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Don’t Hold Back, JD

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

We won’t either

For a man so obssessed with defending free speech that last week he scolded Munich Security Conference partners for shunning neo-Nazis and for their governments trying to curb the spread of “so-called misinformation,” JD Vance is caught censoring his own speech at CPAC this morning.

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” Vance warned the Munich conference last week about not engaging opponents.

Clearly not. Not when members of Vance’s own U.S. party are “scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff” from members of his own party. And while DOGE is busy purging political opponents from government jobs under the pretext of improving “efficiency” and eliminating “fraud” the DOGEes have yet to formally document with anything more substantive than Elon Musk tweets.

Here’s Vance being shy about what he really means this morning at CPAC while discussing immigration.

More fully:

You have to allow free speech to debate this stuff. You have to stop doing things to the populations of the world. You’ve got to give the populations of the world the opportunity to speak up and say, no more of this BS. We want borders. We want sovereignty. We want to be able to speak our own mind in our own country. 

What’s stopping him/them? Team MAGA has been pretty blunt on immigration in this country. And they’re teaching their children to speak their little minds as well:

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza took her life after experiencing months of relentless bullying from her sixth grade classmates over her family’s immigration status, with some students even threatening to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On February 3, Carranza’s single mother, Marbella Carranza, received a call notifying her that her daughter had attempted to take her life inside the family’s home in Gainesville, Texas. Her 11-year-old daughter was rushed to an intensive care unit in Dallas but died on February 8, according to a GoFundMe page.

What Vance wants for himself and MAGAstan is the freedom to express noxious beliefs, especially cruel ones. Mr. Victimhood has that freedom already, as does his dictator-curious boss. What Vance demands — not in so many words — is the freedom to express noxious beliefs without other Americans using their free speech to brand him for it as a Peter Thiel-owned, white-nationalist bigot. He wants a freedom of speech that’s more equal for some barnyard animals than others. He wants the same thing Christian nationalists want from their First Amendment freedom of religion: freedom for me but not for thee.

Vance claims western civilization is broken and needs rebuilding, but he doesn’t have the guts to explain in plain English how he thinks it’s broken, what or who broke it, and what immigration has to do with that.

Please, JD, use your threatened freedom of speech to explain it to us in detail. Don’t hold back. But don’t expect us to either.

* * * * *

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Those Leopards Are Just So Damn Hungry

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Fox News host Jesse Watters made an on-air plea that the Trump administration be “less callous” when implementing when laying off federal employees after a military veteran friend was “DOGE’d” in Elon Musk’s Pentagon cuts.

A report on Wednesday revealed that the Pentagon had provided the Trump administration with a list of probationary employees who could be targeted in the next wave of federal workforce reductions.

Watters took to the air on The Five to raise the case of his friend, a veteran of 20 years, who was months into a new role at the Pentagon and still under probation but discovered this week that his job was set to be terminated as part of DOGE’s initiatives.

“Let me tell you a story about Chris. Chris was a guy I met at a shooting event in New Jersey,” Watters began…. a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Military, one of the guys who has killed a lot of bad guys. Put his life on the line. He punched out after 20 years of working for the Pentagon. And he’s only been there a few months, so his probationary period he just found out he’s probably going to get laid off. He’s going to get DOGE’d.”

The host added: “He texted me and said: ‘Jesse, this is not good. I’m really sad. I’m upset.’ This guy is not a DEI consultant. He is not a climate consultant. This guy is a veteran. So when you’re talking about DOGE-ing people, veterans should get priority. Because if you’re going to go out there and kill enemies, put your life on the line, you should not be in the same category as people that are doing DEI.”

I’ll bet he voted for Trump…

Just wait Jesse. They’ll be coming for you too.

