Author: digby

It may not be a typical one, but when police start busting into private buildings on the order of the president, it sure comes close:

Employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency entered the U.S. Institute of Peace on Monday despite protests from the nonprofit that it is not part of the executive branch and is instead an independent agency.

“DOGE has broken into our building,” the organization’s CEO, George Moose, said.

USIP employees called the Metropolitan Police Department and reported a break-in. Police cars were outside USIP headquarters in Northwest D.C. Monday evening.

The alleged intrusion came after the Trump administration fired most of the USIP board and sent its new leader into the Washington headquarters of the independent organization on Monday, in its latest effort targeting agencies tied to foreign assistance work.

The remaining three members of the group’s board — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — fired Moose on Friday, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

USIP is a congressionally funded independent nonprofit that works to advance U.S. values in conflict resolution, ending wars and promoting good governance.

Apparently, they were unwilling to let this play out in court. They just went ahead because they believe they are the ones to interpret the law and the Congress is a bunch of potted plants and trained seals who apparently have nothing to say about anything.

“The employees of our building are not federal employees, executive branch employees,” Moose said. “They are employees of the institute. We have our own, separate board; we have our own bypass authority to go directly to Congress in order to get our money. Somehow, all of those arguments have not prevailed.”

The DOGE workers gained access to the building after several unsuccessful attempts Monday and after having been turned away on Friday, a senior U.S. Institute of Peace official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

[…]

The nonprofit says it was created by Congress in 1984 as an “independent nonprofit corporation,“ and it does not meet U.S. Code definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation” or “independent establishment.”

Josh Marshall dug into the role of the Metro POlice in this because it’s weird that they actually came in and evicted the legal tenets of a building without any due process. Apparently, they were told to do it by Trump’s personal henchman, Ed Martin the acting US Attorney in Washington:

It’s actually worse than what I suspected.

According to the MPD they first got involved when they were contacted by the DC US Attorney’s Office, the one currently run by acting US Attorney Ed Martin, the election denier and Jan 6th lawyer. The US Attorney’s office told the MPD that there was a disturbance at the US Institute of Peace offices and that some intruders or trespassers were refusing to leave. They gave the MPD the contact information for the guy Trump says he has appointed to run it. That would be Kenneth Jackson, though the statement doesn’t include his name. They talked with Jackson and then forced the USIP staff to leave based on what the US Attorney’s office told them about who had rightful possession of the office.

They play coy about exactly why the staff left.

MPD members went to the USIP building and contacted an individual who allowed MPD members inside of the building. Once inside of the building, the acting USIP President requested that all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building leave. Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident, and no arrests were made.”

…The police showed up and said they had to leave and they left. I don’t think the USIP folks or their lawyers were up for a police and barricades situation. The real issues here is that the US Attorney or at least the US Attorney’s office contacted the MPD and told them that there was no legitimate dispute and they had to make the staff leave and they did.

They just do what they want when they want it. There was no real reason for this. It could have been litigated without taking over the place. But that chainsaw has a life of its own.

Today a Judge ordered Elon Musk and DOGE to restore access of USAID employees, including those on administrative leave, to USAID computer systems. Judge Theodore Chuang, Obama appointee, also bars DOGE from actions related to USAID shutdown. I think it’s the first time Musk has been named personally.

These orders against Trump and DOGE are adding up. The Supremes are going to get involved sooner rather than later.

TNR explains:

While it’s not entirely clear what set the president off this time, earlier this month, Parker and Scherer had published a piece titled “Trump’s Own Declaration of Independence” about Trump’s outlandish demand to move the Declaration of Independence into the Oval Office.

This request presented as ridiculous for two main reasons. First, the president seems to eschew all the convictions held within the actual document: that all men are created equal, that power is divined from the consent of the governed, and the crucial rejection of monarchy, supposedly celebrated by the president who jokingly calls himself the “King.”

Secondly, on a purely logistical level, it seemed impossible. The original document, made of animal-skin parchment, is kept in an oxygen-free, argon-filled case behind heavy glass, which retracts into the wall at night and is kept away from bright lights.

But Trump seems intent on redecorating his digs to add as much pomp and circumstance as possible—and it seems he got his way, or at least some facsimile of it: A copy of the Declaration of Independence is currently hanging in the Oval Office, shielded by short blue curtains.

The oval office is quickly turning into a beat up Atlantic City casino version of Versailles.

It sure looks like it’s possible

Business surveys are showing the negative effects of Trump's lurching tariff policy and resulting uncertainty. From February to March, the percentage of businesses surveyed by Philly Fed that expected to increase cap ex fell from about 40% to 20%. Literally the largest decline in series history.

