G-Men and -Women Ain't Gona Take It Sitting Down

 

BREAKING

Today 9 unnamed FBI agents, "on behalf of themselves and all similarly situated current and former agents and/or employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," filed a Class Action Complaint for Injunctive Relief against Donald Trump's Department of Justice. The language of the suit bears memorializing:

"Mr. Trump has ordered the DOJ to conduct a review and purge of FBI personnel involved in these investigations and prosecutions [J6 and Mar-a-Lago documents]. This directive is unlawful and retaliatory, and violates the Civil Service Reform Act 5 U.S.C. §§2301 and 2303....

"Plaintiffs were instructed to fill out a survey that would identify their specific role in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases. Some Plaintiffs were required to fill out the survey themselves, others were told that their supervisors would be filling out the form. Plaintiffs were informed that the aggregated information is going to be forwarded to upper management. Plaintiffs assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action. Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons. Defendant’s gathering, retention, and disclosure of Plaintiffs’ activities related the acts of former President Trump is a violation of Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendments to the Constitution. It is also a violation of Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment substantive and due process rights....

 This is police-state shit.

Trump is building his own secret police force, and with Patel at the FBI, and Bondi at Justice, no one will ever tell him nay.

Donald Jethro Trump's Stupid, Terrible, Demoralizing Tax Increase, And It's Not Even Week Three

 

The Tax Foundation, "the world's leading nonpartisan tax policy 501(c)(3) nonprofit," has estimated that Trump's new tariffs of 25 percent on China and Mexico plus tariffs on 10 percent on China would amount to an average tax increase of more than $830 per US household in 2025. The tariffs on Canada and Mexico alone would increase taxes by $958 billion between 2025 and 2034 on a conventional basis, amounting to an average tax increase of more than $670 per US household in 2025.

To say nothing of the price of common consumer and industrial ingredients that Americans depend on weekly.

What a pinhead.

A Final Goodbye To the Short, Unhappy Career of Mark Robinson

 

Last October 15, North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson sued CNN for defamation over its report that he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board. (CNN based its item on prior reporting by Bryan Anderson at The Assembly.) "CNN chose to publish despite knowing or recklessly disregarding that Lt. Gov. Robinson’s data — including his name, date of birth, passwords, and the email address supposedly associated with the NudeAfrica account — were previously compromised by multiple data breaches,” the lawsuit claimed. Robinson also called CNN's reporting a “high-tech lynching” of a candidate “who has been targeted from Day 1 by folks who disagree with me politically and want to see me destroyed.”

Robinson had hired Jesse R. Binnall, a well known trumpist litigator and a partner in the Binnall Law Group of Alexandria, Va., to represent him and find out (O.J. Simpson style) who in the world who wasn't Mark Robinson had posted those outrageous comments on porn sites under Robinson's own screen name Minisoldr.

Yesterday, Robinson tacitly admitted his defamation suit was all political theater. He ended it on Twitter with a whimper and called on Jesus like any guilty politician would: 

"The words of our Savior, along with the earthly reality that costly litigation and political gamesmanship by my detractors makes clear that continuing to pursue retribution from CNN is a futile effort. That is why I have asked Jesse Binnall and his legal team to terminate any continued attempt to litigate with CNN on my or my family’s behalf."

Robinson confirmed via X that he will not run for Senate next year and does not plan to take office in the future.

Jethro's Vendetta Against the Media Continues, and the Media Makes Craven Offerings

 

Last month, ABC News paid $15 million to resolve Donald Jethro Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos, who had imprecisely said that the president had been found “liable for rape” in a civil trial in New York. (In fact, Mr. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse.) If ABC had any balls, it would have fought that, because, after all, the semantics can't hide the fact that the guy's a predator and always has been.

On Wednesday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it had agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed after the social networks suspended his accounts in 2021. Meta has the right to suspend anybody's account at any time, but sucking up to the vengeful dictator suddenly seemed more advantageous to Mark Zuckerberg.

Now it's CBS's turn in the barrel. Get this: days before the 2024 election, Trump sued CBS for $10 billion, not over something CBS said about him but rather accusing “60 Minutes” of deceptively editing a  interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump not only wants pitty-pat treatment for himself but also mean treatment for anybody else. Here's the sum context for Trump's claim:

During the “60 Minutes” interview at the center of the lawsuit, which aired in October, the CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker asked Ms. Harris a question about the conflict in the Middle East.

In a preview of the interview that aired on “Face the Nation,” CBS’s Sunday morning show, Ms. Harris was shown giving a different answer than the one she gave in the version of the interview that was broadcast the next evening on “60 Minutes.” (NYTimes)

That's it? As though a network conducting an interview with a prominent figure can't change segments because of time constraints or other (actual freedom of speech) considerations.

"60 Minutes" and CBS are owned by Paramount, where Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder, strongly supports settling with Trump, slavishly laying down baksheesh to get on his good side, because Shari Redstone stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount in a deal with Skydance, an entertainment company backed by the billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David.

As our democratic Republic crumbles, looks like it's gonna be big business that greases Trump's path to total control, just as it was in Germany leading up to WWII.

Roy Cooper, Yasss!

