The Conversation -- February 12, 2025

On the Anniversary of the Birth of President Abraham Lincoln, A Penny for Your Thoughts. ~~~

The Secret Career of Emil Bove. Ken Dilanian & Ryan Reilly of NBC News: As the Trump-appointed acting attorney general, Emil Bove “has been leading an effort to identify everyone who worked on Jan. 6 cases and remedy what Trump called 'a grave national injustice by rooting out 'those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent' when they investigated Trump and Capitol rioters.... Bove has been the face of the effort to demand that the FBI hand over the names of every bureau employee who worked on Jan. 6 cases.... [But i]n the months after the Jan. 6 attacks, [Bove was] a hard-charging federal prosecutor in Manhattan eagerly [overseeing] efforts to find and arrest Capitol rioters in the New York area, his former colleagues say, and even proposed to the Justice Department that his office should play a central role in the investigation.... Over the ... months [following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol], he worked closely with FBI agents as they hunted down suspects in the New York area....” Then he became one of Donald Trump's defense attorneys.

Marie: For those relieved to learn that Trump said yesterday that he would abide by court decisions, I point you to this absurd moment right out of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here and many a dystopian work of fiction. ~~~

~~~ Travis Andrews, et al., of the Washington Post: “The Kennedy Center board of trustees voted Wednesday afternoon to install ... Donald Trump as chairman of the board, cementing the plan Trump announced Friday to overhaul the storied arts institution with him at its helm. It also voted to terminate Deborah Rutter as president and made former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell interim president, according to multiple people with knowledge of the meeting.... Trump attended the virtual board meeting. 'It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees,' Trump wrote on Truth Social after the vote. 'We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!' Soon the center’s website was updated with several new presidentially appointed trustees including White House personnel office director Sergio Gor, chief of staff Susie Wiles and Usha Vance.” ~~~

     ~~~ William Saletan (linked below) presents a convincing case that Trump believes his own lies and hype, but can even he be so delusional to think it's a great honor to be voted into a position for which he is laughably unqualified by "amazing" lackies whom he has just appointed to the board?

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “Eight former inspectors general who were summarily fired by ... Donald J. Trump last month filed a lawsuit on Wednesday asking a judge to declare their removals illegal and order the government to reinstate them.... The lawsuit asserts that the plaintiffs remain the lawful inspectors general of their agencies because Mr. Trump’s dismissals broke the law. It asks for an injunction requiring the executive branch to allow them to return to work and awarding them back pay. Four days after Mr. Trump returned to office last month, the White House notified as many as 17 inspectors general in tersely worded emails that they were being terminated because of 'changing priorities.' Those were all in direct conflict with statutory restrictions on firing such officials in the Inspector General Act of 1978 and strengthened by lawmakers in the bipartisan Securing Inspectors General Act of 2022.”

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Wednesday that he had a 'lengthy and highly productive phone call' with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, characterizing it as the beginning of a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.... 'We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,' Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post.... He said he planned to inform President Volodymr Zelensky of Ukraine that both countries planned to 'have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.'” This is part of the same liveblog linked next.

Team of Numskulls. Julian Barnes & Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Tulsi Gabbard to be the next director of national intelligence in a 52 to 48 vote that demonstrated ... [Donald] Trump’s political control over Republican lawmakers. Ms. Gabbard had one of the most contentious confirmation hearings of all of the president’s nominees. A number of Republican senators joined Democrats in asking tough questions about her previous support of Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who released reams of classified data, and her skepticism about warrantless wiretaps of overseas communications. Her defense of Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, and her sympathy toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia also gave some Republican lawmakers pause. But in the end only one Republican was willing to oppose her. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the former majority leader, voted against her.” From a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Mitch reminds me of the evil character in a standard-issue morality play who on his deathbed sees his life pass before him and asks, "Lord, what have I done?"

Team of Sociopaths. Julia Metraux of Mother Jones: “Last Friday, [the National Institutes of Health] announced that it would cap grants for 'indirect' research costs — such as building-related and equipment expenses — at 15 percent, from a current average of around 30 percent.... The [NIH] ... came under attack by Project 2025 well before its architect, Russell Vought, was confirmed to Donald Trump’s second-term cabinet as head of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought’s pet project — the playbook for the Trump presidency — asserts that 'funding for scientific research should not be controlled by a small group of highly paid and unaccountable insiders.'... But some of those so-called insiders — that is, the NIH — funded research that helped scientists better understand cystic fibrosis, which led to Vertex Pharmaceuticals developing a cutting-edge treatment that Vought’s daughter Porter benefited from.... But Vought appears to be shutting that door firmly behind him, helping to mount a dizzying range of attacks on lifesaving medical research at (and beyond) NIH.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: Sorry, Squarespace has been giving me a lot of trouble today, and I've lost a lot of stuff I linked earlier. I'll try to recover some of it.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump insisted Tuesday that the United States has the authority to 'take' Gaza and that other countries in the region will absorb the Palestinians who currently live there, speaking as he sat beside Jordan’s king in the Oval Office.... The remarks — made at an impromptu gaggle with reporters called in abruptly at the start of the bilateral meeting between the two leaders — represented a new form of pressure on King Abdullah II, who sought to praise Mr. Trump as a force for peace in the region while avoiding comment on a barely formed proposal that the president has repeatedly floated in the past week.... Rather than push back on Mr. Trump’s proposal, King Abdullah said the two nations should consult with other Arab nations, including Egypt.... King Abdullah now faces the difficult task of trying to protect the more than $1.5 billion in foreign aid Jordan receives from the United States while also trying to get Mr. Trump to back off his demands for the mass removal of Palestinians.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ This story has been updated with a new lede: “King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday rebuffed ... [Donald] Trump’s proposal for his country to absorb Palestinians living in Gaza, saying that he remained opposed to a plan Mr. Trump has laid out to clear the territory so the United States can seize control of it. During a 'constructive' meeting with the U.S. president at the White House, King Abdullah said, he 'reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.' 'This is the unified Arab position,' he stated in a post on social media after the meeting. 'Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Dan Diamond & Emily Davies of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that requires federal agencies to work with the U.S. DOGE Service to cut their existing workforce and limit future hiring — the most explicit statement yet by the president that he supports 'large-scale' cuts to the federal workforce. The executive order gives billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE, tasked with finding government inefficiencies, even more power than it has amassed in the first three weeks of the new administration. The order installs a 'DOGE Team Lead' at each agency and gives that person oversight over hiring decisions.... The directive instructs agency heads, after the hiring freeze expires, to recruit no more than one employee for every four who depart from the federal government, with exemptions for personnel and functions 'related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement.' And it orders agency heads to 'promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force, consistent with applicable law.'” The Guardian's report is here. ~~~

~~~ ⭐Josh Marshall of TPM: This executive order "puts Musk functionally in control of the U.S. government." Marshall lays out how all the agency heads, directly and indirectly, report to Musk. He’s already very clearly operating here as an independent actor whose actions the President blesses after he’s found out what’s happened. This is a parallel overlaying of authority over the entire structure of the U.S. government." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I checked out Article II of the Constitution, and unless I missed something, there's nothing in there about "And the President shall have the power to turn over the administration, legislation and adjudication of the entire federal government to a private Citizen, whether or not that person be a natural born Citizen of the United States, and whether or not he be in a position to personally profit from such control of the United States government."

Stacy Cowley & Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Tuesday named two nominees to lead top financial regulators: Jonathan McKernan for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Jonathan Gould as the comptroller of the currency. The consumer bureau has been in turmoil for days after Russell Vought, installed Friday by Mr. Trump as the agency’s acting director, ordered a halt to all of its operations. The leaders of the bureau’s highest-profile divisions, its supervision and enforcement offices, resigned Tuesday in protest.... News of Mr. McKernan’s appointment came on the same evening that the consumer bureau fired many probationary employees.... The firings at the bureau on Tuesday came despite an internal notice issued to agency leaders last month by Seth Frotman, then the bureau’s general counsel, citing legal grounds for retaining the probationary workers, many of whom are lawyers.... The employees learned of the firings after 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday over email.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: And as with everything Trump, there were screw-ups. “The heading 'MEMORANDUM FOR [EmployeeFirstName] [EmployeeLastName], [JobTitle], [Division]' appeared on many notices,” Cowley & Goldstein report. Trump can't even get “You're Fired!” right. ~~~

~~~ ⭐Speaking of “You're Fired!” David Nakamura, et al., of the Washington Post: “The White House fired the independent inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday evening, a day after his office issued a blistering report assessing the impact of the Trump administration’s efforts to significantly curtail the agency’s mission. Paul K. Martin, appointed by President Joe Biden in December 2023, was informed of his dismissal through a two-sentence email from Trent Morse, deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, according to a copy of the note viewed by The Washington Post. Martin oversaw a staff of 275 with a dozen offices located abroad.... The termination of Martin follows his office’s publication of a widely read report warning that more than $489 million in food assistance was at risk of spoilage or potential diversion after the Trump administration implemented its aid freeze and stop-work order.” Politico's story is here. ~~~

