The Conversation -- January 23, 2025
Mike Baker & Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked ... [Donald] Trump’s executive order to end automatic citizenship to babies born on American soil, dealing the president his first setback as he attempts to upend the nation’s immigration laws and reverse decades of precedent. In a hearing held three days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, a Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour, sided at least for the moment with four states that sued. 'This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,' he said. Mr. Trump’s order, issued in the opening hours of his presidency, declared that children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants would no longer be treated as citizens. The order also extended to babies of mothers who were in the country legally but temporarily, such as tourists, university students or temporary workers.” MB: Coughenour is a Reagan appointee. The AP story is here.
Teddy Rosenbluth, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration, moving quickly to clamp down on health and science agencies, has canceled a string of scientific meetings and instructed federal health officials to refrain from all public communications, including upcoming reports focused on the nation’s escalating bird flu crisis. Experts who serve on outside advisory panels on a range of topics, from antibiotic resistance to deafness, received emails on Wednesday telling them their meetings had been canceled. The cancellations followed a directive issued on Tuesday by the acting director of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, who prohibited the release of any public communication until it had been reviewed by a presidential appointee or designee....” A STAT News report is here. ~~~
~~~ Who's in Charge??? Alexander Tin of CBS News: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is operating without an acting director, multiple health officials confirm to CBS News, leaving the agency responsible for defending the U.S. against emerging pandemics and responding to health emergencies without a clear chain of command. A leadership vacuum atop the CDC is unprecedented. Under previous administrations, including the first term of ... [Donald] Trump, officials made sure either to immediately appoint their pick for the position or decide during the transition on whom would assume the top post in an acting capacity. Other federal health agencies are also operating without publicly named acting heads, including the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health."
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “... [Donald] Trump revoked security protection for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a former top aide, Brian Hook, despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf, four people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had been part of an aggressive posture against Iran during the first Trump presidency, most notably the drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020. Mr. Trump also remains under threat because of that action, and his advisers have regularly stressed the seriousness of the situation in the years between his two terms in office. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had their security details ... pulled on Tuesday, one of the people briefed on the matter said. A day before, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. Secret Service detail of John R. Bolton, who was Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser and also faces threats.”
Petty, Petty, Petty. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “The Justice Department has abruptly rescinded job offers made to dozens of recent law school graduates who were to be placed in entry-level positions in its antitrust, criminal, civil rights, immigration and national security divisions, and at the F.B.I., according to people familiar with the situation. The offers were made through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, which has functioned without controversy — or much notice — under presidents of both parties for decades. The program is the latest target of Trump political appointees intent on reversing even the most workaday decisions made by their predecessors.”
Cruelty Is of the Essence of the Scheme. Miriam Jordan & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “The State Department abruptly canceled travel for thousands of refugees already approved to fly to the United States, days before a deadline that ... [Donald] Trump had set for suspending the resettlement program that provides safe haven for people fleeing persecution. The cancellation of the flights comes on the heels of an executive order signed by Mr. Trump on Monday that indefinitely paused the refugee resettlement.... More than 10,000 refugees were currently in the pipeline to travel to the United States.... They include Afghans who faced danger because of their association with the United States before the military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Among other refugees who had been approved for travel were people from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The sudden halt to the flights was an agonizing blow to refugees who had been following a complicated and lengthy process to enter the country legally, resettlement group workers said.”
Even Big, Tough CEOs are A'Skeert. Emma Goldberg of the New York Times: “Mr. Trump ... revoked an executive order signed in 1965 that prohibited discriminatory hiring and employment practices for private government contractors. Perhaps most alarming for business leaders was the order’s focus on private corporations, whether they do business with the government or not.... The executive order instructs the federal government to look at private sector D.E.I. initiatives: Each federal agency, it says, will identify 'up to nine potential civil compliance investigations' that could include publicly traded corporations, nonprofits and large foundations, among others. 'We’re already seeing that this flurry of orders has created fear and confusion,' said David Glasgow ... at N.Y.U. Law.... Plenty of companies, reading the writing on the wall, had begun to shift their approaches to D.E.I. before Mr. Trump took office.... Some companies have stood firm in support of D.E.I., including Costco, Patagonia and Microsoft.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: It is quite amazing that Trump is effectively telling private corporations, even those with no government contracts, "You must hire the white boys."
