The Conversation -- March 19, 2025
Ken Vogel & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: “Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.... Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of ... [Mr.] Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.... Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.... So far, the attacks have been diffuse and sometimes indiscriminate or inaccurate.... Inside the administration..., a small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them.... But using the levers of government to target the opposition has long been considered an abuse of power, sometimes leading to prosecution. Mr. Trump himself was impeached in 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens.”
Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “You can ask ... not whether an action is constitutional, but whether it sits opposed to constitutionalism itself. You can ask, in other words, whether it is anti-constitutional.... An anti-constitutional act is one that rejects the basic premises of constitutionalism. It rejects the premise that sovereignty lies with the people, that ours is a government of limited and enumerated powers and that the officers of that government are bound by law. The new president has, in just the first two months of his second term, performed a number of illegal and unconstitutional acts. But the defining attribute of his administration thus far is its anti-constitutional orientation.... To assert, against the plain text of the Constitution, the power to seize appropriations and destroy the work of the legislature is to break a core premise of constitutionalism. It is anti-constitutional.... According to the Justice Department, the president of the United States has an 'inherent' power to summarily deport any accused member of Tren de Aragua ... without so much as a hearing.... There is nothing in this vision of presidential power that limits it to foreign nationals. Who is to say, under the logic of the Department of Justice, that the president could not do the same to a citizen?” Thanks to RAS for the link. This is a gift link.
Mattathias Schwartz & Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s angry call on Tuesday for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against his administration on deportation flights has set off a string of near-instant social media taunts and threats, including images of judges being marched off in handcuffs.... At a moment when the judiciary is weighing pivotal decisions on the legality of Trump administration policies, the potential for violence against judges seems to be rising. 'I feel like people are playing Russian roulette with our lives,' said Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, whose 20-year-old son was shot and killed at her home in 2020 by a self-described 'anti-feminist' lawyer.... The threats and intimidation may have not become actual violence, but they appear to be mounting, as Mr. Trump, his advisers and his supporters are questioning almost daily the legitimacy of the American legal system.” ~~~
~~~ And look who dug into his ultra-deep pockets to encourage the harassment: ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: “Elon Musk has made the maximum allowable donation to Republican members of Congress who support impeaching federal judges who are impeding actions taken by ... [Donald] Trump.... Mr. Musk has given the maximum hard-dollar donations he could to the campaigns of seven Republicans who have either endorsed judicial impeachments or called for some form of 'action' in response to recent rulings against the Trump administration, including a weekend decision by Judge James E. Boasberg of Federal District Court in Washington. The combined federal limit for primary and general elections is $6,600.... Mr. Musk contributed on Wednesday to Representatives Eli Crane of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Brandon Gill of Texas. He also donated to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, according to two of the people briefed on the matter.”
From the "Journalism Matters" file: ~~~
~~~ Here was the Guardian story RAS linked this morning: “An article history detailing Jackie Robinson’s military career has seemingly been taken down on the Department of Defense’s website as a purge of articles considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) continues. Robinson, who Donald Trump last month described as helping 'drive our country forward to greatness', is widely considered a national hero in the US. He broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers; he went on to be elected to his sport’s Hall of Fame.... Robinson had a striking military career. After a successful battle to train as an officer, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943 and assigned to a tank regiment. However, in 1944 the driver of an army bus ordered Robinson to sit at the back, a directive Robinson refused. Robinson was court martialed and acquitted, then served as an athletics coach before being honorably discharged in November 1944.” ~~~
~~~ Oh! New Lede this afternoon: “An article detailing Jackie Robinson’s military career has been restored to the Department of Defense’s website amid a purge of material considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).... Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said that 'everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson'. He added that the defense department regularly checks for material than may have been removed in error.” MB: Uh-huh. Kinda like when Robinson was court-martialed, then acquitted.
Their Vindictive Stunts Are Almost Childish. Karoun Demirjian & Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “Pete Marocco, the State Department official who oversaw the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the main government agency distributing foreign aid, announced in an email on Tuesday night that he would be replaced at the agency by two officials who had been involved in making the cuts. Mr. Marocco said in the email that he would remain at the State Department as director of foreign aid, but that two other officials would handle what remains of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those officials are Jeremy Lewin, who has been working for the cost-cutting task force led by the billionaire Elon Musk, and Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official who was named the acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace this week.... On Tuesday, a federal judge found that the efforts to shutter U.S.A.I.D. were most likely unconstitutional.”
Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: “When he took the stage in downtown Eau Claire, Wis., on Tuesday night to rev up Democrats ahead of a critical State Supreme Court race, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said he didn’t think name-calling would help things. Then he called Elon Musk a 'dipshit' and, later, a 'South African nepo baby' with the power to cut government programs. The crowd roared. Mr. Walz, his party’s nominee for vice president last year, is one of several Democrats who have referred to Mr. Musk’s immigrant background as they ramp up attacks on the billionaire’s powerful role in the Trump administration. At times, their language, casting Mr. Musk as a foreign outsider, has echoed aspects of ... [Donald] Trump’s own xenophobic insults of his political foes — although Mr. Trump’s remarks were typically directed toward elected officials of color, not white billionaires.”
Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: “For Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, a Democrat who may just hold the key to his party winning back the House in 2026, the path to victory starts with understanding how Americans live their lives, down to the most personal details. 'A lot of communities divide the world between when you shower: before work or after work,' he told me.... Many who shower later — working-class folks living paycheck to paycheck — have tuned out Democrats, he said. 'They’re not listening to us because they don’t believe that we respect them and see them.'... 'We need to stop defending government and instead go back to our roots of government reform,' he told me.... From a different corner of the Democratic tent, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sees Mr. Crow’s blue-collar, heartland upbringing as a boon to growing the party.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I was surprised last week when Rachel Maddow let on she didn't know who Jason Crow was, as he's been on my radar since he served as an impeachment manager against Trump in 2019. A Crow/AOC ticket (in that order, I think) would be great. They're young, they're smart, they're attractive, they're personable, they're knowledgeable, they're brave.
Canada/E.U. Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: “Canada is in advanced talks with the European Union to join the bloc’s new project to expand its military industry, a move that would allow Canada to be part of building European fighter jets and other military equipment at its own industrial facilities. The budding defense cooperation between Canada and the European Union, which is racing to shore up its industry to lower reliance on the United States, would boost Canada’s military manufacturers and offer the country a new market at a time when its relationship with the United States has become frayed. Shaken by a crisis in the two nations’ longstanding alliance since ... [Donald] Trump’s election, Canada has started moving closer to Europe. The military industry collaboration with the European Union highlights how traditional U.S. allies are deepening their ties without U.S. participation to insulate themselves from Mr. Trump’s unpredictable moves.”
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The Trump/Musk administration had a very bad year in court yesterday: ~~~
~~~ See Akhilleus's comment, down the page, in yesterday's thread. ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to dissolve the orders he put in place this weekend barring it from deporting people suspected of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang from the country under a rarely invoked wartime statute called the Alien Enemies Act. The Justice Department also doubled down on its efforts to avoid giving the judge, James E. Boasberg, the detailed information he had requested about the deportations. It complied — but only in part — with his instructions to provide specific data about when two flights, with the people accused of being gang members, took off from the United States for El Salvador. Taken together, the twin moves — made in separate sets of court papers filed on Monday and Tuesday — marked a continuation of the Trump’s administration’s aggressive attempts to push back against Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, who temporarily halted one of ... [Donald] Trump’s signature deportation policies.
