A long history of ignoring and undermining the Constitution

I finished the book Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal. This is a book I would love to delve into and write about every interesting thing I found, filling pages and pages. But that wouldn’t be fair to Mystal and his book (and its copyright). So I’ll reluctantly stick to summarizing the book rather than each page. In case that wasn’t clear, I highly recommend this book. I’ve encountered Mystal’s writing a few times and I’ve heard others praise his fine logic, his ability to get at the core of an argument, and doing so with wit. He went to Harvard Law School, but being a lawyer didn’t suit him. So he switched to law and justice commentary. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC and helped the NPR show Radiolab with their series on the Supreme Court titled More Perfect. Yeah, he knows his stuff and he’s quite the justice warrior. The hardcover edition came out in 2022. When the paperback edition (the one I read) came out in 2023 he had to add another chapter as a preface, condemning the “originalism” used to overturn abortion rights. Of course, the Constitution, its amendments, and the commentary of the late 18th century don’t mention abortion! The Constitution was written by people who owned slaves! They were also highly misogynistic and restricted government participation to land owners like themselves. Mystal is okay with the body of the Constitution – well, most of it. It’s the amendments that cause all the problems. It isn’t that the amendments are bad, but that the white supremacists running the country have always been very good at ignoring and undermining the parts they don’t like. And, yes, for a great deal of our national history white supremacists have been in charge. Some examples. The Supreme Court, urged on by the NRA, reinterpreted the Second Amendment to mean a personal right to own and carry a gun (if one is white). Mystal gets into the original intent of the amendment – protection against slave uprisings – and the illogic of those who are fans of this interpretation. Our police brutality would wither away if courts actually enforced the Fourth Amendment. Mystal told his own harrowing story of a police encounter. Courts don’t enforce the Fourth because white people don’t want them to. If the Fifth Amendment says a person cannot be a witness against themselves why do police spend so much time trying to trick a suspect into confessing and why is that confession admitted into court proceedings? Yeah, we’re familiar with the Miranda rights from their use in police shows, but does a frightened teenage black kid facing hostile cop know what it really means? If we really believed the Eighth Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment no criminal would get the death penalty. Mystal was not a fan of the Constitution created by slavers. But then came the Thirteenth (banning slavery), Fourteenth (birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection), Fifteenth (the right to vote), and Nineteenth (women voting) Amendments. These are great! They make the rest of the Constitution work! Except society and the courts find all sorts of reasons why they don’t apply in particular cases. See Jim Crow. Mystal has only two complaints about the main body of the Constitution. The first is the makeup of the Senate. It was designed to make sure slavers could stay in control. It is now justified by saying the needs of rural states should not be overrun by the needs of urban states. That doesn’t make sense to Illinois where Chicago dominates the rural areas of the same state. The second complaint is the Electoral College. An amendment would need to be passed to get rid of it, which isn’t going to happen. The National Popular Vote Compact is great – until someone is elected using it. That case will go to the Supreme Court, who will pick the president. A big problem in the US, as defined by this Constitution, is the Supreme Court. A body that can limit or overturn every law that comes out of Congress, even limit or ignore the Constitution is a threat to democracy. Perhaps we should prevent the Court from reviewing laws. That review is not in the Constitution. There is one thing worse than a Supreme Court full of conservatives that block progress. That worse thing is conservative politicians who are quicker to wield their supremacy. So to close the book Mystal discusses how to reform the Court. Reform could start by saying that a Justice may be appointed for life, but not necessarily on the Supreme Court. They can be given senior status and sent to lower courts, able to return when a sitting justice recuses themselves. Mystal suggests the right number of justices should be 29. Some circuit courts have this many. Perhaps the Supremes should reorganize to handle cases as a circuit court does with a randomly selected three-judge panel hearing a case and the full court getting involved only when other justices disagree with the original panel. There is a lot more to the book – it is over 250 pages – and all worth reading. Again, I highly recommend it.

Rich guys installed loyalists in agencies that regulate them

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that on Friday the nasty guy threatened 50% tariffs on the European Union, then on Sunday had a call from Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission on Sunday and backed off. And on Tuesday he boasted what he had done was a successful negotiating tactic to speed things along. The article doesn’t say the nasty guy got anything through this negotiation, other than avoiding tariffs the EU would impose on the US. He also changed the deadline (by one day) for I’m not sure what, probably the date for trying to reimpose tariffs again. Market analysts have a new phrase for this tariff dance: TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos there are a lot of cartoons about the nasty guy, chickens, and tacos. Also in the comments Shelly Kirchoff posted a meme:

Jake Tapper is now calling Joe Biden’s mental decline “Worse than Watergate.” If he was an actual journalist he would be reporting how Trump is committing crimes worse than Watergate every single day.

For those interested in the details James Fallows, writing for his own Substack, posted an account of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem telling Harvard University that she was canceling all the visas of their international students. That is followed by Harvard’s response and lawsuit, followed by a court issuing a temporary restraining order saying the visas must remain valid while the case goes through the courts. Kos celebrated that Daily Kos is now 23 years old. That’s geriatric in internet years. And the site has lasted because it created a community. He wrote:

That spirit is alive and well. In the past year alone: You published over 40,600 stories More than 4,500 different writers contributed The community submitted 1.9 million comments And logged-in users viewed community-authored stories 17.5 million times On an average day, 21,000 of you log in to read, write, recommend, and respond. On Election Day last year, nearly 45,000 of you showed up. You’re not background noise. You’re the engine.

Kos also noted the site changed its revenue stream (I think more than a year ago, though he doesn’t say) from ads, political campaigns, and advocacy groups. The members were the product. Not any more. Now 80% of revenue comes from members. Ten days ago Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about four Silicon Valley tycoons who were able to install loyalists in the government agencies that regulate their industries. The big one is, of course, Musk who through DOGE has people planted in over a dozen agencies, including the ones regulating his industries. Those industries include the FAA, NASA, NOAA, the departments of Transportation, Labor, and Energy. Peter Thiel got friends in the Department of Health and Human Services. The Wall Street Journal reported that HHS has given Thiel’s data company Palantir almost $376 million since 2010, meaning already a long term relationship. Palmer Lucky got a director of his company Anduril nominated to a high position in the Department of Defense. Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX are all courting the DoD. This director has said he’ll keep his Anduril stock as he works for the company that has the power to give contracts to Anduril. The fourth is Marc Andreessen, whose role, at the moment, is a moneyman investing in his pals’ companies. Needham detailed more corruption between these four and the government, then concluded:

None of these technocrats will do the right thing and put the interests of the taxpayers and the country above their own. Indeed, they’re valuable to Trump precisely because of that. People who actually value the work of government and its role in regulating companies pose a problem for Trump, as he sees the presidency only as a vehicle for personal profit and a means for revenge. Now, he has four incredibly rich and terrifyingly amoral friends to help.

Almost two weeks ago Alix Breeden of Kos discussed the latest issues with AI systems. This was prompted by Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protections Agency saying he has plans to make the US the “AI capital of the world.” He didn’t say what that has to do with the EPA. Here are those issues: Americans fear that AI will take away jobs. It looks like AI is also making hiring decisions. Those decisions are likely to be as biased, or biased in new and unknowable ways (AI doesn’t say how it decides things) based on the biased data it was trained on or the biased connections it came up with. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is promoting a bill that proposed a ten year moratorium on state and local restrictions on AI. That means AI companies will have a decade to do what they please. More people are reporting the environmental harm of AI. That includes the huge amount of water AI computers will need, perhaps equivalent of half the water needs of Britain. And researchers are just beginning to look at the public health burden of AI needs. Maybe this is where the EPA comes in (as in an EPA that looks out for polluters, not the environment in its name). Zeldin likes that AI centers like huge amounts of energy. So Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is fast tracking uranium mines for nuclear power and signing new coal leases while delaying a new rule that would protect miners from black lung disease. Two weeks ago Needham reported that Russell Vought, in his side job as acting director of what’s left of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tossed out a proposed rule that would have limited what data brokers could do with private data, like credit history. Needham wrote this seems to be a part of the nasty guy’s assault on privacy. Needham then discussed several ways this is taking place or is planned. An autism database, supposedly to learn the “real” cause of autism. A massive government database, a terrible idea in many ways, one of which would be to make deportations easier. Hacks into and thefts from government databases even before they’re combined. Government used to strive to protect privacy. Now it is assaulting privacy. Also two weeks ago Needham discussed goodies for AI companies going into the budget bill the House has passed. A half billion so the Department of Commerce can adopt AI. The ban on AI restrictions at the state and local levels as mentioned above – free of restrictions AI companies can spew a lot of pollution. Permission to train AIs on copyrighted data without compensating the copyright holder (the reason why the U.S. Copyright Office Director was fired).

Protecting AI companies from spending their own money or obeying pesky regulations is just the latest iteration of the Trump administration’s AI fever dreams. AI is supposed to increase government efficiency by ferreting out fraud and replacing government workers. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has already deployed AI at the Environmental Protection Agency to spy on employees, including looking for anti-Trump sentiments. It’s not clear how that sort of witch hunt increases efficiency, but at least it will cost a lot of money and line the pockets of some already stupendously wealthy people. And, really, isn’t that what the Trump administration is all about?

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted G Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers. I’ll summarize. There is a debate among Democratic strategists. One side says to read the polls and move to the middle on key issues (such as immigration) to win back the pivotal center. The other side says Democrats should shape public opinion, not just follow it, then lead on what is right. This side says the party lacks leadership, especially on corruption, democracy, and civil rights. There are plenty of examples to work with, such as the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Democrats need the courage and conviction on these issues to create mass support. Yeah, I’m looking for Democrats to take the second side. In the comments are a couple cartoons posted by paulpro. The first is by an author whose name I can’t make out. The caption is “Innovations in Medicaid” and shows a woman with an ice pack on her head, her left arm bandaged and in a sling, and with an IV pole behind her. She is on her knees mopping the floor with a bucket and sponge. The administrator standing over her says, “Good news, Beth! You’ve earned almost enough work-credit points for your pain killer!” The second is much further down in the comments. It is based on the King Charles visiting Canada to give the throne speech on the opening of the new parliament. The cartoon, created by deAdder, has the caption “How things have changed since 1776:” the king and the nasty guy are shown at podiums. The king’s podium says, “The King defends democracy.” The other says, “The President defends autocracy.”

