Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Enjoy:

A year after his presidential ambitions collapsed, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey can no longer lay claim to the future of the Republican Party. And in Florida, even their present is in jeopardy.

Once firmly in his corner, many Sunshine State Republicans have lately turned on DeSantis, stymying his agenda and frustrating him to no end. At the same time, Casey DeSantis, long regarded as a political force in her own right, is encountering quiet but firm resistance as she lays the groundwork for a potential run to succeed her husband — a campaign that would pit her against President Donald Trump’s handpicked choice to lead the state, Rep. Byron Donalds.

Now, a funding scandal involving one of Casey’s signature initiatives — a state assistance program known as Hope Florida — is casting a shadow over the governor’s legacy and complicating her political ambitions. Lawmakers spent the spring investigating why $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement was routed to a charity connected to Hope Florida, which then transferred the same amount to two groups that financially backed a DeSantis-led campaign against legalizing recreational marijuana. Key lawmakers have publicly suggested the flow of money appears illegal.

The couple have fiercely stood by their work and denied wrongdoing. DeSantis this week called the criticism of Hope Florida “all political.” Standing alongside her husband Thursday, Casey DeSantis characterized the program as “a philosophy” that “shows we can help people in need.”

Remarkably, the investigation into Hope Florida was not by Democrats, but by Republicans — a striking sign of DeSantis’ eroding clout in a state capital he once controlled with unchallenged authority. Outside Tallahassee, some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Florida have helped to amplify the controversy to their MAGA followers.

I don’t know about you but it sure makes me happy to see this happening to that creepy piece of work and his equally creepy wife. They thought she was going to be Governor (for some reason.) Nat gonna happen.

The question is whether this is a sign that Florida is coming out of its two decade descent into madness. I hope for their sake that it is. It should. Trump is destroying tourism, terrorising Latinos and making old people insecure and afraid. He’s even destroying the weather service. Florida is going to feel the brunt of all this. Maybe they’ll finally wake up.

Well, get ready. It’s back.

Josh Marshall:

It’s only getting much play in the trade/transport niche press. But pretty real product shortages beginning in mid-May or so are already locked in. They’re maybe a thousand miles out in the Pacific Ocean. Modern trade takes place in gargantuan container ships. There are very detailed records for every one at sea, when it left China, the US port it’s traveling to etc.

I’m doing this from memory so the rough dates may be a few days off. But this last week we were still in a surge of week over week and year over year shipping as shippers and buyers tried to get out ahead of the tariffs. So it’s actually higher than usual because of that. But in the first and second week of May it drops off dramatically.

I’ve heard the drop off described in different ways. But the most optimistic seems to be a reduction in imports of about 50% or a bit less. Ships to the west coast go and to the east coast through the canal. So it hits the west coast first. Then it shows up in Chicago a week or so later as rail and trucking freight drop off. Then on the east coast as ships don’t arrive there.

I was talking to one regional banker in the mid Atlantic who told me that after the first week or may there are simply no ships from China arriving. Whatever the precise specifics the point is that this is already locked in. The severe drop off has already happened but it’s all off set by weeks because the Pacific Ocean is big and ocean freight speed is relatively slow. And it has knock on effects in domestic shipping.

It will hit trucking hard but that’s still a couple weeks away. Even if you only have roughly a 50% drop off in volume that shows up not just as rising costs but shortages. And even Trump woke up tomorrow and called everything off you’d still have a significant period of shortages locked in. And obviously that’s not going to happen.

We will also almost certainly see a limited version of the supply chain snarls we say during the pandemic. There are reports of some containers simply sitting or being abandoned in ports. Also when there’s no product you start laying off truckers or independents do something else. So when the product comes back on line the system to move the product out of port doesn’t come back immediately.

The upshot is that we’ve already locked in a long hot imports summer regardless of what happens now.

There are local stories here in LA about truckers being laid off and the Porto of Long Beach already feeling the effects. That’s about to go into warp speed in the next week or so.

