“Making Imperialism Great Again.” John (repeat1968) Buss @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Well, this is the 4th time a Republican Policy has trashed my IRAs/403bs. Reagan in 1987. Dubya in 2007/2008. Trump today and 2020. The one today is completely based on Presidential policy. The others on careless deregulation and fraught banking practices. I saw each one coming.
Over the weekend, I almost pulled an all-nighter researching the futures market and the Treasury system break-in. There is still a flight to the dollar–not freaking bitcoins– so that’s a relief! None of these things are necessary or are in any way leading to anything but mass financial and economic problems in the US and abroad. Why would any group of people want to tank the economy? I think they are trying to bring down the dollar. Instead, their Bitcoin Ponzi scheme forces us all into a risky asset with no value or function. Also, it brings them massive press and public attention. I’m actually now watching for signs of bank runs.
All of this behavior in Fartus and Elonia wreaks of Narcissistic Abuse. They create chaos to gain and regain control. BB can tell you more about this since she has a doctorate in psychology. I’m a dismal scientist who has been quite dismal the last two weeks. I completely expected the implementation of tariffs to tank the markets. It did. FARTUS manufactures chaos. They crave center stage, which is one of the hopes we have. They go after each other. They both want to be the main character in this disaster.
I was watching the Futures market last night, too late into the night, to see what was happening with stocks, Market Indices, and everything that impacted the stock market the next day. BB sent this to me late last night. I agree with pretty much everything in Jonathan V. Last’s analysis provided in The Bulwark. “Follow the Money. The financial markets are the only thing that can stop Trump’s reign of chaos.” It was clear when the markets started tanking today when Trump, Canada, China, and Mexico started setting up that his FARTUS, with his raging Id, needs a crusade of some kind or another. Another good thing is that we haven’t hit any of the exchange’s circuit breakers. That’s when you get a true crash. But it’s early in the week.
Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk, and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chair of the analytics firm and government contractor Palantir who has long expressed opposition to democracy.
WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.
The engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.
The six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions. Already, Musk’s lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.
Did I mention that my job managing the TTL and TBond, TBill department of New Orleans Fed required me to go through fingerprinting, a security check, and an interview with some very grim Treasury Agents? All we did was process the stuff from our region and send it to the Treasury Systems using Fed Wire and other systems to the central processing locations. We also checked the local transmission from the business sending their payroll taxes.
In raids reminiscent of the “January 6” Proud Boys attack on the U.S. Capitol four years ago, unelected, unvetted, and without federal government security clearance, the Trump-anointed head of the yet-unapproved Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk and his henchmen with enormous computing backgrounds are wrecking havoc in government offices with sensitive personal data of all U.S. citizens.
This past week, Musk’s blitzkrieg team gained access to sensitive Treasury data, including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. Access to the system is closely held because it includes sensitive personal information about the millions of U.S. citizens who receive Social Security checks, tax refunds, and other payments from the federal government.
The responsibility for ensuring payments are accurate is on individual agencies, not the relatively small staff of civil servants at the Treasury Department’s Office of Fiscal Services, which is responsible for making more than one billion payments per year. The office disbursed more than $5 trillion in fiscal year 2023.
In response to Lebryk’s resignation, Musk responded on February 1 to a post on his social media platform X: “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.”
In Musk and Trump styles, Musk provided NO evidence for his allegation.
Also on Friday, January 31, in hearing of the DOGE raid on the Office of Financial Services, Senator Ron Wyden, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outraged that “officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs. To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy.”
Senator Wyden pushed back against DOGE operatives, “”I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”
No matter how many needy people around the world are served by USAID, Elonia says he’s shutting it down- right to the point of stopping funds for a small Lutheran church feeding and sheltering children- and he says FARTUS approves it. How absolutely White Male Christian of them! This is from The Daily Beast as reported by Matt Young.” Remember:
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is getting the chop, according to Elon Musk.
Musk’s highly anticipated DOGE Spaces debut on X put the rumors to rest after a day of criticism lobbed at the agency, including reports that two top security officials were removed Saturday after refusing to allow DOGE representatives into restricted spaces.
Musk confirmed the administration was in the process of shutting USAID down. “As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless,” he said. “USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple… that is why it’s gotta go. It’s beyond repair.”
Musk had declared earlier on Sunday, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” He continued to take aim at the agency, which has an annual budget of more than $50 billion, with several more posts on his social media platform.
An email sent to staff told them not to come into the office on Monday morning except those with essential on-site duties.
The future of the US government’s main overseas aid agency has been cast into doubt as the Trump administration plans to merge it with the US Department of State after days of upheaval.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would continue its function as an aid agency, but the plan involves a significant reduction in its funding and the workforce, CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reports.
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused USAID’s leadership of “insubordination” and said he was now its “acting head”.
US President Donald Trump and one of his top advisers, billionaire Elon Musk, have been strongly critical of the agency.
But the move to shut it down could have a profound impact on humanitarian programmes around the world.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was set up in the early 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programmes on behalf of the US government around the world.
It employs around 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas. It has bases in more than 60 countries and works in dozens of others. However, most of the work on the ground is carried out by other organisations that are contracted and funded by USAID.
The range of activities it undertakes is vast. For example, not only does USAID provide food in countries where people are starving, it also operates the world’s gold standard famine detection system, which uses data analysis to try to predict where shortages are emerging.
Much of USAID’s budget is spent on health programmes, such as offering polio vaccinations in countries where the disease still circulates and helping to stop the spread of viruses which have the potential to cause a pandemic.
The BBC’s international charity BBC Media Action, which is funded by external grants and voluntary contributions, receives some funding from USAID. According to a 2024 report, USAID donated $3.23m (£2.6m), making it the charity’s second-largest donor that financial year.
According to government data, the US spent $68bn (£55bn) on international aid in 2023.
That total is spread across several departments and agencies, but USAID’s budget constitutes more than half of it at around $40bn.
The vast majority of that money is spent in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe – primarily on humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
The US is the world’s biggest spender on international development – and by some margin.
To put it into context, the UK is the world’s fourth-largest aid spender. In 2023, it spent £15.3bn – around a quarter of what the US provided.
Democrats have delivered a strong rebuke against the Trump administration’s attempt to gut an agency that provides crucial aid overseas to fund education and fight starvation and disease, calling it illegal, vowing a court fight and lambasting billionaire Elon Musk for wielding so much power in Washington.
Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters, and officers blocked the lawmakers from entering the lobby Monday, after Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
The fast-moving developments come after thousands of USAID employees already have been laid off and programs shut down in the two weeks since Trump became president. And they show the extraordinary power of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency in the Trump administration. Musk announced closing of the agency early Monday, as Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was out of the country on a trip to Central America.
Trump said shutting down USAID “should have been done a long time ago” and was asked whether he needs Congress to approve such a measure. The president said he did not think so, and accused the Biden administration of fraud, without giving any evidence and only promising a report later on.
“They went totally crazy, what they were doing and the money they were giving to people that shouldn’t be getting it and to agencies and others that shouldn’t be getting it, it was a shame, so a tremendous fraud,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
Rubio told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the acting administrator of USAID but had delegated his authorities to someone else. The change means that USAID is no longer an independent government agency as it had been for decades — although its new status will likely be challenged in court — and will be run out of the State Department.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The Constitution gives Congress substantial power to establish federal government offices. As an initial matter, the Constitution vests the legislative power in Congress.1 Article I bestows on Congress certain specified, or enumerated, powers.2 The Court has recognized that these powers are supplemented by the Necessary and Proper Clause, which provides Congress with broad power to enact laws that are ‘convenient, or useful’ or ‘conducive’ to [the] beneficial exercise of its more specific authorities.3 The Supreme Court has observed that the Necessary and Proper Clause authorizes Congress to establish federal offices.4 Congress accordingly enjoys broad authority to create government offices to carry out various statutory functions and directives.5 The legislature may establish government offices not expressly mentioned in the Constitution in order to carry out its enumerated powers.6
The Appointments Clause supplies the method of appointment for certain specified officials, but also for other [o]fficers whose positions are established by [l]aw. Although principal officers must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, Congress may by [l]aw place the appointing power for inferior officers with the President alone, a department head, or a court.7 As this section will explain, the Supreme Court has recognized Congress’s discretion to establish a wide variety of governmental entities in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches.
