April 2, 2025

Elon Musk delivers hope and change for Democrats

Elon Musk delivers hope and change for Democrats
A victory in a tight Wisconsin race boosts Democrats in their quest to defeat the billionaire's DOGE plans

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published April 2, 2025 9:48AM (EDT)


(Salon) There is so much bad news happening in politics daily that sometimes you feel like you've been physically pummeled by it. The Trump administration's "shock and awe" campaign to overwhelm the country with one extreme policy after another, dismantling most of the government institutions that make the United States a global leader, is extraordinarily punishing. You can't blame people for opting to tune out a bit and care for their emotional well-being.

....(snip)....

I made a promise to myself that I was not going to get my hopes up about elections after all that. No more hopium for me. I said that I would certainly root for Democrats to win wherever possible and would do what I could to make that happen. But I just couldn't let myself pore over polling and racehorse analysis anymore or allow myself to put too much stock in any individual victories.

....(snip)....

On Monday evening, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker began a marathon floor speech to break the record that the odious Dixiecrat Strom Thurman set when he filibustered the Civil Rights Act on 1957 for 24 hours and 17 minutes. The symbolism of Booker, a Black senator, doing that was obvious and excellent under our current circumstances, where the Trump administration is doing everything it can to erase the story of racial minorities in American life. But I had no idea how thrilling it would be to see him stand there for what turned out to be 25 hours and 4 minutes and lay out the case against what Trump and the Republicans are doing. He opened his speech by saying:



....(snip)....

And then came Tuesday's election returns. The two Florida races were won by Republicans as expected — but by about 15 points, half the margin Trump received last November. The big one in Wisconsin was a banger. I'd certainly paid attention in recent days to Elon Musk's antics there, where he poured more than $20 million into the right-wing candidate's campaign and handed out million-dollar checks along with other cash goodies. He made the race a referendum on himself, even turning up in person on Sunday to tell people that it would be the end of America if the liberal won. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/02/elon-musk-delivers-hope-and-change-for-democrats/

April 2, 2025

Sadopolitics: Why MAGA clings tighter to Trump the more his policies hurt them

Sadopolitics: Why MAGA clings tighter to Trump the more his policies hurt them
Psychology helps to explain why Trump’s followers will not abandon him

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published March 27, 2025 6:57AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump’s budget cuts and the larger war on federal employees and government are not laser-targeted on Democrats, liberals, progressives or the other people and communities that he has deemed to be “the vermin” and “poison in the blood” of the nation who should be purged. Trump’s approach is broad, the political equivalent of carpet-bombing, and the casualties include Trump’s own MAGA people and red state parts of the country.

....(snip)....

Much of this news coverage and commentary, and the reactions to these stories online and elsewhere, is colored by liberal schadenfreude. The Trump supporters are mocked as getting their just rewards because they voted for a president who then fires them or otherwise causes them great harm. There is often shock and surprise that these same voters do not immediately turn against Trump, the MAGA movement or the Republican Party, even after they have been hurt by their Dear Leader.

....(snip)....

Donald Trump and other right-wing leaders and influentials command a vast propaganda and experience machine that consists of traditional news media such as TV, radio and print, websites, social media, podcasts, publishers, movies, sports, film, television, comedy, right-wing Christian churches, schools and “education,” interest groups, think tanks and other civil society organizations. For at least the last nine years (and decades before with the rise of Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber) this propaganda and experience machine has created an alternate reality that has emotionally trained and conditioned its public to be loyal to Trump, MAGA, and the larger right-wing “conservative” movement and to reject any outside information or influences (their much-hated “reality-based community”).

The American public is highly polarized politically (and socially). Politics is not “just” limited to voting and elections and other explicitly political matters such as support for a given public policy, law, candidate or party. Politics now encompasses many, if not most, aspects of American culture, from food to entertainment, dating, marriage, friendship networks, where one lives, religion and church attendance, and other aspects of day-to-day life. What political scientists describe as affective/negative polarization describes how political disagreements are increasingly existential value judgments where “the other side” is not just wrong but evil. In such an environment, changing one’s mind, by, for example, deciding to no longer support Trump’s policies, becomes less likely. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/27/sadopolitics-why-maga-clings-more-to-the-more-his-policies-hurt-them/

April 2, 2025

Trump's cruel calculus on public health is slashing lifelines for the most vulnerable

Trump’s cruel calculus on public health is slashing lifelines for the most vulnerable
Blaming COVID to defund public health isn’t about bookkeeping. It’s about whose lives matter enough to fund

By Claire Zagorski - Chad Sabora
Published April 2, 2025 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) On March 25, Andrew Nixon, director of communications at Health and Human Services, said “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

This is not a policy clarification. It’s a betrayal wrapped in spin.

While the White House justifies its clawback of $11.4 billion in public health funds by declaring the pandemic “over,” the truth — buried beneath rhetoric — is that this money was never solely about COVID. These funds were the only significant investments in behavioral health infrastructure in a generation, targeting deeply underfunded mental health and substance use services long before and long after the virus.

