The responsible actor in contrast to the infantilized giant

This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the nasty guy’s attempt to rewrite the 14th Amendment to make birthright citizenship unavailable to children of immigrants. Part of the attempt is to eliminate birth tourism, in which a mother comes to the US primarily to give birth here so the child will be a citizen. Part of the attempt is he just doesn’t like people of color. On Tuesday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reviewed how this case came about. Part of her focus is the white supremacists who developed the argument the nasty guy is using. On Wednesday Needham summarized how the oral arguments went. Before she got into that she noted the nasty guy attended the arguments, the first Oval Office occupant to sit in the Supreme Court chamber while arguments were heard. Perhaps he was trying to glare his appointees into submission. He left after his side of the case was presented so didn’t hear much of the other side, which was much better prepared. The nasty guy’s side was presented by Solicitor General John Sauer. He had a hard time answering questions from the Justices. Jackson: Do parents need to have citizen documents in the birthing room? Gorsuch: Do Native American children get automatic citizenship? Barrett: What if you don’t know who the parents are? Kavanaugh: Why consider whether other countries have birthright citizenship? – Sauer had claimed there weren’t any others when there are 32. While the final decision may not match the questions asked in oral arguments, this does not look good for the nasty guy’s position, which is good for the country. Given the rage tweeting afterward the nasty guy has the same opinion. Two weeks ago Mark Kreidler, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported that Washington state passed a millionaire tax. It will go into effect in 2028 and will tax income above $1 million at a 9.9% rate. The tax will affect about 20,000 households or less than 0.5% of them. One reason for doing it is Washington relies on sales and business taxes, rather than income taxes, making it one of the most regressive in the country – the tax hits hardest on those least able to pay it. That system may have been great when the economy was based on timber and apples. But it is now based on defense contractors and tech giants. The advocates for the bill include Patriotic Millionaires, based in DC. Chuck Collins is one of their founders. They advocate for tax reform because the wealthy pay so little. The group is concentrating on the states because there is no action at the federal level. Massachusetts passed a wealth tax in 2023. New Jersey has had one since 2020 and Minnesota since 2024. California may vote on one this fall. Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island are all debating a wealth tax. Data from Massachusetts shows a wealth tax does not drive the rich to move to other states, as is frequently claimed. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman, writing for his Substack.

Last weekend, Yonatan Touval wrote an essay in the New York Times with an explanation for the American and Israeli governments’ apparent failure to consider that if they attacked Iran, the Iranians might, you know, do things in response, making choices colored by their history, their beliefs, their culture, and their politics. “Our leaders preside over an extraordinary machinery of destruction, but they remain strikingly obtuse about human beings — about their pride, shame, convictions and historical memory,” Touval wrote. Donald Trump in particular is incapable of empathy, the capacity to see the world from the perspective of someone else, even only for a moment. Some responded to Touval’s essay by saying Trump has no theory of mind, no capacity to imagine how someone else thinks and makes decisions. But that’s not quite true. He has a theory, it’s just that it’s one in which all other minds exist only to regard him with awe. Everyone is a member of the his audience, watching him and reading about him and shaking our heads in wonder at him. You can see it in Trump’s obsession with the gaze of the crowd, which has gripped him all his life. The true measure of a person, an action, or an event, he believes, is that it is seen, and by how many. And the highest compliment one can pay, the greatest superlative imaginable, is that the crowd will say “We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

I note the emphasis on seen. Both the nasty guy and Pete Hegseth (and I’m sure many others) put their emphasis on being seen as smart, handsome, manly, and in power. They really don’t care whether they actually are any of those. The title of David Mastio’s article in the Kansas City Star is enough: “Pam Bondi was the best attorney general we’re going to get from Trump.” A tweet from PaulleyTicks plays on the old Star Trek idea that in a bad situation the characters wearing the red shirts are the one who will get injured or killed. This meme shows the nasty guy talking to Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth, who are both wearing Star Trek style red shirts – and, goodness, the sweat stains. In the comments exlrrp posted a cartoon by Winters showing men in a military aircraft:

Soldier: Where are we heading, Sarge? Sarge: Not sure. But @DonnieJunior just made a $150M Polymarket bet on Kharg Island beachfront futures.

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Daniel Medina shows Jesus talking for today’s world: “Blessed are the meek... Care for the poor... House the homeless... Feed the hungry... Love the immigrant and refugee for I was one, too.” A MAGA man: “Crucify him!” In the roundup for Tuesday, March 24, Chitown Kev quoted Andrea Rizzi of El País in English discussing American geopilitical suicide.