One of the most brazenly made-up things from the Supreme Court

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about a troubling Supreme Court ruling. The nasty guy had fired Cathy Harris, the head of the Merit Systems Protection board, and Gwynne Wilcox, the chair of the National Labor Relations Board. The firings troubling because both are independent agencies, intended to be insulated from the whims and vendettas of the president. They are supposed to be removed only for cause. These removals are now in court. Last week the Court used the shadow docket to rule the firings could stay in effect while litigation continues through lower courts. In the process they overturned a 90 year precedent. The shadow docket allows them to avoid explaining themselves. Franklin Roosevelt tried to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission and was blocked by the Court because the FTC is independent and the Court understood why it needed to stay independent. Why not let the board members stay on the job while litigation continues? What the Court did was reward the nasty guy to fight every battle in court.

Harris and Wilcox had argued—correctly—that if they can be removed without cause, so can Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, because that body is structured the exact same way as the NLRB and the MSPB. But the majority made an arbitrary carveout for the Fed, saying it is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks” and therefore isn’t the same. As Mark Joseph Stern said on Bluesky, “this bespoke exception for the Fed is one of the most brazenly made-up things I've ever seen the Supreme Court do.” Yep The sole reason to protect the Fed like this is because the Supreme Court is trying to prevent Trump from further crashing the economy by destabilizing the Fed through removing Powell. No law supports this. There’s no reasoning in the opinion. But it’s stark evidence that the only thing the conservative court majority does care about is the economy. Harris’ and Wilcox’s removals mean that federal employees have no way to contest their firings and unions cannot bring any labor actions—and this troubles the majority not at all.

Back on May 7 (three weeks ago) Needham did the nasty guy another favor. He can go ahead with his plan to ban transgender people from the military while the case goes through lower courts.

By now, it’s almost routine. The administration keeps losing at the lower courts, so they rush to the friendlier confines of the Supreme Court to try to eke out a temporary win, one where Trump gets his way while litigation continues. It’s not a strategy that pans out all the time, but when it does, it’s a treat for Trump and terrible for the rest of us. And that’s precisely what happened here.

This transgender band isn’t because they are trans, it’s because, as Needham wrote, “it’s just that trans people happen to be afflicted with radical gender ideology that harms troop readiness.” No explanation provided. The Court’s action is a preliminary injunction. There are standards and criteria for when they can be used. The public can’t tell if they were because the order is less than a page. So one could assume the Supremes did not follow these standards and criteria Kos community member bilboteach posted an article about what being a member of the House is like. They wrote the post because there are too many people who think being a House member is a cushy job. They work only Monday to Thursday and get weeks at a time away from Washington. So bilboteach discussed what a representative’s schedule in the House is like, frequently 9am to 9:30pm with a quick lunch. And when they go home to their districts, the schedule can be just as grueling. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Lucy Ash of the BBC. I’ll summarize: Young (white) American men are converting to the Russian Orthodox church because it championing a form of virile, unapologetic masculinity. Down in the comments exlrrp shared a tweet from Alex C about the nasty guy.

Donald sad no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class aw West Point who joined under Biden.

Also shared by elxrrp is a meme about the nasty guy’s youngest son Barron, which may explain why the nasty guy is attacking Harvard so relentlessly:

Barron was rejected by Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia. These three are the most prominent universities in the country. Colleges Trump attacks are the ones that, with all of his money, said ‘no endowment will let Barron in.’

In a second roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman of The Cross Section who titled his piece, “Corruption Is Still Corruption Even If It Happens Right In the Open.”

At the heart of this failure is an expectation that no longer holds, that when a politician commits acts of corruption, they will seek to conceal their misdeeds. While it is entirely possible that Trump and his family of fraudsters have engaged in personal enrichment schemes that have been kept secret (in fact, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t), what he has done right out in public is more than enough to demand a change in how we talk about the corruption that defines this presidency. The fact that he is not hiding his corruption — indeed, he seems to revel in making it as public as possible — is still shocking to many in the news media. And they have yet to adapt.

Dworkin added:

Also assumes politicians feel shame. Trump is a broken individual who has none of that human trait.

I had lunch today with my friend and debate partner and his term for the bill with those Medicaid cuts is The Deficit Expansion Bill (sorry, friend, if my quote is not accurate, though it is close). I think my favorite name is still The Big Brutal Bill. Way down in the comments, below the cartoons commenter The Geogre discussed the likely cuts in Medicaid. He quoted Paige Skinner of Huffpost reporting Mike Johnson said they would not “cut Medicaid for the deserving people.” Geogre said “So nice of him to JUDGE THE VALUE OF AMERICAN LIVES.” I look at Johnson’s statement and wonder who got to define the word “deserving?” Looks like it came from Prophet Mike’s definition, taken directly from the Prosperity Gospel, or maybe it was Calvinism. The idea is that God rewards the good and punishes the evil and does it in this life. If one is poor it is because one is sinful (better check on the definition of that word too) and anyone helping the poor is acting against the Will of God. Wrote Geogre, “It’s a way of thinking that even the Puritans found pernicious.” Yeah, it’s a pretty slick way of a rich person justifying why the policies he’s shepherding through Congress are designed to boost the rich by taking money from the poor.

Only fools and toddlers care about contribution limits

My Sunday movie was The Piano Lesson, a screen adaptation of August Wilson’s play available on Netflix. This is not about someone sitting at the piano and learning to play it. The story, set mostly in Pittsburgh in 1936, is the conflict between Boy Willie and his sister Bernice. He wants to sell the piano to get enough money to buy the land where their ancestors were slaves. He’s quite intense in his demand. She refuses to sell because it is a family heirloom – one of their slave ancestors carved family portraits into the wood. Because of bad memories she also refuses to play it. There are questions why this land is now available. The descendant of the slave owner died by falling down his well. Was he pushed? Why does Bernice say she sees the landowner’s ghost in her house in Pittsburgh? I enjoyed it. I had held off on watching it because it didn’t get great reviews. I would have placed it higher than the Metacritic score of 69. It came out last year and I heard about it both because it is based on the August Wilson play and because it is a Washington family production. Boy Willie is played by John David. It’s directed by brother Malcolm who also co-wrote the screenplay. Don’t recognize those names? And one of the producers was father Denzel. I’m sure you recognize that one. In a minor role was Olivia and a bit of searching showed she is Malcolm’s twin. And the credits show Katia, John David’s older sister as another producer. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos discussed some of the recent surveys. One of interest is opinions of aspects of the nasty guy’s agenda. For example, opinions on various parts of his immigration policy show 39% of adults in support, 45% opposed, for a net difference of -6. The topics include DEI at net -14, executive power at -26, and at the bottom is health care at -31. At the top at net +10, and the only one positive, is LGBTQ rights. Scary that his policies are aimed at rolling back our rights, yet 10% more people support his position than don’t. Samuels wrote:

Why the outlier? It’s likely because Trump’s LGBTQ+ policies are really about attacking transgender people. For instance, rather than loudly going after same-sex marriage, which a strong majority of Americans want to remain legal, Trump is targeting a vulnerable minority. And unfortunately, discomfort with transgender people remains widespread, even among Democrats. As grim as that is, it explains why a lot of voters support Trump here.

Another survey of interest was about safety of air travel. Plane accidents for the last three months are down compared to last year, but public perception says safety is worse. Samuels says part of the answer is the media coverage of the big disasters. Another part is the nasty guy, in pushing to fire air traffic controllers, is not helping public confidence. Andrew Mangan of Kos says the nasty guy is waging war on our fridges. He’s doing it in two ways. First, the Food and Drug Administration is planning to end most routine food safety inspections. Some, but not all, inspections can be shifted to the state. 84% of voters oppose such a move, including 75% of Republicans. The second war on fridges is the plan to end the Energy Star program. This is the blue star logo that indicates how energy efficient an appliance is compared to similar products. It has saved more than a half trillion dollars in energy costs. Every $1 the Environmental Protection Agency spend on the program resulted in nearly $350 in energy savings and massively reduced greenhouse emissions driving he climate crisis. Yep, 55% of voters oppose killing it. 86% of Democrats want the EPA to keep funding the program, though only 22% of Republicans feel the same way. I had talked about the nasty guy boosting the value of his personal crypto currency by offering investors dinner with him. Yeah, that dinner has happened, and Emily Singer of Kos says it was as corrupt as one might think it would be. The dinner was held at his own golf club in Virginia and he used a military helicopter to get there (as in taxpayer-funded), yet the White House won’t release a guest list because the nasty guy attended on personal time. That detail is of interest because the Supreme Court said he immune from prosecution only for official acts. (So is someone going to prosecute?) The attendees said they spent millions on the coin to get access to the nasty guy. These are foreign nationals, people who are banned from contributing to his campaign. The top contributor was Chinese crypto magnate Justin Sun who spent $40 million. He’s been sued by the SEC for fraud. He got a gold watch for his troubles (plus face time with the nasty guy). Another investor praised the nasty for being good to his sponsors, who expect a return on investment. Singer wrote: “That's as blatant of a ‘pay-to-play’ scandal as it gets.” Lisa Needham of Kos has a weekly series titled Injustice For All to show the nasty guy is trying to weaponize the justice system and the people fighting back. In last Saturday’s edition Needham wrote vice nasty declared that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t understand the judiciary, saying the judiciary is supposed to allow the deportations the American people voted for. Needham wrote:

Good god, man. The Roberts court invented immunity for Donald Trump. The Roberts court is the reason you have a job. The Roberts court is wholly controlled by your allies. The executive is not exactly beleaguered here, you big baby. But aside from Vance’s usual whining about how oppressed the Trump administration is, this is also spectacularly wrongheaded in terms of how separation of powers works. Vance’s theory of governance seems to be the one that the administration as a whole has settled on: Because people elected Trump, they implicitly endorsed every future action Trump takes, so courts can’t rule otherwise. If they rule against the administration, goes the thinking, that violates the separation of powers. Such a theory, of course, makes courts entirely unnecessary, which may actually be Vance’s goal.

