The past week has solidified a sea change in American—and global—history

On Wednesday, February 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium, that President Donald Trump intended to back away from support for Ukraine in its fight to push back Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022.

Hegseth said that Trump wanted to negotiate peace with Russia, and he promptly threw on the table three key Russian demands. He said that it was “unrealistic” to think that Ukraine would get back all its land—essentially suggesting that Russia could keep Crimea, at least—and that the U.S. would not back Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the mutual security agreement that has kept Russian incursions into Europe at bay since 1949.

Hegseth’s biggest concession to Russia, though, was his warning that “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for nearly an hour and a half and came out echoing Putin’s rationale for his attack on Ukraine. 

Trump’s social media account posted that the call had been “highly productive,” and said the two leaders would visit each other’s countries, offering a White House visit to Putin, who has been isolated from other nations since his attacks on Ukraine.

In a press conference on Thursday, the day after his speech in Brussels, Hegseth suggested again that the U.S. military did not have the resources to operate in more than one arena and was choosing to prioritize China rather than Europe, a suggestion that observers of the world’s most powerful military found ludicrous.

Then, on Friday, at the sixty-first Munich Security Conference, where the U.S. and allies and partners have come together to discuss security issues since 1963, Vice President J.D. Vance attacked the U.S.A.’s European allies. He warned that they were threatened not by Russia or China, but rather by “the threat from within,” by which he meant the democratic principles of equality before the law that right-wing ideologues believe weaken a nation by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. 

After Vance told Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” he refused to meet with Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead met with the leader of the far-right German political party that has been associated with neo-Nazis.

While the Munich conference was still underway, the Trump administration on Saturday announced it was sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Russia. Ukrainian officials said they had not been informed and had no plans to attend. European negotiators were not invited either. 

When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday, the Russian readout of the call suggested that Russia urgently needs relief from the economic sanctions that are crushing the Russian economy. The day before, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of both Putin and Trump, assured Hungarian state radio on Friday that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system as soon as “the U.S. president comes and creates peace.”

Talks began yesterday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In a four-and-a half-hour meeting, led by Rubio and Lavrov, and including national security advisor Mike Waltz, the U.S. and Russia agreed to restaff the embassies in each other’s countries, a key Russian goal as part of its plan to end its isolation. Lavrov blamed the Biden administration for previous “obstacles” to diplomatic efforts and told reporters that now that Trump is in power, he had “reason to believe that the American side has begun to better understand our position.”

Yesterday evening, from his Florida residence, Trump parroted Russian propaganda when he blamed Ukraine for the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine’s sovereign territory. When reporters asked about the exclusion of Ukraine from the talks, Trump answered: “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years ago. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” He also said that Zelensky holds only a 4% approval rating, when in fact it is about 57%.

Today, Trump posted that Zelensky is a dictator and should hold elections, a demand Russia has made in hopes of installing a more pro-Russia government. As Laura Rozen pointed out in Diplomatic, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud.”

“Be clear about what’s happening,” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark posted. “Trump and his administration, and thus America, is siding with Putin and Russia against a United States ally.” To be even clearer: under Trump, the United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.

The struggle for Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty, independence, and territory has become a fight for the principles established by the United Nations, organized in the wake of World War II by the allied countries in that war, to establish international rules that would, as the U.N. charter said, prevent “the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” 

Central to those principles and rules was that members would not attack the “territorial integrity or political independence” of any other country. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came together to hold back growing Soviet aggression under a pact that an attack on any of the member states would be considered an attack on all.

The principle of national sovereignty is being tested in Ukraine. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held about a third of the USSR’s nuclear weapons but gave them up in exchange for payments and security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom that they would respect Ukraine’s sovereignty within its existing borders. 

But Ukraine sits between Russia and Europe, and as Ukraine increasingly showed an inclination to turn toward Europe rather than Russia, Russian leader Putin worked to put his own puppets at the head of the Ukrainian government with the expectation that they would keep Ukraine, with its vast resources, tethered to Russia.

In 2004 it appeared that Russian-backed politician Viktor Yanukovych had won the presidency of Ukraine, but the election was so full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe, that the U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results. The Ukrainian government voided the election and called for a do-over.

To rehabilitate his image, Yanukovych turned to American political consultant Paul Manafort, who was already working for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. 

When Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union and instead took a $3 billion loan from Russia, Ukrainian students protested. On February 18, 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, and he fled to Russia.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it. The invasion prompted the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia and on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. E.U. sanctions froze assets, banned goods from Crimea, and banned travel of certain Russians to Europe.

