradictory,” and adding, “We are working with more-considered options.” [Propaganda from Peskov? Bullshit? Part of the “Let’s drag this out as long as possible tactic? Who knows.]

    The document was prepared by a think tank working closely with the FSB’s Fifth Service, the division that oversees operations in Ukraine, in the week ahead of talks between Russia and the United States in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which took place on Feb. 18. […]

    The FSB-linked document lays out ways in which Russia could boost its negotiating position by exacerbating tensions between the United States and both China and the European Union, and by proposing U.S. access to Russian minerals including in the territories it occupies in Ukraine, such as the eastern region of Donbas, where it says there are reserves of rare-earth metals. [Yep, I suspected as much. That’s a manipulate-Trump tactic.]

    In an interview on Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said much the same when he suggested that Moscow could invite U.S. companies to develop Russian mineral deposits, including in the occupied territories in Ukraine. […]

    The document says Russia’s efforts should first be focused on normalizing relations between Washington and Moscow, through the restoration of full diplomatic staffing levels at both countries’ embassies and the appointment of Alexander Darchiev as Russia’s ambassador to the United States — suggestions that emerged publicly after talks between Russian and U.S. officials in Istanbul on Feb. 27, which apparently focused on the operations of their respective diplomatic missions.

    The document proposed that Russia agree not to station its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Belarus, on the border with the European Union, while in return the United States would agree not to place new missile systems on the continent. It suggests too that Russia stop weapons supplies to countries considered “unfriendly” to the United States, while in return the United States would stop arming Ukraine — but adds that ending Russian arms supplies to Moscow’s allies would be “difficult to realize.”

    The document dismisses what it says are initial proposals made by Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, for a peace agreement in which one suggested element would be Ukraine’s ceding of territories taken by Russia and Kyiv’s agreement not to attempt to regain them in the future through military or diplomatic means.

    The FSB-linked document says, however, that even this type of settlement does not go far enough and that without official recognition of Russian sovereignty over the seized region, it is “fairly likely” the armed conflict will resume in the medium term, “for example after the next change of administration in the U.S.”

    The document also dismisses any potential political concessions by Ukraine — such as Kyiv’s rejection of NATO membership and the holding of elections in which pro-Russian parties would be allowed to participate — as not being far-reaching enough. “In reality, the current Kyiv regime cannot be changed from inside the country. Its complete dismantling is needed,” it says. [Harsh]

    The presence of any peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine is also dismissed as “absolutely unnecessary” since any force would be under “serious Western influence,” while U.S. plans to continue arming Ukraine after any peace deal are “absolutely unacceptable,” as is maintaining the Ukrainian army at its current 1 million-strong level. [Also harsh.]

    Efforts to entice Russia into a peace deal by offering to partially lift sanctions were also dismissed in the document. “It’s not clear what would be the benefit for Russia,” it says, since “the importance of the factor of sanctions against our country has been clearly exaggerated.” [Hmmm.]

    Boris Bondarev, a Geneva-based former Russian diplomat, said Russia was trying to lure Trump into talks by demonstrating its “openness and flexibility,” while Putin would try to drag out the negotiations by positioning himself as “a real, true friend to Donald Trump who understands him completely, who wants to help him, who wants to help him achieve his goals in United States. But of course he would need something from him because he cannot do it just free.” [!!] [Manipulate Trump tactic.]

    Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a national security think tank, said it could be difficult for Putin to reject the ceasefire proposal outright without risking Moscow’s potential realignment with Washington. “The stakes now [in his view] are much more than just Ukraine — the bigger prize is the US-Russia diplomatic normalization, dropping of sanctions, driving a wedge within NATO,” [!] Alperovitch said in a post on X.

  489. says

    Senate Democrats say they will reject GOP’s funding bill as shutdown draws near

    After meeting with his conference, the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said “Republicans do not have the votes” to advance the House-approved measure.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday that Democrats would reject a government funding bill that Republicans wrote and passed through the House, leaving it uncertain whether Congress can avert a shutdown before Friday night’s deadline.

