Finally Friday Reads: The Incompetent and The Cruel

Posted: March 28, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, education, FARTUS, Hillary Clinton, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Assholes | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, @repeat1968. John Buss, abu ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, Cabinet of incompetent imbeciles, Department of Education Blues, Elise Stefanik is a cunt, Every one goes to El Salvador!, FARTUS, higher education, Hillary Clinton on SignalGate, Kidnapping Graduate Students, Kristi Noem Sociopath and Cunt, Pete Hegseth weirdo sexual assaulter, The Whiskey Leaks | 11 Comments

“Kristi Noem is so thoughtful.” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Cartoonist John Buss continues to blow me away with his renditions of all the monsters inhabiting the Trump Regime. You never know how far they will go. Incompetency and cruelty are their defining parameters. The only thing you know about this regime is that they are negatively correlated and huge. You know the negative impact on the country in a big way, but the actual actions leading to the outcomes are unimaginable. You know they’re going to a new low that will be shocking and unimaginable. I’m beginning to think that some are designed to take our eyes away from the dismantling of our government and democracy. Today’s Featured Funny was more than I had hoped when I put this on his Facebook thread. “Hi! It’s your dark muse again. You have to do something about Kristin Noem doing a glam shot in front of all the shirtless, bearded men she likely sent to be tortured and enslaved. Abu Ghraib, but this administration has no shame!” She had paraded down here in a similar outfit during the Super Bowl, but instead of looking like a slutty ICE agent, she looked like a Slutty police officer. She just oozes psychopath, doesn’t she? She’s LARPing all those war criminals that psychologically torture whatever they capture. Just thinking about how the really bad ones torture animals first, and her poor puppy. This is from the Washington Post (article gifted). “How Kristi Noem’s $50,000 Rolex in a Salvadoran prison became a political flash point. The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to her tour of a notoriously overcrowded mega-prison in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.” I supposed she could wear that “I don’t care, do you?” jacket, but then everyone would miss her signature whitie tightie boob shot op. She must have a closet full of those. She wore them daily during her Super Bowl tour. This is reported by Drew Harwell and Alec Dent.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem visited El Salvador’s most notorious mega-prison on Wednesday, she sported an eye-catching piece on her wrist that experts have identified as an 18-karat gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that sells for about $50,000.

The high-end Swiss watch lent a striking contrast to Noem’s tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where imprisoned men watched silently from a crowded cell as she recorded a video for a social media post warning undocumented immigrants not to enter the United States.

“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” Noem said.

Noem’s choice of watch kicked off a race among internet sleuths to identify it and infuriated immigration advocates, who said the juxtaposition was insensitive to the harsh reality of mass imprisonment and deportation.

“You’re in front of all these people in a very poor country, who are in the bottom 10 or 20 percent of their country … and it looks like you’re just flaunting your wealth while you flaunt your freedom,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“This is an administration that is trying to be populist, anti-elite, appeal to the common man,” he added. Meanwhile, there’s “people stacked up like cordwood behind her.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the make of the watch in a statement, saying that “then-Governor Noem chose to use the proceeds from her New York Times best selling books to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.”

While the #FARTUS purge of immigrants looks like an SS round-up. I fear escalation to Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen (killing squads). It is difficult to predict if they will actually go that far. We’ve already had children in cages and family separation. We also have midnight raids that have spirited away graduate students who have taken part in demonstrations or written op-eds against the bombing of Palestinian civilians in GAZA. This is from Mike Masnik from TechDirt. “Trump’s Secret Police Are Now Disappearing Students For Their Op-Eds.”

For years, we’ve been hearing breathless warnings about a “campus free speech crisis” from self-proclaimed free speech warriors. Their evidence? College students doing what college students have done for generations: protesting speakers they disagree with, challenging institutional policies, and yes, sometimes attempting to create heckler’s vetoes. This kind of campus activism — while occasionally messy and uncomfortable — has been a feature of American higher education since the 1960s. It’s how young people learn to engage with ideas and exercise their own speech rights. Sometimes that activism is silly and sometimes it’s righteous. Often it’s somewhere in between, but it’s kind of a part of being a college student, and learning what you believe in. But now we face an actual free speech crisis on campus that goes beyond just speech. It’s an attack on personal freedoms, due process, and liberty. The federal government isn’t just pressuring universities over speech — it’s literally disappearing students for their political expression. If you support actual free speech, now is the time to speak up. The latest example of this authoritarian overreach is particularly chilling: Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts who was here legally on a student visa, was abducted by masked agents in broad daylight. She was disappeared without due process or explanation — only later did we learn she had been renditioned to a detention center in Louisiana. The video of her kidnapping (because that’s what it was) is terrifying enough. If you listen, you hear her quite understandably surprised reaction with a scream, and then she asks to call the police, only to be told “we’re the police.” None of them are in uniforms. Most of them are masked. Her supposed crime? A year ago, she co-authored an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing her university administration’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Not advocating violence. Not supporting terrorism. Not even criticizing the U.S. government. Just exercising core First Amendment rights by publishing criticism of her own university’s policies in a student newspaper. The government has attempted to justify similar renditions (and there is a growing list of victims) by falsely painting targets as “terrorist supporters” — a dangerous conflation of political speech supporting Palestinian rights with support for terrorism. But even those cases typically involved people involved in public protests, which are themselves constitutionally protected activities. This case goes even further: disappearing someone over an innocuous piece of student journalism published a year ago. Everyone should be alarmed. Everyone should be demanding that she (and others) be released and that ICE and DHS stop this horrifying and unconscionable practice. Everyone should be demanding that Trump and Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem stop this Gestapo bullshit. Even if — especially if — you disagree with her views on Israel and Palestine. This isn’t about that. This is about the very concept of freedom. The rights everyone — even visitors — are supposed to have in this country. The right to speak your mind, even if (especially if!) it is opposed to those in power. The right to walk down a street without being kidnapped. The right to due process. If the government genuinely believed Ozturk had violated immigration law or her visa terms (she hadn’t), there are established legal procedures to address such issues. Instead, they chose to send masked goons to disappear her without warning or due process — a chilling message to every other international student that their supposed right to express political opinions comes with the risk of rendition. And, of course, the implied threat is that this won’t stop at international students.

I have taught university classes for decades. Finance and Economic policy are inherently political. We stick to established theory and mention policies in the past that did not work. The two big ones are Tariffs and Tax cuts for the very rich. We have data that shows they don’t work and years of published papers. I fear the Commerce and Labor Secretaries will kill the data, so we cannot teach the theory and the reality using current economic and financial data. Since I’m now technically retired and only teach as an adjunct, I worry a lot about the current faculty. The Republicans have been after tenure for years. Universities and research are a significant source of progress. The attacks on research and the inability to run graduate programs and graduate Doctoral students will mean a lack of qualified professors after we old folks retire, which will severely curtail our leadership in science and the exercise of free thought. That is their goal. This is from Forbes Magazine. “Trump Orders Department Of Education Closure: What Happens Next.” The story is reported by Sarah Hernholm.

President Trump has issued an executive order to close the Department of Education, a move that will reshape federal education policy and affect America’s 49.5 million public school students. The order mandates redistributing the department’s functions across multiple federal agencies by the end of the year, marking a major change in how the federal government approaches education. This decision, long championed by conservatives who believe education should remain primarily a state and local matter, has sparked disagreement about the federal government’s role in education policy, funding, and oversight. The executive order outlines specific transitions for key education functions:

Civil rights enforcement will move to the Justice Department

Federal student loan programs will shift to the Treasury

Special education oversight will transition to Health and Human Services

These changes will affect the management of federal education funding streams totaling over $150 billion annually, including:

$18.8 billion in Title I funding for high-poverty schools, serving approximately 26 million students

$15.5 billion in IDEA funding, supporting 7.3 million students with disabilities

$120.8 billion in Federal Student Aid programs, helping 10.8 million college students

Educational stakeholders stress the importance of ensuring these resources continue without disruption during the transition period, particularly for disadvantaged students who rely heavily on federally funded programs. This will hurt rural and poor urban schools that rely on the funding to offer help for disadvantaged students and students with disabilities. I’m also wondering what will happen to ESL (English as a second language) teachers, programs, school nurses, and psychologists. These things are incredibly expensive.

“The backpedaling is something to behold..” John Buss, @repeat1968.
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Then there’s Pete Hegseth and his keystone cops LARPing military leadership. We got all the war moves and none of the conversation about what it means to target and bomb a civilian apartment. Hey! Hey DOJ! How many kids did they kill that day? They’re all suggesting it was successful, but really? What has all that incompetence brought us? This is breaking news from CNN. “Officials say texts sent by Waltz, Ratcliffe in Signal chat may have damaged US’ ongoing ability to gather intel on Houthis.” Evidently, the intelligence they got from the Israelis was from an on-site agent. But of course, no heads are rolling in any of the meeting’s inept Cabinet. They’ve declared war on The Atlantic instead. This story is reported by Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen,

Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.

Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.

In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”

That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.

Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.

The Houthis have “always been difficult to track,” said a former intelligence official. “Now you just highlight for them that they’re in the crosshairs.”

Trump administration officials, including both Waltz and Ratcliffe, have repeatedly insisted that no classified information was shared in the text. Ratcliffe, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, specifically referenced his text about “starting points.”

But current and former officials have disagreed vehemently with that assessment: The kinds of information in not just Hegseth’s texts, but Ratcliffe’s and Waltz’s, included very clear references to sources and methods. Even if it wasn’t an explicit or technical description, these people say, it is information that the US government would typically withhold because it might allow an adversary to make an educated interference about US sources and methods.

Ratcliffe’s use of the Signal app in this way is raising eyebrows inside Langley, current and former officials said.

“I think he is going to be viewed skeptically for using the app for that purpose,” one US official told CNN.

