Following up on the post below, I just wanted to flag a comment by the new MAGA extremist FCC chair Brendan Carr, discussing his new investigation into the ABC-Disney merger over their DEI policies. This is what he said:
“There are some concerning indications that they may have been discriminating against employees based upon their race, their gender and other protected characteristics all in the name of promoting DEI.”
He’s done the same to Comcast.
I think that’s a very good concise explanation of the blackmail that’s going on in corporate America. The people who have spent decades defending the prerogatives of the private sector to discriminate against anyone they choose are now threatening private corporations with government actions if they don’t agree to get rid of alleged “anti-discrimination” practices against white men. And they are using the 1964 Civil Rights Act to do it. It’s diabolical.
The Naval Academy didn’t know they were supposed to follow Trump’s edicts to erase all recognition of people of color or women in Kindergarten to 1th grade, perhaps assuming that students going into the elite officer corps were capable of critical thinking. They have since been schooled by Pete Hegseth:
This week, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy decisions, Mr. Hegseth’s office became aware that the nation’s military service academies did not believe that President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order to end “radical indoctrination” in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms applied to them, as they are colleges. The defense secretary’s office informed the Naval Academy that Mr. Hegseth’s intent was for the order to apply to the academies, and that the secretary expected compliance.
[…]
The academy’s library in Annapolis, Md., houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and more than 5,000 print journals and magazines, Commander Hawkins said…
Thus far, the review of Nimitz Library’s holdings has identified 900 books that may run afoul of the defense secretary’s verbal order. According to a second defense official, they include “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.,” “Einstein on Race and Racism,” and a biography on Jackie Robinson.
They did reinstate Jackie Robinson’s Pentagon web page after a huge outcry but I’m going to guess that the biography might be a bridge too far. After all, Jackie Robinson is someone whose life story is in direct conflict with the MAGA narrative. Deal Leader and his minions have decreed that there has never been a problem with race or sexism in America. They want people to believe that it is and always was an equal playing field. If it happens that straight, white males have run everything from the beginning it’s just because they are so superior. That’s what they call meritocracy.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest programming languages in a matter of months, potentially putting the integrity of the system—and the benefits on which tens of millions of Americans rely—at risk.
The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.
Under any circumstances, a migration of this size and scale would be a massive undertaking, experts tell WIRED, but the expedited deadline runs the risk of obstructing payments to the more than 65 million people in the US currently receiving Social Security benefits.
God help us:
In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED. “DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months, then their way is the right way, and we all just suck for not breaking shit,” says the SSA technologist.
DOGE would also need to develop tests to ensure the new system’s outputs match the previous one. It would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months, adds the SSA technologist.
“This is an environment that is held together with bail wire and duct tape,” the former senior SSA technologist working in the office of the chief information officer tells WIRED. “The leaders need to understand that they’re dealing with a house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling pieces out, which they’ve already stated they’re doing, things can break.”
Obviously, this is a necessary modernization which they’ve been talking about for some time. But it requires taking their time and being very careful about doing it because 75 million people are dependent on the system to work without interruption. Keep in mind that most people’s Medicare premiums are deducted from their Social Security. If this explodes, as it likely will, senior citizens are not only in dangers of not getting their checks, the Medicare system is in danger of blowing up right along with it.
But I’m sure BigBalls and his grubby little friends know what they’re doing with COBAL and will make sure nothing bad happens right? They’re all geniuses.
As Scott Lemieux wrote:
Enjoying your hard-earned retirement? Thinking of retiring in the near future? Elon would like to take take what is likely most of your disposable income to the Dunning-Kruger casino
Top White House and administration officials have been promising businesses, consumers and fellow Republicans more “certainty” on trade in the coming days, eager to calm skittish markets and avoid the stock market plunge that accompanied the White House’s initial tariff roll-outs.
But they have one problem: Donald J. Trump.
