The Conversation -- April 2, 2025
Here's the clip CNN played while waiting for Trump to come out on the lawn and announce his plan to further wreck the world's economy. Seems appropriate as it's pretty much what Trump has in store for us:
~~~ David Lynch & Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will impose a new 10 percent tariff on all imported goods along with an additional punitive import tax tailored for each of about 60 countries that his advisers say maintain the most unfair barriers against U.S. products. The president’s long-awaited tariff plan is designed to spur a renaissance in domestic manufacturing and to fill government coffers with tax revenue, even as many economists warn that he is steering the U.S. economy toward slower growth and higher prices.... After returning to the White House on a wave of public anger over inflation, Trump is now asking voters to put up with a renewed period of rising prices in return for the distant promise of rebuilding domestic manufacturing. Already, economists are warning that Trump’s tax increase on imported goods will mean sticker shock on some of Americans’ most important purchases, including groceries, cars and homes.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Bear in mind that when Trump & the Trumpettes boast about the Trump tariffs bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues, they are talking about collecting that money from U.S. consumers. You and me. We're going to fill federal coffers in service of tax breaks for the ultra-rich.
Waltz built the entire NSC communications process on Signal. -- NSC Group Chat Participant ~~~
~~~ ⭐Dasha Burns of Politico: “National security adviser Mike Waltz’s team regularly set up chats on Signal to coordinate official work on issues including Ukraine, China, Gaza, Middle East policy, Africa and Europe, according to four people who have been personally added to Signal chats. Two of the people said they were in or have direct knowledge of at least 20 such chats. All four said they saw instances of sensitive information being discussed.... These latest revelations show that the NSC’s reliance on Signal is widespread and part of standard operations.... Veteran national security officials have warned the practice potentially violates regulations on protecting sensitive national security information from foreign adversaries, and federal recordkeeping laws if the chats are automatically deleted.”
Rachel Bade of Politico: “... Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man. The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role.... Musk’s looming exit comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic that was thrown into stark relief Tuesday when a conservative judge Musk vocally supported lost his bid for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat by 10 points. It also represents a shift in the Trump-Musk relationship from a month ago, when White House officials and allies were predicting Musk was 'here to stay' and that Trump would find a way to blow past the 130-day time limit.”
Awww! Obama photobomb.
Isabella Kwai of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Northern California ordered the restoration of legal funds for migrant children who enter the United States alone, temporarily reversing a Trump administration decision last month that had left children at risk of deportation. Nonprofit groups had been fighting the decision since they received notice from the federal government on March 21 that it would terminate funding for legal services for unaccompanied children in immigration court. The halt in funding, according to a complaint filed by the groups, had put some 26,000 children at risk of being cut off from their lawyers and disadvantaged them in adversarial immigration proceedings. The government had argued that the funding was discretionary and that it was not obligated to provide legal representation for the children. But Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco disagreed, saying on Tuesday that by terminating the funding, the government had potentially violated its obligations to protect children from human trafficking.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oddly enough, the judge saw something wrong with sending toddlers to court to fend for themselves against Trump's unscrupulous immigration apparatus.
Court Validates (and Upgrades) Adams' Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card. William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: “A judge on Wednesday dismissed corruption charges against Eric Adams, ending the first criminal case against a New York City mayor in modern history and underscoring how ... [Donald] Trump’s Justice Department is using prosecutorial power to advance his agenda. The judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, refused to let the government retain the option of reinstating the charges, as Mr. Trump’s Justice Department had sought. The department had argued that the bribery and fraud charges should be dropped for three reasons: They were brought too close to the mayoral election; the U.S. attorney who brought the case had created 'appearances of impropriety'; and, most importantly, the prosecution was hindering the mayor’s cooperation with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. Judge Ho roundly rejected all three arguments. 'Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,' the judge wrote in his 78-page decision....
“Judge Ho in his opinion discounted the Justice Department’s claims that the case had been brought for political reasons by the Manhattan federal prosecutors. 'There is no evidence — zero — that they had any improper motives,' he wrote.... The judge said that granting the government’s request to dismiss the charges without prejudice, which would have allowed it to bring them again, 'would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents.'”
