I’m a little late for today. I had an appointment to get to this morning. Now, I must catch a breath and a bit of meditative calming before looking at each headline. We’re seeing more evidence of ICE resembling Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen, which was a specially heinous unit within the SS. I’m waiting for some version of the Night of Long Knives now that #FARTUS has some infamous cabinet appointments. We’re seeing increased purges and attacks on Judges, Former Federal employees, Former Federal Prosecutors, and all kinds of people who would deter his fits of paranoia and dreams of revenge. His deportation pogroms continue to rise to the level of crimes against humanity. Each day brings new horrors.
This headline from 7News/NYTV in New York has shaken me. “Saturday statement: school principal wants students back.” We are a country that handcuffs third graders at school and detains them with adults.
SACKETS HARBOR, New York (WWNY) – The school principal where 3 students attended before being taken away by ICE agents wants the children back and will attend Saturday’s rally in the village.
The statement to 7NEWS comes just hours before the event being organized by community members and local democrats.
The rally came about after federal agents went to North Harbor Dairy Farm on County Route 75 in the town of Hounsfield a week ago looking for a criminal suspect. While the feds found that man, they also took 7 other people, who they called illegal aliens, to be processed at the border station on Wellesley Island.
Part of that group is a mother and 3 children.
Jaime Cook, in a statement, says, “Our 3 students who were taken by ICE were doing everything right. They had declared themselves to immigration judges, attended court on their assigned dates, and were following the legal process. They are not criminals.”
Cook continues, “We are in shock, and it is that shared shock that has unified our community in the call for our students’ release.”
Cook says the school is in direct communication with the students and says, “Let me be clear: they are not being medically evaluated. They are not being questioned as potential victims. Calling a detention center by another name does not change what it is.”
Cook is referring to a description and interview 7NEWS did with U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan earlier this week. Our 25-minute interview can be seen here: TOM HOMAN – WWNY
There was a rally later. This is the report from Newsweek. “Third Grade Student Arrested by ICE Sparks Mass Protest.” They actually put underage children in a car with the arrested suspect who is charged the possession of child pornography. They all should be charged with child endangerment.
ICE agents conducted a raid at North Harbor Dairy in Sackets Harbor, targeting an individual charged with possession of child pornography. In addition to apprehending the primary suspect, seven others were detained at a local dairy farm last month, including a mother and her three children enrolled in the local public school.
The demonstration, organized by the Jefferson County Democratic Committee, began with a rally that included a written statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who said she was “heartbroken and angry” over the incident.
…
Jefferson County Democratic Committee chair Corey Decillis told NBC News: “We’ve seen it occur right in the last 60 days across the country, but when it happens in your backyard, I think that’s what garners people’s attention.”
Tom Homan said in an interview Thursday on WWNY-TV: “It wasn’t a raid. It was a search warrant execution at a house where a family was found in the country illegally. ICE is doing everything by the book. Once the investigation gets to the point where we don’t have an interest in this family, then a decision will be made on release.”
Principal Jaime Cook said in a statement: “They lived in a house on the same road as a home ICE had a warrant for. The fact that ICE went door to door is unfathomable. The fact that our students were handcuffed and put into the same van as the alleged criminal from down the street is unconscionable. When I think of my third grader’s experience, my stomach twists and it is hard to breathe.”
President Donald Trump is making plans for a military parade in Washington, D.C., on his 79th birthday, according to a report.
A source in the capital told the Washington City Paperthat Trump has earmarked June 14—which is the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army—for the event.
The display of military might will march around four miles from the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, to the White House, the D.C. source told the publication.
The report said that local officials are only now hearing of plans for the parade and that no formal request has been made for their assistance.
Arlington County Board Chair Takis Karantonis told the City Paper that the White House had given the county a “heads up” about the parade on Friday, with only 10 weeks until the event.
He said “the parade’s scope ” was ” unclear” and that no firm details were disclosed.
Other unnamed officials told the paper that a big military parade will require a huge amount of coordination between the six branches of the armed forces, along with several federal agencies and regional officials.
