The Senate hearing, which featured five of the nation’s top intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe — both of whom were involved in the group chat over the Signal messaging app — was meant be a forum for the nation’s spy chiefs to offer their assessments of the top national security threats facing the nation.
Wednesday Reads: Signalgate and Social Security News
Posted: March 26, 2025 Filed under: Donald Trump, Social Security | Tags: Frank Bisignano, Houthis, Jeffrey Goldberg, John Ratcliffe, Karoline Leavitt, Kash Patel, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, Senator Mark Warner, Signal Ap, Signalgate, The Atlantic, Tulsi Gabbard, Yemen 6 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Jeffrey Goldberg
This morning The Atlantic’s Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg released the full Signal text exchange that was the top news story all day yesterday. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story, but in case you missed it (unlikely), Goldberg was sent an invitation to a Signal group that included top administration officials. He accepted out of curiosity. Here is the original story published two days ago in The Atlantic (gift article): The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.
And here is today’s article (gift): Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal.
On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”
At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, were both asked about the Signal chat, to which Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently invited by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group,” Gabbard told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Ratcliffe said much the same: “My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.”
President Donald Trump, asked yesterday afternoon about the same matter, said, “It wasn’t classified information.”
These statements presented us with a dilemma. In The Atlantic’s initial story about the Signal chat—the “Houthi PC small group,” as it was named by Waltz—we withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts. As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared, not specific details about the attacks.
Pete Hegseth
The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.
Experts have repeatedly told us that use of a Signal chat for such sensitive discussions poses a threat to national security. As a case in point, Goldberg received information on the attacks two hours before the scheduled start of the bombing of Houthi positions. If this information—particularly the exact times American aircraft were taking off for Yemen—had fallen into the wrong hands in that crucial two-hour period, American pilots and other American personnel could have been exposed to even greater danger than they ordinarily would face. The Trump administration is arguing that the military information contained in these texts was not classified—as it typically would be—although the president has not explained how he reached this conclusion.
Karoline Leavitt
The Atlantic approached multiple people in the Trump administration, asking if they had objections to the publication of the entire Signal chant. Only press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded:
“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation. This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reason [sic] — yes, we object to the release.” (The Leavitt statement did not address which elements of the texts the White House considered sensitive, or how, more than a week after the initial air strikes, their publication could have bearing on national security.)
Here is the relevant part of the text chain:
At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”
The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
- “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
- “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
- “1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
- “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
- “1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
- “MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
- “We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
- “Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Read the whole article at The Atlantic. It isn’t very long. Those certainly look like war plans to me. This is a great opportunity for Democrats to fight back against Trump’s rapidly advancing coup. They did an excellent job in the Senate hearing yesterday.
The Washington Post (Gift article): Democrats slam spy chiefs over Trump team’s Signal leak of war plans.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday hammered the Trump administration’s top intelligence officials on how and why the vice president, defense secretary, national security adviser and other top Cabinet members made the “reckless” decision to use a commercial messaging app to discuss secret war plans for Yemen — while also inadvertently including a journalist in the group chat.
Instead, the routine annual hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence became a staging ground to interrogate the kind of “mind-boggling” behavior that the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), said would easily have gotten a lower-ranking military or intelligence officer fired.
Mike Waltz
In the Signal group chat, convened by national security adviser Michael Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others reportedly detailed the targets, the attack sequencing and the weapons they would use in a U.S. air attack on Yemen’s Houthis, before the Pentagon launched the strikes on March 15, according to a bombshell report published Monday by the Atlantic.
“If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired,” Warner said in his opening remarks at Tuesday’s hearing, noting that in addition to the targeting information, the text chain included the identity of an active CIA officer. “This is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly toward classified information,” exhibited by the Trump administration, Warner said. “This is not a one-off.”
How is it that “nobody bothered to even check? … Who are all the names?” Warner added.
Gabbard, Ratcliffe and the other government witnesses provided few answers.After Gabbard at first declined to say whether she was involved in the group chat at all, she and Ratcliffe then told senators that the information shared over Signal was not classified. At other times, they denied the details contained in the Atlantic’s reporting or said they could not recall the exact contents of the messages. They repeatedly deferred to Trump’s defense secretary and national security adviser to answer for them.
The deflections triggered an incredulous and angry backlash from the committee’s liberals.
Warner, who accused Gabbard of “bobbing and weaving and trying to filibuster,” demanded repeatedly that she reconcile her conflicting assertions that the information in the text chain was not classified, but also that she was not at liberty to talk about it. “If there are no classified materials, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Well, now it has been shared with everyone, and the Trump officials look exactly as incompetent as we assumed they were. On top of everything else, one of the participants in the Signal chat, special envoy Steve Witkoff, was actually in Moscow waiting to speak to Vladimir Putin, while using his personal cell phone.
More from CBS News: Democrats call Trump intelligence officials’ use of group chat “reckless, sloppy and stunning.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about global threats facing the U.S. However the annual hearing, which typically focuses on threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, largely concentrated on the lapse.
FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse also appeared, but received few questions.
Senator Mark Warner
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, addressed the controversy at the top of the hearing, calling it “mind-boggling” that none of the intelligence officials in the chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal thought to check who else was included.
“Are these government devices? Were they personal devices? Have the devices been collected to make sure there’s no malware?” Warner said in his opening remarks. “There’s plenty of declassified information that shows that our adversaries, China and Russia, are trying to break into encryption systems like Signal.”
Gabbard and Ratcliffe both denied that classified information was shared in the group chat in a feisty exchange with Warner. Confronted by Warner, Gabbard initially declined to say whether she was part of the chat….
Ratcliffe confirmed to Warner that he was a participant in the message thread, but pushed back on whether the decision to use Signal to communicate was a security lapse. Ratcliffe said Signal was on his CIA computer when he was confirmed as director earlier this year….
Ratcliffe confirmed to Warner that he was a participant in the message thread, but pushed back on whether the decision to use Signal to communicate was a security lapse. Ratcliffe said Signal was on his CIA computer when he was confirmed as director earlier this year. “As it is for most CIA officers,” he said, adding that the agency considers the commercial app “permissible” for work use.
The spy chiefs also denied that the conversation included information on weapons packages, targets or timing of the strikes, as Goldberg reported.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Ratcliffe said, with Gabbard adding “same answer.”
I guess they weren’t paying attention. There’s more at the CBS link.
John Ratcliff
Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliff are appearing before the House Intelligence Committee today. That should be interesting. CBS News: Intel chiefs testify before House committee as new Signal texts emerge.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are back on Capitol Hill to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday after new text messages came to light from a group chat in which top Trump officials discussed sensitive plans to strike targets in Yemen.
Shortly before the hearing began, The Atlantic published additional messages showing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided detailed information to the group of senior Trump officials about the strikes, including a timeline of when fighter jets would take off and what kind of weapons would be used. The group inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic who revealed the first batch of texts earlier this week….
Gabbard and Ratcliffe are appearing Wednesday alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse at a hearing ostensibly focused on the global security threats facing the U.S. But the Signal leak and its fallout dominated the early portions of questioning.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the committee, chastised the intelligence leaders at the start of the hearing, saying they put the lives of troops at risk.
“Everyone here knows that the Russians or the Chinese could have gotten all of that information, and they could have passed it on to the Houthis, who easily could have repositioned weapons and altered their plans to knock down planes or sink ships,” Himes said.
Gabbard acknowledged that the conversation was “sensitive” but again denied that classified information was shared in the chat.”There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared,” she told lawmakers, echoing the defense from the White House that “war plans” were not discussed, despite the detailed guidance for an impending attack.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s texts to a Signal group chat about military operations against the Houthis almost certainly contained classified information, according to current and former Pentagon officials.
The Atlantic on Wednesday released excerpts of a conversation among top national security leaders to which a journalist had accidentally been invited. Hegseth and the White House have denied sharing classified information or war plans.
“This information was clearly taken from the real time order of battle sequence of an ongoing operation,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant Defense secretary under the first Trump administration. “It is highly classified and protected.
Hegseth identified the aircraft used and the precise timing of the attacks, according to texts from the group chat, which was started by national security adviser Mike Waltz. That information, if obtained by adversaries, could put U.S. troops in danger.
Kash Patel
A current defense official and former Air Force official both said that any forecasting of future operations and planned weapons are almost always classified information. The former and current officials were granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive issue.
Details about future airstrikes and the timing of launches is tightly controlled and usually provided only through classified documents, conversations and in secure email traffic. Few outside of top leadership and those involved usually know about the plans.
“The information that you have fighter aircraft launching off of an aircraft carrier, flying over enemy territory and impending combat operation is the most sensitive information we have at the federal government,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy pilot, who added it was likely classified.
“Mike Waltz did a boneheaded thing. It was careless. I think what Pete Hegseth did was reckless and dangerous.”
Hegseth should be fired, but Waltz is more likely to be the scapegoat.
