Mostly Monday Reads: A Big, Ugly Mess
Posted: May 19, 2025 Filed under: A thread for Ranting, Agency Purges, Banksters, Broligarchy, democracy is threatened, Joe Biden, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, New Orleans, Polycrisis | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Big Beautiful Bill, China Dumps T-Bonds, Eat the Rich, FARTUS, Major Disruption in the Polar Vortex, Medicaid Cuts, New Orleans Bubble Day, No Kings Day, No Kings protest over #FARTUS parade, Trump budget destroys medicaid, Trump tax cuts for the rich 9 Comments
“Relax, it’s just a cartoon. I know he can’t do yoga.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
As you know, I’m a nerd on all levels. I was catching up on my usual rabbit holes. The last thing I was reading was in the category of weather and climate change, and a major disruption in the polar vortex that will drastically change the weather from here on out. It’s slid off the North Pole and is moving over Northern Europe. That was after I was reading about this equally major disruption in the global economy. “China Dumps $18,900,000,000 in Treasuries as US Government Faces Major Dilemma: Macro Analyst Luke Gromen.” I’m now working on “In late-night vote, Republicans move closer to pushing Trump agenda bill through House. GOP officials are scrambling to advance massive tax breaks and dramatic Medicaid cuts, and it’s worth appreciating why they’re in such a rush,” written by Steve Benen.
Here in New Orleans, we had a Big Bubble Protest because of some rich guy that moved to the Quarter last year and has filed no less than 15 Criminal complaints over a bubble machine on the balcony of a restaurant that’s been there for over ten years. He thinks that the bubbles will ruin his Porsche and poison his drink when he imbibes on his balcony. This is the typical New Orleans gentrifier. He comes from someplace and expects New Orleans to accommodate his burbie weirdness. Just another old rich white guy trying to rule the world.
Meanwhile, Trump was posting madly early in the morning about every big music star that ever rejected him. That’s right before he’s supposed to be meeting with Putin and Zelensky over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Joe Biden has cancer, and Junior’s been hitting Truth Social and drugs at the same time.
All I can do is quote Chief Meteorologist Emeritus for Channel 2 Action News’ Severe Weather Team 2. AMS certified Glenn Burns. He was talking about the Polar Vortex, but it applies to everything these days. “Nothing is like it used to be anymore.”
You can go read about the selfies of Trump with the Waffle House Toilet guys for yourself. Yes, it’s up there on the Daily Mail.
No wonder the Polar Vortex doesn’t want to be near the United States anymore. Who would?
There are a lot of improvements we need in this country, but none of this stands as necessary or wanted. I love this float pic but think Senator Duckworth’s label Cadet Bone Spurs is more appropriate since Yam Tits would have never made it to a rank of sargent. But, yes, we’re getting a big, beautiful parade. It’s going to cost millions. This rather makes it official. We’re a damn Banana Republic. But the best thing is that pissed-off Americans are once more taking to the streets with placards and protests. This is from lawyermonthly. ““No Kings Day” Protests Set to Disrupt Trump’s $45M Birthday Military Parade.”
On June 14, a date that commemorates both the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army and the 79th birthday of former President Donald J. Trump, the streets of the nation’s capital are expected to swell, not only with tanks, soldiers, and fighter jets, but with thousands of protestors prepared to send a very different message.
In a show of political theater unprecedented in recent years, Trump and his allies are staging what they’ve dubbed a “patriotic celebration,” complete with more than 6,000 uniformed troops, 150 military vehicles, and a dramatic aerial flyover.
The event, organizers say, is intended to honor America’s armed forces. Critics, however, see something more troubling: a public spectacle designed to cement the image of Trump as commander-in-chief, long after leaving office.
But while the parade commands the headlines, another force is quietly gaining momentum and it’s aiming to steal the spotlight.
Born from frustration and sharpened by years of political tension, a broad coalition of advocacy groups is organizing a massive counter-movement under the banner “No Kings Day.”
It’s not just a protest, they say. It’s a rejection of the authoritarian imagery they believe the parade represents.
Organizers from groups including the 50501 Movement and Refuse Fascism say they’re mobilizing demonstrations in over 100 cities nationwide, with Washington, D.C. serving as the focal point.
Estimates suggest between 10,000 to 20,000 demonstrators will gather in Meridian Hill Park before marching toward the National Mall.
“It’s not about hating Trump, it’s about preserving democracy,” said Angela V., a volunteer coordinator in Maryland who’s helping coordinate buses into the city. “We can’t normalize tanks in the streets every time a former president wants a birthday party.”
Though the name “No Kings Day” may sound theatrical, the intentions behind it are serious.
Protestors plan to highlight what they see as Trump’s attempts to centralize power and glamorize military dominance, particularly during a time when the former president faces multiple indictments related to election interference, classified documents, and alleged abuse of power.
How about we use that $45 million plus whatever it costs to undo the damage Washington D.C. roads to fund the Veterans’ services cut by that ugly budget winding its way to the Senate today? Economist Paul Krugman–writing at his substack–colorfully describes the budget process as “Attack of the Sadistic Zombies. The GOP budget is incredibly cruel — and that’s the point.” Sounds a lot like the guy who doesn’t want bubbles in his drink or on his Porsche.
Republicans in Congress, taking their marching orders from Donald Trump, are on track to enact a hugely regressive budget — big tax giveaways to the wealthy combined with cruel cuts in programs that serve lower-income Americans. True, the legislation suffered a setback last week, initially failing to make it out of committee. But that was largely because some right-wing Republicans didn’t think the benefit cuts were vicious enough.
OK, news at 11. Isn’t this what Republicans always do? But this reconciliation bill — that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can’t be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes — is different in both degree and kind from what we’ve seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards. Furthermore, the way that cruelty will be implemented is notable for its reliance on claims we know aren’t true and policies we know won’t work — what some of us call zombie ideas.
And it’s hard to avoid the sense that the counterproductive viciousness is actually the point. Think of what we’re seeing as the attack of the sadistic zombies.
To get a sense of how extreme this legislation is, do a side-by-side comparison of the impact on different groups of Americans between this bill and Trump’s one major legislative achievement during his first term, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It looks like this:
Source: Tax Policy Center and Penn-Wharton Budget Model
The TCJA, like the current legislation, gave big tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. But it also threw a few crumbs to people further down the scale. By contrast, the House Reconciliation Bill, by slashing benefits — especially Medicaid — will cause immense, almost inconceivable hardship to the bottom 40 percent of Americans, especially the poorest fifth.
Medicaid, in case anyone needs reminding, is the national health insurance program for low-income Americans who probably don’t have any other way to pay for medical care. In 2023 Medicaid covered 69 million Americans, far more than Medicare (which covers seniors), including 39 percent of children.
Providing health care to children, by the way, isn’t just about social justice and basic decency. It’s also good economics: Children who receive adequate care grow up to be more productive adults. Among other things they end up paying more taxes, so Medicaid for children almost surely pays for itself.
And although Republican legislation apparently won’t explicitly target childrens’ care, it will impose paperwork requirements that will cause both children and their parents to lose coverage.
Here’s some analysis of the late-night passage of the bill on the substack of Heather Cox Richardson, historian. ‘
Tonight, late on a Sunday night, the House Budget Committee passed what Republicans are calling their “Big, Beautiful Bill” to enact Trump’s agenda although it had failed on Friday when far-right Republicans voted against it, complaining it did not make deep enough cuts to social programs.
The vote tonight was a strict party line vote, with 16 Democrats voting against the measure, 17 Republicans voting for it, and 4 far right Republicans voting “present.” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said there would be “minor modifications” to the measure; Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) wrote on X that those changes include new work requirements for Medicaid and cuts to green energy subsidies.
And so the bill moves forward.
In The Bulwark today, Jonathan Cohn noted that Republicans are in a tearing hurry to push that Big, Beautiful Bill through Congress before most of us can get a handle on what’s in it. Just a week ago, Cohn notes, there was still no specific language in the measure. Republican leaders didn’t release the piece of the massive bill that would cut Medicaid until last Sunday night and then announced the Committee on Energy and Commerce would take it up not even a full two days later, on Tuesday, before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could produce a detailed analysis of the cost of the proposals. The committee markup happened in a 26-hour marathon in which the parts about Medicaid happened in the middle of the night. And now, the bill moves forward in an unusual meeting late on a Sunday night.
Cohn recalls that in 2009, when the Democrats were pushing the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare, that measure had months of public debate before it went to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. That committee held eight separate hearings about healthcare reform, and it was just one of three committees working on the issue. The ACA markup took a full two weeks.
Cohn explains that Medicaid cuts are extremely unpopular, and the Republicans hope to jam those cuts through by claiming they are cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse” without leaving enough time for scrutiny. Cohn points out that if they are truly interested in savings, they could turn instead to the privatized part of Medicare, Medicare Advantage The Congressional Budget Office estimates that cutting overpayments to Medicare Advantage when private insurers “upcode” care to place patients in a higher risk bracket, could save more than $1 trillion over the next decade.
Instead of saving money, the Big, Beautiful Bill actually blows the budget deficit wide open by extending the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that those extensions would cost at least $4.6 trillion over the next ten years. And while the tax cuts would go into effect immediately, the cuts to Medicaid are currently scheduled not to hit until 2029, enabling the Republicans to avoid voter fury over them in the midterms and the 2028 election.
The prospect of that debt explosion led Moody’s on Friday to downgrade U.S. credit for the first time since 1917, following Fitch, which downgraded the U.S. rating in 2023, and Standard & Poor’s, which did so back in 2011. “If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is extended, which is our base case,” Moody’s explained, “it will add around $4 trillion to the federal fiscal primary (excluding interest payments) deficit over the next decade. As a result, we expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending and relatively low revenue generation.”
