A federal judge has blocked Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. Federal District Court judge, John C. Coughenour called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“Frankly,” he continued, challenging Trump administration lawyers, “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”
Twenty-two states have challenged the order in court, which suggests that if Congress did try to amend the Constitution in the normal way, it would fall short of the 38 states needed for ratification. I assume Trump will appeal up to the Supreme Court eventually, and then we’ll see how many of the so-called “originalists” are prepared to flush the Constitution down the toilet on Trump’s say-so.
One of the most disturbing thing I’ve seen today is at Washington Monthly, Three Disturbing Signs of Fourth Estate Failure by Bill Scher. And may I add that fourth estate failure in regard to Trump is hardly new. But, basically, a lot of news outlets are tip-toeing around the current radicalism rather than calling it out plainly, and Scher provides some examples. I’ve seen others. I read today that CNN is laying off many employees and re-working its schedule and news approach, and somehow I doubt any of this will give CNN’s coverage of Trump a spine. CNN’s political coverage has been mostly useless for a long time, as far as I’m concerned. Possibly now it will be even more useless.
We still have the MSNBC evening lineup, and Trump is vowing to shut the network down. And I bet he will try.
Meanwhile, Trump has begun dismantling the National Institute of Health.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.
The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says. …
… Separately, HHS announced a communications ban through 1 February in a memo issued yesterday. (The Washington Post and Associated Press first reported the memo’s existence.) It orders a stop on the publishing of regulations, guidance documents, grant announcements, social media posts, press releases, and other “communications,” and the canceling of speaking engagements. Any exceptions must be applied for and approved through the president’s appointees.
So they’re muzzled, just in time for a bird flu pandemic to slam into us. Also there’s a “hiatus” on medical research funding. This hasn’t been widely reported, but Talking Points Memo is getting it from medical researchers.
And all of this is just the tip of a big iceberg. But we can always lighten it up by laughing at Marjorie Taylor Greene. Today she’s slamming the UK for refusing to comply with the name change of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. She is pushing to get Congress to pass a law making the change, because she thinks this will force other countries to comply.
But we can always lighten it up by laughing at Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Government of the dumb, by the dumb, for the dumb, shall not perish from the earth.
My take: if you oppose Trump and the rise of fascism, you should be rooting for the spectacular and disastrous failure of all Trump's twisted programs. In order for many of them to have an effect so traumatic on voters that they embrace Democracy again, I'm praying that some of the worst policies ARE fully enacted! (Yes, I will still resist them.)
A full-blown global tariff war, an invasion of Greenland, such that NATO declares us in violation of the NATO agreement and the EU and/or UN puts an embargo on trade, bringing the US economy to its knees. YES! I want video smuggled out of the worst concentration camps released on the Internet, documenting severe human rights violations. If FEMA is gutted, I want all the blame for the misery heaped on Trump when a Cat 5 hurricane strikes hopefully Miami.
If Trump is only a moderate failure, propped up by his propaganda department, we won't get sweeping change. If it's a failure that rivals the Great Depression, we may get a new New Deal.
If you relied on assistance for food and rent subsidies, and you did not vote, I have no sympathy for you. But I will tell you that if you want to get back on your feet, you better register and vote. If you see the demolition of the ACA and the return of pre-existing conditions, and you get to watch a loved one die, I will ask you if you voted. If you didn't you share the blame for that death. Dry your tears and let your grief and anger fuel your resolve to end medicine for profit. Register and vote! When you see that the partnership between government and business paved the way for low wages and poor working conditions with no opportunity to organize, when you must work for what they offer or starve, and you complain, I will ask you: did you vote and who for? Your only hope is if you register and vote.
IMO, Trump can not destroy Democracy in one term. There will be elections every two years for a while. Turning this around requires people mobilize in huge numbers. Pain and suffering is a great motivator.
I agree with your exasperation and I differ from Maha… it looks worse than I expected. However, I lay the blame of the orange ghoul fiasco at the feet of the Hillary/Pelosi Democrats and they are the ones that need to feel the pain. We had a chance in 2015 to elect a non-Republican and the greedy, arrogant rich old dunces of the Democratic elite torpedoed the most viable pro-working class candidate in two generations. Call him McGovern, whatever, but the future belongs to the zoomers, not the gerintocracy. I grew up amongst and servicing the rich, left-coast petit-bourgeoisie and capitalist class and they HATE working people and anyone that does not meet their financial and social standards. I think the sloppy orange counter-revolution is rooted in their mockery of the rural, white working class and why it feeeeeels so good for the orange-man voters to have shame-free false pride. At least there was a chance with Bernie.
Unfortunately, the left-coast moneyed elite will take to fascism quite nicely and continue to hammer on the working class. They will revert into their money and be just fine. Maybe Newsom (who's daddy was Pelosi's super rich business partner) will look good as a culture warrior, but us working-class folk are f*%#ed and those folks will be fine.
The breaking sounds you hear are from the rigid. In times of political overreach, flexibility and patience win over time. We do not yet know how far this overreach will go at this time. This is just an opening salvo.
