The Conversation -- March 22, 2025

Trump Names New Fighter Jet After ... Trump. Connor Stringer of the Telegraph, republished by Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump appears to have named America's next-generation fighter jet in tribute to himself. Mr Trump, America's 47th president, announced Boeing had been awarded the contract to build the air force;s new F-47 fighter jet. The jets will be built as part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program which will replace Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor. The F-47 will be a crewed aircraft built to enter combat alongside drones.... Despite online chatter that the president named the plane after himself, he told the press conference: 'It will be known as the F-47s, the generals picked that title.': Thanks to RAS for the lead. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump's claim is unlikely. Trump seems to be so out of it that he probably doesn't remember that he named the F-47 for himself. As RAS pointed out elsewhere in today's thread, on the same day he "forgot" he named a fighter jet for himself, he also claimed he didn't sign a significant anti-immigrant proclamation which he did indeed sign, AND he claimed he knew nothing about a highly-irregular Pentagon war-plans briefing for his top donor Elon Musk. Save to your "Trump -- 25th Amendment" file.

Stephen Simpson of the Texas Tribune: "With its measles outbreak spreading to two additional states, Texas is on track to becoming the cause of a national epidemic if it doesn't start vaccinating more people, according to public health experts. Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has made a resurgence in West Texas communities, jumping hundreds of miles to the northern border of the Panhandle and East Texas, and invading bordering states of New Mexico and Oklahoma. Based on the rapid spread of cases statewide -- more than 200 over 50 days -- public health officials predict that it could take Texas a year to contain the spread. With cases continuously rising and the rest of the country's unvaccinated population at the outbreak's mercy, Texas must create stricter quarantine requirements, increase the vaccine rate, and improve contact tracing to address this measles epidemic before it becomes a nationwide problem, warn infectious disease experts and officials in other states." ~~~

     ~~~ Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. Akhilleus also gives a shoutout to Bobby Castor-Oil Kennedy for the pivotal role he has played in bringing measles back to the U.S.A.

~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, let's start with a bit of good news: ~~~

~~~ Buffalo Bernie & Annie Ocasio Star in a Wild West Show. Stephen Fowler of NPR: "Sen. Bernie Sanders has emerged as a leading voice for voters opposed to ... [Donald] Trump's rapid push to dismantle the federal government -- and frustrated with the Democratic Party's response.... Thursday, Sanders kicked off a western swing of his 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour with rallies in Las Vegas and Tempe, Ariz. joined by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The pair spoke to an overflow crowd of thousands inside and outside the Mullett Arena at Arizona State University [in Tempe] about the threat they say Trump and his allies pose to American voters and the government.... Friday, Sanders' communications director said more than 30,000 people showed up in Denver, Colo. to hear him speak, a larger crowd than any event during his two presidential runs."

Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: Donald "Trump;s revenge tour continues. Late Friday night, he issued a memo rescinding security clearances and access to classified information for a slew of erstwhile opponents including Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 'any other member of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s family.'... Mr. Biden had done the same to him after he left office in the days after the Jan 6. attack on the U.S. Capitol. A variety of figures who've tangled with Mr. Trump at one point or another were named in Friday's memo. Some [of the people Trump named Friday] had already been mentioned by Trump officials as people who would soon have their security clearances revoked. But taken together, the catalog of names read like an enemies list." They include New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, impeachment figures Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman and Norman Eisen, January 6 committee members Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken & former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (Trump also previously named the last two). The NBC News story is here.

Giselle Ewing of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday suggested that recent attacks on Tesla cars and property have been more harmful than the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, emphasizing that the alleged Tesla attackers should be considered 'terrorists.' Protesters across the country have made their outrage known against Elon Musk's slash-and-burn efforts to shrink the federal government in recent weeks, targeting the electric car company, of which he remains CEO. While many of the protests at Tesla showrooms have remained peaceful, some have involved instances of vandalism and arson, including setting cars alight." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously vandalism and arson are wrongful acts, but -- so far -- they have cause only property destruction, crimes that are not nearly as serious as unprovoked physical attacks on police officers committed during an attempt to overturn the results of a federal election. I hope most people are smart enough to figure that out. ~~~

~~~ Chris Cameron of the New York Times: Donald "Trump escalated his threats against people who vandalize Tesla cars, musing in a social media post on Friday that those convicted of damaging or destroying the vehicles -- including U.S. citizens -- could be sent to notorious prison complexes in El Salvador. 'I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20-year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla,' Mr. Trump said, adding, 'Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!'... Analysts say it is unlikely that a plan to detain U.S. citizens overseas would hold up in court." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What this tells us is that Trump knows he is sending people (the supposed gang member deportees) to a dangerous prison in a foreign country, people who have not been convicted of any crime nor received due process. ~~~

     ~~~ Kevin Collier & Michael Kosnar of NBC News: "Law enforcement officials and domestic extremism experts say they have found no evidence that a series of attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships are coordinated despite such claims from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and ... Donald Trump. At least 10 Tesla dealerships, charging stations and facilities have been hit by vandals, many of whom have lit cars on fire, while a growing collection of videos posted to social media have shown people defacing and damaging Tesla vehicles. One website appeared to encourage people to target Tesla vehicles, publishing a map with the information of dozens of Tesla owners and Tesla facilities. It's unknown who started the site."

Trump Reins in Musk. Maggie Haberman & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: Donald "Trump on Friday rejected the notion that the billionaire Elon Musk should be given access to top-secret U.S. plans for a potential military conflict with China, even as he denied a report that such a briefing had been planned to be held at the Pentagon. 'We don't want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you, if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it,' Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'But I don't want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much.' Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla and a part-time government staff member, visited the Pentagon on Friday and met privately with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Mr. Musk was originally going to visit the Tank, a secure conference room at the building, for a briefing with top military leaders about the China war plan, according to two U.S. officials. The top-secret briefing was to include Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the head of the military's Indo-Pacific Command; and Mr. Hegseth....

"But the Tank visit was called off after The Times's report on the visit, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Instead, Mr. Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, met with Mr. Hegseth and Admiral Grady in the defense secretary's office.... Mr. Trump made clear he had been caught by surprise by The Times's report, saying he called his White House chief of staff and Mr. Hegseth to ask about it; he said they said it was 'ridiculous.' But he also said that Mr. Musk -- who has extensive business in China -- should not be made aware of such sensitive information. It was one of the first specific statements from the president about what he would consider a bridge too far for Mr. Musk, who has expansive potential conflicts of interest...." (Also linked yesterday.)

     ~~~ Rachel Maddow isn't sure if this briefing was Trump's idea and he called if off when the New York Times outted the plan or if Trump is telling the truth when he said he didn't know about it, so Musk arranged the briefing. Either way, I'd say it looks as if Drunk Pete thought it was a fine idea. ~~~

~~~ Marie: As for the leakers, I'd say good on them. ~~~

I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. -- Elon Musk, on X, Friday

... one cannot 'leak' a false story. -- Heather Cox Richardson, noting that Musk's claim instead confirm the veracity of the NYT story ~~~

~~~ Sophia Cai, et al., of Politico: "The pervasive fear and anger that have been rippling through federal agencies over Elon Musk's slashing approach to shrinking government deepened even further on Friday over the billionaire tech mogul's threat to root out and punish anyone who is leaking to the media.... Following Thursday's New York Times report that Musk was set to receive a Pentagon briefing about a confidential contingency plan for a war with China, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO posted on ... X that leakers 'will be found' and, he intimated, punished. 'I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,' Musk wrote in his post. But Musk's post is not having the chilling effect on leakers he'd intended.... 'We are public servants, not Elon's servants,' said one Food and Drug Administration employee.... 'Leakers are patriots,' said one Agriculture Department employee.... 'He IS A LEAKER,' one senior Federal Aviation Administration official said of Musk in a Signal message. 'When you put hard drives on data systems at government agencies you are creating the biggest security breaches we have seen in years and years. Possibly ever.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Robyn Pennacchia of Wonkette: Elon Musk tells Sean Hannity that left-wing people hate him because they are "bad people" who suffer from "mental illness," probably caused by a "woke parasite," and "They basically want to kill me because I'm stopping their fraud...." Pennacchia has other ideas.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration fired nearly the entire civil rights branch of the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, gutting a government office responsible for conducting oversight of ... [Donald] Trump's immigration crackdown. The more than 100 staff members were told on Friday they would be put on leave for 60 days to find another job in the administration or be fired in May, according to five current and former government officials. Mr. Trump also closed the ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, another office responsible for scrutinizing the administration's legal immigration policies. The moves were the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to root out civil rights divisions and oversight mechanisms across government agencies. But the shuttering of the Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was particularly notable given the lack of transparency over the administration's immigration crackdown." (Also linked yesterday.)

This Is So-o-o Stupid. Andrew Freedman of Axios: "The National Weather Service is reducing weather balloon launches at six more locations in the U.S. and temporarily suspending them at two more places due to staffing shortages, the agency announced Thursday afternoon.... Weather balloons, typically launched twice per day at NWS local forecast offices, provide crucial data for weather forecasting.... The weather agency, which is part of the Department of Commerce, announced it is suspending weather balloon launches at Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, 'due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing.' The agency is also reducing the frequency of weather balloon launches at six other locations in the West, Midwest and Plains states due to lack of staffing."

[The Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants with legal status runs] contrary to what the First Amendment is all about.... When the justification is 'you're a threat to national security' and it's like one individual, I mean come on.... Let's be real. -- Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ~~~

~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. U.S. border officials are using more aggressive tactics, which the administration calls 'enhanced vetting,' at ports of entry to the United States, prompting American allies like Germany to update their travel advisories. At the same time, the administration is targeting legal immigrants who have expressed views that the government believes threaten national security and undermine foreign policy. The tactics have unnerved foreign tourists and sent a chill through immigrant communities in the United States, who say they are being targeted for speech -- not for breaking any laws.... To deport people living in the United States with green cards or valid visas, the Trump administration has invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of stat sweeping power to expel foreigners who are seen as a threat to the country's foreign policy interests." ~~~

~~~ Robert Tait of the Guardian: "A string of high-profile arrests and detentions of travellers is likely to cause a major downturn in tourism to the US, with latest figures already showing a serious drop-off, tourist experts said. Several western travellers have recently been rejected at the US border on increasingly flimsy grounds under Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, some of them shackled and held in detention centers in poor conditions for weeks. Germany updated travel guidance for travelling to the US, warning that breaking entry rules could lead not just to a rejection as before, but arrest or even detention.... The UK Foreign Office, too, has bolstered its advice to warn of a risk of arrest after Becky Burke, a tourist from Wales..., was stopped at the border with Canada and held for three weeks in a detention facility.... This week ... Denmark and Finland issued cautionary advice to transgender travellers, following US state department rule changes spurred by the Trump administration decree that it would recognise only two genders. The Danish foreign ministry advised travellers who use the gender designation 'X' on their passport to contact the US embassy before travelling, while Finland cautioned travellers whose gender had changed that they might not gain entry." ~~~

~~~ Not a Nice Place to Visit, and You Wouldn't Wanna Live There. Doktor Zoom of Wonkette: "As more people vanish into the maw of the Trump administration's lawless detention and deportation apparatus, being disappeared for weeks or possibly for life, other countries are warning their citizens to be aware that even having all their papers in order may not protect them when visiting the US. These warnings follow an already well-documented trend of international travelers choosing to avoid visiting the USA, which could mean $64 billion in lost business for the US tourism industry. Canadians are usually the biggest contingent of foreign visitors..., and they accounted for $20.5 billion in spending last year. Thanks largely to Trump's trade war and his weird delusion that Canada wants to be us, Canadians are now staying away in droves."

Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post: "A federal judge sharply grilled a government attorney Friday about the Trump administration's apparent disregard of his order to return deportation flights to the United States, a dispute that has sparked a high-profile showdown this week between the president and the judiciary. Before deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign even had a chance to address the court at a hearing, James E. Boasberg, chief justice for the U.S. District Court in D.C., dramatically scolded him over the government's conduct in the case. Boasberg accused Ensign of using 'intemperate and disrespectful language that I can't remember seeing from the United States' in court filings and questioned whether the attorney failed to show for a hearing Monday because he knew he had knowingly violated Boasberg's order about getting the flights back.... Boasberg will have difficult choices to make if he decides to take a tougher line against the government. If the judge feels officials are continuing to disregard his orders, he could find them in contempt of court, but that's a step federal judges rarely take against the executive branch." (Also linked yesterday.) The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

Why was this proclamation essentially signed in the dark on Friday ... and then these people rushed onto planes?.... It seems to me the only reason to do that is if you know it's a problem and you want to get them out of the country before there are suits file. -- Judge James Boasberg, during Friday's hearing ~~~

     ~~~ Josh Gerstein of Politico: "U.S. District Judge James Boasberg vowed Friday to determine whether the Trump administration defied his command to turn around planes bound for El Salvador carrying Venezuelan immigrants Trump claimed were members of a terrorist gang. 'The government's not being terribly cooperative,' the judge said during an afternoon hearing, before making it clear that he was not dropping his quest to establish whether his Saturday directive was ignored or deliberately breached. 'I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be.'"

~~~ SO THEN. Trump Denied He Signed the Order He Signed. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: Friday afternoon, "Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked the president for his reaction to comments by [Judge James] Boasberg in a hearing just hours earlier, where the judge said, 'The policy ramifications of this [use of the Alien Enemies Act] are incredibly troublesome and problematic and concerning.'... 'It ... sound[s] like this judge ... wants to know why the proclamation was signed "in the dark" -- his words -- and why people were rushed onto planes,' Doocy said. [Trump replied,] '... I don't know when it was signed because I didn't sign it. Other people handled it. But [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio's done a great job and he wanted them out. And we go along with that. We want to get criminals out of our country.' Later, CNN's Erin Burnett ... held up a copy of the order. 'He said he didn't sign it,' she said. 'I'm sorry, that is his signature, right?'" ~~~

Maanvi Singh of the Guardian: "The Trump administration has flown 238 Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison that human rights groups say is designed to disappear people. Despite a judge's order temporarily blocking the move, the US government flew more than 200 men that it had accused of gang membership to the 'Terrorism Confinement Center', or Cecot -- a draconian mega-prison that has become central to the promise of the Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele, promise to rid his country of crime. The prison ... can hold up to 40,000 people.... Now, Venezuelan immigrants to the US, many of whom are also suspected of gang affiliation without apparent evidence, have joined Salvadorian prisoners in the Americas' largest -- and one of its cruelest -- prison systems." The Guardian interviewed Mneesha Gellman, a political scientist at Emerson College who researches human rights and violence, about the conditions at Cecot.

Get Out! Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News: "The Trump administration will be revoking the legal status of hundreds of thousands of Latin American and Haitian migrants welcomed into the U.S. under a Biden-era sponsorship process, urging them to self-deport or face arrest and removal by deportation agents. The termination of their work permits and deportation protections under an immigration authority known as parole will take effect in late April, 30 days after March 25, according to a notice posted by the federal government. The move will affect immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who flew to the U.S. under a Biden administration program, known as CHNV, that was designed to reduce illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border by giving would-be migrants legal migration avenues. A total of 532,000 migrants entered the U.S. under that policy, which was paused soon after ... [Donald] Trump took office...."

Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "The Trump administration notified aid organizations across the country on Friday that it would cancel a contract that funds the legal representation of more than 25,000 children who entered the United States alone, a decision that leaves them vulnerable to swift deportation.... The government instructed more than 100 nonprofits to immediately cease their work representing the minors. It terminated a contract that was up for renewal on March 29. Advocates said ... many [of the children] would be left without counsel in adversarial immigration proceedings. Children as young as 2 who are survivors of trafficking, trauma and abuse, and who are often too young to understand their legal rights, would be returned to countries where they could face harm, the advocates said.... The decision on Friday to halt funding to these organizations comes amid reports that the Trump administration intends to track down unaccompanied migrant children to ensure they appear in immigration court or are deported, if there is a final order of removal.... Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the government is required, to the 'greatest extent practicable,' to provide legal representation to minors.... The Biden administration had increased access to legal services for unaccompanied minors." The AP story is here.

Lisa Rein & Maegan Vazquez of the Washington Post: "Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatened Thursday evening to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge's order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data. Less than 24 hours later -- after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened -- Dudek is saying he was 'out of line.' Dudek initially told news outlets ... that the judge's decision to bar sensitive data access to 'DOGE affiliates' was overly broad and that to comply, he might have to block virtually all SSA employees from accessing the agency's computer systems. But Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, who issued the order, said in a letter that Dudek's assertions 'were inaccurate.'... In response to Hollander's letter, Dudek said in a statement that the court clarified its guidance and 'therefore, I am not shutting down the agency.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Yes, but not making Social Security payments is a good thing, an easy way to root out fraudsters: ~~~

     ~~~ Ryan Bort of Rolling Stone, republished by Yahoo! News: "Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, suggested on a podcast this week that missing Social Security checks aren't a big deal, and that only a 'fraudster' would actually complain if their monthly benefit didn't come in the mail.... 'Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month,' Lutnick said on the All-In podcast. 'My mother-in-law is 94. She wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She would think something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining.... The easiest way to find a fraudster is to stop payments and listen,' he [said]. 'Whoever screamed is the one stealing.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm just going to guess that the mother-in-law there has some other sources of income. See also Akhilleus's commentary below. He is right about Lutnick's decisions after 9/11. I see that NOAA is part of the Commerce Department. I wonder if Secretary Lutnick's dear old mother-in-law would complain if she got stuck outside in the rain without an umbrella because the National Weather Service is no longer providing accurate forecasts in her area? (Story linked above.)

David Folkenflik of NPR: "Six Voice of America journalists sued Kari Lake and the Trump administration on Friday, alleging their moves to shut down the U.S.-funded network were unlawful and unconstitutional. The journalists say that the government's acts violate their First Amendment rights on free speech grounds and usurp the U.S. Congress's control of the power of the federal purse. More than 900 full-time network employees were placed on indefinite leave last weekend; 550 contractors were terminated from their jobs. Most employees at the federal parent, U.S. Agency for Global Media, were also placed on indefinite leave."

Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "... the 'Department of Government Efficiency' [is making] the federal government almost comically inefficient.... Routine tasks take longer to complete, grinding down worker productivity. DOGE is also bogging down employees with meaningless busywork, which sets them up to be punished for neglecting their actual duties. For example, many have been diverted away from their usual responsibilities in order to scrub forbidden words from agency documents, as part of Trump's crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.... What counts as DEI wrongthink also changes almost daily, meaning employees must perform the same word-cleansing tasks repeatedly.... At the IRS, employees spend Mondays queued up at shared computers to submit their DOGE-mandated 'five things I did last week' emails.... Meanwhile, some federal payments have stopped. Credit cards used for routine purchases have been canceled or had their limits shrunk to $1.... But there are costs to, say, not feeding the Transportation Security Administration's bomb-sniffing dogs."

Taylor Telford of the Washington Post: "The Federal Communications Commission is prepared to block mergers and acquisitions involving companies that continue promoting diversity, equity and inclusion policies, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday.... 'Any businesses that are looking for FCC approval, I would encourage them to get busy ending any sort of their invidious forms of DEI discrimination,' Carr said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday. He specifically cited Paramount's planned merger with Skydance Media and Verizon's deal to acquire Frontier Communications.... Last month, Carr said the agency would investigate Comcast and NBCUniversal over their DEI policies. PBS, which is facing an FCC investigation and threats to its federal funding over other matters, closed its DEI office in February to comply with a Trump executive order." MB: One really does not want minorities and women showing up on one's teevee in one's very own home, much less running behind-the-scenes ops. More action shows featuring all white male casts, please. And make sure the actors are Christian. And straight.

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "For the second time in a week, the Trump administration is taking the unusual step of seeking to disqualify a veteran judge in Washington from overseeing a legal challenge to a White House executive action. The Justice Department's filing Friday afternoon accuses U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell and her court of being 'insufficiently impartial' and said she has not kept her 'disdain for President Trump secret.' Judges are very infrequently booted from cases, and there is a high legal threshold to warrant such a recusal. Making such requests also can backfire, since the decision of whether to recuse is up to the judges themselves. The Supreme Court has said that 'only in the rarest of cases' can a judge be forced to recuse based on their opinions. In rare situations, an appeals court can remove a judge from a case.... Howell is overseeing the legal proceedings surrounding a Trump executive order that levied costly punishments on the large international law firm Perkins Coie.... Last week, Howell ruled in favor of Perkins Coie to at least temporarily halt the unprecedented penalties...."

Cowardly Cavers

First he came for the minorities
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a minority
Then he came for the bureaucrats
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a bureaucrat
Then he came for the universitiess
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a professor
Then he came for the lawyers
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a lawyer
Then he came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Troy Closson of the New York Times: "Columbia University agreed on Friday to overhaul its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department in a remarkable concession to the Trump administration, which has refused to consider restoring $400 million in federal funds without major changes. The agreement ... could signal a new stage in the administration's escalating clash with elite colleges and universities. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and dozens of other schools face federal inquiries and fear similar penalties, and college administrators have said Columbia's response to the White House's demands may set a dangerous precedent. This week, the University of Pennsylvania was also explicitly targeted by the Trump administration, which said it would cancel $175 million in federal funding, at least partly because the university had let a transgender woman participate on a women's swim team. Columbia, facing the loss of government grants and contracts over what the administration said was a systemic failure to protect students and faculty members 'from antisemitic violence and harassment,' opted to yield to many of the administration's most substantial demands." ~~~

     ~~~ Josh Marcus of the Independent: "The university will give police new powers to arrest students, partially ban face masks, and appoint a university official to oversee changes at a suite of university departments.... The agreement includes the university hiring 36 'special police officers' who 'will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and/or arrest them when appropriate,' according to the document." MB: Yeah, I'll bet those officers will be mighty "special." Read on. Columbia has abandoned the concept of academic freedom and has forgotten the First Amendment. ~~~

Higher education reform shouldn't resemble a shakedown.... Colleges and universities shouldn't be bullied into accepting speech-restrictive demands because the government dangles a $400 million check over an institution's head. Any changes made as a result of this flawed process are inherently suspect. -- Tyler Coward of FIRE, a free-speech advocacy group

This attempt to discipline and control a university campus is a transparent hallmark of authoritarian rule and harshly violates the central mission of education: teaching, research, and service to the broader society for the public good. We also believe it to be illegal. -- American Association of University Professors ~~~

     ~~~ Matthew Haag & Katherine Rosman of the New York Times: Donald :Trump was demanding $400 million from Columbia University. When he did not get his way, he stormed out of a meeting with university trustees and later publicly castigated the university president as 'a dummy' and 'a total moron.'... That drama dates back 25 years.... It was over a lucrative real estate deal.... Some former university officials are quietly wondering whether the ultimately unsuccessful property transaction sowed the seeds of Mr. Trump's current focus on Columbia." Laura h. isn't wondering. She wrote yesterday, "of course there is a revenge angle!"

Michael Schmidt, et al., of the New York Times: "Since ... [Donald] Trump's first term, Brad S. Karp, the chairman of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, championed himself as a bulwark against what he saw as an unlawful and unpredictable presidency. But on Wednesday, Mr. Karp ... [left] behind the adversarial approach [and met with Mr. Trump in the White House].... A day later, Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Karp had agreed to pledge $40 million in pro bono legal services to issues the president has championed.... The White House said the firm had committed to stop using diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And Mr. Trump said Mr. Karp had acknowledged to him that a former partner of the firm who had worked as a prosecutor in Manhattan and had pushed for Mr. Trump to be charged criminally had committed 'wrongdoing.' These assertions appear inconsistent with a copy of the statement that Mr. Karp shared with his firm. In deciding to bend to Mr. Trump, Mr. Karp likely saved his law firm ... from hemorrhaging clients and lawyers.

"But in doing so, Mr. Karp, who had positioned himself as a spokesman and advocate for the legal profession, left other firms even more vulnerable to Mr. Trump's retribution campaign by demonstrating that his intimidation tactics could lead even a powerhouse like Paul Weiss to make public concessions.... In fact, a White House official said on Friday that despite the deal reached with Paul Weiss, Mr. Trump would continue to target law firms with executive orders.... The deal, while supported by the vast majority of the firm's partners [and some top clients], also drew swift condemnation from lawyers outside the firm and critics of Mr. Trump." The reporters go on to detail how Karp decided to make a deal with the devil. ~~~

