Feb.11

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Today's Crazypants Roundup

The Trump administration continues to produce news where the common theme, at least from where we sit, is "the opposite of good governance." Under normal circumstances, any one of these stories might have gotten its own item. But these are not normal circumstances, as Donald Trump & Co. continue with the rapid-fire approach that has been characteristic of the early weeks of Trump v2.0 (and, for that matter, the early weeks of Trump v1.0). This being the case, all we can do is run down the long list of stuff that's built up in the past few days:

• Pardon Me, Part I: Truth be told, we thought former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich had already been pardoned, during Trump's first term. It was actually a commutation, though, which meant that yesterday, a convicted felon was able to make his buddy a former convicted felon, by virtue of a full pardon.
  
  In explaining the pardon, Trump remarked: "I think he's a very fine person. This shouldn't have happened to him." Nobody can take that seriously. Blagojevich got caught red-handed trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. At very least, Trump's motivation here was to reward a former participant in The Celebrity Apprentice. However, it is almost certainly more than that, as Trump does not typically remember, and reward, "favors" that happened more than a decade ago. It is probable that pardoning Blagojevich also serves to peddle Trump's narrative of a corrupt deep state that unfairly targets politicians... like Donald Trump. And it is nearly certain that Trump wants to add Blago to the stable of "MAGA Democrats" who can go on podcasts and "news" programs and sell the administration's agenda as "bipartisan."
  
  
• Pardon Me, Part II: On that same point, it's not technically a pardon, but yesterday the Justice Department dropped its five-count corruption indictment against the wildly corrupt New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
  
  Presumably Adams is expected to do duty as another MAGA Democrat, with Blagojevich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, etc. On top of that, at least for now, he leads a big, blue city that is home to many immigrants, documented and otherwise. And the Mayor has already made very clear that he understands what services will be wanted from him in order to pay back Don Trumpeone. Adams has advised his underlings that they are not, under any circumstances, to criticize Trump, and that they must, under all circumstances, cooperate with ICE.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part I: Over the weekend, Trump announced that he was firing several members of the Board of Directors of the Kennedy Center, and installing himself as Chair. Yesterday, he followed up on that change by naming Trump insider Ric Grenell as executive director. Having at least some insight into Trump's thought processes, we would be willing to bet large sums of money that what he said to himself was something along the lines of "The arts plus a gay guy? It's perfect."
  
  Exactly what put the Kennedy Center in Trump's crosshairs is not 100% clear. Broadly speaking, the President has tried to establish that he is somehow the true heir of the Kennedy legacy. So, maybe that's part of it. It is also the case that he and his administration see little value in spending money on the arts. So, maybe this is prelude to slashing the Kennedy Center's budget, or even shutting it down.
  
  However, the preeminent motivation is probably, in essence, score-settling. The Kennedy Center is something of a gatekeeper of "high culture," and Trump is definitely an outsider there, and knows it. During his first presidency, he skipped all four Kennedy Center honors ceremonies, primarily because the various artists being honored didn't want him there, and there was an excellent chance he'd be booed by the crowd.
  
  We'll add one other thing that might be in play here. Last week, the Kennedy Center hosted a series of performances from the National Ballet of China. And that prompted Reps. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and John Moolenaar (R-MI) to send a letter to the now-former chair of the Center, David M. Rubenstein, accusing him of "subsidizing Chinese Communist Party propaganda." In case you would like to put that sort of weird propaganda/fearmongering in some context, the Kennedy Center hosted the (Russian) Bolshoi Ballet several times at the height of the Cold War, and... nobody said anything. Even a noted red-baiter like, say, William Jenner knew that sometimes a ballet is just a ballet.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part II: This isn't a firing yet, but it looks to be laying the groundwork. The White House has demanded, and received, a list of FBI employees who are in their probationary period, or have been with the Bureau for less than 2 years. These will be the easiest people to fire, as the administration either tries to cut spending, or tries to stack the Bureau with Trump-loyal staffers, or maybe both.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part III: Yesterday, Trump also fired the boards of visitors for all of the U.S. military's service academies. Those are advisory panels made up of outsiders who help manage academic programs and student life.
  
