The Conversation -- March 18, 2025
~~~ See Akhilleus's comment, down the page, in today's thread.
Alan Feuer & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to dissolve the orders he put in place this weekend barring it from deporting people suspected of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang from the country under a rarely invoked wartime statute called the Alien Enemies Act. The Justice Department also doubled down on its efforts to avoid giving the judge, James E. Boasberg, the detailed information he had requested about the deportations. It complied -- but only in part -- with his instructions to provide specific data about when two flights, with the people accused of being gang members, took off from the United States for El Salvador. Taken together, the twin moves -- made in separate sets of court papers filed on Monday and Tuesday -- marked a continuation of the Trump's administration's aggressive attempts to push back against Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, who temporarily halted one of ... [Donald] Trump's signature deportation policies.
"The Justice Department has now effectively opened up two fronts in the battle: one challenging the underlying orders that paused, for now, the deportation flights altogether and another seeking to avoid disclosing any information about two flights this weekend that could indicate they took place after the judge's orders stopping them were imposed.... Judge Boasberg on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to send him a sealed declaration by Wednesday at noon detailing the times the planes took off, left U.S. airspace and landed." ~~~
~~~ Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: "Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public statement Tuesday pushing back after ... [Donald] Trump called to impeach a federal judge that ruled against his administration in a high-profile deportation case. 'For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,' Roberts said. The chief justice's statement came hours after Trump called for impeaching U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of former President Obama who blocked the administration's plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants. 'This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON'T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!' Trump wrote." Update: The Washington Post's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Well, gosh, some might say that Trump himself is a VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINAL. And I'm sure I don't want him in our country.
~~~~~~~~~~
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A federal judge sharply questioned the Trump administration Monday about its decision to rush three planes carrying Venezuelan nationals out of U.S. airspace under ... Donald Trump's unprecedented invocation of wartime deportation powers against a criminal gang. James Boasberg, the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, was clearly galled by the government's actions and legal arguments in the case, particularly its assertion that an order he issued Saturday to turn around any planes carrying such deportees had no force once they were outside U.S. territorial waters.... Boasberg implied that the government had intentionally hurried the planes off the ground on Saturday afternoon because the government knew he had scheduled a hearing at 5 p.m. Saturday. 'Any plane that you put into the air in or around that time, you knew that I was having a hearing at 5,' the judge said with evident frustration....
"Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli claimed Monday that the government was free to ignore [Boasberg's] oral order [to turn the planes around because] 'An injunction is not ordered until it's in the written filing.'... Boasberg also rejected the Justice Department's claim that he lacked any authority over the flights once they cleared U.S. airspace.... The power of federal courts does not 'lapse at the water's edge' or 'the airspace's edge.'... DOJ further frustrated Boasberg by refusing to provide almost any details about the deportation operation, repeatedly invoking national security to defend the secrecy." ~~~
~~~ Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration's battle with the federal court system escalated sharply on Monday, with government lawyers calling for the removal of a judge who blocked the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members and refusing to answer some questions in court. The administration for weeks has questioned the authority of courts to constrain the president, harshly attacking judges who issue nationwide injunctions and finding ways to circumvent certain adverse rulings. Some legal experts describe the pushback as a breakdown in the fragile balance of powers between the branches of government, which includes lower courts making initial rulings about executive initiatives that can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.... The showdown reached a climax at a testy hearing Monday evening at which James E. Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court in D.C., demanded the government explain why it had appeared to flout his Saturday evening order requiring planes deporting migrants to turn around mid-flight." (This is an update of a story also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Bear in mind that the public doesn't know the names of people Trump deported, we don't know their ages (some may be juveniles), and we have no way to know whether or not they may be "terrorists" or "criminals," as the administration asserts, or just ordinary people yearning to be free. Moreover, these people -- who, as far as we know, have committed no crimes in the U.S. and have been convicted of no crimes -- have been dumped in prisons in a country (El Salvador) known for harsh jail conditions. The people being imprisoned now are being locked up for the color of their skin (as far as we know). But if Trump gets away with this, there is nothing stopping his thugs from picking us up while we're looking over the artichokes at Wegman's. They can pack us off to Guantanamo, no matter what we look like. They can just do it, and no one will know. ~~~
~~~ Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "This latest collision between Trump and the judicial branch -- in which the White House and its allies are openly assailing the judge weighing the validity of Trump's orders -- is a more intense version of the clashes that have stymied his administration since Inauguration Day. Judges have sought to slow or stop some of Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and workforce, saying they have run afoul of Congress spending authority and laws governing hiring and firing of federal workers.... The administration's legal tangles underscore its make-decisions-first, figure-out-a-legal-defense-later approach to policy making.... But it was the fight over Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act -- the 1798 law granting the president power to deport nationals of a wartime enemy nation -- that seemed to push the conflict closest to a crisis.... When [Judge James] Boasberg refused [the government's plea] to cancel a Monday afternoon hearing, DOJ asked a federal appellate court to remove him from the case altogether, an extraordinary step to circumvent judicial scrutiny." ~~~
Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: "A New York Times review of the flight data showed that none of the planes in question landed in El Salvador before the judge's order, and that one of them did not even leave American soil until after the judge's written order was posted online." Includes a timeline. ~~~
~~~ Digby, on the White House's defying a court order: "... their game is to find the legal line, step over it, and dare anyone to push back. Lather, rinse. repeat. Now with virtual immunity granted by the Roberts court, Trump feels he's above the law and untouchable. He IS the law[.] A defiant White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, 'If the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that's a fight we are more than happy to take.' Next up from the Trump WH, it's the 'They just needed killin'' defense. The Constitution and the rule of law are inconveniences." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm so confused. One of the arguments the Trump administration is making is that it could not comply with Judge Boasberg's order because at the time he ordered return of the planes, at least some of them were over international waters, where he had no jurisdiction. But wait! Weren't the flight over the brand-new Gulf of America??? Aren't those our waters now? ~~~
~~~ Homan: "I Don't Care What the Judges Think." Ivana Saric of Axios: Donald "Trump's border czar Tom Homan on Monday doubled down on the decision to defy a court order that barred the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.... The White House's decision to disregard a federal judge's order has set up a legal battle that could make its way to the Supreme Court and define the limits of Trump's deportation powers.... Homan claimed in a Fox News interview Monday that the two deportation flights to El Salvador did not need to be turned around because they were already above international waters when the order came through. 'We are going to make this country safe again.... We are not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the Left thinks. We're coming,' he added. Asked what was coming next in the administration's deportation efforts, Homan said: 'Another flight. Another flight every day.'"
