The Conversation -- March 4, 2025
Brian Beutler urges Americans to boycott Donald Trump's address tonight to a joint session of Congress, even though, "Faced with calls from ... angry constituents to boycott Trump’s joint address to Congress this week, Democratic leaders have instead encouraged members to ignore the activists and show up to be berated and lied to by an aspiring dictator." ~~~
~~~ digby agrees: "Trump is neither normal nor a statesman. Don’t behave as if he is! Sadly, most Democrats in Congress have two speeds. If you don’t like this one, you’ll really dislike their other one.... Contrary to Beltway commentary, Congress and the courts aren’t the last guardrails. Mass public protest is, with all the risk that entails with an autocrat in the White House who’d like to see protesters shot.... If Trump on Tuesday were to openly declare that the U.S. is now aligned with Putin’s Russia against NATO and Ukraine, which of you Democrats wants to be in his audience giving assent by your presence?" ~~~
~~~ Marie: I need no convincing. Only the reason I won't be watching is that I'm not a masochist.
⭐Trump Punishes Ukrainian Soldiers for His Own, Vance's Bad Behavior. John Hudson, from the Washington Post's live updates of something: “... Donald Trump has decided to pause all future deliveries of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in an extraordinary move aimed at pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the negotiating table with Russia as Ukraine fends off a military invasion from the Kremlin, said two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.” (Also linked yesterday.) The full Washington Post story is here. ~~~
~~~ Erica Green, et al. of the New York Times: “The most immediate beneficiary of the move is President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. If the suspension is lengthy, he can use the time to press for further territorial gains. And he may well decide to hold back from any negotiations at all, figuring that any prolonged dispute between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky will only strengthen his position.... [The cut-off] forces Mr. Zelensky to agree to a cease-fire on terms Mr. Trump dictates, or condemns the country to larger battlefield losses.... The suspension also puts the United States in direct opposition to its major NATO allies.” The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Why, I remember when the House impeached Trump for something very similar to this. ~~~
~~~ Update: Here's Heather Cox Richardson on this & other illegal/unconstitutional/unconscionable/stupid stunts Trump has pulled over the past day or so.
~~~ Marion Solletty of Politico: “French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday declared the alliance with the U.S. is seriously wounded and called ... Donald Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine 'an indecency.' 'On Friday evening, a staggering scene unfolded, marked by brutality and a desire to humiliate, the aim of which was to threaten Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into surrendering to the demands of his aggressor,' Bayrou said in a speech to the National Assembly....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Seb Starcevic of Politico: “Germany’s likely next chancellor said Monday that the bitter clash between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and ... Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week was a 'deliberate escalation' by the latter.... The angry quarrel was a pre-planned ambush by the Americans, claimed Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s conservatives.... 'What we have just seen in Washington has a certain continuity with a number of events in the last few weeks, including the appearance of the American delegation in Munich at the security conference,' he added. The German politician seemed to be referring to Vance’s fiery speech at the Munich Security Conference last month, in which he called on Europe to 'step up' and manage its own defense instead of relying on American security guarantees.”
