The Conversation -- August 2, 2025
Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: “... on Friday, [Donald] Trump, confronted with foes and facts that he could not easily control..., respond[ed] with disproportionate intensity and a distinct impatience. His actions [against the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics & against Russia] were part of a pattern in which he has shown growing intolerance toward those who will not bend to his will.... His actions on Friday were especially striking because they involved fiery reactions to two of the biggest issues on his plate[: the Russia/Ukraine war and the U.S. economy].... '“It’s more evidence he’s not fit to be president. This is not the way a president responds to either one of these situations,' said Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton].... Having surrounded himself with aides unwilling to challenge his impulses, Mr. Trump faces no constraints on lashing out impulsively, Mr. Bolton said. 'Trump is not deterred by reality,' Mr. Bolton said.”
The POTUS* is not just a petty tyrant; he is a predictably stupid tyrant: ~~~
⭐ ~~~ Andrew Ackerman of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Friday said he ordered the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following the release of a dismal jobs report that showed lackluster employment growth for July but also revealed large downward revisions for hiring in May and June. Trump, who took to social media to announce McEntarfer’s ouster, criticized her as a President Joe Biden appointee overseeing what he called 'faked' or unreliable jobs numbers, promising she would be replaced with someone 'more competent and qualified.' Without evidence, he alleged the jobs numbers had been manipulated for political purposes. The firing came just hours after the BLS reported that the jobs market was far weaker than previously believed. Large cuts to earlier job counts erased 258,000 positions originally reported for May and June, marking the steepest two-month downward revision on record outside the pandemic. July figures were also below expectations, highlighting an economy struggling under new tariffs and tighter labor conditions.” The AP's report is here. MB: When the dictator shoots the messenger, can you trust the accuracy of the next message? Nope. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Ben Casselman & Tony Romm of the New York Times: Donald “Trump unleashed his fury about weakness in the labor market on Friday, saying without evidence that the data [which the BLS reported] were 'rigged' and that he was firing the Senate-confirmed Department of Labor official responsible for pulling together the numbers each month.... Economists widely interpreted the report as evidence that Mr. Trump’s policies were beginning to take a toll on the economy, though the president insisted in a subsequent post that the country was 'doing GREAT!'... Dr. [Erika] McEntarfer was appointed to her post by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2023 after a long career at the Census Bureau and other agencies, where she served under presidents of both parties, including Mr. Trump. Among the Republicans who voted to confirm her as commissioner was Vice President JD Vance, who was then an Ohio senator. The firing prompted swift criticism from economists, former government officials and others, who said the removal would further erode trust in government statistics and make it more difficult for policymakers, investors and businesses, who rely on having dependable data about the economy to make decisions.” ~~~
~~~ “Senseless.” Jason Furman, President Obama's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, in a New York Times op-ed: The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a “highly respected, nonpartisan agency, widely considered the producer of the best labor market data in the world. This is closer to what one expects from a banana republic than from a major democratic financial center. This is even more senseless than his other threats to fire officials like Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.... Erika McEntarfer, the fired B.L.S. commissioner, is a highly respected economist with extensive experience in the production and analysis of government data. But she does not make policy in the way that someone like Powell does. Nor does the commissioner traditionally even make the particular numbers that the B.L.S. releases. Instead those numbers are produced by the 2,000 nonpartisan career staff members who work in the agency, in this case compiling the survey responses from the more than 100,000 businesses that report their employment to the B.L.S. every month.... Revisions are a normal part of the statistical process and.... About one-third of the sampled businesses do not return their survey responses on time....” ~~~
~~~ Paul Krugman: "Over the past six months we’ve watched institution after institution corrupted by the Trump administration. Institutions that might produce inconvenient information, from those tracking climate change to those tracking infectious disease, have been special targets. And now they’ve come for the economic data.... Who could have seen this coming? Anyone paying attention.... [Trump] just fired the head of the BLS because he didn’t like the numbers it reported — a clear signal to the remaining staff not to report bad news. And just like that, we can no longer treat BLS data as the gold standard.” ~~~