This headline from the Washington Post just about had me gagging on my morning cuppa. This follows up on the fuck up that was supposed to be a grand production of sending a lot of hapless men to an infamous El Salvadorian Prison. “Trump asks Supreme Court to block order returning deportee from El Salvador. Judge Paula Xinis gave the Trump administration until midnight Monday to return Kilmar Abrego García, who was deported despite a court order forbidding it.” How far will those Republican Supremes shove themselves up that FARTUS ass this time around? This story was reported by Justin Jouvenal and Maria Sacchetti.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a lower court’s order requiring officials to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
The emergency motion came after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis gave the administration until 11:59 p.m. Monday to return Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant who is married to a U.S. citizen.
Abrego García has been detained at a mega-prison in El Salvador since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him last month, despite a court order forbidding it because he had fled death threats from gang members in his home country.
Trump officials have argued that they have no power to return Abrego García because he is now in the custody of El Salvador.
Xinis forcefully pushed back on that assertion Sunday, writing that the federal government certainly does have the authority to return Abrego García and that while Trump officials have also alleged he is a gang member, they have offered “no evidence” to prove that.
The judge noted that the Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to detain Abrego García and other deportees. An agreement between the two countries states that U.S. officials will decide what happens to the detainees in the future.
I suggest we offer them Trump in exchange for holding a new election. Then, there’s just the rest of us. I was excited that my social security check hit my account this morning. That was good news. But this still tells us we shouldn’t take too much for granted. This is again from the Washington Post, which I try not to use gratuitously. “Social Security website keeps crashing, as DOGE demands cuts to IT staff. The worsening problems come as Elon Musk’s DOGE team pushes for more cuts at the agency, including in the department that oversees the website.” I still wonder which of our press and prestigious law firms are supporting the constitutional version of their businesses.
Retirees and disabled people are facing chronic website outages and other access problems as they attempt to log in to their online Social Security accounts, even as they are being directed to do more of their business with theagency online.
The website has crashed repeatedly in recent weeks, with outages lasting anywhere from 20 minutes to almost a day, according to six current and former officials with knowledge of the issues. Even when the site is back online, many customers have not been able to sign in to their accounts — or have logged in only to find information missing. For others, access to the system has been slow, requiring repeated tries to get in.
The problems come as the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team, led by Elon Musk, has imposed a downsizing that’s led to7,000 job cuts and is preparing to push out thousands more employees at an agency that serves 73 million Americans. The new demands from Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service include a 50 percent cut to the technology divisionresponsible for the website and other electronic access.
Many of the network outages appear to be caused by an expanded fraud check system imposed by the DOGE team, current and former officials said. The technology staff did not test the new software against a high volume of users to see if the servers could handle the rush, these officials said.
The technology issues have been particularly alarming for some of the most vulnerable Social Security customers. For almost two days last week, for example,many of the 7.4 million adults and children receiving monthly benefits under the anti-poverty program known as Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, confronted a jarring message that claimed they were “currently not receiving payments,” agency officials acknowledged in an internal email to staff.
Why do Republicans love fertilized eggs and hate children?
Okay, so this one kills me because I know too much about the subject area. But it’s another Black Monday on Wall Street. This is from Bloomberg News’ Timothy O’Brien. “Trump Created an Economic Sinkhole. He Doesn’t Care. There is no strategy behind the tariff chaos — it’s all about personal grievances and settling scores.”
Trump had routinely called for steep tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners during his presidential campaign, and analysts who took his threats seriously produced research indicating that his policies would reduce economic growth and personal incomes. But a tariff regime built on a war-footing seemed so extreme to some observers and Trump allies that they looked for other explanations. His chaotic policy approach — he initially would set a deadline for new tariffs and then suddenly back off — meant that he wasn’t really committed to his own agenda. Tariff Ping-Pong was just a Great Dealmaker ploy meant to get other nations to capitulate, his enablers argued.
Well, times have changed. Trump announced a massive new round of global tariffs last week and over the next two days $5.4 trillion of value was shredded as equity markets cratered. Some Wall Streeters see Trump’s tariffs plans and the future more clearly now.
“This is unambiguously stupid,” Jay Hatfield, the CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, told Bloomberg News over the weekend. He labeled the tariffs poster Trump trotted out in his Rose Garden press conference last week as the “chart of death” and invoked disaster. “It’s a five-alarm fire,” he said. “There’s no argument for creating a trade war whatsoever.”