Congress’s authority to establish offices is limited by the terms of the Appointments Clause. The structure of federal agencies must comply with the requirement that the President appoint officers, subject to Senate confirmation, although the appointment of inferior officers may rest with the President alone, department heads, or the courts.8 More broadly, the Supreme Court has made clear that the Constitution imposes important limits on Congress’s ability to influence or control the actions of officers once they are appointed. Likewise, it is widely believed that the President must retain a certain amount of independent discretion in selecting officers that Congress may not impede. These principles ensure that the President may fulfill his constitutional duty under Article II to take [c]are that the laws are faithfully executed.9
Alright, I sound like I’m assigning homework and giving lectures again. I don’t mean to. But sometimes you’re just going to need a reference when some stupid person doesn’t know what’s real, what’s constitutional, and what’s totally off the wall.
I think that’s enough for today’s big swallow. I’m off to take care of myself. Please do the same!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
To think, like 50 years ago, I was performing this. Where has time gone?
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“State of the Union.”John (repeat1968) Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The last ten days of our country’s life have been wrought with chaos, death, and higher prices. This is what you get in a kakistocracy because no one in charge knows what they’re doing. We’ve had the first in-air collision in nearly a quarter of a century. There was already a shortage of air traffic controllers and pressure on the FAA by Congress to allow higher levels of traffic when these steps were taken by FARTUS and Elonia to dismantle the FAA and related regulations. Elonia is making the rounds at all Government Agencies, ensuring chaos and disruption abound. This is from Public Notice. “DCA crash puts Trump’s appalling unfitness on full display. When crisis hits, he makes it worse.”
Donald Trump’s first actions back in the White House included demolishing an air travel security advisory group, forcing out the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for corrupt reasons, implementing a hiring freeze for air traffic controllers as part of a bigoted rampage against women and people of color, and sending blanket resignation offers to the remaining FAA employees.
Then tragedy struck. Nine days after Trump took office, a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet just above Reagan National Airport (DCA) airport, killing 67 people. A report indicates staffing in DCA’s air traffic control tower at the time of the collision was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”
It’s America’s worst aviation disaster since 2001. And it shows the danger of wantonly destroying a federal government whose functioning remains vital for, among other things, keeping air travelers safe.
Does the new president have regrets about any of this? Of course not. Instead, Trump responded to the disaster by appointing an acting FAA head a day late and a dollar short, then held a dystopian media event where he signed an order pinning blame for the crash on Biden, Obama, and the Democratic Party in general.
Actually, Axios shows the facts that Air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are overwhelmingly white men. I had an aunt who was an Air Traffic Controller in Boulder, Colorado, back in the 1960s. The training, testing, and demands on them were stringent, and even more so now.
President Trump rallied against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in air traffic control as having contributed to the deadly plane crash outside of D.C. Wednesday, but the data paints a different picture.
The big picture: Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS showair traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are predominately male and white.
By the numbers: 78% are men, while 22% are women, per data from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS.
71% identify as non-Hispanic white.
The data includes air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists working in air transportation or services incidental to transportation.
CBS News reports the latest update on the tragedy. One thing stood out given the shortage of air traffic controllers just made worse by FARTUS and Elonia.
One air traffic control worker was managing the helicopters and some planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a job normally done by two people, two sources tell CBS News.
Also, the pilots of the Black Hawk helicopters and the American Airlines jet were ALL WHITE MEN. The co-pilot of the helicopter was a woman, per The Guardian. They were all seasoned aviators.
The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.
David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.
Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration.
A spokeswoman for DOGE declined to comment. Lebryk could not be reached for comment late Thursday.
When Scott Bessent was confirmed as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head.
Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.
The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service.
Yes, there are likely some places where the “bureaucracy” could be reduced, but the databases on the bank transfers should remain strictly off-limits to anyone who doesn’t have a security clearance. Meanwhile, “Trump’s FCC chair investigates NPR and PBS, urges Congress to defund them
Brendan Carr described as “Trump’s Censorship Czar” as he launches media probes.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS in a move that Democrats described as an attempt to intimidate the media.
“I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation regarding the airing of NPR and PBS programming across your broadcast member stations,” Carr wrote in a letter yesterday to the leaders of NPR and PBS.
Carr alleged that NPR and PBS are violating a federal law prohibiting noncommercial educational broadcast stations from running commercial advertisements. “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Carr wrote. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
Carr’s letter did not provide any specific examples of underwriting announcements that might violate the law, but said the “announcements should not promote the contributor’s products, services, or businesses, and they may not contain comparative or qualitative descriptions, price information, calls to action, or inducements to buy, sell, rent, or lease.”
I guess FARTUS can hawk merch, but Sesame Street can’t. These people are fucking insane.
I am having a hard time not being overwhelmed at this point. This doesn’t mention the disastrous Senate Hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, RFK jr, and Kash Patel. RFK Jr looks more ready to be a California Raisin than head of HHS. And wtf is with Kash Patel’s eyes? This is from The Hill. “Top FBI officials brace for Trump shake-up.”
Top officials at the FBI are facing a shake-up by the Trump administration.
According to House Judiciary Committee Democrats, the five executive assistant directors of the bureau were notified they would be demoted.
“These changes will further jeopardize our national security, leaving the FBI with no experienced senior leadership and a partisan Trump loyalist heading up the Bureau’s response to increasing security threats from Russia, China, and other authoritarian adversaries,” the committee said in a fact sheet circulated to House Democrats.
The move targets the band of top officials who oversee the FBI’s five internal branches and are among the highest-ranking career positions in the bureau. Many report directly to the director and deputy director.
They oversee the FBI’s national security branch and criminal and cyber branch, among others.
The FBI and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Several of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees faced tough questioning from Republicans and Democrats alike during hours-long confirmation hearings on Thursday.
Former Democrat and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, was grilled about her past remarks supporting government whistleblower Edward Snowden as well as her relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump administration aide, was pressed on his prior comments praising those involved in the 6 January Capitol riots as well as his ties to the QAnon movement.
Read the analysis at the links. I want to add one more thing that’s another mark on the path of the Louisiana Governor’s attempts to sideline professors he doesn’t like. Political firing of tenured professors is another MAGA mishap. “LSU law professor sidelined for political speech sues university. Professor alleges university is violating its own policies regarding tenured faculty.” This is from the Louisiana Illuminator.
A tenured LSU law professor removed from his classes pending an investigation into alleged political comments is suing the university, saying it violated his First Amendment rights and its own policies.
Ken Levy, a professor of constitutional and criminal law, alleges he was removed from his classes earlier this month after political comments made on the first day of his Administration of Criminal Justice course were reported to Gov. Jeff Landry, which he believes led to calls to the university administration about his comments.
“If Governor Landry were to retaliate against me, then f*** the governor and f*** that. — all of which was a joke and clearly said in a joking manner to highlight my no recording policy in class and the First Amendment,” Levy wrote in the affadavit.
Landry called on LSU to discipline Bryner last year for his comments about President Trump the day after the presidential election.
Levy argues in the affidavit that the actions taken against him stifle not only his right to free speech and academic freedom but that of other faculty members.
Landry spokeswoman Kate Kelly referred questions to LSU. University spokesman Todd Woodward has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Levy is asking a judge to grant a temporary restraining order that would allow him to return to teaching as well as an order prohibiting LSU from taking further action against him.
