The Conversation -- March 13, 2025
Marie: I'll do a bit more later this morning.
Paul Krugman: "... The two most powerful men in America have gone stark raving mad.... News reports still tend to sanewash what our leaders have been saying, and even selected quotations often make them sound more rational than they are. Fortunately, both are addicted to posting on social media, and you really have to read some of their posts to get a full sense of the madness. [Krugman provides some examples, along with other evidence of the men's madness.]... Cowed Republicans and timid Democrats have effectively given Trump and Musk the freedom to become the worst versions of themselves. And the whole world will pay the price." Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I would not say "have gone" mad. I think they've both been crazy for some time. As much as we wish we would prevail in every argument and be admired by all for our brilliance and perfect rectitude -- it turns out that life surrounded by sycophants makes you crazy. These sycophants allow your misapprehensions to go unchecked, and you make more false assumptions based on the unchecked errors, and pretty soon a big percentage of what you believe is nuts and you're sure that everyone who doesn't "know" what you think you know is a lunatic who should be squashed like a poisonous bug. At least that appears to be what happened to Don & Elon.
David Fahrenthold & Jeremy Singer-Vine of the New York Times: “Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has repeatedly posted error-filled data that inflated its success at saving taxpayer money. But after a series of news reports called out those mistakes, the group changed its tactics. It began making its new mistakes harder to find, leaving its already secretive activities even less transparent than before. Mr. Musk’s group posted a new set of claims to its website on March 2, saying it had saved taxpayers $10 billion by terminating 3,489 federal grants. Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE ... had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work.... This time, it did not include those details. A White House official said that was done for security purposes. The result was that the group’s new claims appeared impossible to check. The New York Times, at first, found a way around the group’s obfuscation.... Mr. Musk’s group later removed [grant identification numbers] from the code, and posted more batches of claims that could not be verified at all. That shift was a major step back from one of Mr. Musk’s core promises about his group: that it would be 'maximally transparent.'” ~~~
~~~ This is one consequence of crazy. Evidently when a person has lived in an environment in which he is constantly told he can do no wrong, getting out of that comfort zone is truly painful. So an easy way to climb back in with your blankie is simply to boast about your accomplishments while hiding ways to check them and contradict them.
Buffoonery Break. In an egregious misuse of federal property, Trump appeared on the White House South Lawn to hawk Teslas. With Elon Musk in tow, Trump claimed he bought a bright red Tesla Model S and said his aide Margo Martin would be driving it. BUT. Emily Goodin of the Daily Mail: "The Tesla model S has 37 NHTSA safety recalls so far against it, Wired reported. Issues with the electric car include: airbags, potential problems with the power-steering assist feature, faulty door handles, warped brake discs, and, in 2023, a voluntary recall for every one of Tesla's vehicles using the Full Self-Driving feature. The cars affected had trouble stopping and were speeding."
Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “The chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Shelly C. Lowe, left her position on Wednesday 'at the direction of President Trump,' the agency said. Dr. Lowe, a scholar of higher education and the first Native American to lead the agency, was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in October 2021 and confirmed by the Senate in February 2022. Michael McDonald, the agency’s general counsel, was named its acting chairman on Wednesday.” (Also linked yesterday.)
What's It All About, Elon? Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A federal judge has ordered that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency turn over a wide array of records and answer questions about plans it crafted to downsize federal agencies, fire employees and suspend federal contracts. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order Wednesday is a win for a group of 14 Democratic state attorneys general who are suing ... Donald Trump, Musk and DOGE, arguing that Musk has unconstitutionally wielded immense power in ways that are damaging their states. Any information the states glean as a result of Chutkan’s decision will help her determine whether to block Musk and DOGE’s government activities altogether. It’s the first time a judge has ordered Musk to produce documents in a court challenge to his aggressive campaign to slash and reshape the federal bureaucracy. Chutkan indicated her order was primarily aimed at identifying the DOGE officials Musk has embedded across the government and details about the 'parameters of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority.'”