Needham also wrote about that crypto dinner.

What is the current price of dinner with the president? Well, it’s variable based on the price of his stupid crypto meme coin, but here’s how it breaks down: 220 people, many of whom are anonymous, bought $394 million of scammy crypto coins owned mainly by two Trump-affiliated private companies. Individual spend ranged from $55,000 to $37.7 million, averaging out at roughly $1.7 million per head. Federal per-person campaign contributions are capped at $3,500, but everyone knows that only fools and toddlers care about that. Savvy folks know the move is just to bribe the president directly by investing in whatever scam he’s got going. Never thought we’d long for the low-key days of everyone bribing Trump by spending a few thousand bucks at his D.C. hotel. Things used to be so innocent.

Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote that the Qatari jet has been delivered to the Department of Defense. This is the gift that is worth $400 million, but the DoD would need to spend a billion to make it usable as Air Force One. The necessary modifications probably won’t be done before the nasty guy’s term is up. That means the plane should go straight to the presidential library. That presidential library is becoming a corruption magnet. Missed out on donating to the inauguration? It broke records in pulling in money. So the next way to get time with the nasty guy is to donate to his library. Donating to him directly is supposed to be illegal because of the Constitution’s Emolument Clause. Mother Jones wrote that because of the nasty guy’s known shady handling of classified document and his lack of transparency we should not believe what anyone of his team says about how much is actually going to the library and how much to current pockets. Yeah, presidential libraries are expensive. The price tag for constructing Obama’s is about $830 million. But building his was not an invitation for bribes. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Crispin Sartwell of Splice Today, a person Kev is surprised he agrees with enough to quote.

Let me express my skepticism. I don’t think that Biden’s cognitive decline or his late withdrawal made a decisive difference in the outcome. And I think the direct claim that it did, as in Klein’s headline (the “cover-up” “re-elected Trump”) is self-serving in a familiar way. Also in a way that indicates that Democrats will find it difficult to absorb useful lessons from their 2024 disaster. [...] I don’t think that the Democrats would’ve won in 2024 if Kamala had had more time to run. I agreed with those commentators who at the time argued that the compressed schedule might be an advantage for her. I don’t think that there are good reasons to believe that if there had been a full-fledged or compressed primary and the Democrats had nominated Buttigieg or Shapiro or Whitmer that they would’ve done any better. Harris was as plausible a candidate as any, and ran a fairly competent campaign. The Democrats are fooling themselves if they stick to Biden’s dementia as their explanation, and that without a more honest assessment, they’re liable to lose again. Going into Election Day, everyone on both sides and in between seemed to agree that 2024 was “a referendum on Trump.” I think, by and large, that’s just what it was, and that a variety of factors had the whole country, essentially every region and every demographic group, trending to Trump by Election Day. I don’t see any reason to believe that it would’ve been any different with Gretchen Whitmer. Trump is an overwhelming personality who’d become even more overwhelming after his 2020 loss. It’s hard to focus on anything else while he’s there, yapping and thrashing away. Maybe there wasn’t even exactly a rightwards sing in 2024, but rather a swing to Trump, which isn’t ideologically defined except perhaps as a sort of screeching nationalism.

Peter Orszag is a former Office of Management and Budget Director and writes for The New York Times.

For years it was reasonable to tune out the worrywarts carping about deficits. With very low interest rates, a lack of particularly attractive alternatives to U.S. Treasuries for investors and a muted market reaction to serial Capitol Hill dramas over raising the debt limit, those who bemoaned the unsustainability of deficit spending and debt levels seemed to cry wolf — a lot. Even as a former White House budget director, I grew skeptical of their endless warnings. Not anymore. Two things have changed: First, the wolf is now lurking much closer to our door. Annual federal budget deficits are running at 6 percent of G.D.P. or higher, compared with well under 3 percent a decade ago. Interest rates on 10-year Treasuries have more than doubled — around 4.5 percent now versus just over 2 percent then — and in the current fiscal year the government is projected to spend more on interest payments than on defense, Medicaid or Medicare. That’s right: Our borrowing now costs us more each year than each of these big, essential budget items. Meanwhile, federal debt held by the public, excluding Federal Reserve holdings, as a share of G.D.P. has increased by about a third since 2015. The Congressional Budget Office, which I once led, projects that by 2029, our debt as a share of our economy will grow to levels unprecedented since the years after World War II. All of this is occurring against a backdrop of an even more polarized political system, increased tension with foreign debt holders and less confidence in American security protections that promoted the dollar as the world’s safe haven.

Back in mid May Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos honored George Carlin on what would have been his 88th birthday. One of the Carlin quotes:

To my way of thinking, men have only one real problem: other men. That's where all the trouble starts. A long time ago, men gave away their power. To other men: princes, kings, wizards, generals and high priests. They gave it away, because they believed what these other men told them. They bought into the okeydoke. The bulls---. Men always buy the okeydoke when it comes from other men.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos. It shows a man, woman, and child wearing life jackets and in the water. The man’s life jacket is labeled Medicaid. An elephant in a speedboat comes alongside and says, “You heard me. Billionaires need your life jackets...”

No use for robust public corruption investigations

I finished the book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. I’m contrasting it with the book The Cross-Time Engineer, by Leo Frankowski and the rest of the eight books in his Conrad Stargard series. Twain’s book, published in 1889, is about Hank from that time who gets a blow to the head and wakes up 528. A couple days later he uses a solar eclipse to save his life and establish himself as a magician to rival Merlin. Not many people in the 19th century know the dates of eclipses thirteen centuries before. Hank becomes The Boss, top aide to King Arthur. Frankowski’s book was published almost 100 years later in 1986. It is essentially a remake of Twain’s story. Conrad, a young engineer in Poland, is transported back to 1231. Once he realizes what has happened to him he sees he has a huge task – Mongols will destroy Poland in ten years. In time travel stories the question is whether or not to change history and in what way. There is a subgenre featuring time police. If the goal is to change history, does the change take hold by the end of the tale and we understand it will persist, firmly altering the history we know? In Twain’s tale, the basics of Arthur’s legend are there – Guenevere, Launcelot, Morgan le Fey, Mordred have their usual roles. The Round Table and its knights are there but Twain says nothing about what made the table special. Instead, Hank declares his disgust with kings – nobility in general – and church officials who fill the heads of commoners with superstitions to keep the nobility in power. Hank tries to work the system to bring about a republic, a society of equals. Since he is second only to Arthur he tries to sell that idea. Over four years he develops schools and the basics of 19th century industry, which soon includes the telephone and guns. But when Hank goes out in public he is still expected to wear armor, which gives Twain a chance to rant about how uncomfortable it was. I was disappointed that Twain didn’t show how Hank caused that industry to come into being. But Twain wasn’t an engineer and went with his strengths, portraying the injustices humans perpetrate on each other. But he recognizes the superstitions the people grew up with will not be overcome. That’s one reason for the schools. Causing that industry to come into being is exactly what the Frankowski books are all about, which is why I was disappointed it wasn’t in Twain’s book. Conrad builds one concept onto another, first the basics of industry and schooling, then modernizing Polish society, especially the military so it can repel the Mongols. Every so often I fantasize about how I would go about things (minus the military part) if I was in Conrad’s position. I enjoyed Twain’s book and appreciate his defense of democracy and the equality of humans. The first five of of Frankowski’s stories were printed from 1986 to 1990. I enjoyed them very much when they came out. The sixth book came out in 1998. I was annoyed enough with the ending that I was done with Frankowski’s stories. So I didn’t read the prequel (that explains the time machine) that came out in 2002 or the final book that appeared in 2005. From online reviews I didn’t miss much. I might have a different opinion of the whole series if I read them today because Conrad’s dealings with women isn’t the best. Fandango at Home lists three Connecticut Yankee movies. One featuring Will Rogers came out in 1931. Another stars Bing Crosby in a musical version released in 1949. The third was released in 1989 and it is a black woman who goes back in time. Alas, none appear to be highly rated. Wikipedia has a long list of adaptations as movies (the first in 1921), TV movies and series, cartoons, stage shows, and other books. Frankowski’s books aren’t in the list. Long ago I saw a scene from the Bing Crosby version and today I watched the trailer. I don’t think I want to see this story as a musical. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported on a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court. The case is out of Oklahoma and is about whether the Catholic Church can run a public charter school and have it teach Catholicism. Yes, that’s a violation of the separation of Church and State. So the decision should be simple. But we’re talking about a very conservative Supreme Court. The first surprise is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. This is a Court becoming known for justices not recusing themselves even when the outside world can see a clear conflict of interest. Justices don’t have to give a reason for a recusal, but Barrett likely did it because she taught at Notre Dame University and their religious liberty clinic represented the case before the court. The second surprise was that the decision was deadlocked at 4-4, not the expected 5-3. When deadlocked the Court doesn’t need to give its reasoning and doesn’t have to tell how justices voted. Even so, oral arguments suggest Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberals. So the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling stands, which said the Catholic Church cannot run a public school. Don’t consider the issue dead. The Catholic Church will try again, perhaps through another state. This next time they won’t ask Notre Dame to represent them. Or... Needham reported that Republicans are proposing a federal voucher system. It would allow federal money to be spent on religious schools (see Church and State above) which would pull money from public schools. These schools discriminate against LGBTQ student and don’t have services for learning challenged or disabled students. For conservatives, all that is a big win. The proposed system would demand participation from states that have laws or constitutions that prohibit funding church related schools. Also, the funding proposed, $5 billion a year for four years, won’t be nearly enough for the expected demand. Voucher money is mostly claimed by parents who have already been sending students to private schools (showing they can afford them) or homeschooling them. Which means the money not going to public schools affects poorer students. Conservatives like to proclaim vouchers give parents a choice, meaning the parents would choose the better schools. But these schools are shown to mostly be a lot worse than public schools. Kos of Kos reported Senate Republicans voted to strip California’s right to set its own vehicle emission standards. That’s bad because it is hostile to the climate and defiant of states’ rights. If it gets any further than the Senate it will be tied up in courts for years. Kos found good news in the move – for Republicans to get their way they gutted the filibuster. The filibuster, requiring a supermajority of 60 vote, is anti-democracy. And it has a long history of being used in racist ways. Also, even though at the moment Democrats could use the filibuster to stop some things Republicans want to do, most of the time the filibuster hurts Democrats. That’s because the Senate gives more power to smaller states, which lately are strongly Republican. Also, Republicans have carved out filibuster exceptions whenever it suited their agenda. So why were Democrats clinging to it (see Joe Manchin)? As for the current situation:

Yes, it means Republicans can pass bad laws when they’re in charge, but that’s democracy. Let the public see what happens when they put the GOP in power. Let Democrats offer a clear alternative. No more hiding behind obscure rules, no more excuses.

Several Democrats warned that when they’re in power again they have a lot of bills they want to pass and will be glad Republicans can’t stop them. Needham does a weekly column on how the nasty guy is trying to weaponize the justice system and the people fighting back. In her column from a week ago this is her last bit:

Can’t get in trouble for corruption if you stop investigating corruption. The FBI is shuttering its public corruption squad. You’d think an administration so committed to pretending to be rooting out fraud and firing traitorous deep state federal employees would want to keep the team that was responsible for those things. But the public corruption squad, working with special counsel Jack Smith, is the unit that investigated Trump’s many crimes. In this instance, the squad wasn’t likely shut down simply because it hurt Trump’s feelings. An administration that is 100% committed to its own graft and enabling the graft of others has no use for robust public corruption investigations. After all, that would greatly interfere with Trump’s effort to turn the government into his own personal corruption machine.

In a separate post from this past Tuesday Needham discussed the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell that was filed in response to DOGE forcibly dismantling the United States Institute of Peace. The USIP isn’t a government agency, but a nonprofit corporation. Yet, DOGE showed up with with the DC Metro Police and the FBI to break in. Howell’s ruling listed a lot of reasons why this DOGE action was unlawful. But it didn’t put a stop to the destruction. The administration obeying this order is doubtful. From their point of view the longer they drag this out (with appeals to Circuit Courts and Supremes) the more likely the USIP can’t be put back together. It has already been damaged. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Billy Binion reacting to the nasty guy’s announcement of a 25% tariff on Apple iPhones not manufactured in America:

You will not be able to afford an iPhone. You will own 2 dolls. You will work in a factory. And you will be happy about it. That is actually the MAGA platform right now. What a wild time to be alive.

Down in the comments Carol *Resister Sister* posted a cartoon by Clay Bennett. It shows a car with several bumper stickers saying “Equality” with a rainbow background, “Climate Change,” “Gun Control Now,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Abortion Rights,” “Harris 2024.” The car has been stopped by the Department of Justice. The caption says, “Driving while Democrat.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon showing Jesus visiting the nasty guy. Jesus says, “Hey, I have an idea! Why not use your power for the good of all?” The nasty guy says, “Get behind me, Satan!” The caption says, “The problem is, unwise people often think the evil they are doing is actually good.” Bill in Portland, Maine, in yesterday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary.

"Another wildly destructive day in Washington D.C. They pulled another all-nighter in the House, where they passed Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill.' And, man oh man, if this is the beautiful bill, I'd hate to see the ugly one. I'm not sure which part of the bill is the most beautiful: the part where we take food from hungry kids, or the devastating effect it'll have on college education, or the trillions of dollars it'll add to our national debt, or the almost 700-billion dollars in cuts to Medicaid. Either way, say goodbye to Grandma." —Jimmy Kimmel "If something is beautiful, you don’t do it after midnight." —Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who voted against the bill "How weird is it that the ‘news’ is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago for free? It's just fun to watch them continue to push the book in light of this difficult news [of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis], but to actually frame this difficult news as even more of a reason to buy this book. ... Some observers might think, do these CNN people work on commission? Like, why are they hawking this f---ing thing? Is this a Girl Scout cookie situation? Whoever sells the most Tapper books gets a Schwinn?" —Jon Stewart, on CNN's disgusting 24/7 infomercial'ing of Jake Tapper's Biden hit job

How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?

I had written about the meeting between the nasty guy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The nasty guy kept pushing the racist lie of white genocide in South Africa and Ramaphosa tried to refute it. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote that the video and paper images the nasty guy used as evidence were not at all what he claimed they were. A field of white crosses was a protest, not a burial ground. Another image was from Congo, not South Africa. And so forth. No, I’m not surprised. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy was getting mighty annoyed with Department of Justice lawyers. The reason was that the lawyers didn’t give deportees enough time to challenge their deportation. Then the lawyers refused to say which country the were sent to. South Sudan? Djibouti? Or maybe it was Narnia or Atlantis. Sending people to South Sudan is quite bad because the State Department says to avoid it because of armed conflict. DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin said the crimes of these deportees are so uniquely dangerous that no other country would accept them. To that Needham wrote:

Show your work, Tricia. If these are the worst criminals in the world, surely you can easily prove that.

Emily Singer of Kos discussed a new poll by Civiqs for Kos. It shows that 46% of voters say that “bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. is more important than keeping prices low.” But 66% don’t want to be those factory workers. Only 5% said they already work in a factory. That poll was done because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been saying when manufacturing returns to the US workers would be glad to do the jobs. So what happens if manufacturing is brought onshore but nobody (or not enough people) want the jobs? Are Republicans trying to make life for the poor so difficult they’d be glad to take these jobs? Speaking of which, Singer reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill (I’ve replaced the third word with “ugly” and Singer used “cruel” though I think the best substitute is “brutal”) passed the House by one vote. It now goes to the Senate, where there is Republican opposition. But don’t be surprised if fealty to the nasty guy gets it passed anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Michael Podhorzer of Weekend Reading:

The current backlash against Trump is exactly the outcome we’d expect to see if my long-standing argument is true: that America has an anti-MAGA majority, but not necessarily a pro-Democratic one. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the reality of American politics today is not a “realignment,” wherein the views and values of most ordinary Americans have become fundamentally more aligned with the views of MAGA Republicans. Rather it’s been a “dealignment” from both parties. Voters, increasingly distrustful of institutions and clamoring for substantial change that neither party is delivering, have punished incumbent parties in nine of the past ten elections—a D-R-D-R presidential alternation pattern unseen in over a century.

From Monica Hesse of the Washington Post discussing the nasty guy’s claim of white genocide in South Africa:

“Dead White farmers” was a bizarre fixation in what should have been a serious meeting. In three words, he invented a genocide. And then he spent the rest of the hour creating a different problem. Because every time he insisted that the mainstream media refused to cover the genocide of dead White farmers, he sowed more distrust in journalism. To the point that now, every time an article on the topic doesn’t appear, that in itself will become evidence for this genocide that is not actually happening. So if you came to this column because you Googled “dead White farmers,” here is your mainstream media coverage of the issue. I’m so sorry.

Harry Enten tweeted in response to Musk’s announcement that he will no longer donate to politics:

Why's Musk edging out of politics? Because he's political kryptonite. His net favorable plummeted: +24 pts to -19 pts. (It fell by 126 pts with Dems!) Musk crushed Tesla's popularity (-20 pt net favorable). Trump was done with him (100% drop in Truth Social posts about Musk).

I’m not sure how favorability can fall 126 points. I thought the scale maxed out at 100. In the comments is a cartoon by Dennis Goris. It shows the Capitol dome surrounded by the words:

We remember the poor and sick. As it is written. In the bill. Let us prey.

The caption: “From the book of big and beautiful” Nick Anderson posted a cartoon showing a pregnant woman with “Waste” on her forehead, a child with “Fraud” and an old woman with “Abuse.” The nasty guy, holding a sharpie, says “I told you we could make big spending cuts!” Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit started a discussion with a quote Neil deGrasse Tyson made this week.

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

Almost two-thirds of Americans can’t afford life necessities. Income for the bottom 60% of Americans declined from 2001 to 2023. Before the pandemic a family earning $75,000 could afford half the homes on the market, now they can afford only 20% of homes. Hartmann talked about the Santa scam. Republicans claimed they were better than the Democratic social safety net by bestowing tax breaks. That was followed by declaring the national debt was a big problem, forcing Democrats to end social programs. The same scam is now being used to hollow out the American government. From the start of the nation until Reagan the federal government was consistent at paying off the national debt, which had only grown through war. The Revolutionary War was paid off in the 1830s. The Civil War was paid off by the end of the 19th century. Paying down WWI was interrupted by the Great Depression, but there was only $17 billion remaining. The debt from WWII was 106% of GDP, but was steadily paid down until Reagan took office. The national debt under Reagan rose by $2.4 trillion. That boosted the economy, masking Reagan’s faults and this plan’s faults. Hartmann said that Jude Wanniski came up with a “Two Santas” plan. As Hartmann described it, quoting Wanniski:

Force the Democrats to “shoot their Santa [of programs like Social Security and Medicaid] in the face.” Whenever a Republican is in the White House, Wanniski argued, Republicans should run up the debt as hard and fast as possible, so when a Democrat is in the White House they can squeal about “the debt our children will inherit! Oh, the humanity!”