 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) which makes her the "chief of recruitment" for new Senate candidates. has privately signaled that national Democrats are prepared to intervene in party primaries in numerous states, including North Carolina, next year. (Axios) At a fundraiser last Wednesday night, Gillibrand singled out former Gov. Roy Cooper, saying he would be a "formidable candidate."

Truer words can't be imagined.

No One Worse for the FBI Than Kash Patel

 

Senior FBI officials who had been promoted under Christopher A. Wray (who already stepped down as FBI director this month because Trump was going to fire him for being way too dedicated to the actual law) have been told in a Trump admin memo that's been leaked to the NYTimes ... to resign in a matter of days or be fired.

In an email to colleagues, one of the senior agents said he had learned he would be dismissed “from the rolls of the F.B.I.” as soon as Monday morning.

Meanwhile in a Senate hearing room, Kash Patel, the president’s nominee to lead the FBI, was struggling to keep his Ming the Merciless true self under tight wraps, trying to assure senators that he would not begin a campaign of retribution or look backward by pursuing perceived enemies. (This the nominee who has an actual written-down "enemies list" that actual humans have seen and read.)

Will the doormat Republican senators accept this horror for the job? Knowing, as they must know by now -- given the leak referenced above -- that the dictator intends to eliminate everyone who knows the full dirt on his past crimes. And ethical lapses. And downright immoral sins.

Trump gets the secret police force under his thumb, there's none of us safe from harassment or worse.

Preacherman Bows Down to the Golden Calf

 

Rev. Mark Harris, one of NC's newest crop of Congressional idolators and the week-old bread who's been elected/unelected/reelected in different districts, trailed by vote-stealing evidence that cost him the seat in 2018 and embarrassed his Christian piety. As pastor of a Southern Baptist megachurch in Charlotte and a leader of the evangelistic campaign to punish LGBTQ people for being LGBTQ, it should come as no surprise that Harris would introduce H. Res. 59, "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given by the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism."

There's apparently a live rumor in MAGA-land that Bishop Budde is some kind of dangerous lesbian. For evidence there's the haircut. Plus she speaks up particularly for the LGBTQ community, which in church is a damning admission of something dark and sinful. But Budde and her husband, Paul, have two adult sons and are also grandparents. (So shut the fuck up. All of you.)

For the record, Budde said a fact to Trump's face, which in Trumpland is obviously verboten and actually punishable by death. Budde said the truth, that LGBTQ and other minorities are actually scared of Trump because of the ExecOrders he's already signed, and they fear for the future and for their actual lives. Gosh. That's now a "political" thing to say? Pointing out the connection between Jethro's decrees and the real suffering in the civilian world because of him? 

Preacherman's resolution is culture war flotsam. Just noting here that there ain't no bigot like a supposedly religious one.

UnAmerican Scheme -- Renaming Dulles for Jethro

 

Addison McDowell

Addison McDowell, one of NC's newest Republican spotted calves elected to Congress -- the Zyn 'n' Pitchfork Master -- introduced the bill to rename Dulles International Airport for Donald Jethro Trump, currying favor the old-fashioned way, by slobbering all over the dictator's ass.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby published the reasons McDowell's bill is a really terrible, horrible, no-good, unprecedented (because it's totally outside what this Republic has always believed) attempt to glorify a man whose criminal career is just getting fully started:

...it is unseemly in a democratic republic for the government to glorify active members of society by imposing their names on buildings, roads, and programs in which all citizens have an interest. In our system, all citizens are meant to be equal before the law. The Constitution flatly bars hereditary privilege and titles of nobility. Naming public facilities after living persons amounts to a de facto ennobling of those persons, exalting them as a class above the rest of us. It is a form of veneration that undermines the (small-d, small-r) democratic and republican ideals of equality, modesty, and restraint in governance. It should discomfit us all.

Evidently some MAGA-adjacent activists agreed fully with Jacoby's reasoning. The Patriot Post, "the nation's leading digest of conservative news and opinion," republished Jacoby's essay. That's where I saw it.

Trump Activates More of His Project 25 -- The Most Dangerous Part

 

Right on schedule, Trump's new head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered an investigation of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), with the stated intention of fulfilling a proposal in Trump's Project 25 to eliminate all public funding for those two entities.

Brendan Carr, Trump's new drone at the head of the FCC, manufactured a fake reason for his investigation, that the two media outlets are running "commercials" when they're not supposed to. Neither have commercials. But both do acknowledge on-air corporate benefactors -- "underwriters" -- who contribute funds to keep the networks operating.

Trump has long had a hard-on to take down PBS (he doesn't listen to radio, apparently), and his hostility to any media that tells the awful truth about his government is on complete display all the time. Trump-aligned groups had brought complaints against some affiliates of CBS, NBC, and Fox (Fox too!) back during the campaign. Biden's FCC chief dismissed those complaints as politically inspired performance art, but Brenda Carr immediately reinstated them -- well, he reinstated the two against CBS and NBC but left the dismissal in place against Fox.

Full disclosure: I give a monthly donation to the NPR station at ETSU. We must keep it running and free from this black-hearted tyrant.

Trump Denied Responsibility Quick. Isn't It Obvious Why?