The first fundamental aspect of the self-inflicted blow to U.S. primacy is the destruction of the formidable network of alliances that Washington built, with bipartisan consensus, across the globe over eight decades. No ally trusts the White House anymore. Many are putting on a brave face for fear of suddenly being left without support—but all are organizing themselves to never again be so dependent on the U.S. In public, many leaders are opting for restraint, but in private, this writer has heard significant remarks that attest to an extraordinary level of distrust toward Washington from nominally pro-American sectors. The underlying logic is that the risks of dependence on Washington must be reduced, just as they must be with China, in a striking political equation. [...] The second crucial aspect is the devastation of the globalized economic system that has underpinned U.S. hegemony. It is true that, in recent decades, this foundation has allowed China to achieve astonishing growth by exploiting weaknesses in the system. But Washington’s furious assault shows no sign of correcting this situation. Instead, it produces damaging side effects for Washington, fostering distrust and disaffection that extend across the entire spectrum of the economic sphere. While some have caved in with unfavorable agreements and promises of investment, the reality is that everyone is now distrustful. And this is bad news. Because while Trump is obsessed with the manufacturing deficit, the U.S. was able to consolidate an impressive dominance in the services sector within that system. [...] The third aspect of this self-inflicted damage is the abandonment of an international order that the U.S. helped build more than any other nation. It is no coincidence that Republican and Democratic administrations, despite their differing sensibilities, agreed on the construction and maintenance of this project. It wasn’t due to a lack of vision, nor to the misguided concept of benign hegemony; it was because it benefited the U.S. Kennedy and Nixon, Reagan and Obama understood this. There must have been a reason. Now, its withdrawal from the system is causing a dangerous atrophy of many institutions. Some are becoming completely irrelevant. But the U.S. retreat also opens the door for others to build other things, for others to influence the development of initiatives while the White House is on its way out. China is seizing every opportunity to position itself as the responsible actor in contrast to the infantilized giant.

Krugman reminds us that the Strait of Hormuz is not the only important choke point in the world economy. Here are more: China could attack Taiwan, where 60% of all computer chips and 90% of advanced chips are created. North Korea could attack the South, a major exporter of memory chips. A dispute between the Netherlands government and Chinese chip company Nexperia could damage auto production around the world. India is a major exporter of vaccines. China is the largest source of rare earth elements needed in electronics. Over 40 years that global interdependence worked (though not perfectly) because the US supported it. And now the guy in charge is erratic.

Make America Great Again but making China greater

I leave tomorrow and will be gone for a week. The reason for the trip is to attend the United Methodist Reconciling Ministries Network Convocation held in Madison, Wisconsin. The denomination has removed the harmful language from the rule book that called homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” That was the basis for gay clergy bans and other bans, which are also now gone. But that does not mean every congregation is welcoming. That is the next step RMN will address. The Convo is a place to talk about it while celebrating through queer theology. I may post a report when I get back. When the Senate was debating the Big Brutal Bill one of the changes they made to the House version was to protect tax credits for wind and solar projects for a year instead of their immediate cancellation. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that change was one reason why Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted for the BBB. And six days after the Senate passed the bill the nasty guy issued an executive order canceling the credits in 45 days. Murkowski feels betrayed and duped that he “just pulls the rug out from underneath the deal.” He signed an executive order that goes against the bill he just signed. The nasty guy has a hatred of clean energy, likely because his rise to power was funded in part by oil barons, who want to protect their source of wealth and the power it brings them. And the EO will have bad effects on energy bills, with the highest increases in red states, along with increasing global warming. Which reminds me many months have gone by since I last saw a chart of the global average temperature and how quickly it is rising. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote:

President Donald Trump sees the government as having two key functions: to enrich himself and his pals, and to hurt everyone else. His rollbacks of key consumer and worker protections—or his administration standing aside while federal courts roll those back for him—combine both those ignoble impulses. He gets to reward corporate interests and the ultrarich while making life worse for the rest of us. What’s jarring about his moves is that there is no credible argument that doing so helps most Americans. The only underlying justifications are profit and cruelty.

As I understand it, the profit and cruelty are to enforce and maintain the social hierarchy with the ultrarich at the top. Here are the latest efforts in helping the rich and being cruel to everyone else. A ban on paying disabled workers a subminimum wage (as low as 25 cents an hour) was withdrawn. The rule to prevent data brokers from buying and selling your data without your consents is no longer aligned with the “current interpretation of the [Fair Credit Reporting Act].” That’s strange because the current interpretation is being revised. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being gutted. The Department of Justice has disbanded the team tasked with determining if cryptocurrency exchanges enable criminal activity. That the nasty guy is engaging in corrupt crypto stuff has nothing to do with the DoJ actions. The effort to exempt medical debt from consumer credit reports has been tossed by a judge. And I’ve already mentioned the demise of the click-to-cancel rule. The administration is asking to pause a case requiring insurance companies to keep coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. The pause is because they will not enforce the underlying law. The DoJ is reconsidering the rule that raised the limit above which overtime didn’t need to be paid. The nasty guy overturned the minimum wage for federal contractors, dropping it from $15 an hour back to $13.30 (which is higher than the minimum wage for jobs that aren’t a part of federal contracts).

