The Conversation -- April 14, 2025

Harvard Fights Back. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: “Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration, becoming the first university to directly refuse to comply with the administration’s demands and setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university.... A letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is 'viewpoint diverse,' among other steps. The administration did not define what it meant by viewpoint diversity, but it has generally referred to seeking a range of political views, including conservative perspectives. 'No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,' said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.” Politico's story is here.

From the Washington Post's live updates: “Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday that he did not plan to return to Kilmar Abrego García to the United States. 'How can I return him to the United States?' Bukele asked Monday during a meeting with ... Donald Trump in the Oval Office. 'I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.' The comments come a day after the Justice Department told a federal judge that it isn’t required to bring home a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Since Bukele struck a deal with Trump’s administration, he has accepted more than 200 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. in recent months and housed them in his country’s draconian mega-prison.... Donald Trump thanked ... Bukele on Monday for his participation in the Trump administration’s efforts to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. 'You are helping us out, and we appreciate it,' Trump said in an Oval Office meeting with Bukele.... Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the Trump administration was not bound to follow court orders to return Kilmar Abrego García from El Salvador, saying that 'no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Update: The Washington Post's full story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: My suggestion to the judge overseeing Abrego's case: jail Marco for contempt of court. Then let's see how he "conducts foreign policy" from a federal lock-up. ~~~

     ~~~ Myah Ward & Eli Stokols of Politico: “The president deferred to his top administration officials Monday, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, senior adviser Stephen Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to field questions about the administration’s intentions, in what appeared to be an orchestrated effort to deliver a forceful, consistent response. Bondi, sitting near Trump, said it is up to El Salvador to decide if they want to return him. 'That’s not up to us,' she said, pointing to the Supreme Court ruling. 'If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.'... Ccritics and legal experts have argued that the case sets a dangerous precedent of allowing the executive branch the expansive and chilling power to imprison individuals in different countries without due process — especially as Trump continues to float sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. 'Home-growns are next. The home-growns,' Trump told Bukele. 'You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.'... During the back and forth in the Oval Office, Trump criticized the reporter who pressed him on this matter, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, insulting her for 'low ratings' and stating that he’d prefer her to simply praise him for deporting 'criminals.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Note that Bondi, the attorney general of the United States, sat there like a potted plant while the POTUS* said he would send native-born U.S. citizens to El Salvador prisons. That is not legal. It also is not the first time Trump (and his dingbat press secretary!) has suggested it: ~~~

     ~~~ Kelsey Ables of the Washington Post (April 10): “... Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the idea of sending U.S. citizens who have been convicted of some crimes to prisons in other countries.... White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended [Trump's] comments..., telling reporters that in reference 'to the president’s idea for American citizens to potentially be deported, these would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly.' While immigration experts say there is no legal way for a person with U.S. citizenship to be deported, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded a warning this month about the Trump administration’s stance on the matter in a dissenting opinion that referenced a case regarding the mistaken deportation of a Salvadoran immigrant in Maryland[:] 'The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal.'...” ~~~

     ~~~ Trump, et al., are Full of It. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Some of ... [Donald] Trump’s top aides on Monday misstated several key facts involving the deportation of a Maryland man to El Salvador last month, blatantly contradicting other members of the administration who have maintained for weeks that his expulsion was an 'administrative error.' In remarks from the Oval Office and on television, Mr. Trump’s advisers suddenly declared that the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, had been lawfully sent to a prison in El Salvador. The White House also sought to portray a recent Supreme Court ruling in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case as a victory when in fact the decision was a nuanced one. It partly found in favor of Mr. Abrego Garcia while also leaving open a loophole for the administration to avoid bringing him back from El Salvador. The efforts by the Trump administration to misrepresent the case came as President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador announced after a meeting with Mr. Trump that his government would not return Mr. Abrego Garcia to U.S. soil.” Read on, especially the parts about that hideous Stephen Miller. This is a gift link.

Constitutional Crisis, Ctd.: ✓. David Bauder of the AP: “Despite a court order, a reporter and photographer from The Associated Press were barred from an Oval Office news conference on Monday with ... Donald Trump and his counterpart from El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. Last week’s federal court decision forbidding the Trump administration from punishing the AP for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico was to take effect Monday. The administration is appealing the decision and arguing with the news outlet over whether it needs to change anything until those appeals are exhausted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit set a Thursday hearing on Trump’s request that any changes be delayed while case is reviewed. The AP is fighting for more access as soon as possible.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It isn't enough that Boss Trump & his mob have created a constitutional crisis over the life-and-death matter of Mr. Abrego. Nope, they have to create another crisis over Trump's petulance over the AP's deciding against following his silly claim that he has renamed the Gulf of Mexico. They're enjoying these fights with the courts. They think they're showing off their manly dominance. And they think -- perhaps correctly -- that's there's nothing the courts can do to stop them from Article IIing their way right past the rest of the Constitution, especially the Amendments with all those annoying rights of citizens.

     ~~~ Marie: As an addendum to Oliver's critique, let me just add that among the many things Howard Lutnick gets wrong is his declaration that "you can't grow mangos in America." Yes, you can. With almost no effort at all, I produced a huge crop of tasty, juicy, two-pound mangoes in Southwest Florida every year -- and from one tree. My parents had done the same in Miami. There is hardly an easier, faster fruit tree to grow than the mango.

~~~~~~~~~~

Maeve Reston of the Washington Post: “Bernie Sanders launched the next round of his 'fighting oligarchy' tour Saturday in Los Angeles, where he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) drew thousands of people to a park across from City Hall as they advanced their effort to build a 'working-class movement.' 'We are living in a moment of extraordinary danger, and how we respond to this moment will not only impact our lives but it will affect the lives of our kids and future generations,' Sanders said to a crowd that organizers said totaled 36,000 people. 'We are living in a moment where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of our country.' The Trump administration 'is moving us rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society — and Mr. Trump, we ain’t going there,' Sanders said to cheers... As he makes stops in red House districts in Utah, Idaho, Montana and several of the most competitive California districts over the next few days, Sanders will be meeting with potential candidates who share his vision and ideology — both independents and Democrats — as they weigh runs for office up and down the ballot in 2026. Sanders’s latest organizing effort is still taking shape, building off the energy that the independent Vermont senator has generated in rallies since ... Donald Trump’s inauguration.”

Minho Kim & Tim Balk of the New York Times: “The White House on Sunday released ... [Donald] Trump’s health report, which declares that Mr. Trump 'is fully fit to execute the duties' of the presidency while laying out a few conditions, such as high cholesterol, for which he has been treated and the report describes as 'well controlled.' The report, written by the president’s physician, Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, who is also a Navy captain, says that Mr. Trump 'remains in excellent health' and 'exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health.'” MB: Lest you think this is a real health report describing Trump's real physical condition, “It refers to Mr. Trump’s 'frequent victories in golf events' as an example of his 'active lifestyle' contributing to his physical and mental well-being.” Unless the patient is, say, Rory McIlroy, and the physical is given today, I doubt the report would mention anything about the super-duper quality of his golf game.

Mad King to Re-impose Tariffs He Just Cancelled. Tony Romm, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump signaled on Sunday that he would pursue new tariffs on the powerful computer chips inside smartphones and other technologies, just two days after his administration excluded a variety of electronics from the steep import taxes recently applied on goods arriving from China. The push came as Mr. Trump’s top economic advisers scrambled to explain their shifting strategy, after having insisted for weeks that they would shield no company or industry from any of the fees they have levied in a bid to reset U.S. trade relationships.” (Also linked yesterday.)  ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What happened? Didn't Tim Apple pay enough tribute to the Dear Leader? This on-again/off-again/on-again chaos is INSANE. ~~~

     ~~~ Ah, a Fake "Clarification." Quinn Scanlan of ABC News: "Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that the administration's decision Friday night to exempt a range of electronic devices from tariffs implemented earlier this month was only a temporary reprieve, with the secretary announcing that those items would be subject to 'semiconductor tariffs' that will likely come in 'a month or two.' 'All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels -- we need to have these things made in America. We can't be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us,' Lutnick told 'This Week' co-anchor Jonathan Karl. He continued, "So what [... Donald Trump's] doing is he's saying they're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon.'" MB: Okay, big-tech manufacturers: Donnie has his hand out. Cross his palm. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. An Even Faker "Clarification": "Donald Trump on Sunday announced that 'there was no tariff exception announced on Friday,' declaring, 'THOSE DAYS ARE OVER!' The President over the weekend took to Truth Social, writing, 'NOBODY is getting "off the hook" for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!' 'There was no Tariff "exception" announced on Friday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff "bucket." The Fake News knows this, but refuses to report it,' Trump added. 'We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.'"

Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: “China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors. The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for ... [Donald] Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April 2.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Huizhong Wu & Aniruddha Ghosal of the AP: “China’s leader Xi Jinping said no one wins in a trade war as he kicked off a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia on Monday, reiterating China’s commitment to global trade in contrast with U.S. ... Donald Trump’s latest tariffs moves. Although Trump has paused some tariffs, he has kept in place 145% duties on China, the world’s second-largest economy. 'There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,' Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media. 'Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.' Xi’s visit lets China show Southeast Asia it is a 'responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,' said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: Donald “Trump will meet with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House on Monday as the administration ramps up its use of a notorious Salvadoran prison for holding migrants deported by the United States. In Mr. Bukele, who has referred to himself as the world’s 'coolest dictator,' Mr. Trump has found a willing partner in a plan for deportations with little or no due process. The removal of the migrants to the prison, known as CECOT, has become a flashpoint in the administration’s attempt to skirt normal immigration practice and the role of the courts in reviewing Mr. Trump’s executive power. Just a day before the meeting between the two leaders, the Trump administration once again tried to resist a federal judge’s order to bring back a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to the prison. In a legal filing on Sunday, the Justice Department argued that the courts lacked the ability to dictate steps the White House should take to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, because only the president had the power to handle U.S. foreign policy.”

Josh Marcus of the Independent: “The U.S. has deported 10 more alleged Latin American gang members to El Salvador, where they will likely be detained in a notorious maximum-security prison accused of numerous human rights abuses. 'Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations arrived in El Salvador,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X on Sunday, praising the collaboration between the Trump administration and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele as an 'example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.'” MB: Yet somehow in this excellent collaboration, Rubio is unable to secure the return of a man the U.S. erroneously sent to the same El Salvador prison. The U.S. plane that carried the ten people of the prison presumably was sitting on a tarmac near the prison, so there is no possible reason -- other than that the government lied to a federal judge that Kilmar Abrego García was alive and well and resident in the prison -- that the plane could not have picked up Abrego and brought him home to his family. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Olivia George & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration said Sunday that it is not required to engage El Salvador’s government in efforts to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison there, striking a defiant tone in responding to a federal judge’s order that plans be made to bring him back to the United States. Federal officials said Sunday that the high court’s ruling required only that they 'remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede' the return of Kilmar Abrego García. The administration also argued that Abrego García 'is no longer eligible' for the protection from deportation that should have prevented him from being sent to El Salvador in the first place, according to records filed Sunday evening in U.S. District Court in Maryland.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait, wait! The government has not remove the "domestic obstacles," because the domestic obstacles are Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem & others. So it undermines its own shameful argument. ~~~

We need to make our voices heard. We’re not red, we’re not blue. We’re the building trades, the backbone of America. You want to build a $5 billion data center? Want more six-figure careers with health care, retirement, and no college debt? You don’t call Elon Musk, you call us!... And yeah, that means all of us. All of us. Including our brother [International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers] apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now! Bring him home! -- Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Union, to union members ~~~

