The Conversation -- March 13, 2025
Joe Rao of Space.com: "Most of the U.S. should be able to see the total lunar eclipse tonight, but clouds will be problematic for many."
Marie: I'll do a bit more later this morning. There's a video update below; it's just a commercial, but such a classy one. Oh, and here comes the "bit more":
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Lisa Han & Pia Singh of CNBC: "Stocks fell on Thursday, with equities unable to shake a three-week market rout under the weight of new tariff threats from ... Donald Trump. The S&P 500 dropped 1.39% to settle at 5,521.52. The index ended the day in correction, 10.1% off its record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 537.36 points, or 1.3%, marking its fourth day of declines and closing at 40,813.57. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.96% with shares like Tesla and Apple lower."
From the “I Just Knew It!” File. Alexander Bolton of the Hill: “Senate Democrats say privately that they will not allow the government to shut down Saturday, despite growing pressure from activists and liberal lawmakers who want them to kill a GOP-crafted six-month stopgap spending bill. Senate Democratic sources say Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is giving plenty of room to centrists in his caucus to vote for the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) if doing so is the only way to avoid a government shutdown at week’s end.”
⭐Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid ... Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a 'sham' strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to 'immediately' offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an 'unlawful' decision to terminate them. The order is one of the most far-reaching rejections of the Trump administration’s effort to slash the bureaucracy and is almost certain to be appealed. Alsup also lashed out at the Justice Department over its handling of the case, saying he believes that Trump administration lawyers were hiding the facts about who directed the mass firings. 'You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth,' the judge said to a DOJ attorney during a hearing Thursday.” The Washington Post's report is here.
Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “Lawyers for ... [Donald] Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to lift a nationwide pause imposed on the president’s order ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. The move represents the first time the legal wrangling over the president’s order to end birthright citizenship has reached the Supreme Court. If the Trump administration succeeds, the policy could go into effect in some parts of the country.”
Jeff Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration on Thursday removed the Internal Revenue Service’s top lawyer and rolled out plans to downsize nearly 20 percent of the agency’s staff as billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service seeks access to sensitive taxpayer records, according to five people.... William Paul, a career official named to the position in January, will be replaced by Andrew De Mello, who was nominated to be the Education Department’s inspector general during Trump’s first term, three of the people said.... Also, DOGE officials instructed the acting IRS commissioner to eliminate 18,141 jobs across the agency by May 15, according to records obtained by The Washington Post. The tax compliance department would have the largest job cuts (8,260) followed by taxpayer services (3,247) and information technology, the records show. Those moves are only an initial phase of job cuts.”
Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump’s 25% tariffs on all aluminum and steel imported into the U.S. went into effect today, prompting retaliatory tariffs from the European Union and Canada. The E.U. announced tariffs on about $28 billion worth of products, including beef and whiskey, mostly produced by Republican-dominated states.... In 2025 the Republicans in charge of the United States of America are not the conservatives they call themselves.... They are abruptly dismantling a government that has kept the United States relatively prosperous, secure, and healthy for the past 80 years. In its place, they are trying to impose a government based in the idea that a few men should rule. The Trump administration’s ... swing away from Europe and toward Russia, antagonizing allies and partners while fawning over authoritarians like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is also a radical stand.... The wholesale destruction of the U.S.A.’s advanced medical research, especially cancer research ... is also radical.... In place of the system that has created relative stability for almost a century, Republicans under ... Donald Trump and his sidekick billionaire Elon Musk are imposing a government that is based in the idea that a government that works to make people safe, prosperous, and healthy is simply ripping off wealthy people.”