Elon Musk, as far as rational observers can tell, plans to blow up Social Security. Part of his methodology is to lie about it, identifying "flaws" which don't exist (see also Krugman, linked above). Another part of his scheme is to sabotage the system; that is, to create new, real flaws. Yesterday, journalists at the Washington Post squelched a big step in that second part of the strategy: ~~~
It would certainly appear that they’re trying to break the capacity of the agency to serve its customers.... And, I suppose, if they’re trying to dismember the agency, liquidate its assets, sell pieces of it to their billionaire friends to run, they have to discredit the agency in the eyes of its customers, and they do that by breaking its ability to serve. -- Martin O'Malley, Social Security Administrator during the Biden administration
His playbook has now become quite clear.... It is an extraordinary game he plays of wrecking institutions in order to dominate them. -- Paul Barrett of NYU's Stern Center for Business ~~~
~~~ Hannah Natanson, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Social Security Administration late Wednesday abandoned plans it was considering to end phone service for millions of Americans filing retirement and disability claims after The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team was weighing the change to root out alleged fraud. The shift would have directed elderly and disabled people to rely on the internet and in-person field offices to process their claims, curtailing a service that 73 million Americans have relied on for decades to access earned government benefits.... The changes — contemplated and [the relatively small one that was] enacted — threatened to disrupt Social Security’s internal operations and limit its ability to serve the public, current and former officials warned, just as DOGE is targeting the agency for across-the-board staff cuts of more than 12 percent.... The DOGE-driven proposal to shift all claims processing online and to in-person offices spurred pushback internally, employees said, and from outside experts for the same reasons: that it would be likely to imperil millions of Americans’ ability to receive their earned benefits....
“At a tense meeting Tuesday, DOGE staff members grilled career officials about phone fraud. But as employees suggested potential solutions, DOGE representatives 'weren’t interested in anything else but defending the decision that they had already made,' one of the people said.... Musk ... has a history of claiming fraud by his opponents, whether in the political or business realms.... Musk began blasting out claims of widespread fraud at Social Security in mid-February.... While Musk was publicly complaining, the DOGE team he masterminds already knew many of his claims about Social Security fraud were overstated, distorted or baseless, according to the two people, records obtained by The Post and a declaration filed in federal court.”
If Elon is looking for waste, fraud and abuse, I suggest he go to Guantánamo. (Okay, even if he weren't pretending to look for waste, fraud and abuse, I'd suggest he park himself in Guantánamo.): ~~~
~~~ From the Major SNAFU File. Carol Rosenberg & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has abruptly cleared out a second group of migrants it brought to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, returning to the United States 40 men it had flown there in the past few weeks.... The government has not announced that it relocated the men to one or more Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Louisiana, nor was the reason for the move clear. But the officials familiar with the matter ... said it happened on Tuesday. The move comes days before a Federal District Court judge in Washington is set to hear a major challenge to aspects of the policy. It is the second time the administration has brought people to Guantánamo Bay only to remove them after a few weeks, a costly and time-consuming exercise.... This time, the officials said, the men were taken to an international airport in Alexandria, La.... The airport in central Louisiana, which services military and charter flights, has emerged as a hub of immigration detention activity.... The operation has so far cost $16 million.... It has a staff of 1,000 security forces and civilian contractors....” According to the government, a total of 40 migrants are being held at Guantánamo.
Zeldin v. Earth. Maxine Joselow of the Washington Post: “The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will begin the process of dismantling dozens of Biden-era rules touching issues as varied as electric vehicles, coal plants and clean water. In a flurry of news releases, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency will roll back some of President Joe Biden’s most consequential climate and environmental regulations. He specifically cited rules aimed at speeding the nation’s shift to electric vehicles, slashing planet-warming emissions from power plants and safeguarding waterways from harmful pollution. Taken together, the announcements herald a seismic shift in U.S. environmental policy, one that could ease restrictions on nearly every sector of the economy. Yet rewriting many of the rules could take the agency months or even years.” the Guardian's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Julian Prizont-Cado of Tech Crunch: "Citibank revealed in court filings on Wednesday that the FBI, the EPA, the EPA inspector general, and the Treasury Department have all requested that the bank freeze accounts of several nonprofits and state government agencies. The accounts were frozen in February, but the new documents make public details that had previously been unknown, including a full list of the nonprofits under FBI scrutiny. The funds were disbursed as part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act.... Green banks use those funds to provide financing for clean technology projects around the country.... Citibank was selected as the financial agent to administer that money.... EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has said that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund doesn’t align with the agency’s priorities and that he has concerns about fraud, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim." ~~~
~~~ Ashley Bellinger of Ars Technica: "On Wednesday, a ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of 'misusing law enforcement' to claw back climate funds and 'humor' Donald Trump’s 'vindictive political whims.' In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) requested information about a supposed criminal investigation into the EPA's $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Whitehouse alleged that there was no basis to freeze the funding. He claimed that Bondi and Patel 'reverted to a pretextual criminal investigation to provide an alternative excuse to interfere' after 'EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced via social media that he had "found" $20 billion in EPA funds at Citibank and falsely suggested that the use of a financial agent agreement ... was improper.'... Far from a deal struck in the dark as Zeldin alleged, the terms of the agreement were announced publicly in April 2024, Whitehouse said. He also suggested the Trump administration was ... 'pursuing false allegations of criminal conduct, with the improper purpose to wrongfully freeze assets appropriated by Congress.'"