Before and After. Giselle Ewing of Politico: Elon “Musk catapulted the [Wisconsin] state Supreme Court election into national view, vocally backing conservative candidate Brad Schimel — who also clinched ... Donald Trump’s endorsement — and pouring millions into the efforts to get him elected. The Wisconsin election, Musk claimed, would decide the trajectory of not only the whole country, but perhaps all of'Western civilization' and 'the future of the world,' as he said in a Spaces conversation on X hours before polls closed Tuesday.... Musk changed his tune in the hours following the crushing defeat, seemingly indicating that the loss was all part of a bigger plan. 'I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain,' Musk replied to an X user early Wednesday morning.” MB: I wonder why Musk's friend Trump didn't much appreciate his “positional gain” in 2020?
More Trouble for Ed Martin. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: “A Senate fight over ... Donald Trump’s controversial choice for top prosecutor in Washington escalated as Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois) and all other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called for interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin to face questions under oath at a confirmation hearing, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) vowed to block attempts to jam through a vote. While the Senate Judiciary Committee does not typically hold hearings for U.S. attorney nominees, 'Mr. Martin is a nominee whose objectionable record merits heightened scrutiny by this Committee,' Durbin and nine other members wrote Tuesday to the panel’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).... Grassley spokeswoman Clare Slattery responded that the Judiciary Committee 'doesn’t hold hearings' on U.S. attorney or U.S. marshal nominations.”
Lisa Friedman & Claire Brown of the New York Times: “Over the last few months, Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has made explosive accusations against the Biden administration, accusing it of 'insane' malfeasance in its handling of $20 billion in climate grants. Now, as a legal battle ensues over those funds, many of Mr. Zeldin’s claims remain unsupported, and some are flat-out false.... The $20 billion ... was awarded to eight nonprofit groups ... to finance projects ... such as solar panels on community centers and geothermal systems to heat and cool subsidized housing.... The [E.P.A.], which has worked to block the nonprofits from accessing the money, is now being sued by several of the organizations for breach of contract.... In its most recent court filing on March 26, the E.P.A. offered another argument for canceling the grants, claiming the climate funds no longer align with the Trump administration’s priorities.” The article cites a number of bizarre false claims Zeldin has made, including one dependent upon a Project Veritas video. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The truth seems to be, not surprisingly, that Zeldin will do & say anything to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting the environment. Remember, the purpose the the Trump administration is to render government agencies dysfunctional. This is the way of tyrants: they rob everything of meaning, leaving the public confused and disheartened. So Trump names his derivative media platform "Truth Social," a name in which both words connote the opposite of its owner, a lying narcissisist. He calls the best efforts to report the real news "fake news." Honorable attempts to bring him to justice are "hoaxes." He and his goons destabilize and frighten lonely, elderly people by threatening "Social Security." "Medicare" may no longer provide "care" and "Medicaid" may no longer give "aid." By radically destroying objective truth, they reckon they can establish their own "truth"/propaganda and get away with murder (say, shooting someone on Fifth Avenue).
Cate Cadell of the Washington Post: “Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called for FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate Elon Musk’s ties to the Chinese government, arguing that the U.S. DOGE Service’s access to millions of Americans’ sensitive data poses an unacceptable conflict of interest, given Beijing’s regulatory power over the tech billionaire’s vast business operations in China.... Raskin also requested details on Musk’s and his associates’ travel to China, asking that the law enforcement agency present a report to the committee by April 15....” MB: Not. Going. To. Happen.
