(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The State of the Union is not sound [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-05
TPM:
The Most Dangerous Line Trump Could Still Cross Nothing about the last week in American politics should be sugarcoated. We are in a bad way. How bad remains to be seen. A key marker for how bad things might get is whether the executive branch defies the judicial branch. Things are touch and go right now, and it’s too early to draw any concrete conclusions. But here’s what to watch: Late yesterday, a DC federal judge put a firmer block on the Trump White House’s spending freeze ordered by the OMB. The extension came only after the judge expressed concern that funds were still being held up in violation of an earlier pause of the freeze that she’d ordered. It’s not clear whether the continuing cut off of funding was intentionally in violation of the court order or could be more benignly explained by a lag or a disorganized response in a chaotic period. There are other indications, such as distributing a required notice, that the Trump administration did comply at least in part with the DC court order and a similar one issued by a federal judge in Rhode Island late last week.
New York Times:
A Legal Counteroffensive to Beat Back Trump’s Government Purges A raft of new lawsuits contend that President Trump and Elon Musk are breaking the law to ransack the F.B.I. and other federal agencies. The courts will now decide. It will be up to the courts to decide whether the president has the power to not only direct the executive branch, but also to forcefully recast it in his own image. It may also be up to the judicial branch of government to find a way to ensure that its own decisions are enforced. In short order on Tuesday, three government unions sued the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, or OPM — the federal government’s human resources division — to block an effort to convince roughly two million federal employees to resign from their jobs early.
x i don’t even know if crime is the right word for the illegal destruction of USAID. it is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the american people — jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) 2025-02-05T03:16:03.432Z
Religion News Service:
Refugee aid groups face furloughs after Trump halts program, refuses to reimburse work Faith-based groups that partner with the federal government to resettle refugees are facing widespread layoffs and furloughs after President Donald Trump’s administration suspended the refugee program and, according to one of the faith groups, refuses to reimburse the organizations for humanitarian work performed before the president assumed office. Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, an evangelical Christian group that resettles refugees, said his organization continues to reel from several actions taken by Trump over the past two weeks. The president all but froze the U.S. refugee program save for rare exceptions in an executive order shortly after taking office, a move that outraged the 10 groups that help the government resettle refugees — seven of which are faith-based. Soerens said his office also received communication from the government on Jan. 24 stating that World Relief would no would no longer be reimbursed for any work beyond that day.
x I’ve been getting a lot of calls over the past few days, and the interesting thing is none of them are about Donald Trump. They’re all about Elon Musk. My constituents, and a majority of this country, put Trump in the White House, not this unelected, weirdo billionaire. — Congressman Jared Golden (@RepGolden) February 4, 2025
He’s a bellwether.
Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark:
Terrible Nominees, Terrified Americans: Senators Could Actually Make a Difference This Month These are the votes you’ll be remembered for. The handwringing over what to do about clearly illegal and unconstitutional actions, and who should do it, is understandable and consuming. But the next couple of weeks offer at least some people a chance to matter in very specific and crucial ways. I’m talking about senators. They’ll be voting on a series of Trump nominees who pose existential threats to health, life, rule of law, and American values like self-determination and freedom of religion. This is not an exaggeration. It is brutal realism, especially against the backdrop of Musk’s brazen slash-and-burn expedition through a bureaucracy he doesn’t comprehend or care about.
x By a 9 to 8 vote, a Senate committee approved Russian agent Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and seize control of 18 U.S. intelligence agencies for the Russian Federation. — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) February 4, 2025
Edward Fishman/Wall Street journal:
The World Has Changed Since Trump’s First Trade War. Other Countries Are Ready to Fight Back. China, Russia and even U.S. allies have developed retaliatory options that could deeply hurt America’s economy and standard of living. Back then, retaliation was muted. America still inhabited a world akin to the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1940s: It possessed fearsome economic weapons, but no one else did. Today, the world looks very different. Many countries are prepared to fight back. The risk of a rapidly escalating global economic war is high—and America is poorly equipped to prevent it. This economic arms race began in response to Trump’s first-term policies and accelerated with the Biden administration’s sanctions and export controls on Russia and China. But it also reflects a deeper tension: The global economy was designed for the benign geopolitical environment of the 1990s, not for the more dangerous one that exists today. As great-power competition has intensified, integrated supply chains and financial markets—once viewed as anchors of stability—now seem like glaring vulnerabilities. They include chokepoints that Washington, Beijing and other capitals can exploit in a multi-front economic war. No country has devoted more energy to this contest than China. When Trump launched a trade war during his first term, Beijing was unprepared. Its counterstrategy—imposing reciprocal tariffs on American goods—ran into a hard limit: China imports far less from the U.S. than the U.S. imports from China. Beijing simply had less room to escalate, leading Trump to conclude that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
x You say: they shutdown USAID.
You mean: they illegally broke in to a secure facility over a weekend, hijacked sensitive data on vulnerable people and US businesses, destroyed property Americans paid for, cut off resources for hungry families, and fired Americans. — Loren DeJonge Schulman (@LorenRaeDeJ) February 3, 2025
Juan David Rojas/Compact:
Claudia Sheinbaum’s Art of the Deal ‘Adog that barks doesn’t bite”—so goes the saying among supporters of Mexico’s ruling National Regeneration Movement, or Morena. Faced with the threat of tariffs from the United States, Mexico’s left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist by training, pulled off something it is hard to imagine any progressive politician stateside achieving: She stood her ground in dealing with Donald Trump while successfully defending her political interests. Following Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he would slap 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Sheinbaum stated that Mexico would respond in kind with retaliatory tariffs, but that she remained open to dialogue with Trump. By Monday morning, the president announced that tariffs would be put on pause for 30 days. The lesson that Sheinbaum appears to have learned from her mentor and predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, is that Trump is less of an ideologue than many of his fervent supporters seem to think; on the contrary, he is a transactional leader who is perfectly happy to cut deals with socialists.
x Why didn't tariffs get this kind of coverage during the presidential campaign?
Why did 99.9% of campaign coverage not mention tariffs?
Campaign press coverage simply does not cover what the campaign is actaully about. — Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) February 3, 2025
Jonathan Lamire/The Atlantic:
Elon Musk Is President The world’s richest man has declared war on the federal government, and his influence appears unchecked. Musk’s assault on the government unfolded rapidly in recent days, as he used his role as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash spending. His stated goal: cut $500 billion in annual spending. DOGE has limited powers. It is not an actual government agency—one can be created only by an act of Congress. Musk’s task force was set up through a presidential executive order. And Congress has the authority to set spending. His own role remains murky: A White House official told me today that Musk is working for Trump as a “special government employee,” formalizing a position in the administration but allowing him to sidestep federal disclosure rules. Musk is not being paid, the official said. Musk lacks legal authority, but he is close to power. At times working from the White House campus, Musk plainly enjoys his position as the president’s most influential adviser. Trump famously turns on aides who he believes eclipse him. But by his own account, he remains enamored of Musk, seeming to relish the fact that the world’s wealthiest person is working for him, the White House official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to relay private conversations. Trump, the official said, also believes that Musk has shown a willingness to take public pushback for controversial actions, allowing the president himself to avoid blame.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/5/2301527/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-The-State-of-the-Union-is-not-sound?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
