Everyone wonders why Musk’s DOGE is so intent upon gaining access to all the data and we know that Elon has said in the past that he really wanted to “get into the government servers” the question is, why? There has been speculation that he wants the data to for his own AI project and there’s evidence that that’s happened.
This article suggests they are consolidating all the data about Americans in a way that puts it at extreme danger of being hacked and used for nefarious purposes, which I would guess is likely. These people have shown they are very sloppy. But I think there’s almost no chance they aren’t going to weaponize the information against their enemies:
The U.S. DOGE Service is racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents, a campaign that often violates or disregards core privacy and security protections meant to keep such information safe, government workers say.
The team overseen by Elon Musk is collecting data from across the government, sometimes at the urging of low-level aides, according to multiple federal employees and a former DOGE staffer, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The intensifying effort to unify systems into one central hub aims to advance multiple Trump administration priorities, including finding and deporting undocumented immigrants and rooting out fraud in government payments. And it follows a March executive order to eliminate “information silos” as DOGE tries to streamline operations and cut spending.
At several agencies, DOGE officials have sought to merge databases that had long been kept separate, federal workers said. For example, longtime Musk lieutenant Steve Davis told staffers at the Social Security Administration that they would soon start linking various sources of Social Security data for access and analysis, according to a person briefed on the conversations, with a goal of “joining all data across government.” Davis did not respond to a request for comment.
But DOGE has also sometimes removed protections aroundsensitive information — on Social Security numbers, birth dates, employment history, disability records, medical documentation and more. In one instance, a website for a new visa program wasn’t set up behind a protective virtual private network, as would be customary, according to a Department of Homeland Security employee and records obtained by The Washington Post.
The administration’s moves ramp up the risk of exposing data to hackers and other adversaries, according to security analysts, and experts worry that any breaches could erode public confidence in government. Civil rights advocates and some federal employees also worry that the data assembled under DOGE could be used against political foes or for targeted decisions about funding or basic government services.
Big Balls and the boys are putting this info together for a reason and it’s not good.
The previous decentralization of this info was a feature not a bug, keeping the citizenry safer from hacking and other threats. Bringing it all together is the perfect recipe for the surveillance state — and that’s what this is about.
Meanwhile, Elon’s teaching Grok all about us, in minute detail.
Not that long ago, Ron DeSantis looked like the future of MAGA, the iron-fisted ruler of Florida politics who was set up for a White House run. Now the Republican governor faces potential political obscurity, unable to control legislators in his own party who are calling for a federal investigation of his wife’s charity.
Nothing exemplifies DeSantis’ striking loss of mojo in Tallahassee like the scandal surrounding Hope Florida, the state-backed charity of First Lady Casey DeSantis, who’s been eyeing a bid to succeed her husband as governor. The charity received $10 million in secret settlement money from a Medicaid provider just days before the charity sent that same amount to two political groups favored by the DeSantises.
House Republicans and independent observers allege that the arrangement amounted to an illegal siphoning of Medicaid funds. The governor has denied wrongdoing and accused fellow Republicans of a “bogus” political smear.
This has very much hurt Casey Desantis’ nascent bit for the job as well as the budding political career of DeSantis’ Chief of staff.
This is all happening because DeSantis is such a total assholoe:
Ron DeSantis’ stumble began with his failed presidential primary bid against Donald Trump last year. DeSantis’ vindictive and pugilistic style of politics left him further isolated in the Florida Capitol.
Be careful how you treat people on the way up because you may encounter the same people on the way down,” said Curt Anderson, veteran consultant and top adviser to DeSantis’ predecessor, Rick Scott, who’s now a U.S. senator and has had a strained relationship with the governor. “This is an amazing story,” Anderson said. “… You see falls in politics, but not like this. It’s stark. It’s fast. It’s a made-for-TV movie. Let’s not forget: He was ahead of Trump in polling in 2022 and would’ve run against [President Biden or Vice President Harris] and won.”
Whether DeSantis would have won the White House in 2024 is a question for the ages. Trump aside,the campaign exposed one of DeSantis’s biggest weaknesses: his reluctance to build alliances and establish personal connections. “There was a time when every Republican in the nation wanted to have a beer with Ron DeSantis,” said one Republican who still likes him. “The problem is that the governor didn’t act like he wanted to have a beer with them, and it showed.”