    The House on Tuesday narrowly approved a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through the end of September.

    “Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said on the floor, calling for a one-month funding bill that provides more time to negotiate a deal.

    “Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” he said. “I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

    […] The government will shut down at the end of Friday without a new funding law signed by […] Trump, who has endorsed the House legislation. Republicans control 53 Senate seats and need 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.

    “There are not the votes right now to pass it,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters after the meeting. “Democrats had nothing to do with this bill. And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. And so that’s what we are insisting on.”

    […] “Quite frankly, both outcomes are bad,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told reporters Wednesday. “Elections have consequences, but this is an extreme bill. If it passes, it will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground. If the government shuts down, that will hurt a lot of ordinary people on the ground, and so that is the dilemma in which we found ourselves.”

    “Additionally, the problem I have with the bill is that I think it advances this project that we’re seeing come from the executive branch, this power grab that does not respect that the power of the purse is with the Congress,” he said. [True]

    […] “I’m weighing the badness of each option,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who didn’t take a position on the bill.

    Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has said he will support the stopgap funding bill because it is preferable to a government shutdown.

    Many Senate Democrats said they want a one-month bill to finish work on a new appropriations agreement. Others said they disapprove of the House bill’s boost to military spending and the cuts to nondefense domestic programs. And still others say they want guardrails on Elon Musk’s powers to dismantle the government without congressional approval.

    Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said Democrats “are unified in not wanting to shut down the government, and what we need to do is vote on the short-term” bill for one month.

    […] Some Democratic senators and aides worry that supporting the bill would set a bad precedent — they would effectively be telling House Republicans that they can write government funding measures without Democrats at the negotiating table. [True]

    […] Republicans are betting that Democrats won’t have the appetite to allow a shutdown despite their disagreements with the House bill.

    Lujan maintained that Democrats won’t be responsible for a shutdown if the legislation falls short.

    “Republicans are in charge of the Senate, in charge of the House, and have the White House. The American people know who’s in charge,” he said. “It’s ridiculous for Republicans to try to blame the party that’s the minority everywhere.”

    […] “We’re asking Senate Democrats to vote no on this continuing resolution, which is not clean, and it makes cuts across the board,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said. “And it’s going to be one of those things where people are going to look at this vote and every bad thing that now happens with DOGE and Donald Trump, Elon Musk, you can go back to this vote. So we’re asking the Senate Democrats to vote no.”

  490. JM says

    DOJ got hammered in two court cases.

    Democracy Docket: Judge Blocks Trump Executive Order Targeting Law Firm for Election Work

    A federal judge Wednesday issued a temporary block to President Donald Trump’s executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie for its election work representing his political opponents.
    District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said Trump’s order was clearly “retaliatory in nature” against Perkins Coie.

    The judge wasn’t having anything from the government here. The DOJ couldn’t come up with even vaguely credible accusations. The DOJ argument was literally that the president can remove anybody’s security for any reason and it can’t be reviewed by the court, plus doing work for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats is a national security risk. This is political retaliation of the worst sort and the DOJ even making this argument is grounds for removing Trump from office.


    ‘Is that really how you think this all works?’: Outraged judge repeatedly mocks DOJ lawyers, tears into them for being unprepared during hearing on transgender military ban

    During the hearing, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Joe Biden appointee, mercilessly lambasted the government’s lawyers for what she saw as problems with their basic competence, middling legal analysis, lack of preparation, intellectual honesty, and more.

    The DOJ’s lawyer resisted the implication that Hegseth’s repost was in any way determinative of the government’s actual policy.
    Reyes did not credit this approach.
    “Why shouldn’t I look at the words of the guy who issued the policy?” the judge asked at one point.

