I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
- Will Rogers
This week's featured post is "How Bad Was the Signal Fiasco?"
This week everybody was talking about the Signal leak
Last Monday, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he had been accidentally included on a Signal group chat where Defense Secretary Hegseth narrated an imminent and then ongoing attack on the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't devote a featured post to an event that had been getting so much coverage all week long, figuring that I'd just be repeating stuff you've already heard. But much of the coverage has been more confusing than enlightening, and Trump administration officials have taken advantage of the complexity of their blundering to deflect responsibility for any wrongdoing at all. Also, having once had a Top Secret clearance myself, I have some background many commentators don't.
So the featured post tries to sort this fiasco out, beginning with the observation that a whole lot had gone wrong before Goldberg ever got there, and ending with another blogger's fascinating theory about how Goldberg's invitation might not have been accidental at all.
And I forgot to mention that Hegseth has brought his wife to high-level meeting with foreign military leaders where sensitive information was discussed. He is not a serious person. My late wife had clearances I lacked, and never told me what went on in meetings where I wouldn't have been welcome. Couples all over the government operate in this way, respecting the commitments they have made to their country.
I have heard a snide comment about what Jennifer Hegseth was doing at these meetings: She was Pete's designated driver.
While I'm entertaining snide comments, here's David Roberts:
The most obvious lesson to draw from the leaked Signal chat is that these people really are morons. It's not a public act, it's not a schtick, there's not some secret back room where they drop the facade. They are genuinely stupid, incompetent people.
and special elections
We don't usually think of odd-numbered years as election years, but some important votes are happening tomorrow: two special elections in Florida to replace congresspeople nominated for Trump's cabinet, and a state supreme court election in Wisconsin that Elon Musk has been spending millions to buy.
When Trump nominated Republican Representatives Matt Gaetz attorney general and Mike Waltz national security adviser, it didn't seem like a big risk. (Gaetz eventually withdrew in response to scandal.) Both come from bright-red districts, so the special elections to replace them should have given Republicans no trouble. And that appears to be true for Gaetz' district (FL-1), which Gaetz won 66%-34% in 2024. But Waltz' district (FL-6), which Waltz won by almost exactly the same margin, is unexpectedly close in recent polls.
Polling always predicts more upsets than actually materialize, so I'll be surprised if the GOP doesn't hold on to both seats. But even a close election will send a shot across the bow of Republicans who so far have been slavishly loyal to Trump. If a +33 district suddenly produces a +5 result, any Republican in a +20-or-less district should be alarmed.
Trump apparently is worried: He withdrew the nomination of a third Republican congressperson, Elise Stefanik, to be UN ambassador. He explained:
With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.
Stefanik won in 2024 by 24%. So Trump's caution reflects his knowledge that the tide has shifted against him.
If Republicans in Congress are reading the tea leaves similarly, they may be less inclined to support the GOP's budget proposal for FY 2026, which calls for massive cuts in Medicaid and food stamps to pay for massive tax cuts for billionaires -- and still includes a huge deficit. Many Republicans are from rural districts where large numbers of Republican voters rely on Medicaid and food stamps. MAGA supporters who believed claims that Trump and Musk were only targeting "waste and fraud" are going to be surprised to discover that their own benefits are in danger.
Another important election is for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Court only swung to a liberal majority two years ago, when Janet Protasiewicz won a surprisingly resounding victory. Subsequently, the Court ordered legislative maps redrawn, undoing an extreme Republican gerrymander that had locked in a Republican majority in what is ordinarily a swing state. As a result, Democrats picked up 14 seats in the 2024 elections. In 2026 they might have a legitimate shot at gaining control of the legislature.
That's why Elon Musk has poured at least $17 million into the election, including some spending that appears illegal.
Speaking at a rally Sunday night, Musk said "we just want judges to be judges", before handing out two $1m (£750,000) cheques to voters who had signed a petition to stop "activist" judges.
[Wisconsin Attorney General Josh] Kaul had tried to argue the giveaway was an illegal attempt buy votes. Musk's lawyers, in response, argued that Kaul is "restraining Mr Musk's political speech and curtailing his First Amendment rights".
If that's not illegal, it ought to be.
However, Musk himself has become so unpopular that his attempt to buy the supreme court seat for the conservative may work in favor of the liberal candidate. After all, what does the world's richest man hope to gain from the Wisconsin Supreme Court that makes it worth this kind of investment?
We'll see tomorrow how it all plays out.
Last week, a Democrat won a Pennsylvania state senate seat that Republicans had held for nearly a century. Trump had gotten 57% of the vote there last November. James Malone seems to have tried to nationalize his election, running against Trump as much as against his opponent.
Everyday voters are not liking what they’re seeing at the federal level, they don’t like the chaos. We want to be sure that we, as Pennsylvania, are standing up for our neighbors and are standing up for our state.
and the battles between Trump and the courts
There are so many cases I can't keep track of them all. The NYT maintains a categorized list, if there's a particular case or issue you're trying to follow. So does Just Security.