DeSantis had risento Republican stardom with his laissez-faire approach to COVID restrictions in 2020 and 2021. Florida’s Legislature kowtowed to him repeatedly. That came to a screeching halt this year, when DeSantis dragged lawmakers into a special session on immigration that many felt was needless political peacocking by the governor.
DeSantis didn’t get his way, thwarted largely by new House Speaker Daniel Perez, whose chamber has led the way in investigating Hope Florida. The multiple special sessions and acrimony in the state Capitol played a role in the Legislature’s regular 60-day session not ending on time last Friday, despite Republicans holding super majorities in both the House and Senate.
The piece de resistance:
Political observers and insiders aren’t sure about DeSantis’ future as he heads into his lame-duck year without the clear prospect of an appointment in Trump’s administration that some allies have hoped for. “Ron DeSantis went from Rupert Murdoch and every Republican billionaire telling him he could be president to sniping at hecklers at a fish shack in Destin,” said former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a one-time DeSantis ally turned critic who now hosts a talk show on One America News Network.
I just saw Thunderbolts*, the new Marvel movie written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo . I recommend that people see it. It’s exciting, funny and shows how many of us non-super heroes are feeling these days. It also shows how we can fight the darkness, in a world where the bad guys don’t fold when you stand up to them, they punch back, again and again until you feel your efforts are useless.
I use science fiction in general, Star Trek specifically, to provide as an underlying theme for my activism and writing. It’s a way to show the broader issues, possible actions to take and how to prepare for the reactions. Right now I’d like to use some Star Trek stories to talk about problems with artificial intelligence
But sometimes, when things get specific, the metaphors or analogies break down. “ACKSHULLY, M5 wasn’t a pure artificial intelligence because it’s based on the engrams of a human, Dr. Daystrom.”
I think showing people the metaphors I use are important, but then what? My question is always, what should people DO with that understanding? I think it’s because I’m an activist and I want something to change. I’m not creating “content” just for clicks. I’m doing it to reach someone to change their behavior.
Sometimes I want people to stop doing a horrible thing. If they don’t, I want to cost them money, because in America losing money, or not making as much money as you did before, will drive people to change their behavior.
What I’ve also learned is that if you succeed, and cost them money, they come after you. I’ve taught others to prepare for that, because their retaliation is real.
Lately I’ve been suggesting that activists learn who, and what stops Trump, Musk and DOGE from their destruction of the federal government.
Powerful people act when they realize that Trump or Musk, or DOGE is costing them money and will keep costing them money, unless they can convince someone in power to change their behavior. They ALSO should be thinking about WHAT will happen next if they do change someone’s behavior (people in corporations need to be educated about the best next steps, like rehiring people who were fired, and NOT turning the computer system over to a contractor who says they will use AI to “fix” the system that DOGE broke. )
We can use the people in corporations, with their goal of making money and not LOSING money, to help us prevent deaths. For a current example, I think it’s terrible that Air Traffic Controllers have been fired by DOGE. I think people dying in plane and helicopter crashes is a BAD thing.
Right now activists can suggest that pilot’s flight attendant unions refuse to fly until fired Air Traffic Controllers are rehired, their numbers are INCREASED, and not just more white males.
“The NTSB is with you, we’re not going back on safety. Together it’s the only way, the only way we remain the gold standard for safety.”
Activists could be looking at the corporations that make the air traffic control equipment and suggest they explain how Elon Musk’s interference with the FAA is deadly, and will be terrible for business.
The companies that provide fiber for upgrades airline communications, like Verizon, could explain at a quarterly conference call that Musk’s attempt to insert the unvetted, unreliable Starlink into the system is a National Security risk (not to mention a cash grab for Musk and Starlink.) And more IMPORTANTLY for them, their quarterly profits will be down for the next 3 years if they don’t get the contract for upgraded fiber.
