“The latest cabinet meetings aren’t televised for a reason. Fear not, our de facto leader is in control as the ethnic cleansing of the country formerly known as the United States roars ahead unabated. The must-see TV drama not being broadcast is Whose Turn Is It to Change the Old Guy’s Diaper?” John Buss, @repeat 1968
Good Day Sky Dancers!
As we stare down the 250th anniversary of the day our country started its journey from monarchy to democracy, we have to take a look at where we’ve landed today and utter some word of disappointment. The headlines today are filled with references to autocracy, and it’s not difficult to see how the MAGA/Trump overreach is playing out.
Politicosums up the current situation like this. “Trump’s second year: Whiplash. “Even proposals that don’t ultimately move forward have consequences.” I’d just like a few more adjectives like weird, cruel, and inexplicably unnecessary.
President Donald Trump’s first year back in office was defined by sweeping upheaval that was largely plotted out during his four-year Florida exile. But the president has somehow intensified the volatility in year two with a succession of whiplash-inducing policy swings, several of which have almost immediately withered in the face of Republican opposition and public outcry.
It came after Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, a move deemed “unjustified and dangerous” by a Washington-based aerospace trade union that the president soon dropped. Trump said in early January that he’d cap credit card rates at 10 percent, a move that would have upended the banking industry, only to change his mind and ask Congress for legislation.
Also last month, Trump’s administration paused millions in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state public health infrastructure — only to reverse course roughly 24 hours later.
“The whiplash has real implications,” said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a forum of the leaders of metropolitan health departments. “It’s incredibly disruptive, even if you can get back to continuing the work, you know, two days later.”
The unpredictability of a presidency that prioritizes posting over process and often leaves friends and foes alike guessing whether pronouncements should be taken seriously, literally, or both, remains a feature, not a bug of Trump’s approach to governance. In many matters, especially negotiations with other countries, his mercurial opacity is often an attempt to gain leverage, but his threats seemingly lead just as often to backtracking as blowing things up, be they Iranian missile depots, Venezuelan drug boats or the transatlantic alliance.
The same often holds true for domestic policy. The president has made numerous pronouncements with emphatic declarations on social media, sometimes even suggesting he is governing by fiat in cases where legislation is required. But he has quickly moved on from many of them: a cap on credit card interest rates, 50-year mortgages and, according to a new Financial Times report, possibly even the sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel that have led to higher costs.
We’re just beginning to explore the depths of depravity that Trump and his buddies will go to just feel powerful and get richer. This is from Robert Reich’s SubStack. “The Squalor of the Epstein Class. Happy Presidents Day!”
Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:
“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He’s still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”
The Epstein Class. Not just the people who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein or the subset who abused young girls. It’s an interconnected world of hugely rich, prominent, entitled, smug, powerful, self-important (mostly) men. Trump is honorary chairman.
Trump is still sitting on two and a half million files that he and Pam Bondi won’t release. Why? Because they implicate Trump and even more of the Epstein class. The files that have been released so far don’t paint a pretty picture.
Trump appears 1,433 times in the Epstein files so far. His billionaire backers are also members. Elon Musk appears 1,122 times. Howard Lutnick is there. So is Trump-backer Peter Thiel (2,710 times), and Leslie Wexner (565 times). As is Steven Witkoff, now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s consigliere (1,855 times).
The Epstein Class isn’t limited to Trump donors. Bill Clinton is a member (1,192 times), as is Larry Summers (5,621 times). So are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (3,769 times), Prince Andrew (1,821 times), Bill Gates (6,385 times), and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants (429 times).
If not politics, then what connects the members of the Epstein Class? It’s not just riches. Some members are not particularly wealthy, but they’re richly connected. They trade on their prominence, on whom they know and who will return their phone calls.
They exchange inside tips on stocks, on the movements of currencies, on IPOs, on new tax-avoidance mechanisms. On getting into exclusive clubs, reservations at chic restaurants, lush hotels, exotic travel.
Most members of the Epstein Class have seceded into their own small, self-contained world, disconnected from the rest of society. They fly in one other’s private jets. They entertain at one other’s guest houses and villas. Some exchange tips on how to procure certain drugs or kinky sex or valuable works of art. And, of course, how to accumulate more wealth.