~~~ Danielle Kaye, et al., of the New York Times: "Lawyers at firms both large and small took to social media to denounce [Paul, Weiss].... Many large firms..., said [Leslie Levin of U.Conn Law], are struggling with how to respond to pressure from the Trump administration. But basing decisions on concern about harm to their business goes against key tenets of the legal profession, she said. 'Lawyers are supposed to stand up to the government when there's an abuse of power, and a firm like Paul Weiss has the capacity to do that,' Ms. Levin said.... Hundreds of associates at leading corporate law firms have signed an open letter calling on their employers to speak out against the Trump administration's moves.... The American Bar Association released a statement this month condemning the Trump administration's efforts to undermine major law firms, stating that these actions by the White House 'deny clients access to justice and betray our fundamental values.' The association declined to comment on Friday on Paul Weiss's arrangement with the White House.... Some lawyers supported Paul Weiss's decision to settle...." An NBC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ New York Times Editors: "... criticizing a judge's decision can be entirely reasonable. Joe Biden, Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush and other presidents inveighed against rulings. The Constitution establishes the judiciary as equal to the executive and legislative branches, not dominant over them.... Yet Mr. Trump's efforts at judicial intimidation are of a different scale... He is encouraging a campaign of menace. In case after case, he argues that the only reasonable result is a victory for his side -- and that he alone can determine what is legal and what is not. His allies then try to dehumanize the judges with whom they disagree and make them fear for their safety. Mr. Trump's efforts to subdue law firms may seem separate, but they are connected. He has issued three executive orders removing the security clearances of lawyers at three large firms: Covington & Burling, Perkins Coie and Paul, Weiss. In each case, the motivation is political. The firms have employed lawyers who represented Democrats, investigated Mr. Trump and sued Jan. 6 rioters.... These orders ... are attempts to undermine the legal system and freedom of speech.... The initial response from many law firms has been a disappointing mixture of silence and capitulation."

~~~~~~~~~~

Minnesota. Frances Vinall of the Washington Post: "Minnesota state Sen. Justin Eichorn (R) has resigned following his arrest earlier this week on a charge of soliciting prostitution from a 17-year-old girl, who turned out to be a police detective engaged in a sting operation.... The former lawmaker is alleged to have sent messages to someone who appeared to be a teenage girl in response to an online ad posted this month. When he arrived at a spot where he had arranged to pay the girl for sex, he was met instead by police, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota."

News Lede

New York Times: "George Foreman, a heavyweight boxing champion who returned to the sport to regain his title at the improbable age of 45, and parlayed his fame and amiable personality into a multimillion-dollar grill business, died on Friday night at a hospital in Houston. He was 76."

The Conversation -- March 21, 2025

Trump Reins in Musk. Maggie Haberman & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: Donald "Trump on Friday rejected the notion that the billionaire Elon Musk should be given access to top-secret U.S. plans for a potential military conflict with China,even as he denied a report that such a briefing had been planned to be held at the Pentagon. 'We don't want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you, if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it,' Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 'But I don't want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much.' Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla and a part-time government staff member, visited the Pentagon on Friday and met privately with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Mr. Musk was originally going to visit the Tank, a secure conference room at the building, for a briefing with top military leaders about the China war plan, according to two U.S. officials. The top-secret briefing was to include Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the head of the military's Indo-Pacific Command; and Mr. Hegseth....

"But the Tank visit was called off after The Times's report on the visit, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Instead, Mr. Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, met with Mr. Hegseth and Admiral Grady in the defense secretary's office.... Mr. Trump made clear he had been caught by surprise by The Times's report, saying he called his White House chief of staff and Mr. Hegseth to ask about it; he said they said it was 'ridiculous.' But he also said that Mr. Musk -- who has extensive business in China -- should not be made aware of such sensitive information. It was one of the first specific statements from the president about what he would consider a bridge too far for Mr. Musk, who has expansive potential conflicts of interest...."

Giselle Ewing of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Friday suggested that recent attacks on Tesla cars and property have been more harmful than the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, emphasizing that the alleged Tesla attackers should be considered 'terrorists.' Protesters across the country have made their outrage known against Elon Musk's slash-and-burn efforts to shrink the federal government in recent weeks, targeting the electric car company, of which he remains CEO. While many of the protests at Tesla showrooms have remained peaceful, some have involved instances of vandalism and arson, including setting cars alight." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously vandalism and arson are wrongful acts, but -- so far -- they have caused only property destruction, crimes that are not nearly as serious as unprovoked physical attacks on police officers committed during an attempt to overturn a federal election. I hope most people are smart enough to figure that out.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump administration fired nearly the entire civil rights branch of the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, gutting a government office responsible for conducting oversight of ... [Donald] Trump's immigration crackdown. The more than 100 staff members were told on Friday they would be put on leave for 60 days to find another job in the administration or be fired in May, according to five current and former government officials. Mr. Trump also closed the ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, another office responsible for scrutinizing the administration's legal immigration policies. The moves were the latest attempt by Mr. Trump to root out civil rights divisions and oversight mechanisms across government agencies. But the shuttering of the Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was particularly notable given the lack of transparency over the administration's immigration crackdown."

Justin Jouvenal, et al., of the Washington Post: "A federal judge sharply grilled a government attorney Friday about the Trump administration's apparent disregard of his order to return deportation flights to the United States, a dispute that has sparked a high-profile showdown this week between the president and the judiciary. Before deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign even had a chance to address the court at a hearing, James E. Boasberg, chief justice for the U.S. District Court in D.C., dramatically scolded him over the government's conduct in the case. Boasberg accused Ensign of using 'intemperate and disrespectful language that I can't remember seeing from the United States' in court filings and questioned whether the attorney failed to show for a hearing Monday because he knew he had knowingly violated Boasberg's order about getting the flights back.... Boasberg will have difficult choices to make if he decides to take a tougher line against the government. If the judge feels officials are continuing to disregard his orders, he could find them in contempt of court, but that's a step federal judges rarely take against the executive branch."

Sophia Cai, et al., of Politico: "The pervasive fear and anger that have been rippling through federal agencies over Elon Musk's slashing approach to shrinking government deepened even further on Friday over the billionaire tech mogul's threat to root out and punish anyone who is leaking to the media.... Following Thursday's New York Times report that Musk was set to receive a Pentagon briefing about a confidential contingency plan for a war with China, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO posted on ... X that leakers 'will be found' and, he intimated, punished. 'I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,' Musk wrote in his post. But Musk's post is not having the chilling effect on leakers he'd intended.... 'We are public servants, not Elon's servants,' said one Food and Drug Administration employee.... 'Leakers are patriots,' said one Agriculture Department employee.... 'He IS A LEAKER,' one senior Federal Aviation Administration official said of Musk in a Signal message. 'When you put hard drives on data systems at government agencies you are creating the biggest security breaches we have seen in years and years. Possibly ever.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Rebecca Shabad, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Education Department. 'It sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education. We're going to eliminate it,' Trump said in the East Room of the White House at a ceremony where he was flanked by children seated at school desks. Before he signed the order, Trump turned to the children and asked, 'Should I do this?'... Congressional approval would be needed to fully abolish the department. Trump said he hoped Democrats would vote in favor.... Immediately after the signing, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said on X that he will 'submit legislation' to accomplish Trump's goal of shutting down the Education Department 'as soon as possible.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Nice going, Bill. The state you represent, Louisiana, is one of the five (one of the two, by some calculations) U.S. states with the highest levels of poverty, so most in need of federal funds that run through the Education Department. See also Ken W.'s commentary below.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Washington edged closer on Thursday to holding the Trump administration in contempt for possibly having violated an order he issued last weekend pausing the deportation of scores of Venezuelan immigrants under a rarely invoked wartime statute. In an angrily written order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, told the administration to explain to him by Tuesday why officials had not violated his instructions when they allowed two flights of immigrants to continue on to El Salvador even after he directed the planes to return to the United States. Judge Boasberg also called out efforts by the Justice Department to repeatedly stonewall his attempts to get information about the timing of the flights. 'The government again evaded its obligations,' he wrote, adding that the Justice Department's most recent filing about the flights was 'woefully insufficient.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The very basis of Trump's assertion that he can deport suspected Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act is a big fat lie: ~~~

     ~~~ Charlie Savage & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: Donald "Trump's assertion that a gang is committing crimes in the United States at the direction of Venezuela's government invocation of a wartime law last week to summarily deport people whom officials suspected of belonging to that group. But American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump's claims, according to officials familiar with the matter. The document, dated Feb. 26, summarized the shared judgment of the nation's spy agencies that the gang was not controlled by the Venezuelan government. The disclosure calls into question the credibility of Mr. Trump's basis for invoking a rarely used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to transfer a group of Venezuelans to a high-security prison in El Salvador last weekend, with no due process. The intelligence community assessment concluded that the gang, Tren de Aragua, was not directed by Venezuela's government or committing crimes in the United States on its orders, according to the officials...." ~~~

~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: "On Monday, March 17, Acting Field Office Director Robert L. Cerna of ... [ICE's] Enforcement and Removal Operations ... told the court that 'The lack of criminal record does not indicate [deportees] pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA [-- a Venezuelan street gang --], the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.' [IOW, Cerna] asserts ... that a person's lack of criminal record proves that they are more dangerous than people who do have a criminal record because their clean record simply shows that the government lacks a complete profile of their crimes. Wow.... In a webcast on Monday, Trump ally Steve Bannon defended the deportations: ... 'Big deal.... If there's some innocent gardeners in there [among the deportees]? Hey, tough break for a swell guy.'... The end to the due process of the law leads to situations where a government official can argue that the lack of a criminal record for someone perceived to be an enemy of those in power just proves that person is a criminal." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait, Steve. Exactly why is it okay to send an innocent gardener to an inhumane Salvadorian jail, but it's a travesty to send a guilty podcaster to a U.S. Club Fed? ~~~

~~~ Camilo Montoya-Galvez & Annabelle Hanflig of CBS News: "CBS News has obtained an internal government list of the names of the Venezuelan men the Trump administration deported to El Salvador as part of a secretive operation last week that has triggered a legal standoff in the U.S. and a debate around the world. On March 15, the U.S. government deported 238 male Venezuelan citizens on three flights to El Salvador, accusing them of being part of a transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua, which ... [Donald] Trump has labeled a foreign terrorist group and wartime enemy.... U.S. officials have said 137 of the Venezuelan men were treated as 'enemy aliens' and removed from the country under the 18th century [Alien Enemies Act]. The other 101 were deported under regular immigration procedures, the officials have said.... Family members and lawyers of deportees have said they only learned their loved ones or clients had been deported to the small Central American country through videos and photos posted by the Salvadoran government and news outlets." The article republishes the government's list of names. ~~~

     ~~~ Lilia Luciano of CBS News cites one deportee, Franco José Caraballo Tiapa, who has no U.S. criminal record, and outlines the perils Caraballo faces.

