Laws Still Hold

 For the most part, we have seen Trump and his ankle-biting minions fail to achieve many notable success in "lawfare" against his political enemies. The law seems to be holding, at least in part because Trump's lawyers are a pack of gibbering morons. I saw Trump Knob-Polisher Johnathan Turley noting that the charges against James Comey and Letitia James were dismissed without prejudice, because the ruling was that the appointment of Lindsay Halligan as acting US Attorney was illegal. The Department of Justice could bring new charges once they legally appoint a new US Attorney.

OK, Turley really is an idiot for missing the central fact here: Trump can't find lawyers who are A) capable and B) willing to do his dirty work. Those are mutually exclusive circles. The same goes for the bullshit threats to prosecute Mark Kelly for being in a video reminding service members that their oath was to the Constitution and not to Hair Furor. First, Kelly and the others were right on the law: servicemembers cannot obey illegal orders. Second, Kelly is likely protected by his role as a Senator. Finally, I would imagine discovery would include determining the legality of the strikes on boats in the Caribbean. 

Maybe Hegseth tries to prosecute Kelly, but does anyone really think he's getting good legal advice? John Cole recently put it: "When everything you do is performative, performance is everything." All of this - the entire bullshit thing - is about what it looks like on the Fox News feed that is mainlined into that old fucker's "brain." His administration is full of Alina Habbis and Lindsay Halligans: dumb hotties from the Lionel Hutz School of Law.

I suppose we should be worried that Trump will find competent lawyers to do his dirty work, but I think this is where his manifest decline kicks in. Do you really want to hitch your wagon to this guy? It made sense when he was ascendant for any ambitious, amoral tool to sign up. Do a few years for Trump, then become a Fox News Personality. Does that still make sense?

The looming conundrum for Democrats is this: When they retake power, there will be dozens upon dozens of Trumpist capos who committed real and serious crimes that need prosecuting, but prosecuting them will be seen as more "vengeance" when really it's just the fact that Trump is a criminal who has surrounded himself with other criminals.

Clowns Playing With Dynamite

 The worry about the various clowns that Trump has empowered in his second administration is that they would eventually cause some sort of irreversible calamity. Adam Smith's quote that "There is a lot of ruin in a nation" suggests (and I agree) that a lot of short term disasters can be overcome because states are largely resilient and "sticky" institutions. That doesn't mean that there won't be absolute disasters, just that the US might survive as something still vaguely recognizable as the US.

However, we are seeing one of those moments, perhaps, where the damage done could be truly catastrophic, and that is with Trump's embrace of Putin's "peace" plan.

These are transparently ridiculous and maximalist demands from Putin. Some AI studies (sigh) suggest that the text was written in Russian and then translated into English. Would anyone be surprised? There seemed to be some conflict within the administration with Vance supporting the deal and Rubio undermining it, but it's all chaos and clown shoes, so who knows. The "deal" was apparently "negotiated" by Trump's idiot friend Steve Witkoff, who has taken Jared Kushner's place as lickspittle errand boy and bagman. It would absolutely not shock me, if Witkoff, Kushner and others were not being paid off by the Russians to push this capitulation on Ukraine.

This, however, is another area where there are real divisions within the GOP. A few Republican Senators are already outraged over this. As deep as their heads are buried in Trump's diapered ass, they still know that Russia is our enemy. Trump's declining power and poll numbers might make it more likely that some Republicans might defect and support Ukraine.

Can Ukraine survive with just European support? That's the impossible question that Zelensky has to face right now. What's more, it's not clear that Ukraine can survive these surrender terms. 

As for Europe and the rest of the world, they have relied for decades on a United States that could be relied on to speak with one foreign policy voice. Sometimes that voice was toxic (rot in hell, Dick Cheney) but it was always consistent. Now, you seem to have various factions vying for supremacy that have positions wildly at odds with each other.

Absolute disaster, if it goes through.

Ignorance Is Amiss

 G. Elliot Morris writes about how people in polls tend to move towards Democrats once voters are informed about Republican policies. This is a variation of push polling, but in push polling, you often get inflammatory priming statements. "If you knew that Kamala Harris personally wants to perform gender reassignment surgery to third graders, would you be more or less likely to vote against her?"

