Trump, the next AG, and reality

Pam Bondi is out as Attorney General.

Maybe the only people surprised by this are gamblers who wagered that Bondi would be canned before Kristi Noem. It could have gone either way. (Those betting on Pete Hegseth are still frustrated, though his day will come.)

I have no sympathy for Bondi. She, like every toadie in Trump's orbit, sought to work for him. Anyone with an ounce of sense and a scintilla of integrity steers clear of Trump because to all appearances he is a terrible boss: petulant, loyal only to himself, erratic, cruel, corrupt, and incapable of accepting reality. The only reason to accept a political appointment from him is because the money and connections you could make while the grift lasts would make the grief worthwhile. And the grief will come. It always comes, because his delusional demands eventually collide with reality. When that happens, he will order you to reconcile the two. You will fail. He will can you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I don't know who the next A.G. will be. I only know that there are plenty of grifters-in-waiting lusting after the chance to enrich themselves at the public's expense (and at the cost of their own reputations). Such grifters are the only ones willing to pretend they can bend reality to suit the cruddiest of bosses.

It's the stupidity, stupid

Political strategist James Carville famously coined "It's the economy, stupid" as the slogan for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. For the current administration, it seems that slogan has nutated into "It's the stupidity, stupid".

Look, I don't mean to make Trump supporters mad, or even to make them feel sad. It's just that it's not possible to assess Trump's presidency, in either term, without picking up on instances of stupid behavior and stupid decision-making. And before you protest that every president does stupid things (which is true), it's the depth of the stupidity in Trump's case that is so troubling.

The latest and most egregiously stupid act on Trump's part was his commencement of war on Iran. How do I know it was stupid? Because to this day, nearly two weeks after the ordnance started flying, the administration still hasn't settled on one solid explanation for why we attacked. If you're a Trump supporter, tally up what you've heard.

Iran was a week away from a nuclear weapon! (I thought last year's Trump-ordered missile strikes eliminated their program, per Trump's own boasting.)

Iran was planning to attack us! (Haven't gotten any proof of that, and neither have the members of Congress who've been given classified briefings by administration officials.)

The ayatollah and his regime are terrible people who massacred thousands of their own people! (True enough, but oppressive leaders who massacre lots of their own people are, lamentably, not rare. Why now, and why Iran?)

Israel forced our hand! (Really? Really? You're saying that Benjamin Netanyahu can play the current administration like a cheap fiddle? You want us to see you as patsies?)

Given all the above lame (indeed, quadriplegic) excuses for sending U.S. troops into harm's way, I really shouldn't be surprised that this same president and administration were left dumbstruck that Iran responded with, among other things, a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Per an Atlantic piece by Phillips Payson O’Brien:

Astonishingly, President Trump and his aides were caught unprepared when Iran, under air assault from the United States and Israel, retaliated by targeting shipping in the Persian Gulf region and specifically through the Strait of Hormuz. Military planners have pointed out for decades that the waterway—through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes—is highly vulnerable to Iranian assault. But the Trump administration acknowledged in classified briefings, CNN reported last night, that it did not make provisions for a closure because officials assumed that such a move would hurt Iran more than the United States.

In its failure to anticipate Iran’s reaction, the administration ignored a dynamic that former Defense Secretary James Mattis, a first-term Trump appointee, was fond of pointing out: Once hostilities begin, “the enemy gets a vote.” U.S. leaders have drastically underestimated the Iranian regime’s ability to survive, adjust, and strike back. Just two weeks into a war that began at a time of the president’s choosing, the U.S. appears uncertain about what to do next.

This administration's M.O. has been on display since day 1. It is transparently impatient with what it considers dithering, which includes the kind of careful, deliberative approach that most administrations take when contemplating big decisions and big actions, especially those requiring military action. Yet if you give a damn about the lives of those you command, you must do the hard work of planning.

Maybe crying, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" is exhilarating for Hegseth and Trump. But whatever their feelings or their motives, they have no goddamned business being anywhere near the chain of command because they have no fucking sense of responsibility for how they wield their power. These developmentally arrested men cosplaying at war have contempt for prudence or caution, as especially stupid men so often do.

Not planning for an eminently possible and totally foreseeable bad outcome is unbelievably stupid. Yet that's exactly what this arrogant administration did, led by its unbelievably arrogant president. What's worse is that this administration will neither recognize nor feel shame for its stupidity, because the president lacks empathy and humility and will not permit his toadies/accomplices to express either: he considers them weaknesses.

The depth of this administration's grotesque stupidity in attacking Iran is beyond obvious. If you deny that, how long can you keep your better judgment at bay? How long can you contort yourself into a pretzel to justify what cannot be justified, to excuse what cannot be excused?

