The Conversation -- March 14, 2025
We have met the resistance, and he is ... Chuck Schumer positioning himself in front of the wheels of the MAGA bus. Meep meep! ~~~
~~~ Paul Campos in LG&$ explains Chuck's rationale even better than Chuck does, although Campos, it would seem, is not into it: "One thing that simply doesn’t work is to run for election on the we’re in an existential battle to save democracy from the fascist hordes platform, lose, bombard all your supports with twelve zillion texts and emails about how Donald Trump is on the verge of establishing a dictatorship so you had better rush us ten dollars now to pass the No Kings Act (how stupid do they think we are? Don’t answer that), and then, after all that, simply unconditionally surrender to the aforementioned hordes and aspiring dictator, on the basis of the inspiring claim that it’s the savvy thing to do.... The old men have gotten us into this fix, and politics, like physics, apparently advances one funeral at a time." MB: Can't figure out why he heads this post with a huge photo of a beautiful young woman. ~~~
~~~ Joseph Gedeon & Chris Stein of the Guardian: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is condemning Chuck Schumer ... for caving to Republican demands on a government funding bill, saying the move has created a 'deep sense of outrage and betrayal' among Democrats. Speaking to reporters in Leesburg, Virginia, where House Democrats were gathered for their annual policy retreat, Ocasio-Cortez said she was mobilizing Democratic supporters to push Schumer to oppose what she characterized as an 'acquiesce' to the GOP bill.... The rift has reportedly sparked such anger among House Democrats that some are encouraging Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Schumer in a primary election, according to CNN. When asked about these suggestions, she declined to comment.” ~~~
~~~ Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: “The eruption of anger about Mr. Schumer’s seeming surrender thrust into public view a generational divide that has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s deepest and most consequential rifts. Younger Democrats are chafing at and increasingly complaining about what they see as the feebleness of the old guard’s efforts to push back against President Trump. They are second-guessing how the party’s leaders — like Mr. Schumer, who brandishes his flip phone as a point of pride — are communicating their message in the TikTok era, as Republicans dominate the digital town square. And they are demanding that the party develop a bolder policy agenda that can answer the desperation of tens of millions of people who are struggling financially at a time when belief in the American dream is dimming. In other words, the younger generation is done with deference.” MB: Guess that makes me a virtual toddler. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I can tell you this with some certainty: if Donald Trump is applauding you, you're doing something terribly, terribly wrong: ~~~
~~~ Katherine Tully-McManus of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Friday congratulated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for 'doing the right thing' by backing the Republican-led bill to avert a government shutdown, a choice that's put the New York Democrat at odds with many in his party. 'A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights,' wrote the president Friday morning on Truth Social. 'Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer,' wrote the president on Truth Social.” ~~~
~~~ BUT. Matt Yglesias, who is an original, generally-liberal commentator, says Chuck did the right thing. MB: I still strongly disagree, but I won't deny Matt is smarter than I am.
Isabel van Brugen of the Daily Beast, republished by MSN: “Elon Musk threw a tantrum after his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was dealt a series of legal setbacks, immediately calling for the impeachment of federal judges. 'Without judicial reform, which means at least the absolute worst judges get impeached, we don’t have real democracy in America,' Musk said on X. He reacted after federal agencies were ordered on Thursday to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of federal workers with probationary status who had been laid off by DOGE as part of its sweeping government cost-cutting efforts, dealing a blow to Musk, as he seeks to eventually reduce the deficit by $1 trillion.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The Despicable Oligarch’s Gross Effluent here is perfectly consistent with the attitude and policy of an administration that is firing (among others!) all the people who even might be more loyal to the Constitution than to King Donald. The purpose of federal officials is to back what the Trumplodytes want, and those who don't, must go.
Tim Balk of the New York Times: “Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who took his position during the first Trump presidency and moved to shrink the agency’s ranks during the Biden administration, said he had signed an agreement with [Elon] Musk’s group on Wednesday. Mr. DeJoy, a Republican megadonor, wrote in the letter that Mr. Musk’s initiative was 'an effort aligned' with his efforts. He said that the Postal Service’s work force had shrunk by 30,000 since the 2021 fiscal year, and that the agency planned to complete a 'further reduction of another 10,000 people in the next 30 days' through a previously established voluntary-retirement program. Last week, Mr. Musk said at a tech conference organized by the bank Morgan Stanley that the Postal Service should be privatized, declaring, 'We should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.'... The agreement described by Mr. DeJoy on Thursday was comparatively less disruptive, but it drew a stern rebuke from Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which oversees the Postal Service.” The AP's report is here.