~~~ Don Moynihan: “Trump has no evidence for what he claims. He simply does not like reality, and will do what he can to deny it. And as tariffs kick in, and Trump’s layoffs of public employees becomes incorporated into jobs data, that reality will look worse and worse.” Read on. Right down to the reference to Erdogan. Moynihan adds quite a bit of context & color to the story. ~~~
~~~ Steve Benen of MSNBC: “... with roughly two hours before the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs data, Donald Trump published a rather furious missive to his social media platform, calling his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, 'a stubborn MORON.' The president went on to suggest the Fed’s board 'should assume control' of the entire institution unless Powell agrees to 'substantially lower interest rates, NOW.'... It was, to be sure, a rather unhinged tantrum, but it was also a pretty big hint: Trump had seen the job numbers, and he wasn’t pleased. The public soon learned that the job totals were quite awful.... The president ... keeps telling people how 'hot' the economy is, and reality keeps getting in the way. [After ordering the firing of the commissioner of labor statistics]..., Trump, without a shred of evidence or shame, proceeded to claim that [Erika] McEntarfer had secretly conspired against him during the 2024 campaign — a bizarre claim, given that the job totals in the months leading up to Election Day really weren’t great — before flubbing basic facts about Labor Department reports that anyone in an Economics 101 course would recognize as absurd.... This ... [is] how despots rule.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Sydney Ember of the New York Times: “Companies are starting to shift more tariff-related costs onto consumers. Many businesses chose to absorb the additional tax during the early days of President Trump’s trade war. But evidence is emerging that they are running out of options to keep prices stable in the face of deteriorating profit margins, suggesting that the tariffs could have a more pronounced effect on prices in the months ahead. Government data, including from the Commerce Department this week, show that prices rose in June on items heavily exposed to tariffs, such as home furnishings, toys and appliances. And in recent days — before Mr. Trump announced tariffs for much of the world on Thursday night — Adidas, Procter & Gamble, Stanley Black & Decker and other large corporations told investors that they either had increased prices or planned to do so soon to offset the tariff costs. Companies like Walmart and the toymakers Hasbro and Mattel had already warned that tariffs would lead to higher prices.”
Danielle Kaye of the New York Times: “After months of rallying and periods of relative calm, stocks tumbled on Friday as fresh economic data reflected unexpected signs of weakness in the labor market and .. [Donald] Trump announced steep new tariffs against some of America’s largest trading partners. The S&P 500 ended the day down 1.6 percent, capping one of the index’s worst weeks since Mr. Trump wrought chaos across the global trading system when he unveiled his first round of steep tariffs in April. The benchmark fell 2.4 percent for the week. On Friday, investors parsed through the president’s latest tariff plans and how they might further drive up costs for companies and consumers. But it was [the jobs] report from the Labor Department that caused the most alarm.”
Paul Krugman: "Presidents do have considerable discretion in tariff-setting, but there are a limited number of allowed reasons for imposing temporary tariffs: To give a U.S. industry a breathing space against an import surge (Section 201[;] To preserve an industry essential to national security (Section 232)[;] Unfair foreign practices (Section 301 and anti-dumping duties)[.] Presidents can also claim additional powers during an economic emergency — but Trump keeps insisting that the U.S. economy is doing great, which presumably means that there is no emergency. Now, just about everything Trump has been doing on trade is illegal, but in the case of Brazil it’s completely blatant.... Do Trump and his advisors really think they can use tariffs to bully a nation of more than 200 million people into dropping its efforts to defend democracy, when it sells 88 percent of its exports to countries other than the United States?" (Also linked yesterday.)
Alan Rappeport & Colby Smith of the New York Times: “The Federal Reserve announced on Friday that Adriana D. Kugler will step down from her position as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board next Friday. Her term was due to expire in January, but her early resignation gives ... [Donald] Trump an opportunity to more quickly appoint someone who could eventually replace Jerome H. Powell as chair. Ms. Kugler missed the Fed’s most recent policy meeting this week and did not vote. In a speech earlier last month, she said the Fed should not cut interest rates 'for some time' as tariffs trickled through to consumer prices. The opening on the board comes as Mr. Trump pressures the Fed to cut interest rates and publicly berates Mr. Powell, saying he should lower borrowing costs or resign. The president has also toyed with firing Mr. Powell or naming a successor before Mr. Powell’s term as chair ends in May. On Friday, he went so far as to call on the board to remove Mr. Powell from his position as chair. The Fed statement about Ms. Kugler’s early resignation did not give a reason for her decision.”
