“EEK!” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for “a face worthy of being slapped.” That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of #FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States). JJ found this sweet article at The Guardian and shared it with BB and me this morning. It’s an Op-Ed written by Marina Hyde about JD Vance, but it could apply to any subhuman of the modern MAGA movement. “There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing. Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit.” Ayup.
You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.
I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.
Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”
Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.
Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.
While JJ found that amusing read today. BB brought home the rancid bacon. This is an op-ed by Brett Wagner in The San Francisco Chronicle today. “Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way. A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration.”
The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”
Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.
Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.
Coincidence?
As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.
Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).
This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).
Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.
I bring you the reality on the ground from Joy Reid on Threads. “This is inhumane, hideous and repugnant. If this is what MAGA America is, count me out. I’m ashamed that this is what our government is doing. Shame on them. Shame.” What it is is a 21-year-old girl with cancer who relies completely on her immigrant mother, who is in no way a criminal or bothering anyone. When protesters came to protest, they were arrested. How many laws and constitutional rights can this miserable administration break before they completely break all of us? This story comes from El Monte, California. You can read the hatred of the MAGA monsters in the threads below on YouTube. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave the house and take a chance at seeing a FARTUS supporter in my neighborhood. I’m fine with all the immigrants, though. Everything they do makes my neighborhood a better place.
“I can’t even wake up properly… she helps me, she bathes me, she changes me, she makes my food.”Deportation didn’t protect anyone it only stole a mother from the child who needs her most-Blake Coronadowww.threads.net/@blakecorona…
— Audrey (@parickards.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T23:59:31.294Z
The US Military and US Vets are under attack from this Administration. This cannot be denied. This is from the AP this morning. FARTUS has always had a thing against military service and those who fight for values that he seems to hate very much. “War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge.” So much of this just comes as an attack against the diversity of our nation being represented in all of its institutions. But is that really it? Why the disappearance of all people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community? Are white cis men really that sensitive?
References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.
The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.
The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.
Are they just trying to up their odds that one will be less likely to disrupt the plan when martial law is declared? Everything they’ve been doing shows their delight in being the worst kind of bullies. Just yesterday, they announced they will deport Ukrainians who fled to the US for safety. We are no longer a safe harbor. Not even close. Heather Cox Richardson discusses this in detail this morning in her Substack Letters from an American.
This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”
“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”
The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.
In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.
Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.
As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.
Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.
Trump, bitcoin, political cartoon
We’re being turned into part of the Trump Grift Mafia. Nothing will be left standing of any of the good we have done in the world. This is neocolonialism and neomercantilism. We’ve retreated to some of the worst historical ideologies ever. The most symbolic thing happened yesterday. The latest Space X project blew up in the sky and shut down many flights yesterday. “Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports. The video showed the upper stage of the most powerful rocket ever built spinning out of control in space, a repeat of an unsuccessful test flight in January that led to debris falling over the Caribbean.” This is what we’re spending money for? Elonia is pushing his company to the brink of getting to Mars and looking down at the rest of us. The report is from The New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang.
Starship — the huge spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — failed during its latest test flight on Thursday when its upper stage exploded in space, raining debris and disrupting air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.
It was the second consecutive test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built where the upper-stage spacecraft malfunctioned. It started spinning out of control after several engines went out and then lost contact with mission control.
Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.
The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built. At 403 feet tall, it is nearly 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty atop its pedestal.
It has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.
The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from science fiction movies of the 1950s, is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.
The rocket lifted off a little after 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday from the SpaceX site known as Starbase at the southern tip of Texas near the city of Brownsville.
Starship’s mammoth booster again successfully returned to the launchpad, just as it had during the previous test flight. In the last half minute before the upper-stage engines were to shut off, several of them malfunctioned. Video from the rocket showed a tumbling view of Earth and space until it cut off.
Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote this analysis for The Atlantic. “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence. The president, who has flirted with regal rhetoric, wants a historic copy of America’s founding document placed in the Oval Office.”
Long live the king!
Down with the king!
President Donald Trump sees the appeal of both.
Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.
I had no idea one of my greats who signed the Declaration had made of the copies of it. But the weird thing here is that Trump seriously wants the document to hang in the Oval Office. My question is, why take it from the people who can see it in the archives?
Since returning to power, Trump has moved quickly to redesign his working space. He has announced plans to pave over the Rose Garden to make it more like the patio at his private Mar-a-Lago club, as well as easier to host events with women wearing heels. He has also revived planning for a new ballroom on the White House grounds. “It keeps my real-estate juices flowing,” Trump explained in a recent interview with The Spectator.
Golden trophies now line the Oval Office’s mantlepiece. Military flags adorned with campaign streamers have returned. And portraits of presidents past now climb the walls—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among others. Gilded mirrors hang upon the recessed doors. A framed copy of his Georgia mug shot appears in the outside hallway. And the bright-red valet button, encased in a wooden box, is back on the desk.
In addition to the National Archives’ original Declaration, the government has in its possession other versions of the document. The collection includes drafts by Jefferson and copies of contemporaneous reprintings, known as broadsides, that were distributed among the colonies.
Alarmed by the deterioration of the original Declaration in the 1820s, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an engraving of it with the signatures appended. That version forms the basis of the document since reproduced in school history books—the one with which most Americans are familiar. Adams tasked Stone with engraving 200 copies—but in what passes for a mini 19th-century scandal, Stone made an extra facsimile to keep for himself, the documents dealer and expert Seth Kaller told us.