Collin Binkley of the AP: “More than 50 universities are being investigated for alleged racial discrimination as part of ... Donald Trump’s campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs that his officials say exclude white and Asian American students. The Education Department announced the new investigations Friday, one month after issuing a memo warning America’s schools and colleges that they could lose federal money over 'race-based preferences' in admissions, scholarships or any aspect of student life.... Most of the new inquiries are focused on colleges’ partnerships with the PhD Project, a nonprofit that helps students from underrepresented groups get degrees in business with the goal of diversifying the business world.... Six other colleges are being investigated for awarding 'impermissible race-based scholarships,' the department said, and another is accused of running a program that segregates students on the basis of race.” ~~~
~~~ Profs. Ryan Enos & Steven Levitsky in a Harvard Crimson op-ed: "Like many autocrats before him, Donald Trump has launched what could be a devastating attack on universities. Over the last week, the Trump administration has cancelled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia University and $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University. Both schools were on a list of 10 universities (including Harvard) that the Department of Justice announced it was investigating over politicized allegations of antisemitism. The Department of Education subsequently launched a similar investigation into 60 universities. And last week, the administration arrested a former student seemingly not for a crime but for his political speech on campus.... So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education.... As the Columbia case suggests, [silence is] not working. Columbia’s leadership made repeated concessions to right-wing critics, only to be the first to come under attack.... We cannot remain silent in the face of authoritarian attacks on our peers, even if they have not yet come for us."
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “A federal judge has denied the Justice Department’s attempt to apply ... Donald Trump’s blanket pardon for members of the Jan. 6 mob at the Capitol to one defendant’s conviction for possessing illegal guns hundreds of miles away, at his Kentucky home. In a ruling Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, became the first judge to reject outright the Justice Department’s recently adopted position.... Reversing its initial stance..., the department is now arguing that Trump’s pardon extends to crimes with no connection to the attack on the Capitol other than the fact that law enforcement agents uncovered evidence of them during the Jan. 6 investigation. Friedrich said DOJ’s position 'contradicts' the 'clear and unambiguous' language of Trump’s Day 1 executive order granting pardons to about 1,500 people convicted of participating in the riot.... [The government's position] 'would “defy rationality,”’ Friedrich wrote.... Trump could clarify or expand his Jan. 6 pardon directive at any time, but he has not done so....”
Lee Hockstader of the Washington Post: “... Washington is now increasingly regarded by its closest allies as a source of treachery, menace and malice. That view of Donald Trump’s America was brutally encapsulated last week by a centrist French senator named Claude Malhuret, who noted that until now, 'never in history has a U.S. president capitulated to the enemy.' In a speech at the French Senate assessing Trump’s alignment with the Kremlin, turn against Ukraine and the implications for Europe, he said: 'We were at war with a dictator. Now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.' Read a transcript of Malhuret’s speech, an instant social media sensation, and you’ll see he’s no knee-jerk anti-American. Quite the contrary: the 75-year-old senator, a former head of Doctors Without Borders, retains a touching, even sentimental, faith in our fundamental decency, values and systemic strengths.... Right now, Trump, with important assists from Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk, has mounted an attack as devastating to our reputational well-being as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were to our physical security.”
Germany. Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: “Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, announced on Friday that he had secured the votes to allow for extensive new government spending, including for defense, clearing the way for a stunning turnabout in German strategic and fiscal policy before he even takes office. The deal should now allow Mr. Merz to pass a raft of measures in Parliament next week that he has billed as a response to ... [Donald] Trump’s moves to pull back American security guarantees for Europe. It includes what party leaders called crucial investments in German competitiveness and its efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions to fight global warming. And it breathed new life into a coalition of center-left and center-right parties that have long governed Germany but have wilted in a new era of populism in recent years, losing votes to the far left and the far right. The measures would lift Germany’s hallowed limits on government borrowing as they apply to military spending. It would exempt all spending on defense above 1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product from those limits, and it would define 'defense' broadly to include intelligence spending, information security and more.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So, as Trump turns the U.S. into a cesspool of corruption, incompetence & reactionary policies, he appears to have liberated Germany.
Stephen Groves & Leah Askarinam of the AP: “Democratic Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, a champion of environmental protections and progressive ideals who took on principled but often futile causes during a two-decade career in Congress, died Thursday. Grijalva, who was 77, had risen to chair the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee during his 12 terms representing southern Arizona, a powerful perch he used to shape the nation’s environmental policies. He was known for reliably going to bat for immigrants and Native American tribes, and for the bolo tie he wore at home in Tucson and in the Capitol in Washington. Grijalva died of complications from cancer treatment, his office said in a statement. The treatments had sidelined him from Congress in recent months.”
Robert McFadden of the New York Times: “Alan K. Simpson, a plain-spoken former Republican senator from Wyoming who championed immigration reforms and conservative candidates for the Supreme Court while fighting running battles with women’s groups, environmentalists and the press, died on Friday in Cody, Wyo. He was 93.”
