The Conversation -- February 10, 2025
Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate. The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called 'the plain text' of an edict he issued last month. Judge McConnell’s ruling marked a step toward what could quickly evolve into a high-stakes showdown between the executive and judicial branches, a day after a social media post by Vice President JD Vance claimed that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” elevating the chance that the White House could provoke a constitutional crisis....
“On Friday, 22 Democratic attorneys general went to Judge McConnell to accuse the White House of failing to comply with his earlier order. The Justice Department responded in a filing on Sunday that money for clean energy projects as well as transportation infrastructure allocated to states by the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill was exempt from the initial order, because it had been paused under a different memo than the one that prompted the lawsuit. Judge McConnell’s ruling on Monday explicitly rejected that argument.”
Andy Borowitz of the Borowitz Report: “"Donald J. Trump tightened his grip on the American arts scene on Monday by naming himself principal ballerina of the Kennedy Center Ballet. Announcing a purge of the company’s ballerinas, Trump declared on Truth Social, 'I will soon be announcing a new roster of ballerinas, with an amazing principal ballerina, DONALD J. TRUMP.' He said he was 'disgusted' to discover that all of the company’s current ballerinas were women, a state of affairs that he blamed on DEI.” See also Akhilleus' commentary in today's thread.
Claire Moses & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it. In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have the right to eventually return to their homeland, he said: 'No, they wouldn’t. Because they’re going to have much better housing — in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.'”
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Four young staffers working under Elon Musk gained access to highly sensitive personal data held by a consumer protection agency before shutting it down. White House budget director Russell Vought ordered wider access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau materials by staffers working for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency over the weekend before agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez ordered all its employees to stay home for the week, reported Bloomberg News.... 'Just nine days before his DOGE team visited CFPB, Musk’s X ... announced that it had struck a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments,' Bloomberg reported. 'Musk has publicly mused about expanding into payment-services since he first took control of X in 2022. Entering that business could bring CFPB oversight under rules the agency finalized in November. The records DOGE can now access would include sensitive and potentially competitive information.'" ~~~
~~~ Nothing to see here, people. Musk is self-policing."
Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: “Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp. The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful. Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.”
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse. 'We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,' [Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley] said on Friday. 'There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.' His ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.” Other law professors Liptak cites agree. And Liptak reminds us, “Mr. Trump has already disregarded one Supreme Court decision, its ruling last month upholding a federal law, passed by lopsided bipartisan majorities, requiring TikTok to be sold or banned.” ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic: “The United States is sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis. Not only has the Trump administration seized for itself extraconstitutional powers, but yesterday, it raised the specter that, should the courts apply the text of the Constitution and negate its plans, it will simply ignore them.... What makes ... [Trump's demands to ignore Constitutional Congressional prerogatives] so astonishing is that Trump could persuade Congress, which he commands in personality-cult style, to follow his demands. Republicans presently control both houses of Congress, and any agency that Congress established, it can also cut or eliminate. Yet Trump refuses to even try to pass his plan democratically. And ... he is now threatening to ignore [courts,] too.... Given his party’s near-total acquiescence in every previous step toward authoritarianism, perhaps Trump would not have to be crazy to take the next one.... The crisis lies not in the structure of government so much as in the character of the party that runs it, which refuses to accept the idea that its defeat is ever legitimate or that its power has any limits.” Thank you to laura h. for this gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Because Trump is at least going through the motions of addressing court orders, I suppose we still are in the "constitutional crisis" mode. But we're awfully close to an autogolpe or self-coup, and we are slouching toward Masada primarily because Congressional Republicans are willing to jump off a cliff when Trump says "jump." It is one thing that many of them agree with Trump's cruel & harmful policies. But it is quite another to let him get away with setting the policies unilaterally. Members of Congress have a right, I guess, to be stupid, but they have a Constitutional duty, which they have abrogated, to stand up to the president* when he usurps their Constitutional powers. Update: Here's someone who sees the handwriting on the wall: ~~~
~~~ Lisa Needham of Public Notice: "While Trump and his henchmen deconstruct the administrative state, his lawyers are embracing the logic of dictatorship. The core argument emerging in their legal filings and executive orders — one without support anywhere in the Constitution or the law — is that simply by being elected, Trump has the power to do whatever he wants.... When executive orders are challenged in court, government attorneys typically point to the underlying laws that give the president the authority to issue the order. Trump seems to have dispensed with that requirement, however.... The administration's stance appears to literally be that federal laws are irrelevant in the face of Trump’s wishes and the courts can’t stop him. If Congress and the judiciary no longer check or balance the executive branch, no separation of powers is left.... That’s tearing democracy down to the studs and rebuilding something entirely different and much worse in its place.... This sounds a lot like dictatorship, and a despotic one at that."
Dean Obeidallah on Substack: “If you just watched corporate news..., you would think Donald Trump is all powerful, all knowing and 'all' just about everything. They are breathlessly covering Trump wall to wall and by doing so are by design trying to make him appear omnipotent, that 'resistance is futile' and that he is winning in ways never seen before. Why? Simple, the corporate media executives want the tax cuts, less regulations and freedom to merge their companies as Trump has promised them. But back in the real world, not only are we finally seeing organized resistance by a growing number of Democratic leaders, we are also seeing Trump losing over and over in the courts this week—with even a Trump appointed judge ruling against him. Those standing up to Trump deserve far more coverage than the corrupt corporate media is providing them.” Obeidallah highlights Democratic members of Congress, grassroots organizations, judges & the people and organizations who are bringing suits against the Trump administration. Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: Obeidallah's assessment of the media coverage could explain why the majority of Americans think Trump is doing a great job (CBS poll linked below).~~~
~~~ Steve M. has some more suggestions as to steps that can be taken to stop/ridicule/diminish Trump, Musk & do-nothing Congressional Republicans. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~
~~~ Also from Steve M.: Plutocrats to the Rescue! "I suspect that the people with the most power to stop Trump are the plutocrats.... They thought electing a Republican president would let them pursue unlimited mergers and other deals, but that's not the case[.]... Right now, the markets are shrugging all this off. But the plutocrats are probably the only people who scare Trump, and they don't seem happy. Their disgruntlement, and the disgruntlement of ordinary consumers, might be the only thing that can save us if all the other guardrails are gone."
Daniel Wu, et al., of the New York Times: “Farmers report missing millions of dollars of funding they were promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, despite promises from the Trump administration that a federal funding freeze would not apply to projects directly benefiting individuals. On his first day in office..., Donald Trump ordered the USDA to freeze funds for several programs designated by President Joe Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.... Farmers who signed contracts with the USDA under those programs paid up front to build fencing, plant new crops and install renewable energy systems with guarantees that the federal government would issue grants and loan guarantees to cover at least part of their costs. Now, with that money frozen, they’re on the hook.... The USDA has also halted funding for other programs, including scientific research grants in agriculture and producing climate-smart crops.... [This is] another blow to farmers who are also facing threats of tariffs and freezes to foreign-aid spending that involved food purchased from American producers.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I reckon quite a few of these farmers are Trump voters. But, hey, if Trump isn't going to run for re-election he doesn't need them anymore, does he? I guess he'd just call them suckers & losers if he ever thought for one second about stiffing them.
Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: A young Wisconsin man died of an asthma attack when his pharmacist told him his insurer would no longer cover the cost of his inhalers, so he'd have to pay $539 for a three-months supply instead of the $67 he'd been paying. His parents are suing both the insurer -- a subsidiary of United Health Group -- and the pharmacy -- Walgreen's -- for not informing the man of alternative medicines the insurer would cover. MB: They really don't care, do they? That Walgreen's pharmacy sounds just as good as my CVS. P.S. Stick an "alleged" in front of all this.
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Noah Millman, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the U.S. is in its fourth Constitutional revolution. The first was the Constitutional Convention itself, which was called to merely revise the Articles of Confederation. The second was the body of Reconstruction Amendments that followed the Civil War. The third was the New Deal that expanded the government's role in the economy and established the administrative state. But these earlier revolutions, unlike Trump's, “did not represent fundamental ruptures in the nature and balance of the Constitution that could be enacted only by violating pre-existing norms and processes.... Trump has already taken numerous steps to seize direct control of the federal bureaucracy in ways that violate norms of independence.... The central justification for all of these moves is the view that the American constitutional order has become sclerotic.” Millman calls Trump's effort “Caesarian in character” and observes that “a constitutional Caesarism is a contradiction in terms.”
