Stop giving this arsonist credit for his firefighting skills

Not all news is bad. Morgan Stephens of Daily Kos reported that several Democratic members of Congress took part in protests at several government departments where they were denied access. They took videos of the denial and accompanying protests. They visited the Department of Education, US Agency of International Development, the Treasury Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Democrats are taking it upon themselves to share these incidents directly with voters on social media, which is how the majority of Americans consume media in the digital age. With this fresh strategy, they can cut through the media middleman and send out visceral clips of what’s happening on the ground in real time.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post:

Donald Trump has made a habit of ginning up crises and then declaring victory when he “solves” them. We in the media must stop giving this arsonist credit for his firefighting skills. The past two weeks have been fraught with international emergencies of the president’s own making — either problems that he pretends already plague us, or those he manifests into existence. This is the best way to understand his trade-war brinkmanship with Canada and Mexico.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet by Ken White, which quotes a tweet by Marisa Kabas. First is Kabas:

New — The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was told this week by DOJ that they'd lose their funding if the org didn't remove any mentions of LGBTQIA+ issues from their public materials, I've learned. Staff were told they need to deadname trans kids in their reports to comply.

And White’s response:

I have not become completely numb; I can still be shocked by some depths of depraved sadism inflicted by this collection of despicable thugs, giggling sociopaths, and dead-eyed apparatchiks. May their days be short and frustrated.

Also from WaPo:

Constituents have flooded the phone lines at the U.S. Capitol this week, many of them asking questions about billionaire Elon Musk “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” and his access to government systems. Senators’ phone systems have been overloaded, lawmakers said, with some voters unable to get through to leave a message. The outpouring of complaints and confusion has put pressure on lawmakers to find out more about Musk’s project, heightening tensions between the billionaire tech mogul and the government. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute. Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by pizzacakecomic showing the nasty guy saying, “DEI Hires are NOT qualified to do their jobs!” Around him are several comments about him: “Can’t stay awake. Is 78. Born rich. Convicted felon. No political background.” A cartoon by the Naked Pastor shows a church with dozens of members (drawn as sheep) and a sheep on the roof sees an approaching trans colored sheep and shouts, “We’re under attack!!” The caption says:

A task-force has been formed to eradicate anti-Christian bias in the USA. The most privileged group in the world is straight white Christian men. So this effort is motivated by fear that this privilege is being threatened. Once you see it, you see it everywhere.

Another way to say that is they fear their position at the top of the social hierarchy is threatened. They don’t even want some other type of people to be seen as their equal. A while back I said I had found Leah McElrath on BlueSky. I saved several tweets, most of which are still in browser tabs. Then I stopped reading McElrath because there I there was so much I wanted to comment on, yet I didn’t have the time. Also, it got to be depressing. So here are some of those tweets. I left out a few that no longer seem relevant. On January 26 McElrath retweeted a post by Gregory Hargreaves with a quote:

"[A] democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power." - FDR (1938)

Shelly responded:

FDR’s bio is interesting. He started out a classic rich guy motivated by a desire for personal power. But his life showed him things and he was willing to grow. It’s not about whether you’re privileged. It’s about who you are and what you do with your privilege. Trump is the anti-FDR.

Also on the 26th McElrath tweeted:

The morning after the 2016 election—and knowing what that meant for SCOTUS—I went to my now-late mother’s house and sobbed that everything I fought my entire life for was going to be erased. She nodded and said, “And you are not alone.”

McElrath included a link to a January 26 article by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer with the heading:

Children of the 1960s watch in pain as the story of our lifetime is erased. For boomers, the rapid reversal of 1960s-era gains for civil rights, women, LGBTQ, etc., has unraveled the story of our lifetimes.

On January 27 after the Israel/Hamas peace deal was announced McElrath posted several photos of a river of people:

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have begun walking from where they were displaced in southern Gaza to what remains of their homes in northern Gaza.

On January 28 McElrath retweeted one from Ezra Levin, who quoted Yassam Ansari. This was when the nasty guy signed his sweeping freeze on federal aid, which has since been rescinded. First, Ansari

Trump is blowing up the Constitution and dismantling democracy before our eyes. Freezing all federal grants is a radical transformation of the relationship between the President & Congress. It’s illegal & dictatorial & Americans will die as a result.