Yanukovych’s fall had left Manafort both without a patron and with about $17 million worth of debt to Deripaska. Back in the U.S., in 2016, television personality Donald Trump was running for the presidency, but his campaign was foundering. Manafort stepped in to help. He didn’t take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?”

Journalist Jim Rutenberg established that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland.” 

In exchange for weakening NATO and U.S. support for Ukraine, looking the other way as Russia took eastern Ukraine, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign.

Government officials knew that something was happening between the Trump campaign and Russia. By the end of July 2016, FBI director James Comey opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. After Trump won, the FBI caught Trump national security advisor Lieutenant General Michael Flynn assuring Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak that the new administration would change U.S. policy toward Russia. 

Shortly after Trump took office, Flynn had to resign, and Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn. When Comey refused, Trump fired him. The next day, he told a Russian delegation he was hosting in the Oval Office: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job…. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Trump swung U.S. policy toward Russia, but that swing hit him. In 2019, with the help of ally Rudy Giuliani, Trump planned to invite Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Petro Poroshenko, to the White House to boost his chances of reelection. In exchange, Poroshenko would announce that he was investigating Hunter Biden for his work with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thus weakening Trump’s chief rival, Democrat Joe Biden, in the 2020 presidential election.

But then, that April, voters in Ukraine elected Volodymyr Zelensky rather than Poroshenko. Trump withheld money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russia and suggested he would release it only after Zelensky announced an investigation into Hunter Biden. 

That July 2019 phone call launched Trump’s first impeachment, which, after the Senate acquitted him in February 2020, launched in turn his revenge tour and then the Big Lie that he had won the 2020 election. The dramatic break from the democratic traditions of the United States when Trump and his cronies tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was in keeping with his increasing drift toward the political tactics of Russia.

When Biden took office, he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken worked feverishly to strengthen NATO and other U.S. alliances and partnerships. In February 2022, Putin launched another invasion of Ukraine, attempting a lightning strike to take the rich regions of the country for which his people had negotiated with Manafort in 2016. 

But rather than a quick victory, Putin found himself bogged down. Zelensky refused to leave the country and instead backed resistance, telling the Americans who offered to evacuate him, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” With the support of Biden and Blinken, NATO allies and other partners stood behind Ukraine to stop Putin from dismantling the postwar rules-based international order and spreading war further into Europe.

When he left office just a month ago, Biden said he was leaving the Trump administration with a “strong hand to play” in foreign policy, leaving it “an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure,” than when he took office.

Now, on the anniversary of the day the Ukrainian people ousted Victor Yanukovych in 2014—Putin is famous for launching attacks on anniversaries—the United States has turned its back on Ukraine and 80 years of peacetime alliances in favor of support for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 

“We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” a European diplomat said. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”

This shift appears to reflect the interests of Trump, rather than the American people. Trump’s vice president during his first term, Mike Pence, posted: “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.” 

Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed." Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee of NBC News reported that intelligence officials and congressional officials told them that Putin feels “empowered” by Trump’s recent support and is not interested in negotiations; he is interested in controlling Ukraine.

A Quinnipiac poll released today shows that only 9% of Americans think we should trust Putin; 81% say we shouldn’t. For his part, Putin complained today that Trump was not moving fast enough against Europe and Ukraine.

In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. 

In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.

For years, Putin has apparently believed that driving a wedge between the U.S. and Europe would make NATO collapse and permit Russian expansion. But it’s not clear that’s the only possible outcome. Ukraine’s Zelensky and the Ukrainians are not participating in the destruction of either their country or European alliances, of course. 

And European leaders are coming together to strengthen European defenses. Emergency meetings with 18 European countries and Canada have netted a promise to stand by Ukraine and protect Europe. “Russia poses an existential threat to Europeans,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said today. Also today, rather than dropping sanctions against Russia, European Union ambassadors approved new ones.

For his part, Trump appears to be leaning into his alliance with dictators. This afternoon, he posted on social media a statement about how he had killed New York City’s congestion pricing and “saved” Manhattan, adding “LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich reposted the statement with an image of Trump in the costume of an ancient king, with a crown and an ermine robe. Later, the White House itself shared an image that imitated a Time magazine cover with the word “Trump” in place of “Time,” a picture of Trump with a crown, and the words “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

The British tabloid The Daily Star interprets the changes in American politics differently. Its cover tomorrow features Vladimir Putin walking “PUTIN’S POODLE”: the president of the United States.