Republicans have followed that plan for 44 years. Hartmann included a chart showing the national debt falling after WWII until 1981. It rose under Reagan/Bush I, fell a bit under Clinton, rose again under Bush II, then slowed under Obama, before rising quickly under the nasty guy. Biden’s efforts aren’t shown. By the chart, if Reagan hasn’t slashed taxes and balanced the budget we would have paid off WWII about year 2000. So the entire national debt since then is because of Reagan and Bush tax cuts (and now nasty guy cuts) and the illegal wars of Bush II. This tactic transferred about $50 trillion from the poor to the rich. In 1980 the middle class was about two-thirds of the population and did it on one paycheck. Now about 47% of Americans are middle class and require two paychecks to stay there. So that Big Brutal Bill is damaging education, changed the promotion of democracy to the embrace of dictators, and gutted the social safety net. I had written that the national debt is unsustainable. The reason is the national debt has passed the GDP, the total value of the American economy. I did an online search and found the GDP of America is just under $28 trillion and the national debt is above $36 trillion and the Brutal Bill could push it up to $40 trillion. Then Hartmann gets to his question. Why are Republicans doing this? Did Putin or Xi tell the nasty guy to do it? (Quite possibly.) Greed? Because democracy is outdated? And why is the media saying so little about this? I was a bit surprised that Hartmann keeps saying nobody knows. Commenters to the article give a good try at answering the question: Greed. Power. Commenter mozartsister explained what I had also developed on my own.

I’ve said this before, but my ultimate light bulb moment was when my rich friend took me to lunch in the mahogany-clad dining room at his country club, where the waitress greeting him by name. He said, sweeping his arm around the room, “How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?” It was power, it was stuff, but above all it was the deepest need imaginable to prove yourself superior to and more deserving than others. To me, those are the two fundamental belief systems: his, which I think of as authoritarianism, which categorizes people into groups, hierarchies, of more or less worth. And mine, which I think of as humanism, in which all people (and all living beings, actually) fundamentally have innate dignity and worth, i.e. all humans are equal on an existential level. Looking at things this way has been very useful for me in explaining a lot of what’s going on, from white supremacy to dismantling democracy to the Silicon Valley tech bros. Capitalism is based on the “deserving” worldview; democracy is based in the “equality” worldview. They could be more compatible than they are, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope lately.

Republicans can con voters, but not the bond market

The big beautiful (actually quite ugly) federal budget bill passed the House. It’s got a great deal of the nasty guy’s agenda rolled into it. The nasty guy was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to twist arms (and I hear the holdouts voted “present” instead of yes). Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported the big, well known items in the bill are cuts to Medicaid (expected to cause 13.7 million people to lose health insurance) and SNAP (cutting 11 million from food assistance). There is a lot more to the bill, much of it opposed by the American people. To keep many of those details from the public – and members of Congress – the bill this big was pushed way too fast and the last few sessions were done overnight. At the end of the visit Capitol Hill the nasty guy said:

We're not doing any cutting of anything meaningful. The only thing we're cutting is waste, fraud, and abuse. With Medicaid—waste, fraud, and abuse. There's tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse. ... We have illegal aliens that are multiple killers, with multiple murder records, getting Medicaid.

A couple things about that statement: If you don’t like bad people getting Medicaid you can change the eligibility requirements without taking Medicaid away from those who desperately need it. You certainly know how to change requirements because you just changed them – by adding work requirements, which results in people losing coverage, not because they aren’t working but because the reporting requirements are so difficult and time consuming they may miss work and lose the job they’re required to have. “Anything meaningful... waste, fraud, and abuse” – depends on your definition of “meaningful” and “waste.” Republicans have shown over and over that poor people are not meaningful to them – they have shown how much they hate poor people. And from the perspective of a rich person giving anything to the poor is “waste.” In Monday’s pundit roundup on Kos Greg Dworkin had a couple quotes about this bill. From Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark

But the focus on the delays can be a bit of a distraction. Because right now the real question is not why the Republicans are moving so slowly but why they are moving so quickly—and what they don’t want you to see… But, then, there’s reason to believe GOP leaders are trying their best not to make the legislation’s true nature clear to members—or the public, for that matter. The polling on Medicaid cuts is clear: Voters oppose them strongly. GOP officials know this, which is why they have spent so much time denying they are making cuts to Medicaid—or, at least, framing them as a way to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse” and to strengthen the program for the “truly vulnerable.” But the longer the debate goes on, the more indefensible those claims look. Every passing day gives analysts more time to publish damning information, like these analyses showing coverage losses by state and congressional district. And the more this information gets out, the easier it is for organizations and activists to press their case.

What Dworkin included and I didn’t are links to analysis reports. Some of those are behind paywalls. Dworkin also included a tweet from Rolling Stone that links to an article that has this tagline: “Hospitals go out of business when Medicare and Medicaid are cut. Period.” LJ Slater posted a cartoon from Kevin Kallaugher. The left side has has the caption, “Robin Hood. Stole from the rich. Gave to the Poor.” The right side shows a masked elephant holding a family at gunpoint as the child puts the bag marked “Medicaid” into a much larger bag labeled “Tax cuts.” The caption says, “Robbing Hoodlum. Steals from the poor. Gives to the rich.” Bonds are been in the news lately and AmericanIdeal of the Kos community wrote a couple posts on why that is. I’ll try for a simple explanation. If bonds and economics are your thing, go ahead and enjoy the full articles. The first article was written on Monday. The author says the big ugly bill just passed by the House is a con. The nature of the con is that the tax cuts in the bill, expected to increase the national debt by $3.8 trillion will not have significant damage to the economy and government securities. Republicans can con voters, but they can’t con the bond market. Last Friday Moody’s became the last of the three major agencies that evaluate credit risk to downgrade US treasury bonds rating from AAA (the best) to AA-1. The last time all three had not rated treasuries the safest was 100 years ago. The author translates Moody’s announcement from economic speak into English:

In other words, no amount of phony DOGE cuts or “work requirements and revised eligibility standards” (e.g.: massive cuts to Medicaid) will offset the estimated $4 trillion of deficit growth caused by the Republicans’ A #1 goal of extending the tax cuts of 2017. Simply put, the bond markets aren’t having it.

They’re showing they’re not having it by selling US bonds in favor of safer and more predictable markets and by requiring higher interest rates when they do buy. Higher interest rates mean the government must pay more to pay back the bonds. The amount the government must spend each year to pay for the bonds has risen significantly over the last few years and will soon be unsustainable. Rising bond rates mean corporations must pay higher rates for the bonds they issue. And Americans also pay higher rates on mortgages. The second article on bonds was posted Wednesday. In that day’s bond market prices rose again.

Why does it matter? Mostly because bond market turmoil, especially as a result of international selling, would make it more difficult for the US to reliably repay the interest on its outstanding debt, an issue forming the basis of GOP hardliner opposition to passing another deficit increasing budget bill. It also lifts the pressure on corporations who need to borrow to refinance their own debt and/or make planned investments in infrastructure, technology, etc. While the equities market “bulls” and buy-and hold trading strategy stalwarts will continue to point to the fact that “extreme events come and go”, it has been over 100 years since the US Treasury wasn’t blessed with a pristine AAA rating from any of the major credit rating agencies. Should the “sell America” trade gripping the treasury markets take widespread hold after the big beautiful Bill passes, the US economy will likely be subject to a permanent existential restructuring forced by global monetary decisions. This isn’t small, or inconsequential, nor is it just another political debate.

Last Sunday Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th, in an article posted on Kos, explained how the work requirements added to Medicaid will force people to lose health insurance. I’ll let you read the details. I’ll mentioned something I noticed. Sometimes Republicans describe their reasons for work requirements with the words “capable adults who choose not to work.” That’s not an accurate description because most already work. Others replace the first two words with “young” and “able-bodied” and “men.” That’s a big misdirection because most of the people who will lose health insurance are women. In today’s pundit roundup Chitown Kev had a couple quotes worth mentioning. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times wrote about the war for the soul of America and its four theaters of conflict. I’ll summarize the list: One: The nasty guy is waging war on constitutional government, replacing it with himself. Two: The MAGA movement is waging war on the nation’s economic future by effectively closing borders and becoming an inpenetrable fortress. But that means Americans will have to leave service industries for manufacturing. Three: A pitched battle against a sustainable climate future. Four: The MAGA movement’s assault on the nation’s ability to produce scientific, technological and medical breakthroughs. Kev added:

Remember that an “impenetrable fortress” might be designed to keep others outside of the walls but it also functions to keep inhabitants within the fortress walls. Trump will grift for the drawbridge tolls.

Kev quoted Timothy Snyder, writing for his own Substack and talking about Ed Martin. His nomination was recently withdrawn (I don’t remember why or for what) and he is now given the title of “weaponization czar” – weaponizing the legal system to bring people into line. Snyder wrote:

He has done more visible work for the Russian state television than for any other institution. Martin, in other words, has already been part of one weaponized legal system for some time. His American career as "weaponization czar" is a natural second step of his Russian career as apologist for both Russian and American weaponizers and authoritarians. Between 2016 and 2024, Martin was a star of both RT and Sputnik, which are propaganda arms of the Russian state. Putin himself has made this completely clear. One of the central missions of RT and Sputnik is to weaken the standing and power of the United States. Anyone who goes on RT or Sputnik, as Martin did more than a hundred times, knows what he is doing. For eight years, on any issue of the day, Martin was there to spread mendacious propaganda about Americans and to defend Putin and Trump. His Russian work surpassed any media exposure in the United States.