The game hasn't changed

Gregory Bovino, the bullying CBP turd who led the grotesque assault on Minneapolis, has been sent packing. He'll now spend his remaining days trying to intimidate people at California's border with Mexico. (Sorry to the folks in southern CA.) Mango Mussolini's "border czar", Tom Homan, is taking Bovino's place.

Some have cheered this change, and on one level I can see why: Bovino has behaved like a villain in a C-grade movie, designed to piss off the audience enough that the otherwise uninteresting hero looks good by comparison.

The trouble — besides the fact that this isn't a movie — is that this change is purely cosmetic. The starting quarterback has been sent to the showers and the cheerleaders, like Kristi Noem, have been muzzled (for now), but the coach, Stephen Miller, and the owner, our domestic Dear Leader, haven't changed the game plan. They still want to rule with impunity and without being challenged, even rhetorically.

And Bovino might have been in charge of the occupying force, but he didn't personally and singlehandedly brutalize or kill people in Minneapolis, or anywhere else. No, he had thousands of federal goons to do the dirty work alongside him.

Those goons remain in Minneapolis. Other goons are in Maine, and Memphis, and in dozens or hundreds of other locations. Most of them are as poorly trained and badly supervised as those in Minneapolis.

Exactly one of the main players in this brutal campaign has departed. The rest stand ready to resume it as soon as the heat dies down. And by "heat", I mean the public uneasiness of Congressional Repubicans, who detest having to answer questions about blood shed by Trump's brownshirts.

So we need to keep the heat on those Republicans, by continuing to publicize the sickening, indefensible abuses by this lawless administration's shock troops. We need to awaken everyone who's sleeping through current events. We need to arouse the dormant consciences of Mango Mussolini's supporters, or at least those whose hearts haven't shriveled.

It's not over. It has barely begun.

The Reiners and Trump

Rob and Michele Reiner's murders are a tragedy, and worse, apparently a family tragedy. I feel awful for the couple's loved ones and send my sympathies as they grieve.

I won't rehash our domestic Dear Leader's remarks about Rob Reiner's murder because if you give a damn you've already heard about them or seen them for yourself. (If you don't give a damn, you can stop reading.)

Trump's remarks are totally in keeping with my estimation of his character. As such, they didn't surprise me, or not much, anyway. In the interest of doing my bit to reclaim our country's soul, however, I have to speak up about them.

Death, particularly violent death, shouldn't be fodder for politics.

Need I remind Trump supporters of how angry they were when Charlie Kirk was murdered? People who voiced their dislike of Kirk behaved insensitively in the moment; those who celebrated his death were grossly out of line. Trump supporters' outrage at such people might have stemmed in part from a sense that their side had lost an effective voice, but it also came out of a genuine sense of grief.

If you wanted people who disliked Kirk just to shut up in the immediate aftermath of his killing, remember that others feel the same way about the Reiners. And if you have the grace not to air whatever unsympathetic thoughts you have about them right now, thank you. But could you go one step further, and tell Trump that you would like him to do the same?

To tell Trump that he was out of line isn't a betrayal of him: it's an affirmation of your own soul.

To the scolding "Justices"

A lower-court judge apologized to the (self-described) conservative "Justices" Gorsuch and Kavanaugh after they "suggested that Judge Young subverted the court’s will by failing to apply an earlier emergency order".

Judge Young said on Tuesday that he had not realized he was expected to rely on a slim three-page order issued with minimal legal reasoning in April to his case dealing with a different agency.

If you'd been in Judge William G. Young's robes, you might have "erred" in the same way he did. Why? Because those rebuking "Justices" and their colleagues in the majority didn't explain themselves.

Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has sided with [the] White House in nearly every case it has considered.

But it has done so relatively opaquely through more than a dozen emergency orders — unsigned opinions issued relatively quickly and without oral argument.

Unsigned orders without explanations are no damned help to lower courts when it comes time to puzzle through the Supremes' supposed intentions. Does what the Court's majority hastily "decided" about apples apply to oranges? How the hell should anybody outside the chambers know?

Neil, Brett — we need to speak plainly: may I call you by your first names? — fuck your high dudgeon.

You and your radical brethren (and your occasional sister-in-arms, Amy Coney Barrett) may be in a position to demand the obedience of your fellow robe-wearers, but you have forfeited any right to the respect of the millions of Americans who see through your pretense.

You posture as solons of the Constitution, but you have twisted its plain meaning, and that of many laws, to let an autocrat in the making steamroll over the legal safeguards the people established to prevent autocracy. You are nothing more, nor less, than dictator-enablers. You are fundamentally anti-democratic in your mindset, and as such, you have betrayed your oath to the Constitution you pretend to uphold.

