Fridays with Nicole Sandler
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Some of the Ways Trump’s Immigrant Invader Damaged America in Just Two... Coping 
The threshold to and definition of “haywire” seems to be a moving target, alas…
“This was recorded before things really started to go haywire.”
So, dating back to say, 2015?
That’s certainly one of many “haywire” inflection points in recent history. Some New York loudmouth who was obtaining publicity by questioning Obama’s birth certificate decided to run for president.
For me April 2019 when Bill Barr publicly whitewashed the Mueller report and got away with it was another. That sent me over here for honest news reporting because not much was to be had elsewhere.
Examples of ‘haywire’ after your pod…
Three Trainwrecks and a Mid-air Collison by Lucien K. Truscott IV
https://open.substack.com/pub/luciantruscott/p/three-train-wrecks-and-a-mid-air
2010, Citizens United.
Re: Bruce F. Cole @ 11:32
2008 – McCain selects Sarah Palin as his running mate, thereby opening the floodgates for “dumb populist” candidates (well GWB wasn’t too bright, but he had an ‘elite family’ pedigree)
@Matt B, 11:54 2/1:
1980, First vacuous media personality with high feral-instinct IQ, ultra-rich affectations and mediagenic wife elected POTUS.
Re: Bruce F. Cole 2/2/25 @ 1:15 pm
Yup. Phillip K. Dick actually predicted a president like Ronald Reagan in his book “We Can Build You”, which was an AI president with endearing “grandpa” personality.
I actually stumbled upon Reagan’s last movie he made before entering politics recently: The Killers from 1965. Reagan was the chief villain in the film. John Cassavettes was an obsessed race car driver and Angie Dickinson the duplicitous girlfriend whose loyalties shifted between them. Reagan needed a race car driver on his gang in order rob a U.S. postal truck on a rural route, carrying large bags of cash. Everything does not go as planned. Really not a very good movie at all, despite the star power on the cast and it being based on an Ernest Hemingway short story…
All wonderful options, but looking backwards with a historian’s eye, I am afraid that the big picture answer is 9/11, or the Sept 11 attacks of 2001. There are innumerable danger flags before and after, but the American Right’s *mass* willingness to divorce completely from Enlightenment ideals traces to that event.
Lest anyone think I am letting the GOP off the hook with an external event, I would invite anyone to peruse the historical record, such that it is, of late Cold War Afghanistan and the purges of national security institutions immediately following Bush II’s inauguration. Coll’s _Shadow Wars_ is the definitive (and reputable!) overview. TL;DR: it’s overwhelmingly likely that had Bush II not stolen the office, a President Gore would have listened to the security state and some or all of 9/11 would not have happened.
Now imagine an America with no Bush II, no 9/11, no USAPATRIOT or “Homeland Departments”, no Gitmo, no memes about electrocuting genitals. Imagine the hopefulness of the 1990s, continuing on its own arc. That’s ok, you can stop now. Go have a drink.
yup
Idiot Donald Trump directed the Army Corps of Engineers to increase water flow from reservoirs in California’s Central Valley under the guise that the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles earlier this month were a result of water mismanagement, where water was either being restricted or dumped into the Pacific Ocean.
The reality is that there have been a “water war” in California for several decades. The conservative Central Valley wants the stored water for farmers, while liberals want the water for the large metro ares.
Trump handed the central valley farmers a win.
https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/trumps-water-promises-will-the-central-valley-actually-get-more-water/
Has the feel of a Nunes idea…or memo.
You may be correct. Devin Nunes grew up in a family of dairy farmers in Tulare, California. The family dairy has been central to his identity and a feature of every major political profile written about him.
Dairies aren’t big water users, but Westlands has a lot of political power.
Did Nunes jump Congressional ship to join Trump around the time that his dairy in IA was in the process of losing a defamation lawsuit against Esquire who had published a story about undocumented migrants hooking the pumps up to the udders at his farm?
https://apnews.com/article/devin-nunes-lawsuit-iowa-dairy-farm-5e26122ced9898e1575152af1b0161ea
Most of the water use in CA is agricultural. Cities are actually more water-efficient than people realize. Those private golf courses, on the other hand, and the big lawns at mansions…those are wasting water.
Also we’ve had drought conditions for most of the last 15 years. Expanding irrigated farming is the idea of an idjit.
The good news from the other side of the Rockies is that there’s still about 25% of the Ogallala aquifer system left to scavenge.