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

Protect Your Credit Cards from Hidden Scanners

 

   

According to the FBI, a new type of theft is surging across the country, with seniors losing over $28 billion last year alone. These "digital pickpockets" can steal your credit card numbers, banking information, and even your identity – all without ever touching your wallet.

"This isn't like traditional theft," explains cybersecurity expert James Chen. "These criminals use hidden scanners that can read your cards right through your purse or wallet from up to 30 feet away. By the time you get the fraud alert, your accounts are already drained."

The Most Frightening Part?

"Anyone can buy these scanning devices online for less than $50," warns Former FBI agent Robert Miller. "We're seeing teenagers do this now. They just walk through crowded stores, and their device silently collects everyone's financial information."

Miller demonstrated how quickly it happens. In just one pass through a busy shopping mall, his test scanner picked up credit card information from 42 different people.

"Your regular wallet offers zero protection," Miller explains. "These scanners can read right through leather, fabric, even those old-fashioned aluminum foil wraps people used to use."

The Rise of Digital Theft

In 2024 alone:

- Over 15 million Americans had their identities stolen

- Someone becomes a victim every 22 seconds

- Average losses per victim: $17,000

- Seniors are targeted 73% more often than other age groups

But There's Hope

A former NASA cybersecurity expert, who himself lost $70,000 to this type of theft, has developed a solution that's being called "revolutionary" by security experts.

The SafeCard is a thin, credit card-sized device that creates an impenetrable electromagnetic shield around your wallet. Using the same technology developed for protecting sensitive space equipment, it blocks even the most advanced scanning devices.

"It's basically an invisible force field for your wallet," explains its inventor. "Just slip it in next to your cards, and digital thieves can't touch you."

How It Works

The SafeCard uses patented SafeShield™ technology to:

✅ Block unauthorized scans within a 6-foot radius

✅ Protect all cards in your wallet simultaneously

✅ Work without batteries or charging

✅ Last indefinitely

"What makes SafeCard different is its advanced AI chip," says Chen. "Unlike basic RFID blockers, it actively detects and neutralizes scanning attempts. Your cards are completely invisible to thieves."

Don't let AI phantom hackers drain your bank account

 

Tech support scams have been around for years, but a new variant called the Phantom Hacker scam is rapidly gaining traction. It has cost victims, primarily older Americans, over $500 million since 2023. This scam is particularly deceptive because it unfolds in three carefully orchestrated phases and uses AI-powered social engineering tactics to avoid detection. Attackers leverage caller ID spoofing and AI-generated voices to make their scheme more persuasive, but there are ways to protect yourself.

How the phantom hacker scam works

As highlighted by the FBI, the scam begins with the tech support impostor phase. You might receive a call, email, text or even a pop-up on your computer warning you that your device has been compromised. The message urges you to call a customer support number for assistance.

Once you do, a scammer posing as tech support claims that hackers have targeted your accounts. To "help," they instruct you to download remote access software, allowing them to take control of your computer. Under the guise of scanning for threats, they trick you into revealing your financial accounts, setting up the next phase of the scam.

Next comes the financial institution impostor phase. Another scammer, pretending to be from your bank or investment firm, calls to warn that a foreign hacker has infiltrated your accounts. They advise moving your money to a "safe" government-protected account, often using wire transfers, cryptocurrency or cash deposits. They might also insist on keeping the transaction confidential, claiming it’s necessary for security reasons.

In the final U.S. government impostor phase, a third scammer impersonates a federal official – often from the Federal Reserve – who pressures you to act quickly. If you start doubting the scheme, they may send you an official-looking email or document to convince you that the transfer is legitimate. By the time victims realize they’ve been tricked, their money is gone, often sent overseas beyond the reach of U.S. authorities.

How AI is making things worse

AI is making scams like the Phantom Hacker scam more deceptive and harder to spot. Scammers are using AI-powered chatbots to automate their schemes. Instead of relying on human operators, they can now deploy AI-driven responses that sound natural and convincing.

AI-generated deepfake voices are also being used to impersonate bank officials and government representatives. With just a short audio sample, scammers can clone a voice to make their calls seem even more authentic. This means a victim might hear what sounds like their bank manager or an official from the Federal Reserve.

Email scams are also becoming more sophisticated. AI tools can craft messages that mimic the tone and style of official communications. Scammers can even generate fake but realistic-looking documents with official letterheads to convince victims that the scam is legitimate.