Many of those Stone copies of the document have now been lost; roughly 50 are known to survive, Kaller said. The White House already has in its archives at least one of the Stone printings. Kaller told us that one of his clients who had recently purchased a Stone facsimile was visiting the White House when President Barack Obama asked him whether he could help procure a Stone printing for the White House.
“The client called me, and I said, ‘I can’t—because, one, there aren’t any others on the market right now, and two, the White House already has one,’” Kaller told us. In 2014, Kaller visited the White House to view the Stone Declaration, which the curator displayed for him in one of the West Wing’s rooms. (The White House curator’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including on whether the Stone copy still resides under its purview.)
It is unclear where Trump first got the idea to add a Declaration to the Oval Office’s decor. Since returning, Trump has shown interest in the planning for celebrations next year of the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. Days after taking office, he issued an executive order to create “Task Force 250,” a White House commission that will work with another congressionally formed commission to plan the festivities.
I hope he’s not trying to go with one of those grandiose military parades again. And if he does, will he eliminate everyone but the white guys? It can’t be anything other than another way for him to get attention, that’s for sure. Again, this all continues to be an appalling cosplay of how FARTUS wants to view himself in relation to his imagined ideas of American History. I can’t even with the economy today. Just know he’s changed his mind on tariffs again for Canada and Mexico, and employment figures are worsening. He’s turned a strong economy into a weak one in a matter of weeks. He’s also shaken the Equity markets to their core. What’s on is this: “Trump’s “Crypto Reserve” is a world historical grift. Corruption doesn’t get much more blatant than this.” My Finance Daughter and I both find crypto to be a huge Ponzi scheme. I lecture against it. She doesn’t consider it a product that brokers should be involved in. In short, we stay as far away as possible. But, you know, grifters gotta grift. This is from Public Notice.
Authoritarian regimes by definition have no accountability to voters or the public. That means autocrats and their cronies can gorge themselves at the public trough and blatantly steal from taxpayers with few if any consequences.
It’s not really a surprise, then, that as part of his authoritarian power grab, Trump has embraced brazen and open self-dealing. The most ludicrous example of this is the scheme he announced last Sunday for a national crypto reserve.
As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?
Trump, fresh off avoiding 88 felony charges, obviously feels confident that the answer is “no one.”
Government on the blockchain
Crypto refers to digital currencies which are generated and stored in a digital ledger, or blockchain. In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.
Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”
During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.
Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.
Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.
If you have any questions about any of this, I’d be glad to try to answer them. Seeing such craziness in our economic policy has been hard on me. I’m just waiting for the major attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. They’re the only ones that bring credibility to the dollar these days, and I’m afraid he’ll have a go at them. The mess at the Treasury is already impacting the banking business. Don’t even get me started on the Budget Crisis, either. I’m tired of the repeats of that one by disingenuous Republicans.
I hope all of you can close your doors and stay sane inside the one place you can control, home. I have a few more tests next week, so I will be out at clinics again, being poked and prodded. This weekend, I will just relax and try to avoid the ever-changing Trump Surreality Show.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Hey, was that a shitfest the other day or what?
I’m too exhausted for commentary, so here’s some news updates and cartoons.
Please note, if you are not seeing the Instagrams embedded below, please reload this page.
New today***
I don’t know what to say…FDT.
Jasmine is awesome.
This next clip shows you just how crazy these Trump maga fuckers are:
Now the cartoons, via Cagle:
And lastly, a new song from Randy Rainbow 🌈!
Stay safe…
The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli
Trump’s speech last night was long and full of lies. I didn’t really watch or listen to it; I had it on TV with the sound muted. I turned it on when I noticed he was lying about Social Security, and then I tuned out again. Here’s what he had to say about the popular program that for 80 years has kept old people from starving on the streets.
We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.
Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don’t know any of them. I know some people who are rather elderly but not quite that elderly. 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129. 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139. 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them, and we are searching right now.
In fact, Pam, good luck. Good luck. You’re going to find it. But a lot of money is paid out to people, because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does — and it really hurts Social Security, it hurts our country. 1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159, and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby.
Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229. One person between the age of 240 and 249 — and one person is listed at 360 years of age. More than 100 years — more than 100 years older than our country. But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty. By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.
It seems pretty clear that Trump plans to destroy Social Security and leave millions of Americans to starve in the streets. Americans need to fight back, and force Democrats to wake up and actually see what is happening.
Rick Wilson posted a scathing review of the speech on his substack, “Rick Wilson’s Intel and Observations”: 100 Minutes Of Lies. Dear God, That Was Worse Than Even I Expected.
Well, that’s 100 minutes of our lives we’ll never get back.
Trump’s big Joint Address to Congress read as if the White House staff told ChatGPT, “Give me a State of the Union speech that’s Castro in length, Von Munchausen in facts, and Culture War Carnival Barker in style. Oh, and make it tendentious, boring, and ugly.”
What else did one expect?
Trump’s speech last night was dull yet terrifying. It was self-referential and self-aggrandizing yet vaguely desperate. It was Trump at his worst, but it also showed America that all he’s got is his base and his same tired bit, his greatest hits played over and over, louder and louder, to an audience getting older, poorer, and more vicious in its demands that their umber demigod give them that old-time religion.
It was divisive, terrible, and badly written, a speech so clunky and organizationally and rhetorically grotesque that even if Ted Sorenson, Ray Price, and William Safire rose from the grave and sat down with Peggy Noonan and Aaron Sorkin for a fortnight, they couldn’t find enough creative mayonnaise to turn that chickenshit into chicken salad. Almost every State of the Union speech ends up with a kind of freight-train problem; too many constituent groups inside the Administration need their paragraph, their nod to their importance.
