Finally Friday Reads: Free Speech Attacks, Incompetency, Cruelty, and Grifting Galore Characterize the Trump Regime

Posted: May 23, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: American Fascists, Broligarchy, emoluments clause of the US Constitution, Foreign Affairs, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge, South Africa, Vietnam | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

“A modern-day interpretation of a 1871 Thomas Nast work seems fitting to commemorate Trump’s secret crypto dinner.” John Buss, repeat@1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As the old Buddhist and Hobbit saying goes:  “We live in Dark Times.” “Kali Yuga” is the Hindu expression.  Darkness has always been an expression of decline in European History, hence the label “Dark Ages” for the period from the 5th to about the 8th century.  Usually, these periods experience a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural life.  One of the most prevalent things about these times is that there is a paucity of written records.  So, it’s difficult to capture the decline until a renaissance occurs. The breakdown of institutions occurred in these past times as well as the present. At the moment, we still have the ability to document the decline in the US. Many relate to it as a rebirth of fascist movements of the 20th century. It is a global feature at the moment, but no matter if it’s the Decline of the Roman Empire or the American Empire, there are signs.

The invention of the printing press is seen as one of the most powerful examples of an invention that can change the course of history.  Access to information directly, for personal consideration, tends to create a citizenry with low tolerance of being shut off from thinking for themselves.  Perhaps it’s why today’s dark leaders tend to go for education and the press, and why they attract “low information” and angry denizens.  They also attract a cadre of greedy followers willing to help attack and grab the wealth of those who are powerless.

These are indeed Dark Times.

The fight for the light in the newly filed Harvard case against the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students is a prime cause of denying  the citizenry access to anything that might cause them to question the goings-on here. But it also breaks into the tradition of the United States being the shining light of discovery, science, and reason. It’s why those of us who have had academic careers cherish and enjoy academic freedom.  The free exchange of ideas and opinions is essential.

We have traditionally had a small number of women in my field of economics. It was between 4 to 10 percent in the late 70s and early 80s.  It once rose to above 30%, but recently has settled on 27%.  The STEM fields still reflect the struggle for inclusion.  It’s even lower for Black Americans.  However, my career has led me to have colleagues from a variety of countries, which is wonderful.  In my early career, most of my women colleagues came from the Middle East or China. I was lucky enough to have a professor from Finland. She was brilliant.  Believe me. During my academic studies and life, the joy of having colleagues from all over the world who could share things was a blessing in my life. A colleague from the Punjab who now teaches in Canada helped me improve my math chops to get me through some of the most complex models that you could imagine. He stayed with me after Katrina until the campus got its FEMA trailers.  I also had a student from Taiwan staying with me.  My last biggest joy, however, was writing 2 letters of recommendation for two Black New Orleans students to Rice. The US cannot afford to fall behind in a vast world of research.  And, yet, here we are with a professional moron taking down the biggest academic center of research in the World.  America’s first University, Harvard.  If we do not train the world’s best minds, we will fall deeply behind in everything.

Today, we got the news of the Case Harvard filed against Trump.  “Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard’s Ability To Enroll International Students.” This is from The Harvard Crimson.  Harvard turned out one of my favorite journalists, Joy Reid, and you can read this article knowing there are more good journalists headed to jobs.

A federal judge granted Harvard a temporary restraining order in its suit to block the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its authorization to enroll international students.

The order was issued less than two hours after the University requested a halt to the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to end its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification. Harvard had described the move as “unprecedented and retaliatory.”

United States District Judge Allison D. Burroughs agreed that if the DHS’ move goes forward, Harvard “will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

The TRO will go into effect immediately and will likely last until a hearing in the case. Burroughs has scheduled a May 27 status hearing and a May 29 hearing on whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Harvard would need to file for a preliminary injunction to prevent the DHS’ directive from going into effect after the TRO expires.

Under the terms of the order, the DHS is barred from enforcing the Thursday move to strip Harvard of its SEVP status — and Harvard is no longer legally obligated to turn over the requested documents by Sunday.

Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee, has adjudicated several cases relating to Harvard in the past. She oversaw a case brought by Harvard and MIT in 2021 against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s effort to force all international students who were enrolled online in the U.S. to leave the country. ICE ultimately rolled back the policy without a ruling from Burroughs.

Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s first lawsuit, filed in April, against the Trump administration over its nearly $3 billion funding cut.

You can see all of the destruction of the Age of Reason and the Scientific Age, and the Information Age, clearly in these actions and even more clearly in Trump’s appointments and the destruction of the Agencies most responsible for progress using science and reason.  BB shared this Substack today, and I thought I’d post it here.  It’s from Steven Beschloss, a journalist with a historian brother. “How Much More Stupidity Will Americans Endure? Reflecting on the escalating hostility to American values, principles, and decency in a 24-hour period.”  I personally cannot take much more of this.

I admit: The daily drumbeat of stupidity is exhausting. I wish it were enough for me to simply document the dangerous ignorance of Trump and his sycophants, confident that we’ll soon be free of this regime and its power to spread their poison and cancerous hostility across the land and around the world. But the midterm elections will not arrive for another 17 months. It’s hard to overstate how much damage Trump, his cabinet and his kowtowing Republican Congress can cause between now and then.

That’s why most days I ask myself: Could today be the day Americans decide they’ve had enough and demand change? I have thought that there might be a single event that triggers millions of Americans taking to the streets or committing to a national strike in a public, unavoidable show of solidarity. But I have come to see that the daily drumbeat is numbing too many people, causing them to adapt to the cruelty, the racism, the hostility to democracy, the arrogant rejection of the Constitution and the rule of law. The metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling pot of water is apt; by the time the frog’s figured out he needs to get out, it’s too late.

We’re not there yet. You can see that dedicated lawyers are filing suit against the corruption and criminality, judges are pushing back, outraged Americans are engaging in protests, some elected Democrats and other awake leaders are ringing alarm bells, a growing number of colleges and universities have refused to buckle under, some independent media are addressing the reality of authoritarianism in no uncertain terms. Americans have not surrendered their sanity or capacity to know what’s right and wrong, what’s true and false. The pot may be beginning to boil, but we can still see and feel what’s happening. We are still able to take action.

But I want to spotlight a series of events in a single 24-hour period that individually outrage me and, taken together, express a level of stupidity and sickness that should motivate more than a shrug of the head or an angry social media post. You may have already focused on—been outraged by—one or even all of these. But it’s important to not look at them as discrete events, but part and parcel of a single plot to convince us that we should accept a fascist regime bent on elevating white nationalism, oppressing people of color, silencing dissent and making the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer and sicker. This effort is led by a malignant racist and sociopath who’s convinced the people around him to do what he says, no matter how ugly, cruel, blatantly false—or just plain stupid.

Two of the four events were in the Oval Office Wednesday—our Oval Office, the place where real presidents have made some of the most momentous decisions that improved the lives of Americans, created a safety net to overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and soften cap italism’s turbulence, helped defeat the Nazis and fascism, built global alliances that made the world safer, more stable and prosperous, and demonstrated a commitment to bend the arc of history toward justice.

Into this historical place of honor came South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, a calm and skilled diplomat who decades earlier had served alongside Nelson Mandela as his chief negotiator to end apartheid in South Africa. But just like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, he arrived for an ambush by a spiteful, narrow-minded man who spreads lies like Ukraine not Russia started the still-raging war. On this day he insisted with false information from fringe groups that South Africa, whose leaders are mostly Black, are committing genocide against white farmers, a false narrative that his top donor and South African-born Elon Musk has propagated.

At Trump’s urging, Ramaphosa answered a reporter’s question about what it would take to convince Trump there is no such white genocide. “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here,” he calmly said, referencing South African golfer Ernie Els who was in the room. “When we have talks between us around a quiet table, it will take President Trump to listen to them.”

But South Africa’s president was being set up. Trump interrupted him to play a video pushing the lies, then he showed photos meant to “prove” how much death there was, even leading Trump to mutter, “Death, death, death, horrible death, death.”

Except the video clip showing a long line of white wooden crosses were not actual burial sites for white farmers, as Trump insisted, but were from a 2020 protest against farm murders over the years. Except the photo Trump showed of people lifting body bags, insisting they “are all white farmers that are being buried,” was actually of humanitarian workers burying bodies in Congo. Except for all the claims of genocide among white farmers, meant to justify bringing white Afrikaners as preferred refugees to America now, there were a total of 44 murders in farming communities last year, Reuters reports, with over 26,000 in the country overall.