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "Trump administration lawyers have determined that an 18th-century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant.... The disclosure reflects the Trump administration's aggressive view of presidential power, including setting aside a key provision of the Fourth Amendment that requires a court order to search someone's home. It remains unclear whether the administration will apply the law in this way.... Warrantless entries have some precedent in America's wartime history, but invoking the law in peacetime to pursue undocumented immigrants in such a way would be an entirely new application, [experts say].... 'All such alien enemies, wherever found within any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are subject to summary apprehension,' the proclamation [Trump signed last week aimed at Venezuelan gang members,] said. Senior lawyers at the Justice Department view that language, combined with the historical use of the law, to mean that the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So here's how this goes: Trump says he can ignore the Fourth Amendment by (1) claiming war powers against people who come from a country with which we are not at war; THEN (2) declaring that these people are "alien enemies" who he can "summarily apprehend." IOW, whatever I say. "I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." Trump is out of control, and so are his "loyal" lawyers. Not a Constitutional crisis yet, Chuck? ~~~

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff & Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered that a Georgetown University fellow in the United States legally who was detained by federal immigration authorities cannot be removed from the country, pending the outcome of a lawsuit seeking his release from detention. Federal judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Virginia's Eastern District did not rule on the Trump administration's efforts to deport Indian national Badar Khan Suri, who was apprehended earlier this week for what a DHS spokesperson said was 'Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.' The arrest, part of several recent Trump administration arrests of people with legal status that has included scholars from other universities who've opposed U.S. foreign policy on Israel, has further inflamed outrage from those who say such actions are a violation of the First Amendment that could have chilling effects on free speech." (Also linked yesterday.)

Still planning a vacation in the U.S., Trump notwithstanding? You might want to think again. Bear in mind that we don't know if the particulars of this story are true, or if Becky there is a raging maniac who required heavy restraints. (She looks pretty sweet.) But ICE agents don't seem to be denying the family's allegations. ~~~

     ~~~ Julie Watson of the AP: "U.S. border agents handcuffed [Lennon] Tyler, a U.S. citizen, and chained her to a bench, while her [German] fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating the rules of his 90-day U.S. tourist permit, the couple said. Authorities later handcuffed and shackled Sielaff and sent him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center. He spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany. Since ... Donald Trump took office, there have been other high-profile incidents of tourists like Sielaff being stopped at U.S. border crossings and held for weeks at U.S. immigration detention facilities before being allowed to fly home at their own expense. They include another German tourist who was stopped at the Tijuana crossing on Jan. 25. Jessica Brösche spent over six weeks locked up, including over a week in solitary confinement, a friend said.... Sielaff, 25, and ... others say it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily." ~~~

     ~~~ Nelli Bird of BBC News: "A tourist held in the US for 19 days was removed in chains like Hannibal Lecter, according to her parents. Becky Burke, 28, arrived home in Wales on Tuesday from her ordeal which began half way through a backpacking trip across North America. Parents Paul and Andrea Burke, of Portskewett, Monmouthshire, said their daughter was 'traumatised' after being taken in 'leg chains, waist chains and handcuffs'. The Northwest ICE Processing Center said in a statement: 'All aliens in violation of US immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States regardless of nationality.' It said that Ms Burke was repatriated to the UK on March 18 after being detained 'related to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission'. Ms Burke's detention came as what her family think was a misunderstanding of her accommodation arrangements. She got free accommodation for helping host families 'around the house', which her father believes authorities may have suspected broke the terms of her tourist visa. The US State Department says people on visitor visas are prohibited from carrying out 'employment' during their stay." (Also linked yesterday.)

The zeal with which these guys are engaging in increasingly open, authoritarian behavior is unlike almost anything I've seen. Erdogan, Chavez, Orban -- they hid it.... If even a dozen Republicans in Congress had the capacity to stand up to Trump, this would be a very different ballgame. Trump and Musk and Stephen Miller could not do this alone. They're doing it with the full cooperation of the majority party in Congress. We're in a bad place. -- Steven Levitsky of Harvard University ~~~

~~~ Amanda Taub of the New York Times: Donald "Trump's intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power. It is extremely rare for leaders to simply claim the power to disregard or override court orders directly, especially so immediately after taking office.... On Tuesday, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that Judge [James] Boasberg [-- who ordered the administration to turn around planes carrying deportees --] was a 'Radical Lunatic' and should be 'IMPEACHED,' because the judge 'was not elected President -- He didn't WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn't WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn't WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING!'... (In fact, U.S. courts can and do order the return of aliens who have been wrongfully deported.)" (Also linked yesterday.)

Ishan Tharoor of the Washington Post: "For the first time in more than two decades, [The V-Dem Institute] categorized more societies as autocracies than democracies. The United States is part of that story of democratic backsliding. The Trump administration's stunning purge of federal bureaucracy, its pressure tactics on universities, and the dubious legality of its more brazen attempts to wield executive power are taking the country into uncharted territory.... '[Trump and his allies] are copying the path taken by other would-be dictators like Viktor Orban,' Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) told the Guardian last month.... 'You have a move towards state-controlled media. You have a judiciary and law enforcement that seems poised to prioritize the prosecution of political opponents. You have the executive seizure of spending power so the leader and only the leader gets to dictate who gets money.' Leaders like Orban, Netanyahu, Erdogan and Trump are unruffled by such criticism -- and often feel validation because of it."

Marie: After Donald Trump issued an order making it virtually impossible for a large law firm to represent anyone in any federal case, I wrote that Trump was one of the few people who could make me feel sorry for lawyers. Well, I don't feel sorry for lawyers anymore. In fact, these snivelling cowards make me sick: ~~~

     ~~~ More Chickens Come Home to Roost in Trump's Coop. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: Donald "Trump and the head of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP have reached a deal under which Mr. Trump will drop the executive order he leveled against the firm, Mr. Trump said on Thursday. In the deal, Mr. Trump said, the firm agreed to a series of commitments, including to represent clients no matter their political affiliation and contribute $40 million in legal services to causes Mr. Trump has championed, including 'the President's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.'... The firm, Mr. Trump said, also agreed to conduct an audit to ensure its hiring practices are merit based 'and will not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies.' The deal materialized after the head of the firm, Brad Karp, went to the White House this week and had a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Trump to discuss a resolution....

"The White House said that Mr. Karp had acknowledged 'wrongdoing' by one of the firm's former partners, Mark F. Pomerantz. Mr. Pomerantz had tried to build a criminal case against Mr. Trump several years ago while working at the Manhattan district attorney's office.... Members of the legal profession said in interviews that ... it appears as if the firm -- which is dominated by Democrats and has long prided itself in being at the forefront of the fight against the government for civil rights -- was capitulating to Mr. Trump over an executive order that is likely illegal.... Last week, a federal judge in Washington ruled that a subsequent executive order Mr. Trump signed targeting the law firm Perkins Coie, which is also aligned with Democrats, was likely unconstitutional and issued a restraining order halting it.... The firm has long prided itself on breaking barriers and standing up to the government on issues like civil rights." Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is a big firm (more than 1,000 lawyers), and it had the resources -- as smaller law firms do not -- to stand up to Trump & quash his unlawful order. Beating Trump in this particular intimidation/retribution campaign and protection racket would make the country safer for every person who had a grievance against the government that required legal representation to resolve it. ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Disgraceful, even if one doesn't expect better of BigLaw right now[.]... The message here is clear: these shakedowns will work, so Trump will keep doing them."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Wherein the Verge Cops to Making a Common Mistake. Sarah Jeong of the Verge: "On Tuesday, the president of the United States fired the Democratic commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission in clear contravention of what has been the law since 1935. News outlets -- including The Verge -- all went up with their articles as fast as they could.... The blowback from readers was evenly distributed. 'This is wildly illegal,' one person wrote in The Washington Post's comment section. 'Just say that. Don't say the fired people said it was illegal. Say it as the Washington Post when you know it's true. Democracy dies, thanks in part to this rag.' We also caught flack for our own headline, which put 'illegal' in quotation marks, attributing it to the Democratic commissioners.... What Trump did on Tuesday was wackadoodle beyond belief. It violated Supreme Court precedent from 1935 -- Humphrey's Executor v. US, a case that is ... about the limits of presidential power when it comes to firing FTC commissioners."

MEANWHILE, the American taxpayer is paying Trump's personal lawyers, a/k/a the Department of Justice, to defend his bloody insurrection. The corruption of the DOJ is complete: ~~~

     ~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The Justice Department made an unusual effort on Thursday to short-circuit a series of civil lawsuits seeking to hold ... [Donald] Trump accountable for his supporters' attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Department lawyers argued in court papers filed to the judge overseeing the cases that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity as president on Jan. 6 and so the federal government itself should take his place as the defendant. That move, if successful, could protect Mr. Trump from having to face judgment for his role in the Capitol attack and from having to pay financial damages if he were found liable. The legal maneuver appeared to be Mr. Trump's latest effort to use the powers of the Justice Department to his advantage by effectively having himself removed from the lawsuits, which were brought against him by groups of Capitol Police officers and lawmakers who claim they were injured when the mob stormed the building." ~~~

President Trump delivered on his promise of maximum transparency by fully releasing the files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. -- White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt ~~~

~~~ William Wan, et al., of the Washington Post: "After the Social Security numbers of more than 400 former congressional staffers and others were made public in files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the White House acknowledged the breach Thursday and worked to mitigate the harm. The National Archives and Records Administration will scrub the files for Social Security numbers, and the Social Security Administration will issue new numbers to those exposed by the inadvertent release, a White House official said.... The National Archives will also offer credit monitoring services to those affected until they receive their new number....

