Without reading anything, my 2 cents: What Trump learned from Trump 1.0 is that his intuition is right: he can shoot someone on 5th Avenue with impunity. In Trump 1.0, when the FBI started investigating him he was sitting quaking, saying "I'm fucked". Eight years, 2 impeachments, a SCOTUS blank cheque later, he knows it's all bullshit. He has made plain to himself, as much as everyone else, that the American republic is rotten to the bone.
The only reason we haven't yet* seen a total machtergreifung is his own rank incompetence.
*2 months in! Early days!
"Oh look, yup, still sinking."
Announcing an exclusive symposium "Towards a Temporal and Spatial Hermeneutics of Deck Chair Placement."
No Irish or steerage passengers need apply.
I'm skeptical. If he wanted the WSJ to be happy he wouldn't be crashing the stock market. Plus Murdoch tried to ditch Trump after J6, and quickly folded when it became clear that Trump could send their audience to OAN.
4: What does OAN stand for?
People don't want to believe that he'll disobey the Courts, but that's just because it's hard - if you're life hs basically been normal - to let go of the idea that your country is basically functioning.
But we have a madman who learned that he can't be prosecuted for anything he does in office and has a Republican Congress that won't remove him through impeachment.
Protests and a ginormous swing to the Democrats seems to be the only option.
One America Network, iirc.
This French Senator Malhuret is coming from the Center-right and calling on Europe to build up its own defense, but he nails it with the line: "Washington has become the court of Nero: An incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service."
Yeah. That's not a hard call though.
Nero was on ketamine?
I don't know who Nero's Elon would have been, tbh.
"Oh look, yup, still sinking."
This completely captures my feeling. Completely befuddled.
Lutnick: Commerce Sec'y Lutnick (worth $2-4B): "Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks...my mother-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain...a fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming and yelling and complaining"
When I'm optimistic, my thoughts don't go to Nero but to a guy who worked for the founder of the dynasty Nero ended.
but got bogged down thinking that we needed ground rules to keep it from deteriorating into a referendum on Palestine and actual anti-semitism
Not that it matters, but I just re-read this and realized that it comes across poorly.
I meant: "a referendum on Palestine, and a referendum on actual anti-semitism", not "a referendum on Palestine, and then you jerks will spew out actual anti-semitism."
I'm so glad I waited for clarification.
So, according to Josh Marshall, they are trying to shut down the Social Security administration. On a Friday afternoon.
He should be impeached, but you'll never get 67 Dem Senators.
Impeachment ranks just a bit higher than sticking pins in a doll as an effective remedy.
I think Trump is mostly going to comply with court orders; the MAGA hardcore might not care, but a significant part of his coalition -- inside and outside the Executive does -- and they'll need those folks if/when the worm turns over something like messing up social security checks.
Back in more innocent days, I believed absolutely that the COVID benefit checks would never go away. I thought that once people had a taste of a universal basic income, they would never tolerate it going away. Then Manchin didn't care about the electorate and we didn't really want to solve poverty anyway, so they did go away. Now they're fucking with Social Security and seem to think there will be no consequences? We'll find out whether anything ever matters. My predictions are all worthless, so I'll just watch and find out.
"The wrong kid died."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25600216-032125-trumpmemo-lawyers/
Hang together or hang separately.
Some familiar names in this story - the campaign to overturn the convictions of the perpetrators of the Malmedy Massacre, featuring a coalition of Nazi sympathisers, American anti war activists, the magazine The Progressive, and (in his first starring role) Senator Joe McCarthy.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-mccarthys-nazi-problem-180975174/
NMM to Kitty Dukakis and George Foreman, if that was your fantasy threesome.
19: Me too. I thought we'd keep the child benefit, but we were stuck with Manchin and Sinema.
23: The Progressive was founded by another famous Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette.
In conclusion, Wisconsin is a land of contrasts, but sometimes unified in support of Nazis*,
*My father was from rural central Wisconsin and sometimes mentioned the generally pre-German sentiment in the area leading up to the war. (Usually in the context of pointing out the glaring inconsistency in the treatment of Japanese Americans.**)
**He was a bit of an individual land of contrasts in regard to positions on WWII and the military based on his own personal experiences. He was very supportive of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and indeed his amphibious tank battalion was being trained for the invasion of Japan at the time. And I think his first D vote was for Obama viewing McCain as an irresponsible flyboy (he was infantry before the amphibious tank battalion).