With Morris' survey, he could say something factual about tariffs or ICE or bailing out Argentina, and then ask for respondents' opinion and they move left. This raises the question: Why don't they know this shit already?

There are a legion of infuriating things about the 2024 election, but the refusal of the media to cover and the Democrats to stop talking about Project 2025 is pretty high up there. The public learned about Project 2025 and largely couldn't believe that it was real, so they actively discounted it when making their voting choice. Could that have swung the election? Morris' work seems to suggest that if more people had an accurate understanding of what Trump was promising to do, that might have moved the electorate 2-3 points toward Harris. That would have moved Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin into Harris' column.

Krugman has been trying to figure out why people are so pissed about the economy over the past two years, when the US did about as good a job as possible getting out of Covid. Inflation as a discrete economic event ended in late 2022 or early 2023. However, because prices remained high and because people had little lived experience with inflation of this sort - you'd have to go back to the '70s to find anything similar - they tended to be angry that prices didn't snap back into place. Trump benefitted from a honeymoon period on the economy, but inflation isn't THAT bad right now and he's getting hammered on the economy.

IQ is not a terribly good measure of intelligence, but it does measure "something." The fact that IQ in general increased is a result of increased wealth as a society. The fact that it's reversing and declining is fodder for a thousand hyperventilating think pieces. For the health of our civic democracy, though, it could be a catastrophe.

WTF Was That?

 Donald Trump can't decide if his new best friend is Mohammed bin Salman or Zohran Mamdani. With MBS, it's a pretty straightforward case of two kleptocrats recognizing each other. Mamdani...?

What's more let's look at two images.

When was the last time you saw Trump smile like that? Ever?

Maybe he just loves Middle Eastern guy? Guys he thinks are terrorists and should be banned from entering the country?

Or maybe he's medicated out of his fucking gourd right now.

Thrashing About

 I feel fairly certain that Trump and his lackeys will slow roll or cherry pick the Epstein information. He didn't obstruct their release because it makes him look good. At the same time, we should see stuff trickle out via leaks. All of this means he's getting weaker, and when he gets weak, he lashes out like the malignant narcissist that he is.

We perhaps saw this dynamic already play out with Trump's fascistic call for the execution of members of Congress. The crime of these members - all of whom have served in the national security services - is that they reminded military and intelligence officers that they should not follow illegal or unconstitutional orders. This is enshrined in the military code. It is not - or never has been - controversial. Service men and women should not follow illegal orders, because "I was just following orders" was not a valid defense at the Nuremburg Trials.

Impressively, none of the members made any direct references to Trump's illegal actions in Venezuela or his illegal deployments to American cities. They simply reminded people of their obligations to follow the law. This anodyne statement sent first Stephen Miller and then Trump into a rage. Labeling this as "sedition" and "insurrection" led them to call for the execution of the members of Congress. (Not for nothing, but the free debate clause protects members' speech.) 

Ironically, Trump/Miller's freak out made sure that this message was amplified.

Yeah, this is bad, but it could also be a sign of Trump's increasing weakness. If internal GOP polling is as bad as the public polls, the GOP could be waking up to the idea that tethering themselves to this addled old shitbag is a bad idea, especially if that means appealing to extrajudicial killings.

The weaker Trump gets, the more outrageous he is likely to become, the weaker he will then become in turn.

Buckle up!

Vibecession

 Krugman professes to be somewhat surprised by Trump's collapsing approval ratings on the economy and consumer confidence in general. He suggests that it might be a result of Trump's constant lying and maybe even the fact that - while we have no official numbers - the job market seems to be softening. A lot.

Trump paid a price not just for the shutdown, but the way he held SNAP benefits hostage, the fact that he demolished the East Wing to put in a Mar-A-Lago ballroom and the fact that he held a Gatsby party while people were suffering.

As Marshall reiterates, power is unitary. Trump is increasingly out of touch - or rather he is now being seen as out of touch. This is perhaps the real cost of the Epstein cover up. He said he would release them, backtracked and you can't lie your way out of those basic facts.

