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Lutnick The Buffoon

Published by digby on February 11, 2026

Krugman takes on Trump’s most fervent fluffer today:

There are people in positions of great power in the U.S. government engaged in evil conspiracies against everything that is good and decent. Their conspiracies are far more extensive and damaging than almost anyone imagined. But there are no evil masterminds behind this. Only amoral, stupid grifters like Howard Lutnick.

During Trump 47’s first year, Lutnick, the Commerce secretary, was an omnipresent spokesman for Donald Trump’s policies, a constant presence on TV, especially the Sunday talk shows.

He was not impressive in that role. Unlike Scott Bessent, he lacked any hint of gravitas. He doesn’t have Pete Hegseth’s hair. Moreover, Lutnick’s Trump boosterism has been consistently and embarrassingly incompetent.

The only waves he has made are a result of his exceptional combination of stupidity and offensive tone-deafness.

Thus he promised to revive U.S. manufacturing by bringing back “the work of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws.” Lutnick, a billionaire, dismissed concerns about chaos at the Social Security Administration by saying that his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain about a missed check. He gave a Europe-bashing speech to a private dinner at Davos so offensive that Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, walked out.

And in Congressional testimony today, Lutnick admitted that he visited Epstein Island, but said that he did so with his wife, nannies and children, and asserted that “We left with all of my children.”

It would be tempting to dismiss Lutnick as a buffoon. Yet despite his intelligence deficit, he sits at the intersection of not one but at least two ugly conspiracies.

Before joining Trump’s cabinet, Lutnick ran the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald — presenting a huge potential conflict of interest that he claims to have ended by turning the business over to … his sons. Cantor Fitzgerald, in turn, is intimately linked to Tether, a cryptocurrency that is highly profitable because it has become a favorite channel for money-laundering by international criminals.

Nor was money-laundering through cryptocurrency the only criminal conspiracy to which Lutnick was, at the very least, adjacent. Lutnick has in the past vehemently denied having any association with Jeffrey Epstein, insisting that he severed all contact with the pedophile ringleader in 2005. But even the highly limited, extremely redacted release of the Epstein files — everything we’ve seen reeks of a major coverup — shows that he was flat-out lying. Not only did he stay in close contact with Epstein, the two men appear to have gone into business together.

But, at this point, who could possibly be surprised? The more we learn, the more pedophilia and criminal use of cryptocurrency look related, even like different aspects of a single conspiracy. Epstein, it turns out, was a major early investor in the crypto industry. In the backrooms of MAGA-land, passing around under-age girls is a lot like passing around insider crypto deals.

In any previous administration, Lutnick’s naked conflicts of interest and his Epstein lies would have led to his immediate departure. But Trump 47 is using his position to massively enrich himself, and whatever the Justice department is hiding, what we already know about Trump’s personal history is damning — “Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

As he points out, he’s not going to resign and Trump won’t fire him because that would admit that “would be a tacit admission that huge conflicts of interest, family business that enables crime and association with sexual predators are bad.” We can’t have that.

And yes, they are monumentally stupid. But then, as Krugman reminds us:

It’s worth remembering Hannah Arendt’s observations about the architects of Hitler’s genocide, which led her to coin the phrase “the banality of evil”. As Arendt noted, the horrors of Nazism were not inflicted by brilliant geniuses, but through the normalization of thoughtless, amoral behavior that eventually turned into evil.

That’s where we’re headed and we’re almost there.

Yep, Yep, Yep

Published by digby on February 11, 2026

“These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cutthroat practices and the oathbound societies, are to us a pest without mitigation. Our own rattlesnakes are as good citizens as they.”NYT editorial 1891

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes.bsky.social) 2026-02-11T17:41:57.511Z

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

This reminded me of the Samuel Alito interview in Politico Magazine in which he talks about his mentor the late Justice Antonin Scalia who is described like this in the article:

Around 6 p.m., after a bus packed with lawyers had barreled down the Jersey Turnpike, the man of honor arrived: Antonin Scalia, the Trenton native freshly sworn in as the 103rd justice of the United States Supreme Court, with his wife Maureen. Smiling and shaking hands as he clutched his pipe, Scalia, still black of hair and slender of frame at 50, embodied the American Dream: the son of a Sicilian immigrant father and first-generation Italian American mother who vaulted, through innate genius, hard work, devout Catholicism and Tri-State charm, to the top five at Harvard Law; senior legal positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations; law professorships at the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago; the appellate bench; and finally, the pinnacle of his profession, the Supreme Court, where he was the first Italian American justice.