As ye sow, losers:

“These are the heirs of the Greatest Generation, and they turned out to be the worst generation,” says Stuart Stevens, who served as a chief strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and has since left the GOP, joining the anti-Trump Lincoln Project as a senior adviser. “It’s tempting to compare Republicans to Prussian aristocrats in 1930s Germany. But Prussian aristocrats were more responsible. They were dealing with civil unrest and the threat of a communist takeover. Republicans today have historically low unemployment, a record stock market. What’s their excuse?”

Political survival is one. Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources if a member defies him. But this is not the whole story of Republican subservience to the president. In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon. According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)

They are all millionaires. They can afford security. They are pathetic.

How It’s Going Over There

Published by digby on February 20, 2025

Over here:

Meanwhile:

He is completely out of it:

A Pathological Liar, Part Infinity

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

Sellouts are selling out

https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1892326356496646457

The Lincoln Project poses, “@realDonaldTrump if you truly believe Zelensky is a dictator, then why aren’t you kissing his ass like you do all the others?”

Before we get to more ass-kissing, John Harwood states what we all know: “Trump lies about every single thing” because “he’s psychologically unable to tell the truth.”

It’s not even worth debunking, although photographic evidence does.

“We are one news cycle away from Trump giving military aid to Russia,” the Lincoln Project also posted on Wednesday, presumably not in all seriousness. But who can say with the speed at which King Donald is climbing into Vladimir Putin’s pants?

Trump is selling out Ukraine, NATO, and now, not unexpectedly, the United Nations:

Every reporter today should be asking every Congressional Republican why they're OK siding with Putin and walking away from NATO and democracy.

— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) 2025-02-20T14:39:04.974Z

Here’s the Reuters blurb:

LONDON/GENEVA/BERLIN, Feb 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. is refusing to co-sponsor a draft U.N. resolution marking three years since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine that backs Kyiv’s territorial integrity and condemns Russian aggression, three diplomatic sources told Reuters, in a potential stark shift by Ukraine’s most powerful Western ally.

The step appears to mirror a widening rift between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to rapidly end the war in Ukraine and whose team has held talks with Russia without the involvement of Kyiv.

 

 
View on Threads

 

Get busy saving your democratic republic while there’s still something left of it.

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Trump Is A Russian Puppet

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 20, 2025

“What can I do today?”

The news out of Washington, D.C. and Europe is so insane that let’s start with someone who’s not cowed by the Musk-Trump coup: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Every day our job is to wake up and say what can I do today?”

“There is no act too small.”

You might want to watch that several more times.

Meanwhile, Republicans in control(?) of Congress are running scared, too concerned for their political survival to dedicate any of their waking hours to saving their republic (or their European allies) from the Russian puppet sitting in the Oval Office.

“Senate and House Republicans know Trump will orchestrate the running of a primary challenger backed by Elon Musk’s unlimited resources if a member defies him.,” Gabriel Sherman writes at Vanity Fair.

“In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions,” Sherman continues:

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former member of Trump’s first administration tells me.

According to one source with direct knowledge of the events, North Carolina senator Thom Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about “credible death threats” when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary. Tillis ultimately provided the crucial 50th vote to confirm the former Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon. According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)

“In that capacity” is a non-denial for those playing along at home.

Watch Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi speak out against Vladimir Putin’s aggressions in Ukraine while being careful, very careful, not to step on the toes of the Russian puppet in the White House who is sucking up to Putin in negotiations that exclude Ukraine.

“Putin is a war criminal who should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed,” Wicker told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday.

Raju tweets:

Wicker added: “Vladimir Putin has violated every tenant of international law and should be indicted and prosecuted and jailed, possibly executed.”

On his concerns about the strength of the NATO alliance: “I think the best way for a European war to be avoided that would eventually cause us to become involved, is to ensure that the rule of law that’s been observed for 70 years in Europe be enforced and protected. That’s why we have NATO. That’s why the European Union exists.”

On his criticism of Hegseth for taking Ukraine/NATO membership off table before talks began: “I made a statement about that. And let me just say, Secretary Hegseth and I spoke while he was in Poland and I was in Munich. I think to the extent that his subsequent statement was somewhat of a walk back, that was a favorable development. But Pete Hegseth and I are getting along fine.”