And watch, the next round of idiocy from Trump will be pimping the Mississippi River pump-to-the-Southwest scheme, an insane global-warming workaround. Odds are about even, I guess, whether he gloms onto that masturbatory mindlessness, or someone dangles another “How could this fail? You’ll be praised in the history books!”-shiny object in front of his scowling, hate-distorted mug.
My feeling is that the bulk of America-at-large is currently in a fugue state, the shock of the actuality of Trump 2.0 being as disastrous and repulsive as the multitude of clear warnings said he would be — even warnings he himself issued, without ambiguity.
For some, I think that condition exhibits as big-picture-catatonia, if that condition can be isolated to one area of a personality. It’s not an uncommon reaction to any cataclysm of this size. I’m sure it was part of why Germany fell so readily to Hitler, even after significant institutional antipathy for him. But certainly ’30s Germany wasn’t even in the same league with us today in terms of destructive potential on a global scale, nor in terms of the speed with which the demolition-phase is ready to ensue.
The other thing that’s different between our situation and Germany back then: the percentage of the country’s population that are fixedly against the protagonist in question is approaching an order of magnitude larger today than at the end of the Weimar Republic.
And the inflation rate isn’t going, well, haywire this time — yet.
I.e., We’re not in a hopeless situation, and Trump’s complete victory is hardly assured. His election victory was a prelude to his attempt to conquer the world, certainly; Trump’s megalomania certainly rivals Hitler’s, and Trump has a lot more tools (both kinds) at his disposal — but the demographics are not in Trump’s favor like they were for Hitler, and our perception of our nation is not what Germans thought of Germany back then, nor even what Americans thought of America during Jim Crow. Heather Cox Richardson covers that kind of thing well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-LBD-zumlQ
She: “she’s my sister, she’s my daughter,…”
He: “I said I want the truth”
She: “Understand? Or is it too tough for you.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnrdetFAo1o
Actually not a win for irrigators, because this is dumping water in the middle of winter, when no irrigator can use it, that easily could held for release this summer when the Trump-loving irrigators will need it. (See harpie’s comment, below)
This was just plain stupid. More slop and ouch.
It’s an area that’s well below normal precipitation. North of SF/Sacramento, it’s not a big problem.
See the figures – up-to-date! – here:
https://ggweather.com/seasonal_rain.htm
Trump ordered it so he can take 20 minute showers and do his three flushes.
Wa,
The real reality is the water was turned back on after 3 days of maintenance. Trump had nothing to do with it.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/california-water-regulators-trump-claim-water/3774352/
(Also, it’s hilarious for this native Southern Californian to hear someone say- the military entered the state. California , especially So Cal, is home to many, many military installations of all the branches . So no need to march on over that state line, they”re already here!! Big time LOL!! )
That was actually a different incident, at the Delta pumps.
That was a separate incident, and planned in advance. The dam release was ordered by Trump, carried out by the ACE, because he had made a fool of himself with the faucet thing. The farmers are, by some reports, not happy. Other reports are… it’s complicated. But nothing to do with LA fires, of course.
January 30, 2025: Decision to dump water from Tulare County lakes altered after sending locals into a mad scramble https://sjvwater.org/decision-to-dump-water-from-tulare-county-lakes-altered-after-sending-locals-in-mad-scramble/
January 31, 2025: Trump’s emergency water order responsible for water dump from Tulare County lakes https://sjvwater.org/trumps-emergency-water-order-responsible-for-water-dump-from-tulare-county-lakes/
“..This decision was clearly made by someone with no understanding of the system or the impacts that come from knee-jerk political actions.”
THAT pretty much sums up Donald Trump in a nutshell. (Farming pun intended).
A ‘Wonderful’ reference.
In a nutshell…
Specifically, almonds and pecans.
Some of that water is dumped to keep the FISH alive, downstream. A lot of the farmers seem to think that the downstream ecosystems are non-existent.
I don’t doubt that. It’s also dumped to make room for new precipitation. But it doesn’t mean that’s why Trump ordered this water dumped.
And Newsom is going along with it.
My opinion of him has dropped to where I wonder if we’d have done better to recall him.
It seems that every single politician thinks they can operate California’s water infrastructure better than the people who actually operate it, day in and day out.
They don’t operate it well, either. There are regulations about ecosystem protection that they prefer to ignore. It’s been a long time since we had a governor who ever went out for a day on the river, fishing or birdwatching or anything relaxing.
The operators pay more attention to environmental constraints than Newsom’s order to them allows.
Have to have revolt now, because once they are totally ingrained with their power, the people are doomed.
