Skip to content

Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Pentagon Drownings

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 22, 2025

If I were more conspiracy-minded….

Still image from What Lies Beneath (2000).

If I were more conspiracy-minded, I might suspect that the people running our executive branch don’t have American interests and global stability top of mind.

The Trump-Musk axis is drowning an awful lot of our government competency in the bathtub, and now in the Pentagon, at a time when 1) NATO’s confidence is shaken, 2) Russia seems poised to annex more of Ukraine, and 3) China waits for Donald Trump to pull the U.S. even farther back from the world stage and leave Taiwan easy pickings.

CNN Friday morning:

An executive order issued by President Donald Trump this week that seems to give him huge power to interpret the law is raising concerns among legal experts that it could dissuade military commanders from refusing unlawful orders and allow the president to exert influence over the military’s legal processes.

“I do worry about the chilling effect … I can definitely see people hesitant to fulfill their duties because they’re afraid Trump will have them punished,” Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who previously served as a military judge and the Air Force’s chief prosecutor, told CNN.

The executive order, released by the White House on Tuesday evening, is focused on giving the president greater control over independent federal agencies but it includes language that says the president and attorney general “shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch,” of which the Defense Department is a part. The order comes as Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have ordered the military to take a bigger role in immigration detention operations at the southern border, and have indicated the administration is open to using the military domestically.

GLUG.

FOLLOWUP: SECDEF Hegseth also firing the CNO, the USAF Vice-Chief, and somewhat unusually and ominously to do in the same breath, the senior JAGs of the Army, Navy, and USAF

— David Burbach (@dburbach.bsky.social) 2025-02-22T01:16:22.076Z

CNN Friday night:

In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership Friday night, President Donald Trump fired the top US general just moments before his defense secretary fired the chief of the US Navy and others.

In announcing the dismissal, Trump called Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Q. Brown a “fine gentleman” and an “outstanding leader.” Brown is only the second Black man to serve as chairman and was the first Black service chief in US military history when he was confirmed as chief of the Air Force in 2020.

The president hinted at the firings to come in the announcement on his Truth Social platform. “Finally, I have also directed [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth to solicit nominations for five additional high level positions, which will be announced soon,” he wrote.

Hegseth is going to fire every woman or Black person in military leadership.

— Clara Jeffery (@clarajeffery.bsky.social) 2025-02-22T02:17:26.530Z

GLUG, GLUG.

Ms. Jeffery of Mother Jones (and more, above) is right.

What's the difference between firing someone "for DEI" and firing them because they are Black?

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-22T06:00:31.741Z

Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island believes “Donald Trump’s quest for power is endangering our military.” He writes:

The implications for our national security cannot be overstated. A clear message is being sent to military leaders: Failure to demonstrate personal and political loyalty to Trump could result in retribution, even after decades of honorable service. In particular, firing the military’s most senior legal advisers is an unprecedented and explicit move to install officers who will yield to the president’s interpretation of the law, with the expectation they will be little more than yes men on the most consequential questions of military law.

[…]

The firings are sure to create a dangerous ripple up and down the ranks. Leaders might hesitate to refuse illegal orders, speak their minds about best practices or call out abuses of power.

If I were more conspiracy-minded, I might think illegal orders and other abuses of presidential power were just the point.

Did I mention that Trump and the supine Republican Congress this week handed control of the premiere U.S. domestic security agency to a conspiracy theorist? Kash Patel began his tenure as FBI chief by announcing the dispersal of up to 1,500 agents from the nation’s capitol to remote field offices.

Sources tell former Assistant FBI Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi there is “no logic” to these relocations.

If I were more conspiracy-minded, I might suspect there is. Betting the nation’s security on Trump 2.0 simply seems like whistling past the graveyard. Worse, not every Wormtongue whispering in the dotard, would-be-king’s ear is themselves incompetent. Some may be in fact malevolent.

Tom Nichols calls the events the Friday Night Massacre and warns in The Atlantic:

Now that Trump has captured the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the military is the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government. None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or “lethality,” or promoting “warfighters,” or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple.

Trump always wanted his own Praetorian Guard.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink

I Don’t Mean To Alarm You

Published by digby on February 21, 2025

Perhaps you’ve noticed that the markets have been nosediving the last couple of days and they are actually below where they were when Biden left office. It’s possible that it’s just a correction. The markets have been soaring for a couple of years. However, there is good reason to believe that there could be some major trouble on the horizon.