“The Justice Department has now effectively opened up two fronts in the battle: one challenging the underlying orders that paused, for now, the deportation flights altogether and another seeking to avoid disclosing any information about two flights this weekend that could indicate they took place after the judge’s orders stopping them were imposed.... Judge Boasberg on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to send him a sealed declaration by Wednesday at noon detailing the times the planes took off, left U.S. airspace and landed.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
In the fair administration of justice, no man can be judge in his own case, however exalted his station, however righteous his motives. -- Justice Potter Stewart, majority opinion, Walker v. City of Birmingham (1967)
If anyone is being detained or removed based on the administration’s assertion that it can do so without judicial review or due process, the president is asserting dictatorial power and ‘constitutional crisis’ doesn’t capture the gravity of the situation. -- Jamal Greene of Columbia Law
I think it’s more useful to say that this is moving us into a completely different kind of constitutional order, one that’s no longer characterized by laws that bind officials and that can be enforced. The law, in other words, becomes a tool to harm enemies, but not to bind those who govern.... ~~~ Aziz Huq of University of Chicago Law ~~~
~~~ Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, violating an instruction that could not have been plainer or more direct. Justice Department lawyers later justified the administration’s actions with contentions that many legal experts said bordered on frivolous. The line between arguments in support of a claimed right to disobey court orders and outright defiance has become gossamer thin, they said, again raising the question of whether the latest clash between ... [Donald] Trump and the judiciary amounts to a constitutional crisis. Legal scholars say that is no longer the right inquiry. Mr. Trump is already undercutting the separation of powers at the heart of the constitutional system, they say, and the right question now is how it will transform the nation.” ~~~
~~~ Joe Perticone of the Bulwark: "... Donald Trump took another step in an openly fascist direction over the weekend when he skirted a federal court order to cancel or turn back deportation flights carrying alleged gang members who had not received any due process to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned at a high-security facility designed to house terrorists.... Legal scholars were flabbergasted and the judge seemed unimpressed [by the administration's excuses]." ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: “The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been waging a multifront attack on the federal judge who is deciding whether the president may use a wartime statute to deport people suspected of belonging to a Venezuelan street gang. Lawyers for the Justice Department began the week by trying to kick the judge, James E. Boasberg, off the deportation case and then filed court papers declaring he had no authority to stop flights of immigrants from leaving the country under the law, known as the Alien Enemies Act. On Tuesday, Representative Brandon Gill, Republican of Texas, filed articles of impeachment against the judge, accusing him of having abused his power. That same day, Mr. Trump himself endorsed the idea of impeachment, calling Judge Boasberg, a centrist Democrat who lived with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh while they were at Yale Law School, a 'Radical Left Lunatic.'... The attacks have continued as Fox News hosts, Attorney General Pam Bondi and an angry chorus of Mr. Trump’s supporters online have gone after Judge Boasberg, calling him a hack, a rogue and a terrorist sympathizer, among other things.” An Axios report on Brandon Gill's impeachment articles is here. ~~~
~~~ Trump Can't Help Himself. From a Washington Post livebog: “... Donald Trump leveled a fresh attack early Wednesday on a federal judge who ordered the government not to use a controversial wartime authority to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. In a social media post, Trump called U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg 'a Radical Left Lunatic Judge' who 'wants to assume the role of President.' In a television interview that aired Tuesday night, Trump also criticized Boasberg and others who have ruled against the administration. He spoke hours after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued a rare public statement rejecting calls for Boasberg’s impeachment and asserting the independence of the judiciary. Trump’s comments are part of a pattern of casting doubts on the credibility of the courts.”
~~~ Marie: Say, you know who first appointed Boasberg, the “Radical Left Lunatic Judge,” to a federal bench? Why, the same guy who nominated Sam Alito to the Supreme Court: George W. Bush. ~~~
~~~ Jazmine Ulloa & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: “... beyond the Trump administration’s evident animus for the judge and the court, more basic questions remain unsettled and largely unanswered: Were the men who were expelled to El Salvador in fact all gang members, as the United States asserts, and how did the authorities make that determination about each of the roughly 200 people who were spirited out of the country even as a federal judge was weighing their fate? The Trump White House has said that most of the immigrants deported were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which, like many transnational criminal organizations, has a presence in the United States.... But officials have disclosed little about how the men were identified as gang members and what due process, if any, they were accorded before being placed on flights to El Salvador, where the authoritarian government, allied with Mr. Trump, has agreed to hold the prisoners in exchange for a multimillion-dollar payment.... Lawyers and legal experts said that even under wartime conditions, detainees are entitled to due process.... A growing chorus of families, elected officials and immigration lawyers have begun coming forward in the news media to reject or cast doubt on the allegations.” ~~~
~~~ Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: “Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public statement Tuesday pushing back after ... [Donald] Trump called to impeach a federal judge that ruled against his administration in a high-profile deportation case. 'For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,' Roberts said. The chief justice’s statement came hours after Trump called for impeaching U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an appointee of former President Obama who blocked the administration’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelan migrants. 'This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!' Trump wrote.” Update: The Washington Post's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Well, gosh, some might say that Trump himself is a VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINAL. And I'm sure I don't want him in our country. ~~~
~~~ Marianne LeVine & Adriana Usero of the Washington Post: “... the White House X account on Monday posted a video of migrants being handcuffed and sent away, to the soundtrack of the 1998 Semisonic hit 'Closing Time,' a song that’s often associated with the end of a party. 'You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here @CBP,” the White House posted, with musical note emojis.... The video was also posted on Team Trump’s TikTok and reposted by the official account for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with the caption: 'It’s closing time. We are making America safe again.'... But some immigration experts ... described the use of humor as dehumanizing by minimizing the impact and repercussions of the government’s aggressive actions. They added that images of migrants in shackles boarding deportation flights contribute to Trump’s broad portrayal of undocumented immigrants as criminals, even though there’s little evidence that they commit crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens.”