Jonathan Allen, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump and his allies have launched a multipronged attack on the judiciary, punctuated over the weekend by his decision not to comply with a federal judge's order to halt the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador.... More broadly, Trump is claiming nearly limitless power through a campaign to delegitimize institutions that have long acted as checks on the presidency.... The administration has repeatedly been accused of failing to follow court orders while sometimes declining to acknowledge that it had not been.... Trump allies inside and outside the administration have frequently criticized judges who have ruled against him -- in some cases calling for their removal from office.... In an official statement Saturday night, [Pam] Bondi, the attorney general, referred to [Judge James] Boasberg as 'a DC trial judge' who, she claimed, 'supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans.'"
Avery Lotz of Axios: Donald "Trump claimed Monday that former President Biden's preemptive pardons to members of the House Jan. 6 select committee and others are 'VOID' and 'VACANT' because they were 'done by Autopen.'... Experts cast doubt on Trump's rationale, and said it was unlikely that a court would allow a president to revoke or nullify his predecessor's pardons.... Trump contended in a late-night Truth Social post that Biden's pardons are 'hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT' and that the 'necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden.' The committee members should 'fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,' Trump wrote. He claimed without evidence that the members of the committee, which include former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), were 'probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf' without Biden's knowledge." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: "There is no power in the Constitution or case law to undo a pardon, and there is no exception to pardons signed by autopen. But Mr. Trump's assertion, which embraced a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory about former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., was a new escalation of his antidemocratic rhetoric. Implicit in his post was Mr. Trump's belief that the nation's laws should be whatever he decrees them to be. And it was a jolting reminder that his appetite for revenge has not been sated." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Bear in mind that the graf above is the second paragraph in a news story about the President* of the United States, It appears on the online front page of the Both-Sides New York Times. The paragraph, in that context, is as extraordinary as the bunk the article describes. McCreesh describes Trump as a lying, vengeful autocrat, and his editors said, "Print it!" ~~~
~~~ Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Trump recently claimed that Joe Biden routinely used the [autopen] and suggested without evidence that his unelected aides sometimes did it without his knowledge, illegally usurping the executive powers of the presidency.... Trump told reporters around midnight Sunday as he flew back from Florida[,] 'Did he know what he was doing? Did he authorize it? Or is this somebody in an office, maybe a radical left lunatic, just signing whatever that person wants?... And somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons to, as an example, just one example, but the J-6 unselect committee....' By Monday morning, Trump said he would not honor the pardons Biden made just before leaving office....
"The Justice Department, in an opinion issued in 2005, advised President George W. Bush that there was nothing legally problematic about using an autopen.... While conservatives have pointed to similarities in the signatures, it has not been confirmed that Biden used an autopen on the pardons Trump has focused on. But a solicitor general in 1929 wrote a memo to the attorney general concluding that the president's signature was not required for pardons." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here's something that is not legal, Mr. Trumpy: a president* voiding the pardons of previous presidents.
Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald "Trump said on Monday evening that he was ending Secret Service protection for former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son Hunter and daughter Ashley. Not only did Mr. Trump declare in a social media post that Hunter Biden -- who has been a Trump target for years -- would lose his protection 'effective immediately,' he mentioned his whereabouts: 'He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has been strenuously questioned.' The post merged two of Mr. Trump's recent fixations: He has talked constantly about his predecessor and the Biden family since returning to office. And he has talked a lot lately about what he sees as the plight of white farmers in post-apartheid South Africa.... He has been on a revenge tour since he returned to the Oval Office, and he has several times exerted his power to revoke Secret Service protection from perceived enemies. His animus toward the Biden family is in part what motivated the former president to pardon his son." The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Hunter Biden needs Secret Service protection in large part because Trump his repeatedly vilified him to his unstable, violent MAGA followers; now Trump not only removes Hunter's protection, he puts a bullseye on him by stating his whereabouts. Donald Trump is a vicious, twisted old man.