“(Ratcliffe) was basically talking as if he was in a SCIF,” said another former intelligence official, referring to a secure room hardened against electronic surveillance that is designed for discussions of classified material.

“He’s the director,” said the first former official, calling Ratcliffe’s text “irresponsible.” “He should know better.”

A CIA spokesperson told CNN, “Director Ratcliffe takes his responsibility to safeguard America’s ability to gather intelligence extremely seriously.”

“Nothing he conveyed in the chat posed any risk to any sources or methods,” the spokesperson said. “The only lasting damage is to the Houthi terrorists who have been eliminated.”

CNN has reached out to the National Security Council for comment.

The primary tool of Trump’s spokespeople is to lie and deny and protect FARTUS at all times.

Former Secretary of State penned this Op-Ed in the New York Times today. “Hillary Clinton: How Much Dumber Will This Get?” Remember, it will get worse; we just can’t forecast how because only the incompetent and cruel can come up with such batshit crazy pogroms. Throw in narcissism and sociopathy, and it’s a forecaster’s nightmare. Clinton’s name has been evoked recently because the same folks who were traumatized by her personal emails being released by their Russian buddies are taking this incredible breach of security cavalierly.

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.
Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

There’s more at the link, which has been gifted.

It’s hard to get through the day without the next chain of what the hell did they do now coming out to beat us senseless. They’re worried about the midterms because FARTUS sent Elise Stefanik back to Congress yesterday. The poor woman won’t get that deluxe apartment in the sky now. This is from Politico. “Stefanik’s withdrawal suggests Republicans are sweating their thin margins. Democrats insist Republicans are panicking.” Democrats shouldn’t be so complacent.

President Donald Trump’s decision to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congress is the clearest sign yet that the political environment has become so challenging for Republicans that they don’t want to risk a special election even in safe, red seats.

A pair of April elections in deep-red swaths of Florida next week was supposed to improve the GOP’s cushion in the House and clear the path for Stefanik’s departure, until Trump said he didn’t “want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”
The decision to pull Stefanik’s nomination came as Republicans grew increasingly anxious about the race to fill the seat of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 1. Polling in the district, which Trump carried by 30 points, had tightened, and the president himself is hosting a tele-town hall there to try and bail out Republican Randy Fine. An internal GOP poll from late March showed Democrat Josh Weil up 3 points over Fine, 44 to 41 percent, with 10 percent undecided, according to a person familiar with the poll and granted anonymity to discuss it. Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, conducted the survey. That result spooked Republicans and spurred them to redouble efforts to ensure a comfortable win in the district, according to two people familiar with internal conversations. Some Republican strategists said it’s not worth taking the risk of losing Stefanik’s sprawling northern New York seat, which Trump won by 20 points in 2024.
“Can they defend her seat? Absolutely. But why do you do that right now?” asked Charlie Harper, who was a top aide to former Rep. Karen Handel on her successful 2017 bid in a special election in Georgia.

Harper is not the only Republican making that calculation.

“If we’re far underperforming in seats Trump won by 30 then there’s obvious concern about having to chance special elections in seats Trump won by a lot less,” said one top GOP operative granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The juice is not worth the squeeze sweating them out.”

Okay, that’s enough shock and awe for now. What’s on your reading and blogging list today? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufw9dVys3t0

Mostly Monday Reads: Oy mishigas!

Posted: March 24, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, American Fascists, Broligarchy, corporate greed, democracy is threatened, kakistocracy, Middle East, Polycrisis | Tags: @repeat1968, Broligarchy, FARTUS, Mafia Don, oligarchy, Paul Krugman, Vladimir Putin | 7 Comments

“Putin addresses the residents of his newly acquired territory.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I am having an ongoing debate with myself about the current administration. Is it the stupidity, the arrogance, or the meanness that most damaged our Constitutional democracy? Or is it the greed? I’m tagging all my posts here with the words Polycrisis, Kakistocracy, and Oligarchy or Broligarchy. It’s getting to be a tough search to find a few journalists who will actually tell it like it is.

This article in The Guardian early this month by Jonathan Freeland describes the current president thusly. “Donald Trump is turning America into a mafia state. The pattern is inescapable – with just one caveat: organised crime bosses occasionally display more honour.” I’ll just add a local New Orleans colloquialism. True Dat.

Behold Donald Corleone, the US president who behaves like a mafia boss – but without the principles. Of course, one hesitates to make the comparison, not least because Donald Trump would like it. And because the Godfather is an archetype of strength and macho glamour while Trump is weak, constantly handing gifts to America’s enemies and getting nothing in return. But when the world is changing so fast – when a nation that has been a friend for more than a century turns into a foe in a matter of weeks – it helps to have a guide. My colleague Luke Harding clarified the nature of Vladimir Putin’s Russia when he branded it the Mafia State. Now we need to attach the same label to the US under Putin’s most devoted admirer.

Consider the way Trump’s White House conducts itself, issuing threats and menaces that sound better in the original Sicilian. This week the president said that a deal ending Russia’s war on Ukraine “could be made very fast” but “if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long”. You didn’t need a translator to know that the somebody he had in mind was Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On Thursday, Trump was confident that the Ukrainians would soon do his bidding “because I don’t think they have a choice”. Almost as if he had made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Which of course he had. By ending the supply of military aid and the sharing of US intelligence, as he did this week, he had effectively put a Russian revolver to Ukraine’s temple, its imprint scarcely reduced by Trump’s declaration today that he is “strongly considering” banking sanctions and tariffs against Moscow, a move that looked a lot like a man pretending to be equally tough on the two sides, but which should fool nobody. He expects Zelenskyy to sign away a huge chunk of Ukraine’s minerals, the way Corleone’s rivals surrendered their livelihoods to save their lives.

This is how the US now operates in the world. Dispensing with the formalities during his annual address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump repeated his threat to grab Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” That recalled his earlier warning to Copenhagen to give him what he wants or face the consequences: “maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs”. Nice place you got there; would be a shame if something happened to it.

It’s the same shakedown he’s performing on the US’s northern neighbour. Canada’s outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau spelled it out this week, accusing Trump of trying to engineer “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex us”, adding that: “We will never be the 51st state.” It’s a technique familiar in the darker corners of the New Jersey construction industry: a series of unfortunate fires that only stops when a recalcitrant competitor submits.

Both the substance and the style are pure mafia. Note the obsession with respect, demonstrated in last week’s Oval Office confrontation with Zelenskyy. Between them, JD Vance and Trump accused the Ukrainian leader three times of showing disrespect, sounding less like world leaders than touchy Tommy DeVito, the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas.

Note too the humiliation of subordinates. In his address to Congress, the president introduced secretary of state Marco Rubio as the man charged with taking back the Panama canal. “Good luck, Marco,” said Trump, with a chuckle. “Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong.” Cue anxious laughter from the rest of the underlings, briefly relieved that it wasn’t them.

It’s hard for aides and opponents alike to keep up because power is exercised arbitrarily and inconsistently. Tariffs are imposed, then suspended. Indeed, one reason why import taxes so appeal to Trump is that they can be enforced instantly and by presidential edict. That extends to the exemptions Trump can offer to favoured US industries. As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes observed: “This is very obviously going to be a protection racket, where Trump can at the stroke of a pen destroy or save your business depending on how compliant you are.”

This characterization of Trump is so spot on that you really should go read the rest. I’m using this description of FARTUS as a background to the absolutely appalling crap that’s going on today. It’s hard to mentally deal with how quickly he’s disassembled so many long-standing U.S. Institutions in such a short time. This is especially true because it appears that the massive amount of incompetence and ignorance that his appointments display just escalates the damage. Look at this headline in The Atlantic. It’s reported by Jeffrey Goldberg. “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.” WTAF?

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.

I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.

This is going to require some explaining.

The story technically begins shortly after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, in October 2023. The Houthis—an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam”—soon launched attacks on Israel and on international shipping, creating havoc for global trade. Throughout 2024, the Biden administration was ineffective in countering these Houthi attacks; the incoming Trump administration promised a tougher response.

This is where Pete Hegseth and I come in.

On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them.

I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.

Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”

A message to the group, from “Michael Waltz,” read as follows: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.”

The message continued, “Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”

The term principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.

Definitely go read this one. I’ve been missing reading John le Carré. I’m assuming anyone with a background in spying would have saucer eyes by this time. Trump’s love of playing checkers with the countries of the world is dangerous and immoral. He plays with everyone’s life like a mad king. This is from Oliver Darcy at Status. It’s a remarkable indictment of how the press enables his heinous policies and statements. “Gulf of Fear. When news anchors tiptoe around the name Gulf of Mexico, it’s not just semantics—it’s a glimpse at how the press starts to flinch under political pressure.”

In China, Taiwan doesn’t exist—at least not as a country. On official maps, it’s a province. The government enforces strict language about Taiwan’s status, shaping how its people—and the rest of the world—talk about it. The goal, of course, is far more significant than the name on a map. It’s not about semantics. It’s about wielding influence and asserting dominance. Controlling the language people use, particularly in relation to global geography, is a powerful capability to possess.

In the United States, that kind of top-down dictation might feel like a distant threat, the kind of thing that happens in authoritarian regimes or dystopian novels like “1984,” not in a country built on free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment. Americans tend to believe our press is too independent and and too proud to ever bow to government pressure. We assume that if a president ever tried to dictate language, the Fourth Estate would resist. We assume that we’re immune from such pressures.

But an important segment of the press—the television news media—over the past week quietly demonstrated that it is far less adversarial and far more compliant than the breathless promos these networks air hyping themselves as fearless truth-tellers. When the eyes of the world fixated on the stranded NASA astronauts being rescued and touching down back on Earth, every channel danced around what precisely to call the body of water they splashed into. A review of transcripts, courtesy of SnapStream, revealed an alarming reality: not one of the outlets could muster up the courage to simply refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico, the water feature’s name since the 16th century.

