Which shall rule—wealth or man?

My Sunday movie was Fortune Feimster, Crushing It. I quite enjoyed the first Fortune Feimster comedy video I saw a few weeks ago and this was like a sequel. It was also as much fun. The first story was about the honeymoon she took with her wife Jax to the Maldives. Only on the plane – a 24 hour trip – did Fortune find out being gay in the Maldives is illegal. The trip there included an overnight in Qatar, where being gay is also illegal. She was afraid of gay booby traps the whole time. It was not a romantic honeymoon. Again, there were stories of dealing with her mother. Some were when Fortune was a teen. After her parents divorced her mother started treating Fortune as her husband – even though there were older brothers. Other stories were about dealing with a now elderly mother. And to my delight she talked about being a teen in the church bell choir! Sigh, not the most flattering of stories. My phone has been added to an emergency alert system. It is now 0-3. The first alert I got was a couple weeks ago. The alert said that strong thunderstorms were heading my way and would hit in several hours. By the time the storm reached me it had died out and I think we didn’t even get a sprinkle. The second alert was 6 am Monday morning. It said there was a possible explosion, though unconfirmed. It gave an address, but not a city (and there are a lot of cities in the Detroit Metro area). The alarm sound woke me up. Then my phone chirped about once a minute demanding I read the message. I eventually got out of bed to get it to shut up. Going back to sleep wasn’t easy. I checked the local news this morning. Yes, there had been a fire at that address. Whether there was also an explosion is unknown. If I needed to be concerned about an explosion why did the alert come two hours after the fire started? Yeah, I’m glad it didn’t wake me at 4 am. The fire was about ten miles away. Why did I need to be concerned at all? The third alert is one that didn’t get sent. Sunday afternoon a line of thunderstorms did sweep across the area. It was strong enough my city’s civil defense sirens went off. The news this morning included how many homes had lost power. So why no alert? Who issued these alerts and under whose authority is not mentioned in the messages. As soon as I touch “OK” they disappear. How did I get on this alert system? I’ve had the phone about 22 months before the first alert. How might I get off? I think I would do better on my own city’s system, if I’m on any system at all. Now here on Wednesday evening a thunderstorm is passing through. No alert. So maybe the score should be 0-4. Big news out of the US Senate is the 25 hour speech given by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). He started at 7 pm on Monday and yielded the floor after 8 pm on Tuesday. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported on the speech as of Tuesday morning.

Throughout his marathon speech, the senator has taken aim at key Trump policies and actions, particularly the systematic attack on multiple government agencies under the guise of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Trump has signed off on DOGE-led purges of thousands of government employees (some purges of which judges have ruled unconstitutional), closures of federal agencies, and intrusions of sensitive government systems at agencies like the IRS and Social Security Administration. “What kind of man is in our White House that makes fun of the disabled, who lies so much that the fact-checkers lose count, that minimizes the pain and the suffering?” Booker asked.

Alix Breeden of Kos reported this afternoon, and explains a bit more. Yes, this sets a record. The previous longest speech was by Strom Thurmond in 1957, fighting against civil rights. Breeden reported on the response from Democrats, which was strong praise, and on the response from the public.

According to The New York Times, more than 14,000 people called Booker’s office from the time he began his speech Monday until he yielded the floor. He reached young voters on TikTok, amassing more than 350 million “likes” on videos of his speech posted to his profile. On YouTube, his videos have more than 140,000 views. And across social media, the left is praising Booker for lighting a fire under the Democratic Party.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Christian Paz of Vox:

Into his second day of a marathon address on the Senate floor, Booker is engaging in almost, but not quite, a filibuster — an old congressional tradition. Filibusters are marathon addresses used as a procedural tool. They take advantage of the Senate’s rules that allow for unlimited debate or speaking by a senator unless there have been special limits put in place. Senators recognized by the presiding officer can speak indefinitely, “usually cannot be forced to cede the floor, or even be interrupted”…but “must remain standing and must speak more or less continuously,” according to the Congressional Research Service. But Booker’s address isn’t a filibuster — there’s no legislation that he’s trying to hold up. Instead, it’s a form of political theater and protest against the Trump administration. And it comes at a time when overwhelming shares of his party’s membership think their elected leaders aren’t putting up a tough enough fight to resist Donald Trump’s agenda. About two-thirds of Democratic voters would prefer their leaders “stick to their positions even if this means not getting things done in Washington” a March NBC News poll found.

Down in the comments was a lot of praise for Booker. And a rebuke to calling the speech “performative” or political theater. And exlrrp posted a meme, created by The Resistance before the speech ended.

If Senator Cory Booker can stand up and speak out against the fascist regime for over 22+ hours and still going strong, every single Democrat needs to do the same. One after another. We must disrupt business as usual. Our democracy is on fire. This is a national emergency. No more compromises with the fascists. They do not care about the US Constitution, or judges or the rule of law. RESIST. DISRUPT. DO NOT COMPROMISE.

Last Saturday, before yesterday’s Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, wrote a guest post for Kos. Wikler began with a quote by Justice Edward Ryan, chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1873.

The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economic conquests only, but for political power. The question will arise, and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule—wealth or man; which shall lead—money or intellect; who shall fill public stations—educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?

Wikler brought that quote up to date.

Are we feudal serfs of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk? Or are we free?

Wikler wrote that because Musk spent likely more than $25 million to get the Republican backed candidate, Brad Schimel, elected. Musk came to Wisconsin several times. In the most recent trip he offered two $1 million checks to two selected voters. Yeah, offering money to get someone to vote is election bribery and is a felony. The Wisconsin AG has files suit. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate, won the seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This preserves the liberal majority and prompts a big sigh of relief from liberals.

The contest was the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. That broke the previous record of $51 million record, for the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023. All of the spending and attention on the race led to high early voting turnout, with numbers more than 50% higher than the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago.

Two years ago the Wisconsin Supreme Court was flipped from a conservative to liberal majority. Emily Singer of Kos has details on how good this win is for Democrats – and how much of a rebuke it is for Musk and the nasty guy. Crawford won by 10 percentage points. All 72 counties had higher Democratic percents than in November. Crawford won ten counties that the nasty guy had won. Oh, yeah. There were to special elections in Florida to fill vacancies in the US House. They were vacant because Matt Gaetz resigned and Mike Waltz became National Security Advisor (though seems to know nothing about security). Both districts are strongly Republican and in both the Republican candidate won, though by a smaller percentage than in November. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported:

The Trump administration announced on Monday that it will be reviewing nearly $9 billion in “multiyear grant commitments” to Harvard University and its affiliates. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination - all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry - has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in the statement. ... Under the guise of ending antisemitism, the Trump administration has targeted 10 universities for similar federal investigations, including Columbia University. The attacks have led higher education institutions to pledge to remove protections for marginalized groups while cracking down on speech and activism on campus.

A Martinez of NPR spoke to Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor, who is in the process of leaving Yale University, where he’s been since 2013, for the University of Toronto. Stanley is Jewish and an expert on fascism, including writing the book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. The page for this segment is a combination of news article and shortened interview transcript. Alas, I think they left out an important point or two. Stanley is moving to protect himself and his family. That fear was prompted by Columbia University (with other universities targeted) agreeing to rework student protest policies to get back $400 million in federal research funding. From the news article:

Though the administration says they are pulling funding from universities to protect students from antisemitism, Stanley says the administration is using Jewish people as an "excuse to take down democracy."

In the interview Stanley said:

But you can't win a war unless you recognize it's a war. This way they're going to pick us off one by one. And history is watching here. Our institutions will be written about. They're being attacked for this entirely fake reason that's furthermore fomenting antisemitism in the United States. It's going to create mass popular anger against Jewish people. So, if universities want to fight anti-Semitism, they need to stand up and say, 'No, we are not threats to American Jews. You are threatening American Jews.'

If I remember right, that anger is because people will see these institutions losing money because of Jewish people. Also, Stanley said instead of allowing the nasty guy to pick them off, one by one, they need to start working together to present a strong and united voice. Stanley said of the University of Toronto:

I have the privilege and good fortune to get a job there. And they have a long term plan of creating a center that will be a refuge for politicians, journalists and professors from democratically backsliding or authoritarian countries like the United States or Russia. And my job will be to work with these people to jointly strategize about how to return our countries to democracy.