David Goldman & Chris Isidore of CNN: “... Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday, said he planned on announcing a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States Monday. 'We’ll also be announcing steel tariffs on Monday,' he said, adding, 'any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff.... Aluminum, too.'... Trump also said he planned to hold a separate news conference Tuesday or Wednesday to announce massive new reciprocal tariffs, which could match other countries’ tariffs on US goods dollar-for-dollar.... He did not provide many details about how expansive the new tariffs would be or when they may go into effect. It’s not clear if the new steel and aluminum tariffs will be on top of the tariffs already in place on exports from countries like China.” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm no economist, but all other things being equal, if you raise the price of raw materials U.S. manufacturers need to make products, then those same products manufactured abroad from foreign-produced raw materials can be made and sold cheaper to U.S. customers. Let's say it costs $400 to make a stove anywhere in the world. Then the U.S. imposes tariffs on the raw material needed to make the stove, so that it costs $500 to make a stove in the U.S. But it still costs only $400 to make the stove everywhere else. So foreign manufacturers can afford to sell their $400-cost stoves to Americans for less than American manufacturers can offer their $500-cost stoves for sale.
Josh Marshall of TPM: “I suspect this will just end up being something Old Man Trump said on a plane and we won’t hear about it again.... On Air Force One today en route to the Super Bowl, Trump told reporters that DOGE analysts (whatever that means) had found 'irregularities' in U.S. treasuries and that the U.S. may not be obligated to pay some of them. 'Maybe we have less debt than we thought,' he said. Needless to say, this is quite literally violating the express language of the 14th Amendment which says: 'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.' If financial markets actually thought Trump was serious about this, that he would follow through on this, they’d probably go completely haywire.... Trump seems to be basing this on some analysis from the DOGE boys.... Imagine thinking that by downloading a ton of data and having a few days to analyze it you could make the determination that a significant amount of the U.S. national debt wasn’t real and didn’t have to be paid. It’s ... worth noting how nuts that is.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Do note that the most favorable thing a reasonable person can say about POTUS* and his ideas is that he doesn't know what he's talking about and his remarks are so addled we -- and he -- can forget about them.
Alex Gangitano of the Hill: Donald “Trump on Sunday announced that he asked the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies, calling the one cent coin wasteful. He said in a Truth Social post that he told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to end minting the small-value coins with President Abraham Lincoln’s image on them.... The cost of making a penny was nearly 3.7 cents in Fiscal Year 2024 and the coin has cost above face value to make for 19 consecutive fiscal years, according to the U.S. Mint’s annual report. Pennies were made of copper before 1962 and are currently made majority of zinc but with copper plating. Lincoln has been on the penny since 1909 and the penny was the first coin made by the U.S. Mint, according to the Treasury Department.... Elon Musk, who has been tasked by Trump with cutting waste in the U.S., targeted the penny in a post on X last month.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump probably can't stand the idea of honoring a person popularly known as "Honest Abe" and the president who "freed the slaves." (It was actually the Thirteenth Amendment that "freed the slaves,"; Lincoln actively supported it.) Oh, and this: ~~~
~~~ Yan Zhuang Erica Green of the New York Times: “It is unclear whether Mr. Trump has the power to do this. It is Congress, not the Treasury or the Federal Reserve, that authorizes the manufacture of the nation’s coins, according to the U.S. Mint.... Countries around the world have eliminated their smallest-denomination coins in recent decades. In 2012, Canada stopped producing pennies, describing them as essentially a waste of time and space and arguing that the move would save millions of dollars a year. Since then, cash transactions have been rounded to the nearest nickel, after federal and provincial sales taxes are added.”
The Emperor Trump. Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump told the largest American television audience of the year that he plans to pursue the annexation of Canada as the nation’s 51st state. In an interview on the Super Bowl LIX pregame show on Fox, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Trump about recorded comments in a private meeting made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — in which Trudeau claimed the United States is serious about 'absorbing” Canada.... 'Is it a real thing?' Baier asked Trump. 'Yeah, it is,' Trump replied. [']I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state. Because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen too much. Why are we paying $200 billion a year essentially in subsidy to Canada? Now if they are a 51st state, I don’t mind doing it.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Hail, Caesar! Al Jazeera: “... Donald Trump has reiterated his controversial proposal to take control of Gaza, saying he is committed to 'buying and owning' the war-ravaged enclave. Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Gaza should be thought of as a 'big real estate site' and other countries in the Middle East could be tasked with handling its redevelopment. 'As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it; other people may do it, through our auspices,' Trump said while en route to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. 'But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site.' Trump also claimed that displaced Palestinians would prefer not to return to Gaza despite his proposal prompting backlash from Palestinian representatives and much of the international community.”