Anyone hoping that Trump will soon see the light and reverse course might want to reconsider the force of nature that they’re dealing with. He has been insulated from the consequences of his own actions his entire life and appears to care very little about the economic sinkhole he just created. He shared a video of himself golfing over the weekend and one White House insider told the Washington Post that the president, only about three months into his second term, carries the burdens of a notoriously burdensome job rather lightly.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f— anymore,” the official noted. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f—. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
The Post also reported that it was Trump himself who selected the tragicomic “formula” that his administration used to calculate tariff penalties. That’s the formula that somehow positioned Cambodia and Thailand at the top of the heap of countries posing major economic threats to the US and also caused tariffs to be imposed on uninhabited islands near Antarctica. The Post said Trump didn’t finalize his plans until about three hours before he shared them with the world last week.
Trump has likened his much-maligned tariffs salvo as necessary medicine the world needs to swallow.
“THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED, AND IS HEALING,” he allowed in a post to his social media platform. “THE PROGNOSIS IS THAT THE PATIENT WILL BE FAR STRONGER, BIGGER, BETTER, AND MORE RESILIENT THAN EVER BEFORE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Given Trump’s worldview, pondering “strategy” is a fool’s errand and asking “What is the administration trying to accomplish?” is the wrong question. There isn’t a strategy. Trump operates in strategy-free zones. But he has overt and longstanding goals.
His primary aim is to address his grievances with the world, not to craft substantive or even rational public policy. An inordinate number of his goals involve self-aggrandizement or self-preservation. Many others are performative and unhinged. A meaningful number of his ambitions involve seeking revenge on people, institutions, and organizations that he believes have taken advantage of him, the country or his supporters. He has a long history of labeling America’s trading partners, some of whom are the US’s closest allies, as pickpockets and he’s now in a position to do something about it.
Well, at least I know where that stupid formula came from. But, since this is hitting everyone’s pocketbook, will it finally wake some of the little MAGA guys up? Noah Berlatsky, writing at Public Notice, says yes. “Trump’s tariffs insanity begins to fracture the MAGA cult. Republican resistance is helpful. But more of it is needed.”
Trump’s decision to single-handedly hobble the world economy and immiserate tens of millions of Americans has presented his fellow Republicans with a stark choice. Do they continue to kiss his orange butt and slavishly nod along to every nonsensical whim of their idiot Golfer King as he leads them into a recession and almost certain electoral apocalypse? Or do they defy him, splitting the party and opening themselves to a primary challenge … and possible electoral apocalypse?
The good news is that some GOP senators and members of Congress are actually disturbed enough by the prospect of their voters starving in the street that they have taken steps to push back against this grotesquely self-destructive trade policy. The not so good news is that the pushback is hesitant and half-hearted — and the majority of the party remains ready to torture and impoverish their constituents for the greater glory of Trump.
The tariffs, and the quick slide into economic calamity, have sparked real resistance. They’ve also demonstrated just how craven and/or hypnotized the GOP has become, and the extent to which most Republicans would do anything — literally anything — rather than point out that the emperor is wearing a grotesque meat suit made of the skin of his constituents.
As they are wont to do, many Republicans have gotten on their bellies to grovel and spout the usual Trump-flattering balderdash, either because they are desperate to propitiate their master or because they are genuinely fools.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been leading the charge of the sycophants. In interviews he’s blathered that Trump’s trade policy would force other countries to “stop picking on us” and bleated, “Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he’s doing.”
The only explanation I can come up with for a leader that obliterates not only his best allies but also his own country is that #FARTUS is patently insane. He’s gone nuclear on nearly everyone, including penguins.
So I am very tired, and I still have to teach tonight. I’ll let you share any of the things you find interesting. At least with this post, we have identified several Secretaries who must be charged with crimes against humanity, all with FARTUS.
“So I’m guessing reducing everyone’s electric bill by half isn’t gonna happen either..” John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancing!
I wanted to start this morning with something very normal, American, and positive. Today, President Biden will designate a National Monument in Maine for the late great Secretary of Labor under FDR Francis Perkins. She was the first woman to serve as a Secretary in a President’s Cabinet. She inspired me since she played a major role in economic and labor policy during the Great Depression. She was appointed in 1933 and served 12 years. She should be known as the Mother of Social Security. Her role in implementing and determining policy during the New Deal programs cannot be underestimated. She has touched the lives of all of us even though she left office in 1945.