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: “... Japanese American community leaders say they fear Trump’s actions could lead to abuses similar to those that took place during one of the darkest chapters of the nation’s history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s use of the law, in the immediate aftermath of the Japanese military’s bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, led to the arrest of 31,000 Japanese, German and Italian nationals in the United States and Latin America. Many were later found to have been improperly arrested, jailed and, in some cases, repatriated.... Several months after invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of anyone deemed a threat from the West Coast to 'relocation centers' — paving the way for the U.S. government to incarcerate 120,000 people of Japanese descent, including more than 70,000 American citizens. Decades later, the United States would issue formal apologies and pay reparations to those who had been incarcerated under both the Alien Enemies Act and the executive order.... Descendants of Japanese detainees under the Alien Enemies Act described their relatives being taken away with no warning and little explanation, denied access to lawyers or contact with their families.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: As far as I can tell at this point, Trump already has abused the law, first by invoking a law during peacetme that is designated for use only against agents of wartime enemies, and second, by whisking away individuals to a third country with nary a whiff of due process.
Dave Philipps of the New York Times: “A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Tuesday from banning transgender people from serving in the military. In a forcefully written opinion that rebuked the president’s effort, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes issued an injunction that allows trans troops to keep serving in the military, under rules that were established by the Biden administration, until their lawsuit against the Trump administration’s ban is decided. 'The ban at bottom invokes derogatory language to target a vulnerable group in violation of the Fifth Amendment,' Judge Reyes wrote. The government had argued that courts must defer to military judgment, but in a 79-page opinion, the judge said the government had thrown together a ban based on next-to-no evidence and that 'the law does not demand that the Court rubber-stamp illogical judgments based on conjecture.'” Politico's story is here. Judge Reyes' opinion, via the courts, is here.
Zach Montague of the New York Times: “Efforts by Elon Musk and his team to permanently shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution 'in multiple ways' and robbed Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution of an agency it created, a federal judge found on Tuesday. The ruling, by Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, appeared to be the first time a judge has moved to rein in Mr. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency directly. It was based on the finding that Mr. Musk has acted as a U.S. officer without having been properly appointed to that role by ... [Donald] Trump. Judge Chuang wrote that a group of unnamed aid workers who had sued to stop the demolition of U.S.A.I.D. and its programs was likely to succeed in the lawsuit. He agreed with the workers’ contention that Mr. Musk’s rapid assertion of power over executive agencies was likely in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause. The judge also ordered that agency operations be partially restored, though that reprieve is likely to be temporary. He ordered Mr. Musk’s team to reinstate email access to all U.S.A.I.D. employees, including those on paid leave. He also ordered the team to submit a plan for employees to reoccupy a federal office from which they were evicted last month, and he barred Mr. Musk’s team from engaging in any further work 'related to the shutdown of U.S.A.I.D.'” The AP story is here.
Zack Colman of Politico: “A federal judge temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to recoup $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants — dealing the latest judicial setback for ... Donald Trump’s attempt to assert unilateral control over spending. Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan prevents EPA from reclaiming money it had deposited at Citibank for the groups Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities. But the decision did not revive those groups’ ability to draw from the funds, postponing that decision until after further court proceedings. The EPA 'gave no legal justification for the termination' of the contracts, wrote Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, saying the administration had only 'vaguely' outlined its allegations that the grant program was marked by waste and potential conflicts of interest. The fight over the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund has become a major front in Trump’s battle to claw back hundreds of billions of dollars in former President Joe Biden’s climate and clean-energy agenda — with the administration seeking to override the spending decisions of past Congress that Trump disagrees with, despite decades of accepted legal tradition suggesting that this would violate the Constitution.”
David Folkenflik of NPR: "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty sued the Trump administration on Tuesday to try to block it from terminating all federal funds for the U.S.-backed broadcaster. In a federal lawsuit, the network argues that the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has violated the Constitution and federal laws by withholding money Congress expressly allocated for the broadcaster. USAGM disburses funds to U.S.-backed international networks, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, that serve foreign lands without a free or robust press.... The lawsuit names USAGM and two officials, Senior Adviser Kari Lake and Acting Chief Executive Victor Morales." Related Reuters story linked below.
