The Conversation -- August 4, 2025
Dangerous Times. Paul Krugman: "... right now Trump has immense power, thanks in large part to the cowardice of many of the institutions that should be holding him in check. But he’s also rapidly bleeding [public] support, in large part because he’s completely failing to deliver on his economic promises. That combination makes this an extremely dangerous moment. And if authoritarianism does come to America, don’t count on it being soft 'like Hungary's]."
Marie: Okay, this may not be any less tasteless than a Trump dance hall, but please save your outrage, and I'll consider it merited: ~~~
Newish post by Marcie Jones of Wonkette linked below.
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Marie: I don't suppose there has ever been a headline quite like this on the editorial page of the New York Times. But there it is: ~~~
“What to Do When the President Acts Like a 5-Year-Old?” Economist George Akerlof in a New York Times op-ed: “... like many pillars of democracy — free press, fair elections, impartial courts — what protects the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not law but a common set of assumptions about how government should function. A basic idea that says: Presidents don’t manipulate the scoreboard. Past presidents respected this boundary.... The credibility of American statistics is foundational. It undergirds investor trust. It guides fiscal and monetary policy. It tells businesses when to hire, when to expand and when to hold. When those numbers are tainted or appear to be, the ripple effects are vast. Markets can lose faith in the data and in the country that produces it.” MB Note: It appears that the original headline was, “Why Trump's Meddling in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Matters.” Somehow I don't think the Times' notoriously right-leaning, both-sides-at-best headline writers were the ones responsible for the update. ~~~
~~~ Meagan Vazquez of the Washington Post: “The White House on Sunday dispatched Kevin Hassett, its top economic adviser, to publicly defend the president’s decision to fire [BLS Commissioner Erika] McEntarfer, but he did not provide evidence to support Trump’s claims that recent monthly job figures, which were revised downward last week, were rigged to make him look bad.... On Sunday evening he called the [jobs] report 'a scam' in a gaggle with reporters. 'The numbers were ridiculous that she announced,' he said, adding that he plans to announce McEntarfer’s replacement in three to four days.... When 'Meet the Press' host Kristen Welker pressed Hassett for proof Sunday to support Trump’s claim that those numbers were 'rigged,' he deflected. 'The revisions are the hard evidence,' he said, adding, 'If I was running the BLS, and I had a number that was a huge, politically important revision … then I would have a really long report explaining what happened, and we didn’t get that.'... On CNN’s 'State of the Union' on Sunday..., Trump’s former BLS commissioner, William Beach ... rejected the argument that McEntarfer somehow manipulated the data for political purposes, saying that 'by the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they’re all prepared. They’re locked into the computer system.'” The NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here is a likely cause of the remarkable change in the previous months' jobs numbers that I've suspected from the moment Trump had his hissy-fit: ~~~
~~~ From a Marketplace story Steve M. heard on the radio, “There’s another way federal data is being undermined, said Steve Pierson [, director of science policy at the American Statistical Association]: across-the-board job cuts initiated by DOGE starting at the beginning of the Trump administration, which Pierson estimates led to 15% to 40% staff attrition at some statistical agencies. 'The biggest impacts so far have been just the reductions of force, which are collateral damage,' said Pierson, leaving fewer trained statisticians to sample, survey, and analyze results for error, seasonal, or regional variation.” Steve writes, “Agencies like BLS ... are seriously understaffed, thanks to Trump and Musk and the DOGEboys firing people without congressional authorization (and possibly Vought replacing professionals with unqualified political hires, as laid out in Project 2025). The professionals claim to be confident that they're producing good data, but it seems pretty clear to me that at the very least those initial monthly jobs figures are likely to need more revision than they have needed in the past, and I'm sure that's the reason for the crazy-looking discrepancy in the May and June figures.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Even Trump -- who isn't very bright -- may have an instinctual suspicion that the drastic change in numbers is his fault. His Trumpertantrum then is his way of deflecting his rage against his own mess and onto an innocent bureaucrat (or in his telling, a deep-state anti-Trump, Biden-planted conspirator).
Prof. Nicholas Grossman of Arc Digital: “The president insists the economy is 'booming,' the data says it isn’t, and he wants government officials to prioritize making him look good, reality be damned. That is the very essence of Trump’s political program. It’s inherent in the slogan 'Make America Great Again,' which calls for returning to a past that didn’t actually exist. They call poorer times more prosperous, and periods with higher violent crime rates safer. MAGA politicians, media, and influencers offer their followers the nostalgia-drenched lie that life was easy but now it’s hard, and whoever they already hate is to blame.... Living inside a lie is apparently what MAGA voters want.... [And] they try to push it on everyone else.... Trump firing the BLS Director institutionalizes the effort to live inside a lie.... Trump’s second term is doing that institutional lying on a larger scale. Along with reorienting DOJ, HHS, and other federal departments around lies, the administration is at war with science, universities, media, and courts — any public or private institution that can credibly say 'that’s not true.'”