Last Friday Singer reported the vice nasty and his wife went to Greenland. They went to a military base quite a ways north and a good distance from actual cities. He was there long enough to give a combative speech, then flew home. In that speech he claimed Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory, “hasn’t done a good job by the people of Greenland.” So the US just has to take it over. Earlier that day the nasty guy explained, in his rambling way, why he wants Greenland. One phrase: “If you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place.” Kos of Kos offered a rebuttal to the nasty guy and vice nasty.

“Denmark hasn’t done a good job at keeping Greenland safe,” Vance said, which was patently absurd on its face. Has anyone invaded Greenland in decades? Of course not. And the American military presence on the island, part of an array of early-warning radars against a Russian nuclear attack, is the reason why.

Denmark, a member of NATO, has allowed the US presence in Greenland. So yeah, Denmark is keeping it safe. The vice nasty said Denmark hasn’t done enough military spending to keep Greenland safe “from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, China and other nations…” What “aggressive incursions” by Russia and China? Put another way, looking at the nasty guy’s worship of Putin and what’s going on in Ukraine, Greenland should not expect the US to protect it from Russia. Kos included a map of Greenland showing the major cities and the military base. They’re not at all close.

Ultimately, as a NATO ally, Denmark has been open to allowing a greater American military presence in Greenland. There appears to be nothing stopping the NATO alliance, or the United States individually, from building up a presence in Greenland.

Easy to figure out this isn’t about defending Greenland. It’s about the nasty guy appropriating its mineral wealth, now unlocked because of climate change. Since Denmark has universal health care, free college, and low income inequality, is rated the second safest country in the world, and the seventh highest economic freedom score, Kos (and I) like the idea of Greenland annexing the US. disamson of the Kos wrote a variation of what I’ve written a few times. I probably wrote about this when discussing articles on Gaslit Nation. disamson took it from an article posted on Quora.

They don't want to take over the government, they want to destroy that ability of anyone to govern. Traditionally, government was the locus of power in a society. Whether it be right wing or left wing, the most significant power was exerted through government action. That is no longer the case. The real goal of people like Musk & Thiel is corporate feudalism.

I went to that article on Quora. It was written by Feifei Wang, who lives in Seattle. Here are some of the important ideas. A dictator needs a strong central government because that’s how they exert their power. Chaos is bad for maintaining centralized control. But the nasty guy and Musk are not building a central government, even though they have loyalists in the important posts. This looks more like destruction. But a weak government doesn’t help the nasty guy or Musk. The government is a source of enormous wealth for billionaires through the military-industrial complex, subsidies, and regulatory loopholes. A strong central government is the source of their power and money, yet they’re destroying it. So what’s the real goal?

Project 2025 is a “controlled demolition” of the US federal government. Instead of building a competent dictatorship, Trump and Musk (and people from the Heritage Foundation) are gutting federal institutions so they simply cease to function. If you replace career civil servants, scientists, and legal experts with unqualified loyalists, these institutions will be unable to function properly—even if someone competent takes office in the next election. This is not about reforming or restructuring the government for a dictator. It is about rendering it permanently ineffective. ... But what if there are better income sources? What if, instead of gaming the system, they became the system? What if, instead of bending the rules, they make the rules? ... If the government is weak and ineffective, essential services (education, health care, energy, law enforcement, military) will become private industries controlled by the wealthy. When everything is privatized, we effectively live in a plutocracy where corporations run everything, and ordinary people have no democratic protections.

Even if a Democrat were elected president in 2028 they would see the only way to govern is to rely on the private sector. And nationalizing basic government functions would be labeled communism. The nasty guy doesn’t want a functioning government because only a government can hold him accountable. Musk and billionaire tech bros don’t want a functioning government because they want a deregulated playground, one without antitrust laws, labor protections, environmental restrictions, or safety regulations. They become the new ruling class. This is worse than an authoritarian regime like China because they still fill potholes and check food safety. In response to this article Kelvin Bauldry commented:

The Republicans have been running up debt for decades because it makes government look “broken” and starves future governments of the resources needed to fix things let alone adopt new policies like universal health care. Fits right into a plan like what you described.

And Chris Jankowski replied to Bauldry:

You’re right Kelvin, and if you check the record, every single time this has happened, the economy tanks and we vote in a Democrat to fix it. We are a deeply stupid nation...

The executive order, like all too many, is lawless

Back in mid January I watched the movie Hugo. Part of it was an homage to early film making and the films of Georges Méliès. At the time I mentioned the Georges Méliès festival at the Detroit Film Theater at the end of March. We’re now at the end of March and the festival was last evening. It really wasn’t a “festival.” There were eleven films, but they all fit in 80 minutes. Since these were silent films, the earliest from 1898, they were accompanied by three musicians. I’m not sure if they have an independent name or were assembled to accompany these films on tour, of which Detroit was the first stop. Perhaps the name Right in the Eye is the name of the package of films and musicians. That name refers to the image of the man in the moon being hit in the eye by a rocket ship. That image was featured in Hugo. Alas, that film wasn’t included. The films shown indicate a man who understood at a very early time what cinema could do. The Lilliputians and the Giants played with scale. Fat and Lean Wrestling Match showed the director could stop filming to make a substitution in the scene – one fighter would deliver a blow which would turn the other into something flat or a dismembered manikin and a few moments later turn into a human again. The longest film was The Kingdom of Fairies where a group of people used a variety of vehicles to visit fantastical lands while pursued by bad guys. No matter how many times the vehicles crashed the occupants emerged unharmed. Since there is no sound all the actors gesticulated wildly, constantly in motion. I quite enjoyed this early look into cinema. Alas, these films probably won’t be seen on streaming. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos looked over the media responses to Signal-gate, where the top military and intelligence discussed plans on the unsecured signal app, and found media “sanewashing” it. They called it such things as a “relatable fail,” a “blunder,” and a “mishap.” They were not calling it what it was – a severe breach of national security, for which participants should lose their jobs, but probably won’t. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported the nasty guy escalated his assault on democracy by issuing an executive order that threatens to withhold federal grant money to force states to comply to voter suppression tactics already enacted in several states. It also grants DOGE and the Department of Homeland Security access to voting records. As is typical the claims given to support the order are lies. The nasty guy did not win by a landslide. The American voting system is already quite secure. And millions of undocumented immigrants are not voting.

Danielle Lang, a voting rights lawyer at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center told The Guardian that there is nothing constitutional about Trump’s order. “The short answer is that this executive order,” she said, “like all too many that we’ve seen before, is lawless and asserts all sorts of executive authority that he most assuredly does not have.”

My friend and debate partner tells me his Social Security check is still coming. That’s reassuring. But it’s likely still coming because he’s already in the system – at least for a while. Emily Singer of Kos titled her report “It only took two months for Trump and Musk to break Social Security.” The workforce has been cut, field offices closed, and rules for verifying one’s identity have changed. The website has crashed four times in ten days because servers were overloaded. The agency’s ability to serve the public has diminished, but one can’t complain because the office to monitor customer experience is gone. The rule changes mean identity verification can’t be done over the phone. One can do it online (and I started tangling with the verification system and gave up, to tackle when I have lots of time) or in person. Many seniors don’t use computers or live in rural areas without good internet. One has to find an open office and it now may be a good distance away. Then make an appointment with a lot more people having to do the same and a lot fewer agents able to help them. And one must get there – not always easy for seniors. My friend is likely fine. But my eventual application process may be much more difficult than his was. Singer says breaking Social Security is “politically moronic.” It is quite popular, has broad public support, and is critical to highly reliable voting block. Older voters are already packing Republican town halls demanding they stand up to DOGE. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Weiler who writes Jonathan’s Quality Kvetching Newsletter:

The point is to remind ourselves and the political leaders who seek to represent us that their approach to endless rightwing fulminating needs to change fundamentally. It's both bad politics and unprincipled to cave in to blatant bad faith out of some misguided notion of decorum, or fear of losing popular support, or because maybe Republicans have a point about some tempest in a teapot (Hunter Biden’s laptop, anyone?) when, in this era, Republicans’ only goal is to seize power and then abuse it once they have it. Democrats have limited tools at their disposal right now, as we all know. But they need to start practicing, both for the sake of the party’s future, and the country’s, a different mode of politics. As Josh Marshall wrote yesterday, one thing they can do is adopt a parliamentary opposition’s approach. In parliamentary systems, the opposition has a shadow cabinet. One purpose of that is to provide the public with an ongoing narrative about what the government is doing wrong and how the opposition would act differently if and when they return to power. The point of this exercise isn’t to lie about your opponents. It’s in part to ensure that the public doesn’t only hear one side of the political story.

