Monday, June 9, 2025

National guard in LA, Kilmar Abrego Garcia returns to criminal charges, Musk-Trump relationship on the rocks, Biden is old, and more.

It's been a bit since I last published. In my defense, the news keeps coming quickly, I've been busy at work, it sometimes takes me a bit to get my thoughts down, and I often like to wait for stories to play out for a bit before weighing in. Consequently, I won't always be addressing the latest news, though I intend to keep this project up.

If you'd like to get these posts via email, you can join the international readership and subscribe here.

National Guard deployed to Los Angeles

On Friday, federal officials arrested immigrants at multiple locations around Los Angeles, sparking protests. Protests grew Saturday, and, while the AP reports protestors threw rocks and federal agents responded with tear gas and flash-bang explosives, the LAPD issued a statement commending the protestors for remaining peaceful. Subsequently, Trump announced he's deploying 2000 national guard members to reign in the protests, which have grew and escalated again Sunday.

The deployment is over the objection of California Governor Gavin Newsom and is of dubious legality. Newson and LA Mayor Karen Bass accused the Trump regime of trying to provoke protests as a pretext for calling in the military. Recall this follows reporting that, in a heated meeting, Stephen Miller objected to immigration officials focusing in immigrants who had committed crimes, instead demanding they begin workplace raids at places like Home Depot and 7-Eleven.

I am very concerned that the Trump regime is looking for a pretext to declare martial law and deploy the military domestically. I'm not sure where it will go, but this situation is very dangerous.

Abrego Garcia back in US, charged with crimes

Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been returned from the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, where he had been confined for several month due to an administrative error. It was also revealed that the Trump regime charged him with transporting within the United States persons who lacked legal immigration status. The indictment makes some irrelevant inflammatory allegations--like claiming he is a member of MS-13--but it sounds like they may just intend to prove that he was stopped with undocumented immigrants in his vehicle. The criminal charge seems like retribution for fighting his deportation and possibly a means to keep him incarcerated, where he can't easily speak to the media about his experiences.

Musk stepping back, has childish fight with Trump

Elon Musk is stepping down as head of the department that isn't a department and that he was never a part of. During his time in Washington, Musk managed to piss off just about everyone and make himself toxically unpopular without actually managing to reduce the federal budget or find any fraud.

Even Trump people hate Elon Musk:

Musk’s unceremonious exit from government followed widespread reports that several senior Trump officials practically hated the tech billionaire, finding him abrasive, unfunny, and pompous—with some describing Musk as the “most irritating person” they’d “ever had to deal with.”

“I have been in the same room with Elon, and he always tries to be funny. And he’s not funny. Like, at all,” a senior Trump official told Rolling Stonelast month. “He makes these jokes and little asides and smiles and then looks almost hurt if you don’t lap up his humor. I keep using the word ‘annoying’; a lot of people who have to deal with him do. But the word doesn’t do the situation justice. Elon just thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room and acts like it, even when it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Other reporting suggests that, after Trump sided with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over Musk regarding who should be named to head the IRS, Bessent called Musk a "fraud," Musk shoved Bessent, and the two men traded blows.

At the end of last week, Musk's criticism of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" spilled over into a more serious rift and devolved into personal attacks on social media. Musk complained that he purchased the US government fair and square and that he thought his money entitled him to a bigger say:

Musk mused about starting his own political party:

And Musk insisted the man he spent $290M to get elected is a pedophile:

Trump was reported to be telling allies that Musk is "a big-time drug addict," and he threatened to terminate Musk's government contracts:

Steve Bannon called for SpaceX to be nationalized and Musk to be deported, while Tesla stock tanked:

Musk called for Trump to be impeached:

Others weighed in, including Hitler-aficionado Ye aka Kanye West:

One of the many mothers of Elon Musk's children weighed in:

Lots of discussion online ensued. Some Trump supporters tried to play off this embarrassing hissy fit as peak masculinity:

This stuff is just embarrassing:

OK, this is funny:

And so is this:

All in all, the vibes online were excellent:

I'm not sure how this ends. Trump and Musk could make up, or this could be more consequential.

Public health update

The AP reports on the immense harm the Trump regime is doing to public health:

Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy. Gone are specialists who were confronting a measles outbreak in Ohio, workers who drove a van to schools in North Carolina to offer vaccinations and a program that provided free tests to sick people in Tennessee.

State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big — and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities — are being hollowed out.

. . . The Trump administration is cutting health spending on an unprecedented scale, experts say, including pulling $11 billion of direct federal support because the pandemic is over and eliminating 20,000 jobs at national health agencies that in part assist and support local public health work. It’s proposing billions more be slashed.

It's unclear whether most people will be able to get a covid shot this fall, with the decision being made by political appointees like RFK Jr. rather than experts who know what they are talking about. And we've got a new covid variant emerging.

The Trump admin canceled $766M in funding for vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses.

RFK Jr.'s much-hyped "Make America Healthy Again" report cites studies that don't exist and misinterprets others, possibly because it looks like at least portions of it appear to have been written with AI.

Breaking news: Joe Biden was old last year

You may recall that Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race last July after a sustained campaign by the mainstream news media to highlight questions about his age and cognitive abilities. Why has this issue been in the news again recently? Good question!

Most obviously, it's in the news again because two journalists have just released a book about it. Presumably because that’s insufficient to justify all the renewed attention, the recent articles and essays are also often framed, explicitly or implicitly, around the notion that purported missteps related to Biden's age and abilities require a reckoning within the Democratic Party or political news media. However, I don’t think that’s what this is primarily about.

