Finally Friday Reads: Backpfeifengesicht
Posted: March 7, 2025 Filed under: Economy, Equity Markets, FARTUS, kakistocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA Political Carnage, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge | Tags: a face worthy of being slapped, Backpfeifengesicht, CryptoCurrency Ponzi Scheme from Trump and Musk, Declaration of Independence, FARTUS, martial-law, People are not Illegal, Space X explosion, The Insurrection Act, White Male Christian Supremacists 8 Comments
“EEK!” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for “a face worthy of being slapped.” That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of #FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States). JJ found this sweet article at The Guardian and shared it with BB and me this morning. It’s an Op-Ed written by Marina Hyde about JD Vance, but it could apply to any subhuman of the modern MAGA movement. “There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing. Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit.” Ayup.
You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.
I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.
Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”
Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.
Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.
While JJ found that amusing read today. BB brought home the rancid bacon. This is an op-ed by Brett Wagner in The San Francisco Chronicle today. “Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way. A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration.”
The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”
Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.
Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.
Coincidence?
As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.
Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).
This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).
Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.
I bring you the reality on the ground from Joy Reid on Threads. “This is inhumane, hideous and repugnant. If this is what MAGA America is, count me out. I’m ashamed that this is what our government is doing. Shame on them. Shame.” What it is is a 21-year-old girl with cancer who relies completely on her immigrant mother, who is in no way a criminal or bothering anyone. When protesters came to protest, they were arrested. How many laws and constitutional rights can this miserable administration break before they completely break all of us? This story comes from El Monte, California. You can read the hatred of the MAGA monsters in the threads below on YouTube. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave the house and take a chance at seeing a FARTUS supporter in my neighborhood. I’m fine with all the immigrants, though. Everything they do makes my neighborhood a better place.
“I can’t even wake up properly… she helps me, she bathes me, she changes me, she makes my food.”Deportation didn’t protect anyone it only stole a mother from the child who needs her most-Blake Coronadowww.threads.net/@blakecorona…
— Audrey (@parickards.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T23:59:31.294Z
The US Military and US Vets are under attack from this Administration. This cannot be denied. This is from the AP this morning. FARTUS has always had a thing against military service and those who fight for values that he seems to hate very much. “War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge.” So much of this just comes as an attack against the diversity of our nation being represented in all of its institutions. But is that really it? Why the disappearance of all people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community? Are white cis men really that sensitive?
References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.
Are they just trying to up their odds that one will be less likely to disrupt the plan when martial law is declared? Everything they’ve been doing shows their delight in being the worst kind of bullies. Just yesterday, they announced they will deport Ukrainians who fled to the US for safety. We are no longer a safe harbor. Not even close. Heather Cox Richardson discusses this in detail this morning in her Substack Letters from an American.
This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”
“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”
The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.
In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.
Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.
As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.
Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.
Trump, bitcoin, political cartoon
We’re being turned into part of the Trump Grift Mafia. Nothing will be left standing of any of the good we have done in the world. This is neocolonialism and neomercantilism. We’ve retreated to some of the worst historical ideologies ever. The most symbolic thing happened yesterday. The latest Space X project blew up in the sky and shut down many flights yesterday. “Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports. The video showed the upper stage of the most powerful rocket ever built spinning out of control in space, a repeat of an unsuccessful test flight in January that led to debris falling over the Caribbean.” This is what we’re spending money for? Elonia is pushing his company to the brink of getting to Mars and looking down at the rest of us. The report is from The New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang.
Starship — the huge spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — failed during its latest test flight on Thursday when its upper stage exploded in space, raining debris and disrupting air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.
It was the second consecutive test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built where the upper-stage spacecraft malfunctioned. It started spinning out of control after several engines went out and then lost contact with mission control.
Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.
The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built. At 403 feet tall, it is nearly 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty atop its pedestal.
It has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.
The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from science fiction movies of the 1950s, is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.
The rocket lifted off a little after 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday from the SpaceX site known as Starbase at the southern tip of Texas near the city of Brownsville.
Starship’s mammoth booster again successfully returned to the launchpad, just as it had during the previous test flight. In the last half minute before the upper-stage engines were to shut off, several of them malfunctioned. Video from the rocket showed a tumbling view of Earth and space until it cut off.
Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote this analysis for The Atlantic. “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence. The president, who has flirted with regal rhetoric, wants a historic copy of America’s founding document placed in the Oval Office.”
Long live the king!
Down with the king!
President Donald Trump sees the appeal of both.
Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.
I had no idea one of my greats who signed the Declaration had made of the copies of it. But the weird thing here is that Trump seriously wants the document to hang in the Oval Office. My question is, why take it from the people who can see it in the archives?
Since returning to power, Trump has moved quickly to redesign his working space. He has announced plans to pave over the Rose Garden to make it more like the patio at his private Mar-a-Lago club, as well as easier to host events with women wearing heels. He has also revived planning for a new ballroom on the White House grounds. “It keeps my real-estate juices flowing,” Trump explained in a recent interview with The Spectator.
Golden trophies now line the Oval Office’s mantlepiece. Military flags adorned with campaign streamers have returned. And portraits of presidents past now climb the walls—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among others. Gilded mirrors hang upon the recessed doors. A framed copy of his Georgia mug shot appears in the outside hallway. And the bright-red valet button, encased in a wooden box, is back on the desk.
In addition to the National Archives’ original Declaration, the government has in its possession other versions of the document. The collection includes drafts by Jefferson and copies of contemporaneous reprintings, known as broadsides, that were distributed among the colonies.
Alarmed by the deterioration of the original Declaration in the 1820s, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an engraving of it with the signatures appended. That version forms the basis of the document since reproduced in school history books—the one with which most Americans are familiar. Adams tasked Stone with engraving 200 copies—but in what passes for a mini 19th-century scandal, Stone made an extra facsimile to keep for himself, the documents dealer and expert Seth Kaller told us.
Many of those Stone copies of the document have now been lost; roughly 50 are known to survive, Kaller said. The White House already has in its archives at least one of the Stone printings. Kaller told us that one of his clients who had recently purchased a Stone facsimile was visiting the White House when President Barack Obama asked him whether he could help procure a Stone printing for the White House.
“The client called me, and I said, ‘I can’t—because, one, there aren’t any others on the market right now, and two, the White House already has one,’” Kaller told us. In 2014, Kaller visited the White House to view the Stone Declaration, which the curator displayed for him in one of the West Wing’s rooms. (The White House curator’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including on whether the Stone copy still resides under its purview.)
It is unclear where Trump first got the idea to add a Declaration to the Oval Office’s decor. Since returning, Trump has shown interest in the planning for celebrations next year of the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. Days after taking office, he issued an executive order to create “Task Force 250,” a White House commission that will work with another congressionally formed commission to plan the festivities.