Steven Beschloss calls for more activism today at his substack, America, America. “Heeding the Warnings! We must avoid normalcy bias, expand our imagination, and both recognize and confront the fascistic danger of the Trump regime.”
Last week On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder warned that the second 100 days of the Trump regime could entail a dangerous escalation that includes some kind of terrorist attack. Imagining this can be hard; it’s understandable to ignore such a warning since it’s not yet true, it’s unpleasant to consider—and yes, it may not happen.
But it’s worth listening to what this historian of authoritarian regimes envisions—a warning layered with advice on how to prepare and how to respond. “I think it’s very important to expect there will now be exogenous surprises,” he said in a short video, including the “bottom falling out” of the economy because of the tariffs, “a major disruption” within the U.S. or even some kind of terrorist attack.
“Don’t fall for language about extremism or terrorism,” Snyder urged if it happens. He also emphasized the importance of staying calm, being active and sticking together. “Be aware that this is the pretext that will be used to push things further…use it as an opportunity to hold the people responsible who should be taking responsibility.”
This mirrors what he said in one of the final chapters of his short book that offers lessons to prepare, one entitled “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.” His thinking draws on the Reichstag Fire staged by Hitler and the Nazis in 1933.
Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.
As he notes in a Substack piece published last month about the possibility of such an attack, “The people in the White House have no governing skills, but they do have entertainment skills. They will seek to transform themselves from the villains of the story to the heroes, and in the process bring down the republic.”
None of us know if such an attack will happen. But I agree with Snyder that it’s important to expand our imaginations and be prepared if it does. That means not falling victim to normalcy bias.
Yes, millions of Americans failed to grasp the potential for disaster and crisis if Donald Trump were to occupy the White House again. But rather than look backward and rue that misfortune, let’s look forward and do what we can.
Warn the people we know. Warn the people we meet. Reach out on social media and email to our friends and communities. Contact our elected officials. Participate in public demonstrations and bring friends with us.
Let them all know this is an emergency—no time for business as usual and old ways of doing things. There’s an arsonist in the White House aggressively seeking to end our constitutional republic, free speech and the rule of law. And let’s not lose sight of our collective power to ensure that the Trump regime’s desired trajectory is not inevitable.
The Financial Markets are reeling. This is from NYT. “Markets Rattled on Concerns About U.S. Debt. Stocks fell, the dollar slipped, and bond yields jumped after a rating downgrade highlighted worries about the cost of President Trump’s policies and the health of the economy.”
Turbulent trading hit financial markets on Monday, with investors selling U.S. stocks and bonds and the dollar, an ugly combination that suggests sentiment is souring on the outlook for the world’s largest economy.
The S&P 500 index fell about 1 percent in early trading in New York. Bond markets shuddered, with U.S. Treasury prices falling and their yields, which underpin interest rates across the economy, rising. The 10-year yield jumped a tenth of a percentage point, a large move in that market, to 4.54 percent. The dollar also fell, with a gauge of its value against other major currencies slipping 0.8 percent.
One factor jarring markets is a bill in Congress that would make President Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts permanent and could add trillions of dollars to federal debt. A House committee voted to approve the bill Sunday night, although it was expected to remain a focus of contentious congressional debate.
The United States’ loss of its last triple-A credit rating late on Friday and mounting concerns about government debt have threatened to disrupt the relative calm in markets that has prevailed since Mr. Trump paused many of his tariffs in recent weeks.
In downgrading the U.S. credit rating, Moody’s cited the tax cut legislation along with broader concerns about the fiscal deficit and growing debt costs. The move by Moody’s means that all three major rating agencies no longer consider the United States qualified for their top credit ratings.
The U.S. credit rating downgrade and worries about debt and deficits could further upset financial markets if they begin to shake the safe-haven status of Treasury bonds. That would likely spur global investors to demand higher premiums in return for buying U.S. debt.
On Monday, the 30-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level in a year and a half, above 5 percent.
The market has yet to fully absorb the Treasury Bond Dump by China. This is from the Daily HODL (News and Insight for the Digital Economy). Yes, I’m getting seriously nerdy for you know. This is the kind of stuff that drives my research and derivatives class lectures. This is the stuff that should frighten everyone if they ever knew about it. “China Dumps $18,900,000,000 in Treasuries as US Government Faces Major Dilemma: Macro Analyst Luke Gromen.”
Macro investor Luke Gromen warns that the countries buying more USTs won’t be able to simultaneously buy more American-manufactured goods, further hurting America’s trade deficit that President Trump has promised to address.
Says Gromen,
“Foreign UST holdings rose $133 billion Mar vs. Feb.
UK, Caymans, and Canada were $86 billion of that $133 billion; China sold $19 billion.
UK surpassed China as the 2nd biggest US foreign creditor for 1st time ever in March.
Cayman Islands (pop. ~73,000) is now the fourth biggest US foreign creditor at $455 billion…
How are they going to buy both USTs and more goods from America going forward?”
Analysts reportedly told Reuters that Chinese holdings of USTs have been in a downward trajectory since 2018, even though foreign holdings of Treasuries surged to an all-time high of $9.05 trillion in March.
That means our exports will go down in many of the countries. It’s damned recessionary. Also, if the price of bonds goes down because a country dumps their portfolio of treasuries, the interest rates go up. It will be truly interesting to see what the Fed does with this. Then there’s this. I bet Senator Warren is apoplectic. This report comes from The Guardian. You remember how fun that crash was. “US reportedly plans to slash bank rules imposed to prevent 2008-style crash. Watchdogs could cut capital rules as Trump’s deregulation drive opens door to rollback of post-crisis protections.”
US watchdogs are reportedly planning to slash capital rules for banks designed to prevent another 2008-style crash, as Donald Trump’s deregulation drive opens the door to the biggest rollback of post-crisis protections in more than a decade.
The move follows heavy lobbying by the banking industry, with lenders such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs having long complained that competition and lending have been hindered by burdensome rules governing the assets they must hold versus their liabilities.
Regulators are expected to put forward the proposals this summer, aimed at cutting the supplementary leverage ratio that requires big banks to hold high-quality capital against risky assets including loans and derivatives, according to the Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources.
The rules came into force after the 2008 financial crisis, as part of efforts to shockproof the banking system and avoid damaging ripple effects that could cause another global economic meltdown. The crisis forced governments to spend billions of dollars bailing out big lenders that took too much risk.
Changes to bank capital rules have been widely expected, with Trump having promised a bonfire of regulation during his second term in office, with plans to slash 10 regulations for every new one added.
While some critics warn it is the wrong time to slash protections, given growing uncertainty over policy overhauls and market volatility, banks seem to have won the ear of policymakers. Lobbyists have long argued that the rules punish them for holding relatively low-risk assets including US debt, known as treasuries, and hinders their ability to provide more loans.
I just want to wish Former President the best as he struggles with cancer. I know how that feels. I’m 35 years out from a stage 4 cancer episode. It transforms how you see time. “President Biden has metastatic prostate cancer. Here’s what you should know,” via CNN. He will receive top-quality cancer treatment and has a wonderful supportive family. All of this will help him. He’s also one tough cookie.
President Joe Biden’s diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer has understandably raised concerns and questions: How long has he had cancer, how will he be treated, and what is his prognosis?
As a urologist, I regularly diagnose prostate cancer in my patients, and each time I share the diagnosis with them and their family, it’s never easy. Over time, I’ve learned the importance of keeping conversations simple and straightforward — avoiding sugar-coating and instead using data, statistics and personal experience to help patients begin their cancer journey.
As his public announcement draws attention to this type of cancer, it’s a reminder to regularly check on your own health. Here’s what you need to know about metastatic prostate cancer: how it’s detected, what treatments look like, and why early screening remains essential for men’s health.
The former president’s diagnosis began after he experienced “increasing urinary symptoms,” his office said, and a prostate nodule was discovered.
…
“Metastatic” means the cancer cells have spread beyond the original location (the prostate gland) into other areas — most commonly bones and lymph nodes. Biden’s cancer has specifically spread to his bones, placing him among the 5% to 7% of prostate cancer cases in the United States that are metastatic at initial diagnosis. While this percentage seems small, it represents a significant number given that over 300,000 men in the US and approximately 1.5 million worldwide are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year.
Early-stage prostate cancer carries an excellent prognosis, with nearly a 100% five-year survival rate. However, when prostate cancer is metastatic at diagnosis, the five-year survival rate drops sharply to around 37%. Importantly, these survival rates are statistical averages, and individual outcomes vary considerably based on overall health, age, cancer aggressiveness, and how well a patient responds to treatment.
All of the #FARTUS policies add up to a big mess for the economy. It’s driving me back to research again. But right now, I guess I’ll go blow some bubbles for a while.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Night Reads: Disappearing Democracy
Posted: May 9, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS, due process, Habeas Corpus | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Bring Kilmer Home!, due process, FARTUS, Habeas Corpus, Illegal Deportations 6 Comments
“Blockbuster Trade Announcement.” John Buss @repeat 1968
Good Evening, Sky Dancers!
I was late getting this post started today. I’ve had two doctor’s appointments the last two days, and I’m just exhausted. I guess I have one more test to go next week, and they’re leaving me alone until September. The good news is that I finally got to pick up my new glasses, so I can see clearly now! There is so much news today surrounding habeas corpus and free speech that I can’t believe what I’m seeing live on TV. I’m going to start with this headline from PBS. “WATCH: Stephen Miller says Trump administration is ‘actively looking at’ suspending habeas corpus.”
Stephen Miller, a top White House adviser, said the administration is looking for ways to expand its legal power to deport migrants who are in the country illegally.