~~~ "Girl Cooties." Amanda Marcotte of Salon: "Musk and his allies have a clever way to sell the [anti-CFPB] agenda to the MAGA base: Tell them that the CFPB has girl cooties.... While the CFPB was technically created by a 2010 bill written by two men, Sen. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, it's the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. She came up with the idea while still a law professor at Harvard. Because it's so strongly associated with a woman, the tech billionaire class has leaned hard into portraying the agency's anti-fraud work as if it's your mom telling you to clean your room. Unfortunately, this bet has paid off, as the MAGA base would rather let robber barons drain their entire bank accounts rather than accept that a woman might know what she's talking about.” Marcotte cites instances where the girl-cooties attacks have worked. ~~~

~~~ Liz Dye in Public Notice: “The agency is despised by everyone from payday lenders, to credit card companies, to the goons at Project 2025. And Elon Musk, who would like to turn Ex-Twitter into a banking app which would be regulated by CFPB, is no fan either. Trump seems rather confused about CFPB’s remit. On Monday, he suggested that 'people all over the midwest' had come up and spontaneously shared stories of their lives being destroyed by an agency which can only regulate banks worth more than $10 billion. But he does know that it’s the pet project of [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren — 'a nasty woman, despite her phony beer commercial' — and so 'we had to get rid of it.'”

Elon Lied About Them; Trumpies Fired Them. Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it had fired four employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the agency’s chief financial officer, over their roles in disbursing federal funds to house migrants in New York City hotels. The firings capped a startling chain of events that began on Monday with an early-morning social media post by Elon Musk who claimed, misleadingly, that FEMA had recently sent $59 million meant for disaster relief to New York City to pay for 'high end hotels' for migrants, and who called the expenditure unlawful. New York City officials raced to clarify that the federal money had been properly allocated by FEMA under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. last year, adding that it was not a disaster relief grant and had not been spent on luxury hotels. Nonetheless, just two hours after Mr. Musk’s post, FEMA’s acting director, Cameron Hamilton, announced that the payments in question 'have all been suspended' — even though most of the money had already been disbursed — and that 'personnel will be held accountable.'... Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security..., [called the fired personnel] 'deep-state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people.'...” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: "Misleadingly"??? Really? Musk flat-out lied. In fact, he lied more than once in a single tweet.

~~~ Ben Johansen of Politico: “The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from attending ... Donald Trump’s executive order signing Tuesday afternoon, the news organization said, after it continued to refer to the 'Gulf of Mexico' instead of adjusting to reflect the administration’s stance that the body of water should now be called the 'Gulf of America.' Earlier on Tuesday, the White House warned the AP — known for its stylebook that many newsrooms follow — that if it did not change its guidance on the body of water, its on-call reporter would be blocked from attending the event, the wire service said.... AP executive editor Julie Pace said in a statement[,] 'Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The full AP statement is here.

Yes, Trump Really Is Crazy. Will Saletan of the Bulwark: "It’s time to face what the Canadians have faced: Trump isn’t kidding. When he insists that the 2020 election was stolen, that USAID is a complete fraud, that the United States can subsist on tariffs, that Canada and Greenland should surrender to American sovereignty, and that Arab states will help him empty and gentrify Gaza, he’s not saying things he knows are false or preposterous. He really believes this lunacy. He’s deranged." Thanks to laura h. for the link.

“Corruption Week.” Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic: “... bribery is basically legal now, as long as you support, or are, Donald Trump.Consider the Trump administration’s actions [on Monday] alone: The president officially pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who served eight years in prison for corruption, and his Department of Justice suspended its prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams for allegedly soliciting bribes from Turkey, despite extremely compelling evidence. (Adams has denied the allegations.) Trump fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, the chief official making sure government employees comply with ethics requirements, including those concerning conflicts of interest. And he directed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prevents American businesses from bribing foreign officials.... Today [Tuesday], the administration told The New York Times that Elon Musk’s financial disclosures would not be made public, allowing the shadow president to direct vast swaths of government policy with enormous stakes for his personal fortune without the public knowing the precise areas of overlap.... Trump genuinely believes in corruption as a normal and acceptable way to do business.” Thanks to laura h. for this gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “Trump administration officials have also ordered the shutdown of an initiative to seize assets owned by foreign kleptocrats, dialed back scrutiny of foreign influence efforts aimed at the United States and replaced the top career Justice Department official handling corruption cases.... In pressing the Southern District of New York to drop charges against [Mayor Eric] Adams, who was accused of corruption on behalf of Turkey, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove III, suggested that the request was rooted in politics. Both the directive and its tone startled many current and former Justice Department officials. 'The U.S. attorney community is in shock at the language of the memo, the political nature of the scores being settled,' said Tim Purdon, a former U.S. attorney for North Dakota. 'It’s unfathomable.'”

Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: “The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance on Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency in his government cost-cutting initiative, but offered no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for 'fraudsters.'... Mr. Musk stood next to the Resolute Desk and asserted that his work was in the interest of the public and democracy. President Trump sat behind the desk, chiming in with approval as he let the world’s richest man expound for roughly 30 minutes on the rationale for the drastic overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.... 'So all of our actions are maximally transparent,' [Mr. Musk claimed].... In reality, Mr. Musk’s team is operating in deep secrecy: surprising federal employees by descending upon agencies and gaining access to sensitive data systems....

“Mr. Musk’s appearance came at what was billed a presidential signing of new executive orders related to his cost-cutting initiative. The text of the executive order, which was made public after the event ended, ordered agency heads to pursue 'large-scale' work force reductions and gave Mr. Musk’s team an expanded role in overseeing any subsequent hiring at certain agencies.” (See full WashPo story re: the executive order linked above.) The AP's report is here. ~~~

Thanks to RAS for the link.

     ~~~ Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: “Dressed all in black, with a dark MAGA hat on his head and his young son fidgeting by his side or on his shoulders, Mr. Musk, seeming quite jolly about finding himself at the very pinnacle of power, sought on Tuesday to justify pushing tens of thousands of federal employees out the door by casting them as a collection of unelected and unaccountable managers of a wasteful and corrupt bureaucracy. Workers overseeing contracts were mysteriously getting rich, he asserted without any backing details or evidence. Social Security was paying benefits to 150-year-olds. Taxpayers were being gouged.... He told tales of a 'racket' being perpetrated by an army of bureaucrats, some 'corrupt,' others merely 'incompetent.'

“The world’s richest man waved off any suggestion that he stands to benefit from the dismantling of the regulatory agencies leading investigations and lawsuits against his companies. His mandate to audit the Pentagon’s spending is not a conflict of interest even though he has billions of dollars in military contracts, he maintained, because he always provides the best value to the government, and anyway, those contracts are not with him but with his companies.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: With his excuses for skirting conflict-of-interest rules, Musk is either (a) showing us how ignorant he is, or (b) showing us how ignorant he thinks we are.

Michael Stratford & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “Treasury Department officials said Tuesday that the agency last week 'mistakenly' and 'briefly' gave a member of Elon Musk’s team the power to alter a sensitive federal payments database, prompting an internal forensic investigation that remains ongoing. The disclosure, made in a series of court filings, undercuts the Trump administration’s repeated public claims that the DOGE team’s access to the federal payments system was limited to a 'read-only' basis. Senior Treasury officials wrote in sworn declarations that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old former SpaceX and X engineer, was erroneously granted 'read/write' privileges to a secure payments system on Feb. 5. Elez resigned from the Treasury Department a day later, after The Wall Street Journal surfaced racist social media posts, and Treasury officials said he has not been reinstated to his previous role.... The affidavits make clear that the DOGE team initially came into the system with plans to block foreign aid payments — following an executive order by ... Donald Trump — and to automate some of its functions.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Alan Raul, a top Reagan & Bush I administrations lawyer, in a Washington Post op-ed, writes that Elon Musk's DOGE is unconstitutional. “... Congress has not authorized this radical overhaul [Trump and Musk are overseeing], and the protocols of the Constitution do not permit statutorily mandated agencies and programs to be transformed — or reorganized out of existence — without congressional authorization.... The DOGE process, if that is what it is, mocks two basic tenets of our government: that we are nation of laws, not men and that it is Congress which controls spending and passes legislation.... Congress must step in to enact this radical transformation — or the Supreme Court must stop it.”