Travis Andrews of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump visited the Kennedy Center on Monday, where he presided over a meeting of its refashioned board of trustees and discussed changes to the institution's annual Honors, including possibly hosting the ceremony himself.... The Washington Post obtained audio of the meeting, in which the board voted to expand the committee that chooses Kennedy Center honorees. Trump and board members floated names such as Paul Anka, Sylvester Stallone, Johnny Mathis and Andrea Bocelli for the award. The president also suggested giving awards to Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti and Babe Ruth, though the Kennedy Center Honors are not given posthumously. Pavarotti was honored in 2001. Trump floated expanding the event to include politicians, executives and athletes.... At other points during the meeting, Trump shared personal stories and anecdotes, including about the first time he saw 'Cats' and which members of the cast he found attractive." MB: Remembrances of Hard-ons Past. Ugh!
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: Donald "Trump moved on Monday to stack the boards overseeing U.S. military service academies with conservative activists and political allies, including Michael T. Flynn and Walt Nauta, who were charged in connection to earlier investigations of Mr. Trump and his presidential campaign. Mr. Nauta, a military aide working as a White House valet while Mr. Trump was president, was appointed to the board overseeing the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Mr. Nauta was charged with aiding Mr. Trump in obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve a trove of highly sensitive documents that Mr. Trump kept after he left office.... Mr. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and a national security adviser to Mr. Trump during his first term, was named to the oversight board of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in New York. Mr. Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with a Russian diplomat during a wider investigation into contacts between the first Trump presidential campaign and Russian officials. Mr. Trump later pardoned Mr. Flynn. Other allies of the president appointed to the oversight boards included Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist whose organization aided Mr. Trump in the 2024 election; Dina Powell, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Trump; Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump's first White House press secretary; and Maureen Bannon, the daughter of Steve Bannon who helps run his podcast." Politico's report is here.
David Sanger of the New York Times: "... talking to reporters on Air Force One while returning from Florida on Sunday night, Mr. Trump made clear that his scheduled phone conversation with Mr. Putin on Tuesday would be focused on what lands and assets Russia would retain in any cease-fire with Ukraine. He will, in essence, be negotiating over how large a reward Russia will receive for its 11 years of open aggression against Ukraine, starting with its seizure of Crimea in 2014 and extending through the full-scale war Mr. Putin started three years ago. White House aides have made clear that Russia will certainly retain Crimea -- in one of those odd twists of history, the location of the weeklong Yalta Conference in February 1945 -- and strongly suggested it would get almost all of the territory it holds." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I do not understand why the U.S. president* is in charge of negotiating an end to Russia's aggresive wars against Ukraine.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: Hitler, Stalin & Mao could not silence the Voice of America. "But Donald Trump has just silenced the voice of freedom. For the first time since 1942, VOA has been taken off the air, after Trump put virtually all of its 1,300 staff members on leave. The administration also shut down VOA's sister outlets Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.... Combined with the Trump administration's canceling of most foreign aid, the silencing of VOA, which boasted a weekly audience of about 360 million people in nearly 50 languages, signals the complete surrender of U.S. 'soft power,' influence gained over decades using means other than warfare.... The Chinese propagandists have much to gain by silencing voices of truth and freedom. Apparently, so does the Trump administration."
"[This] photograph, which was taken on Feb. 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press, won a Pulitzer Prize and was the model for a statue that serves as the centerpiece of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia."
Jon Swaine & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "Until recently, a page on the Defense Department's website celebrated Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines photographed hoisting a U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.... But the page, along with many others about Native American and other minority service members, has now been erased amid the Trump administration's wide-ranging crackdown on what it says are 'diversity, equity and inclusion' efforts in the federal government.... Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were critical to America's victory at Iwo Jima and the wider Pacific theater of the Second World War, were also removed, along with a profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy's surrender at Appomattox toward the end of the Civil War. The purge, which also targeted multiple webpages about women and LGBTQ+ service members, highlights how aggressively military leaders are pursuing ... Donald Trump's anti-DEI mandate. Their actions mean that some of the most authoritative sources of public information about the achievements of minority service members decades before government DEI programs existed have disappeared.... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ... claimed [the references to these heroes] were 'immoral' and wasteful."~~~
~~~ Gen. Rogers' Profile Returned to DOD Website. Bill Chappell of NPR: "Army Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers is the highest-ranking Black servicemember to receive the Medal of Honor. His actions during the Vietnam War, when he was wounded and came under repeated attack by the North Vietnamese Army, were later hailed by then-President Richard Nixon. But a Department of Defense profile of Rogers, who died in 1990, was taken down on Friday. It comes as the Trump administration has pushed to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) across the federal government. The removal prompted outrage over what many saw as a disrespectful erasing of history. As of Monday afternoon, the page had returned to the website."