Not a single one of these actions benefits consumers or workers, but every one of them benefits the interests of those who make money by exploiting people. And since that is Trump’s natural constituency, he’s going to do everything he can to help them out. And this is only the beginning.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote about the report titled “The Price of Retreat: America Cedes Global Leadership to China.” It was released by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and gathered data from international charities, foreign officials, and US companies. The accompanying press release explains the nasty guy’s failure to have a “whole-of-government” strategy to international affairs has allowed China to to expand its global influence while harming American security and economic interests. A few things were highlighted in the report. One is the haphazard tariff policy. Another is the gutting of international aid. A third is cutting grants to universities and attacking them, which also drives away international talent. That combination allows China to surpass us in intellectual talent. A fourth is dropping the countering of disinformation (closing Voice of America) allowing the free flow of Chinese propaganda. In response approval of the US has dropped by quite a bit in many countries (a chart is included). The nasty guy ran on the slogan “Make America Great Again.” But the effect is to make China greater. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a couple quotes about the recent election for the National Diet (parliament) in Japan. The Liberal Democratic Party (described as right-of-center, so I wonder what “liberal” means in Japan) does not have a majority in either chamber, the first time that has happened in 70 years. This time the challenge came not from the left, but from the right. From Martin Fackler of the New York Times:

The new nationalist parties have warned of unrestrained immigration and what they describe as excessive gender equality, but analysts say they have succeeded in large part because they tapped into the frustrations of working-age people living in a rapidly graying society. The new parties have succeeded by giving voice to younger voters who feel they are burdened with taxes to pay for the retirement of their parents’ generation, while policies protecting special interests block them from more entrepreneurial efforts to improve their lives.

“Excessive gender equality” (!) Jio Kamata of The Diplomat wrote the far right parties gained seats by focusing on the economy and pushing hatred of “foreigners” – the usual way to rile up the citizens.

According to Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, populism is caused when established parties act in ways that reinforce the stereotypes that elites are corrupt and unresponsive.

Kev added Japan’s shift rightward is part of a global trend. Again disinformation was a problem. There are differences, such as Japan’s aging population. And:

Maybe the youth of Japan and the youth of other countries (France, Argentina, the U.S. to a lesser extent, for example) are sick and tired of being sick and tired and they are willing to reach for anything, however ill-informed they may be about their choices.

Jon Allsop of Columbia Journalism Review discussed the mainstream media response to the Epstein scandal.

I can’t avoid the conclusion that some of it has slipped all too eagerly from covering the conspiracy theories around him into indulging them (if, often, only implicitly). I find myself agreeing with a column that Ben Smith, of Semafor, published last night, in which he wrote that the Epstein story “brings out two of the worst traits in journalists and—to really point fingers here—in our audiences. First, the human tendency to fill in gaps with wild theories that flatter our prejudices; second, the bias toward what’s new over what’s known.” (The “larger Epstein belief system,” Smith added, “is QAnon for people who went to college.”) And I heartily cosign his conclusion: that “those of us trying to stay sane ought to keep in mind the distinction between evidence and speculation, fantasy and reality.”

Paul Farhi of The Atlantic discussed the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR as well as the general attack on the media.

“The independent press in the United States is facing what media outlets in too many other countries with aspiring autocrats have confronted,” the former Washington Post editor Marty Baron told me on Thursday. He compared Trump’s “repressive measures” to those of Hungarian President Viktor Orbán: “The playbook is to demean, demonize, marginalize, and economically debilitate” independent reporting. Ever since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has fulminated against “the fake news.” But only in his second term has Trump gone beyond such rhetoric to wage a multifront war on media freedom with all of the tools at his disposal: executive actions, lawsuits, a loyal regulatory bureaucracy, a compliant Republican majority in Congress and a sympathetic Supreme Court. Each of his actions has been extraordinary in its own right; collectively, they represent a slow-motion demolition of the Fourth Estate. The principal question isn’t just whether anyone can stop Trump, but whether anyone in power really wants to.

Ari Shaw of Foreign Affairs wrote about the interdependence of LGBTQ rights and democratic institutions.

LGBTQ rights endure when they are written into or otherwise grounded in national constitutions; culturally normalized across partisan lines; upheld through strong, independent judiciaries; supported by civil society organizations that operate freely; and reinforced by regional or international human rights structures. Ultimately, the stronger a country’s liberal democratic institutions, the better protected the rights of LGBTQ people become. ... Threats to democratic institutions and threats to LGBTQ rights are mutually reinforcing, generating a vicious cycle that strengthens authoritarian control. Illiberal leaders deliberately exploit divisions over LGBTQ issues to consolidate political power, tapping into popular anxieties about changing social norms to build electoral coalitions and maintain public support. They proceed to undermine independent courts, free media, and civil society organizations—sometimes using their moral opposition to LGBTQ rights as justification. When democratic safeguards are weakened, LGBTQ rights lose their protection from further attack. Ensuring that LGBTQ people can live in safety and with equal opportunity therefore requires not only defending their rights but also addressing the crisis of democracy that renders them vulnerable.