To begin with, I'm not even sure what is being claimed about Biden. That he was an 81-year-old man with a roughly normal level of cognitive ability for an 81-year-old man, which turns out is not adequate for a president? Or that, beyond normal age-related decline, he had some additional advanced dementia? I’m not sure the former, while significant, is particularly revelatory, and I don’t think the evidence supports the latter.

What sort of reckoning should follow here? Biden's age was regularly in the news years before he dropped out, and the media escalated the story into a thunderous drumbeat that was impossible to ignore. And the Democratic Party ultimately didn't run Biden against Trump, but rather made the unprecedented decision to replace Biden on the ticket. At least in broad terms, that's not a story that demands to be read as a failure for either the media or the Democratic Party. And if we’re talking about consequences for individuals, even the book's authors suggest that knowledge of Biden's purported decline was limited to the Biden family and a small inner circle of aides, none of whom appear to be significant players in the party anymore.

Furthermore, I don't think we've seen evidence that any cognitive decline materially impaired Biden's performance as president. When asked if he couldn't do or wasn't doing the job, the book's authors identify only vague "concerns." And while no one would plan for events to unfold as they did, it's not clear that Biden's pursuit of reelection and subsequent withdrawal from the race mattered: If Biden hadn’t run again, a bruising primary may have divided the party and weakened the Dem nominee, and, while every advantage helps, Harris had a four-point lead over Trump in August that disappeared by election day, suggesting other important factors at play.

Even if the media and the Democratic Party should have subjected Biden to more scrutiny–and a president’s cognitive decline is newsworthy–is that really an issue that needs a renewed round of intense attention? Is there anything else more urgent and important happening and, if so, is the public well-informed about the relevant events? Are the Dems going to nominate Biden again? Is there perhaps a current president whose cognitive abilities should be questioned?

In case it’s not clear, I think this story is mostly bullshit. I think part of the reason we're being forced to revisit the debate over Biden's age (aside from selling books) is that the news media has recently run a lot of stories that reflect poorly on Trump and Republicans, and that the news media is eager for stories that reflect poorly on Democrats to create a superficial and misleading appearance of balance in their coverage. I also think many media actors have straightforwardly reactionary impulses that just make them want to be critical of Democrats and the political left.

Rather than facilitating good-faith reckonings within the news media and the Democratic Party, I think revisiting coverage of Biden’s age, and revisiting it in the way it’s playing out, will hinder other, more important reckonings. In that regard, I suspect the news media understands they’ve done a terrible job covering American politics in the Trump era: Among other things, voters had a poor understanding of which policies Trump and Harris supported, Trump voters were overwhelmingly more likely than Harris voters to be misinformed about the state of the country, and now many Trump voters seem to be shocked when Trump does what he promised to do. Given that criticism from liberals is taken as a sign of credibility by many in the media, a mea culpa over Biden’s age probably feels like a sensible middle ground: Democrats complaining about news coverage are correct that the media failed; it’s just that the media failed by not scrutinizing Democrats hard enough. And I believe the reactionaries in the media affirmatively want the lesson to be that they need to be harder on Democrats and the left. I’m not sure how else you reach the conclusion that this story is “worse than Watergate.” But either way, the hard questions are dodged, and no one is required to really learn or change anything. “Our approach was correct; we just need to do it harder.”

Similarly, there is an important debate going on within the Democratic Party over policy and messaging, one I’ve written about before. For Democrats not wanting to acknowledge their failings, Biden’s age and withdrawal from the race provide a convenient alternative excuse for Dems’ poor showing in 2024, which I fear will prevent progress on more pressing questions.

In sum, I don’t mean to say there’s nothing of value to discuss here, but I think this media-driven revisiting of Biden’s age and capacity is misguided. At best, it’s a poor subject to prioritize at the moment. At worst, I think the story is driven by people who actively want to draw the wrong lessons, and that it is actually impeding some important reflection by both the news media and the Democratic Party.

Miscellanea

A man shot and killed two staff members from the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, seemingly as a protest against Israel's actions in Gaza.

The AP reports that "A man with a makeshift flamethrower yelled 'Free Palestine' and hurled an incendiary device into a group that had assembled to raise attention for Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement officials said Sunday. Eight people were injured, some with burns.

Meanwhile, Israel made systematic use of human shields in Gaza, where Israel continues to slaughter people.

A few weeks back, New York Magazine ran a lengthy article questioning the mental health of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during his Senate campaign, subsequently dealt with depression, and seems to be behaving oddly and erratically.

Dudes rock: Scientists appear to have developed a new antivenom after studying the blood of a guy who let himself be bitten by various poisonous snakes over the last 2+ decades.

Heather Cox Richardson discusses the shameful and embarrassing testimony of Trump officials before Congress a couple weeks back. Those officials included Kristi Noem, RFK Jr., Marco Rubio, and Billy Long, Trump's nominee for IRS commissioner. The level of arrogance and ignorance on display was astounding, and, in years past, these sorts of performances would have ended careers and scandalized the presidential administration.

On Thursday, the US Supreme Court held that Trump likely has the ability to remove board members of independent agencies. This is a big deal.

Jamelle Bouie recorded a video explaining the "party switch," that is, how the Republicans went from the anti-slavery part of Lincoln to the white supremacist party of Trump.

Bluesky aims to be a different type of social media company.

Facebook targeted teen girls with beauty ads at moments when they were expected to be feeling insecure.