~~~ Leading to Another Tariff TrumperTantrum. Jaclyn Diaz of NPR: "In an escalation of the ongoing trade war with Europe..., [Donald] Trump is now threatening a 200% tariff on European alcohol in response to the European Union's retaliation against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs.... Posting on his Truth Social account, Trump called the EU 'the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World.'" ~~~
~~~ Here's the E.U. being hostile and abusive (via Heather Richardson): We deeply regret this measure [to impose tariffs on the U.S]. Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers. These tariffs are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy. -- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
My, My. And Bye-Bye. Apoorva Mandavilli & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “The White House has withdrawn the nomination of its pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Dave Weldon, a Republican former congressman who was to have appeared at a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday morning. Reached by phone, Dr. Weldon, who learned of the decision last night, said he had been told by a White House official that 'they didn’t have the votes to confirm' his nomination.... [HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.,] has cited Dr. Weldon’s criticisms of the C.D.C. along with his own. Mr. Kennedy is 'very upset' at the decision to withdraw Dr. Weldon for consideration as C.D.C. director, Dr. Weldon said. 'I’m going to get on an airplane at 11 o’clock and I’m going to go home and I’m going to see patients on Monday,' he said. 'I’ll make much more money staying in my medical practice.'” MB: Or not. If your pals Trump, Musk and the GOP Congress succeed in kneecapping Medicare & Medicaid. Politico's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe it's just a coincidental, but the only two horrible Trump nominees who haven't been able to garner enough Senate confirmation votes were past members of the House of Representatives. Could that be because senators believe Trump's nominees unless they've seen with their own eyes what doofuses the nominees are? Or because they have such a low opinion in general of the members of the House that former members are at a disadvantage?
Marie: It's been obvious from the git-go that Trump intended to fire some fairly-high-level civil servants and replace them with his own "loyal" patronage flunkies. Then it turned out that he and Musk were indiscriminately firing thousands of civil servants who held jobs at every level of responsibility, most of whom had no political influence whatsoever. (The woman who launches weather balloons in Maine? You think she's turning the country into a cesspool of woke lunatics?) It is also obvious that Trump & Musk don't care anything about waste, fraud and abuse because they have been wasting money on stupid things -- like sending people back and forth to Guantanamo in military planes, like cutting the hell out of the IRS, the feds' main revenue-producing agency; they have been making fraudulent claims about the systems they are gutting -- 250-year-olds receiving Social Security checks; and they have been abusing their authority -- what "authority" does Musk have anyway? So it occurred to me that many of the people Trump/Musk instantly, carelessly, foolishly fired would be replaced with Friends of Trump. What I didn't know was that this was already happening. ~~~
~~~ Don Moynihan on Substack: "Republicans in Congress ... are being told that appropriations will be selectively ignored, and they will be protected. DOGE is accepting requests from Republican officials to reverse cuts in their jurisdictions. It is a form of spoils system in reverse: your pet projects will be spared from elimination. [But, as CNN has reported,] '... Even in cases where they are advocating for the same thing, Republicans are able to leverage entry points into Trump administration in ways that Democrats simply can’t, leaving them in the dark on many of the recent reversals the administration has agreed to....'... Senator Chris Murphy [D-Conn.] said: '... The whole point of the spending freeze is to force every entity that receives federal funding to pledge their political loyalty to Donald Trump in order to get money. It’s a fundamental corruption from beginning to end.'... In short: Trump and Musk are engaged in a broad-based downsizing of government, using that downsizing to selectively target their enemies, while expanding their political power by trading exceptions to the downsizing." Thanks to RAS for the link.
How Much Dough Would a Chump Upchuck if a Chump Would Purchase Trump? Apparently giving Trump a million dollars is not enough. Even featuring reruns of "The Apprentice" on your very popular app Amazon Prime isn't enough. ~~~
~~~ Annie Palmer of CNBC: “The Federal Trade Commission said it will meet the deadlines for its Amazon Prime deceptive practices case, hours after requesting a delay due to resource constraints. An attorney for the federal agency made the about face Wednesday afternoon, saying he 'was wrong.'... FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson ... told CNBC: ... 'I have made it clear since Day One that we will commit the resources necessary for this case.... The Trump-Vance FTC will never back down from taking on Big Tech.'... The FTC sued Amazon in June 2023, alleging that the online retailer was deceiving millions of customers into signing up for its Prime program and sabotaging their attempts to cancel it.” Thanks to RAS for the link.
Collin Binkley & Jocelyn Gecker of the AP: “An hours-long outage Wednesday on StudentAid.gov, the federal website for student loans and financial aid, underscored the risks in rapidly gutting the Department of Education, as ... Donald Trump aims to dismantle the agency. Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having trouble completing the form, which is required for financial aid at colleges nationwide.”