Marie: Ah, you thought I was a silly old alarmist when I said we all were in danger. Okay, I'm no expert. But take it from someone who's been there ~~~
~~~ American Stasi. “Our Police State Has Arrived.” M. Gessen of the New York Times: “Those of us who have lived in countries terrorized by a secret police force can’t shake a feeling of dreadful familiarity.... 'It’s the unmarked cars.'... It’s the catastrophic interruption of daily life, as when a Tufts University graduate student ... was grabbed on a suburban street by half a dozen plainclothes agents, most of them masked.... It’s the forced mass transports of immigrants.... It’s the growing irrelevance of the law and the helplessness of judges and lawyers.... It’s the chilling stories that come by word of mouth.... ICE is coming to your workplace, your street, your building.... It’s the invisible hand of the authorities.... It’s the shifting goal posts.... It’s the lists.... It’s the denunciations by concerned citizens.... And, as the historian Timothy Snyder has pointed out, if due process is routinely denied to noncitizens, it will be denied to citizens too, simply because it is often impossible for people to prove that they are citizens.... The United States has become a secret-police state. Trust me, I’ve seen it before.”
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⭐Wisconsin. Adam Edelman of NBC News: "Susan Crawford has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, allowing liberals to maintain their narrow majority on the battleground state’s highest court — and defying Elon Musk after he spent millions of dollars to oppose her. Crawford, a Dane County circuit judge who was backed by Democrats, secured a 10-year term on the court over Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County circuit judge and a former Republican attorney general. As the first major battleground state election of ... Donald Trump’s second term, the technically nonpartisan contest drew national attention and became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “With turnout extraordinarily high for a spring election in an off year, Judge Susan Crawford handily beat Judge Brad Schimel, who ran on his loyalty to ... [Donald] Trump and was aided by [Elon] Musk.... Mr. Musk not only poured money into the race but also campaigned personally in the state, even donning a cheesehead. But his starring role seemed to inflame Democratic anger against him even more than it helped Judge Schimel. The barrage of spending in the race may nearly double the previous record for a single judicial election. With about 95 percent of the vote counted on Tuesday evening, Judge Crawford held a lead of roughly 9 points.... Her win showed that, at least in one instance, Mr. Musk’s seemingly endless reserves of political cash had energized more Democrats than Republicans.” ~~~
~~~ Reid Epstein, et al., of the New York Times: “Elon Musk’s money can buy him love from Republicans, but not, it turns out, a Wisconsin Supreme Court election. A campaign awash in more than $25 million in spending by the world’s richest man and groups tied to him ended up much like the other elections of the first months of ... [Donald] Trump’s second term: with a surge of energy from Democratic Wisconsin voters that overwhelmed whatever turnout Republicans could manage in response. On the same night that Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, was delivering a thumping to Judge Brad Schimel, the Trump-backed conservative, Democrats saw a silver lining in losses in two special congressional elections in Florida. In both races, they were able to cut sharply into the much wider Republican victory margins from November. In all, the night’s results demonstrated what Democratic officials have been saying in recent weeks: that their voters are fired up to fight back against a Trump administration set on tearing down large chunks of the federal government.”
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “Two Trump-backed Republicans won special congressional elections in Florida on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, shoring up their party’s slim majority in the House at a crucial moment for ... [Donald] Trump’s domestic agenda. Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, won the race to replace Matt Gaetz in the First Congressional District, on the western end of the Panhandle. With most of the vote counted late Tuesday, Mr. Patronis had won 57 percent. And State Senator Randy Fine captured the Sixth District seat that had been held by Michael Waltz, now Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. That district is rooted in Daytona Beach and parts of the northeast coast. Mr. Fine had 56.7 percent of the vote as of 9 p.m.”
Paul Krugman: "Today ... Trump will announce big new tariffs on top of the substantial tariffs he’s already slapped on steel, aluminum and autos.... I don’t know exactly what will be announced later today. One safe prediction, however, is that over the next few days we’ll see many news analyses purporting to explain the thinking behind this radical change in U.S. policy. Such analyses will be a waste of time, because there’s nothing to explain. I’m not saying that the Trump team’s thinking is unsound. I don’t see any thinking at all.... The administration’s case for tariffs is completely incoherent...: Trumpers are claiming that tariffs 1. Won’t increase prices, because foreign producers will absorb the cost[;] 2. Will cause a large shift in U.S. demand away from imports to domestic production[;] 3. Will raise huge amounts of revenue[.]... [Yet] (1) is inconsistent with (2): If prices of imports don’t rise, why would consumers switch to domestically produced goods? At the same time, (2) is inconsistent with (3): If imports drop a lot, tariffs won’t raise a lot of money, because there won’t be much to tax.... And Trump’s rants about tariffs go beyond nonsense." Read on; Krugman makes econ 101 fun!