  The explanation for the firings is "Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years." Because if you're trying to find unfettered left-wing activism, the service academies are always the first place to look. Who can forget all those West Point plebes burning their bras in support of the budding feminist movement in the 1960s? (Please do not e-mail us to point out that women could not enroll at West Point until 1975; we know.) It is certainly possible that Trump really believes this sort of nonsense about "Woke Leftist Ideologues." It's also possible that he's doing everything he can to stack the military establishment (like the FBI) with MAGA loyalists. Truth be told, it's probably both.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part IV: David Huitema is the director of the Office of Government Ethics, which means he's responsible for managing the people who keep an eye on the federal government, constantly on the lookout for unethical or illegal behavior. There is NOTHING about that mission that sounds good to Trump, and so he fired Huitema on Friday, just a few months into what is supposed to be a 5-year term.
  
  It is possible for Trump to fire Huitema, but there are procedures that have to be followed and, yet again, the administration did not follow them. So, Huitema has already been reinstated, at least temporarily, while Judge Amy Berman Jackson (a Barack Obama appointee) takes a look at the situation.
  
  
• You're Fired, Part V: Here's a termination that you can tell is on the up and up, as the White House announced it on Friday night (a.k.a. the deadest part of the news cycle). Archivist of the United States Colleen J. Shogan is now former Archivist of the United States Colleen J. Shogan, having been relieved of her duties, effective immediately. Other members of her staff are expected to be axed in the near future.
  
  It is possible that Trump has some future chicanery in mind, though it's hard for us to see what could be accomplished by a (hypothetical) corrupt National Archivist. It's also possible that Trump and his allies were worried that Shogan might take action on the Equal Rights Amendment, and declare it to be ratified. These are potential secondary considerations, though they are entirely guesses. The primary consideration, on the other hand, is beyond all doubt. Shogan was, by virtue of her position, a central figure in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Now, Trump has settled that particular score.
  
  
• Score Settling, Part I: On the subject of score-settling, Trump also revoked the security clearances of several people over the weekend, among them Joe Biden, former secretary of state Antony Blinken, New York AG Letitia James and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
  
  With a list like that, you don't need us to tell you that this was a case of Trump lashing out at his "enemies." In the case of Biden, in particular, this development was also an absolute inevitability. Although #46 did not cancel the security clearance of #45/#47, he did significantly limit the information that was provided. That insult must be punished. Further, Trump very badly wants to make people believe that Biden's mishandling of classified documents, as a civilian, was orders of magnitudes worse than Trump's mishandling of classified documents, as a civilian. Revoking Biden's clearance, on the basis that he is some sort of national security threat, is part of that argument.
  
  Note that, even if it is obvious what is going on, you would be wise not to point it out in Trump's presence. A reporter had the temerity to ask if this was about retribution, and Trump blew a gasket:

  There are people that we don't respect, if there are people that we thought that were breaking the law, came very close to it in previous years, we do it, and we've done it with some people.
  
  We've done it with Biden himself. Biden himself. We think our country is not as safe when you gave him clearance.
  
  We don't think he knows what he's doing and what he's done to this country is a disgrace!
  
  And what he's done in terms of allowing criminals, murders, drug wars, into our country, people from mental institutions into our country, he should be ashamed of himself!

  We would agree with Trump that there is a person who is still alive, who served as president prior to January 20, 2025, and who is a risk to weaken national security by spilling classified information. We would disagree with him, however, that the person in question is Biden.
  
  
• Score Settling, Part II: Trump also loathes Kamala Harris, though he has relatively few ways to target her. One of the few options available, even if it's indirect, is his ongoing nuisance lawsuit against CBS and 60 Minutes, in which he argues that the news program edited their interview with her in such a manner that it makes them civilly liable for damages. Late Friday (again, a pretty good clue as to how Team Trump feels about its actions), the President's lawyers amended their complaint against CBS/Viacom. The first change is that Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) has been added as a co-plaintiff. This is to try to blunt CBS' argument that Trump filed the case in Texas because he was venue shopping. The second change is that Trump is now claiming that 60 Minutes drove people away from using Truth Social. This is a dubious assertion, and nearly impossible to prove, but it's been thrown in there to try to allow Trump to establish damages. The third, and final, change is that Trump has decided that the amount he was asking for, $10 BILLION, was not appropriate. So now he's asking for... $20 BILLION.
  
