Marie: I've been trying to figure out what this A.I. hoohah with Drunk Pete is all about. And I think I've finally got it now. ~~~
~~~ Adam Satariano, et al., of the New York Times: “The fight between the Department of Defense and the artificial intelligence company Anthropic has ostensibly been about a $200 million contract over the use of A.I. in classified systems. But as the two sides careen toward a 5:01 p.m. Friday deadline over terms of the contract, far more is at stake. Amid the legalese and heated rhetoric are questions being asked globally about how to use A.I., what the technology’s risks are and who gets to decide on setting any limits — the makers of A.I. or national governments.... The clash centers on the Pentagon’s use of a classified version of Anthropic’s A.I. model, Claude. The company wants to embed safeguards in its technology to prevent its use for mass domestic surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons with no humans in the loop. The Pentagon has said that it has no plans to use the technology for those purposes, but that a private contractor cannot decide how its tools will be lawfully used for national security, just as a weapons manufacturer does not determine where its missiles are dropped....
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News contributor who has lashed out at policies and companies he sees as too liberal, wants to aggressively integrate A.I. in war planning and weapons development. Mr. Hegseth is echoing his boss, President Trump, who has made the expansion of A.I. a cornerstone of his policies.But Anthropic, a five-year-old company worth about $380 billion, has staked its reputation on A.I. safety and raised concerns about the technology’s dangers, even as it has collaborated with U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. It is the only A.I. company currently operating on the Pentagon’s classified systems.”
~~~ Marie: I might agree with the Pentagon, if Dr. Strangelove & Buck Turgidson weren't running the show. But they are, and there's no trusting them to be prudent. One need look no further than down this page to see where Trump's flacks at the IRS broke the law tens of thousands of times to share confidential taxpayer information with ICE Barbie. So you don't think Drunk Pete would illegally surveil Americans if it suited him? Of if Trump told him to? Of course he would. Then he'd send it all over to Trump on an unsecure app. Like in a tweet. ~~~
~~~ For One Thing, Pete Is a Bigoted Bully. Tara Copp of the Washington Post: “Scouting America, the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts, will make several concessions to the Pentagon — including getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and limiting participation to those joining in their biological gender — to retain its longtime relationship with the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday. In exchange, the group for now will be able to keep its name and girls will still be able to join. However, Hegseth said that Scouting America will remain under a Defense Department review.... Hegseth had used the threat of pulling all military support from the group — including kicking Scout troops off military bases — to force it to make changes that better align with his personal views and those of the Trump administration.”
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in Bill Clinton's deposition before the House Oversight Committee. And other stuff: ~~~
Annie Karni: “In his opening statement, former President Bill Clinton struck a less defiant tone than Hillary Clinton did on Thursday, an acknowledgment that he did have a connection with Epstein and that he was wiling to answer questions about it. But he insisted that he never knew about Epstein’s crimes and cut off his association with him long before his first guilty plea. 'I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,' he said. 'Even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause. We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long.' Clinton expressed one note of frustration with the committee: for hauling in his wife for her own deposition. 'You made Hillary come in,' he said. 'She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing.'”
~~~~~~~~~~
How Trump Will Steal the 2028 Elections. Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: “Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.... Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.... Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is leading a review of election security that officials said focuses on foreign influence. A 2021 intelligence review concluded that China considered efforts to influence the election but did not go through with them.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket: "Voting rights experts, democracy advocates, and at least one state election chief said Trump doesn’t have the authority to claim such powers — and any attempt would be blatantly unconstitutional." Cohen cites several experts. ~~~
~~~ Then There's This. Jacob Wendler of Politico: “The Department of Justice filed suit Thursday against five additional states, demanding they share election data with the Trump administration amid its nationwide push for access to state voter rolls. With the latest wave of legal action, the DOJ has now sued more than two dozen states as a part of its push for access to voter files. Most of those states are controlled by Democrats, although the latest spate of suits includes four states — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia — who supported ... Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024 The fifth state sued Thursday was New Jersey.... Trump has repeatedly threatened to 'nationalize' elections in recent weeks, alarming election officials across the political spectrum.” The New York Times story is here.~~~
~~~ Oh, and don't forget that heavily-armed force of insurrectionist thugs Trump is prepping. (Also linked yesterday.)
Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Thursday declined to halt construction of the ballroom ... [Donald] Trump plans to build over the demolished East Wing of the White House, concluding that the lawsuit, as filed, focused on the wrong questions about the president’s authority. The ruling, for now, cleared the way for work to continue on a planned addition that preservationists fear would overshadow much of the historical campus. It came in spite of concerns raised in a federal lawsuit that Mr. Trump had rushed the approval process, funding construction using donations from companies with business before the federal government. Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington nonetheless invited the organization that filed the lawsuit to amend its arguments and focus more squarely on the president’s power under the law to make sweeping changes to the building using private funds. If it did so, he wrote that he would consider that argument 'expeditiously.' 'Unless and until plaintiff amends its existing complaint, he wrote, 'the court cannot address the merits of the novel and weighty issues raised.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
For Want of a Crisis, the Kingdom Was Lost. Paul Krugman has an interesting and fundamental theory about why our fascist is failing when Hitler & Putin succeeded.
Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: “As they made their public case this week for another American military campaign against Iran..., [Donald] Trump and his aides asserted that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, has enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days, and is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States. All three of these claims are either false or unproven. American and European government officials, international weapons monitoring groups and reports from American intelligence agencies give a far different picture of the urgency of the Iran threat than the one the White House has presented in recent days.” The link is a gift link.
Natan Odenheimer & David Halbfinger of the New York Times: “With the threat of a U.S. strike on Iran looming, the United States embassy in Jerusalem has told its workers that they may leave Israel and warned them that if they want to, it is vital that they do so immediately. The directive came from Ambassador Mike Huckabee in an email to embassy workers at the U.S. mission on Friday....”
A Mystery at Sea. Frances Robles & Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: “The Cuban government said 10 Cubans left from the United States on a Florida-registered vessel armed with assault rifles, handguns, improvised explosive devices, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms. Their goal when they arrived on Wednesday was, the government said: 'to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes.' They opened fire on the Cuban Coast Guard, the government claimed. Four of the men died and six more were wounded in the gunfight. A day later, few details have emerged about the deadly shootout, raising questions about who the men were and how and why they sailed to Cuba’s shores.... One of the survivors was initially erroneously reported to be Roberto Azcorra Consuegra, a 31-year-old activist who fled Cuba in 2017 and was home in Miami this week, fielding calls from reporters.”
Marie: I wonder how many Trump droolers Trump pays to drool. ~~~
~~~ Marcie Jones of Wonkette: “Wired reports that ... Garrett J. Wade ... makes $74,500 working in the White House as a rapid response staffer. As such, he runs the X account Johnny MAGA, which has the most pathetic Trump-fawning you ever could read, that somehow 300,000 accounts follow. Not only that, but multiple 'media outlets, including Mother Jones, TownHall, and the New York Post, have all linked out to posts on the Johnny MAGA account seemingly as organic reflections of public sentiment.' Curiously, Wade’s name and face don’t appear in many places other than on the White House payroll.... Strangely..., there is no one by that name on the official White House staff pages, Facebook, or LinkedIn, or your usual social medias. Aren’t most people who work in the White House usually proud about it? And are we sure he isn’t just taking down dictation from Stephen Miller or Corey Lewandowski?” (Also linked yesterday.)
Maya Kaufman of Politico: “In her prepared opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Thursday, Hillary Clinton suggested the panel’s monthslong Jeffrey Epstein investigation is 'partisan political theater' — not a quest for truth, transparency or accountability.... Clinton is testifying Thursday behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, but Oversight Republicans told reporters they plan to release a video of the proceedings as soon as it is approved. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will testify Friday under the same circumstances.... Representative Suhas Subramanyam, Democrat of Virginia, said the first hour of the deposition before the interruption had been an embarrassment to Republicans, turning up nothing of significance.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here is Clinton's four-page opening statement, which she posted on X. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Annie Karni of the New York Times: “Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday denied ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein or knowing anything about his crimes during a more than six-hour, closed-door deposition in front of the House Oversight Committee, which briefly devolved into chaos after a Republican lawmaker leaked a photograph of the proceedings to a right-wing blogger. Mrs. Clinton arrived to testify under oath at the Center for Performing Arts in Chappaqua, N.Y., defiant about being compelled to participate in the panel’s investigation into Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019. Both she and former President Bill Clinton, who is slated to testify on Friday, had battled with Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman, for months over subpoenas they called invalid, unenforceable and politically motivated.” This is an update of a story linked yesterday. Politico's story -- headlined in part, “You'll Have to Ask My Husband” -- is here. ~~~
~~~ UFOs & Pizzagate. Willa Robbins of Mediaite: “After being asked repeatedly about Epstein, [Hillary Clinton] was then questioned about conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, which she claimed was “the basis” for a committe[e member's] questions. 'It then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of a member’s questions to me,' she said.” ~~~