I'm following the challenge to Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which is the justification he has used for taking non-citizens off the streets and flying them to a gulag in El Salvador with no due process. As I explained last week: Once they create a hole in habeas corpus rights, anybody can vanish down that hole. If there is some circumstance where they don't have to explain why they've arrested somebody, nothing stops them from falsely claiming you're in that circumstance. You may have proof that they're lying about you, but who cares? You won't get a hearing where you could show your proof to somebody with the power to set you free.
A district judge has issued a temporary restraining order against using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people. That order has been upheld by an appellate court.
The argument in a nutshell: The AEA is a wartime law, and we're not at war against Venezuela. Saying we are at war requires taking literally Trump's rhetorical characterization of undocumented immigration as an "invasion". Trump argues back: It's up to the president, not the courts, to decide whether we're being invaded.
How I hope it turns out: If "invasion" is a close call, the president gets to decide. But if the president's claim is purely a pretext for claiming the emergency powers in the AEA, a court can overrule him. Trump's claim is a pretext, so I hope his executive order gets struck down.
Anyway, the administration has asked the Supreme Court to void the TRO and let the deportations-without-due-process resume.
The appeal goes first to Chief Justice Roberts. Tomorrow, he will receive a response to the government's filing from lawyers for five migrants facing removal. From there he'll decide whether to make a ruling, hold some hearings, or involve the whole court.
and RFK Jr.'s war on vaccination
Dr. Peter Marks, who has been the top NIH official regulating vaccines under presidents from both parties, and oversaw the Operation Warp Speed push to get a Covid vaccine during Trump's first term, has been forced out. He wrote a damning resignation letter.
It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary [i.e. HHS Secretary RFK Jr.], but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.
NPR comments:
The abrupt departure comes as concern has been mounting among many public health experts about moves involving vaccines under Kennedy, who has questioned vaccine safety and effectiveness. Independent federal vaccine advisory committees have been postponed and cancelled, the National Institutes of Health has terminated research on vaccines and a vaccine critic has been picked to conduct a controversial study about vaccines and autism – a link that has long been debunked.
Marks cited special worry about the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, which has now grown to at least 400 cases. Measles can cause a long list of potentially serious complications and the vaccines provide strong, safe protection, Marks said. Kennedy has promoted alternative treatments during the Texas outbreak.
"Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation's health, safety. and security," Marks wrote in his resignation letter to Sara Brenner, acting commissioner of food and drugs.
About that "vaccine critic" who has been "picked to conduct a controversial study about vaccines and autism"? That line understates the issue.
“It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism, even though they don’t,” said Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds autism research. “They are starting with the conclusion and looking to prove it. That’s not how science is done.”
Maybe you didn't care when bird flu just affected birds. Maybe you still didn't care when you realized that chickens are birds, so egg prices would go up. Well, now it's infecting cats. Care yet?
and you also might be interested in ...
I picked this week's quote and title before Trump's NBC interview on Sunday, where he said that he's "not joking" about trying for a third term.
One of this week's sorriest stories was J.D. Vance's trip to Greenland. Originally, he and his wife were going to do a photo-op tour of the island and promote the idea that Greenland should want to be taken over by the United States. But things didn't work out.
U.S. officials went door to door in Greenland’s capital of Nuuk looking for residents who wanted to greet the second lady, Jesper Steinmetz from Denmark’s TV 2 reported. But everywhere they went, they were rejected. The unwelcoming response forced the second lady to change her plans, Steinmetz said, ahead of her arrival with Vice President JD Vance on Friday.
So instead, the Vances along with national security adviser Mike Waltz and his wife made a quick trip to the American military base in Greenland. They stayed for three hours, saw nothing of the island, met none of the locals, and then gave them this advice:
I think that you'd be a lot better … coming under the United States' security umbrella than you have been under the Denmark security umbrella
Tyranny expert Timothy Snyder unpacks all this. First, if you take the NATO treaty seriously, Greenland is ALREADY under the US security umbrella by virtue of its relationship with our on-paper ally Denmark. We used to have more bases on the island and more troops manning them, but Denmark did not kick them out; we chose to reduce our force. From there, things just get dumber.
The American imperialism directed towards Denmark and Canada is not just morally wrong. It is strategically disastrous. The United States has nothing to gain from it, and much to lose. There is nothing that Americans cannot get from Denmark or Canada through alliance. The very existence of the base at Pituffik shows that. Within the atmosphere of friendship that has prevailed the last eighty years, all of the mineral resources of Canada and Greenland can be traded for on good terms, or for that matter explored by American companies. The only way to put all of this easy access in doubt was to follow the course that Musk-Trump have chosen: trade wars with Canada and Europe, and the threat of actual wars and annexations.
and let's close with an advertisement for myself
Friends at a local retirement home asked me to speak at their forum, which I did Tuesday, on the topic "Nurturing a Healthier Relationship to the News". Here's the video. If you watch it, you may recognize a bunch of the ideas from last week's featured post.
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