Mostly Monday Reads: Mercy Me!

“This was the plan all along. Authoritarianism has arrived and is on full display. Can’t wait to hear the “this is what I voted for” crowd crying when they are executed on the streets protesting the confiscation of their guns. But hey, there are no men in women’s sports!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Yet another start to a week in the cruel and vulture-ridden world of Donny J. His obsession with his own self-interest continues to plague the country with problems we don’t need, didn’t ask for, and most of us know they ruin our way of life. The most ridiculous aspect is that all these grudges have evolved into bizarre legal actions, which have been disrupting nearly every process and institution that we rely on. Today, stocks are falling because Trump just has to have someone to blame for his rotten economy.

Richard Nixon FAFO’d with the Fed back in the 1970s and learned exactly how international financial and monetary markets are massively disrupted by politicians meddling with these markets. This is a journal article that you can read if you’d like. (How Richard Nixon Pressured Arthur Burns: Evidence from the Nixon Tapes, Burton A. Abrams, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 20, no. 4, Fall 2006.)

A more updated analysis can be found at NPR. This is from February 2025. “What happened when Richard Nixon wanted more control over interest rates? This is a tale of a president pressuring the head of the central bank for political reasons. Burns fights it, then capitulates, and it lays the foundation for later inflation.” I lived through this as I was actually studying to be an economist. It has significantly shaped many of my perspectives on why politicians should refrain from certain functions. I can also offer testimony that everyone — including me at one time — who has worked for the Fed holds Fed independence as a sacred trust to the American People.

Whether the Federal Reserve raises, lowers or maintains baseline interest rates is one of the most important economic decisions it makes. And that decision is made outside of presidential control, at least theoretically. Kenny Malone and Mary Childs from our Planet Money podcast had the story of what happened when one president wanted more control over interest rates.

MARY CHILDS, BYLINE: In 1971, President Richard Nixon began secretly recording basically everything.

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: Thirty-three years later, virtually all of those tapes were publicly available.

BURTON ABRAMS: Well, everyone else was interested in Watergate. I was interested in monetary policy.

CHILDS: Economist Burton Abrams drove down to the National Archives.

ABRAMS: They were available on reels, and then you had to put on earphones and try to make out the garbled conversations that existed.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICHARD NIXON: Arthur, how are you? (Inaudible).

CHILDS: Arthur, how are you? Nixon says to Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve.

MALONE: Nixon was one year away from reelection, and unemployment had been rising.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

NIXON: So this will be the last conservative administration in Washington.

MALONE: This will be the last conservative administration in Washington.

CHILDS: Nixon seems to tell his Fed chair to let more money flow through the economy, which generally helps unemployment but risks inflation.

MALONE: Arthur Burns seems to push back and also seems to tap on the table to make this point.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ARTHUR BURNS: I don’t want to see interest rates exploding (inaudible).

ABRAMS: Burns is making an appeal to Nixon that he doesn’t want to stimulate anymore. He’s still holding out. Yep.

MALONE: So I assume Nixon is not super jazzed about that meeting.

ABRAMS: No, so I suspect that behind the scenes, pressure is still to give Nixon the monetary policy he wants.

MALONE: According to Arthur Burns’ personal diary, he was warned that White House operatives had their bayonets out for him and that Nixon was threatening to pack the Fed board and completely take control.

Economist Mark Zahn explains it all. This is from ABC. “Stocks fall after Trump’s DOJ opens criminal probe into Fed Chair Powell. Powell rebuked the probe as an effort to undermine the Fed’s independence.”  It’s not nice to fool your major donors. We continue the Magical Misery tower with whatever this brand of “conservatism” claims to be. Republicans only want the government out of business when it suits them.

Stocks slid in early trading on Monday hours after reports that the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell centered on the central bank leader’s remarks to Congress about an office renovation project.

Powell, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, issued a rare video message rebuking the investigation as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 290 points, or 0.6%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 0.3%.

Gold and silver — safe-haven assets often seen as a hedge against the stock market — moved higher on Monday.

The selloff on Monday also appeared to include reaction to a social media post from President Donald Trump advocating for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates for one year. Shares of several major banks fell in early trading.

The DOJ’s criminal probe follows a monthslong influence campaign undertaken by Trump as he has frequently slammed the Fed for what he considers a reluctance to significantly reduce interest rates.

The criminal probe appears to center on allegations of false remarks made by Powell about a renovation of the Fed’s headquarters during a congressional hearing in June.

Trump has repeatedly denounced Powell for alleged overspending tied to the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project. The Fed attributes spending overruns to unforeseen cost increases, saying that its building renovation will ultimately “reduce costs over time by allowing the Board to consolidate most of its operations,” according to the central bank’s website.

