As it continues to platform conspiracy theorists who gained MAGA prominence during the 2020 election, the Trump administration has tapped 2020 election denier (and 2016 conspiracy theorist) Gregg Phillips for a leadership position in the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Continue reading “Trump Admin Taps Another 2020 Conspiracy Theorist for Leadership Role, This Time At FEMA”Democratic Voters and the Corrupt Republican SCOTUS Six
I’ve noted many times the central role of Supreme Court reform to any civic democratic future. If you’re a regular reader, you know my arguments. So I won’t recapitulate them here. I’ve also noted how very few Democratic officials seem at all ready for this and a huge amount of work is required to get them here. Luckily there’s time: The first chance to do anything like this is 2029. But there’s another, even more critical, underlying need. A lot of the Democratic public still sees the idea as disconcerting or extreme. And we shouldn’t run away from this perception. Because it is extreme. It is a remedy only justified and really necessitated by a basically unprecedented development in American history which is robbing the public of its right to self-government. (The question is whether there is any precedent is complicated. There are arguably two similar instances in American history. But we can return to that later.) The point is that there is a lot of work to do. Inherently resistant Democratic politicians certainly aren’t going to be brought along if a substantial number of their own voters, perhaps a majority of them, are spooked by the idea.
So this requires a substantial campaign of public education — activist/political groups dedicated specifically and focusedly to the issue, ones that are political activist in nature, ones that draw from the elite legal world. An entire language of explanation is required.
Continue reading “Democratic Voters and the Corrupt Republican SCOTUS Six”The Grim Fate of the Sole Survivor of a Lawless U.S. Boat Strike
A Timeline With Glaring Holes
I’ve been surprised that the uproar over the killing of the two survivors of the Sept. 2 attack has not yielded a renewed look at a later attack that also left a survivor — under especially dire circumstances.
The official accounts of the Oct. 27 strike were muddled from the beginning, with conflicting initial reports of whether the survivor had been rescued. More than six weeks later, key questions remain unanswered:
Oct. 27: U.S. conducts three strikes against four different vessels, killing 14 people and leaving a sole survivor, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a social media post the next day:
Regarding the survivor, USSOUTHCOM immediately initiated Search and Rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue.
The U.S. Coast Guard would later say that the strikes occurred on the afternoon of Oct. 27.
Oct. 28: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that her government “was informed about the Monday strike and about the potential survivor” on Tuesday morning, CNN reported.
The Mexican Navy would later say that its forces officially began a search-and-rescue operation for the “alleged castaway” at 6:30 a.m. on Oct 28, in the area U.S. officials reported a survivor.
“In a statement on X, Mexico’s Navy said it received a request from the U.S. Coast Guard and then carried out a rescue operation about 400 miles southwest of Acapulco, adding that an aircraft and a vessel were being used to carry it out,” Reuters reported.
The reason for the delay between the strikes on the afternoon of Oct. 27 and the launch of the Mexican search-and-rescue operation has not been publicly explained.
Notably, the NYT reported that the survivor had been rescued: “A U.S. military official, discussing operations on the condition of anonymity, said the lone survivor was picked up in waters near the coasts of Mexico and Guatemala.”
However, President Sheinbaum’s public comments cast doubt on whether there was a survivor, CNN reported:
Sheinbaum said she instructed the foreign minister, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, to meet with the US ambassador to Mexico, Ron Johnson, “and we will give them the information with the Navy secretariat about this survivor, if it is the case that there was indeed a survivor.”
The U.S. Coast Guard would later say the Mexican Navy informed it on the afternoon of Oct. 28 that is had found no survivors.
Oct. 29: “Pentagon officials convened another session about boat strike survivors, a video conference involving dozens of American diplomats from across the Western Hemisphere,” the NYT would later report. No word of whether the fate of the lone survivor came up in the conference call two days after the attack in question.
Oct. 31: Mexico publicly announces that it has found no survivors from the Oct. 27 attacks.
After citing an anonymous U.S. military official earlier in the week as saying the survivor was rescued, the NYT reports that the Pentagon is offering a different account:
The Pentagon said that after the strikes on Monday, U.S. military officials “observed one narcoterrorist in the water clinging to some wreckage.” U.S. officials then alerted a Mexican military boat nearby of the survivor, the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday, and Mexican officials assumed responsibility for the rescue.
The Pentagon statement also mentioned that it alerted not just the Mexican military boat but a nearby Mexican military aircraft, according to the NYT report:
The Pentagon statement on Friday said the U.S. forces acted “in accordance with international protocols for a distressed person in the water” and “relayed the precise location and status of the person in the water” to a Mexican military aircraft that was operating nearby.
Nov. 1: Mexican Navy planned to end its active search for survivors of the Oct. 27 strikes.
“The survivor was spotted swimming in the ocean … was never located and is believed to have drowned,” ABC News would grimly describe it a few weeks later.
As you can see, the inconsistencies in the various reports are glaring: Was there a survivor? Was the survivor rescued? Why the delay between the purported sighting of the survivor by the U.S. military and its hand off of the responsibility for the search-and-rescue operation to Mexico?
In mid-October, the Pentagon had briefly detained two survivors of a different strike before quickly repatriating them to Ecuador and Colombia, respectively. The Pentagon’s obvious squeamishness about taking survivors into custody raises a host of additional questions about the fate of the lone survivor.
Pentagon Considered Sending Boat Strike Survivors to CECOT
The Pentagon considered sending the two survivors of the Sept. 2 U.S. strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, the NYT is now reporting: “The State Department lawyers were stunned, one official said, and rejected the idea.”
Nothing to See Here!
Less than two weeks after launching a bipartisan investigation into the Trump administration’s lawless strikes on the high seas, the GOP chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is shutting down the probe.
More Saber-Rattling
A pair of U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, with conflicting reports on whether they entered Venezuelan airspace.
Must Read
TPM’s Hunter Walker in the first installment of his Undocumented Underground series: Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE Onslaught
The White Nationalist Presidency
Nearly every day of the Trump II presidency provides another searing example of the white nationalism that fuels MAGA. The most recent is the Justice Department eliminating its “disparate impact” regulations: “The Justice Department on Tuesday moved to end long-standing civil rights policies that prohibit local governments and organizations that receive federal funding from maintaining policies that disproportionately harm people of color,” Politico reports.
Thread of the Day
Only the Best People
- FEMA: Conspiracy theorist election denier Gregg Phillips will lead the Office of Response and Recovery, Marisa Kabas reports.
- USAID: Right-wing influencer Mike Benz, who rose to prominence last year by spreading fantastical claims about USAID, is now working at the agency, The Atlantic reports.
Spotted at Unhinged Trump Rally: Emil Bove
Appeals Court Judge Emil Bove was seen in the crowd at the wild Pennsylvania rally held last night by President Trump, where he said things like this:
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
Judge Blocks Federalization of California National Guard, Saying It’s Become ‘National Police Force’
A federal judge enjoined the Trump administration’s federalization of the California National Guard Wednesday, writing that it has “sent California Guardsmen into other states, effectively creating a national police force made up of state troops.”
Continue reading “Judge Blocks Federalization of California National Guard, Saying It’s Become ‘National Police Force’”Trump Admin Spins Death of Student Loan Forgiveness Plan as Great for People Who Want Student Loan Forgiveness
The Trump administration has made moves to officially kill off President Biden’s income-driven student loan repayment plan — meaning that some borrowers who have not made payments for years will have to figure out a plan for making payments again. And officials are trying to spin the decision as some sort of positive thing for participants in the plan, despite the fact that they are enrolled because they can’t afford their federal student loan costs.
Continue reading “Trump Admin Spins Death of Student Loan Forgiveness Plan as Great for People Who Want Student Loan Forgiveness”Will the 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War on Public Accountability?
A friend of mine ran an analogy by me which really resonated. Perhaps others have drawn the comparison.
In the late 18th century, what would later evolve into the British Raj was coalescing into full British domination of the Indian subcontinent — especially after two key battles in 1757 and 1764 waged not by Britain but a private company called the British East India Company. That made it possible for what were often British men of relatively modest origins to build almost unimaginably large fortunes. Life in India was a matter of extremes for British operatives of the East India Company, a joint stock company which owned what were in effect Britain’s Indian colonies. Countless young Brits went out to India and died in short order. But if they could avoid dying, in a relatively few years they could build these unimaginable fortunes. None of them wanted to stay. Virtually no Britons died of old age in India at the time. The whole point was to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible and get back to Great Britain while they were still alive. Then they would pour that money into an estate and land.
They were called “nabobs,” a corruption of “nawab,” a title in the Mughal Empire which originally referred to a provincial governor but evolved into something more like a hereditary lord as Mughal rule disintegrated.
Continue reading “Will the 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War on Public Accountability?”Republicans Fight to Kill Lingering Campaign Finance Regulation after SCOTUS Obliterated the Rest
As Republicans came before the Supreme Court Tuesday to get rid of one of the last regulations governing our wild west campaign finance system, the colloquies fell flat.
Continue reading “Republicans Fight to Kill Lingering Campaign Finance Regulation after SCOTUS Obliterated the Rest”Wave of Income Tax Cuts Has Left Many States Vulnerable to Trump SNAP and Medicaid Crisis
This story first appeared at ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
This fall, Americans got to see what it’s like to go without a safety net for the hungry. With the U.S. government shut down for multiple weeks and President Donald Trump refusing to fund SNAP, the federal food stamp program, a panic set in among the more than 40 million people who rely on it. Families skipped meals, and babies went unfed. Food banks ran out of food, and some people turned to dumpster diving.
It was just a glimpse of what’s to come. Starting next October, Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act will shift billions in SNAP costs from the federal government onto states. Some states won’t be able to afford this, and they could be forced to deeply cut or even shutter their SNAP programs altogether, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Continue reading “Wave of Income Tax Cuts Has Left Many States Vulnerable to Trump SNAP and Medicaid Crisis”Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE Onslaught
They call them the “forgotten migrants.”
Of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, over two thirds of them come from Mexico and South America, according to data compiled by the Pew Research Center last year. However, the population from other regions is growing sharply. Pew found that, as of 2022, there were 375,000 unauthorized immigrants from Africa living in the U.S., which was a striking 36% increase over three years.
Estimates show New York is home to nearly 8% of the nation’s undocumented African immigrants. The community was the primary focus of ICE’s Canal Street raid in late October. As TPM spent nearly two months examining the fallout from that sweep and Trump’s deportation machine in the city, we found that African migrants have faced threats and unique challenges. They’re also receiving help from a growing network of activists and advocates.
Continue reading “Inside the Secret Network Offering Sanctuary to Immigrants Amid Trump’s ICE Onslaught”Life Inside the Undocumented Underground
During President Donald Trump’s second term, dramatic raids staged by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have become a part of life. We want to show you what that looks like up close and on the ground in one American city. It’s a story of fear, resilience, and resistance.
TPM has spent the past two months reporting on the effect of Trump’s mass deportation agenda in New York, one of the cities facing the prospect of a large-scale ICE invasion. We went inside the courts where Trump’s deportation machine is firing judges and snatching migrants from the halls. We walked those same corridors with masked agents and a growing network of volunteers, activists, and advocates who are determined to fight this new system. We also spent time with the immigrants who described the dangers that led them to leave their homes, the new fears they face in this country, and their drive to keep going despite these long odds.
Continue reading “Life Inside the Undocumented Underground”