Instead, television news organizations tied themselves in knots, performing linguistic gymnastics to stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs, while also tiptoeing around audiences who would have surely been incensed to see them bend the knee and call it the “Gulf of America.” On ABC News, “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir referred to “spectacular images from off the coast of Florida.” On the “NBC Nightly news,” anchor Lester Holt spoke about the astronauts “splashing down off the Florida Gulf coast.” On the “CBS Evening News,” it was referred to simply as “the Gulf.” And on CNN, anchor Jake Tapper tried to seemingly have it both ways, noting the U.S. government refers to it as the “Gulf of America,” but the rest of the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico.

In fact, I could only one find instance on a television newscast where a journalist referred to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. During an appearance on MSNBC, NBC News correspondent Tom Costello used the term, but then quickly corrected himself, almost as if he had realized he was forbidden from doing so. “Six hours from right now, there will be a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, before backtracking. “Sorry, however you want to call the Gulf. It will be splashing down in the Gulf.”

Suffice to say, none of this was an accident.

We first saw the capitulation of the tech bros and their social media platforms, including Jeff Bezos, who has ruined The Washington Post. This week, the situation there is getting worse. The first thing any autocrat wants to do is to come for any vestige of a free media. This is from MEDIAITE as reported by David Gilmour. “Trump Claims Jeff Bezos Trashed the ‘Crazy People’ in His Own Newsroom: ‘They’re Out of Control’.

President Donald Trump claimed that billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos privately expressed regret over the newspaper’s editorial direction and trashed his own “out of control” newsroom for writing “bad articles” about him.

The comments came during a sit-down with OutKick’s Clay Travis aboard Air Force One on Saturday after Travis suggested “it seems” that Bezos may be attempting to make The Washington Post “more fair” in coverage towards Trump.

Trump agreed and didn’t hesitate to praise Bezos, telling Travis “I think it’s great.”

Travis later asked whether Trump had discussed how the newspaper had come after him “like crazy” in the past, AND the president replied: “At length, I talked to him about it. [Bezos is] a good guy. I didn’t really know him in the first term. I mean, it’s such a difference between now and the first time.”

Pressed on what Bezos had said he had planned for The Post’s coverage, Trump said: “Just that. He’s really trying to be more fair.”

Trump continued: “They actually did a couple of bad articles on him. He said, ‘This is crazy, I lose my fortune running this thing and they, you know, they’re out of control.’ These people are crazy. They’re crazy people. They’re out of control.”

“And he’s a actually a very good guy,” the president added. “If you look at the inauguration, look at the people that were on that stage, here was a who’s who of a world that was totally against me the first time. It’s a much different presidency. I have much more support.”

And now, we have the capitulation of top law firms. How many more legs of democracy will we lose? The Bulwark draws the line today. “Stop Making Excuses for Not Fighting Trump. The capitulations and acquiescence we’ve seen so far will only make opposition more difficult down the road.” This is written by William Kristol under the lede “No Excuse.”

Among those who might be expected to stand up against Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, the hills are alive with the sound of excuses.

You’re an elected official. The Trump administration has rounded up individuals and sent them, without any due process and with much carelessness about who’s been seized, to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The administration is boasting about what it’s done and heralding it a prelude to further actions in the same vein.

You’re thinking of condemning these truly grotesque violations of constitutional rights and human decency. Maybe I should say this isn’t right?

Whoa, Nellie! Not so fast, your political advisers hasten to instruct you. The polls on this issue aren’t great. This really isn’t the hill to die on.

You take their advice. But you tell yourself, and you assure others, that of course you will fight one day—on some other hill, on some faraway hill, some time far in the future.

But to fight now? Bad idea. That would simply play into Trump’s hands. After all, Trump and his allies are good at fighting. If you try to do something, there’s a risk they’ll turn it against you. Whereas if you say nothing, nothing can be used against you.

You might worry for a second that silence and acquiescence just plays into Trump’s hands. But you’re not a sophisticated Democratic operative. So you take their advice.

And anyway, there’s a better plan. That plan is that, eventually, Trump will become less popular. Then, the public will rise up. And then you can speak up. It all works out.

It also works out if you’re in the private sector. In fact, if you’re the head of a huge law firm, capitulation isn’t just a regrettable necessity, it’s your duty. You’re acting in the best interests of your clients. It would be wrong and irresponsible to act otherwise.

What’s more, No one in the wider world can appreciate how stressful it is to confront an executive order like this until one is directed at you.

The people in the “wider world”—those serving in the military or waiting tables or cleaning offices at Paul Weiss—they just can’t appreciate the stress that comes from occupying that corner office at 51st and 6th.

Ugh.

All of these excuses—and there are many more!—are distasteful. But what’s worse is that they make it easier and more likely that others will capitulate. They make it seem that you’re kind of a chump if you actually fight Trump’s authoritarian takeover. The excuses offered for capitulation increase the damage done by capitulation.

As usual, Shakespeare saw all. Here’s Pembroke in Act IV, Scene 2 of King John:

And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by th’ excuse,
As patches set upon a little breach
Discredit more in hiding of the fault
Than did the fault before it was so patched.

The excuses offered by our elites for not standing up to authoritarianism have the effect of helping the authoritarians gain further ground.

Zach Beauchamp writes at VOX, “There’s a pattern in Trump’s power grabs. The White House strategy demands we defend alleged criminals and those with unpopular views.”

After rising to power, Nazis pitched power grabs as efforts to address the alleged threat posed by menaces like “Judeo-Bolshevism,” harnessing the powers of bigotry and political polarization to get ordinary Germans on board with the demolition of their democracy.

What’s happening in America right now has chilling echoes of this old tactic. When engaging in unlawful or boundary-pushing behavior, the Trump administration has typically gone after targets who are either highly polarizing or unpopular. The idea is to politicize basic civil liberties questions — to turn a defense of the rule of law into either a defense of widely hated groups or else an ordinary matter of partisan politics.

The administration’s first known deportation of a green card holder targeted a pro-Palestinian college activist at Columbia University, the site of some of the most radical anti-Israel activity. For this reason, Columbia was also the first university it targeted for a funding cutoff. Trump has also targeted an even more unpopular cohort: The first group of American residents sent to do hard labor in a Salvadoran prison was a group of people his administration claimed without providing evidence were Tren de Aragua gang members.

Trump is counting on the twin powers of demonization and polarization to justify their various efforts to expand executive authority and assail civil liberties. They want to make the conversation less about the principle — whether what Trump is doing is legal or a threat to free speech — and more a referendum on whether the targeted group is good or bad.

There is every indication this pattern will continue. And if we as a society fail to understand how the Trump strategy works, or where it leads, the damage to democracy could be catastrophic.

This, too, is a long read that deserves a look. A lot of this goes back to White House aid Stephan Miller. This guy needs to have an entire press detail following him. I’m going to end with a few articles on economics. The first comes from Paul Krugman and will clarify what’s happening with Social Security. “Social Security: A Time for Outrage. Trump’s policies attack his own base — but who will tell them?” I often find myself in conversations with friends, and we all wonder if Trump Supporters will ever show a glimmer of intelligence.

Donald Trump is often described as a “populist.” Yet his administration is stuffed with wealthy men who are clueless about how the other 99.99 percent lives, while his policies involve undermining the working class while enabling wealthy tax cheats.

What is true is that many working-class voters supported Trump last year because they believed that he was on their side. And that disconnect between perceptions and reality ought to be at the heart of any discussion of what Democrats should do now.

Right now the central front in the assault on the working class is Social Security, which Elon Musk, unable to admit error, keeps insisting is riddled with fraud. The DOGE-bullied Social Security Administration has already announced that those applying for benefits or trying to change where their benefits are deposited will need to verify their identity either online or in person — a huge, sometimes impossible burden on the elderly, often disabled Americans who need those benefits most. And with staff cuts and massive DOGE disruption, it seems increasingly likely that some benefits just won’t arrive as scheduled.

Oh, and Leland Dudek, the acting Social Security administrator, threatened to shut the whole thing down unless DOGE was given access to personal data.

Not to worry, says Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Commerce secretary. Only “fraudsters” would complain about missing a Social Security check:

Let’s say social security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.

There’s so much wrong with that statement that it’s hard to know where to start. But it’s clear that Lutnick — like many affluent people — has no idea how important Social Security is to the finances of most older Americans. According to a Social Security Administration study, half of Americans over 65 get a majority of their income from Social Security; a quarter depend almost entirely on Social Security, which supplies more than 90 percent of their income. I doubt that these people would shrug off a missed check.

Reliance on Social Security isn’t evenly distributed across the population; it’s strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. In particular, it very much depends on education, with less-educated Americans much more reliant on the program than those with more education:

That Lutnick quote cannot be repeated enough. The last read I’m sharing today comes from The Economist. “Musk Inc is under serious threat. The world’s richest man has lost focus. His competitors are taking advantage.” Well, isn’t that special?

UNTIL RECENTLY Elon Musk had little need to look over his shoulder. He once described competition for Tesla, his electric-vehicle (EV) company, as “the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day”, rather than the “small trickle” of other EV-makers. SpaceX, his rocket firm, had so undercut and outwitted the bloated aerospace incumbents that it had developed an almost invincible aura.

Yet if Mr Musk can tear himself away from the intoxication of shredding the American government, he may notice something. It is not just that the political firestorms he has whipped up this year are singeing his companies’ brands. It is that the two businesses that underpin his corporate empire—accounting for around 90% of its value and probably all its profit—are facing increasingly stiff competition. The world’s richest man has lost focus—and now has a target on his back.

