The Conversation -- February 25, 2025

Marie: Yesterday I was wondering when White House correspondents would hold Trump's feet to the fire. Got the answer already: Never. Ever. Not no way. ~~~

~~~ Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: :The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential press pool, the small, rotating group of reporters who relay the president's day-to-day activities to the public. The change breaks decades of precedent. It allows the White House to assert more control over which journalists can witness his activities up-close and ask him questions. The White House Correspondents' Association, a 111-year-old group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.... Tuesday's announcement was the latest in a string of aggressive efforts by the Trump administration to erode the access and influence of major news organizations that cover the White House." Politico's story is here.

Brian Slodysko & Byron Tau of the AP: "More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from ... Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to 'dismantle critical public services.' 'We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,' the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter.... 'However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.' The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under ... Donald Trump's administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them. The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists, designers and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president's tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind their efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs."

In the Middle of the Night, DOGE Deletes Its Fake Receipts. David Fahrenthold, et al., of the New York Times: "Last week, Elon Musk's government cost-slashing initiative ... posted an online 'wall of receipts,' celebrating how much it had saved by canceling federal contracts. Now the organization ... has deleted all of the five biggest 'savings' on that original list, after The New York Times and other media outlets pointed out they were riddled with errors. The last of the original top five disappeared from the site in the early hours of Tuesday, even as the group claimed in its latest update that its savings to date had increased to $65 billion. The website offered no explanation for why it removed some items or how it arrived at the higher total.... The 'wall of receipts' is the only public ledger the organization has produced to document its work. The scale of that ledger's errors -- and the misunderstandings and poor quality control that seemed to underlie them -- has raised questions about the effort's broader work, which has led to mass firings and cutbacks across the federal government." ~~~

~~~ Ryan Foley of the AP: "Nearly 40% of the federal contracts that ... Donald Trump's administration claims to have canceled as part of its signature cost-cutting program aren't expected to save the government any money, the administration's own data shows. The Department of Government Efficiency ... published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE's 'Wall of Receipts' shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings. That's usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so."

Rachel Roubein & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "After several thousand probationary workers across the nation's health department were fired in what some dubbed a 'Valentine's Day massacre,' the government has quietly asked some to return to their jobs regulating the nation's food supply, providing help for 9/11 responders and reviewing medical devices.... Patient advocacy groups had decried the firings, saying that they would erode the country's standing as a global health leader, and well-funded lobbying groups rushed to save some government slots that were in part funded by the private sector, not taxpayer dollars. The rehirings are also the latest wrinkle in the chaotic rollout of ... Donald Trump's effort to shrink and weaken the federal government via billionaire Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service."

Zach Montague of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Tuesday directed the Trump administration to unfreeze foreign aid funding within two days after indications that it was failing to comply with a previous court order to keep money flowing to aid groups around the world. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development must release the funds and pay a number of bills by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, Judge Amir H. Ali of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled. Judge Ali had ordered the Trump administration on Feb. 13 to keep disbursing the funds pending the outcome of a lawsuit brought by two health organizations affected by ... [Donald] Trump's executive order to pause most foreign aid for 90 days."

David Nakamura & Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration's sweeping ban on refugee admissions, saying the presidential executive order represented an improper nullification of congressional authority. U.S. District Judge Jamal N. Whitehead's granting of a preliminary injunction effectively requires the administration to restart the refugee-admissions program that ... Donald Trump shut down last month as part of a series of actions aimed at tightening immigration controls. The judge's order will remain in place while the case is adjudicated." The AP's report is here.

Constant Méheut & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Ukraine has agreed to a deal to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday, after an intense pressure campaign from ... [Donald] Trump that included insults and threats. The White House did not confirm that an agreement had been struck. The final terms of the deal were unknown, and it was not immediately clear what, if anything, Ukraine would receive in return."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a new trial to Richard Glossip, a death row inmate in Oklahoma whose challenge to his conviction led to an extraordinary concession from the state's attorney general. State lawmakers from both political parties, along with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, had called for clemency or a new trial. Most crucially, Attorney General Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma, a Republican, had asked the justices to throw out Mr. Glossip's 2004 conviction and order a retrial. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said prosecutors had failed to correct false testimony from their star witness, violating Mr. Glossip's due process rights.... Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the majority opinion in the case...." ~~~

     ~~~ The decision & dissents are here, via the Court.

The iPhone Really Is a Smartphone. Tripp Mickle & Eli Tan of the New York Times: "While using Apple's automatic dictation feature to send messages on Tuesday, some iPhone users reported seeing ... the word 'racist' temporarily appearing as 'Trump,' before quickly correcting itself. The message blip, which was replicated several times by The New York Times, provoked controversy after appearing in a viral TikTok post, raising questions about Apple's artificial intelligence capabilities. An Apple spokeswoman blamed the issue on phonetic overlap between the two words, and said the company was working on a fix." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Say what? There is absolutely no "phonetic overlap" between the words "racist" and "Trump." (Although I'll admit that when I hear someone say "Musk," I imagine I heard "Nazi.")

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⭐We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us. Karen DeYoung & John Hudson of the Washington Post: "The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday against a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly. The U.S. delegation also abstained from voting on its own competing resolution that simply called for an end to the war, after European-sponsored amendments inserting new anti-Russian language in the resolution also passed the 193-member body by a wide margin. The amended U.S. resolution also passed. The votes, taken on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were an astounding reflection of the deepening split between the Trump administration and its major allies over support for Ukraine and disapproval of ... Donald Trump's unilateral outreach to the Kremlin to settle the war on terms favorable to Russia." An NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ This is so wrong: ~~~

~~~ Ukraine to Succumb to U.S. Extortion. Constant Méheut of the New York Times: "Ukraine and the United States are closing in on an agreement that would grant Washington a share of Kyiv's revenues from natural resources..., [Donald] Trump and a Ukrainian government official said Monday, after an intense pressure campaign from the American president to strike a deal. Mr. Trump said that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine may come to the White House this week or next week to sign the agreement. 'The agreement's being worked on now. They're very close to a final deal,' Mr. Trump said on Monday at the White House. Earlier in the day, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, posted on X that 'Ukrainian and U.S. teams are in the final stages of negotiations regarding the minerals agreement.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ As Peter Baker of the NYT points out (linked next), "While many world leaders made the trek to Kyiv to stand with Ukrainian leaders, Mr. Trump focused on sealing a deal to claim the country's natural resources as recompense for military aid."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: Donald "Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France put on a show of friendship on Monday in their first meeting since last month's inauguration, but for all the clubby hugs and handshakes they could not disguise the growing rift between the United States and Europe over the Ukraine war.... 'This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine,' the French president said during a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House. 'It must not mean a cease-fire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty.... 'This is a responsibility of Russia because the aggressor is Russia.'.... Mr. Trump made no mention of guarantees or Ukrainian sovereignty, refused to call Mr. Putin a dictator and falsely stated that the United States had spent three times as much on the war as Europe had. Mr. Macron, careful not to provoke Mr. Trump, made clear that Russia was to blame for the war, not Ukraine, and corrected the president's assertions about European aid.... At one point, Mr. Trump repeated the false claim that the United States had spent $350 billion to aid Ukraine and 'had nothing to show for it,' while Europe had spent only $100 billion. In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe has allocated $138 billion to the war effort, compared with the $119 billion given by the United States." ~~~

     ~~~ Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "French President Emmanuel Macron visited the White House on Monday, and during a press conference in the Oval Office, he was forced to correct ... [Donald] Trump on Ukraine. Trump remarked that 'Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.' Macron immediately set the record straight, touching Trump's arm as he explained the truth. 'No, in fact, to be frank. We paid. We paid 60 percent of the total effort, and it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantee, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear,' Macron said." (Also linked yesterday.) Peter Baker (linked above) notes that Macron, who had been speaking in French throughout the presser, switched to English to fact-check Trump. And, Baker adds, "Mr. Trump, smiling, made a skeptical face and waved his hand as if to say that he did not buy it."

Okay, so the French have Trump's number. But what about the Brits? What about that "special relationship" between the U.S. and the U.K.? Surely the Brits still admire Trump, especially now that he's made the U.S. a monarchy just like theirs. (Okay, they have a constitutional monarchy where the king mostly just rides around in fancy carriages, and we have an unconstitutional monarchy where the king mostly just rides around in teeny golf carts.) Let's check in with (fictional) British correspondent Jonathan Pie. And thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ~~~

Jonathan Rauch, in the Atlantic, argues that Trump is establishing the most primitive form of government, a form that the sociologist Max Weber called "'patrimonialism' because rulers claimed to be the symbolic father of the people -- the state's personification and protector.... In its governmental guise [today], patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader's personal property or family business. It can be found in many countries, but its main contemporary exponent -- at least until January 20, 2025 -- has been Vladimir Putin.... Patrimonialism is suspicious of bureaucracies; after all, to exactly whom are they loyal?... People with expertise, experience, and distinguished résumés are likewise suspect because they bring independent standing and authority. So patrimonialism stocks the government with nonentities and hacks, or, when possible, it bypasses bureaucratic procedures altogether.... Patrimonialism suffers from two inherent and in many cases fatal shortcomings. The first is incompetence." The second is corruption. "Corruption is patrimonialism's Achilles' heel because the public understands it and doesn't like it.... [The Democrats'] most effective approach will be hammering home the message that he is corrupt. One thing is certain: He will give them plenty to work with." Thanks to laura h. for this gift link.

The Dolt Who Would Be King. Lisa Needham of Public Notice: "... while the scope of [Trump's] actions is unprecedented, the idea underpinning them is not. It's the unitary executive theory, albeit on a wild amount of steroids, and it's already showing up in various administration court filings defending Trump's illegal power grabs.... Unfortunately for democracy..., enthusiasm for the unitary executive -- at least when the executive is a Republican -- now comes standard for rightwing Supreme Court justices.... In practical terms, if Trump gets the Supreme Court to agree that he has unfettered power to remove members of independent regulatory agencies, their independence is over.... The unitary executive theory also imbues the president with sole and complete power to start or stop criminal prosecutions.... So, there would be no way for the administration to ever be investigated again, at least in any meaningful fashion."

Meg Kelly, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has rescinded a Biden-era regulation that sought to ensure American allies don't use U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian law.... The White House's repeal of the directive, which President Joe Biden imposed as his administration struggled to reconcile its support for Israel's war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and its alarm about the civilian toll of that fight, comes as the Trump administration puts its 'America First' mark on U.S. foreign policy.... Biden's memo built on existing laws related to arms transfers, requiring countries acquiring U.S.-made weapons to provide written assurance they would not employ those arms in violation of international humanitarian law and would facilitate the delivery of U.S.-provided humanitarian aid, under the threat of suspension of arms supplies. While its proponents said the memo served as a means to pressure Israel to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, a major point of contention between U.S. and Israeli officials since the war broke out after Hamas's attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, critics said the Biden administration failed to use its own rules to effectively improve conditions for civilians in Gaza." (Also linked yesterday.)

So this was the top story on the NBC News Website at 5:15 pm ET Monday: ~~~