Federal law allows the president to remove the Fed chair for “cause” — though no president has ever done so. Powell’s term as chair is set to expire in May, but he can remain on the Fed’s policymaking board until 2028. Powell has not indicated whether he intends to remain on the board.

It’s sincerely hypocritical to me to watch a convicted and well-known lifetime felon try to trump up charges on some of the most ethical government servants we’ve ever had. Powell has released a statement through the usual Fed channels.

I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.

This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.

No rational, studied, normal economist would disagree with his statements. However, sell-outs for money, power, and greed will always pop up to empower evil intent.

ICE continues to be a rogue organization with no respect for the law or for human life. Judd LeGume’s blog’s Popular Information has some great perspectives on the ICE Raids today. The inhumanity of their actions shows intent, organization, and planning. “Kill, smear, cover-up.”

“The known facts do not support the official federal government narrative of Renee Good’s killing. Now, in an unusual move, the federal government is excluding state law enforcement from the investigation.

Initially, the FBI and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) agreed to conduct a joint investigation of Good’s death. This is standard procedure. But this agreement was quickly rescinded. The BCA says it has lost “access to the case materials, scene evidence [and] investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.” As a result, the BCA believes it will not be able to conduct a thorough investigation that will ensure “accountability and public confidence.”

Instead, the investigation will be led exclusively by the FBI, which is run by Kash Patel, one of Trump’s most partisan supporters. Patel wrote a series of children’s books that referred to Trump as a “king.”

“What are you hiding?” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison asked. “I mean, if you feel that you’re — that the ICE agent operated within the law, then let there be an investigation so that that can be revealed.” Ellison said that the federal government was undermining “a fair, transparent investigation” by excluding state investigators. According to Ellison, the FBI investigation “will look simply like a whitewash… covering up… what could well be nefarious, bad activity.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “Kristi Noem watched the videos and doesn’t want an impartial investigation because she knows her narrative about domestic terrorism is bullshit.”

After an officer-involved shooting, it is standard protocol for the officer and witnesses to remain on the scene to be interviewed. Further, nothing should be removed from the scene. But in this case a video shows “several agents, including the agent who opened fire, get in their vehicles and drive off, apparently altering the active crime scene.”

ICE policy requires “officers and agents… to activate body-worn cameras at the start of enforcement activities and to record throughout interactions.” But no body cam videos have been released.

Since the federal government has asserted control over the investigation, it has selectively leaked evidence to ideologically friendly publications. A 47-second video of the incident, for example, was shared with Alpha News, a right-wing outlet in Minnesota. It was then amplified by Vance. It was released by the DHS the next day.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced she was conducting her own investigation and urged the public to submit evidence directly to her office. Vance told reporters on January 8 that Ross has “absolute immunity” for Good’s killing. Moriarty said that is not true.

Moriarty revealed that federal law enforcement removed Good’s vehicle from the scene before state investigators could examine it. Good’s car is a key piece of evidence because it could help definitively establish if Ross was struck in any way.”

Joyce Vance warns us in her SubStack that “Tonight’s column is far longer than I like to run, perhaps the longest one ever. But please don’t give up on it. Although I’d planned to write about developments we expect this week in various lawsuits, these are the times we live in. The situation with ICE is critical right now. I’ve packed a lot of information you’ll need this week as the situation in Minneapolis develops into this post, but don’t feel like you have to read it all at once.” 

We head into the coming week in an unsettled moment where the administration has blood on its hands. It would have been fair for the administration to call for time to investigate what happened in Minneapolis the morning Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent. But that’s not what ICE’s leadership, the DHS Secretary, or the White House has done. They blamed the victim. They criticized her for exercising her rights as an American citizen. They called her a terrorist. None of this suggests the administration has good intentions. Vice President Harris told us this would happen and now it has.

Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper showed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem video of the mob attacking the Capitol on January 6.

Tapper: “I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers on January 6. Undisputed evidence, and I just said, President Trump pardoned all of them. You said that President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally. That’s just not true. There’s a different standard for law enforcement officers being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters. We just saw that.”

Trump’s September 2025 Presidential Memo titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” (NSPM-7) spelled this all out. It divides the country into good guys and bad guys. If you’re for Trump, you’re a good guy. If you’re against Trump, you’re a domestic terrorist. The rules that apply to the two groups are different. Attack the police in support of Donald Trump (January 6), and you get a pardon; stop to watch what an ICE agent is doing, and it’s a death sentence.

Trump attributed the need for NSPM-7 to dramatic increases in “Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence.” He cited “the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk” and called out people who “adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology, embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence,” as the justification for the memo. He also cited the 2024 murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and “the 2022 assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh” as further justification, along with the two assassination attempts on his own life and what he calls “riots” in Los Angeles and Portland that were a “1,000 percent increase in attacks on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers since January 21, 2025, compared to the same period last year.” He also wrote that “Separate anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots have left many people dead and injured and inflicted over $2 billion in property damage nationwide.”

Trump claims the recent “political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically.” He says it’s the “culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.” No evidence is offered to support this. But that doesn’t seem to matter in the rush to a conclusion: “A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.” Although at first this seemed targeted toward civil society and civil rights groups that advocated and litigated on behalf of Americans and their rights, now, it seems to be turned against anti-ICE protestors who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.

This list  is horrifying.

NSPM-7 identifies “common threads animating this violent conduct” as:

• anti-Americanism;
• anti-capitalism;
• anti-Christianity;
• support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
• extremism on migration, race, and gender; and
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

If you have any of these tendencies, or if the administration believes you do, one of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) is directed to investigate you.

There are about 200 JTTFs across the country. They are the nerve center of the federal government’s efforts to ensure potential acts of terrorism are detected before they can be committed. Agents and prosecutors from federal and state agencies meet to review cases and ensure nothing important is swept aside. The work can be intense and urgent. Now, Trump has ordered that the JTTFs “shall investigate” an exhausting laundry list of potential infractions committed by people who oppose his views. In Trump’s view, Americans exercising their First Amendment and other rights are violent domestic terrorists.

But it’s all one-sided. Just like Noem’s failure to recognize the crimes committed by January 6 defendants in the question from Tapper that we started out with tonight. It’s all a thinly veiled mechanism for criminalizing innocent behavior by anyone who opposes this administration. Hence the characterization of Good, who was unarmed when she was shot and killed by a law enforcement officer, as the “terrorist.”

I have one more topic today that I find horrifyingly short-sided and cruel. This is all in the name of keeping women out of the workforce.  This is from AXIOS. It’s reported by Emily Peck. “Trump funding freeze could stretch child care to a breaking point.”

Child care providers, already under financial strain, face their greatest test yet as the Trump administration imposes new rules and restrictions on funding.

Why it matters: Federal money underpins the entire industry — vital to millions of parents trying to manage work and family, across all income levels.
Driving the news: A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration from freezing more than $10 billion for five blue states, claiming widespread fraud.

• The administration, meanwhile, is also asking all states to provide more information to justify and support spending on care, a requirement that some state officials and advocates say is onerous and could delay funding.

The big picture: Even before the freeze, states were scrambling to make up for the loss of pandemic-era child care funding.

• “There hasn’t been a full-on collapse, but it’s just been a kind of slow-moving deterioration,” says Matthew Nestler, an economist at KPMG who tracks the sector.

Zoom out: Child care providers, mainly small businesses on tight margins, are struggling to stay afloat.

• Wait lists for child care are growing in some states, and prices are rising — that often means a parent needs to make a tough choice, and could leave the labor market entirely. Typically, that’s mothers.
• So many workers depend on child care that any policies that reduce investment in the sector have big knock-on effects for the entire economy, Nestler says.

Zoom in: Colorado froze new child care enrollments in some counties last year because of state budget constraints, coming on top of the pandemic pullback.

• That’s been devastating for Westwood Academy, a preschool and child care center in Denver, where two-thirds of kids, about 20, were on federally subsidized tuition at the start of 2025.

• Now, the program is down to just four of these kids, says RB Fast, who started the center in 2022 when pandemic funds were flowing. Last year, the center lost about $70,000. (Typically, she turns some profit.)

• She’s planning to open a second center in a wealthier suburb, where she’ll charge $2,200 a month for a full-day toddler care. In her current center in Denver, she charges $1,747.

• The upshot: “High quality child care is increasingly becoming a luxury good,” she says.

• In Indiana is facing similar struggles.

It’s hard to look daily at all the things this regime is doing to make our lives worse-off. Many are focused on harming the least and most vulnerable among us. I know all these grudges Trump holds impact his actions as does his level of greed, need for attention, and seemingly needless compulstion to be cruel.His brain is fed by the likes of Stephen Miller and some backward notion that life was better in previous centuries. But, the man has serious mental issues and personality disorders. Why don’t so many of his followers see that? Why doesn’t the Republican Party do something? They’re empowering the worst in humanity to destroy everything this country has every stood for.

The struggle continues.

What’s on your Reading, Action and Blogging list today?