It’s alarming to see how the Daily Beast has gone off the rails. I just watched an excerpt from CNN’s Table for Five. Joanna Coles (Daily Beast executive) was promoting Musk propaganda. Very ignorant. And scary that she is totally unaware.
I like the Daily Beast sensationalist presentation. It’s like a trip to the grocery store and reading the National Enquirer headlines while in the checkout line. In various ways the Beast tries to lure people into a parallel universe, such as the article today where Peter Doocy – Peter Doocy! – takes Caroline Leavitt to task for Trump’s responses on the DC crash. In what world is Fox News questioning Trump’s alternate reality and someone reports on it!
Joanna Coles is the Daily Beast’s chief content officer. Her dedicated defense of Elon Musk’s growing control over the USG was not off-the cuff or made out of ignorance. It was programmatic and planned.
Her delivery sure was poor, despite her title and intentions.
And to think she was the US bureau chief for the Guardian 25 years ago. Looks to me like her Project Runway association has more relevance to what she’s doing now than her time at the Guardian does.
I appreciate Emptywheel staying on Twitter and leading in the information warfare space. This is much needed.
Seems I recall something uncovered by a British ex-spy that claimed when Trump was in Moscow he displayed a fondness for wetlands.
Two deadly plane crashes under Trump. I’ve read comments complaining that the Philly jet pilot had a Mexican accent and didn’t belong here. With Trump’s well-known contempt for foreigners surely some MAGAs with commonsense (sic) have questions and want an investigation to find out if Trump ordered sabotage. As Jim Comer and Jim Jordan taught us, there are no coincidences and every question must be investigated.
Trump pulled the trigger on his 25% blanket tariffs on all imports from Canada. This is going to raise prices for goods all across the U.S. economy and cause inflation to spike, especially because (as they have been warning for weeks now) Canada’s political leaders have no choice but to strongly retaliate.
Trump is already threatening to increase his tariffs on Canada if it retaliates. Like, what the actual fuck does he expect them to do? Not retaliating would be absolute political suicide, Canadians across the political spectrum are pissed off and will demand strong retaliation even knowing its going to hurt Canada’s economy more than it hurts the U.S.
Canadians are not going to forget this betrayal for a long time.
Trump is also threatening the EU, China and Taiwan with similar high tariffs. U.S. businesses won’t be able to switch away from Canada to other sources of the inputs they need, if Trump is just going to tariff those countries too.
dopefish – Brings to mind the analogy of Canada living in the upper of a duplex with a bunch of juvenile, noisy and heavily armed crack heads living in the lower.
Also your 7:34 PM comment is spot on and so true – looks like crashing the economy is a parallel track to destroying our governmental structure. And the UAW folks who backed the chief MAGAt? Remember ‘Reagan Democrats’? Lots of the UAW went with that.
Buckle up folks.
These 25% tariffs also go against the re-negotiated NAFTA deal that Trump 1.0 signed. Trump doesn’t even honor the his own treaties that he signs.
I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised, after all, Trump has reneged on paying workers for doing work on his properties.
Promises, commitments, mean nothing to that narcissistic sociopath.
Rachel Maddow had a piece last night on the massive scale of the purge of federal prosecutors and FBI agents. They are apparently trying to remove every prosecutor and fbi agent who worked on any of his criminal trials. And also prosecutors and agents involved with any J6 cases.
She said it was breaking news so details may emerge to clarify further.
Hundreds, or even thousands of FBI agents are now targeted for personnel actions or firing for doing their jobs of law enforcement.
Just a stunning attack on America. Kevin Roberts did warn us what was in process.
Personal vengeance by the felon guy. In his mind, he *is* the US, and we’re all supposed to work for his benefit.
Another guy hired solely on the basis of being rich.
A reason people stay in federal jobs despite the prospects of higher earnings in the private sector is the benefit package attached. Do these employees get their severance pay or sick leave payouts? What about pensions? All of these people losing their jobs are also losing the healthcare coverage those jobs provide. If Musk wipes the data on federal employees how can they be assured of benefits earned? And what’s to keep the Trumpist Taliban from declaring that some 2.3 million federal employees no longer have reproductive healthcare, such as birth control or abortion? Nothing, it seems.
I forgot to mention civil servants have a right to due process in discipline and dismissal.
Yes, I think even in a RIF, which is what Kel McClanahan’s clients anticipated. And I wonder what the DOD people are thinking. That’s a lot of people who may eventually be impacted.
The tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico are going into effect. You have to wonder how long before the price increases will hit GOP congresscritters. And their constituents, who are getting exactly what they voted for.