In the suit, Levy also alleges LSU also violated its own policies regarding the punishment of a tenured professor.
These actions are fascist purges. I can only tell you that I feel much worse off than I did two weeks ago. Also, I just paid $9.06 for 1/2 dozen eggs. Do we have a task force on the Avian Flu yet? They have one in Canada already. Japan has one too. Here’s a few headlines on that from a few weeks ago. No word at the moment. Just wondering how many people will die from this disease because FARTUS is an idiot.
The first severe case of bird flu occurred last month in a Louisiana man hospitalized after having had contact with sick birds in a backyard flock. In addition, the state of California recently declared a state of emergency as the bird flu virus continues to spread among livestock in the state.
To date, there have been 66 confirmed human cases of bird flu in the United States, according to the CDC. The current public health risk remains low, as no sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred.
Some obvious questions remain- like how did the U.S. allow a patient to get severely ill from the virus? Also, are we repeating the same mistakes we made with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020? Here are some reasons we may be repeating history.
You can read the reasons on the link. I was a little slow getting this done today. I was one the phone with doctors and vets all morning and it took longer than I thought it would. Love you all and Stay Safe!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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“His nose is already growing!” John (repeat1968) Buss
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today is the anniversary of the shameful January 6th treason and violence. It may seem quiet today, but the worst is yet to come. Not only is our new FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States with total credit given to JJ) about to take the oath of office, but all these other traitors are about to be granted Presidential Pardons. My only solace is that I may eat King Cake now because today is also 12th night, the official start of the Mardi Gras Season.
These are degenerate times. That has a specific meaning in Buddhism. Lama Yeshe describes it like this. “It has five characteristics: short life spans, scarce means of subsistence, mental afflictions, strong wrong views, and weak sentient beings.” That’s a good enough explanation for me when thinking about what’s been going on lately.
I will rely on the columnists I read today because they make sense. Our media legacy has failed us. First up is Amanda Marcotte writing for Salon. I wrote something along these lines on Friday, but Amanda has thought more deeply. “Toxic masculinity links the New Orleans attacker and the Las Vegas bomber. Whether MAGA or ISIS, troubled men are getting sucked in by hateful online propaganda.”
Like so many men facing personal troubles, Jabbar didn’t get the help he needed. Instead, he turned to radicalizing voices online, which led him to believe that he needed to double down on toxic masculinity. It’s a story we hear over and over, from so-called incels who commit mass shootings to Donald Trump fans who attack government buildings to terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda. Rather than taking responsibility for their personal failures and striving to do better, men of all stripes turn to the internet where they’re greeted by a sea of influencers, ready to tell them that it’s other people — women, people of different races or religions, the “woke mob” — that is to blame. In some cases, as happened here, they go far enough down the rabbit hole that they talk themselves into violence.
Thankfully, no one but the bomber was badly hurt in the Las Vegas suicide bombing that happened the same night as the Bourbon St. attack, but the parallels between Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger aren’t hard to spot. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger was a troubled man who picked a highly symbolic location, blowing up a Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel. Both men had checkered romantic histories, and Livelsberger appears to have told multiple people he feared he suffered from PTSD. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger seems to have acted on a belief that he was going out like a hero, standing up for his far-right ideology and using his death to call on fellow MAGA believers to commit acts of terrorism.
“Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary,” he wrote in his final manifesto. He declared the U.S. is “terminally ill and headed toward collapse,” complained that people don’t believe “[m]asculinity is good and men must be leaders” and made tired Twitter jokes calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI candidate” and President Joe Biden “Weekend at Bernie’s.” He concluded, “Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!”
Livelsberger defensively insisted the bombing “was not a terrorist attack.” This sentiment is belied not just by the violence of the act itself and his calls for MAGA men to use violence because “a hard reset must occur for our country.”
It’s the 12th night, which means the members of Skull and Bones Krewes get up early to remind us of our mortality.
When Cis men fall apart, they can’t just go silently into the night, get help, or do something productive. They have to injure or kill innocents while killing themselves. They destroy more than their own lives. They have to leave some formal Mansplaining document that lets us know why it’s all our fault. These are generally misogynistic, at the very least. Most of them spew more bullshit and bile than the waste from slaughterhouses.
John Pavlovitz wrote this on December 12th in his Substack, The Beautiful Mess. “America Chose the Monster.”
To have cast a vote for him with all that we have seen is to declare war on decency, on equality, on any semblance of forthrightness or goodness. It is to double-down on the bigotry which was dismissed as hyperbole during his campaign but which has already been ratified hundredfold as he assembles his Cabinet picks and broadcasts his agenda.
To witness his absolute disregard for the Constitution, his violent allergic reaction to facts, his complete lack of empathy and to not condemn it all becomes an indictment of one’s own heart. It becomes an act of aggression against humanity.
The are truths that are self-evident in the light of these days:
A viable healthcare alternative is not coming.
Taxes for the middle class are not coming down.
Project 2025 is going to be implemented.
Mexico is still not paying for the wall.
Immigrants are going to being persecuted.
Protections for those with special needs are evaporating.
The poor are getting thrown to the lions.
Public schools are being thrown under the bus.
The elderly are being left to fend for themselves.
The environment is being willfully set on fire.
The economy is going to be compromised.
The whole system is being intentionally blown-up.
The rule of Law in our Government is being trod upon.
Aside from the smallest percentage of the wealthiest in this nation, no one is going to be healthier, safer, or more financially secure.
This is a nonpartisan tragedy.
We all do impulsive things when we are terrified, when it’s dark and we’re convinced there’s a monster under the bed. But eventually the light comes on and we have reality at our disposal and we get to choose to see things as they are. I can’t fathom those presently determined to stay in the dark, to pretend they’re not seeing what they’re seeing—when what they’re seeing is a danger to them too.
It’s morning here in America, friends. The brilliant light of day is illuminating every dark corner and exposing every unsavory decision from the night before.
For a myriad of reasons, America chose the monster. It chose the hatred, the fear, the nihilism, the separation. The question of why is too sprawling and nebulous to answer.
And with the coming of this Monster comes more monsters. Former Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone reminds us about the kind of people that will be put back on the street when the mass pardon of traitors begins. This is from HuffPo. “Cowards, Liars And Jan. 6: Former Officer Michael Fanone Speaks Out As Trump’s Return Looms.
“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” says Michael Fanone, who was nearly killed by Trump supporters four years ago.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he got away with inciting an insurrection as well as defrauding the American people and attempting to subvert democracy,” Fanone told HuffPost during a phone interview just ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot.
“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” Fanone said. “I believe democracy in this country is dead, and it died when the Supreme Court granted the president of the United States immunity for official acts and then failed to define what the fuck official acts are.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States in July found that as long as something could be shaded as an “official” act, prosecution was off the table.
The ruling obliterated key parts of the criminal indictment brought against Trump in the Jan. 6 case by then-special counsel Jack Smith. And Trump’s victory in November means he’ll likely never face federal charges.
Shortly after the presidential election, Smith dismissed the case without prejudice ― meaning it could theoretically come back to life one day ― but Fanone’s faith in the justice system is already shattered. He called Attorney General Merrick Garland an “absolute coward.”
“Listen, people say I’m naive or I don’t know how these things work, but I was a cop for 20 years. Not only was I a cop, I was a cop in Washington, D.C. Our prosecutors were federal prosecutors. I worked with the [Department of Justice] every single day for 20 years. I know exactly how that institution and organization works. The decision not to pursue an investigation into Trump was all political,” Fanone said. “The investigation should have been launched on Jan. 7, 2021.”
Fanone was Trump-friendly before the J6 Insurrection and voted for him in 2016.
Senator John Thune from South Dakota is the new bad guy in charge of the Senate. We’re already getting some idea of how bad it’s going to be since he appears to be whipping the caucus for the gross number of idiots Trump wants in his cabinet. This is from The Hill. “Thune says it’s unclear whether all Trump Cabinet picks will be confirmed.” Some of the most worrying of them have to deal with National Security.
John Thune on Trump possibly pardoning J6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers: "That's ultimately gonna be a decision that President Trump is gonna have to make. What I'm focused on is the future."
Thune joined NBC News’s “Meet the Press” for an interview that aired Sunday, as he took the lead of the upper chamber at the start of the 119th Congress.
“What I’ve promised them is a fair process,” Thune said of Trump’s picks. “And so, these nominees are going to go through a committee where they’re going to have to answer questions. There will be some hard questions posed.”
Thune highlighted the desire to provide Trump with the Cabinet he wants but noted that the Senate has a role to “advise and consent,” particularly regarding his national security choices.
“We have a lot of our senators who take that role very seriously,” he said. “And so, we will make sure that these nominees have a process, a fair process, in which they have an opportunity to make their cases not only to the members of the committee and ultimately to the full Senate but also to the American people.”
Thune wouldn’t confirm whether he would vote for or against any of Trump’s nominees, including some particularly controversial choices like Kash Patel to lead the FBI, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) for director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense.
Thune said he’s met with some of Trump’s nominees, and there are “some” that he has been “really, really impressed” by.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has privately told President-elect Donald Trump that he believes Pete Hegseth will have the votes to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense, according to three sources.
When asked for comment, a spokesman for Thune would only tell CBS News, “Two things we don’t discuss publicly: Whip counts and private conversations with the president.”
“I think these are nominees who are new enough, they’ve been going around and conducting their meetings, which I think, frankly, have gone very well, but they still have to make their case in front of the committee. And, you know, we don’t know all the information about some of these nominees.”
Hegseth’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14, according to Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker.
Just so you know, future FBI Director Kash Patel is still making the rounds in the Senate Building. “Kash Patel Believes the FBI Planned Jan. 6th. His embrace of this wild conspiracy theory should disqualify him from leading the bureau.” This is from The Bulwark.
“WHAT WAS THE FBI DOING PLANNING January 6th for a year?”
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as FBI director, asked that question during a November 25, 2022 episode of his Kash’s Corner podcast for the Epoch Times. It was no slip of the tongue. As the title of that episode suggested—“What Did the FBI Know Before Jan. 6?”—Patel spent considerable time trying to cast the FBI as a villain responsible for January 6th. Patel noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray had “testified that the FBI never instigated or helped the January 6th protesters commit crimes.” But citing a report that the FBI had confidential human sources in the crowd, Patel asserted: “Okay, well, that was in planning for at least a year.”
Our review of Patel’s public appearances over the past four years reveals that he has repeatedly insinuated or argued that the FBI used its confidential human sources or employees to instigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and entrap Trump’s supporters. Patel has claimed (as in the podcast episode above) that what he calls the “FBI’s Confidential Human Source Corruption Coverup Network” was somehow involved with January 6th. That is not only an insult to the memory of that day; it should be disqualifying for him to helm the bureau.
During the September 30, 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, for instance, Patel said: “The question that has to be answered is, when did the FBI put those guys in, and where? And did those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so?” Patel claimed that “is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped.” And he wondered who “was running this confidential human source network” and reporting it to FBI Director Chris Wray.
Patel added he would “venture a guess” that “once we see the documentation from January 6th, you will see the FBI’s confidential human source corruption coverup network on blast.” And he accused the FBI of inserting these human sources “into these matters.” Patel asked rhetorically: “Why? Why would you say January 6th? Because they wanted a political target, a political prosecution, not one based on law and fact.”
The man who could lead Trump’s FBI has failed to substantiate these wild accusations, which are contradicted by other evidence and by common sense. Regardless, he has frequently advanced this conspiracy theory, using his background as a former federal prosecutor and public defender—key credentials used to buttress his nomination—to provide it with a veneer of credibility.
An extensive amount of documentation is provided in the article. It’s not a fun read.
ProPublica has published another astounding piece of journalism. This is long and shocking. It gets to the heart of Trump’s rabid base. Again, this is the heart of Toxic Masculinity. “The Militia and the MoleOutraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.”
So I pored over his files, tens of thousands of them. They included dozens of hours of conversations he secretly recorded and years of private militia chatlogs and videos. I was able to authenticate those through other sources, in and out of the movement. I also talked to dozens of people, from Williams’ friends to other members of his militias. I dug into his tumultuous past and discovered records online he hadn’t pointed me to that supported his account.
The files give a unique window, at once expansive and intimate, into one of the most consequential and volatile social movements of our time. Williams penetrated a new generation of paramilitary leaders, which included doctors, career cops and government attorneys. Sometimes they were frightening, sometimes bumbling, always heavily armed. It was a world where a man would propose assassinating politicians, only to spark a debate about logistics.
Federal prosecutors have convicted more than 1,000 people for their role in Jan. 6. Key militia captains were sent to prison for a decade or more. But that did not quash the allure that militias hold for a broad swath of Americans.
Now President-elect Donald Trump has promised to pardon Jan. 6 rioters when he returns to the White House. Experts warn that such a move could trigger a renaissance for militant extremists, sending them an unprecedented message of protection and support — and making it all the more urgent to understand them.
(Unless otherwise noted, none of the militia members mentioned in this story responded to requests for comment.)
Williams is part of a larger cold war, radical vs. radical, that’s stayed mostly in the shadows. A left-wing activist told me he personally knows about 30 people who’ve gone undercover in militias or white supremacist groups. They did not coordinate with law enforcement, instead taking the surveillance of one of the most intractable features of American politics into their own hands.
Skeptical of authorities, militias have sought to reshape the country through armed action. Williams sought to do it through betrayals and lies, which sat with him uneasily. “I couldn’t have been as successful at this if I wasn’t one of them in some respects,” he once told me. “I couldn’t have done it so long unless they recognized something in me.”
The last thing I want to post about is the Washington Post. The newspaper is hemorrhaging reporters, and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Political Cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit because Bezos axed her submission. The raw sketch is featured on the right. It’s also begun layoffs. This happens when greedy Tech Bros take over things they know nothing about. This is from Oliver Darcy’s Status. “Paper Cuts. The Washington Post is expected to lay off dozens of staffers this week, Status has learned.”
Layoffs are expected to rock The Washington Post this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
The layoffs are slated to hit the Jeff Bezos-owned and Will Lewis-led newspaper’s business division, I’m told. One person familiar with the matter said that the cuts will be deep, impacting many dozens of employees.
The layoffs will surely deplete morale further inside the beleaguered newspaper, which has suffered a talent exodus over the last several weeks. As I reported earlier, star reporter Josh Dawsey will exit The Post for a job at The Wall Street Journal. His departure comes on the heels of other top staffers fleeing, including Matea Gold, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Charles Lane, Tyler Pager, and Amanda Katz.
A spokesperson for The Post didn’t have an immediate comment. But The Post has been in poor financial shape in recent years, a fact that management has not hidden from employees. Those financial problems were exacerbated when Bezos blocked The Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the November election, a move that led to more than 250,000 readers canceling their subscriptions.
I’ve been a bit on the gratuitous Buddhism-sharing thing today, which I try not to overdo, but this quote from Chamtral Rinpoche hit me hard last night.
The biggest threat to our world are not human beings per se. The biggest threat is each individual person’s level of greed. One extremely greedy person can harm our world more than a million people who practice contentment.
Drinking salt water will never quench your thirst. The more you drink, the thirstier you will become. Likewise, greed will never bring you satisfaction, as it will cause an endless pursuit of material wealth to the detriment of our world and all of the beings who inhabit it.
Always remember that the greedier you are, the more you and others will suffer, and the poorer you will become inside. But the more contentment that you have, the more you and others will benefit, and the richer you will become inside.