~~~ BUT perhaps what we're really seeing is an incredible, shrinking empire, courtesy of Presidents* Musk & Trump. ~~~
~~~ The Rise & Fall of the Pax Americana. Paul Krugman: "Elon Musk — with Donald Trump’s acquiescence, but clearly Musk was calling the shots — has effectively destroyed USAID, the aid agency that was, aside from its humanitarian role, a major pillar of US foreign policy. This move was clearly illegal, and a court has already put a hold on some of Musk’s actions. But it may already be too late.... By furloughing the agency’s employees, ordering those working abroad to come home and canceling crucial programs and grants, the Musk/Trump administration undermined decades’ worth of relationship-building.... USAID is just the most extreme example of how the Musk/Trump administration is sabotaging the American Empire. For yes, America is or was an imperial power, although in a different way from most past empires — less reliant on force, more reliant on good will and trust. What Musk and Trump have done is to destroy much of the basis for U.S. influence, leaving America far weaker than it was just a few weeks ago." Krugman goes on to argue how damaging Trump tariff threats are, not to mention his threats to take over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal (and now Gaza), and his failure to honor international agreements. "All of this makes us distrusted and friendless. It also makes us weak, because America needs allies even more now than it did during the Cold War."
Vance Hints at Self-Coup d'État. Charlie Savage & Minho Kim of the New York Times: “Vice President JD Vance declared on Sunday that 'judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,' delivering a warning shot to the federal judiciary in the face of court rulings that have, for now, stymied aspects of ... [Donald] Trump’s agenda. The statement, issued on social media, came as federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump administration actions from taking effect.... Mr. Vance, a 2013 graduate of Yale Law School, has repeatedly argued in recent years that presidents like Mr. Trump can and should ignore court orders that they say infringe on their rightful executive powers. While his post did not go that far, it carried greater significance given that he is now vice president. The post may also offer a window on the administration’s thinking toward the orders against it as Mr. Trump has openly violated numerous statutes.... It also raised the question of whether the administration would stop abiding by rulings if it deemed them to be illegitimately impeding his agenda....
“Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he went to New Orleans for the Super Bowl, Mr. Trump said the judge [who temporarily prohibited DOGE personnel from accessing the Treasury Department's payroll systems] had overreached, calling the Treasury ruling a 'disgrace.' But he appeared to be contemplating appeals, saying the court case 'had a long way to go.' Mr. Trump added: 'No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: “Over the past 24 hours, officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers.... 'A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!' said Musk.... Musk also shared a post from a user who had suggested that the Trump administration openly defy the court order.... Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller called the ruling 'an assault on the very idea of democracy itself.'” ~~~
~~~ Tara Suter of the Hill: “Tech billionaire Elon Musk called for the annual firing of judges following an early Saturday decision from a judge stating that the Treasury Department should bar access to its payment systems to anyone besides 'civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties.' 'I’d like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year. This will weed out the most corrupt and least competent,' the tech mogul said in a post on his social platform X.” MB: It's great Musk is being so reasonable. One would have thought he would demand the right to fire federal judges himself.
Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew & “Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that ... efforts ... to unlawfully undermine the nation’s financial commitments ... are underway today.... While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming.... A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse.... The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.... Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default. And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”
Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: Since 2011 when it was created, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “has clawed back $21 billion for consumers. It slashed overdraft fees, reformed the student loan servicing market, transformed mortgage lending rules and forced banks and money transmitters to compensate fraud victims.... [Donald] Trump on Friday appointed Russell Vought, who was confirmed a day earlier to lead the Office of Management and Budget, as the agency’s acting director.... Mr. Vought was an author of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for upending the federal government that called for ... abolishing the consumer bureau. In less than 36 hours, Mr. Vought threw the agency into chaos. On Saturday, he ordered the bureau’s 1,700 employees to stop nearly all their work and announced plans to cut off the agency’s funding. Then on Sunday, he closed the bureau’s headquarters for the coming week. Workers who tried to retrieve their laptops from the office were turned away, employees said.”