Joe Kukura of SF News: "The Highway Patrol’s investigation into a November Cybertruck crash in Piedmont where three college kids died is finding two very Tesla problems: the vehicle immediately caught fire, and its doors would not open. A November Tesla Cybertruck crash in Piedmont killed three college sophomores when the vehicle hit a cement wall and burst into flames, but another motorist was able to pull a fourth rider out of the car, and that rider survived. We later learned the other motorist was Piedmont High grad Matt Riordan, who’d been attending a party that night with the crash victims. And we also learned the three victims had alcohol and cocaine in their systems, while the 19-year-old Cybertruck driver who died also had meth in his system.... [But] the deaths appear to be more the result of the vehicle fire, as opposed to drugs, or injuries the victims sustained in the crash. And troublingly, that testimony also showed the Cybertruck’s doors could not be opened in the aftermath of the crash, preventing Riordan from pulling the other three victims from the flaming wreckage."
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Paul Krugman: "... The two most powerful men in America have gone stark raving mad.... News reports still tend to sanewash what our leaders have been saying, and even selected quotations often make them sound more rational than they are. Fortunately, both are addicted to posting on social media, and you really have to read some of their posts to get a full sense of the madness. [Krugman provides some examples, along with other evidence of the men's madness.]... Cowed Republicans and timid Democrats have effectively given Trump and Musk the freedom to become the worst versions of themselves. And the whole world will pay the price." Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I would not say "have gone" mad. I think they've both been crazy for some time. As much as we wish we would prevail in every argument and be admired by all for our brilliance and perfect rectitude -- it turns out that life surrounded by sycophants makes you crazy. These sycophants allow your misapprehensions to go unchecked, and you make more false assumptions based on the unchecked errors, and pretty soon a big percentage of what you believe is nuts and you're sure that everyone who doesn't "know" what you think you know is a lunatic who should be squashed like a poisonous bug. At least that appears to be what happened to Don & Elon.
David Fahrenthold & Jeremy Singer-Vine of the New York Times: “Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has repeatedly posted error-filled data that inflated its success at saving taxpayer money. But after a series of news reports called out those mistakes, the group changed its tactics. It began making its new mistakes harder to find, leaving its already secretive activities even less transparent than before. Mr. Musk’s group posted a new set of claims to its website on March 2, saying it had saved taxpayers $10 billion by terminating 3,489 federal grants. Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE ... had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work.... This time, it did not include those details. A White House official said that was done for security purposes. The result was that the group’s new claims appeared impossible to check. The New York Times, at first, found a way around the group’s obfuscation.... Mr. Musk’s group later removed [grant identification numbers] from the code, and posted more batches of claims that could not be verified at all. That shift was a major step back from one of Mr. Musk’s core promises about his group: that it would be 'maximally transparent.'” ~~~
~~~ This is one consequence of crazy. Evidently when a person has lived in an environment in which he is constantly told he can do no wrong, getting out of that comfort zone is truly painful. So an easy way to climb back in with your blankie is simply to boast about your accomplishments while hiding ways to check them and contradict them.
Buffoonery Break. In an egregious misuse of federal property, Trump appeared on the White House South Lawn to hawk Teslas. With Elon Musk in tow, Trump claimed he bought a bright red Tesla Model S and said his aide Margo Martin would be driving it. BUT. Emily Goodin of the Daily Mail: "The Tesla model S has 37 NHTSA safety recalls so far against it, Wired reported. Issues with the electric car include: airbags, potential problems with the power-steering assist feature, faulty door handles, warped brake discs, and, in 2023, a voluntary recall for every one of Tesla's vehicles using the Full Self-Driving feature. The cars affected had trouble stopping and were speeding." ~~~
~~~ Update. RAS found the ad that was cut from the White House Tesla Auto Mall show: ~~~
Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “The chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Shelly C. Lowe, left her position on Wednesday 'at the direction of President Trump,' the agency said. Dr. Lowe, a scholar of higher education and the first Native American to lead the agency, was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in October 2021 and confirmed by the Senate in February 2022. Michael McDonald, the agency’s general counsel, was named its acting chairman on Wednesday.” (Also linked yesterday.)