Start with SpaceX. Last year it conducted five out of every six of the world’s spacecraft launches. Through its Starlink division, it owns 60% of satellites in space. In December it sold shares at a valuation of $350bn, two-thirds higher than its previous level. Starlink, its main profit engine, is on track to generate more than $11bn of revenue this year and $2bn of free cash flow, says Chris Quilty of Quilty Space, a consultancy.

Now, however, Mr Musk’s bomb-throwing interventions are alarming SpaceX customers, and at a time when rivals are growing more capable. His on-again, off-again threats to end Starlink’s support for Ukraine have raised the difficult question of trust. European politicians are pondering how reliable Mr Musk will be as a long-term provider of strategic satellite communications. The search for alternatives has helped spur a more than tripling of the share price of Eutelsat, the French owner of OneWeb, which provides satellite services to broadband companies.

No European supplier could come close to matching the 7,000 satellites Starlink has in low orbit. (Eutelsat has a mere 600.) Nor could any compete on price. As Simon Potter of BryceTech, another space consultancy, puts it, for now the concerns are “more noise than action”. Yet Starlink may soon face meaningful competition from Amazon’s Project Kuiper, which aims to put over 3,000 satellites into low orbit, creating a space-based broadband network. If it achieves that, some customers outside America may decide they have more confidence in an Amazon product than in one belonging to the mercurial Mr Musk.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is also stepping up the pace in the launch business with Blue Origin. His rocket firm is separate from Project Kuiper, but has contracts to fly many of its satellites. In January Mr Bezos’s New Glenn rocket reached orbit on its first try. If Blue Origin manages to make repeated successful journeys with reusable rockets, it could become a meaningful competitor to SpaceX. So could Rocket Lab, SpaceX’s closest rival by number of launches, which is due to debut Neutron, a new rocket, this year.

Here comes the Rooster.

It’s like we’re in a very bad dystopian novel and can’t escape. Anyway, I’m not shutting up any time soon.

What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today?

Here’s a picture of this big boy who keeps crossing the road in front of my house. The rain just stopped, and the sun cleared up, so he’s been yelling at the sun for about an hour now. I feel like he’s some kind of omen.

Here’s an Alice in Chains song about the Vietnam War. That ought to cheer you up.

Finally Friday Reads: Musk and Authoritarian Overreach

Posted: March 21, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, Agency Purges, American Fascists, Breaking News, Broligarchy, FARTUS, kakistocracy | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, DOGE sees Dead People, Every one goes to El Salvador!, FARTUS, FARTUS and Elonia, Miss Linda's DOE Romper Room, Social Security Administration, Tesla Take Down, Whistle Blower portal for reporting DOGE | 10 Comments

“More Oval Office updates” John Buss, @repeat1969,
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s come to the point where I don’t know where to start. There are so many alarming headlines today that it’s difficult to prioritize them. We’re barely 2 months into this regime, and we’re already seeing folks sent to gulags in El Salvador. Mislabelling people as terrorists is the latest tactic. His attacks on Veterans’ Benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and funds for educational programs for disabled and disadvantaged children aren’t going over well. I think he’s decided that overplaying the terrorist card will be the red meat his KKKult needs. So, today’s Truth Social screed is a warning to anyone picking on poor little Elon Musk and his cars with doors that fall off and engines that explode. He’s the King of “Rapid unscheduled disassembly” (RUD). Does he really think he has this kind of power? Can the courts stop this Evil Moron?

This is from the Daily Beast. “Trump Threatens to Send Tesla Vandals to Prisons in El Salvador. The president also implied attacks on cars were part of a national conspiracy against his megadonor Elon Musk.” We’re already finding his ability to disappear people on the immigration front; now, this? What has happened to Due Process? Does this include toilet papering the car lots? This is reported by Janet Brancolini.

President Donald Trump has joined the chorus of threats from his administration against anyone found guilty of vandalizing Teslas.

“People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to 20 years, and that includes the funders,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!”

Hours later, he followed up with a second post musing that anyone who damages a Tesla could be deported to El Salvador.

“I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,” he wrote. “Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!”

Deporting U.S. citizens is unconstitutional, the American Civil Liberties Union told NPR. Even deporting non-citizens to Salvadoran jails, as the administrative has already done, is legally suspect, given the documented human rights abuses that take place there, experts told the outlet.

A 2023 State Department report found that inmates in El Salvador have been electrocuted, tortured, and beaten to death.
The message came after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that three defendants who had allegedly tried to use Molotov cocktails to light Teslas and charging stations on fire in Oregon, Colorado, and South Carolina were being charged with crimes that carried sentences of five to 20 years in prison. Those arrests were actually made weeks ago, The New York Times reported, but Bondi appeared to time the announcements in response to a fresh wave of attacks this week. Arsonists in Las Vegas set a row of Teslas ablaze at a service center on Tuesday, and two Cybertrucks went up in flames at a dealership in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday.

I guess our new AG is a Bondage girl. Owners are trading in their Teslas at record rates. “Tesla confirms it can’t sell the Cybertruck even with tax credit and discounts,” according to Electrek. Evidently, things are so bad that Elon took time away from getting Top Secret meetings at the White House on China to ensure employees and stockholders that he’s on top of things. “Tesla’s Elon Musk holds surprise all-hands meeting to assuage employees and investors. ‘It feels like Armageddon out there,’ Musk said about vandalism of Tesla EVs. The CEO also gave updates on a number of future products like the Cybercab and Optimus robot.”

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk held an impromptu company all-hands Thursday night, giving an update on the progress of a number of products while also attempting to assuage fears that the CEO is ignoring his post.

Tesla stock has been in free fall since the start of the year, with sales slipping in key regions like Europe and China and even in the US. Though the changeover to the new Model Y SUV has been seen as a drag on sales, Musk’s closeness to President Trump and embrace of right-wing politicians in Europe has seen Musk — and Tesla’s brand — suffer. Protests both in the US and abroad at Tesla showrooms are growing, as are acts of vandalism on Tesla EVs.
After delivering some opening remarks and a few quick updates on Tesla’s milestones, such as 7 million EVs produced and the new Model Y’s status, Musk addressed the elephant in the room: blowback to the Tesla brand from Musk’s foray into politics and leadership of the President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative. “If you read the news, it feels like Armageddon. I can’t walk past a TV without seeing a Tesla on fire,” Musk said, referencing protesters setting Tesla vehicles on fire at dealerships and vandalism at Supercharger locations. “I understand if you don’t want to buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down. That’s a bit unreasonable.”

I’m still laughing (mostly crying) that this is what Musk thinks is Armageddon, and it doesn’t include Veterans, Seniors, and kids with Special Needs not getting the help they need. So, why then does he feel taking away my Social Security that I am entitled to or doing something obscene to the remains of my Student Loans is reasonable? I accidentally went back to X, and the account I supposedly deleted popped up while trying to read a post. But no worries! Glory of all Glories! They suspended me! Imagine this! I have the power! I have no idea what this is and didn’t bother to look. But I sure am having a delicious laughing fit over it all. Check with the President of El Salvador, Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez, if I disappear! Hey, if I didn’t have a sick, dark sense of humor, I wouldn’t have any sense of humor at all.

Your account, dakinikat, was detected by our systems and automatically suspended for violating the X Rules.

Specifically, for:

Violating our rules against inauthentic behaviors.

You may not use our services to engage in inauthentic activity that undermines the integrity of X.

Note that if you attempt to evade a suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

If you have an active X Premium subscription, it will not be automatically canceled by X. To cancel your X Premium subscription, follow these instructions.

I wasn’t aware the X even had integrity. Also, wtf is inauthentic activity? But the weird thing is Tesla stock is on the rise today. Well, it’s not that weird, given the Secretary of Commerce just gave a speech suggesting the KKKult buy the stock since it will never be as cheap as it is now. That White House Car Ad was filmed with the Hype Master FARTUS probably tickled the KKKult’s fancy. Wait, that wasn’t it, according to AXIOS. “Tesla falls after Commerce Secretary recommends buying stock.” This analysis is by Ben Berkowitz

Tesla shares fell early Thursday after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used a TV appearance to urge Americans to buy stock in Elon Musk’s car company. Why it matters: Cabinet secretaries don’t typically recommend individual stocks, much less those linked to the president’s closest adviser.

His recommendation was potentially overshadowed, though, by one of Tesla’s most fervent defenders on Wall Street calling the company’s situation a “crisis.”

What they’re saying: “I think, if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick said on Fox News Wednesday evening. “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again.”

“I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk? You gotta be kidding me.”

By the numbers: Tesla shares were down about 1.7% in premarket trading Thursday to $231.75.

The stock is down 5% in the last five days, 35% in the last month and 42% so far this year.

“We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman said in a research note last week.

Between the lines: Lutnick’s comments are part of what has effectively become a Trump administration campaign to defend Tesla.

Last week President Trump held a public showcase of Tesla’s cars at the White House.

Amid a wave of “Tesla Takedown” rallies at dealerships nationwide, top administration officials have pledged to investigate protesters for domestic terrorism.

Trump said on Truth Social late Thursday, without elaborating further: “People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders. WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!”

Of note: Just hours before Lutnick’s comments, Cantor Fitzgerald — the investment bank where he was previously CEO, which is now managed by his sons — upgraded Tesla’s stock. The intrigue: Lutnick’s recommendation came as one of Wall Street’s most bullish Tesla analysts sounded the alarm on the company’s future.

“Lets call it like it is: Tesla is going through a crisis and there is one person who can fix it….Musk,” Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives wrote in a research note Wednesday night.

“As someone who is a core bull and believer in the Telsa long term growth story…..I loudly urge Musk and the Board to step up, stop being silent, and help resolve this crisis forming at Tesla,” Ives said.