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday accused Kash Patel..., [Donald] Trump’s nominee for F.B.I. director, of improperly directing a wave of firings at the bureau without having been confirmed as its leader. In a letter to the Justice Department’s inspector general [Michael Horowitz], the senator, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, cited 'highly credible information from multiple sources' that suggested Mr. Patel had been personally involved in covertly orchestrating a purge of career officials at the F.B.I.... The accusation comes as the committee prepares to vote Thursday on whether to send Mr. Patel’s nomination to the Senate floor. Mr. Durbin said that if the allegations were true, then the acting No. 2 at the Justice Department, Emil Bove, fired career civil servants 'solely at the behest of a private citizen,' and also that Mr. Patel 'may have perjured himself' at his confirmation hearing last month.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a copy of Durbin's letter to Horowitz via the Daily Kos. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Hi-Ho, the Derry-O, The Swindler Takes a Walk. Hurubie Meko & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “Stephen K. Bannon ... pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Manhattan criminal court to a single count of defrauding donors who sought to help build a wall at the southern border. Mr. Bannon’s plea deal stipulates that he will be given a three-year conditional discharge, meaning he will receive no prison time if he does not reoffend. He had faced five felony counts, including money laundering and conspiracy charges, and faced a maximum sentence of five to 15 years on the most serious charge. In the courtroom Tuesday, Mr. Bannon sat among his three lawyers and answered “Yes, your honor” as the judge, April A. Newbauer, asked him detailed questions about his understanding of the deal and the rights he was surrendering, including his right to appeal. Mr. Bannon’s trial had been scheduled to begin in March.” Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Sisak of the AP: “Asked how he was feeling as he left the courtroom, Bannon said, 'Like a million bucks.' Bannon spoke to reporters afterward and called on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Leticia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.... Bannon had ... recently hired a new team of attack dog lawyers who sought to portray the case to jurors as a selective and malicious prosecution.... The district attorney’s office said Bannon is barred from fundraising for or serving as 'an officer, director, or in any other fiduciary position' for any charitable organization with assets in New York state, under the plea agreement. He’s also barred from using, selling or possessing any data gathered from donors to the border wall scheme.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah, I'll bet Bannon feels like a million bucks. He was charged with pocketing more than a million bucks in the scheme.

Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: “A Russian imprisoned in the United States will be freed 'in the coming days' in exchange for the release this week of the American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters that Russia would not identify the prisoner until after the release.”

Sherrilyn Ifill, in a Substack essay, gives us some ideas about what we can do to save out democracy from the Trump/Musk presidency* & their Congressional collaborators. No, really. Thanks to RAS for the link. (If you take a look at Ifill's career, you'll see she knows whereof she speaks.) ~~~

     ~~~ For Instance: Kids Protest Stinky Pete. Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “Dozens of American students at a U.S. military installation in Germany walked out of their middle school on Tuesday as part of protests aimed at an official visit by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, underscoring the scope of disillusionment with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.... Separately, a small group of adults dressed in civilian clothing — likely parents — gathered outside at Stuttgart and protested within view and earshot of Hegseth’s delegation, booing and chanting “DEI!... The protests were in response to President Donald Trump’s string of executive orders targeting diversity efforts throughout the U.S. government, directives Hegseth has carried out enthusiastically. Since he took over the Pentagon, Black History Month celebrations and other similar events have been banned and access to select books in Defense Department schools attended by the children of U.S. service members have been restricted.”

News Lede

New York Times: “U.S. inflation rose to 3 percent in January, strengthening the case for the Federal Reserve to extend a pause on interest rate cuts. The Consumer Price Index jumped more than expected, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed on Wednesday, rising 0.5 percent from December in what was the fastest monthly increase since August 2023. Last month, the annual pace was 2.9 percent. 'Core' C.P.I., which more closely reflects underlying inflation by removing volatile food and energy prices, also showed little improvement. It rose 0.4 percent from December or 3.3 percent on a year-over-year basis, both higher than economists expected.”

The Conversation -- February 11, 2025

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday accused Kash Patel..., [Donald] Trump’s nominee for F.B.I. director, of improperly directing a wave of firings at the bureau without having been confirmed as its leader. In a letter to the Justice Department’s inspector general [Michael Horowitz], the senator, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, cited 'highly credible information from multiple sources' that suggested Mr. Patel had been personally involved in covertly orchestrating a purge of career officials at the F.B.I.... The accusation comes as the committee prepares to vote Thursday on whether to send Mr. Patel’s nomination to the Senate floor. Mr. Durbin said that if the allegations were true, then the acting No. 2 at the Justice Department, Emil Bove, fired career civil servants 'solely at the behest of a private citizen,' and also that Mr. Patel 'may have perjured himself' at his confirmation hearing last month.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a copy of Durbin's letter to Horowitz via the Daily Kos.

Michael Stratford & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “Treasury Department officials said Tuesday that the agency last week 'mistakenly' and 'briefly' gave a member of Elon Musk’s team the power to alter a sensitive federal payments database, prompting an internal forensic investigation that remains ongoing. The disclosure, made in a series of court filings, undercuts the Trump administration’s repeated public claims that the DOGE team’s access to the federal payments system was limited to a 'read-only' basis. Senior Treasury officials wrote in sworn declarations that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old former SpaceX and X engineer, was erroneously granted 'read/write' privileges to a secure payments system on Feb. 5. Elez resigned from the Treasury Department a day later, after The Wall Street Journal surfaced racist social media posts, and Treasury officials said he has not been reinstated to his previous role.... The affidavits make clear that the DOGE team initially came into the system with plans to block foreign aid payments — following an executive order by President Donald Trump — and to automate some of its functions.”

Ben Johansen of Politico: “The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from attending ... Donald Trump’s executive order signing Tuesday afternoon, the news organization said, after it continued to refer to the 'Gulf of Mexico' instead of adjusting to reflect the administration’s stance that the body of water should now be called the 'Gulf of America.' Earlier on Tuesday, the White House warned the AP — known for its stylebook that many newsrooms follow — that if it did not change its guidance on the body of water, its on-call reporter would be blocked from attending the event, the wire service said.... AP executive editor Julie Pace said in a statement[,] 'Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.'”

Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump insisted Tuesday that the United States has the authority to 'take' Gaza and that other countries in the region will absorb the Palestinians who currently live there, speaking as he sat beside Jordan’s king in the Oval Office.... The remarks — made at an impromptu gaggle with reporters called in abruptly at the start of the bilateral meeting between the two leaders — represented a new form of pressure on King Abdullah II, who sought to praise Mr. Trump as a force for peace in the region while avoiding comment on a barely formed proposal that the president has repeatedly floated in the past week.... Rather than push back on Mr. Trump’s proposal, King Abdullah said the two nations should consult with other Arab nations, including Egypt.... King Abdullah now faces the difficult task of trying to protect the more than $1.5 billion in foreign aid Jordan receives from the United States while also trying to get Mr. Trump to back off his demands for the mass removal of Palestinians.” ~~~

     ~~~ This story has been updated with a new lede: “King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday rebuffed ... [Donald] Trump’s proposal for his country to absorb Palestinians living in Gaza, saying that he remained opposed to a plan Mr. Trump has laid out to clear the territory so the United States can seize control of it. During a 'constructive' meeting with the U.S. president at the White House, King Abdullah said, he 'reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.' 'This is the unified Arab position,' he stated in a post on social media after the meeting. 'Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.'”

Eric Lipton & Kirsten Grind of the New York Times: “Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk ... have been dismantling federal agencies across the government. Mr. Trump has fired top officials and pushed out career employees. Many of them were leading investigations, enforcement matters or lawsuits pending against Mr. Musk’s companies. Mr. Musk has also reaped the benefit of resignations by Biden-era regulators that flipped control of major regulatory agencies, leaving more sympathetic Republican appointees overseeing those lawsuits. At least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by those moves have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Mr. Musk’s six companies, according to a review by The New York Times....

“ On its own, the National Labor Relations Board ... has 24 investigations into Mr. Musk’s companies.... Since January, Mr. Trump has fired three officials at that agency..., effectively stalling the board’s ability to rule on cases.... Over at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a public database shows hundreds of complaints about the electric car company Tesla, mostly concerning debt collection or loan problems. The ... Trump administration ... has ordered its staff to put a hold on all investigations.... Traditional federal conflict of interest rules seem almost antiquated, if Mr. Musk is determined to be involved in specific decisions about agencies his companies do business with.” ~~~

~~~ Theodore Schleifer & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “Elon Musk plans to file a financial disclosure report to the White House, but it will remain confidential, a White House official said Tuesday. There has never been a White House staffer with the vast potential for conflicts like Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person and the head of leading companies in electric vehicles, space exploration and artificial intelligence. But Mr. Musk is serving ... [Donald] Trump as an unpaid 'special government employee,' which means his financial disclosure is not required to be made public. Mr. Musk received an ethics training this week, [a White House] official said, and Mr. Musk’s staff as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency is in the process of receiving their own training, said the White House official....” MB: I'll bet Donald J. Trump is their ethics tutor. Lesson 1: Do whatever you want. Lesson 2. I'll pardon you. Lesson 3: You can trust me.

Hi-Ho, the Derry-O, The Swindler Takes a Walk. Hurubie Meko & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “Stephen K. Bannon ... pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Manhattan criminal court to a single count of defrauding donors who sought to help build a wall at the southern border. Mr. Bannon’s plea deal stipulates that he will be given a three-year conditional discharge, meaning he will receive no prison time if he does not reoffend. He had faced five felony counts, including money laundering and conspiracy charges, and faced a maximum sentence of five to 15 years on the most serious charge. In the courtroom Tuesday, Mr. Bannon sat among his three lawyers and answered “Yes, your honor” as the judge, April A. Newbauer, asked him detailed questions about his understanding of the deal and the rights he was surrendering, including his right to appeal. Mr. Bannon’s trial had been scheduled to begin in March.” Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up.~~~

     ~~~ Michael Sisak of the AP: “Asked how he was feeling as he left the courtroom, Bannon said, 'Like a million bucks.' Bannon spoke to reporters afterward and called on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin an immediate criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Leticia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.... Bannon had ... recently hired a new team of attack dog lawyers who sought to portray the case to jurors as a selective and malicious prosecution.... The district attorney’s office said Bannon is barred from fundraising for or serving as 'an officer, director, or in any other fiduciary position' for any charitable organization with assets in New York state, under the plea agreement. He’s also barred from using, selling or possessing any data gathered from donors to the border wall scheme.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah, I'll bet Bannon feels like a million bucks. He was charged with pocketing more than a million bucks in the scheme.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Monday continued what he has dubbed his 'flood the zone' strategy, issuing a pair of executive orders that target trading practices, threatening Hamas and installing an ally atop two government ethics offices, even as federal courts continued to block some of his efforts and Democrats castigated his moves to shutter agencies as illegal. Trump signed separate executive orders imposing 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, ending the federal government’s 'procurement and forced use of paper straws' and eliminating a training program for government leaders known as the Federal Executive Institute.... And the president named longtime supporter Douglas A. Collins — a former U.S. congressman from Georgia, already serving as secretary of veterans affairs — to run two government ethics offices after abruptly firing the offices’ leaders in recent days.... The president also signed a memo appointing dozens of senior officials across the government, including seven ambassadors.” ~~~