— Wendy Edelberg (@wendyedelberg.bsky.social) 2025-03-18T17:15:29.133Z

Business is pulling back on capital expenditures because Donald Trump has created the most unstable economy (unstable world!) that anyone can remember with his capricious, decision making and Elon Musk’s chainsaw. Nobody can predict anything but chaos going forward and business is betting that taking any risk right now isn’t worth it. I don’t blame them.

Economist Mark Zandi told NY Magazine’s Benjamin Hart that he has raised his expectation of a recession this year from 5% to 35% based upon Trump’s actions on tariffs, DOGE and all the chaos:

Despite all of this uncertainty, the recent data on inflation and unemployment is pretty solid. I was reading Justin Wolfers’s arguments on why recession fears may be overblown. He wrote that “the hard numbers tell us that the economy is in very good shape.” Do you agree? And do you expect that to last in the next couple of months? Because obviously we’re just beginning to understand the effects of all these haphazard policies.
The economy came into the year performing exceptionally and growing strongly. GDP last year was almost 3 percent, and growth was almost 3 percent. That’s a really good year. We created 2 million jobs. That’s a lot of jobs. Unemployment was 4 percent across every demographic. That’s very low. And it’s been there now for three years, which is just extraordinary. We have our problems, but the top-line performance of the economy arguably couldn’t be better coming into the year, so it would take a lot to diminish and derail it. But that’s what’s happening.

I can’t think of another example like this of somebody coming in and just single-handedly creating such a bad economic situation.
Yeah, recession by design. It will take a lot to push the economy off the rails, but if the president follows through on all the tariffs he’s discussed and articulated, most importantly the reciprocal tariffs, then holds them there — not on again, off again, but says, “Okay, here are the tariffs and we’re sticking to them” — other countries will retaliate. They already are. Once they realize that these tariffs are going to be around for a while, they’re going to respond in kind. Forget about all the other economic policies and everything else going on, that would be enough to push the economy into recession later this year.

I will be shocked if he pulls back the tariffs, although anything is possible. He believes in them like a religion and thinks they will magically force all manufacturing to immediately move to America and basically end trade altogether. It’s stupid and simplistic but that’s what he thinks. With the way his dementia is progressing into even more grandiose delusions, I don’t think reality is going to have much influence on him.

It was nice to hear someone say this:

Do you lay any of the blame for this current situation on Joe Biden’s policies? Or is this all sort of self-inflicted, this new uncertainty?
This is all self-inflicted. Again, the economy had its issues. There are always issues. But coming into the year, it was performing exceptionally well. It was far and away the strongest economy on the planet.

The envy of the world.
The envy of the world. So it’s hard — impossible in my mind — to lay any of this at the feet of President Biden.

And yet, new polling shows that views of Biden are, as Philip Bump wryly pointed out on BlueSky, “just a tad better than Adolph Hitler.” Sadly, that’s not much of an exaggeration.

They are literally saying that this man got the medal of honor because of DEI?

They restored the page on Monday saying that it was part of an “auto-removal” which can only mean that their system automatically removes Black (and women and other racial/ethnic minorities) under the assumption that they are all DEI and thus undeserving of any recognition. Why else would that have appeared in the new url? (That url was preserved in the wayback machine archive.)

It’s not the only example. You already know that Hegseth fired all the top women in the military and removed the Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs because he believes they are unqualified. They aren’t big, strong, drunk white rapists like he is. Last week it was reported that:

Arlington National Cemetery has begun wiping from its website histories highlighting Black, Hispanic and women veterans. The change is in line with President Trump’s directive to remove references to and support for diversity, equity and inclusion from the federal government.

Maybe if they can get rid of all mention of minorities and women everywhere in world the insecure white wingnuts can finally feel secure that they are the only people who matter.

Update —

Articles about the renowned Native American Code Talkers have disappeared from some military websites, with several broken URLs now labeled “DEI.”

Why it matters: From 1942 to 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers were instrumental in every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

• They were critical to securing America’s victory at Iwo Jima.

Axios identified at least 10 articles mentioning the Code Talkers that had disappeared from the U.S. Army and Department of Defense websites as of Monday.

 The Defense department’s URLs were amended with the letters DEI, suggesting they were removed following President Trump’s executive order ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

• The Internet Archive shows the deleted Army pages were live as recently as November, with many visible until February or March. None are shown with error messages until Trump took office.

Asked about the missing pages, Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot replied in a statement: “As Secretary [Pete] Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. … We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.”

• “In the rare cases that content is removed that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct components accordingly.”
• The statement did not address whether the Code Talkers are considered divisive DEI figures that “erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.”