The best way to defend yourself against the Phantom Hacker scam is to stay informed, be cautious and follow these steps:

1) Ignore unsolicited messages: Scammers often send pop-ups, text messages or emails claiming that your computer is infected or that your bank account is at risk. These messages may look official, but they are designed to create panic and pressure you into taking immediate action. Never click on links or attachments from unknown senders, as they may contain malware or lead to phishing websites that steal your personal information.

2) Have strong antivirus software: The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

3) Verify phone numbers before calling: If you receive an unexpected message urging you to call tech support, do not use the number provided in the message. Instead, visit the official website of the company in question and find their customer support contact information. Scammers often create fake websites or use caller ID spoofing to make their phone numbers appear legitimate, so always double-check before making a call.

4) Avoid downloading unknown software: No reputable company will ever ask you to install remote access tools unless you have specifically reached out for tech support. Scammers use these programs to take control of your computer, monitor your activity and access sensitive information. If someone unexpectedly asks you to download software to "fix a problem" or "protect your account," it is likely a scam.

5) Never give control of your device to a stranger: If you allow a scammer to remotely access your computer, they can view your personal files, log your keystrokes and manipulate your accounts without your knowledge. Legitimate customer support representatives will never request remote access unless you have initiated the support request through an official company channel. If someone insists on taking control of your device, hang up immediately.

6) Be skeptical of urgent financial warnings: The U.S. government will never contact you unexpectedly and demand that you move your money to a "safe account." They will also never ask you to wire funds, purchase gift cards or send cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Scammers create a false sense of urgency to trick victims into acting before they can think critically about the situation. If someone claims to be from a bank or government agency and pressures you to move money, stop and verify their identity through official channels.

7) Invest in personal data removal services: Scammers often gather information from data broker websites to make their scams more convincing. Your name, phone number, home address and even financial history may be publicly available without your knowledge.

Consider using a data removal service to regularly scan and request the removal of your personal information from these databases. This reduces the chances of scammers targeting you with highly personalized attacks. You can also manually opt out of major data broker sites, but using a service automates the process and keeps your information protected over time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.

by Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report

 

"Since Inauguration Day, the Office for Civil Rights has only opened about 20 investigations focused on Trump’s priorities, placing more than 10,000 student complaints related to disability access and sexual and racial harassment on hold"

 

In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt.

At the same time, there’s been a dramatic drop in the number of new cases opened by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and the few that attorneys have been directed to investigate reflect some of Trump’s priorities: getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students.

The OCR has opened about 20 new investigations since Trump’s inauguration, sources inside the department told ProPublica, a low number compared with similar periods in previous years. During the first three weeks of the Biden administration, for instance, the office opened about 110 new investigations into discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or disability, the office’s historic priorities. More than 250 new cases were opened in the same time period last year.

Historically, the bulk of investigations in the office have been launched after students or their families file complaints. Since Trump took office, the focus has shifted to “directed investigations,” meaning that the Trump administration has ordered those inquiries.

“We have not been able to open any (investigations) that come from the public,” said one longtime OCR attorney who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job.

Several employees told ProPublica that they have been told not to communicate with the students, families and schools involved in cases launched in previous administrations and to cancel scheduled meetings and mediations. “We’ve been essentially muzzled,” the attorney said.

What We’re Watching

During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely…

-Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen for ProPublica

https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-civil-rights-office-investigations?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary

 

Say What?

 

 “A Mississippi senator shocked residents last week as he proposed a satirical new bill that would bizarrely see men fined for masturbating. It has left everyone wondering how it could possibly be enforced.  

“It was on January 20, that Mississippi state Senator Bradford Blackmon made the unusual move to propose that it should be made unlawful within the state for men to masturbate in any other sexual relations that involved 'discharging genetic material' without the express intention of 'fertilizing a human egg'.

“Meanwhile, the bill, which has been called the 'Contraception Begins at Erection Act' would still need to make its way past Republican Governor, Tate Reeves, for it to become set in law. It has left many wondering how such rules could ever be enforced by those in power.”

 

Illinois Judge Tosses Out Firearm Identification Law, Says Second Amendment Shields Home Gun Possession

 

An Illinois circuit court has recently made a significant ruling, declaring the state's Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) law unconstitutional in certain circumstances. White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb stated, "the Defendant’s activity of possessing a firearm within the confines of her home is an act protected by the Second Amendment."