President Donald Trump was upset when he found out that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally included a journalist in a group chat discussing plans for a military strike. But it wasn’t just because Waltz had potentially exposed national security secrets.
Trump was mad — and suspicious — that Waltz had Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s number saved in his phone in the first place, according to three people familiar with the situation, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. A fourth person said the president was also particularly perturbed by the embarrassing nature of the episode.
“The president was pissed that Waltz could be so stupid,” the person said. (A “Mike Waltz” invited Goldberg to the chat, according to The Atlantic).
But by Tuesday afternoon, the two men had made a show of smoothing things over and the White House was closing ranks around Waltz. Trump conducted brief interviews with both NBC News and Fox News pledging to stand behind his national security adviser. Two top Trump spokespeople suggested in posts on X that national security hawks were colluding with the media to make the issue bigger than it actually was. And Waltz attended a meeting of Trump’s ambassadors Tuesday afternoon.
Tulsi Gabbard
“There’s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies … This one in particular I’ve never met, don’t know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room,” Waltz said during the meeting.
Trump followed up by calling Waltz “a very good man” and suggested he had been unfairly attacked. Yet the president also said he would look into government officials’ use of Signal, the app used in the chat with Goldberg that could have resulted in a security breach as top U.S. officials discussed plans to launch strikes in Yemen.
Still, several Trump allies cautioned this may not be the end of Waltz’s troubles. One of them, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said the incident has strained Waltz’s relationship with Trump’s inner circle.
Brandi Buchman at HuffPost: Pete Hegseth Sued Over Signal Text Debacle.
A public watchdog group sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a slew of other Trump administration officials Tuesday after a journalist revealed he was inadvertently added to a text chain discussing U.S. war plans.
The lawsuit, brought by the watchdog group American Oversight and first reported by HuffPost, requests that a federal judge formally declare that Hegseth and other officials on the chat violated their duty to uphold laws around the preservation of official communications. Those laws are outlined in the Federal Records Act and, according to lawyers for American Oversight, if agency heads refuse to recover or protect their communications, the national archivist should ask the attorney general to step in.
On Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that national security adviser Michael Waltz inadvertently added him to a Signal group chat with more than a dozen Trump administration officials and aides including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, homeland security adviser Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he was also in the Signal chat. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not admit whether she was a participant, though Goldberg reported she was; instead, she said the matter was “still under review.”
As American Oversight lawyers pointed out in their lawsuit Tuesday, Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States and, as such, “is aware of the violations” that allegedly occurred.
He is also “responsible for initiating an investigation through the Attorney General for the recovery of records or other redress,” the lawsuit said.
Axios reports that Trump nemesis Judge James Boasberg will preside of the Signalgate lawsuit: Judge who ruled against Trump deportation flights will oversee Signal lawsuit.
Social Security News:
Teresa Ghilarducci at Forbes: Social Security Is Breaking Down— Millions Will Feel It First.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently offered a chilling glimpse into the Trump administration’s indifference to Social Security’s importance. “Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month,” Lutnick said, according to Axios. “My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”
Perhaps the commerce secretary’s mother-in-law wouldn’t call. But millions of other Americans would—and not just to complain. They would call because they couldn’t pay rent, buy food, or refill essential medications. Lutnick’s casual comment downplayed the gravity of a missed Social Security check.
The comment also exposed the distance between elites and others. Elites may not care if they miss a Social Security check, but for a typical Americans a missing check is a gut punch. Calls to the Social Security office would be pouring in. But no one may answer.
Howard Lutnick
Lutnick’s remarks come during a time when the Social Security system faces record demand and historic strain. And the remarks come during a month of extreme alarm and confusion about the system. Elon Musk demeaned the system publicly, calling it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” the New York Post reported. Field offices are overrun, wait times are spiking, and staffing levels have been slashed by 12% since 2020, notes The Washington Post. The very system that ensures timely payments to 73 million Americans is being stomped on, and senior citizens and families are feeling anxious and worse.
To be clear, Trump and DOGE have not cut or delayed Social Security checks—yet. The Social Security Administration does not miss checks. In 80 years, it never missed payment….
While Lutnick and others suggest that delays wouldn’t matter, the data tell another story. Social Security is the foundation of retirement security for most American seniors.
According to the Social Security Administration, nearly 90% of Americans over age 65 receive benefits, and those benefits make up an average of 31% of their income. But for many, the reliance is much deeper: 39% of older men and 44% of older women count on Social Security for more than half their income. Even more sobering, 12% of older men and 15% of older women rely on it for at least 90% of their income.
Older women, in particular, are at risk. They tend to earn less over their lifetimes, outlive their spouses, and have less saved for retirement. For them, Social Security is often not just the main source of income—it’s the only source.
The Washington Post (Gift link): Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down.
Lazy Caturday Reads: The Attack on Social Security and Other Outrages
Posted: March 22, 2025 Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, just because, Social Security | Tags: "leakers are patriots", authoritarianism, Doge, Howard Lutnick, Judge Ellen Hollarder, Leland Dudek, Social Security Administration, Tesla 11 Comments
Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday the realization that Elon Musk and his DOGE bandits are dead set on stealing our Social Security hit home for millions of Americans. Perhaps some of the MAGA cultists are still lying to themselves, but plenty of Trump voters now know they made a huge mistake.
Two days ago, Maryland District Judge Ellen Hollander ordered the acting head of the Social Security Administration Leland Dudek to stop DOGE bandits from accessing recipients’ personal information. Dudek responded by threatening to shut down the agency entirely.
Reuters: Judge stops Musk’s team from ‘unbridled access’ to Social Security private data.
March 20 (Reuters) – A federal judge said on Thursday the Social Security Administration likely violated privacy laws by giving tech billionaire Elon Musk‘s aides “unbridled access” to the data of millions of Americans, and ordered a halt to further record sharing.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of Maryland said Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was intruding into “the personal affairs of millions of Americans” as part of its hunt for fraud and waste under President Donald Trump.
“Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency,” he said….
Earlier on Thursday, Judge Hollander, in her ruling, said: “To be sure, rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But, that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so.”
The case has shed light for the first time on the amount of personal information DOGE staffers have been given access to in the databases, which hold vast amounts of sensitive data on most Americans.
The SSA administers benefits for tens of millions of older Americans and people with disabilities, and is just one of at least 20 agencies DOGE has accessed since January.
Hollander said at the heart of the case was a decision by new leadership at the SSA to give 10 DOGE staffers unfettered access to the records of millions of Americans. She said lawyers for SSA had acknowledged that agency leaders had given DOGE access to a “massive amount” of records.
“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” Hollander said….
One of the systems DOGE accessed is called Numident, or Numerical Identification, known inside the agency as the “crown jewels,” three former and current SSA staffers told Reuters. Numident contains personal information of everyone who has applied for or been given a social security number.
After a new order from Judge Hollander, Dudek has backed down on his threat to shut down the Social Security Administration.
The Washington Post: Federal judge pushes back on acting Social Security head over threat to close agency.
Liam Archacki at The Daily Beast: Billionaire Trump Aide Uses Mom-in-Law, 94, to Defend DOGE Social Security Cuts.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t be worried if she didn’t receive her Social Security check one month.
Lutnick argued that the only people upset about DOGE head Elon Musk targeting Social Security are fraudsters abusing the system.
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, wouldn’t call and complain,” he said during a Thursday appearance on the All-In podcast. “She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up and she’ll get it next month.”
Public records suggest that his mother-in-law, Geri Lambert, lives with Lutnick and his wife Allison, at his Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan. If that is the case, she is unlikely to be relying on Social Security for rent or mortgage payments.
Lutnick, who was nominated to the role by President Donald Trump, amassed a fortune worth around $1.5 billion over more than 30 years as the CEO of the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. He stepped down from the position in February when he was confirmed as commerce secretary.
“A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining,” the commerce secretary continued. “Elon knows this by heart… The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing.”
It isn’t the first eyebrow-raising statement Lutnick has made in support of Musk—even this week.
On Wednesday, Lutnick appeared on Fox News and urged viewers to “buy Tesla” stock, which has been plummeting amid protests against Musk’s efforts to reshape the federal government. Musk is the CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer.
He called Musk “probably the best person to bet on I’ve ever met,” saying: “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap.”
This guy is completely out of touch with reality.
More on Trump/Musk’s plans for Social Security from Ashley Lopez at NPR: The Social Security Administration’s many proposed changes are worrying advocates.
In the past month, the Trump administration has announced a flurry of changes at the agency that administers Social Security.
Among these changes are plans to cut thousands of jobs, close offices and enact new policy — including more stringent identity checks that could require in-person office visits.
By Natsuo Ikegami
Advocates warn these sweeping moves could lead to seniors and people with disabilities having a harder time getting help with their crucial benefits.
Already, getting assistance can be burdensome.
“My first phone call that I made to Social Security, I was on hold for 3 hours and 15 minutes before I spoke to somebody,” Aaron Woods, who’s been trying for months to help his mother sort out her Social Security and Medicare benefits, told NPR.