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “A federal judge barred the U.S. government on Sunday from sending three detained Venezuelan men to the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to a lawyer for the migrants. Lawyers for the men, who are detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in New Mexico, asked the court on Sunday evening for a temporary restraining order, opening the first legal front against the Trump administration’s new policy of sending undocumented migrants to Guantánamo. Within an hour of the filing, which came at the start of the Super Bowl, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico, convened a hearing by videoconference and verbally granted the restraining order, said Baher Azmy ... of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is helping represent the migrants.”
Marie: This next story is more shocking than you might think and possibly more dangerous that anybody knows: ~~~
~~~ Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information: "Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a 'Big Delete' of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including 'privilege,' 'bias,' and 'inclusion.' The 'Big Delete,' according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences. Although the websites and other content are purportedly being deleted to comply with ... [Donald] Trump's executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or 'DEI,' the dragnet is taking down 'mission-related' work.... The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI.... The NSA is trying to identify mission-related sites before the "Big Delete" is executed but appears to lack the personnel to do so."~~~
~~~ Marie: As we already know, Trump's executive order makes these kinds of deletions a problem all across the federal government. Legum & Crosby note that "An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages “found 662 examples of deletions and additions” since Trump took office." Now, take a look at Akhilleus' commentary below. Akhilleus was responding to several comments in yesterday's thread about films and other art forms that address Nazism and totalitarianism. Then look at those videos (you don't have to watch the whole videos) in the right-hand column about the origins of the Moonwalk. What Akhilleus' commentary and those Moonwalk videos show is that even when we think a particular film scene or dance move is original or unique, it ain't so. If there is genius, it comes in new ways to synthesizing, coordinating and adapting other peoples' ideas. And if the need to build on other peoples' work is true of brilliant artists, it is most certainly true of government bureaucrats. When ideas have been presented and tested and approved and recorded in government documents, they are available sources for new, perhaps innovative, work that may make us safer or healthier or more financially secure. If we throw out thousands of pages (of taxpayer-funded research) because the pages contain, say, the word "privilege," all that work is lost. Forever.
Marie: So all of the stories and opinion pieces linked above and over the past weeks turn out to be secret, underground information shared among only a minority of Americans. ~~~
~~~ Anthony Salvanto, et al., of CBS News: "With most describing him as 'tough,' 'energetic,' 'focused' and 'effective' — and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign —... [Donald] Trump has started his term with net positive marks from Americans overall. Many say he's doing more than they expected — and of those who say this, most like what they see.... His deportation policy finds majority approval overall — just as most voters said they wanted during the campaign — and that extends to sending troops to the border, too." Overall, 53% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing and 47% disapprove."
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Reader Comments (25)
I watched the SB and saw the horribly inaccurate Squarespace ad (fucking liars), but didn’t see a MuskRat propaganda lie-fest spot. I might have missed it, but if so, I’m glad of that. It would have ruined an otherwise great outcome (sorry, Chiefs fans).
As for the anthem smackdown in “Casablanca”, I have to agree it’s a highlight of a film with more than its share of great moments. During my college days, the Brattle Square Theater would run film festivals during reading period (just before finals) and when they showed “Casablanca”, we’d stand and sing along with the French. Fun days…
The Nazis are singing “Die Wacht am Rein”, a nasty bit of anti-French propaganda spread during the Franco-Prussian War about evil Frenchmen “invading” Germany and crossing the border illegally (sound familiar?) so the response of French citizens singing “La Marseillaise”-and beating down the Nazis—is especially powerful.
There was a similar scene in Jean Renoir’s 1937 masterpiece “La Grande Illusion”, about French soldiers imprisoned during WWI. The French officers and enlisted men are putting on a musical play for the prisoners at Christmas when word comes of the recapture of a fort near Verdun. The men stop what they’re doing, stand en masse and sing “La Marseillaise”. It’s perhaps not as Hollywood as the scene in Casablanca, but just as moving.
Today we have a Vichy government ruling the country and making a mockery of the essence of the American Experiment. The MAGAts bench out the “Star Spangled Banner” and sieg heil Fat Hitler, but they might as well be singing “Die Wacht am Rein”, or “Deutschland über alles”.
Misomusists Unite!