⭐John Hudson of the Washington Post: “Members of ... Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials.... A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict.... Waltz has had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents.... Waltz has also created and hosted other Signal chats with Cabinet members on sensitive topics, including on Somalia and Russia’s war in Ukraine, said a senior administration official. The existence of those groups was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.... Most concerning, however, is the use of personal email, which is widely acknowledged to be susceptible to hacking, spearfishing and other types of digital compromise.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I just emailed Mike from my new account FileTopSecretDocsHere@gmail.com
Lisa Rein, et al., of the Washington Post: “The White House is preparing an estimate of what it would cost the federal government to control Greenland as a territory, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, the most concrete effort yet to turn ... Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish island into actionable policy. While Trump’s demands elicited international outrage and a rebuke from Denmark, White House officials have in recent weeks taken steps to determine the financial ramifications of Greenland becoming a U.S. territory, including the cost of providing government services for its 58,000 residents, the people said.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yeah, and nobody wearing green eyeshades AND a MAGA cap can calculate the cost to the U.S.'s international standing, prestige and power that a takeover of Greenland would exact.
Mark Berman of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he had reached an agreement with the prominent law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher — which employs Doug Emhoff, former vice president Kamala Harris’s husband — making it the third firm to strike a deal with him in as many weeks.... Emhoff told the firm’s leadership that he disagreed with their seeking a deal with the Trump administration.... Earlier Tuesday afternoon, before Trump’s announcement, Emhoff appeared at a Georgetown Law School event for a previously scheduled discussion. During the event, he said the rule of law was under attack and that lawyers needed to push back and fight for what is right.... Willkie [also] employs Timothy Heaphy, who was chief investigative counsel for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.... While Trump’s statement about the agreement did not explicitly say so, it appeared aimed at helping Willkie avoid the punishments that the president has pursued with other firms.... Trump said Willkie had also agreed to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal services in areas he supports, including fighting antisemitism and aiding veterans and military members.”
Susan Svrluga of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration suspended 'several dozen' research grants to Princeton University this week, the university’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, announced to the campus community Tuesday, the latest potentially heavy financial blow to an Ivy League institution from the federal government. Eisgruber said the school was notified Monday and Tuesday about the suspension of grants from NASA and the Energy and Defense departments.... The university is committed to combating antisemitism, Eisgruber said, and will work with the administration to do that. 'Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this University,' he wrote.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump's sudden interest in combatting anti-semitism is bogus. He has made a number of public statements stereotyping Jews. In 2024, he said Jews who didn't vote for him should have their heads examined; he has implied again and again that American Jews are Israelis first; and he has relied on tropes about Jews being obsessed with money and being "brutal negotiators"; in 2022, he hosted antisemite Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lardo. And of course there was his infamous "good people on both sides," implying that the Neo-Nazi "side" included many "good people." Only yesterday, Akhilleus pointed to a friend-of-friends-of-Trump who is a virulent antisemite.
Jonathan Last of the Bulwark contrasts Kilmar Abrego Garcia -- a decent family man the U.S. says it's "accidentally deported" to a horrible Salvadoran prison -- with Elon Musk -- "an effete parasite" whom Trump's administration has granted "permission to pillage the government itself." As Kyle Cheney of Politico reported in a story linked yesterday, the Trump administration now says it has no way to correct their ghastly mistake. As an exasperated Last puts it, "America cannot possibly importune the government of El Salvador for the return of this man because we have no authority over them and El Salvador is a close ally we cannot afford to annoy. These motherfuckers are making this argument at the same time as they are dispatching the vice president to stand on foreign soil and threaten a formal treaty ally with territorial annexation. They are doing this while telling Ukraine to submit to Russia because morality and law are immaterial and the only thing that matters is strength—if you don’t hold 'the cards' then you do what the more powerful country tells you to do. Well tell me, counselors, what cards does El Salvador hold that it can’t be made to do what America demands?" Thanks to laura h. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “Lawyers for Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of a violent street gang asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to continue a temporary block on ... [Donald] Trump’s use of a wartime powers law to send hundreds of people to a prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration has asked the justices to intervene and lift a block on the deportations imposed by a lower court. But a brief filed on behalf of the immigrants by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward said that block is now 'the only thing' preventing the Trump administration from sending immigrants 'to a prison in El Salvador, perhaps never to be seen again, without any kind of procedural protection, much less judicial review.' The government has already sent more than 130 Venezuelan men from the United States to El Salvador, according to the court filing, where the migrants 'have been confined, incommunicado, in one of most brutal prisons in the world, where torture and other human rights abuses are rampant.'”