Musk Sends Armed Officers to Take An Independent Agency by Force. Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: "A simmering dispute between the Department of Government Efficiency and an independent agency dedicated to promoting peace broke into an open standoff involving the police on Monday, as Elon Musk's government cutters marched into the agency's headquarters and evicted its officials. The dramatic scene played out in Washington on Monday afternoon as Mr. Musk's team was rebuffed from the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency that President Trump has ordered dismantled, then entered it with law enforcement officers. Agency officials say that because the institute is a congressionally chartered nonprofit that is not part of the executive branch, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk do not have the authority to gut its operations.... George Moose, who was fired as the institute's acting president last week but is challenging his dismissal, accused Mr. Musk's team of breaking in. 'Our statute is very clear about the status of this building and this institute,' he told reporters. 'So what has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit corporation.'"
Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The strategy is part of large-scale layoffs, known as a 'reduction in force,' being planned by the Trump administration, which is intent on shrinking the federal work force. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the E.P.A., has said he wants to eliminate 65 percent of the agency's budget. That would be a drastic reduction -- one that experts said could hamper clean water and wastewater improvements, air quality monitoring, the cleanup of toxic industrial sites, and other parts of the agency's mission. The E.P.A.'s plan, which was presented to White House officials on Friday for review, calls for dissolving the agency's largest department, the Office of Research and Development, and purging up to 75 percent of the people who work there.... Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the science committee..., said that the office was created by congressional statute and that dissolving it would be illegal."
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, It's Off to Work We Go. Katie Mettler of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has moved to reinstate at least 24,000 federal probationary employees fired in the president's push to shrink the government, according to filings in one of two cases in which a federal judge ruled the terminations illegal. The records filed in federal court in Maryland late Monday span 18 agencies and mark the most comprehensive accounting to date of sweeping firings in recent months, which the administration has repeatedly declined to detail. Most of the reinstated employees were placed on paid administrative leave, according to declarations from officials at the agencies. Others were fully reinstated with pay, or reinstated without pay if they had been on unpaid leave before their termination, according to filings.... U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar had given the Trump administration until Monday to send out the job offers to fired probationary employees and until 7 p.m. to submit a comprehensive report to the court documenting their compliance...."
This Is Horrifying. Arthur Allen of Kaiser Foundation Health News: "National Institutes of Health officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications, two researchers said, in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research. The mRNA technology is under study at the NIH for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, including flu and AIDS, and also cancer. It was deployed in the development of covid-19 vaccines credited with saving 3 million lives in the U.S. alone -- an accomplishment ... Donald Trump bragged about in his first term.... A senior official at the National Cancer Institute confirmed that NIH acting Director Matthew Memoli sent an email across the NIH instructing that any grants, contracts, or collaborations involving mRNA vaccines be reported up the chain to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s office and the White House." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: How about leeches, Bobby? Are leeches okay to study as cancer & AIDS cures?
Annie Karni of the New York Times: "Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, on Monday postponed a multicity tour to promote his forthcoming book, citing security concerns amid backlash to his decision to vote with Republicans for a stopgap spending bill to stave off a government shutdown.... Many Democratic activists, desperate for their leaders to stand up to President Trump, have been staging protests outside of Mr. Schumer's Brooklyn home and calling for his resignation. Online, they have been organizing protests for every stop on his book tour." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Of course I have no idea if Schumer's book is any good, but I know that the title suggests its topic is: "Antisemitism in America: A Warning." So losing the opportunity to promote the book and its message is one more reason Schumer should not have caved to the Trump/Musk administration. ~~~
~~~ Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice on how Donald Trump and others on the right use antisemetic and anti-Palestinian smears to deprive Jews of their identities and their rights to independent opinions. (Also linked yesterday.)
Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House campus. It is the latest installation of the Wi-Fi network across the government since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration as an unpaid adviser.... Mr. Musk, who is now an unpaid adviser working as a 'special government employee' at the White House, controls Starlink and other companies that have regulatory matters before or contracts with the federal government.... White House officials said that Starlink had 'donated' the service and that the gift had been vetted by the lawyer overseeing ethics issues in the White House Counsel's Office." (Also linked yesterday.)
About Those "Bulletproof" Cybertrucks. Christopher Jasper of the Telegraph: Elon Musk's Tesla has been forced to halt sales of its electric Cybertruck pickup amid mounting concern about metal panels falling off the supposedly indestructible vehicles. Customers posting on the Cybertruck Owners Club website -- as well as on Mr Musk's own X ... -- said they had been told by agents that deliveries were on hold. Electric vehicle-enthusiast website Electrek said the decision was taken amid increasing instances of trim and panels 'flying off the supposedly "bulletproof" electric truck.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: "Less than two months after former Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey was sentenced to 11 years in prison on federal corruption charges, the trial of his wife, Nadine Menendez, begins on Tuesday in Manhattan. Ms. Menendez, 58, was charged with her husband and three New Jersey businessmen in a wide-ranging bribery scheme, but her case was postponed after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery and a long recovery period. The government has portrayed Ms. Menendez and her husband, a Democrat who once led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as partners in a web of corruption. An indictment accused the couple of conspiring to accept gold bars, cash, a Mercedes-Benz and other bribes totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for Mr. Menendez's helping the businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar."
~~~~~~~~~~
Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "A midwife and an associate have been arrested and charged with illegally performing abortions in greater Houston, according to court records and the Texas attorney general, apparently the first criminal arrests of abortion providers since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Ken Paxton, the attorney general in Texas, said in a statement that the midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, operated clinics in several towns around Houston, including two in Harris County, the state's most populous county, and one in Waller County, a more rural and conservative jurisdiction where the charges were brought."