Dworkin quoted a tweet by Orla Joelsen. I went to it directly to see the whole thing.

Representatives of the American government have been going door to door in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, in recent days ahead of the now-canceled visit by the U.S. Second Lady, Usha Vance. This is according to TV 2’s correspondent in Nuuk, Jesper Steinmetz.

American representatives have been walking around, practically knocking on one door after another in the past few days to ask if people might be interested in a visit from the Vice President’s wife. Everywhere, the answer was the same: ‘No, thanks.’

He suffers from billionaire brain

The nasty guy rarely misses a chance for a branding opportunity or turn an event into something tacky. This time it is the White House Easter Egg Roll. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos wrote:

According to reports from CNN and The New York Times, which viewed a nine-page guide available for potential sponsors, companies willing to pay between $75,000 and $200,000 can earn perks such as branding rights, having their logos or names featured on event signage, and mentions in social media posts and press releases. The most expensive package—Platinum—includes “branding for a key area or activation,” 150 tickets to the event (100 general admission, plus 50 VIP), and exclusive tickets to an invitation-only brunch inside the White House with first lady Melania Trump. ... However, there’s a reason past administrations haven’t sought to blur the line between the private sector and the government: doing so raises numerous legal and ethical concerns. For one, federal regulations prohibit government employees from using their public offices for personal gain or “for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise.”

A Pagan in Arizona of the Kos community posted a photo of Greenland’s new red MAGA hat. It says, “Make America Go Away.” Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Canada has adopted the rallying cry of “Elbows Up!” A video in the post explains the phrase came from the great hockey player Gordie Howe as a way of saying he was always ready to for a fight. It was brought to modern awareness by Mike Myers, who returned to Saturday Night Live to portray Musk in sketches over the last few weeks. During two of those shows Myers wore a shirt saying, “Canada is not for sale.” Emily Singer of Kos reported:

President Donald Trump is sending his national security adviser and the second lady of the United States to Greenland as he continues to saber-rattle about taking over the Danish autonomous territory—a move Greenlandic officials are slamming as “highly aggressive,” The New York Times reported. Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, will leave for Greenland on Thursday, while national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will go earlier in the week. ... Unsurprisingly, Greenland officials are pissed. “What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland?” Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said on Sunday, according to The New York Times. “The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us.”

I know today is Thursday. I’m still two days behind in reading news on Kos. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted tweets by David Frum:

The unsought-by-Greenland visit by Second Lady Usha Vane feels like a Trump administration project to goad Greenlanders into protest - after which the administration can demand apologies. If/when the apologies are deemed unsatisfactory, next step may be reprisals.

Down in the comments a tweet by Eric Feigl-Ding quoted a tweet by Same Knowlton. First Knowlton:

What’s the story here, and how could this possibly make sense? Firing the scientists who maintain the National Plant Germplasm System jeopardizes 127 years of agricultural genetic preservation. This system safeguards 600,000+ crop varieties that serve as America's agricultural insurance policy against emerging plant diseases and other unforeseen threats to crop production. The NPGS costs 0.000008% of the federal budget while insuring a $1.5 trillion food system. When stem rust threatened global wheat supplies in 1999, these collections provided the resistant genes that prevented widespread crop failure. Similar genetic resources from the bank generate $91+ million annually for the apple industry alone.

Feigl-Ding added:

America’s doomsday seed vault just got defunded by Trump/Musk. If we ever have an agricultural calamity that wipes out plant life on Earth, it’s the seed vault that will repopulate the Earth and feed humanity after the fallout. This is so stupid.

A cartoon by Toonerman shows Howard Lutnick sitting on top of a big pile of bags of money. A man struggles up the pile.

Man: Oh Great Greedy Gazillionaire Howard Lutnick. I didn’t get my Social Security Check. Why? It’s my money and I need it to survive: Lutnick: Quit whining! You sound like a fraudster. Just STFU and accept it. Stocks dropped for a third day in a row... you don’t see me whining.”

Singer discussed the story of the top military and security people discussing plans to attack a Houthi base in Yemen on the unsecure Signal messaging app and mistakenly including Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic in the group. Goldberg said this breach of security could have harmed American military personnel. It violated several provisions of the Espionage Act. It violated federal record laws. Democrats are calling for investigations, calling this “one of the biggest and most incompetent national security breaches in history.” Then Singer gets to the irony.

First, almost every member of that chain criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, citing national security concerns.

Each one of them is listed with their attack on Clinton. And...

Even more ironic is that just last week, Hegseth reported that the Department of Defense was going to be investigating who leaked his plan to brief co-President Elon Musk on the United States' plans for war with China—another thing that makes Americans less safe as there is no reason Musk should be privy to that information. ... Worst of all, as Democrats lambast the Trump administration officials and call for investigations, Republicans have been virtually silent—even though they would be screaming to the heavens if a Democratic administration had done anything even remotely similar.

Those Republicans who did comment were pretty muted. And the nasty guy claimed ignorance.

If the commander in chief did not yet know about the fact that his top aides were putting the country at risk by discussing military operations via text message, then that’s a scandal in and of itself.

In a second roundup Chitown Kev quoted an article in Der Spiegel written by Patrick Beuth, Jörg Diehl, Roman Höfner, Roman Lehberger, Friederike Röhreke, and Fidelius Schmid.

Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. Der Spiegel reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials. [...] Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases. As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike. [...] It was particularly easy for Der Spiegel reporters to discover Hegseth’s mobile number and email address. They turned to a commercial provider of contact information that is primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment.

Paul Krugman, writing for his Substack:

Musk is incompetent and evil. He suffers from billionaire brain — that special blend of ignorance and arrogance that occurs all too frequently in men who believe that their success in accumulating personal wealth means that they understand everything, no need to do any homework. But he also clearly detests anything that makes life better for non-billionaires.

In a third roundup Dworkin quoted a tweet by Juliette Kayyem that included a tweet by Alexander Panetta. First Panetta:

Report: A library and opera house that straddles the Canada-U.S. border and has been a symbol of binational friendship for 100 years will have its Canadian entrance cut off by U.S. authorities.

Kayyam added:

Our nation went from powerful to petty in just a few months.

Sen. Chris Murphy commented on a video showing Howard Lutnick’s comment that only fraudsters would complain about missing Social Security checks.

They are getting ready to destroy Social Security. Because the billionaires don’t need it. Prepping the ground here by shaming people who dare complain if their Social Security check disappears.

In a report posted on Tuesday last week Singer wrote about Judge James Boasberg, who ruled against the nasty guy sending a couple planes of of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious jail in El Salvador. The nasty guy is now calling for Boasberg to be removed. And House Republicans are drafting articles of impeachment against Boasberg and other judges who have ruled against the nasty guy or Musk. There are saner voices saying judicial impeachment is going too far. Even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a mild statement, showing he thinks the talk is not just bluster. Roberts wrote:

For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.

On Wednesday of last week Singer reported House Republicans are supporting the impeachment of judges. Singer wrote the effort is time consuming (and taking away from other House efforts of enacting more of the nasty guy’s destruction) and is destined to fail. The effort is destined to fail, says a Republican aide, because “There aren’t the votes.” If it does come to a vote that record could be politically damaging. And there aren’t 14 Democratic senators who would vote to convict. On Thursday of last week Oliver Willis of Kos reported that after nasty guy commented about impeachment federal judges are receiving death threats and have serious concerns for their safety. Some judges have received pizza deliveries, a way of telling judges their home addresses are known. That’s part of an intimidation campaign. The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received an emailed threat of a pipe bomb in her mailbox. Thankfully, it was a hoax. Lisa Needham of Kos took the DOGE phrase of “move fast and break things” and suggested that’s what judges should be doing.