Just days out from Trump’s April 2 announcement of global tariffs, which he has hailed as “Liberation Day,” even those closest to the president — from Vice President JD Vance to his chief of staff Susie Wiles and his own Cabinet officials — have privately indicated that they’re unsure exactly what the boss will do, according to three people who have spoken with them…
“No one knows what the fuck is going on,” said one White House ally close to Trump’s inner circle, granted anonymity to speak freely. “What are they going to tariff? Who are they gonna tariff and at what rates? Like, the very basic questions haven’t been answered yet.”
When are people going to admit that he’s losing it? (To the extent that he ever had it, that is.) He probably isn’t remembering what he said from one day to the next and isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. He is hanging on by his fingernails.
His team is concerned because he’s not paying any attention to economic warning signs that are all around us. But it’s also “because the president continues to throw curveballs at businesses — and even his own team.” What does that say?
Case in point: Wednesday’s decision to slap the auto industry with 25 percent tariffs. While expected in some fashion in the near future, the announcement came together so last minute that the White House wasn’t fully prepared and had to delay afternoon programming as they sought to finalize the plan, according to two people familiar with the roll-out.
The White House also didn’t brief industry stakeholders in the U.S. or abroad beforehand — though a White House official argued that if they were “smart” they would have known it was coming, since Trump himself issued a public warning.
Then he’s saying that he might not do it after all, but who knows?
“I may give a lot of countries breaks,” Trump said. “We might be even nicer than that.”
On Wednesday, he reiterated that potential reprieve, predicting to reporters that people will be “pleasantly surprised” by the “somewhat conservative” tariffs.
Look at how people try to find excuses for this erratic behavior:
“I think it would be a mistake to think next week all of a sudden we’re going to get a bunch of clarity,” said Tom Graff, chief investment officer at financial advisory firm Facet. “I’m sure they’re trying to reset with financial markets and build some certainty, but I don’t think the president is going to have a personality transplant.”
“I think he wants to keep his options open,” Graff added.
Bullshit. There’s no point to any of it. I won’t even quote what the White House sycophants are saying. You can only imagine.
Tell me this isn’t a man struggling with dementia:
Part of the uncertainty stems from the president seeming to undermine his own team at times. After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett said in recent weeks that only about 10 or 15 countries — or the “dirty 15,” as Bessent put it — would face reciprocal tariffs, Trump said Wednesday that actually every country will be hit with a tariff…
Indeed, Trump has continued to shift the scope, targets and timeline of his tariffs at a whiplash-inducing pace. The duties he promised, pre-inauguration, to levy on Canada and Mexico his first day in office shifted to Feb. 1, then Feb. 4, then March 4, before being largely rolled back until April 2. There is little clarity about what parts of those tariffs — which could hit more than $1 trillion worth of trade — will go into effect next week.
The size of the so-called reciprocal tariffs, which the administration says it’s calculating for individual trading partners based on their treatment of U.S. imports, could also shift. Administration officials have indicated to foreign diplomats that those duties are meant to be a starting point for negotiations with other countries, meaning American companies may not know what if any tariffs will stick.
Trump also threatened to impose tariffs April 2 on various critical industries, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, copper and lumber, before indicating in recent days that those tariffs are likely to be delayed.
The “planning” is in total chaos. Any country that wants to avoid these inane tariffs has no idea if they’re coming or what they might be although Lutnick has said he’d try to give them a “heads up” if he can.
Apparently, the team is divided and each side is trying to influence the addled president although that probably won’t make any difference. Bessent, Wiles and Vance have all tried to get him to narrow the tariffs and make a final decision (despite surprising Wall St with their public support for whatever Trump does) but he doesn’t listen.
And then there are the true blues:
On the other hand, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Navarro are said to be encouraging Trump’s long-standing tariff fixation.
The divisions have caused tensions. While Navarro is a genuine tariff believer, Lutnick — who has a close relationship with Trump and enjoys influence that others in the Cabinet do not, as of yet — is widely seen as supporting whatever Trump wants to ingratiate himself with the president, a dynamic that has infuriated others in the administration.
“He goes into the Oval and tells the president whatever he wants to hear,” said the first White House ally, who called Lutnick a “fucking nightmare” and argued he does so without consideration of the economic consequences.