~~~ Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they'd accomplished over the past week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary or not, according to three sources with knowledge of the system. The information will go into an LLM (Large Language Model), an advanced AI system that looks at huge amounts of text data to understand, generate, and process human language, the sources said. The AI system will determine whether someone's work is mission-critical or not." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Lindsay Whitehurst & Chris Megerian of the AP: "... Donald Trump voiced support for Elon Musk's demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce. 'What he's doing is saying, "Are you actually working?"' Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. 'And then, if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people aren't answering because they don't even exist.' The Republican president said that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has found 'hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud' as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims. Attorneys representing unions, businesses, veterans and conservation organizations filed an updated lawsuit in federal court in California on Monday, arguing Musk had violated the law with his demand.... The lawsuit, spearheaded by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, called the threat of mass firings 'one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.'"(Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'd like to know who's collecting the paychecks of all these people who don't exist. What bull! ~~~

     ~~~ A related story, by Whitehurst & Megerian, on the employees' lawsuit is here.

     ~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "The Department of Health and Human Services sent agency employees an email Monday afternoon warning them that any responses to Elon Musk's request that they share their accomplishments from the past week might 'be read by malign foreign actors.'... [An] email [to staff] said employees who wish to respond should keep 'a high level of generality and describe your work in a manner to protect sensitive data.... Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.'..." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, the DOGE & the Little DOGEys would either inadvertently (because they're so effing incompetent) or purposely (because they're treacherous wankers) share federal employees' work with "malign foreign actors." ~~~

     ~~~ Smith also reports on the lamest, most twisted CYA attempt ever written: "Musk defended the email request Monday evening in a post on X. 'The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!,' Musk wrote. 'Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?'"

     ~~~ Why was Elon whining? Because while all this was going on, it turns out this had happened:

     ~~~ Emily Davies, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week..., a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management ... delivered the news to agency chief human capital officers on a call midday Monday.... [A] person briefed on the call said ... that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far and had 'no plans' to analyze them. Later in the day, though, Trump suggested nonresponders could still be terminated, while Musk wrote on X they would be given 'another chance' to write back before being fired. In a written memo, OPM wrote that employees should respond but added, 'Agency heads may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.'

"The patchwork of conflicting, evolving guidance and ensuing confusion has become a mainstay of the Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service's campaign to shrink the federal government -- an effort that has inspired considerable backlash from the courts, lawmakers and people inside the bureaucracy. Also Monday, a federal watchdog agency said the Trump administration's firings of a handful of probationary federal workers were illegal and requested a 45-day stay of their terminations." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear & Kate Conger of the New York Times sum it all up: "Elon Musk's monthlong rampage through the federal bureaucracy appears to have met its first real test, as some of ... [Donald] Trump's top loyalists flatly reject the billionaire's demand that their employees justify their jobs or be summarily fired. By Monday, just 48 hours after an email from Mr. Musk with the subject line 'What did you do last week?' landed in the email boxes of millions of federal workers, personnel officials proclaimed the 'request' to be voluntary even as Mr. Musk renewed his demand.... At virtually the same time that employees were told a response was no longer necessary, Mr. Trump weighed in..., praising Mr. Musk's demand as 'genius' and saying that employees who did not respond would be 'semi-fired' or 'fired.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Wait, wait! There's More: "Late Monday evening, Mr. Musk offered another twist on his social media site. 'Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,' Mr. Musk wrote, apparently referring to federal employees who did not respond to his email by his original deadline of Monday at midnight. 'Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.'... Also on Monday, the Office of Personnel Management sent out a new memo reiterating the request and the deadline, though allowing agency heads to 'exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: They're not even good at the one thing you thought they were good at: destruction. Perhaps I'm being too flip, though. As one federal employee said over the weekend, "They're terrorizing us." Indeed, they are still good at that. ~~~

At least we can be satisfied in knowing they don't get no respect: ~~~

~~~ Emily Forlini of PC Magazine: "Department of Housing and Urban Development employees returning to the office today were greeted by a looping clip of Trump sucking Musk's toes behind the words 'long live the real king.' Those reporting to work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Washington, D.C. headquarters this morning got an eyeful as someone appeared to have hacked screens at the building to display an AI-generated video of President Trump.... The stunt coincides with all HUD employees being ordered to return to the office today. The video played on a loop for about five minutes on screens throughout the building, according to independent journalist Marisa Kabas. Staffers 'couldn't figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs,' Kabas says." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wonder if the person who (1) created the toe-sucking screen & (2) fed it into the HUD system will write these down as two of his five accomplishments for the week.

Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "The acting commissioner of the IRS will announce he is stepping down as early as Tuesday, according to four people ... who said the departure is driven in part over his distress about the chaos inflicted on the government by ... Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service. Doug O'Donnell, a civil servant who spent several decades at the agency, will depart the administration by the end of the week, said the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. He is expected to be replaced on a temporary basis by Melanie Krause, who has also served in senior positions at the tax agency, the people said. President Trump has nominated Billy Long, a former Republican congressman from Missouri, to run the agency.... O'Donnell's expected departure comes at a pivotal time for the IRS, which faces a crush from tax filing season and fresh scrutiny from Musk's team."

Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "A government watchdog lawyer whose dismissal by ... [Donald] Trump has been stalled by the courts announced on Monday that his office would seek to pause the mass firings of some probationary federal workers. The lawyer, Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that protects whistle-blowers, said his office had determined that the firings might violate the law. In a statement posted to the agency's website, Mr. Dellinger said that the decision to fire probationary employees en masse 'without individualized cause' appeared 'contrary to a reasonable reading of the law,' and that he would ask a government review board to pause the firings for 45 days.... Mr. Dellinger's move, which was reported earlier by Government Executive..., also highlights the many layers of government officials who have been targeted by the Trump administration. At every level of the case, the officials reviewing the firings have themselves been dismissed and are using other legal means to fight to hold on to their jobs." The Huffington Post's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: "Hampton Dellinger" is the perfect name for an accidental hero.

Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: Emil Bove, Trump's former defense attorney, and now the No. 2 at Main Justice, has a fraught relationship with attorneys at the Southern District of New York, "where he rose to prominence as a top terrorism prosecutor and departed in December 2021 after a case he oversaw crumbled over procedural violations by members of his team.... Interviews with more than two dozen former colleagues, current department officials and others, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, reveal new details about Mr. Bove's nine years at the Southern District, a turbulent period that defined his career and foreshadowed his current effort to bend the Justice Department to the Trump agenda."

Ken Dilanian, et al., of NBC News: "Current and former FBI officials expressed shock and dismay Monday over the news that ... Donald Trump had selected a right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic to be the bureau's deputy director.... On his podcast, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino -- who once called the FBI 'irredeemably corrupt' -- thanked the president for the appointment and suggested that he was prepared to step out of his role as a MAGA warrior. But even as he did so, he repeated the baseless charge that the Justice Department had been 'weaponized,' a claim he has frequently brandished to criticize the agency he will now help lead.... Some current FBI employees ... said they feared Bongino's appointment spelled the end of an independent FBI and put the bureau's fearsome investigative and intelligence capabilities in the hands of political actors with radical agendas." ~~~

