Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump likes them intimidated. They eagerly comply.

Me and my sharpie are signing a ‘zecutive order changing the name of Donald Trump to Donald Toadstool. You will henceforth use my preferred designation.

His Insecure Highness has enacted several measures since reentering the Oval Office as non-joking tests of fealty. By your bending the knee to his mighty will he shall know you either as loser or foe. It’s Toadstool’s way of getting you to blurt out, “Thank you, sir! May I have another.”

Like loyalty oaths and insisting followers publicly declaring that he won the 2020 election, it’s about getting people to submit to his dominance moves. Or as I picture it, getting littler dogs to roll over on their backs and pee in the air in submission.

Toadstool’s mind is so far gone that it’s not clear if he really gives a rat’s ass if the world accepts that with a few strokes of his sharpie he’s changed the 400-year-old name of the Gulf of Mexico. What matters is whether he can compel your obedience by uttering “Gulf of America.” For that, he doesn’t need to think. It’s all instinct.

Noah Berlatsky takes up the White House banning the Associated Press from the Press Room because the private business won’t “knuckle under” on cartographic matters:

The organization’s stand provides a model for resistance to tyranny, and a model for free speech, that much of American media needs right now.

The dispute over the name of the Gulf of Mexico seems trivial, especially compared to a range of other horrors Trump is currently perpetrating. But tyrants are tyrants in part because they insist on asserting control over even trivial matters.

Toadstool knows from trivial.

Trump wants to make the AP fall in line to show his dominance, and to show other outlets he’s willing to vindictively target them over any show of independence at all. The AP, for its part, is providing a rallying point for press freedom organizations and drawing a line in the sand for its colleagues and competitors.

If Trump is denying access to outlets that refuse to lick his boots, then any media outlet that has access is compromised. Journalists who want to be worthy of the name have a moral obligation to follow the AP’s example in enraging the toddler in chief.

What’s disturbing is just how many private businesses are obeying in advance the whims of His Royal Shroomness “out of an abundance of caution“:

The works in Gwen Henderson’s Tampa bookstore are emancipated, but organizations that want to highlight the councilwoman’s shop apparently don’t enjoy the same freedom.

This week on social media, Henderson, a retired educator, said that “a pretty prominent marketing firm” decided to take down a video showcasing her Black English Bookstore after the company received pressure from a government client.

[…]

She did not name the firm that produced the video, but a separate post on Henderson’s personal page says the “Black Moves” clip was created by PPK Advertising & Production.

The government in question among PPK’s clients seems to be the state of Florida. They seem to have done a lot of work promoting the state lottery. They are wary, therefore, about sponsoring content that might be construed as DEI-related. But Garrett Garcia, the firm’s president, pointed a finger at government more distant than Tallahassee, and at the attorney general Toadstool plucked out of Florida (emphasis mine):

“This decision was made entirely out of an abundance of caution based on articles like this one published last week in Bloomberg,” Garcia added. “We felt it was in the best interest of our business and our employees to pause these initiatives until we have time to review it in greater detail and to understand the nuances of all rapidly changing policies of the DOJ and US Attorney General.”

Forbes has also reported that Trump’s new Attorney General, Tampa-woman Pam Bondi, “directed the Justice Department to ‘investigate, eliminate, and penalize’ private companies and universities that have “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”

But a video promoting Henderson’s private bookstore is not a hiring program conceivably covered under Trump 2.0’s interpretation of federal civil rights laws. But her ad agency is running scared enough that they yanked it. And that’s just the way Toadstool and his white backlash cult like it.

“This is the bullshit that’s happening in our country right now,” says Henderson. “Even a little tiny bookstore can be impacted.”

(h/t SS)

Emil Bove, Game Master

For no particular reason. Here’s an easy-to-follow piece of advice.

If you don’t want to be called a Nazi, don’t act like a Nazi. Or Jigsaw.

Acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove assembled DOJ's remaining public corruption prosecutors this morning and gave them an hour to find someone to sign the Eric Adams dismissal.One of them agreed to do it, to spare the others from potentially being fired.www.reuters.com/world/us/fed…

— Brad Heath (@bradheath.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T18:00:29.614Z

Here’s the intro from Reuters:

A U.S. federal prosecutor agreed on Friday to file a motion to dismiss criminal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams to spare other career staff from potentially being fired for refusing to do so, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the department’s career public integrity prosecutors in a meeting on Friday that they had an hour to decide among themselves who would file the motion, the sources said.