POTUS* Bickers with Radio Host. Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: Donald “Trump railed at the radio host and author Charlamagne Tha God early Sunday morning, after the host said that the administration’s handling of information related to Jeffrey Epstein was fueling a 'coup' in the Republican Party. 'I think that traditional conservatives are going to take the Republican Party back,' Charlamagne said on a Fox News program on Saturday hosted by Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and a former co-chair of the Republican Party.... Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social early Sunday, saying that Charlamagne 'knows nothing about me or what I have done.'” ~~~
~~~ Matthew Daly of the AP: “Trump on social media called Charlamagne a 'racist sleazebag' and criticized his use of God in his professional nickname. 'Can anyone imagine the uproar there would be if I used that nickname?' Trump asked.”
Rebecca Solnit of the Guardian: “One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like [Jeffrey Epstein, Sean Combs & Harvey Weinstein] are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society. Another is that it is in the most literal sense not news – ... violence against women is global and enduring, a constant rather than an event. Another is that law enforcement and the legal system have often been more interested in protecting perpetrators and society has often normalized and even celebrated violence against women.... Now, like all the men mentioned in the first paragraphs of this essay, Trump has a protection machine at work – one without precedent. Our own federal government, funded by our taxes, is apparently striving to protect Trump from whatever’s in those files.”
The Ballroom That Kleptocrats Built. Ashley Ahn of the New York Times: “Experts on historic preservation are raising concerns over the feasibility of ... [Donald] Trump’s plans to complete large-scale renovations to the White House by the end of his term, and whether the project can be done while respecting the historic nature of the building.... It remains unclear whether the Committee for the Preservation of the White House..., It remains unclear whether the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, which works in tandem with the White House Historical Association..., [and] which works in tandem with the White House Historical Association, has provided recommendations or raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s ballroom.... Questions about who is funding the project are also still largely unanswered. White House officials said the president and 'other patriot donors' would pay for the renovations but declined to give details.” ~~~
~~~ Matt Shaw in a New York Times op-ed: Trump's ballroom “project, designed by the traditionalist architect James McCrery II, will be built in the style of Gilded Age neoclassicism, complete with arched windows, chandeliers and Corinthian columns.” Shaw goes on to discuss the search for a "national architecture" and why that is so difficult. However, he doesn't address what I consider a central issue: how can we inaugurate a national architectural style when we don't have roofs over the heads of so many Americans? The gaudy neoclassicism the king prefers is an affront to the people he leaves without so much as a tent. More on the Gilded Age dance hall at the top of today's Comments.
Trump's Gilded Plastic Appliques Too Tacky for Historical Ass'n. Replica. Andrew Trunsky of the New York Times: “The White House Historical Association recently unveiled its replica of ... [Donald] Trump’s Oval Office, but it mirrors the office from his first term, before he festooned it with gold.... Until the Trump transformation was unveiled late last month, visitors who came had seen a room looking almost identical to the one occupied by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. 'We are replicating President Trump’s complete tenure within the Oval Office,' said Luke Boorady, the exhibit’s managing director, 'starting with his first-term décor.'”
Riley Beggin & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: “The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said, even though the idea was one of ... Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges. Last year, Trump said that if he returned to office, the government would either pay for IVF services or issue rules requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for it. The pledge came as Trump faced political blowback over abortion rights after his appointees to the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade.... A senior administration official ... said that while expanding IVF access remains a 'huge priority' for Trump, the president can’t legally make IVF an essential health benefit without Congress first approving legislation to do so. It is unclear whether the administration plans to ask lawmakers to take up a bill, but the two people said that forcing insurance companies to cover IVF is not currently on the table.” MB: It was a nearly-impossible, stupid campaign promise to make in the first place. ~~~
~~~ OR, as Scott Lemieux puts it in his LG&$ headline: "Obvious lie turns out to be obvious lie."