~~~ Some Are More Equal Than Others. Heather Cox Richardson: "... Donald J. Trump is claiming the power to ignore the due process of the law guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, declare someone is a criminal, kidnap them, send them to prison in a third country, and then claim that there is no way to get that person back. All people in the United States are entitled to due process, but Trump and his officers have tried to convince Americans that noncitizens are not. They have also pushed the idea that those they are offshoring are criminals, but a Bloomberg investigation showed that of the 238 men sent to CECOT in the first group, only five of them had been charged with or convicted of felony assault or gun violations.... Once you give up the idea that we are all equal before the law and have the right to due process, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that some people have more rights than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality before the law with the idea that some people have no rights, you have granted your approval to the idea of an authoritarian government."

⭐Rubio Will Send Masked Federal Agents to Grab You Off the Sidewalk for NOTHING. John Hudson of the Washington Post: “Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged. The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States. The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation.... As a result of the lack of evidence, the department said she could be deported using a different authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows for the revocation of a visa at the secretary of state’s discretion.... The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities 'in support of Hamas,' a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.” ~~~

~~~ "American Rendition." Hannah Allam of ProPublica: "... ProPublica examined court filings and interviewed attorneys and Rümeysa Öztürk’s close friend, who regularly speaks to her in detention. What emerges is a more intimate picture of Öztürk and how a child development researcher charged with no crime ended up in a crowded cell in Louisiana. The interviews and court records also provide a glimpse into a sprawling, opaque apparatus designed to deport the maximum number of people with minimum accountability.... Öztürk is among nearly 1,000 students whose visas have been revoked, according to a tally by the Association of International Educators. And she is among several students and professors who have been detained. Her detention was exceptional, immigration attorneys said, because it was caught on camera. What’s scariest, they say, is how fast the removals happen and how little is known about them."

Maria Paul of the Washington Post: “As the Trump administration pushes for mass deportations, expands federal enforcement and shutters oversight offices, experts warn [that U.S.] citizens are increasingly at risk of getting caught in the dragnet. [There have been at least seven recent cases.]... A 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office ... found that ICE wasn’t training officers to follow internal policy requiring them to consult supervisors before detaining someone who claims to be a citizen — or to back off if the evidence of citizenship outweighs the evidence against it. Neither ICE nor Customs and Border Protection is required to track such detentions. Officers aren’t always obligated to verify legal status before making an arrest. And unlike in criminal cases, immigration enforcement agents aren’t required to show probable cause to a judge before taking someone into custody. Experts say the lack of oversight is part of a deeper problem: ICE operates with little transparency and few mechanisms for accountability, especially when it comes to U.S. citizens.” ~~~

~~~ Don't Worry. DOGE Is on the Case. Sophia Cai of Politico (April 11): “Key DOGE engineers [including 'Big Balls'] ... are spread throughout DHS, including Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security Agency. They are providing the technical infrastructure for a sweeping set of actions aimed at revoking parole, terminating visas, and later on, reengineering the asylum adjudication process, according to the officials.... That effort required coordinating with the Social Security Administration to have their Social Security numbers effectively canceled by adding them to a database that tracks dead people, the New York Times and the Washington Post first reported.... 'DOGE is working in all the agencies. We are looking at our books, at people who don’t belong here that Joe Biden allowed in with bogus claims,' said a White House official.” ~~~

     ~~~ Still, mistakes are made. Thanks to RAS for the link.

John Hudson & Andrew Jeong of the Washington Post: “Pete Marocco, a State Department official who oversaw the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has left the agency after less than three months.... The reason for his departure, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was not immediately clear. Marocco worked closely with tech billionaire Elon Musk, both of whom recommended severe cuts to USAID and State Department programs, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Both men clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has opposed some of the cuts proposed by the U.S. DOGE Service. Marocco served in the Defense, State and Commerce departments, and at USAID, in the first Trump administration. In 2020, USAID staffers filed a complaint against Marocco, alleging that he abused and marginalized staff while he reviewed or defunded programs under his own 'personal (but undefined) conception of “national security,’” The Post previously reported.” MB: If Vicious Pete's possible defenestration is supposed to make us think better of Little Marco, it's not working for me.

Show of Force. Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “Since [Donald Trump's] return to office..., the administration has rapidly assembled a force of about 10,000 troops and positioned them across the porous hinterland spanning Texas to California, the centerpiece of an expansive initiative that also includes more drone flights and an unusually robust maritime presence off Mexico. Such hardware typically is reserved for missions overseas. Under Trump, it is being used to track the movement of people and narcotics bound for the United States, monitor cartel activity and send an unambiguous message that the status quo has changed. The moves to bolster the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement efforts have coincided with a sharp drop in illegal crossings, though the president’s political opponents question whether this is an appropriate use of the military, and relations with Mexico are at a low.... Trump’s efforts have triggered deep unease in Washington and Mexico City about the military’s fast-expanding presence along the border, as well as whether Trump intends to launch lethal force against Mexico’s cartels. Upon retaking the White House in January, the administration declared them to be foreign terrorist organizations.”

~~~~~~~~~~

New York. Yan Zhuang of the New York Times: “The Federal Aviation Agency said late Sunday that a sightseeing helicopter company was shutting down its operations immediately after a deadly crash last week on the Hudson River. The helicopter, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, was carrying six people when it crashed into the river on Thursday. None survived. The F.A.A. said in statement on Sunday that it would launch an immediate review of the tour operator’s license and safety record, as well as cooperate with the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the crash. It was not immediately clear if New York Helicopter Tours had shut down voluntarily or under orders from the F.A.A.”

Pennsylvania. Edgar Sandoval & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: “Pennsylvania state authorities have arrested a 38-year-old Harrisburg man and said he set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, forcing Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family to evacuate early Sunday before the blaze severely damaged part of the building. The man, identified as Cody Balmer, 38, jumped a fence and managed to evade state troopers as he broke in to the building and set the fire, the authorities said, adding that he had used homemade incendiary devices. He fled the scene and was arrested in Harrisburg on Sunday afternoon, officials said in a news conference.... Mr. Shapiro, who became emotional [during a news briefing] as he described his family’s ordeal, recalled the moment a state trooper banged on his door shortly after 2 a.m., woke him, his wife and children, and rushed them to safety from an arson attack that he called 'targeted.'” (Also linked yesterday.) The NBC News story is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel. Louisa Loveluck, et al., of the Washington Post: “Explosions at a United Nations guesthouse in Gaza that killed a European aid worker and severely wounded five others last month were very likely caused by two Israeli tank shells, according to experts who analyzed photos of the scene obtained exclusively by The Washington Post. The strike on March 19, which came a day after Israel’s surprise bombardment ended a two-month ceasefire, led the United Nations to substantially scale back its international workforce in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. has blamed Israel for the attack, an assertion some analysts have supported. Israel has denied responsibility.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Ukraine, et al. Siobhán O'Grady, et al., of the Washington Post: “A Russian missile strike on the center of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed at least 34 people, including two children, Ukrainian officials said, fueling further skepticism over any Russian intent to end the war as ... Donald Trump pushes for a ceasefire. The attack on the city’s downtown area occurred on Palm Sunday, as families flocked to church to mark the beginning of Holy Week ahead of Easter. Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the Sumy regional military administration, said Russia launched two ballistic missiles at the city. Trump, who has increasingly expressed anger at the war’s continuing pace despite his peace efforts, called the attack 'terrible' on Sunday night. 'I was told they made a mistake. I think it’s a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing. I think, for that war to have started is an abuse of power,' he said, without elaborating what he meant by 'mistake.'”

The Conversation -- April 13, 2025

Mad King to Re-impose Tariffs He Just Cancelled. Tony Romm, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump signaled on Sunday that he would pursue new tariffs on the powerful computer chips inside smartphones and other technologies, just two days after his administration excluded a variety of electronics from the steep import taxes recently applied on goods arriving from China. The push came as Mr. Trump’s top economic advisers scrambled to explain their shifting strategy, after having insisted for weeks that they would shield no company or industry from any of the fees they have levied in a bid to reset U.S. trade relationships.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What happened? Didn't Tim Apple pay enough tribute to the Dear Leader? This on-again/off-again/on-again chaos is INSANE. ~~~

     ~~~ Ah, a Fake "Clarification." Quinn Scanlan of ABC News: "Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that the administration's decision Friday night to exempt a range of electronic devices from tariffs implemented earlier this month was only a temporary reprieve, with the secretary announcing that those items would be subject to 'semiconductor tariffs' that will likely come in 'a month or two.' 'All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they're going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels -- we need to have these things made in America. We can't be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us,' Lutnick told 'This Week' co-anchor Jonathan Karl. He continued, "So what [... Donald Trump's] doing is he's saying they're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon.'" MB: Okay, big-tech manufacturers: Donnie has his hand out. Cross his palm.

Keith Bradsher of the New York Times: “China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors. The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for ... [Donald] Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April 2.”

Josh Marcus of the Independent: “The U.S. has deported 10 more alleged Latin American gang members to El Salvador, where they will likely be detained in a notorious maximum-security prison accused of numerous human rights abuses. 'Last night, another 10 criminals from the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua Foreign Terrorist Organizations arrived in El Salvador,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X on Sunday, praising the collaboration between the Trump administration and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele as an 'example for security and prosperity in our hemisphere.'” MB: Yet somehow in this excellent collaboration, Rubio is unable to secure the return of a man the U.S. erroneously sent to the same El Salvador prison. The U.S. plane that carried the ten people of the prison presumably was sitting on a tarmac near the prison, so there is no possible reason -- other than that the government lied to a federal judge that Kilmar Abrego García was alive and well and resident in the prison -- that the plane could not have picked up Abrego and brought him home to his family. ~~~

