The Conversation -- April 19, 2025
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance wrote a long defense of the administration’s anti-immigrant rendition program, slamming critics who want the White House to obey a court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It is a notable example of the lengths the White House has gone to try to deceive the public as it deals with political fallout from its open defiance of the federal judiciary.” Bouie goes on to catalog JayDee pack o' lies. You can find JayDee's screed here on X.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “... the [Supreme C]ourt can move fast when it wants to, busting through protocols and conventions. It did so around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law. The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph order was extraordinary in many ways. Perhaps most important, it indicated a deep skepticism about whether the administration could be trusted to live up to the key part of an earlier ruling after the government had deported a different group of migrants to a prison in El Salvador. That unsigned and apparently unanimous ruling, issued April 7, said that detainees were entitled to be notified if the government intended to deport them under the law, 'within a reasonable time,' and in a way that would allow the deportees to challenge the move in court before their removal.... In a typical case, the Supreme Court would await a ruling from the relevant appeals court ... and ask for a response from the administration, on a deadline set by the justices.”
Naftali Bendavid of the Washington Post: “Barack Obama urged Americans to resist ... Donald Trump’s bullying. Joe Biden warned that Trump is wrecking the 'sacred promise' of Social Security. Bill Clinton decried the emphasis on grievances and the need to dominate. In an extraordinary stretch of just over two weeks, three former presidents have taken to the public stage to sound the alarm against the current occupant of the White House, despite the tradition that former presidents generally refrain from publicly criticizing their successors. Obama, Biden and Clinton did not explicitly name Trump, but their message was unmistakable. The three Democrats said, as much by their presence as their words, that these are unusual times for American democracy, that norms are being disregarded and extraordinary measures are required. The only living president who has not spoken out since Inauguration Day is Republican George W. Bush, though he has made little secret of his antipathy for Trump.”
Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “A number of prominent Republicans, including several former members of the first Trump administration, have signed an open letter decrying the president for using his power to punish two former administration officials who criticized him, likening his actions to those of a 'royal despot.'... The letter, signed by more than 200 people, criticized [Mr. Trump's] actions as part of a 'profoundly unconstitutional break' with precedent.” The letter, which is not firewalled, is here.
Idaho. Even Here, Sometimes There May Be Some Justice. Kaye Thornbrugh of the Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls Press: “City prosecutors have filed criminal charges against six men involved in a chaotic legislative town hall, including the private security guards who dragged a Post Falls woman out of the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium. Paul Trouette, Russell Dunne, Christofer Berg and Jesse Jones, all of whom are associated with the security firm Lear Asset Management, are charged with the misdemeanor crimes of battery and false imprisonment. The five men and Alex Trouette were also cited for security agent uniform violations and security agent duties violations. Post Falls resident Michael Keller is also charged with battery, a misdemeanor. The charges stem from Feb. 22, when Teresa Borrenpohl shouted from the audience during a town hall hosted by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.... Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris approached Borrenpohl and told her to leave. When she refused, Norris tried to pull her from her seat. He then appeared to gesture to plainclothes security personnel, who dragged Borrenpohl out of the auditorium.... Police identified Norris as an 'involved' party. No criminal charges have been filed against him.” MB: As I wrote, some justice. Thanks to RAS for the link to a post by digby on the topic. According to digby, Borrenpohl has not been charged in the incident.
Adam Lynch of AlterNet: "The Daily Beast reports the Justice Department is helping ... Donald Trump with his personal appeal of a defamation award and leaving the attorney fees with taxpayers. In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million. Instead, Trump continued to deny all allegations and appealed both cases. Later, in 2024, a a different federal jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages for defamatory comments he made denying allegations of sexual abuse that was already affirmed by the 2023 jury. Trump is still appealing that order, only now the Justice Department has moved to substitute itself as defendant in the Carroll v. Trump defamation case."