....(snip)....

These were not “emergency pandemic tools.” They were lifelines — a fragile but vital safety net for communities devastated by opioids, trauma, suicide and structural neglect. To erase that with one sentence is not just dishonest. It’s inhumane.

....(snip)....

The HHS statement serves as rhetorical camouflage, designed to ignite fatigue and resentment among voters who want to “move on.” But what they’re being told to move on from is mental health access for their children, lifesaving treatment for opioid addiction, and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ teens. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/02/trumps-cruel-calculus-on-public-health-is-slashing-lifelines-for-the-most-vulnerable/

April 1, 2025

US Sen. Cory Booker reads Detroit Free Press story in marathon speech: 'I love the city'

(Detroit Free Press) U.S. Sen. Cory Booker's marathon speech on the Senate floor surpassed 24 hours and has set a new record for the longest known Senate speech once held by Strom Thurmond.

Throughout his time, the senior senator from New Jersey has read articles and letters from constituents, criticized President Donald Trump and railed against the Trump administration's sweeping policy changes.

During his speech, in the early morning hours Tuesday, he read a Detroit Free Press story from columnist Susan Tompor, called, "Seniors now worrying if one day they won't get their Social Security money on time." It published March 27.

"This is from the Detroit Free Press," Booker said before reading the story. "My mom was born in Detroit. I love the city. My family owes it a lot. My grandfather went to find a job on the assembly lines in Detroit building bombers during World War II." ............................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/01/cory-booker-speech-detroit-free-press-story/82765949007/

April 1, 2025

Amtrak is rolling out new trains with bigger windows, comfier seats, and higher speeds

Amtrak has revealed a first look at its new Airo trains, and they come with panoramic windows, comfier chairs, and more accessibility features.

The national rail service is currently constructing 83 of the new-and-improved Airo trains, which will operate on around 15 existing routes in the Eastern U.S. and Pacific Northwest. According to a spokesperson, the Airo manufacturing is currently underway at Siemens’s Sacramento plant, with testing of the first trains expected to begin in the second half of this year.

By modernizing its fleet with a variety of design improvements, Amtrak is making a play to attract more Americans to train travel instead of flight—a step toward its ultimate goal to revitalize America’s passenger rail system and double ridership by 2040.

Nicer seats, bigger views

In an announcement released earlier this month, Amtrak revealed a first look at the specs and interiors of its Airo design, and they’re a marked improvement to the rail service’s existing models. ................(more)

https://www.fastcompany.com/91307878/amtraks-new-trains-will-have-bigger-windows-comfier-seats-and-higher-speeds

April 1, 2025

Florida Man in Only His Underwear Destroys Merchandise Kiosk at Walt Disney World

A Florida man in his underwear was arrested for allegedly destroying a sales kiosk at Walt Disney World.

Sean Patrick McHugh, 24, of Port Orange, was arrested on multiple charges in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day. McHugh pleaded not guilty, according to Orange Circuit Court records.

“I have reason to believe Sean was intoxicated, and he endangered the safety of another person’s property and Sean caused a public disturbance,” Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Isaiah Figueroa wrote in the arrest report.

OCSO recently released the arrest report, which is why WDWNT is reporting on the situation months later.

McHugh was drunk and causing a scene when Disney security also noticed he was trying to urinate into the bushes on the walkway between EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the report said. ................(more)

https://wdwnt.com/2025/03/florida-man-in-only-his-underwear-destroys-merchandise-kiosk-at-walt-disney-world/

April 1, 2025

Signalgate resets the standard of scrutiny for Team Trump

Signalgate resets the standard of scrutiny for Team Trump
Deleting official communications is a federal crime, punishable by up to ten years in prison

By Sabrina Haake
Contributing Writer
Published April 1, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) .....(snip).....

All angles spell danger for the Republic

The Signal breach is appalling from all sides, each so dangerous that it is hard to determine which angle is more threatening from a national security perspective:



As the absurdity of this clown car of ignorance and arrogance unfolds, the most dangerous aspect of it has, at least so far, received the least media attention: Trump advisors are exchanging official communications on an app deliberately set to delete all evidence of their communications, which appears to be their standard operating procedure.

Trump’s team is breaking federal law by deleting evidence

Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, testified this week at a Congressional hearing that the Signal app came “pre-installed on government devices,” suggesting its use was not limited to the Yemen fiasco. From the content of the group chat published this week by The Atlantic — only published because Trump officials kept lying about what was on it — Signal looks like the default method used by administration officials to communicate with one another. The Yemen group chat explicitly referred to another such chat, making clear that this was not their first. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/01/signalgate-resets-the-standard-of-scrutiny-for-team/

March 31, 2025

Marco Rubio's mission to root out students "making a ruckus" causes collateral damage

Marco Rubio’s mission to root out students “making a ruckus” causes collateral damage
Seizure of Tufts University student shows the First Amendment is the first casualty

By Austin Sarat
Published March 31, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Until March 25, 2025, Rumeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student from Turkey, might have assumed that when she wrote an op-ed in the school’s newspaper critical of her school's failure to stand up for the human rights of Palestinians, she was doing what people in the United States were free to do. Indeed, all who live in the U.S. might have thought the same thing, even if we disagree with the views she expressed in her piece.