Krugman with a major warning:

In a week in which Trump has firmly allied himself with Russian aggression while falsely claiming that millions of dead people receive Social Security, how many people noticed Tuesday’s executive order that appears to be an effort to strip the Federal Reserve of its ability to oversee and regulate Wall Street?

This is, however, important. The Musk/Trump administration has been weakening financial regulation across the board. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which aims to shield Americans from fraud, has been shut down. All of the agencies that try to supervise and regulate financial institutions, other than the Fed, are now being run by people hostile to the very idea of regulation. Cryptocurrency, which is rife with fraud and scams — indeed, the whole thing may be a scam — is now being actively promoted by the executive branch.

And all of this couldn’t be happening at a worse moment. MAGA may well be laying the foundations for the next financial crisis.

Economists have known for a long time — more than 250 years — that financial institutions should be regulated. Libertarians often invoke Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations for its advocacy of laissez-faire economic policies. But even Smith, who had witnessed the Panic of 1772 that hit Scotland, London and Amsterdam — arguably the first modern banking crisis — called for significant restrictions on banks,

The 21st-century financial system is, of course, far more complex than that of the 18th century, although there are some echoes. Notably, “stablecoins,” crypto tokens that can supposedly be redeemed at will for actual dollars, are a lot like the privately issued bank notes of the 18th and 19th centuries, which could supposedly be redeemed at will for gold and silver coins. The main difference is that while bank notes were clearly useful for legitimate business, cryptocurrencies still don’t seem to have any real use case other than money-laundering.

Did I mention that Howard Lutnick is now the Commerce Secretary? Lutnick has had close financial ties to Tether, which Bloomberg describes as

the stablecoin used by drug traffickers, terrorists and scammers to move money around the world.

And crypto aside, the complexity of modern finance makes it even harder for both consumers and investors to assess banking risks, so we need effective financial regulation to avoid or at least limit financial crises.

Yet the Musk/Trump administration is moving to loosen if not eviscerate financial regulation. And it’s doing so at an especially dangerous time.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis I, like many economists, became a fan of Hyman Minsky’s “financial instability hypothesis.” At a time when many economists were arguing that financial markets are generally efficient in the sense that asset prices reflect the best information available, Minsky argued instead that they are driven by cycles of greed and fear. A Minsky cycle looks something like this:

In the aftermath of a financial crisis, investors are well aware that markets can go down as well as up. They are cautious about taking risks, and especially about leveraging up — investing with borrowed money. And as a result of this caution, financial markets are calm with relatively few crises.

Over time, however, memories of past disasters fade, in part because those who remember bad things retire or move on, replaced by younger traders who have never experienced a major crisis. This eventually produces markets in which prices seem to go in only one direction — up — and whoever is most willing to take leveraged risks wins. Even those who intellectually know better get sucked in because of FOMO: fear of missing out.

This manic phase doesn’t just induce many people to take on risks they don’t understand. It also creates what the famed investor James Chanos calls a “golden age of fraud.” (I’ll be posting a long talk with Chanos this weekend.) When it seems as if fortune favors the brave, con men or, sometimes, con women find it especially easy to attract suckers, especially if they can hang their promises on a narrative — say, the wonders of crypto or the limitless potential of AI.

The New York Times recently ran a heartbreaking story about how the president of a community-owned bank in Elkhart, Kansas fell for a crypto scam, destroying the bank and quite a few people’s life savings in the process. You can be sure that we’ll hear many more such stories once we reach the final stage of the cycle — the Minsky moment, when euphoria-driven asset price surges give way to fire sales as highly leveraged investors desperately try to raise cash.

The crypto scam makes this whole thing way more dicey than what we’ve experienced in the past. If Krugman is right, we could be looking at something extremely destructive. But then, when it comes to Trump, what isn’t?

Get yourself a drink and read the whole thing. Let’s hope we get lucky this time. There are more than enough atrocities to defeat Trump and the Republicans without a big banking crisis. We really don’t need that.