President Ramaphosa came to discuss trade and economic partnership. Yet Trump brought him into the Oval Office to ambush and abuse him, push his white nationalist agenda, spread more widely his egregious lies and showcase that—while illegally deporting people of color—only whites deserve America’s protection from presumed persecution. “We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them,” Ramaphosa noted, but Trump was not listening.

There is a daily drumbeat of stupidity, airing of white grievances, and cruelty.  While discriminating harshly against everyone who is not white and Christian, this administration harbors supporters who carry torches and shout “Jews will not replace us,” and has bubble-headed Congress Critters who scream about “Jewish Space Lasers”.   Anti-semitism has become transactional. It has become a useful tool in the attack on Academia and the Democratic Party. It assumes that you can’t understand the history of the Jewish people without turning a blind eye to the punishing attacks on Palestinian women, children, and innocents in the Gaza Strip. I do not think there is a bigger way of showing disrespect for a group of people than using their historical struggles as a tool to encourage the murder of innocents.  But then, our is planning a Trump Tower, hotel, and golf course in GAZA.  The Trump Boyz–in between murdering endangered animals for sport–have been travelling the globe using the Tariff stick as a way to expand their Crime Syndicate.  All, at the expense of the United States and its economy.  This is from QUARTZ: “8 countries where Trump has been making new business deals, from Pakistan to Vietnam, Residential towers, golf courses, crypto — the deals didn’t stop on Inauguration Day.” This is the art of the steal in full display.  All we need to see is Eric and Don Jr. flying in the palace in the sky and sitting at Trump’s Crypto Fundraiser now.

Businesses spearheaded by President Donald Trump have struck numerous deals since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Leading the way is the Trump Organization, a conglomerate privately owned by the president. With more than 250 subsidiaries, it serves as a holding company for Trump’s various hotels, residential real estate, towers, resorts, and golf courses across the world.

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized protocol that merges financial services and cryptocurrency, has also brokered deals. A Trump business entity owns 60% of World Liberty and is entitled to 75% of all revenue from coin sales. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. manage the company.

Here are the countries where the Trump empire has been dealmaking. The slide show that follows lists Vietnam. It’s in Hanoi, which reminds me of the Hanoi Hilton and the late Senator John McCain.

The project consists of a golf course, hotels, and luxury residences, and is slated for completion by 2029. In addition, Eric Trump is scheduled to meet with officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to discuss a possible Trump Tower in the city, Reuters reports.

In April, the president imposed a “reciprocal” tariff rate of 46% on Vietnamese goods. While that policy is currently on a 90-day pause, it would deal a major blow to the Southeast Asian country if resumed. Goods exported to the U.S. account for 30% of Vietnam’s economy, according to IMF estimates, the largest of all U.S. trading partners. As the specter of these crippling levies looms, Hanoi has pledged to buy more American goods, including Boeing (BA) aircraft and agricultural products.

Other countries include Serbia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, and Singapore.  Most of these discussions haven’t been covered by the Media other than Qatar, which came with the gift that “Palace in the sky” that will cause millions of dollars to refit before it’s handed over to Trump and his “library.”  If there’s a bigger oxymoron than Trump Library, I’m waiting to hear it.  Let’s just call it the warehouse facility for all the bribes and emoluments.  We have to discuss that big ol’ party Trump threw for his richest customers. This is from the New York Times. “Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind. The guests were the biggest investors in President Trump’s memecoin, and they were greeted with chants of “shame” as they arrived at Trump National Golf Course.”

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Mr. Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Mr. Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to The Times by a dinner guest.

Mr. Trump promised to change that approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” he said. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

That sure is different than the 2021 who told Fox News.  He just couldn’t wait to get into that scam, I guess.  This is from the BBC.  “Donald Trump calls Bitcoin ‘a scam against the dollar’. This is reported by BBC News Business Reporter Mary-Ann Russon.

Former US President Donald Trump has told Fox Business that he sees Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar.

“Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.”

He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world”.

As per usual, the biggest losers from any more normalization of cryptocurrency will be his own voters.  This is from the BBC. “The Bitcoin hum that is unsettling Trump’s MAGA heartlands.”  This was written by Mike Wendling.

