Friday, March 28, 2025

After 38 years, it's time to junk the bedrock idea undergirding conservative economic philosophy of low taxes because IT'S NOT TRUE

 AXIOS today, here:

A bedrock idea of conservative economic philosophy is [the] idea that low taxes fuel economic growth. 

This idea is simply false, and history proves it.

We've had 38 years since the Reagan Tax Reform Act of 1986 to prove it correct and it's not.

Real GDP 1986-2024 has grown at a compound annual rate of 2.586%, a rate 29% worse than for the same length of time before that when taxes were much higher.

Real GDP 1948-1986 grew at a compound annual rate of 3.635%.

Tax reform is a complicated topic, the political subject of the AXIOS article.

I can simplify it for you: Tax like we used to in the immediate post-war.

Nominal marginal rates in 1957 (dollars are NOT adjusted for inflation in the tables), the height of the Baby Boom, went from 20% to 91%.

The set up didn't stop people from marrying, having children, and buying houses, and it didn't stop economic growth, because it forced rich people to avoid these confiscatory marginal rates by investing their money domestically to earn income at lower rates of capital taxation.

Ronald Reagan's tax reform was a license to invest elsewhere, and we're all poorer for it. 

If Democrats had any brains they would propose richly rewarding domestic investment using the tax code and severely punishing foreign investment. They could start by raising top marginal tax rates on ordinary income and offering much lower long term capital gains tax rates de-linked from ordinary income but only for domestic investment.

The country desperately needs much better economic growth, and the libertarian-Republican consensus is not providing it.

 

Investment abroad eclipsed investment at home for the first time in 1993 and is 200% of domestic today

The March 28, 2025 GDPNow forecast for 1Q2025 GDP falls sharply to -2.8%

 


Just as 9.7 million of 43 million student loan borrowers become past due again, cars they can't afford to buy anyway soar in price due to tariffs, a one-two punch alienating the youth vote from Trump

 Over 9 million student loan borrowers past due after bills restarted, Fed estimates

... A new student loan delinquency can cause a borrower’s credit score to drop more than 150 points, the Fed warns.

... The tariffs will kick in at midnight on April 3, and Trump has said they will be “permanent.” ...

... A spokesperson for Klarna acknowledged to NBC News that people needing to pay for meals on credit is “a bad indicator for society.” ...

Latest Trump minerals deal with Ukraine carves up the invaded country between Trump and Putin even worse than before


 

Trump's minerals deal with Ukraine is an expropriation document, demanding half of its oil and gas, almost all of its metals, and now also much of its infrastructure in reparations.

Black radicals want reparations from whites. The radical Trump wants to gobble up most of Ukraine.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here:

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure.

The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations. ...

It dovetails with parallel talks between the US and Russia for a comprehensive energy partnership, including plans to restore West Siberian gas flows to Europe in large volumes, with US companies and Trump-aligned financiers gaining a major stake in the business.

The revived gas trade would flow through Ukraine’s network, and later via the Baltic as the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines are brought back on stream. ...

Prof Riley said: “It is not compatible with EU membership, and perhaps that is part of the purpose. I have to wonder whether the real intention might not be to force Zelensky to reject it.” ...

Germany’s Bild Zeitung said talks have been underway for weeks in Switzerland to reopen the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, conducted secretly by ex-Stasi agent Matthias Warnig and Mr Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell, a man known for his Kremlin sympathies.

The terms would give US contractors operational control and a fat revenue stream, creating money out of “thin air”. A cynic might call it a legal “donation” to Mr Trump’s circle by the Kremlin.

“There is talk about Nord Stream. It would be interesting if the Americans put pressure on Europe, to make them stop refusing our Russian gas,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. ...

All evidence so far is that Trump & Putin Inc is a perfectly harmonious joint venture.

 

The new Axis of Evil: Putin and Trump are tag-teaming to carve up the world


 

 Russia’s Putin says it would be a ‘profound mistake’ to dismiss Trump’s push for Greenland

“In short, the United States has serious plans regarding Greenland. These plans have long historical roots, as I have just mentioned, and it is obvious that the United States will continue to consistently advance its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic,” Putin said.