Well, that ‘of note’ is certainly of note. I’d say this post today is enough to get me permanently banned from X, wouldn’t you? I just hope I get a crown, a sash, and a nice bouquet of flowers. Maybe not; let’s try some more headlines before the fat lady over there sings. This is from Politico. “Elon Musk threatens Pentagon leakers after NYT report on secret China war briefing, “They will be found,” warns U.S. President Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser as White House lashes out at the media.” So, my big question is under what authority can he call out the hounds?

Donald Trump’s top adviser Elon Musk has openly threatened Pentagon employees who may have leaked information that the tech billionaire was due to get a briefing on a potential American war with China. The story, published by the New York Times on Thursday evening U.S. time, said that — according to anonymous American officials — the Pentagon planned to brief Musk on Friday about the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China. After the story went live, the planned meeting was confirmed by Pentagon officials and President Trump — but both denied that the session would discuss military plans involving China. “China will not even be mentioned or discussed,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!” Trump’s comments were then reposted on X by Musk, who called the New York Times “pure propaganda” and issued a threat, saying he looks “forward to the prosecution of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT.” “They will be found,” the tech billionaire warned. The New York Times report that infuriated the White House emphasized that such a briefing by the Pentagon would expand Musk’s already wide-ranging role, and would highlight questions about potential conflicts of interest, as Musk reaches deep into the federal bureaucracy while continuing to run his companies like SpaceX, a major government contractor, and doing business in China.

It’s a tag team! Looks like Linda McMahon has taken them to school! But, wait, she’s trying to dismantle schools. Maybe they went to the woodshed instead for a little tête-à-tête. This is breaking news from the AP. “Live updates: Education Secretary says she plans to ‘unwind’ regulations of department.” Well, she’s sure not the Miss Linda from the New Orleans Romper Room!

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on Friday that she is preparing to relocate the department’s core operations to other agencies and roll back federal regulations.

You may hear her describe her “visions” for the DOE at Fox News if you can stomach it. I’d rather read this article from ProPublica. “Parents Sue Trump Administration for Allegedly Sabotaging Education Department’s Civil Rights Division. The lawsuit claims that decimating the agency’s Office for Civil Rights will leave it unable to address issues of discrimination at school — violating the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.” Nothing like another lawsuit to give Pam Bondage something to do.

Saying the Trump administration is sabotaging civil rights enforcement by the Department of Education, a federal lawsuit filed Friday morning seeks to stop the president and Secretary Linda McMahon from carrying out the mass firing of civil rights investigators and lawyers. Two parents and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national disability rights group, jointly filed the lawsuit. It alleges that decimating the department’s Office for Civil Rights will leave the agency unable to handle the public’s complaints of discrimination at school. That, they said, would violate the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The complaint comes three days after the Education Department notified about 1,300 employees — including the entire staff in seven of the 12 regional civil rights offices — that they are being fired, and the day after a group of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued McMahon and the president. That lawsuit alleges the Trump administration does not have the authority to circumvent Congress to effectively shutter the department. The complaint filed on Friday argues that the “OCR has abdicated its responsibility to enforce civil rights protections” and that the administration has made a “decision to sabotage” the Education Department’s civil rights functions. That, the lawsuit alleges, overrides Congress’ authority. It names the Education Department, McMahon and the acting head of OCR, Craig Trainor. “Through a series of press releases, policy statements, and executive orders, the administration has made clear its contempt for the civil rights of marginalized students,” the lawsuit says. The parents’ lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It asks the court to declare the “decimation” of the OCR unlawful and seeks an injunction to compel the office to “process OCR complaints promptly and equitably.”

For once, I’m really happy that this country has way too many lawyers. So, the Democrats in Congress have announced a Whistle Blower site to encourage folks who are or have been Federal Employees to come forward with their stories about DOGE. This is from AXIOS. “Scoop: Democrats open whistleblower portal aimed at DOGE.” This is reported by Stephen Neukam. enate Democrats are launching a new whistleblower portal for public and private workers to dish on how President Trump and DOGE are slashing the federal government. Why it matters: Democrats hope whistleblowers will expose what they argue are the White House’s illegal moves to unilaterally dismantle federal agencies and programs.

Democrats say they want to hear from workers who are witnessing how Trump and Elon Musk have withheld funding and fired federal workers without the approval of Congress.
The effort comes as Trump on Thursday signed an order aimed at shuttering the Education Department, an agency with a $268 billion budget.
The portal, which launches Friday, is spearheaded by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), whose staff on the Senate Budget Committee will conduct oversight of the new tool.

The big picture: Democrats — who hold minorities in both the House and Senate — have little recourse against Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government,

But they have launched an anti-DOGE messaging offensive, betting that a sense Trump has overreach by Trump will be unpopular with voters. Polling has shown voters — especially younger ones — are concerned by DOGE’s actions.
And all of the cuts have happened without the approval of Congress, which the Constitution entrusts with the power of the purse. Democrats see the DOGE cuts as an assault on the power of Congress.”The President is not a king, and we will make sure he is held accountable,” Merkley said in a statement.

I guess we’ll see. Meanwhile, Trump threatens to shut down the Social Security Administration in a pique over a Judge’s decision to block Doge and Elon from going near the Agency. This is from Bloomberg News. “Social Security Says DOGE Ruling Could Force Agency to Shut Down.” Gregory Korte and Zoe Tillman have the story.

The Trump administration is threatening to all but shut down the Social Security Administration in response to a judge’s ruling blocking activities by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency — an action that could delay payments to millions of beneficiaries caught in the middle of the legal battle. Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek said the temporary restraining order issued Thursday is so broad in blocking access to data by “DOGE affiliates” that it could apply to any Social Security employee. “My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek said. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.” He said he would ask the judge to immediately clarify her order. “Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency,” he said. The judge concluded that the unions and the retiree-advocacy group that sued were likely to succeed in arguing that DOGE access to the agency’s systems violated US laws meant to safeguard sensitive information.
The standoff represents a new escalation in the multifront battle between President Donald Trump and the judiciary, potentially putting 73 million Americans who receive old-age or disability benefits in the crossfire.

‘All Legal Remedies’

The White House said Trump would “continue to seek all legal remedies available to ensure the will of the American people goes into effect.”

“In an 134-page decision, a radical leftist-judge ordered Social Security Administration employees not to implement the President’s government-efficiency agenda,” said White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields. “This is yet another activist judge abusing the judicial system to try and sabotage the President’s attempts to rid the government of waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Courts have previously restricted access by DOGE staffers to sensitive Treasury payment systems until they certify that they’ve received proper clearance and training. But Thursday’s order by US District Judge Ellen Hollander goes even further, forbidding access to any non-anonymized data. She also ordered DOGE staff to delete or purge any Social Security Administration data that it already had in its possession.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” Hollander wrote. “It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.”

DOGE is still looking for dead people. If you want to read more about that, you may at the Indian Times. The SSA is more worried about people being erroneously removed. They’ve put up information on their site to help all who may have been prematurely marked by Doge as Dead. CBS News has more information here. Kate Gibson has the information. “What Social Security says to do if you’re incorrectly listed as dead.”

More than 3 million deaths are reported to the Social Security Administration each year. Among them, a small portion — less than 10,000 — are erroneous and need to be corrected, according to the agency. “Our records are highly accurate,” the SSA stated Monday in a blog post following up on an update released Sunday by the SSA on its death record. Of the millions of death reports received by Social Security each year, less than one-third of 1% are incorrect and need to be fixed, it stated. Still, a person wrongly reported as deceased “can be devastating to the individual, spouse and dependent children,” as benefits are stopped and the process of restoring them can be long and challenging, according to SSA. The agency’s statements come nearly a month after the new SSA head contradicted claims that tens of millions of dead people over the age of 100 were receiving checks. Instead, those individuals “are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record,” said Lee Dudek, the new acting Social Security Administration commissioner who was placed in the role by President Trump, in a Feb. 19 statement. “These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” he said.

So that’s it for me today. I think that’s about all I can stomach. What’s on your Reading and Blogging list today? Get Over It! An Eagles Shout out to Elon!

Mostly Monday Reads: We have a Constitutional Crisis

Posted: March 17, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Assholes, MAGA goes after the Rule of Law, Polycrisis | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, constitutional crisis, Cruel Trumpist Immigration policies, FARTUS, muzzling the press, Trump defies Court Orders, Viktor Orban | 5 Comments

” Today, I memorialize Elmo and his new toy.” John Buss, @repeat1988,
@johnbuss.bsky.social

It’s a Grim Day, Sky Dancers!

Last night, after my usual teaching gig, after a few silly games, I decided to doom scroll. I was already following one story and hoping I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. But, you do have to believe your eyes in this dark age. We no longer have to speculate about Trump defying a Federal Judge’s order. That happened this weekend, and the Secretary of State agreed to it. “Exclusive: How the White House ignored a judge’s order to turn back deportation flights.” This is from Axios. The reporting is from Marc Caputo. I know this is a large quote, but it’s succinct and something we all need to know. There is actually more at the link. You should read it all.

Why it matters: The administration’s decision to defy a federal judge’s order is exceedingly rare and highly controversial.

“Court order defied. First of many as I’ve been warning and start of true constitutional crisis,” national security attorney Mark S. Zaid, a Trump critic, wrote on X, adding that Trump could ultimately get impeached.

The White House welcomes that fight. “This is headed to the Supreme Court. And we’re going to win,” a senior White House official told Axios.

A second administration official said Trump was not defying the judge whose ruling came too late for the planes to change course: “Very important that people understand we are not actively defying court orders.”

State of play: Trump’s advisers contend U.S. District Judge James Boasberg overstepped his authority by issuing an order that blocked the president from deporting about 250 alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1789.