Installations like the one at the power plant near Dresden are appearing across the country, drawn by record-high cryptocurrency prices and cheap and abundant energy to power the computers that do the mining. There are at least 137 Bitcoin mines in the US across 21 states, and reports indicate there are many more planned. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bitcoin mining uses up to 2.3% of the nation’s grid.

The high energy use and its wider environmental impact is certainly causing some concern in Dresden.

But it’s the unmistakable hum that is the soundtrack for discontent in many places with Bitcoin mines – produced by the fans used to cool the computers, it can range from a mechanical whirr to a deafening din.

“We can hear a constant buzzing,” says another Dresden resident, Lori Fishline. “It’s a constant, loud humming noise that you just can’t ignore. It was never present before and has definitely affected the peaceful atmosphere of our bay.”

Such is Ms Campbell’s annoyance with Trump’s Bitcoin backing, her political allegiance to the Republicans is being tested. “Right now I’m not real happy about that party,” she says.

So, build the nastiest factory in the backyard of the people least able to deal with it.  That’s the sound of these Robber Barons that should be familiar to anyone who knows US history from its early 20th-century business escapades.  The most interesting thing that’s popped up today is that Apple has got Trump in a lather, and the Equity Markets hate it.  This is from Yahoo Finance: “Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq trim losses as Trump threatens Apple, EU with new tariffs.”

US stocks fell on Friday, on pace for weekly losses as investors assessed President Trump’s latest tariff threats and what his giant tax bill means for the deficit and the economy.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) sank 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) also fell roughly 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) backed off about 0.6%.

All three indexes trimmed steeper losses after Trump said on Friday that Apple (AAPL) must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones sold but not made in the US. The tech giant has begun shifting some manufacturing to India, with China, home to its key suppliers, locked in a trade war with the US. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump’s post on Truth Social.

At the same time, Trump threatened to hike the tariff on EU imports to “a straight 50%” beginning June 1 as trade talks between the two have stalled.

The president’s warnings shattered a more muted mood on Wall Street as investors wound down to the Memorial Day trading break on Monday.

It adds another supply chain complication for companies already worried about the potential hit to the economy from Trump’s tariff blitz. Earnings season has seen several companies hold off from providing full annual guidance thanks to uncertainty around tariffs.

All three major gauges are on track for a losing week. Stocks have suffered as deficit worries pushed up Treasury yields, intensified as Trump’s giant tax bill forged ahead. Wall Street is still weighing the economic impact of Trump’s revised bill, which cleared a key hurdle in the House vote for approval.

Well, I have always called him Orange Caligula.  It seems we have a mad emperor on our hands.  It didn’t help crypto either. “Bitcoin tumbles under $108K after Trump calls for 50% EU tariff. Trump’s tariff announcement sparks Bitcoin volatility, highlighting digital assets’ sensitivity to geopolitical events.”  This is from Crypto Briefing and Vivian Nguyen.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $108,000 early Friday after President Donald Trump called for steep tariffs on EU imports and threatened Apple with similar measures. The digital asset briefly touched $107,300 on Binance, pulling back from session highs above $111,000 as traders responded to fresh geopolitical tensions.

The US president on Friday proposed a 50% tariff on all EU imports starting June 1, 2025, in a post on Truth Social. He cited trade imbalances and regulatory frictions as rationale for the move, declaring current EU-US trade dynamics “totally unacceptable.”

Apple is being threatened with 25% tariffs.  Wow, how free market is this?  Sounds a lot more like the old Soviet Command and Control model. Is he channeling Putin and Orban or just pissed about something Apple did at his party?  This is from CNBC. “Trump says Apple must pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S.” Does he not realize how long it would take to even set up a factory, let alone train everyone?  Doesn’t he know what this huge project would take to even break even?

President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Shares of Apple fell about 2% on Friday after the post.

Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.

Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.

This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.

“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.

Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.

Apple declined to comment for this story.

So, I’m over 4200 words and probably have put you to sleep.  You know how I am about Rabbit Holes.   How much longer before the economy collapses?  I’m actually beginning to wonder that. I know every time I see or hear him act so insane, I just collapse on the couch.

