Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Here we go

JV Last at the Bulwark provides a handy guide to what’s happening this morning in the financial markets. The question is will the drop stay below 7 percent? The Dow plunged over 600 points right out of the gate.

Donald Trump just launched the “dumbest trade war in history.” Thus saith the Wall Street Journal. While people are screaming for more affordable housing, Trump dramatically increased the price of lumber out of Canada just ahead of the spring building season.

That’s on top of the “five-alarm fire” Trump started in firing inspectors general and FBI agensts from coast to coast. Oh, and Mr. America First allowing Elon Musk to shut down USAID:

In Washington, USAID’s headquarters was closed for the day, with employees told in an email to remain at home.

Logos and photos of its aid work have been stripped from building walls. And its website and social media accounts have gone dark, replaced with a reduced version of its webpage on the State Department’s website.

There is security information in USAID files now in the hands of Musk’s junior firestarters between the ages of 19 and 24 (Wired):

On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.

“What we’re seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what’s going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what’s happening because these aren’t really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

Don’t be intimidated into inaction

Washington Post:

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) wrote on X on Friday that any move to dissolve USAID would be illegal. In a joint letter Friday, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Reps. Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York) and Lois Frankel (D-Florida) wrote that the freeze jeopardized energy assistance for Ukraine and helped American adversaries like Russia and China.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an exemption for “life-saving” programs like PEPFAR, but aid officials said other projects remain in limbo and are at risk of shuttering if the funding freeze continues, The Post reported Saturday.

That day, USAID’s website was taken down.

Listen. If there’s no pushback, they will keep going.

Here’s a recommendation worth pursuing. Let your members of Congress know what you think of Musk closing USAID and handing security information to, in one case at least, a kid just out of high school.

UPDATE: I just hit up both my senators both by social media and Tillis by e-fax. Go and do likewise.

When the snake oil bites….

Trump is counting on you to be one of his rubes. Fans of Trumpism, even its operators, are going to feel its impacts very, very soon. Oh, and all y’all as well.

Wow, that was fast. Irving Energy, company that provides propane/fuel oil customers in New England, says it will pass on the full 10% tariff cost to all their customers immediately(reposting with fixed figure – meant to say 10%, not 30%)

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T01:48:15.805Z

The snake behind the oil is about to bite.

Yale Budget Lab estimates that tariffs will cost average US household $1,000-$1,200 in lost purchasing power budgetlab.yale.edu/sites/defaul…

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T02:13:55.718Z

CNN:

Just about everyone thought it was a bluff. Top analysts from the biggest banks on Wall Street said it was highly unlikely. Stocks were trading like it wouldn’t happen. Some companies built contingency plans, but they weren’t exactly rushing to make changes.

But the tariffs are coming — in full force. President Donald Trump announced Saturday that a massive 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and most imports from Canada will go into effect Tuesday. An additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods will be enacted the same day.

Trump in a message posted on Truth Social Sunday said, “We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use.” But America’s supply chains are reliant on its trading partners, and even for goods that could be grown or produced exclusively in the United States, the complex web of interconnected global trade cannot easily be unwound.

So the additional costs on foreign-made goods will be paid by American importers, who typically pass those costs onto retailers, who pass them onto inflation-weary consumers. That means prices will rise — although, for most items, not immediately. Businesses’ profits will be squeezed as they bear the cost burden of the tariffs or pay to adjust their carefully constructed and at times inflexible supply chains.

That’s why stocks on Monday were set to tumble. Dow futures were more than 600 points, or 1.3% lower. S&P 500 futures sank 1.5% and Nasdaq futures were 1.7% lower.

What a ride, huh?

Brace for it. Trumpism is going to wear thin in 3, 2, 1.

Bitcoin getting absolutely destroyed.

— George Pearkes (@peark.es) 2025-02-03T01:55:06.316Z

Now then, the first principle of opposing Trump 2.0 is, as Anat Shenker-Osorio might say, “Don’t Buy It.”

The smallness of Trump’s soul

Ezra Klein adds a corollary to Timothy Snyder’s “Do not obey in advance.” To wit, “Don’t believe him.”