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⭐Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid ... Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a 'sham' strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to 'immediately' offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an 'unlawful' decision to terminate them. The order is one of the most far-reaching rejections of the Trump administration’s effort to slash the bureaucracy and is almost certain to be appealed. Alsup also lashed out at the Justice Department over its handling of the case, saying he believes that Trump administration lawyers were hiding the facts about who directed the mass firings. 'You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth,' the judge said to a DOJ attorney during a hearing Thursday.” The Washington Post's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Rachel Maddow reads from the transcript of the hearing. It's quite entertaining: ~~~
~~~ ⭐Then This Happened Last Night. Andrea Hsu of NPR: "A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of federal employees terminated in recent weeks, after finding federal agencies acted unlawfully in carrying out the mass firings. U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, an Obama appointee, issued a 14-day stay in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general representing the District of Columbia, Maryland, and 18 other states.... He ordered 18 federal agencies to reinstate probationary workers fired through what he called 'illegal RIFs' by Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern daylight time, for a period of 14 days. During that time, he said, the court would likely consider longer relief. Bredar's order covers probationary employees nationwide, not just those in states named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit." ~~~
~~~ And there's this. ~~~
We’re not subject to the Department of Government Efficiency. We audit them. They don’t audit us. -- Gene Dodaro, Comptroller of the Government Accountability Office ~~~
~~~ Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: “As comptroller general of the United States, [Gene] Dodaro leads the Government Accountability Office, a role he’s had for 17 years. He’s worked for the agency since 1973 — when another president, Richard M. Nixon, like the current one, sought to bust bounds of presidential power. The GAO, a nonpartisan congressional organization with broad authority to review federal programs and spending across the government, helps Washington save money and increase efficiency. Efficiency is not what Dodaro sees in the Trump administration’s aggressive purge of the federal workforce, as he said in an interview Tuesday and during a recent House Oversight Committee hearing. Elon Musk’s DOGE ... also will get GAO scrutiny.”
Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump’s 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imported into the U.S. went into effect today, prompting retaliatory tariffs from the European Union and Canada. The E.U. announced tariffs on about $28 billion worth of products, including beef and whiskey, mostly produced by Republican-dominated states.... In 2025 the Republicans in charge of the United States of America are not the conservatives they call themselves.... They are abruptly dismantling a government that has kept the United States relatively prosperous, secure, and healthy for the past 80 years. In its place, they are trying to impose a government based in the idea that a few men should rule. The Trump administration’s ... swing away from Europe and toward Russia, antagonizing allies and partners while fawning over authoritarians like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is also a radical stand.... The wholesale destruction of the U.S.A.’s advanced medical research, especially cancer research ... is also radical.... In place of the system that has created relative stability for almost a century, Republicans under ... Donald Trump and his sidekick billionaire Elon Musk are imposing a government that is based in the idea that a government that works to make people safe, prosperous, and healthy is simply ripping off wealthy people.” (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~ Leading to Another Tariff TrumperTantrum. Jaclyn Diaz of NPR: "In an escalation of the ongoing trade war with Europe..., [Donald] Trump is now threatening a 200% tariff on European alcohol in response to the European Union's retaliation against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs.... Posting on his Truth Social account, Trump called the EU 'the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's the E.U. being hostile and abusive (via Heather Richardson): We deeply regret this measure [to impose tariffs on the U.S]. Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers. These tariffs are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy. -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ~~~
~~~ And of Course This Happened. Lisa Han & Pia Singh of CNBC: "Stocks fell on Thursday, with equities unable to shake a three-week market rout under the weight of new tariff threats from ... Donald Trump. The S&P 500 dropped 1.39% to settle at 5,521.52. The index ended the day in correction, 10.1% off its record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 537.36 points, or 1.3%, marking its fourth day of declines and closing at 40,813.57. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.96% with shares like Tesla and Apple lower." (Also linked yesterday.)
We’re spending $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. — Donald Trump, during remarks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, March 13
... a trade deficit is not a subsidy. Even if one includes various buckets of military spending, we can’t figure out how Trump calculated this figure. The White House offered some suggestions, but the math still does not add up.... Trump has a point that the [defense] burden is somewhat unequal, but his numbers make little sense. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
“The Peasants Are Struggling? Then Let Them Drive Teslas!” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “It’s no small feat to tank the $29 trillion U.S. economy in just seven weeks, but Donald Trump appears to be on the cusp of pulling it off. Plunging stock markets have lost some $4 trillion, Americans’ retirement accounts are shriveling, the president’s trade war is set to raise prices on everything from cars to avocados, and recession alarms are blinking red. But this week, Trump took action to ease the fears of jittery Americans. He told them to buy Teslas.... Trump ... promised to label those who vandalize Tesla sales lots as 'domestic terrorists' (he previously said people were 'illegally' boycotting Tesla and later said the protesters are 'paid agitators') and threatened: 'We’re going to catch you, and you’re going to go through hell.'... It was a grotesque sight: Trump using the awesome powers of the presidency to make the world’s richest man even richer — and to threaten government action against those who stand in his way.... Trump is running an ad hoc presidency. There are no rules. The law is strictly optional. And Trump, unbound by both, administers one shock to the system after another. There is no predictability to his actions.” The link is a gift link. P.S. If you didn't see the Tesla ad embedded in yesterday's Conversation, scroll on down. It's quite good, though it might not make you decide to buy a Tessler.
Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration on Thursday removed the Internal Revenue Service’s top lawyer and rolled out plans to downsize nearly 20 percent of the agency’s staff as billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service seeks access to sensitive taxpayer records, according to five people.... William Paul, a career official named to the position in January, will be replaced by Andrew De Mello, who was nominated to be the Education Department’s inspector general during Trump’s first term, three of the people said.... Also, DOGE officials instructed the acting IRS commissioner to eliminate 18,141 jobs across the agency by May 15, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. The tax compliance department would have the largest job cuts (8,260) followed by taxpayer services (3,247) and information technology, the records show. Those moves are only an initial phase of job cuts.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Collin Binkley & Jocelyn Gecker of the AP: “An hours-long outage Wednesday on StudentAid.gov, the federal website for student loans and financial aid, underscored the risks in rapidly gutting the Department of Education, as ... Donald Trump aims to dismantle the agency. Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having trouble completing the form, which is required for financial aid at colleges nationwide.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: “Johns Hopkins University, one of the country’s leading centers of scientific research, said on Thursday that it would eliminate more than 2,000 workers in the United States and abroad because of the Trump administration’s steep cuts, primarily to international aid programs. The layoffs, the most in the university’s history, will involve 247 domestic workers for the university, which is based in Baltimore, and an affiliated center. Another 1,975 positions will be cut in 44 countries. They affect the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and an affiliated nonprofit, Jhpiego. Nearly half the school’s total revenue last year came from federally funded research, including $365 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development. In all, the university will lose $800 million in funding over several years from U.S.A.I.D., which the Trump administration is in the process of dismantling.... In ordering cutbacks in the agency, which amount to a 90 percent reduction in its operations....
“The administration has also sought to reduce the amount of money that the National Institutes of Health sends to university for research, cuts that have been blocked for now in the courts. If they go into effect, those cuts would reduce federal payments to Johns Hopkins by more than $100 million a year, according to an analysis of university figures. The university, which receives about $1 billion a year in N.I.H. funding and is currently running 600 clinical trials, is one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging those cuts.”
Katherine Rosman of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Thursday demanded that Columbia University make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation of $400 million in government grants and contracts.... The Trump administration’s move to cut Columbia’s grants and contracts represented an extraordinary escalation of the government’s targeting of the university.... On social media, Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, described the government’s letter as essentially saying, 'We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.' Hours earlier, the school announced a range of disciplinary actions against students who occupied a campus building last spring, including expulsions and suspensions.” ~~~
~~~ Victoria Bisset of the Washington Post: “Columbia University suspended and expelled some students involved in the occupation of a campus building in New York during last year’s pro-Palestinian campus protests, as controversy grows over the separate arrest of a graduate student by immigration authorities. Columbia’s Judicial Board issued punishments — including multiyear suspensions, temporary degree revocations and expulsions — over the takeover of the campus’s Hamilton Hall last April, according to a university statement released Thursday, which did not state the number of students affected.” The AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Minyvonne Burke & Matt Lavietes of NBC News: "Nearly 100 protesters were arrested Thursday after a sit-in at Trump Tower in New York City to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist detained over the weekend by federal immigration agents. The organization Jewish Voice for Peace livestreamed the sit-in, showing hundreds of demonstrators packed into the building's lobby. Some held signs that read 'Fight Nazis not students,' 'Free Mahmoud free Palestine' and 'You can't deport a movement.' Many people could be heard chanting 'Free Mahmoud.'" The New York Times story is here.
Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “Lawyers for ... [Donald] Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift a nationwide pause imposed on the president’s order ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. The move represents the first time the legal wrangling over the president’s order to end birthright citizenship has reached the Supreme Court. If the Trump administration succeeds, the policy could go into effect in some parts of the country.” (Also linked yesterday.)
My, My. And Bye-Bye. Apoorva Mandavilli & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “The White House has withdrawn the nomination of its pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Dave Weldon, a Republican former congressman who was to have appeared at a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday morning. Reached by phone, Dr. Weldon, who learned of the decision last night, said he had been told by a White House official that 'they didn’t have the votes to confirm' his nomination.... [HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.,] has cited Dr. Weldon’s criticisms of the C.D.C. along with his own. Mr. Kennedy is 'very upset' at the decision to withdraw Dr. Weldon for consideration as C.D.C. director, Dr. Weldon said. 'I’m going to get on an airplane at 11 o’clock and I’m going to go home and I’m going to see patients on Monday,' he said. 'I’ll make much more money staying in my medical practice.'” MB: Or not. If your pals Trump, Musk and the GOP Congress succeed in kneecapping Medicare & Medicaid. Politico's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Speaking of Quacks. Eoin Higgins, in a New York Times op-ed on how “quack” doctor Mehmet Oz came to be nominated to head “the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Senate hearings are to begin Friday. If confirmed, his appointment would be yet another signal to a new wave of charismatic health personalities that science and evidence are negotiable in the service of ambition.” ~~~
~~~ Dani Blum & Nigra Agrawal of the New York Times: “Much of Dr. Oz’s advice is rooted in strong science and conventional wisdom: Eat well, move more, prioritize sleep. But he has also frequently pushed products and hacks that have little to no scientific evidence showing that they stave off disease, drawing scrutiny from members of Congress and from researchers. In some cases, he has had financial ties to the products he has promoted.” The reporters asked experts about some of Oz's claims.
