Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Texas Senate race is a MAGA litmus test:

President Donald Trump is preparing to endorse a longtime Senate incumbent over a loyal ally in a closely watched Republican primary — a decision that would put him at odds with parts of the MAGA base that have rallied behind the challenger.

Trump has said he intends to endorse Sen. John Cornyn over his Republican opponent Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a longtime ally of Trump, according to three people familiar with his thinking, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The Republican primary race heads to a runoff in May. Trump said Wednesday on Truth Social that he plans to make an endorsement soon and declared that the candidate he doesn’t endorse should drop out.

Trump said on Truth Social that he intends to endorse one of them and demands that the other drop when he does it. We know that he loves the criminal monster Paxton (a Texas version of him) but has been persuaded that Cornyn is the safer bet.

Paxton says that he will only consider dropping out if the Senate blows up the filibuster and passes the SAFE Act which isn’t going to happen but makes him all the more beloved by the MAGA base. It’s a problem:

From prominent MAGA voices to lesser-known grassroots activists, many in Trump’s die-hard base say they are befuddled that the president is heeding the calls of establishment GOP operatives over his most loyal backers, adding to frustrations among supporters who warn that waning enthusiasm could threaten Republican turnout in the midterms.

Conservative media figures and MAGA influencers have blanketed social media this week with posts highlighting Cornyn’s past criticisms of Trump, questioning the president’s commitment to “drain the swamp” in Washington, and pledging to support Paxton regardless of Trump’s endorsement. They also recirculated a 2023 Truth Social post from Trump in which he compared Cornyn to former senator Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, and said Cornyn was “always quick to surrender to the Dems.”

“It is a massive ask for the president, love him though we may, to come in and say, ‘Hey, that conservative that you love for the same reasons you love me? I want you to change your mind’” and not vote for Paxton, said Mark Davis, a conservative radio host in Texas who is closely attuned with Trump-supporting Republican activists in the state.

I just don’t think Trump has that kind of juice but he probably has enough left to put Cornyn over the top. That’s all he cares about. He’ll take his victory lap and claimed that he’s the most powerful movement leader the world has ever known — Ghandi and Hitler combined. But little by little the crack is growing wider.

Raging at his loss:

President Trump seethed when the Supreme Court stripped away his unilateral tariff authority, the first real check on his presidency. Then he set out to impose his will on every remaining vector of American power — smashing norms and shrugging off Congress in a historic, 14-day show of executive force.

Over the past two weeks, Trump launched a massive Middle East war, blacklisted the hottest AI company on the planet, ordered new global tariffs, and presided over the biggest media merger in two decades.

He did it all unilaterally — without passing a single law, and without pretending he needed to. 

[…]

Trump has spent his second term systematically testing how much power a president can seize without Congress, the courts or public opinion stopping him. The answer, so far: almost limitless.

• Trump has signed fewer laws than any modern president at this stage — because he doesn’t need them. Executive orders, military force and the bully pulpit have proven more efficient.
• Trump’s advisers say he’s content using unilateral powers, and congressional Republicans — with rare exceptions — have cheered him on at every turn.

What’s all the more remarkable is that Trump is doing this with most of America opposed to his performance in office — and to these specific actions.

• A Economist/YouGov poll conducted as the Iran war began found Trump’s disapproval at 59% — a second-term record. His net approval, according to Nate Silver’s average, sits at -13.
• An January poll by CNN found 58% of Americans say Trump has already gone too far in using presidential power — a figure collected before the most aggressive stretch of his presidency.

He doesn’t care about public opinion much. Why should he? He can do what he wants without any fear of accountability.

The Supremes stepped in one time (and granted it was on an issue about which Trump cares deeply) and batted him back. Otherwise they’ve pretty much backed his power play. That he lost his mind because of that one ruling and decided to launch a war in response tells you everything you need to know about his mental state.

And then there’s the Congress. They are completely useless even in the face of almost assured huge losses a few months from now. I suppose they’re counting on Trump and their allies in the states to manipulate the election so they can keep them to a minimum but it’s hard to see how that will work. Essentially, they’re either true Trump believers, cowards or opportunists so they’re just as bad as he is.

He’s always been a whiner but now that the megalomania has fully kicked in any loss sends him into an emotional maelstrom. This could get very bad if the war doesn’t go perfectly.

This had to give Trump a big thrill up the leg:

Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.

GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.

Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was “directly responsible” for the riot. Loudermilk’s referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.