We will have to cultivate inner peace to get through all of this. I’ve already cut down on my TV News viewing. I have a mature meditation practice (since the 1970s), so I have that. Of course, the furbabies and the Zoom calls from the Granddaughters put a smile on my face. I’m just trying to stay in the moment. I hope you can find a way to cope with this all. I’ve been listening to a lot of modern classic piano. This piece by Lambert comes from an album called “Sweet Apocalypse.” It’s beautiful and relaxing, and the name is appropriate for the times; it was recorded in 2017 during this first stint of anguish.
Talk to me about how you’re coping with this blast of kleptocracy, kakistocracy, and idiocracy?
What’s on your reading and blogging list?
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“So I’m guessing reducing everyone’s electric bill by half isn’t gonna happen either..” John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancing!
I wanted to start this morning with something very normal, American, and positive. Today, President Biden will designate a National Monument in Maine for the late great Secretary of Labor under FDR Francis Perkins. She was the first woman to serve as a Secretary in a President’s Cabinet. She inspired me since she played a major role in economic and labor policy during the Great Depression. She was appointed in 1933 and served 12 years. She should be known as the Mother of Social Security. Her role in implementing and determining policy during the New Deal programs cannot be underestimated. She has touched the lives of all of us even though she left office in 1945.
The Hill has an article up today about her tenure and the memorial today.
During Perkins’s tenure, the Labor Department oversaw Immigration and Naturalization Services, a role she used to aggressively lobby to admit larger numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe.
Perkins was considered a stalwart ally of labor unions during her tenure, which included her counseling Roosevelt against breaking a 1934 waterfront strike that shut down much of the West Coast. She also refused to deport Australian-born longshoremen’s union head Harry Bridges for his membership in the Communist Party, which led the House Un-American Activities Committee to introduce an unsuccessful impeachment resolution against her.
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, arrives for a special meeting, September 16, 1938 Image: Library of Congress ID hec.25045
She claimed to have been radicalized after she witnessed the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York in 1911, in which 146 garment workers were burned or leaped to their deaths after they were locked inside for the workday.
The national monument will comprise the nearly 60 acres that were once Perkins’s family’s homestead in Newcastle, which her family has owned for nearly three centuries.
The designation comes after Biden earlier in March signed an executive order calling on the Interior Department to identify sites with significance in women’s history in America.
You may read the Biden announcement at this link to the White House. I found this journal article written about her by Harris Chaiklin, Ph.D. at VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project. “Perkins, Frances, Change Agent in: Eras in Social Welfare History, Great Depression, People, Recollections. Frances Perkins: She Boldly Went Where No Woman Had Gone Before.” A wealthy daughter of a wealthy Boston family, she had the type of education that generally sent a woman to ‘spinsterhood.’ Her upbringing prepared her for her role, shaping some of the most strategic and important policies of the time. Fannie Perkins persisted. She eventually landed in Greenwich Village, where she became a mediator. Her friends included Sinclair Lewis and Robert Moses.
A transforming event occurred while she was having tea with a wealthy friend who lived in Washington Square. Word came that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was on fire. They rushed to it. The horror they saw there helped forge in Frances a lifelong commitment to worker’s safety and rights. That she was with a wealthy friend is significant. Though not wealthy she knew this life style and associated with wealthy people. Good friends from this group provided a place for her to live at key points in her career when her earnings were not enough to meet her needs.
After the fire there was increasing activity in campaigning for worker’s rights and safety while the social work job continued. Once a social worker who lived in the settlement house with Frances asked for help in getting a teenage boy out of jail because he was supporting his family. Frances went to the Charity Organization Society which after a long investigation deemed him “unworthy.” A friend suggested she try the Tammany Hall in the client’s district. The problem was helped within 24 hours. Her lobbying activities also put her in contact with other machine politicians. She met and struck up a close relationship with Al Smith. Working together they succeeded in getting a bill passed that limited women to a 54 hour work week. It was a compromise and liberals attacked her for giving up too much to get it passed. She knew that without the compromise there would have been no bill and not even the limited protection this bill offered. The lessons in becoming a skilled politician were piling up. In the past she had looked down on politicians but now concluded, “…that venal politicians can sometimes be more useful than upstanding reformers (Downey, 2009,p. 39).” Understanding and accepting the value of working within the political order was one of the secrets of her success.
Her experiences in these activities taught her another valuable lesson. A politician told her that men trusted women who were motherly and not seductive sirens. Downey says, “She began to see her gender, a liability in many ways, could actually be an asset. To accentuate this opportunity to gain influence she began to dress and comport herself in a way that reminded men of their mothers, rather than doing what women usually like to do which is making themselves more physically attractive to men (Downey, 2009, p. 45). At this time she was 33 years old. Up to then the papers had characterized her as “perky” “pretty” “dimpled.” They now began to label her as “Mother Perkins” a name she disliked only a little less than being called “Ma Perkins.” Such was the price for shaping herself into a highly effective politician. In these activities Frances was aware of her limitations as a woman and avoided places where women did not usually go. She did her lobbying in hallways and not bars. This too became a lifelong skill. When people were brought together to work out differences she stayed in the background. Others often got credit for her greatest accomplishments. Who today identifies her as the moving force behind achieving Social Security?
Well, me. I know what it took to get that kind of great change written into law and policy. You may read more at the link.
And, unfortunately, we have the antithesis to her and the people she worked with and for today. This is from Mark Jacob’s writing on his blog Stop the Presses. “Here’s what we WON’T do when Trump takes over. We won’t shut up and give up – we’ll stand up and power up.” This is necessary since we have learned yet another big Media outlet has caved to President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks. The brilliant suggestions continue past this bit.
As democracy defenders, we’re facing hard times when authoritarian Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. But what will we do about it? For now, I’m focusing on what we won’t do:
We won’t shut up.
We won’t retreat from the news.
We won’t lose our ability to be outraged.
We won’t be duped by a fake “crisis” that serves as a pretext to send the military against American citizens and turn our country into a police state.
We won’t sit on our couch and watch protests on TV when we should be out protesting in front of the TV cameras.
We won’t tolerate abuse of women simply because the person who won the last presidential election is a sexual predator.
We won’t get exhausted. Instead, we’ll pace ourselves, find ways to relax and enjoy life, and be ready to go at the crucial moments.
We won’t accept the notion that “all politicians lie.” More politicians lie when the news media and public accept lying and thus make it advantageous to lie.
We won’t forget to be kind.
We won’t expect the New York Times, the Washington Post and the TV networks to wake up and seriously confront the threat of fascism when they didn’t do it before the election.
We won’t forget that Trump won by just 1.5 percentage points — not a mandate, and certainly not a statement that most Americans want to surrender their rights to him.
The little tomboy girl I was who wanted to do everything boys do and do it better is still in me. Not backing down. Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture. This is from Lisa Needham at Public Notice. ABC was never a station we watched much as my Dad was a big fan of Huntley-Brinkley. Also, George Stephanopoulos has never been on my list to receive any news or advice. This disappoints me but doesn’t surprise me at all. “ABC bends the knee. Corporate media is surrendering already.” That’s exactly what a stumbling despot wants on his way to power. He wants control of the media. Wouldn’t want the truth sneaking out while you’ve got that propaganda thing going.
Since the election, plenty of the richest among us have rushed to curry favor with Donald Trump by showering him with cash.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg is giving Trump $1 million for his inauguration, as is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Amazon, which will also stream the ceremony on Prime. But perhaps even more galling is ABC’s move to settle an absurd defamation lawsuit brought by Trump over George Stephanopoulos’s completely defensible on-air statement that Trump had been found liable for rape.
ABC will donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library — a thing that has not yet been built and currently exists only as a website maintained by the National Archives. The network also agreed to pay $1 million toward Trump’s lawyer fees, continuing Trump’s streak of never paying for his own legal bills. And ABC and Stephanopoulos pledged to make a statement saying they “regret” the remarks.