[…]

One of the Tri-State lawyers who waited in line that night was a 36-year-old fellow Trentonian and Italian American, a graduate of Princeton and Yale Law with brown, frizzy hair, and taller than the justice. He wore a grey suit, maroon-striped tie and a lapel sticker, white with blue trim, reading: SAMUEL ALITO.

And?

Rosen: Was it at all a thing for you when [Scalia] was nominated to the Supreme Court, the fact that he was the first Italian American?

Alito: Yes, it was. And it was for millions of Italian Americans. And you can see that in the reaction within the Italian American community to his nomination. Italian Americans, unlike, let’s say, the Irish, were never a particularly cohesive voting bloc. … But everyone was united behind this because it really did represent the opening of a door, symbolically. … He was the antidote to the stereotypes about Italian Americans … prevalent at the time, and [which] continue to this day. If you look at the Italian American characters in, let’s say, movies and on TV, you’ve got the gangsters and the criminals, and then you have kind of the low — the dumb buffoons. So you look at the character that John Travolta played when he was in that — what was the TV show?

Rosen: “Welcome Back, Kotter.”

Alito: Yeah, “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Or Tony Danza in —

Rosen: “Taxi.”

Alito: “Taxi.” Or Henry Winkler in — what was it?

Rosen: “Happy Days.”

Alito: “Happy Days.” You know, that’s the way people, a lot of people, thought about Italian Americans. You know, maybe they could sing and Joe DiMaggio was a good athlete. … But somebody who was a serious intellectual, that was something. And that was a real antidote.

What a wonderful American story, eh?

Of course Italian-Americans are different, right? They aren’t like those Haitians or Laotians or Venezuelans we have today. Except, at the time of the great migration to America from Italy, the right wingers of the day certainly believed they were, didn’t they?

The lack of self-awareness among the avatars of the American right is a thing to behold.

The Right Speech

Published by digby on February 11, 2026

Dan Pfeiffer says this is the speech every Democrat should watch and think about. It will work everywhere:

Pfeiffer writes:

The speech does a few things that every Democrat can emulate, even if they are not as young or as charismatic. It offers a model for a party that is still struggling to find a compelling story about what Trump and Republicans are doing to the country.

Be Fearless

Throughout the speech, Ossoff shows no fear and no caution. He is not worried about who he might offend or how centrist pundits will react.

He just lets it rip.

When talking about Trump’s racist social media post about the Obamas, Ossoff says:

You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right? The president posting about the Obamas like a Klansman.

The context matters here. Ossoff is not a Democrat in a deep-blue seat taking viral shots at Trump to raise money and earn praise online.

[…]

The standard consultant-class advice in that situation would be to sand down the edges—and in a Southern state, to stay far away from race and racial politics. Comparing the president of the United States to a “Klansman” is, to put it mildly, bold.

I am not arguing that every Democrat should throw all caution to the wind. But there is real value in boldness—not just with the base, but with persuadable voters. Fearlessness communicates strength. It distinguishes a candidate from the familiar, mealy-mouthed politicians who try to please everyone and offend no one.

I couldn’t agree more. There is just no margin in trying to be “moderate” when it comes to describing what’s going on in our country. It is what it is and the only way to deal with it is by being brutally honest. MAGA voters will never believe it but it’s clear that Independents and even some Republicans around the margins are seeing it. You will get nowhere with those people by failing to acknowledge reality.

He says that Ossof’s corruption message works because he artfully presents it in a way that shows how it hurts the American people:

Now you remember we were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. You remember that? But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It is the wealthiest cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class ruling our country. They are the elites they pretend to hate.

So prices are up. Jobs are going away. Medicaid and school lunches are slashed. Nursing homes are getting defunded. If you’re Steve Bannon, and your pitch was Trump for the forgotten man and woman, how do you sell any of this? Trump was supposed to fight for the working class. Instead, he’s literally closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros and Elon Musk. He was supposed to end the globalist, world-police foreign policy. Instead, we’re doing war for oil and nation-building again—and threatening to conquer Greenland. He was supposed to drain the swamp. Instead, this is the most corrupt administration of all time. And everybody knows it.

Pfeiffer:

Democrats need an anti-corruption message not only to damage Republicans, but to show voters that we share their anger at a rigged political system—and that we can be trusted to take it on. That only works, of course, if we also have credible messengers and real proposals to fix it.

He likes the reference to the “Epstein class” which is catching on among Democrats.

And then there’s this which I think is very good

A Patriotic Appeal to Unity

Somewhere along the way, hope for a better future started to sound like nostalgia for a long-gone past. Anyone who suggests that we are not hopelessly and permanently divided is now treated as naïve.