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⭐Marianne LeVine, et al., of the Washington Post: “The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration early Saturday to temporarily halt the deportations of at least 30 alleged Venezuelan gang members who immigration advocates say were at imminent risk of being removed from the country. 'The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,' the order reads. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. The Trump administration was preparing to deport the Venezuelan men under the Alien Enemies Act, the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday as it scrambled to find a court it could persuade to step in and block the removals before it was too late.... The ACLU said several migrants at an immigration detention center in North Texas had received written notices of removal over the past several days, and a second group of unknown number was told to get ready for travel Friday. Copies of those notices, filed in court, were written only in English and said the recipient had been 'determined to be an Alien Enemy' and would be deported. Aside from stating that the recipient can 'make a phone call,' the notices do not inform those who receive them when they will be deported, that they are entitled to contest their removal or outline the means for doing so, the ACLU said.” Politico's report is here.
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Friday night put off for the moment a plan by a trial judge to open contempt proceedings to determine whether the Trump administration had violated an order he issued last month stopping flights of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador under a powerful wartime statute. In a single-page order, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that it was entering what is known as an administrative stay to give itself more time to consider the validity of the contempt proposal by the trial judge, James E. Boasberg. On Wednesday, Judge Boasberg, concerned that the White House had ignored his order to pause all deportation flights headed to El Salvador under the wartime law, known as the Alien Enemies Act, gave Trump officials a choice. He said they could provide the men who were sent without hearings to El Salvador the due process they had been denied or they could face a searching contempt investigation into who among them was responsible for having not complied with his directives.” ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “After attacking judges and repeatedly sidestepping their orders, the Trump administration has accused a federal judge in Washington of escalating tensions between the judicial and executive branches by seeking to hold the White House accountable for its courtroom behavior. The accusation against the judge, James E. Boasberg, came in a court filing early Friday morning by the Justice Department.... “‘Occasions for constitutional confrontation between the two branches should be avoided whenever possible,’” the department lawyers wrote, failing to mention their own role in fostering such confrontations. 'The district court’s criminal contempt order instead escalates the constitutional stakes by infringing core executive prerogatives.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
Peter Baker of the New York Times: “In the unlikely yet profound showdown between the president and the migrant that has captured international attention, the courts have uniformly determined that one of them recently violated the law. And it wasn’t the migrant. According to liberal and conservative judges all the way up to the Supreme Court..., [Donald] Trump’s administration broke the rules by deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and must try to fix the mistake. But Mr. Trump and his team are trying to rewrite the narrative so that it is a dispute about illegal immigration rather than the rule of law....
“The president’s goal in recent days has been to present Mr. Abrego Garcia as such a dangerous man that it does not matter if the government’s deportation was illegal.... Never mind that Mr. Abrego Garcia has never been convicted of a crime, the White House now portrays him as a singular threat to public safety without bothering to prove anything in a court of law. At a session with reporters on Friday, aides handed Mr. Trump a sheet with bullet points listing various allegations against Mr. Abrego Garcia, some of them rooted in fact and some of them distorted. He is a 'foreign terrorist,' Mr. Trump alleged, and 'not a very innocent guy,' someone whose 'record is unbelievably bad.'” He then conflated Mr. Abrego Garcia's “unbelievably bad record” with an undocumented resident who actually is a convicted rapist and murderer. MB: This is a case Trump & his allies continually bring up in their what-aboutism defenses. One might think this particular rape-murder is the only evidence they've got that the millions of undocumented residents are mostly rapists, murderers, traffickers and whatever. ~~~
~~~ Trump Displays Doctored Photo to Make False Claim Against Abrego Garcia. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump posted a photo of himself holding a seemingly digitally altered image of the left hand of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month.... [The] image purporting to be Abrego Garcia’s left hand ... features tattoos on his fingers that government officials previously described: a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull. But in the image Trump is holding, 'MS-13' is now spelled across the knuckles. [In his post, Trump writes, '... he's got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles....'] However, Matt Novak of Gizmodo pointed out on BlueSky that a photo of Abrego Garcia with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) from Thursday clearly shows the deportee’s left hand. The characters 'MS-13' are nowhere to be found.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The fight, as it stands, is over whether or not the administration will return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. and allow the U.S. justice system to administer due process. But how is that going to happen? Pam Bondi's DOJ oversees U.S. immigration courts. Bondi herself has disparaged Abrego Garcia and declared him a danger to the country, his community and his family. She has made misleading claims that two courts had "ruled" he was a member of MS-13. The POTUS* has called him a "foreign terrorist" with an 'unbelievably bad record.' Among other "proofs," the POTUS* now is waving around false evidence against Abrego Garcia. I just don't see how the hell this young man can get a fair hearing in the U.S. when the POTUS* has so prejudiced the case.
Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported by the Trump administration, reported having been traumatized inside a maximum-security prison in El Salvador before being transferred to another detention facility, where he remains in isolation. The Maryland Democrat, who traveled to El Salvador to press for Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release and ended up meeting with him in San Salvador, said that Mr. Abrego Garcia had been transferred nine days ago from the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, to a lower-level facility in Santa Ana.... At a news conference at Dulles International Airport after returning, Mr. Van Hollen said that Mr. Abrego Garcia had told him that during his nearly three weeks at the maximum-security prison, 'he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways.'... Mr. Abrego Garcia described having been detained and taken to Baltimore, where he had asked to make a phone call but had been denied. He was then taken to a detention facility in Texas before being handcuffed and shackled, put on a plane with blacked-out windows with other deportees and eventually deposited at CECOT.... In a social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump mocked Mr. Van Hollen, saying he 'looked like a fool' for flying to Central America.” ~~~
~~~ Margaritagate. Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: “... when [El Salvador's president Nayib] Bukele shared photos of Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) visiting with Kilmar Abrego García on Thursday..., [he] mocked the senator’s visit, telling his followers that Van Hollen and Abrego García were drinking margaritas in the 'tropical paradise of El Salvador.'... In a news conference on Friday, Van Hollen said that Bukele’s staff had placed [margarita] glasses at the table during their meeting and that neither he nor Abrego García drank from them. Van Hollen added that Bukele’s staff had made the glass in front of Abrego García less full so it appeared as if he had a drink from it. 'It is the lengths that President Bukele will [go] to deceive people about what’s going on,' Van Hollen said.”
Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo republishes a long Bluesky thread Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) ran Thursday on Trump's "insidious coordinated attack on our institutions of democratic accountability, designed to crater democracy before next fall." Worth a read. At the bottom of the page, Sullivan posts a link to National Day of Action (Saturday, April 19) events. Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Jonathan Swan, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has replaced the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service after his appointment just days earlier set off a power struggle between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the billionaire Elon Musk.... Mr. Bessent’s deputy, Michael Faulkender, will be the new acting leader, replacing Gary Shapley, the Treasury Department confirmed on Friday. Mr. Faulkender will be the third acting leader of the agency this week. Mr. Bessent had complained to Mr. Trump this week that Mr. Musk had done an end run around him to get Mr. Shapley installed as the interim head of the I.R.S., even though the tax collection agency reports to Mr. Bessent.... The clash was the latest instance of Mr. Musk’s influence in the Trump administration that has alarmed top officials. It was also the latest upheaval at the tax agency, with much of its staff pushed out or quitting. Mr. Trump earlier this week called for the I.R.S. to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status after the school refused to impose sweeping changes demanded by the administration.... Mr. Trump had picked Mr. Shapley to run the I.R.S. on Tuesday after the previous interim head, Melanie Krause, chose to resign. Ms. Krause quit after the Treasury Department agreed to use I.R.S. data to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport undocumented immigrants.... The position of I.R.S. commissioner will be filled in an acting capacity while former Representative Billy Long awaits Senate approval for the role.” The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Jacob Bogage & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: “The administration’s announcement that Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender would replace Shapley comes on the same day that the agency revoked access for the U.S. DOGE Service’s top representative at the tax agency.... Early Friday morning, the IRS rescinded building and systems access for DOGE official Gavin Kliger.... Kliger was managing the massive layoffs at the agency that could cut the tax agency’s headcount by 25 percent. More layoff notices had been planned for Friday afternoon, the people said, but those notifications have been paused.... In the three days Shapley was acting commissioner, Trump sought to use the IRS to punish specific targets. The administration on Wednesday asked the tax agency’s top lawyer to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.... Speaking Thursday from the Oval Office, Trump said his administration was considering attempting to revoke tax-exempt status from other nonprofits, including civil society and environmental groups that oppose his administration.”