And Levin:

Not to be alarmist, but this is the most radical presidential action I've ever seen. He's straight up seizing Congress' budget power. What do laws matter if the mad king's whims dictate what gets enforced and where money goes? It's not a policy memo - it's a revolution. Don't let it be a quiet one.

On January 29 McElrath tweeted:

I suspect some of these Executive Orders are purposefully illegal because the Republicans want them to be challenged all the way to SCOTUS, which they must be confident will decide in their favor and will thereby create new legal precedent. They’ve been planning a lot of this for a very long time. This is not just “shock and awe” nor a “distraction.” This is end game for a right-wing strategy that has been in the works for decades. They’ve been clear about their goals, often in writing, and most of their moves have been public—making the supposed Democratic lack of preparedness unbelievable.

On January 31 McElrath retweeted a post by Charles Gaba who said he has downloaded the entire 15 Gb public facing CDC website and has posted it on his own server. He managed to do it before executive orders started removing important information from the site. I’ve heard that others have been going to the Internet Archive to save pre-nasty guy versions of other government sites. On February 1 McElrath tweeted:

I feel naive for thinking “Republicans will never actually end Social Security because the pressure on lawmakers is too great.” It never occurred to me they would just hand over the payment system keys to a non-government individual who can stop payments. I suffered from a failure of imagination. It will be…interesting to see how bond markets process the information that Elon Musk now apparently has control over the governmental payment system. The entire domestic and global economies are leveraged, and US bonds previously served as a safe and foundational value investment to hedge risk. Trump has the “football” with control over nuclear weapons. Musk has the payment system with control over $7.3 trillion in outlays. Both are grandiose and thrive on unconstrained power and destruction. We are in extremely dangerous territory.

Kelly replied:

I’ve been saying for months I don’t believe Americans’ imaginations have caught up to a Trump 2.0 presidency. Although I expected some really bad things, it never occurred to me a private citizen would be permitted to hijack the government’s payment system. The guardrails of government are gone.

McElrath retweeted a tweet from Nicholas Grossman, who had commented on a tweet by Adam Keiper. First Keiper:

"We have fought and died alongside you....During your darkest hours...we were always there. Standing with you, grieving with you, the American people....Canadians are a little perplexed as to why our closest friends and neighbors are choosing to target us."

And Grossman:

Canadians are right to feel betrayed. Close allies with mutually-beneficial cooperation for many years only for the US to try to damage the Canadian economy for no reason, spitting on decades of friendship and mutual trust. I’m sorry.

That makes me think of the 1978-80 Iran hostage crisis that was a big reason why Jimmy Carter was not reelected. When the Iranian “students” (thugs) came in one door of the US Embassy six Americans were able to slip out another and took refuge in the Canadian Embassy. They were stuck there until the Canadians were able to create a ruse to get them out. That was the real story behind the movie Argo released in 2012. While these Americans were stuck in the Canadian Embassy American news was very careful to say the exact number of hostages was unknown so that Iran wasn’t tipped off they hadn’t captured them all. Yes, Canada has been a faithful and steadfast neighbor and doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. McElrath retweeted one from Jacob Levy posted February 2:

There hasn't actually been a serious border security problem between Canada and the US. Wanna know a good way to create one? Create incentives in the tens of billions of dollars for successful smuggling operations.

Also on February 1 McElrath quoted Asha Rangappa:

Here are the options on the table (which are not mutually exclusive): 1. House Dems bring articles of impeachment* 2. Senate Dems play constitutional hardball and obstruct everything 3. State AGs litigate (and prosecute) everything they can 4. Citizens march en mass

* Rangappa knows this won’t going anywhere, and that’s beside the point. McElrath added:

There are other options, some of which are being enacted already. They include things like archival work, noncompliance, and various forms of obstruction and sabotage. Mutual aid is also critical, and it includes not only financial assistance but providing transportation, shelter, and legal support. Everyone can also put pressure on their elected officials (AND stop hectoring those who are). Not everyone can or should attend mass protests because not everyone has the same legal status or is able-bodied—but EVERYONE has something they can do. We can ALL apply our strengths and resources.

Elizabeth added:

I have started the process of ending all nonessential spending, boycotting Meta, X, Amazon, Disney, Google, Apple, and redirecting all my funds toward mutual aid.