 

Trump got himself in front of cameras quick today after last night's tragic collision between the American Airlines flight and a Blackhawk helicopter. We all heard who he blamed with zero evidence (or even logic) -- he blamed Democrats for instituting DEI (his new favorite whipping post) -- but bizarrely Trump added a few new grace notes, mentioning people with "physical and psychiatric conditions" including "dwarves, amputees, and epileptics" who just might have been the air traffic controllers on duty last night who caused the collision. "Who knows," sez Jethro, "but many people say."

His main mission for getting out front and blaming other, nameless people is the obvious evidence that he himself and his goddamn autocratic need to make everyone bend the knee is very possibly the real culprit:

1. Notably, when the Trump administration came in on 20 January, it started swiftly firing federal employees, meaning the Federal Aviation Administration’s leadership is now dotted with vacancies. There is currently no Senate-confirmed administrator leading the agency.

2. Elon Musk, Trump's new butt buddy, had a vendetta against Michael Whitaker, the Federal Aviation Administrator under Biden, who left the agency on inauguration day after Musk demanded his firing.

3. The Washington DC airspace is incredibly, dangerously crowded, especially after the 2024 FAA reauthorization bill added five incoming and five outgoing flights to Washington national airport each day because some members of Congress demanded more direct routes to their home states. Democratic senators from Maryland and Virginia warned that those added flights would be a safety risk:

“The very title of the ‘Direct Access to the Capital Act’ gives the game away that this bill is written to maximize the personal convenience of a comparatively small number of powerful, well-connected individuals at the expense of safety and efficiency of flights – which should be our top priority,” Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia told the Washington Post at the time.

4. Another of Trump's ExecOrders instituted a "blanket hiring freeze," and it's already been reported that the tower at Washington national airport was understaffed with controllers. (Guess they couldn't get any of the dwarves, amputees, or epileptics to come to work last night.) Congressman Rick Larsen, ranking member of the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, said, “Hiring air traffic controllers is the No 1 safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision.”

5. Within hours of starting his goddamn tyranny on Jan. 20th, Trump also forced out the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) administrator, David Pekoske, and gutted an aviation security advisory committee.

It's his super-power -- or at least it has been -- for Trump to deny all responsibillity. Because he's a lying turd.

You Think Jethro Didn't Mean It? He Meant It

 

One of the problems with electing a president who operates above the law is that there is no longer an agreed-upon set of rules to fall back on when trying to understand the incoherent brain droppings emanating from the Oval Office.

--Elie Mystal, commenting on Trump's Monday freeze and what followed it

Functionally (just so we're clear from the outset), Trump's Monday order froze all Federal spending for everything, except (his memo claimed) Social Security and Medicare. 

Karoline Leavitt, Trump PressSec.
"Did you notice my gorgeous hair?
Did you also notice my large cross?"

People who are actual lawyers instead of scribblers who copy their work filed court petitions showing that the order was a clear violation of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, the US Constitution, and (according to Elie Mystal) "basic civics, good government, and common sense." To make matters worse, Jethro's Office of Management and Budget sent out a two-page "memo of incoherent gobbledygook. Everybody sued, everywhere, all at once. The OMB 'clarified' its insane order which boiled down to this: Any programs Trump likes are still funded; anything he doesn’t like is discontinued" (Mystal).

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blithely claimed that all was intended and nothing has really changed in her boss's stampede to root out everything, including justice and scientific truth, that offends his singular passion for praise and personal profit.

On Wednesday, the OMB rescinded the freeze memo but left in place the underlying executive order directing federal agencies to "withhold funding for projects not in line with Trump’s agenda." In other words, every agency head, with OMB instrux now rescinded, get to guess at what Trump wants.

It does not matter at all that his approval rating has already dropped. The only president with a worse rating this early in his presidency was Donald Trump in 2017. But that obviously doesn't matter a whit.

The (Further) Corruption of Justice under Donald Jethro Trump

 

Mayor Adams

New York Mayor Eric Adams was indicted in September on charges including bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign contributions. He pleaded not guilty and took a page from Trump's playbook, alleging he was being targeted because he had criticized Joe Biden's immigration policies.

Subsequently, Adams sucked up to Trump at Mar-a-Lago and got prominent seating at Trump's inauguration. Trump had already opined publicly that he thought Adams was being targeted unfairly by the "weaponized" Justice Department under Joe Biden.

And get this: Smart guy Adams hired Alex Spiro to head up his defense. Spiro is the personal lawyer for Elon Musk. You get how "justice" under Trump is going to work, right?

Now Maggie Haberman et al. is reporting that "senior Justice Department officials under President Trump have held discussions with federal prosecutors in Manhattan about the possibility of dropping their corruption case against Adams." So what do you think is going to happen?

The Freeze that Unfroze Fast

 

Remember "I alone can fix it!" Now it's "He alone can fix it fuck it up." Here's some of the insider story on what went down:

The explosive Trump administration order that froze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans this week was published without vetting by key officials in the White House, according to three people with knowledge of what happened.

The order was drafted inside the Office of Management and Budget by the agency’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta, two of the people said. And it was released without being shown to the White House staff secretary, Will Scharf, or to Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller. (Jonathan Swan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs in the NYTimes)

After a Federal judge blocked the order, Trump "rescinded" the piece of paper but not -- as we understand it -- the underlying order, which led the judge to keep his block order in effect.