"Many of those affected have gone on to become high-ranking officials in Washington, including a former assistant secretary of state, researchers in the intelligence world, State Department workers and prominent lawyers.... The Post discovered the Social Security numbers, birthplaces and birth dates of more than 100 staff members of the Senate Church Committee, established in 1975 to investigate abuses by America's intelligence agencies and government. The Post also discovered more than 100 Social Security numbers of staff members of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which investigated the killing of Kennedy. At least one of them, an author and former law professor, had his number disclosed more than two dozen times.... Experts said the release of the information raises legal questions under the Privacy Act of 1974. ~~~

    ~~~ Question: Who is responsible? Who is directly responsible for this lawless, careless breach? Answer: "When Trump said Monday that the assassination-related files would be released the next day, he said he had directed staff not to redact them. 'I don't believe we're going to redact anything,' Trump told reporters during a visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 'I said, "Just don't."'"~~~

     ~~~ Sarah Nir & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "White House officials acknowledged on Thursday that it was only after the papers were made public that they began combing through them for exposed details." This is an update of a story linked yesterday. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you were a person old enough to have had a government job in 1975, would you want to be dealing with a new Social Security number now? -- especially now that Elon is gutting the Social Security administration staff and disallowing phone calls to the SSA? I don't think so. Neither does Rachel Maddow: ~~~

~~~ Could Not Have Happened to a More Deserving Person. Tom Sanders of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump's former campaign lawyer is furious after his personal information and social security number were made public as part of this week's release of unredacted JFK assassination files. 'It's absolutely outrageous. It's sloppy, unprofessional,' Joseph diGenova, a long-time Trump supporter who formerly served as the president's lawyer on the campaign trail, told The Washington Post. 'It not only means identity theft, but I've had threats against me,' diGenova said." (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ The DOJ is working for President Musk, too: ~~~

     ~~~ Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "In highlighting the Trump administration's efforts to defend Elon Musk's flagship company, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday cited past arrests of people charged with trying to torch Tesla products. Announcing what she described as severe charges against people in Colorado, South Carolina and Oregon, Ms. Bondi said in a news release: 'Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.' Two of the three arrests, in fact, happened weeks ago, and the other happened one week ago. But Ms. Bondi's statement underscored the extent to which the administration has publicly defended and embraced Mr. Musk, one of ... [Donald] Trump's chief allies and the billionaire leading efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy." ~~~

~~~ When a mere girl (Bondi) threatens to win a hand, Drunk Pete ups the ante: ~~~

     ~~~ ⭐President Musk To Get Top-Secret Military Briefing Today. Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "The Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military's plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said on Thursday. Another official said the briefing would be China focused, without providing additional details. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be at the Pentagon on Friday, but offered no details. Hours after news of the planned meeting was published by The New York Times, Pentagon officials and ... [Donald] Trump denied that the session would be about military plans involving China. 'China will not even be mentioned or discussed,' Mr. Trump said in a late-night social media post....

"Providing Mr. Musk access to some of the nation's most closely guarded military secrets would be a dramatic expansion of his already extensive role as an adviser to Mr. Trump.... It would also bring into sharp relief the questions about Mr. Musk's conflicts of interest as he ranges widely across the federal bureaucracy while continuing to run businesses that are major government contractors. In this case, Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of both SpaceX and Tesla, is a leading supplier to the Pentagon and has extensive financial interests in China." An Independent story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Joshua Keating of Vox (March 18): Musk' is, in his own words, 'kind of pro-China.' China is vital to Musk's car company Tesla as both a producer of vehicles and as a consumer market.... The symbiotic relationship between Tesla and China almost can't be overstated.... Along the way, Musk has developed relationships with senior Chinese leaders, notably Premier Li Qiang, China's No. 2 official, who reportedly offered him a Chinese green card during a meeting in 2019." MB: Any chance Musk would be conveying those top-secret war plans to China? Nah! ~~~

     ~~~ D check out Akhilleus's comment in today's thread if you're still thinking that maybe giving Elon top-secret war plans against China might be okay. ~~~

     ~~~ Trump just denied the Musk/China story. Then a few minutes later the WSJ confirmed it. Any guesses who's governing the country right now? -- Josh Marshall in a BlueSky post ~~~

~~~ President Musk Threatens Pentagon Leakers. Csongor Körömi of Politico: "... Elon Musk has openly threatened Pentagon employees who may have leaked information that the tech billionaire was due to get a briefing on a potential American war with China.... After the [NYT] story went live, the planned meeting was confirmed by Pentagon officials and ... [Donald] Trump -- but both denied that the session would discuss military plans involving China.... Musk ... called the New York Times 'pure propaganda'" and issued a threat, saying he looks 'forward to the prosecution of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT.' 'They will be found,' [Musk] ... warned." ~~~

~~~ Over at Commerce, Howard Lutnick makes himself President Elon's Third Stooge: ~~~

     ~~~ Justine McDaniel & Sabrina Rodriguez of the Washington Post: "Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged Fox News viewers Wednesday night to buy Tesla stock, an apparent violation of federal ethics rules that prohibit officials from endorsing products or businesses. His promotion of Tesla was the latest move by a Trump administration official to bolster support for Elon Musk's car company as it becomes a target for voters upset about the sweeping, unprecedented cuts Musk is leading across the federal government through the U.S. DOGE Service. 'I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again,' Lutnick said on Fox News. With only a few exceptions, the Code of Federal Regulations prohibits executive branch employees from using their public office 'for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise.' Employees are also generally barred from giving preferential treatment to an individual or organization. Those ethical rules, along with the tenet that officials shouldn't use their public office for private gain, are central to American democratic norms, advocates for ethics in government said." ~~~

~~~ In fairness to these Tesla enthusiasts, Musk makes a great driving machine: ~~~

     ~~~ Sean O'Kane of TechCrunch: "Tesla is issuing a recall for around 46,000 Cybertrucks sold to date because of an exterior steel trim panel on the side of the windshield that can peel off. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a filing that the piece can come off while in motion, which can create a hazard for the driver and other people on the road. The filing states that Tesla became aware of the problem in early January and has identified 151 warranty claims related to this panel coming off since then. The company is not aware of any resulting crashes or injuries, according to the filing. The problem with the panel occurs because the 'structural adhesive' that holds it in place on the vehicle is 'susceptible to environmental embrittlement,' according to the filing. Tesla will fix Cybertrucks covered by the recall at no cost to owners by using a 'different structural adhesive not prone to environmental embrittlement.' It will also use a nut to 'clamp' the steel panel to the vehicle structure." (Also linked yesterday.)

David Fahrenthold, et al., of the New York Times: "Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency on Wednesday sharply cut back the number of federal real estate leases it claimed to have terminated, signaling that the group is losing at least some internal battles to get rid of government office space. For weeks, Mr. Musk's group said on its website that it had terminated more than 700 leases, and saved more than $460 million in the process. But around 1 a.m. Wednesday, the group eliminated references to 136 of those cancellations. That reduced its savings by $140 million, or almost 30 percent of the total for lease cancellations it had claimed a day earlier. Mr. Musk's team did not give a reason for the changes.... G.S.A. officials said they walked back some terminations because of 'feedback from customer agencies.'... Other agencies received help from Republican members of Congress, who lobbied to keep offices in their districts open.... Mr. Musk's group [also] claimed credit ... for terminating contracts that were actually canceled under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and two that ended under President George W. Bush."

"Keep Your DOGE Hands Off My Social Security." Kyle Cheney of Politico: "A federal judge has barred Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive systems at the Social Security Administration, saying the group appears to be on a 'fishing expedition' that could jeopardize the data of millions of people. 'The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,' said U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in a 137-page ruling. 'It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.' Hollander, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said the group's broad access likely violated privacy laws. The Maryland-based judge ordered an immediate halt to the DOGE Social Security team's access to any systems that contain sensitive data of Social Security recipients. She ordered Musk, DOGE and other affiliates to destroy any non-anonymized data they've obtained." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The AP's report is here. Judge Hollander's ruling, via Axios, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Perez of Rolling Stone, republished by Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump's interim Social Security chief [Lee Dudek] suggested Thursday night he will effectively turn off the agency that manages the essential safety net program for seniors and the disabled, if Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can't access the non-anonymized sensitive personal information and data of hundreds of millions of Americans, based on a judge's order.... Dudek's threat to block SSA employees from using the agency's IT systems -- a move that could halt Social Security payments ' came in response to a judge's temporary restraining order in a case brought by the AFL-CIO labor union.... [The judge's order requires] Musk and DOGE [to] comply with existing privacy laws. According to Dudek..., this requirement is a reason to threaten to halt the safety net program that 71 million Americans rely on for support."

Vjosa Isai of the New York Times: "Elon Musk has said that 'Canada is not a real country,' just one of his social media jabs at the U.S. neighbor. But people in Canada have done real damage to the vehicles and dealerships belonging to his electric car company, Tesla.... More than 80 Teslas had their tires punctured and bodies scratched at a lot in Hamilton, Ontario, the police said on Thursday. Several acts of vandalism against Tesla property have also been committed in the United States. Hamilton, west of Toronto, is the heart of Canada's steel manufacturing industry and a battlefront in the country's trade war with the United States....[Donald] Trump has imposed tariffs on steel and other Canadian products and Canada has responded by applying levies to $20.5 billion worth of exports from the United States. Mr. Trump has also claimed that Canada has long 'ripped off' the United States and wants to make it the 51st state. Canadians have responded with a grass-roots protest, changing how they shop, travel and think about their relationship with the United States, the country's closest ally and trading partner."

Drill, Baby, Drill. Jake Spring of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department on Thursday announced that it aims to open up millions of acres of near-pristine land in Alaska to oil drilling and allow for a new pipeline to be built across the state. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the department would allow oil and gas leases on 82 percent of the 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, overturning protections that President Joe Biden finalized last year, and will reinstate a program to permit drilling in the 1.56 million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the country's largest preserve of its kind."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has sidelined a senior Defense Department spokesman, defense officials said Thursday, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with colleagues and journalists who cover the Pentagon, and aggressively defended the agency's purge of government-produced content recognizing the contributions of minorities in the military. John Ullyot, a public affairs official who also held senior communications roles during ... Donald Trump's first term in office, is expected to take another role within the Defense Department working on 'special projects.'... Ullyot's removal followed an uproar Wednesday over the Pentagon's removal of an online article about the military background of Jackie Robinson, who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball.... As news of the article's removal drew widespread condemnation on social media, Ullyot released a statement ... that said in part..., 'Discriminatory Equity Ideology Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services' core warfighting mission.'"

A Government Lawyer Resigns. Tom Dreisbach of NPR: "A prosecutor with years of experience at the U.S. Department of Justice has resigned amid major changes..., telling NPR, 'It just was not a Department of Justice that I any longer wanted to associate with.' In a sharp resignation letter shared with NPR, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Murphy warned of the erosion of the Justice Department's independence from the president, writing to his coworkers, 'you serve no man.'... Murphy is a veteran prosecutor who ... most recently ... served in the Department of Justice's Capitol Siege Section, which prosecuted more than 1,500 people for crimes stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. When Trump took office, he immediately granted clemency to all of the Jan. 6 defendants -- even the most violent offenders and those with lengthy criminal records -- and his administration fired and demoted< many prosecutors who worked on those cases. As a result, Murphy said, he simultaneously faced threats and harassment from Jan. 6 defendants, who were emboldened by their presidential pardons, while also having to fear retaliation from the administration."

[The Trump administration is running] a campaign to remove public access. And at the end of the day, American taxpayers paid for these tools. -- Jessie Mahr, Director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center ~~~

~~~ Unseen Heroes. Austyn Gaffney of the New York Times: "Amid the torrent of executive orders signed by ... [Donald] Trump were directives that affect the language on government web pages and the public's access to government data touching on climate change, the environment, energy and public health. In the past two months, hundreds of terabytes of digital resources analyzing data have been taken off government websites, and more are feared to be at risk of deletion. While in many cases the underlying data still exists, the tools that make it possible for the public and researchers to use that data have been removed. But now, hundreds of volunteers are working to collect and download as much government data as possible and to recreate the digital tools that allow the public to access that information. So far, volunteers working on a project called Public Environmental Data Partners have retrieved more than 100 data sets that were removed from government sites, and they have a growing list of 300 more they hope to preserve."