~~~ Olivia George & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration said Sunday that it is not required to engage El Salvador’s government in efforts to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison there, striking a defiant tone in responding to a federal judge’s order that plans be made to bring him back to the United States. Federal officials said Sunday that the high court’s ruling required only that they 'remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede' the return of Kilmar Abrego García. The administration also argued that Abrego García 'is no longer eligible' for the protection from deportation that should have prevented him from being sent to El Salvador in the first place, according to records filed Sunday evening in U.S. District Court in Maryland.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait, wait! The government has not remove the "domestic obstacles," because the domestic obstacles are Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem & others. So it undermines its own shameful argument.

Pennsylvania. Edgar Sandoval & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: “Pennsylvania state authorities have arrested a 38-year-old Harrisburg man and said he set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, forcing Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family to evacuate early Sunday before the blaze severely damaged part of the building. The man, identified as Cody Balmer, 38, jumped a fence and managed to evade state troopers as he broke in to the building and set the fire, the authorities said, adding that he had used homemade incendiary devices. He fled the scene and was arrested in Harrisburg on Sunday afternoon, officials said in a news conference.... Mr. Shapiro, who became emotional [during a news briefing] as he described his family’s ordeal, recalled the moment a state trooper banged on his door shortly after 2 a.m., woke him, his wife and children, and rushed them to safety from an arson attack that he called 'targeted.'”

Israel. Louisa Loveluck, et al., of the Washington Post: “Explosions at a United Nations guesthouse in Gaza that killed a European aid worker and severely wounded five others last month were very likely caused by two Israeli tank shells, according to experts who analyzed photos of the scene obtained exclusively by The Washington Post. The strike on March 19, which came a day after Israel’s surprise bombardment ended a two-month ceasefire, led the United Nations to substantially scale back its international workforce in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. has blamed Israel for the attack, an assertion some analysts have supported. Israel has denied responsibility.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump’s on-and-off-again tariffs leave the door wide open for billionaire corporations to suck up for corrupt deals — while leaving small businesses, farmers, and families out in the cold. --- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), on X

If you’re a company that can donate money to Donald Trump, if you’re a company that can afford the big lobbyists, you don’t have tariffs applied to you.... More evidence that the tariffs have nothing to do with rebuilding American jobs. -- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) ~~~

~~~ Tobi Raji & Shira Ovide of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration announced late Friday night that smartphones, computers and other electronic components are exempt from what the White House calls 'reciprocal' tariffs, days after the United States imposed the highest levies on foreign goods in a century. The directive, issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, lists nearly two dozen exemptions, including chips, flash drives and TV displays. For makers of electronics, particularly Apple, the break on tariffs is likely to be a huge relief. Apple has faced the prospect of a new import tax of roughly $700 or more on each $1,000 iPhone imported from China, based on tariff rates the White House increased to at least 145 percent.” The CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The WashPo story has been updated: “The exemptions also come days after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told senators that 'the president has been clear with me and with others that he does not intend to have exclusions and exemptions.'... The new exemptions appear to undermine [the] reshoring effort [i.e., manufacturing the products in the U.S.], but will probably be welcomed by makers of electronics....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie (I wrote yesterday): I know that most people will be relieved by this exemption because it will save scads of money on products that most of us use. And that's fine. But let me tell you how monumentally stupid these exemptions are. Trump claimed that the purpose of his big beautiful tariffs was to induce manufacturing in the U.S. His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick (or Nutlick, as Akhilleus prefers), spoke of the joy of "millions of Americans" whistling while they worked screwing tiny little screws into tiny little holes into tiny little electronic devices. Well, Donnie & Howie, if you remove the tariffs on electronic parts, you are not going to get millions of Americans screwing tiny little screws into smartphones & computers in shiny new factories dotting the great American landscape because we're going to keep on keepin' on importing those electronics. Idiots! ~~~ 

     ~~~ Update: Maybe they're not idiots. As Senators Warren & Murphy suggest, this is a racket. Dangling tariff exemptions in front of big corporations is a way for Boss Trump to exact protection money from the companies. Instead of asserting that Trump imposed the tariffs with no planning for them, we should acknowledge that he did have a plan: the careless tariff scheme was designed from the git-go as a corrupt ruse to enrich Trump. And thanks to the Supremes, since imposing tariffs is clearly an official act, Trump cannot be criminally charged for running a protection racket out of the Oval Office. 

Lori LaRocco of CNBC: “Apple’s iPhone and other technology hardware, from chips to PCs, received a China tariff reprieve from ... [Donald] Trump on Saturday, but for much of the U.S. economy and small business owners, the damage will soon be irreversible from the 145% tariffs being imposed on Chinese imports. Canceled freight orders and abandoned freight from China are quickly becoming the norm in the trade war between the U.S. and China, according to supply chain executives, as businesses across U.S. industries put a full stop on container exports, with the tariffs hitting like a ton of bricks. 'Furniture producers in China have seen a complete halt in orders from U.S. importers, and we’re hearing the same across toys, apparel, footwear, and sports equipment,' said Alan Murphy, founder and CEO of Sea-Intelligence.... 'Almost everything is on hold as it relates to China business,' said Alan Baer, CEO of OL USA.” MB: IOW, even if you're willing to pay two-and-a-half times last month's price for an item you need that was made in China -- say, a child car seat -- you won't be able to find it for sale in the U.S. ~~~

Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff
Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff
Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff

Fuckin brilliant. A+ work here team. I am so glad there are such smart people working on our trade policy. -- Joey Politano on Bluesky, via Krugman ~~~

~~~ Paul Krugman: "The Trump Tariffs Just Got Even Worse.... (1) For electronics, at least, we’re now putting much higher tariffs on intermediate goods used in manufacturing than on final goods. This actually discourages manufacturing in the United States.... (2) Uncertainty created by ever-changing tariff plans is arguably a bigger problem than the tariffs themselves.... (3) The stench of corruption around these policies keeps getting stronger. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence for massive insider trading around last week’s tariff announcement; the big beneficiaries from the latest move are companies that made big donations to Trump. Investing in plant and equipment looks like a bad idea given the uncertainty, but investing in bribes for the ruling family clearly yields excellent returns."

New York Times Editors: Donald Trump's “careless conduct of the public’s business has roiled stock and bond markets, threatened to cause a recession and damaged America’s global standing. The president’s decision-making has been so erratic that at one point this week, the administration’s top trade official was interrupted in the middle of testimony before Congress because the president had just changed the policy the official was defending.... The latest version [of Trump's tariff schedule] ... is imposing a 10 percent tariff on imports from most nations, along with higher rates on imports from America’s three largest trading partners: Canada, Mexico and China. The average tax on imports will rise to the highest level in more than a century, raising the prices on many consumer goods. The 145 percent maximum rate on Chinese imports is intended to isolate that nation economically, but the simultaneous tariffs on everyone else will undermine that goal. And while the stated purpose of all the tariffs is to expand American manufacturing, putting them in place immediately doesn’t give companies time to build factories. It will cause pain without any benefit....