The Hill has an article up today about her tenure and the memorial today.
During Perkins’s tenure, the Labor Department oversaw Immigration and Naturalization Services, a role she used to aggressively lobby to admit larger numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe.
Perkins was considered a stalwart ally of labor unions during her tenure, which included her counseling Roosevelt against breaking a 1934 waterfront strike that shut down much of the West Coast. She also refused to deport Australian-born longshoremen’s union head Harry Bridges for his membership in the Communist Party, which led the House Un-American Activities Committee to introduce an unsuccessful impeachment resolution against her.
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, arrives for a special meeting, September 16, 1938 Image: Library of Congress ID hec.25045
She claimed to have been radicalized after she witnessed the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York in 1911, in which 146 garment workers were burned or leaped to their deaths after they were locked inside for the workday.
The national monument will comprise the nearly 60 acres that were once Perkins’s family’s homestead in Newcastle, which her family has owned for nearly three centuries.
The designation comes after Biden earlier in March signed an executive order calling on the Interior Department to identify sites with significance in women’s history in America.
You may read the Biden announcement at this link to the White House. I found this journal article written about her by Harris Chaiklin, Ph.D. at VCU Libraries Social Welfare History Project. “Perkins, Frances, Change Agent in: Eras in Social Welfare History, Great Depression, People, Recollections. Frances Perkins: She Boldly Went Where No Woman Had Gone Before.” A wealthy daughter of a wealthy Boston family, she had the type of education that generally sent a woman to ‘spinsterhood.’ Her upbringing prepared her for her role, shaping some of the most strategic and important policies of the time. Fannie Perkins persisted. She eventually landed in Greenwich Village, where she became a mediator. Her friends included Sinclair Lewis and Robert Moses.
A transforming event occurred while she was having tea with a wealthy friend who lived in Washington Square. Word came that the Triangle Shirtwaist factory was on fire. They rushed to it. The horror they saw there helped forge in Frances a lifelong commitment to worker’s safety and rights. That she was with a wealthy friend is significant. Though not wealthy she knew this life style and associated with wealthy people. Good friends from this group provided a place for her to live at key points in her career when her earnings were not enough to meet her needs.
After the fire there was increasing activity in campaigning for worker’s rights and safety while the social work job continued. Once a social worker who lived in the settlement house with Frances asked for help in getting a teenage boy out of jail because he was supporting his family. Frances went to the Charity Organization Society which after a long investigation deemed him “unworthy.” A friend suggested she try the Tammany Hall in the client’s district. The problem was helped within 24 hours. Her lobbying activities also put her in contact with other machine politicians. She met and struck up a close relationship with Al Smith. Working together they succeeded in getting a bill passed that limited women to a 54 hour work week. It was a compromise and liberals attacked her for giving up too much to get it passed. She knew that without the compromise there would have been no bill and not even the limited protection this bill offered. The lessons in becoming a skilled politician were piling up. In the past she had looked down on politicians but now concluded, “…that venal politicians can sometimes be more useful than upstanding reformers (Downey, 2009,p. 39).” Understanding and accepting the value of working within the political order was one of the secrets of her success.
Her experiences in these activities taught her another valuable lesson. A politician told her that men trusted women who were motherly and not seductive sirens. Downey says, “She began to see her gender, a liability in many ways, could actually be an asset. To accentuate this opportunity to gain influence she began to dress and comport herself in a way that reminded men of their mothers, rather than doing what women usually like to do which is making themselves more physically attractive to men (Downey, 2009, p. 45). At this time she was 33 years old. Up to then the papers had characterized her as “perky” “pretty” “dimpled.” They now began to label her as “Mother Perkins” a name she disliked only a little less than being called “Ma Perkins.” Such was the price for shaping herself into a highly effective politician. In these activities Frances was aware of her limitations as a woman and avoided places where women did not usually go. She did her lobbying in hallways and not bars. This too became a lifelong skill. When people were brought together to work out differences she stayed in the background. Others often got credit for her greatest accomplishments. Who today identifies her as the moving force behind achieving Social Security?