This graceless bucket of rhetorical fish guts was a catalog of “Now That’s What I Call Culture War! Volume 27” tropes, riffs, and attacks on the usual Catalog of Imaginary Demons that informs MAGA belief and behavior. None of it was new or more shocking than the first 1,000 times.
But it was the stunning disregard for truth that set this speech apart.
Trump opened his lie hole and sluiced a torrent of outright lies into the willing maw of his dull-eyed, bovine audience watching at home hooked to their Fox feed of amygdala-stoking fear porn. The absurdity of his lies was rivaled only by their scope.
The rest is behind a paywall, but here are reports on the lies. (I can’t post excepts–there are just too many lies):
CNN Staff: Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress.
Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post: Fact-checking 26 suspect claims in Trump’s address to Congress.
Here is video from CNN of fact checking by Daniel Dale:
NBC News: Democratic Rep. Al Green removed after disrupting Trump’s speech.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was removed from the House chamber Tuesday night after he disrupted President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.
Green, who has long pushed to impeach Trump dating to his previous term in office, stood and shook his cane toward the president in the opening minutes of his speech.
Other lawmakers cheered and booed Green, causing further chaos on the House floor as Trump paused. The uproar prompted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to read aloud from House rules.
“Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions,” Johnson said, an admonishment aimed at Green.
After Green refused to sit and allow Trump to continue, Johnson called for the House sergeant at arms to remove him from the chamber.
“Nah nah nah nah, goodbye,” Republicans chanted as Green was escorted from the room.
Outside the chamber, Green told NBC News that as “a person of conscience,” he believes Trump “has done things that I think we cannot allow to continue.”
What Green yelled at Trump was “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!”
Trump reiterated his desire to take over Greenland. Politico: ‘Greenland is ours’: Greenland prime minister rebukes Trump pledge to acquire the territory.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede proclaimed that “Greenland is ours” in response to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress Tuesday night, where he said the U.S. will get Greenland “one way or another.”
“Americans and their leader must understand that,” Egede wrote on Facebook Wednesday, using the Greenlandic name for the island. “We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland.”
Egede’s remarks follow Trump’s pledge to acquire the territory — despite emphasizing Greenland’s self-determination — during his Tuesday speech.
“We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America,” Trump said, stressing that acquiring the territory would improve U.S. national and international security.
“I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump added.
David Kurz at Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump Personally Thanks John Roberts For Keeping Him Out Of Jail: ‘I Won’t Forget It.’
It wasn’t Rep. Al Green (D-TX) being escorted out of the House chamber after his disruptive protest, and it wasn’t the long list of Trump absurdities cobbled together into an endless speech. Nope, it was Trump rubbing Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ face in their mutual corruption:
“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” Trump says while shaking the hand of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts after the State of the Union.
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T05:18:11.964Z
Let’s stipulate that we’re reasonable people who can see this for what it is: a reference to the Supreme Court’s disastrous ahistoric discovery of vast presidential immunity from criminal prosecution that saved Trump from going to jail.
Trump’s mob boss mentality has led to other moments like this, where he extravagantly highlights the moral and ethical compromises that a sycophant has made on his behalf as a way of demonstrating that they really are no better than he is and of lashing them even more firmly to his side. If they resist, he calls them out for being hypocrites, pointing to their compromised behavior and mocking their previous pretensions to ethical behavior.
But this time Trump did it to the sitting Supreme Court chief justice in public on the floor of the House. Whatever high regard John Roberts still held himself in has been directly challenged in the most excruciating and a dignity-robbing way. Trump has a way of doing that to everyone who comes in contact with him. Roberts had it coming. No pity for him.
Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times: Trump’s Revenge Tour Finds Its True Target.
Donald Trump rambled, ranted and raved his way through the 2024 presidential campaign, but he was clear on one point. When he was elected, he would get revenge.
“I am your retribution,” Trump said to crowds of his supporters throughout the campaign.
This was not an abstraction. He had a few targets in mind.
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” he said in 2023.
There were also the judges, prosecutors and politicians who tried to hold Trump accountable for his crimes, both the ones for which he was indicted and the ones for which he was convicted. He refused to rule out an effort to prosecute Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted the Stormy Daniels hush-money case against him, and attacked Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, as “crooked.” Trump shared an image that called for the former Republican representative and Jan. 6 committee member Liz Cheney to be prosecuted in “televised military tribunals,” and he accused Gen. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of treason, calling his actions “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”To get his revenge, Trump would turn the I.R.S., the F.B.I. and other powerful parts of the federal government against his political enemies. He would hound and harass them in retaliation for their opposition to his law stretching and lawbreaking.For once in his public career, Trump wasn’t lying. As president, he has made it a priority to go after his political enemies.
You all know the things Trump has done to get revenge in his brief time in office so far. But Bouie argues that Trump’s real revenge target is the American people.
Altogether, Trump has done more to actualize his desire for retribution than he has to fulfill his campaign promise to lower the price of groceries or reduce the cost of housing. A telling sign, perhaps, of his real priorities in office.This fact of Trump’s indifference to most Americans — if not his outright hostility toward them, considering his assault on virtually every government function that helps ordinary people — suggests another dimension to his revenge tour. It is almost as if he wants to inflict pain not just on a specific set of individuals but on the entire nation.
