The numbers from the administration that told us the ballroom would cost $200 million, then $350 million, then $400 million, then $1 billion? And be funded by Trump himself, then his donors, then with taxpayer dollars?
I KNOW! Every time a glowing number is released from the government, I remember when he put a flunky in charge of the department. Of course, the humorous thing is numbers like this make it harder for the Fed to lower the interest rate. HA HA
Exactly! Those numbers usually get amended later on. You know they won't amend them if they're actually lower. I don't think they're honest numbers. Also, the question that should be asked is "Are these numbers padded by seasonal summer employment?".
I didn't trust the accuracy of the monthly numbers even before the Trump cuts (I preferred a less timely data series that was less subject to revisions), but certainly not now.
Where is the ad campaign? The whole effort associated with tying the slush fund to the immigration bill involved forcing Rs to pick a side. Forcing people to pick a side means nothing if nobody knows which side they chose.
Messaging should be primed. NOW!!! Time purchased during the NBA Finals (which will be watched by at least a few Texans!) Come on, Ds; this ought to be routine stuff!!!
Agreed. Wouldn't it be great if Tom Steyer used some of his vast fortunate to run ads about Trump's massive corruption, rather than spending $200 million to come in third among a pool of D-list candidates in the governor's race? While election law isn't my practice area, I imagine there's some way he could start a PAC/activist group with his name attached to it (i.e. Steyer for Democracy) and blast out a ton of ads about Trump's corruption, and he'll have greater name recognition for his next campaign boondoggle. (At the very least, he won't *just* be known as the guy trying to buy his way into office.)
Yea, another billionaire on an election ego trip. Sick of this stuff. Steyer obviously has money to burn. Either use it for charity (how about dental care for homeless people in California as just one example) or use it to help Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
I agree; I'm confused. I thought the ICE funding should have forced one issue: The masks. Make the R's go on record as pro-mask, and the D's look reasonable on immigration.
I read about the positive May job growth numbers immediately after reading Paul Rosenzweig's article (here on The Bulwark) about why the Europeans don't trust us, and I felt that sense of doubt about America that most Europeans now know very well.
Trust is one of the greatest losses so far in the United States. Admittedly, I always took our employment reports with a grain of salt - revisions were a given - but now I feel like I am probably being lied to by a government run by a bald-faced, slack-skinned liar.
My old reserve about the stats now has turned to deep suspicion, and the sad thing is that I don't even know if it's justified.
Also, as a side note, my wife works in the hospitality industry and hiring is NOT what they are doing in the American Southwest. In fact, they are cutting positions and looking for workarounds as the travel industry shrinks.
Just about every young person I know is having trouble finding a first-time job, or finding a job to move to from their current job. This includes people with new Bachelor's, Master's and even a PhD. The one exception to that is new graduate nurses. Otherwise, I hear tales of being ghosted by employers.
A friend of mine just went to Vegas. He said the shops were empty. As a personal observation, I recently went to In-and-Out Burger. It is usually hard to find an empty table at lunch, there were many tables and the drive through wasn’t crowded. Just an observation.
On the sane note. We went out last Friday to a popular restaurant. It was more than half empty. A year ago, this place would have been packed on a Friday.
Interestingly, Ernest, my wife works as an HR professional in a Vegas hotel. Her observations regard that market in particular, and she says it is shrinking.
Of course your suspicion is justified, for too many reasons to enumerate. It may turn out to be wrong (not likely, the odds are at least 1,000:1) but the suspicion has been well "earned" by the administration.
Immunity for the Trump family. Meanwhile in Albania there is rebellion against Jared and Ivanka in a so called Flamingo Revolution. Clearly the couple is worried about finding a safe haven for when daddy is out of power. If Immunity holds plan B will no longer be necessary. On the other hand I can’t help feeling the pitchforks are being put in place globally.
I really believe this was the intent from the beginning. It was really about Trump et al getting this type of immunity. I really wish the Senator had asked Blanche, if this was standard procedure who was the last person who this type of treatment for the entire family in perpetuity.
And that slush fund? Don’t be surprised if it pops up after the midterms.
Will: "And if Republicans in Congress won’t stop the corruption, voters will have to step in."
You mean the same voters that gave Trump a popular vote victory two years ago? The same voters that gave the GOP control of the Senate two years ago? When someone can provide me evidence that the voters are making a good effort to be more serious and sober people, I'll listen. In the meantime, I don't trust any of them.