“It is a bitter irony that even as Mr. Trump raises tariffs, he is axing federal support for these technologies, which are among the most promising areas of domestic manufacturing. Some companies are already abandoning their building plans. Mr. Trump’s use of tariffs is indiscriminate.... In addition to raising prices, tariffs are likely to slow economic growth. And another danger looms: There are warning signs that Mr. Trump’s provocations are reducing demand for Treasuries, forcing the government to offer higher interest rates to investors. If that continues, the federal debt will become even harder to repay.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Man of the People? Not So Much. David Smith of the Guardian:  “After lighting a fuse under global financial markets, Donald Trump stepped back – all the way to a Florida golf course.... [While at Mar-a-Lago, he also donned a tux to headline a $1mm/plate fundraising dinner for his super PAC.] Trump returned to Washington from his four-day golfing weekend,] his first public event was a celebration of baseball’s World Series winners, the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he was presented with a 'Trump 47' baseball shirt. A week later, having just caved to pressure to ease his trade tariffs, the US president defended the retreat while hosting racing car champions at the White House.... It was a jolting juxtaposition that prompted comparisons with the emperor Nero..., or insane monarchs who lost touch with reality. It also provided a clear illustration of how Trump governs...: erratically, with little attention to convention, and often on the hoof from one public engagement to another surrounded by courtiers who never disagree with him.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “Trump is engaging the full power of the presidency to settle scores. The White House was not meant for petty tyrants on revenge tours. In the biggest job in the world, Trump seems like a very small man. And he has surrounded himself with small people who elaborately flatter him and puff him up in risible cabinet meetings.... Now that Trump’s tariff scheme has gone horribly awry — and the administration’s attempt to spin it as an 'Art of the Deal' victory has fallen flat — it remains to be seen if this will be a 'Wizard of Oz' moment when the curtain gets pulled back on the con man.... Even before Trump opened a Pandora’s box of economic woe, we knew numbers weren’t his strong suit. He had six bankruptcies, and his father had to buy $3.4 million in chips to save one of his casinos.” (Also linked yesterday.)

AmerExit? A Foreshadowing. Mark Landler of the New York Times: “Britain has watched ... [Donald] Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs. The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era.... Even Mr. Trump’s abrupt reversal last week of some of his tariffs, in the face of a bond-market revolt, recalled Britain, where Liz Truss, a short-lived prime minister, was forced to retreat from radical tax cuts that frightened the markets. Her misbegotten experiment was the culmination of a cycle of extreme policies set off by Britain’s decision to forsake the world’s largest trading bloc.... Mr. Trump was a full-throated champion of Brexit in 2016, drawing explicit parallels between it and the political movement he was marshaling.” ~~~

~~~ Will Hutton of the Guardian/Observer: “The game-changing geopolitical event last week was the near collapse of the immense $29tn ­market in US government debt, threatening the stability of the American and global financial system and the safe-haven status of dollar assets. The US president boasted as the collapse unfolded that world leaders were queueing to 'kiss his arse'. Twelve hours later, he was in the same humiliatingly weak position as the then British prime minister Liz Truss found herself after her tax-slashing 'mini-budget' in 2022.... Worse, he has killed the prospect of the rest of the world buying the avalanche of new US government debt that will follow from the huge tax cuts he plans in the autumn.... The EU, Britain and other rule-of-law capitalist democracies now have the balance of advantage. But they need to recognise it and work together to capitalise on the opportunity, rather than each sue for the most advantageous deal possible in their limited 'national interest'. This is a moment when the national interest is best pursued by hanging together. The situation remains dangerous.... The democracies must find a common front over the next 90 days as an exercise in damage limitation, and then go beyond that to fashion a new trade order from the ruins of the old – but necessarily without the US.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Got that? Our long-time friends will plot against us. As they must. Buh-bye, USA. And we're alone in the world, trying to make DIY baby car seats from dollar-store bits. Oh, wait. That dollar-store stuff is made in China.

More Stupid Trump Tricks. Gabrielle Canon of the Guardian: “Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday. The administration is planning to slash budgets at both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Noaa) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), according to internal budget documents, taking aim specifically at programs used to study impacts from the climate crisis. Craig McLean, a longtime director of the office of oceanic and atmospheric research (OAR) who retired in 2022, told the Guardian that the cuts were draconian and would 'compromise the safety, economic competitiveness, and security of the American people'. If the plan is approved by Congress, funding for OAR would be eviscerated – cut from $485m to $171m – dismantling an important part of the agency’s mission. All budgets for climate, weather and ocean laboratories would be drained, according to the document reviewed by the Guardian, which states: 'At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office.'... Noaa is facing a $1.3bn cut to overall operations and research, with various programs on the chopping block, and the National Ocean Service would be cut in half. Science done outside the agency would also be undermined with cuts to Noaa’s climate research grants program, which provides roughly $70m a year.” (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's story is here.

Maya Ward of Politico: “A 60-foot wide strip of land along three southwestern border states will be placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military to help deter illegal immigration, the White House said Friday.... Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the military to take temporary control over the Roosevelt Reservation, a corridor that runs along the border line in California, Arizona and New Mexico.... The memorandum marks an escalation in the president’s use of the military to facilitate his sweeping crackdown on immigration. And while unclear how far the administration will go, it could be an additional step to militarizing the nation’s southwestern border.... Immigration, military and legal experts have said that Trump’s move to militarize the border could raise legal questions about potential violations to the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that generally prohibits active-duty troops from being used in domestic law enforcement.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Tries to Shake Down Ukraine. Luke Harding of the Guardian: “The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown. US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as 'payback' in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration. Talks have become increasingly acrimonious, Reuters said. The latest US draft is more 'maximalist' than the original version from February, which proposed giving Washington $500bn worth of rare metals, as well as oil and gas.... Volodymyr Landa, a senior economist with the Centre for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv thinktank, said the Americans were out for 'all they can get'. Their bullying 'colonial-type' demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv, he predicted.'” MB: I suspect that the architect of the shakedown is Vladimir Putin, & that Trump plans to turn ownership of the pipeline over to Russia. (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: Okay, I think I've found the art form Chairman of the Board Donald Trump will be introducing to the Kennedy Center: ~~~

     ~~~ Mixed Martial Arts! Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump, some of his cabinet members and his adviser Elon Musk sat ringside in Miami late Saturday night at the Ultimate Fighting Championship event — a spectacle of violence, throbbing music and cheering crowds that the president has long admired.... Unlike World Wrestling Entertainment events, U.F.C. matches aren’t staged.... The scene on Saturday was emblematic of a president who is increasingly emboldened, brazen and encouraging of displays of force to carry out his agenda, particularly on immigration and crime.

“Mr. Trump and two of his older children walked into the Kaseya Center to the booming sounds of the Kid Rock song 'American Bad Ass' and to sustained, thunderous applause from the crowd. He sat next to Mr. Musk, who had brought one of his 14 children. They sat with the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel; Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former senator from Florida; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines. Also in the Trump entourage was Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. When Mr. Trump first arrived, he tried to shake Mr. Kennedy’s hand; Mr. Kennedy was looking in the other direction. Mr. Trump then walked past the outstretched hand of Ms. Hines, moving his gaze past her entirely despite appearing to see her.” 

Trump Can't Remember Much about Memory Test He Claims He Aced. Alex Henderson of AlterNet: "Trump had an annual physical on Friday, April 11, including a cognitive test. Yet when [he] spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, he was short on details. Trump told reporters, 'It’s a pretty well-known test. Whatever it is. I got every one right.' The president said of his overall health, 'I felt I was in very good shape. Good heart. A good soul. Very good soul.'" MB: Yes, because a physical almost always measures the quality of the patient's soul. Of course he might have meant "sole," not "soul." Maybe his bone spurs are finally all better.

Constitutional Crisis, Ctd.: ✓. Trump Administration Defies Court Order. Again. Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: “Lawyers for a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador asked a federal judge on Saturday to order the Justice Department to show by 10 a.m. Monday why it should not be held in contempt for failing to say what it has done or will do to immediately return him to the United States after a Supreme Court order. In a Justice Department filing at 5 p.m. Saturday, State Department official Michael G. Kozak confirmed that 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego García is being held in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center under that country’s sovereign authority. However, the government did not update U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Greenbelt about what concrete steps it is taking to bring him home, as she had ordered Friday. Abrego García’s legal team wrote that the limited response was the latest sign of the government’s lack of urgency and failure to comply with her April 4 order for it to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia’s release from custody, a decision the Supreme Court upheld 9-0 on Thursday evening.” ~~~

     ~~~ Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: Saturday, “... Trump retreated from comments he made a day earlier in which he suggested that he’d direct Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. if the Supreme Court required that. 'These barbarians are now in the sole custody of El Salvador, a proud and sovereign Nation, and their future is up to President [Nayib Bukele] and his Government,' Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday evening. 'They will never threaten or menace our Citizens again!'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Daily Beast (firewalled) has a great headline on its story: "Trump DOJ Flips Off SCOTUS in Brazen Update on Deported Dad."

~~~ Nicole Narea of Vox: The Trump administration's refusal to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Savadoran jail to which ICE “accidentally” deported him “is the second time that the Trump administration has effectively ignored a court order. The first time, it refused to turn around deportation flights headed to El Salvador midair, arguing that US federal courts had no authority outside the US. 'The idea that somehow this is something other than just picking up the phone and saying, “Get this guy back here,” is absolute poppycock,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. 'The idea that this is some sort of sensitive foreign relations is BS.'... The government’s actions are part of a larger picture of attacks on the rule of law, Schmidt said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News, points out that the federal government's choices in the Abrego case are not binary; i.e., either (a) obtain his release from the El Salvador prison or (b) not. Rather, there is a third choice: obtain his release from El Salvador AND try him legally in the U.S. for the various charges they claim against him. THEN the government could legally deport him (to someplace). So why not go the legal route? Sargent suspects it's because the government fears it will lose because their "evidence" is so "thin." Thanks to laura h. for the lead. MB: IOW, the government doesn't have a case against this man, they had an order not to deport him to El Salvador, they did it anyway (in hopes nobody would notice??) and when the government got caught, it refused to bring the man back and adjudicate his case because the government would lose the case & look bad. I know miscarriages of justice aren't all that rare in this country, but the DOJ is supposed to be above this backwoods sheriff-style thuggery. (Also linked yesterday.)