Read the whole thing at this gift link. It’s very good.
By Mark Bryan
Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse: Let’s Be Honest About The State Of The Union.
It wasn’t necessary to watch all of Trump’s speech last night to understand where we are as a country. The state of our union, as I noted Sunday night, is compromised. And that comes as no surprise to any of us. But two moments from last night are worth noting, as markers of where we are.
The Stupid: “I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight,” Trump said during his speech.
Only one problem. That’s not what the Justice Department has been telling judges in litigation involving the Musk-led effort to privatize government. They’ve been doing everything they can to claim Musk is not in charge of DOGE, including telling the judge that a woman named Amy Gleason, who was on vacation in Mexico when they made the representation to the court, is the Acting Administrator. It didn’t take lawyers long to point that out. Trump was barely finished when Kel McClanahan filed a “Notice of New Evidence” in Lentini v. DOGE, one of three cases that have been consolidated to hear claims about DOGE’s legality in the District of Maryland.
McClanahan argued that Trump’s statement about Musk “conclusively demonstrates that expedited discovery is urgently needed to ascertain the nature of the Department of Government Efficiency and its relationship to the United States DOGE Service.” The best outcome for Trump, following his epic foot in mouth, is that Judge Jia Cobb grants the motion to expedite which would make this the first case where pro-democracy lawyers would gain access to information about the inner workings of DOGE, likely a treasure trove that would further underscore the lawless manner in which Trump is acting.
The worst case is that someone gets held in contempt, either civil or criminal. That would open an entire can of worms about how the courts enforce their orders against a Trump administration that has at least suggested it might not comply with ones it doesn’t like. But that fight is, inevitably, coming, and judges don’t like it when parties lie to them, especially when it’s so explicit and when it’s the government doing it, here, rather uniquely, with the president’s involvement.
Hahaha!
Vance also comments on Trump’s behavior toward the SCOTUS justices:
The Corrupt: After his speech, Trump shook hands with people in the room, including the four active Supreme Court Justices who were present in their long black robes. Their tradition of dress is meant to ensure that no one mistakes who they are. It separates them from the political fray, even as they attend. That message, however, was lost on Trump.
The moment was captured on CSPAN. Trump thanks the Justices. He doesn’t say what for, but of course, we all know.
“Thank you very much, appreciate it,” he says to Elena Kagan, whose face is a mask in the moment. Then, he moves on to the Chief Justice. “Thank you again. Thank you again,” he says to John Roberts. Then he awkwardly slaps him on the shoulder and says, “Won’t forget it.” The moment has an almost classic mob boss feel to it in context.
Roberts, followed by Kagan, peels off and leaves without comment and immediately.
Wired: Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries.
Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned.
Jeremy Lewin, one of the DOGE employees tasked with dismantling USAID, who has also played a role in DOGE’s incursions into the National Institutes of Health and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is listed as making just over $167,000 annually, WIRED has confirmed. Lewin is assigned to the Office of the Administrator within the General Services Administration.
By Mark Bryan
Kyle Schutt, a software engineer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is listed as drawing a salary of $195,200 through GSA, where he is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Administrator. That is the maximum amount that any “General Schedule” federal employee can make annually, including bonuses. “You cannot be offered more under any circumstances,” the GSA compensation and benefits website reads.
Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur who has taken a visible internal role interviewing GSA employees as part of DOGE’s work at the agency, is listed as being paid just over $120,500 per year. According to DOGE’s official website, the average GSA employee makes $128,565 and has worked at the agency for 13 years.
When Elon Musk started recruiting for DOGE in November, he described the work as “tedious” and noted that “compensation is zero.” WIRED previously reported that the DOGE recruitment effort relied in part on a team of engineers associated with Peter Thiel and was carried out on platforms like Discord.
Since Trump took office in January, DOGE has overseen aggressive layoffs within the GSA, including the recent elimination of 18F, the agency’s unit dedicated to technology efficiency. It also developed a plan to sell off more than 500 government buildings.
Although Musk has described DOGE as “maximum transparent,” it has not made its spending or salary ranges publicly available. Funding for DOGE had grown to around $40 million as of February 20, according to a recent ProPublica report. The White House did not respond to questions about the salary ranges for DOGE
Reuters: Exclusive: Judges face rise in threats as Musk blasts them over rulings.
U.S. Marshals have warned federal judges of unusually high threat levels as tech billionaire Elon Musk and other Trump administration allies ramp up efforts to discredit judges who stand in the way of White House efforts to slash federal jobs and programs, said several judges with knowledge of the warnings.
In recent weeks, Musk, congressional Republicans and other top allies of U.S. President Donald Trump have called for the impeachment of some federal judges or attacked their integrity in response to court rulings that have slowed the Trump administration’s moves to dismantle entire government agencies and fire tens of thousands of workers.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has lambasted judges in more than 30 posts since the end of January on his social media site X, calling them “corrupt,” “radical,” “evil” and deriding the “TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY” after judges blocked parts of the federal downsizing that he’s led. The Tesla CEO has also reposted nearly two dozen tweets by others attacking judges.
Reuters interviews with 11 federal judges in multiple districts revealed mounting alarm over their physical security and, in some cases, a rise in violent threats in recent weeks. Most spoke on condition of anonymity and said they did not want to further inflame the situation or make comments that could be interpreted as conflicting with their duties of impartiality. The Marshals Service declined to comment on security matters.