~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell wonders why committee chair Jim Comer insisted (to the point of threatening her with criminal contempt of Congress) on calling upon a former first lady who did not know Jeffrey Epstein to testify when he could have called upon the current first lady, who is known to have been a friend of Epstein's:
Jonah Bromwich & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: “... the urgent push to release the [Epstein] files resulted in the Justice Department publicizing information that prosecutors would normally take pains to keep private. The agency also released dozens of unredacted nude images on its website, showing young women or possibly minors, and re-exposed the names and identifying information of women who have accused Mr. Epstein. [A] failure to redact the [names of probable cooperating male witnesses who were being held at a Manhattan jail where Jeffrey Epstein was held] ... makes plain that it is not only the rich and powerful who have been imperiled by the rush to release the files. Their publication has also affected people from very different stations in life who never traveled to Mr. Epstein’s private island, flew on his private jet or did business with him. The revelation also raises questions about what other sensitive information might have slipped through the Justice Department’s hasty redaction process and remain, in effect, hidden in plain sight in the vast online digital repository that contains the files.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: It may seem that DOJ is not entirely at fault for failing to properly redact names and identifying information in view of the short time the department had to review millions of documents. But that's not entirely true. Donald Trump promised during his campaign that he would release the files. So DOJ should at least have sought guidance from the White House (and maybe it did!) as soon as possible after Trump became president*. That is, DOJ had about a year to carefully redact the files, not just a month or so.
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “A U.S. attorney in Miami appears to be expanding the scope of an investigation into former law enforcement and intelligence officials who were involved in scrutinizing ... [Donald] Trump during his first campaign and term.... Subpoenas issued in recent weeks from the office of the prosecutor, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, show that the office is now widening its inquiry to encompass the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. The subpoenas sought documents related to Russia’s election interference from several former officials who played lower-level roles in that inquiry. In addition, F.B.I. agents recently interviewed at least one retired agent who in 2022 was involved in deliberations with the Justice Department over opening the investigation into Mr. Trump’s plan to create a false slate of electors in swing states in an effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election....
“Already, prosecutors in the Miami office had issued subpoenas in November for documents related to a January 2017 intelligence community assessment about Russia’s election interference, and last month, they issued a second round to the same recipients seeking similar materials from an expanded date range. Altogether, the developments suggest that Mr. Reding Quiñones is making good on hopes by some allies of Mr. Trump that he would pursue a criminal investigation into what they have cast as a 'grand conspiracy,' targeting numerous former officials who had investigated the president. The idea relies on portraying disparate investigations as a unified 'deep state' plot to violate his constitutional rights.”
~~~ Marie: Trump is right that there is a "deep state," but it is not "plotting to violate his constitutional rights." Rather, the "deep state" -- or more sensibly described as the "bureaucracy' or "civil service" -- is designed to provide continuity within the federal government and an apolitical application of American laws and rules. All three branches of government contain elements of the "deep state." The courts themselves are essentially a deep-state organization. Trump is right to fight the "deep state," because it is designed to thwart his unlawful, fascist aspirations. The purpose of the "deep state" is to serve the American public and to guide & assist each new administration and each new Congress in carrying out their duties to the public. The bureaucracy is the essential estate within the government that makes the government work.
Plato believed that democracy was a failed system because rule by selfish, foolish people would ultimately lead to chaos. These ignorant people, when faced with chaos, would overcompensate by choosing a silver-tongued tyrant who promised to return law & order to the state. But the tyrant would prove to be a cruel, corrupt, self-serving dictator. You know, like Trump. Plato also believed -- again, correctly -- that governance required experts who were not only well-trained in following a nation's just laws but also were wise enough to carry out those laws. That, of course, is the very definition of our "deep state." We have survived as a modified democracy because of the deep state -- and because of our system of checks and balances. The three branches are designed to check not only each other but also any excesses and failings of the deep state that actually runs the government. We are not exactly "The Republic" Plato envisioned, but we are a better version of it.
Perry Stein & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: “FBI Director Kash Patel continued his purge Thursday of FBI agents and staff tied to the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office in 2021, firing at least a dozen agents across the country this week.... The [first] firings occurred soon after Patel told Reuters in an interview that FBI investigators during the Biden administration obtained phone data for him and current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The interview landed as Patel has been struggling to mitigate the political damage he incurred after videos emerged over the weekend of him drinking and partying with the U.S. men’s hockey team at the Olympics.... The firings are the latest example of Patel pushing out experienced FBI agents because they worked on one of the two federal investigations into Trump.”