In that famous Glengarry Glen Ross scene, Alec Baldwin berates his salesmen with the ABCs: Always Be Closing. That’s Donald Trump. He’s always marketing. Don’t be snowed by the bullshit, Klein suggests. It’s more marketing than reality. What he says he’s doing and what he can actually do are two different things. That is, unless you buy in (gift link):

Trump knows the power of marketing. If you make people believe something is true, you make it likelier that it becomes true. Trump clawed his way back to great wealth by playing a fearsome billionaire on TV; he remade himself as a winner by refusing to admit he had ever lost. The American presidency is a limited office. But Trump has never wanted to be president, at least not as defined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. He has always wanted to be king. His plan this time is to first play king on TV. If we believe he is already king, we will be likelier to let him govern as a king.

Don’t believe him. Trump has real powers — but they are the powers of the presidency. The pardon power is vast and unrestricted, and so he could pardon the Jan. 6 rioters. Federal security protection is under the discretion of the executive branch, and so he could remove it from Anthony Fauci and Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and Mark Milley and even Brian Hook, a largely unknown former State Department official under threat from Iran who donated time to Trump’s transition team. It was an act of astonishing cruelty and callousness from a man who nearly died by an assassin’s bullet — as much as anything ever has been, this, to me, was an X-ray of the smallness of Trump’s soul — but it was an act that was within his power.

Like the wizard in Oz, Trump’s power lies in convincing you with a sound-and-light show that he is all-powerful. It’s an illusion. It obscures the reality that, as with his tariffs declaration, Trump “keeps stepping on rakes.”

But the president cannot rewrite the Constitution. Within days, the birthright citizenship order was frozen by a judge — a Reagan appointee — who told Trump’s lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.” A judge froze the spending freeze before it was even scheduled to go into effect, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded the order, in part to avoid the court case.

Trump and his accomplices will defy the courts and break the laws only so long as the public lets them. We’ll see how many are cowed into submission once the market opens today at 9:30 a.m.

Meantime, like the prophets of Baal, powerless franchisees like Mike Flynn perform their Trumpy medicine shows on their god’s behalf. They cry aloud and cut themselves until bloody (1 Kings 18) to no effect. It’s a show. Loud and wild-eyed, but only that.

Smells like Team Dispirit.

I’m sorry this is the guy de facto running the us government paycheck system

— Sky Marchini (@sky.skymarchini.net) 2025-02-02T20:19:21.407Z

Is this what MAGA voted for?

Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chairman of the analytics firm and government contractor Palantir who has long expressed opposition to democracy.

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.

Wired has now reported the names and backgrounds of all these young fellows. One has recently graduated from high school, three more were interns at X and SpaceX and another worked for an AI firm and wrote a Substack extolling the virtues of Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth. One of them was a senior at Harvard as of last September and has his own AI startup.

These are the people who’ve been given access to classified materials, social security numbers, health records and banking information of American citizens, businesses and charities with an apparent mandate to decide which ones are waste and fraud.

They have no security clearances or any other kind of vetting. If you think they’re not a risk, I would just remind everyone of this young man:

An Air National Guard member has pleaded guilty to posting dozens of classified documents online in one of highest-profile intelligence leaks in recent years.

Prosecutors recommend that Jack Teixeira, 22, be sentenced to up to 16 years and eight months in prison.

While working at an Air National Guard base, he posted documents to Discord, a platform popular with gamers.

The material included maps, satellite images and intelligence on US allies.

Do Musk’s young acolytes have better judgement? I hope so. But let’s just say that giving them keys to the US Treasury and all that information is very poor judgement on Musk’s part. But then again, he has a major case of arrested development himself. Look at this insane comment:

Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people? https://t.co/YVwyKA7ifs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025

This is an excerpt of a piece by legal expert Sam Bagenstos laying out a few of the illegal acts committed by Trump and Musk in the past two weeks. I thought it might be helpful if you’re trying to wrap your mind around all of it or trying to convey to someone who hasn’t been paying attention just how monumental this assault actually is:

There’s an incredible brazenness to the speed and scope at which Trump–and Elon Musk, who in many ways looks like his de facto head of government–is breaking law after law in the interest of bending the bureaucracy to their will.  Here are just a few of the more salient examples:

• Mass suspensions and projected firings of career civil servants whose work touched diversity or equity initiatives;
• Mass suspensions and projected firings of career civil servants whose work involves foreign aid.
• Retaliatory firings of career civil servants involved in investigations or prosecutions of Trump and the January Sixth insurrectionists, with the threat of mass firings to come.
• Mass firings of Inspectors General without following the statutory process of providing Congress 30 days’ notice and specific reasons for the firings.
• Impoundments of federal funds–that is, refusing to carry out the law that requires the President to spend money Congress appropriates–on a scale orders of magnitude greater than we’ve ever seen.
  • Trump’s OMB tried to accomplish this impoundment with an incredibly broad and poorly drafted memo, which led to chaos across the government as payments were suspended for Medicaid and other programs on which people, community organizations, and businesses across the country rely.  The Administration withdrew the memo the next day, but it made clear that the underlying “spending freeze” remained in place.  And now two courts have enjoined the Administration from carrying it out.
  • But various of Trump’s Executive Orders themselves seem to require agencies to stop spending appropriated funds.  And agencies seem to be continuing to carry out those impoundments.
• And perhaps the biggest legal and administrative issue of all: Musk’s successful efforts for his team to take control of the federal government’s system for issuing payments–for writing checks to individual persons and entities.  This action threatens cybersecurity and privacy in a variety of very significant ways.  And it also creates the prospect of yet more illegal impoundments of federal funds.  Indeed, Musk’s statements over the weekend (that he’s optimistic he’s found $4 billion a day in savings, that his team is “rapidly shutting down” payments to Lutheran Family Services to provide services to migrant children, and freezing money to refugee-aid organizations generally, etc.) suggest that he’s going to use his control over the system simply to turn off payments to those organizations and programs that he (and perhaps Trump) believes shouldn’t be funded.  That’s as much of a violation of Congress’s power of the purse as was OMB’s ham-handed memo, but it’s more insidious because it may fly below the radar.

If you’re wondering what the plan behind all this is, he has the right analysis:

It seems obvious that Trump and Musk are running the basic play we’ve seen before from Musk and other Silicon Valley billionaires–move fast, break things (with “things” very much including the law), and then dare folks to try and do something about it.  Their expectation is that people will be too overwhelmed, and the law will move too slowly, to stop them from doing what they’re doing.  Maybe at some later point some lawsuit will provide somebody some relief.  But Trump and Musk will fight those challenges at every step through whatever means necessary, many challenges will fail for odd legal reasons, and other challengers will get exhausted by the process.  To the extent they ultimately lose some lawsuit, I expect that Trump and Musk think it won’t reverse what they’re doing; it will just represent a reasonable cost of doing business.

Yes, this is the “break things” ethos of silicon valley where neurotic nerds believe they are geniuses with the capability of running the world and the best way to do that is to destroy it and start from scratch. And they believe no one can stop them. Maybe they’re right.

Bagenstos doesn’t have any answers about how this will end up. He pretty much acknowledges that the illegality of all this may be beside the point but thinks it’s important to point out for its own sake.

I guess we can hope that Musk and Trump have a falling out and Musk is forced to pull all of his flunkies out of the agencies once it becomes clear that it’s causing massive upheaval but I don’t honestly think Trump cares about any of it anymore. He’s just bent on revenge and making money and the more people hurt the better he feels. The law is so slow and cumbersome, Musk will have the country wrecked before they even get to the hearings. And the Congress is well … fuggedaboudit. They can’t even protect their own prerogatives much less the health and livelihoods of Americans.

Hopefully, the Democrats will start blocking unanimous consent. It’s literally the least they can do. But I hope they have something else up their sleeves because otherwise the already demoralized Democratic base which can barely pay attention are going to drop out altogether. Leadership is required.

Are they in the tank with Musk too? If so, we are in even bigger trouble than we knew.

I wonder if all federal agencies will be required to communicate with the public through Elon Musk’s private company from now on? Sounds pretty illegal but what do I know? Someone should find out.

Musk is doing something so outrageous that we seem to be unable to wrap our minds around the enormity of it. Josh Marshall took a crack at it and it’s hard to believe but from what I’ve been reading all day, I think he’s got it right:

… they already have over key computer systems, payment systems, etc. and with the press picture it’s not that things aren’t getting out. The stuff abt the Treasury payments systems and control over certain computer networks has been reported. It’s more putting together the big picture abt how different pieces fit together.

There also seems to be a significant amount of downloading government data onto private servers, etc, totally outside any cybersecurity regime. Additionally it’s unclear to the people inside whether the people doing these things actually work for the US govt…

who they are, whether they’re even American citizens. They all seem to be Thiel and Musk protégés. And I’ve had multiple references to their refusing to identify themselves by anything but first name. The rationale given is that they could be doxed. One additional point and to be clear this latter stuff isn’t from my reporting just pieced together other reports and what musk is saying himself. They’re into th ex treasury payment system and claiming they’ve already found like $4B in “savings” a day.