A Psycho In Charge

Published by digby on February 21, 2025

He is completely off his rocker. I beg you to take the time to listen to the following clips and hear his slurred, fuzzy voice as he says these odious, ignorant things. If he was a drinker, I’d assume he was drunk. He is clearly becoming more and more unhinged.

Even Brian Kilmeade tries to steer him away from the demented notion that Ukraine started the war but he just carries on:

TRUMP: You have a man who has let a country that had the more beautiful cities. They’re demolished. Had the most beautiful domes.

KILMEADE: But that’s Russia’s fault though, Mr President

T: 1,000 year old domes. And everything is demolished. It’s sorta like Gaza

K: That’s Putin’s fault

T: I get tired of listening to it

Trump on Zelenskyy: “I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards. And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it.”

In other words, he hasn’t completely capitulated to Trump’s insane demands to suck Putin’s … er, toes and give him all of Ukraine’s natural resources. He’s “sick of it.”

Trump: “Russia was attacked. Russia attacked. But there was no reason for them to attack. You could’ve talked him out … Every time I say, ‘Oh, it’s not Russia’s fault,’ I always get slammed by the fake news. But I’m telling you. Biden said the wrong things. Zelenskyy said the wrong things.”

What he’s saying is that Ukraine should have surrendered their country immediately and Biden should have said what Trump said when Putin invaded:

“I said, ‘this is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine.. Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent. Oh that’s wonderful. Putin is now saying it’s independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said ‘how smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep peace, all right.”

In other words Biden should have applauded Putin’s invasion (excuse me peacekeeping mission )and invited him to do more of it. And Ukraine should have said “thank you sir may I have another.”

I believe that is how he really thinks about it. Just look at his “proposal” for Gaza — it’s coming from the same place. Might makes right, period.

I’m not sure what or who in the United States is going to stop him this time. His defense secretary certainly seems to believe that PUtin had a right to do what he did:

“It feels like Putin’s give me my shit back war…We used to have the Soviet Union, and Ukraine was part of it, and I want my shit back.”

I suspect any pushback to this insanity will have to come from other countries and that’s very dangerous. Whether it’s a nuclear arms race or perceived permission slip to China or others who have territorial ambitions, this could so easily go sideways.

Live By Vibes, Die By Vibes

Published by digby on February 21, 2025
Maybe this vibe isn’t so popular after all

Reuters reports:

U.S. consumer sentiment dropped more than expected in February to a 15-month low and inflation expectations rocketed as households worried that President Donald Trump’s plans for steep and broad-based tariffs would eat into their purchasing power.

The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers on Friday said its Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 64.7 from January’s revised final reading of 71.7. The reading, the lowest since November 2023, was lower than the preliminary reading of 67.8, which was also the consensus expectation among economists polled by Reuters.

Meanwhile households saw inflation over the next year surging to 4.3% – the highest since November 2023 – from 3.3% last month. That was unchanged from the preliminary reading two weeks ago.

Over the next five years households saw inflation running at 3.5% – the highest since 1995 – compared with 3.2% in January. That was up from the preliminary reading two weeks ago for 3.3%.

Trump has been fixated on tariffs for decades. I don’t expect him to pull back on them now that he has obtained the status of emperor. But he should.

Wait until we get the new unemployment numbers. They’ll say it’s all fake news. But no one but the hardest core MAGA cult will believe it.

Disease Riddled Superpower

Published by digby on February 21, 2025

It’s only going to get worse:

Some private schools have shut down because of a rapidly escalating measles outbreak in West Texas. Local health departments are overstretched, pausing other important work as they race to limit the spread of this highly contagious virus.

Since the outbreak emerged three weeks ago, the Texas health department has confirmed 90 cases with 16 hospitalizations, as of Feb. 21. Most of those infected are under age 18. Officials suspect that nine additional measles cases reported in New Mexico, across the border from the epicenter of the Texas outbreak in Gaines, are linked to the Texas outbreak. Ongoing investigations seek to confirm that connection.

Health officials worry they’re missing cases. Undetected infections bode poorly for communities because doctors and health officials can’t contain transmission if they can’t identify who is infected.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategy officer for The Immunization Partnership in Houston, a nonprofit that advocates for vaccine access. “I think this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.”