Team of Nitwits. Karoun Demirjian, et al., of the New York Times: “The Defense Department used a high-energy laser to shoot down a drone belonging to the Department of Homeland Security over a small border town near El Paso Thursday, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to shutter the airspace nearby.... The strike was startlingly reminiscent of a similar episode earlier this month, also near El Paso. Officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, using the same technology on loan from the military..., fired a high-energy laser at what they thought was a drone, but turned out to be a metallic balloon. The F.A.A. briefly closed the airspace. In both cases, the lasers were used without the F.A.A.’s approval, which many aviation safety experts maintain is a violation of the law. The latest strike was met with alarm from Democratic lawmakers, and was sure to add to scrutiny of a seeming communications breakdown among powerful government agencies over the use of lasers in sensitive airspace.” An AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: They really don't know what they're doing. What's more, they don't care. It seems to me that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ought to call Drunk Pete & urge him to sober up long enough to tell the kids to stop playing Shoot Down the Drone over the friendly skies. And if Duffy catch ICE Barbie in a dressing room suiting up for her next photo op or playing in a queen sized bed on her luxury jet under her blankey with Lewandowski, he should tell her the same.
Ripped from the Headlines of the ICElandia Daily News:
(a) Trump's White Nationalist Agenda. Reuters, published in SABC News: "The United States (US) aims to process 4500 refugee applications from white South Africans per month, far above ... Donald Trump’s stated refugee program cap, and is installing trailers on embassy property in Pretoria to support the effort, a US contracting document said. The new target, contained in a previously unreported document from the American State Department dated January 27, signals a push to ramp up admissions from South Africa, while refugee applications from other areas have been severely curtailed." See also Anderson Cooper's "60 Minutes" report, embedded here February 24. ~~~
Aside: Say, maybe it is not only Trump's lifelong racism that has motivated him to attack Somalis and other immigrants of color. It's also a scapegoating effort: ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: "Between Trump’s statement [at the SOTU] that if the administration finds enough fraud it can balance the budget overnight, and the subsequent insistence that cuts to Medicaid are necessary because of that fraud, it sure looks like the administration is trying to distract attention from the CBO’s report that Trump’s tax cuts have cut the solvency of Social Security and Medicare by more than a decade. Instead, they are hoping to convince voters that immigrants are at fault."
(b) Help in High Places. Sharon Otterman of the New York Times: “Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered a residential building owned by Columbia University early Thursday morning and detained an undergraduate student.... Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in [a] letter that the immigration officers appeared to gain access by saying that they were searching for a 'missing person.' A state assemblyman said that he had been told by university officials that the federal agents presented themselves as Police Department officers to convince a building superintendent to let them in.... Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had brought up the student’s detention during a meeting with ... [Donald] Trump in Washington on Thursday. Just after 3 p.m., Mr. Mamdani said on social media that [Mr.] Trump had informed him that the student would 'be released imminently.' The student, Elmina Aghayeva, posted on Instagram at about 3:45 p.m. that she had been released. 'The university is relieved and thrilled that our student, Ellie, has been released from detainment,' Columbia posted on social media shortly afterward.” (Also linked yesterday.) The story has been updated. See related stories linked below under “New York City.”
(c) David Waldstein of the New York Times: “A car chase involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ended in a crash in Newark on Wednesday morning, the city’s mayor said, leaving several people, including three children, injured. ICE agents were trying to apprehend a man driving a van when the crash happened, the mayor, Ras Baraka, said. The man fled, and during the chase his van hit two other vehicles, including one containing a 12-year-old and two 15-year-olds, who the mayor said were siblings. The children were taken to a nearby hospital, and Mr. Baraka told reporters at an event in Newark on Wednesday night that the children were 'doing OK.' The episode occurred amid growing criticism that ICE tactics are too aggressive and have had fatal consequences....” (Also linked yesterday.)
(d) Here is the Washington Post's story on Nurul Amin Shah Alam, the nearly-blind Burmese refugee whom Border Patrol agents dumped in a Buffalo, New York, parking lot. Mr. Shah Alam was found dead five days later. A Guardian story was linked here yesterday.
(e) He Is Not Amused. Mitch Smith, et al., of the New York Times: “The chief federal judge in Minnesota accused federal officials of continuing to disobey judicial orders related to immigration enforcement and then mischaracterizing the scope of their missteps. The judge, Patrick Schiltz, threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt if the pattern continued, writing in a scathing order on Thursday that, 'one way or another, ICE will comply with this court’s orders.' 'The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders,' wrote Judge Schiltz, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.” Politico's story, by Kyle Cheney, is here.