Well, me. I know what it took to get that kind of great change written into law and policy. You may read more at the link.
And, unfortunately, we have the antithesis to her and the people she worked with and for today. This is from Mark Jacob’s writing on his blog Stop the Presses. “Here’s what we WON’T do when Trump takes over. We won’t shut up and give up – we’ll stand up and power up.” This is necessary since we have learned yet another big Media outlet has caved to President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks. The brilliant suggestions continue past this bit.
As democracy defenders, we’re facing hard times when authoritarian Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. But what will we do about it? For now, I’m focusing on what we won’t do:
We won’t shut up.
We won’t retreat from the news.
We won’t lose our ability to be outraged.
We won’t be duped by a fake “crisis” that serves as a pretext to send the military against American citizens and turn our country into a police state.
We won’t sit on our couch and watch protests on TV when we should be out protesting in front of the TV cameras.
We won’t tolerate abuse of women simply because the person who won the last presidential election is a sexual predator.
We won’t get exhausted. Instead, we’ll pace ourselves, find ways to relax and enjoy life, and be ready to go at the crucial moments.
We won’t accept the notion that “all politicians lie.” More politicians lie when the news media and public accept lying and thus make it advantageous to lie.
We won’t forget to be kind.
We won’t expect the New York Times, the Washington Post and the TV networks to wake up and seriously confront the threat of fascism when they didn’t do it before the election.
We won’t forget that Trump won by just 1.5 percentage points — not a mandate, and certainly not a statement that most Americans want to surrender their rights to him.
The little tomboy girl I was who wanted to do everything boys do and do it better is still in me. Not backing down. Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture. This is from Lisa Needham at Public Notice. ABC was never a station we watched much as my Dad was a big fan of Huntley-Brinkley. Also, George Stephanopoulos has never been on my list to receive any news or advice. This disappoints me but doesn’t surprise me at all. “ABC bends the knee. Corporate media is surrendering already.” That’s exactly what a stumbling despot wants on his way to power. He wants control of the media. Wouldn’t want the truth sneaking out while you’ve got that propaganda thing going.
Since the election, plenty of the richest among us have rushed to curry favor with Donald Trump by showering him with cash.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg is giving Trump $1 million for his inauguration, as is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Amazon, which will also stream the ceremony on Prime. But perhaps even more galling is ABC’s move to settle an absurd defamation lawsuit brought by Trump over George Stephanopoulos’s completely defensible on-air statement that Trump had been found liable for rape.
ABC will donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library — a thing that has not yet been built and currently exists only as a website maintained by the National Archives. The network also agreed to pay $1 million toward Trump’s lawyer fees, continuing Trump’s streak of never paying for his own legal bills. And ABC and Stephanopoulos pledged to make a statement saying they “regret” the remarks.
It’s a bad omen for mainstream media coverage of Trump 2.0 and speaks to the importance of independent outlets that won’t be so easily intimidated.
Trump’s lawsuit rested on the incredibly flimsy argument that it defamed him to say he was found liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll when he was actually found liable for forced digital penetration. But Stephanopoulos’s comments were consistent with how the presiding judge described the case.
So, since I seem to be going all economist on you these days, let me just say that I love Paul Krugman’s substack. I’m glad he left the New York Times, even though he really didn’t state a reason other than it was time. Here’s today’s offering at Krugman Wonks Out. “Crypto is for Criming. It’s not digital gold — it’s digital Benjamins.” You can write me down as a crypto hater. I will never know how this Ponzi scheme took root, but then I can’t explain the appeal of President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks to me either. I have decided that some folks just want to be lied to if it feeds their raging ID and be told lies and sold a bill of goods just to think they may have something going for themselves and take a breather from their anger and resentment.
‘The tech bros who helped put Trump back in power expect many favors in return; one of the more interesting is their demand that the government intervene to guarantee crypto players the right to a checking account, stopping the “debanking” they claim has hit many of their friends.
The hypocrisy here is thick enough to cut with a knife. If you go back to the 2008 white paper by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto that gave rise to Bitcoin, its main argument was that we needed to replace checking accounts with blockchain-based payments because you can’t trust banks; crypto promoters also tend to preach libertarianism, touting crypto as a way to escape government tyranny. Now we have crypto boosters demanding that the evil government force the evil banks to let them have conventional checking accounts.
