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.) 

~~~~~~~~~~

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.

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.”

~~~~~~~~~~

⭐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.”

~~~~~~~~~~

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.”

The Conversation -- April 1, 2025

⭐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."

⭐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.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I just emailed Mike from my new account FileTopSecretDocsHere@gmail.com

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 this morning, 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.

Marie: I heard on MSNBC that Cory Booker is still at it at a little before 4:00 pm ET. What phenomenal stamina! ~~~

    ~~~ Mike Ives, et al., of the New York Times: “Senator Cory Booker, visibly tired but still upright at a lectern on the Senate floor, was continuing a marathon speech criticizing the Trump administration on Tuesday, a show of physical and oratorical stamina that he hoped would put a spotlight on what he called a “crisis” facing the United States under ... [Donald] Trump. Mr. Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, began speaking at 7 p.m. on Monday and was still going 21 hours later, laying into the Trump administration’s cuts to government services and its crackdown on immigrants.” This is an update of a story linked earlier. ~~~

     ⭐~~~ The story has been updated again, with Tim Balk now the lead reporter: “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 President 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.'”

Today is election day for a seat on the Wisconsin state supreme court, a race that has prompted Elon Musk to give $25 million and wear a cheesehead hat to oppose the liberal candidate. It is also election day to replace former Reps. Matt Gaetz & Mike Waltz in two bright-red Florida districts. Update: The Republicans are projected to have won in both Florida races, though by significantly smaller margins than Gaetz & Waltz won last year.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Donald Trump's suggestions he would continue as president* after his second term ends “serve a distinct political purpose. They redirect attention from other controversies.... And they freeze the field of potential successors who may steal the spotlight from a lame duck....” ~~~

~~~ Steve M. hypothesizes how this would work. MB: I think Steve gets everything right.

     ~~~ Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. See his link to an Instagram version is in the Comments below; it includes some appropriate artwork.

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: “Lord, liberate us from ... Donald Trump’s 'Liberation Day,' as Trump has christened this coming Wednesday. Trump has already 'liberated' his country from the inconvenience of due process or expectations of civil rights. But his freedom crusade escalates this week, when he shall also 'liberate' America from affordable cars, a stable economy and its closest allies.... The auto tariffs alone could be catastrophic. They will raise prices for consumers, to the tune of 13.5 percent (an average of $6,400 for each new car), the Yale Budget Lab estimates.... Prices for used vehicles will likely rise, too. So will auto insurance since it will cost more to repair or replace cars damaged in accidents. There’s some evidence that auto loans could also get costlier.... Trump and his economic advisers crow that his tariff agenda will bring in eye-popping amounts of revenue — upward of $6 trillion over the next decade, claims White House aide Peter Navarro.... This would represent the largest tax hike on Americans since World War II. It would also be a regressive tax since lower-income households disproportionately bear tariff costs.” This is a gift link.

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: “The Telegraph, one of the most conservative newspapers in the United Kingdom, has published a scathing editorial from columnist Matthew Lynn that accuses ... Donald Trump of leveling 'the biggest tax rise in global history.'... '... much of the increased cost [from tariffs] will be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices,' he writes. 'Either they will be forced to pay more for imported goods, or prices may rise in general because U.S. companies have less of an incentive to improve productivity thanks to the protections afforded by that tariff wall. And if tariffs do raise $600 billion annually, that is no small sum of money, even for an enormous economy like the United States.... Even if we assume that Elon Musk manages to cut $1 trillion or more out of the budget, the tariffs would have to be at least five or six times larger than anything yet proposed to cover Washington’s annual expenditure.... They would need to be at least 100 percent and possibly more simply to replace the federal incomes tax. Tariffs at that rate would be off-the-scale, and would do huge damage to the global trading system. At risk of stating the obvious, if trade collapses to zero because of tariffs, then tariff revenue would also be zero.'” The Telegraph column is firewalled.

Marie: I think the cycle of Trump's responses to news that proves he's an ignorant putz goes something like this: (1) I don't know anything about it. (2) They say/I've heard .... (3) It's a hoax invented by liberal radical enemies of the people a/k/a the mainstream media. (4) It's old news. Nobody talks about that anymore. You may identify a few more steps in there. Sometimes he combines steps: Here he is on his wrecking the economy: he says of stagflation, "I haven't heard that term in years (Step 4). I don't know anything about it (Step 1)."  