Trump and his people are hell-bent to destroy anything that looks "woke," meaning any Federal policy that tries to help, mend, heal without regard to skin color or wealth. They stepped on their weenie, and apparently it hurt. Won't be the last time.

Meanwhile, so many others are cringing at the cruelty of it -- which is exactly what Trump wanted.

Grounds for Recusal

 

Judge Tamara Barringer

NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby’s wife, Macon Newby, contributed $6,400 to Jefferson Griffin’s campaign in June 2023. and Griffin has described Newby as his "mentor."

Brent Barringer, Associate Justice Tamara Barringer’s husband, also gave Griffin at least $6,400 for his Supreme Court campaign, according to campaign finance records.

These people will ultimately determine who won the Supreme Court election between Griffin and Allison Riggs. They're not about to acknowledge any factors that would seem to demand recusal because of campaign contributions given in the name of their spouses.

Trump's "Make Yourself a Snitch" Order

 

I don't care if you think the much-maligned Federal workforce should be fired in toto because you hate their meddling ways, but the squeal-on-your-colleagues order that Trump issued last Wednesday is pure police-state bullshit. Trump's ExecOrder threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders "to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies."

Lovely. We're advancing very plainly to a dictatorship, where snitching and ratting out are virtues. The firing of inspector generals was not even the first indication.

There's an election (theoretically, at the moment) in less than two years.

Coming to the U.S. Supremes -- Another Opportunity To Destroy the Separation of Church and State

 

St. Isidore of Seville

Amy Coney Barrett has already recused herself from St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, the church/state case arising out of Oklahoma which the Supreme Court decided on Friday to put on its docket. Oklahoma, even more problematic than my native Texas, has that statewide Superintendent of Schools who wants to include mandatory Bible reading in every curriculum of every public school in the state. No, really. So it's not necessarily shocking that the St. Isidore case would be Oklahoma-born.

St. Isidore, owned by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would become the nation’s first religious charter school, plus it would be entirely online, and its curriculum "would embed [Roman Catholic] religious teachings throughout lessons, including in math and reading classes. As a charter school, it would be run independently from traditional public schools. But public taxpayer dollars would pay for the school, and it would be free for students to attend" (Troy Closson).

The Archdiocese made application to the 5-member state board of education in June 2023. It proved controversial. The board ultimately voted 3-to-2 to approve it, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked its creation:

"Justice James Winchester wrote in the majority opinion that state law requires a public charter school to be nonsectarian, arguing that the Oklahoma Constitution prohibits the state from using public money for the benefit or support of any religious institution. A 2016 ballot measure in the state would have repealed that measure, but voters rejected that effort." (OSV News)

So now it's before the Alito Court (who is himself Catholic), supported by all kinds of people who see no problem forcing the Christian religion into people's faces. Barrett was previously a law professor at Notre Dame who recused possibly because she is close friends with a Notre Dame law professor who has helped advise the St. Isidore team.

The Drummond who's defendant is Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

The Purge of Whistleblowers

 

Late Friday night -- while the media was least likely to notice -- Trump fired the independent inspectors general of at least 14 major federal agencies -- the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration.

According to the WashPost, "the dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general."

Now why would Jethro want to do a thing like that? “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system,” said one of the fired inspectors general. "Another fired inspector general learned of his ouster by reading the email for the first time while on the phone with a Washington Post reporter who had called to ask about it. The person reacted by saying the new administration 'does not want anyone in this role who is going to be independent.' ”

“It’s a purge of independent watchdogs in the middle of the night,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said last night in a post on social media. “Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse, and preventing misconduct. President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”

Jethro intends that there'll be no one left in government to say, "Wait just a good goddamn minute there!"

The system of Senate-confirmed inspectors general at large agencies was established in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal, to conduct independent investigations and audits of federal spending and operations and report the findings to Congress and the public.

Trump ousted five watchdogs in quick succession during his first term in 2020, starting with Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general who alerted Congress to the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Trump had appointed Atkinson.

In fact, many of the 14 purged inspectors from last night were appointed by Trump in his first term, before he learned that even some loyal Republicans tend to be honest, dammit. 

Scarier and scarier, this guy.

NC Supremes Drag Allison Riggs

 

Okay, a thing happened last Wednesday at the NC Supreme Court that I kind of ignored even though the headline writers opted for calling it a defeat for Jefferson Griffin (who's been trying to purloin a Supreme Court seat for himself. Where have you been?), but the Court's refusal to grant Griffin an order to fast-track throwing out legal and legitimate votes incrementally until he can achieve the desired majority over Allison Riggs -- the Court's denial of Griffin was accompanied by a refusal to lift the stay preventing certification of the race by the State Board of Elections. The Court is throwing the case back for trial to the lower courts -- first Superior, then Court of Appeals, and thence, finally, to Paul Newby's coven of partisans for the ultimate decision: Shall we continue to have Allison Riggs on the Court, or will Jefferson Griffin succeed in undermining the democratic rule of law and eternally besmirch the Court?

In other words, maybe they can just keep Riggs off by dragging out the process for years.

