June 13, 2026

A Mass-Murderer AND a Racist. TC Sottek of the Verge: “Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO will probably make him the richest person to ever walk the planet. And while his mountain of horrible personal conduct could fill multiple books, one fact in particular stands out: A year ago, Musk’s actions directly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He did it knowingly. And, worse — gleefully.This is not a serious person, but his abuse of the world is deadly serious. In the first months of ... Donald Trump’s second term, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) destroyed the US Agency for International Development, whose mission was a boon to public health around the globe. Musk called the lifesaving agency a 'criminal organization' and blithely celebrated spending a weekend 'feeding USAID into the wood chipper.' It was a good reference if you want everyone to think you’re the killer in Fargo. Mission accomplished, Elon.... A tracker co-created by Boston University professor Brooke Nichols projected over 780,000 deaths — mostly of children, many of infants — due to the Trump administration’s early-2025 USAID cuts, caused by malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and more. These deaths were widely predicted from the beginning, a direct, known, and undeniable consequence of DOGE’s actions.” 

    ~~~ Read on. There's lots more. This is an excellent & fairly short piece that directly exposes Musk for the bag o'dirt that he is. Nothing we haven't covered before, but a good synthesis of what we know. See related Musk articles linked below.

Ben Casselman of the New York Times: “Two events from the past week help crystallize this strange, contradictory moment for the U.S. economy. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the surge in energy prices had wiped out a year and a half of wage gains for the average American worker. On Friday, the public-markets debut of SpaceX made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. That stark juxtaposition helps explain why many Americans, in survey after survey, say they no longer believe the U.S. economy is working for them. A few people are getting fabulously, unimaginably wealthy at the same time that entire generations of families worry they will never be able to afford to buy a house, raise children or enjoy a comfortable retirement.... The explosion of wealth at the very top is without precedent in U.S. history. At the height of the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, the richest handful of Americans had a net worth equivalent to about 3 percent of the country’s annual economic output.... Today, the fortunes of the same 0.00001 percent — about 20 individuals — make up roughly four times as large a share, equivalent to 12 percent of annual output.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course our "concerned," "populist" president* has nothing to do with it. Earlier this week -- as Trump was planning to take a nap at a Knicks-Spurs game, then leave early -- a reporter asked him about the cost of tickets to the games, which was far beyond the reach of most Americans. Trump said, "They can watch it on television.... But that’s the way life goes.... That’s the way life is, you know." Of course "life" wouldn't "go" quite that way if Trump and his Congressional captives had adopted a much more progressive income tax system, and closed loopholes so billionaires like him couldn't get away with paying only a tiny percentage of their income in taxes.

Marie: Like me, Patrick seems a little frustrated with the slow, concealed removal of Trump's name from the front face of the Kennedy Center. He writes, "I think the workers removing DiJiT from the KenCen facade are much too fastidious," and suggests the workers employ the technique the U.S. Army used in April 1945 at Zeppelinfeld in Nurnberg,Germany:

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Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump’s name is now being taken off the Kennedy Center. Crews at the performing arts venue started removing it from the front of the building around 3 a.m., several hours after the center missed a federal judge’s two-week deadline to do so. The judge had ruled that the decision by the center’s board of trustees to rename it was illegal.... Around midnight, the center filed a request to extend the deadline to noon Saturday, saying storms had delayed the work, capping a day of construction work and a flurry of legal maneuvering. A crowd had gathered in front of the arts venue to watch.... Hours before Friday’s deadline, two courts denied the Kennedy Center’s last-ditch attempt to delay the removal, even as crews erected scaffolding next to the building.  U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled at 1 p.m. that the Kennedy Center’s lawyers failed to demonstrate they were likely to win their appeal or that the center would suffer 'irreparable harm' if Trump’s name were removed. At 3:46 p.m., Justice Department lawyers representing the center appealed Cooper’s denial, filing an emergency motion for a stay with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Shortly after 7 p.m., the appeals court denied the second attempt. A demonstrator broke the news to more than 100 people at a Hands Off the Arts rally in front of the Kennedy Center. The crowd erupted in cheers.... [Later, in the wee hours of Saturday morning,] crews draped tarp around the scaffolding, shielding the sign from view.” A New York Times liveblog is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Devan Cole & Betsy Klein of CNN: “A little after 3 a.m., crews appeared to be removing the letters, video shot through a small opening in the scaffolding covering showed.... The appeals court did not explain its reasoning for its decision [to uphold Judge Cooper's order] in a brief, unsigned ruling. The panel included Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee; Patricia Millett, an appointee of former President Barack Obama; and Robert Wilkins, also an Obama appointee.”