~~~ And here we see Trump explicitly and flagrantly moving to criminalize businesses operating in the U.S. and no doubt to facilitate his own company's shady dealings in other countries: ~~~

     ~~~ Isabella Kwai of the New York Times: “Trump on Monday ordered a pause in the enforcement of a federal law aimed at curbing corruption in multinational companies, saying it creates an uneven playing field for American firms. The law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, was enacted in 1977 and makes it illegal for companies that operate in the United States to pay foreign government officials to secure business deals. Federal authorities have used the law to crack down on bribery, especially in countries where it is a common business practice. Mr. Trump has objected to the law, which has led to charges against some of the world’s largest companies.” The Guardian's report is here. MB: I'm not sure, but Trump seems to be again abusing his power: the Congress passes a law, one not disputed by the courts, which requires the administrative branch to crack down on bribery, and Trump says fagaddaboudit. If I'm right (and I may not be), then he's abusing his power in two ways: (1) to facilitate his own criming and (2) to undercut the other branches of government. ~~~

~~~ Alanna Durkin & Eric Tucker of the AP: “A U.S. judge on Monday ordered the fired head of the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers to be reinstated while a court fight continues over his removal by ... Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order came hours after Hampton Dellinger sued the Republican president over his removal as the leader of the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for guarding the federal workforce from illegal personnel actions, such as retaliation for whistleblowing. The judge said Dellinger must be allowed to serve as special counsel through midnight on Thursday while she considers his request for a temporary restraining order to keep him in the job. She said the Trump administration cannot 'deny him access to the resources or materials of that office or recognize the authority of any other person as Special Counsel.'... Also on Monday, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics posted on its website that Trump had removed its director, David Huitema, who like Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate last year to a five-year term. The White House had said before the judge’s ruling reinstating Dellinger that recently confirmed Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has been named the acting leader of both agencies.” ~~~

~~~ A CBS News story by Kathryn Watson on Government Ethics Director David Huitema's ouster is here. ~~~

~~~ Eric Tucker, et al., of the AP: “In the first three weeks of his administration..., Donald Trump has moved with brazen haste to dismantle the federal government’s public integrity guardrails that he frequently tested during his first term but now seems intent on removing entirely. In a span of hours on Monday, word came that he had forced out leaders of offices responsible for government ethics and whistleblower complaints. And in a boon to corporations, he ordered a pause to enforcement of a decades-old law that prohibits American companies from bribing foreign governments to win business. All of that came on top of the earlier late-night purge of more than a dozen inspectors general who are tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at government agencies. It’s all being done with a stop-me-if-you-dare defiance by a president who the first time around felt hemmed in by watchdogs, lawyers and judges tasked with affirming good government and fair play. Now, he seems determined to break those constraints once and for all in a historically unprecedented flex of executive power.” Quite a good overview.

⭐Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate. The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called 'the plain text' of an edict he issued last month. Judge McConnell’s ruling marked a step toward what could quickly evolve into a high-stakes showdown between the executive and judicial branches, a day after a social media post by Vice President JD Vance claimed that 'judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,' elevating the chance that the White House could provoke a constitutional crisis.... 

“On Friday, 22 Democratic attorneys general went to Judge McConnell to accuse the White House of failing to comply with his earlier order. The Justice Department responded in a filing on Sunday that money for clean energy projects as well as transportation infrastructure allocated to states by the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill was exempt from the initial order, because it had been paused under a different memo than the one that prompted the lawsuit. Judge McConnell’s ruling on Monday explicitly rejected that argument.” (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's report is here.

If [the president] disagrees with the law that Congress has enacted, including an appropriation, he can urge Congress to amend the law. Ideological disagreement with a law is not a justification for refusing to execute that law. -- David Cole of Georgetown Law ~~~

~~~ Jake Pearson & Anjeanette Damon of ProPublica: “... the Trump administration is not backing down in its fight to slash spending and dramatically reshape the federal government, despite multiple court orders explicitly restraining the president’s sweeping executive actions. In some cases, to get around the judges’ rulings, the administration has cited a memo that it says is not subject to the existing orders. In others, it denied funding to organizations because their granting agencies are not defendants in one of the ongoing legal challenges. In others still, it has withheld funds by citing the agencies’ own judgment, not the president’s directives.... Experts say the Trump administration’s actions set the stage for challenges to Congress’ authority — and the limits of the presidency.”

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse. 'We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,' [Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley] said on Friday. 'There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.' His ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.” Other law professors Liptak cites agree. And Liptak reminds us, “Mr. Trump has already disregarded one Supreme Court decision, its ruling last month upholding a federal law, passed by lopsided bipartisan majorities, requiring TikTok to be sold or banned.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic: “The United States is sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis. Not only has the Trump administration seized for itself extraconstitutional powers, but yesterday, it raised the specter that, should the courts apply the text of the Constitution and negate its plans, it will simply ignore them.... What makes ... [Trump's demands to ignore Constitutional Congressional prerogatives] so astonishing is that Trump could persuade Congress, which he commands in personality-cult style, to follow his demands. Republicans presently control both houses of Congress, and any agency that Congress established, it can also cut or eliminate. Yet Trump refuses to even try to pass his plan democratically. And ... he is now threatening to ignore [courts,] too.... Given his party’s near-total acquiescence in every previous step toward authoritarianism, perhaps Trump would not have to be crazy to take the next one.... The crisis lies not in the structure of government so much as in the character of the party that runs it, which refuses to accept the idea that its defeat is ever legitimate or that its power has any limits.” Thank you to laura h. for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Because Trump is at least going through the motions of addressing court orders, I suppose we still are in the "constitutional crisis" mode. But we're awfully close to an autogolpe or self-coup, and we are slouching toward Masada primarily because Congressional Republicans are willing to jump off a cliff when Trump says "jump." It is one thing that many of them agree with Trump's cruel & harmful policies. But it is quite another to let him get away with setting the policies unilaterally. Members of Congress have a right, I guess, to be stupid, but they have a Constitutional duty, which they have abrogated, to stand up to the president* when he usurps their Constitutional powers. Update: Here's someone who sees the handwriting on the wall: (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Lisa Needham of Public Notice: "While Trump and his henchmen deconstruct the administrative state, his lawyers are embracing the logic of dictatorship. The core argument emerging in their legal filings and executive orders — one without support anywhere in the Constitution or the law — is that simply by being elected, Trump has the power to do whatever he wants.... When executive orders are challenged in court, government attorneys typically point to the underlying laws that give the president the authority to issue the order. Trump seems to have dispensed with that requirement, however.... The administration's stance appears to literally be that federal laws are irrelevant in the face of Trump’s wishes and the courts can’t stop him. If Congress and the judiciary no longer check or balance the executive branch, no separation of powers is left.... That’s tearing democracy down to the studs and rebuilding something entirely different and much worse in its place.... This sounds a lot like dictatorship, and a despotic one at that." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Here's something else that "sounds a lot like dictatorship": ~~~

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “Just eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump ... mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution. Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Mr. Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments.... The third-term gambit could also serve another purpose, political observers noted: keeping congressional Republicans in line as Mr. Trump pushes a maximalist version of executive authority with the clock ticking on his time in office.... Even when Mr. Trump presents something as a joke, the idea he suggests often becomes socialized by his supporters.... The concept then often takes on more weight, including for Mr. Trump. Recently, some Republicans have started pushing the idea of changing the Constitution for him.”