Many don’t particularly believe in democracy; Peter Thiel (recall, he appears 2,710 times in the Epstein files) has said he “no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Many are putting their fortunes into electing people who will do their bidding. Hence, they are politically dangerous.
The Epstein Class is the by-product of an economy that emerged over the last two decades, from which this new elite has siphoned off vast amounts of wealth.
It’s an economy that bears almost no resemblance to that of mid-20th-century America. The most valuable companies in this new economy have few workers because they don’t make stuff. They design it. They create ideas. They sell concepts. They move money.
I’ve always argued here and in classes that the biggest economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years were tax cuts that made it more profitable to gamble on financial assets rather than to actually produce goods and services. The changes in tax policies that cut upper brackets, then treated capital gains as a tax slash, and other ridiculous policies mean that money never lands where it can actually do good. It also creates a lot of idle hands and minds.
China is beginning to look more modern, more concerned about actual economic outcomes, and the planet. The U.S. continues to race back to the Gilded Age with hints of the Great Depression years. This is from The Guardian. “The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead. Editorial. The president’s destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition.”
Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.
Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump’s assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a “hoax” framed this primarily as about deregulation – perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.
The administration claimed, without evidence, that Americans would save $1.3tn. Never mind insurance or healthcare costs; a recent report found that US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis. The Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the decision “corruption, plain and simple”. In 2024, Mr Trump reportedly urged 20 fossil fuel tycoons to stump up $1bn for his presidential campaign – while vowing to remove controls on the industry.
In the same week as this reckless and destructive US decision, it emerged that China had recorded its 21st month of flat or slightly falling carbon emissions. As Washington tears up environmental regulations, Beijing is extending carbon reporting requirements. China remains the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, though its per capita and cumulative historical emissions are still far behind those of the US. But clean energy drove more than 90% of its investment growth last year.
The Carbon Brief website, which published the emissions analysis, says the numbers suggest that the decline in China’s carbon intensity – emissions per unit of GDP – was below the target set in the last five-year plan, making it hard to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement. The shift in emissions may not prove enduring. There is fear that China’s focus may change; the next five-year plan, due in March, will be key. Some subsidies for renewable power have already been withdrawn. The installation of huge quantities of renewable energy infrastructure has been accompanied by a surge in constructing coal-fired power plants, though the hope is that these are intended primarily as a fallback.
We continue to disregard the actual civilized nations and cavort with the worst of the worst. This is from France24. “Rubio tells Orban ‘your success is our success’ during Hungary visit ahead of elections. During a visit to Budapest Monday, just weeks before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that the nationalist leader’s “success” was a success for the US. An ally of President Donald Trump, who has also maintained ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orban lags behind the main opposition candidate in opinion polls.” The entire Trump cabinet is feckless, shameless, and incompetent. They are also enabling a backslide in democracy.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed Viktor Orban‘s leadership during a visit to Budapest on Monday, ahead of elections threatening the nationalist prime minister’s hold on power.
Rubio’s visit is the final stage of a whirlwind trip to Europe that also saw him address the Munich Security Conference and visit another right-wing ally, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.
US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his high regard for Orban, saying in a social media post on Friday that the prime minister had produced “phenomenal” results in Hungary.
But Orban, 62, has a fight on his hands for the April 12 legislative elections in Hungary. Polls suggest his Fidesz party is trailing opposition leader Peter Magyar’s TISZA.
“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success,” Rubio said during a joint press conference with Orban after their meeting.
“The president has an extraordinarily close relationship to the prime minister, he does, and it has had tangible benefits,” he said.
Europe’s nations have read the writing on the wall, according to CNN’s Kasie Hunt. “Trump’s damage is done. Democrats – and Europe – are struggling to define what’s next.”
Many of the Democrats who came to the Munich Security Conference this weekend want to be president. But even if one of them can win the White House in 2028, they may find they can no longer claim the title every American president since the 1940s has borne: leader of the free world.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom went on stage to insist his state is more permanent than President Donald Trump. But he acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the leaders he met with believe the damage to the transatlantic alliance is irrevocable.
Progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York came to pitch a left-wing populist foreign policy but made headlines for a massive stumble instead.
A number of Democratic senators hoping to burnish their foreign policy credentials ahead of possible presidential bids found themselves in a painfully awkward moment with the Danish prime minister, as some Democrats tried to smooth over pugnacious remarks Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham made at the start of the meeting that suggested Trump has not given up his designs on Greenland – a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
And most members of the House of Representatives who planned to attend didn’t come at all after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the plug on the congressional delegation.
European thought leaders were reduced to offering a brief standing ovation to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose speech was far more conciliatory than the one Vice President JD Vance delivered at the same gathering last year. But Rubio had kicked off his trip telling American reporters: “The old world is gone.” He also left the conference to fly onward to Slovakia and Hungary, two countries led by strongmen sympathetic to Trump.
The conference’s opening remarks from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz crystallized Europe’s new reality in what seems to be rapidly becoming a post-American century.
“A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States,” Merz said Friday. “The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost.”
It’s more than just words. Merz has said he held “confidential talks” with France on European nuclear deterrence. It’s a stunning admission there’s no longer unconditional trust that the US will do what needs to be done for its transatlantic allies.
“What I’m hearing now is, even if we are able to repair these relationships, it’s going to take generations before they feel comfortable,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, of Arizona, a possible presidential hopeful who traveled to Munich not long after learning the Trump administration had tried and failed to indict him over a video he made telling troops not to obey illegal orders.
If this continues, the momentum and direction of the world’s political entanglements will change. Who knows what this will mean? This Op Ed piece from MS Now by Anthony L. Fisher discusses Trump and his attempts at an Imperial Presidency. “Libertarians warned about the ‘imperial presidency.’ Too few actually warned about Trump. A recent New York Times op-ed showed the blind spot many libertarians still have for President Donald Trump.”
When I saw the headline “Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump” atop a New York Times op-ed last Monday, I thought, “Hmmm, that’s not quite how I remember it.” Adorned with the striking image of the Gadsden flag’s “Don’t Tread on Me” snake about to get curb-stomped by an enormous black jackboot, the piece was written by Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of the libertarian magazine and website Reason — where I worked as a journalist for roughly six years. (I left shortly after President Donald Trump’s first inauguration.)
Sure enough, upon reading the column, I discovered the headline didn’t accurately reflect Mangu-Ward’s argument. She primarily made the case that libertarians have warned for years — under presidents in both major parties — about the dangers of ever-expanding executive authority, what’s been aptly coined the “Imperial Presidency.” Rather than claiming to have specifically warned “about Trump,” the writer boasted that libertarians had long sounded the alarm over the consolidation of such power — power now being used for nefarious purposes by a president who just happens to be Donald Trump. (The Times later that day amended the headline to the less specific but more honest, “Libertarians: We Told You So.”)
I can’t argue with that. To the extent most self-identified professional libertarians warned about Trump, they warned about the awesome powers that could be abused by a generic authoritarian president from either party.
But Trump is not a hypothetical. He always told us who he was. And there are far fewer of us who took (and continue to hold) the comparatively unpopular view among libertarians and other right-of-center fellow travelers that Trump presented as a uniquely authoritarian, vindictive, racist, corrupt and lawless demagogue — of which there isn’t remotely an analog on the other side of the aisle.
The problem is that, even now that Trump has proven us skeptics right on every one of those counts, too many libertarians continue to position themselves safely in a “pox on both your houses” perch — much too nuanced and enlightened to be dragged into partisan rancor. This position is how your movement ends up conflating the tyranny of overbearing, temporary Covid policies in Democratic-run areas as equal to (or worse than) the tyranny of a secret police force acting without due process for everyone when attempting to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, summarily executing Americans in the street and branding them “domestic terrorists” while their bodies are still warm.
All of these thoughts lead to one logical conclusion. The Midterm elections need to depose him and remove the spineless and the true believers in whatever this is from Congress.
Just to let you know, we’re having the most unkind Mardi Gras Celebration that even the police have seen. We seem to have been overrun by spontaneous groups of young men that are behaving a lot like the droogies in A Clockwork Orange. I may write about it on Friday; however, I’m busy listening to my friends’ experiences uptown and around the Quarter right now.
