Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has told advisers that if diplomacy or any initial targeted U.S. attack does not lead Iran to give in to his demands that it give up its nuclear program, he will consider a much bigger attack in coming months intended to drive that country’s leaders from power, people briefed on internal administration deliberations said. Negotiators from the United States and Iran are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Thursday for what appears to be last-ditch negotiations to avoid a military conflict. But Mr. Trump has been weighing options for U.S. action if the negotiations fail. Though no final decisions have been made, advisers said, Mr. Trump has been leaning toward conducting an initial strike in coming days intended to demonstrate to Iran’s leaders that they must be willing to agree to give up the ability to make a nuclear weapon.” ~~~
~~~ Erica Solomon, et al., of the New York Times: “A second day of antigovernment protests erupted on university campuses in Iran’s two largest cities..., despite a deadly state crackdown on unrest. The protests took place on at least seven university campuses in Tehran, the capital, and in the northeastern city of Mashhad, according to accounts from student groups. They come as Iran’s clerical leaders struggle to manage uprisings at home and a looming risk of war with Washington.”
Well, well, "John Barron" is back, this time to knock the Supremes for declaring unconstitutional the tariffs imposed by Barron's alter-ego. (Also, "Barron" insults Hakeem Jeffries & Chuck Schumer. Thanks to RAS for the link.
Edith Olmstead of the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News (February 20): "If Donald Trump’s administration really wants to find evidence of foreign interference in Georgia’s elections, then they need look no further than the president’s old friend Elon Musk and his shady super PAC. Members of the Georgia State Elections Board voted Wednesday to issue a formal letter of reprimand to Musk’s America PAC over the billionaire technocrat’s illegal scheme to get Trump elected.... In October 2024, the Georgia secretary of state’s office launched an investigation after receiving numerous reports from residents across several counties saying they’d received partially prefilled absentee ballot applications from Musk’s America PAC, according to John Fervier, the State Elections Board’s chairman. There was evidence to suggest America PAC had violated a state law that prohibits any person or entity, other than an authorized relative, to send an elector an absentee ballot application prefilled with the elector’s required information...."
Michele Price of the AP: “The U.S. Secret Service announced Sunday that an armed man was shot and killed after entering the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago.... Although Trump often spends weekends at his resort, he was at the White House during this incident. First lady Melania Trump was also with the president. The name of the person who was shot has not been released. According to the Secret Service, he was 'observed by the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can.' The incident took place at 1:30 a.m. Sunday.” A developing New York Times story is here.
AP: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is suspending the TSA PreCheck and Global Entry airport security programs as a partial government shutdown continues. The programs are designed to help speed registered travelers through security lines.... Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security criticized the decision about airport security. They said on social media that the administration was 'kneecapping the programs that make travel smoother and secure' and accused them of 'ruining your travel on purpose.'”
Alexandra Stevenson & River Davis of the New York Times on the fate of trade deals other countries have made with the U.S. to avoid his punishing tariffs. “In Asia, where most of the world’s goods are made, governments had raced to do deals with Mr. Trump. The goal was to negotiate lower tariffs for their export-dependent industries. Many government leaders who brokered deals and made significant pledges faced political recrimination at home, accused of giving away too much and, at times, even sacrificing national sovereignty.... So far, China has kept Mr. Trump at a standstill in trade negotiations and could end up with a better deal than its neighbors and American allies. Now, after the court decision constraining Mr. Trump’s trade cudgel, countries throughout Asia were left wondering if they had made a mistake in quickly finalizing deals with Mr. Trump and whether existing agreements would stand.”
Ali Watkins & Amelia Nierenberg of the New York Times: “Denmark’s defense minister on Sunday rejected a plan by ... [Donald] Trump to send a 'great hospital boat' to Greenland, the Arctic island and semiautonomous territory of Denmark that Mr. Trump has long sought to acquire.... Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish defense minister, told Denmark’s public broadcaster, DR, that his government had not been made aware the plan. He said that there was 'no need for special health care efforts' in Greenland. It was not clear why Mr. Trump planned to assist Greenland with its health care. Greenlanders have the right to health care that is free at the point of use, including prescription medications, according to the Nordic regional body.” The Guardian's story is here. These stories update a story linked earlier today.