What's It All About, Elon? Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “A federal judge has ordered that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency turn over a wide array of records and answer questions about plans it crafted to downsize federal agencies, fire employees and suspend federal contracts. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order Wednesday is a win for a group of 14 Democratic state attorneys general who are suing ... Donald Trump, Musk and DOGE, arguing that Musk has unconstitutionally wielded immense power in ways that are damaging their states. Any information the states glean as a result of Chutkan’s decision will help her determine whether to block Musk and DOGE’s government activities altogether. It’s the first time a judge has ordered Musk to produce documents in a court challenge to his aggressive campaign to slash and reshape the federal bureaucracy. Chutkan indicated her order was primarily aimed at identifying the DOGE officials Musk has embedded across the government and details about the 'parameters of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority.'”
Elon Musk, as far as rational observers can tell, plans to blow up Social Security. Part of his methodology is to lie about it, identifying "flaws" which don't exist (see also Krugman, linked above). Another part of his scheme is to sabotage the system; that is, to create new, real flaws. Yesterday, journalists at the Washington Post squelched a big step in that second part of the strategy: ~~~
It would certainly appear that they’re trying to break the capacity of the agency to serve its customers.... And, I suppose, if they’re trying to dismember the agency, liquidate its assets, sell pieces of it to their billionaire friends to run, they have to discredit the agency in the eyes of its customers, and they do that by breaking its ability to serve. -- Martin O'Malley, Social Security Administrator during the Biden administration
His playbook has now become quite clear.... It is an extraordinary game he plays of wrecking institutions in order to dominate them. -- Paul Barrett of NYU's Stern Center for Business ~~~
~~~ Hannah Natanson, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Social Security Administration late Wednesday abandoned plans it was considering to end phone service for millions of Americans filing retirement and disability claims after The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team was weighing the change to root out alleged fraud. The shift would have directed elderly and disabled people to rely on the internet and in-person field offices to process their claims, curtailing a service that 73 million Americans have relied on for decades to access earned government benefits.... The changes — contemplated and [the relatively small one that was] enacted — threatened to disrupt Social Security’s internal operations and limit its ability to serve the public, current and former officials warned, just as DOGE is targeting the agency for across-the-board staff cuts of more than 12 percent.... The DOGE-driven proposal to shift all claims processing online and to in-person offices spurred pushback internally, employees said, and from outside experts for the same reasons: that it would be likely to imperil millions of Americans’ ability to receive their earned benefits....
“At a tense meeting Tuesday, DOGE staff members grilled career officials about phone fraud. But as employees suggested potential solutions, DOGE representatives 'weren’t interested in anything else but defending the decision that they had already made,' one of the people said.... Musk ... has a history of claiming fraud by his opponents, whether in the political or business realms.... Musk began blasting out claims of widespread fraud at Social Security in mid-February.... While Musk was publicly complaining, the DOGE team he masterminds already knew many of his claims about Social Security fraud were overstated, distorted or baseless, according to the two people, records obtained by The Post and a declaration filed in federal court.”
If Elon is looking for waste, fraud and abuse, I suggest he go to Guantánamo. (Okay, even if he weren't pretending to look for waste, fraud and abuse, I'd suggest he park himself in Guantánamo.): ~~~
~~~ From the Major SNAFU File. Carol Rosenberg & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has abruptly cleared out a second group of migrants it brought to the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, returning to the United States 40 men it had flown there in the past few weeks.... The government has not announced that it relocated the men to one or more Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Louisiana, nor was the reason for the move clear. But the officials familiar with the matter ... said it happened on Tuesday. The move comes days before a Federal District Court judge in Washington is set to hear a major challenge to aspects of the policy. It is the second time the administration has brought people to Guantánamo Bay only to remove them after a few weeks, a costly and time-consuming exercise.... This time, the officials said, the men were taken to an international airport in Alexandria, La.... The airport in central Louisiana, which services military and charter flights, has emerged as a hub of immigration detention activity.... The operation has so far cost $16 million.... It has a staff of 1,000 security forces and civilian contractors....” According to the government, a total of 40 migrants are being held at Guantánamo.