Maria Sacchetti & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: “White House adviser Stephen Miller has been strategizing with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies on an almost daily basis to meet [the] goal [of deporting one million immigrants this year]..., current and former officials said.... The administration is negotiating with as many as 30 countries to take deportees who are not their citizens.... Officials have already begun deporting people to countries where they are not citizens, including Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama.... But ... [reaching there goal] is not so simple. Most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States are entitled to an immigration court hearing before they can be deported, including criminals, and with the current backlogs, those can take months or years to resolve.”

Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: “Two groups representing Harvard professors sued the Trump administration on Friday, saying that its threat to cut billions in federal funding for the university violates free speech and other First Amendment rights. The lawsuit by the American Association of University Professors and the Harvard faculty chapter of the group follows the Trump administration’s announcement earlier this month that it was reviewing about $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives. The administration also sent the school a list of demands that it must meet if it wants to keep the funds. The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, seeks a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from cutting the funds. 'This action challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech on a university campus,' the lawsuit said.” The Harvard Crimson's story is here.

Juliana Kim of NPR: "A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding that was allocated to Maine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — funds that had been withheld following ... [Donald] Trump's clash with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the issue of transgender athletes. U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted Maine's request for a temporary restraining order on Friday. The USDA is just one of the agencies where federal funding for Maine has been threatened." (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Cancryn of Politico: “HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to the FDA Friday was supposed to introduce him as a trusted leader to agency employees. It did anything but. Over the course of 40 minutes, Kennedy, in largely off-the-cuff remarks, asserted that the 'Deep State' is real, referenced past CIA experiments on human mind control and accused the employees he was speaking to of becoming a 'sock puppet' of the industries they regulate.... He offered little in the way of a vision for how the agency would come away from the layoffs stronger — instead devoting much of his speech to railing against the agency’s past failings and repeating his assertions that the U.S. was far healthier during his childhood than it is now. 'This whole generation is damaged,' Kennedy said, according to the transcript, claiming that rising rates of chronic disease, allergies and other illnesses are the result of some 'environmental toxin.'” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Chicago Crusader: "Kevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., resigned as ... Donald Trump stepped up attacks with plans to overhaul the Smithsonian’s landmark museums and cultural institutions.... Young reportedly went on leave indefinitely on March 14 before the order was issued. Shanita Brackett, the museum’s associate director of operations, reportedly serves as the museum’s interim director."

Amanda Marcotte of Salon: It is the Christian right's and Elon Musk's misogyny that drives their disdain of empathy. "Much was made in the media, for good reason, of billionaire Elon Musk's crusade against empathy, an emotion he describes as 'suicidal' and the 'fundamental weakness of Western civilization.' Musk is an atheist, but in this attitude, he is increasingly joined by the Christian right, as Julia Carrie Wong documented at the Guardian this week. A growing chorus of evangelical leaders has taken to calling empathy 'sinful,' 'toxic,' and 'satanic.' Right-wing Catholics are going there, too, with Vice President JD Vance rejecting Jesus's exhortations to love your neighbor and welcome the stranger, drawing a rebuke from the Pope." An interesting read. Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Laura H. linked this column a couple of days ago. Please don't think that because I don't republish a link in the body of the Conversation that I think it not worth reading. Quite the opposite. It's just that so much is happening that I don't get to re-posting some of the most worthwhile news & opinion that readers take the time to link for the rest of us. So you should check out the Comments at least once a day because they usually include, over & above the worthy commentary, links to some good stuff other people have written.

~~~~~~~~~~

Idaho. Isabelle Taft & Pam Belluck of the New York Times: “A state judge in Idaho appeared to slightly broaden access to abortion there by ruling on Friday that an exception to the state’s ban does not require the woman to be facing impending death. Idaho’s ban, one of the strictest in the nation, prohibits abortion in almost all cases. One exception is when it is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. Judge Jason D. Scott ruled that abortions are allowed if a doctor deems that the woman is likely to die sooner without an abortion than she would otherwise — even if her death 'is neither imminent nor assured.' The ruling, which kept the law in place, handed a partial victory to reproductive rights advocates and Idaho doctors who said the ban had forced them to wait for patients to reach the brink of death before they could act, or rush them out of state to get care elsewhere.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Paris 2015/2023.

⭐~~~ France. Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies. Naema Ahmed & Chico Harlan of the Washington Post: “Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces. Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself. Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality for France’s capital region, said this week that levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) have decreased 55 percent since 2005, while nitrogen dioxide levels have fallen 50 percent. It attributed this to 'regulations and public policies,' including steps to limit traffic and ban the most polluting vehicles.... The change shows how ambitious policymaking can directly improve health in large cities. Air pollution is often described by health experts as a silent killer.... Paris has been led since 2014 by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist who has pushed for many of the green policies and has described her wish for a'Paris that breathes, a Paris that is more agreeable to live in.'”

Sudan. Declan Walsh of the New York Times: “Sudanese paramilitaries killed the entire staff of the last medical clinic in a famine-stricken camp in the western region of Darfur, Sudan, as part of a broader assault that killed at least 100 people, aid groups and the United Nations said on Saturday. The assault on the Zamzam camp, which holds 500,000 people in the besieged city of El Fasher, was notable even by the standards of a civil war that has seen countless atrocities as well as accusations of genocide. Paramilitaries with the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., broke through the camp perimeter on Friday evening after hours of shelling. They then destroyed hundreds of homes and the camp’s main market before turning their attack on the camp’s last remaining medical clinic, according to Relief International, the aid group that runs the facility. Nine hospital employees were killed, including the head doctor, the aid group said in a statement on Saturday.”

The Conversation -- April 12, 2025

Tobi Raji & Shira Ovide of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration announced late Friday night that smartphones, computers and other electronic components are exempt from what the White House calls 'reciprocal' tariffs, days after the United States imposed the highest levies on foreign goods in a century. The directive, issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, lists nearly two dozen exemptions, including chips, flash drives and TV displays. For makers of electronics, particularly Apple, the break on tariffs is likely to be a huge relief. Apple has faced the prospect of a new import tax of roughly $700 or more on each $1,000 iPhone imported from China, based on tariff rates the White House increased to at least 145 percent.” The CNBC story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I know that most people will be relieved by this exemption because it will save scads of money on products that most of us use. And that's fine. But let me tell you how monumentally stupid the exemptions are. Trump claimed that the purpose of his big beautiful tariffs was to induce manufacturing in the U.S. His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick (or Nutlick, as Akhilleus prefers), spoke of the joy of "millions of Americans" whistling while they worked screwing tiny little screws into tiny little holes into tiny little electronics. Well, Donnie & Howie, if you remove the tariffs on electronic parts, you are not going to get millions of Americans screwing tiny little screws into smartphones & computers in shiny new factories dotting the great American landscape because we're going to keep on keepin' on importing those electronics. Idiots!

Juliana Kim of NPR: "A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding that was allocated to Maine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — funds that had been withheld following ... [Donald] Trump's clash with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the issue of transgender athletes. U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted Maine's request for a temporary restraining order on Friday. The USDA is just one of the agencies where federal funding for Maine has been threatened."

More Stupid Trump Tricks. Gabrielle Canon of the Guardian: “Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday. The administration is planning to slash budgets at both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Noaa) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), according to internal budget documents, taking aim specifically at programs used to study impacts from the climate crisis. Craig McLean, a longtime director of the office of oceanic and atmospheric research (OAR) who retired in 2022, told the Guardian that the cuts were draconian and would 'compromise the safety, economic competitiveness, and security of the American people'. If the plan is approved by Congress, funding for OAR would be eviscerated – cut from $485m to $171m – dismantling an important part of the agency’s mission. All budgets for climate, weather and ocean laboratories would be drained, according to the document reviewed by the Guardian, which states: 'At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office.'... Noaa is facing a $1.3bn cut to overall operations and research, with various programs on the chopping block, and the National Ocean Service would be cut in half. Science done outside the agency would also be undermined with cuts to Noaa’s climate research grants program, which provides roughly $70m a year.”

Nicole Narea of Vox: The Trump administration's refusal to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Savadoran jail to which ICE “accidentally” deported him “is the second time that the Trump administration has effectively ignored a court order. The first time, it refused to turn around deportation flights headed to El Salvador midair, arguing that US federal courts had no authority outside the US. 'The idea that somehow this is something other than just picking up the phone and saying, “Get this guy back here,” is absolute poppycock,” said Paul Wickham Schmidt, a retired immigration judge and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. 'The idea that this is some sort of sensitive foreign relations is BS.'... The government’s actions are part of a larger picture of attacks on the rule of law, Schmidt said.” ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News, points out that the federal government's choices in the Abrego case are not binary; i.e., either (a) obtain his release from the El Salvador prison or (b) not. Rather, there is a third choice: obtain his release from El Salvador AND try him legally in the U.S. for the various charges they claim against him. THEN the government could legally deport him (to someplace). So why not go the legal route? Sargent suspects it's because the government fears it will lose because their "evidence" is so "thin." Thanks to laura h. for the lead. MB: IOW, the government doesn't have a case against this man, they had an order not to deport him to El Salvador, they did it anyway (in hopes nobody would notice??) and when the government got caught, it refused to bring the man back and adjudicate his case because the government would lose the case & look bad. I know miscarriages of justice aren't all that rare in this country, but the DOJ is supposed to be above this backwoods sheriff-style thuggery.

Maya Ward of Politico: “A 60-foot wide strip of land along three southwestern border states will be placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military to help deter illegal immigration, the White House said Friday.... Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the military to take temporary control over the Roosevelt Reservation, a corridor that runs along the border line in California, Arizona and New Mexico.... The memorandum marks an escalation in the president’s use of the military to facilitate his sweeping crackdown on immigration. And while unclear how far the administration will go, it could be an additional step to militarizing the nation’s southwestern border.... Immigration, military and legal experts have said that Trump’s move to militarize the border could raise legal questions about potential violations to the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that generally prohibits active-duty troops from being used in domestic law enforcement.”

Trump Tries to Shake Down Ukraine. Luke Harding of the Guardian: “The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown. US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as 'payback' in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration. Talks have become increasingly acrimonious, Reuters said. The latest US draft is more 'maximalist' than the original version from February, which proposed giving Washington $500bn worth of rare metals, as well as oil and gas.... Volodymyr Landa, a senior economist with the Centre for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv thinktank, said the Americans were out for 'all they can get'. Their bullying 'colonial-type' demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv, he predicted.'” MB: I suspect that the architect of the shakedown is Vladimir Putin, & that Trump plans to turn ownership of the pipeline over to Russia.

Adam Cancryn of Politico: “HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to the FDA Friday was supposed to introduce him as a trusted leader to agency employees. It did anything but. Over the course of 40 minutes, Kennedy, in largely off-the-cuff remarks, asserted that the 'Deep State' is real, referenced past CIA experiments on human mind control and accused the employees he was speaking to of becoming a 'sock puppet' of the industries they regulate.... He offered little in the way of a vision for how the agency would come away from the layoffs stronger — instead devoting much of his speech to railing against the agency’s past failings and repeating his assertions that the U.S. was far healthier during his childhood than it is now. 'This whole generation is damaged,' Kennedy said, according to the transcript, claiming that rising rates of chronic disease, allergies and other illnesses are the result of some 'environmental toxin.'”

New York Times Editors: Donald Trump's “careless conduct of the public’s business has roiled stock and bond markets, threatened to cause a recession and damaged America’s global standing. The president’s decision-making has been so erratic that at one point this week, the administration’s top trade official was interrupted in the middle of testimony before Congress because the president had just changed the policy the official was defending.... The latest version [of Trump's tariff schedule] ... is imposing a 10 percent tariff on imports from most nations, along with higher rates on imports from America’s three largest trading partners: Canada, Mexico and China. The average tax on imports will rise to the highest level in more than a century, raising the prices on many consumer goods. The 145 percent maximum rate on Chinese imports is intended to isolate that nation economically, but the simultaneous tariffs on everyone else will undermine that goal. And while the stated purpose of all the tariffs is to expand American manufacturing, putting them in place immediately doesn’t give companies time to build factories. It will cause pain without any benefit....

“It is a bitter irony that even as Mr. Trump raises tariffs, he is axing federal support for these technologies, which are among the most promising areas of domestic manufacturing. Some companies are already abandoning their building plans. Mr. Trump’s use of tariffs is indiscriminate.... In addition to raising prices, tariffs are likely to slow economic growth. And another danger looms: There are warning signs that Mr. Trump’s provocations are reducing demand for Treasuries, forcing the government to offer higher interest rates to investors. If that continues, the federal debt will become even harder to repay.”

Man of the People? Not So Much. David Smith of the Guardian:  “After lighting a fuse under global financial markets, Donald Trump stepped back – all the way to a Florida golf course.... [While at Mar-a-Lago, he also donned a tux to headline a $1mm/plate fundraising dinner for his super PAC.] Trump returned to Washington from his four-day golfing weekend,] his first public event was a celebration of baseball’s World Series winners, the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he was presented with a 'Trump 47' baseball shirt. A week later, having just caved to pressure to ease his trade tariffs, the US president defended the retreat while hosting racing car champions at the White House.... It was a jolting juxtaposition that prompted comparisons with the emperor Nero..., or insane monarchs who lost touch with reality. It also provided a clear illustration of how Trump governs...: erratically, with little attention to convention, and often on the hoof from one public engagement to another surrounded by courtiers who never disagree with him.”

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “Trump is engaging the full power of the presidency to settle scores. The White House was not meant for petty tyrants on revenge tours. In the biggest job in the world, Trump seems like a very small man. And he has surrounded himself with small people who elaborately flatter him and puff him up in risible cabinet meetings.... Now that Trump’s tariff scheme has gone horribly awry — and the administration’s attempt to spin it as an 'Art of the Deal' victory has fallen flat — it remains to be seen if this will be a 'Wizard of Oz' moment when the curtain gets pulled back on the con man.... Even before Trump opened a Pandora’s box of economic woe, we knew numbers weren’t his strong suit. He had six bankruptcies, and his father had to buy $3.4 million in chips to save one of his casinos.”

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~ I, Trvmpvs. Tim Balk of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Friday that it had moved a portrait of former President Barack Obama in a White House hallway and replaced it with a pop-art painting of ... [Donald] Trump pumping his fist after the assassination attempt last year on the campaign trail in Butler, Pa. The shuffling of décor is not uncommon at the White House, where portraits are rotated often. But the new, striking artwork depicting Mr. Trump drew criticism from some presidential historians, who could not recall another president hanging a painting of himself during his term in the White House. Typically, paintings of presidents and first ladies are hung in the White House after they have left office, historians said.”

In everything we do, my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. -- Donald Trump, second inaugural address ~~~