Daniel Wu, et al., of the Washington Post: “Farmers report missing millions of dollars of funding they were promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, despite promises from the Trump administration that a federal funding freeze would not apply to projects directly benefiting individuals. On his first day in office..., Donald Trump ordered the USDA to freeze funds for several programs designated by President Joe Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.... Farmers who signed contracts with the USDA under those programs paid up front to build fencing, plant new crops and install renewable energy systems with guarantees that the federal government would issue grants and loan guarantees to cover at least part of their costs. Now, with that money frozen, they’re on the hook.... The USDA has also halted funding for other programs, including scientific research grants in agriculture and producing climate-smart crops.... [This is] another blow to farmers who are also facing threats of tariffs and freezes to foreign-aid spending that involved food purchased from American producers.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I reckon quite a few of these farmers are Trump voters. But, hey, if Trump isn't going to run for re-election he doesn't need them anymore, does he? I guess he'd just call them suckers & losers if he ever thought for one second about stiffing them. P.S. These frozen assets are among those covered by Judge John McConnell's order to "defrost" federal grants, an order the judge ruled Monday that Trump has defied. 

More Trump Bullying. Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on Monday that he could cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinians from Gaza, substantially increasing the pressure on key allies in the region to back his audacious proposal to relocate the entire population of the territory in order to redevelop it.... 'If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid,' he told reporters in response to a question a day before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.... The president also said from the White House that if Hamas did not release all the remaining Israeli hostages by '12 o’clock on Saturday,' the cease-fire agreement with Israel should be canceled.... Jordan and Egypt, both major recipients of U.S. military and economic aid, have rejected any suggestion that Palestinians be relocated to their countries. But Mr. Trump said on Monday that the assistance could be in jeopardy.” Related story linked below, under “Israel's Wars.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump seems to view his threat to withhold aid to Egypt and Jordan as a “negotiating tactic” in his plan to build a “Middle East Riviera”: “I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt,” he told White House reporters. ~~~

~~~ Claire Moses & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it. In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have the right to eventually return to their homeland, he said: 'No, they wouldn’t. Because they’re going to have much better housing — in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

Ana Swanson of the New York Times: Donald “Trump announced sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, re-upping a policy from his first term that pleased domestic metal makers but hurt other American industries and ignited trade wars on multiple fronts. The president signed two official proclamations that would impose a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum from all countries. Mr. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Monday evening, called the moves 'a big deal.'... In contrast with Mr. Trump’s first term, [a White House] official said, no exclusions to the tariffs for American companies that rely on foreign steel and aluminum will be allowed.... The tariffs are likely to rankle America’s allies like Canada and Mexico, which supply the bulk of U.S. metal imports.

“They could also elicit retaliation on U.S. exports, as well as pushback from American industries that use metals to make cars, food packaging and other products. Those sectors will face significantly higher prices after the tariffs go into effect.... Studies have shown that while Mr. Trump’s first round of metal tariffs helped American steel and aluminum producers, they ended up hurting the broader economy because they raised prices for many other industries, including the auto sector.” The G

     ~~~ Marie: So just another instance of Trump reneging on his most successful campaign promise: to bring down inflation and consumer prices. As I speculated yesterday, these tariffs raise costs for U.S. manufacturers. They really doubly hurt U.S. manufacturers, because the tariffs necessarily raise prices of U.S. products here and abroad, plus the manufacturers face retaliatory tariffs from other nations, further reducing U.S. export sales. Moreover, the tariffs make people and leaders in other countries like and trust the U.S. even less. IOW, Trump's tariffs are bad any way you look at them. Oh wait ... unless you are a Republican and you hope revenues from the tariffs will increase the Treasury's coffers enough to give you an excuse to cut taxes on the rich. 

Julie Bosman of the New York Times: Donald “Trump signed a full pardon on Monday for Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted of corruption in 2011 in a scheme to sell a Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama. 'It’s my honor to do it,' Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office of the pardon. 'I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with.'... Just five years ago, Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence....” MB: Trump does not despise Democrats whom he is apt to call “radical left-wing lunatics.” Rather, he despises good-government politicians who can't be bought or otherwise compromised. He doesn't care what a person's politics are; his only concern is whether or not he can fairly easily control the person. He likes crooks.

Chloe Atkins, et al., of NBC News: "A federal judge in Boston on Monday continued his pause of the Trump administration's unprecedented plan to get millions of federal workers to resign until he responds 'to the issues presented.' U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. had temporarily halted the administration's plan to offer mass buyouts to millions of federal workers on Thursday, just hours before a deadline to accept the offer. After a hearing Monday, he said the pause would continue until he rules on a preliminary injunction." The New York Times story is here.

Sheryl Stolberg & Christina Jewitt of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the National Institutes of Health from cutting research funding in 22 states that filed suit earlier in the day arguing that the plan would eviscerate studies into treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and a host of other ailments. The funding cuts, announced late Friday, were to take effect on Monday. But the attorneys general of Massachusetts and 21 other states sued. They argued that the Trump administration’s plan to slash $4 billion in overhead costs — known as 'indirect costs' — violated a 79-year-old law that governs how administrative agencies establish and administer regulations.... Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order asking the 22 states to file a status report in 24 hours and again every two weeks to confirm the regular disbursement of the funds. The judge set a hearing for Feb. 21.... The order leaves out states that did not join the lawsuit, which will still face the funding cuts.” Politico's report is here.

Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: “Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp. The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful. Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Trump Makes Another Dictator Friend. Julie Turkewitz of the New York Times: “Two flights carrying Venezuelan migrants from the United States back to Venezuela will arrive late Monday in the capital, Caracas, the country’s communication’s ministry said. The flights are a major victory for the Trump administration, which made a campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants. To accomplish this goal..., [Donald] Trump needs Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s autocratic president who has found himself increasingly isolated by world leaders, to agree to accept some of those people. Two planes owned by the Venezuelan airline Conviasa left Fort Bliss in Texas, where migrants subject to deportation are being held.... The White House confirmed the move in a message on X. 'Repatriation flights to Venezuela have resumed,' said the post. 'MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN.'”

Travis Andrews, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump named former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell as the interim executive director of the Kennedy Center in a post on Truth Social, installing an ally at the head of one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions, which Trump has vowed to overhaul. The president’s authority to unilaterally reshape the board, install new staff and make himself board chairman is an open question for the public-private institution. 'So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday evening, adding, 'But we have, I guess, a whole new group of people going in. ... I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke.'” ~~~

~~~ Andy Borowitz of the Borowitz Report: “Donald J. Trump tightened his grip on the American arts scene on Monday by naming himself principal ballerina of the Kennedy Center Ballet. Announcing a purge of the company’s ballerinas, Trump declared on Truth Social, 'I will soon be announcing a new roster of ballerinas, with an amazing principal ballerina, DONALD J. TRUMP.' He said he was 'disgusted' to discover that all of the company’s current ballerinas were women, a state of affairs that he blamed on DEI.” See also Akhilleus' commentary in yesterday's thread. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Inspired by laura h.'s comment late in yesterday's thread, I found file footage of Trump in rehearsal:

Dean Obeidallah on Substack: “If you just watched corporate news..., you would think Donald Trump is all powerful, all knowing and 'all' just about everything. They are breathlessly covering Trump wall to wall and by doing so are by design trying to make him appear omnipotent, that 'resistance is futile' and that he is winning in ways never seen before. Why? Simple, the corporate media executives want the tax cuts, less regulations and freedom to merge their companies as Trump has promised them. But back in the real world, not only are we finally seeing organized resistance by a growing number of Democratic leaders, we are also seeing Trump losing over and over in the courts this week — with even a Trump appointed judge ruling against him. Those standing up to Trump deserve far more coverage than the corrupt corporate media is providing them.” Obeidallah highlights Democratic members of Congress, grassroots organizations, judges & the people and organizations who are bringing suits against the Trump administration. Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: Obeidallah's assessment of the media coverage could explain why the majority of Americans think Trump is doing a great job (CBS poll linked below). (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Steve M. has some more suggestions as to steps that can be taken to stop/ridicule/diminish Trump, Musk & do-nothing Congressional Republicans. Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Also from Steve M.: Plutocrats to the Rescue! "I suspect that the people with the most power to stop Trump are the plutocrats.... They thought electing a Republican president would let them pursue unlimited mergers and other deals, but that's not the case[.]... Right now, the markets are shrugging all this off. But the plutocrats are probably the only people who scare Trump, and they don't seem happy. Their disgruntlement, and the disgruntlement of ordinary consumers, might be the only thing that can save us if all the other guardrails are gone." (Also linked yesterday.)

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Four young staffers working under Elon Musk gained access to highly sensitive personal data held by a consumer protection agency before shutting it down. White House budget director Russell Vought ordered wider access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau materials by staffers working for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency over the weekend before agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez ordered all its employees to stay home for the week, reported Bloomberg News.... 'Just nine days before his DOGE team visited CFPB, Musk’s X ... announced that it had struck a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments,' Bloomberg reported. 'Musk has publicly mused about expanding into payment-services since he first took control of X in 2022. Entering that business could bring CFPB oversight under rules the agency finalized in November. The records DOGE can now access would include sensitive and potentially competitive information.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Nothing to see here, people. Musk is self-policing."

