- ”It’s become commonplace these days for Republicans to abandon everything they once believed to gain favor with Trump, such as their NATO allies. But Rubio’s flip-flop on USAID reinforces Trump’s triumph over the last vestiges of neoconservatism.”
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/usaid-destruction-marco-rubio-soft-power - ”…Elon Musk has embedded one of his teams inside the Social Security Administration, with all our personal financial information in its databases now likely available to them.
It’s so bad that a top Social Security official resigned on Monday after DOGE sought access to personal data for millions of Americans. That sounds a lot like what happened inside of the Fiscal Services Bureau and USAID.
Once inside our Social Security systems, Musk wasted no time spreading outright lies about 150-year old recipients and millions of dead people in the system—unsupported claims that were repeated by the White House and amplified by right-wing media outlets.”
https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/elon-sees-dead-people - ”Thirteen immigration judges who were not yet sworn in were notified they had been dismissed on Friday along with five assistant chief immigration judges from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Associated Press reports.”
https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/immigrants-could-be-in-us-a-decade-before-their-case-is-resolved-lawyers-say/ - Judges ruling against Musk’s rampage is turning out to be one of the biggest issues of the Musk/Trump coup. Musk is bristling at having any legal limits to his power.
Notice that Musk does not dispute the judge’s legal reasoning that “disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.” Instead, Musk’s tantrum is merely about anyone daring to question his authority. He treats America like one of his companies and he’s the undisputed boss.
https://kareem.substack.com/p/what-trump-really-gave-up-in-the - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameseagle_would-nato-members-spend-5-percent-of-gdp-activity-7297315572390752256-L8a5/
- https://www.yahoo.com/news/egypt-developing-plan-rebuild-gaza-172157937.html
- ”THE MEETING BETWEEN RUBIO AND LAVROV will not be one of equals. As a senator, Rubio was, until late in his tenure, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine. But he now must represent a more transactional president whose skepticism of Ukraine and friendliness to Russia go back years. Lavrov represents a paranoid, aggressive, authoritarian regime that still sees itself as engaged in a long-term war against the United States and Europe. The hastily announced meeting being held in Saudi Arabia—an authoritarian Gulf Arab state—may have repercussions far from the war that is ostensibly being settled. The Trump administration and Ukraine must both be struck by the parallels to a previous Trump peace agreement in which another inexperienced secretary of state made a deal with a more seasoned enemy to end a war without any American allies in the room—Trump’s Doha Agreement with the Taliban.
”Trump has claimed that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan—which his Doha Agreement guaranteed—inspired Putin to invade Ukraine. If that’s the case, he should consider what lessons others, like Xi Jinping, might take from an American abandonment of Ukraine.”
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/marco-rubio-is-walking-into-a-trap-ukraine-russia-lavrov - https://www.thebulwark.com/p/sleepwalking-congressional-republicans
- https://www.theframelab.org/magas-daddy-crisis-why-is-trump-bowing-to-elon-musk/
- https://www.rawstory.com/trump-transgender-military-ban-2671176609/
- ”Under this new Justice Department policy, no official anywhere in our country could be prosecuted while they actively served in elected office. If the official was, in fact, committing crimes while in office, one need only stay in office under Mr. Bove’s directive to save themselves from being held accountable for their alleged conduct.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/chris-christie-eric-adams-and-equality-under-law - ”The Republican Party is no longer a means for passing conservative policy. It is a permanent opposition party, persistently opposing progress by Democrats and tearing down the institutions the left has built.
”It’s why even when they win—in this case, literally every lever of power in Washington—they are still so angry and act as though they control nothing.
…
”The nihilism that Trump and the MAGA GOP have supercharged raises the stakes of all future elections, even assuming they proceed as expected. The Republican Party has become so cowed by Trump—and by Elon Musk’s threats of funding primary challengers—that it is not even pretending to be a productive force of its own anymore.
…
”Perhaps there’s a third way, best represented by Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s style of discourse. He combines a willingness to engage and actually listen to the other side with a sturdy defense of Democratic values. Buttigieg is not afraid to go on Fox News and other outlets where Republicans are tuned in. He looks past the bad behavior and taunts of the MAGA right and tries instead to get at the heart of why they feel aggrieved, even when that grievance is tainted with racism and misogyny. He then seeks to find common ground, at least on some level. He always presents a path forward, even if it is an aspirational one, where the two sides can treat each other as people caught in the same dysfunctional system, yet all with a shared need for security, health, and community.”
https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/donald-trump-nihilism-grievance-democrats - ”Trump, Musk, and the new architects of America, know that if you do not close the parks outright, if you do not announce that the forests are officially for sale, people will not protest. They will not notice the missing rangers, the visitor centers with their doors locked, the trails left to disintegrate underfoot.”
https://frederickjoseph.substack.com/p/americas-last-best-thing