    The morning session petered out in dramatic fashion as the court attempted to move on to a series of scientific combat readiness studies cited by the Pentagon in issuing the anti-transgender policy.
    Reyes, leaving nothing to the imagination, said the Pentagon’s directive and subsequent guidance “grossly misquote” and “egregiously misquote” the studies in question. Then, as she clearly aimed to hem the government’s lawyer in on how the studies were interpreted, expressed genuine shock, outrage, and incredulity.

    No ruling in this case yet but the judge is not friendly to the government’s position. The judge was clearly outraged that the DOD was quoting certain studies to support it’s position and the DOJ lawyers defending it had not read the studies.

  492. Bekenstein Bound says

    I know and appreciate how important all the info is, but it is scary depressing with no respite in sight!

    I just hope what is happening is radicalizing the left, especially in the US, and is pushing some people leftward as well.

  493. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Re: JM @489:
    Anna Bower (Lawfare):

    Counsel for the government was also not familiar with John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance,” which prompted Judge Reyes to provide a brief introduction to Rawlsian political theory from the bench.

    Benjamin McKean (PoliSci professor): “This administration finally found a form of ignorance they *don’t* exemplify”
     
    Moments from a partial live posting thread of the trans ban proceedings.
    Gabriel Malor (Appellate attorney):

    Judge Reyes is grilling the gov’t lawyer on what the DOD policies mean, and the gov’t lawyer essentially said the policies are changing every two days so he didn’t know. Judge Reyes asked him why he wasn’t talking to his clients. Yikes.
    […]
    Judge Reyes is now explaining Newtonian physics to the gov’t attorney. No, I am not kidding, but I have no idea what is happening because I had to handle something else for a minute. OMG, she’s such a nerd. She knows the theory behind warp drive travel in Star Trek.
    […]
    The gov’t lawyer says the district court should defer to the current administration. Judge Reyes asks where that comes from?

    Gov’t lawyer says it’s a Supreme Court case, but can’t name it.

    Reyes then points out that they cite concurrences and dissents, not a majority opinion.
    […]
    Gov’t attorney (who is a different attorney from earlier) is now backing away from their papers: “I didn’t say that.”

    Judge Reyes: “This is what you put in your response.” She reads the quote from Justice Kagan’s law review article. “You don’t agree?”

    Gov’t attorney concedes that’s what they said.
    –
    Judge Reyes: cite to me any other time the military has excluded a specific group of people for having a disqualifying characteristic.

    Gov’t attorney: the one I can think of is people who refused the COVID vaccine.

    Me screaming in the background: GAAAAAYS

  494. says

    Excerpt from an interview titled Trump’s Most Insane Idea Ever. Andy Borowitz interviews Paul Krugman:

    In the first episode of my new live series on Tuesday, I was extremely fortunate to talk to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.

    We covered a broad range of topics in half an hour, including what might be the weirdest idea of Trump’s second term so far (and that includes annexing Canada and invading Greenland): the Strategic Crypto Reserve.

    I asked Krugman, do you even know what that is supposed to be?

    Krugman: I mean, the short answer to your question is no, because I have no idea what he intends or actually really what it is. I mean, cryptocurrencies, you know, it’s just ones and zeros on computer servers somewhere… Crypto is just stuff that’s, you know, code that has no inherent value and has found no use. One of the things that I find amazing is that people keep on thinking of cryptos as futuristic when Bitcoin was introduced in 2009. I mean, Bitcoin is older than the iPad.

    And it has yet to find any legal uses. The only thing that people really do with cryptocurrency is money laundering, ransom payments. Outside of the black economy, there is no use for this stuff. Now, Trump is going to… accumulate a reserve, which means accumulating basically the codes that say that this particular string of ones and zeros is yours. What you do with it, I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where you can release oil from the places where it’s stored in case of an energy emergency. In this case, particularly since there are no legitimate uses for this stuff.

    I mean, you can use it, I guess, to pay off criminal organizations around the world or something. Yeah. It’s one of the more bizarre things which can only really be explained, I think, by following the real money, following who’s been paid off by this industry.