Julian Mark, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the only two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, handing the remaining Republican commissioners exclusive control over the agency that oversees antitrust and consumer protection laws and serves as the U.S. government’s primary regulator of the tech industry. Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter announced their dismissals on the social media site X on Tuesday evening, with both calling their firings illegal. 'The law protects the independence of the Commission because the law serves the American people, not corporate power,' Slaughter wrote in a statement posted to X. Bedoya indicated that he intends to sue over his firing, writing, 'I’ll see the president in court.'... Tuesday’s dismissals are the latest instance of Trump removing Democratic members of independent agencies without cause, an approach likely to be the subject of Supreme Court review as multiple cases move through the court system. The firings also cast uncertainty over the future of the agency’s ongoing cases against tech giants, including a landmark antitrust case against Amazon and a probe into Microsoft’s deals with OpenAI.” Politico's opinion is here. ~~~
~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "... the law is not at all ambiguous. The controlling precedent is a 9-0 opinion whose literal holding is that the president cannot fire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission without cause. I would say that John Roberts’s concern must be reaching Susan Collins levels if he probably wasn’t licking his chops at the opportunity to use Trump’s lawlessness as a vehicle to say it doesn’t apply (presumably through an Alito opinion holding that being nominated by a Democratic president is always sufficient cause.)"
Courtney Kube & Gordon Lubold of NBC News: "For nearly 75 years, it has been a distinctly American responsibility to have a four-star U.S. general oversee all NATO military operations in Europe — a command that began with then-World War II hero and future president Dwight D. Eisenhower. But the Trump administration, according to two defense officials familiar with the planning and a Pentagon briefing reviewed by NBC News, is ... undertaking a significant restructuring of the U.S. military’s combatant commands and headquarters. And one of the plans under consideration ... would involve the U.S. giving up the role of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe.... The general now in this role, who also serves as the head of U.S. European Command, has been the primary commander overseeing support to Ukraine in its war against Russia."
Michael Martina & Shoon Naing of Reuters: "U.S. lawmakers and rights advocates say the Trump administration's drive to dismantle U.S. government-funded news outlets, including Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, is a major blow to Washington's hard-earned soft power globally at a time when Beijing is rushing to expand its sphere of influence.... Trump ordered the gutting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent agency, forcing a termination of grants to outlets under it. They include Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts across Eastern Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, as well as Radio Free Asia, whose coverage extends across Asia, including China and North Korea.... Trump's domestic critics call it a strategic blunder in U.S. competition with China, which has poured billions of dollars into pushing Beijing's narrative around the globe. 'The only people cheering for this are adversaries and authoritarians around the world, certainly in places like China and North Korea, where press freedoms are nonexistent,' Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Democratic ranking member of the U.S. House of Representative's select committee on China, told Reuters. The move also drew criticism from the Republican chair of the House Select Committee on East Asia and Pacific, Young Kim, while Michael McCaul, the Republican former chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, praised the RFA for transparent reporting and countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda."
Ian Shapira, et al., of the Washington Post: “The perpetual hunt for clues about ... the shooting of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas — took a turn Tuesday night with the release of more than 31,000 pages from the National Archives. The dissemination of the records, ordered by ... Donald Trump, is the latest in a string of disclosures since the 1990s that have tweaked how the nation and its historians view Kennedy’s killing. The vast majority of the National Archives’ 6 million pages of records related to the murder has already been declassified, according to the agency’s website. The newest batch of records can be found on the agency’s webpage under the headline, 'JFK Assassination Records - 2025 Documents Release.' The page features a table listing more than 1,100 entries of hyperlinked PDF files. A Post analysis shows that, based on their document identification numbers, none of the files released Tuesday are new. But many of the redactions have been unmasked. Most of the National Archives’ online records related to the assassination are available on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, named after a deceased Dallas legal secretary who became one of the earliest researchers into the assassination.”