~~~ Devlin Barrett of the New York Times profiles the insane conspiracy theorist Dan Bongino, who the insane conpspiracy theorist president* has named the No. 2 person at the Department of Justice. Barrett does not mention that Bongino was a frequent guest on Insane Conspiracy Theory Central a/k/a Alex Jones' Infowars, as Wired has revealed in a firewalled article. ~~~

     ~~~ Barrett is no Michelle Goldberg, and she definitely goes there in her New York Times column assessing Dan Bongino: "Angelo Carusone, president of the watchdog group Media Matters for America, told me that even among the right-wing broadcasters with whom Trump has staffed his nascent administration, Bongino stands out as a conduit between the fever swamps and the president. Now Bongino is in a place to turn wild notions from the right-wing internet into pretexts for federal investigations. Before Trump's inauguration, for example, Bongino said the F.B.I. was 'hiding a massive fake assassination plot to shut down the questioning of the 2020 election.'... Trump could have found a smoother and more sophisticated ideologue to help him transform the F.B.I. into a tool of his will, perhaps someone from the Claremont Institute ready to put an erudite spin on authoritarianism. He wanted the jacked-up hothead....

"On his show last month, Bongino gloated over the angst Trump's nominees were causing career civil servants, cheering on the president's 'total personnel warfare.' Then he took out two plastic toy robots, an orange one to represent Trump and a blue one he called 'liberal screaming Karen.' He used the Trump robot to beat the lady one, smashing it over and over. 'Yes!' he exclaimed. 'This is how we fix this place.'"

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Washington said on Monday that the way the Trump administration set up and has been running Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency may violate the Constitution. The skepticism expressed by the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly..., suggested that there could be problems looming for Mr. Musk's organization.... She expressed particular concern that it violated the appointments clause of the Constitution.... The judge also indicated that she had serious concerns about how the organization is being run. Her concerns emerged from unresolved questions about who is in charge of the U.S. DOGE Service and what role Mr. Musk plays in its operations. At the hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly asked a lawyer for the government, Bradley Humphreys, to identify the service's administrator. He was unable to answer her.... When the judge pressed him on what Mr. Musk's job actually was, Mr. Humphreys said, 'I don't have any information beyond he's a close adviser to the president.' That exchange seemed to irk Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who signaled her skepticism about the organization's structure and powers." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So essentially a government lawyer -- that is, the guy representing the Trump/Musk tag team -- is confirming that he has no idea what authority Musk has to order agencies around and/or what authority the Muskettes have to barge into federal buildings and demand access to computer systems containing top-sensitive information. Of course all this fits well into Jonathan Rauch's theory that what we have now is a "patrimonial" form of government where Trump (or Musk??) is the Father of Our Country, and as such his authority is self-generating. Whether or not the arrangement between King Donald and the Prince Regent violates the Constitution is irrelevant.

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blocked Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service from using private information collected by the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management. U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Teachers to stop DOGEfrom accessing databases containing personal information on millions of Americans. She denied the union's request to block DOGE from sensitive Treasury Department data because a preliminary injunction in a separate case achieved that goal. The order bars the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management, which manages personnel for the federal government, from disclosing personally identifiable information to DOGE affiliates at least until March 10."(Also linked yesterday.)

Gary Grumbach & Doha Madani of NBC News: "A federal judge on Monday declined to issue a temporary restraining order for The Associated Press in its effort to gain full access to the Trump administration, asking for a fuller briefing before making a decision.... The AP was barred indefinitely from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One, as it had in the past, because of its refusal to change its style for the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America.' Judge Trevor McFadden told the court there were several reasons he denied the temporary restraining order request. He noted there was a difference in the issues of this case and case law presented by both parties." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In an on-air CNN report, Paula Reed noted that McFadden is a Trump appointee, and that he has scheduled a hearing for further arguments.

Understandably, it may have slipped your mind, but it turns out we do have a vestigial federal government, and the vestige that has offices in the Capitol is doing things to pretend it (a) has a function and (b) is functional: ~~~

     ~~~ Jacob Bogage, et al., of the Washington Post: "Republicans' push to enact ... Donald Trump's tax, immigration, national defense and energy agenda is at risk of faltering, lawmakers say, as House Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to coax his slim majority into an agreement that still may be far away. Johnson (R-Louisiana) is set to put a budget resolution up for a floor vote Tuesday, but is facing a potential revolt from swing-district Republicans wary of cuts to social safety net benefits and fiscal hawks who say the bill's $2 trillion in spending cuts don't reach far enough into federal coffers. The legislation would start the reconciliation process, a legislative mechanism that would allow the GOP to head off a Democratic Senate filibuster, but the competing demands have boxed in the speaker -- and could put the brakes on Trump's legislative plans." ~~~

     ~~~ Meryl Kornfield, et al., of the Washington Post: Johnson is praying for God's help in his endeavor.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: 'Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) last week issued a challenge to fellow Republicans who might be concerned about what ... Donald Trump and his administration are doing -- but haven't been willing to say so. Basically, she said it can't just be me.... Republicans in general haven't exactly heeded her clarion call. But she is getting some sudden backup from a handful of prominent moderate Republicans using rather strong language. They've used words such as 'embarrassing,' 'cruel,' 'absurd,' 'extortion' and 'trauma' while crying foul over what Trump and Elon Musk are doing to the federal government, as well as Trump's attacks on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky."

Hilary Lewis of the Hollywood Reporter: During her speech accepting the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, actor and activist Jane Fonda "segued into how the empathy that actors use in their craft should inform their response to the current political climate. 'A whole lot of people are going to be hurt by what is happening, by what is coming our way,' Fonda said without mentioning specific policies, issues or people she was referring to as being responsible for this 'serious' threat. 'We need to listen with our hearts and not judge. We are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us.' And she took a moment to note, amid the Trump administration's frequent opposition to 'woke' initiatives, that 'empathy is not weak or woke, and, by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.' That remark earned Fonda some of her loudest applause and cheers." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Once again, this country may turn to Black Americans to pull us out of this morass. Thanks to RAS for the link: ~~~

Anne D'Innocenzio of the AP: "Fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc., which has been a destination for generations of quilters, knitters and lovers of crafts projects for more than 80 years, is going out of business and shuttering all its stores. The announcement comes after the Hudson, Ohio-based retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, the second time in a year. It cited sluggish consumer demand and inventory shortages. At the time it vowed it would keep all of its stores open." (Also linked yesterday.)

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Canada. Kelsey Ables of the Washington Post: "More than 230,000 Canadians have signed a petition asking the country's prime minister to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship and passport, accusing the tech billionaire and Trump ally of joining a 'foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty' and engaging in 'activities that go against the national interest of Canada.'... [Musk] has continued to support .. Donald Trump as he calls for Canada to become the 51st state and pushes for high tariffs on the United States' northern neighbor. Responding to the petition, Musk wrote on social media, 'Canada is not a real country.'... The petition ... needed 500 signatures to gain certification for presentation in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament. Experts say that while it is unlikely the petition will be successful, given tight laws on revoking Canadian citizenship, it reflects the mood in a country where people are boycotting American products, canceling trips across the border and politicizing sporting events in response to Trump's threats." Musk holds Canadian as well as U.S. citizenship. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Canada is not a real country in the same way, say, the Conch Republic (a/k/a Key West) is not a real country, then "Canadian citizenship&" might be fun, but it's just a joke, so Musk should be more than happy to lose his citizenship in a fake country.

