onfocus

After federal health officials made abrupt changes to US Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women last month, there’s new confusion and uncertainty about who can get the shots — and some reports that patients were turned away when they tried to get vaccinated.

In the future, please vote for people who want other people to suffer less. Republicans are trying to make sure we are sicker through anti-science policies.

The world according to Stephen Miller is a cruel and callous one, in which America is strictly for unhyphenated Americans and those here “illegally” must be forcibly returned to the “failed states” where they were born. To Miller, the crumbling American heartland is being preyed on not by rapacious capital but by an invading army of gangsters, thugs, and terrorists waved in by coastal liberal elites—in other words, by exactly the kind of people he has always lived among.

Meet your shadow President.

This inital use of federal troops in a blue city should be understood as an effort to build pressure to help pass the bill. It should also be used as an example of the danger of passing the bill — the kind of authoritarianism that Miller intends to wield if the bill does pass.

When your bill is losing traction in congress, it's time to invade a US city to rile up your base.

GOP leaders to the rank-and-file down to the libertarian-leaning Rand Paul offered no criticism Monday of Trump’s tactics over the weekend. And some said they wouldn’t put a timeline on the National Guard’s presence in the state given the uncertainty of future demonstrations.

Ah yes, the libertarian wing of the Republican party that famously wants to increase the scope and power of the federal government through invading states with military forces against the wishes of local leaders. Their supposed libertarian principles don’t hold up very well in the face of fascism.

Bessent continued: “I am certain most California businesses know that failing to pay taxes owed to the Treasury constitutes tax evasion and have no intention of following the dangerous path Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening.”

Now they’re concerned about collecting taxes? Maybe wasn’t such a good idea to fire thousands at the IRS?

“It’s important we respect the executive authority of our country’s governors to manage their National Guards — and we stand with Governor Newsom who has made it clear that violence is unacceptable and that local authorities should be able to do their jobs without the chaos of this federal interference and intimidation.”

State's rights, amirite? I know it's tiring to point out Republican hypocrisy but I'm tired.

“It’s the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,” Bacon said of Congress’ power over trade. “And I get the emergency powers, but I think it’s being abused. When you’re trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that’s policy, not emergency action.”

If everything is an unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad then that phrase isn't meaningful.

The reality is that there is no rational basis for this spate of actions. These guys just can’t help themselves. The urge to dominate people and institutions and make them conform to Trump’s will is just too strong for them to resist. Even when the result is that they will lose, and lose again, and lose again.

Yeah, even with the Project 2025 blueprint, authoritarian compulsion seems to explain some of their more inexplicable actions better than a comprehensive strategy.

"With today's decision, it seems as if the court has truly lost its moorings," she said. In the process, she added, the court is creating "grave privacy risks for millions of Americans."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raising the alarm about the Supreme Court enabling executive overreach.

In a 2023 recording surfaced by ProPublica, Trump budget director Russell Vought said, “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

This is going to be great for future recruitment. They really are salting the earth as they dismantle the US government.

All of the trades came shortly before a significant government announcement or development that could influence stock prices.

Not shocking, but still disappointing this barely warrants a mention in the current administration. It's all corruption and profiteering rather than serving the people.

Really what we’re dealing with more than anything else is the corrupting effect of an unprecedented level of wealth concentration. I’ve been covering wealth concentration my whole life, and it’s just exploded. And so it’s one thing to be like, “OK, a CEO is making 200 times what his workers are making,” which is like the kind of math that I was doing when I started becoming a journalist. But when you think about the levels of wealth that are now concentrated in the hands of a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk, I think they truly believe that they’re gods. The point of their wealth is to be able to exercise a kind of absolute power.

Yes, I think it's hard to understand exactly how dangerous this wealth concentration is.