~~~ Earlier Yesterday. Dan Mangan of CNBC: “A federal judge on Friday rejected a last-minute bid to block his order directing ... Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Trump administration had asked that Judge Christopher Cooper stay his May 29 ruling in U.S. District Court in D.C. pending a new appeal of that decision. Cooper’s rejection came on the day of the deadline of his order that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center, the performing arts landmark named after the late President John Kennedy. 'Defendants have not carried their burden to establish that a stay of the Court’s ... permanent injunction concerning the Kennedy Center’s renaming is warranted pending an appeal of the underlying ruling to the D.C. Circuit,' Cooper wrote in his order. 'Most notably, for the detailed reasons laid out in the Court’s ruling, Defendants have not “made a strong showing that [they] are likely to succeed on the merits,’” the judge wrote.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: “The Washington National Opera on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Kennedy Center to turn over $17 million in gifts and donations to the opera company. The Kennedy Center has 'wrongfully held' years’ worth of donor gifts, bequests and endowment funds that belong to the opera, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, five months after the two institutions ended a roughly 15-year formal affiliation.” The New York Times story is here.

That Bloomin' Algae. Kinnia Cheuk of Politico: “The newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool seems unable to escape an old scourge: algae blooming in the shallow water. Thin layers of algae floated on the World War II Memorial side of the pool Friday morning, even after workers were seen cleaning out algae from the bottom of the pool Wednesday. An Interior Department spokesperson said that the current algae is “residual” from supply lines that sat dormant for eight weeks during construction. The residue is part of the normal startup process, the spokesperson said. As part of the project, NPS also invested in a new nanobubbler filtration system, while a dedicated crew will also maintain the grounds from wildlife.”

Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising signs, films and other materials at national parks across the country to comply with a directive from ... [Donald] Trump. The ruling pauses enforcement of an executive order that called for removing or covering up materials at national parks that 'inappropriately disparage Americans' or cast the United States 'in a negative light.' The judge, Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, also ordered the Park Service to restore within three weeks any exhibits that it had dismantled or altered.... To comply with the president’s directive, the Park Service has taken down plaques about slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, a sign about climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a sign about Indigenous people at Acadia National Park in Maine. Another federal judge has already ordered the Park Service not to make further changes to the slavery exhibit ... [in Philadelphia], as she considers a separate lawsuit filed by [the city]. Judge Kelley, who was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sharply rebuked the Trump administration for taking down materials. 'Not only does this undermine the integrity of the national parks; it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization,' she wrote.” (Also linked yesterday.) The Guardian's story is here.

Too Bad! Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Friday declined to block the White House from holding cage fights on the South Lawn on ... [Donald] Trump’s birthday, just days before the Sunday event was set to take place. Responding to a last-ditch emergency motion, Judge Amit P. Mehta wrote in a 15-page opinion that it was not clear that the two individuals who sued over the Ultimate Fighting Championship matches would be sufficiently harmed by the one-off event to give them legal standing to challenge it. The two claimants had argued that the use of the White House and Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop for fights could provide an inappropriate financial benefit to the private company that arranged it. But Judge Mehta wrote that they failed to detail how their interests outweighed those of everyone involved in bringing the project to fruition. The organizers, Judge Mehta wrote, 'point to the near yearlong planning of the event; coordination with multiple government agencies, including the Secret Service; site work that began May 20 and has involved between 700 to 900 workers; multiple equipment deliveries; event ticketing logistics; and preparations of the contracted U.F.C. fighters.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ It's a Flight Hazard. Aaron Parnas in Meidas News: “A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career.... According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described the incident as '10 times worse than any laser illumination event' the pilot ever experienced.... Following the incident, the pilot filed reports with both the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), a confidential reporting program....” MB: Now I'm sorry I made fun of this tacky Trump for-profit operation. This is not funny.