Barbara Sprunt of NPR: "Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet stopped short Wednesday of calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from leadership, but came pretty darn close. 'I do think on the leadership question, it's always better to examine whether folks are in the right place, and we're certainly going to have that conversation,' he said at a town hall in Golden." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Chris Hayes suggested to Schumer this week that he (Schumer) was approaching the Trump juggernaut as he would handle a Mitt Romney presidency. That's right, I think. Schumer's Alfred E. Neuman attitude reminds me of John McCain, who, during the financial industry's meltdown in mid-September 2008, declared that the "fundamentals" of the U.S. economy were "strong." McCain's rival for the presidency, Barack Obama, responded, "It's not that I think John McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of most Americans. I just think doesn't know. He doesn't get what's happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of Washington where he works." That was the moment Obama won the presidency. And McCain lost it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Wisconsin. Money Corrupts. Absolutely Too Much Money Corrupts Absolutely. Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times: "Elon Musk is bringing back his most controversial gambit from the 2024 presidential election: paying voters as part of a plan to identify and turn out conservative-leaning ones. The super PAC that Mr. Musk founded to funnel his fortune into Republican causes, America PAC, said on Thursday that it was offering $100 to registered voters in Wisconsin who sign a petition 'in opposition to activist judges' or refer others to sign it. Mr. Musk has been using the group to spend millions of dollars to elect a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an April 1 election.... The purpose of the petition is multifaceted: Drive attention from the news media, increase awareness and voter registration among conservative voters, and help America PAC collect data on the most energized Wisconsinites who are likely to turn out for the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel."

The Conversation -- March 20, 2025

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Washington edged closer on Thursday to holding the Trump administration in contempt for possibly having violated an order he issued last weekend pausing the deportation of scores of Venezuelan immigrants under a rarely invoked wartime statute. In an angrily written order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, told the administration to explain to him by Tuesday why officials had not violated his instructions when they allowed two flights of immigrants to continue on to El Salvador even after he directed the planes to return to the United States. Judge Boasberg also called out efforts by the Justice Department to repeatedly stonewall his attempts to get information about the timing of the flights. 'The government again evaded its obligations,' he wrote, adding that the Justice Department's most recent filing about the flights was 'woefully insufficient.'"

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: "Trump administration lawyers have determined that an 18th-century wartime law the president has invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang allows federal agents to enter homes without a warrant.... The disclosure reflects the Trump administration's aggressive view of presidential power, including setting aside a key provision of the Fourth Amendment that requires a court order to search someone's home.... Warrantless entries have some precedent in America's wartime history, but invoking the law in peacetime to pursue undocumented immigrants in such a way would be an entirely new application, [experts say].... 'All such alien enemies, wherever found within any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are subject to summary apprehension,' the proclamation [Trump signed last week aimed at Venezuelan gang members,] said. Senior lawyers at the Justice Department view that language, combined with the historical use of the law, to mean that the government does not need a warrant to enter a home or premises to search for people believed to be members of that gang." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So here's how this goes: Trump says he can ignore the Fourth Amendment by (1) claiming war powers against people who come from a country with which we are not at war; THEN (2) declaring that these people are "alien enemies" who he can "summarily apprehend." IOW, whatever I say. "I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." Trump is out of control, and so are his "loyal" lawyers. Not a Constitutional crisis yet, Chuck? ~~~

The zeal with which these guys are engaging in increasingly open, authoritarian behavior is unlike almost anything I've seen. Erdogan, Chavez, Orban -- they hid it.... If even a dozen Republicans in Congress had the capacity to stand up to Trump, this would be a very different ballgame. Trump and Musk and Stephen Miller could not do this alone. They're doing it with the full cooperation of the majority party in Congress. We're in a bad place. -- Steven Levitsky of Harvard University ~~~

~~~ Amanda Taub of the New York Times: Donald "Trump's intensifying conflict with the federal courts is unusually aggressive compared with similar disputes in other countries, according to scholars. Unlike leaders who subverted or restructured the courts, Mr. Trump is acting as if judges were already too weak to constrain his power. It is extremely rare for leaders to simply claim the power to disregard or override court orders directly, especially so immediately after taking office.... On Tuesday, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that Judge [James] Boasberg [-- who ordered the administration to turn around planes carrying deportees --] was a 'Radical Lunatic' and should be 'IMPEACHED,' because the judge 'was not elected President -- He didn't WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn't WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn't WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN'T WIN ANYTHING!'... (In fact, U.S. courts can and do order the return of aliens who have been wrongfully deported.)"

"Keep Your DOGE Hands Off My Social Security." Kyle Cheney of Politico: "A federal judge has barred Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive systems at the Social Security Administration, saying the group appears to be on a 'fishing expedition' that could jeopardize the data of millions of people. 'The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,' said U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in a 137-page ruling. 'It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack.' Hollander, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said the group's broad access likely violated privacy laws. The Maryland-based judge ordered an immediate halt to the DOGE Social Security team's access to any systems that contain sensitive data of Social Security recipients. She ordered Musk, DOGE and other affiliates to destroy any non-anonymized data they've obtained."

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff & Teo Armus of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Thursday ordered that a Georgetown University fellow in the United States legally who was detained by federal immigration authorities cannot be removed from the country, pending the outcome of a lawsuit seeking his release from detention. Federal judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Virginia's Eastern District did not rule on the Trump administration's efforts to deport Indian national Badar Khan Suri, who was apprehended earlier this week for what a DHS spokesperson said was 'Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.' The arrest, part of several recent Trump administration arrests of people with legal status that has included scholars from other universities who've opposed U.S. foreign policy on Israel, has further inflamed outrage from those who say such actions are a violation of the First Amendment that could have chilling effects on free speech."

Marie: Here's Chris Hayes, expressing an opinion that jibes with my own. I am grateful that some prominent people like Hayes & Rachel Maddow are sounding the alarm. What disturbs me is that the overwhelming percentage of Americans don't agree:

For some reason, I happened upon a YouTube video of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's June 2023 commencement speech at Northwestern (BTW, when Pritzker cites Dwight Schrute, he is quoting Rainn Wilson's character on "The Office"): ~~~

Barbara Sprunt of NPR: "Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet stopped short Wednesday of calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from leadership, but came pretty darn close. 'I do think on the leadership question, it's always better to examine whether folks are in the right place, and we're certainly going to have that conversation,' he said at a town hall in Golden." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Chris Hayes suggested to Schumer this week that he (Schumer) was approaching the Trump juggernaut as he would handle a Mitt Romney presidency. That's right, I think. Schumer's Alfred E. Neuman attitude reminds me of John McCain, who, during the financial industry's meltdown in mid-September 2008, declared that the "fundamentals" of the U.S. economy were "strong." McCain's rival for the presidency, Barack Obama, responded, "It's not that I think John McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of most Americans. I just think doesn't know. He doesn't get what's happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of Washington where he works." That was the moment Obama won the presidency. And McCain lost it.

Heather Cox Richardson: "On Monday, March 17, Acting Field Office Director Robert L. Cerna of ... [ICE's] Enforcement and Removal Operations ... told the court that 'The lack of criminal record does not indicate [deportees] pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA [-- a Venezuelan street gang --], the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.' [IOW, Cerna] asserts ... that a person's lack of criminal record proves that they are more dangerous than people who do have a criminal record because their clean record simply shows that the government lacks a complete profile of their crimes. Wow.... In a webcast on Monday, Trump ally Steve Bannon defended the deportations: ... ' Big deal.... If there's some innocent gardeners in there [among the deportees]? Hey, tough break for a swell guy.'... The end to the due process of the law leads to situations where a government official can argue that the lack of a criminal record for someone perceived to be an enemy of those in power just proves that person is a criminal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Wait, Steve. Exactly why is it okay to send an innocent gardener to an inhumane Salvadorian jail, but it's a travesty to send a guilty podcaster to a U.S. Club Fed?

Sean O'Kane of TechCrunch: "Tesla is issuing a recall for around 46,000 Cybertrucks sold to date because of an exterior steel trim panel on the side of the windshield that can peel off. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a filing that the piece can come off while in motion, which can create a hazard for the driver and other people on the road. The filing states that Tesla became aware of the problem in early January and has identified 151 warranty claims related to this panel coming off since then. The company is not aware of any resulting crashes or injuries, according to the filing. The problem with the panel occurs because the 'structural adhesive' that holds it in place on the vehicle is 'susceptible to environmental embrittlement,' according to the filing. Tesla will fix Cybertrucks covered by the recall at no cost to owners by using a 'different structural adhesive not prone to environmental embrittlement.' It will also use a nut to 'clamp' the steel panel to the vehicle structure." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So if I read Tesla's plan correctly, in combination with Akhilleus's post this morning, this means that Elon -- that is, the NUT -- himself will be clamping steel panels to 46,000 defective Cybertrucks. That should keep him so busy he might not have time to chainsaw any more federal programs.

Could Not Have Happened to a More Deserving Person. Tom Sanders of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump's former campaign lawyer is furious after his personal information and social security number were made public as part of this week's release of unredacted JFK assassination files. 'It's absolutely outrageous. It's sloppy, unprofessional,' Joseph diGenova, a long-time Trump supporter who formerly served as the president's lawyer on the campaign trail, told The Washington Post. 'It not only means identity theft, but I've had threats against me,' diGenova said."

Still planning a vacation in the U.S., Trump notwithstanding? You might want to think again. Bear in mind that we don't know if the particulars of this story are true, or if Becky there is a raging maniac who required heavy restraints. (She looks pretty sweet.) But ICE agents don't seem to be denying the family's allegations. ~~~

     ~~~ Nelli Bird of BBC News: "A tourist held in the US for 19 days was removed in chains like Hannibal Lecter, according to her parents. Becky Burke, 28, arrived home in Wales on Tuesday from her ordeal which began half way through a backpacking trip across North America. Parents Paul and Andrea Burke, of Portskewett, Monmouthshire, said their daughter was 'traumatised' after being taken in 'leg chains, waist chains and handcuffs'. The Northwest ICE Processing Center said in a statement: 'All aliens in violation of US immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States regardless of nationality.' It said that Ms Burke was repatriated to the UK on March 18 after being detained 'related to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission'. Ms Burke's detention came as what her family think was a misunderstanding of her accommodation arrangements. She got free accommodation for helping host families 'around the house', which her father believes authorities may have suspected broke the terms of her tourist visa. The US State Department says people on visitor visas are prohibited from carrying out 'employment' during their stay."