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times is a very slow-loader this morning. Update: Now it looks like a lotta sites are slow-loaders. Maybe the problem is on my end. Update 2: Art Intel tells me a lot of sites are experiencing troubles.
~~~ To the Max. Ben Johansen of Politico: “[Trump's hike in tariffs] comes less than 24 hours after he invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs up to 15 percent to address a 'large and serious balance-of-payment deficit,' which can remain in effect for no more than 150 days unless Congress authorizes an extension.” MB: You see here how incredibly childish Trump is. Obviously, the original tariffs Trump imposed were not imposed because of national security issues; otherwise, he would not have imposed tariffs on unpopulated islands. The same goes for the 10% tariffs he imposed last night; they have nothing to do with the objective of the law he invoked this time: we do not have balance-of-payments deficits with every country on Earth. Then, a few hours later, raising those same across-the-board tariffs from 10% to the maximum allowed under the law is an in-your-face "up yours" to the Supremes AND a primal scream. Clearly, this is the most unstable person who has ever had access to the nuclear codes. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ BTW, Neal Katyal, who led the successful suit against Trump's fake "national security" tariffs, says Trump's new "legal rationale" for 15% tariffs will be "very quickly" challenged in court because "his DOJ in our case told the Court the opposite. Nor does [Section 122] have any obvious application here, where the concerns the President identified in declaring an emergency arise from trade deficits, which are conceptually distinct from balance-of-payments deficits." ~~~
~~~ Ana Swanson of the New York Times: “In a news conference at the White House on Friday, Mr. Trump made a series of false claims about the economic impact of tariffs.... To the president, tariffs are ... a way to force more manufacturing back to the United States, reduce America’s reliance on foreign products and lower the trade deficit. But the economic evidence so far has not been in his favor. Instead of shifting manufacturing back into the United States, Mr. Trump’s tariffs mostly appear to have reshuffled trade, at great cost to U.S. companies. Just the day before the Supreme Court issued its ruling, the government reported annual trade data for last year, including several metrics that controverted Mr. Trump’s claims. The data showed that the trade deficit ... continued to widen in December, and that the annual trade deficit in goods last year hit a record high.”
~~~ Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “Friday was a landmark day in the Trump reign. It was refreshing to finally see someone tell this petulant man-child: 'No, you can’t do that!' And it was especially refreshing that the Supreme Court, which has been awash in its own ethics crises and acting subservient to the megalomaniac in the White House, suddenly found a spine.... And the president responded in the way he always does when he doesn’t get his way: with a Regina George hissy fit.... Trump was barking up the wrong tree [when he accused Roberts, Gorlich & Barrett of being '... lap dogs for the RINOs and the radical left.'] Until now, [they] have been lap dogs for Trump, helping to upend Roe, giving him immunity for nearly all official acts, weakening the Voting Rights Act, letting DOGE get its grimy little hands on private data and allowing Elon Musk’s backpack wolf pack to slash the federal work force.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Steve Vladeck says commentators have made way too much of the Court's decision: “I think it’s wrong to celebrate the ruling as some kind of turning point in the Court’s relationship with Trump, just as I think it’s wrong to denounce it as a cynical move by justices concerned primarily about the economy as opposed to about fidelity to neutral legal principles. This was not a case about the President’s constitutional power, but about the meaning of a 49-year-old statute that doesn’t mention tariffs and that’s never previously been used as a basis for them. And although IEEPA is triggered by the President’s declaration of an amorphously defined 'emergency,' the question before the Court wasn’t whether this was an emergency..., but rather whether, even in emergencies, the statute authorizes tariffs. Holding that the answer is 'no' doesn’t tell us anything especially important about executive power in general, or even about the President’s powers under statutes other than IEEPA. In the same vein, I think it’s wrong to hold Friday’s ruling out as somehow absolving the Court of its deeply problematic behavior on Trump-related emergency applications....” Read on. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Most Corrupt Administration in History, Ctd. Josh Marshall on the Lutnick grift (here Marshall recaps his September 2025 article [linked below], and adds content to bring his earlier post up-to-date): "... Trump insiders, especially the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, have reportedly made huge, huge bets on the tariffs being tossed. They and their clients now, per a July report that prompted a Senate investigation, stand to make tens or even hundreds of billions on those refunds. Given that Lutnick is a primary player in White House tariff policy, I’m pretty confident that they’re going to find a way to issue those refunds.... Keep an eye on this. There could be crazy sums at stake." (Also linked yesterday.)
