In the thick of the fight.

February 15, 2025

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Reminder: I will host a Substack livestream on Saturday, February 15, at 9:00 am PST / 12:00 noon EST. There is no link; just open the Substack App at the appointed time and you will receive a notification that I am livestreaming. Click on that notification to join the conversation!

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Friday was another consequential day filled with twists and turns, wins and losses, courage and cowardice. That’s all good. It means that we are in the thick of the fight. The resistance is in full swing.

But the pace of events has accelerated, turning each day into a dizzying test of endurance and mental torment. That is the point of the “flood the zone” strategy—a strategy that works for short periods of time. If we can hold fast during the first weeks of the administration, the pace of events will slow as the lawless actions conform to briefing schedules and court hearings.

The focus will then shift to Congress, where the need to pass a spending bill and debt ceiling increase will be measured in weeks and months, not hours and tweets.

So, stay strong for the next few weeks. We are pushing back with a good measure of success. Still, we must do more. Embrace grassroots groups; join them; attend meetings, follow their calls for action; continue to urge our elected representatives to be bolder, more aggressive, and louder.

We are going to make it through this challenging period. As we search for leaders on the national stage, be a leader yourself—even if your area of influence is limited to family and friends. Lead by example, use words when necessary.

If you are fearful or have lost hope, seek appropriate help and support. But do not discourage others who are still willing to fight for you. Predicting disaster or reminding others that “I told you so” will not move us forward.

We are in the thick of the fight. Given the circumstances, that is a good place to be.

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Litigation overview.

We should take satisfaction and confidence from the role that the judiciary continues to play in resisting Trump's unconstitutional effort to abolish the role of Congress by ignoring its authority to appropriate funds and create laws binding on the executive.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a temporary restraining order (based on the consent of the parties) prohibiting the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau from destroying databases or terminating employees (except for cause). The temporary restraining order is here: Order | Nat'l Treasury Union Employees v. Vought.

The order was issued after the former Chief Technology Officer for the CFPB filed a declaration stating that she believed destruction of data was imminent. See Politico:

Erie Meyer, who until last week was the CFPB’s chief technologist, wrote in a court declaration earlier Friday that she believed that the Trump administration was imminently seeking to destroy agency data. “Public reporting and reports that I have received from within the Bureau reliably indicate that databases holding the CFPB's data will soon be deleted,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, a federal judge extended a restraining order blocking Musk from access to the Treasury payment system. But The Hill reports that, despite court orders to lift the “freeze” on funds, “numerous recipients are not getting their promised cash from the government.” See The Hill, Despite court orders, Trump administration freezes numerous funds

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The corruption of the Eric Adams case is admitted in Fox interview

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove struggled to find an attorney willing to dismiss charges against NY City Mayor Eric Adams. The day began with a prosecutor assigned to the Adams’ case sending in a memorable resignation letter. Assistant US Attorney Hagan Scotten submitted a resignation letter that said, in part,

Any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.

If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.

Emil Bove likely understood the truth of Scotten’s statement that only a “fool or coward” would sign the request for dismissal, so Bove resulted to tactics reminiscent of Stalinist Russia.

Bove told members of the Public Integrity Unit in Washington, D.C. that unless one of them signed the dismissal, all of them would be fired. @harrylitman@bsky.social wrote:

Strong rumor with credible sourcing: DOJ has put all of public integrity line attorneys in a room and told them they have an hour for someone to choose who will sign motion to dismiss and if nobody does, they will all be fired. The nastiest strong-arming in DOJ history by a long shot.

A career federal prosecutor finally agreed to sign the request for dismissal. We should await details to learn whether the prosecutor is a fool, coward, or a hero who sacrificed his distinguished career to save the jobs of junior staffers.

But in all events, US District Judge Dale Ho should hold a hearing to understand the pressure brought to bear on the prosecutor who finally signed the request for dismissal.

Hours earlier, Eric Adams appeared on a Fox interview with Tom Homan, the “immigration czar.” During the segment, Homan seemed to confirm that there was a corrupt bargain for the dismissal. See Mediaite, Trump Border Czar Threatens Mayor Adams On Fox News: ‘I’ll Be Up His Butt’ If He ‘Doesn’t Come Through’. Homan said

If he [Eric Adams] doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City. . . . And we won’t be sitting on a couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying where the hell is the agreement we came to, so.

The reference to “an agreement” confirms the statement in Danielle Sassoon’s letter to Pam Bondi yesterday, which stated,

Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed

Everyone on the Fox set had a good chuckle at the expense of the rule of law.

If the charges against Adams are dismissed, it will be a public act of corruption committed in plain daylight—to the everlasting shame of the Department of Justice, which is now doing the bidding of Trump, bidding that is venal and corrupt.

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Mass firings lead to mass confusion

Per reports, the DOGE hackers are turning their attention to the IRS and Pentagon. See Mediate, Trump and DOGE Will Reportedly Lay Off Thousands of IRS Workers – ‘Likely Targeting Tax Collection’

A wave of firings on Friday has imperiled the safety and security of the US nuclear arsenal. The idiots who are directing the mass layoffs apparently did not understand that an agency named the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was charged with maintaining the safety and security of the US nuclear arsenal.

On Friday, Musk laid off hundreds of employees in the NNSA, who were responsible for maintaining the security of nuclear weapons. See Defense One, Trump administration fires hundreds of nuclear-security employees, sources say.

Frantic calls from the NNSA attempted to reverse those firings and direct workers to return to work. See CNN Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say. Per CNN, a group of panicked US Senators visited Energy Secretary Wright and alerted him to the reckless firings. CNN explains,

The agency made the about face Friday morning; during a meeting, acting NNSA administrator Teresa Robbins said the agency had received direction to rescind the termination of probationary employees.

The hundreds of employees had been locked out of their computers and had their security clearances revoked. It is not clear how many of them will return to work.

This is a situation that literally threatens the lives and safety of millions of Americans. The legacy press should have 32-point headline font expressing outrage and condemnation of this SNAFU.

In a separate but related debacle, the DOGE team posted classified data about the National Reconnaissance Office, a US intelligence agency focused on gathering information on adversaries by using satellites. Information about the staffing and budgets of US intelligence agencies are classified information.

Musk’s DOGE nonetheless posted information related to NRO size and staffing—information that could be helpful to an adversary trying to determine how the US is allocating its intelligence resources. See HuffPo, Elon Musk’s DOGE Posts Classified Data On Its New Website.

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JD Vance insults allies, courts Nazi-friendly German party

In a foreign relations debacle of historic significance, VP Vance insulted and offended our allies during a speech at the Munich security conference. Vance met with representatives of Germany’s neo-Nazi sympathizing AfD party and snubbed the German Chancellor.

The speech was truly horrific. Headlines and stories have yet to capture the true depravity of Vance’s comments. But for a start, see The Guardian, JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders.

Per The Guardian,

The blistering and confrontational remarks were met with shock at the conference and were later condemned by the EU and Germany, while drawing praise from Russian state television.

Putin is celebrating, indeed. He could not have written a speech more calculated to weaken the alliance that holds Russian expansionism in check.

The comments by Vance promoted a white nationalist, autocratic agenda—a point underscored by the fact that Vance met with Germany’s right-wing AfD party leader before the speech. See The Guardian, JD Vance breaks taboo by meeting with leader of Germany’s far-right party.

Vance refused to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—a gross diplomatic insult. Vance’s staff said that the Vice President did not need to meet with Scholz because, “He won’t be Chancellor much longer,” another degrading insult.

The German Defense Minister delivered a stinging rebuke to Vance. See Mediaite, German Defense Minister Rips JD Vance At Munich Conference. (“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable! This is not acceptable! This is not the europe, not the democracy, where I live . . . . “)

Vance’s speech will continue to reverberate in the months and years ahead. It was truly a dark day for the United States. In the words sent by one reader, Vance’s comments desecrated “the soil of where so many Americans gave their lives to defeat fascism in Europe. He delivered a disgraceful speech that spat on their graves.”

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National Park Service removes references to transgender people at the Stonewall National Historic Monument

The LGBTQ+ movement began in riots near the Stonewall Inn in response to police harassment of drag queens, transgender people, and gay patrons who gathered at the Inn. On Friday, the National Park Service removed references to transgender people on the Stonewall Monument website. See Erin in the Morning (Substack), Protests Erupt At Stonewall After Trump Removes Trans People From Monument Website.

Removing references to transgender people from the Stonewall Monument is similar to removing references to Black people from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN. The history of the Civil Rights Movement cannot be told without talking about the race of the people who fought for civil rights. The history of the LGBTQ movement cannot be told without talking about the leadership by transgender people in the Stonewall Riots and the national movement that followed.

As Erin Reed writes,

Stripping transgender people from Stonewall’s history is not just an act of historical revisionism—it is a calculated effort to erase an entire community from the very movement they helped ignite. Among the sweeping efforts to purge transgender identities from government records, passports, and healthcare guidance, this stands out as one of the most blatant attempts to rewrite reality.

Trump, Musk, and Vance are targeting transgender people because they believe they can get away with it.

The moral course of action is to rise to the defense of transgender people. But political imperatives also strongly counsel that we defend transgender people: Trump, Musk, and Vance are promoting white supremacy and will eventually target everyone who is not a white Christian nationalist.

That includes 100% of the people reading this newsletter. Let’s draw the line in the sand by standing up for transgender people both because it is right and necessary for the safety and security of everyone.

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Concluding Thoughts

The news in this edition of the newsletter is a heavy lift for a Saturday morning. As I said at the outset, we are in the thick of the fight. We must remain united and disciplined so that we can give the courts the opportunity to catch up with Musk’s “smash and grab” approach. If we can do that, we can buy ourselves time to stop and reverse the damage being inflicted by Trump and Musk.

The pain of the reckless cuts by Musk and Trump will take a few weeks (at least) to work its way through the system. But it will—inexorably and inevitably. And when it does, every problem people encounter with government services will be attributed to the cruel actions of Trump and Musk.

While we cannot assume that we will defeat Musk and Trump merely because of the coming backlash, we should recognize that there will be a backlash; we should make every effort to leverage that backlash to our advantage.

Talk to you on Saturday morning!

Stay strong!

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