~~~~~~~~~~

We've never seen a president so comprehensively attempt to arrogate and consolidate so much of the other branches' power, let alone to do so in the first two months of his presidency. -- Stephen Vladeck of Georgetown Law

Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. -- JD Vance, last month ~~~

~~~ L'État, C'est Moi. Erica Green, et al., of the New York Times: "Nearly two months into his second term, Mr. Trump is trying to consolidate control over the courts, Congress and even, in some ways, American society and culture. Congress ... has ceded some of its core duties to Mr. Trump, handing off elements of the legislative branch's spending authority to the White House and standing aside as congressionally chartered agencies are shuttered. The president has threatened to 'lead the charge' against the re-election of the rare Republican who dares challenge his agenda, and the party has bent to his will at every turn. Mr. Trump has dismantled independent measures of checks and balances, fired inspectors general and installed loyalists at the Justice Department willing to carry out his campaign of retribution. He has targeted private law firms with connections to those he views as political enemies and cowed previously skeptical or hostile business leaders into pledging public support, even as he has imprinted his 'MAGA' stamp on the private sector by trying to dictate hiring practices. His efforts to reshape institutions in his image have not been limited to the government and policy. Mr. Trump has tried to spread his influence through the arts, as well, by making himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

"But Mr. Trump's latest target -- the judiciary -- has been described by constitutional scholars and historians as perhaps the most alarming power play to date.... He has applied the same logic of fairness to court cases that he has to presidential elections: They're fair if he wins but not if he loses."

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "You can ask ... not whether an action is constitutional, but whether it sits opposed to constitutionalism itself. You can ask, in other words, whether it is anti-constitutional.... An anti-constitutional act is one that rejects the basic premises of constitutionalism. It rejects the premise that sovereignty lies with the people, that ours is a government of limited and enumerated powers and that the officers of that government are bound by law. The new president has, in just the first two months of his second term, performed a number of illegal and unconstitutional acts. But the defining attribute of his administration thus far is its anti-constitutional orientation.... To assert, against the plain text of the Constitution, the power to seize appropriations and destroy the work of the legislature is to break a core premise of constitutionalism. It is anti-constitutional.... According to the Justice Department, the president of the United States has an 'inherent' power to summarily deport any accused member of Tren de Aragua ... without so much as a hearing.... There is nothing in this vision of presidential power that limits it to foreign nationals. Who is to say, under the logic of the Department of Justice, that the president could not do the same to a citizen?" Thanks to RAS for the link. This is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Bender, et al., of the New York Times: Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Thursday instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the agency, according to two White House officials. The department cannot be closed without the approval of Congress, which created it. But the Trump administration has already taken steps to narrow the agency's authority and significantly cut its work force while also telegraphing plans to try and shutter it. The White House officials ... said the order instructed Ms. McMahon to return authority over education to the states.... The federal government accounts for about 10 percent of total school funding, but that is distributed by the Education Department largely according to federal law -- not the discretion of the president.... Closing the department would not by itself revoke the various laws that established federal funding for public schools and underserved school districts or for specific student populations, including those with disabilities.... No modern president has ever tried to unilaterally shut down a federal department.' The NPR story is here. See related story linked below under "California." ~~~

~~~ Here's one thing that happens when the POTUS* is undereducated, incurious and narrow-minded: ~~~

~~~ Trump University. Alan Blinder of the New York Times: The ideal of traditional universities "is under siege, as ... [Donald] Trump ties public money to his government's vision for higher education. That vision is a narrower one. Teach what you must, defend 'the American tradition and Western civilization,' prepare people for the work force, and limit protests and research.... The outcome of this clash over the purpose of higher education stands to shape American culture for a generation or more. If the president realizes his ambitions, many American universities -- public and private, in conservative states and liberal ones -- could be hollowed out, imperiling the backbone of the nation's research endeavors. Two months into Mr. Trump's term, universities are laying off workers, imposing hiring freezes, shutting down laboratories and facing federal investigations.... Much of Mr. Trump's higher education agenda during his first term empowered for-profit colleges. Now, though, Mr. Trump is taking clearer aim at the cultures and missions of major nonprofit universities." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Remember those Irish monks, laboring over parchment in remote monasteries, to preserve the remnants of ancient civilizations? American civilization is gonna be needing some of those folks now. (Some candidates for the monastic jobs? Maybe people like journalists who managed to save Jackie Robinson's memory from the Trumplodytes -- story linked below.)

Mattathias Schwartz & Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: Donald "Trump's angry call on Tuesday for the impeachment of a federal judge who ruled against his administration on deportation flights has set off a string of near-instant social media taunts and threats, including images of judges being marched off in handcuffs.... At a moment when the judiciary is weighing pivotal decisions on the legality of Trump administration policies, the potential for violence against judges seems to be rising. 'I feel like people are playing Russian roulette with our lives,' said Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, whose 20-year-old son was shot and killed at her home in 2020 by a self-described 'anti-feminist' lawyer.... The threats and intimidation may have not become actual violence, but they appear to be mounting, as Mr. Trump, his advisers and his supporters are questioning almost daily the legitimacy of the American legal system." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ And look who dug into his ultra-deep pockets to encourage the harassment: ~~~

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Elon Musk has made the maximum allowable donation to Republican members of Congress who support impeaching federal judges who are impeding actions taken by ... [Donald] Trump.... Mr. Musk has given the maximum hard-dollar donations he could to the campaigns of seven Republicans who have either endorsed judicial impeachments or called for some form of 'action' in response to recent rulings against the Trump administration, including a weekend decision by Judge James E. Boasberg of Federal District Court in Washington. The combined federal limit for primary and general elections is $6,600.... Mr. Musk contributed on Wednesday to Representatives Eli Crane of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Brandon Gill of Texas. He also donated to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, according to two of the people briefed on the matter." (Also linked yesterday.) The Independent's story is here.

Ken Vogel & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats' ability to compete in elections for years to come.... Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of ... [Mr.] Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.... Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of ... [Mr.] Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.... So far, the attacks have been diffuse and sometimes indiscriminate or inaccurate.... Inside the administration..., a small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them.... But using the levers of government to target the opposition has long been considered an abuse of power, sometimes leading to prosecution. Mr. Trump himself was impeached in 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens." (Also linked yesterday.)

Starving Americans So the Rich Can Enjoy Tax Breaks. Marcia Brown of Politico: "The Agriculture Department has halted millions of dollars worth of deliveries to food banks without explanation, according to food bank leaders in six states. USDA had previously allocated $500 million in deliveries to food banks for fiscal year 2025 through The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Now, the food bank leaders say many of those orders have been canceled. The halting of these deliveries ... comes after the Agriculture Department separately axed two other food programs, ending more than $1 billion in planned federal spending for schools and food banks to purchase from local farmers." MB: Well, you know, it's springtime. Can't people start foraging?

Lauren Aratani of the Guardian: "The Department of Justice removed 11 guidelines for US businesses on compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including some that deal with Covid-19 and masking and accessibility. The ADA was signed into law in 1990 and is the key civil rights law that protects Americans with disabilities from discrimination. Updates have already been made to the ADA.gov website to reflect the removal of the guidances. Multiple pages were removed from the ADA's archive website, including one page that explained how retail businesses are required to have accessible features and another on customer service practices for hotel and lodging guests with disabilities."

The Manner of Their Vindictive Stunts Is Childish. Karoun Demirjian & Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: "Pete Marocco, the State Department official who oversaw the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the main government agency distributing foreign aid, announced in an email on Tuesday night that he would be replaced at the agency by two officials who had been involved in making the cuts. Mr. Marocco said in the email that he would remain at the State Department as director of foreign aid, but that two other officials would handle what remains of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those officials are Jeremy Lewin, who has been working for the cost-cutting task force led by the billionaire Elon Musk, and Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official who was named the acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace this week.... On Tuesday, a federal judge found that the efforts to shutter U.S.A.I.D. were most likely unconstitutional." (Also linked yesterday.)

Eileen Sullivan & Isabelle Taft of the New York Times: "In interviews, more than a dozen fired probationary workers described a kind of purgatory in which information about their livelihoods and what might happen next was difficult, if not impossible, to come by.... In some cases, fired employees say they have received emails informing them of their reinstatement. Some have seen back pay appear in their bank accounts. But more than a dozen federal agencies ... have reinstated employees and immediately placed them on administrative leave.... The firings and subsequent re-hirings have caused widespread confusion for workers who want to know when and if they will get their jobs back, and how long they might get to keep them. They also have questions about unemployment benefits." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: What a surprise: it turns out that reinstating employees is a lot harder than firing them & goose-stepping them out the door. That is, a Musky chainsaw massacre is a lot easier to accomplish than finding all the thousands of body parts & stitching them back together as originally designed. But, hey, the richest man in the world getting to play with a real chainsaw & a metaphorical woodchipper is so much fun. Driving a Tesla on the White House lawn. Pontificating at Cabinet meetings. Sleepovers at a Mar-a-Lardo bungalow and slumber parties in the Executive Office Building. Woo-woo! Almost as good as blowing up taxpayer-funded SpaceX rockets and watching debris fall back to earth.

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "From the start of his second term..., Donald Trump and his administration signaled a willingness -- even a desire -- to flout the law in their quest to overhaul the federal government. And while the wheels of justice turn slowly, less than two months later a procession of judges have already ruled the administration has don exactly that. In more than a dozen cases -- and in three major rulings this week alone -- a federal judge has ruled that the administration either has violated the law or has probably done so. The total works out to one such finding about every four days." ~~~

~~~ Stephen Vladeck in a New York Times op-ed: "The courts can do only so much when the goal of imposing a policy isn't to win as much as it is to break things and, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 'The Great Gatsby,' to 'let other people clean up the mess they had made.' For all of the judicial interventions we've seen in the first eight weeks of the new Trump administration, alarmingly little has changed on the ground.... It seems that chaos and disruption are themselves key to ... [Donald] Trump's objective.... Even if the courts rule again and again against Mr. Trump, voiding unlawful immigration arrests and releasing individuals from unlawful immigration detention doesn't undo the harm they suffered from being arrested and detained in the first place.... Likewise, ordering the government to turn back on spending taps that it has unlawfully frozen can't undo the damage suffered by recipients deprived of mission-critical funding in the interim.... There is no entity in the United States against which it is more difficult to obtain damages than the federal government." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Fitzgerald characters who made the mess were Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They were, like the couple Donald and Elon, the very rich. They "smashed up things ... and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness." Sounds familiar (although Tom & Daisy were the "beautiful people" of their day, and no one would say that of Don and Elon.

David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times: "... measles eradication programs [are] believed to be responsible for 60 percent of global improvements in childhood survival from vaccination over the last 50 years. One hundred million lives were saved worldwide by those vaccines, The Lancet calculated last year -- two million lives, on average, every year. That is an awful lot of lives for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of health and human services, to dismiss with a wave of his hand, instead choosing to sit down at Steak 'n Shake to celebrate the company's new beef-tallow fries -- recalling that, in his childhood, 'everybody got measles,' and implying that immunity from those infections was preferable to the kind you get from a shot.... Mehmet Oz is about to be confirmed as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for instance, though only 21 percent of the health recommendations he offered on his television program were judged by a group of researchers to have even 'believable' evidence to support them.... [We are living in] a new age of public-health libertarianism, which is to say, a pretty explicit war on all the things that make health a 'public' good, sustained by mutual aid...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, the leader of the nation's public health system does not believe in public health, and he has come to eradicate the concept altogether.