Yan Zhuang of the New York Times: “Óscar Arias Sánchez, the Nobel laureate and former Costa Rican president, said on Tuesday that the United States had revoked his visa to enter the country, with no reason given. A vocal critic of ,,, [Donald] Trump, Mr. Arias appears to be the most high profile in a string of individuals who have had their visas canceled or been denied entry as the Trump administration bars people who it says have 'hostile attitudes' toward the United States.... In February, he wrote on Facebook that Mr. Trump behaved like 'a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do.'... Mr. Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for brokering a plan to end the civil wars in Central America, said he had received a short email from the U.S. government informing him that his visa had been revoked. At a news conference in San José, the capital of Costa Rica, he said that the email, which he received Tuesday morning, cited Section 221(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the secretary of state and consular officials to revoke visas at their discretion.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Of course the State Department revoked Arias' visa. Even before he spoke out against the Emperor Trumpvus, he had two strikes against him: he has brownish skin AND he won an award Trump covets and will never get. Uh, unless the U.S. invades Norway and replaces all the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Admittedly, a possibility.
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “Federal agencies have accelerated their efforts to cut thousands of jobs, offering buyouts and eliminating entire offices as the Trump administration’s deadline to downsize approaches. At least six federal agencies have in recent days extended a 'deferred resignation' offer that was originally pitched to government workers in January as a one-time opportunity that would allow employees to resign but continue to be paid for a period of time. The latest offer was sent to employees at the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, as well as the General Services Administration, according to emails received by workers at those agencies reviewed by The New York Times.” MB: IOW, the heads of these agencies are really askeert of Trump.
Carolyn Johnson, et al., of the Washington Post: “Senior leaders across the Department of Health and Human Services were put on leave and countless other employees lost their jobs Tuesday as the Trump administration began a sweeping purge of the agencies that oversee government health programs. Top officials at the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration were put on administrative leave or offered reassignment to the Indian Health Service. Other employees began receiving layoff notices or learned they had lost their jobs when their entry badges no longer worked Tuesday morning.” The ABC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Ah, Don't Worry; HHS Points Some Fired Employees to Someone Who Can Help. Lauren Weber of the Washington Post: “Some government health employees who were laid off Tuesday were told to contact Anita Pinder with discrimination complaints. But Pinder, who was the director at the Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, died last year. The inclusion of Pinder’s name in reduction-in-force notices reflects the chaos of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to shed federal workers and was a gut punch to employees who knew her, said Karen Shields, who worked with Pinder.” ~~~
~~~ Besides, Think of the Savings to Taxpayers! Christina Jewett of the New York Times: “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggests that laying off thousands of federal workers would tame a massive budget. A few days ago..., [he] embarked on a media tour to defend his decision to lay off thousands of his department’s workers.... But ... spending on personnel at the federal health agencies accounts for a small fraction of its budget — less than 1 percent, according to three budget experts.... The overwhelming majority of the money is spent through Medicare, for the health care of people older than 65, or through Medicaid, for people with low incomes.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: In fairness to Kennedy, he was not selected for his job to do it well or to speak with authority. His job is to undermine the vital work the department does, to indirectly take American lives, to lie his way through everything and, in general, to assist in Trump's Grand Project: Proving Government Doesn't Work. So he gets a gold star for making misleading statements about the thousands of workers he's firing. ~~~
~~~ For Instance, There's This. Erika Edwards of NBC News: “Steep federal funding cuts have forced public health officials in one of Texas’ most populous counties — Dallas — to cancel dozens of vaccination clinics and lay off 21 workers on the front lines of combatting the state’s growing measles outbreak.... The vaccines, which included measles, mumps and rubella shots, were meant to be given free to families. The money being cut — $11.4 billion nationwide — was originally allocated to aid community health departments during the [Covid] pandemic.... Last week however, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would 'no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.' 'That’s very short-sighted and not understanding of the way public health works,” [Dallas County health director Dr. Philip] Huang said. 'Being prepared for Covid helps build our capacity to be able to respond to other issues.' Huang said his team was still assessing the exact amount of money slashed in his budget, but estimated it to be in the millions.” ~~~
~~~ “People Will Die.” Jonathan Cohn in the Bulwark: “The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research — along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care. 'We’ve had a lot of devastating days, but this really is unfathomable,' Wendy Armstrong, director of infectious diseases at the University of Colorado, told me. 'It’s astounding, it will affect patients with all kinds of different kinds of infections, and Americans will suffer, and people will die, and that’s a horrible thing to see coming.'” Read on.