Watch Miller’s remarks in the video player above.
“The Constitution is clear — and that of course is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” he told reporters. “So it’s an option that we’re actively looking at.”
Miller added that “a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
Habeas corpus refers to people’s right to challenge their detention in court.
This, of course, is completely false, but that never matters to any of the Psychopaths surrounding #FARTUS. Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at Georgetown University, writes this at his Substack One First. “148. Suspending Habeas Corpus. In response to adverse rulings in numerous immigration cases, Stephen Miller is raising the specter of suspending habeas. His argument is factually and legally nuts, but it’s worth explaining *why.*”
“I was going to wait until Monday’s regular issue to note the sad news out of the Supreme Court on Friday (that retired Justice David Souter passed away Thursday at the age of 85). But then Stephen Miller went on television Friday afternoon and made some of the most remarkable (and remarkably scary) comments about federal courts that I think we’ve ever heard from a senior White House official. Reacting to a series of high-profile losses in immigration cases this week, Miller raised the specter of President Trump suspending habeas corpus:
Well, the Constitution is clear. And that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So … that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that’s the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases. So Congress actually passed what’s called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren’t even allowed to be involved in immigration cases.
I know there’s a lot going on, and that Miller says lots of incendiary (and blatantly false) stuff. But this strikes me as raising the temperature to a whole new level—and thus meriting a brief explanation of all of the ways in which this statement is both (1) wrong; and (2) profoundly dangerous. Specifically, it seems worth making five basic points:
First, the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which is in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 is meant to limit the circumstances in which habeas can be foreclosed (Article I, Section 9 includes limits on Congress’s powers)—thereby ensuring that judicial review of detentions are otherwise available. (Note that it’s in the original Constitution—adopted before even the Bill of Rights.) I spent a good chunk of the first half of my career writing about habeas and its history, but the short version is that the Founders were hell-bent on limiting, to the most egregious emergencies, the circumstances in which courts could be cut out of the loop. To casually suggest that habeas might be suspended because courts have ruled against the executive branch in a handful of immigration cases is to turn the Suspension Clause entirely on its head.
Second, Miller is being slippery about the actual text of the Constitution (notwithstanding his claim that it is “clear”). The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This last part, with my emphasis, is not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn’t enough. Releasing someone like Rümeysa Öztürk from immigration detention poses no threat to public safety—all the more so when the release is predicated on a judicial determination that Ozturk … poses no threat to public safety.
Third, even if the textual triggers for suspending habeas corpus were satisfied, Miller also doesn’t deign to mention that the near-universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the President are per se unconstitutional. I’ve written before about the Merryman case at the outset of the Civil War, which provides perhaps the strongest possible counterexample: that the President might be able to claim a unilateral suspension power if Congress is out of session (as it was from the outset of the Civil War in 1861 until July 4). Whatever the merits of that argument, it clearly has no applicability at this moment.
Fourth, Miller is wrong, as a matter of fact,about the relationship between Article III courts (our usual federal courts) and immigration cases. It’s true that the Immigration and Nationality Act (especially as amended in 1996 and 2005) includes a series of “jurisdiction-stripping” provisions. But most of those provisions simply channel judicial review in immigration cases into immigration courts (which are part of the executive branch) in the first instance, with appeals to Article III courts. And as the district courts (and Second Circuit) have explained in cases like Khalil and Öztürk, even those provisions don’t categorically preclude any review by Article III courts prior to those appeals.
There’s more at the link. Here’s the bottom line from NBC News and Dan Mangam. “Top White House adviser Stephen Miller says ‘we’re actively looking at’ suspending due process for migrants. The “privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an action we’re actively looking at,” Miller told reporters outside the White House.” How on earth they keep insisting that immigration is an invasion is beyond me.
Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller told reporters Friday that the administration is “looking at” ways to end due process protections for unauthorized immigrants who are in the country.
“The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an action we’re actively looking at,” Miller said in the White House driveway.
“A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Miller said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on whether he was referring to a specific group of people who’ve entered the country illegally, or all the people who have. It also did not comment on what he meant by the courts doing “the right thing.”
In his remarks, Miller maintained that the courts don’t have jurisdiction in immigration cases. “The courts aren’t just at war with the executive branch; the courts are at war, these radical rogue judges, with the legislative branch as well too. So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes,” he said.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced frustration about constitutional due process protections slowing down his efforts at mass deportations.
“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said in an interview with Kristen Welker that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Welker pointed out the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights, but Trump complained that those protections take too much time.
“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said, adding that some of the people the administration wants to deport are “murderers” and “drug dealers.”
Welker then asked if he needs to uphold the Constitution.
“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
A clause in the Constitution says due process protections can be suspended during an invasion: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Trump claimed the U.S. was being invaded back in March, when he invoked the rarely used Alien Enemies Act to send alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador.
What really held me up in writing this by the time I got home was watching ICE thugs rough up an 80-year-old congresswoman and arrest the Mayor of Newark. This is from the AP, which is the news organization that refuses to go along with renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which was named 500 years ago. #FARTUS reminds me of some prehuman creature picked up by explorers in some version of the Land Time Forgot. Kristen Noem is the enforcer in just about any movie about a fascist dystopian you’ve ever seen. It’s ICE ICE BABY. “New Jersey mayor arrested at ICE detention center where he was protesting, prosecutor says.” Which century and country do we live in these days?
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday at a federal immigration detention center where he has been protesting its opening this week, a federal prosecutor said.
Alina Habba, interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said on the social platform X that Baraka committed trespass and ignored warnings from Homeland Security personnel to leave Delaney Hall, a detention facility run by private prison operator GEO Group.
Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law” and added that he was taken into custody.
Baraka, a Democrat who is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, has embraced the fight with the Trump administration over illegal immigration.
He has aggressively pushed back against the construction and opening of the 1,000-bed detention center, arguing that it should not be allowed to open because of building permit issues.
Linda Baraka, the mayor’s wife, accused the federal government of targeting her husband.
“They didn’t arrest anyone else. They didn’t ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example out of the mayor,” she said, adding that she had not been allowed to see him.
A crowd gathered to protest outside the building where Baraka was being held, with many chanting, “Let the mayor go!”
Witnesses said the arrest came after Baraka attempted to join three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, Reps. Robert Menendez, LaMonica McIver, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, in attempting to enter the facility.
So if you want the laughable and extremely sad headline today from our GOOBERment, here it is from Homeland Security. “Members of Congress Break into Delaney Hall Detention Center, Delaney Hall Currently Holds Murderers, Rapists, Suspected Terrorists, and Gang Members. “ How exactly do we know all that if none of them have been before a court yet? I’m not going to excerpt that, but do recommend you read this and realize it’s from OUR government.
Here’s Insider NJ with a more truthful angle. “Reps. Watson Coleman, McIver, Menendez, Exercise Oversight Authority in Visit to ICE Detention Facility.” I watched the entire event live on MSNBC today. Again, it’s why I was even later than I originally had planned to be today. I was watching and listening to the representatives demand that the masked ICE thugs take their hands off them.
Today, following an inspection of the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey with Reps. LaMonica McIver and Robert Menendez, Jr., Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman released the following statement:
“At around 1pm today, my colleagues Rep. Lamonica McIver and Rep. Rob Menendez, Jr. and I arrived at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark to exercise our oversight authority as Members of Congress.
“Contrary to a press statement put out by DHS we did not “storm” the detention center. The author of that press release was so unfamiliar with the facts on the ground that they didn’t even correctly count the number of Representatives present. We were exercising our legal oversight function as we have done at the Elizabeth Detention Center without incident.
“Reopening Delaney Hall won’t make us safer and it won’t create an immigration system that is fair and secure for all families.
“Private Prison companies like GEO Group create a perverse incentive to increase incarceration to increase corporate profits. It’s no accident that GEO Group was the first corporation to max out donations to Trump’s Super PAC, to the tune of $500,000 dollars. And they’re being rewarded with huge contracts to imprison immigrants like we’re seeing here at Delaney.
“New Jerseyans don’t want more private prisons just to increase shareholder income at the expense of taxpayers. They want a fair and secure immigration system that reflects our values and respects our Constitution.”
Meanwhile, judges continue to free students arrested by ICE under the weird ass interpretations of Habeas Corpus put forth by Miller. “She was arrested for an op-ed. Now a judge has ordered her freed. Her detention “chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens,” a federal judge said.” This is from VOX’s Andrew Prokop.
A Trump administration spokesperson anonymously claimed in March that “DHS and ICE investigations found Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas.” But to this day they have conspicuously failed to produce any evidence of that — including, when Öztürk filed suit, before a judge.
What did the judge say? Judge William Sessions III ordered Öztürk released “immediately.” Ruling from the bench, he sounded appalled by the Trump administration’s conduct, which he said “chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens.”
He said Öztürk had made “very substantial claims of First Amendment and due process violations,” and that, furthermore, the government had offered “no evidence” about their motivation for detaining her other than the op-ed
Is this case over, then? No. Öztürk was ordered released from detention. But the question of whether the US government can legally revoke her visa remains unresolved. While Sessions sounds very likely to rule in her favor, it’s unclear if conservatives on the Supreme Court will do the same, should the case reach them. Still, this case has been an embarrassment to the Trump administration, and perhaps there’s a faint glimmer of hope they’ll decide to just drop it. Too optimistic? Probably.
Films of her release from the Louisiana ICE Detention Center have been shown on all the news stations today. Meanwhile, WAPO reports that “ICE moves detainees to Texas facility where judge declined to halt deportations. One Philadelphia man was transferred to Texas in apparent violation of a court order requiring that he be kept in Pennsylvania as his case played out there.”
