@jtmlx
Roger Wilner: Military veteran; Stanford; Michigan Law; Democratic activist; retired attorney; retired backpacker & Sierra Club outings leader; grandfather; grew up next to Detroit, spent most of my adult life in California, and now in Portland, Oregon.
I have a different theory, in part because dementia is increasingly making Trump MORE impulsive than he already is as a psychopath: Trump will find SCAPEGOATS, and, this being an election year, he will blame all Democrats. He will tell the nation that his government has been "stabbed in the back".
More like, Trump does not trust anyone else to obey his orders WITHOUT QUESTION.
Parlor game: Figure out who Trump might nominate next if, for some reason, Mullin is not confirmed. Who else might meet his requirements?
Obama: "We are living in a time where it can be hard to hope. Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions. Another setback to the idea of the rule of law ... but this man - Rev. Jesse Jackson - inspires us to take a harder path ... bc if we don't step up, nobody else will"
By Nicholas Nehamas, Andrea Fuller, Danielle Ivory, and Ellen Barry
[The reporters reviewed internal records from the Veterans Affairs Department, interviewed more than 20 current and former employees, and examined TWO DECADES of federal work force data.]
#GIFT_ARTICLE
DESPITE PROMISES, THE TRUMP VETERANS ADMINISTRATION HAS CUT THOUSANDS OF NEEDED POSITIONS FOR DOCTORS AND NURSES
THE REPUBLICANS HAVE ELIMINATED health care positions left vacant after a wave of resignations and retirements at the V.A. last year.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...
The Department of Justice has sued 30 states and DC for access to their unreacted sensitive voter data. My law firm is fighting them in all 30 cases.
We are dedicating so many resources because these are the most important legal fights and the future of free and fair elections is at stake.
It's helpful, I think, for folks to know some of the details of Bondi's past, which were displayed by Rachel Maddow a year ago, when she produced a very entertaining PUBLIC SERVANT ANNOUNCEMENT with "Five Things to Know about Pam Bondi":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=igOC...
GOING TO WAR WITH IRAN, SURROUNDED BY YES MEN
Members of Trump’s cabinet see their jobs as “total obedience to the president’s will,” the columnist Jamelle Bouie argues, and that means we should all be very worried about how the war in Iran could unfold.
But I am also struck by how this regime thinks so little of the American public, thinks so little of the people who it’s sending to the war
And its inability to articulate a convincing rationale should make you very worried about how this will all ultimately unfold.
One need look no further than George W. Bush “When are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis that are dead because you lied!” and before him, Lyndon Johnson.
“To order the military forces of the United States to take action and reply.”
This Iran war is a travesty first and foremost.
Wars require a decision-making process that is open, that allows all kinds of opinions, even ones that challenge your own intuitions to enter the fray.
It’s when presidents refuse to see the truth of the wars that they are waging that they often run straight into disaster.
Now, my view is that the inability of the administration to really articulate anything...is an indication that THIS WAS NOT THE RIGHT DECISION.
This reveals the extent to which there is NO process that is producing the kinds of information necessary to fight this war effectively.
“Eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime.”
And the Trump regime seems to have been caught by surprise by some of the developments.
“Their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that, seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead.”
Now, in the case of Trump, he’s gone to war without making the case to the public, without making the case to Congress, without getting the approval of Congress.
“It happened all very quickly.”
He’s done this unilaterally, and he has not been able to articulate a particular aim or goal.
Now, for any presidency, this is not good. Even the most capable and competent men who have occupied that office need to be able to get good advice.
All of this is incredibly relevant in the context of a war.
“The United States military began major combat operations in Iran.”
This is a real contrast with the first Trump regime, which was staffed with traditional Republican figures.
And they would often tell Trump: Hey, you might not want to do this, you might want to back off, you might want to calm down.
THOSE PEOPLE ARE ALL GONE in this regime.
It is just yes men.
#TRANSCRIPT_OF_NYTIMES_VIDEO
JAMELLE BOUIE
One of the defining aspects of the second Trump regime is that there is no one there to tell Trump “no.”
No one who can curb his impulses, no one who could tell him or advise him for a better path or a more politically sustainable path.
NO ONE.
She is a serious person, not a mere booster, so I made the column available.
It is not my area, so I have no stake in the matter.
I think that both things probably will be true, though: there is a tremendous bubble, but introducing AI throughout society will cause massive unemployment.
Trump [sought neither congressional approval nor international support].
But perhaps the most shocking thing is that he seems to have had no idea the Gulf would be a target.
Trump called that “the biggest surprise” — despite the fact that every country in the region had warned him.
An apotheosis of globalization, the Gulf is a crossroads of money, people and power deeply intertwined with not just America’s fortunes but also Trump’s personal wealth.
More than anything, it shows up — in its...shuttered refineries and intercepted missiles — the fallacy of Fortress America.
#GIFT_COLUMN
TRUMP'S FANTASY IS CRASHING DOWN
This is the world Trump tries to disavow — complex and interconnected, resiliently interwoven and yet vulnerable to disruption. The Gulf embodies it like no other place.
By Lydia Polgreen
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/o...
I'll try that in the near future.
Thanks. I really did want to read it.
There are some ways in which I am a captive of my early life. My sons and grandchildren listen to audio books, and enjoy them, but I prefer hard copies (that category takes in paperbacks).
I have shied away from podcasts to avoid being a captiave audience.
I know we have the ingenuity to do it.
What’s missing now is the collective will.
Without solutions, America’s anxiety will become rage — and political backlash will follow, targeting companies that make A.I., businesses that deploy it and politicians who back it.
A new grand bargain between the public and private sectors can help us meet this moment.
Decades later, the financial crisis and Covid sparked new growth industries with millions of new jobs in clean energy, fintech and health care.
A.I.-driven mass unemployment is a potential crisis on the horizon. This country cannot withstand the kind of economic shock I see coming.
After World War II, the G.I. Bill and land grant universities sent millions of veterans to school while public research funding seeded advancements in manufacturing, aerospace, semiconductors and computing.
Skeptics will argue that we’ve tried work force reform before and it hasn’t worked. That the landscape for work force development is littered with underperforming, small-scale training initiatives.
They aren’t wrong.
But history shows that real change comes in times of crisis.
States could pilot tax code reforms that reward worker retention and entry-level hiring, penalize layoffs and encourage companies to reinvest A.I.-driven savings into the creation of jobs.
This isn’t corporate charity; it’s strategic necessity.
A manufacturing apprentice could earn a paycheck operating equipment in a factory while learning blueprint reading from a senior technician and taking classes.
But to make all this happen at scale, the private sector must be incentivized, with employer tax credits tied to on-the-job training.