“Weaken the standing and power of the United States...” Republicans and the nasty guy seem to be doing a pretty good job of that. And who benefits is Putin. In a third pundit roundup Dworkin quoted Philip Bump of the Washington Post:

The Trump administration is aware that Americans broadly support the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have committed violent crimes. Rather than using it as the basis for deporting violent immigrants, though, the administration often works backward: Knowing that Americans want to see violent criminals sent out of the country, it sends people out of the country, while arguing that they were violent criminals. There is a dangerous catch-22 at play. The government reserves the right to scoop people up and send them to foreign prisons, but, by ignoring due process, reserves for itself the ability to determine whether that treatment is warranted.

Elsewhere in the article Bump explains the rights immigrants and citizens have when facing ICE. Earlier this week Michigan Public had reports about the Environmental Protection Agency giving an all-clear on the Flint, Michigan water crisis. This removed the Safe Drinking Water Act emergency order. The crisis began eleven years ago when Flint water was shifted from the Detroit water system to the Flint River and insufficient water treatment and safeguards were not put in place. Lead and other contaminants leeched into the water. That’s about all Michigan Public said. Alix Breeden of Kos reported more. Benjamin Pauli is a Flint resident and chair of the city’s Water System Advisory Council. He’s not pleased with the EPA’s withdrawal. The council worked to create “institutional arrangements that allow residents to raise concerns effectively and receive meaningful follow up.” That’s needed because residents’ trust in government is still shaky and the water system still has issues that need to be addressed. But the EPA’s all-clear also removed major funding for the council. Now Pauli is afraid that citizens will be portrayed as anti-science or just determined to be victims. Pauli had also been on “the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which provided recommendations to the EPA for the nation’s underserved communities.” But NEJAC got axed because it was seen as DEI. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote about the nasty guy fuming over celebrity endorsements, as in Beyoncé, Bono, Oprah, and Bruce Springsteen supporting Harris over himself. The recent tantrums and demands for investigations appear to be because public filings show the Harris campaign paid the celebrity production companies, a normal expense of campaigning, and not a bribe given to the stars.

That Trump’s still throwing tantrums about celebrity endorsements nearly six months after winning the election is absurd. Stars backed Harris because they saw what Trump was offering and wanted no part of it. His demand for a federal investigation into a defeated opponent because Beyoncé endorsed her is far from oversight—it’s full-blown grievance politics. ... And with everything else on his plate, from court cases to crises, it’s anyone’s guess why Trump keeps picking fights with celebrities instead of focusing on, you know, governing. But one thing’s clear: Nothing triggers Trump more than being left out by the cool kids.

The largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich

About a year ago I discussed the book Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt. One of the tyrants discussed by Greenblatt is the English King Richard III. But what if Shakespeare portrayed Richard III not as the man actually was, but how the following Tudor dynasty portrayed him? Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets (Wikipedia says he was the last of the Yorks) was followed by Henry the VII, the first of the Tudors. And the Tudor line, especially Henry VIII, is the fodder of a great number of novels, plays, TV series, and movies because of how bad they were. My Sunday movie was The Lost King, based on a true story. That story is that the bones of Richard, lost since his death in 1485, were found under a car park in Leicester in 2012 (so we know how the movie ends). The woman behind the excavation was Phillipa Langley, an amateur historian. She lives in Edinburgh and is inspired to do the search after seeing Shakespeare’s play. Phillipa gets help through the Richard III Society, those who believe that the king’s reputation was slandered by the Tudors. She also sees an apparition of Richard, who sometimes answers her questions, and sometimes not. The big one he doesn’t answer is: What happened to the two nephews in the Tower of London? (I’ve read a science fiction story about the boys, posing another answer to what happened to them.) Eventually she gets to the University of Leicester and the City of Leicester. She’s dismissed because she is an amateur, a woman, and claiming that Richard was not what historians and the royal family say he was. Eventually they help her – and then claim the credit. IMDb added that Langley was not the first to accurately conclude where Richard III was buried and how that land was now used. She was the one to act on her conclusion and dig up the car park. I enjoyed this one. Though Shakespeare may or may not have accurately portrayed Richard III, that play is accurate in portraying how a tyrant may rise to power, what happens when in power, and how the tyrant falls. Last evening I was in my car and listened to about ten minutes of the NPR show Fresh Air. The topic of this episode was the book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. In this 44 minute segment Terry Gross talked to Tapper. This is the book discussing Biden’s mental decline and the cover-up by Jill Biden and senior staff at the White House in the last two years of his presidency. Tapper says that cover-up – insisting that Biden was mentally fine while covering for him on days when he obviously wasn’t then insisting he was healthy enough for another term – is why we have the nasty guy in the White House. In the part I heard Tapper lays out a pretty good case. That included an excerpt of Biden being interviewed by the Justice Department in October 2023 about what he knew about mishandling presidential documents found on his property. The deposition was the same day that Hamas attacked Israel. I remember the uproar when the interviewer said the DoJ would not bring charges because the jury would see Biden as a forgetful old man and would not convict him. In that excerpt Biden did indeed sound like a forgetful old man. During the last 18 months of Biden’s tenure, on days where he wasn’t good, the senior staff acted as a five-person presidential board. When Biden had to speak publicly on a not-so-good day he speech was prepared for him and he read it from a teleprompter. He could still do that. I didn’t listen to the whole episode, so maybe my question was answered. That question is: Why did Jill and senior staff cover up the decline? What were they trying to protect? Joe’s reputation? Sure. But his reputation would be better if he made a graceful exit before a decline. The chance to keep a Democrat in the White House? That didn’t work. The good of the country? That backfired. As I thought about it I became more disappointed in what the Bidens chose to do. First, of all, they should have prevented him from running for a second term. That was Tapper’s point. Even better, they should have convinced him to resign or used the 25th Amendment to have the Cabinet force him out, handing the presidency to Harris. That would have given her time to show she was presidential material. It would at least given challengers time to mount a campaign and go through the primary process. It would also shifted the “too old” meme onto the nasty guy. Even though what Tapper documented is likely accurate, showing the “too old” messages of the campaign were justified, the book still feels like a hit-job because there is no corresponding book on the nasty guy, detailing his own mental decline and his much more obvious poor mental health and dangerously fragile ego. Alas, too many people – billionaires, Republicans, white nationalists, and the MAGA faithful – like what the nasty guy is doing (at least until the faithful discover his agenda biting them in the ass) and don’t care about his mental state. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on the big bill (no, it’s not “beautiful”) being considered in the House. It hasn’t passed the House yet, and I’ve heard an important committee voted it down. It would also have a hard time in the Senate. But if it did pass... Singer begins her report:

President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" that House Republicans are trying to ram through the chamber would be the "largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history," according to a report published Wednesday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. The bill, if passed, would lead to at least 13.7 million people losing their health insurance. It would also impose massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—better known as “food stamps”—that would put nearly 11 million people at risk of losing the ability to feed their families. And it will make college more expensive by eliminating subsidized federal student loans, meaning loans would start accruing interest as soon as students take them out rather than once they leave school. And Republicans are doing all of this only to partly pay for an extension of the tax cuts they passed in 2017, which have overwhelmingly benefited the richest taxpayers while giving the lowest-income Americans pennies.

The bill is in a bit of trouble because some Republicans say it cuts too much and other Republicans say it doesn’t cut enough. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that Republicans have found a group they can raise taxes on. Republicans don’t mind raising taxes. They “just hate to be perceived as raising taxes.” And one way to do that is to tax people whose complaints they can ignore. They propose to tax remittances. A remittance is sent by a person in the US to family in their home country. This is usually money the people back home desperately need. The money is usually sent through a financial institution set up to protect the transaction. Republicans propose to tax those remittances at the 5% rate, but only if sent by a noncitizen. This idea has been floating around for a while. It won’t raise much money for covering the huge budget deficit. But it will make immigrant lives harder – which is what Republicans really want. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted tweets by Aaron Fritschner who quoted Brendan Duke who included a chart by the Center on Budget and Policy and Priorities. The chart shows the change in income both in percent and dollar amount for various income groups for year 2029. For the top 10% their income increases by 3.4% though for the top 1% that is $52,050 a year. Percentages drop from there. The second 20% (from the bottom) get an increase of 0.6% or $260 in a year. The bottom 20% would lose 0.5% or $100 a year. Duke:

The bill is even more regressive when you look at 2029 when tax cuts for families expire & tax increases resulting from cuts to ACA premium tax credits grow larger.

Fritschner added:

But here is the thing Per JCT, Congress’ official scorekeeper, the bottom 20% of households – tens of millions of Americans – will see a Tax Increase beginning in 2029. Republicans are cutting taxes for billionaires and raising taxes on working people. This isn’t a nit-picky point based on a technicality or an asterisk. It isn’t analysis from a far left group, the White House sent these tables out and posted them on their website.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Occupy Democrats:

A tiny Chinese company owned by the same people that own TikTok just bought $300,000,000 of $Trump Coin. Now why do you think they did that? Foreigners are literally bribing Trump with hundreds of millions to get favors!

Also, paulpro posted a cartoon by Christopher Weyant. Two girls are talking. The girl of color says, “My first choice college is the one with an endowment big enough to protect me from the government.” In today’s news was a story about South African president Cyril Ramaphosa visiting the White House. The nasty guy lectured him about “white genocide” which Ramaphosa tried to refute. But like the infamous visit by Ukraine’s Zelenskyy it didn’t go well for the visitor. Last Saturday Oliver Willis of Kos wrote about the Republican fixation on white genocide. This fixation includes the nasty guy admitting fifty white South African refugees not long ago while refusing refugees from other countries. The SA refugees were welcomed because of this false white genocide. Willis explained:

The “white genocide” myth is being invoked in U.S. politics because conservatives long ago embraced the politics of victimhood. Even when the right is in majority control of U.S. political institutions, like right now, it still claims that it’s a persecuted minority. ... This mentality perfectly combines with the conservative embrace of white supremacy. Claiming that a “white genocide” is underway, even when the data disproves it, becomes a way of being racist while simultaneously laying hands on the mantle of victimhood.

