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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Trump may withdraw the Stefanik nomination for fear of losing the NY Special election (withdrawn!)

Trump may withdraw the Stefanik nomination for fear of losing the NY Special election (withdrawn!)

by | 215 Comments

This post is in: ,

Update at 2:25 pm

Stefanik nomination pulled by Trump.  Stefanik is not happy.

I did not have this on my bingo card.

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) – Discussions are being held on whether Representative Elise Stefanik should step away from her nomination to be President Donald Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a White House official said on Thursday.
Pulling her from the nomination would be done in part because of concern about Republicans’ tight majority in the House of Representatives, which she would leave if confirmed for the post.
CBS News first reported that Stefanik’s nomination was in jeopardy.

Stefanik is a close Trump ally. The president chose her for the role less than a week after he was elected in November.

A spokesperson for Stefanik did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s Republicans currently hold a 218 to 213 majority in the House of Representatives, where there are four vacancies.

Having learned of this just 5 minutes ago, my personal response is a mix of yay, we’ve got them running scared, and oh no, I want a chance to win the NY House seat..  And then a wow, that would be a huge blow to Elise S, which in and of itself could be a good thing for us.

What about you guys?

Reader Interactions

215Comments

  3. 3.

    Albatrossity

    It would a remarkable concession to the reality-based world if these gaslighters would indeed withdraw the nomination. I’m not sure that they have that much grasp on reality, but I guess we will find out!

  5. 5.

    Chat Noir

    lol don’t threaten me with a good time.

    The worst people ever. I watched a documentary about Katharine Graham the other night and this current crop of evil-doers makes the Nixon people look like meek little bad boys.

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    Meanwhile, rasslin’ lady is “investigating” California for doing California.

    The federal government announced Thursday that it is investigating the California Department of Education because of a ban on forcing educators to out transgender students to their parents that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last year.

    The U.S. Department of Education’s Student Privacy Policy Office will determine whether the state “abdicated its responsibilities” under the federal Family Educational Rights Privacy Act by allowing local school districts to “socially transition children at school while hiding minors’ gender identity from parents,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said. FERPA grants parents and students over 18 the right to access their education records and protects against disclosing that information to third parties without the parents’ consent. “It is not only immoral but also potentially in contradiction with federal law for California schools to hide crucial information about a student’s well-being from parents and guardians,” McMahon said in a statement.

    “The agency launched today’s investigation to vigorously protect parents’ rights and ensure that students do not fall victim to a radical transgender ideology that often leads to family alienation and irreversible medical interventions.” Neither Newsom’s office nor the California Department of Education immediately responded to requests for comment.

    sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article302926114.html#storylink=cpy

    Vigorously!

  11. 11.

    Jackie

    @Old School:

    Why hasn’t she been confirmed yet?  Is the Senate slow-walking her?

    I think FFOTUS is slow walking Stefanik at Johnson’s request. I think if FL special elections go favorably to the Repugs, she will be confirmed shortly thereafter. If the Dems pull a miraculous upset and win one or both house seats, her nomination will be pulled.

  12. 12.

    JML

    She’ll have to be the one to step away, because no way will The Current Occupant be able to handle any stories that call him weak for pulling a nomination. The only way this happens is if the behind the scenes folks get her to walk away and frame it so that “oh, my heart is still with the House where I can do so much more to further our Great Leader’s cause…”

    I hope it turns into a cluster. Confusion to the enemy!

  13. 13.

    MattF

    Q: How unpopular can the administration be before they stop talking about their ‘mandate’?

    A: There is no limit. They will take credit for anything, they will deny any responsibility for anything.

  14. 14.

    Madeleine

    As a member of a group planning a fundraiser for Gendebien, I’m really annoyed. Dammit.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    @MattF:

    To add to your trifecta: they lie about everything. We all notice Trump 2.0 has nobody like, say, Mattis who will not lie on demand for da Boss. Each is a mini-me.

  16. 16.

    lamh47

    HHS will lay off 10,000 employees as part of a major restructuring plan!