A Huge Trump Real Estate Development Flop. Silvia Foster-Frau, et al., of the Washington Post: “When ... Donald Trump directed the U.S. government to begin using the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station as a detention center for migrants in late January, he said it would 'double our capacity immediately' to hold people being removed from the country as part of a massive deportation campaign. But nearly two months later, the operation has struggled to scale up. On Wednesday, a Defense Department official confirmed there were no migrants being held in Guantánamo.... A series of logistical, legal and financial hurdles have cast doubt on whether the president’s goal of housing 30,000 people there can be carried out. In all, about 300 migrants total have been detained there. The U.S. government currently has the capacity to hold 180 migrants in Guantánamo.... In recent years, the suspected terrorists held at Guantánamo’s military detention facility have cost the United States $16,540 a day per prisoner, not including the legal fees associated with their cases.... Government budget and Guantánamo experts say they expect the cost of detaining migrants there to be about the same as the prisoners’ cost without the legal fees.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So that's a monthly single-occupancy room-and-board rate of $496,200. Absolutely brilliant. Still wondering why the Trump Org went bankrupt so many times? Answer: the guy is the stupidest real estate developer of all time.
Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: “The White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options to increase the American troop presence in Panama to achieve ... Donald Trump’s goal of 'reclaiming' the Panama Canal, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning. In his joint address to Congress last week, Trump said that 'to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.' Since then, administration officials have not said what 'reclaiming' means. U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops’ seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the United States.... The officials cautioned that a U.S. invasion of Panama is unlikely and would come under serious consideration only if a larger American military presence in Panama does not achieve Trump’s goal of reclaiming the waterway....”
How Much Dough Would a Chump Upchuck if a Chump Would Purchase Trump? Apparently giving Trump a million dollars is not enough. Even featuring reruns of "The Apprentice" on your very popular app Amazon Prime isn't enough. ~~~
~~~ Annie Palmer of CNBC: “The Federal Trade Commission said it will meet the deadlines for its Amazon Prime deceptive practices case, hours after requesting a delay due to resource constraints. An attorney for the federal agency made the about face Wednesday afternoon, saying he 'was wrong.'... FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson ... told CNBC: ... 'I have made it clear since Day One that we will commit the resources necessary for this case.... The Trump-Vance FTC will never back down from taking on Big Tech.'... The FTC sued Amazon in June 2023, alleging that the online retailer was deceiving millions of customers into signing up for its Prime program and sabotaging their attempts to cancel it.” Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
⭐From the “I Just Knew It!” File. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: “Senate Democrats say privately that they will not allow the government to shut down Saturday, despite growing pressure from activists and liberal lawmakers who want them to kill a GOP-crafted six-month stopgap spending bill. Senate Democratic sources say Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is giving plenty of room to centrists in his caucus to vote for the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) if doing so is the only way to avoid a government shutdown at week’s end.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Then This. Carl Hulse & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, broke with his party on Thursday and lined up enough Democrats to advance a Republican-written bill to keep federal funding flowing past a midnight Friday deadline, arguing that Democrats could not allow a government shutdown that many of them have demanded. During a private luncheon with Democrats, Mr. Schumer stunned many of his colleagues by announcing that he planned to vote to allow the G.O.P. bill to move forward, and indicated that he had enough votes to help Republicans break any filibuster by his own party against the measure, according to attendees and people familiar with the discussion. It was a turnabout from just a day earlier, when Mr. Schumer proclaimed that Democrats were 'unified' against the legislation, and a remarkable move at a time when many of the party’s members in both chambers and progressive activists have been agitating vocally for senators to block it in defiance of ... [Donald] Trump.” The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Here Chris Hayes of MSNBC respectfully argues with Schumer. Schumer's self-defense couldn't be more lame if he were sitting in the witness box waving around a smoking gun. ~~~
~~~ Here's Schumer's self-defense, as expressed in a New York Times op-ed. MB: I'm not going to read it, even if you tell me it's super-convincing. ~~~
~~~ Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) explains why he's a "hard no" on bringing up the continuing CR. ~~~
~~~ Andrew Solender of Axios: "House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans' stopgap government funding measure.... A senior House Democrat said 'people are furious' and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest. Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.... Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said." Here's a story along the same lines by Barbara Sprunt of NPR.