Greg Jaffe of the New York Times: “Jen Easterly, who had served in Republican and Democratic administrations, was headed to [a distinguished teaching chair at West Point]. Then a right-wing activist [-- Laura Loomer --] stepped in.... Over three decades, Ms. Easterly, 57, had compiled an impeccable résumé as a West Point graduate, a Rhodes Scholar and an Afghanistan war veteran. She had served as a key aide on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council and led a critical cybersecurity agency under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.... Ms. Loomer, a podcaster and persistent social media presence ... and self-described 'Islamophobe,' ... has run for Congress, but never served in government. Senior White House officials, who view her as unmanageable and often toxic, have blocked her from serving in the Trump administration.... 'Now some TV commentator keen to score political points can humiliate even very senior officers,” said Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel, Vietnam veteran and emeritus professor in history and international relations at Boston University. 'And, of course, those officers allow themselves to be humiliated with the secretary of defense as either bystander or co-conspirator. It is an extraordinary moment.'”
Teeing Up an Election-Rigging Scheme? Ali Swenson & Gary Fields of the AP: “Over the past three months, the [Department of Justice]’s voting section has requested copies of voter registration lists from state election administrators in at least 15 states, according to an Associated Press tally. Of those, nine are Democrats, five are Republicans and one is a bipartisan commission.... The unusually expansive outreach has raised alarm among some election officials because states have the constitutional authority to run elections and federal law protects the sharing of individual data with the government.... The department historically has focused on protecting access to the ballot box. Today, it is taking steps to crack down on voter fraud and noncitizen voting, both of which are rare but have been the subject of years of false claims from Trump and his allies.”
Nancy Gertner & Stephen Vladick in a New York Times op-ed: “Last week, in a post on social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department filed a misconduct complaint against James Boasberg, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, claiming he made 'improper public comments about President Trump' and his administration.... The complaint misrepresents both what Judge Boasberg said and the nature of the setting in which he spoke, and it misapplies the law and the rules governing judicial conduct. Worse, it is a dangerous escalation in a mounting list of assaults by the current administration on the legitimacy of the federal courts. It is, in a word, preposterous.... Even if the claims against Judge Boasberg had merit — they don’t — the attorney general’s announcement on social media is a violation of the law, which requires confidentiality.” The link appears to be a gift link; the writers' arguments are worth reading.
Marcie Jones of Wonkette: “A typo-ridden [secret] memo authored by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s little brother Phil, also Pete’s liaison to DHS, got leaked to The New Republic, featuring the agenda of a [secret] meeting between the Hegseth boys, representatives from DHS, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, General Gregory Guillot, and NORTHCOM Commander Lieutenant General Chris LaNeve. In that meeting, Hegseth and team DHS urged the military officials to prepare to get involved a years-long war on America’s streets, in “‘L.A.-type” operations' that the memo says are a 'priority for POTUS.' Funny, because Pete Hegseth has been polygraphing and firing people all over the place to find THE LEAKERS, who have been snitching to the press nonstop about what an incompetent, raging, hypocritical and shitty boss he is, and how everyone at the Department of Defense hates him.” MB: Maybe the problem was that Brother Phil typed up his memo after the White House told Pete to quit polygraphing the help.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Ashley Cai of the New York Times: “New federal data shows that half the migrants arrested in the New York City area since Jan. 20 have been detained after being summoned to the federal immigration offices in Manhattan or to the immigration courts there.... In recent months, hundreds of people have been handcuffed without notice, largely out of public view.... Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested at least 2,365 immigrants in the region between late January and the end of June, a nearly 200 percent increase from the five months before Mr. Trump took office.... Most people arrested in New York during the Biden administration were released within a few hours so that they could wait for their asylum hearing.... The Trump administration has ... [been] holding most people in detention, for weeks and months, as their deportation cases play out in the courts.... And in recent months, those apprehensions [of non-criminals] have begun to surpass the arrests of immigrants who have criminal records.”
Tobi Raji of the Washington Post: “As the administration seeks to fulfill ... Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history..., Afghans who fear retribution from the Taliban for their work assisting the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan ... have found themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.... One former interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan was detained by immigration agents in Connecticut last month after he showed up for a routine green card appointment. A second was arrested in June, just minutes after attending his first asylum hearing in San Diego.... After Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration moved to resettle Afghans who had worked for the U.S. government through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which grants lawful permanent resident status and a pathway to U.S. citizenship. As of April, about 25,000 Afghans had received an SIV, and another 160,000 had pending applications.... But the Trump administration is rolling back programs created to assist more than 250,000 Afghans — including the allies who worked for U.S. forces and other refugees who fled after the Taliban takeover.”
David Gelles & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “Ever since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisory committee warned of the dangers of unchecked global warming, the United States has taken steps to protect people from these risks. Now, however, the Trump administration appears to be essentially abandoning this principle, claiming that the costs of addressing climate change outweigh the benefits. The effect is to shift more of the risk and responsibility onto states and, ultimately, individual Americans, even as rising temperatures fuel more extreme and costly weather disasters nationwide, experts say.... Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, this week proposed to repeal the landmark scientific finding that enables the federal government to regulate the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. In effect, the E.P.A. will eliminate its own authority to combat climate change.... But Mr. Zeldin’s announcement was only the latest in a rapid-fire series of actions to weaken or eliminate protections against climate change.”