~~~ Andrew Duehren, et al., of the New York Times: “In the years after ... Richard Nixon enlisted the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political opponents, Congress passed a series of laws to make sure the agency would focus on collecting taxes and not use its vast powers to carry out political vendettas. But ... [Donald] Trump has moved swiftly to suppress that independence in the first few months of his second term and, tax experts and former agency officials warn, return the I.R.S. to darker days when it was used as a political tool of the president. His administration has decimated the ranks of I.R.S. civil servants and moved to install political allies in their place. This week, he publicly called for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status, an extraordinary attempt to enlist the I.R.S. in his feud with the wealthy research university. In the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump renewed that threat and suggested that several other universities the administration has accused of antisemitism could also lose their tax-exempt status.... The I.R.S. is now weighing whether to revoke Harvard’s tax exemption....” (Also linked yesterday.)
Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: “A New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s financial holdings shows that he had roughly $125 million to about $443 million invested in bonds as of last year, a range that far eclipsed his investment portfolio’s exposure to the stock market. Mr. Trump does own a huge stake in his publicly traded social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, but he has said he has no plans to sell those shares, currently worth roughly $2 billion.... Mr. Trump appeared unfazed when the tariffs sent the stock market [including Trump Media] into a tailspin.... His nonchalance faded on April 9 after fears over the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs had spread to the government bond market, posing a potential existential threat to the global economy and signaling a weakening faith in U.S.-backed assets as a safe haven. Mr. Trump, whose own bond investments were also at risk, paused the most punitive of the import taxes for 90 days for all countries except China.... It is unclear if his personal holdings had any bearing on his decisions regarding tariffs.”
A Tale Told by an Idiot. Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “For all his appeals to American greatness, [Donald Trump] rarely extols the founding fathers.... But ... since returning to the Oval Office, he has moved forcefully to advance his vision of [U.S. history] — and to reshape federal cultural institutions that shape the way the American story is told. Last month, in an executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' he blasted what he sees as a dangerous 'revisionist movement' that seeks to undermine 'the remarkable achievements of the United States.'... [He] has gone beyond rhetoric, moving to challenge or seize control of history-related federal cultural institutions including the Smithsonian, the National Park Service and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also begun moving to put his stamp on planning for the 250th anniversary of American independence next year, and re-upped his concept for the National Garden of American Heroes, a statuary park honoring figures from the past. For many in the historical profession, Mr. Trump’s moves are nothing short of an assault on history, an effort to sideline critical inquiry and purge the past of uncomfortable facts.” ~~~
~~~ Jenna Russell of the New York Times: “As a flurry of events kicked off this month, marking the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, we set out to retrace [Paul] Revere’s route in Massachusetts, asking people along the way what his ride means to them — or if they even know about it. At rain-swept intersections where protesters gathered, in cozy diners and on pristine town commons, we found people of all backgrounds who still felt a sense of awe about that April night, and who take deep pride in living in the place where America began.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: If ever there was a legendary, "remarkable achievement of the United States," it was the events leading up to and surrounding "the opening day of the War of the American Revolution." Yet you know who is not at all interested in all that? Donald Trump. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington & Concord, President Ulysses S. Grant showed up at the Old North Church. At the 200th anniversary, President Gerald Ford showed up. On the 250th anniversary? No Donald Trump. ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson did show up. She provides a transcript of her lecture here. MB: BTW, I'm going to guess (and it's a wild guess) that I saw NiskyGuy there in the recessional.
Javier Hernández of the New York Times: “At least a half-dozen staff members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts were dismissed on Friday..., as the Trump administration continues to strengthen its control of the institution. The fired employees worked on the center’s government relations, marketing, social media and rentals teams, said the two people, who were granted anonymity because the dismissals had not been publicized. They said roughly 20 employees had been dismissed since ... [Donald] Trump took over the institution in February.”