As Reuters documented in a series of stories last year, political pressure on federal judges and violent threats against them have been rising since the 2020 presidential election, when federal courts heard a series of highly politicized cases, including failed lawsuits filed by Trump and his backers seeking to overturn his loss. Recent rhetorical attacks on judges and the rise in threats jeopardize the judicial independence that underpins America’s democratic constitutional order, say legal experts.
This one is for Dakinikat. The Wall Street Journal: The Two-Headed Monster Stalking the Economy Has a Name: Stagflation.
Stagflation has entered the chat.
President Trump’s decision to dramatically raise tariffs on imports threatens the U.S. with an uncomfortable combination of weaker or even stagnant growth and higher prices—sometimes called “stagflation.”
The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and another 10% hike on China following last month’s 10% increase. They “will be wildly disruptive to business investment plans,” said Ray Farris, chief economist at Prudential PLC. “They will be inflationary, so they will be a shock to real household income just as household income growth is slowing because of slower employment and wage gains,” he said.
It is still unclear how long Trump intends to keep the tariffs in place. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested Tuesday afternoon on Fox Business that a rollback could be in the works.
Sentiment indicators and business commentary in recent weeks point to slumping confidence over the threat of higher prices.
By Mark Bryan
China and Mexico are the top two sources of consumer electronics sold at the retailer Best Buy, Chief Executive Corie Barry told analysts Tuesday. “We expect our vendors across our entire assortment will pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers, making price increases for American consumers highly likely,” Barry said. The company’s shares plummeted 13% in the midst of a general stock-market retreat.
Brothers International Food Holdings, based in Rochester, N.Y., imports mangoes and avocados from Mexico and sells fruit juices, purées and frozen-food concentrates to food and beverage manufacturers. New tariffs are forcing the 95-person company to pass on price increases to its customers or accept lower profit margins….
Trump and his advisers have said some short-term pain might be warranted to achieve the administration’s long-term ambitions of remaking the U.S. economy. They have also said their steps to boost energy production could offset higher goods prices.
Nonetheless, tariffs are a particularly difficult economic threat for the Federal Reserve to address. Its mandate is to keep inflation low and stable while maintaining a healthy labor market. Tariffs represent a “supply shock” that both raises inflation, which calls for higher interest rates, and hurts employment, which calls for lower rates. The Fed would have to choose which threat to emphasize.
NBC News: Supreme Court rejects Trump administration’s bid to avoid paying USAID contractors.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday backed a federal judge’s power to order the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors but did not require immediate payment.
In doing so, the court on a 5-4 vote rejected an emergency application filed by the Justice Department after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a series of rulings demanding the government unfreeze funds that President Donald Trump put on hold with an executive order.
The court delayed acting on the case for a week. In the meantime, the contractors have not been paid.
In an unsigned order, the court said that Ali’s deadline for the immediate payment had now passed and the case is already proceeding in the district court, with more rulings to come. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
As such, Ali “should clarify what obligations the government must fulfill” in order to comply with a temporary retraining order issued Feb. 13, the court said. Ali should consider “the feasibility of any compliance deadlines,” the court added.
Four conservative justices dissented from the denial of the application, with Justice Samuel Alito writing that Ali did not have “unchecked power to compel the government to pay out … 2 billion taxpayer dollars.”
“I am stunned,” Alito added.
The other dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
One more on the tariffs before I wrap this up. Eric Levitz at Vox: Trump doesn’t seem to know why he launched a giant trade war.
Donald Trump just imposed a 25 percent tariff on virtually all goods produced by America’s two largest trading partners — Canada and Mexico. He simultaneously established a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods.
As a result, America’s average tariff level is now higher than at any time since the 1940s.
Meanwhile, China and Canada immediately retaliated against Trump’s duties, with the former imposing a 15 percent tariff on American agricultural products and the latter putting a 25 percent tariff on $30 billion of US goods. Mexico has vowed to mount retaliatory tariffs of its own.
This trade war could have far-reaching consequences. Trump’s tariffs have already triggered a stock market sell-off and cooling of manufacturing activity. And economists have estimated that the trade policy will cost the typical US household more than $1,200 a year, as the prices of myriad goods rise.
All this raises the question: Why has the US president chosen to upend trade relations on the North American continent? The stakes of this question are high, since it could determine how long Trump’s massive tariffs remain in effect. Unfortunately, the president himself does not seem to know the answer.
In recent weeks, Trump has provided five different — and contradictory — justifications for his tariffs on Mexico and Canada, none of which make much sense.
Read all about it at Vox.
That’s all I have for you today. Please take care of yourselves in this terrible time for our country.
From my friend, she lives in Houston. Yes, it’s disgusting…but I don’t doubt it is true. If MAGA assholes ride around with Nazi flags on their pickups…it isn’t too far of a stretch for them to fly Russian flags. They would only be following Trumps lead:
I shared this in the comments yesterday…but I think it deserves to be in a post:
It makes me physically ill.
More news:
Now cartoons via Cagle:
Lastly, this video via:
Repost: @noliewithbtc Perfect representation.
Source: Led by Donkeys
Take it easy…stay safe.
“Honorable Douche Member.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social
Once again, the transformation of American democracy into a theocratic fascist state–which once was unimaginable–is shaking global confidence. The closing argument came Friday when #FARTUS and JDank tried to shake down Ukraine’s President like a classic Mafia Don. The US is no longer the leader of the free world. We are becoming the lap dog of evil men.