News Ledes

Some Good News, for a change: ~~~

~~~ New York Times: "Astronomers have been carefully watching 2024 YR4, a space rock with a heightened chance of hitting Earth in 2032. But fear not: NASA announced on Monday that it posed a threat no longer -- the odds that the asteroid would smash into our planet have dropped to nearly zero."

New York Times: "Eleven days after the pope was hospitalized, speculation is mounting and prayers for his recovery verge on a vigil."

The Conversation -- February 24, 2025

So this is the top story at NBC News at 5:15 pm ET: ~~~

~~~ Courtney Kube, et al., of NBC News: "Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they'd accomplished over the past week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary or not, according to three sources with knowledge of the system. The information will go into an LLM (Large Language Model), an advanced AI system that looks at huge amounts of text data to understand, generate, and process human language, the sources said. The AI system will determine whether someone's work is mission-critical or not." ~~~

     ~~~ BUT. Marie: Earlier, at the top of the 5:00 o'clock hour, CNN reported on-air that the Office of Personnel Management had sent out a "never mind" memo to all heads of federal human resources departments. This latest memo said that the list that the mandatory list was, after all, voluntary! ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Emily Davies, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has told federal agency leaders that they can ignore the public decree from Elon Musk to effectively fire employees who do not send in bullet-point summaries of their work last week..., a break with the billionaire who has exerted significant power to slash the 2.3-million-person federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management ... delivered the news to agency chief human capital officers on a call midday Monday.... [A] person briefed on the call said ... that OPM was unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far and had 'no plans' to analyze them. Later in the day, though, Trump suggested nonresponders could still be terminated, while Musk wrote on X they would be given 'another chance' to write back before being fired. In a written memo, OPM wrote that employees should respond but added, 'Agency heads may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.'

"The patchwork of conflicting, evolving guidance and ensuing confusion has become a mainstay of the Musk-led U.S. DOGE Service's campaign to shrink the federal government -- an effort that has inspired considerable backlash from the courts, lawmakers and people inside the bureaucracy. Also Monday, a federal watchdog agency said the Trump administration's firings of a handful of probationary federal workers were illegal and requested a 45-day stay of their terminations."

     ~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "The Department of Health and Human Services sent agency employees an email Monday afternoon warning them that any responses to Elon Musk's request that they share their accomplishments from the past week might 'be read by malign foreign actors.'... [An] email [to staff] said employees who wish to respond should keep 'a high level of generality and describe your work in a manner to protect sensitive data.... Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.'..." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, the DOGE & the Little DOGEys would either purposely or inadvertently share federal employees' work with "malign foreign actors." Smith also reports on the lamest CYA attempt ever written: "Musk defended the email request Monday evening in a post on X. 'Th email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!,' Musk wrote. 'Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers. Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?'"

Gary Grumbach & Doha Madani of NBC News: "A federal judge on Monday declined to issue a temporary restraining order for The Associated Press in its effort to gain full access to the Trump administration, asking for a fuller briefing before making a decision.... The AP was barred indefinitely from accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One, as it had in the past, because of its refusal to change its style for the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America.' Judge Trevor McFadden told the court there were several reasons he denied the temporary restraining order request. He noted there was a difference in the issues of this case and case law presented by both parties." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In an on-air CNN report, Paula Reed noted that McFadden is a Trump appointee, and that he has scheduled a hearing for further arguments.

Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "French President Emmanuel Macron visited the White House on Monday, and during a press conference in the Oval Office, he was forced to correct ... [Donald] Trump on Ukraine. Trump remarked that 'Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.' Macron immediately set the record straight, touching Trump's arm as he explained the truth. 'No, in fact, to be frank. We paid. We paid 60 percent of the total effort, and it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantee, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear,' Macron said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Why our own reporters refuse to do what the French leader did Monday is beyond me. As far as I can see, White House reporters almost always let Trump get away with flagrant lies. Occasionally a reporter will ask Trump a question of substance, one that challenges a stupid Trump stunts. But then the reporter always lets Trump weasel out of answering the question, usually by responding with some ridiculous CYA lie. The reporter never calls out the lie that gives Trump a fake excuse for the stupid stunt of the moment. Letting Trump get away with a fake excuse renders the entire exchange useless.

This is so wrong: ~~~

~~~ Ukraine to Succumb to U.S. Extortion. Constant Méheut of the New York Times: "Ukraine and the United States are closing in on an agreement that would grant Washington a share of Kyiv's revenues from natural resources..., [Donald] Trump and a Ukrainian government official said Monday, after an intense pressure campaign from the American president to strike a deal. Mr. Trump said that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine may come to the White House this week or next week to sign the agreement. 'The agreement's being worked on now. They're very close to a final deal,' Mr. Trump said on Monday at the White House. Earlier in the day, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, posted on X that 'Ukrainian and U.S. teams are in the final stages of negotiations regarding the minerals agreement.'"

⭐We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us. Karen DeYoung & John Hudson of the Washington Post: "The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran [link fixed] and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday against a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly. The U.S. delegation also abstained from voting on its own competing resolution that simply called for an end to the war, after European-sponsored amendments inserting new anti-Russian language in the resolution also passed the 193-member body by a wide margin. The amended U.S. resolution also passed. The votes, taken on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were an astounding reflection of the deepening split between the Trump administration and its major allies over support for Ukraine and disapproval of ... Donald Trump's unilateral outreach to the Kremlin to settle the war on terms favorable to Russia." An NBC News story is here.

Meg Kelly, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has rescinded a Biden-era regulation that sought to ensure American allies don't use U.S.-made weapons in violation of international humanitarian law.... The White House's repeal of the directive which President Joe Biden imposed as his administration struggled to reconcile its support for Israel's war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and its alarm about the civilian toll of that fight, comes as the Trump administration puts its 'America First' mark on U.S. foreign policy.... Biden's memo built on existing laws related to arms transfers, requiring countries acquiring U.S.-made weapons to provide written assurance they would not employ those arms in violation of international humanitarian law and would facilitate the delivery of U.S.-provided humanitarian aid, under the threat of suspension of arms supplies. While its proponents said the memo served as a means to pressure Israel to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza, a major point of contention between U.S. and Israeli officials since the war broke out..., critics said the Biden administration failed to use its own rules to effectively improve conditions for civilians in Gaza."

Lindsay Whitehurst & Chris Megerian of the AP: "... Donald Trump voiced support for Elon Musk's demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, an edict that has spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the government workforce. 'What he's doing is saying, "Are you actually working?"' Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. 'And then, if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people aren't answering because they don't even exist.' The Republican president said that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has found 'hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud' as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims. Attorneys representing unions, businesses, veterans and conservation organizations filed an updated lawsuit in federal court in California on Monday, arguing Musk had violated the law with his demand.... The lawsuit, spearheaded by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, called the threat of mass firings 'one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'd like to know who's collecting the paychecks of all these people who don't exist. What bull!

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Monday blocked Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service from using private information collected by the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management. U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Teachers to stop DOGE from accessing databases containing personal information on millions of Americans. She denied the union's request to block DOGE from sensitive Treasury Department data because a preliminary injunction in a separate case achieved that goal. The order bars the Education Department and the Office of Personnel Management, which manages personnel for the federal government, from disclosing personally identifiable information to DOGE affiliates at least until March 10."

Anne D'Innocenzio of the AP: "Fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc., which has been a destination for generations of quilters, knitters and lovers of crafts projects for more than 80 years, is going out of business and shuttering all its stores. The announcement comes after the Hudson, Ohio-based retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, the second time in a year. It cited sluggish consumer demand and inventory shortages. At the time it vowed it would keep all of its stores open."

The refusal to accept King Donald but to instead promote the Prince Regent continues unabated. Admittedly, the Little Prince is doing most of the king stuff: ~~~

~~~ Emily Forlini of PC Magazine: "Department of Housing and Urban Development employees returning to the office today were greeted by a looping clip of Trump sucking Musk's toes behind the words 'long live the real king.' Those reporting to work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Washington, D.C. headquarters this morning got an eyeful as someone appeared to have hacked screens at the building to display an AI-generated video of President Trump.... The stunt coincides with all HUD employees being ordered to return to the office today. The video played on a loop for about five minutes on screens throughout the building, according to independent journalist Marisa Kabas. Staffers 'couldn't figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs,' Kabas says." Thanks to RAS for the link.~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wonder if the person who (1) created the toe-sucking screen & (2) fed it into the HUD system will write these down as two of his five accomplishments for the week.

~~~~~~~~~~

Some people are not taking the reign of King Donald seriously. One of those unserious people would be RAS, who thought it important to share these obviously mocked-up Time covers. Look, Donald is king and he does not have a regent. He is a manly man, and he has many an heir of his own. If there be a prince, it be Donald II, not Elon. If we're to have a proper monarchy, it must be hereditary. And, as with the Spanish Hapsburgs, we should expect to see strong signs of inbreeding. Many have already speculated about the heritage of Donald II, what with his evident shortcomings.