It’s important to know what this means. This is simple his DOGE team reviewing the US federal budget, law of the land and deciding which parts aren’t necessary. It sounds like they’re saying they will unilaterally cut these funds with control over the check writing at Treasury.

They’re not saying that last part explicitly but that’s certainly the logic of what they’re saying. (Go look at his tweets over thd last two days). So a group of Musk protégés seem to be overruling the US federal budget. Impoundment by the president is illegal. It’s hard to think through the levels of illegality having a group of people who don’t even seem to be US government employees doing it.

For all federal employees:Before you are locked out of your systems, ensure you have copies of unclassified performance appraisals, awards & other relevant personnel docs. If you have access to your office, grab your more important personal items sooner rather than later.

— Mark Zaid, Esq (@markzaidesq.bsky.social) 2025-02-01T15:48:27.383Z

NEW: @wired.com built a tool to monitor 1,300+ federal .gov websites, revealing that entire sites are going dark as we speak. @telliotter.bsky.social, @dmehro.bsky.social (who built the tool), and @dell.bsky.social report: www.wired.com/story/us-gov…

— Andrew Couts (@couts.bsky.social) 2025-02-01T22:29:23.400Z

For a deep dive, I recommend this piece from Techdirt.

“Will there be some pain? It will all be worth the price that must be paid.”

SEZ WHO???

The man truly is suffering from a mental breakdown. He’s come to believe that he’s going to take over Canada (with Mexico as a slave colony?) This is delusional. Tom is right, below. While he’s out here following his delusional quest for manifest destiny, Elon Musk is stealing every Americans’ data and randomly cutting off money to whomever his cyber-freaks and MAGA weirdos decide to cut off. And apparently nobody is going to stop them.

Update —

Paul Krugman wrote in his newsletter today:

I can’t think of a reason punishing Canada with tariffs, let alone treating our neighbor far more harshly than Trump is treating China, is in the national interest. Trump’s spokesperson says that it’s because of the fentanyl pouring across our northern border, which wouldn’t justify tariffs even if it were happening — which it isn’t.

But who says that these tariffs have anything to do with the national interest — as opposed to the personal interests of the people calling the shots?

My guess is that Trump is imposing steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico just to show that he can — that it’s essentially a dominance display. And the many people pointing out that it’s a terrible idea probably only reinforced his determination to show that he’s in charge and smarter than anyone else.

I think this is right. It’s personal and it’s delusional. He’s not really asking for anything that Canada and Mexico can deliver. He’s just saying that he plans to break them and make every company move to America if they want to sell here. What are they supposed to do about that? Come crawling on their bellies to Mar-a-Lago and commit ritual suicide? What’s the ask?

And again, I don’t see how anyone can stop it. His delusions of grandeur are so overwhelming now, and his sycophantic courtiers are so bloodthirsty, that I’m pretty sure the courts will have no sway. I’m stumped.

Elon is now your boss

Donald — Donny — let’s talk.

Elon Musk is far richer than you. You don’t like being reminded, and on some level it must gnaw at you. As insecure as you are, hanging out with men far richer than yourself must make you feel as lucky as a poor person who wins the lottery. But have you noticed that this guy who didn’t win a single state is taking advantage of you?

What’s happening behind your back is already described as the Musk junta.

“Americans don’t know the full extent of what Elon Musk is doing as he embeds alongside President Donald Trump at the top of the federal government,” says CNN. Do you?

You won the presidency, and now Musk is the shadow president. He’s taken control of the U.S. Treasury, your U.S. Treasury. He’s firing officials. You made your name as the “You’re fired!” guy. Elon is stealing your moves.

Lutheran Social Services is one of the largest employers in South Dakota, operating senior living facilities across the state. Republicans are shutting it down Perhaps more concerning is Mike Flynn, known foreign asset, having access to this data?

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog.lol) 2025-02-02T14:10:03.623Z

Radley Balko comments, “What the hell is happening? How is Elon Musk unilaterally deciding what are and are not ‘illegal’ payments? Why the [hell?] is Mike Flynn getting access to this information? How many laws were broken in this exchange?”