David Sanger of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said on his social media feed on Friday that he had 'ordered two nuclear submarines' to be repositioned in response to online threats from Russia’s former president, Dmitri Medvedev, a rare case of potential nuclear escalation between the superpowers. Mr. Trump said he had ordered the submarines 'to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.' He added: 'Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.'” MB: While the situation is dead serious, that is a hilarious comment coming from Loose Lips McTrump, the master of indiscretion. The Guardian's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson writes, “In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols points out that Medvedev is little more than an internet troll at this point and that U.S. submarines carrying nuclear warheads routinely travel through the world’s oceans (all American submarines are nuclear powered, Nichols notes). Trump’s threat is unlikely to spark a nuclear crisis, Nichols writes, 'at least not this time.' But it is reckless, he adds. 'Trump knows that a foreign-policy crisis, and anything involving nuclear weapons, is an instant distraction from other news,' Nichols writes. 'The media will always zero in on such moments, because it is, in fact, news when the most powerful man on Earth starts talking about nuclear weapons…. Nuclear-missile submarines are not toys,' he points out. Previous presidents were sober and careful in how they talked about nuclear weapons. But now, Trump 'has initiated a new era in which the chief executive can use threats regarding the most powerful weapons on Earth to salve his ego and improve his political fortunes.'” No link to Nichols. ~~~
~~~ Update. Here's a gift link to Tom Nichols' post in the Atlantic, courtesy of laura h.
Bill Kristol has some thoughts on the One Big Hideous Ballroom. (Also linked yesterday.) Both Forrest M. & Elizabeth compared the city lot sizes in their communities to the size of the Trumpendanzzimmer. They found that the ballroom is roughly the size of ten house lots. I'm telling ya, it's a great place for a huge, commodious homeless shelter.
The Kleptocracy in Action. Ken Vogel & David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times: “... lobbyists, political consultants and others in the influence industry have capitalized on Mr. Trump’s aggressive fund-raising while in office to deliver for clients and earn chits with a president who keeps close tabs on who is delivering cash and listens to their appeals. It is a cycle that has helped Mr. Trump fill the coffers of his political groups, defying the gravity that sometimes drags down the fund-raising of term-limited presidents. The degree to which this dynamic has benefited Mr. Trump, his donors and their lobbyists — while shutting out regular people seeking assistance from their government — was laid bare in MAGA Inc.’s financial report. The group, which can accept unlimited donations, raised an astounding $177 million in the first half of the year.” One example: soon after Elizabeth Fago donated $1MM to MAGA Inc., Trump gave a fully pardon to her tax-fraudster son Paul Walczak, “spar[ing] him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence.”
Zachary Leeman of Mediaite: “Bloomberg reported on Friday that ... Donald Trump was among those whose names were redacted from Epstein documents, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg’s Jason Leopold reported that an FBI Freedom of Information Act team conducted a final review of volumes of documents related to late billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The team was reportedly tasked with redacting the name of Trump, a former friend of Epstein, and other 'prominent public figures.' The final review occurred before the release of a Department of Justice/FBI memo determining Epstein committed suicide and that further disclosure of files was not 'warranted,' setting off a MAGA firestorm.... The names of Trump and other prominent figures were redacted in accordance with FOIA exemptions.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Ghislaine Goes to Girls' Camp. Perry Stein of the Washington Post: “Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned associate Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved from a detention facility in Florida to a lower-security prison in Texas, her attorney David Oscar Markus said Friday. Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges, had been serving her 20-year sentence at a low security prison in Tallahassee. She has been transferred to a prison in Bryan, Texas, her attorney said. That facility has a minimum level of security and is known as federal prison camp.... Bryan is among the facilities with the lowest level of security in the federal system, with limited or no perimeter fencing, dormitory-style housing and a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio.... Based on her conviction and sentence, Maxwell is an unusual candidate to be transferred to a federal prison camp. Bureau of Prison guidelines say that inmates who have more than 10 years remaining on their sentences are not typically eligible for a minimum-security facility.” (Also linked yesterday.) This story has been updated. ~~~
~~~ Chloe Atkins, et al., of NBC News: "... according to the bureau's designation policy, Maxwell appears ineligible to be housed at a minimum-security prison camp because she is a convicted sex offender. Sex offenders must be in at least a low-level security prison like FCI Tallahassee, unless she received a waiver. Only the administrator of BOP's Designation and Sentence Computation Center can make that decision, according to the waiver policy.”
