May Day 2025
The RFKJ Anti-Vax Story Just Got Worse. Christina Jewett & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced plans to require all new vaccines to be tested against placebos and to develop new vaccines without using mRNA technology, moves that extend his reach deep into vaccine development and raise questions about whether Covid boosters will be available in the fall. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services called the requirement for placebo testing 'a radical departure' from existing standards. But that will depend on how the department defines 'new,' because most new vaccines are already tested either against placebos -- inert substances -- or, in some cases, against vaccines for other diseases. Mr. Kennedy is one of the nation's leading vaccine skeptics[*], and he has been vocal about his disdain for mRNA technology, which was used to develop coronavirus vaccines during the first Trump administration. He once wrote on social media that 'mRNA jabs don't stop infection, don't block transmission, don't block mutants, don't last, don't work at all.'... Mr. Kennedy's announcements on Thursday represent an extraordinary use of his power as secretary to make decisions ordinarily left to career scientists at the F.D.A." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Kennedy is not a vaccine "skeptic"; he's a vaccine denier or anti-vaxxer. And he's something I didn't know: he's also a germ denier. ~~~
~~~ He Thinks He's Got the Vapors. Beth Mole of Ars Technica: "Kennedy's thoughts and actions make a lot more sense when you realize he doesn't believe in a foundational scientific principle: germ theory.... Germ theory is, of course, the 19th-century proven idea that microscopic germs -- pathogenic viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi -- cause disease. It supplanted the leading explanation of disease at the time, the miasma theory, which suggests that diseases are caused by miasma, that is, noxious mists and vapors, or simply bad air arising from decaying matter...." In a book vilifying Dr. Anthony Fauci, Kennedy wrote a chapter touting what he thought was the miasma theory but was more like something called the "terrain" theory which hypothesizes that imbalances in the body's "terrain" (milieu intérieur) cause diseases. In the chapter, Kennedy derides germ theory "as a tool ... the pharmaceutical industry and pushy scientists use to justify selling modern medicines.... In all, the chapter provides a clear explanation of why Kennedy relentlessly attacks evidence-based medicines; vilifies the pharmaceutical industry; suggests HIV doesn't cause AIDS and antidepressants are behind mass shootings; believes that vaccines are harmful, not protective; claims 5G wireless networks cause cancer; suggests chemicals in water are changing children's gender identities; and is quick to promote supplements to prevent and treat diseases." Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Trump would like to take us back to the days before the American Civil War when we didn't have those pesky Constitutional Amendments that made Black Americans whole and granted all Americans equal rights. Trump's HHS secretary would like to take us back to the days before the Civil War, because it was in the 1860s that Louis Pasteur and others began proving that diseases are caused by microscopic beasties. That said, I think the real inspiration for Trump, Kennedy, et al., is the Middle Ages; they oppose the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment, from which they believe (perhaps accurately) that the "radical left" has sprung. They prefer to go back to the days when their "feelings" are determinative, and rational, scientific thought is anathema. If you yell at them, "You can't handle the truth!" it's not a slur. It's a fact.
Adios, Muchachos! Jennifer Jacobs & Kathryn Watson of CBS News: "National security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts in the Trump White House, according to multiple sources familiar with their departure. They are expected to leave Thursday, sources say. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.... The president's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is having conversations with some of the National Security Council staff today, sources said. In March, Waltz came under scrutiny after he put together a Signal chat and mistakenly included The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, disclosing discussions with top national security officials about plans for a military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. Goldberg published his account, and he initially omitted operational details, but after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe denied any classified information had been shared on the chat, Goldberg published that information, too, which included the timing of the strikes and the weapons packages used." ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: Donald "Trump is ousting his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and another senior member of the White House's foreign policy team, the first significant personnel overhaul of top aides in his second term, according to people familiar with the situation." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is why you never want to give up your day job for a job in a Trump administration. (Waltz was a U.S. Congressman when he quit to become Trump's NSA.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Wait! Wait! The whole story is all different! Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: Donald "Trump said Thursday he is removing Mike Waltz from his role as national security adviser and in the interim replacing him with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump said he's nominating Waltz to instead serve as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. 'From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation's Interests first,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. 'I know he will do the same in his new role.' Multiple news outlets reported earlier Thursday that Trump was planning on ousting Waltz as national security adviser, just over a month after the Signal group chat security breach."