I hope he’s not trying to go with one of those grandiose military parades again. And if he does, will he eliminate everyone but the white guys? It can’t be anything other than another way for him to get attention, that’s for sure. Again, this all continues to be an appalling cosplay of how FARTUS wants to view himself in relation to his imagined ideas of American History. I can’t even with the economy today. Just know he’s changed his mind on tariffs again for Canada and Mexico, and employment figures are worsening. He’s turned a strong economy into a weak one in a matter of weeks. He’s also shaken the Equity markets to their core. What’s on is this: “Trump’s “Crypto Reserve” is a world historical grift. Corruption doesn’t get much more blatant than this.” My Finance Daughter and I both find crypto to be a huge Ponzi scheme. I lecture against it. She doesn’t consider it a product that brokers should be involved in. In short, we stay as far away as possible. But, you know, grifters gotta grift. This is from Public Notice.
Authoritarian regimes by definition have no accountability to voters or the public. That means autocrats and their cronies can gorge themselves at the public trough and blatantly steal from taxpayers with few if any consequences.
It’s not really a surprise, then, that as part of his authoritarian power grab, Trump has embraced brazen and open self-dealing. The most ludicrous example of this is the scheme he announced last Sunday for a national crypto reserve.
As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?
Trump, fresh off avoiding 88 felony charges, obviously feels confident that the answer is “no one.”
Government on the blockchain
Crypto refers to digital currencies which are generated and stored in a digital ledger, or blockchain. In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.
Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”
During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.
Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.
Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.
If you have any questions about any of this, I’d be glad to try to answer them. Seeing such craziness in our economic policy has been hard on me. I’m just waiting for the major attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. They’re the only ones that bring credibility to the dollar these days, and I’m afraid he’ll have a go at them. The mess at the Treasury is already impacting the banking business. Don’t even get me started on the Budget Crisis, either. I’m tired of the repeats of that one by disingenuous Republicans.
I hope all of you can close your doors and stay sane inside the one place you can control, home. I have a few more tests next week, so I will be out at clinics again, being poked and prodded. This weekend, I will just relax and try to avoid the ever-changing Trump Surreality Show.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: VIllainy! Winning!
Posted: March 3, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS, American Fascists, Equity Markets, kakistocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA Political Carnage, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, CryptoCurrency Ponzi Scheme from Trump and Musk, Elderly and Vets, FARTUS, Starving Children, Trump Tariffs 13 Comments
“Honorable Douche Member.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Once again, the transformation of American democracy into a theocratic fascist state–which once was unimaginable–is shaking global confidence. The closing argument came Friday when #FARTUS and JDank tried to shake down Ukraine’s President like a classic Mafia Don. The US is no longer the leader of the free world. We are becoming the lap dog of evil men.
It was further announced that the dollar will no longer be the world’s currency as the Bad Men of faithless investments are rolling back protections and trying to install the Ponzi scheme of the century–cryptocurrency–as something it can never be. This dodgy investment does not meet any of the criteria that define money. It cannot be used as a universal means of exchange. It has no role as a store of value. Indeed, it is quite a risky gamble. It does not represent a measure of exchange. Help us, Federal Reserve Board of Governors! You may be the only chance because the Treasury’s Rules and Regulations, which were based on stopping another Great Depression, are being dismantled even as we speak.
William Kristol, Andre Egger, and Sam Stein had this headline at The Bulwark that rang true to me this morning. “What a Weekend for Putin! It’s been a long time since the Russian dictator had it this good.” All enemies of the USA and democracy had a good week. All those with greed as a defining characteristic are likely celebrating. I’m certainly glad I moved my 403(B) money to the Eurozone. They were slow coming off COVID-19, but they’re getting stronger while we are getting economically, militarily, and democratically weaker by the drop of every grain of sand.
It was a hell of a weekend for bad men getting what they paid for out of Donald Trump. And while we’ll focus on Vladimir Putin here, we don’t want to fully ignore venture capitalist David Sacks, Donald Trump’s “crypto czar,” who seemingly stands to make bank following Trump’s weekend announcement of a “strategic cryptocurrency reserve.” Hey, we’re glad someone’s having fun. Happy Monday.
Helluva Weekend doesn’t even cover the outrage heard around the country. However, it appears it’s getting a little late in the game to shut down this offensive move on the American Experiment. Just seeing the polling and the angry constituents all over the country over the Zelinsky Shake Down should’ve lit a fire under the proud party of Chicken Hawks. It didn’t. We have more evidence of chickens than hawks. This is also part of The Bulwark’s Monday Money Quarter-backing.
SEE ROGER RUN: How to cope with all the grisly news? One increasingly common strategy: Blowing off some steam by yelling at your Republican lawmaker.
On Saturday, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall became the latest victim of this hot new trend at an overstuffed town hall in the small town of Oakley (pop. ~2000). Attendees booed his arrival and rolled their eyes at his answers throughout the prickly hour-long event, while Marshall castigated them as “rude.” He suggested they’d fallen victim to “misinformation” about DOGE and ultimately cut the event short.
A possible opportunity for introspection for the senator? Apparently not. In a statement, Marshall’s office suggested the fix was in, the town hall “sabotaged” by “Democrat operatives.” “Real Kansans,” the statement continued, “overwhelmingly support President Trump’s DOGE initiative.”
It was true that some attendees had schlepped to the event from the Kansas City area to give Marshall a piece of their mind. But some of their concerns were plainly shared by locals. The last crowd comment came, according to local media, from local resident Chuck Nunn, who politely and sorrowfully mourned DOGE’s reckless slashing of veteran jobs. Identifying himself as “a dying breed, a conservative Democrat,” Nunn said he supported the mission of identifying waste in government—but that “the way that we are going about it is so wrong, because there are unintended consequences.”
“What the government is doing right now, as far as cutting out those jobs, a huge percentage of those people—and I know you care about the veterans—are veterans,” Nunn went on. “And that’s a damn shame. A damn shame.”
Acting like this sentiment is nothing but scurrilous left-wing astroturf may be comforting to Republicans. But it’s also remarkably short-sighted. There’s a reason “do right by our veterans” has long been a more or less universal tenet of our politics. Scoffing off that extremely normie critique of the DOGEbros is something Republicans do at their peril.
If you think that’s bad, check out the opinions of House Leader Mike Johnson. No Republican has been left out of this party. Heather Cox Richardson has another example of Mike Johnson’s inability to lead or take a stand for our country. He’s staked out the coward’s gavel. She wrote this yesterday in her Substack Letters From an American.
On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.
And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat. Last week, at a United Nations working group on cybersecurity, representatives from the European Union and the United Kingdom highlighted threats from Russia, while Liesyl Franz, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity, did not mention Russia, saying the U.S. was concerned about threats from China and Iran.
Kirchgaessner also noted that under Trump, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which monitors cyberthreats against critical infrastructure, has set new priorities. Although Russian threats, especially those against U.S. election systems, were a top priority for the agency in the past, a source told Kirchgaessner that analysts were told not to follow or report on Russian threats.
“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries,” the source told Kirchgaessner. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.” “People are saying Russia is winning,” the source said. “Putin is on the inside now.”
Another source noted that “There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.” “Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat, the person added. Under those circumstances, the source said, ceasing to follow and report Russian threats is “truly shocking.”
Trump’s outburst in the Oval Office on Friday confirmed that Putin has been his partner in politics since at least 2016. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia… Russia, Russia, Russia—you ever hear of that deal?—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it, and we didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom.”
