Maybe I just missed it in my younger days, but lying through your teeth (under oath) during Senate hearings did not seem like as prevalent a phenomenon decades ago, especially for Supreme Court nominees and prospective cabinet officials. Where not plainly lying, Donald Trump nominees from Bill Barr to Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi have raised prevarication to an art form.

Trump officials will lie and prevaricate or face consequences. ABC News:

The Justice Department has placed on indefinite paid leave the attorney who argued on behalf of the government on Friday in a lawsuit brought by a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador in error, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Sources said Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, was told by officials at the DOJ that he was being placed on leave over a “failure to zealously advocate” for the government’s interests.

“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Saturday. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

Judge Paula Xinis of the US District Court in Maryland On Friday asked to Reuveni to explain why the goverment that mistakenly sent Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran maximum security prison could not return him.

At one point in the hearing, Reuveni was asked by Xinis under what authority law enforcement officers seized Abrego Garcia.

“Your honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions,” Reuveni said.

Wrong answer. Xinis ordered the government on Friday to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 p.m. on April 7. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit:

“The United States does not have control over Abrego Garcia. Or the sovereign nation of El Salvador. Nevertheless, the court’s injunction commands that Defendants accomplish, somehow, Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States in give or take one business day. That order is indefensible,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. The appeal argues at length that the government has no power to return Abrego García because he is in the custody of the Salvadoran government, though the Trump administration says it is paying El Salvador about $6 million for the detention of deportees.

Under George W. Bush’s extraordinary rendition regime, whisking away innocents to places like a Salvadoran gulag became known as “Outsourcing Torture.”

. . .

Bondi placed Reuveni on indefinite paid leave for not lying in court. Until the heat dies down, of course. Then he’ll likely be fired for telling the truth to a federal judge.

“Someone tell Marjorie Taylor Greens she’s a government worker,” one of our “Hands Off!” speakers quipped on Saturday. There were a lot of retirees among the 8,000 or so at the rally in Asheville, N.C. But a lot of current and former government workers too, including veterans. It is well known that the postal service is the largest employer of American veterans. The V.A. hospital here is (or was until recently) one of the best regarded in the system and a draw or veterans needing care now threatened by Elon Musk’s and Donald Trump’ vandals. No one took a poll, but it is likely this was the first time in the streets for many.

What binds them together is a desire to serve their country. Aside from many elected officials at the national level, perhaps, people don’t go into government work to get rich. Their motivation is intrinsic, not extrinsic. They are there for the mission not for the money.

A postdoctoral research fellow from the National Institutes of Health tells the New York Times that after ten years of study in neuroscience, he draws less than $70,000 per year.


“Hands Off!” photo from Asheville, NC.

People among the 2.4 million civilian federal workers who keep the lights on in America, writes Micah Sifry, are “by their nature, generally patriotic and politically moderate. Nearly 30 percent of them are veterans. They all take an oath to defend the Constitution.” They are, like the Americans they serve, working and middle class. And not happy to be demonized and discarded:

Human beings also don’t like being told that their life’s work is being fed “into the wood chipper,” as Mr. Musk gleefully described DOGE’s destruction of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

It’s still early days. Many government workers are keeping their heads down, hoping to avoid attention and keep their jobs. Some are doing what they can to throw sand in the gears, by leaking damning news to reporters. Many of their unions — who just had their longstanding contracts canceled by Mr. Trump — are fighting back in the courts. And every week, more of the rank and file are speaking out, sharing their stories and organizing.

. . .

Stand, you’ve been sitting much too long
There’s a permanent crease in your right and wrong
Stand, there’s a midget standing tall
And a giant beside him about to fall

— from “Stand” by Sly & the Family Stone

It isn’t nice to carry banners
Or to sit in on the floor,
Or to shout our cry of Freedom
At the hotel and the store.
It isn’t nice, it isn’t nice,
You told us once, you told us twice,
But if that is Freedom’s price,
We don’t mind.

— from “It Isn’t Nice” by Malvina Reynolds

All across the country, people got out and protested today. Big rallies and small ones. In some places, people lined city streets and waved at passing cars. Elsewhere, people gathered in parks or in front of state office buildings.

Birmingham, Alabama, was one of those cities. I was excited to see some friends who confided they had never been to a protest before, but thought it was important to be there today. Because we are a community where the economy is fueled by doctors and research done at the University, there were a lot of medical professionals in the crowd, protesting cuts in research work and in the provision of medical care. The LGBTQ community turned out even though they were fearful, as did people protesting Trump’s immigration policies. And there were some Trump voters there too, people who voted for a better economy and got this, whatever this is, instead. Like people across the country, we gathered.

Some of my favorite signs were simple and elegant in expressing their message, like this one.


. . .

MONTPELIER — Thousands of people crowded the Statehouse green and overflowed onto the street below the golden dome on Saturday for the largest planned demonstration in Vermont against President Donald Trump since he took office again.

Geri Peterson, an organizer of the Vermont rally with the decentralized activist network 50501, said the expected turnout for the rally in Montpelier was 6,000 people, but that crowd amassed to an estimated 10,000 people.

“This is a bipartisan moment where we need Republicans and Democrats. It’s everybody that needs to be fighting against the oligarchy that’s trying to take over our country,” Peterson said. “Trump support is eroding as a direct reflection of the fact that the American public does not support any decisions he’s made since becoming president.”

From Bennington to Newport, Vermonters gathered at more than two dozen planned demonstrations around the state under the “Hands-Off” banner, a national effort to mobilize peaceful protests against the Trump administration and the president’s policies.





. . .

and then



Lol. Nothing to see here…

. . .

Talking about defying court orders is all the rage these days. It’s a common lament in Washington that President Trump might choose to just blow through any court orders that inconvenience him, and that the Supreme Court—out of fear of his defiance—will hesitate to order anything that may trigger his non-compliance.

Well, folks, we have a test case on our hands, one that should give us a good window into whether the courts are able to hold the administration to the law. It’s a case in which the defiance of a court’s order was blatant and pretty obviously willful and in which the judge seems bent on figuring out exactly what happened and who is responsible.

On April 3, in a courtroom in Washington, an unfortunate soul named Drew Ensign—on behalf of the Trump administration—appeared in front of Chief Judge James Boasberg to explain why someone in the government should not be held in contempt for violating the judge’s order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador pursuant to the president’s proclamation under the Alien Enemies Act.

Judge Boasberg began by getting Ensign to admit certain things the administration is denying out of court:

The order in question didn’t require the release of any gang members.

It didn’t prevent the detention in immigration proceedings of any additional gang members.

It didn’t prevent the deportation of any gang members pursuant to normal immigration procedures.

In fact, the administration had done just that with respect to Tren de Aragua members.

All the temporary restraining orders did was to prevent the government from “summarily deport[ing] in-custody noncitizens who were subject to the proclamation without a hearing.”

“So if anyone in the administration continues to make statements that are contrary to what I have just said, those statements would not be truthful, isn't that right?” the judge asked. “Those facts that we have just agreed on, they wouldn't be true?”

Ensign responded tautologically: “Yes, Your Honor. To the extent that it's contrary to things that are true, they would be false.”

“They would, indeed,” said Judge Boasberg.

. . .

. . .

The pure insanity of Trump’s tariffs is best (ahem) personified by his inclusion of Heard and McDonald Islands, which are inhabited largely by penguins.

Two tiny, remote Antarctic outposts populated by penguins and seals are among the obscure places targeted by the Trump administration’s new tariffs.

Heard and McDonald Islands – a territory which sits 4,000km (2,485 miles) south-west of Australia – are only accessible via a seven-day boat trip from Perth, and haven’t been visited by humans in almost a decade.

[snip]

Like the rest of Australia, the Heard and McDonald Islands, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are now subject to a tariff of 10%. A tariff of 29% was imposed on the Norfolk Island, which is also an Australian territory and has a population of about 2,200 people.

Heard Island, though, is barren, icy and completely uninhabited – home to Australia’s largest and only active volcano, Big Ben, and mostly covered by glaciers.

It is believed the last time people ventured on to Heard Island was in 2016, when a group of amateur radio enthusiasts broadcast from there with permission of the Australian government.