Shannon Najmabadi & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration is amassing influence over criminal investigations at the IRS, bypassing senior career officials to appoint an official who previously raised concerns about an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes to a key leadership role in the division. That official, Gary Shapley, was recently elevated to deputy chief of the IRS’s criminal division and to an 'unprecedented' senior advisory role at the Treasury Department, he wrote to colleagues in a recent email obtained by The Washington Post — giving political appointees a direct line to tax investigations for the first time since Richard M. Nixon was president. Shapley was a longtime IRS agent when he told Congress in 2023 that prosecutors slow-walked an inquiry into then-President Joe Biden’s son for tax offenses.... Shapley’s testimony, along with that of fellow IRS agent Joseph Ziegler, has made him a celebrated figure on the right and endeared him to advisers to ... Donald Trump, who in his first term openly mused about using tax investigations to persecute his perceived political enemies.... Shapley and Ziegler were named senior advisers at the Treasury Department in March and given a broad mandate to look into wrongdoing at the IRS, [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent said in a television interview.”
Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times: “Ed Martin, the ardent Trump loyalist serving as interim U.S. attorney in Washington, is pursuing an inquiry into whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was competent to pardon his family members and others during his final days in office. The inquiry, which includes previously unreported letters to Mr. Biden’s family and former White House staff members, uses the levers of federal law enforcement to try to harass Mr. Biden’s family and allies and undermine his decisions as president, while scoring political points with ... [Donald] Trump. Mr. Trump and his supporters have increasingly seized on the unsubstantiated theory that the pardons Mr. Biden issued during his final months in office may be invalid because he lacked the mental capacity to consent to them. In an apparent effort to build the case, Mr. Martin began sending letters two months ago to Mr. Biden’s White House aides ... as well as recipients of Mr. Biden’s pardons, such as his brother James Biden and sister-in-law Sara Biden.... The letters, signed by Mr. Martin, are informal but provocative, questioning a presidential clemency power that has generally gone unchallenged. They highlight Mr. Martin’s hands-on approach and willingness to use one of the most important U.S. attorneys’ offices in the country to seek retribution against Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies.” More on Mr. Ed, the Talking Horse's Ass, linked below.
~~~ And he did this for more than 25 hours, standing at his desk the entire time, with no breaks (even to the restroom). ~~~
In this democracy, the power of people is greater than the people in power. -- Sen. Cory Booker, Senate speech
⭐~~~ Tim Balk, et al., of the New York Times: “Senator Cory Booker, his voice still booming after more than a day spent on the Senate floor railing against the Trump administration, on Tuesday night surpassed Strom Thurmond for the longest Senate speech on record, in an act of astonishing stamina that he framed as a call to action. Mr. Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and one-time presidential candidate, began his speech at 7 p.m. on Monday, vowing to speak as long as he was 'physically able.' In a show of physical and oratorical endurance, he lasted past sunset on Tuesday, assailing ... [Donald] Trump’s cuts to government agencies and crackdown on immigration. He ended his speech at 8:05 p.m., 46 minutes after eclipsing Mr. Thurmond’s 24-hour 18-minute filibuster of a civil rights bill in 1957, by quoting John Lewis, the civil rights hero and congressman. Mr. Booker said of Lewis: 'He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble, necessary trouble, to redeem the soul of our nation. I want you to redeem the dream. Let’s be bold in America.'