Musk’s insertion of SpaceX and GrokAI engineers into the system is to get data to train his shitty AI. Who will lose enough money to care to stop this? I’m thinking the airlines, like UNITED, should NOT be counting on the people who blow up rockets, to write the software to keep the flights running safely and on time. If the airlines don’t want to do it to protect the humans flying, they should do it to protect their YEAR over YEAR profits.
The computer experts know that just getting the flight control system data is NOT a innocuous thing, but they aren’t all over the media explaining why.
Why do I want the corporations to tell these stories? Because their audiences have power for force a behavior change. But they are afraid to do it publicly. Because of fear of retaliation. Why would a multibillion dollar industry be afraid? Look at how Bezos and Amazon was told to shut up about the cost of tariffs. Law firms, universities, federal agencies are all afraid of speaking up.
What the powerful won’t tell you is that they NEED the protests against DOGE and Musk to be the face of how it will hurt them. Right now they are existing in a world of extortion and political pay offs. The media need the faces of the people being harmed to tell a story.
A plane crash makes the local and national news, talking about reduction of quarterly profits because of Musk and DOGE’s interference, doesn’t. But when their stock price drops because of plane crashes, the CEO and big investors make “THE calls.” to the people who can stop the interference.
The media needs whistleblowers to reveal to the general public what is happening inside, because public corporations won’t talk about it because of their Investor Relations rule about guidance.
Right now Elon Musk and people like Russ Vought (Architect of Project 2025 & current director of the Office of Management and Budget) are applying their warped view of the world to the Federal government. They are firing people and shutting down programs that are beneficial to millions of Americans. We in the left AND the center see that as a bad things. But to Vought and the DOGE boys, it’s a GOOD thing! They are the heroes! They say on RW media that “the bureaucracies hate the American people. “
Sometimes powerful people do make the call to someone in the administration and the money restarts. Rachel Maddow reports “Headstart has restarted! Pushback works!” But we are learning the money doesn’t REALLY restart. Or DOGE finds a new way to cripple the agencies mission.
SMASH The Coup!
I’ve reached the, ” I’m repeating myself, ” point of my writing. Sorry. But as my friend, Anat Shenker-Osorio says, “Repetition is your friend. Also, repetition is your friend.” I envision someone reading this, saying, “Duh, stop telling US what to do, YOU should go out and do it!” Okay, below is what I and some friends have been doing, I’m sharing this because I know other smart people are also doing work like this AND I want to encourage them and get others to help us. I’ve been working with a couple of groups to counter Musk & DOGE. One is S.M.A.S.H, Separate Musk And State Halt the coup.
Workers SMASH!#MayDay protest in San Jose to stop Musk & DOGE's actions within the government.Separate Musk And State Halt The Coup #SmashHere's a clip of them & their sign in San Jose. For more info on what to do next to stop #DOGE & #MUSK, scan the QR code or go here: smashthecoup.xyz/stc/
Right now I’m hoping to learn who the big investors are who are calling Lutnick and Bessent, and learn what they are saying to them, so that they will get heat from Trump on Truth Social.
Right now, if I wanted to reveal stories about the harm DOGE is doing, I’d figure out a way to put big corporations and their lobbyists in the picture. Show the media what they are saying behind the scenes. Let THEM take the heat from Trump, not some poor Air Traffic Controller on trauma leave.
When creating stories about the harm that DOGE is doing, we need to prepare for a world of fear of retaliation that even the most powerful experience. But I believe others will stand with us, because bottom line, saving lives is good for business.
SMASH Separate Musk And State Halt the Coup. https://smashthecoup.xyz/stc/
The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The “high-level” consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a U.S. official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarized and stabilized, and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged, the sources said.
According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a U.S.-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
I love this droll observation by Reuters:
The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.
Yeah, no kiddingt.It was the worst American foreign policy failure since Vietnam. But sure! Let’s do it again!
I can’t believe this is serious but why wouldn’t it be? Trump wants that Nobel Peace Prize and no doubt thinks that a little ethnic cleansing and beak wetting is an excellent way to do it.
I thought that was probably the worst story of the day. But then I saw this:
Senior presidential adviser Kari Lake appears to have resolved any doubts about what she wants to do with the Voice of America.