Those assumptions were well grounded. The Washington Post notes, “The First Amendment protects the right to speak, protest and publish views, regardless of citizenship status.“ It quotes a 1953 Supreme Court decision that said: “’Once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.’”

....(snip)....

She was seized and taken into custody because "DHS and ICE investigations found Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans."

No one has said what those activities were. But Öztürk has never been charged with a crime or with violating the rules or policies of Tufts University.

....(snip)....

The First Amendment protects speech even if it creates a commotion, disturbance, stir, or fuss and is troublesome, offensive, or even hateful. Only if it falls into specific, narrowly defined categories of unprotected speech, like incitement to violence or true threats, can speech be prohibited or punished. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/31/marco-rubios-mission-to-root-out-students-making-a-ruckus-causes-collateral-damage/

March 31, 2025

Signalgate is a consequence of anti-DEI hysteria: White mediocrity has become a national security risk

Signalgate is a consequence of anti-DEI hysteria
White mediocrity has become a national security risk

By Rann Miller
Published March 31, 2025 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Lloyd Austin, the former defense secretary and a four-star general with 40 years of military experience, was nonetheless labeled a DEI hire of the Biden administration. Pete Hegseth, the current secretary of defense, lacks adequate expertise and experience, on top of the fact that he’s had allegations of sexual assault and is known as an excessive drinker. A former National Security Council member and a Senate member deemed Hegseth unqualified for the position. However, according to Donald Trump, Hegseth had a tremendous track record that qualified him for the position.

The MAGA crowd called for Austin to resign because he failed to share that he had an emergency medical procedure, yet they explain away Hegseth’s failure to keep the details of a war plan confidential. Clearly, the ability to keep a secret wasn’t a qualification for Hegseth to get the job as defense secretary. What Signalgate, the recent scandal involving the Trump administration discussing war plans in a text thread with a journalist mistakenly added to the conversation, made abundantly clear is that the only qualification for Hegseth is that he was what Mishel Williams calls WEI: white, entitled and incompetent.

The rationale of white people who’ve accepted privilege in exchange for power in solidarity, what W.E.B. DuBois coined the racial bribe — the deliberate and strategic method of the planter elite class to extend special privileges to poor whites to drive a wedge between them and enslaved African people — is that a Black person in a position of power and authority is unqualified. Specifically, it is the belief that affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are merely a euphemism, implying that a Black person, or a person of color, was hired for a position or selected to attend a prestigious institution solely to fulfill a quota. Rather than accept that affirmative action and DEI initiatives address the systemic racist practices and policies of the past that prevent African Americans and other historically oppressed and underrepresented groups from gaining access to positions they are qualified for, many white individuals believe that only they are capable of holding positions and occupying spaces of power, privilege and authority.

What this scandal shows is that the practice of hiring unqualified and mediocre white people — and calling it making America great — can, and has, compromised national security. And yet, many white people are so convinced that Black people and other people of color are wholly unqualified to lead, specifically those who don’t think like or act like them. ...........................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/31/signalgate-is-a-consequence-of-anti-dei-hysteria/

March 30, 2025

Republicans could make it a lot harder for Native Americans to vote

(Salon) Lawmakers in the House are expected to vote as early as this month on the SAVE Act, a bill that would require eligible voters to provide documents proving their citizenship in order to register to cast a ballot. Experts and voting rights groups argue that the bill threatens to disenfranchise millions of Americans should it be enacted. But for Indigenous voters, a key voting bloc in 2020, it would stand to weaken their communities' already suppressed voting power and silence their voices, according to Allie Young, a Diné activist working to expand voter participation in the Navajo Nation.

"With the SAVE Act and how that will discourage engagement by Native people — we're not going to be electing leaders who will be advocates for our communities," Young told Salon in a phone interview. "And that's what is my worry."

Ostensibly aimed at curbing noncitizen voting — an already illegal act that experts previously told Salon rarely, if ever, happens — the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would amend federal law to require proof of citizenship for voter registration. Accepted documentation to prove one's citizenship under the act would include an ID that fulfills the 2005 REAL ID Act's requirements, a valid U.S. passport and a valid government-issued ID card from a federal, state or tribal government showing the applicant was born in the U.S. The bill also requires that eligible voters register at their nearest, designated county elections offices.

The bill raises a voting access issue for the some 21.3 million Americans of voting age who lack ready access to citizenship documents and creates a hurdle for the more than 146 million American citizens who, per a Center for American Progress report, don't have a passport. Those most impacted by the documentation requirement would include Americans in rural and red states, low-income voters and Republicans, who are less likely to have a passport and more likely to take their spouses' last names than Democrats. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/30/could-make-it-a-lot-harder-for-native-americans-to-vote/