Jeffrey Billman published in The Assembly an intense unpacking of the stuff that the judges wrote in their unanimous decision to deny Griffin's fast-track scheme -- all five Republican judges and Anita Earls, the lone Democrat, wrote their own opinions. Earls dissented on the refusal to lift the stay on declaring a winner. Earls, who gets under Newby's skin faster than any chigger, points out in her opinion that under state law (Billings includes a link) leaving a temporary stay in place for a trial indicates that “the petitioner is likely to prevail” -- kind of a dead give-away that her Republican colleagues are sending a message to the lower courts of their desired outcome.

Newby flashed his conspiratorial backside in his concurring opinion, according to Billings, called it “highly unusual” that Griffin was ahead on election night but fell behind when all the votes were counted. "It’s unclear whether Newby meant to raise the possibility of fraud or vote-counting improprieties—which Griffin has not alleged—but it’s not unusual for late absentee and provisional ballots to shift leads in close elections."

Newby’s comments “show a complete lack of understanding of how elections are conducted,” said Gerry Cohen, a Wake County Board of Elections member and former General Assembly special counsel. [Cohen is the authority on NC election law, since he helped draft most of it.]

Billings draws attention to why last Wednesday's decision doesn't look like any kind of victory for Riggs:

Newby also chided Griffin’s critics for accusing him of trying to “disenfranchise” voters. He called Griffin’s complaints “valid” and said they “may affect the outcome of the election.” Barringer and Justice Phil Berger Jr. cosigned.

That's some kind of a signal, no?

But wait! Parallel but separate legal action is also proceeding in the Federal system. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has been petitioned by Riggs to take the case away from the state on the basis that Griffin's request would retroactively disenfranchise voters and thereby "violate numerous federal civil rights laws,” including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Oral arguments in this case begin tomorrow.

Trump Is Really the Golden Calf

 

Addison McDowell, holding pitchfork and 
a can of Zyn. 2024 campaign video

Addison McDowell, the Zyn master who used to be a lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield and who beat Bo Hines for the 6th Congressional District seat with Trump's blessing, introduced a bill in the US House to rename Dulles International Airport outside DeeCee the Donald Jethro Trump International Airport.

There was a former Republican bill attempting to do this very thing in April 2024, which went nowhere. But now the Jethro cult rules everything. So they just might do this.

About the previous attempt to rename Dulles, Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, who represents part of Dulles, said: “Donald Trump is facing [88] felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”

Some social media reactions to McDowell's bill were more amused than outraged: "Has McDowell ever been to Dulles? Is he trying to embarrass Trump?"

Dulles is the main terminal for foreign flights into and out of the country, was designed in the 1960s using huge, 4-wheeled "people movers" that rumble out of the terminal to the far-parked planes with hundreds of travelers standing, packed in like beef sticks. "The WORST airport in the country," according to a Reddit string. 

"Forget that the design is outdated, the airport tram is actually slower then walking in most situations, and if you have a late night international flight nothing is open after 9pm, the customs and immigration at Dulles are embarrassing."

Come to think of it -- with Jethro's disdain for immigrants -- perhaps Dulles, which admits people to DeeCee from all points on the Globe, is perfectly fit to be renamed "Trump International." Might as well let the immigrants know what they're in for in Trump's country.

Fear Is His Game

 

We heard the Episcopal Bishop of Washington ask for mercy on those who are now afraid of what he'll do to them, the most vulnerable sitting ducks (for a tyrant who's never hesitated to kick a cripple).

But no one knows fear like a Republican senator or congressman who thinks Trump is a dumb jerk, but who can't say so or push back or object -- for fear of being primaried and kicked out of office by Trump's cult.

Among his other ExecOrders on Day One, Trump demanded that federal officials overseeing government D.E.I. efforts be put on leave. Diversity/Equality/Inclusion -- programs meant to give the chance for advancement to people whose color or other distinguishing features have kept them down. "Woke!" the enemies of being awake call it. Woke as a verbal weapon is pretty much the equivalent of "commie," for those of us who remember the '50s -- meant to label quickly and efficiently and to instill hatred and fear.

So Donald Jethro Trump yelled "woke!" and revoked an executive order signed in 1965 that prohibited discriminatory hiring and employment practices for private government contractors. "Perhaps most alarming for business leaders was the order’s focus on private corporations, whether they do business with the government or not" (Emma Goldberg).

Whether they do business with the government or not. This right here -- it's Project 25 shit.

But it's also, sadly, the reason why, according to an article in the NYTimes, "nearly a dozen companies did not respond to requests for comment on the future of their D.E.I. programming, and some declined to comment citing fear of attracting attention to their work."

Everybody's afraid of the tyrant. 

Jethro's cult members like to label, as we know, and they label people like me as suffering from "Trump derangement syndrome." Wikipedia: "The term has mainly been used by Trump supporters to discredit criticism of him, as a way of reframing the discussion by suggesting that his opponents are incapable of accurately perceiving the world."

The best way to perceive the world is through demonstrable facts. I will cling to facts as long as there are facts to cling to, until fear among the people who own the newspapers shuts down the reporting of those facts. (Jeff Bezos at the WashPost has shown them the way, hasn't he, and got a front-row seat at Jethro's coronation).

Tillis Disapproves of the Blanket Pardons

 

This is about as bold as Thom Tillis gets, in between bouts of kissing royal ass:

"It was surprising to me that it was a blanket pardon." Weak tea.

Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins (PBS News Hour) got Sen. Tillis to go that far on the record about Trump's sweeping pardon of 1,600, some of them Grade A police-beating thugs. 

But Tillis also said this:

"I'm about to file two bills that will increase the penalties up to and including the death penalty for the murder of a police officer and increasing the penalties and creating federal crimes for assaulting a police officer. That should give you everything you need to know about my position."

There's always a chance that someday in the next four years, Thom's testicles will fully descend, and he'll deepen his squeaky voice.

What Can He Get Away With?

 

A president who intends to govern based on what he can get away with.

--Ezra Klein

As long as Congress is dominated by Republicans, Congress will let him get away with anything and everything. (NB All members of Congress will be up for election in 2026, and a third of the Senate.) That leaves the courts, and we've already witnessed the Supreme Court give him free reign. He's not subject to prosecution. Therefore the law means nothing. The last remaining force that might not let him get away with it is you, the public, the voters, the citizens of the Republic who once upon a time overturned a king and don't especially want another one.

King Trump simply declared birthright citizenship invalid, unilaterally changing the clear language of the Constitution. He is giving TikTok a reprieve from the clean language of the law that Congress passed and Joe Biden signed and the Supreme Court upheld -- so he can figure out a way to save it and simultaneously perhaps enrich himself. (Just a wild guess.) He used his king-like pardoning power to elevate his troop of J6 thugs into a new vigilence posse. He sez he's unilaterally renaming an ocean and a mountain in Alaska, and he sez he wants to simply annex Canada as the 51st state and grab back the Panama Canal, by force if necessary.

Ezra Klein: "The scale of the graft and the grift right now -- it’s astonishing, and it’s all out in the open.

The Trump family launched a "memecoin" in their own name. "You can’t spend it. This isn’t a currency or a piece of decentralized financial infrastructure meant to offer services to the unbanked or commerce to the metaverse. It’s just a way to invest in Trump’s fortunes and invest in Trump. The memecoin shot to more than $70, and the Trump family and its partners seem to own about 80 percent of the coins — making their holdings worth, notionally, tens of billions of dollars."

Then Melania launched her own memecoin after she sold her biopic and another project to Amazon, on which she is an executive producer, for $40 million.

You ain't shit for a king if you can't turn your kingdom into a cash cow.

Trump's Not So Puzzling FlipFlop About TikTok

 

In his first term, Donald Jethro Trump made no bones about wanting TikTok banned in the U.S. as a threat to national security. On January 6, 2020, in an ExecOrder he invoked his emergency economic powers to impose broad sanctions against TikTok, "a move that steps up pressure on the Chinese-owned app to sell its U.S. assets to an American company."

He has now, of course, and illegally it appears -- a president can't just rewrite Congressional legislation on a whim -- become TikTok's savior. Trump instructed prosecutors not to enforce the ban. What turned him around?

Two things. March 2024. Jeff Yass, a billionaire investor and Republican megadonor who owns a significant share of TikTok's parent company ByteDance, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This visit appears to coincide with Trump's change of attitude toward TikTok. Did you not notice the adjective megadonor appended to Yass's name? Jethro is not nothing if he isn't a total whore for money.

Second thing: Summer 2024. A dude who actually works for Jeff Yass at his trading firm Susquehanna International Group and is a Trump insider -- Tony Sayegh -- talks Trump into joining TikTok for the sake of his campaign, and now Trump has 14 million followers and has publicly acknowledged TikTok's part in his winning reelection. ("TikTok Butters Up Trump," Jan. 19)

Back to the Original Q: What's Dangerous About TikTok?

In its unanimous decision upholding the banning of TikTok unless it's sold to new, non-Chinese owners, the Supreme Court just three days before Trump's inauguration cited reports that the data TikTok collects from users includes ages, phone numbers, contacts, internet addresses, exact locations, and contents of private messages sent through the app.

TikTok didn’t dispute the data collection in the Supreme Court case. Hilariously, it claimed it was “unlikely” that the Chinese government would force the company to hand over information, to which you could hear even Clarence Thomas stifling a guffaw. Chinese companies are required by law to cooperate with State Security.

I think -- and you might think too -- as a casual user of TikTok, you're not personally threatened by any surveillance the Chinese secret police puts on you. So what? How is my piddling life, with its boring routines, of any use to the Chinese? But just consider, brother, the possibilities that other civilians -- a lot of them, actually -- could present to a foreign adversary determined to cause us trouble:

"If I were China’s minister of state security, I would be asking about any TikTok accounts of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s four children. I’d also inquire about accounts of children of people across the government and military, looking to turn phones and laptops into microphones and cameras, as well as track locations, find blackmail material and locate still more targets." (Nicholas Kristof)

Hadn't thought of that, had we?

According to Kristof, "about 40 percent of young adults in the United States regularly get news from TikTok, and researchers find evidence that TikTok’s algorithm systematically manipulates information to present users with a pro-China view of the world."

Trump's need for an adoring audience and his ambition to make us all bend the knee will make good opportunistic use of TikTok.

The Money Count

 

"The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

Tech executives have rushed to show their support for Trump in hopes of currying favor and shielding themselves from regulatory retaliation. They have donated millions to his campaign and inauguration.