Marie: As you read story after story about the horrifying stunts Donald Trump and His Gang of Stooges are doing to undermine or destroy the basic functions of the federal government, you may be overwhelmed by the cruelty and lawlessness and corruption of it all. But in many cases, there's also a prominent element of stunning incompetent. Here's a case in point: ~~~
~~~ Oops! Or Something. Michael Schmidt & Michael Bender of the New York Times: “Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands ... so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House. The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle between one of the country’s most prestigious universities and a U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official. The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was 'unauthorized,' two people familiar with the matter said. The letter was sent by the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sean Keveney, according to three other people.... Mr. Keveney is a member of the antisemitism task force. Its content was authentic, the three people said, but there were differing accounts inside the administration of how it had been mishandled.... The letter 'was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official and was sent on April 11 as promised,' Harvard said in a statement on Friday.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Okay, so Keveney & two other officials got together and wrote the letter with all the demands. They had it typed up on nice letterhead. They signed it. It was a total screw-up! ... But wait! There's more! ~~~
“After Harvard publicly repudiated the demands, the Trump administration raised the pressure, freezing billions in federal funding to the school and warning that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy. A senior White House official said the administration stood by the letter, calling the university’s decision to publicly rebuff the administration overblown and blaming Harvard for not continuing discussions.”
~~~ Marie: Got that? These Three Stooges messed up something terrible. But we're sticking with it. In fact, we're doubling down and escalating our punishment schedule with a huge penalty and the threat of another. Also, it's all Harvard's fault. ~~~
~~~ Oh, And This. Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “The Trump administration on Thursday accused Harvard University of failing to report large foreign donations to the federal government as required by law, part of a widening effort to target the institution after it refused to comply with President Trump’s demands. In a letter to Alan M. Garber, the university’s president, the Education Department told Harvard to provide names of foreign donors and all records of communication with them from the beginning of 2020. The department also asked for a swath of records pertaining to foreigners who had spent time at Harvard, including any students Harvard had expelled or those who had their credentials canceled, going back to 2016. The request included details on visiting researchers, scholars, students and faculty from other countries beginning from 2010, along with their last known addresses.... A Harvard spokesman disputed the notion that the university had not been complying with laws requiring them to file reports disclosing foreign donations of more than $250,000.” ~~~
~~~ “Punishment Before Proof.” Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: The Trump administration's attack on Harvard “is a broadside with little precedent. And, as with the White House’s other attacks on universities, colleges and even K-12 schools, the legal justifications have been muddled, stretched and, in some instances, impossible to determine. 'It’s punishment before a trial, punishment before evidence, punishment before an actual accusation that could be responded to,' said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.... In more typical times, some of the individual punishments might be validated by lengthy investigations in which a university would have a right to defend itself. But taken together, law professors and education experts said, the immediacy of the sanctions and threats conveyed an unmistakable hostility toward Harvard and other schools in the president’s sights. The broad vendetta, they said, could weaken the legal argument for each individual action.”
Alexander Mallin & Peter Charalambous of ABC News: "A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered an immediate halt to the planned firings of nearly 1,500 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is ordering the Trump administration to hand over communications and make top officials available for testimony to determine whether they deliberately violated one of her court orders. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told attorneys for the government she was 'deeply concerned' about the apparently rushed efforts to implement a Reduction In Force, or RIF, of approximately 1483 employees at the CFPB which was set to take effect at 6 pm tonight. Jackson said the moves by CFPB leadership, including Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and general counsel of the OMB Mark Paoletta, in apparent coordination with a staffer from Elon Musk's DOGE operation, Gavin Kliger, may be in direct violation of a preliminary injunction she had put in place -- which the D.C. Circuit upheld in part. That injunction required terminations at the agency to be carried out only after 'particularized assessments' of individual employees' performance." (Also linked yesterday.)
David Sanger of the New York Times: “'If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,' [siad] ... Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, as he prepared to leave a conference of allies in Paris, warning that the cease-fire deal that ... [Donald] Trump repeatedly vowed he would secure in '24 hours' may not prove attainable after all.... Whatever Mr. Rubio’s meaning, his words were the latest American gift to Mr. Putin’s cause. At every turn since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, he or his top national security aides have issued statements that played to Russia’s advantage: taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table, repeatedly declaring that Ukraine would have to give up territory and even blaming Ukraine for the invasion itself. On Friday, Mr. Trump himself suggested that the United States could walk away from the conflict....”