What derailed you and your likeminded colleagues from what I assume was an initial commitment to justice, I don't know. What I do know is, you are on a course that millions of your fellow Americans will neither forgive nor forget.

If you have a shred of decency left, you will step out of your (echo) chambers and look at how the rest of the country sees you and your works.

If you have a heart, you will feel shame. That's okay; in fact, that's absolutely necessary. Only if you truly recognize the magnitude of your mistakes (and their consequences for others) will you find the resolve to fight until you've corrected them.

Is this what makes us great?

Stephen Marche in The Atlantic has disquieting thoughts about "Canada's Terrible New Freedom" [paywalled, sorry].

The United States is declining into authoritarianism and threatening Canada’s sovereignty. How can Canada ensure that its political, military, and economic institutions survive?

The threat is not abstract, and is already manifesting itself in more than words.

... Canada is increasing its defense spending and re-arming with Europe, not America. Trump didn’t give us much choice. In March, he announced the next generation of American fighter jets, which Canada has long purchased, by noting that he would sell an inferior version to other countries: “We like to tone them down about 10 percent, which probably makes sense because someday maybe they’re not our allies, right?” The idea that the American military would turn against Canada once seemed absurd. But the absurd has become almost predictable at this point. If the U.S. Marines are coming for American citizens, surely they could come for Canada too.

I always took a measure of pride in knowing that, whatever reservations our international friends might have about our pop culture, our customs, or our arrogance, they recognized that our hearts ultimately were in the right place.

I can no longer take such pride. The heart of the United States now is brutal, selfish, suspicious, and spiteful — which is to say, it's the spitting image of our domestic Dear Leader's.

If you're a citizen of the U.S., does our national change of heart fill you with pride? Do you think that change of heart has made our country great?

Then you have taken Trump's warped values into your own heart. I'm sorry for that because ultimately, they will leave you as embittered, as spiteful, as spiritually empty, and as unloved as he is. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I wouldn't even wish it on Trump, but it's too late for him. I hope it's not too late for you.

Current U.S. foreign policy reflects and embodies our domestic Dear Leader's pathologies. (So does the country's domestic policy, for that matter.) I'm deeply ashamed of that. None of the United States' traditional allies deserves the chaos and malice aforethought emanating from Washington, D.C. these days. Certainly Canada, of all places, has merited and continues to merit our steadfast friendship.

I hope I live long enough to see that friendship, and many others, reestablished. Until then, great is one thing we won't be.

SCOTUS betrays us again

The right-wing so-called "Justices" of the U.S. Supreme Court has let Elon Musk's DOGE marauders access the highly sensitive personal information held by the Social Security Administration.

The order, which lifts a preliminary injunction wisely granted by a district court (an injunction upheld by a divided Fourth Circuit), was unsigned but noted that Justices Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor did not join the majority. Indeed, the bulk of the text of the order is devoted to their objections; the actual reasons for the majority's decision are entirely absent.

This is not a formal decision of the Court: no trial has even occurred. However, you'd think that a Court majority that gave a shit about its own legitimacy in the public's eyes would have explained why it was throwing caution to the wind and giving a bunch of arrogant, reckless, and totally unsupervised Elon Musk zealots unlimited access to our data.

Consider the Court's own summary of what goes into deciding whether to stay a preliminary injunciton. (So we're all on the same page, the "stay applicant" here is the Trump Administration.)

When considering whether to grant a stay, this Court looks to four factors: “(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.” [citations omitted]

What makes the right-wing majority think the administration will succeed on the merits, in advance of a trial and in the absence of any evidence?

What irreparable injury will be inflicted if the DOGE pillagers have to wait a while? It's not like Social Security ion't working (setting aside, that is, the Trump Administration's own near-criminal mismanagement of it). Nor is the mission of DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, so urgent that it can't wait for a judge to review whether or not the administration's wrecking-ball approach to seeking "efficiency" actually passes legal and Constitutional muster.

Considering that "the other parties interested in the proceedings" include every damned citizen of the United States, not to mention lots of legal residents, staying the preliminary injunction — thus, again, permitting the lawless DOGE kids to access some of our most sensitive personal information — sure as hell will "substantially injure" the "other parties". The onus is on the SCOTUS right-wingers to say otherwise.

"Where the public interest lies" is in protecting our sensitive personal information from parties who have no damned business accessing it because they are in no legal jeopardy if they misuse their access. Again, the onus is on the SCOTUS right-wingers to explain why that's not the case.

But of course, those arrogant, dictator-friendly assholes in the right-wing majority on SCOTUS say nothing — literally not one word — to justify their aiding and abetting of Trump's autocratic power grab.

Why? Because they know no justification is possible — not if you believe in democracy and the rule of law, that is.

Which those arrogant, dictator-friendly assholes in the right-wing majority on SCOTUS emphatically do not.