The blackmail is though The addled, dementia patient in the White House is misinformed, as usual, Nieman Lab unpacked the “scandal.” Is your brain hurting, just from reading that? If Politico was, in fact, being bribed in exchange for slanted coverage, that would be noteworthy. It is, of course, not. Some of MAGA’s biggest brains seem to have noticed that several million federal dollars went to Politico and assumed that they came from a “Bribery—Media Fellow Travelers” line item in the budget. Instead, the money comes from federal offices buying subscriptions to Politico’s bureaucracy-focused Pro products. Government offices (and even Republican political campaigns!) have paid for news subscriptions for literal centuries. By the Trumpist line of logic, whenever a government department buys some desks or office chairs, it’s actually bribing Ikea to twist its Lagkapten and Grönfjäll into supporting DEI.
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Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: "The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn't that easy to do. But I opened it up and it's pouring… pic.twitter.com/UcHiv8uZRe — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2025 Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: “The water comes down from the northwest parts of Canada, I guess, but the Pacific Northwest. And it comes down by millions and millions of barrels a day and uh, I opened it up. It wasn’t that easy to do. But I opened it up and it’s pouring down.” It’s actually raining right now so I guess he’s turned the valve on and pointed it up at the sky? Where are the farmers whose water has been wasted and which they’ll need next summer? Well… Agriculture is a form of legalized gambling here in California, our land is prone to deluge or drought. Our farmers, relentlessly adapting, are as innovative as any set of suits in Silicon Valley, learning new ways to grow more food with less water.
The Dems are getting focused: Armed with new polling showing Musk’s popularity in the toilet, key Democratic leaders are going after the top adviser to President Donald Trump who is dismantling the federal government. They are attempting to subpoena him and introducing legislation to block him from receiving federal contracts while he holds a “special” role leading Trump’s cost-cutting crusade… “If you oppose Donald Trump, making Elon Musk the face of his administration is the smart way to go,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “Where the rubber really hits the road on all of this is for people who are inclined to be supportive of Donald Trump and they, for whatever reason, think Donald Trump is on their side. But many of them have a different view of Elon Musk.” […] New internal polling, conducted on behalf of House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership, found Musk is viewed negatively among 1,000 registered voters in battleground districts. Just 43 percent approve of him and 51 percent view him unfavorably.
He’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Musk Industries “Calling Musk the ‘shadow president’ may be underselling the severity of the situation,” writes Amanda Marcotte this morning at Salon. Indeed. Elon Musk and his youthfoul band of arsonists are gleefully burning every agency in Washington they can force their way into. It’s a hostile takeover of the United States happening in full view of the world. It’s also happening in full view of Democrats down the street just now waking up and smelling the accelerants. Donald is in the Oval Office sharpie-signing whatever executive orders underlings drafted for him to sign and show off for the cameras like a child’s finger-painting. Donald loves signing things. (Except checks to porn stars.) Does he know what’s in them or is he too far into deepening dementia to care? But while Donald is busily sharpie-signing, Elon Musk, another overaged adolescent, is running about unsupervised. It seems the White House doesn’t really know what he’s doing with the government Trump was elected to run into the ground.
This is because journalists have discovered the names of the young boys who are now running roughshod over the US government at Elon Musk’s behest. Wired revealed the name of one last night who appears to have been given way beyond “read only” ability and he’s changing code. Josh Marshall has more on that today: I’m told that Elez and possibly other DOGE operatives received full admin-level access on Friday, January 31st. The claim of “read only” access was either false from the start or later fell through. The DOGE team, which appears to be mainly or only Elez for the purposes of this project, has already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system. They have not locked out the existing programmer/engineering staff but have rather leaned on them for assistance, which the staff appear to have painedly provided hoping to prevent as much damage as possible — “damage” in the sense not of preventing the intended changes but avoiding crashes or a system-wide breakdown caused by rapidly pushing new code into production with a limited knowledge of the system and its dependencies across the federal government.
I thought they’d have to take some time to build the facilities but the Gitmo plan is already in process. As tents went up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold migrants, attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon were still trying to determine whether it was legal to take the unprecedented step of flying migrants from the US southern border to the facility, according to two US officials and a person familiar with the planning. On Tuesday, a military flight carrying migrants was headed to Guantanamo Bay, according to one of the officials. It was carrying around 10 migrants with criminal records, according to a Homeland Security official. […] The source familiar with the plan said questions like how long the migrants can legally be held there, and what their rights would be while detained, are still unanswered. It is also unclear whether the migrants will have any access to legal or social services while detained at the base. Senior Trump officials have continued to tout the plan, casting it as a facility designed for criminals. I don’t think laws really apply anymore, do they? It could get even worse than Gitmo: U.S.
Notus Asked GOP Senators about President Musk and his wrecking crew. They’re more than fine with it: “He’s doing exactly what he should be doing,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott said Monday night. “He’s going through every agency and looking at how to make sure the money’s spent right.” Wait, isn’t that explicitly the role of Congress? “It doesn’t look like Congress is doing their job,” Scott answered simply. And sure, there may be a little bit of Constitutional hanky-panky but it’s really no biggie: North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, even acknowledged that what Musk is doing is unconstitutional — but “nobody should bellyache about that.” “That runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense,” Tillis said.
Depending on the breaks A bit over six months ago, President Biden’s June 27 debate with Donald Trump went badly for him. Embarrassingly badly. He looked old, frail. He lost his train of thought. How long had his staff been covering for him? Everyone wanted to know. It was its own mini scandal and led to Biden dropping out of the race a few weeks later. The country elected Donald Trump instead in November. Then Trump on Tuesday declared in a press conference that the United States would ethnically cleanse 1.8 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, take “a long-term ownership position” there, and develop the beachfront into a series of Trump-branded resorts. (Trump’s ownership stake was implied.) “Everybody I’ve spoken to [inside his demented head] loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land” and developing it, Trump told a roomful of reporters. It would create thousands of new jobs and be “magnificent,” Trump continued.
Survival tips for Trump 2.0 “Hard not to feel like we’re all losing our minds when it’s just plain as day that what Musk is doing is obviously, flagrantly illegal,” writes Chris Hayes on Threads. So, self care is going to be important especially for the near future. There’s a lot to take in. Others have already tuned out. But I have enough Irish on both sides that my attitude comes from the old joke, “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?” Tuning out is not an option. That way lies helplessness, and I loathe feeling helpless. Action is the antidote. Europeans accustomed to taking advice from the U.S. have some for their American friends facing an authoritarian regime. Watch for all those little changes that amount to big changes: “I never liked the metaphor of the frog in a slowly boiling water, but it applies very well to our situation,” Srđan Cvijić at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy said. “One decision at a time, our regime has stripped Serbia of its democratic system. It didn’t come overnight.
The freeze is still on, at least in some places. Republicans have learned that the courts have no power to top anything, not even a blatantly criminal president who stole classified documents and refused to give them back. So issuing a “restraining order” is a nice symbolic act but I’m not sure anyone thinks it means much anymore. Once you take a wrecking ball to every norm and law in the country you end up standing on the courthouse steps saying “Yeah? You and what army?” and the whole thing falls apart. One week after the Trump administration ordered a pause on federal grants and loans, many Head Start programs in Wisconsin are still unable to access needed funds and are facing uncertainty about whether they can stay open. While the White House publicly rescinded the memo announcing the freeze, nonprofit organizations around the state are reporting they remain locked out of the payment systems that they use to pay staff and keep operations running.