    In addition to other topics—tariffs, mass deportations, and how much smarter the new Canadian PM is than Trump—I asked Krugman how he manages to stay sane amid the madness he has to write about every day. (You can probably understand why I sought this particular advice.) He came through with a great idea that all of us can put to use, starting right now. Watch the full interview here.

  495. says

    SAD! Despite DOGE’s drastic cuts, federal spending is up

    […] Trump and multibillionaire Elon Musk have justified the chaotic and cruel federal cuts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency by claiming that they’re saving taxpayers money.

    “We’ve taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation and other things,” Trump said during his rambling address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month.

    And in February, he even claimed that he would send checks to taxpayers worth 20% of DOGE’s savings.

    However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s February Monthly Budget Review found that spending is actually higher than it was last year, with the federal government spending $605 billion in February 2025 compared to about $567 billion in February 2024.

    “The federal government incurred a deficit of $308 billion in February 2025, CBO estimates—$11 billion more than the deficit recorded last February,” the report said.

    [DOGE/Trump cuts have not made even a dent in federal spending, and instead have endangered national security and public health and threatened to send the country into a devastating recession.

    “No sign DOGE significantly cut spending or the deficit in February according to CBO. Federal outlays grew 7% compared to last year and the deficit grew 5%,” Brendan Duke, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote on X.

    The fact that DOGE’s cuts haven’t actually saved taxpayers any money is likely why Musk said he’s now coming for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, […]

    The government also spent […] $4 billion more on the Department of Homeland Security—which is carrying out Trump’s mass deportation plans.

    “Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s the big one to eliminate. […]” Musk said in an interview with Fox Business host and Trump toady Larry Kudlow. […]

    Posted by readers of the article:

    […] DOGE wax always basically bullshit. Just the fact that Musk is going after social security proves he is clueless as social sr purity is not in the general budget. Oh I know he sees the special bonds being redeemed in the budget and assumes that us funding for social security. But it is not. It’s money borrowed from social security that must be repaid or we are in default.

    i think DOGE is cover for dismantling parts if the government republicans hate. That is one creation why they went after USAID.
    ———————
    Just wait until the government has to pay back pay and penalties to all of the employees fired by DOGE. […] fired without cause.
    ————————
    All the billionaires and their slightly less wealthy friends only pay SS tax on the first (approx.) $170,000 of their income.
    ————————
    The obvious solution is much higher takes on the very wealthy and eliminating the cap on Social Security withholding. Its going to take big House and Senate Democratic majorities to get that done and a strong progressive Democratic President

  496. says

    Putin orders swift expulsion of Ukrainian forces before peace talks

    The Russian leader promised to treat captured forces as “terrorists.”

    MARCH 12, 2025 BY SEB STARCEVIC

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to defeat Ukrainian forces occupying its Kursk border region as soon as possible, shortly before an American delegation heads to Moscow to negotiate a ceasefire.

    In August 2024, Ukraine attacked and captured a small part of Kursk Oblast, a Russian region on their mutual border, dealing a major blow to the Kremlin and boosting domestic morale.

    The foothold, comprising some 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory at its largest, was expected to be used as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations with the Kremlin.

    But the Ukrainians have struggled to hold onto it amid a Russian counterattack that has seen villages and settlements slowly come back under the control of Moscow. Russia this week claimed to have recaptured the majority of the seized territory, including the town of Sudzha, Kyiv’s biggest prize, along with hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers. [Take Russian claims with a grain of salt.]

    Putin — dressed unusually in military camouflage — visited a command post in Kursk on Tuesday, the first time he had set foot in the region since it was occupied by Ukraine. He urged his forces to push out the Ukrainians “in the shortest possible time,” according to Russian state media.

    […] Putin added that captured Ukrainian fighters will be “treated as terrorists, in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation.”

