What Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Is Really Doing (Part 2) | The Ezra K...

Trump’s Big Budget Bomb (Part 1) | The Ezra Klein Show

An excellent short review.

Simply put, Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" really only benefits the wealthy and will almost certain create an economic crisis on a level not seen since The Great Depression.

What's more, many of those voting for that are very well aware of that.

Wednesday, April 22, 1925. Thought police.

The Peace Preservation Law was enacted in Japan allowing the Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu or Tokkō) of the Home Ministry to arrest "anyone who has formed an association with the aim of altering the kokutai" (the "national essence" of Japan) or having "joined such an association with full knowledge of its object".

Criticism of the government could be considered an attempt to alter the national essence.

This is exactly the way the Republican Party is acting today.

A  "Thought Section" of the Tokubetsu was created to monitor "dangerous thoughts" or "thought crime" within Japan and its territories.

The Saltair pavilion,  in Saltair, Utah at the Great Salt Lake in the United States, was destroyed by fire.

Last edition:

Tuesday, April 21, 1925. The loss of the SS Raifuku Maru. Saudi Arabia wipes out the gravesites of members of the family Muhammad.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, boats and ships, Calvin Coolidge, Disaster, Islam, Kingdom of Hejaz, Saudi Arabia, technology

Tuesday, April 21, 1925. The loss of the SS Raifuku Maru. Saudi Arabia wipes out the gravesites of members of the family Muhammad.

The Japanese  sank in a storm with all 38 hands on board. She was transporting wheat from the U.S. to Germany, showing the international nature of trade a century ago (King Donny, are you awake?). 

The ships telegrapher sent out a final message Now very danger! Come quick!". Two British ocean liners, RMS Homeric and SS King Alexander reached the vessel off the coast of Nova Scotia but were unable to get close enough for a rescue because of the heavy seas. 

RMS Homeric sent the message "Observed steamer Rafuku Maru sink in Lat 4143N Long 6139W Regret unable to save any lives..

In Saudi Arabia the mausoleums and domes at Al-Baqi Cemetery at Medina were torn down, along with markers of the family of Muhammed as part of an effort by the Wahhabi Muslim led government to eradicate shrines associated with the Hejaz Muslims.

Hmmm. . . .

Calvin Coolidge became the first U.S. president to talk on film as he delivered a four-minute address on a film that was captured in Phonofilm.

Last edition:

Monday, April 20, 1925. Route shields

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Automobiles, Highways, Interstate Highways, pornography, The relationship between men and women, The Roaring Twenties, Transportation, Women

NO KINGS

This is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

A big cause of the American Revolution, as everyone knows, was Parliament's (not the King's) imposition of taxes on the colonies, which was done to help pay for the French and Indian (Seven Years) War.  They were, in modern parlance, value added taxes, which the colonist had no say in, and they were specifically directed, on tea.

"No taxation without representation" was the cry.

When, the following year, the Continental Congress got around to declaring independence the following year, they listed twenty five grievances they accused King George III of, those being:

• Grievance 1 "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

I think this charge can be levied against King Donald, but it is complicated by the fact that Congress is pretty much completely dysfunctional and has been for some time.

• Grievance 2 "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them." 
• Grievance 3 "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only." 
• Grievance 4 "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." 
• Grievance 5 "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." 
• Grievance 6 "He has refused for a long time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and convulsions within."
• Grievance 7 "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands." 

The Trump administration's outright hostility to the foreign born is at a level not seen since the 19th Century, and which exceeds any level in any prior administration in the country's history.  Included in this is an assault on birth right citizenship, which is featured in the Constitution.

• Grievance 8 "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers."
• Grievance 9 "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."

Trump's attacks on the judiciary are certainly evidence of this.  Right now, the Administration is ignoring an order to return a wrongfully deported prisoner.

• Grievance 10 "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

DOGE.

• Grievance 11 "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures." 

Just last week came the news that the Trump administration has basically martialized the public lands along the Mexican border.

• Grievance 12 "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." 

See above and the use of the military for what the Border Patrol should properly be doing.

• Grievance 13 "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:"
• Grievance 14 "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

Again, see above.

• Grievance 15 "For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
• Grievance 16 "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world".

Tariffs are accomplishing this.

• Grievance 17 "For imposing taxes on us without our consent:"

Tariffs again.

• Grievance 18 "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial:
• Grievance 19 "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"

El Salvador prisons and Laotian deportation?

• Grievance 20 "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument 

This was directed at Quebec, but it could now pretty ably describe what Trump is doing in general.

• Grievance 21 "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"

Again, see it above.

King Donald is repeating many of those same offenses, albeit in new forms, those being the ones emboldened.  Explanations, for the doubters, are provided above, but like British conservatives in the 1770s, they will not be able to see their own violations.

Perhaps nearly as distressing is a new development that I'm seeing in some Conservative quarters.

New York Times conservative columnists David Brooks called just recently for a "National Civil Uprising".

That's essentially a call for a massive act of civil disobedience, and frankly I think it has a good chance of happening.

And some are hinting at even more than that.

For decades, the Wayne LaPierre National Rifle Association fueled  the belief in the firearms community that the Second Amendment exists in order to allow civilians to fight Federal tyranny, if it came to that. That's really completely incorrect, as the text of the amendment clearly demonstrates:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Posted on Twitter with the words "It won’t be long until the proletariat remembers why we have the second amendment".  This is suddenly a place where some on the left and some on the right are frighteningly meeting.

The founders of the Republic didn't want to keep a large standing Army, which they regarded, rightly, as a threat to democracy.  The early land defense of the country, therefore, relied on state militias, which had the added ability to take on local problems without the necessity of a Federal army having to intervene.  After all, keep in mind that one of the cited reasons for the Revolution is that the English had kept large bodies of armed troops in the colonies.  

Posted on Blue Sky with "The 2nd Amendment exists for a reason. It was put in place to protect us against tyranny, even from our own elected officials. We have the right to stand up."

Standing armies are always a problem and the current era might very well be starting to demonstrate that.  Throughout the nation's history it usually didn't have large armies save in times of war, or leading up to war.  But since the onset of the Cold War it has.  Even now, in the post Cold War era, the Army is enormous compared to what it had been before World War Two.

Anyhow, the Second Amendment doesn't exist so that average people can take on a tyrannical government.  It exists so that states can take on the British, basically.  That hasn't stopped at least three decades of firearms owners being schooled in the thought that they might have take up arms against the government, with those claims uniformly coming from the right, although in the 1960s, there were those on the left who argued with some justification that oppressed minorities should arm to protect themselves.

Malcom X, who was a big proponent of the Second Amendment, looking out a window while holding a M1 Carbine.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing anti Trump Conservatives suggest that the Second Amendment's  clauses have what I've already noted as a mistaken view.  And some on the left are goading the far right on this very topic, ie., now that we have an authoritarian, they're quiet.  That shows, I think, how far down the road of chaos we've gotten. We haven't seen anything like that since the Civil War.

An example of the goading, but there's a point to it. Trump is rapidly evolving into a full blown authoritarian, just the kind of people that the NRA warned about for years.  This is why, quite frankly, I think the Trump administration will be the death knell of the Second Amendment.  Either Trump himself will ban entire classes of weapons as he'll conceive of them as a threat, or a successor President, if we get through this will, as the "we need these. . ." because argument will have shown to be baloney or worthless.

Moreover, there's some discussion going on in the military right now over what the duties are of military officers if they are ordered to take an illegal action.  To some extent I think you can argue they already have been, with the Trump administration declaring the public lands along the Mexican border to be military reservations, but that actually has a long history.  At any rate, Angry Staff Officer, whose blog we link in here, has put up two items recently on the military duties to disobey illegal orders.  The Space Force has had one commanding officer relieved for criticizing J. D. Vance's territorially aggressive statements, something I'm sure she knew would occur when she made them.  While we'd have to see what would actually happen, I suspect there's a lot of back barracks discussions going on amongst officers about the point at which they refuse to obey an illegal order from Trump.

Anticipating the worst, from Twitter.

Trump is a disaster, bringing the worse instincts in people to the top, and excusing them. This will get worse, and worse, if the 25th Amendment doesn't come into play. The man is an stupid, ancient, narcissist who may very well be bordering on insane. If Congress acted now, and truth be known a near majority likely grasp it and are too chicken to do anything, the situation could be salvaged.

"The President of the United States of America is at war with the Constitution and the rule of law."

The President of the United States of America is at war with the Constitution and the rule of law.

Retired Federal Judge Michael Luttig

There's so much every day that now many people just ignore it.

Trump, who isn't Constitutionally eligible to hold the office of President in the first place, has illegally imposed taxes, something reserved to Congress.  He's either used emergency powers where there is no emergency, or he's actually imposed them where he's not even authorized through an emergency act.

A completely spineless Republican Party is in control of Congress, and therefore nothing is being done about it in that quarter.  

He's ignoring a court order that a prisoner sent to a horrific El Salvadorian prison be returned, using the pretext that fellow traveler Bukele of El Salvador has chosen not to return him, something that I'm confident he could compel to occur.

And that's just a start.

Trump is acting like the Red Caesar desired by an anti democratic element of the far right.  The Courts are stepping up.  Congress needs to as well.

A Disturbing Trifecta

The weekend shows were unsettling, to say the least.

Economic chaos was referenced in all three shows.

On This Week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who sounds like a dimwit in spite of a fairly impressive set of credentials, indicated that the tariff exception for electronics is only temporary until the government comes out with targeted tariffs on them of some sort.

On Meet The Press, investor and author Ray Dalio pretty much predicated a depression, and perhaps a global war of some sort.

On Face the Nation Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, clinically said the economy is going in the toilet.

Also on Face the Nation, recently resigned Dr. Peter Marks, the creator of Operation Warp Speed, went after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on his measles response with both barrels, and reloaded four or five times.  He also related Kennedy's promise to figure out the cause of autism by fall as absurd.

Nifty.

Going Feral: Disaster.

Going Feral: Disaster.:   Federal Land Can Be Home Sweet Home   Wall Street Journal America needs more affordable housing, and the federal government can make it ha...

Disaster.

 

Federal Land Can Be Home Sweet Home  

Wall Street Journal

America needs more affordable housing, and the federal government can make it happen by making federal land available to build affordable housing stock.

The Interior Department oversees more than 500 million acres of federal land, much of it suitable for residential use. The Department of Housing and Urban Development brings expertise in housing policy and community development. Together we are creating the Joint Task Force on Federal Land for Housing to increase housing supply and decrease costs for millions of Americans.

Under this agreement, HUD will pinpoint where housing needs are most pressing and guide the process by working with state and local leaders who know their communities best. Interior will identify locations that can support homes while carefully considering environmental impact and land-use restrictions. Working together, our agencies can take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable -- all while ensuring affordability remains at the core of the mission.

Streamlining the regulatory process is a cornerstone of this partnership. Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape -- lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols and disjointed agency priorities. This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy. Interior will reduce the red tape behind land transfers or leases to public housing authorities, nonprofits and local governments. HUD will ensure these projects align with affordability goals and development needs. This isn't a free-for-all to build on federal lands, although we recognize that bad-faith critics will likely call it that. It's a strategic effort to use our resources responsibly while preserving our most beautiful lands.

This is about more than building houses. We want to build hope. Overlooked rural and tribal communities will be a focus of this joint agreement. We are going to invest in America's many forgotten communities. As we enter the Golden Age promised by President Trump, this partnership will change how we use public resources. A brighter future, with more affordable housing, is on its way.  

###

What total bullshit.

And a disaster.

Scott Turner

@SecretaryTurner

We need 7 million affordable homes in America and 20% of America’s landmass is owned by the Department of Interior. Today,

@SecretaryBurgum

and I are announcing a partnership between

@HUDgov

&

@Interior

to identify and open under utilized federal lands for affordable housing.

1:30

HUD and DOI Open Under Utilized Federal Lands For Affordable Housing

8:00 AM · Mar 17, 2025

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