  As readers presumably know by now, Viacom is trying to merge with Skydance, a maneuver that will have to be approved by the Trump-loyal Department of Justice. So, the primary purpose of the lawsuit is to cause Viacom to settle, so that their merger won't be mysteriously rejected. You could call it a bribe, and we wouldn't object. With Don Trumpeone, you could also call it protection money. You know, along the same lines as, "You gotta nice business here, Mr. Jones. Big plate glass display window, nice paint job on the store front, very nice neon sign. If you want it to stay nice, you're gonna hafta pay us $200/month for 'insurance.'"
  
  Meanwhile, a secondary benefit here is that any news outlet that is pondering an interview with a Democrat, particularly a very prominent Democrat Trump does not like (Harris, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, etc.), has to think long and hard about whether they want to take a risk that they will be sued by Trump under some silly cause of action. Remember that every single one of the major non-right-wing news outlets has a corporate parent with either a merger in the works, or significant regulatory interests that will be before the federal government in the next year or two, or both.
  
  
• Score Settling, Part III: Any media outlet that is not pumping out right-wing propaganda is, in the eyes of Trump and his minions, a left-wing commie pinko Democrat-enabling rag. That includes Politico, which is owned by a foreign concern, and is actually somewhere between "center" and "center-right."
  
  Combine this MAGA tendency with the propensity to buy into conspiracy theories, and you have a bit of nuttiness that is a hard to believe, but absolutely true. In short, Politico missed payroll last week. The outlet says it was a processing error, and the matter was resolved later that same day. However, a bunch of eX-Twitterers noticed that this happened at exactly the same time USAID's funding was being frozen. Their conclusion was that Politico is being funded by USAID. Elon Musk apparently got ahold of this, and went running to Trump with it.
  
  It is true that several agencies did have Politico subscriptions, with a total price tag running into the millions of dollars. For those who don't know, the site offers a service called Politico Pro, which has all sorts of fine-grained insider reporting. It's like having access to Bloomberg Terminal or LexisNexis—very useful for professionals who need it, but also very pricey. Anyhow, on orders from the White House, all Politico subscriptions held by federal agencies are now canceled. So, hundreds of thousands of government employees will be deprived of information that helps them to do their jobs better, in service of (conspiratorially) slaying the USAID dragon.
  
  
• State-Run Media, Part I: That covers the treatment of the non-Trumpy media. But how about the other side of the street? Well, late last week, Fox announced that it was hiring First Daughter-in-Law Lara Trump to be part of its stable of entertainers. Matt Gertz, normally of Media Matters, but writing for MSNBC, had a pretty on-point critique:

  Media observers have long recognized that Fox News effectively serves as an arm of President Donald Trump's political apparatus. But with Wednesday's announcement that the network has tapped his daughter-in-law, Lara, to host a weekly show, it's clear Fox has abandoned any pretense that it functions as something other than a state TV channel...
  
  Indeed, this deal is almost comically corrupt. No one should have any illusions that Fox has hired Lara Trump to produce anything other than crude propaganda for her father-in-law and his administration. And the arrangement for Fox to put money into the president's family member's bank account became public two days after Donald Trump met with network owner Rupert Murdoch in the Oval Office and publicly criticized his Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
  
  No credible news outlet would employ the president's relative as a host. But Fox doesn't function like a normal news outlet, and its executives apparently no longer care to pretend otherwise. Turning over airtime to Lara Trump is simply a natural progression for a network that merged with the White House during the president's first term and is returning to that form for his second.

  If you are trying to figure out if Gertz has the right of it, all you really have to do is imagine what would have happened if MSNBC had hired Hunter Biden as a staffer in, say, 2021.
  
  
• State-Run Media, Part II: Still more evidence that there will be a "favored media" and a "non-favored media" during the Trump years came from the Pentagon yesterday. On the orders of drunken, woman-abusing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, CNN, Politico, The Hill, The War Zone, and NPR have been ordered to vacate the office space that was being provided to them by the Department of Defense.
  
  Taking over the soon-to-be-available space are The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, OAN, Newsmax, The Huffington Post, The Free Press, The Daily Caller and Breitbart. In case you are wondering how the generally lefty Huffington Post snuck in there, it's a transparent attempt to set up the claim: "Hey, we didn't favor right-wing media! See, we gave office space to the HuffPost, too!" It's kind of the same thing as that racist white guy who couldn't possibly be racist because, after all, he has a (single) Black friend. In any event, you don't end up with a list that is otherwise that overwhelmingly right-leaning by accident.
  
  
• Penny Pinching: Yesterday, Trump ordered the U.S. Mint to stop making pennies, using his boutique social media site to explain: "For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!"
  