    American envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Moscow this week to present the Kremlin with a ceasefire proposal — considered a first step toward a lasting end to the conflict — and to hash out the terms of a peace deal. Ukraine agreed to the terms of the proposal on Tuesday.

    If Russia does not agree to temporarily halt hostilities, U.S. President Donald Trump has promised swift reprisals in the form of “devastating” financial penalties. [OMG. Who believes Trump’s bluster?]

  497. says

    Three ways MAGA media are responding to Trump’s tariffs crashing the stock market

    “Some hosts on Fox pretended the market didn’t fall, others wrung their hands over the political fallout, and Newsmax told viewers Trump always knows best”

    […] On Monday night, Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters did not mention the stock market decline outside of a passing comment about “a few rocky days on Wall Street,” instead focusing his attention on stories about how Democrats are “living a nightmare,” former first lady Michelle Obama’s forthcoming podcast, and Trump “cleaning up Biden’s mess.”

    But the collapse did not go entirely unaddressed on Watters’ show. For the night’s final segment, Watters sent a producer to “explore” the political views of Gen Zers by interviewing spring breakers on the beach in Florida. When the producer asked the bathing suit-clad young people to identify the issue most important to them, one guy answered, “The stock market crashing.”

    Fox host Sean Hannity didn’t send a producer to the beach, so on his program the market decline went unmentioned [LOL]— his lead story was a “Hannity investigation” of “Biden’s Spending Spree.”

    […]

    More at the link.

  498. says

    When Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term as president, he was surrounded by his billionaire benefactors: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg—all of whom either contributed to Trump’s presidential campaign or showered him with cash before his inauguration.

    Now, seven weeks later, as the economy has plummeted under Trump, that same group of billionaires has lost a significant amount of wealth.

    According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the combined net worth of Bezos and Musk fell by a staggering $177 billion by March 10. Musk has faced the largest decline, with the net worth of Trump’s “first buddy” dropping by $148 billion since the markets closed on January 17. […]

    Link

  499. says

    https://www.msnbc.com/all Chris Hayes “All In” show, March 12

    There’s hope: Republicans break ranks to block anti-trans bills in Montana
    Video is 4:39 minutes

    RFK Jr. promotes ‘MAHA fries’ as measles outbreak grows
    Video is 8:44 minutes

    ‘I’m going’: Tim Walz to hold town halls in Republican districts in wake of DOGE cuts
    Video is 11:45 minutes

  500. JM says

    @494 Lynna, OM:

    “No sign DOGE significantly cut spending or the deficit in February according to CBO. Federal outlays grew 7% compared to last year and the deficit grew 5%,” Brendan Duke, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote on X.
    The fact that DOGE’s cuts haven’t actually saved taxpayers any money is likely why Musk said he’s now coming for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,

    I’m pretty sure going after SS, Medicare and Medicaid was part of the plan all along. More importantly though that DOGE has not saved any money yet is a good demonstration that Musk and Trump don’t know what they are doing.
    A competent executive would understand that big cuts can actually cost money for the first couple of quarters. All of the extra expenses from the paperwork of the terminations, all of the exit interviews, all of the extra computer work keeping permissions and access updated, and collecting all of the hardware that needs returned is extra cost that has to be paid to terminate somebody. Just because you have fired somebody doesn’t mean that the cost of their office space goes away instantly. The building expenses may take years to go away.
    Contracts with other companies often include termination fees that have to be paid to cancel the contract. Complex relations with other companies can take months or years just to unwind, making sure all of their access to your system is closed and all of your access to their system is closed. If the two systems have automatic transfers they all have to be tracked down and shut off.
    With big cuts there are likely to be a raft of legal problems that need covered also. A bunch of contracts need gone over to see if anything has changed and hiring hourly lawyers is not cheap. DOGE seems to have simply ignored a lot of these issues but they are physical and legal realities. They have already discovered that blanket termination of contracts is expensive and the government has more power to do that then private companies. In a lot of cases it’s cheaper to let a contract run out and not renew it then terminate it early.