~~~ Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: “Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement, which helped end Moscow’s grip on Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War, joined with former Polish political prisoners on Monday to send an impassioned letter to ... [Donald] Trump voicing 'horror and disgust' at his scolding of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last week, saying it reminded them of their encounters with bullying Communist-era officials. They wrote in Polish that they were 'terrified by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of the one we remember well from interrogations by the Security Service and from courtrooms in Communist courts.' 'Prosecutors and judges, commissioned by the all-powerful communist political police, also explained to us that they held all the cards and we had none,' the letter said, a reference to ... [Mr.] Trump’s Oval Office rebuke to Mr. Zelensky that 'you don’t have the cards.'... The letter — signed by Mr. Walesa ... and more than 30 prominent former Polish political detainees — was posted on Mr. Walesa’s Facebook page, along with a sometimes imprecise English translation and an old photograph of him meeting with a grinning, tuxedo-clad Mr. Trump.” ~~~
~~~ Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: “President Trump’s rancorous threat to abandon Ukraine is stoking support for a long-debated proposal to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine and finance its reconstruction. The money — roughly $300 billion owned by Russia’s central bank — was frozen by the United States, the European Union, Britain and others after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The aim was to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for his unprovoked attack and to cut off funds he could use to wage war. As the war grinds on into its fourth year, a growing number of officials in Europe and elsewhere have been calling for the money to be released to directly compensate Ukraine.... TThe bulk of the funds — about $250 billion — are in financial institutions in the European Union, Canada, Britain, Australia, Japan and Singapore, according to an analysis by Mr. Zelikow. That means a bloc of nations could move to use them even if the United States did not go along with the plan,' [said Philip D. Zelikow of the Hoover Institution].” ~~~
~~~ Siobhan O'Grady & Serhii Korolchuk of the Washington Post: Ukrainians mock Trump & Co. for whining about President Zelensky's attire. (Also linked yesterday.)
Colin Ahern & Mark Montgomery in a Washington Post op-ed: “On the heels of the stunning Oval Office meeting between ... Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky comes the news of a shocking — and shockingly misguided — reversal of long-standing U.S. national security policy regarding Russian cyber operations. In an alleged bid to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, the Trump administration has reportedly ordered both the Defense Department’s Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to stand down from monitoring and countering Russian cyberthreats. Having spent more than five decades combined defending America’s national interest and digital infrastructure, we unequivocally maintain that this policy shift is a strategic error that will make the United States less secure in cyberspace while doing little to bring about peace in Europe.... We are unilaterally surrendering a critical domain of national power while apparently receiving nothing in return.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The writers take the attitude that Trump is simply misguided & has no idea that giving up something of great value for nothing in return is not an artful path to a deal. I don't know what Trump's motivations are, but I am convinced that his intention is to capitulate to Russia and, more generally, to pull the foundations of the U.S. out from under the building. I believe he is a traitor to the United States.
David Lynch, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump said tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada would go into effect Tuesday, ending a month-long delay that saw both U.S. neighbors scramble unsuccessfully to head off the punishing trade action and sending stock prices into a swift decline. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down around 1.5 percent Monday, as investors digested Trump’s comments. The broader S&P 500 index fell nearly 2 percent. Both market measures are now in the red since Trump’s election win. Imposing tariffs on everything Americans buy from Mexico and Canada is an extraordinary political gamble by a president who was returned to power by voters angered over years of high inflation. The new import taxes are likely to raise the market prices of Mexican tequila, beer and avocados, along with Canadian crude oil and lumber, testing consumer patience with Trump’s approach.” CNBC's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump's threatened tariffs on Mexico and Canada are poised to massively jack up prices for new cars in the United States, Bloomberg reports. In fact, Bloomberg writes that the tariffs 'risk driving up US car prices by as much as $12,000, further squeezing consumers and wreaking havoc across the intricate web of automotive supply lines spanning the continent.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments. Like this one: “Canada imposed 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods at 12:01 a.m. Eastern but did not specify which products would be affected. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a statement that the tariffs would extend to $125 billion of American goods in 21 days.... President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico was expected to address the tariffs at a news conference early on Tuesday. With nationalism strengthening as a result of the dispute, the Mexican leader has seen her approval ratings rise.” ~~~
~~~ Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: “Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday he is prepared to cut off electricity exports to the U.S. if ... [Donald] Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods go through. 'If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face,' Ford told reporters at a mining convention in downtown Toronto, the Toronto Sun reported.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Lily Kuo of the Washington Post: “China imposed tariffs of up to 15 percent on a raft of U.S. farm products on Tuesday and blacklisted more than 20 U.S. companies, marking a major escalation in a brewing trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The move targets some of the United States’ top exports to China, including soybeans, meat and grains. It was retaliation for ... Donald Trump’s announcement that he would increase tariffs on Chinese products by an additional 10 percentage points from Tuesday, bringing the total tax on some Chinese products to 45 percent. Trump said he did not expect Beijing to 'retaliate too much,' but only hours later, China’s State Council, the equivalent of its cabinet, announced a 15 percent tax on U.S. goods including chicken, wheat and corn. Other American products — including soybeans, sorghum, beef, pork, seafood, dairy products and fruits and vegetables — will be subject to a 10 percent levy.” ~~~
~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: “Congratulations again to the single-issue 'muh burger too expensive' voters who were apparently critical to Trump winning, and even bigger congratulations to the business interests who figured that Trump winning again would just mean some tax cuts and a few trans girls kicked off of high school field hockey teams.... Well, at least your kids are much more likely to get previously eradicated diseases!”
