The Conversation -- April 3, 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.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ 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.
Joe Rennison, et al., of the New York Times: “Markets around the world shuddered on Thursday after ... [Donald] Trump announced across-the-board 10 percent tariffs on all U.S. trading partners except Canada and Mexico, as well as even higher tariffs on dozens of America’s other main trading partners. Futures on the S&P 500, which allow investors to trade the index outside normal trading hours, slumped over 3 percent. Asian markets fell sharply, with benchmark indexes dropping more than 3 percent in Japan, and nearly 2 percent in Hong Kong and South Korea.... The initial market reaction suggested that the scale of the tariffs on Wednesday had come as a surprise, and analysts were still trying to figure out how the figures had been derived.... The administration had adjusted its estimates of the tariffs imposed on the United States to include adjustments for what it deemed currency manipulation or even other taxes, with analysts questioning the analytical basis for doing so.... The dollar slid as Mr. Trump spoke from the White House Rose Garden.”
RAS longs for the good old days when "people in [Trump's] first administration ... would steal papers off of FH's desk or not pass along his idiotic ideas to others to try to figure out how to implement them." Out of sight, out of mind, the guy with a memory that awed the medical profession would forget the hairbrained ideas and the world would move on, unfettered by the crazy brain farts of the day.
Oh, what can be done? Trump says he has his Article II that lets him do whatever he wants. Actually, no. Rachel Maddow reminded us last night that even though President Biden left Trump with an economy that the Economist called "the envy of the world," Trump immediately declared the state of the economy to be a national emergency. Bu law, the fake emergency gives the president* the power to impose tariffs. BUT. The Congress can declare the emergency over. So you'll be very surprised to learn what the Senate did last night: ~~~
~~~ Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Wednesday approved a measure that would block some of the tariffs ... [Donald] Trump has imposed on Canada, with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats to pass a resolution that would halt levies set to take effect this week. The measure is all but certain to stall in the House, where G.O.P. leaders have moved preemptively to shut down any move to end Mr. Trump’s tariffs. But Senate passage of the measure on a vote of 51 to 48 — just hours after Mr. Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on more than 100 trading partners, including the European Union, China, Britain and India — sent a signal of bipartisan congressional opposition to the president’s trade war.... Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican sponsor of the resolution. But three other G.O.P. senators ... joined him in support: Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky....
“The resolution targets the emergency powers Mr. Trump invoked in February to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada[, which he (falsely) claimed was a major source of fentanyl coming into the U.S.].... Mr. Trump imposed the tariffs in an executive order that cited the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, a Cold War-era law that has most often been used to impose sanctions on rogue states and human rights violators. Mr. Trump lobbied Republicans intensely to oppose the effort. In a series of social media posts on Tuesday, he attacked G.O.P. backers of the resolution and tried to convince them to reconsider, warning others against from breaking ranks and defying his executive order. In one post, he named the four Republican defectors and said they were 'playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels.'”
Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: “Another big law firm has reached an agreement with the Trump administration over the kind of free legal services its lawyers can provide to head off an executive order that could impair its business.... Donald J. Trump announced on Truth Social that Milbank had agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to causes supported by his administration and the law firm.... The law firm also agreed to use a merit-based system and to not engage in 'illegal D.E.I. discrimination.' It also promised not to deny representation to a client because of his or her political views. The Trump administration has focused on firms that employed lawyers involved in investigations of Mr. Trump and his prior administration, or who have hired lawyers who have been critical of the president. Milbank recently hired Neal Katyal, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump who was an acting solicitor general during the Obama administration....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Huh. I'm no lawyer, but if Goldstein's reporting is correct, this agreement doesn't sound like a cave to me. (1) Assuming that Milbank normally does $100 million in pro bono work over whatever time period the agreement may specify (no indication in the report that any timeframe is specified), then this is no big deal because the firm does not have to do any work for clients whose case it doesn't "support." (2) Not engaging in illegal employment discrimination is no concession at all. Obviously, a law firm cannot knowingly & wantonly violate employment law. (3) As for promising not to deny services to people for their political views, who knows why a firm accepts or does not accept its clients? Any number of factors can figure into the equation and "he's a frigging Nazi" isn't necessarily the deciding factor. I'll bet a big law firm has lawyers (or can hire lawyers) who are smarter than the saps who are willing to work for Donald Trump. I think maybe those saps, including the Sap-in-Chief, have been had.