~~~~~~~~~~
Canada, et al. Carney: Canada is So-o-o European! Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: "In his first overseas trip as Canada&'s prime minister, Mark Carney went on a whirlwind tour of France and Britain on Monday to showcase Canada's deep European bonds as President Trump threatens his country's economy and sovereignty. Just three days after being sworn into office, Mr. Carney had lunch with President Emmanuel Macron of France in Paris, before heading to London, where he had an audience with King Charles III, Canada's sovereign, and also met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain. 'I want to ensure that France and the whole of Europe works enthusiastically with Canada, the most European of non-European countries, determined like you to maintain the most positive possible relations with the United States,' Mr. Carney told the press alongside Mr. Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris."
Israel's Wars. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday & Tuesday are here: "Israel's military launched a large-scale bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, breaking the fragile ceasefire with Hamas that has been in place since late January. At least 326 people have been killed and more than 400 others wounded, Gaza's Health Ministry said. An Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, said the 'series of preemptive strikes' targeted Hamas leadership and infrastructure, following weeks of stagnant negotiations." ~~~
~~~ A New York Times story is here.
Share Article
Reader Comments (27)
Marie ponders the seemingly head scratching situation regarding Fat Hitler’s personal involvement in the “peace” negotiations that should be taking place between Russia, the invader, and Ukraine, the invaded.
I think there’s several things going on here. First is the importance of making a fait accompli look like an actual negotiation. It’s nothing of the kind. Fatty ain’t negotiating nothin’. Putin is running the show.
He’s already told his fat flunky what’s what, and likely gave him permission to talk tough about “Russia better do what I say”. What a laugh. Little Donnie Lenin has never in his life had the balls to stand up to a real dictator.
This whole thing is a sham, which, if you consider Fatty’s involvement, is a lead pipe cinch. Russia ain’t giving up a thing. Zelensky is the only one being handed a list of demands and conditions, even though Putin wants this over as much as anyone else. Ukraine has made him look like the inept loser he really is. He promised to be tossing back vodka shooters in downtown Kyiv after less than a week. Three years later, he’s looking bad.
Any kind of real negotiator has mountains of leverage here, but not Little Donnie Dealmaker. He caved before the first phone call, as Putin knew his pusillanimous lapdog would. Fatty rolled over even before Uncle Vlad gave the command.
Trump can’t allow anyone else to know any of this for certain, so he has to be the “Dealmaker”. Once Putin gets everything he wants and Ukraine is taken to the cleaners, Fatty will sit up and crow that it was all his doing.
Finally, there’s that Nobel Peace Prize he’ll demand when it’s all over. He’ll be threatening to invade Norway if he doesn’t get it.
Another load of lying crap, courtesy of President* Weenie.
And it's not just Ira Hayes that has to be scrubbed.
Have been recalling those iconic Norman Rockwell illustrations with a distinctly racial theme from the 1960's. There were many.
Here's one:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/be/e3/27/bee3272a7c6bebeca8c315ff321c1384.jpg
Many Rockwell paintings, in fact, had a heavy political message the present administration would not find to its liking.
There's just so much history to erase. Quite a job those dictators set themselves, isn't it?
Women's Sports
"Women’s sports has always hung on by the thinnest of threads. They are not mentioned even once in the law that created them, and once the powers that be realized what that law had done, they went all the way up to the presidency to try and undo it. The NCAA objected to supporting women’s sports, and searched for years to find a way out of that obligation. Even President Gerald R. Ford’s office seemed concerned about those “women’s organizations.” Our country’s perch atop global women’s sports happened not because our leadership desired it, or even cared all that much about it, or held strong feelings about the place of women in society in general. It happened due to a collection of random factors all happening in a specific time and space.
But because of the tenuous foundation upon which officially sanctioned scholastic sports for women and girls was created, and because there is nothing in Title IX’s original language that says women’s sports specifically must exist, nothing is protecting women’s sports as a whole from dismantling or destruction. What was created by accident can absolutely be undone by fiat"
So…Pete the Drunk has now ordered that all references to Navajo Code Talkers be erased. Those references have been deemed “woke”. And, as reported above, a page dedicated to the memory of US Marine corporal Ira Hayes, one of six Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Why? Hayes was a member of the Pima Indian tribe. No Fuckin’ redskin sumbitch is gonna be honored in Fat Hitler’s administration.
That’s some DEI shit.
I suppose you could ask his fellow Marines on Suribachi if they thought Hayes (his buddies called him Chief) deserved to be erased from history. Hegseth says honoring Indians, Blacks, women, and gays who served their country is “immoral”??? No. I’ll tell you what’s immoral: putting a drunken TV asshole in charge of the Pentagon and allowing him to erase the memory of men and women who did far more than he has ever done—or ever will do—for the United States.
This is fucking abominable.
BTW, Ira Hayes was apparently not too woke for right-wingers like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Hayes played himself in “Sands of Iwo Jima” and was played by Adam Beach (a Plains Ojibwe tribe member) in Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers”. But his inclusion in military history is an affront to Trump’s drunken Fox host.
