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unraveling

26.June.2025

Gimme an EFF

Have I told the story of how I invented the F-word yet? I was in second grade (of course), walking home from school with my best friend, and we noticed the 5th grade bully on the other side, also walking our way. With the strength of our numbers, and budding awareness of alliteration, I started a taunting chant, four syllables, F-er Foley! (no masking or bleeps in the original). I was pleased with the just-right word I'd come up with, we were quite pleased that he had no retort, nor chase in him. We'd truly won the day. But he worked to get even by (somehow) relaying word to my mother (at least) about what we'd said.

That must've been an interesting relay! When it came around to me, she and I had a Very Serious Private Talk about the matter, starting with me wondering (as usual) what of my various misdeeds had been found out this time. She painted the scene delicately, and asked me if I knew what That Word meant? I admitted, truthfully, that I had no idea. (I mean, I'd made it up on the spot, just because it sounded right.)

She admonished me not to use That Word again, ok? Sure, whatever. No punishment?! Sweet!

So that lesson didn't quite take; as with most people I know, it is given voice from time to time. And my cute passive and quaint tiptoe around spelling it out (here, this time, but not always here) is perhaps a bit of an homage to my mom, long after I cut the apron strings, and she's taken the aerial view of all things.

"All things in moderation" still applies, and when you hear a half a dozen effers in a single paragraph, that seems too much. Used sparingly, and at the right moment, it can have good effect. Whether or not our current president's White House lawn broadcast was that, or not, you'll have to decide for yourself. I imagine the MAGA is GAGA for it. At any rate, Seth Myers gave it a funny Closer Look, which, as usual, sets the context with straight news:

"Donald Trump illegally bombed Iran, then his team claimed he was not at war with Iran, then Trump threatened more attacks, and floated regime change, then he claimed there was a ceasefire in the war he had just entered, then he said the war his team said wasn't a war shoudl be called the 12 Day War, then he said everyone would stop shooting at each other, but everyone kept shooting at each other because, according to Trump, Israel and Iran, and this is an exact presidential quote, 'Don't know what the [bleep] they're doing.'"

And he'll be getting 34 Nobel Peace Prizes to go along with his 34 felony convictions.

23.June.2025

Moral depravity from our Supreme Court

NYT: "The government can deport a group of migrants to South Sudan, the justices say."

"The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to deport migrants to countries other than their own, pausing a federal judge’s ruling that said they must first be given a chance to show that they would face the risk of torture and clearing the way for the administration to send men held at an American military base in Djibouti to South Sudan.

"The court’s order gave no reasons and said the judge’s ruling would remain paused while the government pursues an appeal and, after that, until the Supreme Court acts. The court’s three liberal members issued a lengthy dissent...."

They don't call it the "shadow docket" for nothing: "The absence of any reasoning made it impossible to understand the majority’s thinking."

Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had endorsed lawlessness. “The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone anywhere without notice or an opportunity to be heard,” she wrote.

22.June.2025

Started a war now, illegally

Rebecca Solnit collected various views on the latest nightmare from Pennsylvania Ave (or maybe it's from some golf club). This one from Wajahat Ali, on Bluesky:

"If Trump doesn't trust his own Director of National Intelligence, and by extension, US intelligence, then which country's intelligence is he relying upon?"

And for those of us with some vague hope of the military refusing to carry out unlawful orders, Mrs. Betty Bowers:

The fact that our military was perfectly happy to use weapons abroad in violation of the War Powers Act doesn't bode well for us when they are asked to use weapons at home in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 1:20 PM

Mary Geddry put up a more comprehensive blog post than I can hope to assemble, so I'll just point you in her direction. (After you read the one, go to her substack home; she has a bunch more.) The Rose Garden Is Dead. "As Trump paves democracy for profit, foreign wars burn, ICE cashes in, data gets rigged, and one Senate rule keeper quietly holds the line."

20.June.2025

Everything Trump touches dies

Almost a month ago, Masha Gessen's op-ed in the New York Times warned of a "new phase" of the Trump era; the one where bottomless corruption, human tragedy and extreme cruelty become routine. "We humans are stability-seeking creatures. Getting accustomed to what used to seem unthinkable can feel like an accomplishment." The conversation between Gessen and David Leonhardt earlier this month expands on the topic of the humiliating degredation the country has been put through in the last five months.

A week ago Sunday, the lead headline in the NYT was about "tensions" between Musk and the orange lord, and isn't it amazing how over all that is in just 12 days? Also above the fold on June 8, Trump Crypto Buyer Has China Party Link provided yet another impeachment-worthy scandal that can't get oxygen in our deoxygenated, and flooded zone.

Never mind that "the Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China’s Communist Party coming to the United States, arguing that they are a potential security threat."

The door is wide open for buyer's of FOTUS' digital currency. I'm not remembering where I saw the phrase "coin-operated presidency," but there's no better description for the corruption we're swimming in. The "memecoin" was delicately launched just before the inaugration, as if that could innoculate it from criminal corruption.

"To bolster sales, the president’s business partners created a contest in April, offering the coin’s top buyers a tour of the White House and a private dinner with Mr. Trump at his Virginia golf club....

"There were no restrictions on who could buy the Trump memecoin — which was marketed like a collectible baseball card — including foreign nationals. But the winning buyers were given the opportunity for close proximity to the president."

But hey, at "not an official White House event," as if Donny could turn his office (and the oath he took to defend the Constitution) on and off at his convenience.

Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser and the author of “After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We’ve Made” had an op-ed in the June 8 times: print headline "The American System Is Not Designed To Resist Corruption," and online with Corruption Has Flooded America. The Dams Are Breaking. (The Opinion section URL is a collector's item, too: trump-corruption.html. Sorting it into date-coded subdirectories means they can use it as often as needed, which is more than daily, so get in line.)

Start with the opening fact (unlikely to be disputed by FOTUS, given how much he loves to flaunt his wealth): "President Trump has more than doubled his personal wealth since starting his 2024 election campaign." With a cite to Bloomberg and its estimate that his tally is now up to $5.4 billion.

"Our political system is being transformed into something that no longer serves the people. Indeed, the United States is seemingly becoming just another country with a corrupt strongman personalizing and profiting from power."

Compare the role models Don loves to gush over, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Hungary's Viktor Orbán, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Via the leader of a Hungarian anti-corruption organization,

"The story he tells echoes America’s. A justice system being captured by the leader’s loyalists. Checks and balances weakened or ignored until they barely exist. Moral and ethical frameworks eroded. Oligarchs becoming richer and more powerful than institutions....

"Americans are farther downriver than we seem to understand. Indeed, over the past several months, Mr. Trump has made moves that far exceed anything Mr. Orban has done. What separates Mr. Trump from an Orban or even a Putin is the awesome economic, technological and military power of the enterprise that he now leads: the United States of America.

"No country has more leverage over the global economy. Through tariffs announced on every country on earth, Mr. Trump has personalized that power. Tariffs give him the authority to move markets. He can turn the dial up or down. He has bypassed Congress and cast efforts to constrain him as anti-American, lashing out at “USA HATING JUDGES” on a trade court that tried to limit his tariff authority. This creates limitless opportunities for profit."

The NYT editorial board weighed in as well, with a A Comprehensive Accounting of Trump's Culture of Corruption:

"[H]e is presiding over a culture of corruption. He and his family have created several ways for people to enrich them — and government policy then changes in ways that benefit those who have helped the Trumps profit. Often Mr. Trump does not even try to hide the situation. As the historian Matthew Dallek recently put it, “Trump is the most brazenly corrupt national politician in modern times, and his openness about it is sui generis.” He is proud of his avarice, wearing it as a sign of success and savvy."

Juneteenth, 2025

Trump ahead in the poles

Our putzident troothed two days ago that we shall have TWO, count 'em TWO "beautiful Flag Poles on both sides of the White House, North and South Lawns," and lo, he has Made It So. "They are tall, tapered, rust proof, rope inside the pole, and of the highest quality."

A GIFT from him! How generous! When he did his stand-up with the workers in hard hats, he had a live go at describing his new things:

"These are the best Poles anywhere in the country, the world actually. They're tapered, uh, they have the– nice top, uh, you know, I don't know if people are aesthetic, you know [turning to his claque] they're the fake news, I don't know..."

That got a big laugh. "It's a very exciting project to me." Also, we had Israel start another war in the Middle East on our behalf?

The photo opportunity went on, and on, and on, pointlessly, absurdly, as Jordan Klepper and The Daily Show clipped for us.

"Did you ever have a guy who's not a smart person, and you're dealing with him?" and "Austria has very, very flammable trees." You don't say! Which set up Klepper's best punch line:

"If your flag pole erections last more than four hours, you probably want to see a doctor."

What about the war?

"I may do it, I may not do it, I mean nobody knows what I'm gonna do."

H/t to the NYT round-up of late night. It's some dark goddamned humor with tens of millions of lives at stake.

Speaking of flagpoles, when I heard our new +rump-gifted pair are a hundred feet tall, I thought to myself, we've got bigger poles than that. What the hell?

Idaho's Spud King J.R. Simplot's famous flag-upon-the-hill, so large the neighbors complained about the flapping noise, and he had to make the pole taller. It's still flying on its 200 ft. pole, long after J.R. has shed his mortal coil, and the mansion at the top was scraped because its time had come and gone, too.

It's nice to read (from a couple months ago) that the Simplot Family Foundation has fun plans to make the old knob into a park with "new trails, structures and landscaping to allow the area to better accommodate hiking, learning and gathering."

"The park is set to be developed as part of a multi-phase endeavor with the first phase consisting of a “Tractor Shed museum and tinkering space, a tiered outdoor picnic area and water features” with an additional green parking pad for visitors. Subsequent phases will include a “Hilltop Pavilion” located at the crest of Simplot Hill for panoramic views of the area, a “Grand Staircase,” winding paths and secret ponds and an outdoor Kids’ Zone to foster “natural play.” The four-phase project is estimated to be completed over the next 10-15 years, the [Foundation's press] release said."

18.June.2025

Funny not funny

Not sure if Joyce Vance will have an archived version of her "substack live" today, but the next best thing for the moment is on E. Jean Carroll's "Ask E. Jean" site: A Woman Is Never Too Old To Get Even. Yesterday was her "pub date," for her new book: "Not My Type; One Woman vs. a President," and she's got an embedded video (7 min.) of her appearance on Morning Joe. It's a hoot. Her description of one of the trials she sat through is fabulous. (And ICYMI, last Friday we learned that the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected +rump's petition for an en banc rehearing of his challenge to the $5 million award a jury gave Carroll. We're not even getting into the follow-up defamation trial and its $83.3 million award!)

Carroll asked advice from her "Conflabbians," What’s a better word than “funny?” But you have to be a subscriber to post a comment there, and hoo boy, I'm overloaded on subscriptions right now. But I can answer here: Grotesquely funny. But maybe that's just because I'm hung up on "grotesque" right now, to describe what's going on. The assaulting of elected officials, the pathetic military parade for +rump's birthday, and so much more.

Carroll's interview with Katie Couric is lively, too. "I love being old!" she declared (at age 81), early in the (50+ minute) vid. Reading Alexandra Jacobs' gushing review for the NYT while I listen, I learned that "Ask E. Jean" was her column for Elle magazine for 27 years. A sample of the Jacobs review:

"She notes the Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina’s schmancy tailoring and muscular physique — “leaning a left buttock — as pumped as a tetherball — against the jury box.” She compares the defendant variously to “a finely aged Troy Donahue,” “an elderly gigolo” and, as the wind ruffles his famous coif, Barbara Stanwyck."

Stripping down the country and selling off the parts

Scandals continue at a breakneck pace, we barely have time to describe one, and three more have taken over the news cycle. HCR's June 17 Letter talks about more than one, as usual of late. For example:

"...CNN reported that officials from the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump have been telling staff in the Midwest—which the authors note has a legacy of industrial pollution—to “stop enforcing violations against fossil fuel companies.” At the same time, the Department of Justice has cut its environmental division significantly, leaving “no one to do the work.”

Hard to gauge the comparative damage from long-term destruction, but this seems much greater:

"[O]utdoor journalist https://wessiler.substack.com/p/lee-daines-up-public-land-sell-off?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web Wes Siler reported... that while language inserted in the Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill requires the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of publicly owned land over the next five years, an amendment authorizes the sale of 258 million acres more. The amendment comes from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and was written by Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Steve Daines (R-MT)."