 

Democrats united under Hakeem Jeffries in the US House are the only ones in American politics above water right now

 US House Democrats voted unanimously against the Republicans' continuing spending resolution under -4.2 underwater Republican Speaker Mike Johnson (except for Democrat Jared Golden [ME-2], a Blue Dog Democrat who under ranked choice voting in Maine wins by being the second choice of people who voted for someone else).

Senate Minority Leader Democrat Chucky Schumer (-19.6) led eight other Democrats in the US Senate to pass the continuing spending resolution. 

Republicans are jumping the shark. Opposing that is popular. 

Democrats, are you listening?


Core pce inflation in February 2025 was 2.8% year over year, 75% higher than the 1.6% average 2017-2020

 The last eleven months have seen the year over year measure fluctuating between 2.88% and 2.63%.

Zero progress since April 2024, when the measure rounded to 2.9%, same as in December. 

Yeah, but your leaders wear Tiffany and Rolex, that's what counts.

 


 


Phhh, I go 25 times the sound of speed after one espresso

 Drink coffee, say stupid things faster.


Why do the UniParty's bitches feel they must flaunt their expensive bling from Tiffany and Rolex at the southern border and in El Salvador?

 



Thursday, March 27, 2025

Headlines to remain illiterate as before

 Wather forecasts may be less accurate due to govt cuts...

Real GDP update for Mar 27, 2025

 The third report for real GDP for 4Q2024 and full year 2024 was released today here.

The annual rate of economic growth in 4Q was 2.4%, and 2.8% for 2024.

But here's the big picture.

Real GDP for the 79 years 1929-2008 grew at a compound annual rate of 3.405%.

Real GDP for the 16 years 2008-2024 grew at a compound annual rate of 2.074%, a rate 39% lower.

We have not had, and do not now have, the greatest economy ever at any point since the Great Recession.

 


 

Russia repeatedly violates ceasefire on Ukrainian energy infrastructure

 Zelenskiy says Russia hit Ukraine’s power infrastructure, US should react 

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday Russian artillery had damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the front-line city of Kherson, two days after the U.S. announced that each side had agreed to a truce on energy strikes. ...

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and now holds about 20% of the country, contends that it has observed an energy strike truce since March 18. Ukraine says Russia has attacked eight Ukrainian energy facilities since that date. ...

It's important to remember that screw-up Pete Hegseth is SECDEF because of J. D. Vance


 

... Vice President Vance had to break a tie vote to get Hegseth confirmed after three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — voted no. ...

More.

LOL Stefanik stays in the House even though Democrats are down two seats due to recent sudden deaths

Whipping the vote for Trump in the GOP-led House must be getting harder and harder given all the mayhem he's causing for Republican voters in Republican districts, who are losing their government jobs and are becoming afraid for their Social Security among other things.

Assuming Republicans keep FL-1 and FL-6, they'll be back to 220 since Stefanik isn't leaving for the UN, but apparently a temporary seven-vote majority is needed because for some legislation the GOP still doesn't have the votes.

 


 

 

 White House withdrawing Stefanik nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to UN 

... House Republicans had expressed concern that if Stefanik was confirmed, it would have made it tougher to get Trump’s agenda through the lower chamber because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would have lost a vote in his conference and didn’t have a clear idea how long it would take New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to schedule a special election to fill the seat.


 

 

Holy cow, if this is true FL-6 must be in peril: Trump considering pulling nomination of Elise Stefanik to the United Nations to preserve small US House majority

 


Gold made another new record high price today at $3,059.30, the 17th new high of the year


 

According to CNBC here.

An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated a futures price as the new high spot price.

None other than Bernard-Henri Levy, the French Jewish author of the book The Will to See, puts then Representative Mike Waltz (FL-6) and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic together in October 2021, thanking them for coming to his book launch

 Trump National Security Adviser Mike Waltz denies ever meeting the guy he was standing near.

 


National Security Adviser Mike Waltz lied through his teeth with the cameras rolling to President Trump at the White House on Tuesday, saying he never met Jeffrey Goldberg

 





National Security Adviser Mike Waltz announces that he will dedicate the rest of his life to finding out who really killed Nicole

 


As with the Biden administration after the Kabul debacle, there won't be any accountability for people at the top in Signalgate while tens of thousands lose their gubmint jobs

 "One law for me, another for thee."