Sure, breaking laws gives you a thrill in your nether regions. But Donny, the unitary executive theory is yours. And you’re letting Elon make decisions unilaterally?

Remember how pissed you got at Chris Christie and Steve Bannon in 2016 when you found out they were hiring staff for your transition? As reported, you said, “You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?” You demanded they shut it down.

Well, sir, Elon Musk is stealing your presidency. What are you going to do about it, big guy?

The vandals took the handles

For an ironic laugh as Musk-Trump lackeys burn the Constitution, steal government data (yours included), and take an axe to everything they can’t burn, check out the Musk burble above about restoring “power to the PEOPLE.” If you believe that, Donald Trump has some crypto coin to sell you.

Heather Coxe Richardson writes:

Throughout now-president Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, it was clear that his support was coming from three very different factions whose only shared ideology was a determination to destroy the federal government. Now we are watching them do it.

The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality.

Those three allied groups are Trump’s fanatical loyalists, “the MAGA crew that embraces Project 2025,” and finally techbros led by Elon Musk. The flying monkeys of Musk’s DOGE have set about firing large numbers of departmental officials and civil servants, the people who not only operate governmental machinery but know how to. Their actions are likely illegal, but then they don’t know what the law is, nor do they care.

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, fucked up Medicaid for everyone in the country.”

Now that they have they keys, they are promptly driving the United States into a ditch, making sure there’s no one left to stop them. The arsonists fired the fire department, then set about breaking into Fort Knox:

But then, yesterday, Elon Musk forced the resignation of David A. Lebryk, the highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department. Lebryk had been at Treasury since 1989 and had risen to become the person in charge of the U.S. government payment system that disburses about $6 trillion a year through Social Security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, contracts, grants, salaries for federal government workers, tax refunds, and so on, essentially managing the nation’s checkbook.

According to Jeff Stein, Isaac Arnsdorf, and Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post, Musk’s team wanted access to the payment system. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) demanded answers from Trump’s new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, warning that “these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy. I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs. I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”

Now, though, with Musk’s people at the computers that control the nation’s payment system, they can simply stop whatever payments they want to.

For those who’ve watched the “Silo” series, the low-caste, low-influence workers in Mechanical understand their only political leverage lies in their controlling the machinery that keeps 10,000 people alive underground. Shut off the power and everything stops. For Musk, shutting off the little-noticed money-dispersal machinery is the equivalent, and the unelected megalomaniac means to use it.

I hope Spocko won’t mind me borrowing one of his Mastodon posts on the matter (Marcy Wheeler commenting on her recent post documenting the Musk-Trump atrocities):

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, fucked up Medicaid for everyone in the country.” @emptywheel just now talking to @nicolesandler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK-yyLJr4V0
Listen at nicolesandler.com about how Trump’s Immigrant Invader, #elonmusk damaged America in just 2 weeks

Does Elon have your attention yet?

Reporter: You promised Americans you would to try to reduce costs..

Trump: Tariffs don’t cause inflation. Tariffs cause success. There could some temporary short term disruption. And people understand that pic.twitter.com/3LNipd0hm8

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 31, 2025

Trump’s daft tariff war has begun and Canada is fighting back:

BREAKING: Justin Trudeau announces 25% tariffs on $155 billion of American goods.

pic.twitter.com/RtrnWLtMCR

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) February 2, 2025

Trudeau:

JUST IN: B.C. Premier David Eby says he directed B.C. Liquor sales
to immediately stop buying American liquor from red states and remove the highest-selling brands from those states from the shelves of the province’s liquor stores. pic.twitter.com/fNAEFOjDlG

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 2, 2025

I really like that they’re targeting red states. That’s the smart way to do it.

The consequences are going to be painful. All those Trump voting auto workers who didn’t care about Biden walking the picket line or what he did for the unions are going to wish they had made a different decision.

Canadians booing the U.S. national anthem isn’t something I ever thought I’d see, but this is what happens when you let a psychopath criminal with isolationist and protectionist policies back into the White House.pic.twitter.com/n0695YAPXk

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 2, 2025

🚨 BREAKING: The Canadian government is finally realizing—this isn’t about fentanyl or the border.

Trump wants to economically cripple Canada into submission.

His goal? Make Canada the 51st state.

CBC now coming to terms with this reality.
pic.twitter.com/hu4uNGkMFk

— Marc Nixon (@MarcNixon24) February 1, 2025