(And clean the guns while you’re at it…)
Fat Hitler as artistic director of America, is that it? The guy who thinks interior design isn’t any good unless everything is slathered in brassy Dutch metal with plenty of faux 18th C French accents, gigantic curved marble fireplaces and lots of repro furniture (actual antiques are too old and shabby looking). Giant chandeliers and, well, giant everything (compensation for things that are too small…)?
In short, a kind of dictator chic. Designers who have studied dictator homes and palaces (Marred a Lardo, anyone?) find a studied commonality in immature, imitative taste and cheesy decorative preferences. Trump has them all.
But now Mr. Dictator Chic feels the need to put his stamp on art in America by appointing himself Führer of the Kennedy Center.
Can we expect official designations of certain types of art as degenerate (à la Nazi Germany)? I’m sure President MuskRat has some very definite opinions about what kind of artistic expression will be tolerated in his newly purchased nation. Dictators always do. They tend to be misomusists. Yeah, I had to look it up in case I didn’t remember it exactly.
Years ago, after reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, I went on a Milan Kundera kick. Then I read his “Art of the Novel”, a blast of a read. Kundera points his spotlight intellect on works by Flaubert, Tolstoy, Rabelais, and a few writers that surprised me. Then, as a writer and musician who grew up under a totalitarian government, he considers why those types hate art, at least art that challenges, that create experiences outside everyday mindless commercial and ideological pablum (this is also why Plato hated art; it made people think too much…very messy for political leaders).
Anyway, Kundera being the kind of guy he was, couldn’t find just the right word to describe right-wing antipathy to art, so he came up with misomusist. Here’s how he describes this sort (from the Worldwide Words website):
“Invention of this word is usually credited to the Czech novelist Milan Kundera, who described it like this in his book The Art Of The Novel in 1988: ‘To be without a feeling for art is no disaster. A person can live in peace without reading Proust or listening to Schubert. But the misomusist does not live in peace. He feels humiliated by the existence of something that is beyond him, and he hates it’.
So a misomusist is not a passive ignorer of culture, but an active opponent of it. Active opposition to culture has been a characteristic of totalitarian governments, summed up by a famous saying: ‘Whenever I hear the word culture, I release the safety-catch of my Browning!’. (Often attributed in a different form to Hermann Goering, it was actually written by the German dramatist Hanns Johst in 1933.)
Presumably Milan Kundera coined the word in Czech, from which it was carried over into the English translation. He took it from the Greek misos, hatred, and mousa, learning (the word is also the source of the name of the nine muses of Greek and Roman mythology who presided over the arts and sciences).”
Hatred of art and learning…hmmm…who might that describe? Maybe someone who is getting ready to chloroform the Department of Education and who appointed himself ruler of the Kennedy Center.
Oh, the joy we’ll have! Ars gratia artis?
Nah…Ars gratia Trumpis.
Maybe what we need is a super PAC named, "Remember, Everything Donald Trump Does Is Stupid and Dangerous." Or something like that. Then, the super PAC should run ads that are required by law to end with, "Paid for by Remember, Everything Donald Trump Does Is Stupid and Dangerous."
Eventually, I think, viewers would remember that.
One more thought about artistic expression and government censorship.
The visceral hatred among most on the right, but especially in MAGA circles, for drag queens is curious (but not surprising). First, the attempt on the right to eradicate this very tiny subculture as much as possible is bolstered by the claim that the government has a responsibility to protect THE CHILDREN! Harumph, harumph. Drag queens reading stories to kids in libraries is an outrage! Government needs to do something about this horror!
Okay, fine. A responsibility to protect the children.
So let’s see…what’s the single biggest cause of death for children in the US?
Cancer? Nope.
Car accidents? Nope.
Poison?? Not even close.
It’s THE GUNS!!! It’s fucking gun violence. Thousands of kids every year. Thousands!
Know what’s not on the list? Drag queens.
So where’s this responsibility for protecting the kids?
Yeah. What I thought. But arrest that guy over there, the one who looks like Judy Garland.
And one other thing while we’re on the subject. What’s the deal with all these so-called tough as nails, macho men like Trump and the MAGA John Waynes out there being frightened to their toenails by a guy in a dress reading “Goodnight Moon”?
Something weird about that…
Test…
I raise ya…
This bizarre penchant for the blunt instrument of tariffs is odd, in’it, for a guy who claims to be the best deal maker in the world? Working out economic strategies that benefit both sides is an art, a real skill that requires a knowledge of the economic situations of all parties, their historical approach to trade and monetary conundrums, finesse and cleverness. None of which Fat Hitler possesses.