(f) Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Thursday said that the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey had lost its credibility and was intentionally violating immigration-related orders, the latest rebuke from a judiciary that has grown increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration. The judge, Zahid N. Quraishi, added that if the Trump administration continued to make immigration arrests under a rationale that had already been found legally unacceptable, those arrests would most likely have to be justified through sworn testimony by administration officials. That strict standard would reflect an extraordinary lack of faith in the government and would place an additional burden on it every time it made an arrest of that nature.... Judge Quraishi is a former federal prosecutor and army veteran who was appointed as a district judge by President Biden. He previously worked as a lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: If only Trump attorney Alina Habba were still running the N.J. U.S. attorney's office, I'm sure everything would be in order.
(g) Alex Woodward of the Independent: “A federal judge reprimanded Donald Trump’s administration for claiming that an immigrant seeking his release from custody was convicted for marijuana possession in 2009 — when he was 4 years old.... Government lawyers ... submitted [a] document [they said 'indicated' the immigrant possessed marijuana in 2009] in court filings 'despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status,' West Virginia District Judge Irene Berger noted in her order to release him on Tuesday.” Thanks to RAS for the lead. They really don't know what they're doing. (Also linked yesterday.)
(h) Then There's This. Collaboration with the IRS. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: “A federal judge has found that the Internal Revenue Service violated federal law 'approximately 42,695 times' when it shared confidential taxpayer addresses with immigration enforcement officials last summer. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the ruling Thursday as part of ongoing litigation over a data-sharing arrangement between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security. Federal law requires that before the IRS hands over a taxpayer’s address, a requesting agency must first provide the IRS with the name and address of the person it’s looking for. The requirement exists to ensure that the government can access confidential tax records only for individuals it has already specifically identified. The ruling finds that DHS did not follow this law.... The case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where the government is appealing Kollar-Kotelly’s November order that blocked the data-sharing arrangement.” (Also linked yesterday.) An AP story is here.
(i) Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “A top federal prosecutor in Nashville offered a detailed description on Thursday of his decision to indict the immigrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, disclosing new facts about the origins of the case in an effort to persuade a judge that the charges had not been brought out of vindictiveness by the Trump administration. During more than three hours on the witness stand, the prosecutor, Robert E. McGuire, repeatedly insisted that no one in the administration had forced him to file charges against Mr. Abrego Garcia after he was returned to the United States in June from a wrongful deportation to El Salvador. But Mr. McGuire’s testimony in Federal District Court in Nashville nonetheless painted an extraordinary picture of senior Justice Department leaders peering over his shoulder, hurrying him along and sometimes knowing more about the case than even he — the man who was supposedly in charge of it — did.” Read on. The link is a gift link.
Jack Healy of the New York Times: “Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver will sign an executive order on Thursday that aims to shield his liberal city from the kind of chaotic immigration crackdown that upended Minneapolis this winter. His order bans federal immigration agents from city property in their operations and mandates that Denver law enforcement protect peaceful protesters at the scenes of immigration operations.... The order says that Denver’s police officers must intervene if they see immigration agents committing life-threatening abuses, an apparent reference to the two Americans fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis. It also says Denver will criminally investigate complaints against immigration authorities, despite the defiance of the federal government to such investigations in other cities.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Patrick wrote yesterday that this timely news item got a "breaking news" red banner headline. ~~~~~~ Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: “When Neanderthals and our species had babies together, the prehistoric pairings tended to follow a distinct pattern: Neanderthal dads and moms who were Homo sapiens — the same as modern humans. [Some genetic scientists have attributed the findings to] 'mate preference' as a plausible reason for the genetic patterns, a scientific term that could encompass a wide range of scenarios, from sexual coercion or violence to peaceful voluntary couplings.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ More on the sex life of Neanderthals from the New York Times.