Marie-Rose Sheinerman of the Washington Post: “Most of the remaining National Guard troops stationed in Los Angeles are being withdrawn, the Pentagon said Thursday, as the Trump administration continues to roll back its unprecedented military deployment to the city.... About 1,350 troops are leaving Los Angeles, and about 250 will remain 'to protect federal personnel and property,' according to a statement from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. The move follows an initial scaling back of the military presence in the city earlier this month....”
Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: “A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from rapidly deporting immigrants granted parole at a port of entry, a setback for the Department of Homeland Security that could affect its ability to remove hundreds of thousands of people. U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb of D.C. said in her ruling Friday that DHS had exceeded its authority by summarily deporting those immigrants under a process known as 'expedited removal,' which allows officers to remove certain individuals without granting them a full court hearing.... The case brought forward ... challenged three new policies DHS has implemented since Trump’s inauguration. Collectively, the policies allowed federal immigration officers to arrest immigrants who entered within the last two years and were granted a temporary status known as parole. Among those given parole were Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans for whom the Biden administration created a legal pathway to enter the U.S. to discourage them from arriving in large numbers at the border.”
Everything the Trump administration does is shady. Here's another example: ~~~
~~~ Douglas MacMillan & Aaron Schaffer of the Washington Post: “David Venturella, a veteran of private prison firm Geo Group, joined the Trump administration to help oversee an expansion of the immigrant detention system that’s benefiting his former employer.... A federal ethics rule generally bars government employees from working on contracts awarded to their former employers for one year.... So ... the Department of Homeland Security hired him as a full-time adviser and granted him a waiver from the ethics rule.... Venturella, 59, is now the No. 2 official overseeing the ICE division that manages contracts for immigrant detention centers.... Venturella’s hiring highlights the revolving-door relationship between ICE and Geo, a Boca Raton, Florida-based conglomerate that has emerged as one of the leading players in Trump’s mass deportation agenda. As Geo has grown to become ICE’s contractor of choice, the company has cultivated close ties to the ICE officials who write and oversee its contracts and offered some of them jobs after they left government. Venturella was one of these officials.... Private contractors including Geo hold 86 percent of ICE’s immigrant detainees....”
Marie: Among Trump's many insane claims during the 2024 presidential campaign was his promise that his administration would save U.S. pet owners from immigrants who were "eating the dogs; they're eating the cats." In a terrible irony, it turns out that the real threat to Americans' furry friends was Trump himself: ~~~
Maria Paul of the Washington Post: “From California to Tennessee, the effects of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown have reached a place most wouldn’t think to look: the kennels of overcrowded animal shelters. Animal welfare groups across the country say they’re fielding a surge of calls about pets left behind when their owners are detained or deported, or self-deport in fear. That heightened need is colliding with a shelter system already stretched thin by post-pandemic overcrowding, chronic staffing shortages and plummeting adoptions — leading to longer stays for animals, difficult choices about space and growing fears that more pets could be euthanized simply because there’s nowhere for them to go.”
Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: “'DESTROY' stickers were affixed this week to hundreds of cases of U.S.-branded food aid — 15,000 pounds’ worth — that have languished for months in a Georgia warehouse and then expired before they could be sent overseas to famine-stricken areas.... And Mana Nutrition’s warehouse holds plenty more of the peanut paste, a crucial element in treating malnutrition. A $50 million supply has been stacked for months in the nonprofit’s facility [near] ... Savannah, caught in the chaos as the Trump administration upended foreign aid and never shipped. The food could still help 60 million people, Mana estimates. 'This is a giant glut,' chief operating officer David Todd Harmon said. 'All contracted. All bought and paid for. It’s just not been picked up.'... The logjam followed the Trump administration’s breakneck dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.... Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured lawmakers in May that no food aid would be wasted....”
Benjamin Weiser, et al., of the New York Times: “A federal judge in New York declined in a ruling on Friday to order the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in terminated funding that had been awarded to research institutions by the National Science Foundation. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in May in which a coalition of 16 states argued that the grants were critical to maintaining the United States as a leader in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, subjects, and that the cuts were 'in complete derogation of the policies and priorities set by Congress.'... The judge, John P. Cronan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, found that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit because it sought monetary damages from the federal government. Such cases, he wrote, must be brought before the Court of Federal Claims in Washington. In his 78-page opinion, the judge also noted that plaintiffs seeking an injunction must, among other things, show a likelihood of success on the merits of a case. The states had not done that, he said.” MB: Cronan is a Trump appointee.