    Approx 300 from my OpDiv…sigh.  So likely majority of those will be the reinstated probies…which is why they have them on admin leave until at least the appeals run out or the RIF procedures starts late April or May…which ever comes first

    Can’t be the end of a week without this admin once again shitting on federal workers…

  17. 17.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Ryan: Stefanik loudly resigning from Congress in protest after they pressure her to withdraw her nomination. Of course that would require that she have some self-respect, so don’t hold your breath.

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: That’s kind of where I’m at.  I also see this as a signal and a threat. You MAGA people need to get out and vote in Wosconsin and Florida.  Or else.

  19. 19.

    jonas

    Stefanik’s district is *very* red. It’s basically farmers, loggers, and assorted gun nuts in their trailers and Confederate paraphernalia-festooned cabins scattered around the southern Adirondacks. If they’re thinking it’s no longer a 100% get for Stefanik’s MAGA successor, that’s, well…. holy crap.

  21. 21.

    cmorenc

    @Chat Noir: i have never understood why Nixon’s minions thought the Watergate break-in at the DNC offices was even remotely a venture they could have gained anything worthwhile from, even had they pulled it off without getting caught.  Nixon was solidly on-track to win the election vs McGovern by a comfortable margin, despite rising public dissatisfaction with the Vietnam war.  The sleazy RW side of Nixon was always in tension with a side very open to some progressive notions – much of our country’s fundamental environmental legislation was created with Nixon Administration support, and he wasn’t one-dimensionally pro-plutocrat, maybe not exactly a friend of big Labor beyond his alliance with the Teamsters, but understood why blue collar workers deserved decent wages, eg plumbers were worth $20/hr at a time when that was significantly more than the typical rate.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    @lamh47:

    “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”

    I hate our timeline. Am awaiting Trump dismantling Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps, handing federal water and power facilities to Big Ag. Not accepting “that could never happen” at this time.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @JML: Yes, one of the other articles mentioned asking her to withdraw.  As opposed to pulling the nomination.  Either wy, it will look weak.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jackie: Great point. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell a Dem wins FL 1st (the district that kept reelecting the corrupt pedophile fivehead guy), and I will be very surprised if we pull off an upset in the 6th against the odious lummox Randy Fine, but hope springs eternal!

    BTW, does anyone know what’s up with the special elections to replace two Dem House reps who died fairly recently? No disrespect intended, but we need those fucking seats!

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    @cmorenc: Nixon’s deep paranoia, probably turbocharged by his drinking, had him looking for conspiracies to quash in every shadow.

    Completely agree it was an unnecessary own goal, served while up 6-0 late in the second half. The utter destruction of McGovern was boggling, considering how close ’68 had been.

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: In the post I put up yesterday from the WSJ,  they are worried about the impact if their guy even wins by 8 points instead of the 30 points it was in November.

    I agree with eclare, somebody read that article.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Fix.

    @cmorence

    Very basically because it was intended to replace previously placed bugging devices which had malfunctioned or otherwise reached their expiration date.

  29. 29.

    Melancholy Jaques

    Best outcome would be Stefanik tries to keep the seat & loses, but that’s like hoping for the Cleveland Guardians to win the World Series.

    But hey! It’s Opening Day & that is a day for the highest hopes!

  30. 30.

    Anonymous At Work

    It’s a pure victory.  “The only way to win in Trump’s White House is to avoid serving in the White House” is a plague on it.  Negative coattails.

  31. 31.

    TB Hill

    It’s an R+10 district. I live in the next district over. Very rural & conservative. She has outperformed this national rating, winning by 16-18 points her last few races. If the district swung as much as that Pennsylvania State senate race this week, that gets you close.

  32. 32.

    leeleeFL

    @Chat Noir: Not really! It’s just that they didn’t get to stay in office after they were caught. I can only wonder at the plans those shitheads had for the rest of Nixon’s term. Why do you think they have spent all these years putting this plan into action.

    We were warned, but not enough of us believed it.

  33. 33.

    artem1s

    Let the underbussing commence! Throw it in her face over and over that Hair Fuhrer didn’t keep his word and and shout it from the rooftops that he is afraid his endorsements are death knells no matter how safely orange the district might be. MAGAts and conservatives are also completely willing to punish women at the polls for the failures of white men (see Cheney, Darth Jr.).