I don’t buy that.

To paraphrase my old friend David Axelrod, voters are looking for a remedy to Trump’s hate and division, not a replica of it. Democrats have to find a way to paint a picture of a better, more hopeful, and less hateful future.

Here is Jon Ossoff’s attempt to do exactly that:

I listened to a speech a few months ago by a senator from Missouri aligned with the president, and what I think I heard him say was that the only real Americans are those descended from the original European settlers. Now, maybe he forgot that the Mayflower itself was full of religious exiles fleeing persecution. But our heritage is not limited to the pilgrims or those who settled the West.

America’s heritage includes the descendants of enslaved people who won liberation from slavery and Jim Crow. It includes the Creek people who lived in middle Georgia for eleven centuries. And it includes immigrants from every region and every continent who came here fleeing persecution or seeking opportunity.

Americans are not a race. We are a people—united not by ethnicity, but by shared convictions. That is what makes us exceptional, and that is what makes America a beacon to the world.

I think people are craving this sort of thing. You can see it in the resistance in Minneapolis and the appeals to love not hate among young people that the country is reeling from all this horror and they are inspired by those who still believe what Ossoff is saying in that speech.

Pfeiffer explains that it’s important to put this in the specific context that Ossoff puts it:

This appeal works precisely because it comes after tough, unvarnished, and fearless criticism of Trump. Aspiring to unity is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.

I think that’s important. Courage combined with empathy is powerful.

If you get the chance watch the whole thing. It’s very good. I hope that Trump hasn’t succeeded in rigging Georgia so that Ossoff can’t win. In any case, his message is the one that resonates in this moment.

Pam Bondi, 12 Year Old Mean Girl

Published by digby on February 11, 2026

She’s put on quite a performance today. Trump will give her a nice pat on the head for acting like a sociopathic tween on national television.

I think this says it all:

“You can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch — not on our time, no way,” Raskin said. “And I told you about that, Attorney General, before you started.”

“You don’t tell me anything,” Bondi erupted, before mocking Raskin as a “washed-up, loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”

Bondi then rounded on Nadler, telling him: “You said the president conspired, sought foreign interference in the 2016 election. Robert Mueller found no evidence, none, of foreign interference in 2016. Have you apologized to President Trump?

“You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the president, and I am not going to have it. I’m not going to put up with it,” she continued.

Here are a few highlights:

Lieu plays Bondi the infamous clip of Trump and Epstein partying together and asks her if there were underaged girls at any party the two attended together “This is so ridiculous,” Bondi says. “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime” “I believe you just lied under oath,” Lieu replies

This one, though is ad-worthy:

NEGUSE: AG Bondi, that man works for you now, right? The man in that video from January 6 allegedly yelling ‘kill them!’ at police officers. His name is Jared Wise.

BONDI: He does work for us, yes. I believe he was pardoned by President Trump

NEGUSE: And you expect hard-working police officers to believe you take law enforcement seriously?

So is this:

You cannot make this stuff up.

Every Day Is Festivus

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 11, 2026

Every day “a long list of grievances”

Photo: An aerial view of the Gordie Howe International Bridge with the Ambassador Bridge in the foreground, June 2025. (DHS photo by Tia Dufour).

The New York Times has some backstory behind the latest Trump rant against Canada. It involves Howard Lutnick who, after lying about it in public, confessed yesterday under oath that he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island. This new bridgegate deserves a clickbait, “and you won’t believe what happened next” headline:

The billionaire owner of a bridge connecting Michigan with Canada met Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, on Monday hours before President Trump lambasted a competing span, in the latest flashpoint in the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Canada.

Matthew Moroun is a Detroit-based trucking magnate whose family has operated the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for decades. He met on Monday with Mr. Lutnick in Washington, according to two officials briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

After that meeting Mr. Lutnick spoke with Mr. Trump by phone about the matter, the officials said.

The rest writes itself. Trump puts on public display his failing memory and suggestibility by whomever last whispers in his ear. Every day is Festivus in the Trump White House. Every day “a long list of grievances.”

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale (himself a Canadian) debunked Trump’s post phone call ranting about the new bridge between Ontario and Michigan:

President Trump’s post threatening to block the opening of a major new US-Canada bridge was filled with important omissions and misleading claims.

– Trump professed astonishment that the Canadian government would expect him to support the project. He didn’t mention that he explicitly endorsed the project in a 2017 joint statement with then-PM Trudeau, calling it a “vital economic link” and saying he looked forward to its quick completion.