23: Same as it ever was:
The senator's defenders, however, pointed out that he had Jewish friends and Jewish staffers (most notoriously the pugnacious lawyer Roy Cohn), and that he advocated for Israel while decrying Soviet suppression of Jews.
Columbia agrees to appoint a commissar
https://bsky.app/profile/karl-jacoby.bsky.social/post/3lkw33hsxo22i
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/doge-imls-institute-museum-library-services-2623286
This will gut public libraries and museums all across the US. This is part of an all out war on civil society. I'm livid.
28: Yeah, who the hell are they going to get for that position? Ilya Shapiro? Amy Wax?
29: They are sniffing out any piece of the government contributing to the general welfare of the populace (in the US or abroad) and gutting it.
Yeah and I'm baffled by this no treats only stove touching "strategy"
I suspect the "treats" will be partial restoration to favored snd/or obsequious polities and institutions.
This will be the political arm of this although I suspect there will be a lot of tension between the hardcore Thielian "burn it all down" tech bro contingent and the more pragmatic political folks worried about campaigns like most Rs in Congress.
34.1 sure but this is picayune stuff
No treats for Big Pharma (cutting research, banning nRNA and vaccines generally, etc.)
No treats for the defense industry (saying we will sell subpar weaponry and fear of being cut off from parts means no overseas sales, also cuts to the DOD budget)
No treats to US agriculture (tariffs and the inevitable counter tariffs, elimination of USAID and food aid abroad, deportation of migrant laborers)
No treats to the US hospitality and airline sector (foreigners afraid to visit, Canadians canceling vacations to the US, people afraid to fly)
In a world full of people, only some want to fly.
||
'I will shed tears until they swell like a river,' ran the dirge written by one of Yehiel's students. 'I marvel that food continues to delight my tongue/After I witnessed how they gathered plunder from you/Into the centre of a public square, like booty... and burned the spoils of God on high.'|>
No treats for seniors (crippling the SSA)
23: Speaking of familiar names in Nazi stories, came across this on Bluesky:
Heisenberg under attack by more ardent Nazi physicists goes to his mother who goes to Himmler's mother (families knew each other a bit) who gets her son to call off the dogs.
In Heisenberg's telling she said "There are some slightly unpleasant people around Heinrich but this is disgusting."
https://bsky.app/profile/aetherczar.bsky.social/post/3lkxyzclbac22
36: But delivering for tax cheats, money launderers, and assorted other white-collar criminals.
That's not going to be enough to hold on to power
|| I'll be in NYC this week WThFr, any interest in a Fresh Salt meetup? |>
A bunch of Ceasefire Resolution for Palestine! activists turned out to City Council again this week.
It always seemed more symbolic than effective, and I was always sympathetic to the activists' efforts, but it feels even more untethered to be dusting off that same playbook in this current age of hopelessness.
You can't really call your activist group something like A More Humane Genocide for Palestine! and get members.
If they don't want protestors, then your city council should stop bombing Gaza!
When a ceasefire resolution came to our city council, the mayor took the unprecedented step of declaring the topic not germane and ruled therefor that the petition would not be heard by a committee. One certain councilor made a motion to challenge the mayor's bullshit power-grab, but none of thirteen other councilors in the room was willing to second.
It ended up with one of the petitioners getting taken out in handcuffs and about 10 months of subsequent drama as the mayor tried and failed to get the council rules changed to justify what he'd done.
It would have been so much easier just to have let the committee hear the petition.
We managed to get through covid without having anyone arrested, but challenging a genocide was beyond the pale.
That's pretty poorly handled!! Ours just refuses to put it on the agenda.
It takes two councilmembers or one mayor to put something on the agenda. As of November, we have two very progressive, young ceasefire-sympathetic councilmembers who would totally be game for this kind of futile heroics. But they kinda hate each other. So who knows.
Two councilors is an interesting way to do it. On our council, basically all communications get on the agenda.