Far right MAGA provocateurs have a sick idea to make this country explode

I’m pretty sure this is designed to spur massive street protests so that Trump can do what he wanted to do the first time: shoot protesters:

Prominent supporters of President Trump — led by podcaster Ben Shapiro — are fueling a major push to pardon Derek Chauvin, the white former Minnesota police officer convicted of killing George Floyd in 2020…

Shapiro, whose podcast episodes often break the Top 10 on Apple’s charts, launched the campaign early this month with a petition to convince Trump to issue the pardon. Shapiro has long dismissed the existence of systemic racism.

• Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t heard of the push to pardon Chauvin. Shapiro’s petition has now surpassed 50,000 signatures.
• Shapiro is launching a five-part docuseries titled “The Case for Derek Chauvin” that will start airing on his show Tuesday.
• Shapiro claims that Chauvin was unjustly convicted and that Floyd’s death was caused by underlying health issues and drug use.

Chauvin would not be released if Trump pardoned him because he was also convicted on state charges. Shapiro claims that Chauvin could be released earlier if he were pardoned on the federal charges because it would somehow show that the conviction was unjust.

This is why I think it’s a ruse to cause an explosive reaction so that Trump can bring the hammer down. There’s no other reason to do it.

I will not be surprised if Trump goes there. He is addled and drunk with power. Why wouldn’t he?

I know that sounds weird, but that’s what the new leader of the agency says

I think we all assumed that the job of the Environmental Protection Agency was pretty specific: the protect the environment. The new administrator says that while they want to ensure that America has clean air and water they have a much bigger priority:

Zeldin touched on regulatory reform and the changes the agency will make that he says will spur economic growth.  “It means that it’s going to be easier to purchase a car. It’s going to be easier to heat your home. Operating a small business is going to be easier for people who are looking for employment, are going to have more opportunities.”

I thought we had other agencies that focused on that but ok. How does he plan to do that? By decimating the department and ,consequently, the environment:

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

The strategy is part of large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” being planned by the Trump administration, which is intent on shrinking the federal work force. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the E.P.A., has said he wants to eliminate 65 percent of the agency’s budget. That would be a drastic reduction — one that experts said could hamper clean water and wastewater improvements, air quality monitoring, the cleanup of toxic industrial sites, and other parts of the agency’s mission.

The E.P.A.’s plan, which was presented to White House officials on Friday for review, calls for dissolving the agency’s largest department, the Office of Research and Development, and purging up to 75 percent of the people who work there.

I guess King Donald is going to sign an Executive Order declaring that all water, air and land be free of pollutants and it will be done. That’s the way America works now, apparently.

By the way:

The E.P.A.’s science office provides the independent research that undergirds virtually all of the agency’s environmental policies, from analyzing the risks of “forever chemicals” in drinking water to determining the best way to reduce fine particle pollution in the atmosphere. It has researched synthetic playground material made from discarded tires; found that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can contaminate drinking water; and measured the impact of wildfire smoke on public health. The office also helps state environmental agencies figure out how to address algae blooms, treat drinking water and more.

Who needs it, amirite?

As a follow up to the post below, just read this. The Washington Post got audio of the Kennedy Center Meeting Trump attended today:

Trump and board members floated names such as Paul Anka, Sylvester Stallone, Johnny Mathis and Andrea Bocelli for the award.

The president also suggested giving awards to Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti and Babe Ruth, though the Kennedy Center Honors are not given posthumously. Pavarotti was honored in 2001. Trump floated expanding the event to include politicians, executives and athletes.

“Elvis sells better as a dead man,” Trump said.

During the board meeting, Trump railed against previous Kennedy Center Honors, saying, “In the past, I mean, these are radical left lunatics that have been chosen. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t watch it. And the host was always terrible.”

It is unclear how many members will be added to the committee. Their identities are also unknown. “We’re expanding the committee so that the search for the Kennedy Center Honors is more inclusive,” said one board member, who could not be identified by voice alone.

No you didn’t accidentally drop acid. They actually used the word “inclusive” a word which has been deleted from every government website.

This will be ratings gold for sure:

Trump seemed to say he would agree to be the ceremony’s host. “I don’t want to, but I want this thing to be successful,” he told the board.

Another bit of evidence of his decline into delusional megalomania.

Luckily, he’s got such great taste that the center will be incredibly successful:

He said he hopes to bring in Broadway shows. (The center routinely books tours of Broadway productions.)

Later, Trump and board members mentioned several shows they would be interested in bringing, including “Hello, Dolly!” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Camelot,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Cats.”..

At other points during the meeting, Trump shared personal stories and anecdotes, including about the first time he saw “Cats” and which members of the cast he found attractive. He also spoke about how dangerous the Potomac River can be. The center is adjacent to the river.

Oh my God.

You may have heard that Trump toadie Ric Grenell was mad at people for booing JD Vance at a performance the other night but you may not have heard what he wrote:

He cited the center’s diversity as a strength and urged tolerance for different political views. “As President, I take diversity and inclusion very seriously,” he wrote. “I have met with many of you, and I love that we are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic and absolutely different.”