As the Trump administration battles to use awartime law to speed deportationsof alleged gang members, it has moved dozens of detained Venezuelans to the one court district in the nation where a federal judge for now has declined to stand in its way.
U.S. District Judge Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee sitting in the Northern District of Texas, refusedlast month to pause removals under the Alien Enemies Act of detainees who the government says are affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang — even as judges in Colorado, Pennsylvania, New York and other parts of Texas have done so.
The administration views Hendrix’s district as a “favorable venue,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Tim Macdonald alleged at a recent court hearing in Denver. He and other immigrant advocates say the rush of relocations to the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas, has forced targeted Venezuelans to contest their removals in a court they see as ideologically aligned with the president.
“What the government was doing,” Macdonald said in the hearing, “was finding Venezuelan men, rounding them up and shipping them to the Northern District of Texas.”
The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about how many Venezuelan migrants are housed at Bluebonnet. It also would not say how many had been moved there from other facilities in recent weeks or why those transfers were made.
For now, the Supreme Court has indefinitely paused all Alien Enemies Act deportations in Hendrix’s district as it weighs whether migrants there are being given adequate opportunity to challenge their designations as “alien enemies.” The administration does not appear to have deported any migrants under the law from anywhere in the country since it first sent more than 130 Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March.
I want to end with Senator Murphy reading the riot act to Cos-Playing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. It’s really worth watching.
ABC News also had this write-up on the Senate Committee’s visit with her. “Democrats slam DHS secretary as Noem says Abrego Garcia ‘not coming back’ to US. Noem was in front of the Senate testifying on the 2026 DHS budget.”
“Senate Democrats sparred with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday over whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s spending.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, asked if the Trump administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s decision that the U.S. government must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, Noem replied that the government is following the law but didn’t say yes or no.
“What I would tell you is that we are following court order,” Noem shot back. “Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming.”
Van Hollen said he isn’t “vouching for the man” but rather due process.
“I suggest that rather than make these statements here, that you and the Trump administration make them in court under oath,” he added.
Van Hollen then accused Noem of a political speech, and Noem said she would suggest Van Hollen is an “advocate” for victims of illegal crime.
Last month, after Abrego Garcia’s family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S. The Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on April 10.
No one in this administration appears to be ready to comply with court orders to return Albrego Garcia. I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts has already offered up his balls to #FARTUS. We haven’t heard a peep from him since the court sent out the ultimatum to return Garcia.
So, there is so much here to cover that I’m hoping BB can pick up where I leave off. All of this is illegal, unconstitutional, and un-American. It’s about time someone defangs them all.
What’s on your reading and writing list?
Finally Friday Reads: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now
Posted: May 2, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, academia, American Fascists, Broligarchy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Polycrisis, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: "Is Trump waging a war on dolls? ", Are Flights in the USA Safe?, Domestic Terrorists and Judges, Donnie Two Dolls, FARTUS, PBS Funding, Trump's War on Christmas, Yam Tits, Yam Tits 100 days of oops 4 Comments
“Wow, eye-opening interview!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I’m a little late on this because I’ve finally reached the end of all these tests to figure out why I keep having to sing Feet Don’t Fail Me Now. I’m finally getting a bit of information on my poor polyneuropathic feet. It seems they likely came from the intense rounds of chemotherapy I had for the cancer I developed after my youngest was born. Anyway, I’m back from the EMG which involves a lot of needle poking and shocking your nerves. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, much like Yam Tits’ reign of terror, but now I know. I guess the best thing I can do is take a couple more supplements, so I will keep on Truckin’ here in New Orleans. Anyway, the Polycrisis continues on all fronts.
So, now is the time for all good citizens to come to the defense of Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and all the Sesame Street gang. The AP reports that “Trump signs executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR.”
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
It’s the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with. Since taking office, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agreed to eliminate diversity programs and other measures Trump has found objectionable.
The broadcasters get roughly half a billion dollars in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and have been preparing for the possibility of stiff cuts since Trump’s election, as Republicans have long complained about them.
March 20, 2017
I have to say that PBS is a mainstay of the small amount of TV viewing I actually do. Master Piece Theater has been a staple of my viewing since University, and my daughters grew up with Mr Rodgers, Sesame Street, and my youngest was addicted to Barney and Friends. My mother always watched all the Detective Shows they ever showed, including Mystery Theater. It’s where I learned to love Dr. Who and Monty Python. I can’t even imagine #FARTUS has even seen any of those shows. The actual Federal Spending on the public networks is very small. They get most of their money from corporate sponsorship and their viewers. The amount going to Elon Musk’s enterprises is huge. You can view the funding numbers for PBS at this link: “Frequently Asked Questions about Support.”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) receives a congressional appropriation each year of about $500M. CPB allocates the appropriation mostly to public television and radio stations, with some assigned to NPR and PBS to support national programming.
CPB funding to stations covers a portion of each’s annual operating budget (the percentage varies from station to station but as a general rule the percentage is smaller for larger market stations). Stations rely on generous donations from viewers like you, corporate sponsorships, and foundation grants to cover the rest of their operating budget.
Part of each station’s operating budget is programming dues which it pays to PBS (and NPR) for National programming like PBS News Hour.
The News Hour receives about 35% of its annual funding/budget from CPB and PBS via national programming funds – a combination of CPB appropriation funds and annual programming dues paid to PBS by stations re-allocated to programs like ours. The remaining 65% is generated from individual donations, foundation grants and corporate sponsorships.
Here’s a recent article from WAPO on the amount of Federal Funding received by Musks’ businesses. “Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding. Government infusions at key moments helped Tesla and SpaceX flourish, boosting Musk’s wealth.” Remember,nothing has ever actually blown up on Sesame Street.
Elon Musk and his cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service team have been on a mission to trim government largesse. Yet Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.
The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process,holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.
When Tesla soon after realized it was missing a crucial Environmental Protection Agency certification it needed to qualify for the loan days before Christmas, Musk went straight to the top, urging then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to intervene, according to one of thepeople. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Nearly two-thirds of the $38 billion in funds have been promised to Musk’s businesses in the past five years.
In 2024 alone, federal and local governments committed at least $6.3 billion to Musk’s companies, the highest total to date.
The total amount is probably larger: This analysis includes only publicly available contracts, omitting classified defense and intelligence work for the federal government.SpaceX has been developing spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office, the Pentagon’s spy satellite division, according to the Reuters news agency. The Wall Street Journal reported that contract was worth $1.8 billion, citing company documents.
The Post found nearly a dozen other local grants, reimbursements and tax credits where the specific amount of money is not public.
An additional 52 ongoing contracts with seven government agencies — including NASA, the Defense Department and the General Services Administration — are on track to potentially pay Musk’s companies an additional $11.8 billion over the next few years, according to The Post’s analysis.
Well, isn’t that special? Here’s a read from Politico about the pushback from NPR to Trump. “Public media executives push back against Trump targeting NPR and PBS: ‘Blatantly unlawful’. The president issued an executive order late Thursday trying to cut federal funding.”
Public media executives are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s late Thursday executive order seeking to strike federal funding for NPR and PBS, arguing it is unlawful.
Trump’s Thursday order directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit that Congress awards more than $500 million annually to fund public media, to “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law” to NPR and PBS.
“Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” she wrote.
CPB is already embroiled in a battle with the Trump administration. Earlier this week, the organization sued after Trump asserted he was removing three of the organization’s five board members.
Trump and his allies in Congress have repeatedly targeted NPR and PBS, arguing that the two outlets have a liberal bias and seeking to strip their funds.
The leaders of both organizations were hauled in front of Congress for a hearing in front of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency — a companion to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — and the FCC has launched an investigation of both’s underwriting messages.
The White House is expected to ask Congress to cancel already approved funding for public broadcasting, in what is known as a rescission request, POLITICO previously reported.
PBS Chief Executive Paula Kerger released a statement Friday in response to the president’s order, calling it “blatantly unlawful” and said the broadcaster is “exploring all options” to ensure it can continue programming across the country.
In a press release from NPR, the organization said it would “vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public” and challenge the executive order “using all means available.”
The order explicitly called on the CPB Board of Directors to end direct, indirect and future funding to the two public broadcasters. Federal funds make up about 15 percent of PBS’ annual revenue and about 1 percent of NPR’s budget every year.
Well, kids, the President says you have to scale back holiday gifts, and he doesn’t want you to access Blue’s Clues. Work it out, Wombat, Milo, and Carl the Collector. Lawrence O’Donnell is now calling him Donny Two Dolls. Martine Powers–writing for the Washington Post–has this to say. “Is Trump waging a war on dolls? The president’s call for American children to own fewer dolls sounded to some like an implicit rebuke of U.S. consumerism. It’s not his usual message.”
Call it the Great Barbie Belt-Tightening — as if that were even possible with her waistline.
President Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, might have a new target in their trade war crosshairs: dolls.
Or, more specifically, excessive numbers of dolls. Or, dolls that are not of the superior manufacturing quality befitting America’s children.
On Wednesday, Trump predicted during a Cabinet meeting that higher prices caused by tariffs will mean “children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.” The next morning, Miller doubled down in a White House briefing, suggesting that American parents agree that fewer dolls would be better.
People of all ideological stripes, from liberals to conservatives to the late Pope Francis, have cautioned against American overconsumption — and suggested that the world’s richest nation should make do with less. But Trump has never come close to espousing such a philosophy, not even in his messaging around his tariff policies, which threaten to raise prices on myriad consumer products, including dolls. In his second term, the president has decorated the Oval Office with gilded accents — and has promised repeatedly, as he did Tuesday at a political rally in Warren, Michigan, to “make America wealthy again.”