You have a very nice Memorial Day weekend. Please spend your time appreciating the many folks who gave their life for this country and its democracy.  Don’t let the ones trying to destroy it get to you.  There’s always the June 14th Flag Day “No Kings” protests and actions to look forward to and participate in.  Just don’t watch that damn parade. The least we old folks can do is tank the ratings.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How about a little Warren Zevon and Prince?

Finally Friday Reads: Backpfeifengesicht

Posted: March 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Economy, Equity Markets, FARTUS, kakistocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA Political Carnage, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“EEK!” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for “a face worthy of being slapped.”  That might be the most usable word in the dark timeline, which is the second term of (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, Traitor of the United States).  JJ found this sweet article at The Guardian and shared it with BB and me this morning. It’s an Op-Ed written by Marina Hyde about JD Vance, but it could apply to any subhuman of the modern MAGA movement. “There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing. Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit.” Ayup.

You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.

I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.

Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”

Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.

Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.

While JJ found that amusing read today. BB brought home the rancid bacon. This is an op-ed by Brett Wagner in The San Francisco Chronicle today. “Is Trump preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act? Signs are pointing that way. A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration.”

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.

Coincidence?

As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.

Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).

This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).

Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.

I bring you the reality on the ground from Joy Reid on Threads.  “This is inhumane, hideous and repugnant. If this is what MAGA America is, count me out. I’m ashamed that this is what our government is doing. Shame on them. Shame.”  What it is is a 21-year-old girl with cancer who relies completely on her immigrant mother, who is in no way a criminal or bothering anyone.  When protesters came to protest, they were arrested.  How many laws and constitutional rights can this miserable administration break before they completely break all of us?  This story comes from El Monte, California. You can read the hatred of the MAGA monsters in the threads below on YouTube. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave the house and take a chance at seeing a FARTUS supporter in my neighborhood. I’m fine with all the immigrants, though. Everything they do makes my neighborhood a better place.

“I can’t even wake up properly… she helps me, she bathes me, she changes me, she makes my food.”Deportation didn’t protect anyone it only stole a mother from the child who needs her most-Blake Coronadowww.threads.net/@blakecorona…

— Audrey (@parickards.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T23:59:31.294Z

The US Military and US Vets are under attack from this Administration. This cannot be denied.  This is from the AP this morning.  FARTUS has always had a thing against military service and those who fight for values that he seems to hate very much.  “War heroes and military firsts are among 26,000 images flagged for removal in Pentagon’s DEI purge.”  So much of this just comes as an attack against the diversity of our nation being represented in all of its institutions.  But is that really it? Why the disappearance of all people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community? Are white cis men really that sensitive?

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public, said the purge could delete as many as 100,000 images or posts in total, when considering social media pages and other websites that are also being culled for DEI content. The official said it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given the military until Wednesday to remove content that highlights diversity efforts in its ranks following President Donald Trump’s executive order ending those programs across the federal government.

The vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military. And it also removes a large number of posts that mention various commemorative months — such as those for Black and Hispanic people and women.

Are they just trying to up their odds that one will be less likely to disrupt the plan when martial law is declared?  Everything they’ve been doing shows their delight in being the worst kind of bullies. Just yesterday, they announced they will deport Ukrainians who fled to the US for safety.  We are no longer a safe harbor. Not even close. Heather Cox Richardson discusses this in detail this morning in her Substack Letters from an American.

This morning, Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke of Reuters reported that the Trump administration is preparing to deport the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s attacks on Ukraine and have temporary legal status in the United States. Foreign affairs journalist Olga Nesterova reminded Americans that “these people had to be completely financially independent, pay tax, pay all fees (around $2K) and have an affidavit from an American person to even come here.”

“This has nothing to do with strategic necessity or geopolitics,” Russia specialist Tom Nichols posted. “This is just cruelty to show [Russian president Vladimir] Putin he has a new American ally.”

The Trump administration’s turn away from traditional European alliances and toward Russia will have profound effects on U.S. standing in the world. Edward Wong and Mark Mazzetti reported in the New York Times today that senior officials in the State Department are making plans to close a dozen consulates, mostly in Western Europe, including consulates in Florence, Italy; Strasbourg, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Ponta Delgada, Portugal, as well as a consulate in Brazil and another in Turkey.