  34. 34.

    TONYG

    @Chat Noir: My theory of the de-evolution of the Republican Party.  Reagan worse than Nixon.  The Bushes worse than Reagan.  Trump worse than the Bushes.  (Maybe after Trump there will be an actual Xenomorph.  We’ll see!)

  35. 35.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @trollhattan:

    The utter destruction of McGovern was boggling, considering how close ’68 had been.

    The first Angry White Man election. Combination of former Democratic voters reacting to the Civil Rights gains, people angry at protestors for losing the Vietnam War, suburbanites terrified by the Manson family, and the Eagleton Debacle.

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    @jonas: I read that NY21 has 6,000 farms. That came up in an article about Democratic challenger Blake Gendeben. He’s a dairy farmer. It sounded like he had a medium sized operation, with 500 cows.

    NY21 contains Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division. It also has a big tourism industry that has already been hit by Canadians boycotting U.S. destinations. The Adirondack Explorer had an article last week where a Plattsburgh town supervisor commented on a noticeble decrease in Cadadian licence plates at shopping malls and smaller stires, restaurents to. He said the town was revising its budget like they did during the pandemic in anticipation of revenue shortfalls. Plattsburgh is just off I-87, about 25 miles south of the Canadian border.

  38. 38.

    cmorenc

    @trollhattan: Also in Nixon’s favor is that unlike Trump’s completely bogus, mendacious claim that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and the Ds via fraudulent votes, it’s highly likely the 1960 election actually was stolen by Kennedy by fraudulent votes, courtesy of the Daley Machine cobbling together just enough fraudulent votes in Chicago to narrowly deliver Illinois to Kennedy.  Rather than throw the country into turmoil contesting what happened, Nixon conceded for the good of the country rather than forcing Kennedy to take office under a contested cloud of illegitimacy.

  39. 39.

    Old School

    @lamh47:

    HHS will lay off 10,000 employees as part of a major restructuring plan!

    And they’re going to combine that with another 10,000.

    When combined with HHS’ other efforts, including early retirement and Fork in the Road, the restructuring results in a total downsizing from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees.

    But it’ll reduce illness!

    [T]he overhaul will implement the new HHS priority of ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @artem1s: I like the idea of replacing red with orange as the “Republican” color. Republicans should be amenable since orange is the color their cult leader spackles onto his face. Then I could go back to NOT cringing every time I see a red hat.

  44. 44.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Betty Cracker:

    Special Elections for D seats:
    AZ-07 Grijalva: Primary July 15, General Election September 23.
    TX-18 Turner:  Not scheduled yet; not sure, might be November 4.

  48. 48.

    Emily B.

    @jonas: The Adirondacks are deep, deep red. But some of the more populous eastern counties in Stefanik’s district went for Harris and/or Gillibrand last November.

    So I was cautiously optimistic that the Dems might pick up this seat in the current environment.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @cmorenc:

    My understanding is that, while Delay gets the most attention, Nixon was worried that an inquiry would reveal his own shenanigans in that election in other states.

  50. 50.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Old School: Totally consistent with gutting all of the regulations that try to restrain business from dumping toxins into the environment.

  51. 51.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @cmorenc:

     it’s highly likely the 1960 election actually was stolen by Kennedy by fraudulent votes, courtesy of the Daley Machine cobbling together just enough fraudulent votes in Chicago to narrowly deliver Illinois to Kennedy.

    This is legendary bullshit. Kennedy would have won the election even if he lost Illinois.

  52. 52.

    Barry

    @cmorenc:

    “The sleazy RW side of Nixon was always in tension with a side very open to some progressive notions – much of our country’s fundamental environmental legislation was created with Nixon Administration support”

     

    I can’t find the reference, but IIRC, the Clean Air Act was passed with a veto-proof majority.  Nixon couldn’t  have blocked it.

  53. 53.

    Steve in the ATL

    @cmorenc: I wasn’t alive then, but I always heard that Kennedy cheated in Chicago but Nixon cheated in southern Illinois so the vote stealing was a wash as far as anyone could ascertain.

