California is no longer part of the United States. We are a colony from which Donald Trump’s America extracts money and resources. Our job is to worship Trump or suffer.
REPORTER: You talk about condition being placed on aid to California, voter ID and the like. Are there any conditions you’re gonna put on aid to North Carolina?
REPORTER: You talk about condition being placed on aid to California, voter ID and the like. Are there any conditions you’re gonna put on aid to North Carolina?
TRUMP: We’re gonna do a lot for North Carolina
R: So no conditions?
T: Well, in CA I have a condition. We want them to have voter ID
He is also demanding the Newsom opens “the valve.”
In case you were wondering…
Trump’s solution to water in California: “All they have to do is turn the valve.” 🥴
Here are some facts about California water, and it doesn’t involve just turning on a valve so that water can flow south to Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/kyazLdJf0Y
“I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.”
Trump on disaster aid to California: "I want to see two things in Los Angeles. Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. After that, I will be the greatest president that… pic.twitter.com/JLsFicyyes
Come on honey. Let me do it to you just this once. Then I promise I’ll buy you something really nice.
Update —
FINALLY! The NY Times has an excellent explainer on the California water situation. Gift link here. Maybe the cable newsers and others will be able to explain it to Americans.
Trump says he won the election because he used the word “groceries” Does he have anything to say about them now?
Trump on his first trip to a grocery store thrilled with the big bags of popcorn
During the presidential campaign last year, President Trump made a series of speeches and appearances at economic clubs around the country. He didn’t give the kind of formal speeches other candidates give to crowds like that which you would expect to be knowledgeable about finance and expecting serious plans a policies to meet the challenges of the current economy. He mostly just gave his usual stream of consciousness “weave” about whatever topic engaged him that day interspersed with some dull rote words on the teleprompter written by a campaign staffer. But during the Q&As he was often stymied by questions for which he was totally unprepared.
Perhaps the most famous instance was at the New York Economic club when a member asked him what he planned to do about the crisis in child care and he gave a meandering answer worthy of a 4th grader giving a book report of a book he hadn’t read. He said “childcare is childcare” and then basically said that his tariffs would somehow fix the problem.
As the campaign wore on and the campaign tightened up after President Biden dropped out, he had to make some “populist” gestures for the rubes. His campaign staff was reportedly frantic for him to talk about inflation so they assembled an event at his exclusive golf resort at Bedminster, New Jersey where he was surrounded by various food props. Unfortunately, he got caught up in his “weaves” and barely addressed the topic. They kept trying. A few weeks later he turned up at a grocery store and walked around it like it was the first time he’d ever been in one, as it may well have been.
He believes that he won the election on the basis of using the word “groceries” which he apparently believes is a unique term that only he had the savvy to deploy in a campaign.
Trump: I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like almost, you know, who uses the word. I started using the word. The groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time. pic.twitter.com/4hDzdJFrTz
Trump was never able to really say how he intended to bring down costs. Tariffs were his number one go-to answer to every economic question followed by “drill, baby, drill” as the solution to inflation and “growth” as the answer to deficits. That was basically his entire economic plan and in the midst of what was an overwhelming backlash against the post-pandemic inflation of 2022-2023 it seemed to be all that most voters needed to hear, at least the plurality that put him in the White House.
There was a group of enthusiastic backers who knew better, of course. The cyber-barons, CEOs and Wall Street Big Money Boys understood that the only thing he was bringing to the table was the prospect of deregulation and tax cuts, the holy grail of the billionaire class. Like most Americans, supporters and opponents alike, they don’t believe most of what he says anyway, which is one of the great sources of his power. They all figure his tariff threats are empty and even if they aren’t they can probably buy their way out of them. Just sending the message that any legal enforcement that might hurt the bottom line will no longer be pursued is enough to get them rushing to pay tribute to a president who is desperate to be a member of their exclusive club.
Former Trump advisor and podcaster/activist Steve Bannon has been outspoken against the tech-bro oligarchy led by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who now sits at the elbow of Donald Trump, going so far as to call him “evil” and vowing to purge him from the MAGA movement. But Bannon wasn’t invited to the inauguration, Musk was, along with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook among other billionaires and they sat in pride of place right in the front row while Senators and Cabinet members were seated behind them. Everyone knows who’s got the president’s ear in this term. Let’s just say that none of them are worried about the price of groceries.
As NBC news reported, one of his Executive Orders from the first day rescinded the Biden policy to study how to further “lower prescription drug costs for people on Medicare and Medicaid, on enhancing the Affordable Care Act and increasing protections for Medicaid enrollees.” Whether he will seek to roll back “the $35 monthly cap on insulin, the $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on prescription drugs and Medicare’s negotiating drug pricing” isn’t yet known, but let’s just say it isn’t a good sign that he called the programs “radical” and “deeply unpopular” both of which are lies.
On Thursday Trump spoke before the World Economic Forum and reiterated his tariff threats which everyone with an 8th grade education should know will cause prices to rise. He demanded that the Fed lower interest rates and said later in the day that he “knows interest rates much better than they do.” He once again claimed that “we have a deficit” with Canada and encouraged them to become the 51st state so we won’t have to hit them with tariffs.
All of this is nonsensical gibberish, but if he does follow through, as he seems intent upon doing, the result will almost certainly be much higher gas prices:
Trump is threatening to impose big taxes on the oil we buy from Canada and send our gas prices soaring. It’s very MAGA! https://t.co/4FnL9WImji
The irony is thick. He claims that the inflation of three years ago was caused by high energy costs. And here he is promising to raise the price of gas. If he fulfills his threats to raise tariffs on Mexico, look to see your grocery bills skyrocket as well.
You will certainly remember that the price of eggs was the symbol of Democratic failure and seen by many as the avatar of pain at the grocery store. Well guess what?
The folks obsessively posting about egg prices for the past few years have gone strangely quiet just as egg prices hit an all-time high. pic.twitter.com/K6OOLKYMP0
Right now the US poultry industry is under tremendous threat from H1N1 bird flu and it’s making people sick and causing the price of eggs to skyrocket. That isn’t Trump’s fault but then the price spike in 2023 wasn’t Biden’s fault either. However, Trump freezing the National Institution of Health programs and the muzzling of the public health agencies is also going to lead not just to potentially deadly health outcomes but higher costs as well. Not to mention it’s going to be very difficult for the public to know about the threat. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into another pandemic.
But don’t despair. Trump did sign an Executive Order requiring all of his agencies to figure out ways to lower costs of everything. They’ll be reporting back to him with their plans in a month so I’m sure it’s all going to be taken care of.
Since the election Trump’s spent most of his time hobnobbing with billionaires and obviously not giving the price of “groceries” a second thought. Perhaps Americans have moved on and don’t care about the price of eggs anymore and are just thrilled that we’re going to invade Greenland and turn Canada into the 51st state. But if not, Trump may see his approval rating take a precipitous slide as he hobnobs with his personal coterie of cyber-barons and makes money for himself hand over fist while the rest of America watches their paychecks shrink for no good reason.
A post a couple of weeks ago suggested Donald Trump’s fascination with Greenland stemmed from his not understanding how maps work. Specifically, the Mercator projection that distorts Greenland to make it look larger than it is. I mocked up the image above while imagining Trump wanting to slap his name on the island in letters large enough to be seen from space.
A post from The Bulwark this morning has me thinking he might want more than a massive logo.
Trump this week signed executive orders renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and changing Alaska’s Denali back to Mt. McKinley. Noting that other countries are not obliged to follow Trump’s dicta and its own global audience, The Associated Press has updated its widely used style guide (I have one here) to version Trump 2.0:
The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
As for Denali:
Trump also signed an executive order to revert the name of North America’s tallest peak, Denali in Alaska, to Mount McKinley. Former President Barack Obama changed the official name to Denali in 2015 to reflect the traditions of Alaska Natives as well as the preference of many Alaska residents. Trump said in his executive order that he wanted to “restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley.”