Republicans are worried:
“If tariffs did have an inflationary impact — or an impact on interest rates that caused inflation and the economy moved toward a recession — that would be a very bad thing in my judgement,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told POLITICO, though he acknowledged a skilled rollout could work. “It would turn the Trump presidency from a four year term into a two year term, because we’d lose in the midterms.”
Ya think? The stubborn old man doesn’t hear any of that because he’s ignorant, has always believed his own hype and is losing his grip all at the same time:
The problem Trump’s own advisers and Hill Republicans face is that the president doesn’t share their alarm. He’s long believed that other countries are cheating America and that tariffs will usher in a new period of economic growth — economists’ warnings be damned. While many Hill Republicans have sought to justify his tariff obsession by chalking it up to a negotiating tactic, the reality is Trump really believes in the protectionist policies pushed by aides like Navarro, the longtime trade adviser whom Republicans almost universally distrust. The president also believes that his tariffs are popular with voters.
That’s because he’s not all there. They know it too, they just won’t admit it. He’s in his own world:
“The president isn’t looking at it like they are,” said one of the people close to Trump’s inner circle of the president’s advisers.“For [him], if the economy tanks, then fine, the economy tanks — because the president truly believes that it will rebound and the countries will give in because they can’t withstand the pressure from the U.S.”
As for political blowback, this person continued: “No. 1, the president is not running for reelection — so where this may have been a political concern in his first term, it’s not a political concern now. … And No. 2, we’re probably gonna lose the House in the midterms.”
Yes, eventually the economy will rebound. It always does in the long run. But as J.K. Galbraith famously said, “in the long run we’ll all be dead.”
I love this:
It’s unclear how candid Trump’s advisers have been to the president about their fears. One White House ally on the outside close to Trump’s team said even his most senior advisers abhor telling Trump what he doesn’t want to hear — but another argued that the president simply isn’t internalizing the warnings.
“I don’t think it’s like no one wants to tell Trump the bad, the hard news,” said one of the outside allies mentioned above. “I think people have tried to have a conversation with him, and he’s dead set on it. He’s a true believer.”
That’s because he’s not all there. It’s obvious in a million different ways. And they are all now in protective mode, far beyond anything we saw with Biden who was just showing normal elderly decline, nothing like this.
They say that people’s character traits often become more pronounced when dementia sets in. They can also become more stubborn, largely because they find themselves often confused and disoriented so they exert whatever power they have over others to reassure themselves that they’re still in control. And yes, in Trump’s case, he’s completely in old man YOLO mode, doing whatever he wants determined to prove that he’s always been right about everything. I hesitate to think what he’s going to do if and when reality blows up in his face.
When is the media going to start looking at this seriously?
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again
— “The Mary Ellen Carter,” by Stan Rogers, 1979
Friends ask me how I am, and my stock reply is now “Managing my stress.” My mother, 93, tells me she and her friends are all wondering whether their Social Security checks will arrive in April. But then that’s just what a “fraudster” would say, according to Donald Trump’s billionaire Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, speaking from whatever planet that bastard lives on. My mother and her friends know all about his comments.
A friends laments that too many in the progressive sphere seem to think clicktivism is enough. Another looks at the descent of the U.S. into will-to-power lawlessness and says there’s nothing you can do. But that’s not true.
Read this carefully:
Not gonna pretend like I know anything about Carney’s politics because I don’t, but I watched his speech yesterday and he essentially told Trump to fuck off and now Trump’s speaking about him with a modicum of respect. I feel like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
There is a lesson in there: Stand up to Trump and he backs down. He has a loud bark and a glass jaw.
In case you need reminding what Carney did:
Carney: “The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over.” pic.twitter.com/LKYkpO8JD0
So attend those protests, the big and the small. Contact your representatives, even the MAGA ones. Write letters to the editor. Make phone calls for Susan Crawford in Wisconsin (the election is Tuesday). Even if the checks keep coming, I promise you that those reliably voting seniors on Social Security won’t forget the Trump-inspired stress and worry they feel over whether they will be able to pay their bills or, you know, eat.
The smiling, lying bastards only win if you give up first.