History shows that there is great political peril in asking Americans to do more with less. Just ask Jimmy Carter, the late president whom Republicans have pilloried for nearly 50 years for scolding the country to make sacrifices during the energy crisis of the late 1970s.
Plus, there are few more uniquely American icons than toy dolls. Barbie was the runaway bestseller for decades before it became a blockbuster movie in 2023. One of the most popular brands of dolls is literally called American Girl. And among the best-selling dolls are action figures marketed to boys, such as the U.S.-military-inspired G.I. Joe.
Some Democrats have suggested that Trump’s comments are an act of political self-sabotage — a bridge too far for American consumers, who don’t want to be told by a rich politician that their children should expect a smaller-than-usual stack of toys on Christmas morning.
So, you intrepid reporter wants to know if Yam Tit’s has just started an official war on Christmas? This surely looks like it. Good thing Sky Dancing Blog doesn’t rely on any federal or state funding.
If all that wasn’t depressing enough, AXIOS’ Mark Caputo has a mood-killer headline up today. “Scoop: Stephen Miller emerges as top contender for Trump’s next national security adviser.” Will one single Republican in Congress say hell, no?
Why it matters: Miller — the deputy chief of staff and the brain behind Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown — is one of the president’s longest-serving and most-trusted aides.
- Miller’s name surfaced shortly after Trump removed Mike Waltz as national security adviser on Thursday and nominated Waltz to become the next United Nations ambassador.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio is temporarily taking over Waltz’s responsibilities, but sources familiar with his thinking say he’s busy enough running the State Department.
Zoom in: Miller already is the administration’s Homeland Security adviser, and is an aggressive defender of the administration’s legal push for immediate deportations of unauthorized immigrants without court hearings.
- One White House source told Axios via text that Miller has made the Homeland Security Council run “like clockwork,” and that it’s “infinitely more effective than the NSC [National Security Council] with a tiny fraction” of the staff.
Zoom out: Trump has a penchant for putting his faith in a small number of advisers and piling responsibilities on their plate, so insiders say it wouldn’t be unusual for Miller hold multiple titles, just as Rubio does.
- “Marco and Stephen have worked really closely on immigration and it might be a perfect match,” said another White House source.
- “Given how well he’s worked with Marco, many see him as the perfect person to restore the role of the NSA to a staff-level policy role that reports to the chief of staff, instead of some inflated Cabinet position,” said another insider.
- A fourth source said Miller signaled interest in the job Thursday, but Miller couldn’t be reached for comment to confirm.
- A fifth source said Miller might not want the job “if it takes him away from his true love: immigration policy.”
What’s next: Those who understand the president’s thinking say it’s unclear how long he wants to keep Rubio as national security adviser.
-
- But one of the administration sources said that “if Stephen wants the job, it’s hard to see why Trump wouldn’t say yes.”
Judges that have made decisions against Trump continue to be under threat of violence and death as are their families. This headline is from Reuters. “These judges ruled against Trump. Then their families came under attack. As federal judges rule against the Trump administration in dozens of politically charged cases, the families of at least 11 of the jurists have been targeted with threats and harassment. The intimidation campaign has strained judges and their relatives – and legal scholars fear it could have a chilling effect on the judiciary. Multiple reporters have contributed to this very jarring story.
When U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled in April that Trump administration officials could face criminal contempt charges for deporting migrants in defiance of a court order, the blowback was When Elon Musk shared an online post that mischaracterized the work of Judge Boasberg’s daughter, some of his followers responded on X with calls “to lock her up.”
The president’s supporters unleashed a wave of threats and menacing posts. And they didn’t just target the judge. Some attacked Boasberg’s brother. Others blasted his daughter. Some demanded the family’s arrest – or execution.v
U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s family endured similar threats after he ruled that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority in freezing grants for education and other services. Far-right provocateur Laura Loomer tweeted a photo of the judge’s daughter, who had worked at the U.S. Education Department as a policy advisor, and accused McConnell of protecting her paycheck. Billionaire Elon Musk amplified the post to his 219 million X followers. Neither mentioned the daughter had left her job before Trump’s inauguration.
When Elon Musk shared an online post that mischaracterized the work of Judge Boasberg’s daughter, some of his followers responded on X with calls “to lock her up.”
Loomer continued her attacks with nine more posts in the ensuing days – and more than 600 calls and emails flooded McConnell’s Rhode Island courthouse, including death threats and menacing messages taunting his family, according to a court clerk and another person familiar with the communications.
Trying to fly anywhere? Are you willing to take this hits to your time and the risk to your safety?
Jennifer Bowers Bahney–writing for Raw Story— has the scary details. “
MSNBC correspondent Tom Costello claimed Friday that an air traffic controller who “handles airspace” at the Newark, NJ, airport gave him some “rather concerning and startling information” about public safety.
“He said, It is not safe. ‘It is not a safe situation right now for the flying public,” Costello said. “Really an incredible statement, unsolicited. He just said that to me, and separately, ‘Don’t fly into Newark. Avoid Newark at all costs.”
Costello said that there were about two-hour delays for planes coming into Newark on Friday following a week of major delays due to staffing issues.
“We’ve got a lot of problems going on,” Costello said, including “equipment failures.”
“They have lost both radios and radars this week,” Costellos said. “And because of the stress, some controllers have walked off the job.”
Newark Liberty Airport posted a statement to X advising, “Flights at @EWRairport continue to be disrupted due to @FAA staffing shortages, with delays and cancellations expected to continue throughout the day.”
Costello said that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was touring the Newark facility, along with the president of the air traffic controllers union, “trying to reassure the public and reassure controllers that they’re working on this.”
“But,” Costello added, “this is not going to be an easy fix by any means.”
CNN reports that “Trump says the government will revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.”
President Donald Trump says Harvard University will be stripped of its tax-exempt status, redoubling an extraordinary threat amid a broader chess match over free speech, political ideology and federal funding at the Ivy League school and across American academia.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump posted Friday morning on Truth Social.
Trump floated a trial balloon April 15 for the notion of removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and the Internal Revenue Service had been making plans to carry out the idea.
“There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” a university spokesperson told CNN. “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission.”
Money for federal taxes would have to be taken away from other priorities and “would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation,” the spokesperson said Friday.
US law specifically prohibits presidents from directing the IRS to investigate anyone. If it found Harvard’s tax-exempt status should be revoked, the agency would have to formally notify and give the school a chance to challenge the decision. The IRS did not immediately respond to CNN’s questions about how Trump’s announcement might be implemented.
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said Friday that Trump’s actions are an attempt to force Harvard to comply with his ideology and described the move as unconstitutional. He added the disruption caused by Trump’s threats has had a negative impact on life-saving research and people’s livelihoods.
The trouble is, if you give in just a little bit on a Mafia shake-down, they always return for more. “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
I’m not sure it was the pokes or the shocks this morning, but I seem to be floating back somewhere to the 70s where Nixon was making trouble for every one. That seems picayune now. I was planning to do some work around the garden and the backyard but for some reason, I just want to hug the furbabies, make so lunch, and find something distracting. I certainly hope you’re upcoming weekend will be joyful and peaceful. I’m wondering how much tea I’m going to have to stock up on.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: It’s the Policies Stupid!
Posted: April 28, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, American Fascists, Broligarchy, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Constitutional Crises, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA goes after the Rule of Law, MAGA Political Carnage | Tags: #Fartus #DeportUs, @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, All Apologies, Bombastic Rhetoric, FARTUS, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi weirdo, Pete Hegseth weirdo sexual assaulter, Verbal Bully Bombs, Yam Tits 100 days of oops 6 Comments
“Arresting development,” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I don’t know about you, but these first 100 days of #FARTUS have taken a toll on me. So many bad policies in such a short time have me spinning and anxious. I can’t even plan my one-person, small-house, semi-retired life. I can’t even figure out what state and local governments, big and small businesses, and the courts have on their hands right now.
The assessment of these first 100 days, coming from polls and pundits, is stunningly bad. Bad to the point that any polling firm is considered to be a criminal organization by yam tits. I will start with this analysis in The Guardian by Steven Greenhouse. “Trump’s second term will be the worst presidential term ever. Tragically, the president’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.”
In his first 100 days back in office, Donald Trump has made a strong case that his second term will be by far the worst presidential term in US history. So many of his flood-the-zone actions have been head-spinning and stomach-turning. His administration seems to be powered by ignorance and incoherence, spleen and sycophancy. Both he and his right-hand man, Elon Musk, with their resentment-fueled desire to disrupt everything, seem intent on pulverizing the foundations of our government, our democracy, our alliances as well as any notions of truth. Tragically, Trump’s second term is already more lawless and more authoritarian than any in US history.
The worst and most dangerous part of Trump’s agenda is his war against our democracy and constitution – defying judges’ orders, deporting people without due process, suggesting he will run for a third term, calling to impeach judges who rule against him, pardoning hundreds of January 6 criminals, gutting federal agencies and firing thousands of federal employees in flagrant violation of the law, and banning books from military libraries. (One wonders: will book burning be next?) Underlining just how dangerous and lawless Trump is, he is talking publicly about disappearing US citizens to foreign countries where they could be locked in prison forever. For those who care about democracy and basic freedoms, this is Defcon 1 stuff.
From Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, every president since the second world war has worked hard to build alliances to promote peace and prosperity and deter aggression. But right out of the box, Trump 2.0 has rushed to blow up our alliances and cavalierly alienate our allies. Trump quickly rejected the US’s traditional foreign policy and ideals by warmly embracing Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator, and turning against Ukraine and its noble fight against Putin’s aggression. Trump sounded like a rapacious 19th-century imperialist when he threatened to take over the Panama canal and, ditto, when he talked of using force to seize control of Greenland, which belongs to our longtime Nato ally, Denmark. Then there’s Trump’s astoundingly idiotic talk – and taunt – that Canada should be our 51st state. What a way to anger and alienate a nation that has long been the US’s best friend.