Bitcoin fell another 3.7% today. Things are getting shaky and the clowns running things have zero answers.

Has It Started?

 Krugman drops off a quick note that it looks like the Crypto Crash may be upon us. Bitcoin, the Cadillac of Crypto, has dropped from a high of about 125,000 a month ago to about 91,000 today. Ethereum peaked at around 4800 in August and is around 3000 today, three weeks ago is was around 3800.  

David Frum points to the real peril that stable coins might pose to our broader financial institutions. The speculative frenzy surrounding some cryptos - to say nothing of the incoherent madness of meme coins - was supposed to be tempered by the stable coins. Because stable coins are redeemable in real currency, this could lead to runs on financial institutions.

Part of me is regretting not putting my money where my mind mouth is and shorting crypto. Part of me wants to jump in now and make some bucks off the venality of others. There is, however, a risk when you bet against a fraudulent system. 

We are building a house for retirement, so we have a lot of cash on hand which should be safe in a crash. We are also near that retirement and a crash...won't be great! I suppose to bright side is that Trump has bound himself to crypto in such a way that when the crash comes and if it truly devastates the economy, that will combine with Epstein to drive the nails into the coffin of his authoritarian plans.

The Human Connection

 This piece is about an AI engine designed to help you "cheat" at conversations. The author found it really distracting and did not, in fact, help her with her conversation.

Meanwhile, Yglesias writes a long post about how he likes his - seemingly profound - neurodivergence. That piece definitely shores up my impressions about a certain vacantness in his analysis. He says he makes him more objective, but the AI engine kind of has the same problem that it short circuits real human connection. There is nothing wrong with being neurodivergent and aphantasia is a striking example of a specific form of being different. That does allow him to offer his spicy hot takes that keep him in business, but it also leaves something soulful missing from his work.

AI, of course, has no soul.

So, yeah, anyway, we're all doomed.

Unitary Theory Of Power

 Josh Marshall has what he calls a "Unitary Theory of Power" that states that all power is unitary. A President is not powerful on one area and weak in another. This is why you see presidents' approval ratings fall across the board when they suffer a failure in one area. If Trump loses on the tariffs or the House vote on the Epstein files goes bigly against him, then he is weakened everywhere else.

The flop sweat emanating from the White House is because they very much understand this dynamic. The central idea of Project 2025 was to overwhelm opposition to Trump's authoritarianism with speed before the unpopularity of that project could be coalesced into a united front. "Move fast, break things" only works if you have sufficient mass behind the destructive force.

Marshall points to things like the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco as example of that veneer of omnipotence being stripped away. He also says that an increase in leaks (and I would argue the willingness of corporate media to report on what those leaks say) demonstrates that people are losing their fear of Trump's ability to retaliate.

Trump's verbal declaration to countenance the discharge petition is an example of this. Trump cannot lose. He certainly cannot lose when Republicans are the ones voting. He would rather give the appearance of being fine with the release so as not to lose the coming vote. Once it passes the House (and presumably the Senate) then perhaps he will find a way to delay or selective release some things. He isn't saying "Release the Epstein Files"; he's saying "I can't afford to publicly lose this vote."

The thin reed I'm hanging my current hopes on is the special election in Tennessee 7th CD. This district has no business flipping, but it is within that 10 point partisan margin that could surprise people. That might also be the reason why more and more Red States are not gerrymandering, because you could wind up with a dummymander where they turn reliably Republican districts into swing districts in a wave election. 

Every loss in any arena is a loss everywhere for Trump.

A Democratic Populism

 Do Democrats need to embrace the sort of populist politics that elevated Donald Trump? Maybe, maybe not. But if they do, there is one really, really easy way to do so: Billionaires.

The GOP alliance with great wealth is well known and goes back to the years after the Civil War. There have been wealthy Americans who embraced progressive politics, but the vast majority of the very well off have historically trended towards the party of low taxes and less regulation.

The politics of it today are even more stark. People apparently really are pissed off about the destruction of the East Wing and the Gatsby Party that Trump threw. They really are pissed off about the evisceration of public services. And they really are pissed off about the Epstein Files.

Rumors online is that the dreaded "Democratic consultants" were urging Democrats to focus on "affordability" over Epstein, because people really are upset about the cost of living. The thing is, Epstein is about a cabal of ultra wealthy scumbags - of whom Trump is the avatar - getting their way while everyone else suffers. Millionaires and billionaires raping girls, while the Guatemalan roofer or the Salvadoran line cook gets beaten and abused on the streets of Chicago (which drives up construction and dining costs).

Richardson lays the wood this morning with a comparison of Matt Gaetz and the Andrew Mellon. Gaetz likely paid a 17 year girl for sex so she could pay for braces; Mellon funneled wealth upwards until it created the conditions for the Great Depression. In both cases, wealth and power insulated them from the consequences of their actions. Mellon appropriated millions, Gaetz committed statutory rape, because elites don't face the same consequences as you and me.

A system that engorges the bank accounts of those already rich, while depriving millions of access to health care is one that is ripe for a left wing populism. Focus on the Malefactors of Great Wealth and you can target both affordability AND Trump's deprivations with Epstein. They are the same damned thing.

The Dog That DID Bark

 Senator John Barrasso was tasked with defending the continued hiding of the Epstein Files. His argument was not about the merits of transparency - there are none - or protecting the victims - they want them released. His argument was that this was just a Democratic ploy to make Trump a lame duck. Now -technically - Trump IS a lame duck. He is barred from running for reelection in 2028. He has hinted that he might try and violate the 22nd Amendment, and it's always an open question whether this corrupted Court would let him get away with it. I've always felt that they wouldn't, because there is just no reading of the text that they could torture into a partisan decision.

What Barrasso is hinting at, to me, is the idea that once Trump sinks below a certain level of unpopularity, once he's (again) a massive anchor on the Republican Party, then and only then will they completely turn against him. The threat of a third term is about staying powerful and relevant. All lame ducks struggle to control the agenda of their last two years in office. Reagan slipped into dementia and the Iran Contra Scandal; Clinton had Lewinsky; Bush saw Iraq collapse, New Orleans drown and Social Security galvanize opposition.

Republicans have to be exhausted defending this guy. On Monday, you're defending his tariffs because they will be good for the economy and on Wednesday, he's saying he will repeal some of them to bring down the price of food. They can see the writing on the wall, but as long as Trump is "powerful" they have to kowtow to him. If the stuff in the Epstein Files is half as bad as it appears to be, that day hastens when the GOP stops defending him. When he truly becomes an addled old king wandering his Court screaming at paintings.

What A Year The Past Few Days Have Been

 A running list of scandals from the past few days:

- Trump appears in Epstein's emails something like 1,400 times.
- Epstein calls Trump a degenerate. Epstein. Calls someone else. A degenerate.
- Trump then instructs his AG to investigate Democrats in the Epstein files a few months after saying that there was nothing in there to investigate.
- Trump says he will reduce tariffs on certain foods to reduce inflation...thereby proving that tariffs are inflationary.
- We've apparently funneled MORE money to Argentina than originally reported.
- Trump is authorizing a $50,000,000 payout to traitorous scumbag Michael Flynn.
- Trump continues to throw pardons around at some legitimately horrible people. In normal times, the repeated criminality of the January Sixers in particular would be Willie Horton on steroids.
- Kristi Noem is shoveling Federal funds at a shady ad firm to make ads extolling DHS. There is almost certainly a kickback going on here, either to her or Corey Lewandowski.
- The two clowns leading the FBI did not have to pass background checks.
- Talented Weirdo, Olivia Nuzzi, states that RFK, Jr. is still doing a ton of drugs.
- Marjorie Taylor Green is showing more fight against Donald Trump than John Fetterman.
- We are moving more military resources towards Venezuela without Congressional approval.
- We are replacing the Bureau of Labor Statistics with DoorDash, apparently.
- Trump keeps having MRIs, but he doesn't know why.