The Associated Press will use the official name change to Mount McKinley. The area lies solely in the United States and as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
Trump will undo everything Biden and Obama ever did, if he can. He’s just starting with checklist items he can manage with the stroke of a sharpie.
The Bulwark asks, “If Trump signed an order changing the name of Mt. Rushmore to Mt. Trump, would the AP follow along? It’s important in the Gulf of Mexico example that ‘all audiences’ be able to identify places with their names, but that doesn’t count if the places are ‘within the country’?”
Why would the size-obsessed Fauntleroy stop at Rushmore? Greenland is bigger … much bigger. If Trump somehow managed to “acquire” Greenland, why stop at just slapping a Trump brand on it large enough to be visible from the moon but not from the ground?
Donald Trump comes a-callin’ today in Western North Carolina. “Significant traffic impacts” are expected. It is typical of presidential visits: no details released publicly until the last minute. It’s a security thing:
“I’m going to North Carolina, very importantly, first,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday evening from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, before confirming the rest of his itinerary about heading to the West Coast.
If nothing else, the visit suggests our blue city won’t have its recovery funds slashed just yet. Despite so much attention to candidates and “authenticity,” don’t expect much from any Trumpish attempt to mimic empathy today (pay attention to my bolding):
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is planning to meet President Donald Trump on the tarmac of Asheville Regional Airport during Trump’s Jan. 24 visit to Western North Carolina, a spokesperson for Stein told the Citizen Times.
Earlier in the week, Stein, a Democrat, said Trump’s planned visit to WNC, which was ravaged by Tropical Storm Helene nearly four months ago, was “very good news” for the region’s residents. The storm killed more than 100 people across the state and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage, according to the latest estimate from the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management. During Stein’s first week in office, he issued five executive orders to aid Helene recovery.
North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis stepped up to spread some more disinfo for the boss:
“President Trump’s visit on Friday is welcome news for the thousands of families dealing with a state of uncertainty when it comes to securing housing. Under President Biden, FEMA’s failure to act and communicate swiftly put vulnerable families at risk with freezing temperatures outside. Despite our continued pressure, FEMA made little progress in providing direct housing solutions for those most affected by Helene. Things will be changing under President Trump, and his visit shows his Administration is committed to the people of Western North Carolina as he promised during the campaign. I look forward to working with the Trump-Vance Administration to ensure that every available federal resource is deployed and that red tape preventing families from accessing housing is eliminated.”
Except Trump plans to dump disaster relief management on states (the way he made them compete for ventilators and other supplies during Covid?). He told Fox News (New York Times):
Mr. Trump continued, “The FEMA is getting in the way of everything.” Referring to Oklahoma, he said: “If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. You don’t need — and then the federal government can help them out with the money.”
Project 2025, the blueprint for a Republican administration that was produced by the Heritage Foundation, calls for flipping the financial burden of response to small disasters so that 75 percent is carried by states and the rest by the federal government.
Define “small.” Of course, Project 2025’s war plan will not last beyond contact with a hurricane washing over Mar-a-Lago.
Shifting the burden for disaster relief to states “would hit Republican-leaning states hardest, federal spending figures suggest,” the Guardian notes. “Since 2015, states that voted for Trump last year have received $31bn in assistance from Fema, with storm-prone Florida, Texas and Louisiana leading the way, compared with just $7bn for states that voted Democratic.”
North Carolina’s 2024 budget was $34 billion. Josh Stein is unlikely to find another $60 billion in the governor’s mansion couch cushions.
I don’t think I’ve posted this here before. You’ve seen Helene flood photos from the river valleys. This is what Helene’s arrival was like for residents higher upslope. Many of those slopes are now as bare as Pacific Palisades hillsides. There will be spring rains and mudslides. Trump will have moved on. FEMA may be dismantled or defunded by then.
A White House official said Musk “very much” got over his skis when the tech tycoon launched a daylong screed against the AI project. One Trump ally said Musk abused his closeness to the president. Another Republican close to the White House went further, saying Trump’s staff is “furious” over Musk using his massive social media platform to pour cold water on the infrastructure deal that Trump called “tremendous” and “monumental” just a day prior.