⭐Kyle Cheney of Politico: "... Donald Trump's invocation of a wartime power to summarily deport Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador was 'unlawful,' a federal judge ruled Thursday, blocking the administration from further deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The decision from U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr., a Trump appointee, is the latest sharp rebuke to one of Trump's most aggressive and high-profile efforts to quickly carry out deportations with little or no due process.... The Alien Enemies Act applies only when the country is facing an armed, organized attack, Rodriguez ruled. Trump's claims about Tren de Aragua's activities in the United States fall short of that bar, the judge added."
Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "A federal judge [-- District Court judge, Otis D. Wright II --] on Wednesday rejected a bid by the Justice Department to free a former F.B.I. informant who had pleaded guilty to lying about Hunter Biden and evading his taxes, saying that nothing about the facts of the case had changed and the man might still flee if released. The longtime informant, Alexander Smirnov, pleaded guilty in December in exchange for a six-year prison sentence, admitting that he had lied to the government when he claimed to have information about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter. Before Mr. Smirnov was charged and eventually admitted his guilt, Republican lawmakers had promoted his false claims about the Bidens in their push to try to impeach President Biden. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Smirnov's allegations were also amplified by the Trump supporter Kash Patel, who is now the director of the F.B.I. Then, in an abrupt reversal this month, the Justice Department that had sent Mr. Smirnov to prison filed court papers seeking to have him released early.... That request was filed under instructions from senior Justice Department officials in Washington, according to people familiar...."
Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "When big law firms attacked by ... [Donald] Trump decided to make a deal with him rather than fight, many did so because their leaders feared that clients would abandon a firm caught on the administration's bad side. Now that logic may be getting less compelling. A major company, Microsoft, has dropped a law firm that settled with the administration [-- Simpson Thacher --] in favor of one that is fighting it [-- Jenner & Block].... Microsoft declined to comment on why it changed law firms in a significant case last week, but the switch suggests that a firm that chose to fight the Trump administration could still attract an important client."
Trump Corruption, International Edition, Ctd. David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times: "Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business [Zach Witkoff] made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm's digital coins. That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to ... [Donald] Trump's private venture -- one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump's crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.... Witkoff ... revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the [Trump family cryptofirm World Liberty Financial], would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff's announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump's ... son [Eric], contained a conflict of interest.
"MGX's use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance -- a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws. And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to [Donald] Trump, who is listed as World Liberty's chief crypto advocate." MB: Speaking of all-in-the-family, Zach is the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump's favorite (but inexperienced) international negotiator.
There are quite a few ways -- some profound and some petty -- the Trump administration can harass a person whom Trump doesn't like. Here's a petty one: ~~~
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Chris Krebs, the former cybersecurity official in ... [Donald] Trump's first term whom the president recently targeted for investigation because he had said that the 2020 election had been conducted securely, learned this week that his membership in a program giving travelers expedited status had been revoked. Mr. Krebs received an email on Wednesday alerting him that his status in the Global Entry program had changed, prompting him to log into his account. The program, run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, lets people deemed low-risk re-enter the country faster than normal travelers."
Trump wants nice White Americans to have more babies, but he doesn't care if those babies die in their cribs: ~~~
~~~ Ismael Belkoura of Medill News Service, published by STAT: "The Trump administration has cancelled federal participation in Safe to Sleep, a 30-year campaign to prevent babies from dying in their sleep, STAT and the Medill News Service have learned. The elimination of the National Institutes of Health's role in the program, which helped slash infant deaths in the 2000s, comes at a time when sleep-related deaths among infants have increased. Sudden infant death rates were up nearly 12% between 2020 and 2022, according to the most recent data in a study published in JAMA Pediatrics." MB: I had to sign up to read the article.
New York Times Editors: "The first 100 days of President Trump's second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely the autocratic approach that this nation's founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution. Mr. Trump has the potential to do far more harm in the remainder of his term.... The patriotic response to today's threat is to oppose Mr. Trump.... Mr. Trump has attacked at least five pillars of American democracy in his first 100 days: Separation of powers.... Due process.... Equal justice under law.... Free speech and freedom of the press....Government for the people.<" It appears the Times is publishing its own editorial with a gift link.