– Trump, complaining about Canada, said “we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset.” But the state of Michigan already owns half of the bridge.

– Trump said, “I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them.” But Canada paid for the entire bridge construction.

– Trump complained about a Buy American waiver Obama granted the project, then claimed the waiver let Canada “not use any American products, including our Steel.” But the waiver actually allowed Canadian and US steel to be treated equally in consideration for the project, and numerous Canadian officials and Republican former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder say some American steel was indeed used. (Also worth noting the Obama administration said it was granting the waiver out of a “basic notion of fairness” because the project was a “unique circumstance…under which Canada is assuming all financial liability and risk for the construction.”)

Tokyo Rose Garden defended Trump’s sudden opposition and failing memory.

No wonder people pay so much money to get close enough to Trump to whisper.

Another One Bites The Dust

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 11, 2026

Grand Jury says no

You remember this vid from six members of Congress, right?

You remember that the Moron-in-Chief insisted that these Democrats are traitors deserving hanging? Or at least that his fully corrupted Department of Justice criminally indict them for reminding the military of the training every service member receives that it is their duty not to obey illegal orders?

The New York Times reports:

The move to charge the lawmakers — among them, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan — was, by any measure, an extraordinary attempt by Trump appointees to politicize the criminal justice system even for a Justice Department that has repeatedly shattered norms of independence from the White House and followed Mr. Trump’s directives to prosecute his adversaries.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C., on Tuesday presented the retributive case to a grand jury and asked for an indictment. Trump boasts that he can identify a giraffe on a page. Grand jurors can identify a kangaroo court from a mile away. Jurors say no … again:

Before Mr. Trump’s second term, it had been exceedingly rare for grand jurors to rebuff requests by prosecutors seeking indictments. It is now happening with increased frequency, as Mr. Trump’s appointees push ahead with questionable cases in an effort to appease him.

On Tuesday, prosecutors presenting the case sought to persuade the grand jurors that the lawmakers had violated a statute that forbids interfering with the loyalty, morale or discipline of the U.S. armed forces, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Politico adds that under federal law, a grand jury of “at least 12 of the between 16 and 23 members of the panel must vote to find probable cause to proceed with the charge.”

Pirro’s office had no comment.

In November, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Fox weekend co-host, called the video “despicable, reckless, and false.” He decried the “Seditious Six” for encouraging troops to ignore orders. Not to be left unquoted now, Hegseth tapped in for Pirro:

“Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger,” Mr. Hegseth wrote.

His Jack Nicholson impression sucks.

Stupid MAGA Outrage O’ The Day

Published by digby on February 10, 2026

As you know, MAGA was very, very upset about the Bad Bunny halftime show being performed in Spanish. Trump called it a slap in the face. But did you know they are also very, very upset about the Spanish lyrics they didn’t understand:

In an appearance on the rightwing channel Real America’s Voice on Tuesday, a Republican congressman from Missouri, Mark Alford, said “we are still investigating” the lyrics of a song performed in Spanish by the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny during his Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.

“The lyrics, from what we have seen, from Bad Bunny are very disturbing,” Alford said, apparently referring to outrage stirred by a rightwing media personality, Megan Basham, who posted an English translation of explicit lyrics from the Spanish-language song Safaera without realizing that Bad Bunny had performed a cleaned-up version for the televised broadcast, which was also partially obscured by bleeps.

“If it holds true that, um… you know I don’t speak fluent Spanish, okay?” Alford continued. “I know how to ask where the bathroom is – but, these lyrics, if it is true what was said on national television, we have a lot of questions for the entities that broadcast this and we’ll be talking with Brendan Carr from the FCC about this.”

“This could be much worse than than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, let’s put it that way,” Alford added.“But at least that was a malfunction, I mean this was apparently intentional,” the host Gina Loudon, a former Trump campaign surrogate who once appeared on the reality show Wife Swap, said. “This was intentional, yes” Alford said.

“And they could not have said this were it in English,” Loudon added, apparently also unaware that the explicit lyrics had not been heard on the broadcast, before calling the show “fully not understandable to English-speaking people”.

The host then praised Alford for his work – investigating things that did not happen. “Congressman Mark Alford, always on top of it,” Loudon said. “Thank you so much for being here.”

How dare you sing in Spanish and clean up the lyrics of a song I don’t understand making us look even more ridiculous than we already did? I’m so offended!