  54. 54.

    cain

    @trollhattan:

    California should just respond with ‘whatevs’ because there is no dept of education so who are these people? Just say “we don’t recognize the dept of education as existing per executive order blah blah blah”

  55. 55.

    snoey

    @cmorenc: Political legend is that smaller downstate cities had Republican machines who shared the Daley’s opinion that raw vote total wasn’t the final arbiter and that both agreed to not look too closely at this one and cut it back going forward.

    eta I was alive then but my sources are no better

  57. 57.

    Barry

    @cmorenc: “Also in Nixon’s favor is that unlike Trump’s completely bogus, mendacious claim that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and the Ds via fraudulent votes, it’s highly likely the 1960 election actually was stolen by Kennedy by fraudulent votes, courtesy of the Daley Machine cobbling together just enough fraudulent votes in Chicago to narrowly deliver Illinois to Kennedy. ”

     

    I’ve actually read up on this.  When the GOP demanded recounts and investigations in Chicago, the Dems agreed only if they were statewide.  The GOP promptly shut up.

    It’s a piece of successful propaganda that the GOP uses, that there is always cheating by the Dems, but not by the GOP.

  63. 63.

    lowtechcyclist

    @cmorenc:

    it’s highly likely the 1960 election actually was stolen by Kennedy by fraudulent votes, courtesy of the Daley Machine cobbling together just enough fraudulent votes in Chicago to narrowly deliver Illinois to Kennedy.

    Kennedy got 303 EVs so losing Illinois wouldn’t have deprived him of the win.  Gotta toss Texas in there too.

    Rather than throw the country into turmoil contesting what happened, Nixon conceded for the good of the country rather than forcing Kennedy to take office under a contested cloud of illegitimacy.

    Publicly, at least. Don’t have a cite handy, but he had people working behind the scenes to challenge the outcome in various states, right into January.

  65. 65.

    jonas

    @Emily B.: You’re right — but Stefanik still beat her D opponent about 60-40 even with those somewhat bluer areas north of Albany. It used to be much more purple-ish, occasionally electing Dems (Obama won it in 2008), but ever since Stefanik came along and it was redistricted to include more of rural north NY and less of the capital district, the partisanship on the right has really hardened at around 60%. The question is, could a Dem possibly flip enough independents/non-voters to counter that? I like what I see about Blake Gendebein. In a normal world, he’d be a perfect rep for that area, but there are a lot of folks up there still content to spread catfood on their faces and call for the leopards…

  69. 69.

    Marc

    @Melancholy Jaques: The first Angry White Man election. Combination of former Democratic voters reacting to the Civil Rights gains, people angry at protestors for losing the Vietnam War, suburbanites terrified by the Manson family, and the Eagleton Debacle.

    I was 18 in ’72, my very first election.  I had 6 passengers in my car (an old Volvo station wagon) for the 90 minute drive from our college back home to vote for McGovern (and Fr. Robert Drinan).  I was so pissed at the way the Democratic party seemed to mishandle that campaign, that I changed my registration to Independent and I’ll admit it’s been that way ever since.

  70. 70.

    Elizabelle

    WaPost:  headline and subhead

    Trump pulls Elise Stefanik’s cabinet nomination

    Republicans fear they can’t lose her vote in the House as they press to pass tax cuts with their slim majority

    Bastards have to pass tax cuts, while they are tanking the economy for everyone else.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    Dear Elise,

    Loyalty is one-way, baby!  I can’t believe you didn’t know that by now.

    FFOTUS

    One of the sources familiar with the talks said it’s been a point of frustration for Stefanik, who forfeited her leadership position as chair of the House Republican Conference, the number three House Republican, in preparation for the role.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    Last line of the very brief WaPost story.

    Stefanik did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    I bet she didn’t.

  78. 78.

    jonas

    Stefanik is awful, but I can’t help think of what rough beast Trump will name at last to go slouching towards the UN to help the Russians undo the world.

  79. 79.

    Jackie

    @bbleh:

    One of the sources familiar with the talks said it’s been a point of *frustration for Stefanik, who forfeited her leadership position as chair of the House Republican Conference, the number three House Republican, in preparation for the role.