Mark Landler & Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: “In the two months since the U.S. and Iran nominally declared a cease-fire, the line between peace and war has been all but erased across the Middle East, with attacks and counterattacks alongside promises to end the hostilities that never quite materialize. It is less a cease-fire than a 'lesser fire,' in the words of the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres. Even if the combatants manage to get a framework for a deal this time, this gray zone of 'neither war nor peace' may persist for weeks or months, analysts and diplomats say. Neither Mr. Trump nor Iran appears ready to make significant concessions in negotiations for a long-term truce, with many devilish details to be worked out — not least over the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Such a stalemate would consign the Middle East to a purgatory of sporadic violence and constant anxiety. And it would force the rest of the world to confront a stark new economic reality. Long-term disruption of oil and gas shipments would ripple into global supply chains, causing food shortages and driving up prices at the fuel pump and in grocery stores.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump does many dumb things for many dumb "reasons," but I suspect the dumb reason here is his severe, long-smoldering case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Trump threw out President Obama's JCPOA, claiming he was a master of the deal & would cut a much better one. So he sent Dumb & Dumber off to Pakistan or wherever to negotiate with the Iranians while devoting their more intent energies no doubt to making side deals for themselves while the old man stayed home and dreamed of ballrooms & triumphal arches. Now, Trump is paralyzed. He can't do anything because Iran has no reason to agree to less than the Obama deal. Trump has put Iran in a better position than it was in when Kerry, Munoz, et al., negotiated that deal. So Trump goes through these face-saving machinations where he pretends a deal is in the offing (and where he and/or his friends also may be making money as markets respond to the tune of Trump's statements). ~~~

     ~~~ To riff slightly on a famous observation by Deep Throat: "Forget the myths the media has created about the White House. The truth is, Trump is not a very bright guy, and things got out of hand.” ~~~

     ~~~ That said, there's this surprising update:

     ~~~ Jennifer Bahney of Mediaite: “Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi announced on X Friday that a deal to end the conflict between the United States and Iran 'has never been closer.' 'The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer,' wrote Araghchi. 'Pending its finalization, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content. In line with our responsible and transparent approach, all details will be shared with the public in due course.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ From the pinned item on yesterday's New York Times liveblog: “The world watched wearily as Washington and Tehran made conflicting statements on Friday about a purported deal toward ending the war that has roiled the Middle East for three and a half months. Both sides said terms hadn’t been finalized, but ... [Donald] Trump hinted that a signing ceremony could happen as soon as this weekend. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that deals to resolve various aspects of the war were near, but those promises have so far failed to materialize. Neither country has released specifics on the deal’s terms. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Friday that an agreement between Tehran and Washington 'has never been closer.' He also called for media outlets to refrain from speculating about its content, after Mehr, a semiofficial Iranian outlet affiliated with hard-liners who oppose a deal, published what it said were details of the agreement. That report included a reference to the United States committing to lift sanctions.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Trump Got His Regime Change, All Right. Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: “In the course of this war, Iran has gone from appearing weak and defenseless to a regime not only surviving, but also retaining important military and nuclear abilities. Iran’s extensive security apparatus seems firmly in control of all aspects of governing, society and foreign policy. Iran is now led by 'a younger, more brazen generation in power,' said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, in what Aaron David Miller, a former American diplomat at the Carnegie Endowment, called 'a transition from divine power to hard power.' These new leaders believe they can survive even a major renewal of fighting without significantly altering their negotiating positions or their larger regional aims. Those aims include to restore their power of deterrence so that they cannot be attacked again as they were in late February. They also want to maintain the right to enrich uranium, even at low levels after a period of suspension, and will retain the scientific knowledge and equipment that would allow them, should they choose, to again become a nuclear-threshold state....” 

Samantha Schmidt & Warren Strobel of the Washington Post: “The U.S. military has killed the leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in a 'swift and lethal kinetic strike,' ... Donald Trump said Friday night. U.S. forces killed Héctor 'El Niño' Guerrero, the head of the transnational Tren de Aragua gang, in an attack 'coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. He did not specify where the strike took place, but published a video showing a projectile blowing up a building. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strike took place earlier this week on a compound in Venezuela, 'in full collaboration with Venezuelan security forces.'”