Health and health services are in peril, so now is no time to get sick or seek services for someone who is sick. Nor is it time to take risks about one's health. What is politically correct is rapidly the new medically correct. Right now, the availability and price of eggs is your best evidence of the bird flu problem. Reliable government sources and institutions are under attack and credible information is being actively suppressed. Pamper your immune system. Avoid known sources of misinformation. Do mind your mental health also and avoid behavior which clouds your brain. A clear brain is most often an asset. Without a benevolent and competent federal and international health care system, we lose security. All those dead birds out there are not due to windmills, though that would be the current politically correct explanation. The politically correct explanation favored by a chronic spreader of the non-fact. The one that now gags is gagging the voices of people of veracity. It does not make politically correct information into medically correct information, however. It just makes medically correct information harder to find or discern. This is not a change for the better.
I may have mentioned this before, but we are in a horrible situation. No, we do not yet know how bad the horror will get. The sabers of a trade war are being rattled loudly.
Take note of what's going on GOP v GOP. Musk very publicly trashed an AI proposal that Trump did a grand announcement of. Musk was not there (by choice, I suspect) but one of Musk's enemies WAS.
Chip Roy is serious about cutting spending. (Member of the House Freedom Caucus who led a rebellion against Trump’s demand for eliminating the debt ceiling.) Cutting spending and eliminating the deficit was part of what Trump promised, but it's a promise he's certain to break. (The deportation plan will cost in the neighborhood of a half-trillion.) Extending tax cuts for billionaires will cost in the neighborhood of a half-trillion per year. See it? We drop a Trillion a year deeper into debt. Chip Roy is serious about ending that.
Trump has a gimmick for this. He will tell OMB to "estimate" a trillion per year of revenue from tariffs. But tariffs that steep will fuel inflation by the same amount and retaliatory tariffs will kill US exports and jobs. I don't think Chip Roy will codify a trillion dollar per year increase in debt on the promise that Trump can make tariffs work to offset that debt. The promise of tariffs by Trump is completely maliable – he will reverse the tariffs the moment they become a liability. The spending will stay. From Roy's perspective, this is the only chance the GOP will get. I think he will hold out.
To satisfy Roy, Trump may lose "moderates" who know that the Roy cuts will cost them their jobs in 2026. They may defy steep cuts in the safety net.. There's no way to split the baby. I would predict this: the reconciliation bill won't pass soon. That's a good thing because that's where the greatest harm to the most people will begin. The process of passing anything will create ideological chasms that Trump won't be able to bridge.
The art of the deal=an offer you cannot refuse=extortion. MAGA Speak 101.
This is just a joke, but…
Because the roundups have begun, there are food products rotting in the fields, unharvested for lack of labor (immigrants of various statuses). Easy solution: Maybe ICE could round up certain people, selecting anyone who wears a particular red hat, and send them into those fields to harvest the food.
Would seem like poetic justice to me. (Just a hypothetical; of course it will never happen). I guess my mood right now has a tinge of dark humor.
Today, Trump floated the idea of eliminating or restructuring FEMA. The states will do their own disaster aid. Thus weekend the House GOP is meeting…I think in Florida to discuss the big, beautiful, reconciliation bill. Hopefully, there will be leaks about what's in the proposal and how welcome it is.
Here's the problem, and it's linked to what Trump said: the Freedom Caucus wants a Trillion Dollars offset ( that's my guess of the amount) to even out a half-trillion of revenue the tax cuts will create and a half-trillion (from the estimates) Trump will need to fully implement deportation. Almost forty members of the Freedom Caucus voted against Trump's instructions when he wanted the deficit ceiling eliminated for him. They don't care where the cuts come from (except not from Defense) but they want a real dollar for dollar offset. Eliminating FEMA will be part of the proposal. Vulmerable House Republicans won't want the cuts so deep it will cost them their jobs in 2026. The two positions are irreconcilable.
IMO, arguments about bathrooms and birth certificates have value but if you want to trace the ebb and flow of real power, watch the money,
When Trump says he wants the states to do their own aid – he means the blue states, who he wants to destroy. When the Paradise Fire in California destroyed the town and surrounding area, he wasn't going to approve any aid – until his staff told him that the area was heavily Republican and lots of them had voted for him…so he agreed to release the aid.
Now (even as he's touring the destruction from the LA fires) he's talking about ending FEMA, after he and his sycophants talked about denying aid to the area – unless, of course, California agrees to enact a bunch of MAGA wish list items.
We can count on him to quickly approve aid to MAGA states…but nothing for his "enemies" – many of whom, like California actually subsidize the MAGA states with their taxes.
It's pretty much exactly what I expected…and it's going to get much, much worse. Will the inevitable damage change people's minds and get them to abandon Trump and MAGA? I doubt it…but I'd love to be wrong.
Who gets the Benjamins well WHO doesn't? We let our membership lapse since the takeover. Who cares if Eboli runs rampant if it is not WHO? It is just a risk we have to take to protect the American blood line. That project is going to cost money, and we have a group of republicans who are fiscal conservatives. That means they are tight with the Benjamins. Health care in America gets lots of Benjamins and the federal government picks up almost half of the tab for it. Federal Health Care Spending | U.S. GAO and the trend line is up.
So, Mr. Brain Worm has a lot of fealties to contribute for getting Benjamins freed up to deport blood line contaminators. So far, the plan to end birthright citizenship is floundering, but republicans can work around any rule they don't like in most arenas. It is a skill they have perfected for years.
What the republicans fear most is hybrid vigor. They prefer a thoroughbred elite which they control and police, even if they have lots of problem recessive traits in their own blood line. They just get the Senate to appoint their breeding errors to high level government positions. What could fail with a plan like that. Merit is just never as good as proper breeding.
MAGA dogma 101 (experimental version)