Wicker turns away as Raju asks about Donald Trump’s undercutting NATO.

The New York Times reports on Republican dithering;

While some Republicans have expressed dismay at Mr. Trump’s moves and statements, there has been no concerted effort to challenge him from G.O.P. leaders or senators who play pivotal roles in overseeing military and foreign policy in Congress.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and others will not cross Trump on his efforts to wreck the western alliance. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa “simply shrugged her shoulders” over Trump’s hopes to meet in person with Putin.

The spineless continue to be spineless:

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, once called Mr. Putin a “thug” and a war criminal, saying he “needs to be dealt with.” But shortly after Mr. Trump announced that Mr. Putin had extended an invitation for the president to travel to Moscow, Mr. Graham changed his tune substantially.

“I don’t care if they meet Putin in Cleveland,” he said in recent days of plans to hold high-level talks between the White House and the Kremlin. “I don’t care if they talk, I don’t care if they go on vacation. It doesn’t matter to me what you do as long as you get it right.”

Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tweeted in response to the Times article, “These cowardly puppets would’ve stayed mute if their guy had blamed Poland for Germany’s 1939 invasion — something not even Adolf Hitler dared to do”

Democrats as a party are having difficulty mounting any effective counter either to Trump’s efforts to gut NATO or to Elon Musk’s efforts to gut federal agencies and replace the Constitution with a Yarvin-inspired broligarchy.

God help us, but another billionaire is one of the few Democrats with words of encouragement.

If you are looking for elected Leaders outside the beltway who are leading with courage, resilience, and powerful messaging – look at @govpritzker.illinois.gov 🔥

— Murshed Zaheed (@murshedz.bsky.social) 2025-02-20T04:43:55.933Z

From Pritzker’s Bluesky thread:

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight.

It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching alongside Illinoisans what’s happening in our country right now with dread.

The authoritarian playbook is laid bare: they point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

What comes next?

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country.

We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.

I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.

When the fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.

Democracy requires your courage.

So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let despair overcome us when our country needs us the most.

“We’re in trouble,” I told my mother after Trump’s reelection. I get a lot wrong. I wasn’t wrong about that.

Update: Added the Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweet. (It’s not replicated on Bluesky.)

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Who Cares About Alzheimer’s?

Published by digby on February 19, 2025

You’d think Trump would because of his family history. But no.

Greg Sargent writes today about the latest atrocity at the NIH:

[O]ne downsizing just started attracting notice among insiders at the National Institutes of Health, because it seems particularly inexplicable: According to people familiar with the situation, approximately one-tenth of the workers have now been let go at the NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias, or CARD, including its incoming director, a highly regarded scientist credited with important innovations in the field.

What makes this particularly jarring is that it could set back efforts to treat and develop cures for these awful afflictions, as these insiders and other experts fear. But it’s also that the potential for this center to do good—and the importance of the broader cause of battling Alzheimer’s—have both been championed by Republicans. Indeed, CARD’s full name—the Roy Blunt Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias—honors former Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, an influential Republican who spoke glowingly about its potential to advance human progress when its opening was announced in 2022.

On Tuesday afternoon, at a meeting inside CARD’s building at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, employees were informed that a sizable swath of the center’s workers were being fired, according to an employee who was at the meeting. One of those being dismissed, the source says, is Kendall Van Keuren-Jensen, who had been tapped to eventually become CARD’s acting director, replacing the current director, Andrew Singleton, who is reportedly set to depart.

[…]

Michael Greicius, a neurologist at Stanford University, pointed out that CARD has been at the cutting edge of advances not just for Alzheimer’s but Parkinson’s disease as well. He said that other researchers across the country rely on CARD’s work, meaning that if its work is hobbled, it threatens to have a “negative amplifying effect” across the field.