Seriously. This is what we've learned in just the last 72 hours. Of course, in some ways, we all knew this. Trump is an adjudicated sex offender who has boasted of sexually harassing and assaulting women for decades. We know he was quite close to Epstein. We know he threw over previous wives for "younger" women, and we know he openly lusted after his own fucking daughter.

We know that he was a corrupt businessman his entire fucking life. We know that he's a brittle narcissist who is lashing out at anyone he can to deflect from the manifest emptiness and ugliness inside what is where his soul should be.

Of course, I guess (I hope) millions of Americans decided that they didn't know this. That when Democrats pointed this out, they dismissed it as politics as usual.

If they decide that they know it now, will it finally make a difference? If even more smoking guns come out linking Trump and Epstein, will that do it? Finally? Can we bid rid of this cretinous creature?

The Death Of The GOP

 It's one of those days when both Richardson and Krugman seem to align, though it maybe doesn't look that way at first glance. Krugman looks at the state of the Heritage Foundation, noting that it was always a hack, far right shop, but the recent controversy over Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson has stripped away the plausible veneer. Richardson looks at the accumulating sense that the Trump Administration is just so far out of touch with the American public. The performative cruelty, the Epstein shit, the weakening economy, and while she didn't mention the various aesthetic outrages like the demolishing of the East Wing...these all create an overwhelming impression of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Back in the before times, you have that tentpole quote from Lindsey Graham saying in 2016 that if the GOP nominated Trump "We would get killed and we would deserve it." Then, of course, Trump drew to an inside straight in 2016 and won again in 2024, despite having more baggage than Delta Airlines. This has created an understanding among Republicans that Trump cannot be defied - not only because of his unexpected electoral success, but because of his petty and vindictive nature. Thou Shalt Not Cross Trump.

The problem is not merely that Trump is a flawed president along normal metrics like "understands policies" or "builds consensus" or "speaks to the concerns of average Americans." He's also an aspiring autocrat who is either empowering the fascist cruelty of people like Stephen Miller or actively directing it. Even more concerning for Republicans: He's a doddering old man whose policies are actively damaging to America.

Since 2016, the GOP has steadily remade itself in the image of Donald Trump. This can't be sustainable, because Trump's hold on the public is really a hold on the 27%. As his poor policies and temperamental flaws are shown again and again and again...it becomes harder to justify supporting him...yet the entire raison d'etre of the GOP is genuflect before Trump.

The potential does exist for the Epstein stuff to finally cause a rupture that cannot be healed.

Obviously, the Republican Party isn't going to "die." It will transmogrify into some other beast. Ideally, we get schisms and chaos, like what just happened at Heritage. Ideally, many of Trump's fervent supporters just stay home for the next two or three electoral cycles. Still, the crisis that Graham predicted is coming. The fact that he has so enthusiastically embraced Trump, too, is what makes it so delicious.

UPDATE: "Populism" was always a scam.

I Dunno

 Seems like this Epstein stuff is pretty bad.

Still, the idea that this - finally - will end Trump's presidency seems to misunderstand the nature of the GOP in 2025.

Lies Won't Get Him Out Of This

 Krugman runs through a great false equivalency in press coverage of Biden and Trump's respective economic messages. Biden people cherry picked or massaged certain economic indicators that were 100% true, but didn't FEEL true or didn't jibe with people's lived experience. Biden was also a poor spokesman for himself. The result was Trump winning the election. While on a strictly policy front Biden did well, people didn't experience the improving economy in their actual day to day lives. This is why likely the only Democrat who could have won in 2024 was a governor.

Trump, on the other hand, is just doing what he always does, which is lie like a rug. The sheer volume of lies is nothing new; Trump lies as he breaths: constantly. However, when he gets up there and blathers on about gasoline being $2 a gallon, there is literally no one who believes this is actually true. His incredible disconnection from reality is one of the biggest reasons that his approval ratings are tanking. When you combine it with demolishing the East Wing and his Gatsby party, you really have someone who is completely detached from the lived reality of most Americans. 

Look, this was always true, but now it's unavoidable.