It’s a bad omen for mainstream media coverage of Trump 2.0 and speaks to the importance of independent outlets that won’t be so easily intimidated.
Trump’s lawsuit rested on the incredibly flimsy argument that it defamed him to say he was found liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll when he was actually found liable for forced digital penetration. But Stephanopoulos’s comments were consistent with how the presiding judge described the case.
So, since I seem to be going all economist on you these days, let me just say that I love Paul Krugman’s substack. I’m glad he left the New York Times, even though he really didn’t state a reason other than it was time. Here’s today’s offering at Krugman Wonks Out. “Crypto is for Criming. It’s not digital gold — it’s digital Benjamins.” You can write me down as a crypto hater. I will never know how this Ponzi scheme took root, but then I can’t explain the appeal of President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks to me either. I have decided that some folks just want to be lied to if it feeds their raging ID and be told lies and sold a bill of goods just to think they may have something going for themselves and take a breather from their anger and resentment.
‘The tech bros who helped put Trump back in power expect many favors in return; one of the more interesting is their demand that the government intervene to guarantee crypto players the right to a checking account, stopping the “debanking” they claim has hit many of their friends.
The hypocrisy here is thick enough to cut with a knife. If you go back to the 2008 white paper by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto that gave rise to Bitcoin, its main argument was that we needed to replace checking accounts with blockchain-based payments because you can’t trust banks; crypto promoters also tend to preach libertarianism, touting crypto as a way to escape government tyranny. Now we have crypto boosters demanding that the evil government force the evil banks to let them have conventional checking accounts.
What’s going on here? Elon Musk, Marc Andreesen and others claim that there’s a deep state conspiracy to undermine crypto, because of course they do. But the real reason banks don’t want to be financially connected to crypto is that they believe, with good reason, that to the extent that cryptocurrencies are used for anything besides speculation, much of that activity is criminal — and they don’t want to be accused of acting as accessories.
You may take the Good Doctor’s Monetary Theory lecture at the link. I can’t believe Milton Friedman would have anything positive to say about this development at all. He wrote the book on money and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. And I also am having a huge hissy over the potential targeting of the FDIC. I worked in banking. I’ve worked for the Fed. This is my bailiwick. My daughter, the finance guru, didn’t fall for crypto, so I must have done something right. Don’t fall for this, either! This is from Reuters. “Trump’s floated idea to shutter FDIC would be political heavy lift, say analysts.” Fannie Perkins would really be in the fray on this one. How could they forget the Great Recession? It started with financial overreach in the banking industry too. CEOs and their marketing execs are more interested in becoming bigger than running an effective business.
U.S. bank stocks were unfazed on Friday after a report that President-elect Donald Trump’s team had floated the idea of shrinking or eliminating a top banking regulator, with analysts saying such a plan would not win the necessary political backing.
In recent interviews with bank regulator candidates, Trump advisers have asked whether the incoming president could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and move its deposit insurance function into the Treasury Department, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Officials from the newly founded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with finding major government savings, participated in the interviews, the WSJ said.
However, while the current system comprising three federal and multiple state bank regulators is complex, a major restructure would struggle to garner the political support needed to get through Congress, which is also expected to be tied up on tax reform and crypto legislation next year, analysts and academics said.
“It would require congressional action and despite the Republican party majority in both the Senate and the House, it would require support from the Democrats which remains very unlikely,” ING sector strategist Marine Leleux wrote in a note.
Bank stocks were little changed on Friday.
The Trump transition team has been interviewing candidates for financial agency roles, including the bank regulators, in recent days, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter. DOGE officials have been involved in some of those interviews, one said
I cannot see Senator Elizabeth Warren being quiet about any of this. However, the ink of the press is focused on the man with the most responsibility for this mess. Senator Mitch McConnell is objecting a lot now that he’s an ineffective backbencher. Look, he doesn’t like Polio! He wants the vaccine still! Look, he’s got something to say about how wonderful the Bush years were because we tried and failed to bomb “American Exceptionalism” into the Middle East, but it’s good policy!. But just because we know better doesn’t mean Legacy Media does. This is from MSNBC and Steve Benen, which means I assume Rachel saw this, too. “Why Mitch McConnell’s latest clashes with Trump matter. Despite his recent partisan history, Mitch McConnell has thrown a lot of brushback pitches in Donald Trump’s direction lately.” WTAF?
It was hard not to wonder how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, would respond to the news. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait too long to find out.
In a statement to NBC News, the Kentucky Republican — who’ll soon step down from his GOP leadership post — didn’t mention Kennedy by name, but the longtime senator said anyone seeking a confirmation vote must be specific about their intentions related to the polio vaccine.
“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell wrote. He added that “efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.”
It was a notable brushback pitch from a key GOP official, but it was also part of a recent pattern: McConnell has thrown a lot of these pitches at Trump and his team lately.
In an interview with the Financial Times, published last week, McConnell warned about the dangers of isolationism, which he seemed to tie directly to his party’s incoming president. “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” the senator said, adding, “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First’ — that was what they said in the ’30s.”
McConnell has a newly published essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, warning against the “right-wing flirtation with isolation and decline.” Referencing a signature phrase from Trump, the Kentucky Republican added, “America will not be made great again by those who simply want to manage its decline.”
The senator’s written piece echoed a speech he delivered earlier this month, rejecting his party’s isolationist wing.
In Congress last month, Matt Gaetz’s bid to become the next attorney general collapsed in the face of opposition from GOP senators. While there was no official tally on the scope of the Republican opposition to the former Florida congressman, The New York Times reported that McConnell was among those staunchly opposed to his prospective nomination.
When political observers take stock on Capitol Hill, looking for Republicans who might be a thorn in the president-elect’s side, they tend to focus on members such as Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins. But what if McConnell — who’s expected to retire at the end of his term, and who doesn’t appear to have anything to lose by standing up to Trump — unexpectedly joins the faction of Trump skeptics?
To be sure, it’d be a mistake to get one’s hopes up.
These folks are the heirs of Edward R. Murrow? Seriously? Let me just leave you with a quote from the guy that covered the NAZIs running rampant over Europe and didn’t mince words. Extra points if you know this was his sign-off!
Good Night and Good Luck!
“Surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communications to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities that must be faced if we are to survive”
Edward R. Murrow
So here I am at the keyboard, your nerdy friend. We don’t have the same number of folks reading us that we used to back in the day when we were one of the top 25 Political Blogs. But we’re here, and we’re still fearless. It is actually nice to see the country’s public intellectuals doing the Old School Blog thing these days on Substack. Throw them some bling if you can! I started out on Fire Dog Lake way back in the day. I know BB was at The Daily Kos until the anti-Hillary stuff flared. We’re here because we don’t like one-sided stories. We like to find the facts.
We’ve had terrible technical trouble with WordPress since they seem to have turned something that can’t figure out how to let people comment. Half the time, I can’t even comment on my posts here. I have to dive behind the front page to the dashboard. But, you know what … there’s a lot of stuff here from many people, and it’s still in the files. It’s been very close to 20 years now, too. I’m unsure how to get it to any place safer now. So, we’re here. We won’t shut up. We’re a Refuge.
I have one more thing to share with you. It’s important. Please read it. This is the Methodist church I want to remember. It’s also a story I’m familiar with. Our neighbors from south of our border were here helping us clean up after Katrina when everyone else wasn’t. I still want a taco truck on every corner, and we’re a lot closer to that down here in New Orleans than we used to be. It just occurred to me that I likely wrote a lesson plan for my high school students when I was in my 20s, and my heart was an open book. I actually taught civics then. Can you believe it? This story is important.
In a world full of Kari Lakes, be a Francis Perkins. In a world full of George Stephanopoulos, be an Edward Murrow.