Jonah Bromwich & Anusha Bayya of the New York Times: “Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration last weekend, have not been able to hold a private conversation with their client since his arrest. That revelation came during a hearing in Manhattan federal court Wednesday, as lawyers for Mr. Khalil and the government appeared in front of a judge, Jesse Furman, to discuss Mr. Khalil’s detention, which has raised concerns about free speech protections amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Khalil ... is being held at a facility in Louisiana. He has not been charged with any crime.... Judge Furman has ordered the government not to deport Mr. Khalil while his case is pending.... A park outside the courthouse was flooded with hundreds of protesters, some wearing kaffiyehs and black masks and waving posters, banners and signs reading 'Free Mahmoud.' They were joined by the actor Susan Sarandon....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Cate Brown, et al., of the Washington Post: “As the Trump administration moves to deport Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, the government has so far provided just one reason for doing so: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined Khalil’s presence in the United States could have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.'... Immigration officers provided no written evidence to support his deportation beyond Rubio’s determination based on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.... [In defense of his own action against Khalil, Rubio said,] 'No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way.'” MB: This is particularly disgusting coming from Rubio, whose own parents were Cuban immigrants to the U.S. and did not necessarily have a “right” to U.S. visas and green cards. Among the many assets Donald Trump owns: Rubio's soul.
~~~ Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) explains the importance of Khalil's case: ~~~
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell blocked the Trump administration from enforcing central provisions of an executive order that seeks to punish the law firm, Perkins Coie, by barring its attorneys from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings. Howell said the 'retaliatory animus' of Trump’s order is 'clear on its face' and appears to violate constitutional restrictions on 'viewpoint discrimination.' The executive order, which Trump issued last week, 'runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections,' the judge concluded.” The Washington Post's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Chilling the lawyers who represent those people hurts the rule of law because when the government can’t be legally opposed, the law provides no protections to anyone and you start to live in an autocracy. -- Daniel C. Richman, Columbia University Law
That's the point. -- Marie Burns ~~~
~~~ Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s retribution campaign against law firms, legal experts and analysts say, is undermining a central tenet of the American legal system — the right to a lawyer to argue vigorously on one’s behalf.... [Trump's order to cripple the law firm Perkins Coie, which had represented Hillary Clinton in 2016 & won cases against Trump's Big Lie in 2020,] came after he revoked security clearances held by any lawyers at the firm Covington & Burling who were helping provide legal advice to Jack Smith.... Experts say Mr. Trump’s actions could create a trickle-down effect in which those who find themselves under scrutiny from Mr. Trump and his administration struggle to find lawyers who are willing to defend them in the face of the vast powers of the federal government.... [Trump's] administration has also gone after law schools, the American Bar Association and even lawyers inside the government itself who might question or hinder his agenda. Last week, the top federal prosecutor in Washington threatened to stop hiring graduates from Georgetown Law School if its dean, William Treanor, failed to abolish the school’s diversity programs.” MB: With all due respect to individual lawyers, Donald Trump is one of the few people who could make me feel sorry for law firms.
Washington Post Editors: “Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, has a long history of criticizing the value and safety of vaccines. If Senate Republicans want the Trump administration to succeed, they should reject his nomination to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and ask ... Donald Trump to instead find someone who will take seriously the country’s ongoing outbreaks of viral illnesses. Weldon, who is scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday, has spent years promoting debunked theories that vaccines harm children.”
Theodoric Meyer & Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: “Senate Democrats say they are prepared to vote to reject the Republicans’ government funding bill, threatening a shutdown if lawmakers do not strike a deal within days. Not enough Democrats support the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said on the Senate floor Wednesday, with less than 72 hours before the government is set to shut down. Instead, Democrats are seeking a bill — known as a continuing resolution, or CR — to keep the government open through April 11 while the two parties complete work on their long-stalled spending bills. 'Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats,' Schumer said. 'Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate' to advance the bill.” The NBC News story is here. Politico has an item here. MB: This is not what I predicted; so let's see if Democrats stick to their guns here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Josh Marshall was as surprised as I was that Senate Democrats didn't immediately cave to Republicans on the shutdown. BUT then, this: ~~~
~~~ “The Kabuki Cave.” Josh Marshall of TPM: “Pretty quickly I heard from multiple sources what was actually happening. This was a deal between Schumer and Thune to allow a brief performative episode to throw Democratic voters off the scent while the Democratic caucus allowed the bill to pass. The deal is this: Democrats agree to give up the 60-vote threshold in exchange for being allowed to offer amendments to the House bill. The 'amendment' or 'amendments' will likely be some version of [a] 30-day CR. It doesn’t even matter what they are. But this is all for show. Once you give up the 60-vote threshold the whole thing is over.... [The] amendments that will certainly fail.”