As I said, you aren’t on drugs. He actually said that.

This is actually a good thing, though. The more time he spends destroying the Kennedy Center, the less he has to destroy the country. I think he should devote at least four days a week to it.

Trump has a lot on his plate and he’s very, very busy. Yes, he found time to squeeze in several hours of golf and partying at his beach club over the weekend even as he’s creating a constitutional crisis but he needs to have some downtime.

Now he’s back to work doing the important work of the American people that no one else can do.

President Trump is expected to tour the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today, where he will also preside over a board meeting as the Center’s new chair.

Last month, Trump led an overhaul of the Kennedy Center’s leadership by dismissing the previously-appointed Board of Trustees, along with longtime Kennedy Center chair David Rubenstein. Deborah Rutter, who served as president of the cultural center for over a decade, was also ousted.

President Trump named an all-new board that, in an unprecedented move, elected him as the new Kennedy Center Board Chair.

The Kennedy Center has not shared a copy of today’s meeting agenda with NPR, but The New York Times reports that Trump is aiming to exert more influence over the selection of the Kennedy Center Honorees and the board plans to discuss changes to the committee that makes nominations.

He’s going to choose the honorees from now on in his quest for the Golden Age of American Culture. I’d guess his first decrees will be for Kid Rock, Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and The VIllage People. Jason Aldeen, James Woods and Billy Ray Cyrus will have to wait for next year.

People didn’t vote for Project 2025 because Trump disowned it on the campaign trail saying he had nothing to do with it and that it was too extreme. We knew he was lying but his campaign was concerned enough about it to have him go out and lie. (Not that he doesn’t do that reflexively anyway.) He knew it was toxic to his chances.

Well:

Paul Dans was director of Project 2025 for the Heritage Foundation, the hard-right group which has produced such policy plans for more than 40 years.

Project 2025 alarmed progressives with its advocacy of slashing government staffing and budgets and attacking protections for LGBTQ+ Americans; efforts to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion throughout government; attempts to tackle the climate crisis; and more.

Democratic attacks proved effective enough for Trump to claim he had “nothing to do” with the project. In July, as the Trump campaign scrambled to limit damage, Dans was forced out of his Heritage role.

Now, with Trump back in power, the president and his chief donor and ally, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk, have mounted an assault on the federal government that has already led to thousands of firings, a bonfire of climate regulations, attacks on DEI initiatives real and imagined and much more.

“It’s actually way beyond my wildest dreams,” Dans told Politico. “It’s not going to be the easiest road to hoe going forward. The deep state is going to get its breath back here, but the way that they’ve been able to move and kind of upset the orthodoxy, and at the same time really capture the imagination of the people, I think portends a great four years.”

Dans told Politico that even though he was the sacrificial lamb the campaign tossed aside and he called their distancing from Project 2025 “malpractice.” But he’s so thrilled at how they are enacting it almost to the letter that he says now that he would be thrilled to be asked to join the administration. Why not? Nobody who matters (Republicans who are willingly making themselves human sacrifices for their Daddy) will care.

In reality, Trump is not only enacting Project 2025, he is going farther with his inane tariffs, destroying the world order, and allowing DOGE to run through the federal government with a chainsaw randomly cutting anything that gets in its way without even a review. It’s Project 2025 on steroids.

There is nothing more important to national security than the security of the nuclear arsenal. Nothing.

And yet:

They handled the secure transport of nuclear materials — dangerous, demanding work that requires rigorous training. Four of them took the Trump administration’s offer of a buyout and left the National Nuclear Security Administration.

A half-dozen staff members left a unit in the agency that builds reactors for nuclear submarines. And a biochemist and engineer who had recently joined the agency as head of the team that enforces safety and environmental standards at a Texas plant that assembles nuclear warheads was fired.

In the past six weeks, the agency, just one relatively small outpost in a federal work force that President Trump and his top adviser Elon Musk aim to drastically pare down, has lost a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers — all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation.

The nuclear agency, chronically understaffed but critically important, is the busiest it has been since the Cold War. It not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal — a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles.

Since the last year of the first Trump administration, the agency has been desperately trying to build up its staff to handle the added workload. Though it was still hundreds of employees short of what it had said it needed, it had edged up to about 2,000 workers by January. Now, with the Trump administration’s buyouts and firings, the agency’s trajectory has gone from one of painstaking growth to retraction.

Don’t worry. Elon knows some college freshmen who can do the job, no problem. He’s a genius, you know.

I live in hope every day that nothing catastrophic happens but there are so many catastrophic decisions and actions being taken it’s hard to believe that something isn’t going to happen. Let’s hope it isn’t this.