William Mao & Veronica Paulus of the Harvard Crimson: “Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has told faculty that a deal with the Trump administration is not imminent and denied that the University is considering a $500 million settlement, according to three faculty members familiar with the matter. The University is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement, Garber said, according to the three faculty members. Harvard and the Trump administration restarted negotiations in June to restore billions of dollars in frozen federal research funding.... The New York Times reported last Monday that the University is considering a settlement with a price tag of half a billion dollars. But Garber, in a conversation with one faculty member, said that the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is 'false' and claimed that the figure was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials.... Talks between Harvard and White House officials have also been 'on and off again,' according to the faculty. But in any discussions, Garber reportedly said, the University is treating academic freedom as nonnegotiable.”
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Texas. David Goodman & Julie Bosman of the New York Times : “Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left the state on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to stop Republicans from adopting an aggressively redrawn congressional map. Their absence is expected to prevent the House from reaching the quorum needed to hold a vote this week. The walkout was a sharp escalation in the bitter partisan clash over a mid-decade redistricting in Texas that was requested by ... [Donald] Trump. Republicans in the State Legislature were rapidly moving forward, with the map — drawn to flip five Democratic congressional districts to favor Republicans — being passed out of two committees over the weekend. A floor debate on the map, and a potential vote of the full House, was scheduled for Monday. The ultimate outcome is far from certain: The walkout could delay action in the Legislature for several weeks or more, but comparable past attempts to block Republican legislation and redistricting in Texas have eventually failed.” The Texas Tribune story is here. ~~~
~~~ Caroline Vakil of the Hill: “Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said on Sunday that the state would protect Texas Democrats who fled to the Prairie State over GOP efforts to redraw the Lone Star State’s congressional maps. 'They’re here in Illinois. We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that — ’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,' Pritzker told reporters at a press conference Sunday night held alongside the Texas state lawmakers. 'It’s Ken Paxton who doesn’t follow the law. It’s the leaders of Texas who are attempting not to follow the law,' he continued. 'They’re the ones that need to be held accountable.'”
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There has been a fairly horrid rendition of Trump's fairly horrid ballroom floating around on the Inter-tubes, so here is a response I wrote to Forrest Morris late yesterday regarding the drawing he sent us, which is a depiction I've seen elsewhere:
@Forrest Morris: The Instagram rendering is not an accurate picture of Trump's planned monstrosity.
For one thing, the Trumpendanzhaal in the picture is far too big. It appears to be about three times the size of the White House. But the first floor of the White House, according to the Googles, is 55,000 sq. ft., or more than half the proposed size of the dance hall.
In addition, the Instagram picture shows the giant ballroom abutting the White House. The current East Wing is separated from the White House by a long corridor. (This is the same corridor Melanie decorated with a long line of blood-red trees in 2018.)
It looks as if there will still be plenty of room for the trees from hell after the ballroom is built. I can't tell from the renderings (seen at about 1:44 minutes into the video) what will happen to the current East Wing, but according to Mizz Karoline Leavitt, the disco space will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House." That is, it will be at the end of Melanie's corridor & not smack-dab attached to the White House as the Instagram picture has it.
I'm not defending the building of a grotesque dance floor on the White House lawn, but these are the facts as we know them. Of course with Trump, everything but the gilding is TBD, so who knows?
While the Supremes sit on their hands.....watching the nation burn.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/democrats-redistricting.html
Can't blame the Dems but there's that old thing about two wrongs....
@Ken Winkes: It isn't that the Supremes are sitting by silently as Republicans gerrymander the states they control. No, the confederate Supremes endorse gerrymandering as long as they can establish to their own satisfaction that they purpose of the gerrymandering is political and not specifically and uniquely racist; oh, and it has to be good for Republicans. As Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center put it in late May:
"... South Carolina’s Republican legislators drew congressional district maps in a way that diminished the influence of Black voters in choosing a representative. The state denied accusations of racial gerrymandering, which is still (theoretically) illegal. No, South Carolina said, this was good old-fashioned partisan gerrymandering, a quaint and cherished part of our political system. It’s the American way — the founding fathers did it! To this implausible argument, the Supreme Court assented.
Oh, and as Steve Vladick points out, they ain't done yet. Stay tuned for the next Court session!