Signed, The UniParty.

But look on the brightside. You just lost your job working for Uncle Sam, you didn't get killed or left behind in a hellhole to rot.


 

 

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Meanwhile the main story goes unaddressed, as usual: The Trump administration is a materialist horror show without a soul, whose god is money, which treats our allies as freeloaders

Everything is reduced to a mere transaction.

It is libertarianism writ large.

 

 


The incompetence of Signalgate comes on the heels last month of a Tass News Agency journalist gaining access to the Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy

It's all part of a pattern of incompetence which includes Elon Musk firing people indiscriminately and then having to scurry and rehire people in critical positions who never should have been fired in the first place.

 Amateur Hour 2.0


 

There's already been a lawsuit filed against Hegseth et alia in Signalgate, and Judge Boasberg won the lottery lol

 



National Security Adviser Mike Waltz actively added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat about the coming Houthi attack

 


National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said he never met Jeffrey Goldberg but stood right next to him at the French Embassy in 2021 lol

 


The Atlantic calls Trump's bluff and publishes full Signal thread sent to its editor by mistake by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz

 The Atlantic publishes full Signal thread with Hegseth, Waltz after Trump says texts not classified

... Goldberg in Wednesday’s report wrote: “If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.”

“The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” he wrote. ...

Liberals are upset with Trump's EO on elections because it threatens to withhold federal money from jurisdictions which don't crack down on voting by non-citizens

Whether liberals will address this head on, however, remains to be seen. They may simply challenge the meddling of the executive in a matter the constitution reserves to the states.

The Supreme Court has consistently deferred on this to the states, even during all the election controversy of 2020, rebuffing Trump over and over again, and is likely to do so again, which would be yet another defeat for Trump.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

-- Article I, Section 4, clause 1

Trump promises more EOs on elections in the future.

He's already issued 100 of them. And the next guy can issue 100 overturning them. 

This is all theatre. Republicans' narrow majorities in the House and Senate make any of these becoming permanent law extremely unlikely.

 Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship

US Postal Service will not count Saturday as a transit day for packages starting April 1, adding an extra day, and some first class mail will experience delays

 More here.

... Despite generating $79 billion in revenue in 2023, the USPS lost $6.5 billion. ...

In conjunction with DOGE, the USPS announced it would be cutting around 10,000 jobs by using an early retirement program. Select employees would be offered $15,000 for taking their retirement early - a move that’s expected to save the agency billions. ...

Get ready for America to lose its AAA credit rating entirely under Trump

 ... The agency said in a report that the country's fiscal health deteriorated further since Moody's lowered its outlook on the U.S. triple-A rating in November 2023. ... 

Moody's is the last among major ratings agencies to keep a top, triple-A rating for U.S. sovereign debt, though it lowered its outlook in late 2023 due to wider fiscal deficits and higher interest debt payments.

Fitch cut the U.S. sovereign rating by one notch to AA+ from AAA in 2023, citing fiscal deterioration and repeated down-the-wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills. It was the second major rating agency to strip the United States of its top triple-A rating, after Standard & Poor's did so after the 2011 debt ceiling crisis. ...

More.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson wants to straight up demolish an entire US federal district court in retaliation against judges who issue rulings he doesn't like, just because he can


 

... "We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things." ...

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said eliminating a district court would create "massive, massive backlogs". ... 

Reported here.

They're goin' there

 

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

War, huh, yeah, What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, uhh

 


















It's a good thing voting isn't centralized in the United States because I'm sure Trump would find a way to screw that up, too

 


Trump and Musk are crashing Social Security and its elderly customers are panicking

 


 The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. ...

The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems. ...

Leland Dudek — the accidental leader elevated to acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk’s team behind his bosses’ backs — has issued rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems. Others have left in disgust. ...

Alarmed lawmakers are straining to answer questions from angry constituents in their districts. Calls have flooded into congressional offices. The AARP announced on Monday that more than 2,000 retirees per week have called the organization since early February — double the usual number — with concerns about whether benefits they paid for during their working careers will continue. Social Security is the primary source of income for about 40 percent of older Americans. 

Trump has said repeatedly that the administration “won’t touch” Social Security, a promise that aides say applies to benefit levels that can only be adjusted by Congress. But in just six weeks, the cuts to staffing and offices have already taken a toll on access to benefits, officials and advocates say. ...

More.

This should be good for election turnout in November 2026.

Greg gets it

 


Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic was mistakenly included in the Houthi Signal Chat because he shares the same initials as Jamieson Greer


 

Goldberg, who has the same initials as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, was mistakenly added to the group by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.

Reported here.

I hope they don't bomb Ireland when they intend to bomb Iran.

I guess we'll just have to have a Fourth Reich, then, armed to the teeth with nukes: Millennials Pete Hegseth and J. D. Vance think the Europeans are freeloaders


 

In the chats, the user identified as Vice President JD Vance expresses concerns about the strikes but ultimately agrees to go along with US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's plan - before adding 'I just hate bailing Europe out again.'

Hegseth responds: 'I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC.' 

And of course they want to throw Mike Waltz under the bus:

There are claims that Mr Waltz is facing the sack over the saga - as he's believed to have been the official who 'added the editor-in-chief [of The Atlantic] to the group'.

One source told Politico: 'Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a f***ing idiot.'

The Financial Times reports that privately some German officials are starting to wonder out loud whether the time has come to acquire their own nuclear arsenal.

Monday, March 24, 2025

Republican Mike Waltz' former FL-6 seat looks in peril next week if the fundraising figures are any guide

 Or is the Republican advantage there so great that Randy Fine doesn't need the money to win?

 


 

Incompetent Pete Hegseth, or was he drunk?, texted US Houthi attack plan to The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg just hours before it was launched on March 15

 The Ides of March will get you every time.

 


 

 

Just my experience but Nissan drivers have always stood out to me as more reckless and aggressive than others

 


Ha ha ha, the budget framework House Republicans were so proud of passing in late February will have to be completely reworked in the Republican Senate, reconciliation bill won't move until the end of July

... “Thune and others have said they don’t think it’s realistic we’ll move the finished product until the end of July,” a Republican senator said of Thune’s projected timeline for moving Trump’s agenda.

“Thune said he thought that the House’s timeline on this was totally unrealistic and that the House doesn’t have their ducks in a row, and their budget resolution has to be completely reworked, and this idea that we do it by April or May is just ridiculous,” the source said. ...

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last month that the House-passed budget needed “a major overhaul” before it could pass the Senate. ...
 
More

The major areas of disagreement include switching to the so-called current policy baseline to get the cost of the package to zero, a complete fantasy; choosing which tax cuts, most of which are ad hoc and targeted and not broad-based, to include in the package; cutting future deficits by $880 billion as the House says it wants without cutting Medicaid funding; and goosing defense spending by $175 billion.
 
Just minor details like that.
 
 

Stupid Republicans who work for the IRS in Ogden, Utah voted for their own firings

 Republican politicians face mounting anger over Doge cuts

... In a county Donald Trump won by more than 20 percentage points last November, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) seemed to be “actively working to destroy our lives and the livelihood of our local economy”, said IRS employee Torrie, whose mother and grandmother also worked at the agency, and who asked for her full name not to be published for fear of reprisals. ...

Sunday, March 23, 2025

Republicans under Trump lay the groundwork for the police state which Democrats could only wish for: AG Pam Bondi threatens US House Representative Crockett (TX-30) with terrorism charge


 
 In the future, everything wrong will be deemed "domestic terror" and suffer the draconian punishments for domestic terror.
 
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has nothing better to do than appear everyday on Fox News, has the temerity to threaten a Congresswoman. Wait until it's your free speech which is threatened.
 
On second thought, don't wait. It already is.
 

... “She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country,” Bondi said during an appearance on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” ...     

If AG Merrick Garland had done this to a Republican, you would have never heard the end of it from the likes of Mark Levin and his ilk.

But hey, when Republicans do it it's OK!

 


A new party of violence in the making?

 "They hate us": Democrats confront their own Tea Party

Various observations after Democrat town halls:

 "Among the things I got [at a town hall] were: 'Will you call for Chuck Schumer to resign?'" the lawmaker said. "Last week I got: 'You need to tell your leadership they had no right rebuking Democrats for being strong at'" Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress.

"Another thing I got was: 'Democrats are too nice. Nice and civility doesn't work. Are you prepared for violence?'"

"The level of exasperation is comparable [to the Tea Party] for sure, even if the issues and policies are very different," said [Jared] Huffman [CA-2]. 

"The base has been pissed off for a while." ...  it "seems to be more widespread" now.

"My constituents have passionately said they are not happy with Democratic leadership. ... They expect more from me and from Democrats in Congress."

"If near unanimity against the Republican CR is not definitive evidence of a party unified in opposition to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, then I am not sure what would be," said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.).

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) told Axios that "no one expressed displeasure with Democrats" during his last two-hour town hall. People are "back to focusing on Musk and Trump," he said.

"All I know is that most folks are pissed, and scared, and they hate this chaos and the blatant corruption of Trump and Musk," said Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio). "Democrats absolutely want leaders who are going to fight back and fix what's broken."

Clueless Ed Kilgore today post-mid-March thinks angry Democrats are in the minority based on a Gallup poll from late January

But this simply ignores everything Trump has flooded the zone with since January 27. That's a backward-looking poll.

Trump's has been a non-stop roll out of actions designed to alienate everyone in every arena.

Republicans are angry, too.

Has Ed been living under a rock?

Ed Kilgore here in "Today’s Angry Democrats Are Not Tomorrow’s Tea Party of the Left":

... it’s not accurate to say that the current wave of anger is ideological or the product of an aroused Left. As Politico notes, Democrats unhappy with their party are not at all united in any ideological diagnosis or prescription:

Despite the restive energy in the party’s progressive wing, the Democratic discontent does not seem to be centered around a desire to pull the party to the left or the right. Democrats cannot seem to agree on which direction the party should move in — recent Gallup polling found that 45 percent wanted the party to become more moderate, while 29 percent felt it should become more liberal, and 22 percent wanted it to stay the same.

I think it's way too early to say this is or is not like the Tea Party period. It was 21 months from Santelli's Rant to Election 2010, so it's still very early innings, the beginning of the game. We're not even two months in. 

The energy I've seen in the interim directed against office holders does resemble the Tea Party movement in some ways, which was a maelstrom of angst for its time, sucking rich and poor and everyone in between into its vortex. Its energy reverberated long after into the November 2010 election and later into the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The violence against Tesla does not resemble the Tea Party. But it is energy. And it is ideological. Elon Musk is a traitor to the green energy movement, making the prospect of climate doom more probable to them. The left is most definitely aroused.

I can still remember my congressman warning me that unless he voted for TARP in September 2008 my credit card might stop working. Politicians like him then weren't focused on ordinary people and their views, same as today at Republican town halls where one tone-deaf politician after another is greeted with derision by people upset about losing their government jobs and in fear of losing benefits they've earned.

The Tesla protesters think climate doom is near, just as the craziest factions of the Tea Party movement were sure another Great Depression was just around the corner.

No, the politicians in 2008 were focused on the big money failures of investment banking like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers, which were outside the FDIC system, not on the people whose traditional banks and jobs were in actual peril.

Civilian employment fell by 3.5 million just from December 2008 to March 2009. 24 banks failed during this period alone, after 22 failures already in 2008 up to that point.

And what the politicians did subsequently fixed nothing.

461 more FDIC banks went on to fail by the end of 2014. Civilian employment crashed by 10.05 million from July 2008 to January 2010, and did not recover its July 2007 level until October of 2014. Between 2006 and 2014 there were approximately 9.3 million real estate foreclosure filings or the equivalent.

Millions were badly hurt. Many never recovered. They and their children voted for Trump in 2016.

People getting hurt is the standard of comparison in these things.

Putting 600,000 government workers out of a job all of a sudden in 2025 is really bad, stupid, and downright mean, but not on the same level as the Great Financial Crisis. But start missing Social Security checks or disappearing your neighbor in the middle of the night because something was wrong on his immigration paperwork and things might get spicy. A shooting war with Canadians or Mexicans, or Panamanians or Danes, would be next level.

American tourists or workers or residents abroad incarcerated in a tit-for-tat with the Trump administration might start to focus even more minds.

Who knows what's next?

Like I said, early innings, the energy is building, but Kilgore isn't here.


 

Methinks 'twas lefty Elon who did the turning

But of course the turncoat liberal poofter would miss that.

  

Saturday, March 22, 2025

Nature is self-cleansing

 Cannabis users 6 times more likely to have heart attack, study shows...

Travel advice for America's 12.8 million green card holders from immigration lawyers

 Seen here:

... McBean Pompy says she advises green card holders not to stay outside the US longer than six months. If they do, she says, it’s possible for the US government “to allege that they have abandoned their residency.” Also, green card holders who are in removal proceedings shouldn’t travel, she says. And she advises clients not to sign any documents at the airport, especially if they don’t understand them.

Leopold says the advice he’s giving to clients varies depending on their circumstances. He’s advised many visa holders to hold off on travel, particularly given the possibility that new travel bans are coming soon from the Trump administration.

“If I were not a citizen, I would think long and hard before I traveled. And that includes green card holders. It’s less of a risk, obviously, for a green card holder to travel, because you do have more rights with the green card, and it’s much harder to keep a green card holder out of the country,” he says. “But anybody who’s got blemishes on their record, a conviction, even misdemeanor convictions, they should not travel unless they’ve talked to counsel.” ...

Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek is a lying sack of shit typical of the Trump administration who should be fired immediately

Dudek's reasoning below is the same level of ridiculous we saw when Trump said he wouldn't recall the deportation flights ordered by Judge Boasberg because they were already in international airspace and were therefore not subject to the order. Trump ordered the flights in the dead of a Friday night/Saturday morning a week ago to avoid detection and court intervention.

Republicans playing chicken with the lifeline for over 73 million Americans wasn't what people voted for last November, but that's what they are getting.

 

... Dudek said the court order [from Judge Hollander] is so broad that it could apply to any Social Security employee, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek told Bloomberg. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”

However, in a March 18 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Dudek said there are only 11 DOGE-affiliated individuals at the Social Security Administration. ...

Dudek assumed the role of acting commissioner in February when then acting commissioner Michelle King stepped down due to DOGE privacy concerns. ...

Reported here.

Friday, March 21, 2025

This greaseball billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks missing a Social Security check, something that never happens, would be no big deal

Howard is otherwise busy firing people and disbanding volunteer industry groups who help the government create important statistics and guidance about things like gross domestic product, population, trade, etc. which people rely on every month to forecast the economy.


 

Absolutely stunning: Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatens to shut down Social Security last night, takes it all back this afternoon

 


What a shit show. This guy needs to be fired stat.

This is America under Mad King Ludwig.

Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek threatened Thursday evening to bar Social Security Administration employees from accessing its computer systems in response to a judge’s order blocking the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing sensitive taxpayer data.

Less than 24 hours later — after the judge rejected his argument and the White House intervened — Dudek is saying he was “out of line.”...

“[The White House] called me and let me know it’s important to reaffirm to the public that we’re open for business,” he said. “The White House did remind me that I was out of line and so did the judge. And I appreciate that.”...

Dudek first made his threat to close down the agency during a Bloomberg News interview Thursday night. ...

Such a dramatic move to effectively shut down the agency would have been unprecedented in the agency’s history and would immediately begin halting benefit payments for millions of Americans.

“For almost 90 years, Social Security has never missed a paycheck — but 60 days into this administration, Social Security is now on the brink,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement. “Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has proven again that he is in way over his head, compromising the privacy of millions of Americans, shutting down services that senior citizens rely on and planning debilitating layoffs, all in service to Elon Musk’s lies.”     

More.