GOP House Members Sexted Trump Aide. Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: “An aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson advised Republican colleagues against subpoenaing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack in an effort to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent her, according to written correspondence reviewed by The Post and a person familiar with the effort. The aide intervened last June.... Multiple colleagues had raised concerns with the speaker’s office about the potential for public disclosure of 'sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors' with Hutchinson, according to correspondence produced at the time that detailed the conversation.... Johnson revived the investigation this week as part of an effort by ... Donald Trump and his allies to seek retribution against perceived political enemies, including those who investigated his role in the Capitol attack.... The Washington Post ... has not seen the purported sexually explicit messages nor identified who sent them or whether Hutchinson responded.”
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Peter Baker of the New York Times: “At a late-night inaugural ball on Monday..., [Donald] Trump, flush with his restoration to power, began waving a ceremonial sword he had been given almost as if it were a scepter and he were a king.... His return to the White House has been as much a coronation as an inauguration, a reflection of his own view of power and the fear it has instilled in his adversaries. His inaugural events have been suffused with regal themes. In his Inaugural Address, he claimed that when a gunman opened fire on him last summer, he 'was saved by God to make America great again,' an echo of the divine right of kings. He invoked the imperialist phrase 'manifest destiny,' declared that he would unilaterally rename mountains and seas as he sees fit and even claimed the right to take over territory belonging to other nations.... And in the weeks since his comeback election in November, Mr. Trump has asserted his dominance in the political space, making little effort to recognize anyone else’s authority in a three-branch government, but instead making it clear that he expects other actors in the system to bend to his will.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: “His vice president, JD Vance, said he 'obviously' wouldn’t do it. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, agreed there was no way: 'The president does not like people that abuse police officers,' she told senators last week. The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, gave similar assurances that ... [Donald] Trump would not pardon 'violent criminals' — the kind who bashed police officers with pieces of broken furniture or stashed an arsenal of weapons in Virginia to be used if their breach of the Capitol failed on Jan. 6, 2021. Even public opinion was against Mr. Trump. Just 34 percent of Americans thought he should pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, according to a Monmouth University poll in December. But on Monday..., he ... did exactly what he wanted: He decreed that every rioter would get some sort of reprieve. It didn’t matter what crimes they committed.... [Mr. Trump] intends — even more so than in his first term — to test the outer limits of what he can get away with.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Trump Pardons Two More Violent Criminals. Paul Duggan & Peter Herman of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two D.C. police officers convicted of misconduct in a vehicle chase that killed a young Black man and sparked a night of destructive civil unrest in the city during the nation’s 2020 racial reckoning. Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky were convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder. They were sentenced to prison terms of 5½ years and four years, respectively, but remained free pending the outcomes of their appeals.... On Oct. 23, 2020..., Zabavsky and Sutton, both White, conducted what federal prosecutors said was an unjustified, illegally reckless vehicular pursuit. They were chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a rented moped during the low-speed chase and crashed into an SUV in traffic.” Although a lawyer for Mr. Hylton-Brown's mother said he was born in the U.S., Trump twice referred to him this week by the derogatory term “an illegal.” CNN's story is here.
In an unusual remark that closely echoed actual journalism, Sean Hannity said to Donald Trump last night, “The only criticism or pushback I’ve seen is about people that were convicted or involved in incidents where they were violent with police. Why did they get a pardon?” You can read Trump's response in this item by Charlie Nash of Mediaite. It kind of boils down to: It would be a lot of trouble to figure out who might have been involved in "very minor incidents" vs. who was completely innocent. Most of them were totally innocent and some were elderly but they got really long sentences & the government treated them "like the worst criminals in history" while Philadelphia murderers are sitting happily at home acting holier-than-thou. More on this interview linked below.