A Fake Populist Victory in the War of Northern Aggression. John Ismay of the New York Times: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that he is renaming Fort Liberty, whose previous name honoring the Confederate general Braxton Bragg was changed in 2023 as part of a wider effort to eliminate military honors bestowed on individuals who rebelled against the Union during the Civil War. The move returns the Army base in North Carolina to being called Fort Bragg, but the name will now honor an enlisted Army soldier named Roland L. Bragg, who according to a Pentagon statement was awarded a Silver Star and the Purple Heart for combat during World War II.” MB: Gotcha, you Northun East Coast elitist swine!

Friend of U.S. Enemies/Dictators on Way to Becoming DNI. Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Monday voted along party lines to advance the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, signaling the collapse of Republican resistance to her nomination and placing her on a smooth path to confirmation. The 52-to-46 vote was the latest sign that Republicans, facing intense pressure from ... [Donald] Trump to confirm his nominees, are willing to drop serious reservations and capitulate to his wishes. It cleared away the final hurdle to Ms. Gabbard’s confirmation, once thought to be an uphill battle in the Senate amid strong bipartisan concerns about her positions on intelligence matters and sympathetic statements about the former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It is clear that the Trump/Musk administration is determined to prove that government itself is useless and irrelevant. Here we see their Congressional accomplices are determined to prove themselves useless and irrevelant. Apparently the only valid form of government, as these people see it, is a malevolent dictatorship.

Marie: One surprising result of the impending Trump/Musk dictatorship is that it has aroused even some of the most namby-pamby, ever-so-slightly left-of-center politicians & commentators. Two cases in point: ~~~

     ~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: “Are there no red lines? Are there no limits? [Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked his Republican colleagues.] These days, there are no red lines for any but a few Republicans, and then only the faintest. Not a single one — not King’s fellow Mainer, Sen. Susan Collins, not Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, not the seemingly liberated former majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — defected from the party-line vote to confirm [Russell] Vought [as director of the Office of Management & Budget]. This about a man who, as King reminded his colleagues, would usurp their most fundamental power, to decide how to spend taxpayers’ money. Who has declared that 'we are living in a “post constitutional” time['] in which a 'Radical Constitutionalism' is needed to reassert untrammeled presidential authority. Who is an architect of Project 2025, the plan to reshape federal government and the constitutional order. Directing OMB sounds like the wonkiest of jobs, but Vought’s plan for the post, already underway, is to use it to execute an unprecedented — and unconstitutional — power grab.” ~~~

Elon Musk Is Very, Very Busy. Mike Isaac, et al., of the New York Times: “A group of investors led by Elon Musk has made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the assets of the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, according to two people familiar with the bid, escalating a yearslong, deeply personal tussle for the future of artificial intelligence between Mr. Musk and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman. The consortium includes Vy Capital and Xai, Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence company, as well as the Hollywood power broker Ari Emanuel and other investors, said the people.... Mr. Musk’s unsolicited offer could complicate OpenAI’s attempt to complete a $40 billion fund-raising deal that would nearly double the high-profile company’s valuation from just four months ago.”

~~~~~~~~~~

New York, Where NYC Mayor Eric Adams Earned His Payoff for Sucking Up to Donald Trump. William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: “The Justice Department on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to drop the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, a remarkable incursion into a continuing criminal case that raises questions about the fair administration of justice during ... [Donald] Trump’s second term. The order was sent in a letter from the department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove III, to Manhattan prosecutors who brought the charges against the mayor last year. Mr. Bove justified the decision to ask for the dismissal by saying that the mayor’s indictment had limited Mr. Adams’s ability to cooperate in ... [Mr.] Trump’s immigration crackdown. He also suggested that the indictment, which was handed up in September, threatened to interfere with the June 2025 mayoral primary, despite the nine-month interval between the two events. Mr. Bove explicitly said that the Justice Department had made its decision without assessing the strength of the evidence against Mr. Adams or the legal theories undergirding the case. Instead, his letter criticized the U.S. attorney who brought it and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He offered expressly political arguments for dropping the charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery, asserting the urgency of Mr. Trump’s immigration objectives....

“The letter was a remarkable intervention in a high-profile public corruption prosecution, one that cast the independence of federal prosecutors into doubt given the way Mr. Adams has curried favor with Mr. Trump. Mr. Bove directed that the charges against Mr. Adams be dismissed without prejudice, suggesting that the case could be revived if merited — or if it pleased the president.” CNN's report is here.

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$ calls this "nominally bipartisan corruption." MB: As I asserted above, Trump doesn't hate Democrats; he hates honest ones. He likes crooks. ~~~

     ~~~ Jeff Coltin, et al., of Politico: “The move [to dismiss the case] must pass muster with Judge Dale Ho. And as Politico previously reported, how much power the jurist has to push back on prosecutors’ request to drop the case is an open question. While some legal experts said Ho’s hands are tied, others believe he could outright refuse. 'The “leave of court” requirement exists precisely to guard against the dubious, perhaps corrupt, dismissal of cases against powerful and well-connected defendants,' said Thomas Frampton, ... of University of Virginia [Law].”

Wisconsin. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: A young Wisconsin man died of an asthma attack when his pharmacist told him his insurer would no longer cover the cost of his inhalers, so he'd have to pay $539 for a three-months supply instead of the $67 he'd been paying. His parents are suing both the insurer -- a subsidiary of United Health Group -- and the pharmacy -- Walgreen's -- for not informing the man of alternative medicines the insurer would cover. MB: They really don't care, do they? That Walgreen's pharmacy sounds just as good as my CVS. P.S. Stick an "alleged" in front of all this. (Also linked yesterday.)

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Israel's Wars. Lara Jakes, et al., of the New York Times: “Hamas has indefinitely postponed the release of Israeli hostages who were set to be freed from the Gaza Strip this weekend, a spokesman said on Monday, accusing Israel’s government of violating an already fragile cease-fire agreement. The move threatens to derail both the six-week truce agreed to last month and the prospects for agreement on a lasting end to the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was consulting with his top advisers on Monday night, and planned to move up a scheduled meeting with his security cabinet to Tuesday morning, a top official said. Hours later..., [Donald] Trump issued an ultimatum to Hamas on Monday evening, saying that if all Israeli hostages were not released from Gaza by 12 o’clock on Saturday, then the cease-fire agreement with Israel should be canceled and 'all hell is going to break out.'”

The Conversation -- February 10, 2025

Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Monday said the White House has defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate. The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered Trump administration officials to comply with what he called 'the plain text' of an edict he issued last month. Judge McConnell’s ruling marked a step toward what could quickly evolve into a high-stakes showdown between the executive and judicial branches, a day after a social media post by Vice President JD Vance claimed that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” elevating the chance that the White House could provoke a constitutional crisis.... 

“On Friday, 22 Democratic attorneys general went to Judge McConnell to accuse the White House of failing to comply with his earlier order. The Justice Department responded in a filing on Sunday that money for clean energy projects as well as transportation infrastructure allocated to states by the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill was exempt from the initial order, because it had been paused under a different memo than the one that prompted the lawsuit. Judge McConnell’s ruling on Monday explicitly rejected that argument.”

Andy Borowitz of the Borowitz Report: “"Donald J. Trump tightened his grip on the American arts scene on Monday by naming himself principal ballerina of the Kennedy Center Ballet. Announcing a purge of the company’s ballerinas, Trump declared on Truth Social, 'I will soon be announcing a new roster of ballerinas, with an amazing principal ballerina, DONALD J. TRUMP.' He said he was 'disgusted' to discover that all of the company’s current ballerinas were women, a state of affairs that he blamed on DEI.” See also Akhilleus' commentary in today's thread.

Claire Moses & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said the nearly two million Palestinians that he wants to displace from the Gaza Strip would not be allowed to return to the territory under his hypothetical plan to rebuild it. In a clip from a Fox News interview scheduled to air on Monday, Mr. Trump elaborated on his recent proposal for an American-led takeover of Gaza. Asked if Palestinians who would be removed from the territory while it is cleared would have the right to eventually return to their homeland, he said: 'No, they wouldn’t. Because they’re going to have much better housing — in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them.'”

Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Four young staffers working under Elon Musk gained access to highly sensitive personal data held by a consumer protection agency before shutting it down. White House budget director Russell Vought ordered wider access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau materials by staffers working for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency over the weekend before agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez ordered all its employees to stay home for the week, reported Bloomberg News.... 'Just nine days before his DOGE team visited CFPB, Musk’s X ... announced that it had struck a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments,' Bloomberg reported. 'Musk has publicly mused about expanding into payment-services since he first took control of X in 2022. Entering that business could bring CFPB oversight under rules the agency finalized in November. The records DOGE can now access would include sensitive and potentially competitive information.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Nothing to see here, people. Musk is self-policing."

Hurubie Meko of the New York Times: “Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp. The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and 'special government employees' access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful. Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.”

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse. 'We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,' [Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley] said on Friday. 'There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.' His ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views.” Other law professors Liptak cites agree. And Liptak reminds us, “Mr. Trump has already disregarded one Supreme Court decision, its ruling last month upholding a federal law, passed by lopsided bipartisan majorities, requiring TikTok to be sold or banned.” ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic: “The United States is sleepwalking into a constitutional crisis. Not only has the Trump administration seized for itself extraconstitutional powers, but yesterday, it raised the specter that, should the courts apply the text of the Constitution and negate its plans, it will simply ignore them.... What makes ... [Trump's demands to ignore Constitutional Congressional prerogatives] so astonishing is that Trump could persuade Congress, which he commands in personality-cult style, to follow his demands. Republicans presently control both houses of Congress, and any agency that Congress established, it can also cut or eliminate. Yet Trump refuses to even try to pass his plan democratically. And ... he is now threatening to ignore [courts,] too.... Given his party’s near-total acquiescence in every previous step toward authoritarianism, perhaps Trump would not have to be crazy to take the next one.... The crisis lies not in the structure of government so much as in the character of the party that runs it, which refuses to accept the idea that its defeat is ever legitimate or that its power has any limits.” Thank you to laura h. for this gift link. ~~~

~~~ Marie: Because Trump is at least going through the motions of addressing court orders, I suppose we still are in the "constitutional crisis" mode. But we're awfully close to an autogolpe or self-coup, and we are slouching toward Masada primarily because Congressional Republicans are willing to jump off a cliff when Trump says "jump." It is one thing that many of them agree with Trump's cruel & harmful policies. But it is quite another to let him get away with setting the policies unilaterally. Members of Congress have a right, I guess, to be stupid, but they have a Constitutional duty, which they have abrogated, to stand up to the president* when he usurps their Constitutional powers. Update: Here's someone who sees the handwriting on the wall: ~~~

     ~~~ Lisa Needham of Public Notice: "While Trump and his henchmen deconstruct the administrative state, his lawyers are embracing the logic of dictatorship. The core argument emerging in their legal filings and executive orders — one without support anywhere in the Constitution or the law — is that simply by being elected, Trump has the power to do whatever he wants.... When executive orders are challenged in court, government attorneys typically point to the underlying laws that give the president the authority to issue the order. Trump seems to have dispensed with that requirement, however.... The administration's stance appears to literally be that federal laws are irrelevant in the face of Trump’s wishes and the courts can’t stop him. If Congress and the judiciary no longer check or balance the executive branch, no separation of powers is left.... That’s tearing democracy down to the studs and rebuilding something entirely different and much worse in its place.... This sounds a lot like dictatorship, and a despotic one at that."

Dean Obeidallah on Substack: “If you just watched corporate news..., you would think Donald Trump is all powerful, all knowing and 'all' just about everything. They are breathlessly covering Trump wall to wall and by doing so are by design trying to make him appear omnipotent, that 'resistance is futile' and that he is winning in ways never seen before. Why? Simple, the corporate media executives want the tax cuts, less regulations and freedom to merge their companies as Trump has promised them. But back in the real world, not only are we finally seeing organized resistance by a growing number of Democratic leaders, we are also seeing Trump losing over and over in the courts this week—with even a Trump appointed judge ruling against him. Those standing up to Trump deserve far more coverage than the corrupt corporate media is providing them.” Obeidallah highlights Democratic members of Congress, grassroots organizations, judges & the people and organizations who are bringing suits against the Trump administration. Thanks to RAS for the link. MB: Obeidallah's assessment of the media coverage could explain why the majority of Americans think Trump is doing a great job (CBS poll linked below).~~~

~~~ Steve M. has some more suggestions as to steps that can be taken to stop/ridicule/diminish Trump, Musk & do-nothing Congressional Republicans. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

~~~ Also from Steve M.: Plutocrats to the Rescue! "I suspect that the people with the most power to stop Trump are the plutocrats.... They thought electing a Republican president would let them pursue unlimited mergers and other deals, but that's not the case[.]... Right now, the markets are shrugging all this off. But the plutocrats are probably the only people who scare Trump, and they don't seem happy. Their disgruntlement, and the disgruntlement of ordinary consumers, might be the only thing that can save us if all the other guardrails are gone."

Daniel Wu, et al., of the Washington Post: “Farmers report missing millions of dollars of funding they were promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, despite promises from the Trump administration that a federal funding freeze would not apply to projects directly benefiting individuals. On his first day in office..., Donald Trump ordered the USDA to freeze funds for several programs designated by President Joe Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.... Farmers who signed contracts with the USDA under those programs paid up front to build fencing, plant new crops and install renewable energy systems with guarantees that the federal government would issue grants and loan guarantees to cover at least part of their costs. Now, with that money frozen, they’re on the hook.... The USDA has also halted funding for other programs, including scientific research grants in agriculture and producing climate-smart crops.... [This is] another blow to farmers who are also facing threats of tariffs and freezes to foreign-aid spending that involved food purchased from American producers.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I reckon quite a few of these farmers are Trump voters. But, hey, if Trump isn't going to run for re-election he doesn't need them anymore, does he? I guess he'd just call them suckers & losers if he ever thought for one second about stiffing them.

Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: A young Wisconsin man died of an asthma attack when his pharmacist told him his insurer would no longer cover the cost of his inhalers, so he'd have to pay $539 for a three-months supply instead of the $67 he'd been paying. His parents are suing both the insurer -- a subsidiary of United Health Group -- and the pharmacy -- Walgreen's -- for not informing the man of alternative medicines the insurer would cover. MB: They really don't care, do they? That Walgreen's pharmacy sounds just as good as my CVS. P.S. Stick an "alleged" in front of all this.

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Noah Millman, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the U.S. is in its fourth Constitutional revolution. The first was the Constitutional Convention itself, which was called to merely revise the Articles of Confederation. The second was the body of Reconstruction Amendments that followed the Civil War. The third was the New Deal that expanded the government's role in the economy and established the administrative state. But these earlier revolutions, unlike Trump's, “did not represent fundamental ruptures in the nature and balance of the Constitution that could be enacted only by violating pre-existing norms and processes.... Trump has already taken numerous steps to seize direct control of the federal bureaucracy in ways that violate norms of independence.... The central justification for all of these moves is the view that the American constitutional order has become sclerotic.” Millman calls Trump's effort “Caesarian in character” and observes that “a constitutional Caesarism is a contradiction in terms.”

David Goldman & Chris Isidore of CNN: “... Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday, said he planned on announcing a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States Monday. 'We’ll also be announcing steel tariffs on Monday,' he said, adding, 'any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25% tariff.... Aluminum, too.'... Trump also said he planned to hold a separate news conference Tuesday or Wednesday to announce massive new reciprocal tariffs, which could match other countries’ tariffs on US goods dollar-for-dollar.... He did not provide many details about how expansive the new tariffs would be or when they may go into effect. It’s not clear if the new steel and aluminum tariffs will be on top of the tariffs already in place on exports from countries like China.” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm no economist, but all other things being equal, if you raise the price of raw materials U.S. manufacturers need to make products, then those same products manufactured abroad from foreign-produced raw materials can be made and sold cheaper to U.S. customers. Let's say it costs $400 to make a stove anywhere in the world. Then the U.S. imposes tariffs on the raw material needed to make the stove, so that it costs $500 to make a stove in the U.S. But it still costs only $400 to make the stove everywhere else. So foreign manufacturers can afford to sell their $400-cost stoves to Americans for less than American manufacturers can offer their $500-cost stoves for sale.

Josh Marshall of TPM: “I suspect this will just end up being something Old Man Trump said on a plane and we won’t hear about it again.... On Air Force One today en route to the Super Bowl, Trump told reporters that DOGE analysts (whatever that means) had found 'irregularities' in U.S. treasuries and that the U.S. may not be obligated to pay some of them. 'Maybe we have less debt than we thought,' he said. Needless to say, this is quite literally violating the express language of the 14th Amendment which says: 'The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.' If financial markets actually thought Trump was serious about this, that he would follow through on this, they’d probably go completely haywire.... Trump seems to be basing this on some analysis from the DOGE boys.... Imagine thinking that by downloading a ton of data and having a few days to analyze it you could make the determination that a significant amount of the U.S. national debt wasn’t real and didn’t have to be paid. It’s ... worth noting how nuts that is.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Do note that the most favorable thing a reasonable person can say about POTUS* and his ideas is that he doesn't know what he's talking about and his remarks are so addled we -- and he -- can forget about them.