Lake seeks for it to look and sound a lot like the far-right One America News Network: on Tuesday night she announced that she had struck a deal to serve up the pro-Trump outlet’s news reports for Voice of America’s foreign audiences, at no taxpayer cost.
It would be better to just shut it down after all.
I’ve been feeling a little bit sorry for the good old-fashioned conservative movement of yore lately. You remember those people who fought for Ronald Reagan’s “three legged stool” of Republican ideology: small government, strong national defense and “traditional”values for decades, right? I’m thinking about people like Richard Viguerie, Morton Blackwell and Phyllis Schlafly, the movement OGs who slaved for years in the trenches training Republicans to embrace such arcane subjects as “free trade,” “individual liberty” and “limited government” only to have a billionaire demagogue throw that all out the window for libertinism, incoherent protectionism, central planning and vendetta by police state.
But there’s really no need to feel sad for them. Blackwell and Viguerie are still around, and they’re now peddling Trumpism, as was Schlafly before she died in 2016. And we know that some of the later Reagan revolutionaries like Ralph Reed and Roger Stone have been all-in on Trump from the beginning. Still, they deserve more credit than they’re getting for the ghastly state of American conservatism and the toxic politics we are living in today. Without them there would be no Donald Trump.
Trump’s 2015 campaign was a ramshackle affair and had very few advisers. Stone had been friends with him for years and had advised Trump on his aborted Reform party bid in 2000. He was Trump’s window into the right wing movement that he was going to need to win and since Trump was actually more of a CNN guy than a Fox guy in those days, he needed to be schooled. Stone did that for him along with with a fellow named Sam Nunberg who provided Trump with right wing radio talking points in the early days. He quickly picked up some important jargon that signaled his membership in the right wing club. (Remember his blathering about a soldier named Bow Bergdahl and “common core” during that campaign? Those obscure topics came right out of right wing radio.)
There was quite a battle during that first campaign among the more traditional conservative movement types who wanted someone like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and the grassroots voters who were dazzled by Trump’s star power. The traditional conservatives couldn’t compete in the end and while a few peeled off into Never Trumpland, for the most part the whole movement morphed into MAGA without a second thought. And the operatives who had followed the tutelage of the OGs immediately put their training to work for this blustery, billionaire demagogue whose only ideology was what was good for him.
A case in point is the current acting U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C., Ed Martin. He had spent his adult life trying to succeed in conservative politics, working with right to life groups, activist groups and repeatedly running for office and failing. He got his law degree at the Jesuit St. Louis University (which must embarrass him since they have openly acknowledged the names and stories of enslaved Black Americans who built the university. Such “DEI” actions are very Jesuit but extremely non-MAGA.)
Martin got his first break in politics being hired as chief of staff to the new Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt in 2006 but immediately got enmeshed in an email scandal in which he wrongly fired a whistleblower and was subsequently forced to resign once it turned out that he had lied about doing political work on the government’s dime. Gov. Blunt’s career was over but Martin kept at it.
After several failed attempts at elective office he finally gave up and became the head of the Missouri GOP in 2013 after which he became involved with the OG movement organization Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. Schlafly was very old at the time and her daughter and other members of the board accused him of coercing her to endorse Trump, co-writing a book called “The Conservative Case for Trump”, published the day after she died in 2016..That battle ended up with Martin being removed and starting a rival activist organization he cleverly called “Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagles.”
From the moment Trump won, Martin has been a true blue MAGA follower, appearing on any radio or television show that will have him and emerged as one of the most vociferous defenders of the insurrection and its perpetrators on January 6th. He was finally rewarded for his years of effort by being named the Acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and nominated for the permanent position despite having no experience as a prosecutor or a judge, the normal requirements for the job.
His tenure as acting federal prosecutor has given him the reputation as the worst Trump appointment of 2025 and that’s saying something. He has fired the lawyers and demoted others who were assigned the January 6th cases and dropped a case on which he was still the attorney of record. (Of course he was a participant in the festivities that day, tweeting that it was like Mardi Gras so I suppose that’s the least he could do for his client and fellow insurrectionist. ) He’s threatened elected Democrats from minority leader Chuck Schumer to house members over issuing alleged threats like “he will reap the whirlwind” and publicly sucked up to Elon Musk by posting sycophantic letters promising to protect him from his enemies. He “forgot” to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that he’d appeared on Russian state media over 150 times.