More great Trump ideas, via Akhilleus by way of Jimmy Kimmel: (Akhilleus shared some more Trumpy ideas in yesterday's Comments): ~~~
~~~ Say, here's an idea neither Kimmel nor Akhilleus thought of: ~~~
~~~ Oliver Milman of the Guardian: “Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US. The president, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands, claiming that 'heavy-handed federal policies' have made America reliant on foreign imports of timber. 'It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security,' the order adds. Trump has instructed the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to increase logging targets and for officials to circumvent the US’s Endangered Species Act by using unspecified emergency powers to ignore protections placed upon vulnerable creatures’ habitats.”
David Fahrenthold, et al., of the New York Times: “Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued 'wall of receipts,' erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers. Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent of all the contracts listed on its site last week. The deleted items included five of the seven largest savings that it had claimed credit for just last week. At the same time, the group added about 1,000 additional canceled contracts, worth smaller total savings. It was the second time in a week that DOGE had deleted some of its greatest claims of success.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Ailia Zehra of the Hill: “Martin O’Malley, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), said Monday the recent cuts made by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the agency could result in the 'collapse' of the Social Security system 'within the next 30 to 90 days.' O’Malley, a Democrat who also served as Maryland governor from 2007-15, told CNBC the recent DOGE initiatives may jeopardize monthly benefit payments for over 72.5 million Americans.”
Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: “The top agent at the F.B.I.’s New York field office said in an email Monday that he had been forced out of his job, following clashes with Justice Department officials over Trump administration directives. The veteran agent, James E. Dennehy, was told Friday to retire from his role leading the F.B.I.’s largest field office, delivering another blow to the senior ranks of the bureau. Mr. Dennehy, who had been running the office since September, had angered Trump administration officials by supporting bureau leaders who resisted turning over the names of those who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Dennehy had also angered Attorney General Pam Bondi by what she claimed was the New York office’s failure to turn over all the investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier charged with sex trafficking who killed himself in prison. Ms. Bondi provided no evidence to back up her assertion.” The NBC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “The Justice Department said on Monday that it would review the conviction of the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., who was found guilty of state charges last summer of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against ... [Donald] Trump. The decision was the latest example of the Justice Department under Mr. Trump’s control seeking to use its powers to support those who have acted on his behalf and to go after those who have criticized or opposed him. It also played into the president’s effort to rewrite the history of his efforts to overturn the results of the election. Three weeks ago, the former clerk, Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison on the state election tampering charges, filed a long-shot motion in Federal District Court in Denver effectively challenging the guilty verdict she received in August at the end of a trial in Grand Junction. But, in a surprise move, Yaakov M. Roth, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, filed a court brief known as a statement of interest on Monday, declaring that 'reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’s case.'”
Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: “The Trump administration plans to drop a federal lawsuit against a chemical manufacturer accused of releasing high levels of a likely carcinogen from its Louisiana plant, according to two people familiar with the plans. The government filed the lawsuit during the Biden administration after regulators determined that chloroprene emissions from the Denka Performance Elastomer plant were contributing to health concerns in an area with the highest cancer risk of any place in the United States. The 2023 lawsuit was among several enforcement actions taken by the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of poor and minority communities that have disproportionately borne the brunt of toxic pollution.”