Judge Doesn't Believe Toady Todd. Michael Kunzelman of the AP: “A federal judge agreed on Friday to extend a court-ordered block on the Trump administration’s creation and operation of a $1.8 billion settlement fund for compensating people who claim to be victims of a weaponized government. Earlier this month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund in the face of a fierce bipartisan backlash. Government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot, but plaintiffs’ attorneys aren’t satisfied by Blanche’s assurances that the fund won’t move forward. Neither was U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' will remain blocked until further notice from the court. 'The (government’s) mootness argument, in my view, doesn’t go anywhere,' the judge said.... Brinkema gave the parties a week to negotiate an agreement for Blanche to submit a sworn declaration that the administration won’t revive the fund.” Politico's report, by Josh Gerstein, is here. The New York Times report, by Alan Feuer, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: There is, or was, in federal courts, something known as "the presumption of regularity." Art Intel defines that as "a legal doctrine assuming that government officials and public officers properly discharge their official duties and act in good faith, unless clear evidence proves otherwise. It acts as a shield, requiring substantial proof to overturn official acts." That is, the judge presumes that government officials who appear before them tell the truth and act in good faith when carrying out their official duties. However, numerous judges have found recently factual bases that Trump prosecutors -- who are DOJ employees -- have lied to them in court. And some prosecutors have violated grand jury rules to tip the scales of justice even further in the prosecution's favor. Now we have a judge who has the wisdom not to believe an assertion by the acting Attorney General of the United States, the person whom the POTUS* has just nominated to head the entire Justice Department. That is where we are. Todd Blanche & the other lying liars have killed the presumption of regularity.  

Madeleine Ngo & Zach Montague of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Friday that it would comply with a court order to restart processing asylum and other immigration applications filed by a broad swath of people who had been left in legal limbo for months. The move comes after a federal judge in Rhode Island last week struck down a suite of policies imposed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a major blow to the administration’s expanding efforts to restrict legal immigration. The policies included a global hold on asylum applications filed with the agency and a freeze on immigration applications filed by people from 39 countries, largely in Africa and the Middle East, that are subject to ... [Donald] Trump’s travel ban.... In a court filing on Friday, Angelica Alfonso-Royals, the deputy director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency instructed employees to treat the policies 'as if they are no longer in effect.' The agency also said in a memo posted on its website that it 'strongly disagrees with the court’s order' but that it would 'follow its terms pending possible further judicial review.'”

Maggie Green, et al., of ABC News: "Only 3% of individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction, according to an ABC News analysis of government data. The findings ... come after ... Donald Trump had pledged to target the 'worst of the worst' criminal offenders among the nation's migrants.... The findings show that immigration enforcement has affected more than 400,000 individuals with no violent criminal history, including parents and spouses of U.S. citizens. While the 3% figure is consistent with rates seen under the Biden administration, the data shows the Trump administration is not detaining a higher proportion of violent offenders despite a significant overall increase in total detentions." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Let's face it: this is just a racist project to remove non-White people from the United States. It's not about making the country safer or preserving Americans' jobs or whatever other hoohah the Trumpists claim.  

Yasmin Khorram of Politico: “The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has signed off on Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, according to two people familiar. The approval clears a major regulatory hurdle for a deal that has become one of the most closely watched media merger reviews of the Trump era. The decision, expected to be announced Friday, paves the way for Paramount to combine with the entertainment and media company behind a vast film and television studio, CNN, and the HBO Max streaming service, which would be combined with Paramount+ to create a new offering boasting about 200 million subscribers. The deal, which would upend the Hollywood ecosystem by combining two historic rival studios, is opposed by many in the entertainment industry who fear it could lead to mass layoffs, among other concerns.” MB: We knew this would happen, and we also know this is extremely bad news for the notion of free press & independent media. Congress must (and it won't) pass anti-trust legislation that breaks up conglomerates like this. (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times story is here.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright Lied to Congress. Evan Halper of the Washington Post: “Energy Secretary Chris Wright was unrepentant on Capitol Hill this week, firing back at a congressman’s charge that the Trump administration canceled clean energy projects in blue states to exact political revenge. 'No decisions were made on politics,' Wright told the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on Wednesday. 'I keep hearing that charge. It’s bullshit. We’re going to say it a million times. It’s not true. It’s actually false.' Across town, a federal judge was drafting a court order based on Wright’s lawyers admitting the Energy Department had done just that. The Thursday ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in D.C. restored 11 clean energy grants in states ... Donald Trump lost in 2024; government attorneys had acknowledged those election results influenced why the funding was nixed. According to the filings, the lawyers, representing Wright as the case’s top named defendant, agreed that 'a primary reason for the termination decisions at issue is because of location in blue states.'”