The volunteer was Ed Sullivan, a veteran career prosecutor, who agreed to alleviate pressure on his colleagues in the department’s public integrity section, two sources said.

Sullivan did not capitulate, someone familiar with the meeting told Reuters. He was coerced, and to his colleagues “a hero” who spared them.

So Bove set up one of those torture rooms from the Saw franchise, minus the blood. Or else the trolley problem, except the person who throws the switch to save five elects to be the one run over on the side track.

More federal prosecutors have resigned under Trump over the Adams case than during Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre.

Fools and cowards

In addition to the stinging letter of resignation from Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, the Washington Post reports that “Kevin Driscoll, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, and John D. Keller, acting chief of the department’s Public Integrity Section” resigned in addition to three others from the Public Integrity Section.

Hagan Scotten, the Southern District’s lead prosecutor in the Adams corruption case, resigned Friday and sent his own stinging rebuke to his bosses in D.C. (Washington Post):

“[A]ny assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way,” he wrote.

“If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” Scotten wrote. “But it was never going to be me.”

What an abomination AG Pam Bondi is running.

Baby tapir named Ume. Who knew they were so cute?

Born last Sunday, Feb. 2, to mom Yuna, little Ume sports the signature white spots and stripes of a newborn tapir, making her look like a tiny, fuzzy watermelon. 🍉 Mom and baby are thriving behind the scenes, and we can’t wait to share more updates soon. pic.twitter.com/T9qH8UabmS

— Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (@PtDefianceZoo) February 11, 2025

How is it possible that baby Ume keeps getting cuter? This fuzzy little watermelon is just ten days old and had some zoomies while trying to nurse from mom behind the scenes. Watch until the end to see 900-pound Yuna roll over so her playful tapir calf can nurse. Such a good mom! pic.twitter.com/PIN2cWTa9O

— Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (@PtDefianceZoo) February 13, 2025

The adorable tapir calf is already mastering the art of wiggling its tiny trunk. 🥰
Baby tapirs use their tiny trunks for sniffing, exploring, and even grasping small objects. Their trunks are an extended upper lip and nose, which helps them sense their surroundings and forage. pic.twitter.com/k66B9FvaSY

— Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (@PtDefianceZoo) February 8, 2025

Sleepy baby:

The growing baby tapir is very sleepy. 😴 Tapirs have a third eyelid, or nictitating membrane, that lubricates and protects the eye.

📹: Keeper Katie pic.twitter.com/NiJPUkBo73

— Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (@PtDefianceZoo) February 11, 2025

POV: Giving Ume the tapir calf scratches behind the scenes. 🍉

📹: Keeper Katie pic.twitter.com/cbwBG5LkLu

— Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (@PtDefianceZoo) February 14, 2025

FYI:

Common Name: Tapirs
Scientific Name: Tapiridae
Type: Mammals
Diet: HerbivoreGroup
Average Life Span In The Wild: 25 to 30 years
Size: Height at shoulder: 29 to 42 inches
Weight: 500 to 800 pounds
Size relative to a 6-ft man:

Tapirs look something like pigs with trunks, but they are actually related to horses and rhinoceroses. This eclectic lineage is an ancient one—and so is the tapir itself. Scientists believe that these animals have changed little over tens of millions of years.

Behavior

Tapirs have a short prehensile (gripping) trunk, which is really an extended nose and upper lip. They use this trunk to grab branches and clean them of leaves or to help pluck tasty fruit. Tapirs feed each morning and evening. During these hours they follow tunnel-like paths, worn through the heavy brush by many a tapir footstep, to reach water holes and lush feeding grounds. As they roam and defecate they deposit the seeds they have consumed and promote future plant growth.

Life in the Water

Though they appear densely built, tapirs are at home in the water and often submerge to cool off. They are excellent swimmers and can even dive to feed on aquatic plants. They also wallow in mud, perhaps to remove pesky ticks from their thick hides.

Tapir Species

New World tapirs generally live in the forests and grasslands of Central and South America. A notable exception is the mountain (or woolly) tapir, which lives high in the Andes Mountains. Woolly tapirs, named for their warm and protective coat, are the smallest of all tapirs.

The world’s biggest tapir is found in the Old World—Southeast Asia. The black-and-white Malay tapir can grow to 800 pounds. It inhabits the forests and swamps of Malaysia and Sumatra.

All tapir species are at-risk largely due to hunting and habitat loss.

You’ve been boarded

Suddenly, and not accidentally, people who work for the American federal government are having the same experience as people who find themselves living under foreign occupation. — Anne Applebaum

More than a few of us not in federal employ feel the same. People I know have, like the refugees in Casablanca, fled the occupation. Except today it is the U.S. they are fleeing, not fleeing to.

Applebaum suggests that whether Musk-Trump’s Project 2025 saboteurs call their goal “Liberation Day,” or replacing all mid-level bureaucrats with MAGA loyalists (RAGE, in Curtis Yarvin’s coinage), or Steve Bannon’s “deconstruction of the administrative state,” regime change from within is the goal although their motivations may differ.

Hugo Chávez used a similar approach in Venezuela, as did Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Applebaum explains:

Trump, Musk, and Russell Vought, the newly appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget and architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—the original regime-change blueprint—are now using IT operations, captured payments systems, secretive engineers, a blizzard of executive orders, and viral propaganda to achieve the same thing.

This appears to be DOGE’s true purpose. Although Trump and Musk insist they are fighting fraud, they have not yet provided evidence for their sweeping claims. Although they demand transparency, Musk conceals his own conflicts of interest. Although they do say they want efficiency, Musk has made no attempt to professionally audit or even understand many of the programs being cut. Although they say they want to cut costs, the programs they are attacking represent a tiny fraction of the U.S. budget. The only thing these policies will certainly do, and are clearly designed to do, is alter the behavior and values of the civil service. Suddenly, and not accidentally, people who work for the American federal government are having the same experience as people who find themselves living under foreign occupation.

Ask the people of Ukraine what that’s like.

What Musk-Trump means to achieve — Musk by Bond-villain design and Trump by feral instinct — is to replace the long-established culture of public service with something other. Applebaum is not sure what, but it’s not American.

Christian nationalists want a religious state to replace our secular one. Tech authoritarians want a dictatorship of engineers, led by a monarchical CEO. Musk and Trump might prefer an oligarchy that serves their business interests.

You can bet it will reflect the corruption at Trump’s core. Per Vought’s designs (himself a Christian nationalist), civil servants “who had previously viewed themselves as patriots, working for less money than they could make in the private sector,” Applebaum explains, “must be forced to understand that they are evil, enemies of the state.”

From where federal workers now sit (state workers and university employees soon enough, then you), they can either resist the Nazis or join the Vichy government. That’s how Applebaum frames the choice in her link: “Putting them all together, the actions of Musk and DOGE have created moral dilemmas of a kind no American government employee has faced in recent history. Protest or collaborate? Speak up against lawbreaking or remain silent?”

Drink the Vichy water or waste-bin it?

The Ink this morning proposes another analogy for regime change: alien invasion.

In Cixin Liu’s massively popular sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem, an advanced society abandons their collapsing planet and sets out to take over the Earth. But to pave the way and make sure they don’t meet effective resistance, they monkey wrench human progress by distributing viral propaganda, recruiting allies in the gaming community, cutting sweetheart deals with oligarchs, and interfering with scientific research.

Thus, Physics World reports:

Scientists across the US have been left reeling after a spate of executive orders from US President Donald Trump has led to research funding being slashed, staff being told to quit and key programmes being withdrawn. In response to the orders, government departments and external organizations have axed diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, scrubbed mentions of climate change from websites, and paused research grants pending tests for compliance with the new administration’s goals.

James Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, warned an audience this month at the Royal College of Art in London, “My country is in for a 50-year period of a new dark ages.”

The Ink continues, “It’s as if the tech oligarchs who’ve journeyed from South Africa to remake America — the guys who, as therapist Daniel Shaw remarked, ‘read Orwell’s 1984 and decided the hero was Big Brother’ — read Liu’s trilogy and decided the San-Ti (the alien invaders) were the heroes.”

We cautioned yesterday, that in plain view and through sheer doggedness, the United Daughters of the Confederacy succeeded in fixing “The Lost Cause” myth in minds across the South and farther for generations. Christian nationalists want a Jesus-über-alles theocracy and damn your religious freedom. Tech billionaires want their Red Caesar. The international autocrats’ club wants a capitalism even more rapacious, NATO castrated, and popular sovereignty replaced with neo-feudalism. They are all so focused on powers they hope to accrue that they’ve blinded themselves to what they likely will lose in making a devil’s bargain. None of this is secret, but their plans are obscured by the sideshow antics of men like Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

Americans busy working and paying bills will be slow to catch on to what they are losing. Perhaps until it’s too late. But our history also holds solitary heroes like Rosa Parks whose actions inspire transformational movements. Pray we have a few left.

A commentator the other day said that there are only two guardrails left against Musk-Trump’s predations, meaning Congress and the courts. He was wrong. There is a third: Americans in the streets.

This is a Trump voter who works for the US government. Apparently, she didn’t think Trump would actually do what Project 2025 said they planned to do because Dear Leader lied to them and said he had nothing to do with it:

We voted for border security. We didn’t vote for my husband to lose his government career and benefits for which he has worked so hard.”

“This possibility is looming over countless families right now. We don’t know what our financial future holds. My husband dedicated the better part of his life to this country, first in the military and now working for the government. I have watched as he busted his ass every single day for this job. Our story is like many others, yet they [the Trump Administration] see them as budget line items.

We are not a fucking line item. We are real people with families who need to put food on the table just like everyone else. We have done nothing but support this country. To be disregarded and tossed out to save a buck is sickening. I support Trump on many things, but I won’t support him on this. He has already lost my support.”

Here’s a quote from a federal worker who didn’t vote for Trump:

Remember that story from a couple of weeks ago about all the Big Money Boyz celebrating that mainly Trump and the boys were back and they could treat people like shit in the workplace again. They might have to re-think that a little bit in the not too distance future. Their business is still business. Here come the leopards:

It took less than a month for the second Trump administration to cool the enthusiasm of chief executives and dealmakers. Consumer sentiment is down and inflation expectations are rising, driven in part by worries about the impact of a threatened trade war. The deals market just ended its quietest January in a decade. A Justice Department that was expected to wave through acquisitions instead sued to block a big technology merger.

Corporate bigwigs are now using phrases like “fragility,” “volatility” and “wait and see” to describe their outlooks.

“Nobody knows what’s up,” Nick Pinchuk, chief executive of toolmaker Snap-on, said on a conference call Thursday. “It’s like being on Space Mountain at Disney World. You get on Space Mountain, you get in a car, and you’re in the dark and the cars go left and right, left and right and abrupt turns, you don’t know where you’re going, but you know, you’re pretty confident that you’re going to get to the right place at the bottom.”

The recent whipsaw on tariffs seemed to hit hardest on business leaders’ confidence. President Trump announced plans to stick 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, only to delay them for a month a few days later. A number of executives, as well as top investment bankers and other industry advisers, have said that priorities have shifted in recent days to navigating tariffs and other policy issues.

They need to settle supply routes, discuss whether to raise their own prices and figure out what is even happening. That doesn’t leave much room for thinking about big bet-the-company deals.The reaction is evident in the deals market. Just under 900 deals were announced in the U.S. in January, according to data from LSEG. That compares with more than 1,200 transactions in the previous January and over 1,500 two years ago.

I’m sorry, did they think that because Trump is a pathological liar he wouldn’t do any of the things he said he was going to do? That the only thing that mattered was owning the libs?

He is a liar but after watching him for the last 8 years in politics if you didn’t know that he was a chaos agent and an imbecile who is incapable of making intelligent decisions then you weren’t paying attention. The economy did fine during his first term because he didn’t disturb the economic recovery and instead just took credit for it. He’s different now. He truly believes that he is omnipotent and that every thought that goes through his head becomes reality.

He badly botched his one big crisis which sent the economy into a tailspin from which his successor had to dig out. (It ruined him because of people like this who just wanted the show back.) Now Trump’s back and he can’t wait to fuck things up again.

Here are few more WSJ headlines from the past week. Are they having fun yet?

Last night he started talking about “reciprocal tariffs”:

President Donald Trump on Thursday rolled out his plan to increase U.S. tariffs to match the tax rates that other countries charge on imports, possibly triggering a broader economic confrontation with allies and rivals alike as he hopes to eliminate any trade imbalances.

“I’ve decided for purposes of fairness that I will charge a reciprocal tariff,” Trump said in the Oval Office at the proclamation signing. “It’s fair to all. No other country can complain.”

The politics of tariffs could easily backfire on Trump if his agenda pushes up inflation and grinds down growth, making this a high stakes wager for a president eager to declare his authority over the U.S. economy.

[…]

The United States does have low average tariffs, but Trump’s proclamation as written would seem designed to jack up taxes on imports, rather than pursue fairness as the United States also has regulatory restrictions that limit foreign products, said Scott Lincicome, a trade expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“It will inevitably mean higher tariffs, and thus higher taxes for American consumers and manufacturers,” he said. Trump’s tariffs plan “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the global economy works.”

Trump’s proclamation identifies value-added taxes — which are similar to sales taxes and common in the European Union — as a trade barrier to be included in any reciprocal tariff calculations. Other nations’ tariff rates, subsidies to industries, regulations and possible undervaluing of currencies would be among the factors the Trump administration would use to assess tariffs.

So that should be fun. I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They’re all geniuses.

Trump tried to minimize the likelihood that his policies would trigger anything more than a brief bump in inflation. But when asked if he would ask agencies to analyze the possible impact on prices, the president declined.

“There’s nothing to study,” Trump said. “It’s going to go well.”

He said, “Prices could go up somewhat short term, but prices will also go down so Americans should prepare for some short-term pain.” Well, not so short term. He also says that the only way to fix this is for all the foreign companies to move their manufacturing to the US where they won’t have to pay tariffs. There will be a lot of jobs for Americans then. (Yes, he is even dumber than you thought.)

But sure, no problem. We love King Donald and we know that everything he does is for our own good. All Hail King Donald.

https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1889429966603034956

They’re continuously talking about “common sense” as they destroy the US Government. They have no sense, common or otherwise.

Trump’s executive orders, Musk’s power grabs, dismantling institutions faster than anyone can track, attacking science, knowledge and international cooperative bodies and allies are all part of the authoritarian playbook.

I’ve also grouped the actions in a table to illustrate this.

2 books (How Democracies die, The Road to Unfreedom) highlight key steps to erode democracy:
Undermine independent institutions
Weaken the opposition
Dismantle social protections
Retreat from international alliances
Weaponise nationalism
Undermine science
Undermine free elections (inc misinfo)

** Almost all of the actions Trump has taken over the last three weeks map directly onto those steps. **

This is from Prof Christina Pagel, @chrischirp.bsky.social. More here.

It’s pretty amazing to see it laid out like this isn’t it?

Sabotaging the government came later

Donald Trump: And your point is?

It’s not unlike the plot of that Die Hard movie where thieves keep police busy hunting for a bomb in a school while the they rob a federal gold depository. The Musk-Trump cabal has simply started firing federal law enforcement and robbing banks. Both robberies take place in New York City.

Forbes:

New York City officials alleged Wednesday the Federal Emergency Management Agency revoked $80 million in grants from the city’s accounts amid a feud with the Trump administration over the city’s use of federal funds to house migrants—a move the city’s comptroller called “illegal” and “highway robbery.”

“Revoked” is a polite term for “stole.”

Associated Press:

Gone is a $59 million grant that the administration challenged earlier in the week and another award for $21.5 million, City Comptroller Brad Lander said. The money was discovered to be missing overnight, and Lander said no one in his office had been aware that the federal government had access to the city’s bank account.

Lander is a candidate for mayor.

New York Times:

The funds in question were appropriated by Congress last year under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The payment was issued through a grant from the Shelter and Services Program, administrated by FEMA and initiated by Congress in 2023 to issue grants to cities and organizations providing services to migrants who had been released from federal custody after crossing the border.

Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, tweeted, “I have clawed back the full payment that FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels.”

“FEMA deep state activists unilaterally” is propaganda-speak for both houses of Congress and the former president appropriating the funds. Legally.

Experts tell the Times that unless the city’s agreement with FEMA includes a clawback agreement, accessing the city’s bank account and taking the cash “could be illegal” (read: theft). Contracts have been signed; the money has been spent; these payments are legal reimbursments.

Forbes adds:

New York officials pushed back against Musk’s misleading claims and have said hotel fee payments were not made on luxury hotels, with Lander noting in a Wednesday press conference the funds approved as part of FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program have a $12.50 per night limit for migrants.

“Musk’s misleading claims” is polite for more lies and propaganda.