Peace, Love, and Understanding to you all!
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This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?
I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.
But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.
I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:
“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
“I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.
I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.
My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.
Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.
Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.
The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”
Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.
Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.
Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.
President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.
But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.
Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.
The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….
But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,
A bit more on possible attack plans:
Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.
To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.
And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.
“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.
The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.
This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.
A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.
The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.
The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.
Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”
But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….
The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.
The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.
The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.
The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.
The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….
One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.
Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.
It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.
AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.
According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.
But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?
Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.
The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.
Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.
It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.
Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.
More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:
“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.
Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.
The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….
The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.
SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.
As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.
“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”
Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.
Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.
“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”
Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.
Read more at the link.
I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.
New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.
Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the buildingcould block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.
Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.
“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.
You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.
That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?
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“The Attorney General of the United States showed her true colors.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Just when you think the Circus of Incompetence and Evil has wound down, another one of the players finds a way to the stage to make a hash of reality. The Epstein files and the illegal ICE raids have pretty much taken center stage, but other atrocities are happening within the Trump Regime. I’m going to focus on the Testimony given by Pam Bondi and the entire Epstein mess that has alerted us to exactly how many people with money and power have ruined the lives and the innocence of children.
I must issue trigger warnings here because none of this is easy to see or read.
I will start with this analysis by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. “Pam Bondi Is Not Practicing Law. The attorney general’s testimony before Congress revealed what a farce this is.”
The release of the Epstein files—the slow-drip revelations of a web of privileged (mostly) men trading gifts, access, favors, and sickening child predation as casually as Pokémon cards—has been deliberately parsed out through 2026 as to both be buried itself and bury other horrific news coming out of the Trump administration. But this misses a critical point: The Epstein file dump is not simply playing out as a backdrop against which other acts of American lawlessness are occurring. The Epstein story is also the template and the proof text for all that is happening in Minnesota; at dangerous detention centers; in efforts to punish members of Congress for lawful speech; for crypto scams; and for measles outbreaks. It is an ongoing road map for an administration that lives out the reality that they are rich and powerful and famous enough to be above the law each day, and wishes for the rest of us to ultimately learn and accept that fact.
And it is equally true that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick could bring his children and their nannies to a bespoke lunch on Epstein’s island in 2012, long after he allegedly broke off contact with the sex predator, precisely because Lutnick’s children and their nannies were not the types of children or women who would be abandoned there to be raped and threatened. He is also a walking infomercial about whom the law protects and whom it leaves broken and invisible, behind. Lutnick’s testimony this past week, like Bondi’s, is thus operating as a still life in what happens when the law becomes inert. On the one hand, it is not relevant as a restraint to those who need not rely on it; on the other, it is not protective for those who do.
Liz Plank, on her Substack, describes the nausea and disorientation felt by women realizing this past week that we had all been gaslit yet again. Those of us who cannot even begin to imagine a permission structure that allowed and encouraged passing young girls around, trading insults and articles about them (“your littlest girl was a little naughty”), and bonding over the hysteria of #MeToo can barely comprehend why it was that this class of men always took the gift and the freebie and the shitty watch and the plane trip, because access to yet more of the same somehow became the coin of the realm. What Plank describes as “trust bias”—the psychological tendency to assume that others are operating within the same moral and ethical universe as yourself—means that we are all, once again, annihilated by the fact that America’s shared moral universe is a collective fiction, one that constrains one class of people and merely titillates another.
We err when we call what is being done by ICE officials to citizens and noncitizens on the streets of American cities “law,” just as we err when we call what has thus far been afforded the Epstein survivors “justice.” Indeed, the word law is too generous to contain the plea deals and the willing ignorance and the prison transfers that were granted to Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators at every turn. And the word injustice is far too small to describe the spectacle of hundreds of survivors who have still not been given a reckoning or a measure of genuine accountability, whose unredacted names appeared in public documents and who had never been contacted by the Department of Justice.
Pam Bondi may be in charge of many officials and many investigations and many legal things at the DOJ, but what she is protecting is neither justice nor law. And that means that what Plank describes as a trust bias is also an exquisitely American “law bias,” and we should dispense with the notion that we are all in some group compact to protect and preserve the same things. The law is neither protecting the vulnerable nor constraining the Epstein class. And perhaps we should stop referencing that word to mean either project, much less deploying it to describe both.