Someone must have told Trump this would happen. I assume he said (as he’s been reported to have said on a number of subjects) “fuck it.” He thinks America loves him so much they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for his genius and once other countries feel the pain they will bend to his will and eliminate tariffs and America will somehow become richer than ever. It never made sense but for some reason people voted for him anyway and the Republican party saw his popularity among about 40% of politically illiterate voters as a mandate to go along with it.

The markets felt the earthquake first but the tsunami is about to hit the real economy next. When you combine it with the assault on the federal government from Vought and Musk, and all the safety nets being dismantled, you are looking at an epic disaster coming at us.

Buckle up. As Marshall says, it’s going to be a long hot summer.

AP Norc poll has him at 39%. Now another: ABC Washinton Post:

Thirty-nine percent of respondents in this ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll said they approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, down 6 percentage points from February, while 55% said they disapprove.

CNN:

Trump’s 41% approval rating is the lowest for any newly elected president at 100 days dating back at least to Dwight Eisenhower – including Trump’s own first term.

Approval of Trump’s handling of the presidency is down 4 points since March, and 7 points lower than it was in late February. Just 22% say they strongly approve of Trump’s handling of the job, a new low, and about twice as many say they strongly disapprove (45%).

What are the GOP congressional and Supreme Court majorities going to do now? Will they just go full fascist to maintain power or will they challenge him to save themselves?

Stay tuned.

Leashes, not leeway

Donald Trump traveled a long way to be preached to when he attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome and got seated on Saturday in the front row (Reuters):

In front of hundreds of world leaders attending the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re called for care for migrants, an end to wars, and action on global climate change – Francis’ favourite political themes.

Re repeated one of the pope’s strongest criticisms of U.S. President Donald Trump, with Trump himself present in the crowd, by calling to “build bridges, not walls”.

Vanity Fair adds:

“Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice, imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions,” Cardinal Re said as he delivered the homily. “‘Build bridges, not walls,’ was an exhortation he repeated many times.”

Aboard Air Force One on his way to Italy on Friday, Trump told reporters that he was attending the funeral “out of respect” for Francis, adding, “I won the Catholic vote.” And since arriving in Italy, Trump has been documenting his trip on Truth Social, sharing videos of him walking toward his seat at the funeral and standing in front of the late pope’s simple cypress coffin.

“Out of respect” is a sick joke. “I won the Catholic vote” is how Mr. Transactional really thinks. I’m surprised that the would-be-dictator didn’t sneer, “And how many divisions does the Pope have?”

The funeral included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “and some 50 other world leaders.” Something positive may have come out if it after Trump had a sidebar meeting with Zelensky (New York Times):

President Trump’s standing among Ukrainians is practically on life support. But many cheered one statement he made on Saturday after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, questioning why President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would continue to pummel Ukraine as the United States is trying to broker peace talks.

“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social after meeting with Mr. Zelensky on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral, adding that Mr. Putin may need to be “dealt with differently” — with more sanctions.

That could signal a changeup from the peace plan Trump 2.0 has promoted that included Ukraine ceding territory (and more) to Vladimir Putin.

And then, the hope grew slightly on Saturday when Mr. Zelensky managed to wrangle about 15 minutes with Mr. Trump in Rome. Photos released by the Ukrainian government showed the two men sitting in chairs and leaning toward each other, talking like equals — a vastly different scene than a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office in late February that ended with Mr. Zelensky’s abrupt departure from the White House and the temporary freezing of all U.S. aid.

The photos from Rome “were extraordinary,” said Volodymyr Dubovyk, the director of the Center for International Studies at Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University. He added that it was good for Mr. Zelensky to have some time alone with Mr. Trump.

But don’t get your hopes up. One quick tug on the leash from Putin will bring Trump back into line. If it doesn’t break what little spine Trump’s got.

* * * * *

Have you fought dictatorship today?

May Day 2025 | 50501 site, May 1
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Do we have a general strike in us?