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Friday allowed ... [Donald] Trump to move forward with an order instructing a broad swath of government agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions. The ruling authorizes a component of Mr. Trump’s sweeping effort to assert more control over the federal work force to move forward, for now, while the case plays out in court. It is unclear what immediate effect the ruling will have: The appeals court noted that the affected agencies had been directed to refrain from ending any collective bargaining agreement until 'litigation has concluded,' but also noted that Mr. Trump was now free to follow through with the order at his discretion.”
Yesterday I linked to Marcy Wheeler's explanation of John Ratcliffe's & Kash Patel's claims that John Durham proved Hillary Clinton's campaign conspired to frame Donald Trump for colluding with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Here's an easier-to-follow explanation debunking the claim: ~~~
~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and other Trump allies have declared that a newly declassified report on the Russia investigation provides 'evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.' The reality is almost precisely the opposite. The report shows that a purported email that Trump supporters have long tried to portray as a smoking gun is instead most likely a fake. Russian spies appear to have tried to make it seem authentic by assembling passages lifted from actual emails by different hacking victims. Here is a closer look.” The link is a gift link.
Mike Stobbe of the AP: “U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation’s top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations. The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 'I’m concerned and distressed,' said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups. He said the move will likely propel a confusing fragmentation of vaccine guidance, as patients may hear the government say one thing and hear their doctors say another.”
⭐Benjamin Mullin of the New York Times: “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting said Friday that it would shut down next year, effectively ending its half-century role as a backer of NPR, PBS, and local radio and TV stations across the United States. The organization will continue to support public broadcasters through a transition period that will end in January, said Patricia Harrison, its president and chief executive.... The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been in the cross hairs of Republicans for decades. Conservative policy advocates, legislators and presidents argued persistently that the public shouldn’t be responsible for financing media they perceived as having a liberal bias. But repeated attempts to defund public broadcasters failed, until this year. Congress voted last month to claw back more than $500 million of the organization’s annual funding.... The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is among the first casualties of the claw back, which puts public radio and TV stations across the United States at risk of going dark. Scores of stations rely on government financing to fund their operations, especially those in rural areas.” The CBS News report is here.
🐔Annals of “Journalism,” Ctd. Sophie Culpepper of Nieman Lab: The media advocacy group Free Press has created a new “Media Capitulation Index,” which “ranks the 35 largest commercial media and tech companies on a scale from one to five chickens, from 'vulnerable' (Comcast; Microsoft) to 'propaganda' (X/SpaceX; Trump Media). That scale, per Free Press, captures 'the degree … to which each media company has compromised its commitment to independent news and information in exchange for political favors and higher profits, or simply to get the Trump administration off its back.'... The report calls out the concentration of ownership in a few ultrawealthy hands — billionaires, private equity firms, conglomerates — and the threat that poses to democracy.... 'The New York Times would be more positively rated here were it not for one consistent failing at the massively influential newspaper: those damn headlines,' the index states. 'In an apparent and ill-advised attempt at both-sides objectivity, the paper’s headline writers routinely normalize the most extreme elements of Trumpism.'” Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: That last bit interests me, because we have often called out NYT headline writers here. Now someone has quantified these sanewashing headlines, so the ones we've point to were not flukes; they're part of a pattern, if not a policy, of the Times. The report itself is here. The full list of media capitulation ratings is on Page 10.
Radioactive Wasps. Emily Anthes of the New York Times: “Four radioactive wasp nests have been discovered at a South Carolina nuclear facility, according to federal officials. The first nest, which was found by workers at the Savannah River Site early last month, was recently disclosed in a report from the Department of Energy, which owns the site. The facility, near Aiken, S.C., produced material for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. Three additional nests have since been discovered at the site, officials told The Times on Friday.... Edwin Deshong, the manager of the department’s Savannah River Operations Office, said in an emailed statement[,] 'The nests do not pose a health risk to SRS workers, the community, or the environment.' But the discovery raised questions about the extent of the environmental contamination at the site, said Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina....”