This is not what a normal, sane person does ~~~
~~~ Trump Tells Netflix to Fire Susan Rice Or Else. Sophie Brams of the Hill: Donald “Trump on Saturday called on Netflix to fire former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice from its board of directors after she warned about an 'accountability agenda' if Democrats regain power in the upcoming elections. 'Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what???' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. Rice argued during a podcast this week that corporations, media companies, law firms and universities that 'take a knee' to Trump should not expect Democrats to 'forgive and forget.'... Rice suggested those entities were aware of the possibility of an electoral shift happening in the midterms, pointing to Trump’s fledgling approval ratings.... She further noted that companies were already being told to 'preserve their documents' and be 'ready for subpoenas.'”
Jones Hayden of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Saturday said he is going to dispatch a hospital ship to Greenland.... 'Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there. It’s on the way!!!” Trump said in a post on social media alongside an illustration of the U.S. hospital ship the Mercy.... Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen earlier this month called the continuing U.S. pressure over Greenland 'unacceptable,' in remarks at the Munich Security Conference.... On Sunday, Frederiksen extolled Denmark’s health care system, without mentioning the hospital ship being deployed by Trump.... According to media reports, Trump’s post came hours after Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command said it had evacuated a American crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenland’s waters.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sure is curious that Trump is super-concerned about the health of Greenlanders (who already get free health care) even as he readily made health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans and in ten years has never kept his promise to put forward a Trump health policy (although he has employed a health secretary who is encouraging disastrous healthcare epidemics and setbacks).
Persona Non Grata. Rob Copeland of the New York Times: “In a response to a lawsuit filed last month by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, said for the first time late Friday that it cut off more than 50 Trump accounts in February 2021, shortly after Mr. Trump’s first term ended. The accounts included those for Trump hotels, housing developments and retail shops in Illinois, Florida and New York, as well as Mr. Trump’s personal private banking relationship that handled his inheritance from his father, according to letters filed to the court. JPMorgan did not specify in those letters a specific reason for the mass account closings. In one unsigned note to Mr. Trump, dated Feb. 19, 2021, the bank wrote that he would need to 'find a more suitable institution with which to conduct business.' The letter closed with, 'Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter' — a phrase that Mr. Trump himself is fond of using.” The AP's story is here.
Here again, Trump is not the only guy in his administration who lets unfounded theories & personal prejudices define policies that hurt millions of people. ~~~
Lauren Weber, et al., of the Washington Post: “Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years campaigning against vaccines, but with the flu shot, he’s suggested it’s personal. Kennedy has linked his strained, raspy speech to the vaccine, despite several medical experts saying there is no scientific evidence to support that claim. Federal guidance revised under Kennedy last month, while the United States is experiencing a hard-hitting flu season, no longer recommends routine flu vaccines for children and adolescents. The day after he assumed office a year ago, he ordered the end of a government ad campaign encouraging flu vaccination.... The vast majority of children who die of the flu are not vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the current season, pediatric deaths have reached 71, about a 4 percent increase from last season at this time.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Sam Levin of the Guardian: “Department of Justice prosecutors across the US have suffered a string of embarrassing defeats in their aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against people accused of 'assaulting' and 'impeding' federal officers. In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.... In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false. Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case.... Still, the costs for defendants ... have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months.”
Paul Krugman (February 20): “Many discussions of inequality in America fail to grapple with the way we have become an oligarchy, with a large share of income, an even larger share of wealth, and a huge amount of political power accruing to a very small number of people. One still sees discussions of the 'elite' that focus on the top 20 percent or the top 10 percent, when the real action is much further up the scale. Never mind the 1 percent. To understand what’s happening to us, we need to focus on the 0.1 percent, the 0.01 percent, even the 0.00001 percent.... The ultra-rich — the 0.1 percent, the 0.01 percent, the 0.00001 percent — pay much lower tax rates than the merely rich [who also don't pay their fair share].... We were able to tax the rich for a generation after World War II, a generation during which the U.S. achieved the best growth in its history”
~~~~~~~~~~
Virginia. Gregory Schneider of the Washington Post: “Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) has signed a bill that includes new congressional maps intended to give Democrats four additional seats in Congress, though the process faces significant hurdles before the maps can take effect. Spanberger signed House Bill 29 late Friday night after a rushed approval process in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Democrats are scrambling to act in time for this fall’s midterm congressional elections to counter ... Donald Trump’s push for new districts in Republican states.... Circuit Judge Jack S. Hurley Jr. acted on a suit filed by the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and two of the state’s GOP members of Congress — Rep. Morgan Griffith and Rep. Ben Cline — challenging the wording of the referendum question.... This was the second time Hurley has moved to block the redistricting.... Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (D) said Friday evening that he had filed motions with the state Supreme Court to appeal Hurley’s latest action and keep the referendum on track.”