Marie: CBS News, now under the control of Trump pal David Ellison, has become a right-wing catastrophe. Now it turns out the same thing is about to happen to CNN, which already regularly hosts some truly obnoxious MAGA stalwarts. Republicans in Congress withdrew all funding for (NPR and) PBS. So in the battle for control of teevee news, Trump has won. ~~~
~~~ Lauren Hirsch, et al., of the New York Times: “Netflix said on Thursday that it had backed away from its deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, a stunning development that paves the way for the storied Hollywood media giant to end up under the control of ... the technology heir David Ellison.... Netflix reached an $83 billion deal in December to acquire a large portion of Warner Bros. Discovery’s business, including HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio.... But Mr. Ellison..., whose bid is backed financially by his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, pledged to fight on. Paramount eventually submitted a revised offer of $111 billion, which Warner on Thursday had decreed a 'superior deal.'... Mr. Ellison ... could now control two of the town’s most famed movie studios, along with the prestige television channel HBO and the 24-hour news network CNN.... Although in some ways a traditional corporate cage match, the fight for Warner Bros. also drew political scrutiny — particularly around the closeness of Larry and David Ellison to ... [Donald] Trump, who broke precedent by declaring he would 'be involved' in the outcome.” The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Matt Gertz of Media Matters: “Another major media conglomerate teeters on the precipice of being absorbed by a deep-pocketed ally of ... Donald Trump.... Trump wanted Warner Bros. assets — particularly CNN, whose reporters he loathes — in the hands of an ally. His public statements and White House leaks made it crystal clear both that he preferred that Paramount purchase Warner Bros., and that his administration would corruptly wield its regulatory power to thwart rival bidders. And the strategy seems to have succeeded. The result reeks of a 'political deal' in which the president steered the ownership of a major news outlet to his crony. That’s unconscionable in a free society — but a familiar tactic of authoritarian leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who dismantled his country’s independent news media.... In less than a year, CBS News and the massive social media platform TikTok, along with Paramount’s movie studios, have come under the thumb of a single family of pro-Trump billionaires.... The White House and Larry Ellison have reportedly already discussed the potential firing of particular CNN hosts 'whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.'” ~~~
~~~ Michael Grynbaum & John Koblin of the New York Times: “Netflix’s stunning surrender on Thursday in its effort to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery all but assures that ... [CNN] will soon be controlled by David Ellison, the chairman of Paramount Skydance and the technology heir best known in the journalism world for his recent revamp of CBS News.... Mr. Ellison appointed Kenneth R. Weinstein, a conservative policy veteran with no experience overseeing news coverage, to serve as the [CBS] news division’s ombudsman. And he selected Bari Weiss as editor in chief, elevating an opinion journalist with a long history of criticizing old-line media institutions.”
Natallie Rocha of the New York Times: “Block, the financial technology company that owns Square, Cash App and Tidal, said on Thursday that it was cutting 40 percent of its work force as it embraced new artificial intelligence tools. About 4,000 employees are expected to lose their jobs, Jack Dorsey, the company’s top executive, said in a social media post. The cuts, made as Block reported strong financial results for its most recent quarter, are perhaps the most striking example so far of a technology company’s making plans to eliminate employees because of A.I.... Block’s share price jumped more than 26 percent in after-hours trading. Whether computer programmers — and white-collar workers in general — will be replaced by A.I. is an increasingly urgent question being asked in Silicon Valley and by politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont.”
Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: “By day, Thomas C. Goldstein was in high demand for his legal acumen, representing a Who’s Who of famous and deep-pocketed clients before the Supreme Court, as varied as Al Gore and Google. By night, Mr. Goldstein, who is also a founder of the popular SCOTUSblog website, began moonlighting as an 'ultrahigh-stakes poker player,' yielding him millions of dollars in winnings that a federal jury determined on Wednesday he had not paid taxes on. On the third day of deliberations in his tax evasion and mortgage fraud trial, one that stupefied the legal world and featured testimony from the 'Spider-Man' actor Tobey Maguire, a poker player himself, a jury convicted Mr. Goldstein on 12 of 16 criminal counts in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md. Mr. Goldstein, 55, of Chevy Chase, Md., who gave up his law practice in 2023, is awaiting sentencing on the charges, which carry the possibility of dozens of years in prison.... It was not clear if Mr. Goldstein, who testified in his own defense and maintained his innocence, would appeal the verdict.”
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New York City. Dana Rubenstein, et al., of the New York Times: The Oval Office meeting between Mayor Zohran Mamdani & Donald Trump “was the latest remarkable turn in one of the most unlikely relationships in American politics — one that has seen two men at opposite ends of the political spectrum, who have every reason to openly clash, tentatively find common ground instead.... [Mr. Mamdani said in an X post (pictured below) that he and Mr. Trump] had discussed working together on a major project to build housing in New York.... In a news release, City Hall said the mayor had proposed building a deck over [Sunnyside Yards the enormous rail yards in Queens], and then erecting 12,000 homes atop it, using $21 billion in federal grants.” ~~~
~~~ Emma Goldberg of the New York Times: Mayor Zohran “Mamdani went to Washington on Thursday carrying props: two mock-ups of a Daily News Page 1, one with the famous headline that recorded President Gerald Ford’s snubbing of New York at a moment of crisis and the other with a new faux headline celebrating the current president. 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' read the headline from 1975. Thursday’s version was tailor-made for a president whose name is emblazoned on New York skyscrapers: 'Trump to City: Let’s Build.'”