In late February, Nahal Toosi reported in Politico that President Donald Trump wants to “radically shrink” the State Department and to change its mission from diplomacy and soft power initiatives that advance democracy and human rights to focusing on transactional agreements with other governments and promoting foreign investment in the U.S.

Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” have taken on the process of cutting the State Department budget by as much as 20%, and cutting at least some of the department’s 80,000 employees. As part of that project, DOGE’s Edward Coristine, known publicly as “Big Balls,” is embedded at the State Department.

As the U.S. retreats from its engagement with the world, China has been working to forge greater ties. China now has more global diplomatic posts than the U.S. and plays a stronger role in international organizations. Already in 2025, about 700 employees, including 450 career diplomats, have resigned from the State Department, a number that normally would reflect a year’s resignations.

Shutting embassies will hamper not just the process of fostering goodwill, but also U.S. intelligence, as embassies house officers who monitor terrorism, infectious disease, trade, commerce, militaries, and government, including those from the intelligence community. U.S. intelligence has always been formidable, but the administration appears to be weakening it.

Trump, bitcoin, political cartoon

We’re being turned into part of the Trump Grift Mafia.  Nothing will be left standing of any of the good we have done in the world. This is neocolonialism and neomercantilism.  We’ve retreated to some of the worst historical ideologies ever.  The most symbolic thing happened yesterday. The latest Space X project blew up in the sky and shut down many flights yesterday. “Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports. The video showed the upper stage of the most powerful rocket ever built spinning out of control in space, a repeat of an unsuccessful test flight in January that led to debris falling over the Caribbean.”  This is what we’re spending money for?  Elonia is pushing his company to the brink of getting to Mars and looking down at the rest of us. The report is from The New York Times‘s Kenneth Chang.

Starship — the huge spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — failed during its latest test flight on Thursday when its upper stage exploded in space, raining debris and disrupting air traffic at airports from Florida to Pennsylvania.

It was the second consecutive test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built where the upper-stage spacecraft malfunctioned. It started spinning out of control after several engines went out and then lost contact with mission control.

Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.

The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built. At 403 feet tall, it is nearly 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty atop its pedestal.

It has the most engines ever in a rocket booster: The Super Heavy booster is powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor engines. As those engines lift Starship off the launchpad, they will generate 16 million pounds of thrust at full throttle.

The upper part, also called Starship or Ship for short, looks like a shiny rocket from science fiction movies of the 1950s, is made of stainless steel with large fins. This is the upper stage that will head toward orbit, and ultimately could carry people to the moon or even Mars.

The rocket lifted off a little after 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday from the SpaceX site known as Starbase at the southern tip of Texas near the city of Brownsville.

Starship’s mammoth booster again successfully returned to the launchpad, just as it had during the previous test flight. In the last half minute before the upper-stage engines were to shut off, several of them malfunctioned. Video from the rocket showed a tumbling view of Earth and space until it cut off.

Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote this analysis for The Atlantic. “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence.  The president, who has flirted with regal rhetoric, wants a historic copy of America’s founding document placed in the Oval Office.”

Long live the king!

Down with the king!

President Donald Trump sees the appeal of both.

Trump jokingly declared himself a sovereign last month, while his advisers distributed AI-generated photos of him wearing a crown and an ermine robe to celebrate his order to end congestion pricing in New York City. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he’d decreed a few days earlier, using a phrase sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of the French.

I had no idea one of my greats who signed the Declaration had made of the copies of it.  But the weird thing here is that Trump seriously wants the document to hang in the Oval Office.  My question is, why take it from the people who can see it in the archives?

Since returning to power, Trump has moved quickly to redesign his working space. He has announced plans to pave over the Rose Garden to make it more like the patio at his private Mar-a-Lago club, as well as easier to host events with women wearing heels. He has also revived planning for a new ballroom on the White House grounds. “It keeps my real-estate juices flowing,” Trump explained in a recent interview with The Spectator.

Golden trophies now line the Oval Office’s mantlepiece. Military flags adorned with campaign streamers have returned. And portraits of presidents past now climb the walls—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, among others. Gilded mirrors hang upon the recessed doors. A framed copy of his Georgia mug shot appears in the outside hallway. And the bright-red valet button, encased in a wooden box, is back on the desk.