It was further announced that the dollar will no longer be the world’s currency as the Bad Men of faithless investments are rolling back protections and trying to install the Ponzi scheme of the century–cryptocurrency–as something it can never be. This dodgy investment does not meet any of the criteria that define money. It cannot be used as a universal means of exchange. It has no role as a store of value. Indeed, it is quite a risky gamble. It does not represent a measure of exchange. Help us, Federal Reserve Board of Governors! You may be the only chance because the Treasury’s Rules and Regulations, which were based on stopping another Great Depression, are being dismantled even as we speak.
William Kristol, Andre Egger, and Sam Stein had this headline at The Bulwark that rang true to me this morning. “What a Weekend for Putin! It’s been a long time since the Russian dictator had it this good.” All enemies of the USA and democracy had a good week. All those with greed as a defining characteristic are likely celebrating. I’m certainly glad I moved my 403(B) money to the Eurozone. They were slow coming off COVID-19, but they’re getting stronger while we are getting economically, militarily, and democratically weaker by the drop of every grain of sand.
It was a hell of a weekend for bad men getting what they paid for out of Donald Trump. And while we’ll focus on Vladimir Putin here, we don’t want to fully ignore venture capitalist David Sacks, Donald Trump’s “crypto czar,” who seemingly stands to make bank following Trump’s weekend announcement of a “strategic cryptocurrency reserve.” Hey, we’re glad someone’s having fun. Happy Monday.
Helluva Weekend doesn’t even cover the outrage heard around the country. However, it appears it’s getting a little late in the game to shut down this offensive move on the American Experiment. Just seeing the polling and the angry constituents all over the country over the Zelinsky Shake Down should’ve lit a fire under the proud party of Chicken Hawks. It didn’t. We have more evidence of chickens than hawks. This is also part of The Bulwark’s Monday Money Quarter-backing.
SEE ROGER RUN: How to cope with all the grisly news? One increasingly common strategy: Blowing off some steam by yelling at your Republican lawmaker.
On Saturday, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall became the latest victim of this hot new trend at an overstuffed town hall in the small town of Oakley (pop. ~2000). Attendees booed his arrival and rolled their eyes at his answers throughout the prickly hour-long event, while Marshall castigated them as “rude.” He suggested they’d fallen victim to “misinformation” about DOGE and ultimately cut the event short.
A possible opportunity for introspection for the senator? Apparently not. In a statement, Marshall’s office suggested the fix was in, the town hall “sabotaged” by “Democrat operatives.” “Real Kansans,” the statement continued, “overwhelmingly support President Trump’s DOGE initiative.”
It was true that some attendees had schlepped to the event from the Kansas City area to give Marshall a piece of their mind. But some of their concerns were plainly shared by locals. The last crowd comment came, according to local media, from local resident Chuck Nunn, who politely and sorrowfully mourned DOGE’s reckless slashing of veteran jobs. Identifying himself as “a dying breed, a conservative Democrat,” Nunn said he supported the mission of identifying waste in government—but that “the way that we are going about it is so wrong, because there are unintended consequences.”
“What the government is doing right now, as far as cutting out those jobs, a huge percentage of those people—and I know you care about the veterans—are veterans,” Nunn went on. “And that’s a damn shame. A damn shame.”
Acting like this sentiment is nothing but scurrilous left-wing astroturf may be comforting to Republicans. But it’s also remarkably short-sighted. There’s a reason “do right by our veterans” has long been a more or less universal tenet of our politics. Scoffing off that extremely normie critique of the DOGEbros is something Republicans do at their peril.
If you think that’s bad, check out the opinions of House Leader Mike Johnson. No Republican has been left out of this party. Heather Cox Richardson has another example of Mike Johnson’s inability to lead or take a stand for our country. He’s staked out the coward’s gavel. She wrote this yesterday in her Substack Letters From an American.
On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.
And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat. Last week, at a United Nations working group on cybersecurity, representatives from the European Union and the United Kingdom highlighted threats from Russia, while Liesyl Franz, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity, did not mention Russia, saying the U.S. was concerned about threats from China and Iran.
Kirchgaessner also noted that under Trump, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which monitors cyberthreats against critical infrastructure, has set new priorities. Although Russian threats, especially those against U.S. election systems, were a top priority for the agency in the past, a source told Kirchgaessner that analysts were told not to follow or report on Russian threats.
“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries,” the source told Kirchgaessner. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.” “People are saying Russia is winning,” the source said. “Putin is on the inside now.”
Another source noted that “There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.” “Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat, the person added. Under those circumstances, the source said, ceasing to follow and report Russian threats is “truly shocking.”
Trump’s outburst in the Oval Office on Friday confirmed that Putin has been his partner in politics since at least 2016. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia… Russia, Russia, Russia—you ever hear of that deal?—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it, and we didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom.”
Putin went through a hell of a lot with Trump? It was an odd statement from a U.S. president, whose loyalty is supposed to be dedicated to the Constitution and the American people.
Jen Ruben writes this at The Contrarian. “It’s not Dickens—it’s the MAGA agenda. Taking food from children; healthcare from the informed.” The #FARTUS team has already destroyed our soft power with the end of USAID. Next up is Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Get your gardens started now! Cruelty is the mission.
Given the scope of the MAGA assault on the foundations of our democracy, many Democrats, responsible media outlets, and concerned Americans have (understandably) been focused on its attempt to obliterate the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the First Amendment. But we should never lose track of the abject immorality that is part and parcel of an ideology based on vengeful victimhood, conspiracy-mongering, and repudiation of science.