~~~ Okay, he's more terrible and more delusional than the last king we had (who was fairly terrible and definitely delusional) ~~~

Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "In his first month in office..., Donald Trump has upended the nation's nearly century-old approach to global affairs. The speed and energy with which the president has moved to remake Washington's role in the world has been most visible in his approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine. He has embraced Russia's strength and blasted the smaller country, falsely accusing President Volodymyr Zelensky of starting a conflict that began with a Russian invasion. He has insulted U.S. allies in Europe, who for decades have relied on the United States to check Russian power. The result, diplomats and analysts say, has been to cede influence to Moscow. But that might just be the beginning. At worst, Trump's strategy could embolden other global powers, notably China, to adopt more bellicose policies toward their neighbors, they say -- the opposite of what some of his allies say needs to be the focus of U.S. foreign policy." ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Sonne of the New York Times writes a similar assessment, emphasizing the "new possibilities" Trump has afforded Putin. See also remarks, linked below, by Friedrich Merz, who is about to become Germany's new chancellor, as well as Western leaders' support for Ukraine, also linked below.

Plus, Our King Is Preternaturally Corrupt. Natalie Allison, et al., of the Washington Post: "In back-to-back events last week..., Donald Trump held court with Saudi government officials and investors who do business with his family's firms. On Wednesday, he made a special trip to Miami to appear at a beachfront conference hosted by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, which has invested $2 billion in a business run by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and is the main backer of LIV Golf, the upstart golf league that has held five tournaments at Trump's courses since it launched in 2022, with a sixth scheduled for April at Trump National Doral in Miami. Trump has not disclosed his profits from the events. Kushner, Trump's 'first buddy' Elon Musk, and other family business associates of Trump and his Middle East envoy, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, also attended. Less than 24 hours later, Trump hosted Yasir Al-Rumayyan -- who runs the Saudi fund and oversees LIV Golf -- for a meeting at the White House. On the agenda: a potential reunification of the golf world. The meetings demonstrated how Trump has blended the roles of president and business mogul. But 'it's hard to see how any of those meetings have anything to do with our interests as American taxpayers,' said Don Fox, former general counsel for the U.S. Office of Government Ethics." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Great. You've got your greedy king. You've got your upper-crusty sport. You've got your foreign billions. You've got your nepo baby. You've got your oligarchs. So to hell with us peasants.

Adam Goldman & Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned right-wing pundit and podcaster, will be the next deputy director of the F.B.I...., [Donald] Trump said on Sunday night. Mr. Trump, making the announcement on his social media site, said the newly installed F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, had named Mr. Bongino to the No. 2 post at the country's most powerful law enforcement agency. The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, meaning two steadfast Trump loyalists will effectively be installed at the uppermost reaches of an agency known for its tradition of independence.... In the past, F.B.I. directors have selected senior agents with extensive experience to essentially run the bureau's operations, a complex and grueling job that requires working closely with foreign partners and navigating sensitive investigations.

"The choice of Mr. Bongino is a radical and abrupt departure from that practice and raises startling questions about how two people who have never served as F.B.I. agents will oversee the vast surveillance and investigative powers of an agency of 38,000 people and a budget of about $11 billion. The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the history of a bureau typically insulated from White House interference. It will also ensure that the bureau will be run by men who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics." The AP's report is here.

Edward Wong of the New York Times: "Trump administration appointees in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent employees an email on Sunday afternoon saying that they were firing 2,000 workers and putting up to thousands of foreign service officers and other direct hires around the world on paid leave starting that night. The only exceptions to the leave would be people working on 'mission-critical programs,' as well as 'core leadership' and employees supporting 'specially designated programs,' according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times. The email said appointees running U.S.A.I.D. were firing 2,000 employees based in the United States using a mechanism called 'reduction in force.' The mass firings are part of a series of layoffs of agency employees by the Trump administration during a broad effort to halt almost all U.S. foreign aid using a blanket freeze. The moves came after a judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration could proceed with plans to lay off or put on paid leave many agency employees and close down operations overseas, which means forcing employees based abroad to come back to the United States. Some of those employees say they expect to be fired once they return home." Politico's report is here.

Irie Sentner of Politico: "Elon Musk's weekend threat to federal workers triggered panic and confusion Sunday as administration officials rushed to issue sometimes conflicting guidance, setting in motion a power struggle between Musk and agency heads appointed by ... Donald Trump to lead the federal government. The guidance varied by agency, with some leaders telling their employees to wait before complying with Musk's demand that they justify their jobs in writing and others either staying silent or offering vague advice on how to handle the Musk missive. It's the latest episode of Musk's 'move fast and break things' philosophy clashing with the layers of rules and laws that fortify the bureaucracy he hopes to hobble. And it's the first sign that even staunch Trump loyalists are beginning to flex their political muscle against Musk, an unelected 'special government employee,' whose power stems primarily from his proximity to the president." Federal employment law experts have pointed out that Musk's or-else demand is illegal for several reasons. A related AP story is here. ~~~

~~~ Lauren Irwin of the Hill: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) slammed Elon Musk over an 'absurd weekend email' sent to federal employees requiring they send the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) a list of what they accomplished in the past week. 'Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,' Murkowski wrote on the social platform X. 'The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn't it.'... 'If Elon Musk truly wants to understand what federal workers accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency, and learn about the jobs he's trying to cut,' Murkowski said." ~~~

~~~ "He's Just a Dick." Paige Skinner of the Huffington Post: "Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called out Elon Musk for his new requirement that all federal employees defend their jobs or else get fired. 'This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk - except he isn't even the boss, he's just a dick,' Smith wrote Saturday in a post on X, which included a screenshot of Musk's original post explaining the new requirement." ~~~

~~~ Marie: Oh gosh, I just figured out that this is all Rachel Maddow's fault. Follow me here: ~~~

     ~~~ Will Neal of the Daily Beast (Feb. 22), republished by Yahoo! News: "Maddow called ... Donald Trump's leadership 'decorative' on the Friday night broadcast of The Rachel Maddow Show, suggesting that 'First Buddy' and DOGE director Elon Musk is truly holding the power and the public's attention.... She alleged that Trump has been made to look 'weak' and 'sort of beside the point' as Musk continues to 'regularly upstage' and even 'talk over him' in interviews and conferences held at the White House.... Trump appeared to address her comments on Saturday morning as he launched a series of rage posts targeting the network. 'MSNBC, COMMONLY KNOWN AS MSDNC, IS A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY,' wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform. 'SUCH LYING AND MISREPRESENTATION. BAD PEOPLE AT THE TOP!' As if in further defiance of Maddow's comments, Trump also called for Musk to 'GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Now, if you take a look at the top of yesterday's Reality Chex page, you'll see that shortly after Trump urged Musk to "be more aggressive," Musk ordered federal employees to list their accomplishments or else: So now we learn that the sequence of events is

(1) He [Trump] appears to be sort of decorative at this point.... The person who's really working double-time to make the government actually do things appears to be his top campaign donor, who is getting all the attention, and all the credit. -- Rachel Maddow, Friday night MSNBC show

(2) Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him be more aggressive. -- Donald Trump, rage-post on his failing social media site, as a riposte to Maddow's biting assertions

(3) All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week... Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. -- Elon Musk, post of his failing social media site

(4) What Did You Do Last Week? -- Office of Personnel Management, email to civil servants, subject line

Patrick Wingrove, et al., of Reuters (Feb. 22), republished by Yahoo! News: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking some of its recently fired scientists if they will come back to their jobs, including some employees reviewing Elon Musk's brain implant company, Neuralink, multiple sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The FDA plans to rehire around 300 people in total, according to four sources with secondhand knowledge of the situation, following ... Donald Trump's rush last week to fire employees at the agency responsible for reviewing drugs, food safety, medical devices and tobacco.... It is not known who ordered the firings and now the rehirings, according to sources familiar with the situation, including several employees caught up in the turmoil. At least 11 employees working at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health -- which oversees medical device reviews -- have received calls since Friday saying they could return to work on Monday...."

“No Exit.” Federico Rios of the New York Times: “On floor after floor of Panama City’s soaring Decapolis Hotel, people huddled around the windows of rooms they could not leave. They were among roughly 300 migrants from all around the world, deported by the United States to Panama. There, they were barred from leaving the hotel or meeting lawyers.... In furtive messages, sent through handmade signs, hidden phones and gestures behind glass, some of the migrants expressed a sense of constant, overwhelming fear.... We learned that the 10 Iranian migrants had converted to Christianity, which according to Iran's Shariah law, is a crime punishable by death. They had illegally entered the United States in the last month, and were detained in San Diego before being deported to Panama.... Migrants who did not agree to be deported would be taken to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle known as the Darién Gap, Panama's security minister said. He described the decision to hold the migrants as part of an accord with the United States." A related Washington Post story, published Feb. 21, is here.

Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The military transported about 15 immigration detainees from Texas to the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Sunday, bringing in new migrants who have been designated for deportation days after it cleared the base of its first group of deportees."

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "Sharp cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development are likely to upend housing markets, make homes less affordable and roil mortgage transactions, according to current and former employees, contractors and housing experts. The changes come amid a national housing crisis, with not enough homes and ever-rising costs. Current and former staffers ... said it was increasingly difficult to answer how and whether HUD can carry out its core functions as the federal government's top housing agency. Those concerns have grown, they said, since officials from the U.S. DOGE Service, billionaire Elon Musk's effort to slash federal spending and regulations, appeared at the department's headquarters. HUD's entire workforce is projected to drop by about half -- from about 8,300 employees to just over 4,000 -- with deep cuts in field offices nationwide, according to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post.... Staffers also emphasized that these cuts appear to contrast with ... Donald Trump's campaign promises to make housing more affordable." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Trump doesn't care about making housing more affordable for most people, but to the extent that he wants to do something splashy to lower housing costs, he would want to do that splashy thing for middle-class white people, not the more needy people HUD assists. So there's no "contrast with Trump's campaign promises."

In case you know somebody who still is of the impression that Musk's indiscriminate cuts to the federal workforce are about reducing waste, fraud and abuse, there's this: ~~~