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16 comments:
So the NYT article says "modern human" females may have preferred Neanderthal mates? I've always heard that nice girls always fall for bad boys. Maybe the N's died out because after the fun motorcycle rides, the girls made them bathe, clip hair and nails, dress nice, and cook the meat. After a while, voila, ties, button downs and using tissues instead of sleeves. No more knuckle dragging.
From Democracy Docket (linked above):
"Voting rights experts, democracy advocates, and at least one state election chief said Trump doesn’t have the authority to claim such powers — and any attempt would be blatantly unconstitutional."
Exactly. Now...tell me how would that stop the Fat Fascist? He does unconstitutional six times every day before his first Diet Coke. You think the Supines will stop him?
See, this is what I worry about. Every time someone says "Well, he'd never do that...", he does it, and worse. Then gives us the finger.
They're coming up with novel schemes to steal the election, and let's be accurate with our words now. Many people are still trying to accommodate the current vogue in this Blight House for electoral rigging. We're not talking about influencing the results or simple voter suppression. All of these things together comprise a plot to Steal The Election. That's it. And anyone who thinks the Constitution is going to keep him from doing that? Hmmm...I'd like to think it could, but read about all the judges now who are calling these assholes on the carpet because despite court order after court order after more court orders, because they are STILL doing illegal and unconstitutional shit.
If he declares some kind national emergency and tells his ICE goons to clean the guns and stand by, what do we do then?
I tell you what we do. We don't wait until citizens show up to vote and have to run the gauntlet of heavily armed and masked thugs only to find out that for some reason, they're no longer on the voter roll. He's telling us what he's going to do. It's up to Democrats and citizens who believe in America to cut them off at the pass.
I'd like to say we could rely on the media but we haven't been able to do that for decades. They all got hard ons when Bush and Darth Cheney and Rumsfeld told them about Shock and Awe, and they were on board faster than passengers on the Titanic jumped into lifeboats.
Forget the media. They're just now getting their heads around the fact that Trump is "sometimes not entirely truthful".
We need to make such a stink about this that it will make it impossible for the MAGA mobsters to pull this off.
They WILL try to steal the election and we should call it that. Fat Hitler is not an influencer, he's a thief.
Wait..Woke Neanderthals? I'm having a hard time picturing Joe Neanderthal in a TucKKKer KKKarlson bow tie and spectator shoes. We used to be tough. Chicks made us stop ripping out the neighbor's throat for small offenses. Dang! Now we gotta wear bow ties and drink tea with little fingers up in the air? Civilization. Dang.
Then again, rule of law ain't so bad after all. Neither is civilization. Maybe evolving from knuckle dragging to cooking al dente pasta wasn't so terrible. Thing is, we have a ruling party that dreams of going back into the caves and doing the throat ripping stuff again. They want Manly Men who tell nasty jokes about women and sit around sharpening their Rambo knives, talking about how they're gonna cut off some Mooslim terrorist's head. They'll show 'em all. Lethality, baby!
That is, unless they run out of the right foundation in their make up room, or get a fake bone spur or something.
Seems that woke Neanderthals were both more manly AND more civilized than these MAGA jabronis.
Yesterday, I heard that interview on NPR with Sen. Tim Kaine and NPR host Ailsa Chang that Akhilleus commented on (and, no, didn't hit the brakes hard, but registered that word "Believe?")
Also during that drive, I listened to On Point with Paige Sutherland & Meghna Chakrabarti talking with guest Anand Giridharadas about The Epstein class: What the files reveal about the global elite, a topic Marie and others have commented on recently.
Interesting podcast and Giridharadas ends with a story about meeting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of "people with power and a voice and position who are totally outside of these networks, totally outside these [epstein class] commmunities".
The Lancet
"The mechanisms maintained by the Federal Government to monitor and report health concerns such as drug overdoses, maternal mortality, and food security have been as beleaguered as the doctors and scientists who rely on them; thousands of datasets are no longer publicly available, leaving Americans—and the world—unprepared to respond to future crises.
The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm."
Republicans are always happy to burn the people's money when they are in power.
Unrequested
"Congress added nearly $34 billion above the president’s fiscal 2026 defense request for more than 1,000 research and procurement programs favored by lawmakers but not necessarily by the military, according to a new report.