Mark Maske & Rick Maese of the Washington Post: “The brain of the gunman in Monday’s deadly shootings at the Manhattan building that houses the NFL’s offices will be evaluated for the degenerative disorder from which he claimed to be suffering, according to the city’s medical examiner’s office. A spokesperson for New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said testing and evaluation for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) will take place over multiple weeks in an assessment of possible diseases of the brain, spinal cord and nerves of the shooter, identified by authorities as 27-year-old Shane Tamura of Las Vegas.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Share Article
Reader Comments (13)
Numbers, Schmumbers
In Woody Allen’s early film “Bananas”, he travels to a South American country in the middle of a civil war, idiocy ensues and he is thrust into the role of a Castro-like dictator, complete with fake beard and military khakis. He issues Trumpian executive orders like “This country’s native language is now Swedish!” “Citizens must change their underwear every three hours, and wear them on the outside—so we can tell.” and (my favorite) “All boys under the age of 14, are now 14.”
This ridiculousness is exactly where we are right now. “From now on, jobs numbers, economic statistics, and anything to do with my wonderfulness, are hereby declared the highest ever! You may all cheer like morons now! If those numbers aren’t what I say they should be, it’s fake news and someone’s gettin’ the axe.”
We got a taste of this North Korean stupidity last week when that spineless boot licking lackey, Bible Mike, announced with great fanfare that Fat Hitler’s job approval ratings were in the high 90s.
After Little Johnny and the Dwarfs declare constitutional term limits—just this one time, of course—to be unconstitutional (Alito had a dream—James Madison appeared and told him no term limits for Trump!), we’ll see “official” election results as high as 99.7845% for Trump. Honest injun!
At least in the movie, we learn that Woody, as a young man, played the cello in a marching band and decided he should do something different with his life. Fatty always wanted to be a North Korean style dictator.
And now he is.
The numbers prove it.
West Michigan is under a smoke advisory today.
Donald is missing out by not putting a tariff on that Canadian
smoke. I don't know if it's wildfires or if they're making Canadian
bacon.
Or maybe DEI should be involved. Smoke illegally crossing the
border with no paperwork.
Here is a link to Nichols:
Tom Nichols, in The Atlantic, Not With a Bang, but With a Truth Social Post
Jonathan Chait, in The Atlantic, Classic authoritarian move: When reality doesn’t go your way, deny reality.
"The backdrop to Trump’s move, and the reason observers are shocked but not surprised, is that the suspicion that jobs numbers are faked to help Democrats has circulated on the right for years. When a strong jobs report came out in October 2012, during Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, the former General Electric CEO Jack Welch tweeted, “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.”
Welch’s tweet was considered somewhat unhinged at the time, but like many paranoid forms of conservative thought, it gradually made its way into the Republican mainstream. Trump himself has spent years insisting that economic numbers were made up, regularly denouncing every positive jobs report during the Obama era as fake. And so, when this morning’s report came out, his lizard brain was primed to act: Bureaucrat say Trump economy bad. Trump fire bureaucrat. Now economy good."
Forrest,
It’s not DEI smoke, is it? Hooo…that’s bad. That’ll attract ICE floes. Or worse….LGBTQ+ smoke. There should only be boy smoke and girl smoke. And girl smoke cannot marry another girl smoke. Fatty has spoken!
Oh wait! Could it be CRT smoke? Nah. Impossible. CRT smoke was from last year’s Conflagration des Fous”
But if it’s Epstein smoke, look around. Where there’s Epstein smoke, there’s Fatty.
(If it’s from a Forrest fire, I’d say “Dude! Quit playing with the matches!”)
Laura,
I think you’ve hit upon the solution to the brain drain which has qualified, experienced scientists leaving the country and being replaced by MAGA hacks.
MAGA hacks launch rocket to Mars. (Oops! Rocket blows up. MAGA hack scientists can’t do math more complicated than 2+2=Fatty.) Wait! Rocket launch yuuuuge success. MAGA rocket lands on Mars! Yay! Here’s your trillion dollars for more big successes.
Both Sides media will say “It looked like an explosion just above the launch pad, but administration sources tell us that was just smoke from Canada. We guess they could be right. Hooray! You Ess Ay!”
Fraud
"Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign submitted faked and fraudulently obtained petition signatures in his effort to secure a spot on the November ballot as an independent candidate, a Gothamist investigation has found.
Gothamist reviewed signatures submitted from across New York City and found people who said their names were forged, as well as people who said they were deceived into signing the petitions. In at least three instances, the campaign turned in signatures from dead people.