Spot on. And even if enough voters have awakened sufficiently to accept that they made a regrettable choice, will they get to the polls in November and choose differently? If they do try, will their votes be allowed?
The great and wise American voter has long believed that all politicians are corrupt. The genius of Trump has been that he recognized that and saw that they would actually award open corruption because it was "being authentic". So here we are. Corruption totally normalized. Ignoring it rewarded, for "being honest".
The good news is I am long past the "Charlie Brown expecting Lucy to hold the football while he kicks it" phase. I absolutely expect the very worst from Republicans and they do not disappoint. My disgust level is way above a "10" today, but my Inner Logician is saying, "Uh, huh. I told you so". I listen to my inner Logician these days.
After reading this missive from The Bulwark—which covers the gamut of news stories—I’m now too depressed to get out of bed where I’d settled back with coffee and cell phone. I think this piece says it all. We are so doomed. The good news involved labor stats which I no longer believe. I deplore the Republican electeds. They will follow Trump to the end. And the Democrats are incapable of mounting any opposition. So what’s to become of the rest of us? Hey people. Things are not good out here in America.
I *will* vote, of course (assuming I'm allowed to do so given that I took my husband's name when we married 53 years ago and have a different surname on my birth certificate), but I live in newly re-gerrymandered Missouri so it won't count. Or perhaps even be counted at all, for that matter.
I WAS up and about this morning, then saw the local grocery store had doughnuts on sale 6 for $5, so am now back in bed reading Bulwark comments with a frappuccino and a box of pastries. I don't plan on eating them all, but with the astounding and disappointing lack of action on the part of Congressional Democrats, when they have so much ammunition, I can't promise anything.
>> "... The worry last year was that Trump was turning an enlarged, heavily armed ICE into his own personal paramilitary. After witnessing ICE’s cruelty and lawlessness since then, we should be even more concerned now..."
It's pretty unambiguous that is what Trump has in mind for them, since he has tried to "deploy" them to solve whatever problems he perceives, like when he sent them to airports during the shutdown to "help" TSA.
We also need to be worried about these warehouse detention facilities they are trying to spin up. At some point they had 11 warehouses they thought could hold up to almost 100,000 people at a time:
It isn't irrational or alarmist at this point to look at not only the parrellels between ICE and CBP and the SS and Gestapo, but also on how the build out of this warehouse immigration detention infrastructure for basically holding (without due process) hundreds of thousands of people has a lot of political symmetry to the start of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
The first nazi camps were also old industrial facilities, and they were initially used mostly to hold political prisoners from rival parties. We think of the system that came later when we think of the Nazi concentration camps - the extermination camps of the late 1930s. But they started in 1933 by taking any space big enough to put people in, and stashing tens of thousands of political prisoners in them extra-legally. And then spent the next decade filling that system out with psychotic and genocidal focus to "improve" the camp system until they got to Auschwitz.
And MAGA folks somehow that Trump is making us “respected” again on the world stage. How stupid does someone have to be to think you giving the finger to the world would not tank your respect.
The people in charge want the power and bask in the fear... and do not care about the success of others. Because it is all about them, not the nation, not the people.
Ah yes because the simplistic view of everything being a zero sum game, where we couldn’t all benefit from working together /s. So sad how you’re all right this is how MAGA sees it which I react by wanting to hit my head against a wall at the stupidity.
The jobs numbers are not as terrible as expected, but more Americans are falling behind on their credit card debt, which is typically a leading indicator of a recession. Actually with everything that Trump has done, it's a wonder we aren't already in a recession. The economy can only take so much punishment.
Will wrote: "But as a matter of Trumpian morality, Blanche’s compromise—publicly dumping the slush fund while keeping the immunity order—was standard operating procedure. Trump did what he always does: He screwed other people and protected himself." This will be a fitting epitaph but sadly I'm not sure for whom: Trump or America.
Oh, and Trump will end up making a worse deal with Iran than Obama - and Cuba will end up paying the price for his incompetence.
What we are seeing is that the Republicans want to be the party of racism, greed, and corruption after Trump is gone. With the help of the corrupt, racist Supreme Court, they think they can win enough elections, or throw out the results if they lose, hold on to power, and continue to rape and pillage America, with or without the guy who only wants to build monuments to himself.
The IRS immunity is more important to Trump than the slush fund (tax evasion is what brought down Al Capone). Creative though that was, it would do Blanche well to keep the fact that Nixon’s AG went to jail tucked in the back of his mind.
