Use it now. Before you lose it. “Repetition is really important. And so is repetition” is a message to take to heart. You will be seeing more of it here in coming months. Like this example from Friday: A commentator the other day said that there are only two guardrails left against Musk-Trump’s predations, meaning Congress and the courts. He was wrong. There is a third: Americans in the streets. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance offers some analysis on the status of the many of court cases filed to slow Musk-Trump’s rolling coup. It’s just that right now what we have are a series of temporary restraining orders (TROs) Musk-Trump will resist, ignore, and surely appeal, as is Trump’s wont. “There are limits to how much the courts can or will do, even at the TRO stage,” Vance cautions before confirming what I wrote on Friday: That’s not to say I don’t have confidence in the courts, because I do, and I think some progress will be made there, although as we know far too well, it may be very slow. But the courts aren’t the calvary. We are. We have to be in this fight for ourselves. We can’t get complacent.
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Do Democrats even have “game”? A few “Democrats concede they are losing an asymmetrical battle with the president and his MAGA allies,” Politico reports. But there is no agreement on how to mount an effective, attention-getting rapid-response: “Republicans are running circles around Democrats for how to connect to the culture today,” said John Della Volpe, director of Harvard University’s youth poll and an expert on Gen Z. “People are still asking me in these post-election meetings, ‘Who is Theo Von?’ Even if they had the best message, you can’t connect if you’re not part of modern American culture, if you’re not injecting yourself into these spaces where people already are.” It’s not just the leadership’s overdependence on traditional media, although that’s part of it. A majority of “swing voters” identified by Navigator Research got their political news “primarily from social media and alternative sources, like podcasts,” while Kamala Harris voters relied on broadcast TV. The GOP is winning the fight for attention.
Seeing Pete Hegseth running around in Europe like he’s a serious person is hard to take but we have to put up with him. His pronouncements about NATO and Ukraine are pretty shocking but they come directly from Trump so you can’t really blame him. Reporter Josh Rogin had a good analysis on CNN of Trump’s “deal making” yesterday that I think is interesting: The problem is that that creates a series of events that‘s now going to unfold that could have drastic and negative consequences for both Ukraine and the U.S., not to mention Europe. And what I mean by that is that the way that they‘re setting up this negotiation by dealing with Putin first and Zelenskyy second, and trying to negotiate away Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian aspirations without talking to the Ukrainians, in my view, is destined to fail.
He’s not drunk, but still “bulletproof” Some people still in federal employ will have no part of Donald Trump corrupting the functions of American justice (The New York Times): Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams. To review, the BBC recounts, “Adams is alleged to have accepted gifts totalling more than $100,000 (£75,000) from Turkish citizens in exchange for favours, such as waiving safety regulations at the Turkish consulate in the city. He denies the charges.” Back to the Times: Then, when Justice Department officials transferred the case to the public integrity section in Washington, which oversees corruption prosecutions, the two men who led that unit also resigned, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. Several hours later, three other lawyers in the unit also resigned, according to people familiar with the developments.
Donald Trump: And your point is? It’s not unlike the plot of that Die Hard movie where thieves keep police busy hunting for a bomb in a school while the they rob a federal gold depository. The Musk-Trump cabal has simply started firing federal law enforcement and robbing banks. Both robberies take place in New York City. Forbes: New York City officials alleged Wednesday the Federal Emergency Management Agency revoked $80 million in grants from the city’s accounts amid a feud with the Trump administration over the city’s use of federal funds to house migrants—a move the city’s comptroller called “illegal” and “highway robbery.” “Revoked” is a polite term for “stole.” Associated Press: Gone is a $59 million grant that the administration challenged earlier in the week and another award for $21.5 million, City Comptroller Brad Lander said. The money was discovered to be missing overnight, and Lander said no one in his office had been aware that the federal government had access to the city’s bank account. Lander is a candidate for mayor.
Sabotaging the government came later
Trump’s executive orders, Musk’s power grabs, dismantling institutions faster than anyone can track, attacking science, knowledge and international cooperative bodies and allies are all part of the authoritarian playbook. I’ve also grouped the actions in a table to illustrate this. 2 books (How Democracies die, The Road to Unfreedom) highlight key steps to erode democracy:Undermine independent institutionsWeaken the oppositionDismantle social protectionsRetreat from international alliancesWeaponise nationalismUndermine scienceUndermine free elections (inc misinfo) ** Almost all of the actions Trump has taken over the last three weeks map directly onto those steps. ** This is from Prof Christina Pagel, @chrischirp.bsky.social. More here. It’s pretty amazing to see it laid out like this isn’t it?
They’re continuously talking about “common sense” as they destroy the US Government. They have no sense, common or otherwise.
Remember that story from a couple of weeks ago about all the Big Money Boyz celebrating that mainly Trump and the boys were back and they could treat people like shit in the workplace again. They might have to re-think that a little bit in the not too distance future. Their business is still business. Here come the leopards: It took less than a month for the second Trump administration to cool the enthusiasm of chief executives and dealmakers. Consumer sentiment is down and inflation expectations are rising, driven in part by worries about the impact of a threatened trade war. The deals market just ended its quietest January in a decade. A Justice Department that was expected to wave through acquisitions instead sued to block a big technology merger. Corporate bigwigs are now using phrases like “fragility,” “volatility” and “wait and see” to describe their outlooks. “Nobody knows what’s up,” Nick Pinchuk, chief executive of toolmaker Snap-on, said on a conference call Thursday. “It’s like being on Space Mountain at Disney World.
This is a Trump voter who works for the US government. Apparently, she didn’t think Trump would actually do what Project 2025 said they planned to do because Dear Leader lied to them and said he had nothing to do with it: We voted for border security. We didn’t vote for my husband to lose his government career and benefits for which he has worked so hard.” “This possibility is looming over countless families right now. We don’t know what our financial future holds. My husband dedicated the better part of his life to this country, first in the military and now working for the government. I have watched as he busted his ass every single day for this job. Our story is like many others, yet they [the Trump Administration] see them as budget line items. We are not a fucking line item. We are real people with families who need to put food on the table just like everyone else. We have done nothing but support this country. To be disregarded and tossed out to save a buck is sickening. I support Trump on many things, but I won’t support him on this.