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Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 10:00
I think we can see where this is leading: “let them enforce it” Ever since Justice it was understood that the ultimate interpreter of the executive’s “legitimate power” under the Constitution (specifically Article II) was the Supreme Court. I think we’re about to see that concept contested, which has kept our system more or less stable short of civil war, in a way we’ve never seen. It could be the whole ballgame. By the way, Elon responded to that tweet: The gall.
Created
Sun, 09/02/2025 - 10:00
How ’bout them eggs, MAGA? Oh heck, look at this: The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over.  Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office.  Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.  “It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month.  Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 01:00
A counter-movement is forming A physician friend just yesterday asked me where her donations would have the most impact for stopping Musk-Trump. She was thinking of a couple of nationally known nonprofits. I didn’t have an answer but said I would try to get her one. There are likely many more of you who would send cash to fight the Muskovites if you knew best where to send it. Here are two lists of pending court cases against the Musk-Trump self-coup: Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions (Just Security)Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Executive Orders (Court Watch) But the two long lists of court cases linked above are a diverse mix of governments not set up for directed donations and private groups that may be. The name-brand nonprofits my friend mentioned are not among them. There are too many NGOs, and it’s hard to know where to focus fire. Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) spotlighted several groups involved in just one of the lawsuits launched against against the Muskovites, but also key players like Democracy Forward fighting behind the scenes: Self care is going to be important to keep from burning out.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 04:00
Just as awful as they ever were Bill Cohen at Puck surveyed some of the Masters of the Universe about Trump’s first moves and they are fine with it. Who are these jerks? One Wall Street executive, who almost went to work for Trump this time around, artfully told me that the president was simply using the Oval Office and the media as his bully pulpit, itself a form of performance art. “Bullies love to see people cower in fear,” he said. “Why be a bully if you can’t do that? So how much of this is just, ‘Justin Trudeau, I’m gonna fuck with him,’ or ‘Mexico didn’t really do shit to stop immigration, time for them to shit their pants a little bit.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 06:00
He’s a barrel of laughs He’s a real comedian: Prince Harry can breathe freely in Montecito, because President Donald Trump has ruled out deporting the self-exiled British royal. Harry’s immigration status is the subject of litigation in Washington DC, with the Heritage Foundation alleging that he may have concealed past illegal drug use that should have disqualified him from obtaining a US visa. But the president told The New York Post Friday that he isn’t interested in throwing Harry out of the country. “I don’t want to do that,” he said. “I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.” If there was ever a reason for Harry to mend fences with his family this is it. I know Ted Cruz’s ilk are fine with the president of the United States crudely insuring their wives but there’s not reason for Harry to put up with it. This is the schoolboy bully part of Trump that the right just loves which says everything about them. Look at the way they celebrated: I didn’t realize they were thinking of deporting Harry over his past drug use.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 11:30
Gabe Sherman at Vanity Fair has many contacts in Trump world. He reports on Elon Musk’s crazed rampage in detail and asks whether Trump’s on board: “Trump is the king on the chessboard and Elon is a bishop. Sometimes the bishop takes the lead,” the Republican said. Plus, it’s useful for Trump if Musk takes political heat. “Trump can let the public hate Elon and Elon doesn’t care. So then Trump can come in and save a few programs and look like the restrained one. He can be ‘Trump the Merciful King.’” But other Republicans I spoke to said Trump can’t––or won’t––challenge Musk because Trump understands Musk’s unprecedented power. Musk is reportedly worth nearly $400 billion and has more than 216 million followers on X. (Trump has less than half that follower count on X, plus an audience of 8.8 million on Truth Social.) “How can he say no to Elon?” a former Trump campaign staffer said.
Created
Sun, 09/02/2025 - 08:30
Apparently it’s now illegal for the press to cover live events that the government doesn’t want them to cover. Good to know: The Federal Communications Commission is investigating San Francisco-based KCBS for its coverage of immigration enforcement actions in San José last month, sparking concerns from press freedom advocates and drawing right-wing backlash to the radio station. In an interview on Fox News, Trump-appointed commission chair Brendan Carr said he opened the investigation after KCBS shared the live locations and vehicle descriptions of immigration officials on Jan. 26. “We have sent a letter of inquiry, a formal investigation into that matter, and they have just a matter of days left to respond to that inquiry and explain how this could possibly be consistent with their public interest obligations,” Carr said. First Amendment advocates worry the FCC investigation will have a chilling effect on news organizations reporting on the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 02:30
Pizzagate for Trump 2.0 Why Elon Musk’s 20-something vandals aren’t tagging federal buildings the way male dogs mark trees is a mystery. A major goal of the DOGE effort is to publicly demonstrate who’s in charge. Donald Trump still thinks he is. “It’s good to be the king,” said Mel Brooks as the king of France in History of the World, Part 1. Donald Trump thinks so too. He pretended to be a successful business tycoon on TV. Now he’s pretending to be king. As powerful as Trump’s job is, he’s still just the president. The question is for how long? Trump has conferred on oligarch Elon Musk authorities the presidency does not have. Plus, Trump has been too busy playing king to have figured out he’s empowered Musk to usurp the presidency while he’s out ransacking Washington, D.C. It is clear that the Muskovites are bludgeoning anything and everything they perceive as left of center. It is also clear that they have little idea how government actually works and no regard for rule-following. They approach their federal targets with the kind of conspiracy mindset that spawned Pizzagate.
Created
Mon, 10/02/2025 - 08:00
Say it ain’t so… Somebody made a killing on Trump’s memecoin scam, somebody who obviously knew it was coming. Gosh I wonder who it might be? The curious trade came a little past 9 p.m. on Jan. 17 — a $1,096,109 bet less than two minutes after the soon-to-be president of the United States posted on his social media account that his family had issued a cryptocurrency called $Trump. In those first minutes, a crypto wallet with a unique identification code beginning 6QSc2Cx secured a giant load of these new tokens — 5,971,750 of them — at the opening sale price of just 18 cents each, starting a surge in the $Trump price that would soon reach $75 per token. This early trader, whose identity is not known, walked away with a two-day profit of as much as $109 million, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times. But the fast profits for early traders, whose names are unknown but some of whom appear to be based in China, came at the expense of a far larger number of slower investors who have cumulatively suffered more than $2 billion in losses after the price of the token crashed.
Created
Sat, 08/02/2025 - 01:00
Get familiar with it and stop it The Musk-Trump administration is not looking to reduction-in-force its way to cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget. That’s a smokescreen. What they’re attempting, says Paul Krugman, is an autogolpe, a self-coup. And with “the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.” “The federal work force is no larger now than it was under Dwight Eisenhower,” writes the economist. Laying off federal workers doesn’t even put a dent in $2 trillion. So why do it? It’s an attempt to capture the government wholesale. It’s a purge. Pure and simple. Throw out the old. Indescriminately. Bring in the newer, truer believers. Even if some Trump babies get tossed out with the bathwater. Republicans have long been willing to scarifice their own so long as they believe far more on the left will die a swift political death. * Krugman writes: Musk-Trumpocracy’s illegal shutdown of USAID should be seen through this lens. Musk clearly hates the idea of helping people in need: just look at the rage he has expressed over the philanthropy of MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife.