t0000 2.0, aka 47

[barnswallow]

So, people say it’s the courts that will save us from this authoritarian putsch. And follow up with, no, it’s the people, you and me, who will save us.

One of the great safeguards against the t0000 musk effort to end democracy is the independence states have from federal overreach when conducting elections. Each state has its own rules and does it its own way. Genious!

Here’s an article about continued efforts at voter suppression, in this case to erode states’ independence.

Trump Order Includes Provision That Could Punish States For Not Ceding Authority Over Election Admin To DOJ

President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on elections is more than just...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Trump Order Includes Provision That Could Punish States For Not Ceding Authority Over Election Admin To DOJ [TPM;3.28.25]

 

[barnswallow]

I’ll finish this run with some inspiration. Here’s Heather Cox Richardson giving a history lesson on the Declaration of Independence.


History Chat: The Declaration of Independence [Heather Cox Richardson; 7.7.2023]

She has a series of history chats on her channel. I’ve only listened to this one but hope to listen to all of them.

Maybe they deserve their own thread so as to be easily found.

Note (4.6.25): face book seems to be censoring HCR’s content that she posts there. So says HCR.

 

[barnswallow]

. Decided to erase this post because I have no knowledge of the source. It was simply some crazy stuff: a young Canadian woman detained at the border, who was interrogated, had her phone confiscated and gone through, who was left in a waiting area for hours, missed her flight . . . Having crossed the border to attend a friend’s birthday party?

Unfortunately, this sort of story has become entirely believable now.

Anyway! I decided it was irresponsible to post the video of the young woman telling this story b/c I have no way of knowing its accuracy.

 

[barnswallow]

Tim and Sarah: Trump's Base Is Getting DESTROYED By His Tariffs [The Bulwark;4.3.25]

Blurb: “Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell join Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House to share their takes on the fallout of Donald Trump’s latest tariffs and how voters are reacting to rising prices and job uncertainty. They also discuss the growing influence of far-right podcaster like Laura Loomer on Donald Trump.”

Yesterday was what t0000 called ‘Liberation Day’. Everyone around him parroted this line. Meanwhile, the U.S. financial markets are tanking and markets around the world, to varying degrees, are also.

This one looks at how Americans are reacting, while we still are only speculating about the fallout from the virtual bombing of the economy. Sarah Longwell makes an apt analogy between bowling and the difference between t0000 45 (2017-2021) and this new administration: t0000 47, essentially t0000 unleashed.

And it’s only 71 days since the inauguration. So much to look forward to.

The hopeful note is that this past Tuesday’s special elections in Florida (and the vote in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which they don’t mention here) show that t0000’s support is eroding.

 

[barnswallow]

Here’s more on the tariffs from Andrew Tobias. This one looks more at the spurious arguments t0000 used to justify them.

After that, the column links to Malcolm Nance’s recent Substack entry about possible military excursions.

Trade Wars And Real War

Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman: Trump Goes Crazy on Trade The EU, like the United States, has generally low tariffs; the average tariff

andrewtobias.com

Trade Wars And Real War [Andrew Tobias:Money & Other Subjects;4.3.25]

As Nicole Wallace mentions in the video in the previous post, just above, post # 124, it’s impossible to give due attention to the many actions emanating out of Washington DC.

What of the firings and defunding of the Department of Health & Human Services sabotaging this very important agency that protects public health, here and around the world?

What of the elimination of Voice of America? Oh. Excuse me. It’s Radio Liberty? I’m not sure of the difference. I’ll look it up, if I find a moment. For now, I’ll just post this essay by Timothy Snyder, who, btw, is leaving Yale University and moving to Canada. I’ve heard other members of the intelligentsia are leaving the U.S., the brain drain commences.

2+2=5

"America destroys one of its own symbols," by Stanislav Aseyev

snyder.substack.com

2+2=5 [‘Thinking About . . . ‘, Timothy Snyder’s Substack; 3.19.25]

The sub-title is ‘“America destroys one of its own symbols,” by Stanislav Aseyev’

 

[barnswallow]

The last one, for right now, is Heather Cox Richardson. She has a Substack account and makes a daily post that she titles simply, like a diary, by the date:

April 3, 2025

Trump’s announcement last night that he was placing high tariffs on countries around the world came after the stock market closed, but it drove stock futures dramatically downward.

open.substack.com

April 3, 2025 [Heather Cox Richardson]

This starts by looking at the tariffs.
Here’s one paragraph from that longer discussion:

“Trump’s tariffs are not an economic policy. Tariffs are generally imposed on products, not on nations. By placing them on countries, the White House was able to arrive at its numbers with a nonsensical formula that appears to have been reached by asking AI how to impose tariffs—a suggestion so outlandish that I dismissed when I saw it last night, but economist Paul Krugman today identified it as being a likely possibility. CNBC’s Steve Liesman said: “Nobody ever heard of this formula. Nobody has ever used this formula. So I’m sorry, but the conclusion seems to be the president kind of made this up as he went along....””

She moves from the tariffs to how weakening America behooves vladimir putin.

She discusses, also briefly, several other aspects of t0000’s sabotage of America: tariffs weaken businesses here and force them to beg from t0000.

Quoting from the article, “The Trump administration is also undermining post–World War II democracy at home. Last night, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) identified Trump’s tariffs as “a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.” Murphy pointed to Trump’s shakedown of prominent law firms, four of which he has attacked with executive orders. He also pointed to Trump’s attacks on universities, withholding government funding until their administrators bow to MAGA’s ideological demands.”

There are other attacks on the domestic front here in the U.S., truly defeat from within. Again, a long quote from Heather Cox Richardson [4.3.25]:

“Sarah D. Wire of USA Today reported that earlier this week the Institute for Museum and Library Studies was effectively closed, and over the past two days the administration told libraries across the country that grants awarded last year have been terminated. Today the administration cut federal grants for arts and humanities across the country: museums, archives, historic sites, educational projects, and so on—all defunded. It also cut this year’s funding for National History Day, a popular history program in schools that is already underway.

“On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services slashed jobs and programs in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even as measles continues to spread and two Louisiana infants have died of whooping cough. Today, news broke that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is implementing a hiring freeze even as flash floods and tornadoes just today have killed at least seven people in the Midwest to the mid-South.

“The plan, as Vice President J.D. Vance explained in a 2021 interview, is to destroy the current government, business, educational, cultural, and scientific pillars of the United States in order to replace them with a new system, although there is tension between the Project 2025 wing of MAGA and the technocrats’ wing over whether that new system will be a theocracy or a technocracy. In either case, it will be an authoritarian government in which power and money concentrate in a very few hands.”

Heather Cox Richardson writes about today’s events from a historical perspective. From Wikipedia: ‘Heather Cox Richardson (born October 8, 1962) is an American historian who works as a professor of history at Boston College, where she teaches courses on the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics. In 2019, she started publishing Letters from an American, a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of American history. Richardson focuses on the health of American democracy. The newsletter accrued over one million subscribers, making her, as of December 2020, the most successful individual author of a paid publication on Substack.’

 

[barnswallow]

Oh. Wait. One more ‘last one’.

This is a podcast (in this case, Apple) by Greg Sargent of the publication ‘The New Republic’. The name of the podcast is The Daily Blast. Today (4.3.25) the discussion is about . . . Tariffs!!!

This time there’s an interview with Norm Ornstein. Sargent and Ornstein take a close look at Congress and a possible opening for Democrats, if a very few (3) republicans join them, to legislate against the tariffs. It’s very interesting so far and I decided to post before listening straight through. You’ll have to find this podcast on whatever platform you use, if it’s not Apple.

“Horrifying”: Trump’s Weird, Confused Rant to Media as Markets Tanked

Podcast Episode · THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent · 04/04/2025 · 22m

podcasts.apple.com

“Horrifying”: Trump’s Weird Confused Rant to Media, as Markets Tanked [The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent;4.3.25]

Blurb: “After President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from all over the globe, prompting the markets to implode, he took a question about it on Thursday. He ranted and rambled delusionally about how everything is just great, bizarrely likened the country to a patient that had just undergone surgery without grasping why his metaphor is the opposite of reassuring, and spouted more nonsense about money pouring into our country. On top of all that, his imposition of the tariffs is likely an enormous and grotesque abuse of power. And because of this, the prospects for stopping them are not wholly nonexistent. We talked to congressional scholar Norm Ornstein, who walks us through how Congress can act, what Democrats can do to pressure Republicans to join in doing just that, and why Trump’s engaged in “horrifying folly.”

 

[barnswallow]

Just a list of headlines that come under the heading of 'Trump Administration: Updates'. Just to get a sense of what happens, with slight variations, every. single. day.
1. Firing of National Security Agency Head Surprises Intelligence Experts: "Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and outside adviser to President Trump, had called for General Haugh’s removal during an Oval Office meeting." Failed to mention she's a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and idk what else, except for it's highly likely she's thoroughly unqualified for the job of outside adviser to the potus.

2. Pressure on Harvard: . . . "list of demands that would have to be met to end a government review of $9 billion the university receives in federal funding, part of the government’s campaign against what it views as unchecked antisemitism on campus." angry bird translates: no, t0000 does not give a hoot about anti-semitism. This is a ploy to put pressure on universities to 'bend the knee'. And, also a way to go after students that might be foreign students of many colors, in the name of a push-button issue when it's really about violating the first amendment 'freedom of speech' rights.

3. Proxy voting: "allow members of the House of Representatives to vote remotely after the birth of a child . . ." Angry bird translation: Actually I have no idea what this is about except for some easy red meat to throw at his minions in Congress. Doesn't cost a thing to the orange combover and enhances the idea that he's 'kind'.

4. Federal worker unions sue to block Trump's effort to strip them of bargaining rights. The complaint, filed late Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, Calif., is the latest development in the unions’ escalating battle with the administration over its attempts to slash the federal work force and roll back the protections afforded to the civil service employees.

5. Trump sidelines the Justice Department's legal office, eroding another check on his power.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has traditionally been a powerful guardrail in American government.

It has issued interpretations of the law that bind agencies across the executive branch, decided which proposed policies were legally permissible or out of bounds and approved draft executive orders before they went to presidents to be signed.

6. The head of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command is ousted. That's the same headline as #1 in this list. This goes into more detail about comdemnation emanating from Congressional Democrats. Each of these entries above has a short 6 line beginning to a longer article. To read it, one has to click on 'Show more'.

7. The Trump administration sends Harvard a list of demands to protect $9 billion. I'm not sure how this differs from #2 above. One point I've heard made is that these really large institutions have endowments that would enable them to resist the government's intrusions and extortion. Many who have experience with authoritarianism believe they should resist, even though the price is huge.

my note, added 4.18.25: I think I understand now how the loss in funding if critical. It will specifically affect scientists at Harvard, depriving them of funding for their research. These are some of the best scientists in the country and also represent a special subset that eschew the greater income they could have obtained from working in the big Pharma in favor of dedicating themselves to the common good. They do research that you wouldn't find in industry where every dime spent is evaluated by expected income in the short term. t0000 is attacking the very things that MAG [make America great] in order to hobble intellectual independence.

8. The Senate confirmed Dr. Oz to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Angry birds comments: f---. As with the approval of all t0000's unqualified nominations, the republican caucus looks them over for a couple of minutes, nod in agreement, say, "looks good to me" and take out the rubber stamp and waves them on through. Yes, this is "Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor" as the NYTimes refers to him.

9. Groups have been told that National Endowment for Humanities grants are canceled. "
The National Endowment for the Humanities has canceled most of its grant programs and started putting staff on administrative leave, as its resources are set to be redirected toward supporting President Trump’s priorities.

Starting late Wednesday night, state humanities councils and other grant recipients began receiving emails telling them their funding was ended immediately."

These are the items the NYTimes has listed that cover yesterday and through the morning today, 4.4.2025.

The good news is that, even though t0000 and his buffoons keep doing all this stuff, some serious cracks in the facade have begun to form. evidenced by the special elections this last Tuesday. While Republicans still won the 2 seats in Florida in the special elections, the margin was about half what it was in t0000's win in November. People not usually engaged in following politics are speaking at the ballot box: they don't like what's going on.

 

[barnswallow]

Here are the last two days' 'Morning Memo' from Talking Points Memo. They do a great job of summarizing the most pertinent developments and provide useful links for those who want to delve more deeply into any one issue.

Trump’s Tariffs Are A Colossal Self-Own For The Ages

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Morning Memo [TPM;4.3.25]

%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%**%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*

Laura Loomer Says Jump. Trump Asks How High.

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Morning Memo [TPM;4.4.25]

 

[barnswallow]

Truth Matters on Substack

This is a really great piece by the New York Times featuring Binyamin Applebaum is really well worth a watch.

substack.com

More on tariffs - the ludicrous calculation that determined the percentages levied on each country, using Lesotho as an example of what absurdity looks like.

 

[barnswallow]

Definitely tip-toeing toward conspiracy theories with this one but I find it plausible. How else to explain turning against our allies, trying to tank the economy and hollowing out all government agencies that protect us?

I’ll leave it to you to decide . . .

We seriously need to talk about the debt ceiling

Will Elon Musk and Mike Johnson use their influence and power to bankrupt the United States? Republicans who aren't on board with a global catastrophe must prepare to block them.

america2.news

We seriously need to talk about the debt ceiling [America 2.0 (Dave Troy);12.3.24]

 

[barnswallow]

I’m putting up some questionable theorizing this evening. Is it all factual and accurate? Is it generally describing an accurate picture of what is happening or just rabbit hole speculation??? Maybe a bit of both. Anyhow:

Paul Krugman is Wrong

Why don't liberal pundits understand what's happening?

open.substack.com

Paul Krugman Is Wrong [Liminal News with Daniel Pinchbeck;4.3.25]

Sub-title: “Why don’t liberal pundits understand what’s happening?”

I don’t know who Daniel Pinchbeck is. The bio he says he’s written a couple of books . . .
Here I am, a day later. I went and did a search about him and he is a legit writer but his subject is not typically politics but hallucinogens, shamanism and as Wikipedia lists them, “Entheogens, Mayanism, New age philosophy, ecology and technology.” He’s been published in the NYTimes, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Esquire. He’s written a NYTimes best seller. On the other hand, Wikipedia notes at the top of the entry, “This biography of a living person relies on a single source” and “A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.” So, all together, I’ll assume this one has a vivid imagination and to take this one with a grain of salt.

 

[barnswallow]

Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’

Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI.

www.wired.com

Inside Elon Musk's 'Digital Coup' [Wired; 3.13.25]

Subtitle: "Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI."

 

[barnswallow]

From Wikipedia, a little about:
“Andrew Tobias (born April 20, 1947) is an American writer. He has written extensively about investment, as well as politics, insurance, and other topics.[1] He is also known for writing The Best Little Boy in the World, a 1973 memoir – originally pseudonymous – about life as a gay man. From 1999 until 2017, he was treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.”

He has a daily blog he’s been writing since 1996! It’s short and I like it for explaining economic concepts in easy-to-understand small packages. Although, for me, the 'economy' remains an enigmatic box that I mostly avoid trying to understand. Tobias mixes in current events and whatever interests him on a particular day. He also links to thinkers whose interpretations he considers worthwhile. I decided to go check out what he’s been saying about t0000’s imposition of gargantuan tariffs on countries around the world, amped up and slammed down on 2 April.

Of course, that’s been the topic he’s focused on for the last 6 days.

Here are links to a few of his posts.

Bob’s Sandwich / So Awful, Even Introverts Are Here

andrewtobias.com

Bob’s Sandwich / So Awful, Even Introverts Are Here [Andrew Tobias’ Money & Other Subjects;4.5.25]

And . . .

Fareed Makes Everything Clear

Chris Murph says Trump's tariffs are another tool for staying in power forever. Watch (2 minutes). I think he's right but note that Trump's tariff-philia p

andrewtobias.com

Fareed Makes Everything Clear [andrew Tobias: Money &Other Subjects;4.7.25]

I particularly like the short clip at the top. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks about his view on what the tariffs are really about, which totally makes sense, especially in the context of the other destructive, intrusive actions t0000 has taken: attacking universities, law firms and now business. It’s the push against democracy and toward authoritarianism.

One more, for good measure.

Oh Boy, Oh Boy! Listen Or Watch

Last night's Lawrence O'Donnell, if you missed it, was a home run. Here is the first segment, which seems to be unrestricted. To watch the full episode, y

andrewtobias.com

Oh Boy, Oh Boy! Listen Or Watch [Andrew Tobias: Money &Other Subjects;4.8.25]

If you open the link to this last Andrew Tobias post [4.8.25] I've listed and click on the Lawrence O’Donnell link at the top of the post and let it run from one video to the next, you’ll hear some great reporting and interviews: Senator Chuck Schumer talking about Senator Corey Booker’s record-setting filibuster speech . . . 20 some hours, non-stop. Senator Elizabeth Warren talking about the tariffs and more. Democrats are taking actions insofar as they are able, considering they are in the minority in both legislative houses. That includes the smart move of holding town hall meetings in deeply red districts around the country. This action fills the hole left by republicans’ absence from all town hall assemblies because they can’t take the heat. They held a few, early on, but, as a group, they all decided to stay home rather than hear from their angry constituents. Democrats are filling that gap. Good move.

 

[barnswallow]

I had planned to put this in the BLM thread but I’m putting it here because it made me hopeful as a sign of resistance and resilience. Along with the nation-wide protest (just the first) of last weekend and resistance from some law firms and some universities. We need more but these feel like the first signs of spring: irrepressible and diffuse sprouts of greenery, trees flowering, birds arriving and creatures awakening from hibernation.

National Park Service Restores Harriet Tubman Material to Underground Railroad Web Page

The page had been edited to remove material about the antislavery leader. Other government pages have been changed or deleted amid efforts to scrub references to diversity and inclusion.

www.nytimes.com

National Park Service Restores Web Page Featuring Harriet Tubman [NYTimes;4.8.25]

Sub-title: “The page had been edited to remove material about the antislavery leader. Other government pages have been changed or deleted amid efforts to scrub references to diversity and inclusion.”

 

[barnswallow]

Recently, Laura Loomer, an informal ‘advisor’ (I think that is how she is described), visited t0000 in the Oval Office and told him to fire certain officials. Here is an explanation about one of those firings, General Timothy Hough, who headed the National Security Administration [NSA] and further, was head of Cyber Command. From Senator Adam Schiff [D-CA]:

Trump is Handing Our National Security to... Who?

A right-wing troll is firing top national security professionals across the Trump administration. Let's talk about how that makes all of us less safe.

substack.com

Oh. Looking further up this thread, I did post about this: Post #128. Aside from endangering all Americans through firing this expert, the other important takeaway is to recognize the type of person who t0000 is taking advice from.: across the board, he has extremely questionable people advising him.

 

[barnswallow]

Here’s a guest opinion in the NYTimes about the prison in El Salvador that the U.S. is sending people to from this country without due process in a court of law. In fact, the t0000 administration openly defied a judge’s order to turn the first 2 planes around mid-flight. Once the people were in El Salvador, t0000 has said he is unable to bring them back.

Opinion | We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid

Trump is seeking to establish a truly chilling proposition: that no one can stop his administration from imprisoning anyone it wants, anywhere in the world.

www.nytimes.com

We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid [NYTimes;4.9.25]

By Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence H. Tribe

Mr. Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Tribe is an emeritus university professor of constitutional law at Harvard.

Here’s the start to the opinion:

“Of all the lawless acts by the Trump administration in its first two and a half months, none are more frightening than its dumping of human beings who have not had their day in court into an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador — and then contending that no federal court has the authority to right these brazen wrongs.

“In an astounding brief filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, the solicitor general of the United States argued that even when the government concedes that it has mistakenly deported someone to El Salvador and had him imprisoned there, the federal courts are powerless to do anything about it. The Supreme Court must immediately and emphatically reject this unwarranted claim of unlimited power to deprive people of their liberty without due process.

“That would seem to be the obvious response. It was Thomas Jefferson who called the right of habeas corpus to protect against unlawful detention one of the “essential principles of our government.””

That was yesterday.

Today the Supreme Court did rule on the case about Kilmer Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador immigrant, married, with children in America, and having no criminal record. The government must attempt to bring him back to the U.S. The vote was unanimous, which is great. But it has been criticized for being weakly stated.

SCOTUS Orders Trump Admin To ‘Facilitate’ Return Of Abrego Garcia

The Trump administration must “facilitate” the release of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, the...

talkingpointsmemo.com

SCOTUS Orders Trump Admin To ‘Facilitate’ Return Of Abrego Garcia [Talking Points Memo;4.10.25]

Sub-title : “But the high court leaves unclear what measures judges can demand of the government to ‘effectuate’ his release.”

 

[barnswallow]

while listening to a podcast episode from ‘Conspirituality’, I heard the following description of the prison in El Salvador:

It is a “mega-prison known as CECOT ( c-cot was how they pronounced it), which is El Salvador’s terrorism confinement center where 268 Venezuelan men deported under the t0000 administrations’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act are being held in limbo on zero charges, most of which are held because they simply have tattoos and this is on the invitation of the Bukele administration, which has basically intimidated the judiciary there into accepting holding foreign nationals for cash payments. Kristi Nome [my note:the podcasters are describing the prison because they are talking about the U.S. Homeland Security director’s visit there] is standing in front of a cage where stacking bunks that are 3 stories high . . .”

I’ll just link to the whole episode. This is a new podcast for me and I’m only 13 minutes in. This episode is about Curtis Yarvin, one of the whack job influencers who hangs with the likes of peter thiel and jd vance and is anti-democracy, claiming that self-governance (i.e. democracy) denies people’s freedoms, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

251: Who Is Curtis Yarvin? — Conspirituality

We look at Curtis Yarvin, a man who has the ear of those reshaping our world at breakneck speed.

www.conspirituality.net

Who Is Curtis Yarvin [conspirituality; episode #251.4.3.25]

 

[barnswallow]

This one is about the government (i .e. the t0000 regime*) targeting people and universities and law firms, threatening them, instilling fear, and forcing them to acquiesce or suffer consequences.

I’ll digress for a moment. Remember back to President Biden’s tenure when t0000 hammered home the idea that Biden was weaponizing the government? The Republican/MAGA-dominated Congress opened a committee, the select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. Here’s a reminder:

House passes 'weaponization of the federal government' panel among 1st week priorities

The House voted Tuesday on a new subcommittee to look at what Republicans call the "weaponization of the federal government," one of several goals GOP leaders outlined.

abcnews.go.com

House passes 'weaponization of the federal government' panel among 1st week priorities [ABC News;1.10.23]

Sub-title: “The Judiciary subcommittee would have power to review those investigating Trump.”

At this point, AG Merrick Garland had very, very carefully and very, very slowly appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, to investigate the January 6, 2021 event and the classified documents case at Mar-a-Lago. That’s a whole other topic. The point is republican/MAGAs were hell-bent to frame these investigations as SO unfair.

My point in bringing that up here is to hammer down on the point that when they accuse democrats of something, it’s almost always a fabricated case and pure projection of what they themselves want to do but to the tenth power.

That brings us back to the present day.

Listen to Suri Crowe describe some of the outrageous weaponization of the federal government taking place now, obscenely, in contradiction to the democratic norms and protections afforded by the Constitution.


Trump Pulls MOST DANGEROUS Stunt Yet in Oval Office [MTN;4.12.25]

Blurb: “Chilling attacks on our constitutional rights! The Trump regime is going all in with authoritarian attacks on First Amendment freedoms. Trump is now issuing executive orders calling for criminal investigations against former employees who merely spoke the truth about him. And the Republican warpath extends to American citizens just returning from vacations abroad. MeidasTouch contributor Suri Crowe has the chilling details of just how far this regime is willing to reach.”

____________
* I still have a hard time using the word ‘regime’. It doesn’t square with what the U.S. government has been. But we are in a new and different circumstance. Best to try to use the words that apply.

 

[barnswallow]

Here’s Bernie Sanders talking about his and AOC’s ‘Fighting Oligarchy Tour’. He says a lot of the important stuff out loud about the facts of our economy and government’s (both republican’s and democrat’s) role in perpetuating a fundamentally misanthropic polity and how we need to make changes and his proposal for how to do that.


Republicans are Taking Notice of our Fighting Oligarchy Tour. Good. [Bernie Sanders;4.12.25]

*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*

And here’s my weekend go-to, the Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse talking about this week’s news.

From an economic analysis standpoint, these two (Bernie and Reich) recognize the problem similarly and propose similar solutions. I love Reich for his clear, conversational, erudite style.


Is Trump F***ing the Economy? | The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich [Robert Reich;4.12.25]

Blurb: “The Trump tariff roller-coaster goes off the rails.The mad king makes a mockery of the rule of law.The Reverse Robin Hood budget bill begins.Heather and I break down this week's news — and take a sneak peek at my new memoir — on today's Coffee Klatch.
______________________
Don't forget, you can also listen to this as a podcast on...SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.c...APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple...SUBSTACK: https://robertreich.su...