Boosting the following defamatory claim against former Biden officials is par for the course:
The medical journal thing may explain why Trump sent out this odd Truth Social post the other night in which he touted this Acting U.S. Attorney’s commitment to making America healthy again. Apparently, Martin is in cahoots with the other shockingly terrible Trump appointment, HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yesterday, N. Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he will not vote for Martin in committee citing his participation in January 6th. (I thought that was actually pretty gutsy since we know that January 6th is a trigger for Trump.) But if Tillis stands firm, Martin’s nomination will not make it to the floor. His 120-day interim appointment is up on May 20th and if Trump doesn’t name someone else, the 24 judge panel on the D.C. District Court can name another interim choice until someone is confirmed — or Trump could name another interim himself.
Martin’s brief and utterly bizarre tenure in the spotlight may be coming to a close but the conservative movement should get credit for all the other operatives, saboteurs and radical henchmen they trained over the many decades who now carrying out Trump’s sweeping vision to turn America into a Christian nationalist autocracy and global pariah. Maybe that’s what they wanted after all. If so they’ve certainly gotten their wish.
Out with antisemitism, in with “religious liberty”?
Linda McMahon wouldn’t know “academic rigor” if it body-slammed her. If you read the education secretary’s threat letter to Harvard University, you may have noted the several grammatical errors that drew a flood of ridicule. I particularly enjoyed her accusation that Harvard has lost “any semblance of academic rigor.”
— daniel (michelle steel hate account) (@danielluo_pi) May 6, 2025
But what The Atlantic‘s Rose Horowitch wants observers to note is that the Trump administration seems to have dropped its original pretext for its attack on Harvard:
What you will not find in the McMahon letter is any mention of the original justification for the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on elite universities: anti-Semitism. As a legal pretext for trying to financially hobble the Ivy League, anti-Semitism had some strategic merit. Many students and faculty justifiably feel that these schools failed to take harassment of Jews seriously enough during the protests that erupted after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. By centering its critique on that issue, the administration was cannily appropriating for its own ends one of the progressive left’s highest priorities: protecting a minority from hostile acts.
Now, however, the mask is off. Aside from one oblique reference to congressional hearings about anti-Semitism (“the great work of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik”), the letter is silent on the subject. The administration is no longer pretending that it is standing up for Jewish students. The project has been revealed for what it is: an effort to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.
Antisemitism is a problem that needs addressing, but that’s simply a pretext for a crackdown on the left by Trump 2.0. In this regard, writes Horowitch, letting the mask slip is somewhat refreshing:
In a 2021 speech titled “The Universities Are the Enemy,” then–Senate candidate J. D. Vance declared that universities, as left-wing gatekeepers of truth and knowledge, “make it impossible for conservative ideas to ultimately carry the day.” The solution, Vance said, was to “honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” We’ve been seeing the aggressive part of that formula for two months. With the McMahon letter, the administration has gotten much closer to honesty.
Trump 2.0 may have switched strategies. Where anitisemitism has lost news-cycle value, “anti-Christian bias” may take up the propaganda slack.
“On April 22, Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted the first meeting of the “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the Federal Government,” The New Republic‘s Katherine Stewart begins, including an assortment of department secretaries and “over a dozen high-ranking officials in the administration.” Supposedly about standing up for religious liberty, this effort is more about goosing “the Trump administration’s Christian nationalist allies and base” with “groundless claims of religious discrimination.”
Why? As a pretext for suppressing dissent (and/or liberals). But this crusade is just as sincere as the administration’s interest in protecting Jewish students:
Less than a week later, an incident at the U.S. Capitol made clear that the Trump administration has zero interest in promoting “religious liberty.” As the Reverend William Barber and other faith leaders opposed to Republican budget cuts gathered to pray at the Capitol Rotunda, they were swiftly surrounded by Capitol Police officers, one wearing a “crime scene” vest. The press was expelled from the building, and the pastors were arrested.