This post below from Barbara McQuade of the SistersInLaw podcast lifted my spirits this morning. Somebody out there still believes in the rule of law.

 

 

View on Threads

 

Like David Brooks, I’m wondering if Americans have it in them to stage a general strike.

The Ink contemplates the same after the hell week we just went through together:

What a week it’s been. The Trump regime continued its assault on America’s people and institutions, “deporting” 2-year-old U.S. citizens and arresting state judges on dubious charges. And the chaos continued, with the Secretary of Defense doing his best to jeopardize national security and the President conducting imaginary trade negotiations, making sure kids are trained in cheating, if not reading and writing, attempting to dismantle the Civil Rights Act of 1964, among other indignities.

But we might look back on this week as the moment the idea of a general strike went mainstream. Unexpectedly, center-right New York Times columnist David Brooks shifted the Overton window well leftward with a call for a “comprehensive national civic uprising” to stop the Trump regime’s “multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men.” That someone in his position would write or talk about such a thing isn’t just a surprise — it’s permission for everyone else.

That is, social proof.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and labor leader Sara Nelson told The Ink about “the challenges Americans face right now from an administration that’s bent on (as Reich put it) bullying us into submission, dismantling the institutions that keep us all safe and healthy, and the laws that keep us free and able to plan for the future. And they were both just as clear about what needs to happen to beat back those challenges.”

Seeing people out in the streets regularly is heartening. There is a sense of solidarity building against the bullying. There is a faction in Americans that sees bullying as how they get their way: domination. The dominator-in-chief clearly does. But we also see that he caves under pressure. Keeping up the pressure on the bullies is our job.

It’s part of the American spirit that’s not quite dead yet that most Americans don’t just dislike bullies, we HATE bullies. Nazis, Clubber Lang, Biff Tannen, Nurse Ratched, Doug Neidermeyer.

I’m in the mood for some comeuppance. And you?

* * * * *

Have you fought dictatorship today?

May Day 2025 | 50501 site, May 1
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Fame (fame) what you like is in the limo
Fame (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame (fame) what you need you have to borrow

– from “Fame” by David Bowie (backing vocal by John Lennon)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard-although I wish I could.

Allow me to explain.

I was all of 24, living in San Francisco. I didn’t own a VCR (they were exorbitantly priced), so I was still watching the tube in (*shudder*) real time. Perusing the TV Guide one December evening, I was excited to spot  Sunset Boulevard on the schedule for 8pm (I believe it was airing on independent Bay Area station KTVU).

For the uninitiated, Gloria Swanson’s turn as a fading, high-maintenance movie queen mesmerizes, William Holden embodies the quintessential noir sap, and veteran scene-stealer Erich von Stroheim redefines the meaning of “droll” in a tragicomic journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (I’ve seen it many times since).

At any rate, I was comfortably ensconced on the couch, really digging the film (despite myriad commercial breaks). Approximately 20 minutes into the broadcast, the station unceremoniously cut away from the film for a news bulletin: former Beatle John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City.

It was eerie kismet, as the film opens with the shooting death of the protagonist/narrator (played by Holden), and is ultimately a rumination on the dark side of fame.

Being an avid Fabs fan, it kind of harshed my mellow. Still does, actually-whenever the subject comes up.

It’s hard to believe that was 45 years ago (5 years longer than Lennon’s lifespan). Over the ensuing decades, there has certainly been no shortage of documentaries and biopics covering Lennon’s life and work. At this point, I think I’ve seen most of them.

Consequently, one would assume that there are very few secrets, revelations and angles left to explore. Yet, 2025 has seen the release of no less than two new Lennon documentaries (and the year is still young).

First, there’s One to One: John and Yoko:

I haven’t seen it yet (it will be available to rent on streaming platforms beginning on May 9th).

This is the other doc (more on that in a moment)…

Directed by Alan G. Parker, Borrowed Time promises to “…set the record straight on the truth behind many famous Lennon moments, brought to life by rare archive footage, including never-before-seen interviews.”