Putin went through a hell of a lot with Trump? It was an odd statement from a U.S. president, whose loyalty is supposed to be dedicated to the Constitution and the American people.
Jen Ruben writes this at The Contrarian. “It’s not Dickens—it’s the MAGA agenda. Taking food from children; healthcare from the informed.” The #FARTUS team has already destroyed our soft power with the end of USAID. Next up is Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Get your gardens started now! Cruelty is the mission.
Given the scope of the MAGA assault on the foundations of our democracy, many Democrats, responsible media outlets, and concerned Americans have (understandably) been focused on its attempt to obliterate the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment. But we should never lose track of the abject immorality that is part and parcel of an ideology based on vengeful victimhood, conspiracy-mongering, and repudiation of science.
From the outbreak of measles to stalling grants to the pursuit of cures for “diseases ranging from heart disease and cancer to Alzheimer’s and allergies” to renewing the starvation crisis in Sudan to devasting cuts at the Veterans Administration to dismissal of patriotic, highly-trained trans members of the armed services…we cannot miss this administration’s abject cruelty; its almost-boisterous disregard for human life and dignity.
House and Senate Republicans bear just as much responsibility as President in Name Only (PINO) Donald Trump and acting president Elon Musk for mutely going along with these actions. Moreover, we must view the House budget as yet another exercise in cruelty and reckless endangerment of human life.
“Trump and Musk have slashed roughly 2,400 VA jobs…A decision that won’t make things more efficient, like they claimed, but will actually lead to longer wait times, more backlog and more chaos for Veterans,” Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois.) recently said at a virtual town hall. “They’ve also launched a wider purge of federal workers—firing, in total, an estimated 6,000 Veterans, includingthe folks behind the Veterans Crisis Line.” She emphasized, “The only reason they are doing this is to try to find enough loose change behind the couch cushions so that they can give even bigger tax breaks to the rich guys they pal around with on the golf course.”
Breaking the sacred obligation to care for our veterans is only one aspect of the onslaught. Perhaps the most egregious is the plan to slash $880B from Medicaid. The argument that cuts of that magnitude can be achieved by “reform” or by cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” frankly, insults our intelligence.
The impact of such cuts is immense given the reach of Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation notes, “Medicaid is the primary program providing comprehensive health and long-term care to one in five people living in the U.S. and accounts for nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on health care.” Medicaid covers not only the poorest Americans, but seniors’ long-term health care, drug addicts, and the disabled. More than 72 million Americans are enrolled in some aspect of the program.
Whatever funds they’ve raised by the deaths and disposal of humanity, they will turn over to Greedy Billionaires and Businesses. However, the focus right now is still on #FARTUS upending World Order. This is from Vox’s Nicole Narea. “How Trump upended the world order, over one weekend A hectic 48 hours in Europe-Ukraine-US-Russia relations, explained.
A blowup at the White House on Friday proved a rude awakening for some of the US’s closest partners in Europe, and left them scrambling to contemplate a world in which they can no longer be sure that the US is a reliable ally in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
In the wake of President Donald Trump and his team accosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a heated, televised exchange in the Oval Office, European leaders met to devise a plan for protecting Ukraine from Russian aggression absent any security guarantees from the US.
And though multiple leaders, from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to NATO leader Mark Rutte, insisted that they still view the US as an important partner, the meeting nevertheless seemed like it might mark the abrupt beginning of a new Western world order — one in which Europe stands alone.
The UK and France have led efforts in recent weeks to advance Ukraine’s cause and to convince Trump to keep Ukraine’s (and Europe’s) best interests in mind as he attempts to craft a ceasefire or peace deal in Russia’s years-long war on Ukraine.
Sunday, Starmer presided over a summit of more than a dozen mostly European leaders and announced that the attendees would form a “coalition of the willing” to defend Ukraine and strengthen Europe’s military capabilities.
“Not every nation will feel able to contribute but that can’t mean that we sit back,” Starmer said. “Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency.”
That coalition could lead to UK troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, should a ceasefire or peace deal come about, Starmer said. France and the UK reportedly have a ceasefire framework that Zelenskyy said he’s been briefed on.
Starmer did emphasize, however, that many in the group, including the UK, believe lasting peace will not be possible without US support. And while Starmer said he had a productive conversation with Trump about Ukraine this weekend, it’s not clear that US support will materialize.
That’s in part because the Trump administration and its allies reiterated throughout the weekend that they believe their current approach to peace — that is, holding talks with Russia sans Ukraine and blaming Ukraine for the war — is the right one. Trump adviser Elon Musk suggested on X that the US contemplate leaving the NATO security alliance.
The Trump team also redoubled their attacks on Zelenskyy on Sunday, with some going so far as to suggest the Ukrainian president ought to be replaced.
So, I will get to some of the economic impact of Trump’s Tariff Mania. I hope you don’t need a new car, just for starters. This is from Bloomberg. “Car Prices Are Poised for $12,000. Surge on Trump’s New Tariffs.”
Impending tariffs on Canada and Mexico risk driving up US car prices by as much as $12,000, further squeezing consumers and wreaking havoc across the intricate web of automotive supply lines spanning the continent.
The cost to build a crossover utility vehicle will rise by at least $4,000, while the increase would be three times that for an electric vehicle examined in a new study from Anderson Economic Group, an automotive consultant in East Lansing, Michigan. And those costs would likely be passed on to consumers, the study found.
“That kind of cost increase will lead directly — and I expect almost immediately — to a decline in sales of the models that have the biggest trade impacts,” Patrick Anderson, chief executive officer of Anderson Economic Group, said in an interview.
These are some more depressing headlines concerning our economy and prices.
From CNN: “Trump’s tariff chaos threatens an economy already flashing yellow lights.”
Layoffs are rising. Consumer spending — the backbone of the economy — unexpectedly dropped in January. Consumer confidence has plunged. A key GDP forecast suddenly turned negative. And extreme fear is back on Wall Street as stocks slide.
Despite the murky picture, President Donald Trump continues to inject chaos into the economy with almost-constant tariff threats.
Now he’s just hours away from lobbing tariffs on not just one or two but all three of America’s biggest trading partners.
Starting on Tuesday, Trump has vowed to impose a 25% tariff on imported goods from Mexico and Canada, and to double tariffs on those from China to 20%.
Those tariffs — if they get imposed — could increase costs for Americans at a time when inflation remains stubbornly high. That, in turn, could prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering borrowing costs, another source of pain in the cost-of-living problem confronting consumers.
Mexico and Canada have all vowed to retaliate by slapping their own tariffs on US goods, setting the stage for a potential trade war inside of North America. China has promised to respond to higher tariffs, too.
From the New York Times: “A Key Interest Rate Falls, but Not for the Reasons Trump Wanted. Investors’ increasingly gloomy sentiment about economic growth appears to be driving down the 10-year Treasury yield.” That’s our safe haven investment btw.
President Trump campaigned on a promise to bring down interest rates. And he has fulfilled that pledge in one key way, with U.S. government bond yields falling sharply.