You would think that a Task Force concerned with anti-Christian bias would take an interest. But the administration appears to have nothing to say. The problem for the Reverend Barber and his fellow pastors is that they would seem to be the wrong kind of Christians. Right-wing pastor Sean Feucht has “filled the US Capitol Rotunda with worship time and time again for the last 4 years,” in his own words, and yet he has never been arrested or detained. He, apparently, is the right kind of Christian.
Exactly.
The irony of “anti-Christian bias,” as the Trump administration defines it, is that it is not, in fact, directed at Christians per se. After all, the Reverend Barber, like many American Christians, appears to anchor a commitment to equality, social justice, and concern for the poor in his faith. Rather, the alleged victims of bias are those Christians who endorse reactionary positions in the culture wars and support Trump’s agenda unconditionally.
So move over Real Americans™. Make way for Real Christians™.
Got one? Great! You are now ready to fly at heightened risk.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday documented a litany of airline mishaps in the 3-1/2 months since Team MAGA took office. Some on the ground. Some in the air. Some close calls, others deadly. In all, roughly 130 people killed in flying accidents since January 20, starting with the midair collision over the Potomac River on January 29 that killed 67, half of the victims. As the AP reported it, “the deadliest US air disaster in almost a quarter century.”
It’s not terrorists we have to worry about under the Trump 2.0 administration. It’s their misadministration of air safety. Maddow reminds readers that Elon Musk, the largest campaign donor in history, demanded the sitting FAA director resign. Michael Whitaker had levied fines against Musk’s company SpaceX, so he had to go. Trump has not appointed a permanent replacement.
Trump’s new Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, sworn in after the midair crash in Washington, DC, had a career in television, served four terms in Congress from Wisconsin, and worked as a Fox Business co-host. He has no experience in aviation. But he looks good on TV.
Oh, and Newark Airport lost all communications with flights for 90 seconds last week. CNN:
The April 28 outage impacted information coming from radars located at a Federal Aviation Administration facility in Westbury, New York, where the air traffic controllers used to manage flights heading to Newark. Control over the airspace was transferred to Philadelphia in July. The radars are now operated using a remote line the source described as “a long extension cord.”
The outage was the result ofa failure of that copper wiring that transmits information to Newark approach control, a separate source tells CNN. “There was some infrastructure breakdown related to how the information is relayed right now.”
Similar outages happened twice before, the first source notes.
According to Bloomberg, following the outage, multiple employees were placed on trauma leave. The incident reportedly “left several controllers visibly shaken, with some shedding tears, and at least one experiencing stress-induced heart palpitations.”
Shortages of air traffic controllers, attributable to DOGE firings, have plagued the airport for weeks (NPR):
But the shortage of air traffic controllers is among the most serious problems at Newark — an issue that has affected airports across the country for years. It took on greater significance after the Jan. 29 midair collision between a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which killed 67 people. A full investigation into the crash will examine the role air traffic controllers may have had in the incident.
In the weeks prior to that crash, the Trump administration had begun laying off hundreds of FAA employees as part of a federal effort to cut back on workers. Officials said controllers and other “critical safety personnel” were not among those laid off.
Raw Story reports that Duffy got grilled about the problems Tuesday night on Fox News:
A top Fox News host was shocked after Donald Trump’s transportation secretary couldn’t explain why a U.S. Army helicopter grounded two flights at a D.C. airport last week.
The Ingraham Angle‘s Laura Ingraham questioned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Monday after an Associated Press report revealed the Army was pausing helicopter flights at D.C.’s Reagan International Airport.
The pause came after a Black Hawk helicopter labeled a “priority air transport” helicopter forced two commercial planes to remain at the airport.
“Who was the VIP?” she asked. After Duffy said he and the Federal Aviation Administration—which his department oversees—didn’t know and promised to find out, Ingraham couldn’t contain her exasperation.
“Who do we ask?” she said. “You’re the transportation secretary, how do you not know?”
“How do we get a functional government back?” an exasperated Maddow asked.
Trump’s net approval has dropped since he took office among all groups, but by a remarkable 33 points among those who don’t pay attention to news.