In all, Gothamist identified 52 signatures that were fraudulently obtained or outright forged, but thousands more have not been vetted. Verifying signatures is time-consuming work; for two weeks, three reporters knocked on more than 200 doors in four boroughs and interviewed more than 100 people."
Texas Showers
"Texas AI centers guzzle 463 million gallons, now residents are asked to cut back on showers
Texas AI data centers water usage: Amid the ongoing worsening drought condition in Texas, the State's residents face an unexpected water dilemma: while communities are urged to conserve every drop, even cutting back on simple showers, massive new AI data centers are quietly using millions of gallons daily to keep their operations running, as per a report."
Digby
"David Frum had written one of the most lucid pieces about Trump’s tariffs policy that I’ve read accompanied by a fascinating interview with economic historian Douglas Irwin that addresses many of our questions. (Gift link)I’ve been very confused by the way so many of the financial elites have reacted to this economic lunacy but Frum may have homed in on the reason someone like Scott Bessent and others of his ilk are going along
Low taxes and massive corruption? From the point of view of a wealthy robber baron it’s a win-win. Not so much for the rest of us."
Of OG’s and Pierogis
Poor Alan Dershowitz. No one likes him on the island. He can’t even get a dang pierogi! The idea! He’s gonna sue that damn racist, antisemitic vendor for all he’s worth (probably a few hundred bucks). He has rights, dammit!
I suppose it never occurs to Alan that the people he routinely supports on TV are fixing to make sure that an entire class of people are permanently deprived of their rights, actually multiple classes, democrats, liberals, immigrants (whose rights are already in the toilet), anyone, in fact, who doesn’t bow to the great Orange Monster and his authoritarian monkeys.
It’s worth a closer look at the Perils of the Dersh. Just as bit of context, I had a personal encounter with that (one time) éminence grise of civil rights defenders. Alan himself claims that the concept of a civil rights lawyer was non-existent until he invented it. I would point him toward, oh, I dunno, Thurgood Marshall? But I digress.
So, once upon a time, many years ago (about 1984 I think it was), I got a call from Alan. I was working for a somewhat conspicuous municipality at the time. He was lathered up about a tip he received that that city was engaging in First Amendment violations, acting as censors of free speech. It was a complete canard. He had been slipped a Mickey by a self-serving and ass-covering corporation.
Alan was quite aggressive though. He believed he had a great big Gotcha for the column he wrote back then The Boston Herald, a right-wing rag recently purchased by one Rupert Murdoch and supercharged to go after liberal anything. I explained to Alan that he had been had. I directed him to chapter and verse of state and federal laws. Once he cottoned on, he calmed down and became downright avuncular. We had a nice conversation and he hung up to go after other more catchable fish in his libertarian sea.
I bring this up for several reasons. First, at one time, the Dersh actually was a pretty fiery defender of civil rights. He also has always had a knack for self promotion. Well, not a knack actually, more like a frickin’ disease.
And both of these aspects of his personality, I believe, factored into his descent from the high ground to the dung filled ruts of Trumpian authoritarianism.
A pice written back in 2018, on Politico, looking at why Dershowitz was all of a sudden pulling Fat Hitler’s bacon out of numerous fires, shouting that the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt at the top of his voice, and appearing almost nightly on Fox is a useful starting point. The article is well written and researched and is worth at least a skim, mostly for yet another gander at how far we’ve fallen as a nation.
The short of it is, as the writer contends, perhaps Dershowitz hadn’t changed so much as everyone around him (mostly lefties). The gist is that even assholes have rights. Quite right. But here’s the thing. Alan saw himself, and still does, as an unmoving point in a swirling storm. He believes (at least I think he does) that he is correct to stand by the rich and powerful when they are being (he feels) unfairly, and unconstitutionally treated. And if that were the case, sure. Even asshole murderers and dictators have rights.
And he may believe that he is the immovable object in a storm of chaotic kray-kray, but he hasn’t noticed that the ground into which he has planted his flag has moved like tectonic plates on fast forward. But he has always loved the limelight, and if getting on Fox every night meant shilling for shitheads, well…
Dershowitz seemed to believe (or said he did) that like Nixon, if Trump did something as president, it wasn’t a crime. Yeah, I know. Those mushrooms must have been killer. But he and his defenders seemed to also believe that justice would prevail, no matter what.
Let me give you a f’instance.