Ryan Mac & Ben Casselman of the New York Times: “Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on Friday when shares of his rocket company SpaceX began trading on the stock market, signaling a new era of ultra-affluence and widening wealth inequality. Mr. Musk reached the milestone when trading of SpaceX shares opened at $150, up 11 percent from their initial public offering price of $135. His net worth — which comprises his stock in SpaceX and his electric carmaker, Tesla, as well as ownership stakes in other ventures including the brain implant company Neuralink and the tunneling firm the Boring Company — stood at around $1.1 trillion. Mr. Musk, 54, was already the world’s richest person.” (Also linked yesterday.)

~~~ Paul Krugman: Elon Musk's "wealth has ... historically rested mainly on self-fulfilling faith — investors believing in Musk’s genius have piled into stocks in Musk-controlled companies, and the rising value of these companies has enhanced his reputation for genius. We have a term for enterprises that look successful because they keep drawing in new investors ... because they look successful. They’re called Ponzi schemes. And Elon Musk is basically a human Ponzi scheme. Furthermore, the SpaceX IPO now in progress makes it clearer than ever that Musk’s greatest skill isn’t developing futuristic products. It’s his mastery of financial shell games and his ability to leverage insider influence, especially his influence with the Trump administration." 

Krugman goes into detail to explain why "the immense human Ponzi scheme that is Elon Musk will eventually collapse. But traditional Ponzi schemes only exploit investors who choose to participate. This time much of the money propping up Musk’s scam will come from ordinary Americans who have in effect been forced to buy in. Approximately 52% of mutual fund assets are now invested in index or index-based funds, and over 50% of American households are invested in mutual funds. Thanks to the collusion between Musk and Wall Street, enabled by the perception that the Trump administration has Musk’s back, many if not most of these small investors will be dragged, willy-nilly, into fueling the Musk juggernaut." (Also linked yesterday.)

Marie: I don't know what happened to Reality Chex yesterday, but I'm a tad suspicious that Blogger took down yesterday's page because of any perceived "abuse." Blogger did put it back up very quickly after I figured out how to request a review, so I'm grateful for that.  It's reports like the one linked next that make me skeptical that the initial takedown of the Reality Chex page was an innocent error: ~~~

~~~ Gary Baum of the Hollywood Reporter: “...  on April 21, I received a remarkable email. 'Someone has filed an objection against something you wrote,' explained [someone called] Austin Livingston, pointing me to a web page where Purdue Pharma heir Michael Sackler, a film financier and self-styled ethical investor, had paid a new tech startup — fittingly called Objection — to assess the legitimacy of a skeptical article I’d published about him and his business in The Hollywood Reporter five years earlier.... Objection’s Founder and CEO is Aron D’Souza, an Australian entrepreneur and provocateur best known as the mastermind behind [right-wing billionaire Peter] Thiel’s litigation strategy against Gawker[, which ultimately led to Gawker's bankruptcy & demise].... After [D'Souza and I] spoke, I awaited my verdict before the Objection tribunal in the Sackler case. None arrived. Eventually, the landing page was taken offline. I asked D’Souza about it. He explained that Objection would 'hold off publishing any adjudications' until 'a new major strategic partnership' was announced.”

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: “Gene Shalit, the Muppet look-alike who reviewed movies and other cultural arts with a whimsical bent and a shtick for puns as the resident wit on NBC’s 'Today' show for four decades, one of the longest tenures on an American television program, died on Friday at 100.” 

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Texas. Minyvonne Burke & Tim Stelloh of NBC News: "The gunman who barricaded himself in a Midland, Texas, building on Friday after a shooting that killed at least one person was wanted for attempted capital murder of a police officer, officials said. The shooting happened around 8 a.m. on West Wall Street. One person was killed, and 10 others were injured. The suspect, Victor Mata Villarreal, 45, allegedly fired at police and bystanders and then barricaded himself inside an abandoned veterinary clinic building, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a news release. He was found dead inside the building around 12:30 p.m. No law enforcement officers were injured, DPS said."