My church kept ICE from deporting our neighbor Jose. The Bible told us so.President-elect Donald Trump has plans to end a policy that generally restricts ICE from arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations. http://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb…
I’m finding this post more difficult to write than I thought it would. We’ve been thrown into a country that we will have to rescue so just find some compassion for yourself and others right now and prepare for the difficult work ahead. I’ve tried to look for the vision of folks already planning the fight and the suffering that is about to come. Over the past two days, I’ve worried about folks I know and suicide thoughts, folks I know and tears over the dreams they had for the daughters (and this one came from a white man), and the reasoned and worried thought by my fellow economists.
I’ve seen these signs in my beloved neighborhood. I’m giving and receiving hugs on every dog walk. Please come and find me and the Poland Avenue Greeter Dog. We’re also hanging at the Safe Space on the corner ready with music and games and friendship with many, like minds. You are loved and valued for who you are.
The celebrating people think they’re going back in time to a better place. Let me say, I no longer need to wonder what happened to Germany in the 1930s because we’re living in an American version of it now.
As you know, I’ve been carefully watching the markets. It looks a lot like probing for the new ceiling in the spot markets to me before we see a sell-off when it’s found. The first of the markets to be worried about found a headline today at Reuters. There will be more of this coming. “US natural gas markets point to steep price rise in 2025.” Financially, you should “hunker down.” This is the first of the futures/forwards market to come to a consensus.
The northern hemisphere summer has not yet officially finished, but United States natural gas markets are already sizing up supply and demand balances for this winter and the next year, and indicate that sharply higher prices may emerge.
Forward markets for Henry Hub futures, the benchmark U.S. natural gas price, indicate that prices will average $3.20 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in 2025, compared to an average of $2.22 so far this year, data from LSEG shows.
If realized, that roughly 44% year-on-year price increase would be the steepest annual climb since 2022, and could worsen energy product inflation trends despite a slowdown in broader price gains in the United States.
Look for more of this. It’s not only Climate Change that will continue to disrupt energy markets in 2025. These are the guys that can gloat because they will not be the ones to suffer. This is from Vanity Fair. “Surprise: Elon Musk, Who Stands to Gain Billions Under Trump, Is Gloating About the Election. “The future is gonna be so 🔥 🇺🇸🇺🇸,” the tech billionaire wrote, above a photo of himself speaking with Donald Trump and Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.” This is so true. We have an authentic kleptocracy now. Let’s not keep it.
Elon Muskwas gloating publicly even before the polls closed Tuesday night. And as the evening wore on, the tech billionaire grew both brasher and more triumphant. “The future is gonna be so 🔥 🇺🇸🇺🇸,” he wrote above a photo of himself speaking with President-elect Donald Trump and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White. “Let that sink in,” he added, next to a meme of himself in the Oval Office late on Tuesday night.
Musk has plenty to celebrate, from Tesla’s soaring stock price to the continued tax cuts Trump has promised corporations and ultra-wealthy households. The Republican mega-donor, who dropped almost $120 million on Trump’s reelection effort, is now poised for a prominent role in Trump’s second administration. His various companies also stand to gain billions of dollars in federal contracts under Trump, and the new administration could potentially curtail the numerous investigations and other regulatory actions that federal agencies have initiated against his business interests. “The future is gonna be fantastic,” Musk wrote Wednesday morning, next to a picture of a SpaceX rocket.
How “fantastic” that future looks to non-billionaires remains to be seen. Trump has said he’d like to task Musk with leading a new government efficiency commission, which could slash as much as $2 trillion from the federal budget. Leading economists, as well as Musk himself, have both warned that the level of austerity could cause widespread economic hardship for Americans. There are also significant outstanding questions about how Musk wielded his wealth and public influence in the lead-up to the election.
Two lawsuits now allege that Musk and his pro-Trump political action committee violated state or federal laws with their $1-million-a-day pseudo-lottery. Under Musk, X—formerly Twitter—has also become a hub for misinformation, with two recent investigations finding that the platform appears to favor right-wing content. Musk seemed to mock those criticisms on Tuesday and Wednesday, insisting that X was a bastion of truth, while falsely claiming that “legacy media lied relentlessly to the public.” In a Tuesday evening livestream, Musk vowed that his pro-Trump PAC would continue to operate past the election and “weigh in heavily” on future races.
In his acceptance speech to supporters, Trump called Musk “a new star,” “an amazing guy,” and “a super-genius.” “We have to protect our geniuses,” he added. “We don’t have that many of them.”
Elizabeth Warren already has a plan. Remember, 2 years isn’t that far away. We get another chance to vote for Senate and House. Meanwhile, resist. Protect Yourself. Be Compassionate to yourself and others. We cannot surrender mentally, emotionally, and in action. This is from Time Magazine. “Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Here’s the Plan to Fight Back.” We have Senators, we have Governors, we have Representatives. Gird them up for the fight they will take on.
To everyone who feels like their heart has been ripped out of their chest, I feel the same. To everyone who is afraid of what happens next, I share your fears. But what we do next is important, and I need you in this fight with me.
As we confront a second Donald Trump presidency, we have two tasks ahead. First, try to learn from what happened. And then, make a plan.
Many political experts and D.C. insiders are already blaming President Joe Biden’s economic agenda for Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss. This does not stand up to scrutiny. Even though the Biden economy produced strong economic growth while reining in inflation, incumbent parties across the globe have been tossed out by voters after the pandemic. American voters also showed support for Democratic economic policies, for example, approving ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in Alaska and to guarantee paid sick leave in Missouri.
But good economic policies do not erase painful underlying truths about our country. For my entire career, I’ve studied how the system is rigged against working-class families. On paper, the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world. But working families are struggling with big expenses like the cost of housing, health care, and childcare. Giant corporations get tax breaks and favorable rules while workers are gouged by higher prices. Billionaires pay paltry taxes on their wealth while families can’t afford to buy their first homes.
Americans do not want a country where political parties each field their own team of billionaires who then squabble over how to divvy up the spoils of government. Vice President Harris deserves credit for running an inspiring campaign under unprecedented circumstances. But if Democrats want to earn back the trust of working people and govern again, we need to convince voters we can—and will—unrig the economy.
What comes next? Trump won the election, but more than 67 million people voted for Democrats and they don’t expect us to roll over and play dead. We will have a peaceful transition of power, followed by a vigorous challenge from the party out of power, because that’s how democracy works. Here’s a path forward.
First, fight every fight in Congress.
We won’t always win, but we can slow or sometimes limit Trump’s destruction. With every fight, we can build political power to put more checks on his administration and build the foundation for future wins. Remember that during the first Trump term, mass mobilization—including some of the largest peaceful protests in world history—was the battery that charged the resistance. There is power in solidarity, and we can’t win if we don’t get in the fight.
During the Trump years, Congress stepped up its oversight of his unprecedented corruption and abuses of power. In the Senate, Democrats gave no quarter to radical Trump nominees; we asked tough questions and held the Senate floor for hours to slow down confirmation and expose Republican extremism. These tactics doomed some nominations entirely, laid the groundwork for other cabinet officials to later resign in disgrace, and brought scrutiny that somewhat constrained Trump’s efforts.
When all this work came together, we won some of the toughest fights. Remember Republicans’ attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Democrats did not have the votes to stop the repeal. Nevertheless, we fought on. Patients kept up a relentless rotation of meetings in Congress, activists in wheelchairs performed civil disobedience, and lawmakers used every tactic possible—late night speeches, forums highlighting patient stories, committee reports, and procedural tactics—to draw attention to the Republican repeal effort. This sustained resistance ultimately shifted the politics of health care repeal. The final vote was a squeaker, but Republicans lost and the ACA survived.
Democrats should also acknowledge that seeking a middle ground with a man who calls immigrants “animals” and says he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not” is unlikely to land in a good place. Uniting against Trump’s legislative agenda is good politics because it is good policy. It was Democratic opposition to Trump’s tax bill that drove Trump’s approval ratings to what was then the lowest levels of his administration, forcing Republicans to scrap all mention of the law ahead of the 2018 midterm election and helping spark one of the largest blue waves in recent history.