Read more about Woods’ case at the link. These problems existed before DOGE got involved.
For years, advocates say the Social Security Administration has struggled to keep up with its growing workload. Besides retirement services, the agency runs programs that provide survivor benefits and disability benefits and supplemental income for the very poor.
“There simply have not been enough workers to administer the benefits timely,” said Kristen Dama, a managing attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which helps people navigate the benefits process. “To make sure that mistakes aren’t made. And then when people get disconnected, whether it’s for financial reasons or for mistakes, there’s just not enough people … to allow recipients to get reconnected easily.”
And problem-solving could get harder as the agency plans to cut 7,000 jobs — though its current staffing of about 57,000 is already at a 50-year low….
The agency also announced it would undergo a massive restructuring by eliminating six out of its 10 regional offices, which Dama said would significantly affect her organization’s ability to sort out problems for her clients.
“For legal aid advocates, both at my organization and across the country, the regional offices are really the fixers, are the quality control, and they play that role also for constituent service staff, social services organizations,” she said. “They are really the place where problems that can’t be solved get escalated.”
There’s much more information at the link. This is a great article.
Leah Willingham at AP: New Social Security requirements pose barriers to rural communities without internet, transportation.
Veronica Taylor doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use the internet.
The 73-year-old can’t drive and is mostly housebound in her mountainous and remote West Virginia community, where a simple trip to the grocery store can take an hour by car.
New requirements that Social Security recipients access key benefits online or in person at a field office, rather than on the phone, would be nearly impossible to meet without help.
“If that’s the only way I had to do it, how would I do it?” Taylor said, talking about the changes while eating a plate of green beans, mac and cheese and fried fish with a group of retirees at the McDowell County Senior Center. “I would never get nothing done.”
The requirements, set to go into effect March 31, are intended to streamline processes and combat widespread fraud within the system, according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration.
Time to Oneself, Marcella Cooper
Bullshit.
They say that’s why it’s vital for people to verify their identity online or in person when signing up for benefits, or making a change like where the money is deposited.
But advocates say the changes will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Americans. It will be harder to visit field offices in rural areas with high poverty rates. Often these are the same areas that lack widespread internet service.
Many Social Security field offices are also being shut down, part of the federal government’s cost-cutting efforts. That could mean seniors have to travel even farther to visit, including in parts of rural West Virginia.
At least now the efforts to kill Social Security are out in the open. I guarantee you if there is a missed payment the public reaction will shock self-satisfied billionaires like Howard Lutnick, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Musk is throwing a tantrum about judges who are simply interpreting U.S. laws.
Nick Robbins-Early at The Guardian: Elon Musk lashes out at US judges as they rule against Doge.
In the days after a federal judge ruled Elon Musk’s dismantling of USAID likely violated the constitution, the world’s richest person issued a series of online attacks against the American judiciary, offered money to voters to sign a petition opposing “activist judges”, and called on Congress to remove his newfound legal opponents from office.
“This is a judicial coup,” Musk wrote on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to “impeach the judges”.
Musk, who serves as a senior adviser to Donald Trump, posted about judges who ruled in opposition to the administration more than 20 times within 48 hours this week on X, the social network he owns, repeatedly framing them as radical leftist activists and seeking to undermine their authority. His denunciations came as his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) faces sweeping and numerous legal challenges to its gutting overhaul of the government, which has involved firing thousands of workers and gaining access to sensitive government data.
Doge is the subject of nearly two dozen lawsuits, which in some cases have already resulted in judges imposing more transparency on Musk’s initiative or reversing parts of its rapid-fire cuts at federal agencies. The legal pushback poses one of the most significant challenges to Musk’s plans, which for weeks after inauguration day involved operating with expansive powers and little evident oversight.
While Musk posts online, he is also directing some of his immense wealth towards those who support his cause. Musk donated funds to seven Republican members of Congress who called for impeaching judges, the New York Times reported, giving the maximum allowable donation of $6,600 to their campaigns.
Musk also launched a petition on Thursday against “activist judges” via his political action group America Pac, which offered registered voters in Wisconsin $100 if they signed. Musk’s Pac has funneled millions of dollars into the state’s 1 April supreme court race, in which he is backing a former Republican attorney general in another attempt to reshape the country’s courts.
How is that legal? But he got away with it in Pennsylvania during the 2024 election when he offered 1 million prizes for people who signed a petition.
By Laura El
Musk is also furious about “leakers” who have talked to the press about his DOGE meddling.
Politico: Leakers to Musk: We’re ‘not Elon’s servants.’
The pervasive fear and anger that have been rippling through federal agencies over Elon Musk’s slashing approach to shrinking government deepened even further on Friday over the billionaire tech mogul’s threat to root out and punish anyone who is leaking to the media.
They’ve already taken every precaution they can for fear of retaliation: setting Signal messages to automatically disappear, taking photos of documents they share instead of screenshotting, using non-government devices to communicate. But disclosing the chaos caused by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, for many, outweighs the risks that come with leaking.
Following Thursday’s New York Times report that Musk was set to receive a Pentagon briefing about a confidential contingency plan for a war with China, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO posted on his social media platform X that leakers “will be found” and, he intimated, punished.
“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” Musk wrote in his post.
Oooooh! How scary!
But Musk’s post is not having the chilling effect on leakers he’d intended, according to conversations with more than half a dozen government employees who had previously spoken to POLITICO. If anything, it might be the other way around.
“We are public servants, not Elon’s servants,” said one Food and Drug Administration employee who, like all people interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics. “The public deserves to know how dysfunctional, destructive, and deceptive all of this has been and continues to be.”
“Leakers are patriots,” said one Agriculture Department employee. Helping the media report on problems or concerns inside agencies, the USDA employee added, is motivated by a desire for greater transparency — the same goal Musk has said undergirds his own work through DOGE….
Musk’s comments may not have caused a major shift in how federal workers view sharing information with reporters, one federal employee at a health agency said, citing group chats with other employees.
But even before Musk’s comments this week, the prevailing atmosphere inside many federal agencies — from constant threats of firing and being labeled enemies of the public to ousting them for following orders from previous administrations — have left employees feeling vulnerable, increasingly incensed and concerned about their physical safety.
There’s quite a bit more at the Politico link.
By Rakhmeet Redzhepov
Musk is also paying a price in attitudes toward his EV company Tesla. He and his rich buddies think attacks on Tesla locations and individual cars is a conspiracy, but it is really organic. Let me say up front that I don’t condone violence or vandalism.
NBC News: No evidence of coordinated vandalism of Teslas despite Musk and Trump claims.
Law enforcement officials and domestic extremism experts say they have found no evidence that a series of attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships are coordinated despite such claims from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump.
At least 10 Tesla dealerships, charging stations and facilities have been hit by vandals, many of whom have lit cars on fire, while a growing collection of videos posted to social media have shown people defacing and damaging Tesla vehicles. One website appeared to encourage people to target Tesla vehicles, publishing a map with the information of dozens of Tesla owners and Tesla facilities. It’s unknown who started the site.
The attacks have come as Musk has emerged as one of the brightest flashpoints of an already tumultuous second Trump administration, leading a sweeping effort to cut large swaths of the federal government. Musk has decried the attacks on Teslas, and on Thursday claimed on his social media platform X that the attacks were “coordinated.” He did not provide evidence….
Trump has also claimed the attacks have been coordinated. In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, he said without evidence that “people that are very highly political on the left” are paying the vandals.
Trump has called the destruction of Tesla property domestic terrorism, and Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges on Thursday against three people accused of vandalizing Tesla properties in Oregon, South Carolina and Washington state.
Publicly available court documents for the three people make no mention of coordination, an NBC News review found.
Experts and law enforcement officials nationwide from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the two federal agencies investigating the attacks, all told NBC News they have found no evidence of any coordination around the attacks.
More details at NBC News.
I’m just heartened by the rising public anger over Trump and Musk working to destroy our democratic form of government and turn our country into a dictatorship.
I’ll end with this piece by David Smith in The Guardian: The Trump Administration is descending into authoritarianism.
Entering the magnificent great hall of the US Department of Justice, Donald Trump stopped for a moment to admire his portrait then took to a specially constructed stage where two art deco statues, depicting the “Spirit of Justice” and “Majesty of Justice”, had been carefully concealed behind a blue velvet curtain.
The president, who since last year is also a convicted criminal, proceeded to air grievances, utter a profanity and accuse the news media of doing “totally illegal” things, without offering evidence. “I just hope you can all watch for it,” he told justice department employees, “but it’s totally illegal.”
Cat Lady on a Couch, by Sharon Bursic
Trump’s breach of the justice department’s traditional independence last week was neither shocking nor surprising. His speech quickly faded from the fast and furious news cycle. But future historians may regard it as a milestone on a road leading the world’s oldest continuousdemocracy to a once unthinkable destination.