Then there is the disaster – or should we say clown show – of Trump’s on-again, off-again, on-again, who-knows-what’s-going-to-happen-tomorrow tariffs. His “liberation day” tariffs were put together by a clown-car crew, just three hours before he announced it, and Trump and company seemed to have zero idea that his hodgepodge of tariffs would send the world’s stock markets into a nervous breakdown. Trump’s team was stupid enough to think that China was too feeble to respond effectively to Trump’s trade war – treasury secretary Scott Bessent said China had “a losing hand” with just “a pair of twos”. Trump and his clown car failed to realize that China had the ability to retaliate in devastating ways – by clamping down on rare earth exports that American manufacturers and tech companies desperately need, and perhaps by selling off hundreds of billions of dollars in US bonds. Former treasury secretary Janet Yellen was appalled, saying: “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy.”
What really gets to me is his “bombastic rhetoric.” It’s like you’re either with the bully or being bullied. But what appalls me is his stewardship of the US and global Economy. He is completely detached from all we have learned about policy impacts from the 1930s. It was clear that as industrialization increased, the old mercantilism of the colonial days was fading fast. Industrialization created a different trade paradigm.
The switch from the Gold Standard created a different-looking financial economic system. The Information Age and the rise of advanced technology like robotics have changed us even more. We have complex, intertwined, mixed market economies. While the basics of market structure remain similar, the frictions within them have become much more complicated. You may check the academic research of Nobel Prize-winning Joseph E. Stiglitz for his legendary study on how the various quirks in producing specific goods and services can lead to fairly serious economic issues.
I don’t think anyone in the West Wing or the Agencies knows how economic policy works. For that matter, Trump doesn’t even know how many countries there are in the world since he keeps mentioning 200 trade deals when there are only 195. Maybe the Penguin islands are more autonomous than we know?
In fact, the communication style of the entire MAGA movement makes it an impossible environment for governing. This is how Amanda Marcotte–writing for Salon— puts it. “MAGA loves a tantrum: How public meltdowns became the preferred method of GOP communication. Why Nancy Mace, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller keep throwing fits on camera.”
If there were an Oscar for the category “hard to watch,” I’d have to nominate the video of Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., barking expletives at a constituent after he asked her if she would have a town hall soon. It’s produced in a beauty supply store instead of a movie studio, but in a brief minute and 42 seconds, the video finds its place in the canon of horror films shot from the villain’s perspective. The camera focuses entirely on the story’s hero, a man in a polo and shorts holding a bottle of what appears to be face cleanser, as he holds his own against his congressional representative getting increasingly shrill as she yells invective at him. Even though he said nothing about gay marriage, she demands his gratitude for voting “for gay marriage twice.” When he gets annoyed at her reductive assumption, she calls him “crazy” and “absolutely f—king crazy,” and repeatedly says “f—k you” to him.
In the eyes of normal people, Mace, as her interlocutor said when he fled from this encounter, is a “disgrace.” Most adults who act like Mace in public immediately wish to disappear off the face of the earth in shame. But not our Nancy! No, she’s the one who posted this video online, proud of her emotional incontinence. She even offered a homophobic “gay panic” defense, by describing the man as “wearing daisy dukes, at a makeup store.” (Sorry, Miss Nancy, they aren’t daisy dukes until we see cheeks.) To people outside the MAGA bubble, it’s a baffling choice. She’s not even a fun villain. There’s none of the sleek appeal of Loki from the “Avengers” franchise or camp glee of Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.” Mace is serving pure toddler here. She likely wished to throw herself to the floor and start pounding it, but doing so would have meant dropping her iPhone.
Mace isn’t wrong, however, to think that what most adults find embarrassing, the MAGA base will eat right up. The public meltdown, in which you declare yourself the world’s greatest victim, is the preferred GOP method of political communication these days. Despite this effort, Mace didn’t even come close to nabbing last week’s gold star for the most histronic MAGA performance. She was outdone by Stephen Miller, whose usual register on TV is “verge of a nervous breakdown,” but got so shrill on Fox News Tuesday that Lauren Tousignant at Jezebel worried she’d soon have to “look at Stephen Miller’s face as he pops a dozen blood vessels as his brain explodes.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth turned in two performances that would cause Al Pacino to tell him to settle down. While carping about “the fake news media” during the White House Easter egg roll, Hegseth’s whining got so pitched his voice started to crack, while his children stood behind him, embarrassed at the spectacle.
Despite his own family’s discomfort with his antics, Hegseth kept up the scenery-chewing, bellowing about the all-powerful, forever-mysterious “they” have “come after me from day one.” (“They,” in this case, means close friends and advisors who got pushed out after beginning to question Hegseth’s fitness for the job.)
All this yelling and bellyaching serves a pragmatic purpose: to distract from how what they’re saying makes no sense. Miller’s claim that the six Republican judges on the Supreme Court — three appointed by Trump — are “communist” wouldn’t withstand even a moment’s thought at a normal volume. Because he’s delivering his commentary at “front row at Led Zepplin” levels, the brain can’t even process how preposterous the lie is. Mace’s routine showed this working in a literal way. Her target runs away, because trying to talk to someone behaving like her is like trying to converse with a wildfire.
It’s part of the overall too-muchness that is the signature of the MAGA aesthetic, which goes right back to Trump’s gold-plated tastelessness. We see it in the infamous “Mar-a-Lago” face, which uses plastic surgery and spackled-on make-up to turn women into terrifyingly exaggerated caricatures of femininity. Or the love of roided-out male bodies, which try to recreate the impossibly huge muscles of comic books on human bodies. It’s a maximalist aesthetic, minus all the playfulness of Las Vegas casinos or “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” There’s a grim vibe to the undertaking, as if they’re trying to pound your head into the ground with the excess.
“Fake Melania mystery solved. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer–writing for The Atlantic—dialed up Trump on his private phone one day in late March. He spoke to them even though he had described them both heinously.
The week our interview was supposed to occur, Trump posted a vituperative message on Truth Social, attacking us by name. “Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.” (That last sentence is true—Ashley Parker does not know that Trump won the presidency three times.) “Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES.”
Yes, it was full-on #FARTUS Bully Verbal Bombing them publicly. They actually just called him later. He picked up. This article is the result
Despite his attacks on us a few days earlier, the president, evidently feeling buoyed by a week of successes, was eager to talk about his accomplishments. As we spoke, the sounds of another conversation, perhaps from a television, hummed in the background.
The president seemed exhilarated by everything he had managed to do in the first two months of his second term: He had begun a purge of diversity efforts from the federal government; granted clemency to nearly 1,600 supporters who had participated in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those caught beating police officers on camera; and signed 98 executive orders and counting (26 of them on his first day in office). He had fired independent regulators; gutted entire agencies; laid off great swaths of the federal workforce; and invoked 18th-century wartime powers to use against a criminal gang from Venezuela. He had adjusted tariffs like a DJ spinning knobs in the booth, upsetting the rhythms of global trade and inducing vertigo in the financial markets. He had raged at the leader of Ukraine, a democratic ally repelling an imperialist invasion, for not being “thankful”—and praised the leader of the invading country, Russia, as “very smart,” reversing in an instant 80 years of U.S. foreign-policy doctrine, and prompting the countries of NATO to prepare for their own defense, without the protective umbrella of American power, for the first time since 1945.
…
We asked Trump why he thought the billionaire class was prostrating itself before him.
“It’s just a higher level of respect. I don’t know,” Trump said. “Maybe they didn’t know me at the beginning, and they know me now.”
“I mean, you saw yesterday with the law firm,” he said. He was referring to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of the nation’s most prestigious firms, whose leader had come to the Oval Office days earlier to beg for relief from an executive order that could have crippled its business. Trump had issued the order at least partially because a former partner at the firm had in 2021 gone to work for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was part of an investigation of the Trump Organization’s business practices. Also that week, an Ivy League institution, threatened with the cancellation of $400 million in federal funding, had agreed to overhaul its Middle Eastern–studies programs at the Trump administration’s request, while also acceding to other significant demands. “You saw yesterday with Columbia University. What do you think of the law firm? Were you shocked at that?” Trump asked us.
Yes—all of it was shocking, much of it without precedent. Legal scholars were drawing comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the early stages of the New Deal, when Congress had allowed FDR to demolish norms and greatly expand the powers of the presidency.
As ever, Trump was on the hunt for a deal. If he liked the story we wrote, he said, he might even speak with us again.
“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.
Media owners weren’t the only ones on his mind. He also seemed to be referring to law firms, universities, broadcast networks, tech titans, artists, research scientists, military commanders, civil servants, moderate Republicans—all the people and institutions he expected to eventually, inevitably, submit to his will.
We asked the president if his second term felt different from his first. He said it did. “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”
More like the country and the world run from him. I have to admit. I admire the Chinese method of trolling him. It’s funny and effective. Philip Bump at the Washington Post analyzes this self-defeating policy of the second term. “The bubble that created Trump is the reason he’s stumbling. The White House is now a bubble where loyalty, not ability, defines success.”
Consider Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
No one should be surprised that Hegseth is flailing in his new role, one of the most arduous and complicated in the U.S. government, if not the world. When Donald Trump proposed that Hegseth run the agency, the response was broadly unified: Hegseth lacked the experience needed to do the job effectively. You could debate the other controversies surrounding his bid for the role ad nauseam, but there was no way to reasonably argue that the Fox News talk-show host was prepared to run the Pentagon.