Danielle Kaye & Joe Rennison of the New York Times: “The S&P 500 ended March with its steepest monthly decline in more than two years, driven by uncertainty about the scope of ... [Donald] Trump’s tariffs, which investors fear could accelerate inflation, slow consumer spending and stall the U.S. economy.... The decline in March caps off the S&P 500’s worst quarter at the start of a president’s term since President Barack Obama took over in 2009 during the financial crisis. The benchmark is now down 8.7 percent from its mid-February peak, a downturn that is near a 10 percent 'correction,' denting the values of portfolios and retirement funds across both Wall Street and Main Street. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite index, which has already slipped into a correction, ended the month down 8.2 percent.”

Conan O'Brien accepted the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor shortly after Donald Trump appropriated the center. In his acceptance speech, O'Brien celebrated Twain and Twain's America, while contrasting all that with you-know-who and the fake conception of the nation he is trying to foist on us. Masterful:

Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: “Federal workers have been returning to offices in stages since ... [Donald] Trump issued an order to do so right after being sworn in. He has described the requirement as a way to ensure that workers are actually doing their jobs while believing that it could have the added benefit of leading more government employees to quit.... For those who have gone back, the process has been marred by a lack of planning and coordination by the administration, leading to confusion, plummeting morale and more inefficiency.... For some..., returning to the office has meant an expansion of their duties to include cleaning toilets and taking out the trash. For others, it has been commuting to a federal building only to continue doing their work through videoconferencing. Some showed up at the office just to be sent home. Others showed up early and had nowhere to sit.... And spending freezes have meant a shortage of toilet paper in some buildings....

“The in-person work mandate is just one piece of the massive and disruptive overhaul of the federal work force being driven by ... Elon Musk.... Despite the name of the group Mr. Musk leads, the Department of Government Efficiency, federal employees say there is hardly anything efficient about how the Trump administration is going about the cuts. It has pushed a massive change in schedules with a return-to-office mandate while simultaneously encouraging federal workers to retire or firing them only to be forced to rehire them. The requirements have brought disarray to the workday....”

Brady Dale of Axios: "The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said Friday that banks no longer need to get its prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, like holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry.... After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto.... Under the prior regime, banks that asked for such permissions never quite seemed to get it.... [A] joint warning to banks in January 2023 from the Fed, the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency followed the crash of the terra stablecoin and the fall of FTX.... The OCC was the first of those regulators to revise their guidance, telling banks it supervises earlier this month that they no longer need permission to engage in certain common cryptocurrency-related activities. The Fed as of Friday had not issued any update...." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

~~~ What a Coincidence! David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times: “Two of ... [Donald] Trump’s sons announced on Monday that they were investing in a new Bitcoin mining venture, an expansion of the family’s business interests in the crypto industry. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. said they would join forces with the Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 to create a firm called American Bitcoin. Bitcoin mining is a lucrative branch of the crypto industry, in which large companies run energy-guzzling machines that help process Bitcoin transactions.”

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: “Members of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency gained access over the weekend to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal employees across dozens of agencies, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move overruled objections from senior IT staff who feared it could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information, including by making it more vulnerable to terrorist cyberattacks.... By accessing the system, which is housed at the Interior Department, the DOGE workers now have visibility into sensitive employee information, such as Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers.... The DOGE workers had tried for about two weeks to obtain administrative access to the program.... The dispute came to a head on Saturday, as the DOGE workers obtained the access and then placed two of the IT officials who had resisted them on administrative leave and under investigation....” The ArsTechnica story is here.

Grand Theft Real Estate. Brian Barrett of Wired:  “The DOGE-affiliated acting president of the United States Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded, independent think tank, has moved to transfer the agency’s $500 million headquarters building to the General Services Administration free of charge, according to court documents revealed in a recently filed lawsuit.... To state this plainly: DOGE forced out the directors and staff of a nonexecutive agency, installed one of its own GSA staffers as president, and that person is now attempting to hand the institute’s $500 million headquarters over to the agency he came from, at zero cost.” MB: Wired stories are firewalled, but Wired allows a few freebies. This is one of them.

Devlin Barrett, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Sunday sent a fourth plane carrying deportees to El Salvador, claiming it was acting under a different authority than the obscure wartime law that it cited previously.... Administration officials said all 17 men, whom they described as gang members, had been deported under regular U.S. immigration law and had final orders of removal. But the administration described the action in similar military terms as the earlier transfers, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Joe Kasper, the Pentagon’s chief of staff, both calling the deportations 'counterterrorism' operations.... El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said in a social media post that the two countries had conducted a 'joint military operation' and claimed that all the migrants 'are confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders.'... On Monday..., [Donald] Trump reposted Mr. Bukele’s announcement on his social media platform..., thanking El Salvador 'for taking the criminals' and blaming former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for allowing them to enter the United States.” An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The NYT article leaves us in the dark about how “joint miltary operation” worked (and the AP article doesn't mention it). Does this mean that the Salvadoran military was operating in the U.S. to help round up these alleged “murderers and rapists”? If so, that's even creepier than having masked U.S. officials grab a woman off a Massachusetts sidewalk and bundle her off to Louisiana. (For an explanation of the term “sidewalk,” see the video currently at the top story under Infotainment.) ~~~