Eviscerating the federal government and subjugating Congress; defying court orders and delegitimising judges; deporting immigrants and arresting protesters without due process; chilling free speech at universities and cultural institutions; cowing news outlets with divide-and-rule. Add a rightwing media ecosystem manufacturing consent and obeyance in advance, along with a weak and divided opposition offering feeble resistance. Join all the dots, critics say, and America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism.
“These are flashing red lights here,” Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director turned Trump critic. “We are approaching Defcon 1 for our democracy and a lot of people in the media and the opposition leadership don’t seem to be communicating that to the American people. That is the biggest danger of the moment we’re in now: the normalisation of it.”
Much was said and written by journalists and Democrats during last year’s election campaign arguing that Trump, who instigated a coup against the US government on January 6, 2021, could endanger America’s 240-year experiment with democracy if he returned to power. In a TV interview he had promised to be “dictator” but only on “day one”. Sixty days in, the only question is whether the warnings went far enough.
The 45th and 47th president has wasted no time in launching a concerted effort to consolidate executive power, undermine checks and balances and challenge established legal and institutional norms. And he is making no secret of his strongman ambitions.
Trump, 78, has declared “We are the federal law” and posted a social media image of himself wearing a crown with the words “Long live the king”. He also channeled Napoleon with the words: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” And JD Vance has stated that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”.
Trump quickly pardoned those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, placed loyalists in key positions within the FBI and military and purged the justice department, which also suffered resignations in response to the dismissal of corruption charges against New York mayor Eric Adams after his cooperation on hardline immigration measures.
The president now has the courts in his sights. Last weekend the White House defied a judge’s verbal order blocking it from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime, to justify the deportation of 250 Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador, where they will be held in a 40,000-person megaprison.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
Wednesday Reads: Social Security, Measles, and Government Shutdown
Posted: March 12, 2025 Filed under: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, just because, Social Security | Tags: government shutdown 2025m, Leland Dudek, measles outbreak, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 6 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Fool on the Hill, by Dave LeBow
I have a nasty cold, so I don’t know how much I can do today. As always, everything is endlessly crazy. Trump is causing chaos with his on-again, off-again tariffs, but I’m not going to deal with that today. I want to begin with the latest on Social Security. There is quite a bit of news on it today. Next, news on the spreading Measles outbreak and then the possible government shutdown.
Social Security News
ProPublica got ahold of a recording of the acting director of the Social Security Administration: “The President Wanted It and I Did It”: Recording Reveals Head of Social Security’s Thoughts on DOGE and Trump.
Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica. He also said that it “would be catastrophic for the people in our country” if DOGE were to make changes at his agency that were as sweeping as those at USAID, the Treasury Department and elsewhere.
Dudek’s comments, delivered to a group of senior staff and Social Security advocates attending both in person and virtually, offer an extraordinary window into the thinking of a top agency official in the volatile early days of the second Trump administration. The Washington Post first reported Dudek’s acknowledgement that DOGE is calling the shots at Social Security and quoted several of his statements. But the full recording reveals that he went much further, citing not only the actions being taken at the agency by the people he repeatedly called “the DOGE kids,” but also extensive input he has received from the White House itself. When a participant in the meeting asked him why he wouldn’t more forcefully call out President Donald Trump’s continued false claims about widespread Social Security fraud as “BS,” Dudek answered, “So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?”
Throughout the meeting, Dudek made alarming statements about the perils facing the Social Security system, but he did so in an oddly informal, discursive manner. It left several participants baffled as to the ultimate fate of the nation’s largest and most popular social program, one that serves 73 million Americans. “Are we going to break something?” Dudek asked at one point, referring to what DOGE has been doing with Social Security data. “I don’t know.”
But then he said, in a more reassuring tone: “They’re learning. Let people learn. They’re going to make mistakes.”
Dudek embodies the dramatic whipsawing of life as a public servant under DOGE. For 25 years, he was the ultimate faceless bureaucrat: a midlevel analyst who had bounced between federal agencies, ultimately landing at the Social Security Administration and focusing on information technology, cybersecurity and fraud prevention. He was largely unknown even within the agency. But in February, he suddenly vaulted into the public eye when he was put on leave for surreptitiously sharing information with DOGE. It appeared that he might lose his job, but then he was unexpectedly promoted by the Trump administration to the position of acting commissioner. At the time, he seemed unreservedly committed to the DOGE agenda, writing — then deleting — a bellicose LinkedIn post in which he expressed pride in having “bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done.”
Now, only weeks into his tenure, he was taking a far more ambivalent posture toward not just DOGE but Trump. On multiple occasions during last week’s meeting, according to the recording, Dudek framed the choices that he has been making in recent weeks as “the president’s” agenda. These choices have included planned cuts of at least 7,000 Social Security employees; buyouts and early retirement offered to the entire staff of 57,000, including those who work in field offices and teleservice centers helping elderly and disabled people navigate the program; cuts to disability determination services; the dissolution of a team that had been working to improve the user experience of the ssa.gov website and application process; a reduction of the agency’s footprint across the country from 10 regional offices to four; the terminations of 64 leases, including those for some field office and hearing office space; proposals to outsource Social Security customer service; and more.
“I work for the president. I need to do what the president tells me to do,” Dudek said, according to the recording. “I’ve had to make some tough choices, choices I didn’t agree with, but the president wanted it and I did it,” he added later. (He didn’t name specific actions that Trump did or did not direct.)
Center for American Progress: Cuts to the Social Security Administration Threaten Millions of Americans’ Retirement and Disability Benefits.
In January 2025, 73 million people—more than 1 in 5 Americans—received benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA). But the agency that gets those benefits into bank accounts to buy groceries and pay bills is now under attack, putting beneficiaries at risk of dangerous disruptions and delays. Recently, the SSA announced that it would cut approximately 7,000 jobs—a 12 percent reduction in the agency’s staffing. At the same time, the SSA is shutting down six of its 10 regional offices, while posts to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website spark fears of upcoming field office closures around the country.
These assaults on the SSA threaten Americans’ ability to access the benefits they rely on to get by.
The Social Security Administration has been doing more with less for years, providing benefits to a rapidly growing number of beneficiaries despite its shrinking staff. Under congressional restrictions on administrative spending, agency capacity has stretched to the breaking point, with staff levels approaching a 25-year low in fiscal year 2024. Under these conditions, former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley warned that DOGE-led cuts to an already skeletal agency may lead to “system collapse and an interruption of benefits.”
Any delay or interruption in payments would be catastrophic. More than 7 million Americans 65 and older receive at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security.* For many of these seniors, even a few days’ delay in receiving Social Security benefits would pose an immediate threat to their ability to pay rent and buy food. Payments made even later, or missed, would irreparably harm many more: In a January 2025 survey, 42 percent of Americans 65 and older reported “I would not be able to afford the basics, such as food, clothing, or housing [without Social Security retirement benefits].”
Disabled people and their families, likewise, would face dire straits. More than 11 million disabled Americans under the age of 65 rely on benefits administered by the SSA through either Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or both. Most SSDI recipients can’t work due to their disability, while others work limited hours and can only earn very limited amounts without forfeiting their benefits. For SSI claimants, even when they are able to work, they can only hold a few thousand dollars in gross assets without losing their benefits, subject to limited exceptions, making it essentially impossible to save. As a result, too many SSDI and SSI recipients are one missed or late payment away from not making rent or putting food on the table.
There is much more information at the CAP link.
Nathaniel Weixel at The Hill: Trump, Musk fuel fears of Social Security cuts with ‘fraud’ talk.
President Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk are ratcheting up false rhetoric about Social Security, repeatedly claiming the program wastes hundreds of billions of dollars in fraudulent payouts that need to be eliminated.
Their position is confounding experts and worrying advocates, who fear the claims are a pretext for massive cuts to the program down the road.
Trump, Musk and the administration’s allies insist they are targeting waste, fraud and abuse and are not going after benefits as a whole.
In an interview Monday with Larry Kudlow, who served as Trump’s chief economic adviser in his first term, Musk suggested Social Security and other entitlement programs are rife with fraud and a prime target for cuts.
“Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s the big one to eliminate,” Musk said on Kudlow’s Fox Business show, adding there’s possibly $500 billion to $700 billion in potential cuts there.
Musk also said they’re trying to put a stop to “stolen” and “fake” Social Security numbers.
What’s their evidence for this fraud and waste?
Economists say the levels of fraud talked about by Trump and Musk just don’t exist.
A report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general last year found the agency made nearly $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal 2015 through fiscal 2022 — less than 1 percent of benefits paid out during that period.
“I’m a firm believer in the perpetual inefficiency of government. But if I had to pick one place in the federal government that is more efficient than most, Social Security would be one of them,” said Chuck Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a former top economic adviser in the George W. Bush administration.
Representatives from DOGE have reportedly gained access to sensitive taxpayer data collected by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
According to a declaration in a federal lawsuit from Tiffany Flick, the SSA’s former acting chief of staff, DOGE staffers seemed to want the data to search for evidence of alleged benefits fraud.