As long as the dollars are spent on them and no one else

To all you IT people and people just doing coding – back in my day we called in programming and I had the job title of programmer – do you know about COBOL? Unless you work in particular industries, have been doing coding for a long time, or are working on antique systems, you probably don’t. Which means you probably don’t know its idiosyncrasies. Such as how it stores dates. Thankfully, my need to use it was quite brief. COBOL is a computer programming (or coding) language, as are C++, python, java, and such. I’ve been out of the industry for a good many years so I don’t know the modern languages. So I looked up top programming languages for 2025 and found a list on Geeks for Geeks. Beyond what I mentioned above it listed C#, PHP, Ruby, Swift, SQL, Kotlin, and several more. I’ve heard of C# and SQL though used neither. I hadn’t heard of the others. lobachevsky of the Daily Kos community wrote:

Elon Musk claimed that his team found 150-year-old people collecting Social Security! He implied there were dead people being sent benefits, with checks cashed by someone else. But no—the people getting paid are very much alive. They are collecting their own benefits. They’re not committing fraud. They’re just not 150 years old, of course.

What’s going on is that on May 20, 1875 the International Bureau of Weight and Measures was established. Though computers, and COBOL, are nowhere near that old the creators of COBOL chose representing dates as the number of days since that date. That was ... let me see now ... almost 150 years ago. If the Social Security system doesn’t know a birth date it has as blank or zero. Elsewhere in the COBOL program it would know to say a birth date of 1875 should be interpreted as no birth date. But a person reading just the database would not know that. Which is a big reason why sending DOGE employees barely in their 20s, if that, rampaging through a computer system is a really bad idea. I guess they didn’t notice every one of those 150 year old people were born on the same date. Walter Einenkel of Kos reports that Musk is or will soon have the Internal Revenue Service in his sights. The primary goal is to lay off all those newly hired agents, the ones with the job to make sure the rich don’t cheat on their taxes. Yeah, the people from whom the IRS collected more than $1 billion last year. DOGE in the IRS means the boys have access to the tax info of every tax payer in America. That by itself is scary. It also means the richest guy in the world has the power to fire the people who collect his taxes. How that affects the speed of your tax refund is not known. File your taxes anyway. The deadline is still April 15. You don’t want to give them a reason to come after you. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that during a time of international turmoil – a tenuous cease fire in Gaza with the nasty guy talking about ethnic cleansing, the nasty guy and Putin discussing Ukraine’s fate without Ukraine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth angering NATO allies, and the usual daily arguing and fighting at various places around the world – the US does not have an ambassador to the United Nations. One would think that would be necessary so at least the nasty guy and his minions could speak with a unified voice. There is a nominee for the job, Rep. Elise Stefanik. But her confirmation is on hold. That’s because the Republican House majority is so slim that her vote might be critical – for such things as approving the $880 billion cut to Medicare to ease in the vote for tax cuts for billionaires due later this year.

The state of paralysis once again shows that Republicans have prioritized the well-being of the wealthiest above everything else, even America’s role on the world stage.

Kos of Kos discussed the research funding given out by the National Institutes of Health to universities. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said she would work with Health Secretary Robert Kennedy to make sure the Alabama University system would be exempted. She must think the University of Michigan, the University of California system, or the universities of all the other states are not also doing top level research.

It’s so weird that the biggest moocher states like West Virginia, Louisiana, and Alabama suddenly love socialism—as long as the dollars are spent on them and no one else. And Alabama, the eighth-biggest moocher state in the country which gobbles up twice as much in federal funds as it pays in taxes, really needs to learn a lesson. Trump’s draconian cuts (instigated by his co-President Elon Musk and his shady DOGE cabal) won’t hurt blue states as much as they will decimate red states. If Republican legislators and voters alike want those federal dollars, maybe vote for the party that believes in sharing the wealth and uplifting everyone? Which brings us back to the difference between us and them: We are capable of empathy, even when something doesn’t affect us directly. Republicans only care when it does. Meanwhile, the University of Alabama will need to pinch pennies. Maybe they can start with football coach Kalen DeBoer’s $10 million annual salary, which will add up to over $80 million through 2031.