Eric Berger of Ars Technica: "For those of us who have closely followed the story of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams over the last nine months..., the final weeks before the landing have seen it take a disturbing turn. In February..., [Donald] Trump and the chief executive of SpaceX, Elon Musk, began to say that the two astronauts were 'stranded' in space because the Biden administration did not want to bring them home. 'They got left in space,' Trump said. 'They were left up there for political reasons,' Musk concluded. Just what those political reasons were was never specified.... The reality is that NASA set a plan for the return of Wilmore and Williams last August.... NASA — not the Biden administration... -- decided the best and safest option was to keep Wilmore and Williams in orbit until early this year. Musk knew this plan. He had to sign off on it. And still, the lies came.... One of the common refrains about spaceflight for decades and decades is that it is nonpartisan." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It has not been clear to me whether Musk was (a) just an ignorant bro making up stuff because he didn't really understand the negative, often terrible, effects of his chainsaw government massacre plan, or (b) lying about it all. Given his remarks re: the astronauts and his specific knowledge of their situation, I believe I'll assume he's lying.
This Looks Ominous. Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: “On Monday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency overhauled the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two national mortgage behemoths that are expected to exit government control during ... Donald Trump’s second term. The sudden shake-up installed FHFA Director Bill Pulte as chairman of the two companies and fired the majority of their existing board members, shrinking both boards in the process. Pulte also added new board members, including Christopher Stanley, a SpaceX engineer who’s also part of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service effort to cut spending. The moves didn’t usher in rapid changes, and the companies were already under government control since the housing meltdown of 2008. But the shift did mark a notable kickoff in the highly anticipated showdown over Fannie and Freddie’s fates. Stanley’s new role also inserts DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, within the mortgage industry’s top tier, where housing experts say he could push to access personal information about borrowers and others. The stakes are high because the multibillion-dollar firms are essential to the funding of 30-year mortgages and together guarantee about half of existing home loans.”
Karen DeYoung & Derek Hawkins of the Washington Post: “DOGE ... on Monday took over the U.S. Institute of Peace after threatening its officials with criminal prosecution. Its president was removed from its headquarters with the assistance of the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the FBI and D.C. police. In seizing control of the 40-year-old Washington institution, founded and funded directly by Congress and employing about 600 people here and overseas, DOGE emptied the building and installed DOGE agent Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president. Jackson is also titled as a board member of several other far smaller agencies similarly emptied, and he was nominated by Trump as a senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Amid the many sagas of DOGE activities over the past two months, the USIP story marks the most aggressive.”
Lisa Rein & Justine McDaniel of the Washington Post: “The Social Security Administration on Tuesday announced new measures that will require millions of Americans who file for benefits by phone to verify their identity using an online system or provide documentation in person at a field office. The change is expected to disrupt agency operations just as the Trump administration, driven by billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, is racing to downsize Social Security — cutting 7,000 jobs, consolidating programs, and closing dozens of regional and local offices. Because millions of elderly and disabled customers the agency serves lack computers to authenticate their identity — and have limited mobility to access in-person help — the change will create hardships, a top agency official acknowledged last week in an internal memorandum. Acting commissioner Leland Dudek, in a call with reporters Tuesday as the changes were announced, said the tighter requirements to 'identity-proof' telephone claimants are essential to fighting fraud.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yeah, well, anything to make life harder for us moochers. (Oh, wait. We paid for Social Security all of our working lives. So anything to make life harder for us suckers.)
Andy Kroll of ProPublica: “On Feb. 20, nearly 7,000 probationary employees at the Internal Revenue Service began receiving an unsigned letter telling them that they had been fired for poor performance. Trump administration lawyers insist that the IRS and other federal agencies have acted within their authority when they ordered waves of mass terminations since Trump took office. But according to previously unreported emails..., a top lawyer at the IRS warned administration officials that the performance-related language in his agency’s termination letter was 'a false statement' that amounted to 'fraud' if the agency kept the language in the letter.... Joseph Rillotta, a senior IRS lawyer, wrote that 'no one' at the IRS had taken into account the performance of the probationary workers set to be fired.... If the falsehood wasn’t removed, Rillotta said he would file a report with the inspector general for the IRS.... The emails reveal that in the hours before the IRS sent out its Feb. 20 termination letter, a fierce dispute played out at the agency’s highest levels.... The IRS sent out the Feb. 20 termination notice with the disputed language in it.... In fact, many of the [fired] employees had received laudatory reviews with no hint of any concerns.”