Federal judges are still treating the Trump administration like a good-faith litigant, and that has to stop. The administration doesn’t believe it has to follow court orders it doesn’t like and keeps figuring out ways to avoid complying.

Of course, she has several examples of not complying. And they’re not complying partly because of a lack of consequences. Judges are giving the administration the benefit of the doubt and also giving deference to the office of the president. That allows the administration to get away with tactics that no other litigant could. An example is stalling litigation by refusing to say who the actual head of DOGE is. So stop giving the benefit of the doubt. Stop giving deference. Use the power of civil and criminal contempt to force compliance with orders. Sanction Department of Justice attorneys when arguments are not brought in good faith or a filing is for an improper purpose, such as harassment.

If a judge does finally impose any sort of penalty, the Trump administration will inevitably race to the friendly confines of the United States Supreme Court to get them to undo it. That court has ruled, though, that federal courts have inherent power to impose contempt for “disobedience to the orders of the Judiciary.” Right now, federal courts are sending the message that court orders don’t really mean anything if the Trump administration thinks they don’t. There’s no reason to treat the government, the most powerful litigant in the country and one with boundless resources and thousands of attorneys, with kid gloves. The administration knows full well what it’s doing, and what it’s doing is mocking the authority of the federal courts. The federal courts should stop helping them.

Subsidizing small, rural states is not efficient

My Sunday movie was The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg. This is Spielberg’s origin story, how he became interested in making movies. It is based on real events, though enhanced for dramatic purposes. Sam Fabelman represents Spielberg as a child. As a boy he uses his dad’s camera. By the time he’s a teen he has his own camera and editor and he’s creating his own films. Some are stories he created with his buddies as actors, some adapted from family events. And through editing those films he begins to understand his family dynamics. There are also scenes of high school where he seems to be the only Jewish kid around. Of course it’s a very good movie. All the lead actors did an excellent job. I enjoyed it. I finished the book Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out by Ryan Love. In the opening chapter Arthur is 79 and he and his wife Madeleine have just celebrated 50 years of marriage. They invite their children Patrick and Elizabeth over for dinner and at the end of the meal Arthur announces he is gay. Elizabeth does not take it well. When her son Teddy hears why his mother is so upset he realizes he can’t yet tell her he is also gay. He must wait until Elizabeth is more accepting of her father. We know that the marriage of Arthur and Madeleine has been happy and they continue to be friends. Eventually we learn they saved each other from difficult situations. After coming out Arthur faces the question: Now what? He came out to be more authentic, but what does that mean to someone his age? Teddy gets an internship at a newspaper, good for his goal to be a journalist. But his mom was a well known columnist at the paper and got him the internship. So he can’t be out at work because word would get back to Mom. Ben is a fellow intern, desperate for the full time job Teddy appears to be gliding into. When Teddy hears Ben is gay we know where this is heading, though it seems to get there way too quickly. Also in the story are Teddy’s besties Shakeel, also gay, and Lexie. Teddy is out to them. It’s a warm story, with more complications than one might expect, though with happy endings. I enjoyed it. I heard in the news over the weekend a quote from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (billionaire):

Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining. And all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right? Anybody who's been in the payment system and the process system knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen.

I knew immediately that he had just called every one of the millions of Americans who wouldn't get through the month without their Social Security check a fraudster. That claim would set up an excuse for shutting down Social Security. Emily Singer of Daily Kos has details. Since Lutnick is a billionaire his mother-in-law probably isn’t depending on her SS check and would be able to live quite well for a long time without it.

Approximately half of the population aged 65 or older living in households that receive at least 50% of their family income from Social Security benefits, and about 25% rely on Social Security benefits for at least 90% of their family income, according to a 2017 report from the Social Security Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics. For those Americans, missing a Social Security payment could be the difference in affording rent, food, or medical expenses. ... Lutnick’s comments raise the question about whether the Trump administration will target people who have issues with their Social Security payments, accusing them of fraud if they reach out for help and shutting off their earned benefits for good.

Over the last few days the news has been full of the story of military and intelligence officials doing a group chat on the app Signal as they work out details for attacking the Houthi rebels of Yemen. They mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic in the group. Of course the pundit roundups on Kos include several quotes of opinions about the mess. I’ll let you read most of them on your own. One of interest is in a roundup by Chitown Kev quoting Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

Especially in the national security domain many things the government does have to remain secret. Sometimes those things remain secret for years or decades. But they’re not secrets from the US government. The US government owns all those communications, all those facts of its own history. Using a Signal app like this is hiding what’s happening from the government itself. And that is almost certainly not an unintended byproduct but the very reason for the use. These are disappearing communications. They won’t be in the national archives. Future administrations won’t know what happened. There also won’t be any records to determine whether crimes were committed. This all goes to the fundamental point Trump has never been able to accept: that the US government is the property of the American people and it persists over time with individual officeholders merely temporary occupants charged with administering an entity they don’t own or possess.

The roundup by Greg Dworkin has quotes that are more about the participants responding to the scandal. Kos of Kos wrote that West Virginia voted hard for the nasty guy. Yet he’s screwing them over. Examples: Charging high fees for Chinese ships visiting US ports is making agriculture exports more difficult. Most of of WV is rural and agricultural. Also, these ships are hauling less coal, hurting the state’s coal industry. A program to help schools buy from local farmers was cut. The state would be hard hit if cuts to programs to feed the poor were enacted. Medicaid keeps their rural hospitals afloat.

Common sense should dictate that if your state is the third most dependent on federal dollars you should maybe vote for the party that supports federal funding. I know, I know, trans this and trans that. But is destroying your entire economy worth the sacrifice for that bigotry? ... It’s called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” and it turns out that subsidizing small, rural states is not efficient. Those farmers aren’t paying enough in property taxes to cover expenses, which is why urban and blue-state folks are subsidizing it. But we liberal voters were fine with paying those subsidies because we’re all American, and we’re all in this together! But if West Virginians thought the federal safety net would have their backs, boy they’re in for some disappointment.

Oliver Willis of Kos talked about the conservative obsession with erasing history – except for Confederate history. I’ve already talked about the Defense Department removing several photos of female and black heroes and removing photos of the Enola Gay, the plane that carried the first atomic bomb to Japan, because of “gay” in the name. As for the second half of the opening statement, Willis mentions several military bases that Biden renamed because the original names celebrated Confederates. The nasty guy is changing them back. Willis traces this desire for erasure to the Confederate mythology of the “Lost Cause” that tried to rewrite the causes of the Civil War. There was also President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That was the impetus for the South shifting from Democrat to Republican.

The right is in a quandary. It has political power, but it still cannot force millions of Americans to concede to the white supremacy that motivates much of conservative politics. That’s why it’s so driven to erase history. When Trump and his administration push for the Confederacy and try to disappear the diverse past, they are delivering on the political primal scream that the right emitted after Obama won. It’s doubtful that Trump will succeed in erasing the country’s collective memory, but like the men who tried to keep chattel slavery legal, Republicans are willing to give their crusade one last Confederate try.

Last Friday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders started on a Fighting Oligarchy tour in Nevada and Arizona. They’re contrasting what Americans want the government to do with what the nasty guy, Musk, and Republicans are doing. AOC talked about Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

Sanders kept the focus on growing wealth inequality and the paradoxes of GOP politicians pleading poverty when it comes to social safety net programs. “We are not a poor country! There is no excuse in God's earth that people have to make a choice between food and the medicine they need to stay alive,” he said in Arizona.

On Monday Einenkel posted an update. Their rally in Denver attracted 34,000 people, the largest rally in Sanders’ career, and an estimated 86,000 showing up for the five events with another 1.5 million watching on livestream.

“When I talked about oligarchy over the years, I think for some people it was an abstraction,” Sanders told NPR on the success of the tour. Sanders explained that with the rise of Musk and President Donald Trump’s billionaire-rich Cabinet, “people understand you have to be blind not to see that what we have today is a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires."

The tour caught Musk’s attention. He claimed: “The Dems just move around the same group of paid ‘protesters.’” Hmm. What would it take to haul 34,000 people to five different venues? I figure that would be close to 700 buses. Sheesh, just the logistics! Last Wednesday Singer reported:

A Republican senator on Tuesday admitted that Republicans are not standing up to President Donald Trump or co-President Elon Musk because they are scared that the richest man on the planet will spend his fortune to kill their electoral prospects.