Hegseth was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate anyway because Trump and a universe of voices who support him insisted Hegseth was the best choice for the job — because he was Trump’s choice for the job. Republican senators who undoubtedly knew better went along, betting that things wouldn’t get so bad under Hegseth that it was worth stirring up the fury of that pro-Trump bubble.
It’s the same bet that prominent Republicans have been making on Trump himself since 2015. Now, as Trump too is flailing — polling and the data make clear that he is — it’s trivial to identify that insular chorus of cheerleaders and cynics as a root cause.
The president owes his political career to that same bubble. Over the past few decades, the fringe right and then Republicans more broadly embraced discussions of the world that were mostly devoid of nuance: left bad, right good. The internet allowed for the emergence of bespoke “news” organizations (and, later, social media accounts) catering to conspiratorial partisan rhetoric — an alternative to traditional reporting unhampered by criticism or unpopular truths.
Trump secured the 2016 Republican nomination not because he was the best spokesperson for the Republican Party but because he echoed the refrains of that surreal universe of information. When you hear his supporters praise his straightforwardness, this is what they are referring to: He says the false things with which they agree.
We’re about to say goodbye to Musk. Hopefully, Hegseth will be a quick second out. But what comes next? Certainly, nothing better. Even Rubio seems to have caught the munificently Kiss Ass Fever. The speed of light is the rate at which he contradicts the old Little Marco makes me wonder if he a Musk AI robot and the ex-Senator is up in space some where. Here’s the latest example from The Independent. “Marco Rubio claims Canada should be 51st state as PM told Trump they ‘couldn’t survive’ without U.S. Rubio says State Department has not taken action on the president’s push to annex Canada and Greenland.”
America’s top diplomat was questioned on Sunday about Donald Trump’s reasoning for repeatedly calling for Canada to join the United States as the 51st state.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on NBC’s Meet the Presson Sunday where moderator Kristen Welker asked him if the administration was actually taking any steps to make Trump’s vision a reality.
The president has made his opinion clear: he wants Canada to join the United States and suggested his administration would also acquire the Danish-held territory Greenland by any means.
The secretary of state gave his own translation of the president’s remarks on the matter:
“What the president has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States, at which point he asked, ‘Well, if you can’t survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state.’ That’s what he said.”
Rubio told Welker that the administration had taken no action to realize this particular strain of Trump’s bluster, which has alarmed U.S. allies.
There’s a U.S. military base on Greenland, and the president has cited the self-governing nation’s geographical importance as a reasoning for his expansionist goal. Trump has made the comments on numerous occasions, including in conversations with his Canadian counterparts.
Trump himself made his goals of northward expansion apparent during his address to Congress in February.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” Trump said at the time. “And I think we’re going to get it one way or the other. We’re going to get it.”
But he was making similar remarks publicly as early as December 2024.
“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State.”
“They would save massively on taxes and military protection. I think it is a great idea,” added Trump.
So tell me if you ever thought you’d see the day that an American Secretary of State believes annexing your best allies, the ones you’ve fought beside in Wars, and stood by you when you were attacked, would say that sort of thing? Meanwhile, the entire Deportation debacle continues on its cruel and ugly path. This is from Politico. “Homan presses undocumented immigrants to self-deport, threatening prosecution. The push comes as the monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s.” Homan is now the antonym for Human. Deportation in this country does not just fall on the undocumented. It impacts everyone.
White House border czar Tom Homan on Monday warned undocumented immigrants that they “cannot hide” and will be prosecuted in they remain in the U.S. illegally — the latest effort from the Trump administration to push self-deportation.
“Get your affairs in order. If you’re in the country illegally, work with ICE, go to CBP One Home app, and leave on your own,” Homan said from the White House press briefing room.
Homan said every immigrant in the U.S. illegally must register with the federal government and carry documentation. And those who fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security or neglect to update any new address will have those actions treated as criminal offenses “starting today.” He also warned other undocumented immigrants that if they have a final order to leave the country but remain anyway, the Trump administration will “aggressively prosecute” and issue daily monetary fines of up to $998.
The border czar’s briefing room appearance comes as the Trump administration marks its 100th day in office this week, with Homan touting the administration’s progress on border security. He pointed to a significant drop in illegal border crossings, which have plunged since Trump took office to the lowest level in decades.
Homan said Monday that the administration has deported 139,000 migrants since Jan. 20 as Trump officials have struggled to ramp up removal numbers. This figure includes people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, who would have been encountered at or before they reached the border, according to a DHS official. The Trump administration’s monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s, according to data obtained by NBC News.
The bluster is abusive, but the actions are unconstitutional, illegal, and inhumane. The New York Times reports on the weekend’s 60 Minutes sign-off. Every voice raised against the dismantling of US democracy is a voice that counts! “‘60 Minutes’ Chastises Its Corporate Parent in Unusual On-Air Rebuke. The show’s top producer abruptly said last week he was quitting. “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers.”
In an extraordinary on-air rebuke, one of the top journalists at “60 Minutes” directly criticized the program’s parent company in the final moments of its Sunday night CBS telecast, its first episode since the program’s executive producer, Bill Owens, announced his intention to resign.
“Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways,” the correspondent, Scott Pelley, told viewers. “None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
A spokesman for Paramount had no immediate comment, and has previously declined to comment on Mr. Owens’s departure.
Mr. Owens stunned the show’s staff on Tuesday when he said he would leave the highest-rated program in television news over disagreements with Paramount, CBS’s corporate parent, saying, “It’s clear the company is done with me.”
Mr. Owens’s comments were widely reported in the press last week. The show’s decision to repeat those grievances on-air may have exposed viewers to the serious tensions between “60 Minutes” and its corporate overseers for the first time.
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, has been intent on securing approval from the Trump administration for a multibillion-dollar sale of her media company to a studio run by the son of Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire.
President Trump sued CBS last year, claiming $10 billion in damages, in a case stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, that Mr. Trump said was deceptively edited. Ms. Redstone has expressed her desire to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, although legal experts have called the case far-fetched.
So that’s it for me today. I’m just trying to keep my head above water and my thoughts on calm, clear awareness. I hope you’re finding a way to cope with this mess. I try to tune out as much as possible, but my job is to teach folks about financial and economic policies, so I can only shut out so much. A friend of mine posted a picture of American NAZIs partying in the French Quarter and getting drinks from the Dungeon. The tattoos and the t-shirts said it all. What’s most disturbing about all of this is these folks are out of their hidey holes, and they don’t care who sees them and what they say. I’ll be out on Wednesday at a protest in front of the ICE offices here in the Central Business District. I need to do something, even just being with like-minded people.
Also, we’re finding some older Dem Pols stepping down to make way for new blood. “Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will step down from his leadership post on the panel and not run for reelection.” Let’s try to hope.
What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Oops! He did it again!
Posted: April 21, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS | Tags: #FARTUS plans for Diplomats, @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, FARTUS, Free Albrego Garcia, kakistocracy, Pete Hegseth weirdo sexual assaulter, RIP Pope Francis, ugly American 3 Comments
“King of kings..” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The Trump Kakistocracy continues to upset the operations of every agency in the country. Unfortunately, some of the most necessary and strategic posts have been filled with village idiots. After the revelation of the first SignalGate, you would think there would be more quick changes to protect the conversations at the top of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense. Party Boy, sexual predator, and all-around dumb guy, Pete Hegseth, has done it again. No need for spies when the head of the nation’s military broadcasts stuff on commercial software that everyone’s hacked. There is total chaos at the Pentagon. This headline from Politico says it all. “White House backs Hegseth, Leavitt says ‘entire Pentagon’ is resisting him. Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said during a Monday “Fox & Friends” appearance.”
“President Donald Trump “stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, defending the scandal-plagued Defense secretary against escalating criticism from Democrats and former senior officials.
Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said in a “Fox & Friends” appearance. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.”
Her comments came a day after The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer — the second reported instance of the secretary sharing operational plans in an unclassified chat. The revelations have reignited the so-called Signalgate scandal and deepened scrutiny over Hegseth’s judgment and leadership.
Former top Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, who stepped down last week, also bashed the Pentagon leader for allegedly plunging the department into dysfunction in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece published Sunday night.
Ullyot — once a vocal supporter of the Defense secretary — accused Hegseth’s team of spreading unverified claims about three top officials who were fired last week, falsely accusing them of leaking sensitive information to media outlets.
“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account,’” Ullyot wrote. “Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”
Hegseth brushed off the allegations Monday and blamed it on backlash for his efforts to reshape the Pentagon.
I love this headline from Rolling Stone. “Turns Out It Wasn’t Such a Great Idea to Put Pete Hegseth in Charge of the Military. The former Fox News host’s tenure at the top of the Pentagon has been riddled with scandal and broader institutional turmoil.” The article was filed by Ryan Bort and Asawin Suebsaeng
Pete Hegseth barely received enough votes to win confirmation as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. Three Republicans even bucked their own party’s president to oppose him. One of them, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), cited “accusations of financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.” Another, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said Hegseth had “failed to demonstrate” that he could manage “nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion.”
It hasn’t taken long for Hegseth to prove them — along with every Senate Democrat and the countless others who warned about him taking over the Pentagon — right.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth shared attack plans in a second unsecured Signal group chat, following the revelation last month that he shared the plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen in a Signal chat group that included a journalist. The second chat included Hegseth’s wife, brother, and personal lawyer, underscoring the former Fox News host’s recklessness with highly sensitive information.
The news came after a tumultuous week in the Pentagon that saw Hegseth fire three senior officials — ostensibly because of an internal investigation into leaking, although the officials seemed confused about what happened. “We still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with,” they wrote in a joint statement Friday night, adding that, although the experience was “unconscionable,” they will continue to support Trump’s plans for the Pentagon.