Flick wrote that she thought the DOGE team’s concerns were “invalid and based on an inaccurate understanding of SSA’s data and programs.”
Musk also claims that “illegal” immigrants are getting Social Security benefits. Of course, that’s impossible, since these people can’t get Social Security numbers.
One more on Social Security from CNBC: Senators to Trump Social Security nominee: ‘You will be responsible’ if benefits are interrupted.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon are warning Frank Bisignano, the nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, that he will be responsible if staff cuts interfere with the agency’s ability to process and disburse benefit checks.
President Donald Trump has nominated Bisignano, chief executive of payments and financial technology company Fiserv, to serve as commissioner of the agency, which is responsible for sending monthly benefit payments to more than 72 million Americans.
“As President Trump’s nominee for SSA Commissioner, you will be responsible if the Trump Administration’s attacks on the program result in failures or delays in getting Americans their Social Security checks — in other words, a backdoor cut to benefits,” Warren and Wyden wrote in a March 11 letter to Bisignano, shared exclusively with CNBC.
Bisignano’s Senate confirmation hearing is expected to take place later this month, according to a source familiar with the situation.
In the interim, the agency is under the leadership of acting commissioner Lee Dudek, who according to reports publicly stated before his appointment that he had been put on administrative leave after helping representatives of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Dudek replaced former acting commissioner Michelle King, who stepped down following reported disagreements with DOGE over access to sensitive data.
The Measles Outbreak
Measles is spreading around the country, and RFK Jr. isn’t dealing with what’s happening.
The Washington Post: Texas measles outbreak grows, while New York and California report new cases.
So what is the head of Health and Human Services doing?
The Daily Beast: RFK Jr.: It Would Be Better if ‘Everybody Got Measles.’
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to suggest getting measles is the best defense against the disease, as a Texas outbreak spreads across the U.S.
More than 220 people in the state have been diagnosed with the infectious virus, and California, New York, and Maryland have also reported cases of late. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sweating over the outbreak, warning health-care workers and travelers to “be vigilant.”
While RFK Jr. recently shifted his stance to concede that vaccinations are actually pretty useful, he has still stopped short of urging skeptics to go and get it. And in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday night, he appeared to still favor natural immunity through exposure to the virus.
“It used to be, when I were a kid, that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection,” he said, then taking a swipe at the vaccine. “The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people it wanes.”
In Texas, uptake of the vaccine is lower than in other states, partly fueled by COVID skepticism. The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine offers 93 percent protection against measles if the recipient has one dose, and 97 percent after two doses, according to the CDC.
HuffPost via Yahoo News: RFK Jr. Makes More Alarming Comments About Measles Amid U.S. Outbreaks.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity broadcast Tuesday, Kennedy said “natural immunity” after getting a measles infection is more effective at providing lasting protection against the disease. However, Kennedy left out that the dangers of catching the disease outweigh the advantage of immunity, according to doctors….
Despite Kennedy’s claims, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the majority of people who have had the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccines will be protected for life. The CDC also has guidance for people it recommends should be revaccinated.
Prior to the introduction of the vaccine in 1963, about 500,000 cases and 500 measles deaths were reported annually, while the real number of cases was suspected to be much higher, the agency said. Since then, incidence of the disease has fallen by over 95%, it said.
Kennedy added that he would make sure that “anybody who wants a vaccine can get one,” noting that he is against forcing people to take it.
“I’m a freedom of choice person,” Kennedy said. “We should have transparency. We should have informed choice. And — but if people don’t want it, the government shouldn’t force them to do it. There are adverse events from the vaccine. It does cause deaths every year. It causes all the illnesses that measles itself cause.”
The CDC has stressed the measles vaccine is safe and effective. Its website lists extensive information about the vaccine, including potential side effects and warnings for people who shouldn’t get vaccinated.
Government Shutdown
Yesterday, the House passed their continuing resolution with devastating cuts to Medicaid. Now, Democrats in the Senate have to decide whether to filibuster and possibly shut down the government.
David Dayen at The American Prospect: Senate Democrats’ Choice: Block the Republican Spending Bill or Dissolve Congress.
Democrats were actually quite pleased with the clown show that was Congress in the last two years. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had no ability to pass anything without Democratic votes, as he was simply not in control of the far-right elements of his caucus. Democrats welcomed the perception that they were government’s rescuers, the adults in the room, who would save Johnson’s bacon and functionally control the House.
This is no longer true. Donald Trump’s looming presence has whipped Republicans in line, and Johnson has recognized an important truth: So-called “moderate” Republicans will swallow anything, so he only has to negotiate with the far right, and if he can satisfy them, he’ll win any vote. Such was the case with a partisan seven-month “continuing resolution” that passed the House on Tuesday 217-213, with only one defection by libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who doesn’t really believe in government funding at all. (One Democrat voted for it, Maine Blue Dog Jared Golden.)
It is somewhat remarkable that dozens of House Republicans who have vowed never to pass stopgap bills to fund the government in their political careers caved on this one. But that’s why I put “continuing resolution” in quotes. In reality, this is a hastily arranged partisan Republican budget that achieves much of their anti-government, anti-immigrant, pro-military agenda while paving the way for Trump to nullify whatever spending he deems unworthy. It doesn’t just tilt spending in a far-right direction, it actually abdicates congressional responsibility as the branch of government that makes federal spending decisions.
Yet several Senate Democrats are thinking about passing it anyway.
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects, and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigration and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Read the rest at the link above.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: Here Are the Arguments for Why Senate Ds Should Vote Yes and Why They’re Wrong.
Over the last week a few TPM Readers have written in with contrary arguments about how to deal with the “continuing resolution” that just passed the House and will soon be voted on in the Senate. These weren’t critical or acrimonious letters but frank constructive counters, which I appreciate. I wanted to discuss them because they line up pretty closely with the arguments that seem to have strong advocates in the Senate Democratic caucus.
Let me summarize them briefly.
- Democrats are in a tough messaging environment and they’ll get blamed for the shutdown. Trump might even get to blame a recession on them.
- The White House will get to control the pace of the shutdown. In other words, the executive gets flexibility in just how things get shut down, things that will get more or less helpful press attention. Thus he’ll be able to engineer lots of bad press cycles for the Democrats.
- Quite simply, Trump’s presidency and the economy are imploding. Why rush in to make ourselves the story when every day is a bad day for Trump?
- It’s too soon. The public isn’t engaged enough yet. By the fall the economy will likely be in recession and it will be a debate on Medicare, Medicaid, etc. — that’s the time to have the fight.
- Trump and Musk probably want a shutdown. After a shutdown goes on for 30 days, the law opens up new legal avenues for layoffs. A shutdown is actually what they want and they will use it to accelerate the process, get people used to it. In other words, risking a shutdown is a trap because nothing would make them happier.
I’ve thought a lot about each of these arguments. On their own a number of them are compelling and point to very real risks. Indeed, last week I briefly started questioning my own position because Democrats had done nothing to lay any groundwork for why they were choosing this confrontation. And that makes a fight much, much harder.
But I think each of these arguments is mistaken. Indeed, as a whole it’s a bit like sitting in the mess hall in Treblinka planning an escape when someone says, “But if we try to escape they’ll kill us all!”
First, I think Republicans are going to get wrecked in the midterms. I think that’s highly likely whatever happens. As a narrowly electoral calculus I think there’s a decent argument Democrats should just let everything happen, let Trump and Musk go wild. In this sense, James Carville’s argument that Democrats should just do nothing is right, by a narrowly electoral calculus. But there’s more than just an electoral calculus. Trump and Musk are methodically dismantling the republic day by day. Absent some major change in the trajectory of events the government Democrats might half-inherit in a midterm sweep would be all but unrecognizable, a smoldering heap of faits accompli. Democrats need to take some real risks to at least slow the process of destruction and reshape the trajectory.
Read the rest at TPM.
Michael Cohen at Truth and Consequences: Shut It Down! Senate Democrats are in a difficult spot with a government shutdown looming, but their course of action is clear.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through September 30 and avert a government shutdown on Friday. Now, the bill moves to the Senate, where, if Democrats want to stop Donald Trump’s assault on the federal government, they must filibuster it.
I get that the politics of this are complicated, but this isn’t even a close call.
First, Republicans didn’t even bother negotiating with Democrats on this bill. As a result, there are no provisions requiring Trump to actually spend the money Congress is appropriating. This is important because Trump and Elon Musk have run roughshod over congressional prerogatives for the past two months, slashing government spending that Congress has already appropriated.
Republicans are, in effect, daring Democrats to block it and risk taking the blame for a government shutdown (that’s how Speaker Mike Johnson got all but one of his fractured caucus to vote for the bill). On the merits, the bill is bad but not egregiously awful. It keeps spending levels essentially flat while increasing defense spending by $6 billion. However, it would force the District of Columbia to cut its budget by more than $1 billion, which would be devastating. In addition, it includes a provision that strips the House of the ability to stop Trump’s recent declarations of national emergencies on immigration and the border, which has allowed him to place sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
But the real problem with the House-passed CR is that if Democrats allow it to become law, they will be handing Trump and Musk a blank check and the congressional authority to wreak further havoc on the federal government.
Handing Trump more money — with no provision for how he spends it — is an explicit surrender to his and Musk’s lawlessness. Unlike regular spending bills, continuing resolutions do not explicitly tell the executive branch how it should allocate the money appropriated. So, if Senate Democrats allow this bill to pass, they would give Trump even greater discretion in how he spends money authorized by Congress — and more congressional leeway for taking a wrecking ball to the federal government.
In an interview with the New Republic’s Greg Sargent, former New Jersey congressman Tom Malinowski captures the dynamic at play here.
This is a bizarre situation in which the president of the United States and this billionaire are already shutting down the government. So if I’m a Democrat in Congress, why do I vote for a continuing resolution to fund programs that are not continuing? It really is just a blank check. It’s like giving Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and saying, Spend it as you like.
Democrats cannot be complicit in Trump and Musk’s evisceration of the federal government. Even if Senate Republicans try to eliminate the filibuster to thwart Democrats’ shutdown tactics, even if Trump ignores Congress and (unconstitutionally) keeps the government open, and even if an extended shutdown boomerangs politically against Democrats, Democrats still need to hold the line.
Click the link to read the rest.
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
Friday Reads
Posted: March 3, 2017 Filed under: Domestic Policy, Donald Trump, Economic Develpment, Economy, Federal Budget, morning reads, Social Security | Tags: budget, Deconstruction of the Administrative State, EPA, State Department 24 Comments
Good Afternoon!
Our Federal Government continues to morph into something hostile, xenophobic,and corrupt as we look at yet another weekend where taxpayer money will be filtered into a private resort owned by Kremlin Caligula. The Cabinet is now filled with corrupt and unqualified people. Entire Departments are being defunded and destroyed. First among them is the State Department. This all appears to part of Bannon’s crusade to “deconstruct the administrative state”.
This week began with reports that President Donald Trump’s budget proposal will drastically slash the State Department’s funding, and last week ended with White House adviser and former Breitbart head Stephen Bannon telling the attendees of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that what he and the new president were after was a “deconstruction of the administrative state.” At the State Department, which employs nearly 70,000 people around the world, that deconstruction is already well underway.
In the last week, I’ve spoken with a dozen current and recently departed State Department employees, all of whom asked for anonymity either because they were not authorized to speak to the press and feared retribution by an administration on the prowl for leakers, or did not want to burn their former colleagues. None of these sources were political appointees. Rather, they were career foreign service officers or career civil servants, most of whom have served both Republican and Democratic administrations—and many of whom do not know each other. They painted a picture of a State Department adrift and listless.
Sometimes, the deconstruction of the administrative state is quite literal. After about two dozen career staff on the seventh floor—the State Department’s equivalent of a C suite—were told to find other jobs, some with just 12 hours’ notice, construction teams came in over Presidents’ Day weekend and began rebuilding the office space for a new team and a new concept of how State’s nerve center would function. (This concept hasn’t been shared with most of the people who are still there.) The space on Mahogany Row, the line of wood-paneled offices including that of the secretary of state, is now a mysterious construction zone behind blue tarp.
Under Trumps Slash and Burn Budget, everything loses but the military. The EPA will be decimated.
A wide slew of Environmental Protection Agency programs could be under the knife to meet President Donald Trump’s budget proposal requirements, a source told CNN Wednesday night.
The source spelled out details of an Office of Management and Budget proposal that would cut the EPA’s budget by 24% and reduce its staffing by 20%. Some of the EPA’s most longstanding and best-known programs are facing potential elimination — including initiatives aimed at improving water and air quality as well as a number of regulations tasked with reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Other programs include the Environmental Justice program, which is meant to help local communities grapple with environmental concerns, and Global Change Research, a program funded by several agencies, including the EPA, which reports humans’ impact on the planet.
The Clean Power Plan, which could also be recommended for cuts, was an initiative by former President Barack Obama meant to reduce carbon emissions from each state. Fourteen separate EPA partnership programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could also be on the chopping block.
Also among the programs up for elimination are multi-purpose grants to states and tribes, Energy Star grants, Science to Achieve Results (STAR) graduate fellowships, the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act and initiatives aimed at environmental protections along the US-Mexico border.
Some of the grants recommended for elimination could be matching grants for local projects around the country, the source added.
Ken Cook, the head of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy and research organization, told CNN in a statement: “The Trump administration has decided fence-line communities across the country, whose residents already bear an outsized burden from pollution, are on their own to take on big polluters.”
Daryl Cagle / darylcagle.com
The American Heritage Foundation has been out for the EPA for a long time. Its even had a plan that may be part of the Adminstration’s vision for letting go of any kind environmental controls and regulation.
Right now, the Trump administration is crafting a budget proposal that envisions steep cuts to a number of federal agencies — including, reportedly, a 24 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency that would eliminate one-fifth of its 15,000 jobs.
There aren’t yet any final decisions on exactly which environmental and energy programs will be targeted for elimination; the White House is still discussing with the relevant agencies. But one place to look for clues is this budget “blueprint” put out by the Heritage Foundation, a major conservative think tank. According to multiple reports, Donald Trump’s team has been using Heritage’s blueprint as a rough guide in its search for $54 billion in domestic spending cuts for fiscal year 2018.
The Heritage budget explains how to get cuts of that magnitude — spreading them out across every agency. And it goes particularly hard after energy and environmental programs. The EPA’s climate-change programs? Gone. Federal research into wind, solar, electric vehicles, nuclear, and other clean tech? Gone. Environmental justice programs? Gone. There are cuts to pollution enforcement and EPA programs that deal with surface water cleanup to diesel truck emissions. Plus cuts in aid to poor countries that help deal with ozone depletion and global warming. Taken together, the blueprint’s cuts would amount to a stark change in US environmental policy.
These cuts won’t all necessarily fly with Congress — a few Republicans are already balking at some of the numbers Trump’s team is tossing about. But it’s a useful read as an aspirational document, a look at the programs that some influential conservatives with Trump’s ear would like to see rooted out of the federal government (and why)
It isn’t clear at all that the Pentagon needs that much money or wants it for that matter. It traditionally gets pretty much what it wants already. The nation has been on a war time footing since 9/11 so it isn’t even clear that there’s been any kind of “depletion” of anything.
Defense spending accounts for almost the same proportion of the federal budget as all non-discretionary domestic spending, meaning that the Trump administration’s proposal will result in a roughly 10 percent across-the-board cut in all other federal spending programs.
Budgets for most federal agencies would be reduced substantially, said an OMB official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to discuss the proposal.
The announcement marks the beginning of a process in which the OMB will coordinate with agencies to flesh out the plan.
Trump said his budget, which will be submitted to Congress next month, will propose “historic” increases in spending to bolster the country’s “depleted military,” and he said it will support law enforcement in an effort to reduce crime.
I really don’t think that any one in the administration has a clue what they’re doing in any kind of conventional sense since nearly all of them have no experience in governance at any level. Bannon’s slash and burn the state ideology appears to be driving much of this. The cabinet appointees will have difficulty doing much of anything at this rate because staff is fleeing already.
The career executives who staff and run the approximately 250 federal departments and agencies not only formulate and implement executive orders, they also make choices every day that influence large swaths of public policy — from immigration to law enforcement to education to the environment. They use their legal authority to do what all executives do: interpret the power given them by their board of directors (in this case, Congress), set organizational priorities in formal guidance or memorandums and make decisions about where to allocate people and dollars.
The recent enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) illustrate how agency choices about what to prioritize and how to enforce the law can produce a dramatic policy change.
Trump’s success as president depends in part on his ability to get agencies to behave like ICE and choose to use their power in the ways he would prefer.
A number of agencies have already gone literally rogue on him with employees undermining him every chance they get. This is even true of some of the agencies that are to be used to purge the country of whatever it is Trump fears. Bannon has even indicated that the Cabinet picks were part of the Deconstruction plan.
President Trump’s critics have noted that at least some of his Cabinet picks seem uniquely unsuited to their roles. Scott Pruitt, recently confirmed as head of the EPA, had previously challenged its regulations in more than a dozen suits. Trump’s initial pick for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, operated a company that depended on low wages and faced allegations of labor abuse. Puzder’s nomination was scuttled by the discovery that he had employed at least one undocumented immigrant.
Trump’s FCC chairman and energy secretary have also been critics of the very agencies they’re now tasked with managing. Rick Perry, Trump’s pick for energy secretary, famously called to eliminate the department while running for President in 2011.
Putting anti-regulation chairs at the top of regulatory bodies is nothing new for conservative administrations—George W. Bush’s EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, for instance, pushed back against staff recommendations and slackened enforcement. As the saying goes, elections have consequences, and lightening the regulatory load on businesses is a pillar of modern Republican doctrine.