“Earlier, cheers broke out in the chamber when Mr. Booker passed Mr. Thurmond. For a moment, Mr. Booker addressed the man he had eclipsed. 'To hate him is wrong, and maybe my ego got too caught up that if I stood here, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand.... I’m not here though because of his speech. I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.'” (This is an update of a story linked multiple times yesterday.) The AP's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Doktor Zoom of Wonkette: "Booker received help throughout the night — and still, [Tuesday] — from other senators, because he is allowed to take questions, which tend to come in the form of brief speeches ending with a question mark. But it’s not just a tactic to help him preserve his voice; it’s also a chance for fellow Democrats to show their unity, with multiple voices pointing out how completely not normal the last two months have been. Booker and other senators called out Trump and co-president Elon Musk for multiple assaults on democracy, like their attempts to shut down federal agencies created by Congress, to cancel spending authorized by Congress, to withhold grants to nonprofits that were already awarded, to fire large segments of the federal workforce without regard to worker protections, and to effectively dissolve America’s alliances by siding with Russia against Ukraine and our European allies. And much more."
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: "For more than 25 hours he held the floor of the Senate, not reading from the phone book or children’s literature, as some of his predecessors have done, but delivering a coherent, powerful speech about the meaning of America and the ways in which the Trump regime is destroying our democracy. On the same day that ... the Washington Post reported that members of Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including national security advisor Michael Waltz, have been skirting presidential records laws and exposing national security by using Gmail accounts to conduct government business, and the same day that mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services gutted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Booker launched a full-throated defense of the United States of America."
For the past nine weeks, Ed Martin has consistently undermined the independence and abused the power of the US Attorney's office in DC, openly threatening and intimidating political opponents, dismissing charges against his own clients, firing public servants for their roles in legitimate investigations and using his office as a cudgel to chill dissent and free speech. -- Sen. Adam Smith (D-Calif.), in a statement ~~~
~~~ Scott MacFarlane of CBS News: "... [Donald] Trump's controversial choice to be the top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, faces an uncertain future, as a Senate Democrat plans to put an indefinite hold on his nomination. Martin, a 'Stop the Steal' advocate and former defense attorney who represented U.S. Capitol riot defendants, is Mr. Trump's nominee to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and Sen. Adam Schiff, a first-term Democrat from California, plans to hold his nomination amid a growing number of controversial statements and decisions by Martin. The position is among the highest-profile and most powerful federal prosecutor positions in the U.S. Martin ... has been serving as acting U.S. attorney for D.C. since Inauguration Day. ~~~
~~~ Sen. Schiff's full statement is here.
Yo, Mike, Republicans Have Babies, Too. Marianna Sotomayor, et al., of the Washington Post: “A handful of Republican lawmakers prevailed in bucking House Republican leadership’s attempts to block a bill that would allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely. The stunning rebellion within the majority’s own ranks has derailed the House from considering other legislative measures the rest of the week, an embarrassing defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and his leadership team’s hold on the fractious conference. Eight Republicans joined Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) to vote down a procedural hurdle, known as a rule, that included language endorsed by leadership that would have prevented her bipartisan resolution from ever being considered this Congress.”
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Israel's Wars. Vivian Yee & Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times: “The United Nations said Israeli forces killed [15 rescue workers in Gaza] as they were trying to aid injured civilians, then buried them in a mass grave. Israel said nine of the 15 dead were Palestinian militants.... 'They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives,' the U.N. humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said on X. 'We demand answers & justice.' The Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations said all of those killed were humanitarian workers who should never have come under attack. The Red Crescent called the killings a war crime and demanded accountability.... [The U.N.'s accusation was] rare.... The organization ... is typically cautious about assigning clear blame.”
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