  Note that this is not inherently a crazypants moment. It is true that pennies cost more to make than they are worth (though it's actually more like 3½ cents each, not 2 cents). It is also true that their functionality in the modern world is limited, at best. So, getting rid of pennies is a justifiable policy choice. However, there are two things that take this move into bad governance territory. The first is that if pennies disappear, then people will rely much more on nickels (since transactions would be rounded to the nearest five cents). And nickels are actually a bigger loser per coin for the Treasury than pennies are (they cost about 14 cents each to make). If the goal is to actually save money, then the U.S. would need to go to, in effect, a base-10 economy, with the dime as the smallest denomination. For the record, each dime costs 5½ cents to make.
  
  The second issue is that the rules about what coins to make are set by Congress, not the president. So, Trump is likely assuming the prerogatives of the legislative branch, once again. Of course, given the many and varied and quite serious ways he's doing this in other areas, this particular discussion is pretty quaint, like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
  
  
• Serving Two Masters: Recently, Trump observed that "tariff" is the fourth most beautiful word in the English language, behind "God," "religion" and "love." Do you think that anyone actually believes him when he says things like this? We are absolutely confident that anyone reading this site does not believe, for one microsecond, that Trump places God, religion and love above all else. But do you think the True Believers buy it? Can the brain actually resolve cognitive dissonance that is that powerful?
  
  An interesting indication of where his sentiments really lie, and where those of the Christian MAGA Militia really lie, is provided by an announcement made late Friday afternoon (ahem...). Trying to pander to the Jesus faction, he announced the creation of the White House Faith Office. But then, to lead the new agency, he chose Pastor Paula White-Cain, who is his "spiritual adviser." She is an outspoken proponent of the "prosperity gospel," which argues that since God rewards people with wealth, then being wealthy is a sign of Godliness, while being poor is a sign of sinfulness. Hard to imagine why Trump would prefer her version of religious "truth."
  
  The problem here is that a lot of evangelicals really, really hate prosperity theology. And in trying to sneak it in there on Friday, the White House apparently forgot that church services are held on Sundays. Hard to imagine why Trump is rusty on the fundamentals of Christian religious practice. In any case, quite a few MAGA megapastors blasted the appointment of White-Cain. Christian podcast host John Mason decreed: "Paula White is a known heretic and known false teacher who has no regard for the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Scott Ross, a pastor in Texas, described the choice of White-Cain as an "abomination." Jon Root, who is basically a Christian pundit, made sure to remind everyone of the patriarchal angle: "Paula White is a heretic, who pedals [sic] the prosperity gospel. Plus, women should not be pastors according to The Bible."
  
  All of this said, if there's anyone on Earth who has a black belt in resolving cognitive dissonance, it's pro-Trump Christians. So, we very seriously doubt this will hurt the President, long-term.
  
  
• The Last Straw: Paper straws are one of the many right-wing bugaboos that have become part of the culture wars. True fact: If a MAGA Republican sees a trans person sipping a Starbucks soy milk latte, in a non-religion-specific holiday cup, while using a paper straw, and reading a book on Critical Race Theory, their head instantly explodes. It's very much like when you put mentos in Diet Coke—the outcome is inevitable.
  
  Trump has made much hay out of paper straws over the years, up to and including selling plastic Trump-branded straws on his website. He hates paper straws, in part, because they are "woke," and in part because Joe Biden required federal agencies to use them while he was president. Yesterday, Trump struck a blow for plastic strawdom, issuing an executive order on paper straws. The XO forbids federal agencies from purchasing or providing paper straws, and requires them to provide plastic straws instead. Trump bragged, via social media:

  Crooked Joe's MANDATE, "NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER," IS DEAD! Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!

  The XO also requires "the development of a National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws." What we're wondering is this: If you're the poor schmuck who gets stuck writing that document, is that something you put on your CV?
  
  
• Braggadocio: Those readers familiar with the show Cheers (hat tip to sometime reader J.L.K. in Los Angeles, who had a recurring role on the show), there is an episode where a loudmouth played by a pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards shows up to claim his "winnings" from a bet he made with the owner of the bar, Sam Malone. It would seem that a year earlier, a drunken Malone, before he had commenced his recovery from alcoholism, had bet that he would marry Jacqueline Bisset within the year, or would give his bar to the Richards character. The situation is resolved by the gang at the bar getting out many different cities' White Pages (remember those?), finding a non-famous Jacqueline Bisset, and persuading her to marry Malone. Inasmuch as this would fulfill the letter of the bet (albeit not the spirit), the Richards character agrees to drop the matter, and the faux marriage is not necessary.
  