But the reason for the drop is an unnerving one: Investors appear to be more on edge about the outlook for the economy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the Trump administration considers the 10-year Treasury yield a benchmark of its success in lowering rates. The yield tracks the rate of interest the government pays to borrow from investors over 10 years and has dropped since mid-January, to around 4.2 percent from 4.8 percent. The decline in February was the steepest in several months.
The administration is targeting the 10-year yield because it underpins borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards, corporate debt and a host of other rates, making it arguably the most important interest rate in the world. As it drops, that should filter through the economy, making many types of debt cheaper.
Unlike the short-term interest rate that is set by the Federal Reserve, the 10-year yield is a market rate, meaning that nobody has direct control over it. Instead, it reflects investors’ views on the economy, inflation, the government’s borrowing needs and changes the Fed may make to its rate in the years ahead.
That’s why the drop in February is troubling, analysts say. It shows, at least in part, that bond investors are growing gloomy about the economic outlook — and quickly.
“The market is pricing a growth scare,” said Blerina Uruci, chief U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price.
A better outcome would be for the declining 10-year yield to reflect slowing inflation, the prospect of more rate cuts by the Fed and a shrinking deficit that would require less government borrowing — all while the economy remains strong.
Instead, inflation expectations have risen this year amid worries that Mr. Trump’s tariff plans, alongside mass deportations, could reignite price increases throughout the economy. Stubborn inflation means the interest rates controlled by the Fed are likely to stay elevated for longer. Some analysts and investors fear that this could weigh on the economy until it cracks and the central bank is pushed into rapidly lowering rates.
So, if you can’t say you’re cutting all these things to end runaway government spending, try not reporting it. That might work, right? This is from the relentlessly brave AP. “The Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP, obscuring the impact of DOGE cuts.” That way, no one, including economists, can possibly know what is happening. Let’s hope the Federal Reserve can remain independent and report US data if the Labor and Commerce Department can’t.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that government spending could be separated from gross domestic product reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn.
“You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”
Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because changes in taxes, spending, deficits and regulations by the government can impact the path of overall growth. GDP reports already include extensive details on government spending, offering a level of transparency for economists.
Musk’s efforts to downsize federal agencies could result in the layoffs of tens of thousands of federal workers, whose lost income could potentially reduce their spending, affecting businesses and the economy at large.
Yahoo Finance, a good place to stalk the markets, has this report on what’s going on as I write. “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as Trump tariffs stalk markets.”
US stocks retreated on Monday as a looming deadline fueled uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and investors looked ahead to the monthly jobs report and key retail earnings.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.2% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) erased early morning gains to fall 0.4%, weighed down by shares of Nvidia (NVDA). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell below the flat line, as the major US indexes came off a volatile week and a losing February.
Nvidia stock plummeted on Monday as reports surfaced that the tech giant’s AI chips are reaching China despite export controls.
March trading kicked off with investors encountering more questions than answers as tariff deadlines loom, the Federal Reserve’s next meeting fast approaches, and the US economy faces the test of disproving investors’ fears about growth. First quarter economic growth is expected to slide following a string of weaker-than-expected economic data.
Tariffs on Canada and Mexico are set to come into effect on Tuesday, with no indication that a planned March 4 implementation date will be pushed back again. While 25% duties are planned, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hinted that they could be lower by describing it as a “fluid situation.” New tariffs on China are also due on March 4, with Beijing said to be eyeing retaliatory measures on US agricultural products.
Elsewhere, European leaders’ weekend effort to rally around Ukraine prompted traders to boost bets on a bump in defense spending in the region, lifting related stocks.
It’s a depressing time for us Dismal Scientists. It’s one thing to have something bad happen, like a black swan event, but to watch your own government tank a perfectly healthy economy is tough to watch. I’ve already dropped so many reads that I’m hitting a word count of 3600. I’ll give you a break while I go play a new little game I picked up. It’s a gorgeous little anime game where I’ve just reincarnated as a walking, talking Mushroom, and I can solve everyone’s problems! The bad guy is a fat real estate developer, and the place is inhabited by people with both human and furry animal traits. It’s my new sanctuary beside the Star Wars Series.
I’ve lived here in New Orleans for 30 years now, and this is the first Mardi Gras I’ve just sat out. Somewhat for health problems, as I took another little fall today while walking Temple, and I don’t see the neurologist until next week. It’s tough not trusting your legs. Also, there are MAGAs around town, and many of my friends have reported they’ve destroyed things in the yard and homes if they have any display of having voted for Kamala. This is on all the uptown routes. It’s all just really depressing.
So, you stay very safe, warm, and cozy as we continue this very dark year. XOXO
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Frustrating Friday Reads: Where are the pitchforks, torches, and guillotines?
Posted: February 14, 2025 Filed under: "presidential immunity", kakistocracy, misogyny, Project 2025, Psychopaths in charge, public corruption, racism in MAGA, religious extremists | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, @repeat1968. John Buss, CDC massive firings, From Russia with bad intentions, JD Vance Weirdo and perv, Kash Patel, My funny valentine, Pete Hegseth weirdo sexual assaulter, Saturday Night Massacre, Thursday Night Slaughter, US Attorneys 5 Comments
“Resist!”
John (repeat1968) Buss
@johnbuss.bsky.social
It’s another Sad Day, Sky Dancers!
This may be the only hope we have left. Three GOP seats are heading to Special Elections. A Democratic Party Trifecta would be enough for Dems to regain control! The rest of the news has the indicators of a Constitutional Crisis and, as BB and JJ have said, a Coup. Former US Attorneys Barbara McQuade and Harry Littman have inside information on something that makes Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a picnic. JJ and BB are flooding my sms with some of the worst headlines I have ever seen.
The last three weeks have been unending and brutal. The roll-out of Project 2025 is the most consequential threat to our Republic since the Civil War. And it’s coming from the White House. This headline from The Salt Lake Tribune shows how horrifying it’s getting in the states that are Republican Red have gone down the War Path against everything decent, just, and fair. “Nazi flags can fly in Utah schools, but not pride flags, GOP lawmaker says. A new bill would allow for Nazi and Confederate flags to be displayed in some instances in Utah schools and government buildings, but pride flags would be banned.”
Here are the Litman and McQuade conversations about the DOJ’s Thursday night Slaughter.
Strong rumor with credible sourcing: DOJ has put all of public integrity line attorneys in a room and told them they have an hour for someone to choose who will sign motion to dismiss and if nobody does, they will all be fired. The nastiest strong-arming in DOJ history by a long shot.
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T16:07:55.931Z
This is Saturday night massacre in free fall. A day that will live in infamy in DOJ. 22 people in room. it's savage. hard to imagine greater disrespect for DOJ professionals.
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T16:11:12.111Z
Very proud of the 8 DOJ attorneys who have refused to dismiss the Adams case. Their oath is to the Constitution, not the president.
— Barb McQuade (@barbmcquade.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T12:28:35.393Z
McQuade shared this from the New York Times.
In less than a month in power, President Trump’s political appointees have embarked on an unapologetic, strong-arm effort to impose their will on the Justice Department, seeking to justify their actions as the simple reversal of the “politicization” of federal law enforcement under their Biden-era predecessors.