12 comments:
Just wait until those Greenlanders receive their surprise medical bills from Fat Hitler. They won't know what hit them. And then once they are all behind on their ballooning debt payments maybe they will be more amenable to selling their land.
Gary Legum of Wonkette recreates a totally real conversation Fat Hitler had with a steel worker, 'Sir, I want to kiss you so badly.'
"Mr. President, sir, may I kiss you?
Well sir, it’s because I’m so grateful to you. Your tariffs saved my steel plant. It was done. It was kaput. We were running one shift a week. And that shift was only one hour long. And that hour included a 30-minute break for lunch. We were weeks away from shutting down this 40-year-old family business. It was that bad.
But then you came along with your tariffs. And suddenly the Chinese weren’t eating our lunch anymore. We were eating their lunch. We weren’t just eating it. We were shoving it in our faces as fast as we could scoop it up with forks instead of chopsticks, the way food is supposed to be eaten in America."
The manliest man that MAGA can imagine hallucinates big manly men unable to keep their lips off off himself. And he can't help but tell everyone about his fantasies of big manly men desiring him.
"CIA withdraws nearly 20 intelligence reports, citing bias
The CIA took the unusual step on Friday of formally withdrawing nearly 20 intelligence reports it issued over the last decade, including analysis on hot-button cultural topics such as white nationalism and family planning, after a review determined they were biased or an inappropriate use of spy agency resources."
As seen on Bluesky, Anne Applebaum posts a link to a YouTube video, of a "documentary that 1.1 million Hungarians have watched over the past week, documenting the damage that Viktor Orban's regime has done to health, education and public transportation in Hungary"
with English subtitles: The Trap
The bi-weekly weekend sermon. I called it "Trust."
Part I.
Whom do you trust?
Recent polls tell us it sure isn’t the federal government. The nation is now deeply sunk in the “Trust Depression” we’ve been slipping into for years.
Though trust in our national government tracks political party affiliation, with party members reporting significantly more trust in the government when their party is in power, recent trust measures have sunk to a new low. Overall, reported trust in government has been on a downward trend since 1958, when 78% of those asked trusted the government to do the “right thing all or most of the time.” Now, it's at an all-time low, with a rating of 17%, a depth reached even weeks before the federal government’s violent attacks on its own citizens in Minneapolis horrified much of the nation (pewresearch.org).
Aside from the administration’s blatantly color-coded immigration policies and its dishonest accounts of the Minneapolis ICE shootings, other recent news has added to the nation’s declining disappointment in its leaders. But for the stock market in which only 62% of Americans are invested, the economy is just limping along. Private employment added only 22,000 jobs in January (adpemploymentreport.com), the lowest number since the Covid epidemic, and food prices are still rising (nytimes.com).
But confidence in the government began to slide a long time ago. Unpopular wars in Vietnam and Iraq fought at enormous financial and human cost took their toll, and tax policies that favor the wealthy at the expense of the majority were hard to ignore.
The social and economic turns the nation has taken in the last half century have eroded trust in the government. When given the chance, the American people have expressed their clear desire for access to healthcare, a reasonable living wage, the removal of big money from politics, equal treatment under the law for rich and poor, and for environmental regulation. When they vote on a woman’s right to control her own healthcare, the majority consistently rejects the so-called “pro-life” agenda. The embrace of corruption at the highest level also sticks in the nation’s craw (cnn.com).
