MAGA attacks on the MSM, inconvenient truth and democracy gain strength

NBC News reports: Pentagon removes major media outlets, including NBC News, from dedicated workstations in new 'rotation program' -- NBC News, The New York Times, NPR and Politico must vacate their office spaces in two weeks for other news organizations — including at least one that did not request to be added. .... The new outlets rotating in are One America News Network — which will take NBC News’s spot — the New York Post [owned by Rupert Murdoch], Breitbart News Network and HuffPost. Three of the new outlets are conservative, while HuffPost leans progressive. HuffPost does not have a Pentagon correspondent, and the site did not request a space, spokesperson Lizzie Grams said. .... The memo did not include further details about the process of the new “rotation program,” including how officials chose which outlets needed to vacate office space first, how the new outlets were chosen and which are next, and how long an outlet would remain without an office space before it was rotated back into the building.

That is yet another corrupt authoritarian move. Here, MAGA acts to subvert Pentagon news reporting by replacing four high fact accuracy sources with two medium credibility sources and two low credibility, i.e., crackpot, sources. From here on out, we can expect a higher level of lies, opacity and pro-DJT and pro-MAGA military propaganda. This rotation will lead to biased scrutiny of Pentagon activities, with all four of the incoming outlets having lower fact reporting standards compared to departing organizations. The change will amplify partisan MAGA propaganda while decreasing evidence-based military coverage.

These four are getting kicked out.

These four are put in. Politico didn't even ask to be included.

DJT unleashes a damaging economic attack on California

The NYT reports (not paywalled) about a major attack that DJT has launched to damage California's economy:

Trump Officials Release Water in California

That Experts Say Will Serve Little Use

Local officials and experts said the water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began sending downstream on Friday could have been helpful to farmers later this year. President Trump, in an apparent reference to the move, called it a “victory”

Trump administration officials began releasing significant amounts of water from two dams in California’s Central Valley on Friday in a move that seemed intended to make a political point as President Trump continued to falsely blame the Los Angeles wildfires on water policies in the Democratic-run state.

The releases, as ordered, have sent water toward low-lying land in the Central Valley, and none of it will reach Southern California, water experts said. Nonetheless, President Trump said on Friday that the same action would have prevented the Los Angeles wildfires on the other side of mountain ranges over which that water has no way of traveling.

“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” President Trump posted on Friday on social media in an apparent reference to the dam releases. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!”

Experts expressed dismay on Friday that releasing so much water now served little use for farmers, who typically have higher irrigation needs in the spring and summer months when agricultural fields are abundant.

“I’ve never seen them do this, other than in a major flood,” said Robert Thayer, a supervisor in Kings County, which is downstream of the Tulare County dams.

Water supplies from Northern California played no part in the ability of firefighters to combat the flames in Los Angeles County. Hydrants in Pacific Palisades went dry because the municipal water system was not designed to fight so many fires simultaneously. A reservoir that fed the neighborhood was empty because of maintenance issues, not because of a lack of supply to Southern California.

In my opinion, this crosses a major red line. This is an unwarranted attack on California and its economy. DJT is intentionally wasting precious water, knowing that it will do no good now. He clearly hopes that this will cause serious harm later in the year when a lot of water will be needed for irrigation. 

This action is pure authoritarian revenge against a state that voted against DJT, MAGA and their plans for turning America into a morally rotted, callous, authoritarian kleptocracy. 

Q: Is there another plausible way to see this other than authoritarian revenge, if so, what is it?

Global warming update: Risk assessments and economic cost estimates

This discusses data from a March 2024 risk assessment analysis. Total average global warming economic cost was running at ~$400 billion/year. Projected annual cost in some number of years is ~$1 trillion.   

A risk assessment by Lloyd's Futureset and the Cambridge Center for Risk Studies, Extreme weather leading to food and water shock: How vulnerable is the global economy to extreme weather and food shocks?, estimates ~$5 trillion in loss over 5 years in the event of a major (1 in 50 years) food and water shock caused by extreme weather. In an extreme food and water shock scenario (1 in 1,000 years), the estimated 5 year loss is projected to be ~$17.6 trillion.

A handy-dandy cost estimator

As we all know, a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real money. And lots of misery for affected people. Probably tends of thousands of deaths, but these risk assessments do not consider human deaths or impacts. These risk assessments deal only with economic losses, not human deaths. This global warming thing is starting to heat up figuratively and literally.

MAGA update: Planning for DJT's 3rd term; Regarding the Trump catastrophe

Some folks are now seriously considering ways that DJT could get a 3rd term in office, assuming he lives that long. Politico writes:

It’s the stuff of liberal nightmares and MAGA dreams: a third Trump term.

But it can’t happen, right? After all, the Constitution imposes an explicit two-term limit on the presidency — even if those two terms, like Trump’s, are non-consecutive. “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” the 22nd Amendment mandates.

Even Trump, notorious for bending norms and breaking laws, couldn’t possibly circumvent that clear constitutional stricture, right?

Don’t be so sure.

Around the globe, when rulers consolidate power through a cult of personality, they do not tend to surrender it willingly, even in the face of constitutional limits. And Trump, of course, already has a track record of trying to remain in office beyond his lawful tenure.

If Trump decided he wanted to hold onto power past 2028, there are at least four paths he could try:

• He could generate a movement to repeal the 22nd Amendment directly.
• He could exploit a little-noticed loophole in the amendment that might allow him to run for vice president and then immediately ascend back to the presidency.
• He could run for president again on the bet that a pliant Supreme Court won’t stop him.
• Or he could simply refuse to leave — and put a formal end to America’s democratic experiment.

Each path would face serious political, legal and practical impediments. But the prospect of a third Trump term shouldn’t be dismissed with a hand wave.

Trump, after all, is definitely not dismissing the prospect. He’s been openly floating it for years.

In August 2020, he told supporters: “We are going to win four more years. And then after that, we’ll go for another four years.”

One can only wonder what horrors are in store for us.

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DJT blamed Biden and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) for the tragic airplane and helicopter crash in Washington DC a couple of days ago. He has no evidence of DEI involvement. So instead of asserting evidence, he claimed his allegation is a matter of common sense. The fact is that the control tower was understaffed because DJT gets rid of federal employees and weakens the FAA.

It is therefore a matter of fair and balanced common sense to believe that since DJT is the president, the FAA is under his control, and DJT weakened the FAA because he hates and wants to get rid of government, the tragic accident and the deaths are his fault.

Henceforth, we can rationally blame DJT of the accident and the deaths. We can refer to it as "Trump's catastrophe."

And, for some context:

Q: What actions did Trump take regarding the FAA in the days before the air disaster in Washington DC?

A: In the days preceding the midair collision near Washington, D.C., the Trump administration implemented significant changes to federal aviation oversight:

Leadership and Personnel Changes

FAA Leadership Vacancy: The FAA was without permanent leadership at the time of the crash, as Administrator Michael Whitaker resigned during the transition period after clashing with Trump ally Elon Musk.

TSA and Coast Guard Firings: Trump dismissed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator David Pekoske and Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan, both critical to aviation and maritime security.

Advisory Committee Dissolution: All members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee—a panel established post-1988 PanAm bombing to advise on safety—were removed.

Policy Shifts
Federal Hiring Freeze: On January 20, Trump issued an executive order freezing civilian federal hiring, including air traffic controllers, despite bipartisan legislation mandating their recruitment. Critics warned this could exacerbate existing staffing shortages.

DEI Rollbacks: On January 21, Trump signed an order eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the FAA, reverting to “merit-based” hiring. This followed claims that DEI policies lowered standards, though no evidence linked these changes to the crash.

Of course none of that supports or contradicts DJT's excuses or his critics allegations. A serious professional investigation is needed. One can reasonably believe that a neutral, professional investigation will never happen. Given his track record, DJT will make damn sure any investigation will show he had nothing to do with it, even if he did. Nonetheless, it is a fact that DJT was president and the disaster happened on his watch. On that basis alone this is Trump's catastrophe. 

The buck stops with DJT. He demanded power and fought dirty to get it. Now he has it, everything is on him.

MAGA update: Reward the rich, screw the rest

Diligently serving the little guy

since Jan. 21, 2025,

or maybe a lot longer than that

ProPublica reports about GOP thinking about cutting social safety net spending to pay for tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, which are just humble people in need!: 

To Pay for Trump Tax Cuts, House GOP Floats Plan to 

Slash Benefits for the Poor and Working Class

A menu of options being circulated by congressional Republicans also includes new tax cuts for corporations and the ultrawealthy

In order to pay for the cuts, Republicans have started to eye some targets to raise money. Among them: cutting benefits for single mothers and poor people who rely on government health care.

The proposals are included in a menu of tax and spending cut options circulated this month by House Republicans. Whether or not Republicans enact any of the ideas remains to be seen. Some of the potential targets are popular tax breaks and cuts could be politically treacherous. And cutting taxes for the wealthy could risk damaging the populist image that Trump has cultivated.

For the ultrawealthy, the document floats eliminating the federal estate tax, at an estimated cost of $370 billion in revenue for the government over a decade. The tax, which charges a percentage of the value of a person’s fortune after they die, kicks in only for estates worth more than around $14 million.

Among those very few Americans who do get hit with the tax, nearly 30% of the tax is paid by the top 0.1% by income, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center think tank. (Many ultra-wealthy people already largely avoid the tax. Over the years, lawyers and accountants have devised ways to pass fortunes to heirs tax free, often by using complex trust structures, as ProPublica has previously reported.)

Another proposal aims to slash the top tax rate paid by corporations by almost a third.

In Trump’s first term, he brought the top corporate rate down from 35% to 21%, where it’s at now, taking the U.S. from a high rate compared to other OECD nations to about average. The proposed cut to 15% would make the United States’ rate among the lowest of such countries.

To pay for new tax cuts, the House Republicans’ proposal floats a series of potential overhauls of government programs. One major focus is possible cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for people with low incomes that is administered by the states. Medicaid expansion was a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama. Many Republican governors initially chose not to take advantage of the new federal subsidies to expand the program. In the intervening years, several states reversed course, and the program has expanded the number of people enrolled in Medicaid by more than 20 million, as of last year.

Other proposals would eliminate tax breaks for families with children. Currently, parents can get a tax credit of up to $2,100 for child care expenses. The House Republican plan floats the elimination of that break. The cut is estimated to save $55 billion over a decade.

Another proposal in the list of options takes aim squarely at parents raising children on their own. The provision would eliminate the “head of household” filing status to collect almost $200 billion more in taxes over a decade from single parents and other adults caring for dependents on their own.

It must be so tempting for MAGA in power. There are just so many ways to transfer wealth and power from the people and the public interest to elite authoritarians. And it will all be justified by insulting lies and drivel like “tax cuts pay for themselves”, “the vast new wealth will gush down, and everyone will be prosperous and happy”, there will be an “investment boom”, and “federal debt will go down because tax revenues will skyrocket”!

Aw, that's adorable,

not deplorable!

Bits: EV update; American authoritarianism & kleptocracy updates

Torque news reports on the likely outcome of DJT's and MAGA's corrupt hostility to electric vehicles: The US’s End To EV Support Will Significantly Strengthen China’s Aggressive Moves To Dominate EV Industry And Assure Their Eventual Ownership Of The Market By The 2030s -- China’s aggressive move to EVs is increasingly moving Chinese EV makers ahead of the rest of the world particularly the US. The US is attempting to cripple this by blocking Chinese sales into the US and using Tariffs to make Chinese goods more expensive. This is likely to fail given the world’s trend to EVs and China’s economy, which rivals and may soon exceed that of the US. Part of how China got here is that the Chinese government aggressively supported their automotive market with financial help and by buying up control of critical EV materials like Rare Earth Minerals.

In recent days other sources, e.g., NPR, reported that European car makers are backing away from EVs. It really does look like China will come to grow and dominate the global EV market. What DJT is doing for his personal gain is both stupid and terribly damaging to America's long-term economy and its global standing.

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Trying to keep up with DJT's authoritarian and kleptocratic actions is like trying to drink out of a fire hose. Inconvenient fact, truth, social tolerance and the rule of law are under constant undeniable, ferocious MAGA attack on multiple fronts. 

The Democracy Docket reports: Trump’s Pick to Lead FBI Refuses to Say Who Won 2020 Election -- On Thursday, Kash Patel — DJT’s nominee to lead the FBI — sat through hours of questioning during his confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate. Throughout the hearing, Patel refused to answer, or sidestepped, a number of questions about his loyalty to Trump, how he’d run the FBI and if he’d use the agency to punish the president’s enemies, as he previously promised.

MAGA thug

That is the lying authoritarian MAGA thug that will run the FBI. The US is gonna degenerate into a corrupt police state.

DJT and most of MAGA are insanely and bitterly hostile to DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives. DJT has already ordered everyone under his control to completely obliterate all vestiges of DEI everywhere in the executive branch. The attacks are baseless and solidly grounded in lies, slanders and crackpot drivel. DJT is blaming the plane crash in Washington DC on DEI, but as usual without a sing shred of evidence to support his MAGA bigotry and racism. Truthout reports: Trump’s Comments on Crash Bring Attention to His Order Ending FAA DEI Policies -- Trump has never provided proof that a single DEI hire “failed to meet established standards,” one expert said

Despite critics who argue that DEI programs compromise standards and efficiency, evidence suggests that when implemented correctly, these initiatives enhance organizational performance without sacrificing competence or safety. That is an inconvenient truth that is being converted into a despicable, bigoted MAGA lie. The NYT reports: Trump Misleads on D.E.I. Policies in Blaming Biden for Plane Crash -- There is no evidence that diversity efforts played a role in the crash, and his statements disregarded his own administration’s hiring policies. -- Even as he acknowledged that he had no evidence, but was instead relying on “common sense,” he suggested that efforts to hire more people with disabilities and diversify the ranks of the F.A.A. were to blame for the accident late Wednesday that killed 67 people.

As we all know, MAGA hates abortion. A House Republican plans to write a national abortion ban law. It has 67 co-sponsors, all of which are House Republicans. The national ban law is H.R.722 — 119th Congress (2025-2026), entitled To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.

To get that law passed, the Senate would have to get rid of the filibuster. So far, that hasn't happened. Could this be the issue that kills it? Time will tell. Also note that the legal basis cited for the national ban is the equal protection clause of the 14th A. Has anyone told you that DJT and MAGA are inconsistent about the equal protection clause? For issues where equal protection opposes DJT or MAGA dogma, DJT and MAGA hate or simply ignore it, e.g., gender affirming care and DEI. In other situations, like abortion, they love it. There is a pattern of DJT and MAGA selectively applying or opposing equal protection principles, because doing so aligns with their political and ideological goals.

DJT and MAGA have their own brand of wokeism. A NYT opinion by Tom Friedman comments: Trump Is Going Woke -- I understand that Donald Trump was elected to better manage our borders and curb left-wing wokeism. But have no illusions: Trump’s right-wing wokeism — impugning electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don’t conform to MAGA ideology and aren’t manly enough — is as devoid of common sense and not remotely in the national interest as any left-wing cultural wokeism. Most important: If Trump’s all-in-on-fossil-fuels, “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry — at the dawn of this era of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, batteries and autonomous cars — really becomes our strategy, it will not make America great again. But it will definitely help make China great again. .... China is also not so silly as to treat one form of electricity generation as more conservative, liberal or Maoist than another. In the end, the outputs are all just electrons.

See, it's that darned identity politics stinking the place up again. Identity politics on the left or the right, can be viewed through the lens of "wokeism." Obviously, they are different kinds of wokeism. They manifest differently due to their different ideological underpinnings and goals. The left's version seeks to dismantle systemic inequalities through awareness and activism, falsely criticized by DJT and MAGA as radical leftism and tyrannical socialism. By contrast, the radical right's MAGA version often aims to preserve or reclaim a sense of identity against perceived threats to justify toxic beliefs like White Supremacy, bigotry and Christian theocracy. Some argue that the left's identity politics is a means to an end, aiming for universal justice, but the right's version often treats identity as the end goal, promoting particularism over universalism.

 

And DJT is gonna fix that deplorable

situation by screwing them a lot more!

Another thing that DJY and MAGA elites hate is worker protections. Project 2025 was clear that the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) had to go or at least be neutered. On the first day of a new Trump presidency, Project 2025 calls for the dismissal of Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB General Counsel, who is considered one of the most pro-worker general counsels in recent history. That would significantly neuter the direction of the NLRB's enforcement activities. But DJT has gone well beyond merely firing one NLRB lawyer. 

Reuters reports that he has completely shut down all NLRB activities: 

Trump paralyzes US labor board by firing Democratic members -- DJT fired two Democratic officials at the National Labor Relations Board, a major shakeup that will bring hundreds of cases accusing companies of unlawful labor practices to a standstill and paves the way for Republican control of the agency. Trump removed NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, both appointees of Democratic former President Joe Biden, from their posts late on Monday, according to an agency spokesman, who said no reason was given. .... The removal of Wilcox, whose term was not set to end until August 2028, is unprecedented and may violate federal labor law. Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the agency's five-member board, said in a statement that she would pursue "all legal avenues" to challenge her firing. .... The board already had two vacancies, so the removal of Wilcox leaves it without a quorum of three members to issue decisions even in routine cases. The board reviews rulings by in-house judges in cases brought by the general counsel. Until it does, those orders cannot be enforced. Hundreds of cases are pending before the board, including ones involving Amazon.com, Tesla, Walmart, Apple, and dozens against Starbucks as it faces a nationwide union campaign.

We can all clearly see where labor protections are going. The NLRB is officially dead. 

As we all know, DJT, MAGA elites, demagogues, tyrants and kleptocrats in power love to whitewash inconvenient history as much as they can get away with. They can get away with a lot. The Daily Dot writes: Trump DOJ scrubs entire Jan. 6 Capitol riot database from the web -- Trump continued his campaign to scrub government websites of content he dislikes. -- The removal of the content comes just days after President Donald Trump pardoned anyone for “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Under the Biden administration, the web hub for the Washington, D.C. District Attorney’s Office housed a repository of more than 1,200 Capitol breach cases, which included PDFs of the case filings for each defendant. The office also periodically released data on new arrests and case resolutions, and information about how to provide tips to the FBI. As of Tuesday afternoon, this content was removed. The URL for the case database now leads to a “Page not found” placeholder.

Sadly and frighteningly, Meta/Facebook paid DJT to settle a stunningly frivolous lawsuit that DJT filed against the company. DJT alleging the non-crime of "wrongful censorship." The NYT writes (not paywalled): Meta Agrees to Pay Trump $25 Million to Settle His Lawsuit -- President Trump had sued Meta and other tech firms in 2021, arguing that he had been wrongfully censored by them. -- Meta said on Wednesday that it had agreed to pay President Trump $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit he filed over the suspension of his Facebook and Instagram accounts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Apparently, Meta had far more to lose by winning than a paltry $25 million payout in losing. 

Lies, crackpottery, authoritarianism &

kleptocracy comin' atcha hard and fast!

Enjoy!