The war-time law gives the executive extreme immense power to deport noncitizens without a judicial hearing. But it has been little-used, particularly in peacetime.

“It’s the showdown that was always going to happen between the two branches of government,” a senior White House official said. “And it seemed that this was pretty clean. You have Venezuelan gang members … These are bad guys, as the president would say.”

How it happened: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller “orchestrated” the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Few outside their teams knew what was happening.

They didn’t actually set out to defy a court order. “We wanted them on the ground first, before a judge could get the case, but this is how it worked out,” said the official.

The timeline: The president signed the executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act on Friday night, but intentionally did not advertise it. On Saturday morning, word of the order leaked, officials said, prompting a mad scramble to get planes in the air.

At 2:31 p.m. Saturday, an immigration activist who tracks deportation flights, posted on X that “TWO HIGHLY UNUSUAL ICE flights” were departing from Texas to El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S.

Hours later, during a court hearing filed by the ACLU., Boasberg ordered a halt to the deportations and said any flights should be turned around mid-air.

“This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told the Justice Department, according to the Washington Post.

At that point, about 6:51 p.m., both flights were off the Yucatan Peninsula, according to flight paths posted on X.

Inside the White House, officials discussed whether to order the planes to turn around. On advice from a team of administration lawyers, the administration pressed ahead.

“There was a discussion about how far the judge’s ruling can go under the circumstances and over international waters and, on advice of counsel, we proceeded with deporting these thugs,” the senior official said.

“They were already outside of US airspace. We believe the order is not applicable,” a second senior administration official told Axios.

Yes, but: The Trump administration was already spoiling for a fight over the Alien Enemies Act — one of several fronts on which they believe legal challenges to the president’s authority will only end up strengthening it when the Supreme Court rules in his favor.

Between the lines: Officially, the Trump White House is not denying it ignored the judge’s order, and instead wants to shift the argument to whether it was right to expel alleged members of Tren de Aragua.

“If the Democrats want to argue in favor of turning a plane full of rapists, murderers, and gangsters back to the United States, that’s a fight we are more than happy to take,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios when asked about the case.

It’s unclear how many of the roughly 250 Venezuelans were deported under the Alien Enemies Act and how many were kicked out of the U.S. due to other immigration laws.

It’s also not clear whether all of them were actually gang members.

What they are saying: On Sunday morning, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a video on X hailing the arrival of the Venezuelans in his country. Bukele also mockingly featured an image of a New York Post story about the judge’s order halting the flights.

“Oopsie … too late,” Bukele wrote on X with a crying-laughing emoji

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweeted the post.

Joyce Vance was on top of the story yesterday morning in her Substack Civil Discourse. This brief begins with the background of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Democracy Forward.

The ACLU and Democracy Forward sued the government over its efforts to deport people alleged to be Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members using the Alien Enemies Act. It asked the Judge to enjoin the deportations. The Alien Enemies Act that the government claimed it was operating under is the same law used to put people of Japanese ancestry in camps during World War II. The law, passed in 1798, gives a president, once he issues a public proclamation, wartime authority to arrest and deport citizens of a country engaged in a “declared war” or “invasion or predatory incursion” against the United States.

Federal Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order to stop deportations under the law while he considered the issues. He ordered planes that were up in the air at the time of his decision to return to the United States. There is some suggestion the government didn’t do that, but there are some technical issues involving what happened and when, like the location and timing of flights, some differences between the Judge’s oral directions in court and the minute order he entered in the record, and when the order became effective. The legal position the government is in isn’t entirely clear yet. It’s *possible* that they didn’t technically violate an order that was in effect.

But, whatever the outcome of the legal argument, the government skipped over the spirit of the ruling and, as lawyers know (see above), you don’t slice that close to violating a court order. You comply with it and then you appeal if you disagree with it. If there’s any doubt, you err on the side of caution.

The government didn’t do that and according to reporting in Axios, there is some indication that they are spoiling for a fight on this issue. Axios also reports, “White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ‘orchestrated’ the process in the West Wing in tandem with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem. Few outside their teams knew what was happening.” After the plaintiffs learned Saturday afternoon that two ICE flights were flying from Texas to El Salvador, they went to court to ask the Judge for the emergency order. El Salvador, which had agreed to accept Venezuelan gang members deported from the U.S in a for-pay prison situation, is not exactly known as a bastion of human rights. There are good reasons to doubt the legality of the scheme.

This is clearly an impeachable defense. More cases are dealing with illegal deportation and the accompanying violation of rights headed to court, as reported in Politico by Jack Blanchard. Trump believes he’s above the law, and now we’ll see what the US Legal System says about that. That would be everyone but Alito and Thomas, who are clearly on the side of overthrowing the country. “Playbook: The ‘law and order’ presidency.” This is a follow-up on the First Amendment issue of political speech by holders of Green Cards by BB on Saturday.

SEE YOU IN COURT: Donald Trump’s White House is gearing up for the most significant legal showdowns of his second term thus far after dramatically escalating the deportation of foreign nationals this past weekend. In a Massachusetts courtroom this morning, Judge Leo Sorokin will demand answers after Customs and Border officials deported Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old Rhode Island-based doctor and reportedly a valid U.S. visa holder, back to Lebanon despite a court order blocking them from doing so. In D.C., an even bigger showdown is brewing after the White House chose to ignore a federal judge’s order that two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants being deported to a brutal El Salvador prison be turned around and flown back to the U.S. The Trump administration vehemently insists it’s not defying the courts — but all that chatter about a “constitutional crisis” is now reaching fever pitch.

First, to Boston … where at a 10 a.m. hearing this morning, Judge Sorokin will quiz government lawyers on the deportation last Friday of Alawieh, a kidney specialist with Brown Medicine. Alawieh flew into Logan Airport on Thursday after visiting family in her native Lebanon. She was detained despite holding a valid H1-B visa, her lawyers say, and on Friday, Judge Sorokin issued a temporary order demanding the courts be given 48 hours’ notice of any deportation attempt. But instead, that night, she was sent back to Lebanon via Paris. The Providence Journal has all the details.

Not happy: Judge Sorokin has ordered the government to explain itself in writing ahead of this morning’s hearing, where he will seek to ascertain both the grounds for Alawieh’s deportation and the reason why his order was not followed. Alawieh’s lawyers say the CBP “willfully” disobeyed the court order and have provided “a detailed and specific timeline in an under-oath affidavit” to support the accusation, Sorokin said, describing these as “serious allegations.”

Right of reply: The CBP issued a statement last night which failed to comment on the specifics of the case, but noted that “arriving aliens bear the burden of establishing admissibility to the United States” and insisted CBP officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats.” We should learn a lot more in the next few hours.

Donald Trump just loves to jam up the courts with his law-breaking activities. Tom Mooney reports on the Rhode Island Doctor’s story at the Providence Journal. “Documents shed light on why RI doctor was detained, deported. What we know.” This is this is the second case where Trump’s DOJ willfully ignored a court order.

A federal judge has postponed a hearing to allow U.S. Customs and Border officials to respond to allegations they “willfully” disobeyed his order not to deport a Rhode Island doctor until he could review her case.

Documents filed in federal court ahead of the hearing allege that it was the contents of Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s cellphone that led to her detention, and ultimate deportation, from Logan Airport in Boston.

Federal authorities say in court documents filed in the deportation case of Alawieh, 34, that custom and border officials found “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders on her cell phone.

They also found “various other Hezbollah militants” in the deleted photo folder of her cell phone.

“With the discovery of these photographs and videos CHP questioned Dr. Alawieh and determined that her true intentions in the United States could not be determined,” the documents allege.

“As such CBP canceled her visa and deemed Dr. Alawieh inadmissible to the United States.”

On Friday U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin, in Massachusetts, issued an order that Alawieh not be deported without giving the court 48 hours notice. That hearing was continued until March 25.

Despite his order, the Brown Medicine kidney doctor and Lebanese citizen departed for Paris Friday evening. Alawieh arrived back in Lebanon Sunday morning, said a friend and colleague

You may read about the story more in-depth at The Guardian. “Brown University professor deported despite judge’s order, defying US court. Rasha Alawieh’s case highlights Donald Trump’s escalating immigration policies and tensions with universities.”

Nonetheless, in clear defiance of Sorokin’s order from Friday, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) put Alawieh on a flight to Paris that presumably was a layover back to Lebanon.

On Sunday, Sorokin said in court documents that CBP had received notice of the court order but “nonetheless thereafter willfully disobeyed the order by sending [Alawieh] out of the United States”. Sorokin ordered the government to respond to the “serious allegations with a legal and factual response” and a description of their version of events by Monday morning, ahead of a scheduled court hearing.

CBP did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. In a comment to Reuters, a CBP spokesperson said that officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats” and the burden is on migrants to establish admissibility into the US.

In a statement, a Brown spokesperson said that the university was “seeking to learn more about what has happened, but we need to be careful about sharing information publicly about any individual’s personal circumstances”.

Brown noted that Alawieh had a clinical appointment with the university but was an employee of Brown Medicine, a non-profit that is affiliated with the medical school but is not operated by the university.

On Sunday, after Alawieh’s deportation, Brown sent an email advising international students and faculty members to avoid international travel due to “potential changes in travel restrictions and travel bans”.

Dr George Bayliss, a Brown medical professor who works with Alawieh at the university’s division of kidney disease and hypertension, told the New York Times that the staff “are all outraged”.

“None of us know why this happened,” he said.

Noticing a pattern? I was just on the verge of finishing my Truly Wild Berry and going to sleep when someone sent this FARTUS tweet on Blue Sky. I knew we were no longer in Kansas with this one. The Daily Beast has coverage this morning. “Trump Declares Biden’s J6 Pardons ‘Void’ in Late-Night Truth Social Meltdown. The president claimed that his predecessor’s pardons were void and threatened to investigate lawmakers who blamed him for the deadly Capitol riot.” Janna Branncolini has the lede. I can’t imagine having to read FARTUS TSPs for a living.