Pranshu Verma of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration's move to shut down an internet freedom project that helped millions of people in China access the open web has stirred concern from lawmakers, including Republicans, who argue the nonprofit is a crucial tool to counter the rise of Beijing. The Open Technology Fund (OTF), launched in 2012, was intended to allow people who live under repressive regimes to circumvent restrictions and access the internet. An early backer of the encrypted messaging app Signal and the anonymous internet browser Tor, the OTF became the world's largest funder of products that allow people to freely access the web. As of February, OTF funding provided tools to more than 6 million people in China and 18 million individuals in Iran, giving them the ability to circumvent government restrictions on the internet to access news sites, secure messaging services and social media platforms such as Reddit, the messaging app Telegram and X.... But ... Donald Trump's executive order Friday stripping independent agencies, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) -- where nearly all of the OTF's $43.5 million annual funding comes from -- to the 'maximum extent' possible essentially terminated the group's budget."

Derek Hawkins of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Wednesday denied an emergency request by the U.S. Institute of Peace to temporarily stop Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service from dismantling the independent organization after DOGE staffers raided its headquarters with help from federal and local law enforcement officers this week. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell said during a court hearing that the plaintiffs -- severalusted USIP board members who sued in their official capacities -- did not show they would be irreparably harmed if they were not reinstated and DOGE staffers were allowed to remain in the institute's offices. The judge sharply criticized the Trump administration for enlisting the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the FBI and D.C. police to assist in the takeover of the institute. She said she was denying the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order because there was 'confusion in the complaint on a number of levels.'"

Talia Minsberg, et al., of the New York Times: "The release of about 64,000 documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Tuesday started a race to find a revelation, as journalists, historians and amateur sleuths scoured the pages in hopes of finding something, anything, that could be considered consequential. Instead, the big reveal was that there wasn't much of a reveal at all. Here are the biggest takeaways of the blockbuster that wasn't." This is a gift link. An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ There is nothing Trump can do right. Nothing! ~~~

President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency. Today, per his direction, previously redacted JFK Assassination Files are being released to the public with no redactions. Promises made, promises kept. -- Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, in a social media post

People's private information should be kept private. -- Judy Barga, whose Social Security number was released

Judy would make a more prudent DNI than Tulsi. -- Marie Burns ~~~

~~~ SNAFU. Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "In the 64,000 pages of documents released this week regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, there appeared to be no redactions, those blacked-out sections that typically dot sensitive material, even once it is declassified, to mask confidential or compromising data. Critics said that failure was evidence of an F.B.I. rush to vet material released after a president's demand. And it exposed at least one C.I.A. agent's complete personnel file and the Social Security numbers for hundreds of other people. They belonged to congressional staff members, intelligence researchers, a former ambassador and scores more. Many of them are still alive, and they discovered on Wednesday that the White House had leaked their personal information to the world.... Administration officials knew before the documents went out that releasing them without redactions would mean some personal information would be exposed...."

Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: ";A Georgetown University researcher, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration's crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy, according to court papers. Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, his lawyer said in a lawsuit fighting for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, the lawsuit says.... Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, his petition says.... Suri's lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, argued in his petition that Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife -- who is a U.S. citizen -- and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Millions of Americans, including many numbskulls who voted for Trump, "oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel." ~~~

~~~ AND This. Robert Mackey of the Guardian: "France's research minister said a French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration. 'I learned with concern that a French researcher' on assignment for the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) 'who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled', Philippe Baptiste, France's minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde. 'This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher's phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy,' the minister added. 'Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them, while respecting the law,' Baptiste said." ~~~

~~~ AND This. Chris Lunday of Politico: "The German government has sharpened its travel advice for the United States. According to its website, Berlin's Foreign Office now warns its citizens that tougher immigration enforcement under ... Donald Trump could land travelers in detention or see them face deportation. It updated the guidance after several German nationals were detained at U.S. entry points, some held for days before being sent back. Officials now explicitly warn that even minor infractions -- such as overstaying a visa or misstating travel plans -- could trigger immediate deportation or a ban on future entry."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is evaluating plans for the Pentagon to take control of a buffer zone along a sprawling stretch of the southern border and empower active-duty U.S. troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross into the United States illegally, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.... In effect, the move would turn the buffer zone into an expansive satellite military installation, potentially allowing a greater portion of the Defense Department's mammoth budget to pay for ... Donald Trump's border crackdown while creating new legal jeopardy for those caught trying to slip into the country from Mexico.... Any move to militarize the southern border;s buffer zone is certain to raise questions about whether employing the military in this way runs afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits active-duty troops from most law enforcement missions.: The Guardian's story is here.

From the "Journalism Matters" file: ~~~

~~~ Here was the Guardian story RAS linked Wednesday morning: "An article history detailing Jackie Robinson's military career has seemingly been taken down on the Department of Defense's website as a purge of articles considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) continues. Robinson, who Donald Trump last month described as helping 'drive our country forward to greatness', is widely considered a national hero in the US. He broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947 when he suited up for the Brooklyn Dodgers; he went on to be elected to his sport's Hall of Fame.... Robinson had a striking military career. After a successful battle to train as an officer, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1943 and assigned to a tank regiment. However, in 1944 the driver of an army bus ordered Robinson to sit at the back, a directive Robinson refused. Robinson was court martialed and acquitted, then served as an athletics coach before being honorably discharged in November 1944." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Oh! New Lede Wednesday afternoon: "An article detailing Jackie Robinson's military career has been restored to the Department of Defense's website amid a purge of material considered to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).... Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said that 'everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson'. He added that the defense department regularly checks for material than may have been removed in error." MB: Uh-huh. Kinda like when Robinson was court-martialed, then acquitted. ~~~

~~ BUT Drunk Pete's Not Done. Josh Marcus of the Independent: "The Defense Department has taken down or plans to delete thousands of websites to comply with Donald Trump's order eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work from the federal government, including removing pages dedicated to topics like remembering the Holocaust and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pages already taken down include an article about the experience of Holocaust survivor Kitty Saks, who later immigrated to the U.S., and an Air Force Academy cadet majoring in history describing his experience taking scholarly visits to concentration camps in Europe, according to a CNN analysis.... Other Defense Department takedown targets bear little obvious connection to DEI, including pages about 9/11, veterans suicide prevention, and stopping sexual assault."

Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "When he took the stage in downtown Eau Claire, Wis., on Tuesday night to rev up Democrats ahead of a critical State Supreme Court race, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said he didn't think name-calling would help things. Then he called Elon Musk a 'dipshit' and, later, a 'South African nepo baby' with the power to cut government programs. The crowd roared. Mr. Walz, his party's nominee for vice president last year, is one of several Democrats who have referred to Mr. Musk's immigrant background as they ramp up attacks on the billionaire's powerful role in the Trump administration. At times, their language, casting Mr. Musk as a foreign outsider, has echoed aspects of ... [Donald] Trump's own xenophobic insults of his political foes -- although Mr. Trump's remarks were typically directed toward elected officials of color, not white billionaires." (Also linked yesterday.) A Minnesota Star Tribune story is here.

Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: "For Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, a Democrat who may just hold the key to his party winning back the House in 2026, the path to victory starts with understanding how Americans live their lives, down to the most personal details. 'A lot of communities divide the world between when you shower: before work or after work,' he told me.... Many who shower later -- working-class folks living paycheck to paycheck -- have tuned out Democrats, he said. 'They're not listening to us because they don't believe that we respect them and see them.'... 'We need to stop defending government and instead go back to our roots of government reform,' he told me.... From a different corner of the Democratic tent, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sees Mr. Crow's blue-collar, heartland upbringing as a boon to growing the party." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I was surprised last week when Rachel Maddow let on she didn't know who Jason Crow was, as he's been on my radar since he served as an impeachment manager against Trump in 2019. A Crow/AOC ticket (in that order, I think) would be great. They're young, they're smart, they're attractive, they're personable, they're knowledgeable, they're brave.

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Attempts to appease those who have been explicit about their intent to destroy higher education as we currently know it are politically naïve. -- Brian Soucek of UC Davis Law ~~~

~~~ California. Vimal Patel of the New York Times: "The University of California said on Wednesday that it would stop requiring the use of diversity statements in hiring.... Diversity statements typically ask job applicants to describe in a page or so how they would contribute to campus diversity. The move away from them, by one of the biggest higher education systems in the United States, comes as the Trump administration escalates an attack on higher education over diversity programming.... The Education Department sent letters last week to 60 colleges warning of 'potential enforcement actions' if they didn't protect Jewish students. Four of the University of California system's 10 campuses -- Berkeley, Davis, San Diego and Santa Barbara -- received the letters.... [The UC system president Michael Drake] painted a bleak picture about the university's finances."

We Don't Like Libruls in North Dakota. Karen Zraick of the New York Times: "A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded damages totaling more than $660 million to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The verdict was a major blow to the environmental organization. Greenpeace had said that Energy Transfer's claimed damages, in the range of $300 million, would be enough to put the group out of business in the United States.... Greenpeace said it would appeal. The group has maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It has portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil-industry critics. The nine-person jury in the Morton County courthouse in Mandan, N.D., about 45 minutes north of where the protests took place, returned the verdict after roughly two days of deliberations." The Guardian's story is here.

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Canada/E.U. Matina Stevis-Gridneff of the New York Times: "Canada is in advanced talks with the European Union to join the bloc's new project to expand its military industry, a move that would allow Canada to be part of building European fighter jets and other military equipment at its own industrial facilities. The budding defense cooperation between Canada and the European Union, which is racing to shore up its industry to lower reliance on the United States, would boost Canada's military manufacturers and offer the country a new market at a time when its relationship with the United States has become frayed. Shaken by a crisis in the two nations' longstanding alliance since ... [Donald] Trump's election, Canada has started moving closer to Europe. The military industry collaboration with the European Union highlights how traditional U.S. allies are deepening their ties without U.S. participation to insulate themselves from Mr. Trump's unpredictable moves."(Also linked yesterday.)

Middle East. Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: Donald "Trump said on Wednesday that the Iran-backed Houthi militant group in Yemen would be 'completely annihilated' by U.S. military strikes and warned Tehran to 'immediately' stop supplying it with military equipment and general support and 'let the Houthis fight it out themselves.' His remarks, posted on social media, came as the U.S. military continued a wave of attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen as part of what American officials said was an effort to stop the militant group's attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea. 'Tremendous damage has been inflicted,' Mr. Trump said of the effects of the strikes, which began on Saturday. He added: 'Watch how it will get progressively worse. It's not even a fair fight, and never will be. They will be completely annihilated!'"

Ukraine, et al. Michael Birnbaum & Lizzie Johnson of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed Wednesday to a partial ceasefire with Russia focused on 'energy and other civilian infrastructure.' Zelensky, who spoke after an hour-long phone call with ... Donald Trump, said it was a first step in what the Ukrainian leader said he hoped would be 'lasting peace' more than three years after his country was invaded by Moscow.... Both Trump and Zelensky characterized their conversation as positive.... Still, the conversation between Trump and Zelensky and the timing was just the most recent evidence of how Ukraine has been relegated to the back seat in talks about its future."