Erica Green of the New York Times: “... [Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked a 60-year-old executive order banning discrimination in hiring practices in the federal government, his latest action aimed at gutting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. His order, which the White House called 'the most important federal civil rights measure in decades,' revokes Executive Order 11246 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. It prohibited discriminatory practices in hiring and employment in government contracting and asserted the government’s commitment to affirmative action. Mr. Trump’s order says that his action 'protects the civil rights of all Americans and expands individual opportunity.' Among its provisions is the elimination of any references to diversity, equity and inclusion in federal contracting and spending.... The administration has moved swiftly to eradicate all programs and practices in the federal government aimed at addressing systemic inequities.” (Also linked yesterday.) The Huffington Post's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Do notice the gaslighting. In Trump's upside-down world, he labels undoing an historic civil rights initiative "the most important federal civil rights measure in decades." Trump pretends that he is undoing a wrong by guaranteeing "equal rights" to white men, a group that has held almost every bit of power since, well, the birth of our nation. ~~~
~~~ Perry Stein & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: “The Justice Department has ordered the civil rights division to halt much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division.... A separate memo sent to [Kathleen] Wolfe [— designated by the Trump administration as supervisor of the division —] on Wednesday says the civil rights division must notify the Justice Department’s chief of staff of any consent decrees the division has finalized within the last 90 days. That directive suggests that police-reform agreements the Justice Department has negotiated with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis could be in jeopardy.”
Trump: Snitch on Your Co-workers or Else. Erica Green & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Wednesday threatened federal employees with 'adverse consequences' if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies. Tens of thousands of workers were put on notice that officials would not tolerate any efforts to 'disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.' Emails sent out, which were based on a template from the Office of Personnel Management, gave employees 10 days to report their observations to a special email account without risking disciplinary action.” ~~~
~~~ Robert King & Ben Leonard of Politico: “Federal government websites devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion went offline Wednesday as the White House threatened 'adverse consequences' for agencies that fail to report DEI-related information within 10 days. The sites went down a day after the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to all agencies Tuesday calling for all DEI workers to be placed on paid leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday. One of the instructions in the letter directed agency heads to remove 'all outward facing media' related to DEI work by 5 p.m. Wednesday.” ~~~
~~~ Andrew Prokop of Vox: “New executive actions from the Trump administration on Tuesday make clear that not only is ... Donald Trump using his power to purge the practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government — he’s acting to try and purge it from American culture as a whole.... In an executive order [issued] Tuesday night..., [Trump declared that] every federal agency ... must send a recommendation to the attorney general of up to nine potential investigations of corporations, large nonprofits, foundations with assets of $500 million or more, higher education institutions with endowments of $1 billion or more, or bar and medical associations. All this, the order said, was meant to 'encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.'... For now, what is clear is that Trump’s team is making an all-out effort to dismantle both the legal framework and the larger culture that have underpinned affirmative action and DEI in recent years.”
Ellen Nakashima & John Hudson of the Washington Post: “National security adviser Michael Waltz has authorized a 'full review' of dozens of career officials who staff the White House on issues ranging from Iranian and North Korean nuclear proliferation to cyberespionage and Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to his spokesman.... The officials, known as aides or detailees, were told Wednesday in a brief call conducted by Waltz’s chief of staff, Brian McCormack, that they were to leave the building immediately, go home and be 'on call.' They were given instructions to return only if asked by their supervisors — senior directors appointed by the Trump administration....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump’s plan to grant temporary security clearances to anyone he chooses opens the door to breaches and even espionage, experts and former officials say.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The Trump White House is moving to paralyze a bipartisan and independent watchdog agency that investigates national security activities that can intrude upon individual rights.... Congress established the agency, called the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, as an independent unit in the executive branch after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It has security clearances and subpoena power, and is set up to have five members, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, who serve six-year terms. Some members are picked by the president, and some are selected by congressional leaders of the other party.... On Tuesday evening, each of the three members who were picked by Democrats — Sharon Bradford Franklin, Edward W. Felten and Travis LeBlanc — received an email from the White House telling them to submit resignation letters by the close of business on Jan. 23.... [Their] departure ... would mean the agency would lack enough members to function....” (Also linked yesterday.)