I don’t trust us anymore than the rest of the world is coming to, which makes me sad. At least during Vietnam I trusted the US government on stuff other than facts about the war. This lot lies about EVERYTHING.
I’m livid why does ICE have any money at all and why do republicans think they should be allowed to commit crimes in my community without consequences! They’re funding a paramilitary
Please tell me when we decided to believe the employment numbers, after Trump gutted BLS?
The numbers from the administration that told us the ballroom would cost $200 million, then $350 million, then $400 million, then $1 billion? And be funded by Trump himself, then his donors, then with taxpayer dollars?
Yeah. I'm sure they're credible.
Thumbs 👍.
Exactly my thought. We cannot believe any information, economic or otherwise, coming out if this administeation.
I KNOW! Every time a glowing number is released from the government, I remember when he put a flunky in charge of the department. Of course, the humorous thing is numbers like this make it harder for the Fed to lower the interest rate. HA HA
From a Felon Flunkie? No way, Jose.
This.
I fully expect a series of downward revisions in the employment statistics in the next month or so.
Still not likely to be legit numbers.
BLS forgot to put the "-" in front of the numbers, to make Trump happy.
Seriously! Surprised it’s an actual number and not “numbers no one has seen before”
Not me.
Exactly! Those numbers usually get amended later on. You know they won't amend them if they're actually lower. I don't think they're honest numbers. Also, the question that should be asked is "Are these numbers padded by seasonal summer employment?".
I didn't trust the accuracy of the monthly numbers even before the Trump cuts (I preferred a less timely data series that was less subject to revisions), but certainly not now.
ya dont get how Bulwark doesnt deliver these fantasy numbers with a warning
Thank you for saying this.
Where is the ad campaign? The whole effort associated with tying the slush fund to the immigration bill involved forcing Rs to pick a side. Forcing people to pick a side means nothing if nobody knows which side they chose.
Messaging should be primed. NOW!!! Time purchased during the NBA Finals (which will be watched by at least a few Texans!) Come on, Ds; this ought to be routine stuff!!!
Agreed. Wouldn't it be great if Tom Steyer used some of his vast fortunate to run ads about Trump's massive corruption, rather than spending $200 million to come in third among a pool of D-list candidates in the governor's race? While election law isn't my practice area, I imagine there's some way he could start a PAC/activist group with his name attached to it (i.e. Steyer for Democracy) and blast out a ton of ads about Trump's corruption, and he'll have greater name recognition for his next campaign boondoggle. (At the very least, he won't *just* be known as the guy trying to buy his way into office.)
Yea, another billionaire on an election ego trip. Sick of this stuff. Steyer obviously has money to burn. Either use it for charity (how about dental care for homeless people in California as just one example) or use it to help Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
Well said!
NBA Finals, World Series, and the upcoming NFL season should be the prime - actually, only - targets.
The people want a fight, but the politicians are paralyzed. What is going on?
I agree; I'm confused. I thought the ICE funding should have forced one issue: The masks. Make the R's go on record as pro-mask, and the D's look reasonable on immigration.
Agreed. $1.776 intervened, and there should have been attention to the tax audit "pass," too.
Screwworm detected in Texas? Is this a story about Ken Paxton?
...or RFK jr's brain?
Screwworm in DC, DJT.
I read about the positive May job growth numbers immediately after reading Paul Rosenzweig's article (here on The Bulwark) about why the Europeans don't trust us, and I felt that sense of doubt about America that most Europeans now know very well.
Trust is one of the greatest losses so far in the United States. Admittedly, I always took our employment reports with a grain of salt - revisions were a given - but now I feel like I am probably being lied to by a government run by a bald-faced, slack-skinned liar.
My old reserve about the stats now has turned to deep suspicion, and the sad thing is that I don't even know if it's justified.
Also, as a side note, my wife works in the hospitality industry and hiring is NOT what they are doing in the American Southwest. In fact, they are cutting positions and looking for workarounds as the travel industry shrinks.
Just about every young person I know is having trouble finding a first-time job, or finding a job to move to from their current job. This includes people with new Bachelor's, Master's and even a PhD. The one exception to that is new graduate nurses. Otherwise, I hear tales of being ghosted by employers.
Hearing same from relative in higher ed about his grads this spring. And these are in sciences
They may go abroad. That is part of the "brain drain".
A friend of mine just went to Vegas. He said the shops were empty. As a personal observation, I recently went to In-and-Out Burger. It is usually hard to find an empty table at lunch, there were many tables and the drive through wasn’t crowded. Just an observation.
On the sane note. We went out last Friday to a popular restaurant. It was more than half empty. A year ago, this place would have been packed on a Friday.
Interestingly, Ernest, my wife works as an HR professional in a Vegas hotel. Her observations regard that market in particular, and she says it is shrinking.
Many Canadians have stopped vacationing in the US.
Yes. Vegas has really felt that, as I understand it.
Yes, my mother in law used to love going to Reno! Those were the days.
Of course your suspicion is justified, for too many reasons to enumerate. It may turn out to be wrong (not likely, the odds are at least 1,000:1) but the suspicion has been well "earned" by the administration.
probably junk jobs, or re hiring of TSA's or persons making the fountains work again in D C
hard to say, do I believe anything this admin. says, no
Immunity for the Trump family. Meanwhile in Albania there is rebellion against Jared and Ivanka in a so called Flamingo Revolution. Clearly the couple is worried about finding a safe haven for when daddy is out of power. If Immunity holds plan B will no longer be necessary. On the other hand I can’t help feeling the pitchforks are being put in place globally.
And sharpened!
I really believe this was the intent from the beginning. It was really about Trump et al getting this type of immunity. I really wish the Senator had asked Blanche, if this was standard procedure who was the last person who this type of treatment for the entire family in perpetuity.
And that slush fund? Don’t be surprised if it pops up after the midterms.
Argentina is still accepting Trumpers. Of course that could change.
At least the wealthy ones. Of course the real dilemma is what happens when they haven’t got somewhere else to go and Argentina seizes their assets?
Yes, must be wealthy!
Will: "And if Republicans in Congress won’t stop the corruption, voters will have to step in."
You mean the same voters that gave Trump a popular vote victory two years ago? The same voters that gave the GOP control of the Senate two years ago? When someone can provide me evidence that the voters are making a good effort to be more serious and sober people, I'll listen. In the meantime, I don't trust any of them.
Spot on. And even if enough voters have awakened sufficiently to accept that they made a regrettable choice, will they get to the polls in November and choose differently? If they do try, will their votes be allowed?
The great and wise American voter has long believed that all politicians are corrupt. The genius of Trump has been that he recognized that and saw that they would actually award open corruption because it was "being authentic". So here we are. Corruption totally normalized. Ignoring it rewarded, for "being honest".
I agree.
Stupidity and bigotry seem to be “traditional America values”. How else can we explain Trump being elected twice? Insanity reigns!
The good news is I am long past the "Charlie Brown expecting Lucy to hold the football while he kicks it" phase. I absolutely expect the very worst from Republicans and they do not disappoint. My disgust level is way above a "10" today, but my Inner Logician is saying, "Uh, huh. I told you so". I listen to my inner Logician these days.
What a feckless bunch of wussies! Profiles in cowardice should be the tag line for republicans running for office.
After reading this missive from The Bulwark—which covers the gamut of news stories—I’m now too depressed to get out of bed where I’d settled back with coffee and cell phone. I think this piece says it all. We are so doomed. The good news involved labor stats which I no longer believe. I deplore the Republican electeds. They will follow Trump to the end. And the Democrats are incapable of mounting any opposition. So what’s to become of the rest of us? Hey people. Things are not good out here in America.
Sandra - rest up. Gather strength. Mount up and whatever ways we can cuz WE are the opposition ✊🏼
Same.
I *will* vote, of course (assuming I'm allowed to do so given that I took my husband's name when we married 53 years ago and have a different surname on my birth certificate), but I live in newly re-gerrymandered Missouri so it won't count. Or perhaps even be counted at all, for that matter.
Yeah. Not good out here in America.
Is one who is also in bed with his coffee and cell phone, I totally commiserate.
I WAS up and about this morning, then saw the local grocery store had doughnuts on sale 6 for $5, so am now back in bed reading Bulwark comments with a frappuccino and a box of pastries. I don't plan on eating them all, but with the astounding and disappointing lack of action on the part of Congressional Democrats, when they have so much ammunition, I can't promise anything.
Don't be depressed. As Obama said; vote!
Some days I just want to stick my head in a soundproofed, darkened box.
But I have work to do and cats to feed, and miles to go before I throw shit at my TV for airing President Man's UFC extravaganza.
"Miles to go before I sleep".
>> "... The worry last year was that Trump was turning an enlarged, heavily armed ICE into his own personal paramilitary. After witnessing ICE’s cruelty and lawlessness since then, we should be even more concerned now..."
It's pretty unambiguous that is what Trump has in mind for them, since he has tried to "deploy" them to solve whatever problems he perceives, like when he sent them to airports during the shutdown to "help" TSA.
We also need to be worried about these warehouse detention facilities they are trying to spin up. At some point they had 11 warehouses they thought could hold up to almost 100,000 people at a time:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/ice-eyes-selling-mega-warehouses-purchased-mass-detention-rcna347592
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-buys-warehouses-immigration-detention/
https://www.nilc.org/articles/ice-wants-to-stash-people-in-amazon-style-warehouses/
It isn't irrational or alarmist at this point to look at not only the parrellels between ICE and CBP and the SS and Gestapo, but also on how the build out of this warehouse immigration detention infrastructure for basically holding (without due process) hundreds of thousands of people has a lot of political symmetry to the start of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
The first nazi camps were also old industrial facilities, and they were initially used mostly to hold political prisoners from rival parties. We think of the system that came later when we think of the Nazi concentration camps - the extermination camps of the late 1930s. But they started in 1933 by taking any space big enough to put people in, and stashing tens of thousands of political prisoners in them extra-legally. And then spent the next decade filling that system out with psychotic and genocidal focus to "improve" the camp system until they got to Auschwitz.
If you look at the inability of those in ice detention to get in front of judges and to receive basic medical care or due process, the current DHS detention facilities already meet the definitions of concentration camps: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camp-system-in-depth
And, don't forget, ICE will be here to welcome world travelers to the World Cup!
And MAGA folks somehow that Trump is making us “respected” again on the world stage. How stupid does someone have to be to think you giving the finger to the world would not tank your respect.
Well, you have to understand that, to them, fear = respect. Regardless of why we are feared.
They do understand that historically led to wars of power always and people die. And fewer people in society are successful.
The people in charge want the power and bask in the fear... and do not care about the success of others. Because it is all about them, not the nation, not the people.
In MAGA Land somehow being polite to someone (especially a foreign leader that you're visiting in their nation) is "weak."
Ah yes because the simplistic view of everything being a zero sum game, where we couldn’t all benefit from working together /s. So sad how you’re all right this is how MAGA sees it which I react by wanting to hit my head against a wall at the stupidity.
The jobs numbers are not as terrible as expected, but more Americans are falling behind on their credit card debt, which is typically a leading indicator of a recession. Actually with everything that Trump has done, it's a wonder we aren't already in a recession. The economy can only take so much punishment.
I have no trust in those numbers…
Bryan - yet I’m not seeing articles about all the great offers this year’s college graduates are getting 🤷♂️
What are these jobs, with what benefits?
Perhaps McDonald's, Burger King and a free meal!
At least the meal is happy 😆
Hi Dave Y, heard of a new town in MN, Mizpah, it is tiny east of red lake or
wnw of grand rapids, MN, it sounds pretty cool
Will wrote: "But as a matter of Trumpian morality, Blanche’s compromise—publicly dumping the slush fund while keeping the immunity order—was standard operating procedure. Trump did what he always does: He screwed other people and protected himself." This will be a fitting epitaph but sadly I'm not sure for whom: Trump or America.
Oh, and Trump will end up making a worse deal with Iran than Obama - and Cuba will end up paying the price for his incompetence.
What we are seeing is that the Republicans want to be the party of racism, greed, and corruption after Trump is gone. With the help of the corrupt, racist Supreme Court, they think they can win enough elections, or throw out the results if they lose, hold on to power, and continue to rape and pillage America, with or without the guy who only wants to build monuments to himself.
The IRS immunity is more important to Trump than the slush fund (tax evasion is what brought down Al Capone). Creative though that was, it would do Blanche well to keep the fact that Nixon’s AG went to jail tucked in the back of his mind.
I don’t trust us anymore than the rest of the world is coming to, which makes me sad. At least during Vietnam I trusted the US government on stuff other than facts about the war. This lot lies about EVERYTHING.
The Capone analogy is the exact right thought.
Plus, his taxes probably would show a huge financial connection to Epstein. My guess is that Blanche has made them disappear already.
I’m livid why does ICE have any money at all and why do republicans think they should be allowed to commit crimes in my community without consequences! They’re funding a paramilitary
Because they recently read "It Can't Happen Here" and think the Minutemen are a great idea. (Recommended read, BTW. Sinclair Lewis was prescient.)
It's sitting on my bedside table at this minute. I just haven't had the heart to start reading it.
Because we let them