Congress has a duty to shape, not just rubber stamp, budget requests. But the cost of the additions is mounting each year, while no audits have assessed how many of them have yielded useful weapons. Moreover, the process of choosing the projects is inscrutable to the press and public, while the names of the projects’ proponents are mostly undeclared. And the spending regularly goes to entities that have bankrolled congressional campaigns, raising ethical questions, critics say."
No need for convicted tax evader Goldstein to appeal. He won't have to travel very far to solicit a pardon....from another tax evader.
Wendy,
I may not have been clear when I mentioned hitting the brakes during that Tim Kaine interview. I meant that I hit the brakes (I was driving at the time and the braking was more metaphorical than actual). My whole point was that at this point in US history, it is incumbent on the media, especially media outlets that aren't explicitly on the side of treason and disinformation to be as accurate as they can. Tim Kaine doesn't "believe" the Constitution allows Congress to make certain decisions, he knows they do. Characterizing it as a belief seems to suggest that others can believe differently.
Marie points out, correctly, that the DOI (Dept. of Injustice) had a year to review and redact the millions of pages of the Epstein File, which, based on Fatty's promise to release this information, any normal department would have begun work on toot sweet.
But not this department, and not this administration. In fact, nothing was done until Congress passed a law giving Eva Braun a deadline for turning over the files. Neither she nor her pedophile protecting crime boss ever had any intention of releasing this information. Oh, wait...he promised he'd do that during his campaign? Right. Because so many of this campaign promises have been fulfilled. The guy just says shit. This sort of "promise" is all of a piece with his promise to release his tax returns, to come up with a big, beautiful healthcare plan, to end Russia's war on Ukraine, to do this, that, the other thing....
They never had any intention of making the Epstein File public, so why waste time fooling with it. However, when it became necessary to release SOMETHING, Eva Braun and her little trolls had to scurry to make sure the millions of references of Donald Trump were scrubbed as much as possible. Hey, if a bunch of survivors names were released unreacted, including pictures of them in the altogether, no biggie. They have no say in the matter. All that counts is what the fat king wants.
Oh great. So now Fatty, through his billionaire pals the Ellisons, will now control CNN as well as Fox and CBS. I guess now we'll have a whole night of insufferable, smirking assholes like Scott Jennings. Or worse, they may decide to hire TuKKKer or bring on some far-right YouTube influencers who inhabit the stinking swamps of MAGA treason and hatred.
Another good idea raped by Fat Hitler. Ted Turner came in for a lot of chuckles when he started CNN in 1980 and it ran for almost 50 years, but it will soon come to an end as even a pretend news network. Once the Ellisons get their clutches on it, they'll be taking orders from the Orange Monster about what to cover and how. Look for the sort of endless liberal-democracy-minority bashing and outright lying that are the hallmarks of Fox and rapidly becoming the gold standard on CBS.
Look for an exodus of actual journalists from CNN when this deal goes through.
Oh yeah, and don't forget, the First Grifter bought stock in Warner and Netflix, $2 million worth of stock in companies involved in a potential buyout over which HE has control.
Oh, yeah, the link to that story is on CNN. Such reportage will never again be seen on that website.
They're following the totalitarian playbook right down to the last page.
Fake fucking children. They are going to make people hesitate to help missing children in the near future because they have no ethics or standards.
More on Columbia student's abduction.
"They said they were police looking for a missing kid.
Security camera even captures them showing pictures of the "kid.""
Robert Reich
"The richest man owns X.
The second and third richest men control Google.
The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.
And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros."
And any conscience or ethics or public responsibility that any of these losers may have once had has long ago been worn away by greed and personal ambition.
Cruelty is the Point
"911 calls capture kids burning with fever, struggling to breathe at ICE detention center
EMS crews were called to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas at least 11 times since September for children in medical distress, records show."
NBC News
"Justice Department indicts 30 more in anti-ICE church protest in Minnesota
A total of 39 defendants now face charges in the case that has already ensnared journalist Don Lemon, formerly of CNN."
MAHA
"Florida’s Department of Health is using emergency rules to cut about 12,000 people off from affordable access to their HIV/AIDS medication starting Sunday. The Department’s emergency rules were filed Tuesday, one day ahead of a hearing in a legal challenge to the state over changes to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program."
Monopoly Away
"One of the most significant mergers in Hollywood history may have cleared federal antitrust review — a week before it was even announced.
On Feb. 20, Paramount declared that its deal for Warner Bros. Discovery had passed the statutory waiting period that enables the Department of Justice to preemptively block mergers. Paramount’s chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, was looking to expedite the process should Netflix’s offer fall through — which it did on Thursday.
Though the Department of Justice could still seek to intervene, as a practical matter the process may now be in the hands of state attorneys general."
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