In addition to the National Archives’ original Declaration, the government has in its possession other versions of the document. The collection includes drafts by Jefferson and copies of contemporaneous reprintings, known as broadsides, that were distributed among the colonies.

Alarmed by the deterioration of the original Declaration in the 1820s, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned William J. Stone to create an engraving of it with the signatures appended. That version forms the basis of the document since reproduced in school history books—the one with which most Americans are familiar. Adams tasked Stone with engraving 200 copies—but in what passes for a mini 19th-century scandal, Stone made an extra facsimile to keep for himself, the documents dealer and expert Seth Kaller told us.

Many of those Stone copies of the document have now been lost; roughly 50 are known to survive, Kaller said. The White House already has in its archives at least one of the Stone printings. Kaller told us that one of his clients who had recently purchased a Stone facsimile was visiting the White House when President Barack Obama asked him whether he could help procure a Stone printing for the White House.

“The client called me, and I said, ‘I can’t—because, one, there aren’t any others on the market right now, and two, the White House already has one,’” Kaller told us. In 2014, Kaller visited the White House to view the Stone Declaration, which the curator displayed for him in one of the West Wing’s rooms. (The White House curator’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including on whether the Stone copy still resides under its purview.)

It is unclear where Trump first got the idea to add a Declaration to the Oval Office’s decor. Since returning, Trump has shown interest in the planning for celebrations next year of the 250th anniversary of the document’s signing. Days after taking office, he issued an executive order to create “Task Force 250,” a White House commission that will work with another congressionally formed commission to plan the festivities.

I hope he’s not trying to go with one of those grandiose military parades again.  And if he does, will he eliminate everyone but the white guys?  It can’t be anything other than another way for him to get attention, that’s for sure.  Again, this all continues to be an appalling cosplay of how FARTUS wants to view himself in relation to his imagined ideas of American History.  I can’t even with the economy today.  Just know he’s changed his mind on tariffs again for Canada and Mexico, and employment figures are worsening. He’s turned a strong economy into a weak one in a matter of weeks.  He’s also shaken the Equity markets to their core.  What’s on is this:  “Trump’s “Crypto Reserve” is a world historical grift. Corruption doesn’t get much more blatant than this.”  My Finance Daughter and I both find crypto to be a huge Ponzi scheme. I lecture against it.  She doesn’t consider it a product that brokers should be involved in.  In short, we stay as far away as possible.  But, you know, grifters gotta grift.  This is from Public Notice.

Authoritarian regimes by definition have no accountability to voters or the public. That means autocrats and their cronies can gorge themselves at the public trough and blatantly steal from taxpayers with few if any consequences.

It’s not really a surprise, then, that as part of his authoritarian power grab, Trump has embraced brazen and open self-dealing. The most ludicrous example of this is the scheme he announced last Sunday for a national crypto reserve.

As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?

Trump, fresh off avoiding 88 felony charges, obviously feels confident that the answer is “no one.”

Government on the blockchain

Crypto refers to digital currencies which are generated and stored in a digital ledger, or blockchain. In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.

Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”

During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.

Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.

Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.

If you have any questions about any of this, I’d be glad to try to answer them.  Seeing such craziness in our economic policy has been hard on me. I’m just waiting for the major attack on the Federal Reserve Bank. They’re the only ones that bring credibility to the dollar these days, and I’m afraid he’ll have a go at them. The mess at the Treasury is already impacting the banking business.  Don’t even get me started on the Budget Crisis, either.  I’m tired of the repeats of that one by disingenuous Republicans.

I hope all of you can close your doors and stay sane inside the one place you can control, home. I have a few more tests next week, so I will be out at clinics again, being poked and prodded.  This weekend, I will just relax and try to avoid the ever-changing Trump Surreality Show.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

Mostly Monday Reads: VIllainy! Winning!

Posted: March 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, American Fascists, Equity Markets, kakistocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA Political Carnage, Political and Editorial Cartoons, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge | Tags: , , , , , | 13 Comments

“Honorable Douche Member.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Once again, the transformation of American democracy into a theocratic fascist state–which once was unimaginable–is shaking global confidence. The closing argument came Friday when 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 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 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?