~~~ Frederick Gibbs and six other former IRS Commissioners under Republican and Democratic administrations, in a New York Times op-ed: "Last week, the Trump administration started laying off about 6,700 I.R.S. employees, many if not most of whom are directly involved in collecting unpaid taxes.... Aggressive reductions in the I.R.S.'s resources will only render our government less effective and less efficient in collecting the taxes Congress has imposed. It will shift the burden of funding the government from people who shirk their taxes to the honest people who pay them, and it will impede efforts by the I.R.S. to modernize customer service and simplify the tax filing process for everyone."

Joan Greve of the Guardian: "Attendees of a center-right political conference in Washington DC were forced to evacuate on Sunday, after someone claiming to be Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was convicted and then pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection, allegedly emailed in a bomb threat against the event. Tarrio denied any involvement in the incident. Organizers of the Principles First summit, which is considered a center-right alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), confirmed the bomb threat after they abruptly asked attendees to clear the room hosting the conference.... Jim Acosta, the former CNN host, posted a copy of the threatening message on social media. The message claimed that four pipe bombs had been deployed against political enemies of 'Emperor Trump' who 'all deserve to die', including attendees at the conference, Michael Fanone, a former US Capitol police officer, Fanone's mother and John Bolton, Donald Trump's former national security adviser." ~~~

~~~ Joan Greve of the Guardian: "Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was convicted and then pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection, confronted a group of police officers who defended the Capitol during the attack, accusing one of them of being a 'coward'. A video shared by Tarrio on social media on Saturday showed him following the officers, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn, Daniel Hodges and Aquilino Gonell, through the lobby of a Washington hotel that was hosting the Principles First summit, a conference where one of the officers received a 'profile in courage' award. In the video, an unidentified woman with the officers tells Tarrio: 'You guys are traitors, just back off.' 'You were brave on Twitter,' Tarrio said to one of the officers as he continued to follow them. 'You guys were brave at my sentencing when you sat there and laughed when I got 22 fucking years. Now you don't want to look in my eyes, you fucking cowards.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Idaho. Kate Thornbrugh of the Coeur d'Alene Press: "A legislative town hall organized by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee devolved into chaos Saturday when unidentified, plainclothes security personnel dragged a Post Falls woman from the Coeur d'Alene High School auditorium for heckling legislators.... Footage from the event showed [Kootenai County Sheriff Bob] Norris take [attendee Teresa] Borrenpohl's arm with both hands and make multiple attempts to pull her from her seat. Borrenpohl said that after she declined to leave, Norris turned to the unidentified men and said, 'Guys, get her.' On video, Borrenpohl can be seen repeatedly asking the men to identify themselves. They did not. She asked Norris if the men were his deputies, and he gave no answer.... [Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee] White said it's not appropriate for law enforcement to forcefully remove a person from a town hall for speaking out of turn or shouting.... Coeur d'Alene city code requires security agents to wear uniforms 'clearly marked' with the word 'security.'... The security personnel at Saturday's town hall were in plainclothes, with no visible sign they were security." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Republicans don't stop holding townhall meetings, we're going to keep reading stories like this. ~~~

~~~ Fer Instance. Pennsylvania. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch believes that Tesla owner Elon Musk's attempts to slash and burn the federal government have awakened voters who are now engaging in what he describes as an 'American uprising.' In his latest column, Bunch focuses on the protests that are targeting the showrooms at Tesla car dealerships to protest against Musk's illegal efforts to shut dow entire government departments without any congressional input or authorization.... Added to this are the town halls in which Republican lawmakers are facing increasingly hostile constituents, as well as 'large protests over the last week by laid-off federal workers, by LGBTQ activists in New York City furious over the scrubbing of transgender references from the Stonewall National Monument, and here in Philadelphia and elsewhere for last Monday's Not My President Day.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Germany. Christopher Schuetze & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Germany is getting a new chancellor. Its current leader is heading out of power, but his party probably will stick around in a diminished capacity. And the Trump administration's efforts to influence the vote don't seem to have done much.... By early Monday morning, the results [of Sunday's elections] seemed clear enough to indicate that the center-right Christian Democrats would be able to lead Germany with only one coalition partner, returning the country to the more durable two-party form of government that has led it for most of this century. Here are five takeaways from the returns." ~~~

~~~ Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Germans voted for a change of leadership on Sunday, handing the most votes in a parliamentary election to centrist conservatives, with the far right in second, and rebuking the nation's left-leaning government for its handling of the economy and immigration. The results almost certainly mean the country's next chancellor will be Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democrats. Returns posted early Monday morning indicated that he had a path to governing Germany with only one coalition partner, the relatively stable scenario that his party had hoped for." ~~~

~~~ Deutsche Welle's main story is here. DW has a bunch of election graphics here. ~~~

⭐~~~ Tschüss. Tim Ross & Nette Nöstlinger of Politico: ";The Trump administration does not care about Europe and is aligning with Russia, said [Friedrich] Merz, who is on course to become Germany's new leader. The continent, he warned, must urgently strengthen its defenses and potentially even find a replacement for NATO -- within months. Merz's comments mark a historic watershed: They reveal how deeply Trump has shaken the political foundations of Europe, which has depended on American security guarantees since 1945.... 'My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,' Germany's chancellor-in-waiting said. "... after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.'... Merz, a staunch Atlanticist[,] has spent much of his professional career as a lawyer working with and for American firms...."

Ukraine, et al. Justin Spike of the AP: "More than a dozen Western leaders attended events in Ukraine on Monday marking the third anniversary of the country's war with Russia, many pledging more military aid in a conspicuous show of support for Kyiv as uncertainty deepened over the commitment of ... Donald Trump's administration to helping it fend off Russia's invasion.... Some of Ukraine's most important backers, including European leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were among the stream of dignitaries arriving by train in Kyiv. Others spoke at a conference via video link.... World security is at stake in talks over how the war ends, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned." ~~~

~~~ David Latona of Reuters, via AOL: "Spain will provide Ukraine with a new military aid package worth 1 billion euros ($1.05 billion) this year, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday in Kyiv during an international meeting held on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion. The package comes as part of a 10-year bilateral security and defence agreement signed in May 2024, according to a statement by Sanchez's office. Last year, Madrid already sent over 1 billion euros in aid for Ukraine's defence." ~~~

~~~ Constant Méheut & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back on Sunday against demands from the Trump administration for billions in Ukrainian natural resources and for holding peace talks that exclude Ukraine, while announcing plans for a major summit of European leaders on Monday. The Ukrainian leader's efforts to shore up European support while pressing ahead on negotiations with the United States came despite ominous messages from ... [Donald] Trump in recent days belittling Mr. Zelensky and issuing threats if Ukraine does not soon agree to a minerals deal. Mr. Zelensky suggested that in assailing Ukraine, Mr. Trump had chosen the wrong adversary.... 'If peace for Ukraine requires me to step down, I'm ready,' Mr. Zelensky said on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. 'Another scenario: I could trade my position for NATO membership, if that's what it takes,' he added.... [Mr. Zelensky] said that more than 30 countries would participate in meetings on Monday, either in person in Kyiv or virtually, as a kind of coalition of support for Ukraine's war effort.... On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to sign the minerals deal, which has now been under negotiation for more than 10 days." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I was glad to hear a few Democrats on the teevee Sunday expressing horror at Trump's attempts to extort an ally.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leaped onto President John F. Kennedy's limousine as it came under fire in Dallas and prevented a scrambling Jacqueline Kennedy from falling to the ground, died on Friday at his home in Belvedere, Calif. Mr. Hill, hailed for his bravery but long tormented by his inability to save the president's life, was 93."