Feeding government into the wood chipper

Back in December when I thought about Musk being appointed to head a Department of Government Efficiency to recommend how to cut government spending, I figured he would draw up a list of government services, how much they spend now, how much he thinks they should spend, and he would hand that list to the nasty guy and Congress. I did not think he and his crew would barge into government offices, declare the department closed, tap into or remove computers, fire employees, and leave a lot of chaos. I did not think he would do it with acquiescence or permission of the department heads and cabinet members. I did not expect Republicans in Congress to essentially say, Hmm... Oh well. In the news over the last week... Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that on Monday Musk announced he (not the nasty guy or Congress) is shutting down the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. The website is offline, employees were told not to report to work. USAID is funded by Congress, so not spending the money as Congress directed is illegal. The agency is critical in many global health efforts around the world – in monitoring diseases and supplying medications. This is as mpox and bird flu are on the rise. Stopping these programs leaves people without lifesaving drugs and medical care. An example is the 6.5 million people who get HIV medications. Another news source said that current HIV meds keep the virus at undetectable levels, but that does not mean gone. Stop the meds, even for a short time, and the virus grows again, this time as a more resistant strain. Even a pause in the regimen can result in a death sentence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said all of USAID’s program need to be evaluated so they advance the interests of the US. A healthy world is in the interest of the US. Doing this aid work is also in national interest because China and Russia are eager to step in and be nice to countries the US is abandoning. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted an ABC News story that said USAID is critical for getting aid into Gaza. That aid is central to the ceasefire bargain. Shutting down USAID raises the risk that the ceasefire deal with collapse. Considering the nasty guy has been talking about a Gaza Riviera, this might be the intended outcome. An Associated Press article posted on Kos gives more details. Including this (“They” being DOGE):

They have ordered a spending stop that has paralyzed U.S.-funded aid and development work around the world, gutted the senior leadership and workforce with furloughs and firings, and closed Washington headquarters to staffers Monday. Lawmakers said the agency’s computer servers were carted away. “Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk boasted on X. The mass removal of thousands of staffers overseas and in Washington would doom billions of dollars in projects in some 120 countries, including security assistance to partners such as Ukraine as well as development work for clean water, job training and education, including for schoolgirls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Yes, USAID is more than health. USAID overseas workers are now scrambling. How do we get back to the states? What about children in school? Do we have time to do the paperwork for pets? Morgan Stephens of Kos reported DOGE has hit the CIA. The entire workforce has received buyout offers.

The CIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates information on economic, military, and political developments abroad to protect national security.

So much for national security. Completely shutting down the CIA doesn’t seem to be the goal here, just shake it up and slim it down. Get rid of a lot of experience. Make it a lot less effective.

Trump’s moves aren’t just reckless, they’re potentially catastrophic for America’s national security at a time when its global security is becoming increasingly more fragile. As the CIA thins out its ranks, U.S. enemies are undoubtedly watching and celebrating.

Singer reported:

After illegally axing USAID and drafting plans to do the same with the Department of Education, President Donald Trump and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk, have now set their sights on decimating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal scientific agency that helps forecast the weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, and manages the protection of marine life. "Hearing reports that Musk’s cronies are targeting NOAA—infiltrating key systems & locking out career employees," Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland wrote on X. "NOAA is vital for weather forecasting, scientific research & more. Their critical work saves lives. My team and I are looking into this & we will not stand for it."

There are a couple reasons why the nasty guy and Musk would want to decimate NOAA. The big one is it is instrumental in doing and keeping track of research into global warming. The bonus is with NOAA gone weather forecasting can be taken over by a for-profit company and the forecast you use to plan your day would then depend on how much you are willing to pay for it. NOAA provides it for free. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that many Republicans are just fine with all this government destruction. They’re glad American tax dollars will be spent only on the interests of the American people (not that they have a clue – unless their definition of “American people” is the billionaires). They’re pleased that Musk is finding so much waste to eliminate (a billionaire’s “waste” is a poor person’s living allowance). They hesitate to deny Lutheran Family Services is a money-laundering operation. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet by Loren DeJong Schulman:

You say: they shutdown USAID. You mean: they illegally broke in to a secure facility over a weekend, hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and US businesses, destroyed property Americans paid for, cut off resources for hungry families, and fired Americans.

In the comments SanAntonioKrust included a tweet from Acyn of a clip of Rachel Maddow, who says:

I think it's pretty obvious now that they are using DEI as just a pretext. They're giving everything that, you know, unfashionable boogeyman label to try to avoid people in general, realizing that what they're really doing is just wrecking the US government.

Way down in the comments is a cartoon showing a MAGA couple at the grocery store:

Wife: They cut our Social Security and Medicare! Trump’s tariff have cause massive inflation! Remember when we were upset about the price of eggs? Husband: It’s getting more and more expensive to own the libs!