So does it deliver? Well, in a fashion. As Lennon himself once implored, “All I want is the truth…just gimme some truth.” In context of the director’s approach, you may have to settle for “benefit of the doubt”.

I make that qualification because the lion’s share of screen time is devoted to talking heads. As promised, there are indeed “never-before-seen interviews” with former musical collaborators (Vinny Appice and Earl Slick), as well as music industry insiders, presenters, writers, and journalists (the BBC’s “Whispering” Bob Harris, Anthony DeCurtis, Barry Miles, Pamela Des Barres, Apple Records CEO Tony Bramwell, et.al.).

However, their stories are purely anecdotal; the backstage tales are engaging enough at first, but by the 2-hour mark they began to feel redundant and were not necessarily revelatory. Archival interviews help mix things up a bit, but overall it’s a static affair.

Then there’s the elephant in the room: zero Lennon music. I realize it can be challenging and/or simply too cost-prohibitive to secure permission to utilize copyrighted material in a film; but when you try to paint a portrait of an artist without any paint on your palette, more often than not you are likely to end up with an empty canvas.

Note: the version I previewed is the 134-minute theatrical cut that will be opening in the U.K. only on May 2. However, there is a 3.5 hour director’s cut out on the same date, which will be streaming for a month on the Icon Film Channel and also available to subscribers of the Amazon Prime Video Channels.

Previous posts with related themes:

The Killing of John Lennon

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

Revival 69: The Concert That Rocked the World

The Lost Weekend: A Love Story

The Beatles: Get Back

Nowhere Boy

Backbeat

Turn off your mind and empty your wallet: Revolver Deluxe

One Sweet Dream: Abbey Road at 50

Here, There, and Everywhere Now and Then

More reviews at Den of Cinema

— Dennis Hartley

It’s only going to get worse I’m afraid. Wait until the shelves at Walmart are empty…

Look aty JD…

“I like what DOGE stands for. I don’t like how they’ve done it,” said one Trump appointee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe candid frustrations with Musk’s operation. The official compared DOGE to overly aggressive chemotherapy, invoking a line attributed to Musk about one of his deputies, praising the team for combating the federal bureaucracy but saying the unintended consequences have been deeply harmful. “They got rid of the cancer — and a lot of the healthy cells, too.”

Except they misdiagnosed the patient. It didn’t have cancer at all. It had a little cold and they blasted it with chemo for nothing, almost killing off its immune system for nothing.

That quote is from an article about how Elon Musk has destroyed his brand and reputation in his sojourn into politics. Nobody likes him anymore.

I liked this part:

Initially, Musk had a “panache” that was unique for the Republican Party, said Christopher Nicholas, a GOP strategist in Pennsylvania. But now, he is a “lightning rod.”

Even some Musk backers have acknowledged that his freewheeling style can cause complications.

Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said on an episode of the “All-In” podcast last month that he and Musk had a plan before taking the stage at a Trump campaign rally in October: Musk would announce a goal to slash the federal budget by $1 trillion.

Then they walked out in front of a boisterous crowd — and Musk began to riff and wound up doubling the total.

“He says $2 trillion [in cuts],” Lutnick said on the podcast. “And then I’m sitting there going, and I’m like, I think I said, ‘Alrighty then.’ Or something like that. … What was I supposed to say?”

Lol. He was just imitating Trump who lies like that all the time. And Lutnick makes similar grandiose claims. This is just purely palace intrigue with Musk’s competitors easing him out. The Wisconsin loss was the coup de grace.

He thinks he’s King Donald’s crown prince. It’s embarrassing:

A trip to the Sistine Chapel is near the top of the bucket list for most Americans making their first trip to Rome. Few visitors are able to do so in such grand style as JD Vance, who turned up at the Vatican on Saturday aboard a traffic-clogging motorcade of 40 black 4x4s.