Second, fight Trump in the courts.
Yes, extremist courts, including a Supreme Court stocked with MAGA loyalists, are poised to rubber-stamp Trump’s lawlessness. But litigation can slow Trump down, give us time to prepare and help the vulnerable, and deliver some victories.
Third, focus on what each of us can do.
I understand my assignment in the Senate, but we all have a part to play. During the first Trump administration, Democrats vigorously contested every special election and laid the groundwork to take back the House in the 2018 midterms, creating a powerful check on Trump and breaking the Republican trifecta. Whether it’s stepping up to run for office, supporting a neighbor’s campaign, or getting involved in an organization taking action, we all have to continue to make investments in our democracy—including in states that are passed over as “too red.” The political position we’re in is not permanent, and we have the power to make change if we fight for it.
Finally, Democrats currently in office must work with urgency.
While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, we must do all we can to safeguard our democracy. To resist Trump’s threats to abuse state power against what he calls “the enemy within,” Pentagon leaders should issue a directive now reiterating that the military’s oath is to the Constitution. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President.
To those feeling despair: I understand. But remember, every step toward progress in American history came after the darkness of defeat. Abolitionists, suffragettes, Dreamers, and marchers for civil rights and marriage equality all faced impossible odds, but they persisted. Now it is our turn to pull up our socks and get back in the fight.
An iconic photograph from the Spanish Civil War. This is Marina Ginestà i Coloma, born in Toulouse on 29 January 1919 after her family had emigrated to France from Spain. Aged eleven, Marina returned to Spain, to Barcelona, with her parents, who were tailors. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, she served as a translator and reporter. July 1936, when Marina was seventeen years old. The location is the rooftop of the Hotel Colón in Barcelona.
Get back in the Fight. Stay in the Fight. Do nothing with Trump voters. It will catch up to them soon enough. Help yourself and your true friends and family. If you can find it in yourself today to ready this Politico article about their Agenda here is the link. Deporting is high on the list. It will not bode well for our food. I’m going to go work in my Victory Garden. My goal has been to turn my small land area into edible and beautiful things to help pollinators.
Another read I suggest, even though it is tough, comes from the best journalistic endeavors in this country these days, ProPublica. “Trump Says He’ll Fight for Working-Class Americans. His First Presidency Suggests He Won’t. From cutting children’s disability benefits to allowing employers to pocket workers’ tips, Trump tried to slash protections for the working poor in ways that have been forgotten by many.”
This is all I’m up to for the moment. My self care is to not watch the news or anything where I have to see that Orange Monster say anything or move. I’m staying on social media but not interacting much with X. It’s not a helpful place.
What’s in your heart and mind today? What can we do for each other to make it better?
Take heart from the French Experience with NAZIs, although we can do it without guns because we know our tormentors well. This song was written by Anna Marly. Worry also about our friends in Kyiv and in Europe as this cancer will spread.
My friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains? My friend, do you hear the dulled cries of our countries in chains?
Oh, friends, do you hear, workers, farmers, in your ears alarm bells ringing? Tonight all our tears will be turned to tongues of flame in our blood singing!
Climb up from the mine, out from hiding in the pines, all you comrades, Take out from the hay all your guns, your munitions and your grenades;
Hey you, assassins, with your bullets and your knives, kill tonight! Hey you, saboteurs, be careful with your burden, dynamite!
We are the ones who break the jail bars in two for our brothers, hunger drives, hate pursues, misery binds us to one another.
There are countries where people sleep without a care and lie dreaming. But here, do you see, we march on, we kill on, we die screaming.
But here, each one knows what he wants, what he does with his choice; My friend, if you fall, from the shadows on the wall, another steps into your place.
Tomorrow, black blood shall dry out in the sunlight on the streets. But sing, companions, freedom hears us in the night still so sweet.
My friend, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains? My friend, do you hear the dulled cries of our countries in chains?
You may want to watch this Ted Talk also about Tanzinia. “How to Fight for Democracy in the Shadow of Autocracy | Fatma Karume | TED” is a great explanation of how to live in a transitioning democracy that turned back into an autocracy by “The Bulldozer.” This is about how bad it can get and this is how she rediscovered herself in the 4 years of hell. It’s worth the watch.
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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.
I was watching the Futures market last night, too late into the night, to see what was happening with stocks, Market Indices, and everything that impacted the stock market the next day. BB sent this to me late last night. I agree with pretty much everything in Jonathan V. Last’s analysis provided in 
No matter how many needy people around the world are served by USAID, Elonia says he’s shutting it down- right to the point of stopping funds for a small Lutheran church feeding and sheltering children- and he says FARTUS approves it. How absolutely White Male Christian of them! This is from The Daily Beast as reported by Matt Young.” 
All my levels of Civics, Political Science, and American History oblige me to recall that part of the US Constitution that gives the power of the purse to the United States Congres. They’ve created the Agency. They’ve funded it. They’ve had sign-offs from Presidents. Who the fuck does he thinks he is? 
Today, staffers at the Agency were told to stay out. This is from the AP. 
I need to see more than a “strong rebuke” please. He’s just stolen powers given to Congress by the Constitution. 
Actually, 
Elonia is making serious trouble at the US Treasury. 
Yes, there are likely some places where the “bureaucracy” could be reduced, but the databases on the bank transfers should remain strictly off-limits to anyone who doesn’t have a security clearance. 
I am having a hard time not being overwhelmed at this point. This doesn’t mention the disastrous Senate Hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, RFK jr, and Kash Patel. RFK Jr looks more ready to be a California Raisin than head of HHS. And wtf is with Kash Patel’s eyes?
I wouldn’t want a kidnapped child’s case in the hands of any of these people. This article is from the BBC. 
These actions are fascist purges. I can only tell you that I feel much worse off than I did two weeks ago. Also, I just paid $9.06 for 1/2 dozen eggs. Do we have a task force on the Avian Flu yet? 
This bit popped up over the weekend and is disturbing. 
Just so you know, future FBI Director Kash Patel is still making the rounds in the Senate Building. “Kash Patel Believes the FBI Planned Jan. 6th. His embrace of this wild conspiracy theory should disqualify him from leading the bureau.” This is from 
ProPublica
The last thing I want to post about is the Washington Post. 
I’ve been a bit on the gratuitous Buddhism-sharing thing today, which I try not to overdo, but this quote from 
And, unfortunately, we have the antithesis to her and the people she worked with and for today. This is from Mark Jacob’s writing on his blog 
The little tomboy girl I was who wanted to do everything boys do and do it better is still in me. Not backing down. Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture. This is from Lisa Needham at 
So, since I seem to be going all economist on you these days, let me just say that I love Paul Krugman’s substack. I’m glad he left the New York Times, even though he really didn’t state a reason other than it was time. Here’s today’s offering at 
You may take the Good Doctor’s Monetary Theory lecture at the link. I can’t believe Milton Friedman would have anything positive to say about this development at all. He wrote the book on money and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. And I also am having a huge hissy over the potential targeting of the FDIC. I worked in banking. I’ve worked for the Fed. This is my bailiwick. My daughter, the finance guru, didn’t fall for crypto, so I must have done something right. Don’t fall for this, either! 
I cannot see Senator Elizabeth Warren being quiet about any of this. However, the ink of the press is focused on the man with the most responsibility for this mess. Senator Mitch McConnell is objecting a lot now that he’s an ineffective backbencher. Look, he doesn’t like Polio! He wants the vaccine still! Look, he’s got something to say about how wonderful the Bush years were because we tried and failed to bomb “American Exceptionalism” into the Middle East, but it’s good policy!. But just because we know better doesn’t mean Legacy Media does. 
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