He’s always been the asshole who hits you over the head, takes your wallet and sics lawyers on you if you complain. That’s not deal making. That’s a mugging.
But that’s Trump.
Picture Fat Hitler at the poker table. All the other players have chips amounting to ten thousand dollars. Fatty has a stack of chips in excess of a hundred thousand. He doesn’t need to be a good poker player to win most games. He could have a ten high hand but because he can shove $100K into the pot when he raises everyone, he can effectively buy the pot. Any leader of the US has enormous leverage in most deals, but most leaders don’t try to hammer the other side. Soft power works very well, maintains strategic alliances and keeps opponents on their toes.
But to return to the poker analogy, what usually happens to bad poker players who are just doofuses with a lot of money, superior players can chip away at their advantages and eventually take them down, because they really suck at the game and don’t know what they’re doing.
Whenever he comes up against a superior player (Putin, eg), Fatty folds. He’s scared and not a good enough player. He’d rather go for easy hits against friends who don’t expect the US to try to screw them. But because he’s too stupid, Fat Hitler ends up screwing himself (and us).
And what are the great concessions Dealmaker Donnie has gotten from Canada, Mexico, and Panama?
Okay, we’ll put extra guys on the border, and your ships can come through the canal without paying.
Wow! Nice job, Fatty. And now everyone hates us and will never trust us again.
But more tariffs on the way. “I raise ya!” That’s all he knows how to do.
Jonathan Chait, in The Atlantic, on sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis
"Not only has the Trump administration seized for itself extraconstitutional powers, but yesterday, it raised the specter that, should the courts apply the text of the Constitution and negate its plans, it will simply ignore them.
The Trump administration is not refusing to share power with an opposing party. It is refusing to follow the constitutional limits of a government that its own party controls completely.
....
Donald Trump is unilaterally declaring the right to ignore spending levels set by Congress, and to eliminate agencies that Congress voted to create. What makes this demand so astonishing is that Trump could persuade Congress, which he commands in personality-cult style, to follow his demands. Republicans presently control both houses of Congress, and any agency that Congress established, it can also cut or eliminate."
Steve M.
"JUST DISBAND CONGRESS"
ProPublica
"The Elite Lawyers Working for Elon Musk’s DOGE Include Former Supreme Court Clerks
Much attention has been paid to the young Silicon Valley engineers working for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, but the group has also hired high-powered legal talent.
But ProPublica has identified three lawyers with elite establishment credentials who have also joined the DOGE effort.
Two are former Supreme Court clerks — one clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, another for Justice Neil Gorsuch — and the third has been selected to be a Gorsuch clerk for the 2025-2026 term."
A person who is going to be working for the Supreme Court and Gorsuch this year is working for the democracy destroyers at DOGE. That is on top of Thomas opening up his house up to Donald Coup's cultists, Ginni Thomas being part of the first attempt, Alito and his wife signalling their support for insurrection on their flagpole and Sam voting for FH at Every opportunity. Oh yeah, and Roberts wrote the coup's are OK if a Republican president tries it, CAOKIARTI*, fake law protection racket.
*This is happening so frequently now we may need an acronym for it now.
EPA
"Chemical Companies Ask Trump’s EPA To Hide Potential Disasters
Biden increased transparency around the risks of chemical disaster — industry lobbyists just asked Trump’s new EPA chief Lee Zeldin to roll that back.
Katya Schwenk
On Jan. 30, more than a dozen chemical industry groups sent a letter to Zeldin demanding he take “urgent action” to roll back Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight of facilities that are at the highest risk for chemical disasters. The trade groups also requested the agency “immediately shut down” a government website that makes public where these facilities are located and what dangerous toxins they hold."
Dean Obeidallah
"More Profiles of Courage, Patriotism and Resistance in standing up to Trump
These are inspiring moments for us!"
February 28th
There is some talk about an economic blackout on the 28th to send a message to our corporate masters.
RAS,
It should be truly terrifying that people who graduate law school, pass through bar, and who are good enough to clerk at the Supreme Court, absolutely have to know the law and the Constitution, but have no problem kissing the rule of law goodbye in order to serve the dark side.