Ana Swanson of the New York Times: “The Trump administration plans to confront countries around the world with a reciprocal tariff 'number' on April 2, a figure that will reflect what the White House considers the cost of foreign trade barriers, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday. Mr. Bessent said the administration would then carry out negotiations with those countries with the aim of lowering those barriers or putting the reciprocal tariff into place. 'What’s going to happen on April 2 — each country will receive a number that we believe that represents their tariffs,' Mr. Bessent said in an interview on Fox Business on Tuesday morning.... He and his advisers have said that his so-called reciprocal tariffs will aim to match the tariffs that other countries charge on American exports, while also taking into account other practices the United States deems unfair, like taxes or currency manipulation.” MB: IOW, they're treating these tariff considerations like a game: “Come on down, Brazil! We've got your number!”
My, What a Busy, Busy Lady. Kyle Cheney & Megan Messerly of Politico: “The person the White House identified last month as the leader of DOGE — despite public evidence that Elon Musk is calling the shots — has been working simultaneously at the Department of Health and Human Services since February. The Trump administration acknowledged Amy Gleason’s dual role in a court filing the Justice Department initially attempted to submit under seal, until a judge ordered its public release this week. The filing shows that Gleason, despite claiming responsibility as DOGE’s leader, was detailed to HHS last month and formally hired by the department as a 'consultant/expert' on March 4, while retaining her status as a DOGE employee as well.... Gleason and the Trump administration did not disclose her split role despite numerous questions from federal judges fielding dozens of lawsuits against DOGE related to its chain of command and whether Musk was exerting an unconstitutional level of authority over the operation.... Tuesday’s public acknowledgment adds to a tangle of conflicting statements from the Trump administration about who is really running DOGE and whether Gleason herself is more of a figurehead for Musk, who ... Donald Trump has repeatedly described as DOGE’s leader.”
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, has an unorthodox idea for tackling the bird flu bedeviling U.S. poultry farms. Let the virus rip. Instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers 'should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,' Mr. Kennedy said recently on Fox News. He has repeated the idea in other interviews on the channel. Mr. Kennedy does not have jurisdiction over farms. But Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, also has voiced support for the notion.... Yet veterinary scientists said letting the virus sweep through poultry flocks unchecked would be inhumane and dangerous, and have enormous economic consequences.... If H5N1 were to be allowed to run through a flock of five million birds, “that’s literally five million chances for that virus to replicate or to mutate,” Dr. [Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas,] said. Large numbers of infected birds are likely to transmit massive amounts of the virus, putting farm workers and other animals at great risk.”
Constituents Go After Trump's Enablers. Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post: “Around the country, a beleaguered Democratic resistance was stirring to life. Voters outraged at ... Donald Trump and his empowerment of billionaire Elon Musk were holding protests and venting at their Republican representatives in Congress — packing into public listening sessions even in solidly red districts and causing such a stir that GOP leaders this month urged tele-town halls instead. Angry constituents and liberal groups such as Indivisible — founded after Trump’s first election in 2016 — have only been emboldened, seeing an opening for new activism and attacks that Republicans are “hiding.” With House members back home in their districts this week, Democrats have organized their own town halls across the country while taunting top GOP targets.” ~~~
~~~ The Piedmont Raging Grannies are looking for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tilllis, who never holds or shows up for town hall meetings (via Rachel Maddow, last night): ~~~
Chuck's Rose-Colored Glasses. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: “Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, insisted Republicans would move on from Donald Trump and go back to a past version of the party even as Trump’s return to power loomed last year, according to the authors of a new book on politics during the Biden administration. The revelation comes ... amid serious Democratic backlash against Schumer for failing to provide stiff enough resistance to Trump’s actions. Schumer told Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater: 'Here’s my hope … after this election, when the Republican party expels the turd of Donald Trump, it will go back to being the old Republican party.'” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Chuck still doesn't see any urgency to the present situation. He told Chris Hayes of MSNBC last night that the country was not yet in a Constitutional crisis. The Trump/Musk administration is usurping the powers of the other two branches of government, is openly defying the courts and defiling judges, and it is ignoring and/or defying relatively straightforward laws. That's a Constitutional crisis, Chuck.
Delger Erdenesanaa of the New York Times: “With the addition of 2024, yet another record-hot year, the past 10 years have been the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping, the World Meteorological Organization reports.... It marks the first time since record keeping began that all of the 10 hottest years have fallen within the most recent decade. 2024 was the single warmest year on record, surpassing even 2023’s wide lead over other recent years. The planet’s surface was approximately 1.55 degrees Celsius warmer than its average during a reference period that approximates the preindustrial era, from 1850-1900.”