President Donald Trump capped off a weekend of golf with a late-night social media rant claiming former President Joe Biden’s pardons for the members of Congress who investigated Trump’s role in the Capitol riot were “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER EFFECT.”

“Those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two-year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.

In one of Biden’s final acts as president, he preemptively pardoned people whom Trump had identified during the campaign as his “enemies from within,” including members of the House committee that investigated Trump’s role in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building.

During a weekend trip to his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida—which cost taxpayers about $3 million—Trump apparently became fixated on the idea that the pardons might have been signed by an autopen and therefore were not “real.”

Since Harry Truman’s time in office, presidents (including Trump) have used autopens—a machine that replicates the president’s signature—to sign documents, according to Smithsonian magazine. But earlier on Sunday, Trump pinned a meme to his Truth Social account implying the autopen had been the real president during Biden’s term.

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign [the pardons] but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime,” Trump wrote, without providing any evidence to back up the claim.

In fact, top White House officials debated the pardons for months, both because their scope was unprecedented and because pardons typically carry a tacit admission of guilt or wrongdoing, the AP reported at the time.

“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” Biden said in a Jan. 20 statement announcing the pardons. “Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.”

At the time, House committee leaders Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said they were grateful for the pardons, and that they were being pardoned “not for breaking the law but for upholding it,” according to the AP.

With the release of the J6 adjudicated Felons, who knows what these brain farts might lead to?

Donald Trump just posted on Truth Social that the J6 committee pardons given by Biden are void.

— amanda moore 🐢 (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T04:37:29.444Z

So here’s more of today’s Constitutional Shit Storm news. This is from The Atlantic. “Trump’s Attempts to Muzzle the Press Look Familiar. Much of what the U.S. president has done to curb independent media echoes the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán’s playbook.” The author is András Pethő.

When Viktor Orbán gave a speech in 2022 at a Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Budapest, he shared his secret to amassing power with Donald Trump’s fan base. “We must have our own media,” he told his audience.

As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I have had a firsthand view of how Orbán has built his own media universe while simultaneously placing a stranglehold on the independent press. As I watch from afar what’s happening to the free press in the United States during the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency—the verbal bullying, the legal harassment, the buckling by media owners in the face of threats—it all looks very familiar. The MAGA authorities have learned Orbán’s lessons well.

I saw the roots of Orbán’s media strategy when I first met him for an interview, in 2006. He was in the opposition then but had served as prime minister before and was fighting hard to get back in power. When we met in his office in a hulking century-old building that overlooked the Danube River in Budapest, he was very friendly, even charming. Like Trump, he is the kind of politician who knows how to connect with people when he thinks he has something to gain.

During the interview, his demeanor shifted. I still remember how his face went dark when I pushed on questions that he obviously did not want to answer. It was a tense exchange, but he reverted to his cordial mode when we finished the interview, and I turned off the recorder.

What happened afterwards was less friendly. In Hungary, journalists are expected to send edited interview transcripts to their interviewees. The idea is that if the interviewees think you took something they said out of context, they can ask for changes before publication. But in this case, Orbán’s press team sent back the text with some of his answers entirely deleted and rewritten. When my editors and I told them we wouldn’t accept this, they said they wouldn’t allow the interview to be published.

In the end, we published it without their edits. That was the last time I interviewed Viktor Orbán. And when he returned to power in 2010 after a landslide election victory, he made sure that he would never have to answer uncomfortable questions again.

What follows is a list of laws and actions Orbán took to control the press. It’s long and very interesting. One of the Organizations that FARTUS is after is ProPublica. Here’s their latest on how he’s trying to expand the Constitution to suit himself. “How a Push to Amend the Constitution Could Help Trump Expand Presidential Power.” The analysis is by Pheobe Patrivic from the Wisconsin Watch. Notice how independent journalists are shaking the trees?

A behind-the-scenes legal effort to force Congress to call a convention to amend the Constitution could end up helping President Donald Trump in his push to expand presidential power.

While the convention effort is focused on the national debt, legal experts say it could open the door to other changes, such as limiting who can be a U.S. citizen, allowing the president to overrule Congress’ spending decisions or even making it legal for Trump to run for a third term.

Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica have obtained a draft version of a proposed lawsuit being floated to attorneys general in several states, revealing new details about who’s involved and their efforts to advance legal arguments that liberal and conservative legal scholars alike have criticized, calling them “wild,” “completely illegitimate” and “deeply flawed.”

The endeavor predates Trump’s second term but carries new weight as several members of Trump’s inner circle and House Speaker Mike Johnson have previously expressed support for a convention to limit federal government spending and power.

Article V of the Constitution requires Congress to call a convention to propose and pass amendments if two-thirds of states, or 34, request one. This type of convention has never happened in U.S. history, and a decadeslong effort to advance a so-called balanced budget amendment, which would prohibit the government from running a deficit, has stalled at 28.

Despite that, the lawsuit being circulated claims that Congress must hold a convention now because the states reached the two-thirds threshold in 1979. To get there, these activists count various calls for a convention dating back to the late 1700s. Wisconsin’s petition, for example, was written in 1929 and was an effort to repeal Prohibition. The oldest petition they cite, from New York, predates the Bill of Rights. Some others came on the eve of the Civil War.

“It is absurd, on the face of it, that they could count something that had to do with Prohibition as a call for a constitutional convention in 2025,” said Russ Feingold, a former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who co-wrote a book critical of convention efforts like this one. “They’re just playing games to try to pretend that the founders of this country wanted you to be able to mix and match resolutions from all different times in American history.”

To avoid the threat of a convention, the legislatures in some states like Colorado and Illinois have passed resolutions withdrawing their petitions. The draft lawsuit says those actions don’t count because “once the Article V bell has been rung, it cannot be unrung.” Nearly half the states the draft counts have rescinded their petitions.

The draft lawsuit is the work of the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, a low-profile nonprofit that has drawn support from balanced budget advocates and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. The group’s chair, David M. Walker, oversaw government accountability as U.S. comptroller general during both the Clinton and Bush administrations. The draft lawsuit is signed by Charles “Chuck” Cooper, a high-powered conservative lawyer in Washington, D.C., who represented Trump’s previous attorney general during the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

All roads eventually lead back to Russia Russia Russia! And, of course, the Propaganda of Fox News. Just to let you know, they’re already doing their thing; here’s the headline and the link. They’re full of nonsense, as usual. “Liberal claim Trump’s causing a constitutional crisis ignores a key reality, Trump opponents who claim this is a constitutional crisis were fine when Biden forgave $400 billion in student loans.” Because violating and ignoring people’s Constitutional rights equals giving fooks a financial break on a Federal Loan program. Right?

Since I’m exhausted today and this will go over 4000 words, I’ll end with this. Judd Legume, an Independent Journalist, writes this at his site Popular Information. I’ve been worried sick about Musk and the Douch boys upending our Social Security Checks, and this one isn’t helping. “EXCLUSIVE: Memo details Trump plan to sabotage the Social Security Administration.” They had already declared one poor man in Seattle dead, and it took him a lot of effort to convince them he wasn’t.

An internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo, sent on March 13 and obtained by Popular Information, details proposed changes to the claims process that would debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.

The memo, authored by Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz, purports to be motivated by a desire to mitigate “fraud risks.”

Elon Musk has pushed several false claims about the nature and scope of Social Security fraud. In a recent interview on Fox Business, Musk suggested that 10% of federal expenditures were related to Social Security fraud. This is false. Social Security fraud does exist, but “improper” Social Security payments amounts to about $9 billion annually — less than 1% of total Social Security benefits paid and 0.1% of the federal budget. Most improper payments are not criminal fraud but the result of beneficiaries or the SSA failing to update records.

The biggest change contemplated by Diaz’s memo is to require “internet identity proofing” for “benefit claims… made over the phone.” When an SSA customer is “unable to utilize the internet ID proofing, customers will be required to visit a field office to provide in-person identity documentation.”

Currently customers can make claims and verify their identity without using the internet or visiting a SSA office. Fraud is extremely rare because there are many safeguards in place. After initiating a call, customers must provide their social security number, date of birth, parents’ names, mother’s maiden name, and date of birth. After the initial teleapplication is completed, the information provided is checked against tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, and medical information, depending on the nature of the claim. If there are any discrepancies, a customer may need to mail a copy of their birth certificate to the SSA. About 40% of all claims are currently processed over the phone.

Because the SSA serves a large population that is either older or physically disabled, many cannot access the internet. Under the new system, this would force these populations to visit an office to have their claim processed. The Diaz memo estimates it would require 75,000 to 85,000 in-person visitors per week to SSA’s offices to implement the policy.

SSA offices do not currently have the resources to handle an influx of in-person appointments of this size. In 2023, the most recent data available, there were about 119,128 daily visits, on average, to SSA offices. Eight-five thousand more week visits would be a 14% increase. SSA offices no longer accept walk-ins and the wait time for an appointment, even before these changes, averaged over a month.

You may see the Memo along with this analysis at the site.

So, that’s it for me. I don’t celebrate Columbus Day or St Patrick’s Day because they’re both about colonizing and enslaving people. I seriously hope I don’t have to write any more crap about FARTUS wanting us to colonize Panama, Canada, or Greenland. We should dump some of these celebrations for good! Again, I wish the Ides of March would’ve happened when Julius Caesar was in the cradle so we might never have gone down the path to useless empires. These worthless bits of hangover propaganda need to be put to rest.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Shutdown or Meltdown?