Taken literally, Trump’s inclusion of two islands (over)run by penguins means that he believes American workers cannot compete with penguins without some kind of help — a 10% tariff — to level the playing field. A glacier field.

Right wingers who applaud Trump’s insanity are, effectively, confessing that their own industry and pluck is no match for a colony of penguins.

. . .

trump is driving the wrong way down the expressway…
welding glasses obscuring dim headlights hurtling tons of machinery approaching 140 miles an hour….
Bobbing to the tunes of ‘Rack n’ Ruin, the White House house band….wheezin’ horns to a slurry of booze and god knows what.. all the while…cars whizzing by as they lean on their horns. ‘hey! assshole! pull over!
Yer goin’ the wrong way you blind fuuuucker!
Geeezus, he’s gonna get us all killed!

Meanwhile, on the noise over to faux…. “another glorious achievement by the hair furor!”

Oblivious to sirens and flashing strobe lights on the cop cars….

My pappy said, “Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’
If you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Trade Likin’ ”

Pulled out of San Pedro late one night
The moon and the stars was shinin’ bright
We was drivin’ up to Capitol Hill
Passing cars like they was standing still

All of a sudden in a wink of an eye
A foreign sedan passed us by
I said, “Boys, that’s a mark for me”

By then the taillight was all you could see
Now the fellas was ribbin’ me for bein’ behind
So I thought I’d make the Linkin’ unwind
Took my foot off the gas and man alive
I shoved it on down into overdrive

Wound it up to a 110
My speedometer said that I hit top end
My foot was glued like lead to the floor
That’s all there is and there ain’t no more

Now the boys all thought I’d lost my sense
And telephone poles looked like a picket fence
They said, “Slow down, I see spots
The lines on the road just look like dots”

Took a corner, sideswiped a truck
Crossed my fingers just for luck
My fenders was clickin’ the guardrail posts
The guy beside me was white as a ghost

Smoke was comin’ from out of the back
When I started to gain on that Kia hatchback
Knew I could catch him, I thought I could pass
Don’t you know by then we’d be low on gas?

We had flames comin’ from out of the side
Feel the tension, man, what a ride
I said, “Look out, boys, I’ve got a license to fly”
And that Kia pulled over and let us by

Now all of a sudden she started to knockin’
And down in the dips, she started to rockin’
I looked in my mirror, a red light was blinkin’
The cops was after my Hot Rod Linkin’

They arrested me and they put me in jail
And called my pappy to throw my bail
And he said, “Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’
If you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln”

. . .

Yes, Trump went to a golf event at his club in Florida rather than attend the dignified transfer ceremony of the soldiers who died in Lithuania last week. But then they’re just a bunch of suckers and losers so what would we expect?

This is a minor atrocity by comparison to all the major atrocities of the last week but I just had to note it. All the years we’ve had to put up with the right waving the flag and “love it or leave it” and “these colors don’t run” and today they worship a man who could barely even be bothered to mention dead soldiers much less attend the ceremony to receive them back to the United States.

This isn’t a new thing for him. Recall in the first term:

In the world of President Donald Trump, he has paid his respects to “many, many” returning soldiers killed in the line of duty, with daughter and top presidential aide Ivanka Trump adding that “each time” she has stood by his side at one of these ceremonies, it has hardened his resolve to bring troops home.

In the real world, Trump has traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware exactly four times ― fewer than half as many times as his vice president ― and avoided going at all for nearly two years after getting berated for his incompetence by the father of a slain Navy SEAL, according to a former White House aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bill Owens, the father of William “Ryan” Owens, refused to shake Trump’s hand at that Feb. 1, 2017, encounter, the aide said, and then told Trump that he was responsible for his son’s death for approving the disastrous raid in Yemen without bothering to understand the risks.

“He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” the aide said, adding that the main reason Trump had approved the raid just five days after taking office was that predecessor Barack Obama had refused to do so.

What’s more, Trump made the decision at a social dinner that included his son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, and then-chief strategist Stephen Bannon, rather than his National Security Council staff.

That’s how he rolls. And he’s getting worse.