Zeldin v. Earth. Maxine Joselow of the Washington Post: “The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will begin the process of dismantling dozens of Biden-era rules touching issues as varied as electric vehicles, coal plants and clean water. In a flurry of news releases, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency will roll back some of President Joe Biden’s most consequential climate and environmental regulations. He specifically cited rules aimed at speeding the nation’s shift to electric vehicles, slashing planet-warming emissions from power plants and safeguarding waterways from harmful pollution. Taken together, the announcements herald a seismic shift in U.S. environmental policy, one that could ease restrictions on nearly every sector of the economy. Yet rewriting many of the rules could take the agency months or even years.” the Guardian's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Julian Prizont-Cado of Tech Crunch: "Citibank revealed in court filings on Wednesday that the FBI, the EPA, the EPA inspector general, and the Treasury Department have all requested that the bank freeze accounts of several nonprofits and state government agencies. The accounts were frozen in February, but the new documents make public details that had previously been unknown, including a full list of the nonprofits under FBI scrutiny. The funds were disbursed as part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act.... Green banks use those funds to provide financing for clean technology projects around the country.... Citibank was selected as the financial agent to administer that money.... EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has said that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund doesn’t align with the agency’s priorities and that he has concerns about fraud, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim." ~~~
~~~ Ashley Bellinger of Ars Technica: "On Wednesday, a ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of 'misusing law enforcement' to claw back climate funds and 'humor' Donald Trump’s 'vindictive political whims.' In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) requested information about a supposed criminal investigation into the EPA's $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). Whitehouse alleged that there was no basis to freeze the funding. He claimed that Bondi and Patel 'reverted to a pretextual criminal investigation to provide an alternative excuse to interfere' after 'EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced via social media that he had "found" $20 billion in EPA funds at Citibank and falsely suggested that the use of a financial agent agreement ... was improper.'... Far from a deal struck in the dark as Zeldin alleged, the terms of the agreement were announced publicly in April 2024, Whitehouse said. He also suggested the Trump administration was ... 'pursuing false allegations of criminal conduct, with the improper purpose to wrongfully freeze assets appropriated by Congress.'"
Jonah Bromwich & Anusha Bayya of the New York Times: “Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration last weekend, have not been able to hold a private conversation with their client since his arrest. That revelation came during a hearing in Manhattan federal court Wednesday, as lawyers for Mr. Khalil and the government appeared in front of a judge, Jesse Furman, to discuss Mr. Khalil’s detention, which has raised concerns about free speech protections amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown. Mr. Khalil ... is being held at a facility in Louisiana. He has not been charged with any crime.... Judge Furman has ordered the government not to deport Mr. Khalil while his case is pending.... A park outside the courthouse was flooded with hundreds of protesters, some wearing kaffiyehs and black masks and waving posters, banners and signs reading 'Free Mahmoud.' They were joined by the actor Susan Sarandon....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Cate Brown, et al., of the Washington Post: “As the Trump administration moves to deport Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, the government has so far provided just one reason for doing so: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined Khalil’s presence in the United States could have 'potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.'... Immigration officers provided no written evidence to support his deportation beyond Rubio’s determination based on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.... [In defense of his own action against Khalil, Rubio said,] 'No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way.'” MB: This is particularly disgusting coming from Rubio, whose own parents were Cuban immigrants to the U.S. and did not necessarily have a “right” to U.S. visas and green cards. Among the many assets Donald Trump owns: Rubio's soul.
~~~ Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) explains the importance of Khalil's case: ~~~
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell blocked the Trump administration from enforcing central provisions of an executive order that seeks to punish the law firm, Perkins Coie, by barring its attorneys from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings. Howell said the 'retaliatory animus' of Trump’s order is 'clear on its face' and appears to violate constitutional restrictions on 'viewpoint discrimination.' The executive order, which Trump issued last week, 'runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections,' the judge concluded.” The Washington Post's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
Chilling the lawyers who represent those people hurts the rule of law because when the government can’t be legally opposed, the law provides no protections to anyone and you start to live in an autocracy. -- Daniel C. Richman, Columbia University Law
That's the point. -- Marie Burns ~~~
~~~ Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s retribution campaign against law firms, legal experts and analysts say, is undermining a central tenet of the American legal system — the right to a lawyer to argue vigorously on one’s behalf.... [Trump's order to cripple the law firm Perkins Coie, which had represented Hillary Clinton in 2016 & won cases against Trump's Big Lie in 2020,] came after he revoked security clearances held by any lawyers at the firm Covington & Burling who were helping provide legal advice to Jack Smith.... Experts say Mr. Trump’s actions could create a trickle-down effect in which those who find themselves under scrutiny from Mr. Trump and his administration struggle to find lawyers who are willing to defend them in the face of the vast powers of the federal government.... [Trump's] administration has also gone after law schools, the American Bar Association and even lawyers inside the government itself who might question or hinder his agenda. Last week, the top federal prosecutor in Washington threatened to stop hiring graduates from Georgetown Law School if its dean, William Treanor, failed to abolish the school’s diversity programs.” MB: With all due respect to individual lawyers, Donald Trump is one of the few people who could make me feel sorry for law firms.