Posted: March 14, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, Elon Musk, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Polycrisis, Psychopaths in charge | Tags: @repeat1968. John Buss, Chuck Schumer, Doge, FARTUS, government shutdown, Judge orders rehire of Federal workers | 12 Comments

“So, not even two months. Here we are.” John Buss, @repeat1968, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’ve always been an opponent of letting the US Government shut down. As an economist, I know what kind of misery that creates for many people as well, as the possibility of a government default, which could haunt us for many years. My worry is real, but this situation is unique, and typically, the party that tries to shut the government down takes the political heat. I understand what he’s worried about. If we default on debt we become a risky debtor. If we shut the Government down, the weakest among us will suffer needlessly. Default has incredible consequences for the Social Security trust fund, the strength of our dollar, and if anyone will ever buy a US t-bill or t-bond now or ever. That includes war bonds if we ever need them again. I don’t like it, but a default would be unbelievably destructive to the country’s future. I hate that we’re in this position.

How it played out this last night and this morning pitted Schumer against many of his most strong-willed colleagues. Schumer’s support even earned him a pat on the head from #FARTUS. Trump’s always one to take advantage of a bad situation. He interpreted the move as support of the Doge Bulldozer moving through government agencies and policy. That was something one of my Canadian friends from way back in my Fired Dog Lake days predicted. I’d like to read your thoughts on that because I’m unsure how it will be received by folks outside Beltway machinations.

Let’s review what’s out there in the Press and Social media about the move that separated many Democratic senators from the leader. This is from AXIOS as proffered by Andrew Sollender. “House Dems go into “complete meltdown” as Schumer folds”.

House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.

Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.

“Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains,” said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members’ internal conversations.

A senior House Democrat said “people are furious” and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.

Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.

Driving the news: Schumer said in a floor speech Thursday that while the GOP measure is “very bad,” the possibility of a government shutdown “has consequences for America that are much, much worse.”

“A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.

The comments likely clear a path for at least eight Senate Democrats to vote for the bill — enough for Republicans to overcome the upper chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Zoom in: All but one House Democrat voted against the bill earlier this week, in large part because it lacks language to keep the Trump administration from cutting congressionally approved spending.

“There were many battleground Dems in the House … that were uncomfortable, semi-uncomfortable, with the vote,” said one House Democrat. “The Senate left the House at the altar.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in remarks to his House colleagues at their annual retreat Thursday, lauded them for standing up to President Trump by voting against the bill, according to multiple sources.

When he praised House Democrats’ votes, he received a standing ovation. When he mentioned Senate Democrats, members booed.

What we’re hearing: House Democrats’ text chains lit up Thursday night with expressions of blinding anger, according to numerous lawmakers who described the conversations on the condition of anonymity.

“People are PISSED,” one House Democrat told Axios in a text message.

Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.

One lawmaker even vowed at the House Democratic retreat to “write a check tonight” supporting Ocasio-Cortez, said the senior House Democrat.

Another Democrat told Axios the ideation has gone a step further: “There is definitely a primary recruitment effort happening right now … not just Schumer, but for everyone who votes no.”

More gossip and speculation at the link.

Schumer himself appeared on Chris Hayes last night as well as wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.”

Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.

President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.

Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.

As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.

This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.

Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.

He isn’t the first president to want this, but he may be the first president since Andrew Jackson to successfully cow his party into submission. That leads Democrats to a difficult decision: Either proceed with the bill before us or risk Mr. Trump throwing America into the chaos of a shutdown.

This, in my view, is no choice at all.

Emptywheel (a friend from my Fire Dog Lake Doays) wrote a scathing piece on the situation. It indicates how desperately we need the Democrats in Congress to get their acts together. It isn’t easy dealing with chaos, but it’s even worse if you contribute to it. “Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026.” I’m unsure if that’s all they’re thinking about or if they’re just running around like chickens with their heads caught up.

I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.

It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.

Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.

I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.

Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:

Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.

I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.

In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.

THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —

MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.

THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.

Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.

Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.

So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.

I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.

The rest of her essay argues that everyone is far too interested in the midterm elections.

(snip)

One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.

This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.

Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).

Either way, this is an untenable situation.

Today is another day of the country finding out none of this is normal. NBC News has a running thread on every crazy thing on deck for the Beltway today. “Government shutdown live updates: Senate to vote on funding bill today; Dr. Mehmet Oz faces confirmation hearing. President Donald Trump will deliver remarks at the Justice Department, a frequent target of his and his allies’ government weaponization claims.” Have I mentioned I have a TV, but it’s been sitting in a box for nearly three years? I just don’t have the stamina to set it up and watch all this craziness on a big screen.

Reality TV stars and swindlers are about all Trump has to offer up these days.

Hassan grills Dr Oz about promoting a bunch of scam "medical" products on TV, including "raspberry ketones." She notes that "it seems to me you are still unwilling to take accountability for your promotion of unproven snake oil remedies to millions of your viewers."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-14T16:04:34.209Z

The only good news I found today was this.

Judges order Trump to rehire thousands of fired federal workers.

Two federal courts are ruling that the firings of probationary federal workers were improper and that tens of thousands of those employees must be immediately reinstated. The Trump administration is calling the ruling absurd and unconstitutional and is vowing to fight back. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”

It seems we are fully reliant on the Judiciary Branch to stop the destruction of our Government and democracy. It’s not like we didn’t warn people, either. This is in Fortune, as reported by the AP. ” The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules.” The Judge really read the riot act to the Federal attorney also.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate thousands—if not tens of thousands—of probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies last month, saying that the terminations were directed by a personnel office that had no authority to do so.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14 using guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and its acting director, Charles Ezell.

Alsup directed the agencies to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the departments complied with his order as to each person.

The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.

The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce — which it is allowed to do — by firing probationary workers who lack protections. He was appalled that employees were fired for poor performance despite receiving glowing evaluations just months earlier.

“It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country.”

Opinion: 3 ways DOGE challengers could win court cases from CNN

It’s the day before my favorite holiday, The Ides of March. For those who don’t know, if I could go back in time and eliminate before they came into power, it would be the baby that became Julius Ceasar. They offed him too late to help history. So, there’s likely a few folks walking around the White House right now that should Beware the Ides of March. Nipping the Roman Empire in the bud would have definitely put us farther away from the Dark Time Line.

Here’s tomorrow’s version of the Ides of March.

Donald Trump has suggested that the US should buy Gaza, will get Greenland “one way or another” as well as the Panama Canal, ignited a new trade war, floated the annexation of Canada, and hired the world’s richest weirdo (who also happens to be the world’s richest man) to fire tens of thousands of federal employees. And that’s just one country.
Romania’s leading presidential candidate was arrested after winning the first round of elections with the assistance of Russian bots, showing that Putin is determined to mess with all his neighbors. Look for the Moldovan election in a few months; Russia is sowing chaos with energy sabotage.
Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II just had a record-breaking result after the the US basically endorsed them. And don’t be fooled by Friedrich Merz’s lack of flair: The Europeans are about to try to build an independent defense, give the American abdication.
China’s DeepSeek has upended the AI market, throwing Silicon Valley into full-blown panic mode. And it will soon dominate the renewable energy market and have just been given a monumental soft-power gift the US abdication of 80 years of global leadership of the free world.

Tara Palmeri writes this on her blog, Red Letter. “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing. Inside the revolt against Elon Musk…”

The tolerance for Elon Musk inside of the White House is wearing thin, as they deal with the fallout of his calamitous interview with Larry Kudlow when he touched the third rail – entitlements. Even though Trump’s staffers are terrified of Musk, they know that if you try to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, you die, politically speaking.

“It’s no longer simmering resistance, people are fucking furious,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.

“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” said a Republican operative close to the White House.

Even before the interview, I’m told that the White House communications team was adamantly against letting Musk do the interview with Kudlow, even though he’s a former administration official and ally. They know that FOX News is a network that their older, white working-class voters watch closely and this was a rare televised interview for Musk, not the same as getting high with Joe Rogan.

Now they’re playing cleanup. Sure, they sent out a “Fact Check” memo from the White House highlighting that his words were garbled when he said he’s looking at the “waste and fraud in entitlement spending,” not entitlements all together. But then Musk went further, falsely claiming in the interview that Democrats use entitlement programs to attract illegal immigrants into the country so that they can add them to their voter rolls. It doesn’t help that earlier this month, Musk referred to Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”

You can even see Kudlow shifting around uncomfortably during the interview.

Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung denied that there was an issue. “We love [Musk] doing media,” he said, pointing to his joint interview with Trump on Sean Hannity.

As promised, I want to share the ins and outs of my reporting process with you, so I first reached out to Trump’s personal pollster John McLaughlin after I learned about the meltdown over Musk’s interview to ask if he’s been polling Musk’s response in the interview. And I was shocked to learn that McLaughlin has not polled Musk at all, even though he’s clearly a political liability to the President. McLaughlin has been polling Trump for decades and was one of the main pollsters alongside Tony Fabrizio on the campaign. He said the last poll that he conducted that even remotely touched on Musk was about DOGE in November 2024 and it did not mention Musk by name.

“No one has asked us to do that poll,” McLaughlin told me.

Well, the public polling shows that the numbers for Musk – what some would call Trump’s heat shield – have been in free fall since Trump took office, with more than 53 percent of people having an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to a new CNN poll. But surely Trump’s political operation, which to be fair is an impressive one, would want to know if Musk was starting to become a liability. No political consultant in Washington trusts public polling. They’d probably trust the opposition party’s polling over public polling. So that leaves me to believe that they are afraid of Trump’s appendage or it’s because Musk just donated $100 million to Trump’s political arm, which just so happens to be run by Trump’s other pollster Fabrizio. When I asked Fabrizio if he’s conducting polls on Musk favorables, he didn’t get back to me.

Regardless, I’ve heard that the White House is aware that Musk’s numbers are “dog shit,” according to a source. “

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