Trump’s Revenge Tour Continues

Published by digby on February 10, 2026

He’s killing more people in the states that didn’t vote for him:

The Trump administration plans to rescind $600 million in public health funds from four states led by Democrats because it finds the grants “inconsistent with agency priorities,” according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The programs slated to be cut are in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. They include grants to state and local public health departments as well as to some nongovernmental organizations. A list of the cuts was shared with relevant congressional committees on Monday.

The funds are administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They include grants given to states for a variety of purposes, including hiring staffs, modernizing data systems and managing disease outbreaks. Some programs are aimed at the needs of specific communities.

Some of the cuts will be finalized this week and others over the coming weeks, totaling roughly $600 million. The figure was first reported by The New York Post.

Nearly two-thirds of the funding is unspent money allocated to state and local public health departments in California.

“These grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said. About two dozen of the grants were aimed at curbing H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections.

You can lay this one at the feet of RFK Jr, the former Democrat who sold his soul to the devil so he could make people sicker with crackpot snake oil nonsense while telling people to eat healthier food, as if that’s some sort of revolutionary concept. Thanks Bobby. You must be so proud.

Update — more:

The vaccine maker Moderna said on Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration had notified the company that the agency would not review its mRNA flu vaccine, the latest sign of federal health policy that has become hostile to vaccine development.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, rejected the company’s application for approval over a concern that Moderna’s clinical trial had compared its experimental vaccine against a product the agency did not consider the best on the market. People in the comparison group received Fluarix Quadrivalent, a flu vaccine sold by GSK.

Moderna had spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars testing its flu vaccine, enrolling 41,000 people and aimed at a market of adults ages 50 and older. The company concluded that its shot was superior to GSK’s product.

Stephen Hoge, the company’s president, said in an interview on Tuesday that the new flu vaccine was designed to be better tailored for a single nation than the ones that tended to be used by an entire hemisphere.

“This refusal to start a review is all confusing, to say the least,” Mr. Hoge said, adding: “It is surprising, and we’re trying to understand what has changed.”

They just don’t want people to be protected. They want us to die.

Reflexive Liar

Published by digby on February 10, 2026

Steve Benen at MS Now with Trump’s latest:

In October, Donald Trump halted funding on the Gateway tunnel construction project, one of the nation’s most important infrastructure investments: a $16 billion endeavor that would connect New York and New Jersey via a pair of train tubes that would benefit the entire region.

The good news is, the president recently signaled a willingness to release the resources that would allow work to continue and prevent significant layoffs. The bad news is, he had a transaction in mind: Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the money would be restored if Democrats agreed to rename Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station after Trump.

The president’s pitch was, for all intents and purposes, an attempt at extortion: If Democrats wanted to save a critical infrastructure project and prevent the job losses, they had to indulge Trump’s obsession with self-glorification.

The White House made little effort to deny the accuracy of the reporting, and on Friday night, during a brief Q&A on Air Force One, a reporter asked the Republican, “Can you set the record straight? There were reports circulating that you told Chuck Schumer that in order to restore funding for the Gateway train tunnel in New York, New Jersey, you would want Penn Station and Dulles Airport to be named after you. Is that true?”

The ideal answer would have been, “No, of course not, that would be insane.” Alas, that’s not what Trump said.

“He suggested that to me,” Trump replied. “Chuck Schumer suggested that to me about changing the name. … It was suggested to me by numerous people, unions, Democrats, Republicans, a lot of people suggested.”

Schumer said it is an “absolute lie,” which is backed up by the fact that Schumer didn’t agree to whatever it was Trump suggested and, needless to say, the evidence we have all around us of the narcissistic freak pasting his name on everything in sight all over the country. He’s demanding that they give him the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing and has completely torn up the nation’s alliances in that pursuit! The man is obsessed and everyone knows it. So of course he suggested it.

As I’ve said before I’m worried that the Democrats will lose their nerve and let this bullshit stand and I think that’s a very bad idea. If we survive his regime — and there’s no guarantee that we will — but if we do, this extreme demonstration of twisted egomania has to be exorcised from all public places or his cult will continue to hang on on some form or another. That’s what he’s counting on and we just can’t allow that.

Trump’s Spanish Language Outreach

Published by digby on February 10, 2026

Considering Bad Bunny’s message, this from the 2024 campaign is also ironic:

“It’s very important that we all understand that no matter where we’re coming from, we’re already American. Whether you’re African American, Latino American, Asian American, European American, wherever you come from, we are all American,” Jaime Florez, Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, told NBC News.

I’m sorry. They were suckers for believing him. Even if they really wanted those cheap eggs, they should have paid closer attention to this:

Live and learn. I hope.