Oh, but it gets worse. A lot worse.
Hegseth has also ordered the removal of all references to the 396th infantry battalion of WWI, the Harlem Hellfighters, a group that spent more time on the front lines than any other American unit in that war, 191 continuous days in combat. They never lost an inch of ground in that span.
By the way, they didn’t give themselves the name Hellfighters. German troops did that. They called them the Hollenkampfer, because they shit their pants when they saw these guys coming. But none of ‘em pass muster for Pete.
Oh yeah, and all references to Civil War nurses (uppity bitches) have been deleted. Also, the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the unit depicted in the film “Glory”. I guess them darkies aren’t good enough for ol’ white Christian nationalist Pete.
What else?
“Choctaw soldiers flummoxed German troops during World War I's deadly Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
At Utah Beach, Comanche troops created terms that didn't exist in the language: Bombers were ‘pregnant airplanes,’ tanks were ‘turtles’ and Adolf Hitler was ‘Po'sa taiboo’ — ‘Crazy White Man.’
Meskwaki Code Talkers were sent to North Africa after 16% of the tribe's Iowa population enlisted during World War II. As of Monday, the word ‘Meskwaki’ no longer appeared on the DOD's website.”
Then there’s “Profiles of Iraq combat veterans from Arizona, Louisiana and Nevada; a paratrooper with the 173rd Sky Soldiers; and a Cherokee Brigadier General from Oklahoma.” all erased.
“A chronicle of Native American women who served, including a medic who died while fighting Colorado's Storm Mountain Fire in 1994.” All considered too “woke” to be honored by Cadet Bone Spurs and his drunken prick of a DoD asshole.
There’s a lot more.
96 African-Americans have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Has Drink Boy seen fit to retain references to these heroes?
I doubt it.
One of those terrorist gangstas,
"Lindsay Toczylowski
Posting tonight ti shine a light on what the Alien Enemies Act looks like IRL. Our @immdef.bsky.social client fled Venezuela last year & came to US to seek asylum. He has a strong claim. He was detained upon entry because ICE alleged his tattoos are gang related. They are absolutely not.
Our client worked in the arts in Venezuela. He is LGBTQ. His tattoos are benign. But ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence he isTren de Aragua. His @ImmDef attorney planned to present evidence he is not. But never got the chance because our client has been disappeared."
I wonder if Trump is sending a message to all those criminals that he has pardoned that they better continue to be nice to him or he can have someone find a loophole to prosecute them again.
Dana Millbank, in a WaPo piece (linked above), suggests that Fat Hitler’s extirpation of Voice of America would make China happy.
Quite.
You can hear the gleeful cackling from here.
“The Global Times, a daily English-language tabloid and Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, celebrated the cuts to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees broadcasters such as VOA and RFA.
‘When it comes to China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling track record,’ the Global Times said in an editorial on Monday.
‘From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang … to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea … from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s ‘overcapacity’, almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it,’ the editorial said.”
Meaning, reporting the truth about Chinese human rights abuses pisses off the dictators. But Fat Hitler is happy to oblige. Why? According to poor whiny baby diaper Donnie, VOA is “anti-Trump”.
Certainly not if you check out VOA’s most recent broadcasts. Fatty’s Stalin-like grievance fest before Congress was reported on by VOA with no editorializing. But that’s not enough for whiny titty baby Donnie. If VOA isn’t 100% on board with Fatty propaganda, they have to go.
Show those liberals who's boss
I sure hope El Presidente™ doesn't find out that millions of
migratory birds are starting to leave South America and flying
over the Gulf of America™ and landing in the USA like they've
been doing for millions of years.
He'll probably be sending nets to all his MAGA worshippers with
instructions to round 'em up and report 'em.
Elon, if you're reading this, I didn't mean to insinuate that
El Presidente™ is a bird brain. Birds are no doubt a bit smarter.
David Frum, in The Atlantic, describes the 1948 election when the leading presidemtial candidate, the son of William Howard Taft, advised voters concerned with inflation to Eat Less, sinking his presidential ambitions.
"Trump promotes tariffs as a way to shift the costs of financing the U.S. government from Americans to foreigners. His commerce secretary suggests that tariffs might do away with the need for income taxes altogether. Income taxes fall most heavily on the affluent; tariffs fall most heavily on the middle class and poor. Trump has sold his party on tariffs as a way to redistribute the cost of government away from his donors to his voters.
...
Trump is a flimflam man who will promise anything to anybody and count on the suckers forgetting tomorrow what he said yesterday. His Cabinet officers, however, are gradually revealing the true cost of the Eat Less scam. They do not match Taft’s self-harming candor. But their real message of 'Less for you, more for us' is reverberating louder and clearer."
Aww, poor poor johnie roberts.
You created him, you dipshit. Now what are you going to do? We are watching.
Ken,
I couldn’t access the Rockwell painting you referenced. It looks like part of the URL was obscured.
I’m guessing it may have been this one.
Rockwell’s painting of little Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by federal agents must still outrage plenty of white nationalists who ALL voted for Trump.
The difference these days is that pretty soon we may be seeing federal agents escorting black children out of schools Trump and his racist lackeys would like resegregated.