Like Trump, Musk arrogantly dismisses limits on executive power and belittles Congress' power of the purse, Congress wallows in servitude to his seizure of power


 

 ... Asked later that day whether Congress should weigh in on his widespread cuts, Musk responded, “Well, they do have a vote.” ... the administration has privately reassured GOP lawmakers, particularly House Republicans, that DOGE will continue to unilaterally rescind congressionally approved funding whether lawmakers are given the chance to weigh in or not. ...

Here.

Grassroots revolution in the making: For the first time since the poll began in 2009 congressional Democrats are now underwater with their own voters in approval ratings

 

 Democratic voters are even angrier than you think. ... Democrats are on the verge of a Tea Party-style, intra-party revolt. ... these numbers open the door to a potentially bruising string of primaries in both the House and Senate. There are 13 Democratic-held Senate seats up for reelection next year — many of them involving veteran senators in the bluest states — raising the prospect of a stream of younger, insurgent candidates more closely aligned with the party base, similar to what the GOP has contended with over the past 15 years. ...

More.

Trump's own immigration policy advisor Stephen Miller thinks Trump should be impeached for defying Judge James E. Boasberg's order to recall the deportation flights lol

 This guy's so dumb he forgot to scrub his timeline.


The constitutional crisis that many feared from a vengeful, re-empowered Trump is here

 Congress is cowed; that’s one supposedly coequal branch of government down. But federal courts are proving more resistant to Donald Trump’s trampling of laws and the Constitution. Now, just two months in office, the president has all but crossed the red line — defying a judge’s order — that for more than two centuries has separated the rule of law in this country from its undoing. ... 

The chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr., schooled both the congressman and the president, issuing a rare statement of what should be obvious: “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

But Trump won’t be educated. ...

In effect, and denials aside, Trump and his lieutenants defied the law ...

Jackie Calmes for The Los Angeles Times, here.

I'm sensing a theme building at CNBC this morning


 

 

Blink and you'll miss it: Gold made yet another new high Thursday, the 16th this year

$3,057.21

-- CNBC

... the April 2 deadline draws near for the next wave of U.S. tariffs ...

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Esla sucks

 


Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander rebukes DOGE for hiding their own identities while scouring Social Security for ours, stops Elon Musk's fishing expedition for immigrants

A federal judge Thursday issued a temporary restraining order barring Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency team from having access to personally identifiable information from the Social Security Administration.

Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander in a scathing ruling accused DOGE of launching a “fishing expedition” at the Social Security agency and failing to provide any reason why it needed to access vast swaths of Americans’ personal and private data. ...

The judge also ordered the DOGE team members and affiliates to delete all non-anonymized personally identifiable information in their possession or control that they have accessed “directly or indirectly” since Jan. 20. ...

Hollander, noting the affiliates of DOGE have kept their identities hidden, wrote, “ironically, the identity of these DOGE affiliates has been concealed because defendants are concerned that the disclosure of even  their names would expose them to harassment and thus invade their privacy.”

“The defense does not appear to share a privacy concern for the millions of Americans whose SSA records were made available to the DOGE affiliates, without their consent,” the judge wrote. ...

 

Kremlin Karoline pretends Trump doesn't judge-shop

 

 
... there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge shop, to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench, in an attempt to derail this President's agenda. ...
 
Mahmoud Khalil still detained in notorious Louisiana detention center as case is moved to New Jersey

... Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Khalil in the lobby of his Columbia University apartment building, took him to New Jersey and quickly transferred him to Jena, more than 1,000 miles away from his pregnant wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and his attorneys in New York.

Civil rights lawyers who work with immigrants locked up in Louisiana’s detention centers say they are concerned for Khalil, given the Jena facility’s unsettling history. However, they say they are not surprised that ICE transferred Khalil to Louisiana, where access to counsel is extremely limited, and where the courts skew conservative.

In a phone interview with Verite News last week, Anthony Enriquez, vice president of U.S. advocacy and litigation at civil rights nonprofit RFK Human Rights, said the Trump Administration is “forum shopping” Khalil’s deportation case — looking for the jurisdiction that will give the government the outcome it wants.

“The government has the ability to do that with immigration,” Enriquez said. “It can arrest someone in a jurisdiction where the case law is very favorable to the person arrested, and then sweep them away to another jurisdiction.” ...