One who is standing up is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. She called out the timidity of her fellow Republicans, noting their silence is because they fear being taken down. She said she would not compromise her integrity by staying quiet. And Musk may target her. After comments like that I wonder if it is all fear of Musk. I suspect many of those Republicans like what Musk is doing to the government. They’ve been searching for ways to do the same thing while surviving voter disapproval. Now that Musk is doing it for them they just have to separate themselves from his actions. Though that isn’t going all that well – Singer documents several Republicans praising Musk (or at least Tesla) and demanding Americans praise him too. A week ago Singer reported that on Fox News Musk whined about the hatred and violence from Democrats, supposedly the party of empathy. Then he said, “I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things.” How completely clueless can one guy be? Singer documented several of Musk’s actions and how harmful they have been. Shutting down USAID meant people in impoverished countries have died because their HIV treatments were interrupted and others have died from hunger or disease. His tightening of requirements for Social Security is harming seniors. People he claimed were getting benefits even though they were dead are harmed as they try to prove they’re still living. He has cut medical research, including treatments for cancer. He’s fired tens of thousands of federal workers and many struggle to obtain unemployment benefits because he falsely claimed they were fired for poor performance. His actions could trigger a recession. He’s at least completely clueless. This is a time to ask the questions: Harmed who? Productive for whom? From his thinking if it benefits billionaires like himself it can’t be harmful. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, has cheers (amazingly) for Andrew Forrest, CEO of Australian iron ore mining company Fortescue.

“I’ve always found that the customer is always right, which is why we’re going renewable and moving away from oil and gas because our customers are saying, ‘we want energy but not at any cost, and if you can give us green energy at the same price as dirty [energy] then we are going to buy green every day.’ That’s my job, and that’s Fortescue’s job,” Forrest told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday. “You’ve got data centers popping up all over Europe and they want green energy if they can get it. They’ll take dirty if they can’t, sure. That’s Exxon Mobil’s and Total’s argument: ‘Well, we’re just doing what the customers want.’ Actually, you’re not. Your customers want green energy. [If the] oil and gas [industry] doesn’t want to supply green energy, guess what? Fortescue will.”

Men want meat and not chick food

I’m again (or still) behind in reading the news (which mostly means reading Daily Kos) by a few days. So this is a chance to write about some of the stuff that has accumulated in browser tabs. And a chance to decide to close some of those tabs because I’m not going to get around to writing about them. On Wednesday I wrote about the nasty guy sending a couple planes of deportees to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Judge James Boasberg ordered the planes to be turned around. The planes continued and once they landed in El Salvador the deportees were beyond the reach of US courts. The nasty guy said the deportees were members of criminal Venezuelan gangs. Tim Miller quoted a tweet from Aaron Reichlin-Melnick:

NEW! Sworn declarations filed last night confirm the Trump admin sent INNOCENT people to rot in prison El Salvador, including a professional soccer player tortured by the Maduro regime who entered this country LEGALLY to seek asylum and has NO CRIMINAL RECORD in either country.

Miller added:

In a just world, Tom Homan and Stephen Miller would be indicted for this.

Last Saturday Lisa Hagen of NPR discussed the Nazi salute that Musk gave during an inauguration event. It is news these several weeks later because people are taking Musk’s move as permission they can also give the salute. Elites can usually get away with it. Everyone else may face consequences, including losing their job. Not long after Musk gave the salute he said it was a joke. Many people are not laughing. Jokes like this change for the worse what is socially acceptable to discuss. It allows the jokester to accuse those offended of being oversensitive – jokes being “harmless.” And it beckons people to join far right groups because, hey, they’re the fun ones. The right has been successful in claiming it is the home of comedy and free expression. They also target the free expression of those who want reproductive rights, who are LGBTQ, and who want to protest what Republicans are doing. Emily Feng of NPR talked to various people about new parallels between American and Chinese politics. Feng spent a decade covering China. One of the people Feng talked to was David Lampton, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, who noted parallels specifically to the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1970s. Things like attempts to control the media and building a cult of personality. As in the nasty guy banning the Associated Press from certain media events. Feng also spoke to Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. Schell noted that the nasty guy and Mao Zedong are “deeply in love with the idea that you can't be creative unless you first destroy.” Mao purged bureaucrats by accusing them of disloyalty and dissent. The nasty guy is attempting the same. In a post from two weeks ago Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about the Supreme Court decision that upholds Congress has the power to determine how government funds are to be spent and Musk and the nasty guy don’t. In particular Needham wrote about Alito’s whiny dissent, supported by Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas. Here’s why that dissent is described as whiny. Alito is angry that a single district judge is allowed to compel the US government to honor its financial commitments. But conservative litigants routinely run to particular district judges in Texas to ensure a nationwide ruling. Alito is annoyed that a judge ordered the government to pay $2 billion. He sounds like the judge made up the requirement when that $2 billion was in a law adopted by Congress. The money is for contractors who already did the work. Alito’s solution for these contractors is each one individually file in the Court of Federal Claims. That’s a huge barrier for small contractors, especially those based overseas. Also Alito pretends not to know how contracts work. Each contractor would have to argue that the government entered into a contract and reneged. Alito is saying the nasty guy can cancel contracts on a whim. Alito isn’t the only problem – three other justices signed his dissent. In a tweet from six weeks ago Kevin Kruse wrote:

I can’t believe the Supreme Court said the president was above the law and now the president is acting like he’s above the law.

In the replies is a meme showing Founding Fathers and the words “Pardon us while we turn over in our graves.” In another post from two weeks ago Needham reported the nasty guy is pulling security clearances from law firms who have worked against him. This is a problem for more than the law firm.

For a covert CIA officer, even the fact they work for the CIA is secret, and it would be a crime for them to tell someone who doesn’t have proper clearance. If that CIA officer needs an attorney, the attorney needs a security clearance too. This isn’t just an issue for spies. Any federal employee who works with classified material can encounter this if an employment dispute requires discussing that material. Without an attorney who has clearance, that person is out of luck.

An “employment dispute” is now likely to be protesting an illegal firing by DOGE. Targeting law firms is a way to make sure some fired employees can’t protest. A law firm can get its security clearance pulled for doing such things as providing services for special counsel Jack Smith and his cases against the nasty guy for election fraud and mishandling classified documents. An Associated Press article posted on Kos two weeks ago reports that some fired federal workers are facing relatives cheering their firing. These relatives believe the stories of government bloat, or that the government needs to be trimmed to “make the government great again,” or that public servants are “parasites” and part of the waste the DOGE team has yet to document. This vanishing family support can hit hard. At the end of January Juana Summers and Brittany Luse of NPR discussed that Luse has been noticing more and more food products are advertising on their packaging how much protein they contain. Why this new emphasis? Yes, protein can help with weight loss and gaining muscle mass. It is also a food component that has not been villainized, as carbs and fat have been. Here’s another reason for the current emphasis on protein:

It's the nutrient for men. People of all genders need protein. It's just that protein, because of its relationship to muscle growth, has been masculinized. And thus, certain high-protein foods like meat also become masculinized.

And culture, especially commercials play on that, saying men want meat and not “chick food.” Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Garth German. It shows elephants in suits carrying signs saying “Match your clothes to your crotch” and “Lemme see what’s in your pants.” Off to the side is a man saying, “It’s starting to concern me how much you guys are focused on other people’s genitals.”

Weaponized empathy is the issue

I’ve written about the advice being given to Republican members of Congress: Voters (or “paid agitators”) have been showing up at member town hall meetings and telling the member they are quite angry at the destruction of the federal government. The advice is: Don’t hold town hall meetings. Emily Singer of Daily Kos said that Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina ignored that advice and held an event in Asheville. Three hundred people packed the auditorium. Another thousand had to remain outside. Edwards defended his vote for the budget plan that “would cause massive and unpopular cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in order to only partly pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.” He also defended DOGE. Several statements prompting loud booing. Responses like that show there could be a Republican wipeout in 2026. Since Republicans are not holding such meetings several Democrats are now planning to hold town halls in Republican districts. I’ve heard Gov. Tim Walz is a part of that effort. Alex Samuels of Kos looked at the first comprehensive polling done in swing states since the November. The important bit says a Republican wipeout in 2026 is not a sure thing.