In another roundup Chitown Kev quoted Ross Andersen of The Atlantic. I will summarize it by saying we’re in deep trouble if DOGE decides it can take its chainsaws to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Down in the comments is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich based on the announcement by Waffle House that it is adding 50 cents for each egg in an order to offset high egg prices. The cartoon shows a Waffle House. On one side is a patron with a newspaper headline, “Trump attacks Democracy not high food prices.” On the other side a patron is giving his order, “Do you serve Eggs Benedict... Arnold?” In the comments of a third pundit roundup is a meme by Aaron Rupar:

Draw your own conclusions, but Donald Trump is not behaving like a leader who expects democratic accountability for himself or his party next year or in 2028.

In the comments of a fourth roundup exlrrp is a photo of a person painting over a wall that displayed the words, such as Fairness, Initiative, Respect, Constitution, and more. The caption says:

Trump’s had them paint over a mural about fairness and compassion at the F.B.I. Academy at Quantico. All of these values must now be hidden from society under the new Nazi regime.

Added by exlrrp: “OK: Looks like: (checks notes) fairness, leadership, compassion, diversity, integrity, and stability are just too woke for the FBI.” A ways further down exlrrp posted a meme:

Frustration is knowing that the agenda is not hidden anymore and yet the sheep are still obeying.

As part of a series on explaining the right, Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why the right wants small government. Commenters seemed to agree that Willis got to the how, but not the why. They added their own answers. The answers (some posed by more than one person): Racism. Limit taxes and regulations on corporations. Only a federal government can stand up to the crimes of a big corporation, so they want a government incapable of that. They want to eliminate anything that doesn’t support them at the top of the social hierarchy. Others disputed that Republicans want a small government. The big plans the MAGA crowd want (doing deportations, imposing tariffs, and much more) require a big government. It just won’t be doing things for the common people. Another rejected the idea business people want the government to run like a business – no business operates this way. Two Americas included a couple quotes on the role of government. The first is from Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention of 1936. The whole quote is long. Here’s the first paragraph:

An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living – a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

The other is by Abraham Lincoln from about 1854. Here are the first and last paragraphs:

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities. ... From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.

It’s about a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders

Biden was in Europe this past week talking to leaders of the top democracies and of NATO. Today he talked to Vlad Putin (no discussion of that today). After four years of the nasty guy how are world leaders looking at Biden? Laura Rozen, who reports on foreign policy, tweeted that our allies have doubts, though Biden did pull us out of the pandemic. Sarah Kendzior quoted Rozen, then tweeted:

What message does it send when a govt won’t investigate an attack on its own Capitol by seditionists who now announce their plans for a sequel unimpeded? Or that the former POTUS was a known career criminal who pardoned the criminals who aided him? Who would trust that country? Refusing to enforce accountability isn’t strength. It’s dangerous denial that hurts not only Americans but anyone who deals with the US. Yes, actions speak louder than words — and when it comes to elite criminal impunity and compromised institutions, there’s been little action. Trump and his lackeys treated NATO like a protection racket, threatened foreign officials with violence, blackmailed others, backed the enemies of our allies and the allies of our enemies...and walked free. Why would you trust a successor admin that won’t enforce accountability? The Trump admin was a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government. A bunch of its lackeys are still in office. Others are roaming free with state secrets that could be used to hurt allies. If I were a foreign leader, I’d ask Biden about that ongoing nat sec threat.

Walter Shaub, formerly of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted:

Lots of folks in the White House & Congress think it's enough to behave better than Tump. They've moved on from worrying about democracy and are spending all their political capital on fixing the roads and pipes. So what can you do? Lose the hero worship and start pounding them.

Republicans are trying to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. Of course, none of them can define CRT. Or care to understand that CRT is college level stuff. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote the real goal is to keep education racist. Clawson included a tweet from Philip Lewis that includes a couple paragraphs from a textbook approved for 8th grade history. The excerpt talks about a family with 120 slaves. After the war they “lost all their property in slaves” and now had to do field work using freed people who demanded “high wages.” Clawson wrote:

It’s pushback against this kind of history—in which the concerns of a wealthy slaveholder are presented sympathetically while enslaved people are the source of “justified fear” and problematic demands for “high wages”—that Republicans are so worked up about. ... But some teachers say that their colleagues are intimidated by the laws, and that the attacks on “critical race theory,” which no one is actually teaching at the elementary, middle, or high school levels, will have an effect on the teaching of anything about race—exactly as Republicans intend.