From the outbreak of measles to stalling grants to the pursuit of cures for “diseases ranging from heart disease and cancer to Alzheimer’s and allergies” to renewing the starvation crisis in Sudan to devasting cuts at the Veterans Administration to dismissal of patriotic, highly-trained trans members of the armed services…we cannot miss this administration’s abject cruelty; its almost-boisterous disregard for human life and dignity.
House and Senate Republicans bear just as much responsibility as President in Name Only (PINO) Donald Trump and acting president Elon Musk for mutely going along with these actions. Moreover, we must view the House budget as yet another exercise in cruelty and reckless endangerment of human life.
“Trump and Musk have slashed roughly 2,400 VA jobs…A decision that won’t make things more efficient, like they claimed, but will actually lead to longer wait times, more backlog and more chaos for Veterans,” Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois.) recently said at a virtual town hall. “They’ve also launched a wider purge of federal workers—firing, in total, an estimated 6,000 Veterans, includingthe folks behind the Veterans Crisis Line.” She emphasized, “The only reason they are doing this is to try to find enough loose change behind the couch cushions so that they can give even bigger tax breaks to the rich guys they pal around with on the golf course.”
Breaking the sacred obligation to care for our veterans is only one aspect of the onslaught. Perhaps the most egregious is the plan to slash $880B from Medicaid. The argument that cuts of that magnitude can be achieved by “reform” or by cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” frankly, insults our intelligence.
The impact of such cuts is immense given the reach of Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation notes, “Medicaid is the primary program providing comprehensive health and long-term care to one in five people living in the U.S. and accounts for nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on health care.” Medicaid covers not only the poorest Americans, but seniors’ long-term health care, drug addicts, and the disabled. More than 72 million Americans are enrolled in some aspect of the program.
Whatever funds they’ve raised by the deaths and disposal of humanity, they will turn over to Greedy Billionaires and Businesses. However, the focus right now is still on #FARTUS upending World Order. This is from Vox’s Nicole Narea. “How Trump upended the world order, over one weekend A hectic 48 hours in Europe-Ukraine-US-Russia relations, explained.
A blowup at the White House on Friday proved a rude awakening for some of the US’s closest partners in Europe, and left them scrambling to contemplate a world in which they can no longer be sure that the US is a reliable ally in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
In the wake of President Donald Trump and his team accosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a heated, televised exchange in the Oval Office, European leaders met to devise a plan for protecting Ukraine from Russian aggression absent any security guarantees from the US.
And though multiple leaders, from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to NATO leader Mark Rutte, insisted that they still view the US as an important partner, the meeting nevertheless seemed like it might mark the abrupt beginning of a new Western world order — one in which Europe stands alone.
The UK and France have led efforts in recent weeks to advance Ukraine’s cause and to convince Trump to keep Ukraine’s (and Europe’s) best interests in mind as he attempts to craft a ceasefire or peace deal in Russia’s years-long war on Ukraine.
Sunday, Starmer presided over a summit of more than a dozen mostly European leaders and announced that the attendees would form a “coalition of the willing” to defend Ukraine and strengthen Europe’s military capabilities.
“Not every nation will feel able to contribute but that can’t mean that we sit back,” Starmer said. “Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency.”
That coalition could lead to UK troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, should a ceasefire or peace deal come about, Starmer said. France and the UK reportedly have a ceasefire framework that Zelenskyy said he’s been briefed on.
Starmer did emphasize, however, that many in the group, including the UK, believe lasting peace will not be possible without US support. And while Starmer said he had a productive conversation with Trump about Ukraine this weekend, it’s not clear that US support will materialize.
That’s in part because the Trump administration and its allies reiterated throughout the weekend that they believe their current approach to peace — that is, holding talks with Russia sans Ukraine and blaming Ukraine for the war — is the right one. Trump adviser Elon Musk suggested on X that the US contemplate leaving the NATO security alliance.
The Trump team also redoubled their attacks on Zelenskyy on Sunday, with some going so far as to suggest the Ukrainian president ought to be replaced.
So, I will get to some of the economic impact of Trump’s Tariff Mania. I hope you don’t need a new car, just for starters. This is from Bloomberg. “Car Prices Are Poised for $12,000. Surge on Trump’s New Tariffs.”
Impending tariffs on Canada and Mexico risk driving up US car prices by as much as $12,000, further squeezing consumers and wreaking havoc across the intricate web of automotive supply lines spanning the continent.
The cost to build a crossover utility vehicle will rise by at least $4,000, while the increase would be three times that for an electric vehicle examined in a new study from Anderson Economic Group, an automotive consultant in East Lansing, Michigan. And those costs would likely be passed on to consumers, the study found.
“That kind of cost increase will lead directly — and I expect almost immediately — to a decline in sales of the models that have the biggest trade impacts,” Patrick Anderson, chief executive officer of Anderson Economic Group, said in an interview.
These are some more depressing headlines concerning our economy and prices.
From CNN: “Trump’s tariff chaos threatens an economy already flashing yellow lights.”
Layoffs are rising. Consumer spending — the backbone of the economy — unexpectedly dropped in January. Consumer confidence has plunged. A key GDP forecast suddenly turned negative. And extreme fear is back on Wall Street as stocks slide.
Despite the murky picture, President Donald Trump continues to inject chaos into the economy with almost-constant tariff threats.
Now he’s just hours away from lobbing tariffs on not just one or two but all three of America’s biggest trading partners.
Starting on Tuesday, Trump has vowed to impose a 25% tariff on imported goods from Mexico and Canada, and to double tariffs on those from China to 20%.