The “charges” such as they are are about her heresy testimony about what she heard second hand about Trump in the limo and Trump saying that they could let the people with guns come in because they weren’t there to hurt him. How that translates to a crime, I don’t know but the main purpose of something like this is to serve as a warning to anyone who deigns to testify against Trump. (Epstein survivors certainly will take notice.)

These miscreants will never give up on exonerating their Dear Leader for that day. It won’t work, of course. We all know what we saw. But until he’s long dead they’ll keep trying. It’s a cult.

Pew asks an interesting question:

Americans are more likely than people in other countries surveyed in 2025 to question the morality of their fellow countrymen, according to Pew Research Center surveys in 25 countries.

We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.

In nearly all countries surveyed, more people say that others in their country have somewhat or very good morals than say their compatriots display somewhat or very bad levels of morality.

The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%).

Because we have never asked this question before, we don’t know whether a majority of Americans have long held a skeptical view of the ethics of fellow Americans, or if it’s something new – and if so, what’s driving it. But partisan politics appear to play a role.

Yeah, I’d say so. And one of the parties is led by a man whose entire political career was built on grievance and hate for anyone who doesn’t lick his boots, using crude insults and endless threats against them. He governs as the president of only his own followers and punishes those who aren’t. So this makes perfect sense.

Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to rate fellow Americans as morally and ethically bad (60% vs. 46%). 

That’s because it’s true. They elected a criminal to the presidency knowing exactly what he did and they didn’t care. That’s immoral. Sorry.

Bolts.com has done another interesting Q&A with state and local leaders about how they’re dealing with ICE and CBP. It’s quite interesting and somewhat inspiring. The Resistance is deep:

The violence of Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country and the killing of protesters by federal agents have put pressure on local leaders to change their approach to federal immigration enforcement. 

Already, a growing list of states has moved to restrict local collaboration with ICE, and in many local criminal justice elections this year, assisting federal immigration authorities has become a defining issue.

We asked our readers to send us their questions about state and local responses to the federal immigration crackdown as part of our ongoing series “Ask Bolts.” With the help of our entire staff, we respond to nine of those questions below.

Jump to the topic that interests you most, or keep scrolling to explore all nine questions.

How are state and local governments helping ICE?

How can state governments restrict ICE?

How can local governments and communities restrict ICE—from DAs and county boards to activist networks?

These people don’t get a lot of national attention but what they are doing is one of the most vital forms of resistance to the DHS assault.

A confederacy of Otises

What’s the point of having a Congress if it won’t exercise the real powers vested in it? Are they lawmakers or simply a student council?

Twice this week, the U.S. Congress, both the Senate and House chambers, voted down a demand that the president come to Congress for authorization for its war-making in Iran. The House voted 219 to 212 on Thursday, nearly along party lines, “to block consideration of a bipartisan resolution that would end offensive military operations in Iran that had not been approved by Congress.” Four Democrats opposed the resolution. Two Republicans supported it. Collectively, they surrendered their constitutional powers without a shot.

But, of course, it’s not a war. Another name will be found for it.

RAJU: You'll concede this is war?

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We haven't declared war. They declared war on us

RAJU: The president called it war and Secretary Hegseth called it war

REPORTER: When you walked up just now, you called it war

MULLIN: Okay. That was a misspoke. pic.twitter.com/x2YRUMmzUG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 3, 2026

The New York Times reports:

“The Constitution is clear: Our Constitution provides Congress initiatory powers of war,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky and the lead sponsor of the resolution, said during debate on the House floor, directly challenging members of his own party.

Mr. Massie, who cosponsored the measure with Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, noted that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president to go around Congress and exercise unilateral authority to use force only if there has been a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States.

“None of those conditions exist today,” Mr. Massie said.

After a series of classified briefings led by senior Trump administration officials, Democrats said the case had not been made that the president had needed to act unilaterally.

Donald Trump did anyway.

You knew he would. So did Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic:

During the run-up to the 2016 election, I wrote that “if you’re a voter who believes that Donald Trump is against foreign wars and regime change, unlike the globalist elites in Washington, D.C., you have been misled.” At the time, I noted that Trump released a video in 2011 that sought to pressure President Obama to invade Libya. Trump also argued that George H. W. Bush should have ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, “We still don’t know what Iraq is up to or whether it has the material to build nuclear weapons.” He added, “Am I being contradictory here, by presenting myself as a deal-maker and then recommending preemptive strikes? I don’t think so.” In 2011, he urged the Navy to wage war on Somali pirates.