Clawson told the story of a teacher who presented Alice Walker, but got so much pushback she won’t next year. Clawson concluded:

That’s the game. It’s not about the legal academic school of critical race theory. It’s about Alice Walker. Or a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders. It’s about keeping white people on top in the teaching of history and literature, and intimidating anyone who would teach anything else.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported several progressive senators are now telling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, sure, go ahead and try for your bipartisan bill (and good luck with that), but we’re not voting for it unless there is a companion bill that does all the other stuff we need to do, especially climate stuff, that happens without the filibuster. Sen. Tina Smith said the two bills need to be “chained together with a lock that cannot be broken. Alas, since there is a 10 day holiday break in early July and recess through August and half of September, this combination may not be approved before Fall. Though there are calls to cancel recess. Katie Hobbs is the Secretary of State in Arizona. Of the four top statewide offices she’s the only Democrat. She’s been battling the GOP recount and fraudit craziness since November. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported Hobbs has had quite enough of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post (naming Sinema directly). She wants help from Sinema and the rest of Congress to pass voting rights bills as fast as possible. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has a couple quotes worth repeating. From Tim Miller of Bulwark. Miller said the fraudit in Arizona will conclude soon and it will create a storm. I add that storm will bolster the nasty guy’s claim he will be reinstated in August. And when he isn’t it will bolster the reasons for another government attack. Dworkin quoted Ezra Klein of the New York Times:

What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

They way I’ve heard it (and probably wrote a time or two): Unless you are poor you are complicit in oppressing the poor. Ending with a pretty picture here. Click on the photo to see the whole thing.

Set so many fires

Yesterday I mentioned the GOP members of the Board of Canvassers in Wayne County, Michigan who refused to certify the election results in Detroit. They are William Hartmann and Monica Palmer. After being harangued for two hours on Zoom (lots of Detroit residents took the opportunity to tell them off), the relented and signed. The compromise was that the Detroit results would be audited. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos has round three of the saga. The nasty guy contacted Hartmann and Palmer directly with gratitude for their support. Also, the Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said audits aren’t done after certification. So the two signed an affidavit saying they rescind their certification. Benson had an answer for that as well – you signed, everything has been turned over to me, there’s no legal mechanism to unsign, we’re done. The fun and games … uh, election subversion … continues into another round. Dartagnan of Kos discussed an article in the New York Times that reported the nasty guy has invited Michigan’s GOP legislative leadership to the White House on Friday. No doubt to twist arms. Dartagnan wrote this is sedition or “‘conduct or speech’ calculated to incite rebellion against our Constitutional process” and is grounds for impeachment. Not that anyone is going to bother. Thankfully, Mike Shirkey has already stated replacing the state’s Electoral College Biden electors with a GOP slate is “not going to happen.” Olga Lautman monitors activities between Russia, Ukraine, and America. She tweeted that Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and his deputy Matthew Travis, have been fired by the nasty guy.

Trump is really intent on leaving our infrastructure, hospitals, and govt agencies open to cyber attacks. Part of his plan along w providing US sources and methods to the Kremlin. Everyone who allows this are traitors. … This is the chaos I have been worried about. Trump will use the next few months to attempt to destroy our agencies and purge federal employees in key positions. Trump shouldn't be allowed to serve out his term w intent to destroy America.

Ben Collins, a reporter for NBC News, tweeted a link to an article in CNN about the nasty guy administration, and included a quote:

A second official tells CNN their goal is to set so many [foreign policy] fires that it will be hard for the Biden administration to put them all out.

Mark Sumner of Kos added a few details. Yeah, there is the chaos of the pandemic on the home front. Sumner wrote and also …

As CNN notes, creating hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths may seem like a pretty big fire, but it’s not the only one that Trump intends to set. Trump is making moves in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and potentially in Iran, not out of an intention to deliver increased national security, but to intentionally create instability. Trump has ordered the latest acting defense secretary to engage in cyber warfare with China. He’s looking to make new terrorist designations that would hogtie future diplomatic actions. And, of course, he’s rushing through massive arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia that could completely upset the balance in a region that’s been notoriously fragile. All of this reflects something that Trump did immediately after the 2016 election—he began running for 2020. That’s exactly what Trump is doing again. Except this time he is using his ability to wreck the government to position himself for a run in 2024. Trump’s plan breaks down to: try to destroy democracy now, but if that doesn’t work, make sure the nation is so broken that you can destroy democracy next time. How Republicans will handle this is best summed up by what the Senate did in its last hours before going on a break—completely shatter past traditions by continuing to hand lifetime appointments to unqualified judicial nominees put forward by the loser of the national election. Trump is doing everything he can to leave Joe Biden a nation that is sick and divided at home, weak and besieged abroad. And he’s doing it for the same reason he decided to not engage in a serious attempt to stop COVID-19. He believes that a little death and disaster will be good political strategy.