Polls asking if the nation is on the right course confirm the disappointment we feel with our government. In late 2025 over 70% of registered voters felt the country was heading in the wrong direction (news.gallup.com). Every day the gap between what people want and what the government does or doesn’t do deepens our distrust and dissatisfaction.
hmmmm...I posted this link just before the Bluesky link, saw it post, but it disappeared. Does that sometimes happen or is it related to the slow load times? Trying again with less copied text - gift link -
In a guest essay in The New York Times, Finton O'Toole on American Outrage
"If, like me, you harbor an innate dislike of the whole idea of hereditary power, this was Exhibit A in your case against monarchy. Here was an elite that could get away with anything, an upper caste that had embedded itself so deeply in the institutions of a state and in a society’s habits of obsequiousness that nothing would ever knock it off its high horse.
....
Perhaps if Mr. Trump were declared king, America would be forced to find more effective ways to hold him and his courtiers to account."
Part II.
While the Big Beautiful Bill clearly favored the wealthy minority, in 2025 the Trump tariffs cost average American households $1000 and are expected to cost them $1300 in 2026 (abcnews.com). The federal minimum wage has not been raised since July of 2009 when it was set at $7.25 an hour. Since then, CEO pay in large corporations has increased by a factor of 300 (epi.org). The Trump administration’s hobbling of the Consumer Financial Bureau has already cost consumers $19 billion dollars, further widening the gulf between the rich and the rest (apnews.com).
But there is plenty of money for politics. After 2010, when the Supreme Court decided that money is speech and loosened rules governing campaign contributions, expenditures on federal elections (adjusted for inflation) grew from approximately $8.5 billion in 2012 to $14.8 in 2024 (opensecrets.org). Though many states, including our own, have approved initiatives condemning the ocean of money in our elections, the federal government has done nothing about it.
The slew of recent pardons Trump has granted his financial and political supporters spotlights the injustices of our legal system. In addition to the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters, Trump has pardoned fake electors prepared to install him as president despite his 2020 loss, as well as dozens of fraudsters and drug dealers (wikipedia.org). His own family’s personal profit from his time in the White House is now around $4 billion (nytimes.com).
The environment just took another large hit as Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency now denies any responsibility for combating climate change (nytimes.com).
The Big Beautiful Bill will cause ten to fifteen million people to lose health insurance by 2034 (cpbb.org).
In 2026 the reasons to distrust the federal government have nothing to do with a mythical Deep State. They are all on the surface, easy to see.
Once, driving by Faith, South Dakota, named for a daughter of the Rockefeller who promised a railroad to serve it, I was surprised to hear bells pealing out the strains of “Come All Ye Faithful” across the otherwise silent plains. By then, Faith’s railroad was long gone, and I wondered if the bells’ joyful sound meant that small town still had faith in its future.
I wonder if it does now.
Re: akaWendy's link to the Hungarian video about Viktor Orban -- "The Wasted Opportunities of the Orban Era -- you have to click on "closed captions" (CC) on the YouTube video to get the English subtitles. The parts of the video I watched sure seemed familiar!
They can never have enough slush funds.
"Trump administration officials have struggled to figure out how to increase U.S. military spending by a whopping $500 billion in their forthcoming budget, slowing the overall White House spending plan, four people familiar with the matter said.
Since Trump agreed to the higher number, White House aides and defense officials have run into logistical challenges surrounding where to put the money, because the amount is so large, the people said."
"‘John Barron’ Is Back"
Since the Danes, who have universal healthcare, have rejected the United States Hospital ship, perhaps the Pretender should direct the ship to stay here, where our citizens do not. maybe serving Louisiana first of all.
America First!
The blubbering whiny baby in the Blight House, after being told "NO...you can't put that nasty rattle in your mouth after the cat peed on it" hit the entire world with a 10% across the board tariff. Then, when he pooped his diaper some more, he added an additional 5% to everyone in the world.
As usual, this ignorant infant screws former friends and helps an historic enemy--natch!.
"Donald Trump’s new 15 per cent global tariff will most greatly benefit countries he has singled out for heavy criticism, including China and Brazil, data analysis shows.
An examination of the new regime by independent trade monitoring body Global Trade Alert found that Brazil will enjoy the biggest reduction in average tariff rates — falling by 13.6 percentage points — followed by China, with a 7.1 percentage point reduction.
Long-standing US allies including the UK, the EU and Japan will suffer the largest hit from the new levy, which the US president introduced after the Supreme Court ruled much of his previous trade policy unlawful on Friday."
So...waaaaahhhhh! Everyone sucks. I'm the greatest and everyone has to tell me so! WAAAAHHHHH!
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