Those tariffs — if they get imposed — could increase costs for Americans at a time when inflation remains stubbornly high. That, in turn, could prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering borrowing costs, another source of pain in the cost-of-living problem confronting consumers.
Mexico and Canada have all vowed to retaliate by slapping their own tariffs on US goods, setting the stage for a potential trade war inside of North America. China has promised to respond to higher tariffs, too.
From the New York Times: “A Key Interest Rate Falls, but Not for the Reasons Trump Wanted. Investors’ increasingly gloomy sentiment about economic growth appears to be driving down the 10-year Treasury yield.” That’s our safe haven investment btw.
President Trump campaigned on a promise to bring down interest rates. And he has fulfilled that pledge in one key way, with U.S. government bond yields falling sharply.
But the reason for the drop is an unnerving one: Investors appear to be more on edge about the outlook for the economy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the Trump administration considers the 10-year Treasury yield a benchmark of its success in lowering rates. The yield tracks the rate of interest the government pays to borrow from investors over 10 years and has dropped since mid-January, to around 4.2 percent from 4.8 percent. The decline in February was the steepest in several months.
The administration is targeting the 10-year yield because it underpins borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards, corporate debt and a host of other rates, making it arguably the most important interest rate in the world. As it drops, that should filter through the economy, making many types of debt cheaper.
Unlike the short-term interest rate that is set by the Federal Reserve, the 10-year yield is a market rate, meaning that nobody has direct control over it. Instead, it reflects investors’ views on the economy, inflation, the government’s borrowing needs and changes the Fed may make to its rate in the years ahead.
That’s why the drop in February is troubling, analysts say. It shows, at least in part, that bond investors are growing gloomy about the economic outlook — and quickly.
“The market is pricing a growth scare,” said Blerina Uruci, chief U.S. economist at T. Rowe Price.
A better outcome would be for the declining 10-year yield to reflect slowing inflation, the prospect of more rate cuts by the Fed and a shrinking deficit that would require less government borrowing — all while the economy remains strong.
Instead, inflation expectations have risen this year amid worries that Mr. Trump’s tariff plans, alongside mass deportations, could reignite price increases throughout the economy. Stubborn inflation means the interest rates controlled by the Fed are likely to stay elevated for longer. Some analysts and investors fear that this could weigh on the economy until it cracks and the central bank is pushed into rapidly lowering rates.
So, if you can’t say you’re cutting all these things to end runaway government spending, try not reporting it. That might work, right? This is from the relentlessly brave AP. “The Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP, obscuring the impact of DOGE cuts.” That way, no one, including economists, can possibly know what is happening. Let’s hope the Federal Reserve can remain independent and report US data if the Labor and Commerce Department can’t.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that government spending could be separated from gross domestic product reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn.
“You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”
Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because changes in taxes, spending, deficits and regulations by the government can impact the path of overall growth. GDP reports already include extensive details on government spending, offering a level of transparency for economists.
Musk’s efforts to downsize federal agencies could result in the layoffs of tens of thousands of federal workers, whose lost income could potentially reduce their spending, affecting businesses and the economy at large.
Yahoo Finance, a good place to stalk the markets, has this report on what’s going on as I write. “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as Trump tariffs stalk markets.”
US stocks retreated on Monday as a looming deadline fueled uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and investors looked ahead to the monthly jobs report and key retail earnings.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.2% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) erased early morning gains to fall 0.4%, weighed down by shares of Nvidia (NVDA). The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell below the flat line, as the major US indexes came off a volatile week and a losing February.
Nvidia stock plummeted on Monday as reports surfaced that the tech giant’s AI chips are reaching China despite export controls.
March trading kicked off with investors encountering more questions than answers as tariff deadlines loom, the Federal Reserve’s next meeting fast approaches, and the US economy faces the test of disproving investors’ fears about growth. First quarter economic growth is expected to slide following a string of weaker-than-expected economic data.
Tariffs on Canada and Mexico are set to come into effect on Tuesday, with no indication that a planned March 4 implementation date will be pushed back again. While 25% duties are planned, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hinted that they could be lower by describing it as a “fluid situation.” New tariffs on China are also due on March 4, with Beijing said to be eyeing retaliatory measures on US agricultural products.
Elsewhere, European leaders’ weekend effort to rally around Ukraine prompted traders to boost bets on a bump in defense spending in the region, lifting related stocks.
It’s a depressing time for us Dismal Scientists. It’s one thing to have something bad happen, like a black swan event, but to watch your own government tank a perfectly healthy economy is tough to watch. I’ve already dropped so many reads that I’m hitting a word count of 3600. I’ll give you a break while I go play a new little game I picked up. It’s a gorgeous little anime game where I’ve just reincarnated as a walking, talking Mushroom, and I can solve everyone’s problems! The bad guy is a fat real estate developer, and the place is inhabited by people with both human and furry animal traits. It’s my new sanctuary beside the Star Wars Series.
I’ve lived here in New Orleans for 30 years now, and this is the first Mardi Gras I’ve just sat out. Somewhat for health problems, as I took another little fall today while walking Temple, and I don’t see the neurologist until next week. It’s tough not trusting your legs. Also, there are MAGAs around town, and many of my friends have reported they’ve destroyed things in the yard and homes if they have any display of having voted for Kamala. This is on all the uptown routes. It’s all just really depressing.
So, you stay very safe, warm, and cozy as we continue this very dark year. XOXO
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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