If I were more conspiracy-minded…. If I were more conspiracy-minded, I might suspect that the people running our executive branch don’t have American interests and global stability top of mind. The Trump-Musk axis is drowning an awful lot of our government competency in the bathtub, and now in the Pentagon, at a time when 1) NATO’s confidence is shaken, 2) Russia seems poised to annex more of Ukraine, and 3) China waits for Donald Trump to pull the U.S. even farther back from the world stage and leave Taiwan easy pickings. CNN Friday morning: An executive order issued by President Donald Trump this week that seems to give him huge power to interpret the law is raising concerns among legal experts that it could dissuade military commanders from refusing unlawful orders and allow the president to exert influence over the military’s legal processes.
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Trump wants those minerals and he wants them now. He believes he will be hailed as a big hero, the prince of peace, if he obtains Ukrainian natural resources as compensation for the U.S. military support and then forces them to surrender to the murderous dictator who invaded them. He really believes that. His latest “negotiating” tactic is to issue a threat to Ukraine that if it doesn’t turn these resources over, Trump’s personal executioner will cut them off: U.S. negotiators pressing Kyiv for access to Ukraine’s critical minerals have raised the possibility of cutting the country’s access to Elon Musk’s vital Starlink satellite internet system, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Ukraine’s continued access to SpaceX-owned Starlink was brought up in discussions between U.S. and Ukrainian officials after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy turned down an initial proposal from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the sources said. Starlink provides crucial internet connectivity to war-torn Ukraine and its military. The issue was raised again on Thursday during meetings between Keith Kellogg, the U.S.
I highly recommend this piece (gift link) by Adam Serwer about the right wing crusade against DEI. It’s the best thing I’ve read on the subject and it’s profoundly distressing: The nostalgia behind the slogan “Make America great again” has always provoked the obvious questions of just when America was great, and for whom. Early in the second Trump administration, we are getting the answer. In August, speaking with someone he believed to be a sympathetic donor, one of the Project 2025 architects, Russell Vought, said that a goal of the next Trump administration would be to “get us off of multiculturalism” in America. Now Vought is running Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, and the plan to end multiculturalism is proceeding apace. Much of the chaos, lawlessness, and destruction of the past few weeks can be understood as part of the administration’s central ideological project: restoring America’s traditional hierarchies of race and gender.
I learned this morning that David L. Boren passed away. Today, I’m choosing to reflect on his impact – as OU’s President, Oklahoma’s Governor, U.S. Senator, and as a mentor and friend to many who knew him far better than I did. While our interactions were limited, it’s difficult to separate his influence on both […]
A federal prosecutor actually wrote this piece of garbage: That letter was sent around by Ed Martin the Acting DC US Attorney Trump has now nominated to be permanent based upon his lib-owning tweets and DOGE boot licking. He tweeted this two days ago: Right. Remember this? Trump pardoned all of them. “EagleEd” was also at January 6th, he raised money for the rioters and defended some of them, even going so far as to dismiss a case as acting US Atty on which he was also the defense attorney. Hypocrisy can’t begin to describe it. You should see the shrieking on twitter over some protesters with posters that say “off with their heads” and the like about Trump and Musk. Fuck ’em. Trump pardoned all those people for violently threatening the whole US Congress during a joint session of congress to stop the peaceful transfer of power. If EagleEd wants to throw people in jail for some signs at a peaceful protest I think he should try. The result will clarify our situation once and for all.
You’d think Trump would because of his family history. But no. Greg Sargent writes today about the latest atrocity at the NIH: [O]ne downsizing just started attracting notice among insiders at the National Institutes of Health, because it seems particularly inexplicable: According to people familiar with the situation, approximately one-tenth of the workers have now been let go at the NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias, or CARD, including its incoming director, a highly regarded scientist credited with important innovations in the field. What makes this particularly jarring is that it could set back efforts to treat and develop cures for these awful afflictions, as these insiders and other experts fear. But it’s also that the potential for this center to do good—and the importance of the broader cause of battling Alzheimer’s—have both been championed by Republicans.
“What can I do today?” The news out of Washington, D.C. and Europe is so insane that let’s start with someone who’s not cowed by the Musk-Trump coup: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Every day our job is to wake up and say what can I do today?” “There is no act too small.” You might want to watch that several more times. Meanwhile, Republicans in control(?) of Congress are running scared, too concerned for their political survival to dedicate any of their waking hours to saving their republic (or their European allies) from the Russian puppet sitting in the Oval Office. “Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources if a member defies him.,” Gabriel Sherman writes at Vanity Fair.
Sellouts are selling out The Lincoln Project poses, “@realDonaldTrump if you truly believe Zelensky is a dictator, then why aren’t you kissing his ass like you do all the others?” Before we get to more ass-kissing, John Harwood states what we all know: “Trump lies about every single thing” because “he’s psychologically unable to tell the truth.” It’s not even worth debunking, although photographic evidence does. “We are one news cycle away from Trump giving military aid to Russia,” the Lincoln Project also posted on Wednesday, presumably not in all seriousness. But who can say with the speed at which King Donald is climbing into Vladimir Putin’s pants? Trump is selling out Ukraine, NATO, and now, not unexpectedly, the United Nations: Here’s the Reuters blurb: LONDON/GENEVA/BERLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. is refusing to co-sponsor a draft U.N.
Over here: The last day has been the worst polling day for Trump during his entire 2nd term. -4 polls show his net approval rating underwater like The Little Mermaid. -The 3 polls with a trend line show his ratings going down. -His one time strength (the economy) is now a weakness. pic.twitter.com/l9IQOhXS9K — (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) February 20, 2025 Meanwhile: He is completely out of it:
Fox News host Jesse Watters made an on-air plea that the Trump administration be “less callous” when implementing when laying off federal employees after a military veteran friend was “DOGE’d” in Elon Musk’s Pentagon cuts. A report on Wednesday revealed that the Pentagon had provided the Trump administration with a list of probationary employees who could be targeted in the next wave of federal workforce reductions. Watters took to the air on The Five to raise the case of his friend, a veteran of 20 years, who was months into a new role at the Pentagon and still under probation but discovered this week that his job was set to be terminated as part of DOGE’s initiatives. “Let me tell you a story about Chris. Chris was a guy I met at a shooting event in New Jersey,” Watters began…. a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Military, one of the guys who has killed a lot of bad guys. Put his life on the line. He punched out after 20 years of working for the Pentagon.