The good citizens of Gotham City elected the Joker as mayor. He appointed his friends to high positions in government. Batman is MIA. Things have gone about as you’d expect.
You’ve noticed? So has Michael Tomasky. Some headlines:
Trump-as-Joker would fire the police too, but why bother with AG Pam Bondi (as Harley Quinn) deciding which Trump enemies to prosecute and which Trump crimes to ignore? (All of them.) Besides, he needs police as enforcers. There’s little chance that Senator John Thune and Representative Mike Johnson will launch CapitolHill investigations into anything Trump.
“That’s a lot of mayhem, and it barely scratches the surface,” Tomasky explains:
Across human history, fascism has been imposed upon democracy mostly in one of two ways. First, by brute force—a military coup, that sort of thing. Second, a bit more stealthily, and legally—through legislation, executive decrees, and court decisions that hand more power to the leader.
Donald Trump is inventing a new way. Call it chaos fascism. Destroy the institutions of democracy until they’re so disfigured or dysfunctional that a majority no longer cares about them.
But they’ll care about this. Musk-Trump is degrading the Social Security system while propagandizing against it “with absurd and false claims about 140-year-olds cashing checks.” DOGE claims after being embarrassed by that that it can replace SSA’s archaic-but-functional COBOL software that DOGE coders don’t understand with Java in a matter of months. Experts say years. DOGE says trust A.I.
Then wreck the agency so that its service becomes crap. Let public anger at it build. And in time, they can just dismantle it and privatize the greatest social insurance system ever devised by this government and put people’s financial fate in the hands of rich cronies. If that’s not chaos fascism, I don’t know what is.
For now it is left to the courts to attempt to put the brakes on Joker’s plans for mayhem. He’s already defying them, but hasn’t yet seen his SCOTUS buddies rule on his most blatant actions. For now, the country is whistling past the constituional crisis. Defying SCOTUS could backfire, Politico suggests, but may get something Republicans can regret at their leisure:
Trump is likely to get some of what he wants from the Supreme Court when all is said and done — maybe even a lot of it. But it is always useful to remember that when a president manages to devise new and more powerful tools for himself — whether legal or political in nature — he leaves them for his successors too. And there is no telling what will happen and how those tools will be used over the long haul.
That assumes there is a long haul.
With Batman MIA and the courts with no army, stopping the Joker’s chaos fascism may take Americans in the streets by the millions. Saturday, April 5 is your big chance!
Two river otters, Louie and Ophelia, weaseled their way out of their Wisconsin zoo enclosure last week during a winter storm, appearing on security camera footage cavorting across the snow, as the search continued Tuesday.
The NEW Zoo & Adventure Park said the two North American river otters escaped through a small hole that they enlarged in a buried fence, and their flight was quickly noticed by zookeepers on their morning rounds.
But Louie and Ophelia don’t appear to have gone far, their tracks showed them exploring nearby bodies of water and returning to the zoo’s perimeter now and again, the zoo said in a news release.
Footage released by the zoo shows an otter leaving the stoop of a building and launching itself into a belly slide on the snow, its forepaws snapping to its side, nose leading the way and back legs thrusting for an extra boost.
It’s the undeniable “bounce, bounce, sliiiiide” of the otter, the zoo said in a Facebook post, and creates one of the more recognizable mammal tracks.
Louie and Ophelia are expected to stay close because otters are territorial creatures, the zoo said, adding their species are native to the area and capable of surviving, with the local ponds and streams offering food and shelter.
Lol. Now they’re getting help. It’s a conspiracy!
“Raccoons have, unfortunately, impeded some of our efforts, even setting off one trap not
Trump said, “the United States will go as far as we have to go to own Greenland” the other day. Today he reiterated his demand saying, “we have to have it.”
He’s going to take it, one way or the other.
Vance is in Greenland making that clear:
REPORTER: The president said today, 'We have to have Greenland.' By being here today, are you also conveying that message?
JD VANCE: We can't just ignore the president's desires … this island is not safe. pic.twitter.com/BgqzpGDh7F
REPORTER: The president said today, ‘We have to have Greenland.’ By being here today, are you also conveying that message?