“It’s clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said the Trump ally. “The problem is the president doesn’t have any leverage over him and Elon gives zero fucks.”
What’s this all about?
Musk, who owns his own AI startup, was not at Trump’s unveiling of “Stargate,” an effort to supercharge the country’s AI infrastructure featuring the tech giants OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has long been critical of its CEO Sam Altman and spent much of Wednesday trolling him online. “They don’t actually have the money,” he said. Softbank, meanwhile, “has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
But Trump, when asked by reporters about Musk blasting the deal said, “The government’s not putting up anything. They’re putting up money. They’re very rich people, so I hope they do. And, I mean, Elon doesn’t like one of those people.”
Trump said it did not bother him that Musk criticized the deal, saying, “No, it doesn’t. He hates one of the people in the deal.”
Right. The two little geniuses battled it out on Twitter like real men:
Musk seems to favor another AI investor, saying Microsoft’s Satya Nadella “definitely does have the money.” Musk even reposted a joke that suggested Altman and his team smoked crack “to come up with their $500 billion number for Stargate.” Altman shot back at Musk on X: “i realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role i hope you’ll mostly put 🇺🇸 first.”
This is exactly how you would assume the president of the United States would run the country. I’m just glad he isn’t old. Oh wait. He is.
This is a ridiculous story and a ridiculous situation. I’m not sure that there’s any reason to even care about at this point. But there is one thing in the article that caught my eye that might just be important. The staffer said, ” the president doesn’t have any leverage over him and Elon gives zero fucks.” What are we to make of this except that Musk has Trump by the cojones?
I expect it has something to do with $$$$, perhaps the Bitcoin scam or the rumors that he plans to buy Truth Social for big bucks. Whatever it is, Elon’s obviously not afraid of Trump and will say and do whatever he wants. He already demonstrated that during the near government shutdown battle before Christmas.
Trump can’t control him and we have no idea what that means for the country.
So far the Democrats are all over the place but there are a few who have found their voices. I wrote about Chris Murphy’s excellent twitter videos the other day. But no one does it like AOC.
This week AOC, as she is known in the world of initials, hopped on Insta Live, and it sounds like she’s going to do it every week in this new era, maybe more. We watched every bit of it, and we think it may be our first weekly assignment of the era of Stupid Hitler, to help keep us connected, to keep us focused, and to keep us sane.
This is part of what she said:
This is the United States of America. And I don’t care what Elon Musk is doing behind a presidential seal. In this country, we hate Nazis. Kind of like a foundational, defining thing.
Two of probably the most foundational, defining things about American history is that we beat the Confederates and we beat the Nazis. And I don’t know what side people may be on today, but I still am not rocking with anyone sympathetic to Nazis. And I will do that until I am six feet in the ground. Like, kind of foundational to me as a human being. And so if you’re cool and want to defend the Sieg Heils and the Nazi salutes, all the, you know, whatever you want to do, that’s on you. I’m on the opposite side of that. I’m not with the Nazis. How about that?
Yesterday we had an Episcopal bishop speak to the president about having mercy on the vulnerable (and being mercilessly attacked for it.) AOC has to go on social media to explain that a presidential surrogate flashing Nazi salutes at the inauguration isn’t ok.
These are not things I would have ever thought anyone would have to say. Budde’s message was something we grew up with in Sunday School or lived with as part of our social contract as long as we could remember. AOC’s is the simplest political message you can imagine: “we’re against Nazis.”
And yet they have to say these things out loud now because a large number of Americans have either forgotten these simple, children’s lessons or never learned them in the first place.
President Trump revoked security protection for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and a former top aide, Brian Hook, despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf, four people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had been part of an aggressive posture against Iran during the first Trump presidency, most notably the drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020.
Mr. Trump also remains under threat because of that action, and his advisers have regularly stressed the seriousness of the situation in the years between his two terms in office.
Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook had their security details, which were believed to be provided by the State Department, pulled on Tuesday, one of the people briefed on the matter said. A day before, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. Secret Service detail of John R. Bolton, who was Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser and also faces threats.