But it could also have been his image of the murder of civil rights workers he painted in 1965.
And you’re right. If the goal is to eradicate all traces of non-whites under the pretense that allowing them to exist is somehow “woke” or kowtowing to DEI concepts, where does it end?
Are they planning on removing books by all black and female authors from libraries and bookshelves? Will recordings by black artists be purged (just try to take my Coltrane and Armstrong recordings…). Will mention of the Harlem Renaissance be torn from history books? They’ve already succeeded in removing slavery as a factor in the Civil War.
Where does it end?
I’m reminded of the Ray Bradbury short story “The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl”, about a murderer who, before he leaves the scene of his crime, starts thinking about anything he may have touched in the murdered man’s house. Panicking, he starts wiping down every surface in the house, including the glass fruit at the bottom of a bowl on the dining room table. The next morning, when the police show up to check on the missing man, they find the body, and the murderer, up in the attic, dusting down boxes.
Unfortunately, the only cops in our narrative are the courts, and the biggest cops, on the Supreme Court, are all in on the murder.
Oh, isn’t that precious? Little Johnnie Roberts sez Fat Hitler can’t go around threatening judges.
Nice that he finally took notice of the conflagration consuming the country, but it seems he’s mostly concerned with a threat to others like himself, judges.
Thanks for sharing, Johhnie. You can go back to sleep now.
And, Marie, if you count the people who died needlessly during Covid times, and the amount of people being sentenced to death by discontinuing the aid part of USAID for those teetering on the edge of death through lack of drugs, surgeries, research, food insecurity or famine etc., HE IS ALSO A MURDERER.
An observation: Tom Homan is one of the ugliest humans every born. I guess I understand his nastiness towards everyone-- he has probably been that ugly his whole miserable life.
It was just lovely to hear from David Fotenflick (sp?)and various people from VOA now, as well as from people who depended on VOA in the past for unbiased news reporting all over the world, this morning on NPR's 1A. We are being erased. Have to give it to the other side, the people who are absolutely evil, for covering everything and everybody in their mania to crown rich white men the only citizens worth living. (Although these worthy individuals will have to contract with someone to further their progeny.) I guess if a country offers nothing to its citizens except the order to send money via taxation, then life will get easier for those who can afford their own services, and the rest of us should just hurry up and die.
We knew this was coming, and every damn paragraph about the horrors happening daily just assures us that we were correct, and also incorrect, in that we did not know it would be as far-reaching as it is. I did not know every written word of our history would be dumped on for the stupidest of reasons: containing now forbidden words. Did not know that Elon could hire as many pimple-faced little incels as he wanted to lord it over everyone and destroy them and the services, and bring in storm troopers. I never in this world thought the absolutely most disgusting person, Dirty Diaper Donnie, would have a sad about the Kennedy Center, because he is jealous and untalented himself. Yes, these people are Nazis, the president* and the vice guy*and the rest of the administration heavies. They won't stop until they control every aspect of our lives. They are also arranging for the deaths, in whatever time frame, of people no longer with security, by whomever in their MAGA world are is heavily armed and possibly insane.
Marie’s comment, saying that the public doesn’t know the names of anyone Fat Hitler had shackled and pushed onto that plane, at great expense (in more ways than just monetary) to be deported, got me thinking of one of Woody Guthrie’s masterpieces, Deportees, his outraged response to news reports about a plane carrying migrant farm workers back to Mexico that caught fire and crashed in Los Gatos Canyon in 1948. No names were mentioned. They were just deportees.
So he gave them names:
“The crops are all in, and the peaches are rotting
The oranges are all packed in the creosote dumps
They're flying them back to the Mexican Border
To save all their money then wade back again
My father's own father, he waded that river
Others before him have done just the same
They died in the hills, and they died in the valleys
Some went to heaven without any name
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adiós mis amigos, Jesus y María
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be ‘Deportee’.
Almost 80 years later and we still haven’t figured out a solution to this problem, largely because one political party finds it endlessly useful not to.
Listen to this song, then try to get it out of your head.
I can’t.
Akhilleus,
Thanks for fixing the URL. Yeah, that was the one, and there are many others from Rockwell who painted the dream I grew up with.
I wonder if what's happening is harder on those of us who reached our maturity in the 60's and 70's and who saw the great changes that took place displayed in picture and print than it is for those who inherited the world that followed.
I don't know, but could it be that those who didn't witness or take part in the struggle might just feel that it's over and done. Or that whatever is going on today is not their fight.
And thanks also for the Guthrie. I didn't know it.
@Jeanne: Well, yes, you're right. I have hesitated to call Trump a murderer in that I tend to think of a murderer as someone who plans to kill and then carries out the killing of a specific person or persons, whereas Trump is more into mass manslaughter, IMO, where he does careless, foolish and/or cruel things that lead to massive numbers of preventable deaths.
That is to say, I like to think of the President* of the United States as a homicidal maniac. But not necessarily a murderer!
Well, well. Let’s see how Donnie Dealmaker did in his big phone call with his BFF, Vlad the Impaler.
What’s that? No end to the war? Hmmm…how about a ceasefire? No? Not even for a week? How about half an hour? No?