~~~ Say, what if the Gestapo ICE officials do make a mistake and send innocent people to a Salvadoran jail? What if they even admit they've made a mistake? Too bad, nothing they can do about it. ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: “The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it had inadvertently deported [Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran,] to El Salvador last month despite a court’s determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country. 'This removal was an error,' a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in a statement to a federal judge.... The Trump administration now says there’s nothing it can do to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to U.S. custody. The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to reject a petition by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to seek his return to United States custody, saying the Trump administration has no power to force El Salvador to facilitate that demand — and that the courts have no authority to issue such an order.” MB: Gosh, looks as if Trump and Musk aren't all-powerful, after all. They're just weanies any two-bit dictator can bring to heel.

Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration will begin to withhold some federal funding from Planned Parenthood starting Tuesday, a move that will curtail access to services including cancer screenings and affordable birth control, the organization said. Planned Parenthood said Monday that nine of its affiliates had received notice from the administration that it would withhold funding from Title X, the nationwide family-planning program. Since 1970, Title X has provided federal funding to health centers for family planning aid and reproductive health care, including birth control and other nonabortion services — including about $286 million in the 2024 fiscal year.... The loss of funding signaled by the administration Monday would mean 'cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens,' said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. 'President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,' Johnson said in a statement Monday.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You name it, if it's a program that helps ordinary people, the Trump/Musk administration will cut it in order to fund tax cuts for the rich.

Jazmine Ulloa of the New York Times: “Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants will be allowed to remain in the United States without risk of deportation after a federal judge in San Francisco on Monday delayed Trump administration actions rolling back a program known as Temporary Protected Status. Judge Edward M. Chen found that decisions in February by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, terminating the initiative for nearly 350,000 people in early April would inflict irreparable harm on families, cost U.S. businesses and industries billions in economic activity and hurt the health and safety of communities across the country. The judge prevented the actions from taking effect as soon as this week while a lawsuit challenging the moves plays out in his court. The Temporary Protected Status program, passed by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, allows migrants from nations that have experienced national disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary instability to live and work legally in the United States.” The AP story is here.

Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: “A small museum dedicated to the nation’s environmental history is now history, too. On Monday, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said he had shuttered the museum, which was inside the agency’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. In a statement, Mr. Zeldin said the move would save taxpayers about $600,000 annually.... He also noted that it included exhibits about environmental issues faced by poor and minority communities, issues the Trump administration has said should not receive special attention. He called those displays a 'political agenda' of the Biden administration.... Created in 2016, the museum originally occupied a corner of the Ronald Reagan International Trade Building. In May, a $4 million expanded National Environmental Museum and Education Center opened inside E.P.A. headquarters.” The AP story is here. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

Amudalat Ajasa of the Washington Post: “Many people who live near heavy industry are routinely exposed to dozens of different pollutants, which can result in a multitude of health problems.... Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for measuring the cumulative effects on human health of multiple toxic air pollutants. Their findings were published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives.” MB: I suppose this is one reason Trump/Musk decided to cut $800K in federal grants to Johns Hopkins school of public health and other medical research departments.

Rebecca Tan of the Washington Post: “Many of the U.S. programs that would have provided lifesaving materials [after the devastating Myanmar earthquake], including fuel for ambulances and medical kits, were shuttered weeks ago. U.S. planes and helicopters in nearby Thailand, which have been used before for disaster relief, never made it off the ground.... America’s response to the catastrophic earthquake has been crippled by the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to eight current and former USAID employees who worked on Myanmar, as well as former State Department officials and leaders of international aid agencies. Three days after the disaster, American teams have yet to be deployed to the quake zone — a marked contrast with other similar catastrophes, when U.S. personnel were on the ground within hours. ”

Alan Blinder, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Monday that it was reviewing roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard, claiming that the university had allowed antisemitism to run unchecked on its campus.... In an email message to the Harvard community Monday evening, Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, noted that 'we are not perfect' and said that Harvard would work with the federal government 'to ensure that they have a full account of the work we have done and the actions we will take going forward to combat antisemitism.... If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation.'...” An AP story is here.

Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: “A federal judge on Monday barred the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from firing intelligence officers who had been assigned to diversity, equity and inclusion roles that were scrapped by the Trump administration, saying they should have the chance to seek reassignment to open positions. U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the two intelligence agencies from firing 19 employees who filed a lawsuit anonymously challenging the move. Trenga’s ruling came hours before the CIA was scheduled to issue termination notices to dozens of officers who had worked for its now-shuttered diversity and inclusion office unless they retired or resigned. It was unclear whether the judge’s order would extend to another 40 or so intelligence officers slated for termination who did not join the lawsuit. Trenga said he would issue a written order later.”

Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “Nearly every arm of the Democratic Party united in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday night, arguing that a recent executive order signed by the president seeking to require documentary proof of citizenship and other voting reforms is unconstitutional. The 70-page lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., accuses the president of vastly overstepping his authority to 'upturn the electoral playing field in his favor and against his political rivals.' It lists ... [Donald] Trump and multiple members of his administration as defendants.” Politico's story is here.

I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.... I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis. -- Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), beginning his all-night speech in the Senate chamber ~~~

~~~ Mike Ives of the New York Times: “Senator Cory Booker spoke in an all-night session on the Senate floor early Tuesday, in an effort to seize the national spotlight and criticize the Trump administration’s policies on health care, Social Security, education and much else. Mr. Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, began speaking on Monday evening and said he planned to continue for as long as he was 'physically able.' He was still going as of 5 a.m. Eastern time.... Before his speech, Mr. Booker said on social media that he was heading to the Senate floor because Mr. Trump and Elon Musk had shown what he called 'a complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people.'”

Lisa Kashinsky of Politico: “Republicans could be poised to deal a symbolic blow to ... Donald Trump’s trade policy, with several GOP senators indicating they planned to join Democrats in a Tuesday vote to block blanket tariffs on Canada. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Monday that she plans to back the resolution led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that would terminate the national emergency Trump declared last month, citing fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration. Trump has used that declaration to justify 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on America’s northern neighbor and leading trade partner — duties that Trump has threatened to start levying later this week.... Collins is poised to join GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is a co-sponsor of Kaine’s resolution and a strong opponent of tariffs, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.... Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa — one of many farm-state Republicans who has raised particular concerns about the Canadian tariffs — also said he was undecided on the Kaine resolution.... However, it’s likely the resolution never comes up in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson moved earlier this month to block the ability of tariff critics to force a floor vote on ending the kind of national emergencies Trump is citing to levy the tariffs.”

David Goodman of the New York Times: “Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic House leader, on Monday accused Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas of deliberately delaying a special election in a solidly Democratic district in Houston in order to cushion the House Republicans’ slim majority. Mr. Jeffries said in an interview that Mr. Abbott had been 'feverishly working to deny representation to the people of Houston' and to help Republicans in the House pass a budget favored by ... [Donald] Trump that is expected to include cuts to Medicaid and other services.... The Texas governor had until the end of last week to call a special election in time for the vote in Mr. Turner’s 18th Congressional District to be held on May 3, the next regularly scheduled Election Day in the state. Instead, Mr. Abbott, a Republican, did not act, and has not said when he will call the election to replace [Rep. Sylvester] Turner [D], who died on March 5 after two months in office. By doing so, Mr. Abbott has helped House Republicans.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, please. Why does the Times have to finger Jeffries as a partisan accuser? Of course Abbott delayed the special election to help House Republicans. Abbott doesn't deny it. Jeffries' pointing out the obvious is not the story; Abbott's refusal to call an election should be the lede.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alabama. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “Alabama cannot prosecute doctors and reproductive health organizations for helping patients travel out of the state to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled on Monday. Alabama has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and in 2022 its attorney general, Steve Marshall, a Republican, raised the possibility of charging doctors with criminal conspiracy for recommending abortion care out of state. Multiple clinics and doctors challenged Mr. Marshall’s comments in court, accusing him of threatening their First Amendment rights, as well as the constitutional right to travel. The Justice Department under the Biden administration had also weighed in with support for the clinics, arguing that 'threatened criminal prosecutions violate a bedrock principle of American constitutional law.' On Monday, the judge, Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, in Montgomery, ruled that Mr. Marshall would be violating both the First Amendment and the right to travel if he sought prosecution.”

Indiana. You violated the law, you are not entitled to due process. -- Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Indiana), at a town hall last Friday (thanks to RAS for the lead)

Spartz is an immigrant to this country. That being her view of the "rule of law," I don't know what she likes about the U.S. -- Marie Burns

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel's Wars. Lorenzo Tondo of the Guardian: “Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces 'one by one' and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said. According to the UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah city’s Tel al-Sultan district. A Red Crescent official in Gaza said that there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied. The shootings happened on 23 March, one day into the renewed Israeli offensive in the area close to the Egyptian border. Another Red Crescent worker on the mission is reported missing.” MB: And the Trump administration is deporting students for protesting such murders.