~~~ Naftali BenDavid of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump regained the White House in large part by trumpeting his ability to get things done, accusing his opponents of ineptitude and senility and promising that on Day 1 he would restore basic competence to government. And, he said, it wouldn’t even be hard. But 2½ months in, agencies such as the Social Security Administration have struggled to provide basic services. Trump’s team issues edicts, then reverses them. A leaked Signal chat suggests top security officials were unfamiliar with the basics of protecting military secrets. Crucial government workers have been fired, then rehired. A much-ballyhooed immigration detention center at Guantánamo Bay has faced logistical problems. Trump’s team told laid-off workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to contact a particular individual ... [who] turned out to be dead.... These and other missteps are now being compounded in dramatic fashion by a roiling stock market and bond sell-off prompted by Trump’s tariff policies, raising fears of a collapsing economy. Trump’s formula for calculating the tariffs has been widely panned by economists. And on Wednesday, he paused many of the levies just hours after they took effect....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The article is classic both-sider reporting, but it does get across what a gigantic screw-up machine the Trump mob is. Not that incompetence is unimportant, but I do think the overriding picture of the Trump administration is anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional, anti-rule-of-law, destructive authoritarianism. Sure, incompetence, corruption and cruelty are prominent features of this mob's SOP, but the country could survive each of these traits. But as to Trump's effort to destroy everything the country stands for, to destroy its economic infrastructure, to destroy its Constitutional order -- he's been remarkably successful. If his aim is to ruin the country -- and I think it is -- he's been remarkably competent. Perhaps with a little help from his BFF in Russia ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Mahler in the New York Times Magazine: Donald “Trump, it seems, has ... been radicalized. During his first term, he made no shortage of startlingly pro-Putin comments, and even sided with Russia’s president against his own intelligence agencies. But in the first few months of his second term, Trump has gone much further, overturning decades of American policy toward an adversary virtually overnight. He has claimed that Ukraine was responsible for its own invasion by Russia and berated Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, during a televised meeting in the Oval Office. His administration also joined North Korea and several other autocratic governments in refusing to endorse a United Nations resolution condemning Russia for the attack. And he has filled his cabinet with like-minded officials, including his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who has been described as a 'comrade' by Russian state TV. It’s almost impossible to overstate the magnitude of this pivot.... Russia has long served as ... an ideological other, a foil that enabled the United States to affirm its own, diametrically different values.... Trump’s policies and rhetoric seem aimed at nothing less than turning America’s dark double into its kindred soul.” Read on.

Jason Douglas, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: “In jacking up his tariffs on China — and pausing steep duties on dozens of other nations — ... [Donald] Trump is pushing the world’s two biggest economic powers into a battle that will leave neither unscathed and risks tanking the global economy.  ​The total tariffs imposed on China in Trump’s second term now add up to 145%, the White House said Thursday, while China’s blanket tariff on American goods will rise to 125% on Saturday after the latest round of retaliation. The tariffs could eventually be walked back, but already, there are signs that a portion of the $582 billion in goods trading between the two countries is grinding to a halt.... While Trump says any pain in the U.S. from tariffs will be offset by long-term gains in jobs and investment, in the near term, investment bank JPMorgan said Wednesday it is 'more likely than not' that the U.S. economy will shrink later this year.” The link appears to be a gift link, from Scott Lemieux in LG&$. (Also linked yesterday.)

Linda Qiu of the New York Times: “... across Mr. Trump’s political career, his case for tariffs has remained consistent, relying on a number of false and misleading claims to describe a global trade system that is “unfair” to the United States. Although Mr. Trump abruptly announced on Wednesday that he would pause steep reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a 10 percent 'base line tariff remains in place for most imports. Here’s a guide to some of his most cited claims[.]” A useful guide to Trump Tariff Porkies. (Also linked yesterday.)

Madeleine Ngo of the New York Times: “As the Trump administration’s trade war with China escalates, many consumers have raced to purchase foreign-made products out of fear that companies could start to raise prices soon. Some have rushed to buy big-ticket items like iPhones and refrigerators. Others have hurriedly placed orders for cheap goods from Chinese e-commerce platforms.” MB: That would definitely include me. I bought five major appliances in February, and I'm stocking up on coffee beans now. (I just bought a wheel of brie, too, but obviously that won't last long enough to ride out the Trump Tariff surcharges. The parmigiano? Maybe. It keeps for years.)