The ferocious campaign, executed by Emil Bove III — Mr. Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer who is now the department’s acting No. 2 official — is playing out in public, in real time, through a series of moves that underscore Mr. Trump’s intention to bend the traditionally nonpartisan career staff in federal law enforcement to suit his ends.
That strategy has quickly precipitated a crisis that is an early test of how resilient the norms of the criminal justice system will prove to be against the pressures brought by a retribution-minded president and his appointees.
On Thursday, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than sign off on Mr. Bove’s command to dismiss the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Ms. Sassoon is no member of the liberal resistance: She clerked for the conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, and had been appointed to her post by Mr. Trump’s team.
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of the Department of Defense Pete Hegseth headed to Europe to evidently blow up the relationships with all of our major allies. The two surly men’s visit was not appreciated. This happened while Trump announced that he and Putin would be visiting each other’s country to tie up Ukraine’s surrender. Vance has been sent to chat with Ukriane’s President Zelensky at the Munich Conference, which they are both attending. Analysis of his speech can be found at this link. ‘Threat I worry most is threat from within,’ Vance criticises European leaders – summary.”
US vice-president JD Vance has urged Europe to put forward a positive case for freedom and act against “the threat that I worry most, the threat from within” which he put as “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” through restrictions on free speech, content moderation rules online, and political firewalls against radical parties.
Meanwhile, The Guardian also reports a drone attack on Chornobyl. “Russian drone detonates on Chornobyl nuclear plant containment shell.” The International Atomic Energy Agency has some astounding pictures shown in the article.
A Russian drone carrying a high-explosive warhead struck the protective containment shell of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
He described the move, coming amid speculation about potential peace talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin, as “a very clear greeting from Putin and Russian Federation to the security conference.”
Ukrainian security services said the drone was a Geran-2, the Russian name for the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, and had been intended to hit the reactor enclosure, Reuters noted.
Zelenskyy said the damage to the shelter was “significant” and had started a fire, but he added that radiation levels at the plant had not increased.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, denied Moscow was responsible for the attack. Without presenting evidence, he said Ukrainian officials wanted to thwart efforts to end the war through negotiations between Trump and Putin.
In a wide-ranging and fiery speech peppered with European references, he accused European leaders of abandoning their roots as “defenders of democracy” during the cold war by what he believes is the process of shutting down dissenting voices (14:51).
He said they were increasingly looking “like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation … who simply don’t like that idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion” (14:55).
He criticised “cavalier” statements from European officials “sounding delighted” about the cancelled presidential elections in Romania or expansive content moderation powers or other free speech restrictions in the US, Germany and Sweden, saying there were “shocking to American ears” (14:46).
He also criticised European leaders for “running in fear of your own voters,” including on migration, saying that risks destroying democracy from within by disenchanting the population from taking part in democratic processes (15:01).
He dismissed any criticism of Elon Musk’s alleged interference in European elections, saying “if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
He called for an end of political “firewalls,” a pointed reference to the German arrangement keeping out the far-right parties such as the Alternative für Deutschland, just nine days before the federal election next Sunday (15:01).
But notably, he doesn’t say much about Ukraine, other than a brief comment that the US administration “believes we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine” (14:44).
The New Republic’s Hafiz Rashid has this take. “JD Vance Escalates Conflict With Europe in Alarming Speech at Munich.”
The vice president criticized European leaders for being afraid of their own voters, in a nod to European far-right parties, such as the AfD in Germany, seeming to threaten a chilling of relations with governments whose ideologies differ from his and Trump’s.
“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump,” Vance said.
Hanging over the conference was Thursday’s attack in the German city, where a car driven by an Afghan immigrant ran into a crowd of people, injuring at least 28. Vance used the incident to bolster a nativist argument for restricting immigration.
“How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction?” Vance asked.
“If American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” Vance said, downplaying a man currently threatening America’s democracy, as well as that of Germany, and drawing a false equivalence between a climate activist and the world’s richest man.
The vice president may think he struck a blow for the Trump administration’s worldview in Munich Friday, but he’s missing the hypocrisy of his own words. The Trump administration has so far rammed through executive orders instead of passing laws, gutted the federal workforce, undermined the right to a free press, and ignored the outcry from all Americans outside of the MAGA bubble.
Politico has the hot take on Pete Hegseth’s visit to the Munich Security Conference. An actual Republic Congress critter may have a criticism! Amazing! Well, he did try to soften the blow with some obvious ass kissing too. Read for yourself. “Senior Republican senator ‘puzzled’ and ‘disturbed’ by Hegseth’s Ukraine remarks. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker is breaking with the line from the Trump White House.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a “rookie mistake” when he said a return to Ukraine’s pre-war borders was “unrealistic,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said Friday.
Hegseth on Thursday pulled back some of the comments he made about Ukraine a day earlier, where he said that NATO membership for Kyiv was off the table and that the country could not return to its internationally recognized borders.
“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”
“I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” Wicker said, referring to the pro-Putin broadcaster.
Speaking to Jonathan Martin at the POLITICO Pub in the Munich conference, Wicker — a staunch Ukraine supporter — said he was “surprised” by Hegseth’s original comments and “heartened” that the new defense secretary had reversed course. Wicker said he favors a firm posture with Moscow.
“Everybody knows … and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,” Wicker said, adding that he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments.
While I just criticized the governor of Utah, let me not forget to kick the governor of Lousyana in the balls a few times. He’s trying to kill us. This is also from Politico. “Louisiana to end mass vaccine promotion, state’s top health official says. The department will still “stock and provide vaccines,” according to a department memo.”
The Louisiana Department of Health “will no longer promote mass vaccination” according to a Thursday memo written by the state’s top health official and obtained by The Associated Press.
A department spokesperson confirmed Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham had ordered his staff to stop engaging in media campaigns and community health fairs to encourage vaccinations, even as the state has experienced a surge in influenza.
Abraham’s announcement occurred the same day vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in by the U.S. Senate to serve as President Donald Trump’s health secretary.
In a separate letter posted on the department’s website, Louisiana’s surgeon general decried “blanket government mandates” for vaccines and criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 vaccination push. Individuals should make their own decisions about vaccinations, Abraham said.
“Government should admit the limitations of its role in people’s lives and pull back its tentacles from the practice of medicine,” said Abraham, a Republican.
I gagged on that last statement because that certainly doesn’t apply to women and girls with functioning ovaries and uteruses. Meanwhile, Trump is planning mass firings at the CDC. Bird Flu, anyone? This is from STAT. “Trump administration to fire thousands at health agencies. Employees across agencies who were hired in the past one to two years are being targeted.” Considering he also wants to end Medicaid, I would say we are about to have a serious amount of deaths on our hands.
The Trump administration is set to eliminate thousands of federal health care jobs Friday, targeting employees across public health and science agencies who were hired in the past one to two years.
Senior officials were informed in meetings Friday morning that roughly 5,200 people on probationary employment — recent hires — across agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be fired that afternoon, according to sources briefed on the meetings. CDC leadership was told the Atlanta-based agency would lose about 1,300 workers. The numbers at the NIH are not clear, but exceptions are being made for certain probationary employees, according to a memo viewed by STAT.
The workers will be given a month’s paid leave but lose access to work systems by the end of Friday, according to sources.
