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.
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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.
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.
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.
And yours Raw Story: Adding to reports that billionaire Elon Musk is making the lives of Donald Trump’s inner circle a living hell with his freelancing, Wired’s Jake Lahut reported on MSNBC that some are looking to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to step in and right the ship. That would be the same Susie Wiles who, when her boss spoke this week of the U.S. ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip to occupy and develop the prime beachfront property, looked like this: Lahut spoke with MSNBC’s “Way Too Early” this morning on the tensions Elon Musk’s Agents of DOGE are generating inside the White House. By the kids the South Africa-born boy genius enlisted to take a wrecking ball to the federal government — like 19-year-old hacker “Big Balls” and the racist-eugenecist Marko Elez — Musk means to wreak as much havoc as he can without considering or caring about the consequences for others. Much like the Narcissist-in-Chief who’s letting him trash federal personnel and policy infrastructure unsupervised. This is the plot of a Superman movie.
While President Trump flamboyantly signs executive orders banning little trans girls from playing softball and celebrating his delusional order to have the Army Corps of Engineers dump millions of gallons of water in a California flood plain, his man-Friday Elon Musk and his teen-age cyberpunk gang have taken a sledgehammer to the federal government. Systematically infiltrating one agency after another (the latest being the Social Security Administration!) they are fulfilling the Project 2025 blueprint to smash everything they come in contact with. It’s only been two and a half weeks and they’ve already accessed the Treasury Department and are fooling around with the computer system that pays America’s bills, they’ve destroyed the Office of Personnel Management and USAID and are now working on Medicare and Medicaid,the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Education. There are surely more on the menu that just haven’t come to light yet.
The word “Orwellian” is overused but this is actually Orwellian. 404 Media reports: While responding to the most damaging wildfires in the history of California, FEMA employees received an order “for immediate compliance” this week that states they must immediately change their vocabulary to comply with the Trump Administration’s preferred terminology on gender and immigration. For example, FEMA employees are no longer allowed to call undocumented immigrants “migrants” or “undocumented individuals,” they must instead call them “undocumented aliens or illegal aliens.” FEMA can no longer refer to the idea of “integration,” it must begin to say “assimilation.” The subject line of the email was “For Immediate Compliance.” “While the chart presents examples of terminology that should be replaced, it should not be considered to be comprehensive, particularly in the immigration space. Please consult your program counsel for additional language if you are unsure,” the email says. It’s happening all over the government.
Surprise! Now why do you think they’d do that? On Wednesday evening, one day into her tenure as U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi announced the end of the Kleptocracy Initiative, launched by the Justice Department in 2010 to battle high-level corruption worldwide and return ill-gotten funds to victims of financial crimes. The former Florida attorney general and legal counsel to President Trump during his first impeachment trial, who spent the last several years as a corporate lobbyist, also closed the KleptoCapture task force, created under AG Merrick Garland in 2022 to target Russian oligarchs violating U.S. economic sanctions imposed because of Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine. Through the initiative, the DOJ has prosecuted frauds worth billions, recovering embezzled funds and seizing assets like megayachts and luxury condos.
Tax cuts, what else? Yesterday Trump unveiled his priorities for his tax bill. Everyone needs to understand what’s going on here. It’s a massive tax giveaway to the rich and powerful, financed by deadly cuts to programs like Medicare and the ACA that help regular people. I explain it here — Chris Murphy Yesterday Trump unveiled his priorities for his tax bill. Everyone needs to understand what's going on here. It's a massive tax giveaway to the rich and powerful, financed by deadly cuts to programs like Medicare and the ACA that help regular people. I explain it here. pic.twitter.com/DmZ5undJF0 — Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 7, 2025 This is why they need to eradicate as much government spending as they can. Musk and the boys need their tax cuts and Trump wants to deliver on his promises: Obviously, this is just a wingnuts wet dream. But you can bet that the tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations will go through on a party line vote no matter what. They always do. The big question is how much they’re going to take out of the hides of the rest of us to make it happen.
The Oregon Zoo has an adorable new baby: The long wait is over. After more than 20 months of pregnancy, Rose-Tu, a 30-year-old Asian elephant at the Oregon Zoo, gave birth at 4:29 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Staff are keeping their distance to give the pair time to bond, but the calf appears to be a healthy, strong female, weighing in the vicinity of 200 pounds. “We couldn’t be happier with how everything is going so far,” said Steve Lefave, who oversees the zoo’s elephant program. “This was one of the smoothest births I’ve ever seen. Rose knew just what to do. She helped her baby up right away. The kid was standing on her own within 15 minutes and took her first steps soon after that.” Zoo staff had been on baby watch since Jan. 29, when Rose-Tu’s progesterone levels dropped to near zero, indicating labor should begin soon. Rose experienced early labor throughout the day on Feb. 1 and began showing signs of active labor a little after 3 p.m. Veterinary staff have yet to conduct their first check-up, but once Rose and her calf are ready, they’ll weigh the baby and confirm its sex.