Everything Is Going Very Smoothly. Daniel Lippman & Jack Detsch of Politico: “Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon. Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people.... Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination.... 'There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,' said a senior defense official.... This week’s terminations follow a purge of top military officers in February, including former Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.”
Helene Cooper & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: “Almost three months into Mr. Trump’s second term, the guardrails intended to prevent national security missteps have come down as the new team races to anticipate and amplify the wishes of an unpredictable president. The result has been a diminished role for national security expertise, even in the most consequential foreign policy decisions. Trump administration officials said that is by design. In Mr. Trump’s first administration, some members of his team tried to stop him from executing parts of his agenda, such as his desire to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, or to deploy them against protesters in American cities. The president does not intend to allow anyone to rein him in this time. But tearing down guardrails has created room for America’s adversaries to operate more freely in the disinformation space, according to Western officials and private cybersecurity experts.... Instead of advice [from the National Security Council, as was the intention of the act establishing it], Mr. Trump is getting obedience.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Hannah Natanson, et al., of the Washington Post: “Immigrants falsely labeled dead by the Social Security Administration are showing up at field offices with documents proving they are alive, leading staff to reinstate nearly three dozen people over the past week, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. The immigrants who have requested a reversal and been reinstated in Social Security databases include a Haitian asylum seeker and a minor child, the records show. Some immigrants have shown up with driver’s licenses and work permits to prove their legitimacy, the records show. Others have arrived bearing letters of notification that they received from their states declaring them dead. The reversals come after the Department of Homeland Security and Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service pushed to incorrectly label roughly 6,100 mostly Latino immigrants as dead in a bid to pressure the immigrants to leave the country. The administration overrode the objections of senior Social Security staff to labeling the immigrants as dead — a move that current and former top officials at the agency warned was illegal because it violates privacy laws and involves the purposeful falsification of government records....
“Asked about the resurrections, the White House said the 6,000 immigrants were never really listed as dead. 'This reporting is false. These illegal aliens were never classified as dead,' White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement. 'The “Death Master File” was renamed the ‘Ineligible Master File’ prior to their names being transferred. Once U.S. Customers and Border Protection terminated their parole, these individuals were no longer eligible for benefits....' That statement contradicts statements last week from a White House official and a senior Social Security official, both of whom explicitly confirmed that the immigrants had been labeled dead in hopes of spurring their departures from the U.S. As of Friday, the database is still named the 'Death Master File' in Social Security’s internal systems, per records obtained by The Post, and referred to by the same name on the agency’s public website.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Gosh, sounds like yet another Felonious Trump Official-Action Crime. Of course they're lying about it.
Tina Nguyen of the Verge: “In a letter to the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General’s office requesting an investigation into DOGE, Ranking Member [of the House Oversight Committee??] Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) alleged that the government entity created by Elon Musk supposedly to reduce the size of the federal government is now constructing a 'cross-agency master database' of sensitive personal information. Wired appeared to back up Connolly’s allegations on Friday, detailing an effort at DOGE to fold this database into the Department of Homeland Security, the counterterrorism agency founded after 9/11. Specifically, 'mass amounts' of personal data harvested from the IRS, SSA, and voting records in Pennsylvania and Florida were recently uploaded into servers at the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), which processes immigration cases. Connolly cited testimony from SSA whistleblowers who witnessed DOGE engineers accessing the agency’s IT system with 'backpacks full of laptops, each with access to different agency systems', with the aim of combining them into one database.”
Michael Casey of the AP: “A federal judge on Friday partially blocked the Trump administration from enacting a policy that bans the use of 'X' marker used by many nonbinary people on passports as well as the changing of gender markers. U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, sided with the American Civil Liberties Union’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which stays the action while the lawsuit plays out. It requires the State Department to allow six transgender and nonbinary people who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity.”