These scurrilous bastards don’t serve the law, they make the law serve them and the authoritarian plans of their bosses.
It’s bad enough that lawyers who get elected as representatives of the Party of Traitors give the Constitution and rule of law the back of their hand, they operate mostly in plain view. These sneaky bastards conniving on the inside to help Fat Hitler, the MuskRat, and their Project 2025 co-conspirators evade legal consequences get very little coverage in the MSM.
I’m not convinced that lackadaisical voters would rise up if they were better informed, but there’s no chance of that if even the press decides not to cover the illegal, unethical, and unconstitutional schemes being carried out behind closed doors.
Oh, no! No more pennies. We won't be able to say things like "a
penny for your thoughts."
"Penny wise and pound foolish." Although, that one sounds a bit
British.
Well, that should solve all the countries problems. Thank you Donald.
But that penny thing might contribute to more truth in advertising....
No more prices at $ x.99... or anything that will end with any price, plus the varying local and state sales taxes, but a 10 or 5..
Should present quite an arithmetic challenge...for people and computers..
Retailers already have that penny thing figured out (to their
advantage).
Rounding off: if the price is $1.98, it goes to $2.00.
If the price is $2.03, it goes down to $2.00.
You can bet your arse how things are gonna be priced.
With the loss of the one cent coin (penny) I wonder what corporate welfare the companies who supplied the mint with the sheet metal from which the coins are struck will receive.
So when do we don the red stars that say we are liberals or democrats?
Asking for a friend...
@Jeanne: I vote for blue stars. Red clashes with all my clothes
and with a 25% tariff coming up, I won't be able to afford new clothes.
Actually, everything I wear comes from the sixties.
I have ties that are one inch wide and ties that are 4 inches wide.
Well, its off to the library to see if I can catch one of those drag
queens reading to little kids.
Forrest,
Probably not worth another try but I will....and curse SquareSpace in the process...but here goes:
Understand your take on how retailers will deal with a penniless future but doubt they will happily round down.
It's the taxes in states with sales tax that are the arithmetic rub. Here in WA we have a state sales tax and local counties and cities add their own, often in tenths of a percentage point. I doubt that those calculations, when added to the price of the goods or services taxed, will always land on numbers that end in whole dollars or 5, 10, or 25 cent intervals....and I don't think rounding up or down is in the sales tax cards.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/09/obituaries/tom-robbins-dead.html
Tried two or three, but was never able to finish one of his novels. I'm wondering what other RCers thought of his writing.
Still, I very much liked having Tom Robbins around the Magic Skagit....as he termed our beautiful river and county.
I don't think I can watch Fantasia again without picturing T****'s face on one of the elephant or hippo ballet dancers, after reading the Borowitz Report
Thanks for the new word, Akhilleus.
Ken -
I've never read Tom Robbins, so I just checked out Even Cowgirls Get the Blues from the library - or rather, joined the 6 week wait list.
As Waldman says, Trumpism in a nutshell:
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/why-the-attack-on-this-agency-is?
Fat Hitler sez Jordan and Egypt better do what he wants. OR ELSE!! They better take those pain in the ass Palestinians, pay for their transport and foot the bill for building them new living facilities so’s Fatty Fuckface can realize his dream of owning luxury condos on the “Mediterranean Riviera”.
Dissolute and terminally debauched dumbass Roman emperors, when those guys really could make such demands, never endeavored to attempt such a stoopid idea, and demand that others pay through the nose for their wet dream. (Okay, a few tried but usually they were murdered…sometimes by their own guards).
The Egyptian empire began over 8,000 years ago. Jordan was a center for human culture and political development beginning about 200,000 years ago.
But this ignorant fat fuck believes he knows best what’s right for these two ancient countries.
Of COURSE he does. Look, if he hasn’t seen it on Fox or in some movie or in one of his many adolescent wet dreams, it can’t be true.
“Better do what I say!” has been a tired demand that both nations have heard for thousands of years. Think they’re going to cave to this fat fool?
Laura,
Nice to see that there are still enough readers going to public libraries (while we still have them) to create wait lists for certain books. I’m wondering if your list members reacted to Tom Robbins’ death yesterday (as Ken pointed out). I read “Cowgirls” back in the late 70’s. It’s amazing that women (and all of us) are still trying to deal with misogynistic bullshit 50 years later. Great book though. A fun read.