This is one of the most difficult diseases to deal with in the rapidly aging population of baby boomers. It’s expensive to take care of people who get it, it’s devastating to families and it’s terrifying to those of us facing those years head on right now. (And yes, I understand that baby boomers are the worst people in the world and deserve to burn in hell but unless we’re prepared to actually initiate Soylent Green, it has to be dealt with.)

I don’t know if there is a breakthrough on the way but even if it’s a long way off this is an issue that will confront every person either living with the fear of getting it or caring for someone who does. It’s unconscionable that they would cut this program. (It’s unconscionable that they would cut any of this vital research into any diseases but that’s what they’re doing.)

I haven’t been able to find any comments by RFK Jr about Alzheimer’s but I would not be surprised to learn that he thinks it has something to do with processed food or environmental toxins (which could be true for all I know) but I suspect he will now be guiding research in those directions regardless of the scientific consensus. He’s very much a one-trick pony who has no education or expertise in any of this but that won’t matter.

Oh, and by the way, Trump just endorsed the House budget plan which appears to cut at least a billion dollars from Medicaid. What do you think pays for most elderly people with Alzheimer’s in assisted living and nursing homes? Yep.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel

Published by digby on February 19, 2025

A federal prosecutor actually wrote this piece of garbage:

That letter was sent around by Ed Martin the Acting DC US Attorney Trump has now nominated to be permanent based upon his lib-owning tweets and DOGE boot licking.

He tweeted this two days ago:

Right. Remember this?

Trump pardoned all of them.

“EagleEd” was also at January 6th, he raised money for the rioters and defended some of them, even going so far as to dismiss a case as acting US Atty on which he was also the defense attorney. Hypocrisy can’t begin to describe it.

You should see the shrieking on twitter over some protesters with posters that say “off with their heads” and the like about Trump and Musk. Fuck ’em. Trump pardoned all those people for violently threatening the whole US Congress during a joint session of congress to stop the peaceful transfer of power. If EagleEd wants to throw people in jail for some signs at a peaceful protest I think he should try. The result will clarify our situation once and for all.

He’s Just Saying It Out Loud Now

Published by digby on February 19, 2025

Unless he’s going to ignore a court ruling, he may be getting ahead of himself:

The Trump administration on Wednesday nixed federal approval of New York’s “congestion pricing” automobile tolls, which had been instituted just last month to raise funds for the region’s aging mass transit system.

In a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the federal government has jurisdiction over highways leading to Manhattan and that these additional tolls posed an unfair burden in motorists outside the city.

Duffy called the tolls, targeting Manhattan-bound drivers, “backwards and unfair.” “New York State’s congestion pricing plan is a slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners,” Duffy said in statement.

[…]

MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said Wednesday the New York transportation agency will go to court to fight any federal efforts to end the tolls.

“Today, the MTA filed papers in federal court to ensure that the highly successful program — which has already dramatically reduced congestion, bringing reduced traffic and faster travel times, while increasing speeds for buses and emergency vehicles — will continue notwithstanding this baseless effort to snatch those benefits away,” Lieber said in a statement.

Congestion pricing underwent a thorough federal review and proved its benefits, according to the MTA head. “It’s mystifying that after four years and 4,000 pages of federally-supervised environmental review — and barely three months after giving final approval to the Congestion Relief Program — USDOT would seek to totally reverse course,” according to Lieber

It’s anything but mystifying. We know exactly why they are doing it. It will be interesting to see how New Yorkers take it, however:

The MTA says newly released numbers show most travel times are down for drivers in Manhattan’s Congestion Relief Zone, while buses and subways are seeing more riders.

“Before the start of congestion relief, talk of lawsuits and doubts dominated the conversation, but now it’s the undeniably positive results we’ve been seeing since week one,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a statement Wednesday.

The MTA says travels times have improved in the Congestion Relief Zone by as much as 59% during peak afternoon hours. Officials say traffic patterns indicate more drivers are shifting to off-peak hours, as the plan intended. 

