12 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. "Sabotaging the Pax Americana." Paul Krugman.

   "What we’re seeing is what you’d expect if China and Russia had somehow managed to install people who wanted to sabotage America’s international position at the highest levels of the U.S. government."

   All of this makes us distrusted and friendless. It also makes us weak, because America needs allies even more now than it did during the Cold War.

   Back then the U.S. economy was considerably larger than that of our major rival; it was always a severe strain on the Soviet Union to maintain anything resembling military parity. Now, however, as the chart at the top of this post shows, China’s GDP, adjusted for differences in price levels, is significantly larger than America’s. And that’s the right measure if you’re thinking about raw power. As the chart also shows, however, the world’s democracies as a group still considerably outweigh the major autocratic powers.

   So this is a really bad time to be alienating democracies around the world and destroying America’s reputation as a trustworthy partner.

   I mean, what we’re seeing is what you’d expect if China and Russia had somehow managed to install people who wanted to sabotage America’s international position at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

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   1. Thanks for the link, PH. Great read. 

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2. Ironically, Trump NEEDs the DOJ, FBI and the Court System. Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.

   Not just Kabuki Theatre.

   I don’t doubt that at some point Trump will defy the courts. But for a number of reasons, I suspect they won’t outright defy judges yet.

   One main reason is obvious: Trump and Russ Vought want John Roberts to grant him the authority to — basically — neutralize Congress’ power of the purse. To do that, he needs a clean appellate record. So he has to go through the process of engaging in good faith (even while arguing, as he did in his response to the Engelmeyer order, for a maximal theory of Executive power).

   Another reason likely has to do with Pam Bondi. She has her own malign goals for DOJ, such as a likely assault on medical abortion pills, both between and within states. Plus, she is pursuing Trump’s attacks on sanctuary states.

   But to use DOJ for these policy purposes, there has to be a DOJ, with attorneys more competent and experienced in Federal litigation than Ed Martin, the Acting US Attorney in DC. With the possible exception of the birthright citizenship defense, DOJ has real AUSAs fighting these cases, AUSAs who are going to be unwilling to risk their bar license on frivolous legal arguments or lies.

   Finally, I think DOJ is in a risky situation in its confrontation with attorneys and FBI personnel. Ben Wittes noted recently, the Administration needs the FBI, in ways it doesn’t need USAID personnel, at least not in the same potentially catastrophically visible way they need the FBI.

   Ben Wittes:

   "The FBI rank and file have power in this equation that other agencies, such as USAID, for example, do not have. The Trump administration does not need USAID. It wants to eliminate foreign aid anyway, so if the personnel at the aid agency get uppity, who cares? And if they quit? All the better."

   "The FBI is not that simple. For one thing, the administration does need law enforcement. If there’s a terrorist attack, and there will be, and the FBI is not in a position to prevent it or investigate it quickly and effectively, the administration will take the blame."

   "This administration also draws its legitimacy from backing the blue. Even in their war on the intelligence community, Donald Trump and his people always tried to distinguish between the rank and file and the “bad apples” who were running things. Waging a full-scale war against the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, a war that is all about targeting street agents for having done their jobs, is a dangerous game—far different from sacking an FBI director, or even two, who went to some elite law schools and served at the upper levels of the Justice Department."

   "Then there’s the problem of capacity. FBI agents are actually very hard to replace—good ones are, anyway. The physical demands are significant. Most have specialized education of one sort or another. And while people often imagine FBI agents as glorified cops who kick doors down, the truth is that a lot of agents have exquisitely specialized expertise. The training of a good counterintelligence agent takes many years. Some agents have specialized scientific training. There are even agents who specialize in art theft. Take out a thousand FBI personnel for political reasons, and you destroy literally centuries of institutional capacity. A good FBI agent is much harder to create than, say, a good assistant U.S. attorney."

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3. One Big Danger Giving Musk's Team Access to the Code

   TL:DR; They will break the code. It will be bad.

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   1. Maybe/Probably. I think the primary purpose is data mining. The breakage of the government, science, services, etc, THAT is intentional.

      Musk in his narcissistic hubris is pursuing control & power. He has a staff of hackers and programmers anserable to him, and him alone. I'm sure he intends to download entire datasets and run them through AI. 

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4. Always happy to read your substack when it is on a topic for which you have  expert knowledge. Software and code is one of those topics.

   Have you seen any efforts to make shadow or mirrored websites that preserve the precious acquired knowledge, such as what climate scientists did with the EPA climate website during Trump 1.0?

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5. kwtree: 

   stories of grabbing data are out there.  One I saw is

   Daily Kos: Another Federal Website Archive Indexed: FDA.Gov

   that lists several efforts.

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6. Finally, someone who gets it …..

   Still Crazy… – by Joe Klein – Sanity Clause

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   1. Why bother. Republican lite oh and I have to be a bitch collaborator abandoning my principles and family? Fuck that! 

      Universal Healthcare to Universal Basic Income BOLD 

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   2. The mission ofLBPoS on thisforum has always been to demoralize, divide,and divide Democrats. Thatmissionis just much easier now.

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7. History doesn't becessarily repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

   We are back in 1981 when the Dems organized a circular firing squad and decided that the way to win was to keep the faith with the hard lefties. We got Mondale and Dukakis and 12 years of ketchup as a vegetable, "Just Say No", massive tax cuts for rich people and corporation (after all, they are people too), Ollie North and Iran-Contra, and countless deaths as a result of the "gay plague" (HIV for those of you too young to remember the '80's). But we kept the faith.

   I seriously doubt Trump's creative economic policies are going to help his base. My guess is that the opposite will happen. But, if he is successful in blaming the blowback on Biden-Harris, then he will receive a reprive. After all, the GOP was able to successfully convince people in this country for 12 years (1981 to 1993) that everythhing wrong was the fault of Jimmy Carter.

   Similarly, his civil service reform is probably going to backfire when all the competent bureaucrats are replaced with MAGA trailer park trash who are still working on getting their GEDs. But again, he will find a way to blame this on Biden, or Harris, or Obama, or Hillary.

   I am not dividing the Democrats. You're doing that to yourself.  

   Hispanics Bolted to the Right in 2024. Can Democrats Win Them Back? – The New York Times

   Eventually, when you guys get tired of losing elections, you'll come to your senses.

    

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   1. Where the fuck are the leftist? I dont remember the leftist policies the Democrat party were passing? I remember when Biden gave large amounts of money to cops. I remember that we didnt magic up Universal Healthcare. Heck we didnt even discuss that as the destination for four years. So when you say leftist I think NO the Democrats were too moderate. 

       

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