Constitutional Crisis: ✓. Kyle Cheney of Politico: “An exasperated federal judge commanded the Trump administration Friday to begin providing 'daily updates' on whether it is doing anything to comply with her order to return a Maryland man — illegally deported to El Salvador last month — back to the United States. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis scolded the administration for refusing to provide even 'basic' details about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s location, despite her demand for an update by Friday morning.... The administration’s stonewalling, which Xinis described as 'extremely troubling,' raised the specter that it is defying the order that the judge issued last week and that the Supreme Court largely upheld Thursday. Xinis, an Obama appointee, said that without any information — or even an acknowledgment that the administration had done anything at all — she could only conclude that the administration had 'done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia.'... Xinis’ new directive requires the daily updates to come from an administration official with 'personal knowledge' of efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. But Justice Department officials said they may not be prepared to comply with her demands until at least Monday.” (Also linked yesterday.)

     ~~~ Alan Feuer & Aishvarya Kavi of the New York Times: “Taking an increasingly combative stance, the administration defied a federal judge’s order to provide a written road map of its plans to free the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Trump officials then repeatedly stonewalled her efforts to get the most basic information about him at a court hearing.... 'The court finds that the defendants have failed to comply with this court’s order,; Judge Xinis wrote in a ruling Friday afternoon.... Asked about the case on Friday..., [Donald] Trump appeared in no hurry to take steps to ensure Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return, despite repeated court orders and a Supreme Court intervention. 'If the Supreme Court said, “Bring somebody back,” I would do that,” he said, seeming to ignore the court’s order. 'I respect the Supreme Court.' The public recalcitrance on the part of Mr. Trump and his officials highlighted questions about why they have been so reluctant to follow the orders or leverage the president’s relationship with [President Nayib] Bukele to simply ask for Mr. Abrego Garcia to be freed.... [Mr.] Bukele of El Salvador was set to arrive in Washington for an official visit.”

Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “An immigration judge in Louisiana found on Friday that the Trump administration could deport Mahmoud Khalil, granting the government an early victory in its efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations on U.S. college campuses. The ruling is far from the final word on whether Mr. Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident, will be deported. His lawyers will continue their fight in Louisiana and New Jersey, arguing that he has been targeted for constitutionally protected speech. The constitutional issues at the heart of the case will most likely get a fuller hearing in federal court in New Jersey than they did in Louisiana on Friday. For the time being, the decision by the judge there, Jamee E. Comans, affirmed the extraordinary power that the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has asserted to target any noncitizen for deportation.... Judge Comans found that the government had met the burden of evidence that the law requires, which effectively amounted to a letter from Mr. Rubio declaring that Mr. Khalil’s presence in the country enabled antisemitism. The Homeland Security Department appears not to have submitted any other concrete evidence substantiating the claim, although it has not publicly released the documents it has filed in his case....

“Immigration judges are employees of the executive branch, not the judiciary, and often approve the Homeland Security Department’s deportation efforts. It would be unusual for such a judge, serving the U.S. Attorney General, to grapple with the constitutional questions raised by Mr. Khalil’s case. She would also run the risk of being fired by an administration that has targeted dissenters.” MB: IOW, this dippy judge found it more important to keep her job than to protect Mr. Khalil's First Amendment rights. That, apparently, is not her problem. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Thought Police. Here is a copy of the letter Little Marco wrote (via the ACLU). It is Judge Comans' sole basis for allowing Mr. Khalil's deportation to go forward. MB: A number of pundits and media outlets have reported that Rubio cited -- as his reason for determining that Khalil should be deported -- Khalil's “past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful.” IOW, a non-citizen can be deported for what he might believe at some time in the future. That is to say, any non-citizen can be deported, because who the hell knows what someone might believe next year? What the statute actually states is that a person "is not deportable 'solely because of [his or her] past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful....” Indeed, the very purpose of the section is to "[protect] certain government officials and politicians from foreign countries from being removed." Now, here's a citation from Marco's letter:

Under INAsection 237(a)(4)(C)(), an alien is deportable from the United States if the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe that the alien's presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. Under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(ii), for cases in which the basis for this determination is the alien's past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful, the Secretary of State must personally determine that the alien's presence or activities would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy.

     ~~~ That is to say, it's a two-step determination: (1) the person must at least be going to have some lawful thoughts at some time in the future; (2) the Secretary of State can decide if the thoughts the person might some day have would compromise U.S. foreign policy. That is, unless a person is in a vegetative state and is not likely to have any lawful thoughts in the future, s/he can be deported. Of course that is absurd. What a U.S. official thinks you might think someday cannot possibly be a Constitutional means of taking any official action against that person.

Robbie Gramer & Nahal Toosi of Politico: “The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying 'anti-Christian bias' as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government. The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by Politico, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information 'involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration' and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.... The cable encourages State Department employees to report on one another.... The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.... 'It’s very ‘Handmaid’s Tale'-esque,' said one State Department official....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Little Marco wants to out people in the State Department who display an "anti-Christian bias," he should start by looking in the mirror, then turn himself in. There is no one more anti-Christian than a man who condemns another for his supposed beliefs, particularly when those beliefs would seem to be entirely consistent with Christian tenets. The Christian Bible is full of citations emphasizing the importance of mercy. Jesus is cited as having said, "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:36) As for Mahmoud Khalil's beliefs in saving the lives of Palestinians, the entire Christian myth revolves around the value of human life: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son...." (John 3:16) That is, God's greatest sacrifice was the life of his son. IOW, Marco has denounced Khalil for his mercy and his regard for human life. As the frame around the parable of the good Samaritan asks, "Who is my neighbor?" In the story, Jesus tells his Jewish audience that their "neighbor" is not the Jews who pass by an injured man but the foreigner, the stranger, the Samaritan who helps him. Little Marco is not our neighbor.

Ellen Barry of the New York Times profiles “Kseniia Petrova, a [30-year-old Harvard] scientist who [is ensnared in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and who had] fled Russia after protesting its invasion of Ukraine []. She fears arrest if she is deported there. On Feb. 16, customs officials detained her at Logan International Airport in Boston for failing to declare samples of frog embryos she had carried from France at the request of her boss at Harvard.” The federal government has incarcerated her in a Louisiana detention center. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I once carried in a small bag of peanuts from France at the request of my husband at New York University. An adorable customs beagle sniffed them out, and a Customs official pleasantly told me he would have to confiscate them. He was very pleasant & didn't even ask my name or require I provide any ID. That was then.

First Kill All the Lawyers? Nah, These Rich Lawyers Are Killing Themselves. Mark Berman of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had reached agreements with five more law firms pledging to provide a combined $600 million in legal services for causes he supports, the latest deals firms have struck with him in apparent bids to avoid punishment.... The latest deals on Friday marked an increase in the pledges and pushed the combined amount to nearly $1 billion across nine law firms. In a series of social media posts on Friday, Trump said he had reached a deal with four firms — all of them among the country’s wealthiest — to provide $125 million each in pro bono and other free legal work for causes he supports, including aiding veterans, fighting antisemitism and 'ensuring fairness in our justice system.'... Trump identified four firms participating in one agreement as Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett; and Latham & Watkins.... A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the terms of the deal Trump announced in his posts are accurate.... On Friday evening..., the law firm Susman Godfrey filed a lawsuit pushing back on Trump’s order sanctioning it. The firm called his actions unconstitutional, retaliatory and an effort 'to discourage law firms and their clients from challenging abuses of government power.'”

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has taken steps and made claims that clash with legal opinions issued by a traditionally powerful agency that is part of the Justice Department, the Office of Legal Counsel. The office has typically had an influential role in shaping internal government legal deliberations, and its court-like opinions are supposed to bind the executive branch unless the attorney general or the president overrides them or the office itself revokes them. The disregard for its precedents is part of a broader pattern in which the clout and influence of the agency have eroded in the opening months of the administration. Here are some examples that show that disconnect.” Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: “The F.B.I. has suspended an analyst on Kash Patel’s so-called enemies list after Mr. Patel told lawmakers that the bureau under his leadership would stay out of the political fray and not punish employees for partisan reasons. Last week, the bureau placed the analyst, Brian Auten, on administrative leave.... The reasons for the suspension remain unclear.... The suspension is likely to raise questions about whether the move was retaliatory, and about how closely Mr. Patel would stick to his promise, made during his confirmation hearing in January, that the agency would rise above partisanship despite pressure from ... [Donald] Trump’s allies to fire employees who took part in investigations that conservatives have condemned. The suspension of Mr. Auten, who had already been disciplined and questioned in a criminal inquiry, will also likely intensify distrust of Mr. Patel among employees who have watched senior leaders forced out in recent months with no explanation.” MB: The details here are interesting, so I've made this a gift link.

U.S. Troops Practice Fighting Russians in Winter. Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has been leaning away from NATO and getting friendly with Russia, and European leaders are seriously discussing how to create their own defense industry should America abandon them, something unthinkable just a few months ago. But [in war games conducted in Finland by American and Finnish troops], at least, American military cooperation and the perception of Russia as a widening threat appeared unchanged.... As climate change melts ice across the Arctic, this part of the world, once so remote and forgotten, is becoming more accessible and more contested. The world’s major militaries — American, Russian, Chinese and European — are all training for a winter war.”