Charlie Nash of Mediaite: "The audience ... -- comprised of Republicans, Democrats, and independents -- ... at NewsNation's town hall with ... Donald Trump burst into laughter on Wednesday after Trump said he did not believe he had made any mistakes during his first 100 days in the White House.
digby has more barfables from Trump's Cabinet meeting worship service yesterday. Thanks to RAS for the link.
Paul Krugman: "... it's important to be clear that the bad [economic] news is all on Trump's head, and we mustn't let him get away with claiming otherwise.... Most of the time presidents have much less impact on the economy than many people believe.... A president's policies usually don't have large economic effects in the first few months of their administration. But Trump's policies have been so extreme that they are already making the economy visibly worse. In particular expectations of high tariffs began distorting business decisions even before the tariffs went into effect. If you look at the GDP numbers released yesterday, you see a huge surge in imports coupled with a large surge in inventories. Both of these clearly reflected businesses 'front-running' expected tariffs, racing to buy as much from China in particular as they could before the tariffs went into effect.... We're ... already seeing signs of Trump's policies causing broad economic weakness[.]" ~~~
~~~ Bonus Krugman: In this short post Krugman also (a) knocks the NYT headline writers, (b) insists that "data: is plural, and (c) mocks Trump for "com[ing] out as a critic of consumerism and proponent of the higher, spiritual side of life."
Gosh, it turns out Musk really is proud of being the "DOGEfather." Thanks to RAS for the link.
Marcie Jones of Wonkette on some of the Homeland Security atrocities: "There've been deaths in custody, at least five that we know of since January 20.... We've got children as young as three being forced to somehow defend themselves in court, because the administration has cut funding for their legal aid. A judge ordered it be restored, but CNN reports that hasn't happened.... More things that are simply outrageous and unacceptable: the family of American citizens who had their house raided in Oklahoma.... And then there's the students, tourists, and more than 200 people who accidentally made a wrong turn in Detroit and found themselves at the Canadian border, and then detained.... In mid-February ICE stopped using body cameras.... The Justice Department has told immigration agents in a secret memo that they can bust into houses and arrest people under the Alien Enemies Act with no warrant.... 'According to sworn declarations filed in court by those detained, Border Patrol agents slashed tires, yanked people out of trucks, threw people to the ground, and called farmworkers 'Mexican bitches' [because they looked Hispanic].... It's all part of the plan for as much cruelty as possible." Thanks to RAS for the link.
You Might Be an Okie ... if you expect crazy conspiracy theories to be part of your child's high-school social studies curriculum. ~~~
~~~ Oklahoma. Education, Trump-Conspiracy Style. Judd Legum, et al., of Popular Information: "Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about ... [Donald] Trump's debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R).... In March, Walters said the purpose of this section was to teach "students to think for themselves" and 'not be spoon-fed left-wing propaganda.' According to Walters, there are 'legitimate concerns' about the integrity of the 2020 election that were 'raised by millions of Americans in 2020.'"
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The group 50501 is planning a 50-state National Day of Solidarity for today. Check 50501's site to find a protest you can join.
[The Trump administration is ] proudly lawless and anti-law.... [The danger] is that Trump is the most powerful person in the world, and he does not seem to be very good at restraining himself and he's not getting any younger. -- Prof. Akhil Reed Amar, Yale Law
IOW, Donald Trump has a dangerous amount of power for an out-of-control ignoramus who is growing more and more senile. -- Marie ~~~
~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Nearly every president has pushed the bounds of executive power to try to achieve something specific. And a handful of presidents who took office during a true national crisis, like the Civil War or the depths of the Great Depression, swiftly made a series of legally aggressive moves to grapple with the challenges facing the country. But the sheer volume and intensity of the power grab ... [Donald] Trump has undertaken in the first 100 days of his second term -- an assault on legal constraints untethered to any equivalent catastrophe -- is unlike anything the United States has experienced.... The rule of law in the United States has been traditionally understood to use checks and balances to prevent too much concentration of arbitrary executive power. But the maximalist cascade in the early days of Mr. Trump's second term is testing the fundamental structures of American democracy in a way that has never been seen before. Mr. Trump, pursuing a confrontational style of presidential politics, has unleashed an assault on counterweights to his authority: attacking judges, sidelining Congress's role in making decisions about taxes and spending, steamrolling internal limits on the executive branch and using the levers of government to try to force outside centers of power like law firms and universities to submit to his will." (Also linked yesterday.)