What’s remarkable here, though, is Bannon’s framing of these moves as more anti-state than pro-business. The CPAC comments about ‘deconstruction’ are a toned-down version of startling statements made last August to the Daily Beast. Bannon impishly declared himself a “Leninist,” saying that the Soviet leader “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
It’s not a stretch to see Bannon’s comments reflected not only in Trump’s cabinet picks, but in his slow progress in filling hundreds of lower-level cabinet positions. Until they’re filled, those positions are staffed by temporary administrators with reduced power, leaving enforcement and other matters in limbo.
This is perhaps though why Paul Ryan–on top of Putin–find the Trump minions to be “useful fools”. Ryan is known as the nation’s premier granny starver and all this chaos and cutting is pretty much right up his ally. This is analysis by Jonathan Chait.
What is the substance of the supposed schism between Trump and the regular GOP? The Times depicts the president and the House Speaker as split over whether to cut “Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” But, while Ryan has made it known that he would like to cut Social Security (a position that has won him immense inside-the-Beltway Establishment credibility), he has not persuaded his party to go along. The “Better Way” plan crafted by Ryan and endorsed by House Republicans makes no mention of Social Security at all. It does propose privatizing Medicare, but only for workers who are not retired or are near retirement — which means, despite its long-term significance, it has no impact on the budget over the next decade. And both Trump and Ryan are planning deep cuts to Medicaid.
The similarities continue. Both favor increases in defense spending and dramatically weaker enforcement of labor, environmental, and financial regulation. Both favor deep cuts to anti-poverty spending. Trump is more enthusiastic than the regular GOP about infrastructure spending, but he has decided to postpone that issue until next year and use it as an election messaging vehicle rather than a real legislative priority. Most important, both agree that large, upper-income tax cuts are the party’s highest priority. Trump has even endorsed Ryan’s legislative strategy of sequencing Obamacare repeal first in order to grease the skids for bigger tax cuts. (“Statutorily and for budget purposes, as you know, we have to do health care before we do the tax cut,” he said this week.)
It is true, as conservatives say, that Trump’s budget numbers do not really add up. But he is relying on the same voodoo economics assumptions that are de rigeur in his party. “The money is going to come from a revved-up economy,” Trump said on Fox & Friends. “I mean, you look at the kind of numbers we’re doing, we were probably GDP of a little more than 1 percent. And if I can get that up to 3, maybe more, we have a whole different ballgame.” Remember that ultra-Establishment Republican Jeb Bush promised tax cuts and deregulation would produce 4 percent growth, so Trump’s 3 percent growth promise is actually moderate and realistic by Republican fiscal standards.
The illusion that Trump has radically altered his party’s agenda is convenient for all sides.
Democrats have already sent out a battle cry as have a few Republicans. Lindsey Graham is having none of the cuts to State.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that President Trump’s first budget was “dead on arrival” and wouldn’t make it through Congress.
“It’s not going to happen,” said Graham, according to NBC News. “It would be a disaster.”
Graham, a frequent Trump critic, expressed concerns with Trump’s proposed cuts to the State Department budget, especially the targeting of foreign aid.
These are trying times. Let’s just hope we have enough leaders in the District with other patriotism or deep seated interests in some of these agencies or our country will never look the same again.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads
Posted: October 20, 2014 Filed under: 2014 elections, Civil Rights, Crime, Criminal Justice System, misogyny, morning reads, Psychopaths in charge, racism, Rape Culture, Social Security, U.S. Politics, Violence against women | Tags: Al Sharpton, anonymous sources, Darren Wilson, Hannah Graham, Jesse Matthew, Michael Brown, Morgan Harrington, Nazi war criminals, serial killers 52 Comments
Morning Coffee, by Christina Madden
Welcome to Morbid Monday!!
I haven’t had a regular work schedule for years, so why do the days of the week still affect me as they did when I had a 9-5 job or when I was in school? Is it because I need some kind of structure in my life? I still look forward to weekends and I still dislike Monday mornings. Why is that? Is it because the world around me is structured that way? Or is it because I was conditioned from childhood to our society’s weekly scheduling?
Anyway, I’m still recovering from a combination cold and stomach virus, and it’s Monday; so I’m slow on the uptake today, and I just hope this post will make sense. Healthwise, I’m better off than Dakinikat and JJ. Actually, Dakinikat and her computer are both under the weather, so I’m filling in for her today. The photos of giant coffee cups show how I feel about Mondays!
Here are the stories that most interested me this morning.
Ferguson, Missouri
Did you read that awful New York Times story that reported on leaks from “officials briefed on the federal civil rights investigation” into the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson? According to the Times, these “officials” were not members of the Ferguson police department or from “officials whose activities are being investigated as part of the civil rights inquiry.” So does that mean Justice Department “officials?” Or are these “officials” from St. Louis? Who the hell knows. But the slant of the story was toward exonerating Wilson and making it appear that Brown deserved to die.
Here’s a summary of Wilson’s version of events from Newsweek:
The official testimony that Officer Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed the unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, gave to authorities was revealed for the first time in a Friday New York Times report.
During the struggle, the officer claimed that Brown reached for his gun. Wilson told investigators that the two struggled over the weapon before the fatal shooting, that Brown assaulted him and he “feared for his life” that day. He also said that Brown had scratched and punched him multiple times, which resulted in cuts and swelling on his face and neck.
According to forensic tests, the gun went off twice in Wilson’s S.U.V., and shot Brown in the arm once. The test also confirmed that Brown’s blood was found in Wilson’s car, his uniform and his gun. The autopsy confirmed that Brown had been shot a total of six times upon his death.
In my opinion we’re being softened up for the blow that will come next month when the Grand Jury fails to indict Wilson. Whoever the “officials” who talked to the NYT are, they apparently don’t want the Justice Department to find that Wilson violated Michael Brown’s rights. Otherwise, why would they be leaking this information? The Washington Post story is also slanted toward Wilson’s version of events, and they cite anonymous “county officials.”
Forensic evidence shows Michael Brown’s blood on the gun, on the uniform and inside the car of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, law enforcement officials said, information they believe potentially corroborates the officer’s story that the unarmed 18-year-old tried to take his gun.
The evidence will make it harder for the Justice Department to prosecute Wilson on federal charges that he violated Brown’s civil rights, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Such evidence would also make it difficult for a county grand jury to indict Wilson on state charges, such as murder or manslaughter, said county sources who also are prohibited from talking on the record about the pending case.
Multiple media sources are now parroting anonymous sources who claim the “evidence” supports Wilson’s story. I just don’t see it. Of course Brown’s blood would be inside Wilson’s car, since Wilson reportedly shot Brown in the arm at close range. Blood would have spattered all over. It makes sense that it would be on the gun, Wilson’s uniform, and elsewhere in the car. As for the alleged scratches, cuts, and swelling on Wilson’s face (where are the photos?), that could have happened because, as the closest witness–Dorian Johnson–said, Wilson pulled Brown into the car by the neck and tried to choke him. Brown could have been defending himself. Furthermore, none of this justifies Wilson chasing Brown and shooting him as Brown was trying to surrender with his hands in the air, which is what a number of witnesses reported.
Al Sharpton isn’t buying it. From Colin Campbell at Business Insider:
Speaking at his weekly National Action Network rally in Harlem, Sharpton panned Wilson’s claim to be in fear of his life as the “same excuse” as others who fatally shot African-American teens.
“We were involved in Trayvon Martin. We were supportive of Jordan Davis,” Sharpton said, ticking off the recent controversies. “The strange thing is that all of them used the same excuse … The only gun there was Darren Wilson’s! Strange parallels with all of these cases.”
“First of all, if you stopped him — Michael Brown and his friend — walking down the street, what led to the scuffle? … Secondly, how does he and you get in your car? You trying to do what by yourself?” Sharpton asked. “Now, if I go with you with your story all the way to that — that Michael Brown was shot, gets up off you in the car — why are you trying to tell me that a man … ran back at you when he knew you had the gun and you already shot him?”
The story makes no sense, but I’m guessing the Missouri Grand Jury will believe it. And then it’s going to get ugly. From The Daily Beast:
The Rev. Carlon Lee, pastor of Flood Christian Church in Ferguson, Mo., was sending out links to a New York Times story Friday night to friends, family and community members who have spent the last two months absorbed in the events surrounding the death of teenager Michael Brown. The story cited forensic evidence offered by federal officials that showed Brown’s blood on officer Darren Wilson’s uniform and gun, which was found to have been fired inside Wilson’s patrol car. Lee’s link came with a personal thought:
“If there has ever been a time to pray, this is it,” he told recipients of texts and emails.
There was really nothing new about the Times’ story—Wilson has maintained since day one that Brown was reaching for the officer’s gun, which led to a struggle ultimately ending in the teenager’s death. Now, though, evidence seen only by a St. Louis County grand jury has been made available for the world, including the residents of Ferguson.
“I believe that when people have received (the Times) article and see what’s going on it will infuriate people and set us back,” Lee said. “No matter what happened in (Wilson’s) car, Michael Brown’s hands were up. No matter if he beat the crap out of Officer Wilson, his hands were up—a universal sign of surrendering.”
Protesters in Ferguson are going to believe Wilson’s story, says St. Louis photojournalist Bradley Rayford.
“The protesters didn’t believe Officer Wilson’s story in the first place, so they’re not going to believe this story,” Rayford said of the Times’ reporting….
It’s impossible to tell whether the story being sent out by Lee on Friday night would result in increased action on the streets of Ferguson, but one thing, as it has all along, remains clear: If Wilson isn’t indicted chaos will once again reign.
“If there’s a non-indictment I think you’ll see an immediate uproar,” Lee said. “I don’t think people have seen the amount of unrest and anger that will come if there’s a non-indictment.”
Check out these photos of black protesters and white St. Louis Rams fans fighting over an American flag. How symbolic is that? Here’s one of the photos:
At the end of the confrontation, white police officers are shown targeting a black woman.
Serial Killers
On Saturday, a body that is most likely that of missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham was found in Albemarle County a few miles from where suspect Jesse Matthew grew up. WTVR.com reports:
Just four short miles from the abandoned Albemarle County property, now lined with police tape and full of detectives investigating the discovery of human remains, sits the house Jesse Matthew Jr. and his mother once called home.
“She wanted to try to keep Jesse out of the city away from gang activity — if there was any in the city. She was just trying to make it safe for her son,” said neighbor Cliff Hunt.
Hunt said Matthew’s mother wanted the best for her son, who is now the prime suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, who was last seen Sept. 13 on Charlottesville’s downtown pedestrian mall.
Hannah Graham’s parents wanted the best for their daughter too, and so did Morgan Harrington’s parents. How many more women did Jesse Matthew rape and kill? The safest place for him to have been was prison after he was accused of raping college classmates at two Virginia colleges in 2002 and 2003.
More from NBC 12: Albemarle neighbors recall Jesse Matthew and his family.
Jesse Matthew and his family lived at a home on Ponderosa Trail, just a few years ago, according to the neighbors and people who live here now. And this spot is just four miles away from where the remains were found by investigators scouring for any trace of evidence left at the scene….
This area is known to suspect Jesse Matthew, who is charged with Graham’s abduction with intent to defile.
Matthew’s former neighbor Bernard Blue said Matthew, his sister and mother lived in this home just miles from where search crews made the gruesome discovery Saturday. Blue says he’s unsettled that the man he knew is now the main suspect in a high-profile case. “Never dreamed he’d do something like that if he is guilty,” he said. “Never dreamed about it, because he was a fine boy when he was up here.”
Blue said Matthew’s mother also worked at UVA hospital, and that she’s stayed in touch. “She was a sweet lady. She came up to see me about four or five months ago,” he said. But Bernard says Matthew left a somewhat different impression. “He was a little strange. But, fine guy, all I know.”
“Strange,” but “a fine guy”?
Also in this morning’s news, a serial killer has been arrested in Indiana. From the Chicago Tribune: 7 women found dead in Gary, Hammond over weekend.
Bodies of three more women were found in Gary Sunday evening after officials discovered bodies of four women earlier in the weekend at various locations in Gary and Hammond.
One of the recently found women was discovered around 7:50 p.m. Sunday in the 4300 block of Massachusetts Street in Gary, according to a press release from the Lake County coroner’s office. The cause of the woman’s death was strangulation, same as in the case of the first woman found dead Friday night.
Two additional bodies of women were recovered around 10 p.m. in the 400 block of East 43rd Avenue in Gary, according to another press release from the Lake County coroner’s office. The cause of both women’s deaths was unknown.
Deaths of all three women, who were not immediately identified, were ruled homicides, the releases said.
Police have detained a suspect whose name won’t be released until he is charged. The man confessed to the most recent murder and then led police to three more bodies. Fox News reports:
The women were found throughout Hammond and Gary, according to the Lake County coroner’s office. The Chicago Sun-Times cited police sources saying the man in custody is a 43-year-old resident of Gary. Hammond Chief John Doughty said police will have more information at a press conference Monday.
The flurry of grisly discoveries began when Hammond police responded to a call of an unresponsive person Friday evening at a Motel 6 and found the strangled body of a woman identified as Afrika Hardy, 19. As part of the investigation into her death, police executed a search warrant on a home in Gary, where they also took the person of interest into custody, Hammond Police Lt. Richard Hoyda told the Chicago Tribune in an email….
Police discovered the body of Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville, around 11:20 p.m. Saturday in an abandoned home in Gary. Her family had reported her missing on Oct. 8.
Jones’ sister, Yolanda Nowell, previously described her as “very street savvy” and said she had moved 10 years ago from Chicago to Indiana, where she operated a stand at a nearby flea market.
Police found the next body around 1 a.m. Sunday and a third body less than an hour later, according to the Tribune.
Late Sunday, the coroner’s office confirmed the discovery of three additional Jane Does, all of which were found in Gary.
All seven deaths have been ruled homicides, according to the coroner’s office. Most of the bodies were found in or around abandoned or fire-damaged homes in blighted neighborhoods, according to reports. The house near where Jones was found was described as being located in a thriving neighborhood, although it is unkempt, with overgrown grass and weeds.
As I have often said, it’s a bloodbath out there. Violence against women is a daily reality in this country.
Nazi War Criminals Living on Social Security
From AP via Yahoo News: Expelled Nazis got millions in Social Security.
OSIJEK, Croatia (AP) — Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger lived the American dream.
His plastics company in the Rust Belt town of Akron, Ohio, thrived. By the late 1980s, he had acquired the trappings of success: a Cadillac DeVille and a Lincoln Town Car, a lakefront home, investments in oil and real estate.Then the Nazi hunters showed up.
In 1989, as the U.S. government prepared to strip him of his citizenship, Denzinger packed a pair of suitcases and fled to Germany. Denzinger later settled in this pleasant town on the Drava River, where he lives comfortably, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. He collects a Social Security payment of about $1,500 each month, nearly twice the take-home pay of an average Croatian worker.
Denzinger, 90, is among dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals and SS guards who collected millions of dollars in Social Security payments after being forced out of the United States, an Associated Press investigation found.
The payments flowed through a legal loophole that has given the U.S. Justice Department leverage to persuade Nazi suspects to leave. If they agreed to go, or simply fled before deportation, they could keep their Social Security, according to interviews and internal government records.
Like Denzinger, many lied about their Nazi pasts to get into the U.S. following World War II, and eventually became American citizens.
Read more details about the AP investigation in the lengthy article.
Read “brief profiles” of some of these Nazi social security recipients in this AP story via The Elkhart Truth
What if Republicans Win Control of Congress?
Here’s Joan Walsh’s take on the silly argument that losing would be good for Democrats: America’s Looming Freak Show: How GOP Control Will Terrorize a Nation – With No Political Repercussion.
I’m an optimist who’s expert at finding silver linings – American progressives have to be — but the case rapidly picking up steam that another midterm loss will be good for Democrats is both silly and a little dangerous.
Bill Scher made the argument from the left as well as anyone could, while this piece by the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib, coming from the center-right, was more predictable and vexing. (Paul Waldman took a shot at it back in August, here.) The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump followed and endorsed Seib’s argument. But those takes rely at least in part on the notion that if Republicans gain the Senate, they’ll either have an incentive to help “govern” – or they’ll shame themselves in the eyes of the American public if they don’t. Unfortunately, neither premise is true.
In fact, I’m concerned that worsening political dysfunction perpetuates itself by convincing more Americans that politics is futile. The Obama coalition in particular – younger, less white, less well off than even prior coalitions of Democrats – has gotten so little that’s tangible from its history-making turnout in 2012 (and yes I’ve read that Krugman piece and I mostly agree.) The prospect of its coalescing to become a permanent force in American politics has been at least postponed, if not thwarted entirely, by the deliberate GOP sabotage of the political process.
For me, the backdrop to this depressing midterm election is not merely ISIS and Ebola, but continued unrest in Ferguson, Mo., where it seems unlikely Officer Darren Wilson will face consequences for shooting Michael Brown. From New York to Los Angeles, the issue of police violence just gets worse. There’s increasing activism on the issue, which is great to see – the crowds that turned out for “Ferguson October” over the weekend, and into Monday, were inspiring.
Read the whole sordid thing at the link. Have I told you lately how much I hate the term “progressive?” I’m a liberal and proud of it. The “progressives” who have been undermining Obama for years and are now rooting for a Republican victory make me sick to my stomach. Maybe that’s why I came down with this virus I have.
I should write something about Ebola, but this post is already far too long. I’ll put those links in the comment thread.
So . . . what stories have caught your attention today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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