Essentially, pollsters discovered that most voters in competitive House districts believe that congressional Democrats “are more focused on helping other people than people like me.” Just 1 in 4 independents (27%) believe that Democrats are focused on helping them, while a majority (55%) feels the party aims to assist others. “The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” said Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters, in a conversation with Politico. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”

Other findings: Over half do not believe Democrats prioritize working people. About half say the term “elitist” describes the Democratic Party. And 40% believe Democrats don’t have a strategy for responding to the nasty guy. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a couple quotes critical of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his support for the Republican spending bill that averted a government shutdown but gave the nasty guy more protections. One quote is from Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box:

This is a failure of leadership. No plan, no strategy, and no attempt to communicate honestly and forthrightly with the base. At no point did we know what Dems were fighting for or what victory would look like. Schumer and some Senate Democrats wanted to be seen as “fighting” up until the moment the fight was set to start. Everyone hoped that Johnson would fail to get the votes in the House, which would force them into negotiations with Democrats. But that didn't happen; and there was seemingly no plan for what Senate Democrats would do if Johnson did get the votes. This is a pattern with Senate Democratic leadership. There is a reticence to have tough conversations with the base, to tell them that this is a fight we can’t win or shouldn’t pick for the reasons Schumer laid out in his op ed. You have to set expectations. Senate Dems should have signaled their worries about the shutdown weeks ago. But because they raised expectations for a fight and pulled the rug out at the last minute, people are enraged — and for good reason. Democrats need to treat our voters like adults and be willing to have tough conversations.

David Remnick of the New Yorker interviewed Atun Gawande, a former USAID senior official discussing the closing of USAID. I think this quote is from one of Gawande’s answers:

This damage has created effects that will be forever. Let’s say they turned everything back on again, and said, “Whoops, I’m sorry.” I had a discussion with a minister of health just today, and he said, “I’ve never been treated so much like a second-class human being.” He was so grateful for what America did. “And for decades, America was there. I never imagined America could be indifferent, could simply abandon people in the midst of treatments, in the midst of clinical trials, in the midst of partnership—and not even talk to me, not even have a discussion so that we could plan together: O.K., you are going to have big cuts to make. We will work together and figure out how to solve it.” That’s not what happened. He will never trust the U.S. again. We are entering a different state of relations. We are seeing lots of other countries stand up around the world—our friends, Canada, Mexico. But African countries, too, Europe. Everybody’s taking on the lesson that America cannot be trusted. That has enormous costs.

And a tweet from Politico with a link to one of their stories:

The architect of Project 2025 says the plan is working perfectly: “It’s actually way beyond my wildest dreams.” Paul Dans, the project’s ousted former director, on how Trump is implementing his agenda after all.

That last bit is because during the campaign the nasty guy pretended he knew nothing about Project 2025. In a second roundup Chitown Kev quoted Edward Isaac-Dovere and Annie Grayer of CNN talking about Schumer and Democrats”

They say Schumer flubbed weeks of strategy, essentially negotiating with himself for less to make the final bill worse than they could have gotten it to be with better pushback. They say he mismanaged dynamics internally with colleagues and publicly so that he ended up delivering a fresh round of dejection to a party already slumping on the ropes. Any Democrat paying attention knew this week of negotiations was going to be terrible for them. But, many say, it was Schumer’s leadership that left them looking and feeling even worse—and with much less leverage for future fight, now that Senate Republicans saw how easy it was to write what Trump wants into the bills, make no effort to reach out to Democrats, and watch them be the ones to attack each other. “Republicans saw Democrats were weak, and thought, ‘We’re going to call your bluff’—and they were right,” said a top aide to one Senate Democrat. “This was always going to be no-win. But it didn’t have to be this much of an ‘L’.”

Political science professor Philip D. Bunn writing for his “Everything Was Beautiful” Substack about the DOGE claim of improving government efficiency:

If “government efficiency” alone is your goal, Nazi Germany is exemplary. This is not to make a lazy accusation of DOGE supporters or affiliates being Nazis, only to highlight that “efficiency” itself is contentless. It describes means, not ends, unless we make the mistake of mistaking our means for ends in themselves. [...] ...consider the “inefficiency” afforded to us by our Constitutional rights. The fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments provide citizens, suspects, and criminal defendants strong protections in the course of criminal investigations and trials. These protections are surely opposed to bare efficiency. It would be more efficient for police officers to be able to search whomever they want, for trials to proceed without regard for protection against self-incrimination, for convicts to have no right to an appeal, and so on. Efficiency in the criminal justice system, pursued single-mindedly, would require removing the pesky rights that slow the process and drag out cases for many months and years. [...] All of this to say, I find the narrow focus on “government efficiency” troubling, both in principle and in practice. I recognize that “efficiency” in most people’s minds is opposed directly to “waste, fraud, and abuse” and I certainly am not defending waste and fraud. But finding and resolving issues of waste, fraud, and abuse is more properly speaking an issue of government accountability, not bare efficiency. In attempting or purporting to increase the efficiency of government, we risk eliminating things that are, despite their inefficiency, quite essential to healthy, stable government….

I’ve written that many Republicans and their rich backers want to privatize the Postal Service so they can make money off it. This appears to be a step in that direction. Samuels reported that Postmaster General Louis DeStroy has reached an agreement with Musk to make “further efficiencies” at USPS. This includes cutting 10,000 workers out of a total workforce of 635,000. That’s on top of 30,000 job cuts since 2021. Ten days ago Kos of Kos discussed Musk and what’s going on with his companies. The value of Tesla stock has dropped 45% since a high in December. That has cut $121 billion from Musk’s net worth. But that leaves him with about $340 billion. The weekend before Musk threatened to cut Ukraine’s access to Starlink, the internet service provided through a constellation of satellites. Ukraine has used Starlink to coordinate combat activities in the front lines of the war. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reminded the world that Ukraine’s Starlink access is paid for by Poland at a rate of $50 million a year. Ukraine pays for every terminal that connects to Starlink. Musk’s threat is prompting Europe to come up with an alternative to Starlink, though a European competitor isn’t scheduled to come online until 2030. Italy appears to have killed a $1.6 billion deal for its own Starlink network. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is head of América Móvil canceled a Starlink contract worth $7.5 billion and announced a $22 billion investment with both European and Chinese providers for a Starlink replacement. Musk’s evil deeds are affecting his net worth. I had previously written that when Biden and Congress authorized more funding for the IRS the agency would be able to audit rich people and pull in much more in taxes than was spent on the new auditors. Of course, Republicans and their rich backers didn’t like having to be honest on their tax forms. Andy Kroll, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, wrote that the probationary employees of the IRS are being fired. Since Biden was able to hire most of these specialists only in the last year, most are still on probation.

John Koskinen, who led the IRS from 2013 to 2017, said in an interview that the widespread cuts to the IRS make no sense if Trump and Musk genuinely care about fiscal responsibility and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. “What I’ve never understood is if you’re interested in the deficit and curbing it, why would you cut back on the revenue side?” Koskinen said.

I referred to these employees as specialists. Kroll explained why. To properly audit a tax return from an oil company the IRS needs petroleum engineers. These are the people who would be able to tell if a big research tax credit is legitimate. Specialists from other industries were hired to audit returns from those industries. They are paid more than other IRS employees, but their work brought in orders of magnitude more than their salaries. In 2024 the IRS made a big push to bring in these specialists and get them trained. Now most are gone.

“Large businesses and higher-wealth individuals are where you have the most sophisticated taxpayers and the most sophisticated tax preparers and lawyers who are attuned to pushing the envelope as much as they can,” said Koskinen, the former IRS commissioner. “When those audits stop because there isn't anybody to do them, people will say, ‘Hey, I did that last year, I'll do it again this year.’” “When you hamstring the IRS,” Koskinen added. “it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats.”