David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald "Trump took office 101 days ago after a campaign in which voters bought his argument that he could skillfully manage the economy and that his policy prescriptions could both bolster growth and eradicate inflation. So the news on Wednesday that the nation's gross domestic product had contracted in the first three months of the year was a sharp political jolt as well as a blinking economic warning.... [This was] Wall Street's worst performance at the start of a new presidential term since Gerald R. Ford tried to steer the country out of scandal and inflation 51 years ago.... For many of the products Americans will be paying more for -- especially Chinese-made products -- there is no American alternative. And for many more, producing them in the United States may make no sense."
Suck It Up, Kids -- McScrooge McDonald. Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald "Trump has a message for the nation's children: Prepare to sacrifice for your country. He was taking questions at the end of one of his marathon cabinet meetings when he finally allowed that, yes, his tariff policies and the trade war he has set off with China may soon result in some emptier-than-usual shelves in stores. Specifically, toy stores. 'You know, somebody said, "Oh, the shelves are going to be open,"' Mr. Trump said. 'Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.'... There he sat, surrounded by the other billionaires with whom he has filled his cabinet, telling the boys and girls of America they'll just have to make do with fewer toys this year for the greater good. This grinchy pronouncement by the president had the value of being truthful. Many American toymakers and retailers have started to pause their orders as the effects of Mr. Trump's tariffs ripple out, threatening to snarl supply chains. It could all have a big impact on this year's holiday season since it takes months to manufacture, package and ship many products to the United States." The AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: MSNBC was reporting yesterday that 90 percent of U.S. Christmas goods come from China.
Alan Rappeport, et al., of the New York Times: "The United States will share future revenues from Ukraine's mineral reserves under a deal announced by the Trump administration on Wednesday that creates a joint investment fund between the countries. The agreement comes after months of fraught negotiations as the United States tries to broker an end to Ukraine's three-year war with Russia. It is intended to give ... [Donald] Trump a personal stake in the country's fate while addressing his concerns that the United States has provided Kyiv with a blank check to try to withstand Russia's invasion.... The Trump administration did not immediately provide details about the agreement, and it was not clear what it meant for the future of American military support for Ukraine. One person familiar with the negotiations ... said the final deal does not include explicit guarantees of future U.S. security assistance.... Despite the fanfare, the deal will have little significance if fighting between Ukraine and Russia persists. But Ukraine's supporters hope the agreement might lead Mr. Trump to see the country as something more than a money pit and an obstacle to improved relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia." A CBS News story is here.
Trump Corruption, International Edition. Vivian Nereim & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The Trump Organization has agreed to a new Middle East golf course and real estate deal that involves a Qatari government-owned firm, two weeks before ... [Donald] Trump is set to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a state visit. The project in Qatar, a key U.S. ally and home to a major American military base, is a partnership with Qatari Diar, a real estate company established by the country's sovereign wealth fund and chaired by a government minister. Eric Trump, the president's son who runs the family business, traveled to the Middle East this week to attend a cryptocurrency conference and promote the company's real estate developments, which include a separate Trump-branded tower in Dubai, the largest city in the Emirates. The two projects will also involve Dar Global, the international subsidiary of the private Saudi real estate firm Dar Al Arkan, which is leading the project and has close ties to the Saudi government.... Few places exemplify the Trump family's fluid melding of business with politics as clearly as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, the three countries in the Gulf that Mr. Trump will visit." MB: The link, which I picked up at a site that is not the NYT, looks like a freebie.
Since DOGE has cost the federal government money instead of saving taxpayer dollars, we might suspect the DOGE team is just a bunch of blunderers. But maybe not. ~~~
~~~ ⭐Julia Angwin in a New York Times op-ed: "Elon Musk may be stepping back from running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but his legacy there is already secured. DOGE is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system for the Trump administration -- the likes of which we have never seen in the United States.... [Donald] Trump could soon have the tools to satisfy his many grievances by swiftly locating compromising information about his political opponents or anyone who simply annoys him. The administration has already declared that it plans to comb through tax records to find the addresses of immigrants it is investigating -- a plan so morally and legally challenged, it prompted several top I.R.S. officials to quit in protest.... What this amounts to is a stunningly fast reversal of our long history of siloing government data to prevent its misuse. In their first 100 days, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have knocked down the barriers that were intended to prevent them from creating dossiers on every U.S. resident. Now they seem to be building a defining feature of many authoritarian regimes: comprehensive files on everyone so they can punish those who protest.