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.” (Also linked yesterday.)
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.” (Also linked yesterday.)
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.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oddly enough, the judge saw something wrong with sending toddlers to court to fend for themselves against Trump's unscrupulous anti-immigration apparatus.
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Lawyers for a Maryland man who was inadvertently deported last month to a notorious Salvadoran prison despite an order that he could remain in the United States angrily urged the judge overseeing his case on Wednesday to force the Trump administration to bring him back as soon as possible. In a court filing, the lawyers for the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, furiously took issue with almost every aspect of the case. To start, they said, Trump officials had acknowledged on Monday night that they had made an 'administrative error' by flying Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador on March 15 even though a U.S. immigration judge had already determined that he might face torture there. The lawyers also expressed shock that the administration was maintaining that it had little power to get Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national whose wife and child are both American citizens, out of custody.”
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.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
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.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: “Elon Musk made himself the face of a humiliating political defeat in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. He’s rubbed cabinet members the wrong way and alienated several advisers close to ... [Donald] Trump. Republican lawmakers face angry questions about Mr. Musk’s influence from their constituents when they return to their districts. It will come as a relief to many in Mr. Trump’s orbit when Mr. Musk completes his 130-day service as a special government employee, which according to federal law is due to end in late May or early June. But the president has no intention of cutting ties with the world’s richest man, even after he leaves government, according to two people with knowledge of the president’s thinking. Mr. Musk has become, for better or worse, an essential component of both Mr. Trump’s political operation and the broader Republican Party apparatus. He’s the party’s moneyman, having committed $100 million to Mr. Trump’s outside groups, on top of the nearly $300 million he spent on the 2024 election. And he controls the most important media channel in G.O.P. politics — the website X ... — which makes Republicans terrified of getting on his bad side.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So Republicans are terrified of Trump, and now they're terrified of Musk, and of course that's all because they're terrified of the voters. Maybe what would save the U.S. from Trump would be to get a bunch of psychiatrists & psychologists to treat these cowering fraidycat GOP members of Congress for their anxiety disorders.
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? (Also linked yesterday.)
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. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ 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. (Also linked yesterday.)
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.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “... in their zeal to deliver ... [Donald] Trump’s domestic policy agenda in 'one big beautiful bill' of spending and tax cuts, Senate Republicans are trying to steer around the parliamentarian, busting a substantial congressional norm in the process. The strategy would allow them to avoid getting a formal thumbs up or thumbs down on their claim that extending the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 would cost nothing — a gimmick that would make it easier for them cram as many tax reductions as possible into their bill without appearing to balloon the deficit.... Rather than have [parliamentarian Elizabeth] MacDonough weigh in, they asserted that Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as chairman of the Budget Committee, could unilaterally decide the cost of the legislation, citing a 1974 budget law. Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a new budget resolution they planned to put to a vote as early as this week. And Mr. Graham declared in a statement that he considered an extension of the 2017 tax cuts to be cost-free.... The approach amounts to a rewriting of the strictly governed reconciliation process, and a backdoor way to knock down a crucial Senate guardrail on a simple majority vote — using the so-called nuclear option in a move akin to eliminating the filibuster.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is akin to GOP House leadership's ploy to get around the law that requires a vote on "privileged resolutions" (like one ending Trump's fake national emergencies) within 15 days. The "new rule," slipped into a funding bill, declares that a "day" lasted to the end of the year. That way, Bible Mike has sole control over what legislation comes up for a vote.
Awww! Obama photobomb. (Also linked yesterday.)
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Wisconsin. Scott Cacciola of the New York Times: “In urging 'disaffected patriots' to head to the polls on Tuesday and cast ballots in Wisconsin’s election, the political advocacy group Look Ahead America relied partly on a fairly perfunctory get-out-the-vote strategy: It spammed about 250,000 residents on Monday with a text message that reminded them of the issues at stake. That text message came with a twist: It was accompanied by a provocative photo catered to the gender of the intended recipient. Men received a photo of Emily Ratajkowski — a supermodel and a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders — in a bikini, while women received a photo of a topless man cradling a puppy.... [The photo of the shirtless man] had been taken by the photographer Mike Ruiz for a calendar series that raises funds for Louie’s Legacy Animal Rescue.... 'I am disgusted that they used a beautiful philanthropic project to save animals in dire need, a project which means so much to me, to spread their propaganda,' he said in an email.” Ms. Ratajkowski did not comment.