In addition to media mogul Musk (who's given at least $250 million to Trump), OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, attended the inauguration, along with the CEOs of Google, Apple. and Meta. 

The day after Inauguration, Trump had Sam Altman by his side again, along with the chiefs of SoftBank and Oracle, to announce a joint venture calling itself "Stargate" between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence. Some 10 enormous data centers are already under construction in Texas.

During a news briefing Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he would remove barriers to allow for the creation of more data centers. He said he would make “emergency declarations” to allow Stargate to generate its own electricity, without providing details. (NYTimes)

"Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest investor, provided data center infrastructure needed to power the start-up. But as the ChatGPT maker struggled to get enough computer power from Microsoft, the two companies agreed that OpenAI could seek additional data centers built by Oracle."

Why would Trump be so hot for AI? Are you kidding? What is more appealing to a con-man than total fake reality? Even more pertinent, think of the "reality" that Trump's beholden tech billionaires can dish out to the MAGA crowd and to everyone else.

Look Who Killed the Electric Car This Time (And Where Is Elon Musk on This?)

 

Among the many other ExecOrders (EOs) that Trump signed Monday, he erased tax credits for electric-vehicle (EV) purchases, he ended federal grants for chargers, and he shitcanned subsidies and loans to help retool assembly lines for EVs and to build battery factories -- a sweeping repudiation, in other words, of a centerpiece of Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change by limiting what comes out of your tailpipe. Who knows if these backward and malicious EOs can survive legal challenges.

Biden’s initiative provided tax credits of up to $7,500 for buyers of new electric vehicles and $4,000 to buyers of used models. The credits effectively made the cost of buying some electric cars roughly on par with prices for cars with gasoline or diesel engines. Those are ended, if Trump gets his way.

Those EOs also (just incidentally) penalize American automakers that have invested billions in designing and building electric vehicles. The Biden administration had encouraged them to. They are now collateral damage to Trump's determination to stamp out even the memory of the man who beat him in 2020.

According to the NYTimes, Trump's orders "could cause U.S. carmakers to fall behind ... Asian and European automakers .... Already, 50 percent of car sales in China are electric or plug-in hybrids, and Chinese automakers like BYD are selling more cars around the world, taking customers away from established car companies, including American manufacturers."

The oil and gas guys are obviously very happy with Trump. Elon Musk on the other hand went very quiet, which makes one wonder. According to Jack Ewing, "There is no sign that Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla) is using his influence to blunt the attack on electric vehicles. Tesla accounts for slightly less than half the electric cars sold in the United States, and almost all its vehicles qualify for $7,500 tax credits .... analysts note that Tesla’s sales and profits would be hit hard if Mr. Trump successfully repealed or truncated the electric-vehicle tax credit, California’s clean-air waiver and other such policies. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment."

Odd. Maybe there's an angle for Musk I'm not seeing, or he's way too obsessed with the Conquest of Mars.

The Money Count

 "The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

How much money does Elon Musk stand to make on Trump's promised conquest of Mars? The government contracts! New merchandise! Exclusive rights!

Last September, Musk said that SpaceX would launch five Starships to Mars in 2026, unmanned, to test the entry through "the thin Martian atmosphere and to arrive on the surface in one piece." He promises to have manned flights by 2028.

Trump nominated Jared Isaacman to head NASA, a billionaire who has flown two private astronaut missions on SpaceX rockets and who is a close associate of Musk.

What a team! Musk and his best bud Isaacman, spending the Republic's treasury on an adventure to Mars. Did you ever see a table-setting as conducive for a big fat gourmand's meal?

This is How He Sics His Bullies

O he can't take it! Any push-back enrages him. Truth-telling is neither welcomed nor tolerated. The MAGA mob that will now give the side-eye to Reverend Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, and who will want to hurt her in some tangible way for the sermon she delivered to Trump yesterday, won't even know -- because of the tweet below -- that Bishop Budde practically pleaded with Trump in the quietest and most respectful way to “have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” the LGBTQ and immigrant young people who "are now afraid" for their future because of new ExecOrders directly targeting them. That sermon -- and you can easily access it on YouTube -- was about as far away from "nasty in tone" -- what Trump alleges -- as you can get and still speak in a barely audible voice. 

But nasty falls out of Trump's mouth easily. We do consider the source.

It All Lands on Merrick Garland's Doorstep

 

The incomparable Michael Schmidt interviewed Alex Aronson, a young attorney who's expert on judicial ethics and so-called "dark money" in politics, asking for his analysis of how Trump managed to skate away from legal accountability for his biggest apparent crimes. 

Aronson put his finger on the exact problem that too frequently characterizes Democrats in a political crisis -- their timidity, their evident afraidness of what people will say, what reprisals will come if they take bold and appropriate action. Democrats seem sometimes to be burdened by a debilitating self-consciousness. How many campaign tribunals have I sat in and heard a candidate say about a proposed bold message, "But that might upset so-and-so!" when upsetting said Mr. So-and-So is exactly what needs to happen. Show some courage of your convictions. Take a lesson from Donald Jethro Trump.