JD VANCE: We can’t just ignore the president’s desires … this island is not safe.
incredible — JD Vance rails against Denmark from Greenland — "Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people in Greenland." pic.twitter.com/h6iJzmqnop
JD Vance rails against Denmark from Greenland — “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people in Greenland.”
JD Vance: "The president has said clearly he doesn't think that military force is going to be necessary, but he absolutely believes that Greenland is an important part of the security not just of the US but of the world and of course the people of Greenland too … this has to… pic.twitter.com/buaHmqDExZ
JD Vance: “The president has said clearly he doesn’t think that military force is going to be necessary, but he absolutely believes that Greenland is an important part of the security not just of the US but of the world and of course the people of Greenland too … this has to happen.”
JD Vance: "What we think is gonna happen is that the Greenlanders are gonna choose through self-determination to become independent of Denmark, and then we are gonna have conversations with the people of Greenland from there … we do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary."
But hey, if that’s what it takes. The Danes and the Greenlanders just have to let us seize the country and that’ll be the end of it, amirite? They need to do what we tell them or …
None of this makes sense. If there is a strategic security issue, they could have worked it out through diplomacy. Denmark is a NATO ally and if Russia or China stages an incursion of Greenland, the US and all the Europeans are required to defend it already. If they want to put more troops there, I’m sure that could have been easily worked out.
“You take a look at a map. I’m a real estate developer. I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different,” Trump said. “I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.'”
In 2019, he told reporters about a possible purchase, “Essentially, it’s a large real estate deal. A lot of things can be done.”
That’s what he wants. Remember, this is the man who unilaterally changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
By the way, yes, the rare earth minerals are a draw as well but they are actually not that rare. The idea that this is all about some great resource grab is overblown. It’s about Trump’s ego. And as I have said before, I think it may well work. They are willing to take the chance that Europe won’t fight it and if it finally blows up the Atlantic alliance, all the better. Both Trump and JD have made it quite clear that they consider the NATO countries to be irrelevant at best and enemies at worst.
TRUMP: Well it's sort of easy to answer for me because a woman is someone who can have a baby under certain circumstances … a woman is a person that in many cases has been treated very badly pic.twitter.com/VoSGhOTgyN
Elon Musk said he’ll campaign in Wisconsin on Sunday, capping his unprecedented investment in the state’s supreme court race. It started with ad buys from his Building America’s Future PAC, continued with direct mail to Republicans from his America PAC, and accelerated with cash offers to voters who signed a petition to reject “activist judges who impose their own views” on citizens.
“I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote,” Musk wrote on X, previewing his Sunday night appearance. It would be open, he said, to Wisconsinites who prove that they’ve voted in the race between Democratic Party-backed candidate Susan Crawford and GOP-backed Brad Schimel. Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said that by offering $100 to voters who signed America PAC’s petition, and awarding $1 million prizes to a random supporters, Musk was “committ[ing] a blatant felony.”
He’s since changed his strategy now that he knows it’s illegal. He’ll be giving away the millions as part of a “sweepstakes” for those who sign a petition as he did in Pennsylvania last November.
But it’s pretty clear that nothing will be done about it. The big question is whether it will make a difference. They clearly believe that it did in Pennsylvania. Here’s little X spilling the beans:
Musk thinks this Wisconsin Supreme Court election is important because the future gerrymandering of the state is at stake and I suspect he and Trump also want to win this one with Musk’s participation to show that if he gets involved with his billions the other side has no chance. They are mostly aiming this at Republicans who might think of crossing Trump.
I don’t know that his money can buy it but there’s a reasonably good chance that the Republican Nazi running for the seat will win. It’s a very polarized state. And that will strengthen their hand for the upcoming battles in Congress and probably the courts. Every win makes them stronger and people who are just handing them to them because it’s the path of least resistance are nothing but collaborators.
I know I don’t have to tell any of my readers how important this is. Let’s just hope that more Democrats are motivated to come out that Republicans and that Musk’s money isn’t enough to make a difference.