"Over the past 100 days, DOGE teams have grabbed personal data about U.S. residents from dozens of federal databases and are reportedly merging it all into a master database at the Department of Homeland Security. This month House Democratic lawmakers reported that a whistle-blower had come forward ... [and] alleged that DOGE workers are filling backpacks wit multiple laptops, each one loaded with purloined agency data." MB: It occurs to me that not only has Homeland Security compiled this information, but Elon & the boys have it, too. It's true that the data get more obsolete every day. BUT among Elon's team are young men who specialize in hacking, and I expect there are also DOGE boys still inside Homeland Security. So there's every reason to suspect that the richest person in the world also personally has control of information on most Americans.
Red State Blues. Sophia Cai & Ben Johansen of Politico: "The cuts [in government spending that Elon Musk & Doge have made] are hitting home in the reddest parts of the country, and Republican elected officials are starting to push back. Abrupt cuts at AmeriCorps this week have landed hard in deep red states with high poverty rates like West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama, where national service programs have long-filled gaps in education, disaster response and job training.... More than 20 blue states filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Trump administration of illegally dismantling the agency without congressional authority. On Capitol Hill, some moderate Republicans are looking for ways to stop the bleeding."
Connie Loizos of Tech Crunch: "According to a new, brow-raising WSJ report, Tesla's board quietly began searching for Elon Musk's potential successor about a month ago, approaching executive search firms as the carmaker faced protests, plummeting sales, and shrinking profits while Musk waded into Washington to slash government spending. Board members reportedly met with Musk to express concerns about his divided attention, telling him he needed to spend more time on Tesla and to publicly commit to doing so; per the Journal report, Musk didn't push back and subsequently told investors he would 'allocate far more time to Tesla' starting in May.... It's unclear whether Musk, who has run Tesla for nearly 20 years, was aware of the effort [to find his successor]."
Ben Finley of the AP: "A federal judge on Wednesday again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland temporarily halted her directive for information at the administration's request last week. But with the seven-day pause expiring at 5 p.m., she set May deadlines for officials to provide sworn testimony on anything they have done to return him to the U.S.... When a reporter asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday whether he has had any conversations with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia, Rubio said...., 'Well, I'll never tell you that. And you know who else I'll never tell? A judge.... Because the conduct of all foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.'" ~~~
~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "New details deepen questions about the [Trump administration's] deportations [to El Salvador], showing that El Salvador's president [Nayib Bukele] pressed for assurances that the migrants were really members of the Tren de Aragua gang.... As part of the agreement with the Trump administration, Mr. Bukele had agreed to house only what he called 'convicted criminals' in the prison. However, many of the Venezuelan men labeled gang members and terrorists by the U.S. government had not been tried in court.... The matter was urgent, a senior U.S. official warned his colleagues shortly after the deportations, kicking off a scramble to get the Salvadorans whatever evidence they could.... [Bukele] did not want to bring in noncriminal migrants; he could not convince Salvadorans he was prioritizing their national interests if he turned their country into a dumping ground for U.S. deportees from other countries, he explained to Mr. Trump's aides." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Then There's This. Really?? Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials in El Salvador to inquire about releasing a Salvadoran immigrant whom government officials have been ordered by the Supreme Court to help free, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. But the authoritarian government of Nayib Bukele, the leader of El Salvador, said no, two of the people said. The Bukele administration claimed the man should stay in El Salvador because he is a Salvadoran citizen.... It remained unclear whether the diplomatic effort was a genuine bid by the White House to address the plight of the immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged was improperly expelled to El Salvador last month in violation of a court order expressly prohibiting him from being sent there. Some legal experts suggested that the sequence of events could have been an attempt at window dressing by officials seeking to give the appearance of being in compliance with the recent Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to 'facilitate' Mr. Abrego Garcia's release. The disclosure about the note adds to the confusion about the Trump administration's efforts to free Mr. Abrego Garcia and whether it is seeking to comply with court orders." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I would say Trump's remarks to Terry Moran of ABC News entirely undermine the fake cover story the administration has floated to Schmidt, et al. More from Aaron Blake, linked next, & Zolan Kanno-Youngs yesterday. ~~~
