Blowback and Gaslighting
Plus: Trump's Ukraine Extortion 2.0
Really, what could go wrong?
The Sykes household is under the weather today, so today’s survey of the omnishambles is somewhat abbreviated.
The TL;DR:
Trump’s "rare-earth” deal with Ukraine is not a peace plan; it’s extortion. And it’s not the first time Trump has tried to extort Volodymir Zelensky. The first time got Trump impeached.
The non-confirmation of Ed Martin should be the easiest vote any senator has ever taken. But that assumes they care about the rule of the law, which they don’t.
No, Speaker Johnson, Elon Musk has not cracked the code. In fact, it may be dawning on the GOP that the world’s richest man is actually an idiot with a chainsaw.
If irony had not been bludgeoned to death, we might also say that it is ironic that Musk also turns out to be the hungriest suckling at the teat of government, evah. “Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.”
The GOP just approved a spending plan that will slash Medicaid but they really hope you won’t notice.
A lot of this (waves hands) is happening because America does not have four (4) GOP Senators willing to call bullshit.
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Gaslighting the cuts
Republicans are finding out that it’s hard to go home again: “Republicans Face Angry Voters at Town Halls, Hinting at Broader Backlash - The New York Times.”
As I was watching some of this, I tried to imagine this scene: A GOP congressman from, let’s say, Wisconsin, stands in front of his constituents and reads:
“Deputies of Elon Musk have sought access to massive amounts of information across the federal government, much of it personal and highly revelatory in its insights into the lives of everyday Americans.”
The congressman, whose name may or may not rhyme with Glothman, looks up and says: “And I’m perfectly okay with that. In fact, I’m okay with everything they’re doing.”
Ladies and gentleman, the scene is completely fictional, but it captures exactly the position of the House GOP right now. They bought the ticket, and now they have to watch the show from the cheap seats.
Last night, GOP “moderates” did what they always do — caved — letting the Trump spending resolution pass the House by a vote of 217-215. Every Republican — except Thomas Massie — voted for the plan that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending cuts over a decade.
Despite the hype, it’s not really a plan, because nobody really knows where the cuts come from. Spoiler alert: The only way to achieve this is to massively cut Medicaid. It’s math. But it’s also political poison.
One of the immutable laws of politics is that there are many voters who say they want to cut government spending but hate any cuts that hit close to home. They may enjoy the theater of Musk’s chainsaw massacre… but the politics of slash-and-burn are far more complicated. Take a look at these numbers:
**
The immediate flashpoint will be Medicaid, which provides health coverage to 72 million poor and disabled Americans. Politico explained the dilemma the other day:
A POLITICO review of enrollment in Medicaid by congressional district found that 11 Republicans in competitive seats represent larger-than-average Medicaid populations — collectively nearly 2.7 million recipients. A vote to cut the program presents a politically sensitive decision that may come back to haunt them in 2026.
With a 218-215 House split — the tightest in modern history — Republicans will be fighting for every seat during the midterms to keep control of the chamber. And they can only lose one vote in the House and still pass their budget bill….
The GOP’s solution? Gaslighting. The House resolution that passed last night doesn’t mention any cuts to Medicaid at all. Instead, it merely calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to cut spending by $880 billion over the next decade.
BONUS: A timely reminder from Kevin Williamson on the essential bullshittery of DOGE:
One of the irritating things about DOGE—something that ought to bother conservative DOGE apologists… —is the comprehensive lack of honesty in the thing. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency is not a department, it is really only quasi-government at most, and its aim is not efficiency. It is the right-wing mirror image of those “diversity” offices whose aim is the enforcement of homogeneity and conformity. George Orwell (I hope he is pleasantly surprised by his position in the afterlife) is somewhere laughing his immortal ass off.
Trump’s Ukraine Extortion 2.0
The NYT reports that the US-Ukraine Minerals Deal Draft is a bit light on details, including security guarantees. We’ll learn more in the next few days, but in the meantime, this summary by Julia Ioffe, is pretty good:
Nice country you got there…: It’s hard to see the mineral deal that the Trump administration is trying to foist on Ukraine as anything other than a Tony Soprano–style shakedown of a partner and ally at a time of need. But then again, America’s allies are now the AfD, Viktor Orbán, and Vladimir Putin. Make no mistake: This is extortion. Not only is the several-hundred-billion-dollar deal worth far, far more than the U.S. sent in aid to Ukraine, but much of that aid was earmarked to replenish American stockpiles by purchasing American military equipment for the Pentagon after it sent its old stuff to Ukraine. In other words, most of that money stayed here in the U.S.—especially in red states.
Moreover, the agreement gives nothing to Ukraine: no security guarantees, no future aid, nothing but an extraneous “Reconstruction Investment Fund.” It’s just a license to plunder, built on the flimsy notion that the Trump administration would be more likely to defend Ukraine if it had economic interests there. (Let’s recall what companies actually do when war breaks out: They leave.) As Zelensky correctly pointed out, the U.S. doesn’t impose these sorts of terms on any other ally that receives American military assistance—not Israel, not Saudi Arabia, not Egypt. But then again, despite Trump’s rhetoric, Zelensky is not the kind of authoritarian that the American president normally likes. If Trump truly thought Zelensky were a dictator, he’d speak to him much more respectfully.
BONUS: Make sure you read Francis Fukuyama: “The Ultimate Betrayal.”
Any peace agreement “negotiated” by the Trump administration and Russia now will not bring peace. There may be a ceasefire for a while, but the Russians will rearm and reopen the war once they re-equip themselves. They have no reason to honor existing ceasefire lines, but will want to reabsorb the whole of Ukraine at the right time.
Less noticed in the current furor is the policy announced by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to cut the U.S. defense budget by 8% a year for the next five years. This is the opposite of what the United States should be doing. Down the road there will be new Russian threats to every country on its periphery—Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states, and Poland. The United States does not have to formally pull out of the NATO alliance; Trump has already signaled clearly that he will not honor the Article 5 commitment to mutual defense. America will be weakened both in terms of intention, and in terms of capacity to meet future great power threats.
..
At this point, it is inconceivable that Donald Trump will use the United States military to defend Taiwan against China. If China imposes a blockade or prepares for an invasion, Trump will start a negotiation with Xi Jinping, just as he is doing with Putin, that will effectively hand over control of the island. He will then boast that he has avoided war….
The United States under Donald Trump is not retreating into isolationism. It is actively joining the authoritarian camp, supporting right-wing authoritarians around the world from Vladimir Putin to Viktor Orbán to Nayib Bukele to Narendra Modi…
The appalling Ed Martin
ICYMI: The truckling chode that Trump has installed as US Attorney in Washington DC has gone out of his way to declare his unfitness. The other day, he posted a bizarre statement in which he declared himself to be one of “President Trump’s lawyers,” and declared his intention to “stand against entities like the AP” that are exercising their First Amendment right not to parrot the White House’s terminology.
Remarked Senator Chris Coons: “A few notes: 1. U.S. Attorneys are not the president’s lawyers. 2. You have a typo within the first three words of this statement. 3. Seriously?”
As you might expect, it gets worse:
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s office on Friday, a spokesperson for MPD told NBC News, but the warrant has not been signed by the federal prosecutor.
The case could essentially die at this point, the spokesperson said, meaning it may never result in criminal charges.
In other words, as David Graham writes in The Atlantic: “Law and Order for Some.”
Trump often speaks about “law and order,” but he’s also made very clear that this means law and order only for some—those who disagree with him, or those whom he finds obnoxious. Those who are on his side receive leniency, even if they have committed a violent assault against the Capitol. The U.S. Attorney’s Office ignoring this case while harassing Democratic members of Congress is one very pure expression of this impulse.
Exit take: Martin is still subject to senate confirmation. That vote, writes Aaron Blake, is a huge test for the GOP.1 But it is one that we are confident they will fail.
Wednesday dogs
Sometimes I think they are just posing.
Blake details the Ed Martin saga so far. Via the Wapo:
This month, he promoted a social media post that argued the Justice Department wasn’t supposed to be “independent from POTUS.” (Again, this is not what Trump’s other nominees have said, including Patel.)
He released a pair of extraordinary letters pledging to protect Elon Musk and his U.S. DOGE Service team. But he pledged to protect them not just from allegedly illegal threats but also more broadly from “anyone who impedes your work.” Martin also said he would investigate people who merely acted “unethically.”
He has repeatedly signaled that critics of Trump and Musk are potential investigative targets, despite rules of professional conduct and Justice Department guidelines that discourage airing such things publicly and outside the context of legal proceedings.
He told a law firm that gave free legal services to special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted Trump: “Save your receipts, Smith and Covington. We’ll be in touch soon.”
He has pressed two congressional Democrats for answers about purported threats they made. In one case, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) said while talking about DOGE, “What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight.” In the other, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) years ago said that conservative Supreme Court justices had “released the whirlwind, and … will pay the price.” Schumer soon apologized. Garcia has argued his comments were plainly metaphoric.
Martin asked a federal judge last month to drop charges against a Jan. 6 defendant whom Martin was still on record as representing. (He soon moved to withdraw as the man’s attorney.)
He has repeatedly used politically charged language, including citing threats against “those who helped free the Jan. 6 prisoners.” In one of the Musk letters, he said, “We will not act like the previous administration who looked the other way as the Antifa and BLM rioters as well as thugs with guns trashed our capital city.”
A top federal prosecutor in his office resigned last week after refusing Martin’s order to compel a bank to freeze the assets of a large environmental grant initiative from the Biden administration. The prosecutor, Denise Cheung, said there was simply not sufficient evidence to take such an extraordinary action.
For the first time since I arrived in the US at the age of 5 as a Hungarian refugee, and learned to speak English at the age of 6, thanks to the nuns at St. Stephan of Hungary school in NYC, and learned to read about the Constitution, the workings of the US government and American history, warts and all, got a BA in history and political science during the Vietnam era, and the Nixon trashing of the government, assassinations, riots, good politicians, bad politicians, neutral politicians, a 33-yr career in a not well liked but incredibly important Federal agency, and the good and bad of the history I lived through, for the first time in my long life, I am ASHAMED AND DISGUSTED at this country.
How dare cowards, thieves, liars, haters of all the US stood for take over the country and degrade its noble ideals and all the good it actually has done, sometimes in spite of itself, and bow down before those who will take it and destroy what people have died to protect! Every single R in Congress should get down on their knees and beg the people they're supposed to represent, supposed to serve and care for to forgive them for what they're doing to the country. Then get off their knees and drown the snakes of #47 and every person in his Cabinet and administration into the boiling tar of history and start to do their jobs which is to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.
Musk with a chain saw in his hand is a classic illustration of the danger of putting power into the wrong person's hands...
And yes, Trump 2.0 seeks to extort Zelensky once again. Yulia Navalny warns the Russian people in her video after Alexei's death, don't trust Putin. We need to put a similar warning label for Ukranians on Trump.