Nick Miroff, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump is preparing to send around 10,000 troops to the southern border, where they will support Border Patrol agents under new orders to shut off access to asylum, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection briefing document obtained by The Washington Post. The order directs border agents to block entry to migrants on the grounds that they have passed through countries where communicable diseases are present, without citing any specific health threat.” MB: Obviously, there isn't a country or a U.S. city where communicable diseases are not present. Got a cold? You've got a communicable disease. ~~~
~~~ Erik De La Garza of the Raw Story: “The country’s agricultural sector is in full-blown panic mode as President Donald Trump’s long-promised mass deportations are starting to become a reality in farming communities across the United States. And the ripple effect could soon hit supermarkets, as the chaos surrounding Trump’s strict immigration policies – which already include stepped-up ICE raids – is already threatening to send food prices soaring before long, according to a report in The New Republic. 'Bakersfield, California saw a massive drop off in the number of field workers showing up for work Tuesday while ICE agents in unmarked Chevy Suburbans rounded up and detained immigrants in the area, profiling individuals they believed to be field workers,' the outlet reported. The roundup resulted in acres of oranges left unpicked in the California sun during the most active period of the season.”
Cat Zakrzewski, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from California as it works to recover from devastating wildfires, recycling several baseless claims and attacks against California’s Democratic leaders during his first sit-down interview since his inauguration. 'I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,' he told Sean Hannity during a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday night. Trump was repeating a false claim he has repeatedly made that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-California) and other public officials have refused to allow water from the northern part of the state to flow down into the Los Angeles area. Withholding aid, or making it conditional, would be a significant change in standard practice for how the government responds to natural disasters. Recent hurricane funding for mostly GOP-led states passed Congress without condition.” An AP story is here.
~~~ Marie: So the WashPo reports matter-of-factly that the better part of recent disaster funding went to red states. Then we have this: ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Falconer of Axios: "... [Donald] Trump plans to have a 'whole big discussion very shortly' on the Federal Emergency Management Agency because he'd 'rather see the states take care of their own problems,' according to an interview broadcast Wednesday evening.... Trump and others in the GOP have in recent months complained that FEMA's disaster response has been biased against Republicans.... [Trump told Sean Hannity], 'FEMA has not done their job for the last four years.'... Project 2025 suggests 'reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government' — though during the 2024 campaign Trump disavowed the Heritage Foundation-backed blueprint that some of his Cabinet picks have ties to." ~~~
~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: “... [Donald] Trump on Wednesday repeatedly suggested it was a mistake that former President Biden did not preemptively pardon himself before leaving office. Trump, in a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, also danced around questions on whether Biden should be investigated. But on multiple occasions, Trump signaled Biden should have taken advantage of the pardon power to protect himself.” ~~~
~~~ Irie Sentner & Ali Bianco of Politico: “... Donald Trump appeared to suggest Wednesday that former President Joe Biden should be investigated and should even have pardoned himself on the way out of the White House. Trump did not specify what offenses the former president may have committed, only that his predecessor should endure the kind of legal scrutiny he endured before he was reelected.”
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “The Coast Guard will surge additional resources to the 'Gulf of America' and several other locations, the service said in a statement Tuesday, after the Trump administration sacked its top admiral and alleged that she had failed to prioritize the security of U.S. borders. The statement marked one of the U.S. government’s first official uses of ... Donald Trump’s desired name for the Gulf of Mexico, a policy shift that has elicited derision from his domestic political foes and leaders in Mexico. Trump signed an executive order soon after his inauguration Monday setting a 30-day deadline for the Interior Department to take 'all appropriate action' needed to codify the new name.” (Also linked yesterday.)
⭐Judges Get the Last Word, After All. Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A prominent federal judge on Wednesday ripped ... Donald Trump’s mass clemency for Jan. 6 rioters, saying the justification he offered in his proclamation — to correct an 'injustice' and trigger a 'national reconciliation' — was 'flatly wrong' and a 'revisionist myth.' 'No “national injustice” occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election,' U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in an eight-page order in the case of two Jan. 6 defendants who pleaded guilty to felonies. “No “process of national reconciliation” can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity.... She said his decision 'merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.'...
“U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — who was slated to preside over Trump’s own criminal prosecution for seeking to subvert the 2020 election before his 2024 victory ended the case — said Trump’s mass pardons “cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake.'... U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said Trump’s action could never change the 'immutable' record of violence and heroism of law enforcement, which will remain enshrined in court records.”
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Fresh from being freed by ... [Donald] Trump’s sweeping grants of clemency, two of the nation’s most notorious far-right leaders — Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers militia — spoke out this week.... They asserted unrepentantly that they wanted Mr. Trump to seek revenge on their behalf for being prosecuted in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Before Mr. Trump offered them a reprieve on Monday night, both men had been serving lengthy prison terms — Mr. Tarrio 22 years and Mr. Rhodes 18 years — on seditious conspiracy convictions arising from the roles they played in the storming of the Capitol.... 'Success,' Mr. Tarrio said, 'is going to be retribution.'... When asked how history should remember Jan. 6, [Mr. Rhodes] said, 'As Patriots’ Day — that we stood up for our country because we knew the election was stolen.' As for any regrets, he said he had none, adding, 'Because we did the right thing.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
You remember how a little while ago we learned that Elon did not play well with Vivek so Elon kicked Vivek out? Well, he's not playing much better in Donnie's sandbox. Oh, how will this end? ~~~
~~~ Theodore Schleifer & Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: “Elon Musk is casting doubt on the first major tech investment announcement made by ... [Donald] Trump, openly questioning the administration he now serves. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, some of which is already underway. But in two late-night messages on X, Mr. Musk said that the venture, dubbed Stargate, did not have the financing to achieve the promised investment levels. 'They don’t have the money,' Mr. Musk wrote in reply to an OpenAI post on the announcement. 'SoftBank has well under $10B secured....' ... It’s ... an unusual move for any senior policy official to question an initiative trumpeted by the president.... Mr. Musk has been battling with OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Elon's pique with the project likely means that Trump's "people" planned this hu-u-u-ge AI project either (a) without consulting Musk, who has an AI product of his very own (Grok/xAI), or (b) consulting him but ignoring his advice. That is, by Day 2 in the Realm of Trump II, there's trouble at the top.
Marie: Long, long ago (2009, to be exact), I warned that Republican men should never publicly speak or write about anything having to do with sex (or gender, if you prefer), because they seldom know WTF they're talking about. Nevertheless, they persisted. So it's not surprising that this is where we are: ~~~
~~~ I hope you're all feeling your feminine side, because Donald Trump just declared by executive fiat that you are a female. Congratulations, Girls! Eric Garcia of the Independent: “Specifically, the order defines a female as a 'a person belonging, at conception to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,' while a male is a 'person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.'... Critics pointed out that genitalia at conception are 'phenotypically female,' according to the National Library of Medicine. For the first several weeks after conception, all human embryos follow a 'female' developmental blueprint until the activation of the SRY gene initiates sexual differentiation. Embryos with an XY genotype will begin developing male traits linked to the Y chromosome at roughly six weeks. Before then, human embryos have only developed female traits linked to the X chromosome. One social media critic scoffed that the order was 'written by morons.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update: If you look pretty far down the page in yesterday's Comments, you'll find that RAS has suggested an excellent way to manage this conundrum.