John Oliver on deferred prosectutions
“Trump on social media called Charlamagne a 'racist sleazebag' and criticized his use of God in his professional nickname. 'Can anyone imagine the uproar there would be if I used that nickname?' Trump asked.”
Not as if he sells his own Bible, or we have pictures of dozens of "faith leaders" praying over him in the Oval Office, or he puts out A1 photos of Jesus on his shoulder, or his supporters claim he is heaven sent. That would be crazy. /s
Little Donnie Trumpy: Kultcha Guy
So Fat Hitler's tanzhall will be devised in the (ahem) Neo-Classical style of arky-teksha.
Izzat so?
Like all things Trumpy, it will be a mess. Might not even be finished. I'm picturing something akin to the half-assed, never completed Big Beautiful Wall. Corinthian columns falling over, pipe staging surrounding a demolished wedding cake of calcified frippery with gold leaf gewgaws on saw horses waiting for the glue sticks, unboxed faux gold chandeliers (although since he's not paying for anything, we might be footing the bill for the real things), all sitting unfinished all very Potemkin like in its cheesy facade backed by two by fours and studded walls ready to collapse. Gilt corruption and greed incarnate.
What interests me most is, if this budget busting pool room does get built, this attraction to the Neo-Classical.
The rise of Neo-Classicism, spreading like wildfire across Europe in the wake of the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, coinciding with a revival of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and philosophy, supercharged advances in the Enlightenment. Thinkers and philosophers of this period, guys like Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hobbes, and Montesquieu, famously influenced America's founders.
The classical concept of democracy burgeoned into new life with these thinkers. Enlightenment scientists were instrumental in developing the scientific method, moving science wholesale out of what may have remained of medieval beliefs into evidence based understandings of the world.
The whole schmeer of these periods infected the revival of classical ideals and ideas, spilling over into an architectural style redolent of those qualities.
Which brings us to little donnie trumpy. His Neo-Classical is all neo and no classical. And there ain't much neo in there neither. Democracy? Philosophy? Enlightenment? Evidence based science? Not a one of these informs Fat Hitler's attraction to this style. Know who else this reminds me of? The first Hitler. Nazi architecture was a kind of stripped down Neo-cCassicism. Yeah. Stripped of humanity, the essential ingredient in ancient classicism. Neo-Classicism with oven mitts.
Fatty also loves him the gaudy, so there's plenty of Rococo flamboyance in his mish-mash concept of decoration. But Rococo, as a style was killed off almost in a flash in the late 18th C. Know what killed it?
The French Revolution.
So here's Louis de Fatso with his empty-headed, hard-hearted, tone deaf Let Them Eat Cake decorative sensibility, wired into a Neo-Classicism without the classics, the democracy, the humanism, and the enlightenment philosophy, but with plenty of Nazi-authoritarian, goose stepping, white supremacy flair.
And we're picking up the tab to keep his gruesome grandiosity fed.
All cult and no culture.
Speaking of picking up the tab for President* Poop: \when he leaves office with his rebuilt 747 is the taxpayer going to be the one paying for fuel and maintenance? I can easily see him becoming a globe trotting golfer on the US taxpayers dime.
BobbyLee,
I have no doubt the Trump Tiny Testicle Curators in the MAGA controlled Congress will find a way to fund Fatty’s folderol til he drops.
For my part, I’m willing to pay for one thing and one thing only for that monstrous moocher:
A pine box.
Hell, I’ll even spring for the nails.
(It’ll have to be an XX wide box, but what can you do?)
Nothing to see here, just Trump and Epstein's young female friend.
Quite The Resume
"The guy Trump picked to lead the office that’s now investigating Jack Smith:
— said Niki Haley is ineligible to be president
— has neo-Nazi ties
— was Andrew Tate’s lawyer
— 2x Claremont fellow
— wrote for Gateway Pundit
— called for Pence to be hanged
— called for secession after 2020 election"
To the Moon
"Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator."
$15 Thousand
How badly to foreigners want to visit Trump America?
"The United States could require up to $15,000 bonds for some tourist and business visas under a pilot program launching in two weeks. The Department of State notice released on Monday said the effort aims to deter those who overstay their visas.
The 12-month pilot program, which will begin on August 20, will target those seeking B-1 or B-2 visas from countries with high rates of overstays although the document does not identify the nations."
Two weeks away and they still don't actually know what they are doing. So much of this shit show has been run so haphazardly that they only know what cruel outcomes they want, but not how they are going to do them. They just throw ketchup at the walls until something sticks.
Thank you for your service, but we might kill you anyway.
"Pregnant veterans would no longer be allowed to receive abortions at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy threatens their health under a proposed rule from the Trump administration that would revoke a Biden-era policy expanding abortion access."