Aronson's analysis:

The repeated failures by Democrats and the Justice Department to hold Mr. Trump accountable — whether that was during his first term or when he was indicted twice when he was out of office — [those failures created a bigger monster] .... Biden should have clearly signaled on his first day in office that his administration would aggressively pursue accountability for wrongdoing .... Biden and the rest of his administration, including Merrick B. Garland, ... were far too focused on restoring norms than trying to hold Mr. Trump and his administration accountable .... “Garland’s hesitation to pursue accountability out of fear of Trump’s inevitable baseless accusations ultimately helped Trump delay accountability until he escaped it altogether.”

 O hindsight, you are so magical and always right.

The Money Count -- "No Kidding!" Edition

 

"The Money Count" is a reoccurring feature, as outrage and/or hilarity demand.

Scenes from the swearing in in the Capitol Rotunda:

Musk’s schoolboy grin when Trump promised to go to Mars. I completely endorse going to Mars as a national project, but when that also means that billions of dollars may flow into the pockets of Trump’s wealthiest supporter, it reeks of potential corruption and graft.

--David French, NYTimes

It was very telling that the tech oligarchs had front-row seats, in front of the cabinet. The age of algorithmic feudalism has begun.

--Michelle Goldberg, NYTimes

[NYTimes headline] Trump Takes Office as a Newly Minted Crypto Billionaire

The Trump family’s new crypto tokens are worth well over $10 billion on paper, after a frenzied rally pushed up the value of the digital assets in the days before the inauguration.

The so-called memecoins got another boost on Monday when Robinhood, the trading platform that made a big donation to Mr. Trump’s inauguration fund, began letting its customers trade the $TRUMP coin. Memecoins, a type of cryptocurrency tied to an online joke or a celebrity mascot, are not often available to trade on major platforms.

Mr. Trump announced the launch of the new token, known as $Trump, on Friday night. Another token, $Melania, went on sale late on Sunday. Trump affiliates appear to control a majority of the tokens, which will be released gradually over the coming years.

Before the tokens started trading, Forbes had listed Mr. Trump’s net worth as $6.7 billion, most of that coming from Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs the social media platform Truth Social.

Ethics watchdogs have warned of deepening conflicts of interest as Mr. Trump returns to the White House, with the tokens creating new opportunities for executives, crypto traders and companies inside and outside the United States to curry favor with the Trump administration.

A onetime crypto skeptic, Mr. Trump embraced the digital currency industry last year, promising to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.” In September, he and his sons helped start a crypto business, World Liberty Financial. He has also tapped advocates for looser regulation of crypto to key regulatory and advisory positions in his administration.

Crypto markets have risen sharply since Mr. Trump’s election victory. The price of Bitcoin hit a fresh record high on Monday, jumping above $109,000.

 

Jeff Jackson Joins 17 Other Attorneys General

 

ttorneys general from 18 states sued Tuesday in Federal District Court in Massachusetts to block President Donald Trump's move to end a policy known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents' status. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined in the suit.

The states view Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship as “extraordinary and extreme,” said New Jersey’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, who led the legal effort along with the attorneys general from California and Massachusetts. “Presidents are powerful, but he is not a king. He cannot rewrite the Constitution with a stroke of the pen.”

Trump Hates NC's Offshore Wind Energy

 

Kitty Hawk offshore wind energy

WRAL reported that "offshore wind development has gained momentum in North Carolina. The Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind farm near Corolla and two planned wind farms off Brunswick County are key to the state’s clean energy goals. Together, they could generate enough power for over 1.4 million homes by the 2030s. North Carolina aims for 2.8 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and 8 gigawatts by 2040, per former Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2021 executive order. Duke Energy plans to add 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind to its grid by 2035."

However, the trumpman sez, "We're not going to do the wind thing." He actually said those words, shortly before signing an executive order yesterday that "prevents consideration of any area in the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity."

Because among his best billionaire buds are numerous oil and gas guys. There doesn't appear to be a Wind Energy Oligarch.

Dictator Needs His Violent Bully Boys

 

We see exactly where this is headed: "MAGA, any action you take in my name, to uphold my greatness or smash my enemies, you will be forgiven. Go, thou, and do it!"

“By pardoning and commuting the sentences of those who participated in the January 6 insurrection — including violent organizers convicted of seditious conspiracy — Trump has both legitimated the insurrection and signaled to supporters that there will be no price to pay for pro-Trump political violence,” said Nicole Hemmer, a Vanderbilt University professor and the director of its Center for the American Presidency.

"Authoritarian tendencies"?

Members of trump sycophants, the Proud Boys, returned to Washington yesterday to march through the nation’s capital, "sending what extremism researchers called a brazen message to other far-right groups." “Whose streets? Our street,” the group’s members chanted, holding a banner that said, “Proud Boys did nothing wrong.”

“They are emboldened,” said Heidi Beirich, a longtime hate monitor who co-founded the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “They’re back, and I think it means that their ranks are going to grow, and we’re going to see them involved in all kinds of pro-Trump and other white supremacist activity and their slate has been cleaned.”

In the lead-up to yesterday's executive pardons, Vice President J.D. Vance had told Fox News, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned." Vance was clearly miffed at the question: "How dare you suggest that Donald Trump would forgive rioters who attacked police!" Now Vance must contemplate a mob turning on him, should he ever again show himself a weak cuck.

We knew these times would be dark. But ... fuck!