What’s going on here? Elon Musk, Marc Andreesen and others claim that there’s a deep state conspiracy to undermine crypto, because of course they do. But the real reason banks don’t want to be financially connected to crypto is that they believe, with good reason, that to the extent that cryptocurrencies are used for anything besides speculation, much of that activity is criminal — and they don’t want to be accused of acting as accessories.
You may take the Good Doctor’s Monetary Theory lecture at the link. I can’t believe Milton Friedman would have anything positive to say about this development at all. He wrote the book on money and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. And I also am having a huge hissy over the potential targeting of the FDIC. I worked in banking. I’ve worked for the Fed. This is my bailiwick. My daughter, the finance guru, didn’t fall for crypto, so I must have done something right. Don’t fall for this, either! This is from Reuters. “Trump’s floated idea to shutter FDIC would be political heavy lift, say analysts.” Fannie Perkins would really be in the fray on this one. How could they forget the Great Recession? It started with financial overreach in the banking industry too. CEOs and their marketing execs are more interested in becoming bigger than running an effective business.
U.S. bank stocks were unfazed on Friday after a report that President-elect Donald Trump’s team had floated the idea of shrinking or eliminating a top banking regulator, with analysts saying such a plan would not win the necessary political backing.
In recent interviews with bank regulator candidates, Trump advisers have asked whether the incoming president could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and move its deposit insurance function into the Treasury Department, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Officials from the newly founded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with finding major government savings, participated in the interviews, the WSJ said.
However, while the current system comprising three federal and multiple state bank regulators is complex, a major restructure would struggle to garner the political support needed to get through Congress, which is also expected to be tied up on tax reform and crypto legislation next year, analysts and academics said.
“It would require congressional action and despite the Republican party majority in both the Senate and the House, it would require support from the Democrats which remains very unlikely,” ING sector strategist Marine Leleux wrote in a note.
Bank stocks were little changed on Friday.
The Trump transition team has been interviewing candidates for financial agency roles, including the bank regulators, in recent days, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter. DOGE officials have been involved in some of those interviews, one said
I cannot see Senator Elizabeth Warren being quiet about any of this. However, the ink of the press is focused on the man with the most responsibility for this mess. Senator Mitch McConnell is objecting a lot now that he’s an ineffective backbencher. Look, he doesn’t like Polio! He wants the vaccine still! Look, he’s got something to say about how wonderful the Bush years were because we tried and failed to bomb “American Exceptionalism” into the Middle East, but it’s good policy!. But just because we know better doesn’t mean Legacy Media does. This is from MSNBC and Steve Benen, which means I assume Rachel saw this, too. “Why Mitch McConnell’s latest clashes with Trump matter. Despite his recent partisan history, Mitch McConnell has thrown a lot of brushback pitches in Donald Trump’s direction lately.” WTAF?
It was hard not to wonder how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, would respond to the news. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait too long to find out.
In a statement to NBC News, the Kentucky Republican — who’ll soon step down from his GOP leadership post — didn’t mention Kennedy by name, but the longtime senator said anyone seeking a confirmation vote must be specific about their intentions related to the polio vaccine.
“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell wrote. He added that “efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.”
It was a notable brushback pitch from a key GOP official, but it was also part of a recent pattern: McConnell has thrown a lot of these pitches at Trump and his team lately.
In an interview with the Financial Times, published last week, McConnell warned about the dangers of isolationism, which he seemed to tie directly to his party’s incoming president. “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” the senator said, adding, “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First’ — that was what they said in the ’30s.”
McConnell has a newly published essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, warning against the “right-wing flirtation with isolation and decline.” Referencing a signature phrase from Trump, the Kentucky Republican added, “America will not be made great again by those who simply want to manage its decline.”
The senator’s written piece echoed a speech he delivered earlier this month, rejecting his party’s isolationist wing.
In Congress last month, Matt Gaetz’s bid to become the next attorney general collapsed in the face of opposition from GOP senators. While there was no official tally on the scope of the Republican opposition to the former Florida congressman, The New York Times reported that McConnell was among those staunchly opposed to his prospective nomination.