New York Times: "Roberta Flack, the magnetic singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz and folk made her one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 88."

New York Times: "Pope Francis is suffering from 'initial, mild kidney failure' in addition to the serious respiratory illness that has left the 88-year-old pontiff in critical condition in a Rome hospital, the Vatican said on Sunday. Describing a 'complex' clinical picture, the Vatican said that the kidney ailment was 'at present under control,' and that there had been no repeat of the respiratory crisis that the pope had experienced on Saturday. The pope was 'alert and well oriented,' the Vatican said, and he attended Mass in his suite along with the medical staff caring for him."

The Conversation -- February 23, 2025

Constant Méheut & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back on Sunday against demands from the Trump administration for billions in Ukrainian natural resources and for holding peace talks that exclude Ukraine, while announcing plans for a major summit of European leaders on Monday. The Ukrainian leader's efforts to shore up European support while pressing ahead on negotiations with the United States came despite ominous messages from ... [Donald] Trump ... belittling Mr. Zelensky and issuing threats if Ukraine does not soon agree to a minerals deal. Mr. Zelensky suggested that in assailing Ukraine, Mr. Trump had chosen the wrong adversary.... 'If peace for Ukraine requires me to step down, I'm ready,' Mr. Zelensky said on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion. 'Another scenario: I could trade my position for NATO membership, if that's what it takes,' he added.... The Ukrainian leader said that more than 30 countries would participate in meetings on Monday, either in person in Kyiv or virtually, as a kind of coalition of support for Ukraine's war effort.... On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to sign the minerals deal, which has now been under negotiation for more than 10 days." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I was glad to hear a few Democrats on the teevee Sunday expressing horror at Trump's attempts to extort an ally.

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Marie: Even when Musk came up with the Nazi-like name "Department of Government Efficiency," I didn't imagine anything as despotic as this ~~~

They're terrorizing us. -- National Institutes of Health Employee

It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life. -- Everett Kelley, President of the American Federation of Government Employees union

There is zero basis in the civil service system for this.... This is obviously designed to intimidate employees. Musk and DOGE and the Trump administration are persistently acting in a way that disregards civil service rules and they are just counting on the courts not being able to catch up and clean up after them.... They are counting on employees saying, "This is too much, I can't keep doing this." -- Sam Bagenstos, former general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget ~~~

~~~ Kate Conger, et al., of the New York Times: "Elon Musk deepened the confusion and alarm of workers across the federal government Saturday by ordering them to summarize their accomplishments for the week, warning that a failure to do so would be taken as a resignation. Shortly after Mr. Musk&'s demand, which he posted on X, civil servants across the government received an email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line, 'What did you do last week?'... Officials at some agencies, including the F.B.I. and the State Department, told their employees to pause responses to the email. Mr. Musk's mounting pressure on the federal work force came at the encouragement of ... [Donald] Trump, who has been trumpeting how the billionaire has upended the bureaucracy and on Saturday urged him to be even 'more aggressive.' [Agency leaders' responses varied.] 'DOGE and Elon are doing great work! Historic. We are happy to participate,' Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C..., wrote in a message to his staff.... [F.B.I. Director Kash Patel wrote, '... When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.'" Politico's horror story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Here was the sequence of communications:

(1) Elon is doing a great job, but I would like to see him be more aggressive. -- Donald Trump, post on his failing social media site

(2) All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week... Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. -- Elon Musk, post of his failing social media site

(3)What Did You Do Last Week? -- Office of Personnel Management, email to civil servants, subject line

     ~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM: "Over the course of the evening top leadership at the FBI, the State Department, the VA, the Department of the Navy (to its civilian employees) and other parts of the government have explicitly instructed employees in their departments and agencies to ignore the email. Meanwhile the DOJ seems to be instructing its employees to follow it. (And yes, FBI is sort of under DOJ and that's kind of weird but that's where we are.) It's important to note that these emails are authorized or allowed if not directed by the President of the United States. And yet whole wings of the government are saying to ignore it.... The elected President is in the backseat of this car if he's in the car at all. But here you have seemingly the first time where his own appointees are pushing back and in a fairly public way."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the first month since he returned to power, [Donald Trump] has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies to justify major policy decisions. Mr. Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies. But what were dubbed 'alternative facts' in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world.... The world according to Mr. Trump is one where he is a master of every challenge and any failure is someone else's fault." Baker cites example after example, ending with a recounting of how Michael Waltz, now Trump's national security advisor, flipflopped his assessment of the Russia/Ukraine war, so that "Mr. Waltz's actual reality gave way to Mr. Trump's alternative version." ~~~

~~~ Journalist Claire Berlinski on Substack: "Donald Trump lives in a world of delusions. The things he believes aren't true. Media accounts suggest that those around him treat him like a relative with dementia. They tell them whatever he likes to hear, so long as it keeps him happy and calm. They don't correct his misapprehensions. They strive, instead, to make the world conform to his fantasies.... [The extraordinary damage Trump and Musk are doing] is only possible because so many Americans, and in particular, so many members of Congress, have chosen either to enter their fantasy world or deny the evidence that these men are insane. We're witnessing a textbook case of folie à millions: an extreme collective delusion." Berlinski goes on to diagnose, a la Erich Fromm, a collective or group narcissism, which she says "typically takes the form of destructive nationalism.... You are watching a superpower commit suicide. Not since the Visigoths sacked Rome has a great empire suffered so much damage to its power and prestige in so short a time." A long Sunday read. Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~

~~~ Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, relying on a translation of a work by the ancient Roman historian Gaius Suetonius, compares Trump to Caligula. (Hey, if the sandal fits, strap it on.) "'Remember, I can do whatever I want to whomever I want.' It sounds like ... Trump, to the world. But it was Caligula, to his grandmother.... As Suetonius noted about Caligula, 'To the Senate he showed no more mercy or respect. He allowed some who had achieved the highest offices to run alongside his chariot in their togas for several miles or to stand, dressed in a linen cloth, at the head or the foot of his couch as he dined.' Sound familiar?" The translator, Joshua "Osgood writes of Caligula's 'propensity to give in to every whim and the relish he took in putting down others with cruel remarks.'"

"Coalition of the Crass." Ali Breland of the Atlantic: "Penis jokes are the kind of juvenile humor that Musk is known for.... His jokes, terrible as they are, are indicative of a new sensibility taking hold on the right -- one that Musk himself, in his rightward shift, has played a role in shaping. Trolling in its various forms (posting about balls, trying to offend, making political opponents squirm) has gone from an occasionally used tool to a unifying touchstone of an entire political faction.... [Trump's] victory has unleashed a coalition of the crass that encompasses a growing number of Americans who are excited to be able to call things 'retarded' and 'gay' again, joke about deporting people, and delight in the performance of saying things that are 'not PC.'... It is not enough to beat your adversaries. They must be humiliated." Thanks to laura h. for this gift link.

A Crude Collaborator Gets a Big Promotion. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Leaders of the Social Security Administration had just opened an investigation into a career employee they believed was improperly sharing information with Elon Musk's cost-cutting team when ... Donald Trump elevated the employee this week to acting commissioner, according to three current or former government officials with knowledge of the events. The agency's leadership team became aware in recent weeks that Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small anti-fraud office who had been unknown to many of them, was sharing unauthorized access to information with representatives of Musk's U.S. DOGE Service.... [Dudek's] actions raised enough alarm that he may have violated privacy and tax laws that senior officials placed him on paid leave as they launched their investigation. The officials ... also were notified late last week that Dudek had sent harassing emails to employees in the agency's personnel and security divisions to rush them to let several engineers hired by DOGE start work and gain access to agency computer systems. The officials pushed back, saying that they had not completed background investigations into the new hires."

Katherine Faulders & Alexander Mallin of ABC News: "... Donald Trump is expected to name FBI Director Kash Patel as the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... The move comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi fired the ATF's general counsel, Pamela Hicks, late last week. Bondi said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that it was because the agency's lead lawyer was 'targeting gun owners.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait! Wait! If the task of going after violators of firearms laws is part of the name of your agency, wouldn't you kind of be required to "target gun owners"? What does Bondi think "firearms" are? Upper extremities aflame?

Bernard Condon of the AP: "Elon Musk's cost-cutting team is eliminating jobs at the vehicle safety agency that oversees Tesla and has launched investigations into deadly crashes involving his company's cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has cut a 'modest' amount of positions, according to a statement from the agency. Musk has accused NHTSA of holding back progress on self-driving technology with its investigations and recalls."

Edward Wong & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "Trump administration appointees running the main United States aid agency have in recent days fired hundreds of employees who help manage responses to urgent humanitarian crises around the world.... The firings add to doubts raised about whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio is allowing employees for the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., to carry out lifesaving humanitarian assistance, as he had promised to do late last month during a blanket freeze of almost all foreign aid from the U.S. government. Trump appointees have fired or put on paid leave thousands of employees of U.S.A.I.D. A task force of young engineers working for Elon Musk ... has shut down many technical systems in the aid agency and barred employees from their email accounts. Mr. Musk has posted dark conspiracy theories about U.S.A.I.D. on social media, asserting with no evidence that it is a 'criminal organization' and that it was 'time for it to die.'

"The latest round of dismissals occurred on Friday night, when hundreds of people working for the agency's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance got emails saying their jobs had been terminated. Two employees who got the emails said they were strange because they did not state any job titles specifically and did not have the recipients' names in the 'to' field. They were generic emails sent out in a large wave.... About 400 people were fired in recent days from humanitarian assistance positions, one U.S. official said. About 200 of those were contractors for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, the officials said, and another 200 were part of a unit called the Support Relief Group, a collection of crisis experts...."

It's what you do when you're planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down. -- Rosa Brooks, Georgetown Law ~~~

