DL Open Thread: Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Just Another Day In Dystopia.  Education Department Fires 1300 Workers.  EPA To Close All Environmental Justice Offices.   USAID Workers Ordered To Shred And Burn All Documents.  USDA Takes $1 Billion From Kids’ Meals.

Meanwhile, House Rethugs pass a horrible ‘continuing resolution’, then leave town, daring Senate Democrats to vote it down.  Which they flat-out should do:

Democratic leaders in the Senate generally seemed to be emphasizing patience at this stage and were waiting to see if Republicans can muscle the bill through the House before taking a stand.

“We’re going to see what the House does first,” said top Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.  (He’s ostensibly the ‘Leader’.)

Still, several rank-and-file Democrats criticized the measure. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was stunned that Republicans were “trying to jam through something that is their way or the highway.”

Democrats also introduced an alternative bill Monday night funding the government through April 11. The bill could serve as a Plan B if the GOP-led effort falters.

Both parties were prepared to blame the other if the bill failed.

“It looks like they’re going to try to shut down the government,” Johnson said of Democrats.

“If the government shuts down with a Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican president, it will be solely because the Republicans have moved forward with a terrible, partisan, take-it-or-leave-it bill,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.

The bill requires eight D’s to support it.  Call the Senate offices of Coons and LBR and (politely) tell them:  No retreat, no surrender.  Josh Marshall gets it right:

The reality here is that this isn’t Democrats shutting down anything. Republicans intentionally crafted a bill that ignores literally every Democratic demand. They’re forcing Democrats to either say now or make an abject surrender.

Those are my thoughts on these different arguments. I thought it made sense to discuss them because these are the arguments being made in the corridors of power. The risks here are real. We’re already in a great crisis of the republic. There’s no riskless path.

What unites all these arguments, however, is a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature and uses of political power. Every argument here is reactive, trying to limit harm in a situation in which Democrats, their priorities and their constituencies are already defenseless. There’s a driving penchant to operate wholly within the lines.

For Democrats the path of keeping their heads down means locking themselves into a pattern of perpetual reaction, at least until the next election, a pattern of never taking the initiative. In other words, a pattern of never taking actions that force the other guys to react. It’s possible to use a lot of brainpower to come up with an argument in which that totally makes sense. But can anyone imagine any scenario where the shoe was on the other foot and Democrats needed seven Republican votes in exchange for literally nothing and they found seven who said, “Okay, sure why not?”

It’s literally unimaginable.

The public is already visibly turning against what’s happening. We have lots of evidence for that. Democrats have this one chance to bring the matter to a head, increase the attention on something the public is already angry about. They need to take a real risk in order to change or at least slow the trajectory of the destruction.

Trump Expands Trade War To Europe:

The EU has announced it will impose trade “countermeasures” on €26bn (£22bn) worth of US goods in retaliation after Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, escalating a global trade war.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called the 25% US levies on global imports of the metals “unjustified trade restrictions”, after they came into force at 4am GMT on Wednesday.

“We deeply regret this measure,” von der Leyen said in a statement, as Brussels announced it would be “launching a series of countermeasures” on 1 April. “The European Union must act to protect consumers and business,” she added.

The commission said it would be targeting industrial products in response, including steel and aluminium, as well as household tools, plastics and wooden goods.

Just when you were looking for a bounce-back from the stock market.

Another Excellent Op-Ed On The Elon Musk Bailout Bill:

The idea that SB 21 will restore “balance” between the interests of regular investors and billionaires who control companies is demonstrably false. SB 21 creates “safe harbors” for controllers to steal from their controlled public companies and from the stockholders who invested in those companies without having to answer for doing so. The bill overturns decades of thoughtfully crafted common law and puts Delaware in direct competition with Nevada for the state which gives controllers the clearest and easiest to follow road map to commit grand larceny.

No, gentlemen, Chancellor McCormick did not invalidate Musk’s unprecedented compensation package because he was a “Superstar CEO”. What the Chancellor did do was to find that Musk controlled the process of setting his own compensation. Musk memorably testified that he “negotiated with myself” when asked how the package came to rest and a majority of Tesla board members were wildly conflicted under any sensible standard. 

Weed Delayed=Weed Denied?  Seriously, WTF is going on here?

Activists say they want the state to set a date for adult-use cannabis sales to begin and to force local governments to loosen their zoning restrictions. The state of Delaware was set to launch its retail cannabis industry this spring, but it’s been delayed and the state has not released an updated timeline, license holders said.

Lawmakers legalized recreational cannabis in 2023, creating a system for licensing cultivators, manufacturers, retailers and testing laboratories. The state also created a pool of social equity licenses where people who had been negatively affected by past marijuana crime enforcement could enter the market with lower barriers to access. The market was set to open in April, but the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner has yet to provide an updated timeline.

An OMC spokesperson said a meeting with advocates is anticipated for March or April. (Gee, that’s nice.)

What do you want to talk about?