In addition to the probationary workers, an unspecified number of contract workers at the CDC and other Health and Human Services agencies have been informed over the course of the past week that their jobs had been terminated, including dozens at the Vaccine Research Center housed at NIH. Many jobs at these agencies are done by contract workers.
Other changes are expected, particularly at the leadership levels of organizations. When Susan Monarez, a former ARPA-H official, was named acting director of the CDC, she informed staff she would transition into the role of acting principal deputy director once Dave Weldon, the nominee to lead the agency, is confirmed. That move signaled that the current acting principal deputy director, Nirav Shah, who joined the CDC in March 2023, was likely out of a job. Earlier this week, Shah told CDC staff that his last day at the agency would be Feb. 28, a source told STAT.
Head of ARPA-H and Biden appointee Renee Wegrzyn told staff Friday morning that she was fired, a source told STAT. The agency, established in 2022 by Biden to work with the private sector on breakthrough medical technology, employs less than 200 workers. Because of the agency’s newness, most employees are considered probationary and could be targeted for layoffs.
Once again, I feel the need to share Tim Miller’s latest at The Bulwark. Trying to preserve American democracy makes for strange bedfellows. Also, they have a Valentine’s poem for everyone!
Roses are red,
The Bulwark is rad—
As we’ve always said:
Orange Man Bad.
Here’s Miller’s lede. “Kash’s Honesty Problem.” Ya think?
For all the many, many, MANY faults of Trump’s other nominees, none of them impulse-lied to senators’ faces while under oath in a confirmation hearing, as if they were a troublemaking toddler telling their parents they didn’t drop the cake, hoping no one noticed their face was covered in chocolate icing.
But that seems to be what Kash Patel did—and not on a matter of negligible import. Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “I don’t know what’s going on right now over there” in the FBI, and that he was “not aware” of plans to fire FBI agents and officials who had investigated Donald Trump and January 6th. But according to several whistleblowers and contemporaneous notes, this was not true. From the Washington Post:
“KP wants movement at FBI,” one attendee purportedly wrote in the notes Durbin reviewed.
This was just the latest in a string of ostentatious lies that Patel told the senators set to confirm him—and basically anyone else who has had the displeasure of recently encountering him. Here’s just a modest sampling:
- Patel had previously said “we went to the studio and recorded [the J6 Prison Choir], mastered it, digitized it, and put it out as a song” but during his confirmation hearing he told Sen. Adam Schiff that the “we” repeatedly invoked in that sentence did not actually include him because he was not involved. He claimed he was using “the proverbial we”—I guess he means the royal “We”—you know, the editorial. It is the type of semantic lie that would make even Slick Willy blush.
- A state court judge overseeing one of the January 6th cases said Patel was “not a credible witness” because his testimony was “not only illogical . . . but completely devoid of any evidence in the record.”
- Patel has vastly exaggerated his résumé, claiming, among other things, that he was the “the Main Justice lead prosecutor for Benghazi” when in fact he had a junior supportive role—one he began after the investigation had started and left before the first case went to trial.
- A Trump adviser told the Atlantic that Patel had more than once claimed he was the person who “‘gave the order’ for U.S. forces to move in and kill the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019”—even though he was not even in the Situation Room.
- Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper wrote in his book that Patel’s lies about a Seal Team Six hostage rescue in Africa led to an international incident that put their lives at risk.
- Patel has repeatedly lied about the FBI having a role in January 6th, advancing the absurd Ray Epps conspiracy theory.
- Then there were his claims that he was present when Trump magically declassified the documents he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago, and then pleaded the Fifth when asked about it in front of a grand jury.
I could keep going, but really, the story of Kash is best summed up in this anecdote from Elaina Plott Calabro’s Atlantic profile. Calabro wrote that Patel often says he and Trump are “just a ‘couple of guys from Queens,’” when Patel isn’t even from Queens. He’s from Garden City! That’s not the 313.
We’re still not living in the United States of America, are we? The abhorrent actions of Trump, Musk, and underlings puts the word Banana in the Republic.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: A Neoconfederacy of Elephant-riding Corrupt Dunces
Posted: April 14, 2023 Filed under: A thread for Ranting, abortion rights, American Fascists, Donald Trump, double-speak, fundamentalist Christians, Psychopaths in charge, Right Wing Angst, Uncle Clarence Thomas, War on Women, White Christian Nationalism, white nationalists 13 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
So what does a Florida-based Dotard Ex-President have in common with a Massachusetts-based Computer Geeky Junior Airman? They both have a need to share Top-Secret Documents to impress their friends.
The biggest difference is that the Geek was frog-marched into court and arrested for posting them on Discord. He was charged under the Espionage Act. The Dotard is still at large, and likely so are some Top Secret Documents. We know he flaunted them around The Donny Dotard Clubhouse, but what other things happened with them? There are so many questions about our classified documents processes now that we’re an international embarrassment.
There’s other news too. Ron DeSantis quietly–and in the dead of night– signed a six-week ban on abortion in Florida. Florida used to have abortion access making the South a death zone for fertile women. Attorney General Garland has asked the Supreme Court to block the order by the Texas Grand Inquisitor on the status of mifepristone. Regulatory chaos is likely to result in the FDA and could spread to other agencies, given the implications of the judge’s lunatic rationale. It’s the one day you can be happy there is such a thing as Big Pharma. The manufacturer of the pill has also filed for an immediate stay. We’re on Supreme Court Watch now. If they do nothing, the chaos will start at midnight with this decision and the conflicting one from Washington State. All of these restrictions are highly unpopular with voters.
Oh, and have I mentioned Uncle Clarence Thomas sold his mother’s house to his billionaire buddy without reporting it, so he broke the law? She still lives in the house, and her new landlord takes care of the place.
Welcome to the Neoconfederacy of Dunces or, as JJ mentioned yesterday, the Dawning of the Age of Idiocracy.
This one comes pretty directly out of some weirdo world. This is from Hans Nichols, writing for AXIOS. “Conservatives plot text warnings on “woke” products.” Yes, this does seem like a direct assault on the first amendment rights of businesses granted by Scalia et al. not that long ago.
A conservative group is offering a new service that texts “Woke Alerts” straight to the phones of grocery shoppers who want to know which brands are accused of taking political positions that are offensive to the right.
So, you can see that we have so much to write about this week that we’re torn between leaving something uncovered or quoting so much we run up the word counts. And, of course, JJ shows us that the political cartoon crowd has a lot of fodder.
So, there are a lot of links up top. Let me just highlight a few things.
Here is more detail on the Supreme Court Watch for the ruling on mifepristone. This is from NBC News.” The Justice Department and the drugmaker are asking the Supreme Court to block the abortion pill ruling. The Biden administration and Danco Laboratories want to freeze a court decision that curbs access to the abortion pill mifepristone.”
The Biden administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to block part of a court decision that prevents pregnant women from obtaining the key abortion drug mifepristone by mail.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the Food and Drug Administration, urged the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, to put on hold the entirety of a decision issued by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk that handed a sweeping victory to abortion opponents.
“This application concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone,” Prelogar wrote in court papers.