Mike Lillis of the Hill: “House Democrats are heading to Republican districts to conduct town halls — a strategy designed to highlight the moratorium on those public events recently suggested by the head of the GOP’s campaign arm. 'We’re filling a void,' Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who is planning 'a few' town halls in Republican districts, told reporters during the Democrats’ annual retreat in Leesburg, Va.... Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), for instance, is planning town halls next week in three GOP-controlled districts, which are currently held by California Republican Reps. David Valadao, Young Kim and Ken Calvert.” MB: According to a firewalled CNN report, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) also is doing a tour of GOP districts.
Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: Yesterday, SpaceX scrubbed its planned launch of a Falcon-9 rocket that would have sent a new crew to the international space station and brought home two astronauts who have been stuck in space for more than nine months.
Marie: If you're one of those who has been complaining that NPR caves to Republicans, here's some hard evidence for your file. ~~~
~~~ Journalism Works Again, This Time by Accident. Max Tani of Semafor: NPR's standards & practices (censor) guy Tony Cavin advised “All Things Considered” anchor Ari Shapiro not to attend a corporate LGBTQ Pride event. But (ha ha) Cavin sent the advice to Shapiro “in an email, which was apparently sent by accident to many other NPR journalists.... 'Every year I’ve spoken at corporate pride events and you’ve personally signed off on them. It has never been an issue before,' he said. 'I’m curious what’s changed.' Later on Wednesday, after Semafor reported on Cavin’s emails with Shapiro, an NPR spokesperson said the news outlet would let Shapiro attend the event after all.”
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Israel's Wars. Megan Stack of the New York Times: “'You do whatever you want,' [Donald] Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu, it seems, took Mr. Trump at his word. Israel has clamped Gaza back under near-total siege, barring desperately needed humanitarian aid and other goods from entering the hungry and bomb-decimated enclave. Food, medicine, tents, fuel — for the past week and a half, supplies have not been permitted into Gaza, where some two million Palestinians are trying to survive in the wreckage. And Mr. Netanyahu keeps tightening the screws.... Israeli officials are essentially starving Gaza as a negotiation tactic.... Mr. Trump appears to be on board with this disgraceful tactic.”
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Reader Comments (2)
Good morning. A friend on FB posted this yesterday, which I reposted saying I wished this man was my congresscritter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEinZzXFcXM
There is an ad first, then the video.
Fat Hitler’s EPA mangler has thrown out decades of hard won regulations carefully crafted to ensure at least a modicum of safety for our air and water. But it’s not like these regs were written by a Sierra Club member. Republicans have fought tooth and nail for years against any and all laws that might prevent big oil, gas, and chemical industries from dumping fatal toxins into the environment, so all regulations have been a compromise at best between the health of Americans and the already overflowing coffers of billionaire oligarchs in those industries.
Now, however, it’s the billionaires who have been handed a free pass to pollute to their greedy, black hearts’ content at the expense of the lives and well being of American citizens, who, in Fat Hitler’s warped little mind, don’t ever register except as targets for his lies, and pockets to be picked.
And who the fuck is Lee Zeldin? What does he know about environmental protections? What does he know about the environment, period?
Zip. Nothing.
In Trump World, the only experience required is that of a proven MAGA flunky, which describes this traitor to a capital T. Because, like wrestling lady at Education, Drunk Man at DoD, Worm Brain at HHS, Illegal Fund Raiser Lady at Justice, and most egregiously, the Ketamine Kid at Mad Doggie, experience, knowledge, attention to rule of law and the Constitution, are all verboten. All they need is the ability to bow before the king and set fire to their respective departments. Any juvenile delinquent can do that.
Trump and his lackeys are like fat bully boys on the beach who can’t do anything but are happy to kick over sand castles that took meticulous hours to build.
It doesn't take smarts or knowledge or ability to blow shit up, just an evil mind and blackened heart, of which there is an over abundance in the Fat Hitler Reich.