Alex Gangitano of the Hill: Donald “Trump on Sunday announced that he asked the Treasury Department to stop producing pennies, calling the one cent coin wasteful. He said in a Truth Social post that he told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to end minting the small-value coins with President Abraham Lincoln’s image on them.... The cost of making a penny was nearly 3.7 cents in Fiscal Year 2024 and the coin has cost above face value to make for 19 consecutive fiscal years, according to the U.S. Mint’s annual report. Pennies were made of copper before 1962 and are currently made majority of zinc but with copper plating. Lincoln has been on the penny since 1909 and the penny was the first coin made by the U.S. Mint, according to the Treasury Department.... Elon Musk, who has been tasked by Trump with cutting waste in the U.S., targeted the penny in a post on X last month.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump probably can't stand the idea of honoring a person popularly known as "Honest Abe" and the president who "freed the slaves." (It was actually the Thirteenth Amendment that "freed the slaves,"; Lincoln actively supported it.) Oh, and this: ~~~

     ~~~ Yan Zhuang Erica Green of the New York Times: “It is unclear whether Mr. Trump has the power to do this. It is Congress, not the Treasury or the Federal Reserve, that authorizes the manufacture of the nation’s coins, according to the U.S. Mint.... Countries around the world have eliminated their smallest-denomination coins in recent decades. In 2012, Canada stopped producing pennies, describing them as essentially a waste of time and space and arguing that the move would save millions of dollars a year. Since then, cash transactions have been rounded to the nearest nickel, after federal and provincial sales taxes are added.”

The Emperor Trump. Joe DePaolo of Mediaite: “... Donald Trump told the largest American television audience of the year that he plans to pursue the annexation of Canada as the nation’s 51st state. In an interview on the Super Bowl LIX pregame show on Fox, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Trump about recorded comments in a private meeting made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — in which Trudeau claimed the United States is serious about 'absorbing” Canada.... 'Is it a real thing?' Baier asked Trump. 'Yeah, it is,' Trump replied. [']I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state. Because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen too much. Why are we paying $200 billion a year essentially in subsidy to Canada? Now if they are a 51st state, I don’t mind doing it.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Hail, Caesar! Al Jazeera: “... Donald Trump has reiterated his controversial proposal to take control of Gaza, saying he is committed to 'buying and owning' the war-ravaged enclave. Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Gaza should be thought of as a 'big real estate site' and other countries in the Middle East could be tasked with handling its redevelopment. 'As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it; other people may do it, through our auspices,' Trump said while en route to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. 'But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site.' Trump also claimed that displaced Palestinians would prefer not to return to Gaza despite his proposal prompting backlash from Palestinian representatives and much of the international community.”

~~~ BUT perhaps what we're really seeing is an incredible, shrinking empire, courtesy of Presidents* Musk & Trump. ~~~

~~~ The Rise & Fall of the Pax Americana. Paul Krugman: "Elon Musk — with Donald Trump’s acquiescence, but clearly Musk was calling the shots — has effectively destroyed USAID, the aid agency that was, aside from its humanitarian role, a major pillar of US foreign policy. This move was clearly illegal, and a court has already put a hold on some of Musk’s actions. But it may already be too late.... By furloughing the agency’s employees, ordering those working abroad to come home and canceling crucial programs and grants, the Musk/Trump administration undermined decades’ worth of relationship-building.... USAID is just the most extreme example of how the Musk/Trump administration is sabotaging the American Empire. For yes, America is or was an imperial power, although in a different way from most past empires — less reliant on force, more reliant on good will and trust. What Musk and Trump have done is to destroy much of the basis for U.S. influence, leaving America far weaker than it was just a few weeks ago." Krugman goes on to argue how damaging Trump tariff threats are, not to mention his threats to take over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal (and now Gaza), and his failure to honor international agreements. "All of this makes us distrusted and friendless. It also makes us weak, because America needs allies even more now than it did during the Cold War."

Vance Hints at Self-Coup d'État. Charlie Savage & Minho Kim of the New York Times: “Vice President JD Vance declared on Sunday that 'judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,' delivering a warning shot to the federal judiciary in the face of court rulings that have, for now, stymied aspects of ... [Donald] Trump’s agenda. The statement, issued on social media, came as federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump administration actions from taking effect.... Mr. Vance, a 2013 graduate of Yale Law School, has repeatedly argued in recent years that presidents like Mr. Trump can and should ignore court orders that they say infringe on their rightful executive powers. While his post did not go that far, it carried greater significance given that he is now vice president. The post may also offer a window on the administration’s thinking toward the orders against it as Mr. Trump has openly violated numerous statutes.... It also raised the question of whether the administration would stop abiding by rulings if it deemed them to be illegitimately impeding his agenda....

“Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday as he went to New Orleans for the Super Bowl, Mr. Trump said the judge [who temporarily prohibited DOGE personnel from accessing the Treasury Department's payroll systems] had overreached, calling the Treasury ruling a 'disgrace.' But he appeared to be contemplating appeals, saying the court case 'had a long way to go.' Mr. Trump added: 'No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: “Over the past 24 hours, officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers.... 'A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!' said Musk.... Musk also shared a post from a user who had suggested that the Trump administration openly defy the court order.... Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller called the ruling 'an assault on the very idea of democracy itself.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Tara Suter of the Hill: “Tech billionaire Elon Musk called for the annual firing of judges following an early Saturday decision from a judge stating that the Treasury Department should bar access to its payment systems to anyone besides 'civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties.' 'I’d like to propose that the worst 1% of appointed judges, as determined by elected bodies, be fired every year. This will weed out the most corrupt and least competent,' the tech mogul said in a post on his social platform X.” MB: It's great Musk is being so reasonable. One would have thought he would demand the right to fire federal judges himself.

Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew & Janet Yellen in a New York Times op-ed: “Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that ... efforts ... to unlawfully undermine the nation’s financial commitments ... are underway today.... While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming.... A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse.... The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not.... Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default. And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.”

Stacy Cowley of the New York Times: Since 2011 when it was created, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “has clawed back $21 billion for consumers. It slashed overdraft fees, reformed the student loan servicing market, transformed mortgage lending rules and forced banks and money transmitters to compensate fraud victims.... [Donald] Trump on Friday appointed Russell Vought, who was confirmed a day earlier to lead the Office of Management and Budget, as the agency’s acting director.... Mr. Vought was an author of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for upending the federal government that called for ... abolishing the consumer bureau. In less than 36 hours, Mr. Vought threw the agency into chaos. On Saturday, he ordered the bureau’s 1,700 employees to stop nearly all their work and announced plans to cut off the agency’s funding. Then on Sunday, he closed the bureau’s headquarters for the coming week. Workers who tried to retrieve their laptops from the office were turned away, employees said.”

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “A federal judge barred the U.S. government on Sunday from sending three detained Venezuelan men to the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to a lawyer for the migrants. Lawyers for the men, who are detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in New Mexico, asked the court on Sunday evening for a temporary restraining order, opening the first legal front against the Trump administration’s new policy of sending undocumented migrants to Guantánamo. Within an hour of the filing, which came at the start of the Super Bowl, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico, convened a hearing by videoconference and verbally granted the restraining order, said Baher Azmy ... of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is helping represent the migrants.”

Marie: This next story is more shocking than you might think and possibly more dangerous that anybody knows: ~~~

~~~ Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information: "Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a 'Big Delete' of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including 'privilege,' 'bias,' and 'inclusion.' The 'Big Delete,' according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences. Although the websites and other content are purportedly being deleted to comply with ... [Donald] Trump's executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or 'DEI,' the dragnet is taking down 'mission-related' work.... The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI.... The NSA is trying to identify mission-related sites before the "Big Delete" is executed but appears to lack the personnel to do so."~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As we already know, Trump's executive order makes these kinds of deletions a problem all across the federal government. Legum & Crosby note that "An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages “found 662 examples of deletions and additions” since Trump took office." Now, take a look at Akhilleus' commentary below. Akhilleus was responding to several comments in yesterday's thread about films and other art forms that address Nazism and totalitarianism. Then look at those videos (you don't have to watch the whole videos) in the right-hand column about the origins of the Moonwalk. What Akhilleus' commentary and those Moonwalk videos show is that even when we think a particular film scene or dance move is original or unique, it ain't so. If there is genius, it comes in new ways to synthesizing, coordinating and adapting other peoples' ideas. And if the need to build on other peoples' work is true of brilliant artists, it is most certainly true of government bureaucrats. When ideas have been presented and tested and approved and recorded in government documents, they are available sources for new, perhaps innovative, work that may make us safer or healthier or more financially secure. If we throw out thousands of pages (of taxpayer-funded research) because the pages contain, say, the word "privilege," all that work is lost. Forever.

Marie: So all of the stories and opinion pieces linked above and over the past weeks turn out to be secret, underground information shared among only a minority of Americans. ~~~

~~~ Anthony Salvanto, et al., of CBS News: "With most describing him as 'tough,' 'energetic,' 'focused' and 'effective' — and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign —... [Donald] Trump has started his term with net positive marks from Americans overall. Many say he's doing more than they expected — and of those who say this, most like what they see.... His deportation policy finds majority approval overall — just as most voters said they wanted during the campaign — and that extends to sending troops to the border, too." Overall, 53% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing and 47% disapprove."

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