Sylvan Lane of the Hill: Donald “Trump’s top economic adviser told reporters Friday the White House is exploring how to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell despite the legal guardrails on his position. Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House National Economic Council, backed away from his previous concerns about Powell’s firing and said the White House was looking for ways to replace the Fed chief.... During Trump’s first term, Hassett declared Powell '100 percent safe,' even as the president raged against the Fed chief — a lifelong Republican whom Trump himself appointed to the job — for refusing to cut interest rates.... When pressed on that [first-term] opinion Friday, Hassett said 'the market was in a completely different place' at that time, and his comments were limited to the first Trump White House’s legal analysis.” (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~ The original Penn Station (NYT link), which a few of us remember. It was demolished beginning in 1963. ~~~
~~~ Stefanos Chen & Patrick McGeehan of the New York Times: “The head of the federal Department of Transportation said on Thursday that the Trump administration would take control of the $7 billion renovation of Pennsylvania Station away from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The move appeared to be the latest salvo in a running confrontation between the Trump administration and New York’s transportation agency, which began when the federal transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, ordered the state to end its congestion pricing program. The station, one of the busiest and also most maligned transit hubs in the world, has for decades been on the verge of a huge overhaul to remedy its cramped and dreary corridors. But the competing priorities of local, state and federal stakeholders have made progress difficult.” (Also linked yesterday.)
No Longer a Nice Place to Visit. Anumita Kaur & Adrián Ramos of the Washington Post: “Overseas travel to the United States has declined sharply since ... Donald Trump returned to office. Industry experts say some of the reasons are plain to see: Reports of detentions and deportations, including the weeks-long lockup of European tourists, have sowed fears of bad experiences at the border. Some countries have tightened travel advisories, and Trump’s whiplash tariffs have ratcheted up international tensions. Last month, the number of overseas visitors fell nearly 12 percent compared with the same time last year.... If sustained, the decline could translate to billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue, industry experts project. Some would-be travelers are nervous about the Trump administration’s policies. Others are enraged by his rhetoric. Some have doubts about their safety. The European Union has begun to issue its U.S.-bound officials burner phones, for fear of surveillance, the Financial Times reported.... The data ... [do] not contain figures for Canada and Mexico....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: The figures include people who travel for business. So I'd guess that the percentage drop in visitors who come for pleasure is even higher.
~~~~~~~~~~
California. Jared Gans of the Hill: “Former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was projected to win a special election to become the next mayor of Oakland, according to Decision Desk HQ, in what became a closer-than-expected race amid growing voter dissatisfaction over the direction of the city. Lee won the nonpartisan ranked-choice election over a field of more than a half dozen candidates....”
Florida. Jay Weaver, et al., of the Miami Herald: “A federal judge on Friday said she was 'astounded' that Florida authorities violated her order blocking them from enforcing a new state law that targets undocumented immigrants who enter the state. During a hearing in Miami federal court, it was disclosed that as many as 15 arrests have been made by Florida law enforcement officers over the past two weeks in violation of her April 4 order. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ... focused on the case of a U.S. citizen born in Georgia who was arrested under the new state law on Wednesday by the Florida Highway Patrol and held for two days in a Tallahassee jail before a county judge dismissed the charge. The man was released Thursday night. Williams stopped short Friday of considering holding state authorities in contempt of court. But she extended her initial 14-day restraining order for another 11 days and set another hearing for April 29. She told lawyers with the state Attorney General’s Office to be prepared to explain their argument that her original stay did not apply to the Florida Highway Patrol, which made arrests of the U.S. citizen and various immigrants as they entered the state.”
Florida. Tobi Raji, et al., of the Washington Post: “The suspect in the Florida State University shooting that left two people dead and injured at least six others Thursday had shared bigoted and misogynist views during meetings of a local political club, members said. Court records suggest the suspect had a turbulent family life, including allegations of a kidnapping by his mother and a legal name change.... As the group gathered to debate issues dominating the 2024 presidential campaign, Andrea Miranda, 19, said the suspect would go on diatribes about how he 'hated' the feminist movement, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color and immigrants. 'He said multiculturalism and communism are destroying America,' Miranda said.... Club president Riley Pusins, 20, said ... he would also joke that White people are the superior race.... Club leadership met several times to discuss the suspect’s comments and debated whether they crossed a line.”
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Cosmic Smile
Globalization
"Trump’s trade policies threaten to strengthen China, not weaken it
International economic integration will continue, with or without the U.S. — and China will benefit most.
For tariffs and undermining America’s alliances, Trump and right-wing media’s pitch to their followers is nationalistic. With promises to reverse globalization and restore a mythologized past, they sell a vision of booming domestic manufacturing and repatriated jobs prompting a reflowering of masculinity, calling it “America First.” But that’s just a marketing slogan. The impact of Trump’s hostility to the world isn’t deglobalization; it’s de-Americanization."
I watched American Masters documentary on the artist Art Spiegelman, last night, having read Akhilleus's review, and it was everything Akhilleus wrote - in short, completely engrossing.
Thanks for the tip!
Elizabeth Bruenig, in The Atlantic, writes about the co-presidents creepy views on fatherhood which differ from tradional creepy MAGA views in The Harem of Elon Musk
"There is a difference, after all, between being pro-natalist and being pro-family. Musk is by now infamous for his interest in raising the birth rate, which appears to be driven by his belief that a catastrophic global population collapse is imminent, as well as by his view that intelligent people in particular ought to be breeding more. ('He really wants smart people to have kids,' Shivon Zilis, Musk’s most favored concubine, told a biographer.) His eugenic bent makes him the most prominent member of the pro-natalist movement’s techno-libertarian wing, which aims to breed genetically superior offspring and which exists alongside and in tension with the traditionalist approach to pro-natalism. The divide in the movement is real: tech versus trad, future versus past, reproduction versus family. And although the trads are largely drawn from the conservative Christian base that once animated the Republican Party, it’s the tech people, like Musk, who have more resources and power to market their ideology."
Goons Get Charged
"Private security dragged Teresa Borrenpohl from a Republican town hall event on Feb. 22, allegedly for being disruptive. She was never charged. But the security goons just were:
COEUR d’ALENE — City prosecutors have filed criminal charges against six men involved in a chaotic legislative town hall, including the private security guards who dragged a Post Falls woman out of the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium."
RAS,
I wonder if those goons in Idaho would have been charged with anything had they tossed a Democrat.
Laura,
Glad you liked it. Can’t wait to watch it again, so much good stuff just flew by. Also interesting that Spiegelman’s family were immigrants, as was his wife, all of whom contributed mightily to this country.
Doubtful they’d be allowed in today, especially his wife.
We are all immigrants, all our lives we immigrate to the shores of some new country, some new adventure, a new way of being in the world, when we go to a new school, start a new job, get married, have children, these are all new countries with their own cultures,
languages, required skill sets.
The Pilgrims were immigrants in more ways than one. They had to learn new skills to survive, helped immeasurably by natives they would later massacre. Oh, but shhh…can’t say that anymore.
Albert Einstein was an immigrant. So were the majority of scientists who comprised the Manhattan Project that ended the war for us. Fat Hitler and his Christian Nationalist supporters like Drunk Pete would have never let those guys in…JEWS! And SCIENCE!! Oooh! Bad!
Sometimes it’s outsiders like Art Spiegelman who see us most clearly and whose observations can be the most striking.
But only if one wants to listen.
Where we are today.
Sacha Baron Cohen wonders why Americans are so against the wonders of a dictatorship! It’s great.
Yeah. We’re finding out. It took us 250 years, but we finally made it back to tyrannical dictatorship.
Yay for us.
Who knew clothing manufacture (and healthcare?) could be so complicated?
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/at-seattles-filson-challenge-of-reshoring-u-s-factory-jobs-is-clear/
I became a Filson fan long before its "high end" days. The problem with its garments? They were so well made they never wore out.
Who needs Easter eggs?
"Why put all your eggs in one basket? With food prices rising, families are embracing a playful, budget-friendly tradition— Easter potatoes!
Potatoes USA is celebrating the growing Easter trend by painting, crafting, and cooking potatoes, proving that creativity and tradition go hand in hand. Durable, versatile, and already a pantry staple, potatoes make the perfect blank canvas for Easter fun."