John Ullyot, who resigned as a spokesperson for the Pentagon last week, put a button on the turmoil in an op-ed for Politico on Sunday. “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” the piece began. “From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”
Ullyot went on to bash the week’s firings, calling the purge “strange and baffling”; detail Hegeth’s “horrible crisis-communications” following the initial Signal scandal; and predict that “many in the secretary’s own inner circle will applaud quietly” if Trump decides to hold him accountable. Ullyot also predicted that the drama isn’t going to let up anytime soon: “There are very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources privately.”
We’ve already received notice in Louisiana about the number of student VISAS yanked by the #FARTUS party. If it happens here, it’s undoubtedly happening all over the country. Jennifer Rubin has this advice on her Substack, The Contrarian. “Stop Waiting for a Formal Declaration of ‘Crisis’. It is here. We are living through it. No shit cupcake.
Are we in a “constitutional crisis”?
You have likely heard that question innumerable times over the past three months, followed by a discussion as to whether our president has actually, explicitly, openly violated a court order (make that a Supreme Court order). When a question is so pervasive, it is safe to assume that yes, we are already there.
When does the combo of authoritarian bullying, revenge seeking, stooge-nominating, retaliatory prosecuting, contemptuous litigating, and lawless usurpation of congressional power become a “crisis”? The word is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending…especiallyone with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.” Frankly, we have been in that “crisis” since the first day of the Trump presidency.
When a Republican Congress allows the president to seize the power of the purse and does nothing, when the secretary of defense commits the worst breach of national security protocols in memory (and evidently doesn’t learn his lesson), or when Republicans refuse to reclaim the power to lay tariffs—despite a recession-inducing presidential trade war—the question is not if we are in a constitutional crisis, but just how bad it is.
For Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and scores of others who are legally present in the United States have been snatched up, incarcerated (or are facing incarceration) in a foreign gulag, and are deprived of their right to contest their confinement and visa revocation, the “constitutional crisis” is well underway.
When the Supreme Court convenes “literally in the middle of the night” to stop the government from spiriting away Venezuelans in apparent contradiction of their instruction to give every individual a meaningful opportunity to oppose their deportation, the “constitutional crisis” has arrived.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) knows a constitutional crisis. When asked explicitly whether we were in one on Meet the Press, he affirmed, “Yes, we are.” He had to fly down to El Salvador to see for himself Abrego Garcia’s condition, and upon his return, called out the president and his flacks for abject lies, even revealing the clumsy attempt to stage a scene suggesting he and Kilmar were tossing down margaritas on a tropical holiday.
When such steps are required to confirm whether or not a lawful American resident is alive, we know this is not only the least trustworthy White House in modern history, but one seemingly eager to foment a constitutional crisis. “They wanted to create this appearance that life was just lovely for Kilmar, which of course is a big, fat lie,” Van Hollen said. Calling out the White House’s baseless allegations that Abrego Garcia is a gang member and terrorist, Van Hollen declared, “…In other words, put up in court or shut up.”
If you are interested in tracking foreign students who have lost their VISAS, you may look at this from Inside Higher Education. “What We’ve Learned So Far From Tracking Student Visa Data. More than 1,500 students from nearly 250 colleges have had their visas revoked, but who they are—and why they’ve been targeted—is still largely unknown.” Two international students from UNO, where I teach, have had theirs removed.
On April 7, amid reports that the federal government was detaining international students and revoking their visas, Inside Higher Ed began collecting and cross-checking data in an effort to track exactly how many students were affected—and at which institutions. Our goal was to understand the scope of the federal government’s involvement in the visa process and what it means for international students and the colleges and universities they attend.
Over the past two weeks, more than 1,500 students—representing several hundred colleges and universities, as well as state systems—have had a sudden or unexpected change in their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) listing, or their F-1 or J-1 visa status.
Luke Garrett, writing for NPR, has this headline today. “House Democrats land in El Salvador, demand Abrego Garcia’s return.” They need to start showing up in ICE detention centers, like the one down here, before more folks get shipped off despite all the court decisions.
Four House Democrats were scheduled to land in El Salvador Monday to demand the release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who lived in Maryland and was deported by the administration to a prison in El Salvador due to what the Trump administration an “administrative error.”
The group — Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., and Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore. — said in a statement they hope “to pressure” the White House “to abide by a Supreme Court order.”
“While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Rep. Garcia said. “That is why we’re here — to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
The Trump administration has refused to bring back Abrego Garcia despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return — and is receiving bipartisan criticism for it. The Salvadoran citizen entered the country illegally; an immigration judge said he should not be deported to El Salvador because Abrego Garcia was able to prove he was likely to suffer persecution in his home country. The Trump administration says it deported him because he was a member of MS-13; his lawyers deny that Abrego Garcia belongs to the gang.
The White House has said it can’t force the Salvadoran government to release one of its citizens, while El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele called the idea of Abrego Garcia’s release “preposterous.”
On Thursday, a federal court denied the Trump administration’s appeal of the court’s return-order.
Last week, Reps. Garcia and Frost requested congressional travel funds and security for the trip to El Salvador. Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, rejected the request. Rep. Mark Green, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday he’d also deny any such request.
The group’s visit to El Salvador is not a taxpayer funded CODEL trip.
At least members of the Democratic Party are beginning to do something. Will it be enough? Some of the worst news came when an Executive Order leaked that basically removed all the Eisenhower reforms of the Diplomatic Corps and turned them all back into Ugly Americans. The Substack PastPresentFuture, written by Dan Gardner, will give you some background on the changes made during Eisenhower’s presidency.
If one is of a certain vintage, the phrase “ugly American” has a vivid meaning.
Picture the worst stereotype of an American abroad. Loud, abrasive, arrogant. Incurious about local culture and politics because Americans have nothing to learn from foreigners. Incapable of delivering even a few words in another language and certain they can always make themselves understood by speaking English at a higher volume. Smugly confident that the United States is the most advanced of civilizations, in every way that matters, and all the rest of the world silently dreams of being American, or least meeting one of God’s chosen.
That’s an “ugly American.”
Curiously, though, that’s not what the phrase meant when it was coined. In fact, what it originally described was the opposite of all that.
The history of “ugly American” is worth reviewing because in that one phrase we can see how American foreign aid — and foreign policy more generally — is changing in the second Trump administration. There is even a direct connection between “ugly American” and today’s headlines, notably the hostile takeover of USAID by Elon Musk and his band of young zealots.
This isn’t a happy story, I’m afraid. But it is an important one.
You may read about the story at the link. Here’s the information on the linked EO from The Daily Beast. “Diplomats Are Freaking Out About Trump’s Leaked Executive Order. One official said monkeys with a typewriter could have come up with a more logical plan for the State Department.”
American diplomats spent the weekend panicking about a possible plan to radically reshape the State Department in President Donald Trump’s image.
A 16-page document that appears to be a draft for an executive order has been circulating among diplomatic staff since last week. It calls for the elimination of dozens of positions and departments, slashing diplomatic operations in Canada, and closing “non-essential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa.
It would also overhaul the traditionally non-partisan foreign service exam to test applicants on whether they share Trump’s MAGA foreign policy views, according to Bloomberg.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a New York Times report on the draft document “fake news‚” though he didn’t offer any details about which part was wrong.
Diplomats, however, worried the document was real, especially in light of the administration asking Congress to cut the State Department’s budget almost in half this year, to $28.4 billion, Politico reported.
“There’s a lot that could be reformed, but you could give infinite monkeys infinite typewriters, and they would come up with something better than that,” one diplomat told Politico.
Many of the document’s items violate the laws that govern the State Department’s operations, while other parts contradict the Trump administration’s communications to Congress about its plans for the department, according to Politico.
Other parts are internally inconsistent. For example, the Fulbright Program would be recast as “solely for master’s-level study in national security-related disciplines” with priority given to programs offering intense instruction in critical languages, including Russian and Mandarin Chinese.
At the same time, the entire African Affairs bureau would be replaced by a single special envoy reporting directly to the National Security Council. Experts say pulling out of Africa would leave a void that Russia and China are both eager to exploit.
Already, Kremlin-backed groups are handing out boxes of tuberculosis and HIV medication on the continent after the Trump administration froze U.S. aid funding, The Washington Post reported. Chinese officials have given interviews and taken out advertisements branding the country as a reliable partner.
The purported State Department draft order would also lead to a major disruption in services for Americans living and traveling in the affected countries, including those who lose their passports or need to register births abroad.
“Something tells me that Steven Miller is one of the monkeys with a typewriter. So, this is about all I’m up for today. I’ll leave some suggested reads below.
I imagine you’ve all heard that Pope Francis has exited the Earthly Door. I’m just sorry that one of the last faces he saw was that of J Dank. But maybe he wanted to give him a test after the Cardinal gave him a lecture on why deporting innocent people is not very Catholic of him.
- Tom Sykes / The Daily Beast: Pope Francis’ Last Act Was to Give JD Vance a Lesson About Migrants — CHRISTIAN VALUES — The pontiff, who died Monday, spoke up in opposition to MAGA policies and suggested in a final statement that they stirred up “contempt.” — Pope Francis, who died at 88 on Monday …
This headline has raised my torch and pitchfork.
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Caroline Kitchener / New York Times: Baby Bonuses, Fertility Planning: Trump Aides Assess Ideas to Boost Birthrate … “We need to channel the MAHA spirit and really dive deep into infertility,” said Emma Waters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign.Rebecca Kiger for The New York Times
- Svante Myrick / The Hill: At the first whiff of power, these Republicans betrayed the rule of law
You may check for more at Memeorandum.
Have as nice a week as possible!
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peej
Carissa
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ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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