~~~ See Josh Marshall on the "Kabuki Cave," also linked yesterday. He was right. ~~~
~~~ Carl Hulse & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “G.O.P. lawmakers are ... enthusiastically turning [their constitutional powers] over to the White House ... by embracing a stopgap spending bill that gives the administration wide discretion over how federal dollars are distributed, in effect handing off the legislative branch’s spending authority to ... [Donald] Trump. But that is just one example of how Congress, under unified Republican control, is proactively relinquishing some of its fundamental and critical authority on oversight, economic issues and more. As they cleared the way for passing the spending measure on Tuesday, House Republicans leaders also quietly surrendered their chamber’s ability to undo Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China in an effort to shield their members from having to take a politically tough vote.... Republicans have also stood by, many of them cheering, as the administration has upended federal departments and programs funded by Congress and fired thousands of workers with no notice to or consultation with the lawmakers charged with overseeing federal agencies.” MB: This is what Chuck Schumer is endorsing. ~~~
~~~ Why are Congressional Republicans okay with ceding the power of the purse to Trump? Here's a partial explanation: ~~~
~~~ Don Moynihan on Substack: "Republicans in Congress ... are being told that appropriations will be selectively ignored, and they will be protected. DOGE is accepting requests from Republican officials to reverse cuts in their jurisdictions. It is a form of spoils system in reverse: your pet projects will be spared from elimination. [But, as CNN has reported,] '... Even in cases where they are advocating for the same thing, Republicans are able to leverage entry points into Trump administration in ways that Democrats simply can’t, leaving them in the dark on many of the recent reversals the administration has agreed to....'... Senator Chris Murphy [D-Conn.] said: '... The whole point of the spending freeze is to force every entity that receives federal funding to pledge their political loyalty to Donald Trump in order to get money. It’s a fundamental corruption from beginning to end.'... In short: Trump and Musk are engaged in a broad-based downsizing of government, using that downsizing to selectively target their enemies, while expanding their political power by trading exceptions to the downsizing." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Kelsey Ables & Michael Brodeur of the Washington Post: “When Vice President JD Vance took his seat Thursday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, he was met with a chorus of boos from the packed concert hall. Vance and the second lady, Usha Vance, were attending a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra, which was already seated onstage when the crowd spotted the pair and erupted into loud boos and shouts for more than 30 seconds. The vice president waved and appeared to smile.”
Joe Kukura of SF News: "The Highway Patrol’s investigation into a November Cybertruck crash in Piedmont where three college kids died is finding two very Tesla problems: the vehicle immediately caught fire, and its doors would not open. A November Tesla Cybertruck crash in Piedmont killed three college sophomores when the vehicle hit a cement wall and burst into flames, but another motorist was able to pull a fourth rider out of the car, and that rider survived. We later learned the other motorist was Piedmont High grad Matt Riordan, who’d been attending a party that night with the crash victims. And we also learned the three victims had alcohol and cocaine in their systems, while the 19-year-old Cybertruck driver who died also had meth in his system.... [But] the deaths appear to be more the result of the vehicle fire, as opposed to drugs, or injuries the victims sustained in the crash. And troublingly, that testimony also showed the Cybertruck’s doors could not be opened in the aftermath of the crash, preventing Riordan from pulling the other three victims from the flaming wreckage." (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~~~~~~~~
O Canada. Ian Austen of the New York Times: “... as [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau, 53, prepares to officially resign on Friday, his fortunes have taken a remarkable turn thanks to a prolonged campaign of aggression against Canada by ... [Donald] Trump. Through tariffs that could lead to economic devastation and repeated verbal attacks on Canada’s sovereignty, Mr. Trump has ignited a wave of patriotism, and Mr. Trudeau’s defiance and oratorical skills have helped rally the nation.... It was Mr. Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs against Canadian exports, his claims that Canada would be better off if it became the 51st state, his belittling references to Mr. Trudeau as 'governor,' that drastically changed the political landscape.... [Mr. Trudeau] will now hand the reins over to Mark Carney, a former leader of two major central banks, who was elected by members of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party on Sunday to succeed the departing prime minister. Mr. Carney will be formally sworn in as Canada’s next leader on Friday.... The Liberals have essentially erased the lead long enjoyed by Conservatives and surveys show that Canadians say they believe Mr. Carney would be better able to stand up to Mr. Trump than the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre.”
Ukraine/Russia., et al. Anton Troinovski of the New York Times: “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday did not rule out a U.S. and Ukrainian proposal for a monthlong cease-fire, but he set down numerous conditions that would most likely delay any truce — or could make one impossible to achieve. Mr. Putin’s comments during a news conference highlighted the balance he was trying to strike, exuding confidence in Russia’s position on the battlefield while seeking to continue talks with the United States and avoid upsetting ... [Donald] Trump. The U.S. president, having antagonized the country’s allies and realigned American foreign policy in Russia’s favor, has emerged as a key geopolitical partner for Mr. Putin. In sharp remarks later in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said the Russian leader set so many conditions 'that nothing will work out at all or that it will not work out for as long as possible.'Mr. Putin’s comments came before he was to meet with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, to discuss the cease-fire proposal that Ukraine had already agreed to.” MB: Notice we are now at a point in history where the cautious New York Times casually says that the POTUS* “has emerged as a key geopolitical partner for” the Russian leader. ~~~
~~~ Mary Ilyushina & Sammy Westfall of the Washington Post: “Here is what Russia has said about the conditions it would need to reach a peace deal.... Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine. It wants to keep that and then some. The Kremlin has ruled out ceding any of the land it has seized.... Ukraine membership in NATO ... is a nonstarter for Putin.... Russia demanded the return of six diplomatic compounds that it said had been seized illegally by the United States.... Publicly, the Kremlin maintains that all sanctions are illegal and must be lifted. Privately, however, Moscow, would welcome any relief from U.S. sanctions, as it would undermine Western unity....”
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And the Neville Chamberlain Appeasement Surrender Monkey Award goes to…nah, I don’t need the envelope. We all know who the appeasement surrender monkey is…
Chuck Schumer!
Here’s your award, Chuck, a statuette of Fat Hitler with his pants down and his ass stuck out so you can kiss it whenever you like, AND, here’s your MAGA hat!
Between Schumer and Fetterman, why bother with Democrats in the Senate? We are at WAR! Schumer wants to be “reasonable” as the Nazis are burning down the Reichstag. Fetterman thinks burning it down is a good idea. WTF!
I'm getting maybe a little more worried than usual (which is quite a bit) with how these couple months have gone. Last time around he was particularly sensitive to the stock market and wall street and seemed to recalibrate quite a bit to keep his rich friends happy. Not sure if that was the work of the "adults" or Dementia Don, but it seemed to create a fairly steady pattern in my memory anyway.
The other day, in reponse to a question about the stock market, he shrugged it off, equating it to radicals (I forget the actual term). His demeanor this times around seethes of barely submersive contempt for any and all of his perceived "enemies". He famously claimed that this administration would be based on retribution, so it's no secret. But I'm afraid his enemies list is much larger than we can imagine. And I'm afraid as his popularity slips and the stock market wobbles and the chorus of criticism grows louder, he's going to throw the entire country onto his enemies lists, lashing out and hurting the vast majority of Americans for the sin of not being grateful enough to our modern-day Nero.
Right now he's living quite literally the best days of his life. Once the consequences of his actions are too obvious for their media bubble to control, a relentless wave of complaints will hit him and will hurt his famously thin skin and fragile ego. How far will be go for his retribution when the entire American populace is the target? That's something we need to seriously consider.
Test test test test test
Democrats need a plan.
Over the years, we here at RC have brought up the Powell Memo as the starting point of the current fascist takeover and destruction of the government. Powell probably wasn’t thinking “Boy, 50 years from now, if they follow my plan, the United States will cease to exist and two mental cases will plunder, rape (literally), and pillage, the Supreme Court will be complicit, and corporations will be people”, but that’s what’s happened.
Powell’s idea spawned the Heritage Foundation, which gave us Project 2025, and the Federalist Society, which gave us Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and plenty of other far-right authoritarians in the legal system, like Loose Cannon.
Democrats have nothing like the astonishingly deep and powerful far-right-wing system that the Powell Memo produced. We have…consultants! And Chuck Schumer.
It’s like the Democrats are the Maginot Line. The Traitors are like the 1940 SS Panzer Division, which routinely blitzkriegs the crap out of us.
But we keep building that Maginot Line cuz consultants tell us that sooner or later…
Yeah. And I’m getting a Tesla in the mail.
Tina Nguyen has written for the Verge, Puck, and Vanity Fair, but she got into journalism along with hundreds of other young wingers who are groomed as attack dogs working as the media arm of that SS Panzer Division. She has written an eye-popping memoir called the “The MAGA diaries”.
“…this book is the perfect illustration of how and why the Republican Party has managed to radicalize 50 million people into wanting autocracy AND also the perfect explanation of why Democrats seem completely lost in response.
For quick background, Nguyen is now a professional journalist (or as she calls it, a real journalist) but she got her start in conservative media. Hers is a first person account of how Republicans attract, woo, and then network extensively young conservative talent.”
Nguyen attended Claremont College where she was taught by none other than John Eastman. Yeah, that John Eastman, the Nazi genius who came up with the alternate electors scheme to help Fat Hitler try to steal the 2020 election.
“Then she got what felt like a the break of a lifetime for an aspiring conservative ‘journalist’: a job at The Daily Caller working with a pre-Fox News Tucker Carlson.
A few months into that job, where she was hired to cover the tech beat, it began to dawn on her that things at The Daily Caller were not what they appeared to be. The moment of realization hit when a co-worker asked her to lunch and she responded she was waiting for edits from her editor, John Henke: a man her co-worker had never heard of.
That got Nguyen asking herself, if the Daily Caller isn’t paying me, who is?
Turns out her real boss was a Republican communications firm and what they wanted from her wasn’t reporting, they wanted her to write hit pieces on their political and corporate enemies.”
But Nguyen wanted to be a real reporter, not a KKKarlson flunky, so she departed the stinking halls of right wing mendacity.
Having seen firsthand the deep and incredibly well funded, well organized SS Panzer Division, she assumed that Democrats must have something similar…she discovered that there is no such thing as the Professional Left.
“She was pitched a story about a program Dems launched in 2005 to supposedly build the bench (a problem, by the way, we still have today despite at least 5 groups I can think of working on it for two decades) which was pitched to her as ‘revolutionary, unique, and new.’
The Republicans had The Heritage Leadership Institute so the idea of an organization to build the bench did not sound ‘revolutionary, unique, or new’ to Nguyen. Her first thought was, ‘I thought the Democrats had the same resources my old team did?’
SPOILER ALERT: We don’t.
The Heritage Leadership Institute’s Young Leaders program has graduates like Josh Hawley, who they basically grew in a lab.
Republicans also have Turning Point USA, which has a four building complex in Tempe, Arizona and about an $80 million dollar operating budget.
And ALEC
And The Federalist Society
And Judicial Watch
(I could go on and on).
Meanwhile, Democrats have 500 mostly unfunded grassroots groups with overlapping goals running on elbow grease with no dignitaries in sight.”
But we do have….
Consultants! And John Fetterman. And Chuck Schumer.
But it’s time we did have the kind of resources that were constructed in the wake of the Powell Memo.
But will we?
Milbank appropriately references Hayek in his piece above.
But Hayek's most trenchant take on the capitalism he otherwise touts is often left out of the praise conservatives have showered on him.
The bigger issue fans don't talk about, and defenders of Hayek never mention, is the relationship between capitalism and morality. Hayek made even better sense there: Per Michael Sandel's book on meritocracy, Hayek said there is none.
And he sure got that right.
Five Months
Project 2029?
It makes it worse that the day before Schumer was claiming a tiny bit of resistance to the destruction of the federal government and the abdication of Congress. Then he turns around and says that instead pulling the fire alarm he will just give a bunch of empty speeches and amendments that have no chance to affect anything. Schumer gives up before the fight begins again. He and Jefferies were telling us to be patient and they couldn't swing at every pitch. But Schumer doesn't want to stand his ground on anything. This is one of the few areas where we have potential leverage. And Schumer wants to lay down and give up right away. The Republicans are not invincible. All the town halls and bad press and tanking stock market and the government layoffs in their districts are effecting them. Push back can works, but these cowards will never back down if no one actually stands up to them. The courts cannot be the only resistance because there are too many Aileen Cannons still out there and they will later do the performative BS that gives them the cover that many courts need to allow their illegal actions to go through, ie the Muslim ban from his first term. And at the Supplemental Court they only need to do just enough to give Roberts or Conney-Barrett a flimsy justification to side with them. So far they have barely bothered with any pretext at all for their unconstitutional actions. The fake poor performance excuses for firing thousands of workers is so lazy that the judge couldn't hold back his contempt. The next round will pretend a little better.
I was curious about the program at the Kennedy Center concert attended by the fraud and traitor, Shady Vance, who got booed (only 30 seconds?).
The National Symphony (soon to be replaced by a passel of drunken MAGAts all playing germy kazoos) offered an appropriate program for Shady, his fascist boss and the boss of both of them, the Ketamine Kid.
It was an all Russian program: the Shostakovich second violin concerto, and Stravinsky’s music for the ballet Petrushka, a story about three Russian puppets whose strings are pulled by a character called the Charlatan.
Very appropriate for the couch humping Russian puppet sitting in the audience.
Here’s what’s in the Trump budget that Chuck Schumer wants to vote for:
Cutting SNAP by $250 million (1 in 5 kids in the US rely on SNAP for school lunches).
Cutting Medicaid by $800 million (35% of American kids rely on Medicaid for healthcare).
Handing $1.1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 1%.
What’s NOT in this budget:
No taxes on tips
No taxes on Social Security
No taxes on overtime (all were promised by Fat Hitler in his campaign)
They take care of the wealthy. The rest of us can fuck off and die.
But good job, Chuck!
More DEI
"Arlington National Cemetery is the most venerated final resting ground in the nation, overseen by silent soldiers in immaculate uniforms with ramrod-straight discipline. Across its hundreds of acres in Virginia, they watch over 400,000 graves of U.S. service members dating back to the Civil War, including two presidents, and more than 400 Medal of Honor recipients.
But in recent weeks, the cemetery’s public website has scrubbed dozens of pages on gravesites and educational materials that include histories of prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members buried in the cemetery, along with educational material on dozens of Medal of Honor recipients and maps of prominent gravesites of Marine Corps veterans and other services."
Flagged for DEI
Alan Simpson is dead?
Okay, I know Marie, decency incarnate, refrains from speaking ill of the dead, but not me.
Fuck him. Alan Simpson was a rotten prick. He despised Social Security, considered it a handout to “greedy geezers” who were stealing money from “good Americans”, despite the fact that SS recipients are getting back THEIR OWN MONEY!
You know who WAS a greedy geezer living off the backs of taxpayers?
Alan Simpson!!! Who lived high off the hog his entire life off checks signed by taxpayers.
Nonetheless, if he was conscious over the last few weeks, I’ll bet he loved hearing that Trump and Musk were crushing the poor and looking to chloroform Social Security.
He may be considered some kind of bipartisan paleocon, a too liberal loser by today’s Nazi fuck Trumpers, but Alan Simpson was one of the worst of the Gingrich era liars, a precursor to the current crop of toxic temper tantrum traitor pathogens.
So…fuck him with a barbed wire wrapped baseball bat, and have a nice time in hell, you vicious prick.