Data shows most of the vehicles entering the zone were passenger vehicles, followed by taxis and for-hire vehicles and then small trucks. Of them, 43% entered the zone north of 60th Street, 24% came from Brooklyn, 17% percent came from New Jersey and 16% from Queens. 

Inbound trip times at all Hudson and East River crossings are at least 10 percent faster than they were last January, according to the MTA.  The Holland Tunnel has seen the biggest improvement, with a 48% reduction during the morning commute, the MTA says. On the East Side, the Williamsburg and Queensboro Bridges have both seen 30% faster trips.

Officials say drivers on the Long Island Expressway, NJ 495 and Flatbush Avenue have also seen improved speeds.

I guess he thinks he’s servicing his biggest fans but you have to wonder if they’re going to be as happy as he thinks they will if the traffic goes back to the way it was before.

By the way, when are they going to weigh in on the toll roads all over the east coast? Millions of those working class and small businessmen pay those too. The only difference I can see is that they don’t have any positive effect on the traffic.

Why Did They Create A Congress And Judiciary? Just For Show?

Published by digby on February 19, 2025

“We live in a bureaucracy.” Lol. No, it does not make sense.

Here’s a little lesson for Elon that he must have missed when he became a citizen:

He does seem to be familiar with this:

The Führerprinzip  was the basis of executive authority in the government of Nazi Germany. It placed the Führer’s word above all written law, and meant that government policies, decisions, and officials all served to realize his will. In practice, the Führerprinzip gave Adolf Hitler supreme power over the ideology and policies of his political party; this form of personal dictatorship was a basic characteristic of Nazism. The state itself received “political authority” from Hitler, and the Führerprinzip stipulated that only what the Führer “commands, allows, or does not allow is our conscience,” with party leaders pledging “eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Remember The Eggs, Donald

Published by digby on February 19, 2025

It isn’t his fault though, naturally. Nothing ever is.

But people aren’t buying it. He promised to fix it on day one:

A pillar of Trump’s political strength has been public belief that his policies will be good for the economy, and his rating on the economy remains significantly higher than the final readings of his predecessor in office, Democrat Joe Biden, who ended his term with a 34% approval rating on the economy. But Trump’s rating for the economy is well below the 53% he had in Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted in February 2017, the first full month of his first term as U.S. president.

In the latest poll, only 32% of respondents approved of Trump’s performance on inflation, a potential early sign of disappointment in the Republican’s performance on a core economic issue after several years of rising prices weakened Biden ahead of last year’s presidential election. Trump defeated Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, in the Electoral College and narrowly won the popular vote.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said they opposed new tariffs on imported goods from other countries, while 41% were in favor of them. Increasing tariffs on Chinese goods had higher levels of support, with 49% in favor and 47% against.

It’s likely to get a whole lot worse. Economist Jesse Rothstein has some bad news:

It seems almost unavoidable at this point that we are headed for a deep, deep recession. Just based on 200K+ federal firings & pullback of contracts, the March employment report (to be released April 4) seems certain to show bigger job losses than any month ever outside of a few in 2008-9 and 2020.

— Jesse Rothstein (@jrothst.bsky.social) 2025-02-19T01:37:08.298Z

Add on to that enormous private market uncertainty – how could you hire in these conditions? – and this is going to be very, very bad.

— Jesse Rothstein (@jrothst.bsky.social) 2025-02-19T01:37:08.299Z

To be clear: Even greater damage will be done by the loss of federal government productivity. The workers who are losing their jobs were worth more than they were being paid! We are all poorer when roads, planes, and food are unsafe, when parks are closed, etc.

— Jesse Rothstein (@jrothst.bsky.social) 2025-02-19T01:37:08.300Z

That’s not even talking about the effects of the tariffs and the deportations.

But don’t worry, at least we won’t have to put up with DEI at the FAA anymore. I’m sure it will all be worth it.

Update — I should have added this:

Note that approval of his economic stewardship is lower than it ever was in the first term and it’s sinking fast. That’s an alarm bell that he doesn’t seem to be hearing.