  We bring this up because yesterday Pete Hegseth made official that Fort Liberty in North Carolina will once again be known as Fort Bragg. However, and here's the surprise ending, it will not honor Confederate general (and white supremacist) Braxton Bragg. Instead, it will honor World War II veteran Roland Bragg.
  
  There is no question that Roland Bragg is a war hero; he was a paratrooper who was awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. That said, there were hundreds of thousands of war heroes in World War II who compiled résumés just like that, and nobody is clamoring to name major military bases after them. To put it another way, Roland Bragg did not have a Wikipedia entry until... yesterday around 2:00 in the morning. Undoubtedly, we all know what Hegseth was trying to do as he pored through DoD records looking for someone, anyone named Jacqueline Bisset Bragg.
  
  
• Newspeak: The administration has continued its efforts to eliminate, and maybe eventually outlaw, "woke" language. While the NSA waits for Tulsi Gabbard to get confirmed, it is working to remove 27 disfavored words from all agency websites and documents. The 27 dirty words are:
  
  
  1. Anti-Racism
  2. Racism
  3. Allyship
  4. Bias
  5. DEI
  6. Diversity
  7. Diverse
  8. Confirmation Bias
  9. Equity
  10. Equitableness
  11. Feminism
  12. Gender
  13. Gender Identity
  14. Inclusion
  15. Inclusive
  16. All-Inclusive
  17. Inclusivity
  18. Injustice
  19. Intersectionality
  20. Prejudice
  21. Privilege
  22. Racial Identity
  23. Sexuality
  24. Stereotypes
  25. Pronouns
  26. Transgender
  27. Equality
  
  We wonder: How many people working in the White House right now would actually be able to define "Intersectionality"?
  
  
• Indebted, Part I: Soon-to-be HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some pretty serious credit card debt; according to news that came out over the weekend, he is carrying a staggering $1.2 million balance. We don't know about you, but whenever OUR balance gets above $1 million, we always pay it off immediately.
  
  We point this news out for two reasons. First, government employees who are in deep debt are targets for various forms of corruption, including bribes and blackmail. This is why someone with a $1.2 million credit card balance would have great difficulty getting a security clearance. Second, Kennedy does have the necessary income to be able to manage that balance. That said, his government salary of $246,400 (or so) isn't going to get it done. He'll need his business to continue to be highly profitable in order to be able to service his debt. His business, of course, is peddling anti-vaxx products. Wonder if there's anything an HHS Secretary can do to try to give a boost to someone who is in the anti-vaxx business...
  
  
• Indebted, Part II: Kennedy isn't the only one who will be indebted in a year or two, if things continue according to plan. Quite a few Americans will join him, particularly if prices for staples (like eggs) remain as high as they are. Fox's Bret Baier interviewed Donald Trump over the weekend, and asked when prices would come down. Given who Baier is, and given who his employer is, this was supposed to be a softball question meant to let Trump deliver some of his talking points. However, what actually happened was this exchange:

  BAIER: You said that tariff is a beautiful word. There are some signs in the market, consumer confidence that they're a little jittery. So, if all goes to plan, when do you think families would be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy? Or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?
  
  TRUMP: No, I think we're going to become a rich—and look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing, like 200 billion with Canada. We owe 300—we have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let that happen.

  For those readers who do not closely follow the academic literature, we will tell you that is an example of what scholars call "changing the subject" (sorry for the technical jargon). Trump knows full well that he has no real power to deliver on his promises, and that things are likely to get worse before they get better (if they do). And so... HEY! LOOK OVER THERE!

Before we wrap this up, we want to note a couple of things. First, it is entirely possible that we are misreading at least one of these stories, and giving Trump less credit and/or more criticism than is his due. Fair enough, but we're pretty confident we are not misreading ALL of them, or even MOST of them.

Second, we also recognize that every president engages in some behavior along these lines, whether it's pursuing favored initiatives (even if they are trivial), giving boons to supporters, etc. But the extent to which certain themes run through Trump's governance—score-settling, deciding which media are "in" and which are "out," terminating very capable people due to personal grievances, etc.—cannot be denied. It's not normal, and it's definitely not good governance. (Z)