258 million acres is just over 400,000 square miles, larger than the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana COMBINED. 40% of all federal public land in the US. My friend Jon Norstog sums it up:

"No hearings, debate or public input. So much for hunting, fishing, camping, hiking or outdoor recreation. All so some fat cats can get a tax cut."

12.June.2025

Today in fascism

Can't cover everything, but among the lowlights:

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida (who wasn't nearly psychopathic enough to compete against Donald Trump for the GOP 2024 nom) has reminded drivers in the sunshine state of their "right" to hit protesters with their car.

The Guardian: Troops and Marines deeply troubled by LA deployment: ‘Morale is not great’ "Several service members told advocacy groups they felt like pawns in a political game and assignment was unnecessary."

"...then they came for the Senators..."
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) (Kamala Harris' successor, after she was elected V.P.) was forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference in Los Angeles.

Analyzing H.R. 1, the One Big Billionaire Bonanza Bill, the CBO estimates that them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose, and God bless the child that's got his own.

Will Bunch, for The Philadelphia Inquirer: From Fort Bragg to L.A., Trump enlists the military in a slow-motion coup. "Trump’s abuse of the military to control civilians, as tanks roll into D.C., is where this was always heading."

For the non-Civil War buffs in the audience, he starts by reminding us who Braxton Bragg was: "the infamous and incompetent Confederate general who owned 105 enslaved African Americans, waged war on Mexicans, and was so awful his own troops tried to assassinate him...twice." (Braxton is no longer Fort Bragg's namesake; ICYMI, our SecDef DUI dispatched "Liberty" with PFC Roland L. Bragg, of the 17th Airborne in WW II.)

"It’s not an exaggeration to say that June 10, 2025, will go down in American history as a day of infamy, when an authoritarian president made clear that the world’s largest and most lethal fighting force now exists to enforce his personalist political agenda, and not to defend the nation’s people....

"What we are watching this week, from the chaos in downtown L.A. to the Mussolini-like strutting at Fort Bragg to the soon-to-be-pothole-ravaged streets of D.C., is nothing less than Trump’s second attempted self-coup against the United States. And this one offers a much greater chance of success, unless the resistance mobilizes quickly."

Last but not least, with precious irony, "Thunderstorms early Saturday evening over Washington, D.C. are threatening to literally rain on President Donald Trump's parade."

10.June.2025

Meanwhile, the Big Billionaire Bonanza

In my not keeping up with all of the reading, my most reliable source is Heather Cox Richardson. Her June 9 Letter starts with our Rasputin cheering for ICE and the "B B B," and its increasingly poor showing in the polls.

"According to a new CBS News/YouGov poll, 60% of Americans think the bill will help wealthy people, while 54% think it will hurt poor people. Forty-seven percent think it will hurt the middle class, while only 31% think it will help the middle class."

Extending tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations is of course top of mind for our oligarchs and their bag men, including Idaho's faux deficit hawk, Senator Mike Crapo. What's another couple $trillion to the debt, after all? A war on California is just the ticket to distract us. With "Dr. Phil" embedded with ICE, omg.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) posted. “[T]hey know they are absolutely getting cooked politically w[ith] their terrible bill and rising prices, and they want to create a violent spectacle to feed their content machine. It’s time for the mainstream media to describe this authoritarian madness accurately.”

And the dots are connected: the billionaire bonanza would, as head doofus troothed, "Boost[] Border Patrol and ICE Agents on the Frontlines with the Largest Border Security Investment in History.” Not just LA! Let's get after all the Democrat cities. Hello Boise Idaho! Where our Little governor is obeying in advance, announcing that our State Police will be assisting ICE "to transport hundreds of dangerous illegal alien criminals from Idaho jails directly to ICE detention facilities where they will be processed for deportation."

Did we say dangerous? Enough? (Seven times in the press release.) It sounds like a new product rollout, complete with bogus accounting. $3,000 per "transport" for "up to a hundred" to an ICE gulag in Jefferson County, population 30,000-something in remote eastern Idaho.

"Under the new agreement, ISP will be authorized to spend up to $300,000 to carry out up to 100 transports over the next 12 months. Each transport will include multiple dangerous illegal alien criminals, and they will be sent to the ICE detention facility in Jefferson County. With higher profile, more dangerous criminals, ISP is authorized under the new agreement to transport the criminals to ICE detention facilities out of the state."

Civil war, now

The opener of Marc Elias' ("premium") Democracy Docket email, dated yesterday:

"Donald Trump had a busy weekend. He warned Elon Musk against supporting Democrats in 2026, deployed 2,000 members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles and rolled tanks into Washington D.C., for an authoritarian-style parade on his birthday.

"Meanwhile, the Supreme Court allowed DOGE to continue rummaging through Social Security data, dealing a significant setback to a lawsuit aiming to bring the same transparency to DOGE as is expected from other federal agencies.

"Yes, a lot happened over the weekend — and very little of it was good."

Top of the free-for-all stack on DD is California Sues Trump Over “Unlawful” National Guard Takeover.

Postscript:
Joe Mathews provides an on-location report from the so-called rebellion against the United States of America. Sounds like a good time was had by most who attended.

3.June.2025

Putrefaction

This morning's depressing political read was from Marc C. Johnson, Never Before. "Trump is losing in court, in the markets and the economy, but he's winning where an authoritarian needs to win."

Maybe by the time you get there, Substack's stylesheet walk-about will be fixed, but never mind the bad formatting, the dek comes from Jonathan V. Last's Bulwark piece, The Secret Police Are Here. Starting with a video excerpt (and transcript) of Rep. Dan Goldman, with this, my emphasis added:

I have never seen any plainclothes officer wearing a mask. And I asked them, “Why are you wearing a mask?”

One person told me, “Because it’s cold.” I asked him if he would testify to that under oath. And he walked away and wouldn’t respond to me.

Another person admitted that they’re wearing masks so that they are not caught on video.

And my question to them is: If what you are doing is legitimate, is lawful, is totally above-board, why do you need to cover your face?

The careful wording reflects his (before-)time as a federal prosecutor; knowing the answer. What ICE are doing is not legitimate, not lawful, not totally above-board.

Johnson's post takes us beyond the Bulwark's teaser limit to describe how Trump's "transformations" are molding federal law enforcement, the Department of Justice, and the military into tools for fascism, then his own detail on what's happening in the three realms of Law Enforcement, Pardons and Commutations, and the Military. Among the most cycnical for the one in the middle,

"at a moment when the entirety of Republican messaging around proposed vast cuts to Medicaid is all about “waste, fraud and abuse”:

"A South Florida man sentenced to 50 years in prison for ripping off tens of millions of dollars from Medicare was among the more than two dozen people whom President Donald Trump granted clemency to this week. Lawrence Duran — the former co-owner of American Therapeutic Corp., a Miami-based company that ran seven healthcare clinics between South Florida and Orlando — pleaded guilty in May 2011 to multiple felonies, including defrauding Medicare, healthcare fraud and money laundering."

And for the first prong of the triad, Lawfare's Trump’s Vision for Policing Comes into Focus: the “strengthening and unleashing” through "pushing for militarized and unaccountable policing." From one of the half dozen Executive Orders that feature unleashing, which appears to be a favorite Stephen Miller trope, and one that his boss really loves. (Along with "vicious" and "like a dog.")

Speaking about shoplifters at one event, Trump stated: “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”

And roll out the MRAPS:

"The law enforcement EO gives the attorney general and the secretary of defense 90 days to “increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.” The language appears to refer to programs, most notably (but not only) the “1033” program, pursuant to which state and local governments are given excess military equipment from the Department of Defense for free."

In furtherance of all that, as the pseudonymous Alt National Park Service reports on their Facebook feed, we're now giong to have loyalty tests in the federal hiring process. The so-called “Merit Hiring Plan”

"includes a quiz asking job applicants to name their favorite Trump policy or executive order. Yes, seriously. You’re expected to write an essay explaining your “loyalty” to Trump.

"But here’s the truth: the oath federal workers take is to the Constitution, not to a president, not to a political party, and definitely not to a list of executive orders.

"If you’re applying, remember: it’s your choice how to respond Once hired the law requires you to swear to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It does not require personal loyalty to Trump."

It seems like a good opportunity to use one of those AI word garblers, to cook up your essay. The pre-filter will almost certainly be AI-powered, and I assume that AI would love AI output. It's a language merry-go-round.

Thanks to the English edition of the The Economic Times of India, essay question #3 of 4, my emphasis added:

"3. How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role? Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired."

raveling

Tom von Alten