One of Maria Farmer’s works of art was released from the Epstein Files.
Continue to read this excellent piece at the link. Meanwhile, a friend of mine sent this link to a site with a Link to the Justice Department. The link provides a window into the artwork from Jeffrey Epstein survivor Maria Farmer, found in the Epstein files. CNN reported on Farmer during the first wave of releases. This is from December 19,2025. “Epstein files vindicate a survivor who reported him in the 1990s, but others are still seeking answers.” Everyone is still seeking answers, and all we get are performances like Bondi’s and distractions.
The Justice Department’s partial release of its files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday marked a moment of triumph for Epstein survivor Maria Farmer and her sister Annie, who have said for years that Maria had filed one of the first complaints against Epstein in the 1990s.
An FBI document released Friday included a 1996 description of a criminal complaint against Epstein related to child pornography.
While the name of the complainant is redacted in the document, Maria Farmer’s lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, confirmed on CNN that the complaint was in fact made by her client.
The “facts of complaint” part of the document says that the woman — who describes herself as a professional artist — had taken photos of her underage sisters for her own personal artwork.
“Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers,” the document reads. “Epstein at one time requested (redacted) to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools.” It continued: “Epstein is now threatening (redacted) that if she tells anyone about the photos he will burn her house down.”
Examining these photos is difficult. It is, however, one way we can give voice to these survivors. These paintings have returned to the conversation about who exactly should be brought to justice for this massive child sex trafficking travesty.
Maria’s painting shows many familiar faces. Take a look.
It appears that DHS will shut down this weekend. This is from the AP. “What to know about the Homeland Security shutdown starting this weekend.”
Another shutdown for parts of the federal government is expected this weekend as lawmakers debate new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire Saturday. Democrats say they won’t help approve more funding until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis last month.
The White House has been negotiating with the Democrats, but the two sides failed to reach a deal by the end of the week, guaranteeing that funding for the department will lapse.
Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures will be narrowly confined, as only agencies under the DHS umbrella — like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — will be affected. Still, depending on how long the shutdown lasts, some federal workers could begin to miss paychecks.
Services like airport screening could also suffer if the shutdown drags on for weeks.
At the Transportation Security Administration, about 95% of employees are deemed essential. They will continue to scan passengers and their bags at the nation’s commercial airports. But they will work without pay until the funding lapse is resolved, raising the possibility that workers will being calling out or taking unscheduled leave. Many TSA workers already faced financial stress last year.
“Some are just now recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown” said Ha Nguyen McNeill, a senior official performing the duties of TSA administrator. “Many are still reeling from it.”
This is breaking news from theWashington Post. “Much of DHS set to shut down as Democrats demand new restraints on ICE. Democrats are pushing for new policies requiring agents to wear body cameras and get judicial warrants for raids.”
The Department of Homeland Security is expected to shut down early Saturday as congressional Democrats and the White House remain at an impasse over new restrictions on federal immigration agents.
The shutdown beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday would impact about 13 percent of the federal civilian workforce, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.
But Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — the main targets of Democrats’ outrage — would be able to continue immigration enforcement efforts due to an influx of funding from the Republican tax and spending law passed this past summer.
Despite the stalemate, both chambers of Congress have already left Washington and do not plan to return until Feb. 23 after a scheduled week-long recess that includes, for some senators, a trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
State governments are fighting to keep the Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution real. This is from Democracy Docket‘s Matt Cohen.
The Democratic chief election officials of six states are denouncing two new voter suppression bills making their way through Congress — underscoring how the legislation would place a huge burden on voters and election administrators just as midterm election season kicks off.
“These bills would place a massive burden on American eligible voters, require unfeasible overhauls of state systems while preparations for the 2026 midterm elections are well underway, and create unfunded mandates for already under-resourced states and municipalities,” the secretaries wrote. “American voters will be the ones paying for this — by paying more in taxes, spending more time jumping through bureaucratic hoops, or losing access to the ballot box altogether.”