For our council, if you bring the lamb, they are required to cut it open and read the liver.
Reading livers is handled at the county level here.
Allegheny County has 130 municipalities, each with their own haruspex.
Though some do share a dog catcher.
Very hard to read the flights of birds for the smaller areas. Can't get the birds to stay in the borough.
Lamb tastes better is more pleasing to the gods anyway.
I was watching this sincere but low-effort music video.
63: I'm not going back to a public sector job again.
||
stopping in towns along his way to heal not only locals but foreigners brought in specially for the occasion|>
45 Upetgi: I didn't update yet since I was sick, but I'm also in NYC since last week and probably until May. Count me in for a meetup!
You're welcome. I think it was someone else here who started me on that site (the Why Sparta is Assholes series).
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.37F9762
"the river and the sea"
Another reason to switch to Signal.
https://x.com/natashabertrand/status/1904208196220469717?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
And see the following tweet "we are currently clean on OPSEC" 🤡
74 is 75, but with a gift link to the article.
Hi Awl!
74: I need to Google Doug Feith and see what he's up to these days. This sounds like his kind of brain trust.
This sounds like what happens when you put an active alcoholic in charge of secret things.
JD Vance not wanting to attack the Houthis because it would be "bailing Europe out again" is something.
Is Ackerman still reporting? I would love to see his stuff on defense right now.
74/75/etc is blowing my mind. These colossal dumbasses.
I'm so delighted to see Doug Feith immediately catching strays in these dark times; thank you J,R. <3
The real wonder is that none of them sent a picture of their penis.
85 I actually screenshot that (sans pseud) and sent it to some Signal GCs I'm in
Thinking of Feith, in case anyone was wondering, David Addington is currently being general counsel for a small business lobby.
ReCeIpTs: https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?order=asc&sort=N&zip=80118
interestingly he and it gave to Liz Cheney, so....is Mr Fourth Branch Torture Prez never-Trump?
Okay but really... how did this Signal thing happen? There's no chance that it was actually deliberate, right?
It's a little weird basically knowing that your country has no infosec anymore and (virtually?) everything worth owning is owned. Suddenly we just have to depend on the incompetence of every other global power? It's not nothing, but...
It just so happens that "Geoffrey Goldberg" is the codename for the minder Putin assigned to Trump. They just weren't watching close enough.
Is it worth a thread? It's so fucking weird.
Sure, thread. There will probably be updates to the story.
Re the Signal thing, an Atlantic reporter interviewed Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor included on the Signal chat, and I cherish this interchange:
"David: Are you concerned about retaliation from the Trump administration because of this story?"
"Jeffrey: It's not my role to care about the possibility of threats or retaliation. We just have to come to work and do our jobs to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, in our society today--we see this across corporate journalism and law firms and other industries--there's too much preemptive obeying for my taste. All we can do is just go do our jobs."
Trivial question:
Are people in the U.S. stress-eating (and/or drinking) now like we did in the pandemic? I was able to avoid a lot of the temptation then, but there's been a notable uptick in eating on the couch lately for me. Despair takes many forms, I guess.
101: I'm not stress eating, but I'm consuming what are undoubtedly unhealthy levels of caffeine every day.
Mine not so much stress/eating as rage-eating. Read something that angers me and next thing I know there is food in my mouth. A couple of weeks in to being away from home for two and a half months and hoping not having all my snacks right there helps. The change of location helped the overall anhedonia somewhat.
I'm drinking less, because of the stomach pain.
101: I actually lost 75 pounds during the early part of the pandemic. I have since gained almost all of it back. It was just so much easier to organize my eating then in a way that maximized nutrients and kept calories at a reasonable level. So who knows, maybe if the bird flu takes off I can lose that weight again!
RFK Jr is working for that to happen.
I really started drinking more during covid because you could get beer and wine delivered to your house.
I ate beef cheeks tonight. I've never had that before, unless in a hot dog.
It was face cheeks, not butt cheeks. I asked.
You could argue that cows have butts but not butt cheeks.
Probably that's a good question for a veterinarian.
Or maybe a specialist in bovine physiology. They would know.
110: Moby is preparing for his mid-life transformation into a leopard.