An unknown number of parents may not be taking sick children to clinics where they could be tested, said Katherine Wells, the public health director in Lubbock, Texas. “If your kids are responding to fever reducers and you’re keeping hydrated, some people may keep them at home,” she said.

Most unvaccinated people will contract measles if they’re exposed to the airborne virus, which can linger for up to two hours indoors. Those infected can spread the disease before they have symptoms. Around 1 in 5 people with measles end up hospitalized, 1 in 10 children develop ear infections that can lead to permanent hearing loss, and about 1 in 1,000 children die from respiratory and neurological conditions.

Bobby Jr says that everyone should just get the measles because he had it when he was a kid and he and his siblings all had a great old time. How lucky for them. I had the measles and don’t remember it quite so fondly. And we are lucky we didn’t get very sick and die as some people did.

More are going to die. Here’s the latest from Bobby Jr via Politico:

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to axe members of the department’s vaccine-centric panels of outside advisers who he deems to be too cozy with the drug industry, POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn scooped with your morning hosts.

The advisory committees, the most prominent of which provide recommendations to the FDA and the CDC, are made up of doctors and academics with expertise in science. While agency heads aren’t compelled to heed their advice — and have drawn controversy when they don’t — they often do…

First hit? The CDC’s panel known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is a likely target of the effort and perhaps the most powerful because it recommends who should be vaccinated. HHS confirmed Thursday that the group’s three-day meeting that had been scheduled to begin on Wednesday is postponed.

[…]

Reaction (or lack thereof): Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine inventor and member of the FDA’s outside panel, said Kennedy’s assertion that doctors like him are too conflicted to serve on those committees is baseless, as members are regularly vetted for conflicts of interest. “What he really means is, ‘They haven’t supported my fixed, immutable notion that vaccines are dangerous,’” Offit told Prescription Pulse.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the health panel chair who secured Kennedy’s commitment to leave ACIP unchanged in exchange for his vote to confirm, was noticeably silent Thursday. In a Wednesday X post, the Louisiana Republican defended Kennedy’s remarks at an HHS welcome event.

When asked about the ACIP delay, one former congressional staffer, after using an expletive, said: “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

They’re all going to have blood on their hands.

This poignant letter from author Roald Dahl in 1960 tells the story of what can happen:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness. Believe me, it is. In my opinion, parents who now refuse to have their children immunized are putting the lives of those children at risk. In America, where measles immunization is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.

Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunized, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.

LET THAT SINK IN.

Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles.

So what about the risks that your children will run from being immunized?

They are almost non-existent. Listen to this. In a district of around 300,000 people, there will be only one child every 250 years who will develop serious side effects from measles immunization! That is about a million to one chance. I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunization.

So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunized.

The ideal time to have it done is at 13 months, but it is never too late. All school-children who have not yet had a measles immunization should beg their parents to arrange for them to have one as soon as possible.

Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach‘. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG‘, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.

Bobby Jr has already had a hand in killing dozens of babies and little kids in Samoa by propagandizing against the measles vaccine. Now he’s bringing his sick show to a town near you.

The Opposition Awakens

Published by digby on February 21, 2025

It’s been a month since Donald Trump was inaugurated and it feels like a year. When they said they were going to hit with “shock and awe” they meant it and when Trump said he was going to be a dictator on day one, he actually told the truth for once. It’s been one of the most fearful, distressing political events in most of our lifetimes and it’s felt like it was getting worse every day.

As a result of his many escapes from accountability for his crimes and a Supreme Court that gave him a green light to commit more with impunity, Trump believes that he is invincible, even recently quoting a (possibly apocryphal) line from Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” He’s carrying on about “manifest destiny” and dreaming aloud about expanding American territory and starting wars with neighbors. He is convinced that he can bully everyone into submission, whether it’s a political opponent, an ally or a foreign adversary. He has even called himself a king.

Over the course of this past month it has appeared that he’s not wrong. The Republican Congress has completely abandoned any pretense of integrity and independence. He’s sending migrants to Guantanamo and flobbing off others on foreign countries to suffer who-knows-what fate. His followers have physically threatened those few who showed any inkling that they might oppose him and his executioner, Elon Musk, who has been charged with the destruction of the federal workforce. In record time he has managed to storm through the government like an Abrams tank, crushing everything in his path leaving anyone who survives stunned and disoriented.

