Week 77

I started writing this mid-week and had quite a bit by Friday. Then came Friday night. Not the usual late-afternoon dump of information someone wants no attention to, but up until I go to bed (after midnight Eastern time) and beyond. It’s hard to keep up.

The Justice Department served subpoenas to four writers at the New York Times to show up at a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday (gift link). The issue seems to be Trump’s pique at reports that he had to take the old Air Force 1 plane back from Turkey because his new flying bordello doesn’t have all the security features. More about this below.

The subpoenas were issued by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and Trump nominee for director of national intelligence.

More deportations to come of people in Temporary Protected Status. Many of these people are workers in health care. It’s time for employers to speak up, but also for citizens in the areas targeted by the administration to take up Minnesota tactics to thwart ICE.

The Economist published an interview with a Russian oligarch. I haven’t read it. It’s being met with widespread scorn as Putinist propaganda. There seems to be room for reading insights into the situation in Russia, though, which could be interesting.

Three things about Graham Platner:

1. He did file his withdrawal paperwork on Friday.
2. I found his picking at his beard in his video annoying. It reminded me that one of the first things I learned about public speaking was not to put my hands anywhere near my face. Plather’s video shows why.
3. Balloon Juice’s Adam Silverman posted a thread on Bluesky, only visible if you’re logged in, about Daniel Moraff, the dirtbag who recruited Platner and whom you may have seen in a video carefully crafting his nonanswers. Adam points out that “Moraff’s whole schtick, as delineated in his now deleted 2016  In These Times article ‘Want to Elect Socialists? Run Them in Democratic Primaries,’ is to use lax Democratic party rules to run his preferred candidates, get them elected, & then have them break away from the Democratic Party.” Something that needs more looking into

The Europeans, in particular NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, managed to keep Donald Trump relatively subdued throughout the meeting. This was about as good as it’s going to get until Trump is out of office.

Trump used his new flying bordello to travel to Turkey for the NATO meeting. Then he reactivated the bombing of Iran. Trump probably doesn’t know it, but Iran is relatively close to Turkey. Some of the people who work for him and are supposed to look out for his safety insisted that he use the older plane used as Air Force 1 to fly back. This, of course, raised questions that reporters wanted to investigate, including the four Times reporters. They have anonymous sources, which the Trump lawyers will probably insist that they identify for sharing classified information.

Apparently the older plane has some antimissile capabilities that the new one lacks This is a fairly open secret, and some have claimed that those capabilities can be seen in photos of the plane. But Clayton would like to be DNI, please and thank you very much with tears in his eyes, and Trump is frightened that the Iranians have a plot to assassinate him.

I’m not clear on where that last came from. It just showed up in Trump’s tweets, as far as I can see. I think there was a threat from Iran a few weeks ago, or maybe this is new? Anyhow, it’s rattled Grandpa, and it would not be surprising if he had ordered his minions to make someone responsible for his discomfort.

There’s also his continuing inabililty to understand that bombing Iran and threats of total destruction that aren’t carried through will not win this war. So he continues in agonized indecision and humiliation, trying to avoid a further humiliation that actually ending the war would entail.

Trump doomed the US men’s soccer team, so they’re out of the World Cup competition.

Mitch McConnell may be alive or dead. I think that the evidence points to his being alive but in very bad condition.

Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits.  Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.

Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.  My guys are lifesavers.

131 more weeks to go. What are you doing?

Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 60, Week 70, Week 71, Week 72, Week 73, Week 74, Week 75, Week 13,044