~~~ Gregg Jaffe of the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict. Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a 'warrior ethos' to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.... Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three -- Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds -- were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service. A senior military official ... added that the military lawyers had 'zero heads up' that they were being removed from office and that the top brass in the Army, Navy and Air Force were also caught unaware." In his book published last year, Hegseth called the JAGs (judge advocates general)"'"

We have some spy stories today. You would be wise to take them with the proverbial grains of salt. ~~~

"Krasnov." brianinca of Daily Kos: "So earlier today, the Daily Beast's Isabel van Brugen published a bombshell story about allegations by Kazakh Spy Chief Alnur Mussayev that the KGB had recruited Donald Trump as a Soviet Asset way back in 1987 under the code name 'Krasnov.'... Within hours, it was scrubbed from both the Daily Beast's site.... There is no retraction on the Daily Beast site, or even any acknowledgment that the story existed, and several republishers have pulled the story as well.... The speed at which this is being memory holed is rather breathtaking." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ In today's Comments, Akhilleus tells us why he is skeptical that Trump is Krasnov. He has a point. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: The Kyiv Post is going with the story. ~~~

     ~~~ Nafeez Ahmed & Zarina Zabrisky of Byline Times: "A former senior Soviet KGB spy chief has claimed that Donald Trump was recruited as a spy by Russian intelligence as early as 38 years ago by his department, and given the codename "Krasnov".... In an extraordinary post on Facebook on 20 February, Alnur Mussayev -- who used to run the successor to the Soviet-era KGB in Kazakhstan -- claimed that he was personally aware of Trump's recruitment by the agency in 1987. The recruitment, he said, was undertaken by his own KGB department. One of the key roles of that department was to acquire intelligence through business leaders in Western countries." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Journalist Jacob Silverman: "Among the cadre of DOGE engineers now rooting through the guts of the administrative state, few have attracted more curiosity than Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine, a 19-year-old coder who interned for three months for Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain implant company. Coristine has a brief but colorful history that includes being fired from Path Networks, a cybersecurity company, for giving company documents to a competitor. He apparently palled around with a criminal hacking group called The Com and, according to a Telegram account associated with him, had solicited hacking services online. In 2021, he founded a company called Tesla.Sexy LLC that, according to Wired, 'controls dozens of web domains, including at least two Russian-registered domains....'... Coristine has email addresses at USAID and the Department of Homeland Security and was recently seen inside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the State Department.... There's one aspect of Coristine's background that has escaped public notice: his grandfather, Valery Martynov, was a KGB spy who played an intriguing role in a sprawling 1980s espionage drama." Silverman describes the spy v. spy interactions. The Russians eventually lured Martynov, who had become a counterspy, back to Moscow & executed him.

Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "With ... Donald Trump and GOP leaders distracted by other issues, Congress is on the verge of bungling its way into a shutdown of federal agencies in less than three weeks.... The most pressing problem -- keeping the federal government open past the March 14 deadline -- has been virtually ignored by top leaders. And unlike the most recent shutdown deadlines, the politics of the moment are not aligned to bring the two parties together with an obvious last-minute deal that simply adds more money for each side's favored projects."

News of the Resistance

Maeve Reston, et al., of the Washington Post: "Amid a barrage of executive orders from ... [Donald] Trump and dramatic steps by billionaire Elon Musk to downsize the federal government, Democratic attorneys general have emerged as the new administration's most persistent -- and effective -- adversaries. While congressional Democrats who lack control of either chamber have struggled to respond to Trump's first weeks, state attorneys general have marched into court, pledging to rein in an administration intent on pushing the limits of presidential power.... In the past month alone, multistate coalitions have sued the Trump administration seven times.... The quick and coordinated pushback from Democratic attorneys general is the product of months of planning and regular consultations since Trump's inauguration, 10 of them said in interviews."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: Sen. Chris "Murphy, 51, [D-Conn.] ... has seemed to be everywhere, all at once, since Inauguration Day, staging a loud and constant resistance to Mr. Trump at a time when Democrats are struggling to figure out how to respond to him. In two-minute videos on social media, which he records from his office on Capitol Hill; an almost constant stream of posts on X; passionate floor speeches; and essays he writes on his Substack, Mr. Murphy is attempting to explain in digestible sound bites that what is happening in Washington is very simple: It's a billionaire takeover of American democracy." This is a gift link.

Bernie! Julia Conley of Common Dreams: "After addressing more than 3,400 Nebraska residents in Omaha Friday evening, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday made his second stop on his National Tour to Fight Oligarchy -- telling Iowa City, Iowa residents that 'Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the D.C. Beltway.... It will only be defeated by millions of Americans in Iowa, in Vermont, in Nebraska, in every state in this country, who come together in a strong grassroots movement and say no to oligarchy, no to authoritarianism, no to kleptocracy, no to massive cuts to programs that low-income and working Americans desperately need, no to huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country.'..."

SOS. Marie: The page is firewalled, so I can't get to it, but Gregory Thomas's lede in the San Francisco Chronicle is "A group of frustrated Yosemite National Park staffers hoping to draw attention to the federal government's sweeping workforce cuts hung an upside-down American flag Saturday thousands of feet off the ground on the side of El Capitan."

Perry Bacon of the Washington Post finds a college president willing to stand up for American values: "MichaelRoth, the president of Connecticut's Wesleyan University[,] wrote a piece in Slate that described some of the Trump administration's rhetoric as authoritarian. He consistently reposts articles criticizing Trump's decisions. He speaks and blogs firmly in defense of diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender rights and immigration.... In our conversation, Roth slammed prominent Republicans, specifically naming the president, vice president and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for using their Ivy League degrees to advance professionally but now portraying themselves as anti-elite populists."

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Texas/New Mexico. Isabella Kwai of the New York Times: "Outbreaks of measles in parts of Texas and New Mexico have sickened nearly 100 people, according to state health officials who warned that the number of cases was expected to rise.... The cases come amid growing concerns by public health experts about declining vaccination rates and the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, as the nation's health secretary.... In only five of the 90 [Texas] cases were patients vaccinated against measles.... Children must receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to attend public schools in Texas, though exemptions can be granted for 'reasons of conscience.' But Gaines County had one of the highest exemption rates in the state last year, with more than 13 percent of K-12 students exempted from receiving the vaccine, according to state data." MB Reminder: Kennedy is not a "vaccine skeptic"; he's an anti-vaxxer.

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Germany. Christopher Schuetze of the New York Times: "Germans are voting on Sunday in a rare snap election that has taken on outsize importance as the new Trump administration threatens European countries with tariffs, cuts them out of negotiations over Ukraine and embraces an authoritarian Russia. The election for Parliament was called after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unpopular and long-troubled three-party government collapsed in November. Seven months earlier than scheduled, the voting now falls in the midst of Europe's struggle for strong leadership and as it recalibrates its relationship with the United States."