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Minnesota. Cole Premo of CBS News: "Police in the Twin Cities say a Minnesota Republican state senator has been arrested for allegedly trying to solicit sex from a minor. According to Bloomington police, detectives communicated with the man, identified as 40-year-old Justin Eichorn of Grand Rapids, who thought he was talking with a 16-year-old girl. Eichorn was most recently one of the authors of a bill by Minnesota Senate Republicans to define 'Trump derangement syndrome' as a mental illness. The detective arranged to meet Eichorn Monday on the 8300 block of Normandale Avenue, police say, and Eichorn later arrived in a pickup truck. He was then arrested without incident. Eichorn was booked into jail Tuesday night and is being held without bail. Felony charges of soliciting a person under 18 years old to practice prostitution are pending from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office." Minnesota Senate Republicans and House Republican Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, called for Eichorn's resignation. Thanks to RAS for the link.
Ohio. Anumita Kaur of the Washington Post: “A state appeals court overturned Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, preserving access to such treatments in Ohio and the latest development in a year-long battle over the law. A three-judge panel on the 10th District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the ban is 'unconstitutional on its face' and imposed a permanent injunction on the statute — which means families of transgender children will be able to access gender-affirming medical treatments, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, within the state.”
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Turkey. Ben Hubbard & Safak Timur of the New York Times: “The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, one of Turkey’s most prominent opposition politicians, was arrested on Wednesday morning on charges related to corruption and terrorism, the city’s prosecutor’s office said.... Mr. Imamoglu has been seen as a likely contender in the next presidential election, scheduled for 2028, although early elections are likely. Mr. Imamoglu and other opposition figures have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government of seeking to exclude him from politics so that he cannot run in the election, possibly against Mr. Erdogan.... Critics have long accused Mr. Erdogan, Turkey’s predominant politician for more than two decades and its president since 2014, of using state institutions, including the courts and the security services, to undermine his political rivals.”
Ukraine/Russia, et al. Putin Rolls Trump. David Sanger & Paul Sonne of the New York Times: “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia agreed for the first time on Tuesday to a limited cease-fire that would stop strikes on energy infrastructure, as long as Ukraine does the same, the Kremlin said in a statement. But in a two-and-a-half-hour phone call with ... [Donald] Trump, the Russian leader declined for now to agree to a broader 30-day halt in fighting that U.S. and Ukrainian officials had proposed, meaning that the attacks on Ukrainian civilians, cities and ports will continue as the two sides vie for territory and an upper hand in negotiations.... Privately, some administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Putin appeared to be stalling, agreeing to just enough to appear to be engaged in peace talks, while pressing his advantage on the battlefield. A cease-fire for energy targets would ... come as a relief to the Kremlin: Ukraine has conducted extensive strikes on oil and gas facilities deep into the Russian heartland, jeopardizing Moscow’s most crucial stream of state revenue.... The result of the call seemed to fall well short of what Mr. Trump had been hoping for....” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So the only "concession" the fake author of "The Art of the Deal" got out of Putin improves Russia's position against Ukraine. See also Patrick's & Akhilleus's comments in yesterday's thread. ~~~
~~~ Edward Wong & Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The State Department has ended funding for the tracking of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and American officials or contractors might have deleted a database with information on them, according to a letter that U.S. lawmakers plan to send to Secretary of State Rubio on Wednesday. The work on the abducted children by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab was frozen when ... [Donald] Trump signed an executive order in late January halting almost all foreign aid spending. Since then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an official under him, Pete Marocco, have ended the vast majority of foreign aid contracts, including the one to the Yale lab.... The congressional letter, organized by Representative Greg Landsman, Democrat of Ohio, said 'the foreign aid freeze has jeopardized, and may ultimately eliminate, our informational support of Ukraine on this front.'... 'We have reason to believe that the data from the repository has been permanently deleted,' [the letter] said. 'If true, this would have devastating consequences. Can you please update us as to the status of the data from the evidence repository?' A person familiar with the work of the Yale Center said the details in the letter were accurate.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: So it appears that on top of everything else, Elon threw data on thousands of abducted children "into the woodchipper." And he thinks that's funny.
News Lede
AP: “Stuck in space no more, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday, hitching a different ride home to close out a saga that began with a bungled test flight more than nine months ago. Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico in the early evening, just hours after departing the International Space Station. Splashdown occurred off the coast of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle, bringing their unplanned odyssey to an end.”
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