This groundbreaking decision occurred in the context of the Illinois v. Vivian Brown case, involving a woman who was charged with having a firearm in her home without a FOID card, despite not using it nor having any criminal record. The news of this ruling has been reported by WGN-TV and WFIE.

The incident leading to this legal dispute began when Brown's husband filed a complaint against her, alleging that she had a .22 caliber rifle at her residence and had fired it. However, police investigations found that the rifle had not been fired. Despite this, charges were still brought against Brown for possession of a firearm without the necessary identification.

During the case proceedings, Judge Webb identified that to have to pay a fee associated with exercising the core fundamental Constitutional right of armed self-defense within the confines of one's home violates the Second Amendment, according to a statement obtained by WGN-TV.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes. While this does not entail a sweeping invalidation of the FOID Act, it does suggest that future legal challenges could further alter the landscape of firearm regulation in Illinois.

Judge Webb's ruling reflects an ongoing national dialogue about the tension between gun rights and gun control, particularly when it comes to what is deemed reasonable regulation. According to information provided by WFIE, Webb argued that Brown "should not have been charged" and was afforded protection under the second amendment.

A deeper analysis of the evidence led the Court to strike down the part of the Illinois law that would otherwise have criminalized Brown's possession of the rifle within her home. Local and national stakeholders are closely monitoring the implications of this ruling, aware that it may set a precedent for future challenges to firearm ownership laws.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes.

 by Jo Marquez, Hoodline

 

"If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is"

 

I want to talk today about the media’s coverage of the Trump-Vance-Musk coup. I’m not referring to coverage by the bonkers right-wing media of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and its imitators.

I’m referring to the U.S. mainstream media — The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Public Radio — and the mainstream media abroad, such as the BBC and The Guardian.

By not calling it a coup, the mainstream media is failing to communicate the gravity of what is occurring.  

Yesterday’s opinion by The New York Times’ editorial board offers a pathetic example. It concedes that Trump and his top associates “are stress-testing the Constitution, and the nation, to a degree not seen since the Civil War” but then asks: “Are we in a constitutional crisis yet?” and answers that what Trump is doing “should be taken as a flashing warning sign.”

Warning sign?

Elon Musk’s meddling into the machinery of government is a part of the coup. Musk and his muskrats have no legal right to break into the federal payments system or any of the other sensitive data systems they’re invading, for which they continue to gather computer code.

This data is the lifeblood of our government. It is used to pay Social Security and Medicare. It measures inflation and jobs. Americans have entrusted our private information to professional civil servants who are bound by law to use it only for the purposes to which it is intended. In the wrong hands, without legal authority, it could be used to control or mislead Americans.

By failing to use the term “coup,” the media have also underplayed the Trump-Vance-Musk regime’s freeze on practically all federal funding — suggesting this is a normal part of the pull-and-tug of politics. It is not. Congress has the sole authority to appropriate money. The freeze is illegal and unconstitutional.

By not calling it a coup, the media have also permitted Americans to view the regime’s refusal to follow the orders of the federal courts as a political response, albeit an extreme one, to judicial rulings that are at odds with what a president wants.

There is nothing about the regime’s refusal to be bound by the courts that places it within the boundaries of acceptable politics. Our system of government gives the federal judiciary final say about whether actions of the executive are legal and constitutional. Refusal to be bound by federal court rulings shows how rogue this regime truly is.

Earlier this week, a federal judge excoriated the regime for failing to comply with “the plain text” of an edict the judge issued last month to release billions of dollars in federal grants. Vice President JD Vance, presumably in response, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance graduated from the same law school I did. He knows he’s speaking out of his derriere.

In sum, the regime’s disregard for laws and constitutional provisions surrounding access to private data, impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress, and refusal to be bound by judicial orders amount to a takeover of our democracy by a handful of men who have no legal authority to do so.

If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is.

The mainstream media must call this what it is. In doing so, they would not be “taking sides” in a political dispute. They would be accurately describing the dire emergency America now faces.

Unless Americans see it and understand the whole of it for what it is rather than piecemeal stories that “flood the zone,” Americans cannot possibly respond to the whole of it. The regime is undertaking so many outrageous initiatives that the big picture cannot be seen without it being described clearly and simply.

Unless Americans understand that this is indeed a coup that’s wildly illegal and fundamentally unconstitutional — not just because that happens to be the opinion of constitutional scholars or professors of law, or the views of Trump’s political opponents, but because it is objectively and in reality a coup — Americans cannot rise up as the clear majority we are, and demand that democracy be restored.

-Robert Reich