Heather Cox Richardson has some thoughts about Trump's stunts, and shares some of Will Bunch's observations about Trump's performance. Here's Richardson on Bunch: “Trump’s first day on the job was 'a dangerous display of rapid mental decline.' Bunch recorded Trump’s slurred speech, rambling, and nonsensical off-the-cuff speeches and said that his 'biggest takeaway from a day that some have anticipated and many have dreaded for the last four years is seeing how rapidly the oldest new president in America is declining right in front of us.'” Thanks to laura h. for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ AND Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic strikes an optimistic tone: “... a politician and a party that are built for propaganda and quashing dissent generally lack the tools for effective governance. As far as policy accomplishments are concerned, the second Trump term could very well turn out to be as underwhelming as the first.... Even by realistic standards..., Trump seems unprepared to deliver on some of his biggest stated goals.... Trump’s fiscal agenda is where the desires of his wealthy benefactors, the preferences of his voters, and economic conditions will clash most violently.... A leader surrounded by sycophants cannot receive the advice he needs to avoid catastrophic error, and to signal that his allies can enrich themselves from his administration is to invite scandal. In his inaugural spectacle of dominance and intimidation, Trump was planting the seeds of his own failure.” Thanks to laura h. for this gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Chait argues that Trump & Co. won't do all that much harm because they don't know how to govern & Trump's "sweeping" executive orders were so vague as to be meaningless. I hope Chait is right, but I have no such confidence. ~~~
~~~ Paul Waldman, in a Substack essay, also is somewhat confident Trump's reign of terror will fizzle because it's based almost entirely upon the sense that "The real Americans have been betrayed, their world and their place in it taken from them." Waldman thinks Democrats can fix that with "strategic thinking." MB: I could not agree less. That backlash we're seeing is an extension of the backlash that arose when the South lost the Civil War. There's no break, no loss of continuity between then and now. Sure, the white (majority male) bigots may have more clearly identified a few more groups to despise -- Latinos, LGBTQ+, & so forth -- but it's all that same bedrock belief that white men should rule and everybody else should "know your place." These yahoos were willing to die for white supremacy in 1860 and they're still willing to fight for it in 2025.
Catie Edmondson & Matthew Duehren of the New York Times: “Top Republicans are passing around an extensive menu of ideas to cover the cost of a massive tax cut and immigration crackdown bill. They could create a 10 percent tariff on all imports, bringing in an estimated $1.9 trillion. They could establish new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, bringing in $100 billion in savings. They have even calculated that they could generate $20 billion by raising taxes on people who can use a free gym at the office, according to a 50-page list of options that the House Budget Committee has circulated in recent days.” MB: Yes, the plans are to raise your cost-of-living, raise your taxes AND reduce your benefits. That's what passes for “ideas” in the GOP today.
Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: “The reverend who called on ... [Donald] Trump to have mercy on transgender children and immigrants during a prayer service for his inauguration said in a new interview she would not apologize for her remarks. 'I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others,' Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde told Time magazine in an interview published Wednesday afternoon. The interview comes after Trump criticized Budde as a 'Radical Left hard-line Trump hater' and called on her to apologize for her 'nasty' remarks at the National Cathedral prayer service on Tuesday.... Trump also called on her and the church to apologize to him.” MB: I recall how furious Trump was when Nancy Pelosi said she prayed for him. He just can't stand it when women of faith obliquely demonstrate what a cruel, empty person he is, so he lashes out, proving their unspoken premise.
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Just as we know “Two dogs walked into a bar....” is the preface to a joke, so do we know that “A state senator in Mississippi has filed a bill” also promises a joke, usually a downright ridiculous one. ~~~
~~~ Mississippi. WLBT News (Jackson): “A state senator in Mississippi has filed a bill entitled the 'Contraception Begins at Erection Act.' As written by Sen. Bradford Blackmon, the bill would make it 'unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.' There are also fines involved, the third strike resulting in the loss of $10,000 from the perpetrator.” Really, Brad, that's great. Just great. What was I saying yesterday about how Republican men should not write or say anything about sex or gender? Well, Brad's a Democrat. Looks like a good percentage of Democratic men should STFU, too.
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Reader Comments (27)
This administration started by the pardon power and will end in a flurry of pardons on the way out the door. Mark my words.
The Supreme Court's decision to cloak the Presidency in absolute immunity de facto extends absolute immunity to anyone the President deems fit through the pardon power, one of the most "official acts" the Constitution details. The FedSoc Supremes thus potentially extended immunity to any criminal in the country under an unprinciple President.