This is a reversal of what happened in the 2024 election, when he performed best among those who pay the least attention to political news. Those are also people whose political attachments are less firm; they’re more likely to shift their views on the president based on what’s happening in the world or their own lives. If you’re a political junkie, an economic downturn is not going to change your view of Trump, nor will an economic boom. But if you never think about politics, it might. And that’s an important fact to keep in mind about those low-information voters: They may have been hoodwinked by him at one time or another, but they can change their minds again.
What Trump is trying to do now is similar to what Democrats were lectured over and over about supposedly doing in 2024. Every time they spoke about the economy, Joe Biden and his allies would say “We know prices have gone up, and we’ve been through some hard times, but we’ve made a lot of progress and things are getting better.” It was 100% true — inflation had come down, unemployment was low, there was more job creation than in any single presidential term in history — and they were never anything but apologetic about the economy. Yet they were scolded nevertheless for even suggesting that Biden’s policies had a salutary effect, with one pundit after another responding, “How dare you deny the reality of people’s lives? You can’t tell them their suffering isn’t real! Curse you, curse you I say!”
The Trump argument today is that we’re going through a wee period of adjustment as his brilliantly designed and executed tariffs are implemented, and what awaits us on the other side is prosperity such as none of us has ever seen. If you bought that, you’d believe that tariffs are a good idea, and you might even be willing to endure some short-term pain. But that’s not how Americans are reacting. In fact, Trump’s approval on the economy is about the worst it’s ever been. Here’s another poll:
Basically, Trump is saying “you can believe me or you can believe your eyes” and people are believing their eyes. Or maybe they’re just accepting what they already knew and didn’t want to admit.
As Waldman points out, Trump ran on the big message that he was going to lower the cost of living because of his tariffs, “the most beautiful word in the English language.” Now he’s saying that everyone’s going to have to buy less, pay higher prices and suck it up because the tariffs are important in order to …. what? Make America great again? Payback the world for ripping us off? Put everyone in factory jobs?
Nobody understand what the point of all this is. HGis cult doesn’t care because they believe Dear Leader knows best.But a whole lot of others who weren’t paying close attention and voted for him because they had some hagiographic memory of his first term (why that is, is another question) are seeing very clearly that he’s full of shit.
I wasn’t sure there was one for the GOP minority. After all, they confirmed weirdos like Bobby Jr, drunks like Hegseth and illiterates like Linda McMahon. (And that’s just for starters.) Looking back, I’m pretty sure that Matt Gaetz regrets making so many personal enemies in his own party or he’d be the AG today. This record made me assume that there wasn’t anyone they wouldn’t confirm.
Apparently, they actually may have a line after all: Batshit lunatic Ed Martin, the acting US Attorney for DC who is so MAGA he makes Donald Trump himself look like Mitt Romney. Lately he’s even been threatening medical journals for allegedly being “woke.” Just look at Trump’s weird rationale for confirming him. He’s a U.S. Attorney not a “wellness” guru fergawdsakes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Ed Martin, President Trump’s controversial pick to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, will “probably” stay stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee given the opposition from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
Thune indicated that he doesn’t see a path for getting Martin to the Senate floor if Tillis, a member of the Judiciary panel, remains opposed to the nominee.
“I think that would suggest that he’s probably not going to get out of committee,” Thune told reporters Tuesday when informed that Tillis won’t back the nominee.
Senate Republicans control a 12-10 majority on the Judiciary Committee. If Tillis votes “no,” Martin will be stuck in committee on an 11-11 deadlock.
Tillis met with Martin on Monday, but that didn’t allay his concerns over Martin’s advocacy for people convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Trump may threaten Tillis and scare him into backing off. It’s happened before. But at the moment he’s holding fast. Two other members of the committee, Cornyn and Cruz, have said they have concerns about him. I doubt either of them will step up, especially Cornyn who’s facing a primary from corrupt and crazy Ken Paxton in 2026. But all it takes is Tillis and he’d be doing a solid for the whole party — and the country — if he could dredge up the courage to kill this nomination.
The mainstream news media need to do more to publicize this fine fellow. There is no more odious a personality on this planet. All they have to do is show him talking:
