Kathleen Sgamma unceremoniously withdrew herself as President Trump’s nominee to run the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on Thursday just before her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sgamma is the director of Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based oil and gas trade group made up of over 300 companies. She has long advocated for the Interior Department’s BLM to focus on the expansion of oil and natural gas drilling, mining and for cattle to graze on public lands. It’s a match made in the Trump administration’s anti-preservation, anti-renewable resources heaven. So what went wrong?
Sgamma dared to be horrified by the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. Even worse, she expressed it — a sin that Trump has used as grudge fuel against key members of Congress and former officials in his first administration for years.
The investigative watchdog and journalism group Documented obtained a copy of a letter that Sgamma sent to the coalition of gas and oil companies that make up Western Energy Alliance on Jan. 7, 2021.
“The events yesterday at the Capitol were so shocking that our policy engagement with and PAC support for the Trump Administration compels me to speak up,” she wrote. “I am disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it.”
The letter was made public on Tuesday and by Thursday, Sgamma withdrew herself from consideration for the position. She and the White House did not address the letter or give a reason for the sudden change but it doesn’t take much to jump to the very logical conclusion — she got caught committing the deadliest of the seven: disagreeing with MAGA.
Why The F*ck Would I Talk To H.R. McMaster?
CBS News had a funny story last night, offering the mildest of palate cleansers.
Just a few days before SignalGate broke, Trump’s aides in the White House made another disastrous mistake: They dialed H.R. McMaster, Trump’s former national security adviser (whom he now loathes), instead of South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster. Trump reportedly began speaking into the phone without waiting for the person on the other end to respond or say hello. H.R. McMaster, who has been a vocal critic of Trump since he was fired during Trump’s first administration, had to butt in:
“Mr. President, this is H.R. McMaster,” he said into the phone.
“Why the f*** would I talk” to H.R. McMaster? Trump asked dismissively, and then Trump launched into a scathing critique of his former aide, two sources said.
The call was brief.
Potential For Some Justice For Central Park Five?
Per MSNBC’s Deadline: Legal Blog
President Donald Trump lost a bid to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by plaintiffs known as the Exonerated Five (formerly the Central Park Five). Thursday’s court ruling brings Trump closer to potential civil liability for comments he made about them during a presidential debate against Kamala Harris last year, but it doesn’t guarantee that the plaintiffs will ultimately succeed in their case.
Disenfranchising Is The Point
On Thursday House Republicans passed the Republican-led Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which is a redundant piece of legislation making it illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections (that is already illegal and rarely happens).
The bill was introduced last year ahead of the 2024 election, as Republicans focused on the false narrative that non-citizens were voting en masse in elections on behalf of Democrats. There is no evidence to support that non-citizens have been voting in elections. Instead, the narrative was used as a way for Republicans to sow seeds of doubt in the election system and to set themselves up to cry voter fraud if Donald Trump had lost the 2024 election.
Voting experts and critics of the bill say the measure will have the effect of disenfranchising millions of eligible voters, who can’t easily access documents required for documentary proof of citizenship. According to reporting from the Brennan Center, the SAVE Act has the potential to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters.
— Khaya Himmelman
In Case You Missed It
House GOP Hardliners Cave, Unlocking Process To Make Sweeping Medicaid Cuts
Trump Shifts Into Full-Bore Retribution Mode
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
A Few Notes on Trump’s Abject, Humiliating and Maybe Not Even Accomplishing Much Cave
What We Are Reading
Sen. Michael Bennet will run for governor of Colorado in 2026
Trump moves to legally enforce 2020 election denialism
Pressed for evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, government cites its power to deport people for beliefs
Wow, we can certainly trust these people to tell truth to power.
From the article: 'America’s largest newspaper chain, Gannett, will no longer publish demographic and diversity data about its workforce, and has revamped its corporate site to remove mentions of diversity.
'The announcement was made in a company town hall meeting on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson told me the company is “adapting to the evolving regulatory environment,” and, in a follow-up email when I asked for clarification, referred me to Trump’s January 22 executive order eliminating DEI initiatives in federal agencies and calling for an end to “private sector DEI discrimination.”
‘Gannett did not specify whether the Trump administration had contacted anyone at the company, or asked them to make changes.’
They’ll be urging their reporters to ask tough questions and supporting them when the regime comes at them. They’ll be telling plain truths and avoiding bothsiderisms and sanewashing. Yesiree…
“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Cult of Personality Has Strict Rules”
Can we safely call it the United States with Autocracy now?
But we in it shall be remember’d;
If Shakespeare were alive today:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in America now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Insurrection day.
Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak
Paul Krugman from Paul Krugman
To: me · Thu, Apr 10 at 5:29 AM
Message Body
Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak
The disaster of Trumponomics continues
Paul Krugman
Apr 10
Source: USITC and author’s estimate
Live shot of Donald Trump setting tariffs:
And here’s what happened yesterday:
Anyone sounding the all-clear on tariffs, or Trump economic policy in general, should be kept away from sharp objects and banned from operating heavy machinery. We’re in a hardly better place than we were before Donald Trump announced a tariff pause (in a Truth Social post, of course.) In fact, we may be in a worse place.
Let me make four points about Trump’s post-pause tariff regime.
Even the post-pause tariff rates represent a huge protectionist shock
Destructive uncertainty about future policy has increased
We’re still at risk of a major financial crisis
The world now knows that Trump is weak as well as erratic
Still a huge protectionist shock
Yesterday Trump announced that he wasn’t going to impose all those tariffs he announced last week after all. Instead, he’s putting a 10 percent tariff on everyone, and 125 percent on China.
Question of the day: Does the 10 percent rate still apply to the penguins of the Heard and McDonald islands?
Anyway, this new announcement still sets tariffs at a much higher level than they were before Trump took office, indeed higher than he suggested during the campaign. For example, during the campaign researchers at the Peterson Institute for International Economics constructed a model assuming Trump implemented a 10 percent tariffs across the board and 60 percent on China. The researchers concluded that this regime would impose a nasty shock on the US economy. Now we are facing a tariffs of more than twice that level against China as well as 10 percent on all other countries.
How high are overall tariffs after the “pause” was announced?
That’s actually a tricky question. China accounted for 13 percent of U.S. imports in 2024, and if you apply the newly announced rates to 2024 imports you come up with an average rate of 24.95 — higher than before the pause. Incredibly high tariff rates on China will, however, lead to lower imports from China, so a calculation based on 2024 trade is problematic.
However, not importing from China is also very costly: if we no longer import a good from China we must either shift to other, more expensive suppliers or the good simply disappears from the shelves. In the chart at the top of this post I’ve made an estimate of the “effective” tariff rate post-pause. The effective tariff takes into account both direct and indirect costs, and reflects the increase in the cost of living imposed by the tariff. With a 125% tariff on Chinese imports and a 10% tariff on all other imports, I arrive at an effective tariff rate that is slightly below the Smoot-Hawley level of 1930. But this still represents a huge jump in tariffs in a US economy that now imports three times as much as it did in 1930. Trump’s post-pause tariff regime remains the biggest trade shock in U.S., and I think world history.
It’s the uncertainty, stupid
Like many other observers, I’ve been arguing that uncertainty about Trump’s policies is as big a drag on the economy as the policies themselves. Before the Rose Garden announcement, I warned that it wouldn’t be the end of the story:
And so it has proved. So are things settled now? Hardly. The pause is for 90 days. Then what happens? Nobody, Trump included, has the faintest idea. If you imagine that the U.S. can negotiate “tailored” tariff deals with the more than 75 countries Trump claims are seeking a deal in just three months, ask yourself, who’s supposed to be sorting out the details?
So if you were a business owner or executive, would you make any major investments or long-term commitments over the next few months? I wouldn’t.
Still a risk of financial crisis
Yesterday I noted that financial markets were showing the telltale signs of an incipient financial crisis. I looked mainly at the breakeven inflation rate, but many other indicators were also flashing yellow. Even yields on long-term federal bonds, normally a safe haven in troubled times, were sounding a warning.
The inimitable Nathan Tankus has a new post explaining why we were and continue to be vulnerable to a new crisis. He explains why the Rose Garden announcement may have been a new tariff-induced “Lehman moment” for the financial system. He explains a lot of stuff that I didn’t know or had grasped only vaguely — in particular, how hedge funds have become key providers of liquidity, even in the Treasury market (via the “basis trade.”) So when hedge funds’ portfolios take a hit from erratic policy, this quickly creates system-wide stress.
I’m planning to write a primer about financial crises and how they happen this weekend.
The level of financial market stress declined somewhat yesterday, but the situation remains fraught. Trump’s next stupid policy move — and there will be more stupid moves — could quite easily tip us over the edge.
Above all, don’t take yesterday’s relief rally as a sign that the danger is behind us. Look at how the NASDAQ behaved after the original Lehman moment:
There were several big but short-lived stock rallies along the way to a huge decline. Assuming that yesterday’s surge was the end of the story requires ignoring both the fundamentals of erratic policy and the lessons of history.
Bullies are weak
The story of the tariffs so far — at least as other countries will see it — is that Trump announced extreme policies, insisted that he would persist with those policies no matter what, then beat an ignominious retreat. In other words, Trump is a typical bully, full of swagger and tough talk, who runs away at the first sign of adversity.
On tariffs, Trump’s cowardice and weakness may be a good thing. But what about everything else?|
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