Dan Diamond, et al., of the Washington Post: “U.S. DOGE Service employees have inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds.... The changes to the process — which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities across the federal government — threaten to further delay or even halt billions of dollars that agencies usually make in federal awards.... The moves come amid the Trump administration’s broader push to cut federal spending and crack down on grants that DOGE and other officials say conflict with White House priorities. DOGE employees have made changes to grants.gov, a federal website that has traditionally served as a clearinghouse for more than $500 billion in annual awards and is used by thousands of outside organizations, the people said.... A DOGE engineer recently deleted many federal officials’ permissions to post grant opportunities, without informing them that their permissions had been removed.... The Trump administration has publicly confirmed that DOGE was given some authority over the grants website.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The person in charge of deciding who can post grant notifications? A former U. Nebraska student who dropped out to work for the Thiel Foundation last year & is now a DOGE engineer & administrator of the grants.gov system. This is INSANE.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time. -- Abraham Lincoln or Anonymous

You can fool Elon Musk all of the time. -- Marie Burns ~~~

~~~ Elon Makes Another Fake Claim of “Discovering” Massive Fraud. Emily Badger of the New York Times: “Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency announced this week that they had found something especially startling in their government-wide hunt for fraud: tens of thousands of people claiming unemployment benefits who were over age 115, under age 5 or with birth dates in the future. 'Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!' Mr. Musk posted on X.... He shared a claim by the group that it had even uncovered someone with a birth date in 2154 who claimed $41,000 in unemployment. These were, indeed, probably fake people — but in a different way than Mr. Musk seemed to realize. It was also most likely a case of his team discovering fraud that had already been discovered by [government employees].... To preserve records of ... fraud [that occurred during Trump's first term] and protect victims of ... identity theft, the U.S. Labor Department encouraged state agencies that administer unemployment benefits to create 'pseudo claim' records — in effect, to tie real cases of fraud in their data to make-believe people.... Now four years later, Mr. Musk and his team appear to have found those make-believe people. Their claims about them were also repeated by Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-deRemer during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday....

“'They’re trying to say the federal government has just been sitting there doing nothing to prevent fraud, and “Here we are going to save the day,’” said Andrew Stettner, who until January was the director of unemployment insurance modernization at the Labor Department. 'They are undermining the belief that federal agencies and states protect taxpayers’ dollars.' He and others said Mr. Musk appeared to be sowing distrust without regard for the details of government policies, following a similar pattern to his incursions into the Social Security Administration.”   

Hannah Natanson, et al., of the Washington Post: “Two days after the Social Security Administration purposely and falsely labeled 6,100 living immigrants as dead, security guards arrived at the office of a well-regarded senior executive in the agency’s Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters. Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, had pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages and, officials hoped, spurring them to leave the country. In particular, Pearre had clashed with Scott Coulter, the new chief information officer installed by Elon Musk. Pearre told Coulter that the plan was illegal, cruel and risked declaring the wrong people dead.... But his objections did not go over well with Trump political appointees. And so on Thursday..., [security guards] marched [him] out of his office[, and he was] put on leave.... The episode also followed earlier warnings from senior Social Security officials that the database was insecure and could be easily edited without proof of death — a vulnerability, staffers say, that the Trump administration has now exploited.... Experts in government, consumer rights and immigration law said the administration’s action is illegal.” ~~~

~~~ Jess Bidgood & Alexandra Berzon of the New York Times: “One hallmark of Elon Musk’s 12 weeks in government has been his focus on Social Security. He has sent one of his closest advisers to work at the Social Security Administration. He has falsely insisted that the program is rife with fraud. And he has depicted the entitlement as a tool — a 'giant magnet,' to be specific — that he says entices illegal immigrants to come to the United States. That last part has turned Social Security into a major focal point of Musk’s unfounded belief that Democrats have allowed immigrants into the United States as part of a scheme to tilt the electorate in their favor. A team of my colleagues has reported that Musk is now driving big changes at the Social Security Administration that have braided aspects of his rhetoric about the agency directly into policy. The agency is placing certain immigrants — people who are very much alive — on the agency’s list of dead people, cutting them off from crucial financial services in an effort to push them to leave the country.... [But] according to the White House's own accounting, the targeted migrants did not receive much in the way of government benefits — and none of them received Social Security. The new effort ... is less about cost-cutting than it is about getting the Social Security Administration into the business of immigration enforcement, a push that has deeply alarmed current and former employees of the agency.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It is quite sickening that the richest man in the world -- who most likely will never want for anything money can buy -- is carelessly, but tirelessly, working to snatch relatively paltry retirement benefits from old people. I don't like to judge people as "evil," but this seems pretty evil to me. I just checked my bank account to see if my latest Social Security check had been deposited, and somewhat to my surprise, the Musk Administration Fraudsters & Liberals Detection Service has not declared me dead yet.

Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: “A Manhattan federal judge ruled on Friday that one member of Elon Musk’s government efficiency program could have access to sensitive payment and data systems at the Treasury Department, as long as that person goes through appropriate training and files disclosures. The order by the judge, Jeannette A. Vargas, came nearly two months after she had ruled that Mr. Musk’s team, members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, would be banished from the agency’s systems until the conclusion of a lawsuit that claims the group’s access is unlawful. Friday night’s order partly dissolves the earlier preliminary injunction by granting Ryan Wunderly, who was hired as a special adviser for information technology and modernization, access to the Treasury systems in dispute, Judge Vargas wrote. To gain the access, however, Mr. Wunderly will have to complete hands-on training 'typically required of other Treasury employees granted commensurate access' and submit a financial disclosure report, the judge wrote.”

Brianna Tucker of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration on Friday announced it would pull all federal education funding from Maine after state officials said they would not comply with demands from the administration to ban transgender athletes from participation in women’s sports, a dramatic escalation that could slash millions in federal funding from K-12 schools in the state. The move marks a major and retaliatory step forward in how far the administration is willing to go to force state governments to adhere to executive orders. Last month, the U.S. Education Department began an investigation into a claim that the Maine Department of Education was in violation of Title IX — a civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs receiving federal assistance — by allowing a trans athlete to participate in women’s sports.” ~~~

I have spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weakness. -- Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine), in response to an insult from Donald Trump, 2020 ~~~

~~~ No Curtsies to the Would-be King. Jenna Russell of the New York Times: “While [Maine Gov. Janet Mills] has stood firm [re: a Maine anti-discrimination law on transgender youth which Donald Trump has criticized], the federal government has barraged the state with investigations, declared its education system to be in violation of federal law and frozen some of its funding. The Department of Education has set Friday as a final deadline for Maine to comply with the president’s order. If it does not, the agency plans to hand the matter over to the Department of Justice for enforcement.... Maine sued the Trump administration on Monday, doubling down on its defiance as it began the legal fight that Ms. Mills promised at the White House.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ By contrast, there's “that woman from Michigan”: ~~~

~~~ Reid Epstein & Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Michigan Gov. Gretchen's Whitmer's “awkward Oval Office appearance reflected how several Democratic state leaders are cultivating cordial but politically risky relationships with... [Donald Trump].... The day after the inauguration, Ms. Whitmer penned a handwritten letter — which has not been previously reported — congratulating Mr. Trump, saying she looked forward to working together and praising his support for the auto industry in his first address, according to a person who relayed the text of the letter. Ms. Whitmer included her cellphone number and invited Mr. Trump to call her if she could be of any help to him. The outreach worked for her, but it came at a cost.... Mr. Trump’s aides surprised her on Wednesday by ushering her into the Oval Office not for her scheduled one-on-one meeting with the president, but for ... [a televised event in which Mr.] Trump signed executive orders punishing those who opposed his 2020 election lies.” At the top of the article is a hilarious photo of Whitmer standing in the Oval Office in front of mantel loaded with golden bric-a-brac -- and covering her face with pressboard presentation folders! ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I've been looking for an excuse not to vote for a female presidential candidate in the 2028 Democratic primary because I don't think The United State of Misogyny is ready to vote for a female president. Thanks, Gretchen, for giving me a good reason not to vote for you.

~~~~~~~~~~

New York. Patrick McGeehan, et al., of the New York Times: “As federal investigators began the long job of examining what caused a sightseeing helicopter to crash into the Hudson River on Thursday, killing all six people on board, details began to emerge about the small company that made the doomed flight — and its operator’s checkered history. Public records and interviews with pilots and other members of the helicopter industry showed that the company, which has operated as New York Helicopter Charter, had long been seen as an also-ran in the competitive business of taking tourists for aerial views of landmarks in and around New York City.... Its owner and chief executive, Michael Roth, had developed a reputation for being slow to pay and quick to sue.... His company filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and had one its helicopters repossessed late last year, just eight months into its lease.... The first public signs of trouble came in the 2010s, when aircraft operated by New York Helicopter Charter were involved in two incidents in the span of two years.”

North Carolina. Eduardo Medina & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “In the latest twist in a prolonged legal battle over a North Carolina judicial seat, the State Supreme Court ruled on Friday that thousands of voters must fix issues with their ballots or risk having them tossed. The decision partially upheld a lower-court ruling and could lead to the November election being overturned. Military and overseas voters who did not provide an ID when casting an absentee ballot — which one justice estimated to be 2,000 to 7,000 voters — will have 30 days to fix any issues, the court ruled. But the court also ruled that roughly 60,000 ballots — from voters who, through no fault of their own, had information missing in their registration — must be counted. The case, over a seat on the very same Supreme Court, has tested the boundaries of post-election litigation and drawn criticism from democracy watchdog groups, liberals and even some conservatives across the state, who worry about a dangerous precedent being set. Though the court protected the largest category of voters whose eligibility was being challenged, the number of ballots that remain in question exceeds the slim margin by which the Democratic incumbent won.... Within hours of Friday’s ruling, Justice [Allison] Riggs[, the Democrat whose victory was challenged in court by the GOP candidate,] appealed the decision to federal court.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This ruling has so many ifs, and & buts that it will be hard for even elections officials to accurately interpret the order & notify all voters who must cure their ballots.