Overseas, Trump has turned the world order upside down, making it clear that the U.S. is no longer a dependable ally and that any involvement by the U.S. is dependent on whether or not Trump is personally feted and celebrated like a Roman emperor (in addition to being offered “deals” to his liking.) The whole world looks on aghast at his imperial ambitions and the plain bizarreness of plans such as his proposal for the U.S. to “own” the Gaza strip after it is ethnically cleansed of all the Palestinians whom he insists just want a nice condo in a desert someplace.

I have to spend my days poring over every news story because that’s my job but I understand if people are choosing to limit their exposure to this carnage so that they can keep their sanity. But I confess that I’ve been worried that too many Americans have been averting their gaze in order to maintain some sense of emotional equilibrium and perhaps were failing to fully understand the seriousness of our current moment. The last couple of days have given me reason to hope otherwise.

Trump has been telling his followers that he now has a 71 percent approval rating:

That’s a complete fantasy. While it’s true that his approval numbers have been higher in this first month than they were the first time, he still has the lowest numbers of any president at this point in his term except one — himself. In fact the latest rash of polls this week show that his numbers in the high 40s are rapidly declining. A new Reuters Ipsos poll has him at 44%, down from 47% in January. The Washington Post poll has him at 43% and  Quinnipiac University, CNN and Gallup  all range from 44 to 47%. In other words he’s pretty much back to where he’s always been.

But these polls are finding massive discontent over his policies. In the Reuters poll the wrong track number rose to 53% from 43% percent in just one month and his economic approval number is now at 39%. Only 41% are in favor of Trump’s tariffs with 53% against.

How about the DOGE cuts? You might have assumed from the commentary that Americans don’t care about foreign aid so putting USAID in the “woodchipper,” as Musk described it, wouldn’t be particularly unpopular. Not so. In the Post poll, 59% oppose Musk’s scheme to 38% who approve. In the CNN poll it was 53-28. The Post also reports that the mass firings of federal workers is opposed 58% to 39% as well.

And while 51% in the Post poll say they support mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, it’s not that simple. According to the Post:

Americans strongly oppose deporting undocumented immigrants who aren’t criminals (57-39), who arrived as children (70-26) and who have U.S. citizen children (66-30).

Quinnipiac reports that only 38% of voters think the system of checks and balances is working well while 54% do not. And they find that 55% think Elon Musk has too much power while 36% think it’s just fine.

CNN reports that 62% feel Trump hasn’t gone far enough in trying to reduce the cost of living and that includes 47% of Republicans. And from their opinions on the tariffs it’s pretty clear they understand that he’s only going to make things worse.

These polls numbers indicate that people are paying attention and they understand what’s going on. Trump may be fantasizing about a 71% approval rating and there’s no telling him otherwise. But other elected Republicans are apparently starting to panic. After all, they have to face the voters in two years. Politico reported that while they are all being very good boys and girls in public, in private they are freaking out:

[M]any are feeling helpless to counter the meat-ax approach that has been embraced so far, with lawmakers especially concerned about the dismissal of military veterans working in federal agencies as well as USDA employees handling the growing bird flu outbreak affecting poultry and dairy farms.

They are being inundated with phone calls and the town halls are starting to look like they’re about to get a taste of some of their own tea party medicine. Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein reported on a Thursday night meeting with Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., in which an overflow crowd of very angry, very Republican constituents denounced Trump as a tyrant and a king.

Some California Republicans were greeted with some very angry protesters in Los Angeles on Thursday as well:

We haven’t yet seen the mass street protests we saw in 2017 or in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, but they are springing up organically all over the country. People are showing up at Tesla showrooms to protest Musk and closing down streets to oppose the deportations. Federal workers who are being treated despicably by the DOGE operation are rallying in Washington and elsewhere. High school kids are walking out of classes and boycotts are being organized to oppose corporate America folding to Donald Trump’s crusade against DEI.

So far, most Republicans are sticking with Trump. The opposition consists of Democrats and a surprisingly large majority of Independents and it’s growing rapidly. This could matter when it comes to whether the judiciary actually stands up for the Constitution (yes they do pay attention to public opinion) which remains the best hope to slow down Trump and Musk.