When political observers take stock on Capitol Hill, looking for Republicans who might be a thorn in the president-elect’s side, they tend to focus on members such as Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins. But what if McConnell — who’s expected to retire at the end of his term, and who doesn’t appear to have anything to lose by standing up to Trump — unexpectedly joins the faction of Trump skeptics?
To be sure, it’d be a mistake to get one’s hopes up.
These folks are the heirs of Edward R. Murrow? Seriously? Let me just leave you with a quote from the guy that covered the NAZIs running rampant over Europe and didn’t mince words. Extra points if you know this was his sign-off!
Good Night and Good Luck!
“Surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communications to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities that must be faced if we are to survive”
Edward R. Murrow
So here I am at the keyboard, your nerdy friend. We don’t have the same number of folks reading us that we used to back in the day when we were one of the top 25 Political Blogs. But we’re here, and we’re still fearless. It is actually nice to see the country’s public intellectuals doing the Old School Blog thing these days on Substack. Throw them some bling if you can! I started out on Fire Dog Lake way back in the day. I know BB was at The Daily Kos until the anti-Hillary stuff flared. We’re here because we don’t like one-sided stories. We like to find the facts.
We’ve had terrible technical trouble with WordPress since they seem to have turned something that can’t figure out how to let people comment. Half the time, I can’t even comment on my posts here. I have to dive behind the front page to the dashboard. But, you know what … there’s a lot of stuff here from many people, and it’s still in the files. It’s been very close to 20 years now, too. I’m unsure how to get it to any place safer now. So, we’re here. We won’t shut up. We’re a Refuge.
I have one more thing to share with you. It’s important. Please read it. This is the Methodist church I want to remember. It’s also a story I’m familiar with. Our neighbors from south of our border were here helping us clean up after Katrina when everyone else wasn’t. I still want a taco truck on every corner, and we’re a lot closer to that down here in New Orleans than we used to be. It just occurred to me that I likely wrote a lesson plan for my high school students when I was in my 20s, and my heart was an open book. I actually taught civics then. Can you believe it? This story is important.
In a world full of Kari Lakes, be a Francis Perkins. In a world full of George Stephanopoulos, be an Edward Murrow.
My church kept ICE from deporting our neighbor Jose. The Bible told us so.President-elect Donald Trump has plans to end a policy that generally restricts ICE from arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations. http://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb…
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Good Afternoon, Sky Dancers
This country is our backyard. This should not stand. And next up on the WTF is THIS SHIT list? WTF country do we live in? This is from the Daily Beast. 
This headline from the 
I suggest we offer them Trump in exchange for holding a new election. Then, there’s just the rest of us. I was excited that my social security check hit my account this morning. That was good news. But this still tells us we shouldn’t take too much for granted. This is again from the 
Why do Republicans love fertilized eggs and hate children?
Well, at least I know where that stupid formula came from. But, since this is hitting everyone’s pocketbook, will it finally wake some of the little MAGA guys up? Noah Berlatsky, writing at 
And, unfortunately, we have the antithesis to her and the people she worked with and for today. This is from Mark Jacob’s writing on his blog 
The little tomboy girl I was who wanted to do everything boys do and do it better is still in me. Not backing down. Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture. This is from Lisa Needham at 
So, since I seem to be going all economist on you these days, let me just say that I love Paul Krugman’s substack. I’m glad he left the New York Times, even though he really didn’t state a reason other than it was time. Here’s today’s offering at 
You may take the Good Doctor’s Monetary Theory lecture at the link. I can’t believe Milton Friedman would have anything positive to say about this development at all. He wrote the book on money and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. And I also am having a huge hissy over the potential targeting of the FDIC. I worked in banking. I’ve worked for the Fed. This is my bailiwick. My daughter, the finance guru, didn’t fall for crypto, so I must have done something right. Don’t fall for this, either! 
I cannot see Senator Elizabeth Warren being quiet about any of this. However, the ink of the press is focused on the man with the most responsibility for this mess. Senator Mitch McConnell is objecting a lot now that he’s an ineffective backbencher. Look, he doesn’t like Polio! He wants the vaccine still! Look, he’s got something to say about how wonderful the Bush years were because we tried and failed to bomb “American Exceptionalism” into the Middle East, but it’s good policy!. But just because we know better doesn’t mean Legacy Media does. 
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