Marissa Higgins of Kos reported an interesting possibility for Joe Biden’s cabinet, in particular the Department of the Interior. This department handles federal land, including oil and gas rights on land and offshore. It also handles environmental issues, including endangered species preservation, and it handles the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education. It’s easy to guess what a nasty guy crony has been doing as the head of this department. But that’s not what this post is about. The rumor is that a Native American is being considered for the job. Yeah, an Indian to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs – what a concept! And about time. The particular person is Deb Haaland, Representative from New Mexico, and a member of Laguna Pueblo. She was elected in 2018 as one of the first two Native women elected to Congress. Related to that, Moscow Mitch and several other GOP senators have said that they would not confirm any cabinet picks that are liberal. Proposing Sen. Bernie Sanders for Labor Secretary got a laugh and a no. Which makes it all the more important that we win the two runoff races in Georgia. SemDem of the Kos community lays out ways the court system, including the Supreme Court, can be rebalanced, even if membership can’t be expanded. SemDem first lays out the need, including the number of judges that are being quickly pushed onto the court – something occupying Moscow Mitch even in this lame duck season. Then come the suggestions: Investigate and remove judges who committee perjury. There have been several who allegedly lied during confirmation hearings – including Supreme justice Brett Kavanaugh. A citizens brigade could observe judges and fill out a complaint of judicial misconduct when a judge makes overly partisan statements. Write legislation to require unanimous, or nearly so, decisions if they come before a court. Congress can also eliminate judicial review for some federal actions or require it go through state courts. Defy the court – at least the hyperpartisan rulings. That’s being done now. Establish an inter-branch disputes court, a non-partisan body to handle conflicts between Congress and the President. And, of course, try to expand the courts.

Opposition to oppressive ideologies

James Rubin has an interesting article in Newsweek about foreign policy and how it has changed in the last decade. After WWII our leaders developed the policy of "liberal internationalism":

The idea was that American foreign policy could not simply be a matter of looking out for ourselves, but ought to be tied to larger ambitions—among them, the creation and preservation of a world order in which democratic values and economic freedom could thrive; the championing of a rules-based international system; the mitigation of regional conflicts and instability; and opposition to oppressive ideologies.

This policy was in place from Roosevelt forward, though details may have varied from one president to the next. A few of them didn't venture into areas (Clinton in Rwanda) that this policy would have suggested as appropriate.

But with our reluctance to get involved in Syria (and Libya, Egypt, and lots of other places) and that reluctance supported by the American people, we are obviously not operating based on that policy now.

Why the difference?

Rubin says it is because Bush II used that policy to justify invading Iraq -- and failed spectacularly.

Which means Americans are now quite reluctant to come to anyone's aid. That leaves Syrians wondering who will come to stop the slaughter.

Perhaps, maybe, Bush has done something right?

Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek makes a provocative claim on the cover of this past week's issue: There are some things that Bush has recently gotten right, at least in foreign policy. The Bush Obama and McCain are running against is the one who created all those fiascoes before 2006, especially in Iraq in 2003-2006. In the last couple years Bush has quietly changed course simply because even he saw they weren't working. It seems in this environment of the flip-flop-gotcha he didn't want to advertise things are being done differently. Zakaria credits Bush with these successes (or at least improvements) that follow earlier (sometimes disastrous) failures:

* Iraq is much more stable than in 2003-2005.

* Spending on the Afghan Army has increased considerably.

* The six-nation talks have gotten North Korea to the point it might be taken off the terror list.

* He has sent an American representative to join Europeans in recent discussions with Iran.

* He is actually getting involved in the Israel-Palestine issue.

* He is recognizing relations with China will be central over the next century.

* He has increased funding for AIDS in Africa through PEPFAR, a success recognized by both parties.

* Condi Rice seems to control foreign policy instead of Dick Cheney.

By highlighting this story I do not imply I think Bush is a wonderful guy. I still think he should be impeached and I grumble at saying anything nice about him. Bush is still a disaster at home (FISA is only one example) and he is still fumbling on many other foreign policy issues (torture, Nigeria, Darfur, and Mexico). Zakaria's purpose in writing this article is to say that the incoming president should not simply repudiate what Bush has done and start doing the opposite. We've already had one president who did exactly that. His name was George W. Bush.

Don't call him naive

The frequent charge against Obama is that he is naïve about foreign affairs. Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek disagrees. Obama's foreign policy comments have been much more thoughtful, consistent, conservative (in the good sense of the word), and realistic than McCain's (kick Russia out of G8?). The last paragraph of the article says it well:

"In the end, the difference between Obama and McCain might come down to something beyond ideology—temperament. McCain is a pessimist about the world, seeing it as a dark, dangerous place where, without the constant and vigorous application of American force, evil will triumph. Obama sees a world that is in many ways going our way. As nations develop, they become more modern and enmeshed in the international economic and political system. To him, countries like Iran and North Korea are holdouts against the tide of history. America's job is to push these progressive forces forward, using soft power more than hard, and to try to get the world's major powers to solve the world's major problems. Call him an Optimistic Realist, or a Realistic Optimist. But don't call him naive."

Here is a link to the video and text of Obama's speech before 200,000 people in Berlin. McCain went to a German restaurant in Ohio.