What’d ya say? Putin said he won’t bomb power plants? Oh….maybe he won’t. But he’ll get back to Fat Hitler and the couch humper. Soon? Oh, sometime.
Wow. Now that’s some world class negotiatin’ there Fatty. Pretty nifty. You got a “Maybe we won’t bomb power plants.” Well shit, that’s ALMOST an end to the war, right? The end you promised you’d make happen in 24 hours.
Yeah. I’m sure he’ll be bragging about how great he did on Faux. Good thing it was a phone call. You can’t see someone giving you the finger on the phone, or putting his hand over the speaker to make faces at giggling aides.
World class dealmaking, boy. Like you read about.
Good thing this loser wasn’t at Yalta. We’d all be speaking Russian now.
He has all the leverage, if he knew how to use it, but he either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to.
I would love to get this fat jabroni in a poker game. If I had a pair of threes I could get this doofus to fold with a boat.
But the MAGAts still worship this clown as a genius.
Paul Waldman on the Right's assault on universities.
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/the-real-goal-of-trumps-war-on-universities?
Tho' he doesn't mention the attack on education more generally....notably science and history....it's all part of the package.
I'm guessing business schools are safe as long as they drop all their ethics courses.
Ken -
reading a week or two ago about Lee Zeldin celebrating the elimination of dozens of environmental regulations, it occurred to me that anyone who lived through the smoggy air of the 1970's and before (and Love Canal and the Cuyahoga River on fire) ought to value the EPA, even if its current administrator (born 1980) does not. Smog Pics
Instead, more cuts and layoffs:
EPA to cut scientic research program
I might go to the Rockwell museum tomorrow to see if that picture is there, it's only a short ways away. I saw Munch's "The Scream" before it got stollen (disappeared.)
I just have to jump in and thank you, Marie Burns, and also each and every commenter today. I admire you very much, Marie, and am thankful to be allowed to read all of the wonderful comments.
As expected, Fat Hitler is bragging about his stupendous achievement in “ending” the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
So yeah, that’s expected. It’s like a guy who builds a car in his driveway which explodes as soon as the key is turned, announcing that victory in the Indy 500 is in the bag.
But here’s NP fucking R giving that fat fuck props for pretty much ending the conflict.
I’m not getting this exactly right because the report hasn’t shown up yet on their website, but I sat open mouthed in my car listening to NPR foreign affairs correspondent Asma Khalid talking about how Trump is aggressively pursuing peace and trying stuff that loser Joe Biden never thought of.
Right. Because Joe Biden never thought it was a great idea to SUCK Putin’s balls!!!!! She’s making it sound like Fat Hitler is a combination of Solomon, Winston Churchill, and Tallyrand.
At the tippy tail end of the report she sputtered out that “Oh, but it was Russia who actually invaded Ukraine.”
Jesus. Thanks for that. I would never have known that from the rest of this suck-ass report.
I’m wondering, seriously, if these threats to throat-cut PBS and NPR are affecting their reporting. And not in a good way.
Unwashed,
Stockbridge is a beautiful town. Let us know if that painting is there. As for the other, I’ve been feeling like Munch’s scream guy for some time now. Hoping someone will steal me!
(Aren’t there three or four “Scream” versions?)
Laura,
When I was a kid, we used to joke that the Charles River, between Boston and Cambridge, would never freeze over no matter how cold it got because of all the chemicals and other crap dumped into it (bodies in trunks of cars, courtesy of Whitey Bulger, eg). Boston Harbor was the same way.
When I lived in the Village, in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I had a policy about running. If I went out in the morning to run and I couldn’t see the buildings 20 blocks uptown through the smog, I packed it in and wouldn’t run that day.
But yeah, that was when America was Great! Let’s go back to that craziness.
So DiJiT had a phonecon with Puta. He probably thinks he's "negotiating."
He's so smart he doesn't need to use winning strategies -- his personality is so awesome he can get what he wants just by demanding what he wants and playing it as it lays.
That may work in casino building (but, not really, by his results). But in diplomatic negotiations, especially with regard to ending hostilities, it is axiomatically NEVER a good idea for the very top leaders to negotiate directly. You need to have the next level down, empowered as "plenipotentiary", to be sitting across the baize. There are many reasons for this, but the prime reason is the ability to defer immediately dealing with any adverse event(s) that occurs during negotiations. Sometimes those events are created outside the venue, by parties trying to kill negotiations. The plenipotentiary can manage events by noting that he/she has to consult with el Jefe. If el Jefe is sitting at the table, he/she can't really use that tactic.
Among the other hundreds of reasons -- principals (e.g. presidents) need to keep their egos in check to handle the long slog of serious negotiations. They tend to quit early when they are not "winning" quickly, because their egos demand quick positive results. They quit by abandoning the talks, or by capitulating when not necessary, just to get a result. This is what DiJiT is doing. He is an amateur.
And ... as always ... he is playing with "other peoples' money", so he thinks he can burn them without getting hurt himself. I am sure the Ukrainians are not going to allow that.
Why do so many sexual predators support FH
"Minnesota GOP Sen. Justin Eichorn arrested after alleged attempt to solicit minor for sex, police say
Eichorn was most recently one of the authors of a bill by Minnesota Senate Republicans to define "Trump derangement syndrome" as a mental illness."