The DOGE has found something really great for Donald Trump Hard at work this weekend Donald Trump was on Air force One en route from Mar-a-Lago to the Super Bowl Trump dropped another wild, radical idea. He told reporters that DOGE had found “irregularities” in US Treasuries which means there may be do obligation to pay them. He said, “maybe we have less debt than we thought.” Are the Wall St boys ok with Trump saying that the teenage DOGEboys have found some “irregularities” in US treasuries and the US may not have to pay them. Maybe we have less debt than we thought,” he said. That’s completely daft but it’s predictable that Trump’s desperately looking for a shortcut to cutting the deficit.
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Come on Dems, get this done. When you think about what the Republicans are doing down in North Carolina and, really, all over the country there is no excuse not to do it. They would do it to you in a heartbeat: New York Democrats are poised to delay until November the special election to fill Rep. Elise Stefanik’s House seat — a move that would deny House Republicans a crucial vote in the closely divided chamber. State lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill that would allow Gov. Kathy Hochul to schedule special elections under some circumstances until the November general election. The Democratic-led Legislature is expected to approve the bill Monday, touching off a bitter feud with New York Republicans in a hyper partisan era. President Donald Trump tapped Stefanik to become the United Nations ambassador. Top Albany Democrats are framing the proposal — which follows consultations between state lawmakers and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ office — as a way to save money for local governments.
Not monarchists Arshad Hasan from Democracy for America’s Campaign Academy (back in the day) told us straight away: You are not normal. Normal people do not spend their weekends learning to run political campaigns. Let me extend that: If you read this blog, you are not normal either. Since these are abnormal times, you are in the right place. The lesson Arshad meant to convey was not to talk to normal people like you do to other political geeks. They don’t get worked up by things like, say, a constitutional crisis. Too removed from work, kids and shopping. Not even the collapse of the republic breaks through until tanks are blocking the streets or social security checks stop coming. But for us, the crisis is here. In the course of moving fast and breaking things, Musk-Trump is headed to court(s) over its actions since January 20. At issue is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will sign off on executive overreach (so John Roberts can avoid being ignored) or defy King Donald and actually be ignored. “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley tells The New York Times.
It’s come to this Google tried to sanewash its map changes: In a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Google said it would be complying with the name change as part of a long-standing practice of adhering to official government names. The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the body of water and the federal Board on Geographic Names formally changing it Monday. “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said. But Google made deletions to its Calendar application as well. Among others, Black History Month is gone: “Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” the spokesperson added.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.