Seeing that the President pardoned even the most violent criminals of Jan 6, others literally jailed for "seditious conspiracy" against the government, drug king pins, etc., this radical act should be seen as a huge red flag for what's to come. As his euphoria wears off and pressure mounts as criticism rolls in and the knives come out to replace Lame Duck Donny, he's going to lash out and sic his base on a whole number of innocents. Whatever comes to them, if they flaunt their upmost loyalty to Dear Leader, I predict he pardons their crimes on the way out and leaves the country with a class of meandering, unrepented criminals in his wake.
I too share none ofnthe optimism expressed in the Chait article. The President is unscrupulous and erratic, yeah, but the Claremont Institute, the new gen of FedSoc, and the Heritage Foundation are all settling into government will action plans, axes to grind, and no shits to give for their cruelty.
Someone fix that countdown clock. It’s not moving fast enough.
This report on your co-worker order is real East German Stasi shit. After the Wall fell, thousands of East Germans found out that their lives had been made inexplicably terrible because a neighbor had ratted them out for something terrifically insignificant, like owning the wrong books or listening to unacceptable Western music. Often they’d be ratted out for invented stuff because Stasi agents demanded SOMETHING—anything, under threats of some form of punishment up to and including prison time. It created a suffocating atmosphere of fear and paranoia.
But this is what authoritarian regimes do. The leaders are corrupt pigs and so assume everyone is just like them. Trump is a lifetime crook and con man and so believes everyone else is up to no good as well.
Drumpf’s Amerika
At its peak, it is estimated that 1 in 11 East German citizens either worked directly for the Stasi or were part-time informers.
Per Wikipedia:
“The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi's case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life.“
Can you not imagine that this sort of thing is the absolute wet dream of Trump advisors and officials like Stephen Miller?
But don’t worry. We’ll never be like East Germany.
Right?
I heard someone on NPR this morning saying that anyone caught hiding an illegal will receive the same punishment as the illegal. You mean they’ll be jailed and deported as well?
Fear, paranoia, distrust, and chaos. This is the Trump Way.
In 1995, Carl Sagan made this prediction:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Prescient.
“Critical faculties in decline…celebration of ignorance…credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition…” Trump all the way.
I looked it up. The ten least educated states all voted for Trump.
West Virginia
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
Alabama
Oklahoma
Kentucky
Nevada
New Mexico
Texas
The ten most educated states did not.
Massachusetts
Vermont
Maryland
Connecticut
Colorado
Virginia
New Jersey
New Hampshire
Minnesota
Washington
(Per https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/least-educated-states)
Trump loves the uneducated. You see why? And the Party of Traitors aims to keep Americans uneducated. Sagan nailed it.
Onan the Barbarian
Coming to a movie theater somewhere in Mississippi…
Sooo…life begins at erection? Yow. “Seed spilling” to be considered a crime? (See? Least educated states produce idiots like this moron. And how will he find out? Neighbors ratting out the spillers? “Hello? I’d like to report a seed spilling. Yeah. The kid next door. He was looking at naked pictures of Melania Trump! Send the Erection Police!”)
I guess this seed spill idiot is being nice. Here’s what happened to Onan in the Bible:
“But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death…”
Yikes! Was this like a regular thing? Boinking the brother’s wife? Bible Mike wants a congressional investigation!
Speaking of Bible Mike…Didn’t I read somewhere that he has a deal with his son that they’ll monitor each other’s porn consumption? They better stay out of Mississippi!
I give up…
Bus drivers being warned about ICE waiting at bus stops
Lincoln's got the idea
"Swiping Left on MAGA"
@Akhilleus: Harris won New Mexico.
But your point is well-taken. As was Sagan's.
Sagan was bold to make his prediction, but in fact he was looking at sociological trends & his knowledge of what sort of new technology was becoming available to ordinary people and how those ordinary people might use innovations in that technology. In 1995, when Sagan made his remarks, I already had had a personal computer for several years, and within three years -- early 1998 or possibly sooner -- I was regularly using the Internet & email. I may have made a few online purchases that year, too.
Moreover, there has been a surprising push by Democrats to bring some manufacturing back to the U.S. or to keep it here (and some pretend backing by Republicans), so we aren't as completely the service & information economy that others were predicting in the late 1990s.
Plus, we might be better off if more dimwits were in fact clutching their crystals & reading their horoscopes instead of watching Fox "News" and "influencers" on TikTok & Instagram.
In short, Sagan was kinda right. But so were P.T. Barnum ("sucker born every minutes" -- okay, maybe he didn't say that) and H.L. Mencken ("no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people" or something like that).
Teen Vogue
"ICE Watch Programs Can Protect Immigrants in Your Neighborhood — Here’s What to Know"
Test…again.
@Akhilleus: I found only one of your recent comments (re: Onan) in Squarespace Spam, and I de-spammed it. There's not one sitting there now.
Suckers
"In a whirlwind of speculation and misinformation, a memecoin supposedly linked to Barron Trump, the youngest son of former President Donald Trump, ascended to a staggering $460 million market cap before crashing down by 95%, leaving investors in the lurch. This event serves as a stark reminder of the dangers lurking in the volatile world of meme cryptocurrencies."
Here's a serendipitously apt quote from A. Hamilton, Esq., writing "Federalist 70". He is writing in 1788 about the problem of defining executive authority and form in the new constitution, under consideration for ratification in New York.
"... Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character. "
He could have written that paragraph today and a reader would automatically think of the major MAGA persons coming into power now, especially the vicey-est.
But, no, he's writing about a known problem of joint executive authority, in which such things as executive councils break down into rival internal factions even when begun with the highest intent of cooperation (Musk and Vivek, a good example. There can be only one.)
Hamilton's bottom line was that the country needed a unified executive with "energy" and the power to act. He, and the ratifying states, disliked the king-like aspects of the presidency, but looked at George Washington, and hoped that future presidents would approach his character and probity as a guaranty against despotism.
That hope held up pretty well until Reaganism began the formal deconstruction of the voting public's belief that citizens really own the government and can support it and use it for the common good. And now we are getting a government that wants to dismantle the things that the mob thinks it dislikes. After they burn their own village the cold, hunger and plague could make the living figure out that they made a mistake.
We have known these things for centuries. We have failed to learn for centuries.
The Nation
"A Line-by-Line Breakdown of Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
Almost every sentence of the order is wrong, misleading, or flagrantly unconstitutional."
Elie Mystal
What came first - the embryo or the sperm?
Marie,
Thanks. Squarespace is terrible today. Two other comments never made it through even after multiple tries. No comments (at least for me) make it through on the first try. I get the “Whoops” page all the time.
Marie,
Thanks. Squarespace is terrible today. Two other comments never made it through even after multiple tries. No comments (at least for me) make it through on the first try. I get the “Whoops” page all the time.
@Akhilleus: I did write to Squarespace again yesterday, as I think I told you I would. They promised to "accelerate" my request. I don't know if they're actually working on it today, but percentage-wise, I think it's worked a little better for me today.
I'm sorry that's not happening for you. We'll see what happens over the next few days.
Think this has already been reported here, but it's a sign that our recently installed Nazi Party is following the playbook of not only East Germany, as Akhilleus mentioned, but also that of the Stalin regime where apparatchiks oversaw all local and high level, formal and informal behavior, checking for and enforcing party purity.
Who said it can't happen here? It is.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-health-communications-cdc-hhs-fda-1eeca64c1ccc324b31b779a86d3999a4
Akhilleus -
you might recall this story from 2012:
Texas Rejects Critical Thinking Skills
"In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff department, here's what the Republican Party of Texas wrote into its 2012 platform as part of the section on education....
Yes, you read that right. The party opposes the teaching of 'higher order thinking skills' because it believes the purpose is to challenge a student’s 'fixed beliefs' and undermine 'parental authority'.”
While my TX public school education left much to be desired, at least the authorities still valued thinking for yourself back in the 20th century.
It has already been done.
An Apology from the Private Eye
In the steps of Netanyahu and other fearless leaders:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/23/trump-pentagon-civilian-deaths/?
Tonight's TCM movie offerings:
A Nazi Agent (1942)
Hitler Lives (a 1945 documentary)
Must be a coincidence.