The car manufacturing industry in all 3 countries will come to a standstill within a week.
Donnie really believes that they’ll be the ones paying the tariffs. He can’t get that it’s us who will pay first (and dearly). He also wants to raise those tariffs if they retaliate.
(And people voted for this guy because they didn’t like Harris and her boss, neither of whom are that stupid.)
Tariffs are an indirect sales tax. The government collects it upstream of the consumer, and the consumer pays for the tariffed item with that tax included.
It’s a de facto indirect national sales tax. That’s how it should be presented to the public by what’s left of the opposition in this country.
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced their 25% counter-tariffs on $155 billion worth of goods in a speech tonight, where he also made a long emotional appeal to Americans to try and bring them to their senses.
Mexico is also putting tariffs on stuff. So: lumber, dairy, gas and oil, fruits and vegetables…
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-s-tariffs-on-canada-mexico-and-china-could-20133125.php
New Tariff in Town
There’s a new tariff in town
that jabs us in our border
John Roberts has bestowed a crown
but the fool condemns each hoarder
I’m trying to think of his pronoun
I think it is “ex torter”
Whatever which way we go down
his mind is out of order
“Ex-torter.” Perfect. And “whatever which way we go down,” is also great.
In that latter vein, I did a rewrite of William Lee Ellis’ “How the Mighty Have Fallen” about 12 years ago:
_________
THE MIGHTY, THEY FALL
Cain and Abel were bound by blood
But Cain sent Abel back to mud
In a fitful rage of jealousy
‘Cause God had cursed humanity.
And that ol’ Samson, he could kill a lion,
But then he met Delilah and he just quit tryin’.
She grabbed ahold of ol’ Handsome’s hair
And said, “Who told you, boy, that life is fair?”
(Chorus:)
Oh, how far the mighty they fall!
How like the mountain that crumbles into the sea
Oh, how the mighty they fall so hard.
One false move: of such is history…
Cleopatra said to Anthony:
“If you’ll excuse me dear, we’ve got to flee!
See, it don’t matter who did what to whom,
‘Cause nothin’ matters when you’re in a tomb!”
(Chorus, with last verse:)
That there’s your history!
(Bridge)
The mighty, they never learn,
They always seem to crash and then they burn
The mighty, they never last
They’re just here…then they’re in the past!
“Let them eat cake,” dit petite Antoinette;
A big mistake, et ainsi un coup de tête.
Then take your Bonaparte… à Waterloo
Observez, gamins! Enjoy the view!
It’s the wages of sin and the wastage of war,
And it’s a goddam cinch that we’re all in for more:
‘Cause makin’ nasty is a Mighty vice,
And their catastrophes, they’re never nice!
(Chorus, with last two lines):
A hundred false moves
He’s makin’ history!
The mighty, they never last
They disappear into the distant past
The mighty, they never learn,
They just tumble when it’s their turn…
_______
The music and vocals in my version is more Leon Redbone-y and urgent than his original which has a kind of light-hearted feel, almost breezy. Chord structure is roughly the same in my version, though.
Here Ellis is performing it, around twenty years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZW6oQJxa9Q
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES.”
–Orange Sadist Sunday morning post
And his MAGA Masochists are begging “Give it to me harder, daddy! Retribution hurts so good!”
Unfortunately, MAGAts are in the grip of what Timothy Snyder has described as “sado-populism”: they are willing to endure unnecessary suffering because they think that they people they hate (minorities, liberals, etc.) will suffer more.
Trump knows this, and exploits it skillfully.
Trump admin is endangering classified info, and America’s enemies might figure out a way to exploit this.
The Guardian is reporting that two senior security officials at USaid were placed on leave after they “refused to allow officials from Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to access systems at the agency, according to multiple reports.” Inluding classified systems.
CNN’s article has more details:
Every place DOGE goes to should ask to see their official government IDs and their authorizations – written! – before letting them in the door. This is what their security people should be doing.
Congress – all of it, not just the Dems – should be demanding to know what this non-department is doing, and why they’re fcking around with allocated money – not their area – and WTAF they’re doing getting into secure databases, especially with UNCLEARED and INSECURE external hard drives. That would get most people, at any job!
If they claim they’ve been authorized by Donny, demand that signed-and-dated authorization. He shouldn’t get to pixie-dust departments any more than he does declassifying documents.
Motivation for everyone in Congress: If they get crosswise of President Musk, or his puppet The Felon Guy, their paychecks might get “lost”. Or their reimbursements for travel and food and hotels.