Also, the whites of South Africa (and no doubt in America) felt the law that distributed land from white to black owners (as in back to the original owners) was an “attack.” And an attack on their land was equivalent to an attack on their body. I thought of the claim of victimhood this way: When those at the top of the hierarchy (and Republicans declare they are) feel challenged in any way they will claim they are the victim, even if their position in the hierarchy is still quite secure. An attack on their position in the hierarchy is to them equivalent to an attack on their body. They feel they are the victim because in their position in the hierarchy no one is supposed to be able or allowed to challenge them. No one is supposed to be able to make them feel uncomfortable. This article in Kos linked to one in Salon by Michael Bader from January 2024 discussing claims of victimhood. Some of Bader’s points: Those claiming to be victims use it as a rationale for striking out at others without guilt. These acts of violence are reframed as revenge or a twisted form of self-care. Conservatives can use fear to claim liberals are trying to replace them. That makes their listeners feel they are victims. That, in their minds, justifies violence. The “victims” become victimizers. For example, if an election was “stolen” stealing it back makes moral sense. They don’t need to feel guilty about hurting others because they quickly come up with a story on how those “others” were first hurting them. Bader also compared the use of “victim” by liberals and conservatives. Liberals identify actual victims, people actually injured by racism, war, or other form of oppression. They try to defend these victims and care for them. Conservatives use victimhood as propaganda, to stir up a mob. They then use the mob to get rid of the democratic norms that restrain the political aims of the conservatives. Those political aims are always to oppress some other group. Because of that incitement to violence claiming to be a victim is dangerous. Denise Oliver Velez of Kos, in her Caribbean Matters series, reported that Pope Leo has Louisiana Creole ancestry through his mother, Mildred Martínez. Her parents were described as black or “mulatto” in historical records. They lived in New Orleans Seventh Ward, a Catholic area and melting pot of people with African, Caribbean, and European roots. The pope’s brother John Prevost said that while growing up in Chicago he and his brothers always considered themselves to be white. Passing for white has a long history in the US. But his ancestry would have marked him as “colored” in Louisiana as recently as 1982.

It’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom

I’ve heard lots of news stories about the nasty guy’s trip to the Saudi Arabia and nearby rich countries. One story described about how the locals softened him up – they put a great deal of pageantry into their greeting ceremonies. The nasty guy loves pomp directed at him. Makes him feel important. Michel Martin and Aya Batrawy of NPR discussed the nasty guy’s time in Saudi Arabia. I worked from the transcript. It’s all about getting deals done. If the Saudis deliver on weapons purchases and investments in the US the nasty guy will help with their security. Add to that Eric Nasty was in the region less than two weeks ago to start new projects – a branded hotel in one country, a golf course in another. There’s also money flowing into the family crypto business. All this sounds like a great deal of money for the nasty guy plus some money for the US. The news story version of this piece also mentions the contingent of big business leaders who went with him, leaders of Tesla and SpaceX, Planatir, OpenAI, Nvidia, Google, Coca-Cola, Boeing, weapons companies, and asset management companies. Some of the deals are listed, all together Saudi Arabia would invest at least $600 billion in the US over four years. This version has photos of some of the greeting ceremonies. They did one better than the red carpet. This one is lilac. The big story out of that trip is the offer of a jumbo jet to the nasty guy, a gift from the ruling family of Qatar. It is described as a flying palace, costing about $400 million. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos fills in the many details. The plane could be used as Air Force One through the remainder of his term, then would be turned over to the foundation that would build his presidential library, meaning he would use it as a personal plane. Yeah, there is a great deal of pushback from Democrats and some Republicans. This gift violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution barring accepting gifts from a foreign state without Congressional approval. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said:

Nothing says “America First” like Air Force One, brought to you by Qatar. It’s not just bribery, it’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom.

There are two existing jets used as Air Force One. Both are more than 30 years old. Two replacements are on the way, but the deal was structured so that Boeing is taking a loss of billions of dollars. They won’t be delivered until 2027-2028. The two existing jets are heavily modified to be protection and command center in the air during nuclear war. That’s why the replacements are delayed. The Qatari gift plane won’t have any of that and presidential security must assume it is bugged. I’ve heard that to be allowed for use by the nasty guy it must be completely disassembled and inspected. The free gift isn’t so free. Kathleen Clark of the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis is an expert on government ethics. She accused the nasty guy of exploiting governmental power, not to push policy, but for personal wealth. She said this gift is the “logical, inevitable, unfortunate consequence of Congress and the Supreme Court refusing to enforce” the Emoluments Clause. The NPR news article above includes this quote from the nasty guy:

I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, “No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.”

Translation: I would be stupid to refuse this bright shiny bribe. Oliver Willis of Kos titled a post “Trump is very proud of himself for selling access to the White House.” He begins it with: “President Donald Trump is openly using the White House to accept personal bribes, providing access and influence over his presidency.” The two recent examples Willis used are (1) the offer of a private dinner at the White House to the winner of an auction of his cryptocurrency and (2) this offer of a jet. In the comments of Tuesday’s pundit roundup on Kos is a meme posted by exlrrp and showing a headline from The Onion: “Man Can’t Believe He Has To Download Stupid App Just To Bribe President.” There are also many cartoons about the plane gift. One by Dave Granlund showing Clarence Thomas envious because all he got was a $270,000 RV. In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman, who quoted an ABC discussion of a memo from AG Pam Bondi:

Both the White House and DOJ concluded that because the gift is not conditioned on any official act, it does not constitute bribery, the sources said. Bondi's legal analysis also says it does not run afoul of the Constitution's prohibition on foreign gifts because the plane is not being given to an individual, but rather to the United States Air Force and, eventually, to the presidential library foundation, the sources said.

How much sarcasm can I pour into a response of, “Sure”? From Brian Stelter in the Reliable Sources newsletter.

Some of Trump's staunchest supporters are among the loudest critics of his plan to accept a jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One. I don't think I've seen this much MAGA media pushback since Trump retook power.

From Judd Legum of Popular Information:

Qatar is not acting out of altruism. It wants policy concessions from the U.S. government to bolster its economic and national security interests. Trump is brazenly exploiting those needs to line his pockets.

In the comments are many more cartoons about the plane. In today’s roundup Dworkin started with a quote from The Atlantic:

Even in Washington, a capital now numbed to scandals that were once unthinkable, the idea of accepting the jet is jaw-dropping. Trump’s second administration is yet again displaying a disregard for norms and for traditional legal and political guardrails around elected office—this time at a truly gargantuan scale. Trump’s team has said it believes that the gift would be legal because it would be donated to the Department of Defense (and then to the presidential library). But federal law prohibits government workers from accepting a gift larger than $20 at any one time from any person. Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who once commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told us that he couldn’t “accept a lunch at the Capital Grille.” Former federal employees shared similar reactions on social media.

Dworkin included a tweet from San Stein, which included a link to an article on The Bulwark. The title and subtitle of the article are:

Trump Wants His Corruption to Be Public Intimidation and extortion depends on the targets knowing what price they may pay.

From Mother Jones, talking first about Kash Patel, head of the FBI, and about Qatari influence:

Patel is just one of several top Trump administration aides who have had financial ties to this Arab monarchy. Susan Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, worked for a lobbying firm that represented Qatar. Attorney General Pam Bondi lobbied for the Qataris. Mike Huckabee, now US Ambassador to Israel, was paid $50,000 to visit Qatar in 2018. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, also has pocketed money from Qatar. In 2023, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund bought the Park Lane Hotel from Witkoff’s company in a $623 million deal. The Trump Organization itself recently struck a deal to develop a luxury golf resort in Qatar. And now Qatar is considering handing as a gift to Trump a jumbo airliner worth about $400 million for Trump to use as Air Force One.

David Beard tweeted the results of a poll done by the conservative New York Post with the question “Should Trump take a $400 million jet from Qatar?” It showed 78.5% of respondents chose “No, don’t trust Qatar.” Paul Waldman of The Cross Section talked about how Democrats should talk to the country. In addition of explaining how bad the big budget bill in Congress is they should add a simple message, “Republicans Hate You.” Down in the comments exlrrp posted a few memes prompted by a new book out saying Joe Biden was in greater mental decline than people knew. A lot of Democrats are calling the book a cheap shot. One of the memes posted here says:

I don’t want to read about a former President’s mental decline because a journalist got a book deal. I want to read a report about the current President’s mental decline by a journalist brave enough to speak out now!

exlrrp added, “I'd rather have Biden as he was than Trump as he is.”