About ten days ago I came across an interesting quote within a meme in the comments of another pundit roundup. The link to that meme is now broken. So I went elsewhere to find that quote. And I found it in an article by Caroline Wazer of Snopes posted on Yahoo! News. Yes, the quote is legit and this article goes to the source and provides a bit more context. The quote is by Musk and was said when Musk was on Joe Rogan’s show. Here’s the exchange with the first sentence the quoted one:

Musk: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot. Rogan: Right, understand when empathy has been actually used as a tool. Musk: Yes, like, it's weaponized empathy is the issue.

In the comments of a third pundit roundup is a cartoon by Toonerman. The first speaker is a dog, which seems to be this cartoonist’s voice of sanity.

Dog: You have $420,000,000,000. You can do anything you want, buy anything you want, go all over the world! It’s incredible. Elon, ... so what do you want to do? Musk: Take money away from old people, take food away from children, take health care away from the poor and keep homeless vets on the streets. ... yeah that’s fun ... You know, killin’ poor people is a blast!

I’ve come to understand that some people, and Musk is a prime example, measure their self-worth by the gap between their lives and the lives of those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Having $420 billion isn’t enough of a gap. He works so that those at the bottom have even less, making his gap bigger. Not quite so far down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme (with a link still intact):

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham asked Putin’s Puppet last night why he’s so much “tougher with Canada than you are with some of our biggest adversaries?” His answer: “Only because it’s meant to be our 51st state. One of the nastiest countries to deal with is Canada.” Do you get it yet? This is exactly the same reasoning Putin uses to annex and invade Ukraine. This gives Putin cover to continue his land grab of former Soviet Union countries.

Calling for disagreeing judges to be impeached

For my Sunday movie I though I’d take a chance on Cutie Pie. It is a Thailand Boys Love series. The main lads are Lian, son of a rich family and already well established as someone important in the family business, and Kuea, who is learning auto repair in engineering school and plays drums as Kirin. Yeah, a bit mismatched. I lasted two segments, one of 20 minutes the other 16, about half of episode 1. I think the segments posted on YouTube are what comes between the commercials. The main problem I have with the story is that Kuea can’t stand up for himself. He can’t tell Lian who he really is and swallows every slight Lian might accidentally dish out. I also feel like I came into the middle of a story, though this is marked as episode 1. Kuea thinks they are well into a relationship and Lian doesn’t agree. Was their “engagement” only a childhood friendship thing? I don’t know and I’m not interested enough to find out. I thought the series would be about them falling in love, though love could develop from a childhood “engagement” friendship to the love Kuea thinks it is. The actors mostly speak Thai, of course, and one must read the subtitles quickly. I took a chance on it because I read the Boys Love article on Daily Kos on all that is wrong with the movie Brokeback Mountain, including how Hollywood sex scenes tend to be aggressive rather than tender and had Cutie Pie as an example of a tender scene. I didn’t watch that excerpt, thinking I would watch the whole series. So I found it again and watched. It’s the first segment of episode 8. Yeah, the lads are both ready to declare their love and the scene is quite tender. And we see no skin below the belt. Now that I’ve seen how it ends I’ve saved myself about six and a half hours of viewing from the start to here and three and a half hours from here to the end of the series. I finished the book Ask a Historian, 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know by Greg Jenner. First of all, I dispute the last part of that title. I didn’t always want to know these things, mostly because I hadn’t encountered the question to be considered. I also wasn’t curious about what women did before feminine products were invented. Jenner is indeed a historian and has worked on shows produced by the BBC (yes, he’s British) and has served as a historical consultant on movies. As the pandemic hit the promotional tour for a previous book was canceled. He was going to use those appearances to ask his audience to ask him anything. But without the tour he had to ask online. This book was his pandemic project. He discusses curry, explaining us that a great deal of what we know about Indian food is actually a British interpretation of Indian food. He tells us about many of the extremely rich people through history and all of them are quite nasty people (yes, Musk was mentioned). He ponders when “history” began. He reviews beauty treatments that were quite harmful. In a question about favorite historical what-ifs he explains why he doesn’t like the topic, which is quite similar to why I don’t like alternate history stories. He uncovers why Italy has that name rather than something like Romania. And he finishes off with the question, “Which people from history would you hire for an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist?" He proposes the getaway driver would be Diocles, a Roman charioteer who entered 4,257 races and won 1,462 of them in a sport when most drivers are crushed to death long before they get anywhere near that many races. All fifty of the answers are fun, entertaining, and enlightening, a delightful combination. Even for things I didn’t always want to know I’m glad I read the answers. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the nasty guy transferred hundreds of immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. While the planes were in the air US District Judge James Boasberg issued an order blocking the deportations. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes to turn around, but since that part wasn’t written it was ignored. As for the rest of the order the nasty guy will appeal it. The nasty guy claimed his justification for the deportations was the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But it is to be used in the time of war and no war was declared. Even so the nasty guy is claiming immigrants are an “invasion” – a war term. As for these deportees, there were no judicial review of the deportations. The nasty guy claimed they were very bad men. But there was no proof they were guilty of any crime. There was no chance of defense. Alas, once they were in El Salvador there was nothing US courts could do. Boasberg has since banned all deportations for up to 14 days, giving time to hear the nasty guy’s justifications. Deportees will remain in federal custody in that time. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted an article on Rolling Stone:

On Friday, hours after Trump said it “should be illegal” to criticize judges, the Trump administration flew several planes with hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to deport them, apparently without due process, to a mega prison in El Salvador — despite a federal judge ordering them not to do so, and to turn around any planes en route if necessary. Trump officials ignored the judge’s order before trying to get him removed from the case. They refused to answer any of the judge’s questions on Monday, while asserting that his court had no jurisdiction once the planes were over international waters. By Monday evening, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was on Fox News arguing that judges cannot be allowed to “determine the way in which the president handles foreign relations.” Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the judge of “attempting to meddle in national security and foreign affairs,” adding: “This one federal judge thinks he can control foreign policy for the entire country, and he cannot.” Bondi confirmed the administration “absolutely” could keep deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador using the same justification.

And from an article on Politico:

Trump’s call to remove U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — the chief judge of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. — is the first time since taking office for his second term that he’s asked Congress to seek a judge’s removal, joining increasingly pointed calls by his top donor and adviser Elon Musk and a segment of his MAGA base. Trump also suggested that “many” of the judges who have ruled against him in other cases should be impeached as well. It’s a significant incursion on the judiciary that comes as Trump has asserted unprecedented unilateral power over federal spending — despite Congress’ constitutional power of the purse — and sweeping authority to remove executive branch officials that previous presidents believed were protected by law. Although the call represents a significant escalation, any impeachment effort is all but certain to be doomed in Congress, where narrow Republican majorities would lack the votes to remove a judge along party lines. Congress has been loath to entertain impeachment efforts for judges based purely on rulings they disagree with and has typically invoked the extraordinary procedures in cases of clear corruption or misconduct.

That got me wondering. If the nasty guy’s calls to impeach judges because they thwart his efforts somehow get before the Supreme Court will those justices want to give the nasty guy all the powers he asks for or are they going to want to preserve their own power. If the nasty guy can impeach lower court judges he can certainly impeach them. Lisa Needham of Kos discusses the nasty guy’s strategy. If he wants to fire all the Inspectors General he could provide evidence of wrongdoing to Congress and go through the waiting period. He didn’t. He fired heads of independent agencies, even though the law says they can be fired only for cause.

The failure to justify these removals isn’t sloppiness. It isn’t that Trump doesn’t understand the law. Instead, he doesn’t believe in the underlying principle that Congress has the authority to create independent agencies. Providing an explanation consistent with the law would be acknowledging that authority. So Trump’s approach of explicitly refusing to give that explanation is a declaration that he has no intention of following the law or recognizing Congress’s authority.

He could have asked Congress to eliminate the CFPB – there are enough Republicans in Congress who also want it gone that such a request likely would have given him what he wanted. Same with USAID and the Department of Education.

Going that route, however, would require Trump to acknowledge that Congress, not the president, has the sole authority to shutter agencies. Instead, Trump appears to be intentionally exceeding his authority, showing that he can usurp Congress’ role whenever he wants. ... For Trump, he’s the only law that matters, and he wants to make sure we all know it.