Here’s a bit of what was considered rock solid wisdom way back in the middle ages (2018) among the OG’s of the legal profession (Warning! Stroke alert!):
“It is inconceivable to me that Chief Justice [John] Roberts would accept an argument that the president is above the law—more immune than King George was…”
That was Professor Burt Neuborne of Standford Law. Neuborne was once the national director of the ACLU, a pretty serious dude not given to ivory tower maunderings.
But that is exactly what Roberts has done. EXACTLY.
So here’s my final point, and it deserves a lot more consideration on my part, but here it is anyway.
One of my favorite philosophers, Immanuel Kant, thought a lot about morality. He was a very moral guy, but he wasn’t much for living in the real world. He never traveled more than fifty miles or so beyond where he grew up. Kant developed a theory he called deontology. The idea is that it’s never acceptable to lie. Not never. Not nohow. Okay, that’s all well and good, but here’s where it get sticky, and crosses over into other moral conundra.
You’re living in Amsterdam, 1944. Knock at the door. It’s the first Hitler’s Gestapo.
“Howyadoin? Any Jews hiding in this house?”
“Jews? Well, yeah. They’re up in the attic. Want me to get them for you?”
See? No lying, but now it’s off to Auschwitz and the ovens for those poor bastards up in the attic. Happy now, Immy?
And this is where we are today. Does Dershowitz still see that it’s his role to support and defend an authoritarian maniac just so's he can keep his old civil rights medals nice and shiny?
It’s not a simple question because you run the risk of saying that everything is conditional. But we are at an existential moment in our nation’s history. We have the chasseurs of democratic demolition knocking at the door. Are we supposed to say “Sure, no problem. C’mon on in. Democracy is hiding in the attic. Go get her.”?
Years ago, it would have saved the Dersh a lot of time if he had just checked applicable law before calling my office. Maybe he should be checking other things today.
And then maybe he could get that fucking pierogi.
OhMore Voting Rights Shenanigans
White supremacy never sleeps.
Little Johnny and the Dwarfs have already put a bullseye on what few voting rights are left for non-whites, Next session, the traitors on the court will see if they can’t casuistry their way to making black voting districts illegal, unless of course the entire state is composed of African-American residents. Then they’ll outlaw the whole dang state!
The drip-drip is getting to be gush-gush.
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law passed during the civil rights era, generally prohibits race-based discrimination in voting laws and practices. In redistricting, the law is used to protect against racial gerrymandering that would unfairly dilute the voting power of racial and ethnic minority voters. States across the country routinely seek to comply with Section 2 by drawing congressional districts where minority voters can elect their chosen candidates.”
But now the supine court is gonna make that illegal as well.
“Well, of course them darkies can vote. But only in districts where PoT voters outnumber them 50-1.”
Why is this complaint being brought now? (Why it’s being rushed onto the docket as one of the most vitally important issues deserving remedy, toot sweet, is another question, a question we all know the answer to…)
Easy. A bunch of outraged white voters in the state got together and complained that districts where black voters might have a shot at electing someone who isn’t in line for a lifetime achievement award from the KKK is dadgum illegal, immoral, imethical, imconstitutional, and needs immediate attention! Us whities are always discriminated against. Waaaaah! We’re VICTIMS!
Akhilleus,
I don't think anyone can call themselves a civil rights activist, defender or supporter while still backing the Trump administration. In his first term it was bad enough, but the first six months of this term have been a wrecking ball to the civil rights of millions. Freedom of speech and assembly and association, due process, freedom from illegal search and seizure among many others have been steamrolled by Dershowitz's golfing buddy. Maybe part of his decent is from the company he keeps. Perhaps like Lindsey Graham he is an empty vessel looking to attach himself to the nearest personality around him. He found the attention and grifting ecosystem on the Right just to his liking. He also supports Bibi's war crimes in Gaza. So, while he may have at one time hung his hat on defending civil rights that is long past and those medals he is hanging onto are forever tarnished. May all his pierogis be cold and bland.
RAS,
Quite. Dershowitz clearly missed the spotlight after retiring, and what better way to get the much desired ego boost than by joining up with a crook who has made a career out of self-promotion, who constantly blathers on about how badly he’s treated, especially when that glomming on guarantees you nightly preeminence on right-wing TV where one is never challenged, never questioned, and where one’s most outrageous interpretations of the law are considered manna from authoritarian heaven, as long as you live to serve the monster.
I guess he’ll trade a pierogi (and our country) for that.
Oh, wait. He already did.