Elected officials can’t possibly be that vicious

Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and an independent editorial writer wrote about how Republicans have cheated their way into the White House for more than a half century. That is a long coup. Hartmann wrote the books, The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America and The Hidden History of the War On Voting. Hartmann wrote that in 2024 “4 million Americans were either denied their right to vote or their votes were discarded.” He worked from info by Greg Palast and the US Elections Assistance Commission. 4.7 million voters were purged from voter rolls, some through “vigilante” vote fraud hunters given lists of who to challenge. Over 2.1 million mail-in ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors. 1.2 million provisional ballots were rejected. These are mostly ballots of people who didn’t have the proper ID when they got to their polling place or their name was purged. They voted on provisional ballots and told their registration would be checked. They were usually not told that unless they went to the clerk’s office with ID and proof of address, their ballot was likely thrown out. In Georgia Republicans cut the number of ballot drop boxes by 75%, but only in black majority counties. All these were not isolated incidents, they were part of a coordinated national strategy. The more conservative numbers of suppressed votes was at least 2.3% or over 3,500,000 votes. Harris would have beat the nasty guy by 1.2 million votes, winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College. This isn’t speculation. This has documented evidence. It’s what Republican officials designed their laws to do. Now for the history. In 1968 Lyndon Johnson had a tentative agreement for lasting peace in Vietnam. Nixon used envoys to tell the corrupt South Vietnamese politicians that if they held off signing when he became president he would give them a richer deal. The failure of the peace deal is why Humphrey lost and Nixon won. But Nixon didn’t sweeten the pot. The war went on for another five years with 22,000 more American soldiers dead and more than a million Vietnamese dead. Johnson called Nixon’s action treason. In 1980 Ronald Reagan did something similar to Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis. Reagan worked out a deal with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Komeini to keep the hostages until after the 1980 election in exchange for spare parts for the American weapons the deposed Shah had previously purchased. A second act of treason. Carter lost his second term and Reagan won. That spare parts deal continued into the “Iran Contra” scandal. If I remember right low level operatives, like Oliver North, went to jail, but Reagan was merely embarrassed. George HW Bush didn’t use treasonous means to get into office, but he did use racism – the Willie Horton ads – and he did kill investigations to protect Reagan, for whom he had been VP. But, in a sense, if Reagan hadn’t done that treasonous act Bush I would not have been president, making him illegitimate. That brings us to George W Bush. His brother (presumably Jeb) purged 57,000 black voters from the rolls in Florida. That made Florida too close to call (Bush was up by less than 600 votes), prompting five justices of the Supreme Court to award the presidency to Bush, rather than Al Gore. The news didn’t give much notice that Antonin Scalia’s son worked for the law firm defending Bush II (Scalia didn’t recuse) and Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence, was paid to work on the Bush transition team (Clarence didn’t recuse either). A year later a consortium of newspapers did their own recount and concluded Gore had won. No one noticed that news because the 9/11 attacks happened two months before. In 2004 to get reelected, Bush II became a “wartime president.” Bush I became that in a three-day war and Junior concluded that was the best way to have a two-term presidency (he said his father lost in 1992 because he wasted the advantage). And to be a wartime president, he lied. Back in 1991 I was a fan of Bush I (this was before Republicans became explicitly anti-gay and I learned how awful Reagan had been). Then I saw that Papa Bush accumulated all this political capital – and did nothing with it. So, yeah, he wasted the advantage. Back to Junior. His lies got us into war with Iraq and Afghanistan. And he won a second term (though I heard what happened in Ohio that year was skeezy). Those lies also cost 900,000 Iraqi and 7,000 American lives (though veterans are still committing suicide) and added $8 trillion to the national debt. And in 2016 the nasty guy benefited from: Republicans using Interstate Crosscheck to purge millions of voters, mostly people of color. Russian and other foreign actors flooding social media in support of him. Paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet. Talking daily about Hillary Clinton’s emails, including an empty accusation the week before the election. The cost of the nasty guy’s first term was: Unnecessary COVID deaths. Iran would still be in compliance with Obama’s nuclear deal. The rich would not have gotten another $2 trillion in tax cuts. The Supreme Court would not have been stolen.

America has ignored GOP crimes to seize and hold the White House long enough. The immunity Ford gave Nixon has echoed down through the decades, leading to a packed Supreme Court that gave new immunity to Trump and two unnecessary and illegal wars (not to mention tax cuts for billionaires that have gutted our middle class). It’s time, at long last, to tell America the true story of Republican electoral crimes.

In the comments citixen said that Hartmann forgot REDMAP, the Republican effort in 2011 to gerrymander as many states as they controlled to get maximum Republican representation. Michigan was one of those states (isn’t anymore). While citixen has a point, the article was about presidents, not Congress or legislatures. Rambler 797 pointed out that in those key years Democrats had incumbent problems. 1968 – Support for the Vietnam war dropped and Humphrey was not advocating change. 1980 – Support for Carter dropped because of stagflation. 2000 – Gore was awkward, a climate radical, and squandered incumbent advantages of being Clinton’s VP. 2004 – In a time of dropping support for the Iraq war Kerry ran as a War Hero. 2016 – Clinton’s support was already sagging in Midwest working class states. 2024 – Support for Biden collapsed, Harris lost ground with working class and immigrants, and the party was split over Gaza. And why did Bush I lose in 1992, McCain in 2008, or the nasty guy in 2020? A big reason why those three lost is the country was quite fed up and tired of them and their predecessors. Also, one premise of Republican cheating is that the election would be too close or they would lose without it. That implies the prospects of those Democratic losers were better than Rambler797 says they were, and without that meddling Democrats would have won. Commenter democratos says Hartmann used the words “treason” and “traitor” without reference to their legal definitions. Ximena Bustillo of NPR reported on white South African refugees arriving in the US. These are the first refugees the nasty guy’s administration has allowed in and more are expected. Refugees from other countries are on hold. The nasty guy says they are welcome here because of the violence they faced back home. Of course, the question: The refugees from Afghanistan didn’t face violence and won’t if they return? Many Afghan refugees were stuck abroad after being approved for travel when the nasty guy changed the rules. A judge ordered the administration to restart the refugee program. The State Department says they’re still considering it (meaning, they are defying a judge’s orders). Michel Martin of NPR talked to Sean Rowe, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church on the denomination’s decision to not help resettle Afrikaners. It will end its long partnership with the US government to support migrants. Rowe said the decision is straightforward. They are committed to racial justice. They are a sister church to the Anglican Church of South Africa, home church to Archbishop Desmond Tutu who fought against the racism of Apartheid. They are saddened and ashamed because of the refugees who are being denied entrance, especially those who worked with the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fast-tracking Afrikaners is not morally just. Rowe said that the nasty guy seems to think some people, white people, are more valuable than others, people of color. That doesn’t fit with the morals of the Episcopal Church. Since 1980 the Episcopal Church has helped resettle more than 100,000 refugees. Since January their program has been shut down, no refugees coming to the US. Helping Afrikaners ahead of others doesn’t make sense. They will continue to work with migrants and the most vulnerable, though not as partners with the US government. Alix Breeden of Kos talked about why the Afrikaners wanted to come to the US. They, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau have been spreading the false narrative they had endured racial discrimination and violence from the government of black South Africans. They also feared their property would be seized without compensation. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa disputed that narrative, saying they are not being persecuted, hounded, nor treated badly. They are leaving because they don’t want to embrace the changes directed by their constitution. South Africa is implementing the Expropriation Act, which will redistribute some land owned by white farmers to black farmers. This is in response to Apartheid, under which black farmers were not allowed to own land and were driven into extreme poverty. This Act seeks to redress the land imbalance. And as the nasty guy’s administration welcomes white Afrikaners, they ended the Temporary Protected Status of Afghans. They said in a sense Afghanistan is all better now, it is safe to go back. Though it isn’t. Landau was asked why Afrikaners are welcome and Afghans are not. He replied that a criteria was “they could be assimilated easily into our country.” Ooh, that’s a troublesome word. Ask American Natives what assimilation got them. But what that answer is saying is, “We the administration get to decide who we will welcome and who we won’t.” I kept waiting for some news report would say the reason the nasty guy welcomed the Afrikaners and not others is because they are just as racist as he is. Alas, none that I read put it that bluntly. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote the nasty guy is doing a good job of pissing off religious groups. With this effort he annoyed the Episcopal Church. He pissed off the US Conference of Catholic Bishops by refusing to pay $13 million the denomination had already spent on refugee resettlement. They sued, lost, and appealed. Public-private partnerships don’t work when the public funding is removed. Polling shows Evangelical Christians broadly support general refugee resettlement and are annoyed it is being limited to White South Africans. I said the Afrikaners are racist? Down in the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweeted:

WOW. The Trump admin said they will review social media and deny immigration benefits to people saying antisemitic claims. They're even trying to deport people with green cards on alleged claims of antisemitism. Anyway, here's a tweet from an Afrikaner they flew here on Monday.

That Afrikaner is Charl Kleinhaus, whose icon is a Christian cross. He tweeted:

Jews are untrustworthy and a dangerous group they are not Gods chosen like to believe they are. Where is the Temple that must be their concern and leave us alone we all believe in the God of Abraham, Moses and Jacob! I almost said something ugly ...

Not “almost.” And... Hey Big Guy! You said you would deny immigration benefits to people saying antisemitic things? Look right here! Back to the body of the pundit roundup Chitown Kev had a few interesting quotes. First, Catie Edmondson and Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times on the Republican controlled House trying to get a budget reconciliation bill passed by Memorial Day:

Even as the committees approved their slices of the plan in party-line votes, House Republican leaders faced dissent in their ranks that could delay or derail passage. Conservative lawmakers have argued the proposed cuts to Medicaid, which stopped short of an overhaul in an effort to protect vulnerable Republicans, do not go far enough. And Republicans from high-tax states like New York were furious about a provision that would increase the limit on the state and local tax deduction to $30,000 from $10,000, a cap they regard as far too low and which was still being negotiated. The plan is also facing Republican opposition in the Senate. Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have said the current bill is fiscally irresponsible. Senator Susan Collins of Maine has said she opposes at least one Medicaid provision in the legislation. And Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri described the bill’s changes to the government health program for the poor as a nonstarter, saying they amounted to “taxing the poor to give to the rich.”

Yeah, a Republican said that. Paul Krugman, writing in his own Substack about cuts in support for renewable energy:

The purpose of these cuts, sadism aside, would be to partially offset the cost of huge tax cuts for the rich — cuts that would still explode the budget deficit. The cruelty is mind-boggling. In fact, I have both a suggestion and a prediction for major media organizations: I’d like to see them do focus groups with ordinary voters, describing these plans. My prediction, based on what we’ve seen in the past, is that many voters will simply refuse to believe the policy descriptions, insisting that elected officials can’t possibly be that vicious. But they can be and are.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf of The Contrarian wrote about the “pink tax.” But the excerpt didn’t sort out whether this “tax” is actually imposed by the government or just a pervasive price differential practiced by corporations. I think it’s the latter. The pink tax refers to gender-based pricing. Things marketed to girls and women are priced higher than the corresponding product for men and boys. Examples are toys, bikes, scooters, shampoo, shaving gear, body lotion, and deodorant.