Washington Post Editors: “Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, has a long history of criticizing the value and safety of vaccines. If Senate Republicans want the Trump administration to succeed, they should reject his nomination to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and ask ... Donald Trump to instead find someone who will take seriously the country’s ongoing outbreaks of viral illnesses. Weldon, who is scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday, has spent years promoting debunked theories that vaccines harm children.”
Theodoric Meyer & Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: “Senate Democrats say they are prepared to vote to reject the Republicans’ government funding bill, threatening a shutdown if lawmakers do not strike a deal within days. Not enough Democrats support the bill to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster, Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said on the Senate floor Wednesday, with less than 72 hours before the government is set to shut down. Instead, Democrats are seeking a bill — known as a continuing resolution, or CR — to keep the government open through April 11 while the two parties complete work on their long-stalled spending bills. 'Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats,' Schumer said. 'Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate' to advance the bill.” The NBC News story is here. Politico has an item here. MB: This is not what I predicted; so let's see if Democrats stick to their guns here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Josh Marshall was as surprised as I was that Senate Democrats didn't immediately cave to Republicans on the shutdown. BUT then, this: ~~~
~~~ “The Kabuki Cave.” Josh Marshall of TPM: “Pretty quickly I heard from multiple sources what was actually happening. This was a deal between Schumer and Thune to allow a brief performative episode to throw Democratic voters off the scent while the Democratic caucus allowed the bill to pass. The deal is this: Democrats agree to give up the 60-vote threshold in exchange for being allowed to offer amendments to the House bill. The 'amendment' or 'amendments' will likely be some version of [a] 30-day CR. It doesn’t even matter what they are. But this is all for show. Once you give up the 60-vote threshold the whole thing is over.... [The] amendments that will certainly fail.”
Mike Lillis of the Hill: “House Democrats are heading to Republican districts to conduct town halls — a strategy designed to highlight the moratorium on those public events recently suggested by the head of the GOP’s campaign arm. 'We’re filling a void,' Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who is planning 'a few' town halls in Republican districts, told reporters during the Democrats’ annual retreat in Leesburg, Va.... Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), for instance, is planning town halls next week in three GOP-controlled districts, which are currently held by California Republican Reps. David Valadao, Young Kim and Ken Calvert.” MB: According to a firewalled CNN report, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) also is doing a tour of GOP districts.
Kenneth Chang of the New York Times: Yesterday, SpaceX scrubbed its planned launch of a Falcon-9 rocket that would have sent a new crew to the international space station and brought home two astronauts who have been stuck in space for more than nine months.
Marie: If you're one of those who has been complaining that NPR caves to Republicans, here's some hard evidence for your file. ~~~
~~~ Journalism Works Again, This Time by Accident. Max Tani of Semafor: NPR's standards & practices (censor) guy Tony Cavin advised “All Things Considered” anchor Ari Shapiro not to attend a corporate LGBTQ Pride event. But (ha ha) Cavin sent the advice to Shapiro “in an email, which was apparently sent by accident to many other NPR journalists.... 'Every year I’ve spoken at corporate pride events and you’ve personally signed off on them. It has never been an issue before,' he said. 'I’m curious what’s changed.' Later on Wednesday, after Semafor reported on Cavin’s emails with Shapiro, an NPR spokesperson said the news outlet would let Shapiro attend the event after all.”
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Israel's Wars. Megan Stack of the New York Times: “'You do whatever you want,' [Donald] Trump said he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu, it seems, took Mr. Trump at his word. Israel has clamped Gaza back under near-total siege, barring desperately needed humanitarian aid and other goods from entering the hungry and bomb-decimated enclave. Food, medicine, tents, fuel — for the past week and a half, supplies have not been permitted into Gaza, where some two million Palestinians are trying to survive in the wreckage. And Mr. Netanyahu keeps tightening the screws.... Israeli officials are essentially starving Gaza as a negotiation tactic.... Mr. Trump appears to be on board with this disgraceful tactic.”
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