Meanwhile, the Republican party still has a job to do, which is pass a budget. Public opinion has a strong effect on how the congress is going to deal with that and those GOP House members in marginal districts (and possibly even in some presumably safe districts if that town hall in Georgia is any indication) are going to be squeezed from both sides giving the Democrats some real leverage.

It took a while to shake off the despondency and depression many of us felt after Trump was restored and then deputized a weird billionaire to wreck the government. But the opposition is awake and clear-eyed about what they are doing to our country and they aren’t going to take it lying down. It won’t be a one-sided battle after all. 

Salon


Government Of The Bullies, For The Billionaires

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 21, 2025

Time to get loud

Republicans are about to find themselves on the back foot. Keep them there.

Donald Trump is remarkably unpopular and sinking lower in public perception, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow told viewers Thursday night. Polls show the freshly minted president-felon-Russophile is historically unpopular (video link below).

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/-can-t-stand-him-from-policy-to-personnel-trump-scores-historically-low-poll-numbers-232558149721

Elon Musk may get a rousing welcome for entering CPAC waving around a chainsaw (this is the age of WWE political theater, after all), but he’s not popular with Americans by a wide margin.

Another poll shows Americans hate the unelected weirdo being involved in their government at this high level.

And a third poll shows they are concerned about what he’s doing mucking about in their private data and their Social Security.

People also worry that Musk’s IRS layoffs may delay those tax refunds they’re looking forward to spending. It’s one thing to lay off “faceless bureaucrats.” They may not pay so much attention to Beltway politics, but don’t mess with their money.

The public does not like what either Trump or Musk are doing to their country. They absolutely hate “government of the bullies, for the billionaires” [timestamp 18:20-19:30]. Anat Shenker-Osorio presented that message on Thursday to The.Ink’s Anand Giridharadas in “An *actual* plan to beat fascism.”

Trump (and the billionaires who love him) is “coming for your life and your livelihood, ASO continues. “He is coming for your freedom. He is coming for your privacy. He is coming for your information. And he is conducting a hostile takeover of our government so he can take our money.” That’s the message we should be spreading. Ditch the Constitution and rule of law messaging.

For ordinary, non-blog-readers to get what’s happening, our message has to be personal. And hoo-boy, once people realize it’s that personal, they get hot and bothered in a big way. Yes Newsweek is crap, but this headline is a zinger. Donald Trump Called ‘Megalomaniac’ By Angry Locals at Republican Town Hall:

President Donald Trump faced intense criticism from local residents during a town hall meeting for Republican Representative Rich McCormick in his Georgia district on Thursday, with one person labeling him a “megalomaniac.”

During the town hall meeting, many constituents harshly criticized the Republican lawmaker for backing the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), particularly its plan for massive federal layoffs and budget cuts.

That story is everywhere online this morning. Help spread it even farther.

That was a red congressional district in Georgia. This is another in Wisconsin:

A testy town hall hosted by Wisconsin Republican Congressman Scott Fitzgerald.

The pushback came from constituents in West Bend demanding answers to the Trump administration’s effort to slash government spending and a diplomatic shift on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Mary Sylvester asked about the role and responsibility of Congress. “We need three branches of government, not one. When will you stand up and say that’s enough?”

Michael Wittig is concerned with Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration—he held a sign that read “Presidents are not kings.”

Your goal, Giridharadas summarized, is to “increase the perception of people around you about the number of people who feel this way” [timestamp 29:15]. Spread these stories around your social media feeds all weekend so everyone else wants what what these people in Georgia and Wisconsin are having.

There are more such town halls today in Hickory, NC, and Gainsville, GA. (And those are just the ones I see because of where I live.)

Update:

View on Threads

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink

What Did You Do?

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 21, 2025

It’s that time

Marc Elias tries to make clear how serious this moment is for our country. But it’s hard for an attorney, even an excellent one. It’s not their training.

Maybe a storyteller instead. Familiar stories of ordinary people, minding their own business, wanting to be left alone, but reaching a turning point:

THE BELLY OF THE WHALE. The hero completely severs their connection to the “safe” world they left behind. In this stage, the hero makes the commitment to fully engage with the journey and transformation of self.

It’s that time.

In future generations, when your children and grandchildren look back on this moment, they are not going to ask about the price of eggs. They are going to ask you what you did. Not what you felt. Not what you paid. But what you did. And I want to be able to say I did everything I possibly could.

— Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T23:37:38.595Z

Be as serious as those looking to destroy you.

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1892758058058527004

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink

Elon Goes To CPAC

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

He’s clearly high as a kite:

Oh God, this is just embarrassing:

Trump has delegated the domestic agenda to this freak while he golfs and cosplays Napoleon on the world stage.

Here is the caliber of commentary from him when he’s not swinging a chainsaw around and babbling gibberish:

It’s full blown idiocracy. I just didn’t realize it would be run by the richest man in the world who is demented. I should have known.

Oh, by the way, there’s this too:

Singer Grimes sent out a panicked message on social media to Elon Musk about their child’s ‘medical crisis’ as the ‘First Buddy’ wielded a chainsaw onstage at CPAC with Javier Millei.

Grimes – real name Claire Elise Boucher – is the mother of three of Musk’s 13 known children. Conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair claimed to birth number 13 in a statement last week. 

In a since deleted post to Musk-owned X Grimes responded to a tweet Musk made Wednesday with more pressing matters regarding one of their offspring.

‘Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention,’ the Canadian singer wrote. 

She clarified that Musk didn’t even have to respond to her but could contact her through a third party.  

‘If you don’t want to talk to me can you please designate or hire someone who can so that we can move forward on solving this. This is urgent, Elon.’

St. Clair complained publicly last week that Musk won’t respond to her about questions concerning their newborn. Seems he’s got other priorities.

Atrocities Of The Day

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Trump’s eager embrace of Vladimir Putin is still startling even though we were well warned in advance. He’s just such a sucker, so bizarrely needy, so insanely shallow and stupid.

A reminder of what’s awaiting Ukraine if Trump’s iridiculous attempt at getting the Nobel Peace Prize actually comes to pass:

Bucha, a suburb of 37,000 about 20 miles northwest of the capital, Kyiv, has become a notorious symbol of Russian brutality. The Russians took it over within days of invading in February 2022, and in the month that followed, they killed more than 400 civilians, Ukrainian officials say, leading to global accusations of war crimes.

Images from that time ricocheted around the world: The priest left dead in a garage, his mouth open. The church choir singer and his family, their limbs cut off, their bodies burned. The woman shot dead pushing her bicycle home on Yablunska Street.

On Wednesday, many in Bucha seemed to be struggling to take in Mr. Trump’s comments. When the Biden administration was in power, the United States was Ukraine’s most powerful ally. Now they had many questions: Was Mr. Trump just speaking off the cuff? Was the United States really siding with Russia, a pariah on the world stage?

I can only imagine the despair they must be feeling. They know very well that the retributions from the Russians if they are allowed to prevail are going to be horrific. One woman who saw her husband shot right in front of her during the Russian occupation of the town said she was worried that in the end, “they will say that the Russians are fine. The thing I’m most afraid of is that they will say we are guilty ourselves. That we are guilty of killing ourselves.”

She’s not wrong to worry. That’s what Trump is already saying. He’s backed up by the brainwashed Americans that support him:

That’s not the only horror story I’m afraid. This one is equally shocking:

Getting worse every day:

Nearly 100 migrants, recently deported by the United States to Panama where they had been locked in a hotel, were loaded onto buses Tuesday night and moved to a detention camp on the outskirts of the jungle, several of the migrants said.

It is unclear how long the group, which was deported under the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to expel unauthorized migrants, will be detained at the jungle camp.

Conditions at the site are primitive, the detainees said. Diseases, including dengue are endemic to the region, and the government has denied access to journalists and aid organizations.

“It looks like a zoo, there are fenced cages,” said one deportee, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old migrant from Iran, after arriving at the camp following a four-hour drive from Panama City. “They gave us a stale piece of bread. We are sitting on the floor.”

The group includes eight children, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the record. Lawyers have said it is illegal to detain people in Panama for more than 24 hours without a court order.

This was done after intense pressure from the Trump administration, using the threats over the canal, to take these migrants whose home countries will not take them (China, Iran, Afghanistan.) and if they end up doing it, the migrants will almost certainly be killed.

Today they sent another planeload to Costa Rica. And that’s in addition to the thousands that are being sent to Guantanamo.

We really are perilously close to 1939 here.