Spencer Hsu, et al., of the Washington Post: “Interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin on Monday directed his office to prosecute more firearms cases in federal court, launching a bid to crack down on gun violence in Washington, D.C., that revived a strategy from ... Donald Trump’s first term.... [Martin's move comes] as violent crime falls, homicides tick up and Trump threatens to 'take over' capital.”
Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has been quietly pushing to present evidence against Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, to a federal grand jury over comments he made about Supreme Court justices in 2020, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Justice Department officials have thus far rebuffed the unusual request by Mr. Martin, a partisan ally of ... [Donald] Trump with no previous prosecutorial experience, one of those people said. Mr. Martin has made clear his hopes of investigating whether the remarks made five years ago by Mr. Schumer amounted to threats against Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Bringing such a case is highly unusual and winning a conviction would be difficult, according to current and former prosecutors. Last month, Mr. Martin signaled his intention to take an aggressive approach, writing Mr. Schumer a letter demanding 'information and clarification' of remarks he made at a rally on March 4, 2020. 'You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price!' Mr. Schumer said at the rally, addressing his remarks to Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Mr. Schumer’s staff retracted his statement and the senator apologized a day later, taking to the floor of the Senate to say, 'I should not have used the words I used.'”
Adam Cancryn of Politico: “The top spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department has abruptly quit after clashing with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his close aides over their management of the agency amid a growing measles outbreak.... Thomas Corry announced on Monday that he had resigned 'effective immediately,' just two weeks after joining the department as its assistant secretary for public affairs.... [Over and above his disagreements with Kennedy & Kenndy's chief of staff about the management of HHS,] Corry had also grown uneasy with Kennedy’s muted response to the intensifying outbreak of measles in Texas....” (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Bender of the New York Times: “The Senate voted along party lines on Monday to confirm Linda McMahon as the nation’s next education secretary, putting the former pro-wrestling executive in charge of an agency that the Trump administration wants to eliminate.... Among the first 20 Trump nominations confirmed by the Senate, Ms. McMahon is the sixth whom Democrats unanimously opposed.... A wealthy Republican donor who served in the first Trump administration, Ms. McMahon has little experience in education. That lack of firsthand knowledge has been framed as an asset by a White House looking to abolish the department she now leads and as a glaring deficiency by her critics.... Ms. McMahon, 76, told lawmakers during her confirmation process that she 'wholeheartedly' agreed with ... [Donald] Trump’s 'mission' to eliminate the Education Department. During her hearing last month, she argued that most Americans did, too.... Nearly two-thirds of Americans said last week that they opposed eliminating the agency, according to the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.”
Annie Karni of the New York Times: Senate “Democrats on Monday blocked a Republican-written bill aimed at barring transgender women and girls from school sports teams designated for female students, thwarting consideration in the Senate of the G.O.P.’s latest move to use transgender people as leverage at the dawn of ... [Donald] Trump’s second term.”
~~~~~~~~~~
5 Comments
Reader Comments (5)
Every morning as I carry my coffee to the sunroom to check the
news, I say to myself "Self, the news can't possibly be worse today
than it has been every day since he became our dictator" but, low and
behold, things do get worse every day.
Maybe I should start learning Russian to keep my mind off events of
the day.
Just watched Lankford try to justify Trump. Turned off the tv. No I will not watch the speech tonight. I'm sick and tired of all the lies and I'm sick and tired of all the gentle ways media has of not right out loud that he's lying. He's misstated this or that, or whatever euphemism is popular that day.
The only reason for tonight’s Bund rally is so Fat Hitler can waddle into the chamber to the sieg heiling applause of his SS troops in Congress.
I’ve completely given up on Congressional Democrats except for a handful (Crockett, AOC, eg).
If I have to hear one.more.fucking.time that “We can’t address ÀLL of Trump’s horrible acts” I’ll…well shit, it doesn’t matter what I’ll do, they won’t care. How about going after that fat traitor for just ONE horrible thing! And I’ve about had it with James Carville telling everyone to calm down cuz it’ll all be over in a month. Hey, Jim: “It’s the TREASON, stupid!”
Fatty feels the need for some good ol’ MAGA adulation for just himself and not him and his boss, the South African Chainsaw Massacre Man.
And, of course, the TV commentators will intone in their best on-air talent voices about how this or that statement was interesting in that blah blah blah blah blah BULLSHIT!
It will be a toilet bowl swirly of self-serving lies. But NO ONE WILL FUCKING SAY THAT!!!
I’m hearing “Ohhhh…the PRESIDENT will appear before Congress tonight to explain to the American people something, something. And then we expect him to lay out his plans for the next four years, boolah, boolah, blah blah and the mome raths outgrabe.”
No! No! No! This is not normal! Nothing about this vivisection of the federal government is remotely, in any possible universe, normal. Why are we pretending it is??!?!?
Explain nothing. He can’t because he doesn’t know what the South African Chainsaw Massacre Man and his pimply faced Hitler Youth are doing and he DOESN’T CARE!
He’s there for the applause! That’s it.
His plan for the next four years? You’ve been in a coma for the last six weeks, is that it?
His plan? Kill democracy, end America, take revenge on everyone he hates, fill his pockets, help Putin, play golf.
That’s it!
So I ain’t watchin’. Fuck ‘em all.
Marie says Trump is a traitor to America.
One hundred percent correct. But he’s a lot worse. He’s a murderer. A vicious, fiendish, evil child who will let Ukrainians die because the ambush he planned for the embattled, decent, and noble President of that beleaguered land didn’t go the way he and his couch humping homunculus had planned. “Tee-her, tee-hee! We’ll short sheet his bed. Won’t it be fun?”
But Zelensky didn’t go along with their schoolyard bully boy tactics. He is a serious man who was there to hash out issues of great moment for his country and frankly, the western democracies, among which Trump’s Amerika no longer numbers.
Fat Hitler and the hillbilly homunculus were there to light their farts.
But now that he looks a fool for his whiny, titty baby outbursts, he’s taking his ball and going home. Fucking evil child that he is.
And here’s how you can tell that neither Fat Hitler nor his congressional testicle cozies understand the first thing about what Ukraine is going through. To them, it’s just a game. Fatty sez “You don’t have the cards, nyah, nyah!” like they’re playing Old Maid. Tommy Potatohead sez “Dear leader and Putin will decide how to carve up Ukraine. Zelensky isn’t even in the game.”
It’s NOT A FUCKING GAME!!
It’s people’s lives. It’s a country’s sovereign right to exist! It’s western civilization.
But not to these jabronis. It’s all a big game. “Ha-ha! I win. You lose!”
No. We lose. The American people. People all around the world who value honesty, decency, freedom, the right to exist without some authoritarian prick bombing the shit out of their schools, their hospitals, their homes.
But Trump is all for those horrible things. He proves it every day.
Saw the Muskrat spouting the old complaint that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme....another obvious prelude to privatizing the closest thing American have to a public retirement plan, which btw it is not and was never intended to be...
Social Security is a public social insurance plan, and since there is no one at the top enriching themselves by buying yachts with other people's money, it has nothing in common with fraud.
Social Security is instead much like a private insurance plan--with two big differences. First, it can't increase premium rates at will to insure its profitability. Congress has to do it and it's far more reluctant to do so than state insurance regulators who live under the threat that if they deny extortionate rate increases, the insurance companies will just pull out of their state.
The second difference is that SS is restricted to investing its surplus in
government bonds, which at best just keeps up with inflation. It, unlike private insurance, is not designed to make a profit.
But since the rule of thumb I'm applying to understanding Pretender 2.0 seems to apply perfectly here as well, I'll apply it: Everything this administration has done or hopes to do is wrong (illegal, mean, nasty or stupid).
These nitwits don't understand Social Security, likely because they don't want to. The way it's designed and the way it's run, there's no profit for the fat cats in it.
So they've set out to wreck it.