Now Trump has proved his proclivity for interventionism, without congressional approval or the support of the public. And there’s no evidence to suggest that he will stop here. If Congress continues allowing him to deploy force unilaterally, he may pursue land strikes on drug cartels in Mexico, a prospect that he raised early this year in an interview with Fox News; regime change in Cuba, a longtime dream of Rubio’s; and God knows what else. He is an impulsive man who gambles, especially when the most significant risks are borne by others. There is no way to know how exactly he will surprise Americans next.

“The United States is now enmeshed in so many conflicts that its foreign policy is closer to ‘world police’ than ‘America First’, ” chides Friedersdorf. As candidate, Trump promoted himself as the “peace president” while lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel,” Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, told Trump’s niece Mary L. Trump in a secretly recorded interview.

“He has no principles. None. None.”

Trump is engaged in another criminal enterprise, this time involving spilling blood. The question is whether Congress has the balls to parent a career criminal with possession of the nuclear launch codes and in control of the world’s most powerful military. It is because Trump is the most insecure, emotionally damaged president of our time that he surrounds himself with total nincompoops. And because he helps elect them to Congress expressly to do his bidding, over half of that body is populated with ass-kissing Otis wannabes.

God help us.

Hymn 43

If Jesus saves, well, he better save himself
From the gory glory seekers who use his name in death
Oh, Jesus save me

 

View on Threads

Well, I saw him in the city
And on the mountains of the moon, hey
His cross was rather bloody, oh
And he could hardly roll his stone
Oh, Jesus save me

It’s a really big show, folks! What comes next? Fuggedaboudit!

Noem testified before Congress this week that Trump approved her $200 million ad campaign that featured her and Trump was supposedly very angry and it led to her firing. They’ve been playing for over a year in every media market. But I recalled that this story has been around since the early days of the administration and Noem has always told the same story — and Trump never denied it. The details are even more juicy that what they’re reporting today:

Here’s one from February 25, 2025 in Rolling Stone:

The Department of Homeland Security has budgeted up to $200 million to run anti-immigrant ads in the United States and overseas that repeatedly thank President Donald Trump for leading an immigration crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday night that these ads were Trump’s idea, and during the administration’s transition to power, the president asked her to star in ads thanking him “for closing the border.”

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday night — at a tux and gown affair that served striploin, mashed potatoes, and raspberry cake — Noem recalled Trump telling her after she was nominated: “I want you to do [ads] for the border, and I want you to do those everywhere, not just in the United States, but I want them around the world. I want you to tell people not to come to this country if they’re going to come here illegally.”

She said the president continued: “We’re not going to let the media tell this story, because the media will never tell the truth. We’re going to run a marketing campaign to make sure the American people know the truth of what you’re doing.” 

The ad campaign amounts to an extremely expensive taxpayer-funded propaganda blitz to scare off migrants and to flatter Trump on television. On Friday, Trump’s DHS secretary entertained the CPAC high-roller audience with her account of how Trump orchestrated the whole thing. 

Noem said that Trump instructed that he didn’t want to be in the ads himself, telling her: “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.” She recalled: “I said, ‘Yes, sir, I will thank you for closing the border.’ So if you notice, in that ad, we thanked him for closing the border.”

Lol! I don’t know about you but Kristi’s story has the ring of truth if only because she so clearly doesn’t understand how much it makes him look like a narcissistic moron.

Of course that’s what he said. He’s always demanding that people thank him. It’s him.

Hegseth: "No stupid rules of engagement. No nation-building quagmire. No democracy-building exercise. No politically correct wars…An effort of this scope will include casualties. War is Hell and always will be." pic.twitter.com/yuvwJWTk0V

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) March 2, 2026

I guess we know what he means by that:

The Feb. 28 strike that hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the United States and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility.

But a body of evidence assembled by The New York Times — including newly released satellite imagery, social media posts and verified videos — indicates the school building was severely damaged by a precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

And official statements that U.S. forces were attacking naval targets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the I.R.G.C. base is located, suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike. […]

The elementary school is in the small southern town of Minab, more than 600 miles from Tehran but near the critical waterway of the Strait of Hormuz. Since Saturday is the start of the Iranian workweek, children and teachers were in class at the time of the strike, health officials and Iranian state media said.

No biggie.

It reminds me of the comment by former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs who defended the targeted killing of American Anway Awlaki by saying, “he should have had a more responsible father.” If those little Iranian kids didn’t want to be killed they should have had the good sense to be born American and live in the United States. Of course, that’s no guarantee that Trump’s administration won’t kill them too but it may be slightly less likely.