The House passed the SAVE America Act late Wednesday evening in a 218-213 vote, with every present Republican — along with one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas — voting in favor of the sweeping voter suppression bill. The bill — along with the MEGA Act, which was introduced earlier this week — stands to disenfranchise millions by imposing strict requirements for voters to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, and to provide photo ID when casting ballots.
While the secretaries highlight that both bills “would make it harder for eligible voters to both register and cast their ballots,” they also call attention to the reality that GOP lawmakers have yet to address: Making such extensive changes to the voting process so close to an election would create chaos for election administrators.
Some states, like North Carolina, have already started with early voting, and any attempt to overhaul requirements for voters to register and cast ballots would be extremely costly to both states and voters, according to the secretaries.
“A series of sweeping overhauls to the nation’s voter registration and election administration laws, when some states are weeks or months away from conducting their primary elections, is not a serious effort at improving the democratic process,” the letter said. “Election administrators already face significant challenges in educating voters on registration requirements, especially considering the significant mis- and dis-information on the issue coming out of Washington, D.C.”
Democracy backsliding is real. One more surreal headline from about the HHS Secretary who admits to snorting coke from bathroom toilets. This is from The Hill’s Joseph Choi. “HHS shaking up top personnel to push Trump, MAHA priorities ahead of midterms.”
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced a reshuffling of top staffers in his department as the Trump administration looks to shore up health wins that can boost GOP success in the upcoming midterms.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Deputy Administrator Chris Klomp will be chief counselor at the HHS.
John Brooks, CMS deputy administrator and the chief policy and regulatory officer, will now be CMS senior counselor. Kyle Diamantas, deputy commissioner for human foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Grace Graham, FDA deputy commissioner for policy, legislation, and international affairs, have been named as senior counselors for the FDA.
As CNN reported, current HHS chief of staff Matt Buckham will also move to a senior counselor role. Administration officials who spoke with the outlet said the changes came as a result of conversation between the HHS and the White House.
“In just over a year, we have driven historic progress on President Trump’s health care priorities and delivered real, measurable change,” Kennedy said in a statement.
“We are restoring accountability, challenging entrenched interests, and putting the health of the American people first. I am proud to elevate battle-tested, principled leaders onto my immediate team—individuals with the courage and experience to help us move faster and go further as we work to Make America Healthy Again.”
Kennedy’s support for President Trump helped deliver a bloc of voters long critical and suspicious of the medical establishment. But many observers have noted this support is tenuous.
As Jeff Hutt, a spokesperson for the MAHA PAC, recently told The Hill “Make America Health Again” voters aren’t necessarily those who show up strongly for the GOP during midterms.
Can you believe anyone still believes this guy?
Anyway, with that , I have to get ready to go get a mammogram. Have a great weekend! It’s total Mardi Gras Crazy down here! It’s also Friday the 13th.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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BONDI: You didn't ask Merrick Garland anything about EpsteinBALINT: Weak sauce BONDI: And with this antisemitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution–BALINT: You want to go there! Really? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust! *storms off*
Pam Bondi has been a complete and total failure at her job. The Epstein survivors showed more courage just by being in that room than she did under oath. She refused to answer questions and chose complicity. America deserves better.
holy shit — Bondi's new tactic is refusing to answer Democratic questions, then using time during the next Republican questioner to smear the previous Democratic member and accuse them of being complicit in violence crimes
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
We’re just beginning to explore the depths of depravity that Trump and his buddies will go to just feel powerful and get richer. This is from
I’ve always argued here and in classes that the biggest economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years were tax cuts that made it more profitable to gamble on financial assets rather than to actually produce goods and services. The changes in tax policies that cut upper brackets, then treated capital gains as a tax slash, and other ridiculous policies mean that money never lands where it can actually do good. It also creates a lot of idle hands and minds.
We continue to disregard the actual civilized nations and cavort with the worst of the worst. 
Europe’s nations have read the writing on the wall, according to 
If this continues, the momentum and direction of the world’s political entanglements will change. Who knows what this will mean? This Op Ed piece from
Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”
Another shutdown for 
This is breaking news from the
State governments are fighting to keep the Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution real. This is from 
Democracy backsliding is real. One more surreal headline from about the HHS Secretary who admits to snorting 
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