~~~ White House Won't Explain Why Trump Is So Stupid. Shawn McCreesh & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "During an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News on Tuesday..., [Donald] Trump insisted that the man his administration had mistakenly deported to El Salvador had a gang name tattooed on his hand. 'On his knuckles,' Mr. Trump said, 'he had MS-13.'... In the interview with Mr. Moran, the president appeared to believe that the characters that had been typed onto [a] photo he [had] triumphantly held up in [a] social media post [last week] were in fact tattoos themselves. Mr. Moran gingerly tried to correct the record about that, but Mr. Trump was having none of it.... He could not bring himself to admit that Mr. Abrego Garcia did not have the words 'MS-13' tattooed on his hand.... Asked about the exchange on Wednesday, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman..., declined to answer questions about why Mr. Trump would not accept that Mr. Abrego Garcia does not in fact have 'MS-13' tattooed on his hand, and that the photograph Mr. Trump had posed with in his social media post had been altered." ~~~
~~~ Marie: A few days ago, RAS linked an unsourced photo of a law-enforcement-style badge that said "DOGEfather" and purportedly belonged to Elon Musk. I thought it was a joke but Googled it anyway, and the only reputable source I found was the Daily Beast, which I can't access. So I didn't post the picture even though I found it amusing. I'm not the POTUS. I don't have all the agencies Tulsi Gabbard oversees to verify or rule out a claim. Nevertheless, I do know that one doesn't post a defamatory photo without making an effort to find out if it's real or at least acknowledge it might be a hoax. The fact that an ordinary person like me is more careful of the reputation of someone I despise than is the POTUS* is alarming.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Trump, for the second time in a week, undermined the administration's claims about its ability to get [Kilmar] Abrego García -- who was wrongly deported -- returned to the United States. And it's quite possible his comments could feature significantly in an ongoing showdown with the courts in which the administration is at the very least flouting court orders -- if not outright defying them. Trump's comments indicate the administration has effectively decided not to get Abrego García returned. And they could be used as evidence that the administration is deliberately violating court orders that said the administration must 'facilitate' his return." Related NYT story, by Zolan Kanno-Youngs, linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is yet another example of Trump's practice of committing crimes right out in the open. In this case, he's admitting he defied not just lower court orders by also a Supreme Court directive. So Blake is right about Trump's admissions. Not only that, earlier today RAS hit the nail on the head after reviewing Trump's remarks to Terry Moran of ABC News: "Trump the Plague is literally being judge, jury and executioner. And it is with fake Photoshopped evidence."
A Tiny Bit of Good News. Ana Ley of the New York Times: "Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia University, was freed from federal custody on Wednesday as immigration officials seek to rescind his green card as part of a widening crackdown against student protesters. In ruling to release Mr. Mahdawi on bail, Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford of Federal District Court in Vermont found on Wednesday that he did not pose a danger to the public and that he was not a flight risk. The judge drew parallels between the current political climate and McCarthyism, saying it was 'not our proudest moment.' The immigration case against Mr. Mahdawi will continue, his lawyers said, but he will now be able to fight it from outside a detention facility.... Mr. Mahdawi, 34, had been in custody since April 14, when immigration officials detained him at an appointment in Vermont that he thought was a step toward becoming a U.S. citizen." The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Hafiz Rashid of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "In Oklahoma City Thursday, about 20 federal immigration agents raided the wrong home, forcing a woman out of the house with her three daughters, not even leaving them enough time to get dressed, and then seized their phones, laptops, and life savings. The woman had only moved into the house two weeks earlier, after relocating to Oklahoma from Maryland. The armed agents told the woman ... that they had a search warrant, but the named suspects on the warrant didn't live in the house and weren't connected to anyone in the family.... The agents, who identified themselves as U.S. marshals, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and FBI agents, didn't seem to care, waking the family up, forcing them outside in their underwear, ransacking the house, and taking the family's belongings as 'evidence.'" Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's digby's take. The post is titled, "They Really Should Abolish ICE." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. Rachel Maddow said last night that the U.S. Marshals & FBI said they had nothing to do with the raid on this family's home. She noted that two little cards that listed the property taken from the home said the agency seizing the property was "HSI," which stands for Homeland Security Investigations, apparently a little known agency of Homeland Security.
Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration's efforts to significantly broaden the number of countries willing to accept people deported from the United States has found a welcoming partner in the African nation of Rwanda. A recent U.S. overture, which included a list of names of potential deportees to Rwanda, was received warmly, according to a Rwandan official.... Under the proposal, Rwanda would join a growing number of nations -- including El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama -- that have agreed to receive deportees who are not their citizens.... The deportation discussions have coincided with U.S. efforts to broker a peace agreement between Rwanda and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo."
Fear of Condensation. "RFK Jr. Goes Full Tinfoil." Ed Cara of the Huffington Post: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gone full conspiracy buff. In a recent interview with Dr. Phil, the Secretary of Health and Human Services vowed to combat the entirely fabricated threat of chemtrails.... At one point [in a town-hall interview which Dr. Phil conducted], Kennedy fully endorsed an audience member's fears about chemtrails, appeared to blame another government agency for their existence, and said he would do everything in his power to stop them. Even among conspiracy theories, the logic underlying chemtrails is especially stupid. The theory goes that planes have been secretly seeding the skies with all sorts of chemical weapons that have been poisoning people for decades -- weapons that conveniently leave behind easily visible trails. Some people claim these chemicals are also -- or instead -- being used to modify the weather. In truth, these trails are the product of condensation that usually happens when jet fuel exhaust -- mostly made out of water vapor but also containing small particles of soot -- mixes with cold, humid air at high altitudes."
Lauren Weber, et al., of the Washington Post: "Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. intends to shift the way vaccines are tested, a move that the agency said will increase transparency but that medical experts fear could limit access to vaccines and undermine the public's trust in immunization depending on its implementation. The potential change outlined in a statement says all new vaccines will be required to undergo placebo testing, a procedure in which some people receive the vaccine and others receive an inert substance -- such as a saline shot -- before the results are compared.... For well-researched diseases, such as measles and polio, public health experts say it makes little sense to do that and can be unethical, because the placebo group would not receive a known effective intervention."
Senate Fail. Robert Jimison of the New York Times: "The Senate on Wednesday rejected an effort to undo ... [Donald] Trump's sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, even as a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in delivering a rebuke to a trade policy that many lawmakers fear is causing economic harm. The vote deadlocked at 49 to 49, meaning it failed despite three Republicans joining Democrats in favor of a measure that sought to terminate the national emergency declaration Mr. Trump used this month to impose 10 percent reciprocal tariffs. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a cosponsor of the resolution, crossed party lines to support it, as well as Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But the defections were not enough to make up for the absences of two supporters: Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who backed a similar measure this month." The NBC News story is here.
Steve Inskeep & Obed Manuel of NPR: "The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has blocked an inquiry into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the encrypted messaging app Signal.... Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Morning Edition that House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked any inquiry resolutions into the matter because they know Hegseth and his actions are 'indefensible.' Smith filed a resolution of inquiry, which allows a member of the House to force an investigation even when they're in the minority."
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Israel. Miriam Berger & Julia Ledur of the Washington Post: "In the six weeks since Israel resumed its war in Gaza, Israeli forces have dramatically altered its map, declaring about 70 percent of the enclave either a military 'red zone' or under evacuation, according to the United Nations, and pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into ever-shrinking pockets.... Recent evacuation orders have covered border areas and population centers and have displaced more than 420,000 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In addition, Israel has enlarged its 'security zone,' also called a buffer zone, along Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt."
News Lede
CNBC: "Initial unemployment claims posted an unexpected increase last week in a potential trouble sign for the wobbling U.S. economy. First-time filings for unemployment insurance totaled a seasonally adjusted 241,000 for the week ended April 26, up 18,000 from the prior period and higher than the Dow Jones estimate for 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. This was the highest total since Feb. 22. Continuing claims, which run a week behind and provide a broader view of layoff trends, rose to 1.92 million, up 83,000 to the highest level since Nov. 13, 2021. Much of the gain seemed to come from one state -- New York, where claims more than doubled to 30,043, according to unadjusted data. The increase may have been due to spring recess in New York public schools, according to Sam Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. 'Nonetheless, the deterioration in the timeliest hiring and firing indicators over the last couple weeks suggests that jobless claims will trend up over coming weeks,' Tombs said in a note."
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