Danco Laboratories, which makes Mifeprex, the brand version of the pill, filed a similar request on Friday.
Danco said it would be “irreparably harmed” if the decision goes into effect because it “will be unable to both conduct its business nationwide and comply with its legal obligations.”
This is the latest set of witnesses to discuss Trump’s Classified Documents theft. This is from the New York Times. “Witnesses Asked About Trump’s Handling of Map With Classified Information. The map is just one element of the Justice Department’s inquiry into former President Donald Trump’s possession of sensitive documents and whether he obstructed justice in seeking to hold onto them.”
Federal investigators are asking witnesses whether former President Donald J. Trump showed off to aides and visitors a map he took with him when he left office that contains sensitive intelligence information, four people with knowledge of the matter said.
The map has been just one focus of the broad Justice Department investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he departed the White House.
The nature of the map and the information it contained is not clear. But investigators have questioned a number of witnesses about it, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, as the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s Trump-focused inquiries, Jack Smith, examines the former president’s handling of classified material after leaving office and weighs charges that could include obstruction of justice.
One person briefed on the matter said investigators have asked about Mr. Trump showing the map while aboard a plane. Another said that, based on the questions they were asking, investigators appeared to believe that Mr. Trump showed the map to at least one adviser after leaving office.
A third person with knowledge of the investigation said the map might also have been shown to a journalist writing a book. The Washington Post has previously reported that investigators have asked about Mr. Trump showing classified material, including maps, to political donors.
The question of whether Mr. Trump was displaying sensitive material in his possession after he lost the presidency and left office is crucial as investigators try to reconstruct what Mr. Trump was doing with boxes of documents that went with him to his Florida residence and private club, Mar-a-Lago.
Among the topics investigators have been focused on is precisely when Mr. Trump was at the club last year. In particular, they were interested in whether he remained at Mar-a-Lago to look at boxes of material that were still stored there before Justice Department counterintelligence officials seeking their return came to visit in early June, according to two people familiar with the questions.
Hannah Knowles writes on “How DeSantis backed a six-week abortion ban — while barely talking about it. The Florida governor went from signing a 15-week ban last year to signing a six-week ban late at night on Thursday.”
The governor’s quiet embrace of the six-week ban reflects his team’s political calculations heading into 2024, as he gears up for a presidential primary where hard-line activists and voters wield influence. It underlines the continued pressure in the GOP for politicians to embrace tighter laws — even as numerous Republicans, including some DeSantis allies, worry that abortion bans have helped sink their candidates in critical general elections. And it highlights DeSantis’s longtime reluctance to make abortion a signature part of his public profile, though he has enacted major changes to laws on the procedure.
“The numbers show that Florida is a destination” for abortion, said Chad Davis, a candidate for the state House who worked for ex-state senator Kelli Stargel, the sponsor of the 15-week ban. “That’s an embarrassment to him.”
DeSantis has generally avoided talking about abortion, even as he tours the country touting other legislation he’s signed. Rather than roll out the six-week bill as a major agenda item, he gave vague endorsements: “I’m willing to sign great life legislation,” he told one reporter who put him on the spot. A six-week ban has proved divisive in his orbit, with some donors strongly opposed and other Republicans eager to simply move on.
President Biden has put out a statement on the arrest of the Leaker and his plans to review the classified documents processes. Not let’s see hin do something about getting White Christian Nationalists out of the Military.
I’ll leave you with this from the High Priestess of QAnon.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Requiescat in pace
Posted: April 10, 2023 Filed under: mass shooting, misogyny, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, Psychopaths in charge, Rape Culture, religious extremists, Religious Freedom, Reproductive Justice, Reproductive Rights 14 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
It’s been obvious for some time that Gun Violence occurs in states where guns are readily available. It’s also where Republican Legislatures are not about to do anything about that. Tennessee’s Republican legislature showed how vicious and petty they can be last week.
The actions of Republicans in the Tennessee legislature resemble the attempts of White Southern Redeemers to take back the South at the end of the 19th century.
These new Redeemers are using their power as a tool of intimidation. What other conclusion can be drawn from the inappropriate and disproportionate response to a decorum infraction?
The viciousness and pettiness kills too.
Today’s mass shooting site was at bank within an office building in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It’s an odd state of affairs when my gut reaction was at least it’s not dead little kids again. Deaths by gun rampage shouldn’t be so frequent they have a moral hierarchy. This unique American form of terrorism happens everywhere these days. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to feel safe when a small group of gun fetishists and NRA hostages bind us to a life of constant fear of going anywhere. Local TV station WDRB 41 reports the carnage.
Four people were killed and eight others were injured, including two police officers, when a gunman opened fire Monday morning inside a bank building in downtown Louisville.
Louisville Metro Police said officers responded to the scene around 8:30 a.m. at 333 E. Main St. — at the Preston Pointe building near Louisville Slugger Field — on reports of a “active shooter.” Police spokesman Col. Paul Humphrey said the first responding officers arrived to hear the sound of gunshots still firing inside.
The eight injured were taken to University of Louisville Hospital. Speaking around 11 am., Humphrey said the suspected shooter, who police believe was either a current or former employee at Old National Bank, was “dead on the scene.”
This is some live footage provided by a bystander.
Republicans are intent on policies that will kill people. There is no other way to explain these many headlines. Pregnant women are specifically under attack from the Republican Crusade for fertilized eggs. This is from Caroline Kitchener writing for the Washington Post. “Two friends were denied care after Florida banned abortion. One almost died. New abortion restrictions have disrupted the standard of care for a pregnancy complication both women experienced late last year.”
… a new reality playing out in hospitals in antiabortion states across the country — where because of newly enacted abortion bans, people with potentially life-threatening pregnancy complications are being denied care that was readily available before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
When abortion was legal across the country, doctors in all states would typically offer to induceor perform a surgical procedure to end the pregnancy when faced with a pre-viability PPROM case — which is the standard of care, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and an option that many women choose. Especially before the 20-week mark, a fetus is extremely unlikely to survive without any amniotic fluid.
But in the 18states where abortion is now banned before fetal viability, many hospitals have been turning away pre-viability PPROM patients as doctors and administrators fear the legal risk that could come with terminating even a pregnancy that could jeopardize the mother’s well-being, according to 12 physicians practicing in antiabortion states.
The medical exceptions to protect the life of the mother that are included in abortion bansare often described in vague language that does not appear to cover pre-viabilityPPROM, doctors said. That’s because the risks of the condition are often less clear-cut than other medical emergencies, such as an ectopic pregnancy, in which a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus, dooming the fetus and posing an immediate danger to the mother’s life.
A 2022 study on the impact of Texas’s six-week abortion ban found that 57 percent of pre-viability PPROM patients in Texaswho were not given the option to end their pregnancies experienced “a serious maternal morbidity,” such as infection or hemorrhage,compared with 33 percent of PPROM patients who chose to terminate in states without abortion bans. According to 2018 ACOG guidance, “isolated maternal deaths due to infection” have been reported in early PPROM cases.
AXIOS reported the findings of a report in January. “Mothers in states with abortion bans nearly 3 times more likely to die.”
Women in states with abortion bans are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after giving birth, according to a report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute shared first with AXIOS.