Vance — a self-styled “baby Catholic” who was baptised in a private chapel in Cincinnati in 2019 — had talks with Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state, and other top officials from the Holy See.

He was accompanied to the Vatican by his wife, Usha, and their three young children. The second family was then given a private tour of the Sistine Chapel.

During the afternoon, they went on to visit the botanical garden in the Trastevere district, in the west of the city. Vance was dressed casually and wore a cap, as he strolled with his two sons, Ewan, seven, and Vivek, five. Ewan chose to sport gladiator armour to mark the occasion.

Later Usha enjoyed an evening visit to the Colosseum — which her husband had also been scheduled to attend before a last-minute change of plan — where she was given a personal tour of the arena, famous for its gladiatorial combats and naval battles, by Alfonsina Russo, the director.

Lesser mortals unlucky enough to have booked their own visit had to make do with a refund — but not all of them had got the message. There were chaotic scenes as some would-be visitors tried to open the gates surrounding the building, while others climbed over the fences, ticket in hand, trying to force their way in. Some chanted “shame” or anti-American slogans when they learnt the reason for the closure, Italian media reported.

Among the disappointed was Stephen Fishler, 58, a businessman from New York who arrived with his family in good time for his 6pm slot, but was turned away without explanation. “What does he think he is, special?” complained Fishler, himself a Trump voter. “JD should have waited until the Americans who had tickets had their visit and then gone in.” His wife, Anila, tried to calm him down and blamed the Italians.

Lol. Of course.

He really does think of himself as royalty:

The visits to Rome’s tourist spots came on the second day of a mixture of vacation and working trip that has inevitably been dubbed Vance’s “Roman Holiday” in a nod to Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s classic 1953 film. His arrival has meant huge extra security measures — including snipers, no-fly zones and road closures — adding to the disruption in a city packed with large crowds of tourists for the Easter holidays and pilgrims visiting the Vatican for what is a jubilee year.

Audrey Hepburn ran around Rome incognito on her Roman holiday. That was the whole story. JD wore his family like a Hermes bag and traipsed all over the city like he was a conquering hero. Everything he does is creepy.

He’s so mad. He’s also starting to make up words. “Tapping me along?” “Getting Yippy?” Not normal… [Ooops, I stand corrected. “yippy” is apparently a golf term.]

The article in question (gift link)

If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia drafted a shopping list of what he wanted from Washington, it would be hard to beat what he was offered in the first 100 days of President Trump’s new term.

Pressure on Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia? Check.

The promise of sanctions relief? Check.

Absolution from invading Ukraine? Check.

Indeed, as Mr. Trump met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, the president’s vision for peace appeared notably one-sided, letting Russia keep the regions it had taken by force in violation of international law while forbidding Ukraine from ever joining NATO.

But that is not all that Mr. Putin has gotten out of Mr. Trump’s return to power. Intentionally or not, many of the president’s actions on other fronts also suit Moscow’s interests, including the rifts he has opened with America’s traditional allies and the changes he has made to the U.S. government itself.

Mr. Trump has been tearing down American institutions that have long aggravated Moscow, such as Voice of America and the National Endowment for Democracy. He has been disarming the nation in its netherworld battle against Russia by temporarily halting cyberoffensive operations and curbing programs to combat Russian disinformation, election interference, sanctions violations and war crimes.

He spared Russia from the tariffs that he is imposing on imports from nearly every other nation, arguing that it was already under sanctions. Yet he still applied the tariff on Ukraine, the other party he is negotiating with. And in a reversal from his first term, Politico reported that Mr. Trump’s team is reportedly discussing whether to lift sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe, a project he has repeatedly condemned.

I doubt he liked this very much either:

“Trump has played right into Putin’s hands. It’s hard to see how Trump would have acted any differently if he were a Russian asset than how he has acted in the first 100 days of his second term.”— Ivo Dalder

Everything Baker said is true. Trump’s confidence that all he had to do was crook his finger and Ukraine would surrender and Putin would play along hasn’t worked out. He’s flailing.