Leila Fadel of NPR talked to reporter Franco Ordoñez about those deportation flights to El Salvador. Ordoñez spoke to Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, who said of the nasty guy’s administration:

So what I see them doing so far is playing footsie with the notion of defying a court order rather than actually defying a court order. They're getting cute. They're getting up to the line.

Ordoñez concluded:

I mean, this is a case that should not be looked at in a vacuum. The question at hand is not whether or not these people are dangerous and should be in the country but the process of their removal. Is it legal? And specifically, did the administration knowingly ignore this order? This is just another example, though, of how the White House is working to stretch its powers. And we have seen this with the legislative branch, and we're now seeing it in the judicial branch.

A Martínez of NPR spoke to Michael Waldman, a constitutional lawyer and the president of the Brennan Center for Justice. Waldman discussed what a court can do when its orders are ignored.

Judges do have options. They can hold any litigant, including government officials, in contempt. That is something where it can be civil contempt with fines and other things like that. It could even be criminal contempt, where sometimes people go to prison. If a - if someone refuses to cooperate, there are tools. One of the complications here is the U.S. Marshals, who actually enforce some of this stuff, work for the Justice Department. But the law says they have to follow the rulings of judges. And in fact, sometimes judges appoint private lawyers to prosecute cases if they can't get the government itself to do it. Judges have some tools, but ultimately what will be the main tool is the recognition by this president and all presidents that the Constitution requires us to all follow the rule of law. Public opinion and the demands of history ultimately will be the most important and most effective remedy here.

March for Our Lives was started by the student survivors of the Parkland school shooting. They’re now a decent political force with several wins over the years. They are, of course, horrified at the efforts by the nasty guy to overturn some of their gains. I’m on their mailing list and thought their plan for 2025 is pretty good. Here’s my summary. What we want: + Reasonable limits to access to guns and violence intervention programs. This focus is on the states. + To Fight voter suppression and elect gun safety champions leading to reforming democracy. + Gun violence is a part of addressing inequality and reimagining public safety. What fuels gun violence: + Gun glorification. + Political apathy and corruption that destroys democracy. + Armed supremacy. + Poverty. + The national mental health crisis. What we’re fighting for: + Curtailing gun access through background checks, safe storage, and banning ghost guns. + Democracy that works for the people because a true democracy would have enacted gun safely legislation by now. + Addressing social and economic inequality, reimagining public safety, and eliminating state-sanctioned violence. Bishtoons posted a cartoon drawn by Dr. Seuss more than 80 years ago. It shows a carnival barker saying, “And on this platform, folks, those most perplexing of people... the Lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land!” On the stage are two men whose beards are joined. One is in formal wear and is labeled “America First.” The other has a vest with a big swastika.

Once we take power, we are going to go absolutely berserk

Alisa Chang of NPR talked to Matt Slaughter, dean and economist at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, about the nasty guy describing the big stock market drop as a period of transition or a detox before a much better economy will come. This will be short term pain. Slaughter says the tariffs being imposed mean there will also be long-term pain. This economic pain will not be temporary.

I think a fundamental reason that President Trump was elected and then reelected was his astute understanding that globalization has not benefited every single worker and company and community. But what is being missed is that for decades, all those connections to the global economy through trade and investment and immigration have really spurred gains for scores of millions of Americans.

The nasty guy has said that tariffs will rebuild US manufacturing. Slaughter doubts tariffs will accomplish that. The strongest companies tend to be globally connected, more productive, and more innovative. They pay higher wages for better jobs. Yes, some companies and their workers will benefit from higher tariffs that limit competition. But tariffs cause greater harm to the economy than the few companies they help. A recession is looking more likely. Tariffs mean American companies will have lower profits. They’ll be less productive. Jobs will be lost. Consumers see the likelihood that prices will go up. I heard elsewhere this week in response to the claim of a temporary transition, a detox, that the stock market doesn’t believe him. The stock market tends to look out a long way. They don’t see the current situation improving in just a couple quarters or just a couple years. In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing in his own Stubstack:

So the Trumpers are responding in their usual fashion: blaming other people. Yesterday I wrote about the proliferation of conspiracy theories, with a special focus on “globalists,” which, let’s face it, usually ends up meaning Jews. The Trump economic team seems, however, to be pushing a different kind of excuse: The claim that Biden left behind a terrible economy, and that we’ll need to go through a painful period of “detox.” Now, you may wonder how anyone could characterize the economy when Trump took office, with 2.5 percent growth, low unemployment and inflation only slightly above the Fed’s 2 percent target, as terrible. But the Trumpist position, coming from multiple officials, seems to be that the prosperity was fake, that the numbers were exaggerated by bloated government spending and employment. Hence the need for a costly transition to an economy where workers are doing useful things. As usual, one has to ask: Are they ignorant or are they lying? And as usual, the answer is: Why not both?

Sam Gustin of The Nation discussed how the nasty guy wants to manipulate economic data. The Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is a main calculation of US economic output. Changes in the GDP mark economic growth or decline. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced plans to strip out all government spending from the GDP.

By excluding government spending from the official GDP estimates issued by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Trump administration could downplay the economic damage of firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers and slashing billions from the federal budget. In other words, they could gaslight the public into believing that the economy is doing better than it actually is, which could come in handy if economic conditions continue to deteriorate.

In a second roundup Greg Dworkin quoted the Wall Street Journal which voiced fears the nasty guy will wreck the soft landing:

“On Friday, I would have said I thought the administration was worried about their policies really slowing down the economy, and they were trying to lay the groundwork for the narrative that they inherited a weakening economy,” said Michael Strain, head of economic-policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. More recent comments seem to have gone beyond that. “Now, there’s almost a sense that if something goes wrong in the economy, then that’s fine,” said Perkins. “That’s making people quite nervous because if you get to the point where you are pushing the economy into a recession, there is no guarantee that that’s just going to pass quickly.”

Brian Beutler from Off Message wrote that public opinion won’t necessary follow a sabotaged economy.

We’re going to test the power of MAGA propaganda techniques. Can concerted lying convince enough people to deny the existence of economic hardship, or celebrate it, or blame it on Democrats, such that it doesn’t become a political drag on Trump? For all the brain poison MAGA propagandists pump into our information environment, these early signs of discomfort suggest they know the truth of the matter. Which means they’re conscious of the coming deception: they’ll blame Biden and foreigners and liberals and Jews for causing economic pain, and circle their wagons around Trump, fully aware of their own lies.

Down in the comments is a cartoon by Joe Heller showing a wife watching the nasty guy on TV. She says, “He wants us to stop talking about egg prices.” Her husband looking at their retirement account says, “Chicken eggs or nest eggs?” In a third roundup Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman of The Cross Section who wrote that Democrats need to start Project 2029 now. He noted Project 2025 didn’t hurt Republicans much.

Project 2025 is doing exactly what it was intended to do. The process of creating it helped conservatives clarify their goals, and as important as its specific recommendations was the tone it set. The implicit but unmistakable theme of the document was this: Once we take power, we are going to go absolutely berserk. No right-wing fantasy will be off the table. There is no limit to the glorious destruction we will inflict upon the federal government and everything it does.

A tweet from Ken Dilanian:

The president just rattled off a series of grossly inaccurate statistics suggesting violent crime, including murder, went up over the last four years. No serious criminologist believes that and the data doesn’t support it. And every murder is counted.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by DarrigoMelanie showing:

Trump fired... 80K VA workers 50K IRS workers 10K USAID workers 7K Social Security workers 2K Dept. of Education workers 1100 CFPB workers 1K NOAA workers 17 Inspectors general 1 ethics watchdog lead Trump isn’t dismantling the “deep state.” He’s crippling the country.

The list is not (or no longer) complete. I easily noticed something about these cuts: + If they help people who are not rich, they’re cut. + If they prevent rich people from criming, they’re cut. + If the rich want to make money from what the agencies do for free, they’re cut. The agencies that help the rich get richer haven’t been touched. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. A sample:

“Over the past few weeks, the billionaires who attended Trump’s inauguration have lost a combined 209 billion dollars. Yeah—it’s been a wild time. Elon Musk lost $150 billion. Jeff Bezos lost $29 billion. And Mark Zuckerberg lost his mind.” —Jimmy Fallon

“Oh, gosh, what a shame!” said the 99% of Americans that don’t even have $1 billion.