The big picture: The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and government officials and health experts are concerned that conditions will worsen now that a federal right to abortion has been struck down.
This statistic is not likely to improve given the number of hospitals and doctors bailing on maternal and obstetric care. CNN reports “Maternity units are closing across America, forcing expectant mothers to hit the road.” That’s some quixotic headline, isn’t it?
The Chartis report says that the states with the highest loss of access to obstetrical care are Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Kansas and Wisconsin, with each losing more than 10 facilities.
Data released last fall by the infant and maternal health nonprofit March of Dimes also shows that more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age across 1,119 US counties are living in “maternity care deserts,” meaning their counties have no hospitals offering obstetric care, no birth centers and no obstetric providers.
Maternity care deserts have been linked to a lack of adequate prenatal care or treatment for pregnancy complications and even an increased risk of maternal death for a year after giving birth.
Money is one reason why maternity units are being shuttered.
According to the American Hospital Association, 42% of births in the US are paid for by Medicaid, which has low reimbursement rates. Employer-sponsored insurance pays about $15,000 for a delivery, and Medicaid pays about $6,500, according to the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that analyzes health care cost and utilization data.
“Medicaid funds about half of all births nationally and more than half of births in rural areas,” said Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota who has conducted research on the growing number of maternity care deserts.
…
More stringent abortion laws may be playing a role in the closures, too.
Bonner General said in a news release last month that due to Idaho’s “legal and political climate, highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, Idaho has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country: a complete ban that has only a few exceptions.
Idaho requires an “affirmative defense,” Guttmacher says, meaning a provider “has to prove in court that an abortion met the criteria for a legal exception.”
No matter the reason, Kozhimannil said, closures in rural communities aren’t just a nuisance. They also put families at risk.
Black women are at highest risk. Here’s an additional hurdle with a racists bent. “Black couple say Texas authorities took away their baby just because they had a home birth. “Instantly, I felt like they had stolen my baby,” the mom said.”
A Black couple living in Dallas say their 2-week-old daughter was taken from them because they decided to have a home birth with a midwife.
Two weeks ago, Temecia Jackson gave birth to her daughter, Mila, at home with the assistance of a licensed and certified professional midwife.
“It was a beautiful birth,” Temecia Jackson said at a press conference on Thursday, April 6. “She was perfect: 6 pounds, 9 ounces.”
Shortly after, the couple says their baby developed jaundice, a common liver condition in newborns that often resolves itself without treatment.
Temecia and her husband, Rodney Jackson, said they were following their midwife’s care protocol for their baby’s jaundice, which was to care for her at home rather than admit her to the hospital.
After a routine doctor’s visit, the couple alleges their child’s pediatrician called Dallas Child Protective Services (CPS) because the parents were going to continue to follow their midwife’s guidance. Days later, Desoto police officers and CPS agents arrived at the couple’s home, demanding they turn their daughter over to authorities.
So, Republicans feel government can ban books, closet the GLBT community, and end reproductive healthcare but won’t touch the number one thing killing children in this country, guns. And, when you do get justice for a homicide by guns, a Republican Governor will pardon the murderer. “Texas governor seeks pardon of man convicted of murder in Black Lives Matter shooting.” This is from Reuters.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Saturday he is seeking the pardon of an Uber driver convicted of murder a day earlier in the July 2020 shooting death of a man at a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin, the state capital.
Abbott, in a post on Twitter, said he will pardon Daniel Perry, 37, a U.S. Army sergeant, as soon as a request from the parole board “hits my desk.”
The Republican governor noted that he can grant pardons only on the recommendation of the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, but that he is allowed to request pardons.
The details of the murder are absolutely horrifying. This is from Dean Obeidallah.
Then we come to Saturday. That is when GOP Texas Governor Gregg Abbott announced he would pardon a man convicted just 24 hours before of murdering a US military veteran who had taken part in a 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest. Why is Abbott–who only pardoned two people in all of 2022—so anxious to pardon the killer who shot 28 year-old Air Force veteran, Garrett Foster to death in the middle of a Texas street? Simple, because he was being “goaded” to do so by right wing figures from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to Kyle Rittenhouse to the chair of the Texas GOP.
Gov. Abbott pardoning a man convicted of MURDERING a BLM protester–who posted before the shooting he was going to kill someone–sends a dangerous message. Abbott is saying you can literally KILL people the GOP disagrees with politically and we will protect you.
The facts of the case are, for the most part, straightforward. On the night of July 25, 2020, defendant David Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin during the time of protests surrounding the gruesome murder of George Floyd. As the Austin police detailed, Perry was driving his car when he approached BLM protesters blocking the traffic. At first, Perry honked at protesters as they walked through the street but then seconds later, Perry ran a red light, driving his car into the crowd.
That is when Perry and Foster—both white and both legally armed–came to meet. Foster was openly carrying his AK-47 when he and other protesters approached Perry’s car.
However, at this point there were conflicting accounts as to whether Foster had raised his weapon to point at Perry or if Perry shot first. Witnesses testified at trial that Foster had been pushing the wheelchair of his quadruple-amputee fiancée, Whitney Mitchell—who is pictured above— and never raised his assault rifle before Perry killed him. Perry claims he shot in self-defense after Foster pointed his weapon at him.
It’s undisputed, though, that Perry fired five shots from his .357 revolver through his car window killing Foster. Perry drove away but later did call the police to admit he killed Foster, claiming self-defense.
During the trial, the key question for the jury was whether Perry’s shooting was justified under the state’s “stand your ground” law–which allows deadly force to be used by a person who feels their life is in danger. Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and introduced messages that suggested the shooting by Perry was not spur of the moment, but pre-mediated.
One of the most damning was Perry’s Facebook message to a friend before the shooting that he might “kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
During Perry’s 8-day trial, dozens of witnesses testified and forensic evidence was presented. The jury—after deliberating for 17 hours– rendered a unanimous verdict finding Perry guilty of murder.
That is when Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and others on the right began to publicly pressure Gov. Abbott to in essence overturn the jury verdict by issuing a pardon because they didn’t agree with it. On his Fox News show Friday night shortly after the verdict, Carlson called on Abbott to pardon Perry, arguing the defendant had acted in self-defense—despite the jury unanimously rejecting that very defense. Carlson even attacked the prosecutor by employing the common anti-Semitic refrain from the right that he was a “Soros-funded DA”—as in Jewish billionaire George Soros supporting him. Carlson wrapped up by declaring that the verdict “means that in the state of Texas, if you have the wrong politics, you’re not allowed to defend yourself.”
Carlson is lying. Perry had the ability to fully defend himself in his trial. But the jury unanimously rejected Perry’s defense and found him guilty of murder.
Guns have moral agency but women do not. Welcome to Christo-Fascism 101 for Wipopo.
Wherever they go, they create a hell realm. They don’t seem to get that looks pleasant compared to being in their company and listening to them. I’d rather be anywhere than near just one of them. Let’s get them out of government ASAP before they kill everything!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Life will kill you
That’s what I said
Life will kill you
And then you’ll be dead
Life will find you
Wherever you go
Requiescat in pace
That’s all she wrote
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