Other than former presidents and their spouses, senior U.S. officials are not automatically granted ongoing protection. But the threat assessments from the intelligence community that the risk level remained for Mr. Pompeo, Mr. Hook and Mr. Bolton had been the basis for the Biden administration granting it to them. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had his aides warn the Iranians that assassinating a former U.S. government official would be considered an act of war, a former senior administration official said.
[…]
Mr. Trump has told people he does not want anyone working for him who worked under Mr. Pompeo in his first term. He removed Mr. Hook as a presidential appointee to the Wilson Center for Scholars via a social media post days ago.
Trump had gone out of his way to announce that Pompeo would not be considered for a position in the new administration (along with Nikki Haley) which I thought was weird at the time. It’s unclear specifically what he has against him but this is a good bet:
2/ Reminder: Mike Pompeo and Mark Milley's private discussions following the 2020 election.From Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's book Peril:"We've got to stand shoulder to shoulder""The crazies are taking over" (referring to Giuliani, Powell, Flynn, Lindell)
He is so petty that he is putting the lives of his “disloyal” former followers at risk, even though the threats are inspired by comments made on his behalf during his presidency. Wow. Just wow.
Pompeo was a very, very good soldier during his tenure at the CIA and the State Department during Trump’s first term. This is a shot across the bow at Trump’s most loyal henchmen that he will throw them to the wolves no matter what if they make even the slightest move against him. If any of these men are killed by Iranian assassins that warning will be even more powerful.
Biden wanted to lower them so naturally he’s doing the opposite.
I think Democrats would be wise to make this a bigger story. Whether it materially affects people’s current prescription drug bill or not, the intention is obvious and people need to know about it:
The Trump administration’s first drug pricing action — rescinding a Biden executive order encouraging Medicare to help lower prescription costs — is befuddling drug pricing experts.
“It is perplexing why Trump would have included receding this drug cost executive order on Day One,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. “It at least sends a signal that Trump may not be serious about addressing drug costs.”
He’s joking, right? Trump not serious about addressing drug costs? Why, that would mean he doesn’t really care about the American people after all. That can’t be right.
This expert says that it’s unclear if this will actually impact the “models” which are in various stages of development:
In October 2022, former President Joe Biden issued an order directing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to create several payment models to lower prescription drug costs. The agency announced three models in February 2023.
One model encouraged Medicare prescription drug plans to offer a co-payment for certain inexpensive generic drugs capped at $2 a month per drug. Another called on state Medicaid agencies to jointly create outcome-based agreements with manufacturers for pricey cell and gene therapies. The model is intended to ensure the price that states pay is based on the drug having its desired effect on improving patient health.
A third model would reduce Medicare funding on drugs cleared by the FDA under accelerated approval, which speeds up the endorsement of medications that fill an unmet need.
CMMI is taking applications for the cell and gene therapy model until Feb. 28. The center has yet to implement either of the other models.
He says that he doesn’t think rescinding the EO would necessarily stop these from continuing. I think that is extremely optimistic. They will want to stop it. However, he adds:
The really big question is what Trump will do with the Inflation Reduction Act and government negotiation of drug costs.
I don’t think there’s even the slightest doubt what he will do with both of those things.
I happened to mention this to a couple of people who haven’t been following politics lately and they were truly shocked and appalled to hear it. I think this is a very salient political issue and I hope that Democrats will jump on it and work it hard. So far, I haven’t heard a peep.
Mike Johnson is an extreme Bible thumping super-Christian who talks about it at every opportunity. When he was first elected speaker he said this:
During an interview Thursday evening with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Johnson said he has been asked by members of the media for his positions on myriad issues. In response, he has told them to turn to Scripture to truly understand his perspective on the matters of the day.
“Someone asked me today in the media, they said, ‘It’s curious, people are curious: what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’” he explained. “I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it — that’s my worldview.’ That’s what I believe, and so I make no apologies for it.”
Maybe he hasn’t gotten to the Jesus part yet. If he had, what Budde said would have been very familiar.