    *IOW, Stefanik’s PISSED!

    And, FFOTUS will probably nominate a white male from FAUX or Newsmax to replace Stefanik.

  80. 80.

    Rusty

    @jonas: The Adirondacks are dependent on Canadian visitors.  There have a couple of articles about the slow down in the numbers and rising cancelations.   Overall that area is poor, service wages aren’t great and seasonal.  It’s an area that is particularly sensitive to a potential Canadian boycott.

  81. 81.

    Scout211

    In other news, Trump is changing the world. What a guy.  I don’t think it’s how he envisioned the changes though. 

    Greenland agrees to form broad government in shadow of Trump pressure, broadcaster KNR reports


    COPENHAGEN, March 27 (Reuters) – Greenland’s Democrats will announce a four-party coalition government on Friday, broadcaster KNR reported on Thursday, not identifying its sources, following an election overshadowed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest in taking control of the island.

    The expected announcement of a broad coalition would come on the day that U.S. Vice President JD Vance is set to visit a U.S. military base on the Arctic island, which is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.

  89. 89.

    hitchhiker

    Oh, this makes me happy. She’s one of the people I loathe the most — a talented young woman who absolutely knew what that crusty old thug was, and chose to go along with him purely out of ambition.

    I hope she’s grinding her teeth to bits, and as always, my deepest sympathy to her little boy, who will one day have to grow up and realize that his own mother sold her integrity for nothing.

  91. 91.

    Gretchen

    Hahahahahahahaha! So she humiliated herself and blew up her reputation for nothing! I hope he doesn’t actually pull the nomination so we can get another seat, but a humiliating loss in 2026 and having Trump hung around her neck for the next 40-50 years is a good second choice.

  92. 92.

    janesays

    I hate giving these bastards credit for anything, but strategically, it was probably the smart move for the GOP – her seat would have been very vulnerable in a special election.

  95. 95.

    jonas

    @Paul in KY: I’m guessing Eric or Don, Jr.  You know, some pointless person whose job it will be just to smash things and shit all over the place.

  96. 96.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: I don’t follow Greenland government structure closely. What are the implications of that.

     

    I’m really not familiar, either. But what I could understand from Reuters is that multiple parties in the government agreed to form a majority coalition in order to take a united stand against Trump.  That apparently was big news. And Denmark gave its approval.

  97. 97.

    cmorenc

    @Steve in the ATL: Don’t misunderstand me as claiming the world was a better place with Nixon as President vs any of the Ds he ran against, win or lose, but rather that Nixon was nowhere remotely near the country-wrecking narcissistic cartoon villain that Trump is.  Nixon, for all his egregious faults was a patriotic member of the generation who came through WW2.   We wouldn’t be sweating whether the country and political system as we know it would survive, rather than morph into a fascist plutocracy allied with Stalin/Putin rather than Western Europe if he was our contemporary opponent rather than Trump.

  100. 100.

    Scout211

    Oh nos! DOGE gotta keep their records now.  Whatever will they do now?

    The White Housereeling from the revelation that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive military attack plans with colleagues on a private messaging app, sent some new instructions this week to DOGE staffers: Preserve your Signal messages.

    The “records retention policy” was adopted for the Department of Government Efficiency on Monday, just as the Signal scandal was unfolding. It was revealed in a lawsuit challenging the DOGE initiative’s recordkeeping practices.

    The new policy emphasizes that messages sent on personal devices and on Signal must be preserved, and that the app’s auto-delete feature should be disabled.

    If you happen to receive work-related messages on your personal device — whether via text, Signal, a personal email address, or otherwise — make sure to capture and transmit those messages to your work device (such as by screenshotting and forwarding),” the one-page policy reads.

    I doubt that this directive is anything more than just lip service to quiet the scandal, but who knows.

  103. 103.

    jonas

    @hitchhiker: She’s a lot like JD Vance, imho — smart, ambitious woman who once tried to identify as a pragmatic centrist, but immediately went all-in on MAGA when it became apparent that that’s where the path to power in the GOP lay.

    Values, schmalues. Absolutely zero ethical or moral credibility.

  104. 104.

    Gretchen

    @Scout211: That directive should be “do all your work messaging on your government-issued device”. Anything less than that is winking at going around the rules.

  105. 105.

    tam1MI

    @WaterGirl: I also see this as a signal and a threat. You MAGA people need to get out and vote in Wisconsin and Florida.  Or else.

    I am not at all certain the kinds of MAGA voter they need to get to the polls pay attention to these sorts of things.

  106. 106.

    hitchhiker

    @jonas: right, but JD had a whack job billionaire eager to promote him, so now he’s the vice-fucking-president.

    All she got was a chance to resign from her 3rd-in-command of the Republican house conference, a bunch of time wasted preparing to take on the UN job, and (I hope!) many, many hours being told by the crusty old thug that she ought to lose a few pounds.

  108. 108.

    Hoodie

    @WaterGirl: It seems more like panic.  That PA result, Signalgate and tariff chaos may be particularly significant in that district given Canadian tourism and Ft. Drum.  Johnson probably begged for it to be pulled and Trump didn’t care because she’s a DEI hire to him.

  109. 109.

    jonas

    @Rusty: Normally I’d agree that cutting off Canadian trade and tourism would cause a lot of panic in that region, but from what I’ve seen, MAGA is willing to take a lot of direct punches to the groin from Trump and still find a way to blame libs or immigrants instead. They’ll probably lose a bunch of rural clinics, hospitals, and VA services , too, thanks to DOGE, and that won’t faze them either. It might wake up enough non-voters, though, to start changing things. We’ll find out in 2026, now, I guess.

  110. 110.

    Steve LaBonne

    @jonas: Without those services they’ll die faster, so there’s that. But they will never change their “thinking”, because white supremacy is all they possess in this world.

  111. 111.

    RevRick

    @jonas: NY Democrats designed the seat this way, packing Republicans into the district, so that others could become more favorable to Democrats. Certainly, in 2026, they’ll be seeking to oust several Republicans in purple to D-leaning districts.

  113. 113.

    Scout211

    NBC   With the White House’s decision to withdraw the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., to serve as U.N. ambassador, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said this afternoon that he’ll invite her to return to the GOP leadership table immediately.

    This clown show has so many fun features. Will she say yes?  Will she say no?

    hahahaha

  115. 115.

    J. Arthur Crank

    @Betty Cracker:

     

    I don’t think there’s a chance in hell a Dem wins FL 1st (the district that kept reelecting the corrupt pedophile fivehead guy),

    Please be more specific, as there are several of them that fit this description.

  116. 116.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211: So the current #3 in the Republican Party gets thrown under the bus?  Or do they make a #4?  If they make a #4, who gets 3 and who gets 4?

    Inquiring minds want to know!

  117. 117.

    piratedan

    AZ07 should be a safe seat for Dems unless there’s some surprise in who runs for the seat.  It’s my old district (in VA now).  The GOP usually allowed their freaks to run knowing that the Grijalva machine would keep them away from the knives or running with scissors.  They may entertain trying to field a real candidate, but unsure as to who that would be unless Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy makes a play for it.

  118. 118.

    tam1MI

    Meanwhile, having heard the news that Elise Stefanik is out, Nancy Mace is now running around the White House in Bianca Censori’s Grammys dress screaming, “PICK ME!!!! PICK ME!!!!”.

  120. 120.

    jonas

    @Steve LaBonne: Yeah, you’ll die of cancer faster, *and* won’t be able to find anyone for your hospice care because they’ve been deported for having a tattoo ICE mistook for a gang sign. It will be a golden age for rural America.

  121. 121.

    Jackie

    New York Rep. Elise Stefanik will return to House Republican leadership after President Donald Trump withdrew her nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed Thursday.
    “I will invite her to return to the leadership table immediately,” Johnson wrote in a post on X.
    The speaker will likely have to create a new, honorary leadership position for Stefanik, the former No. 4 House Republican. She didn’t run again for Republican conference chair last December after Trump nominated her to be in his administration.

    The sitting GOP conference chair, Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan, is not planning to step down from her post, according to a person who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about her plans.

    From Political.

    Hmmm… This will draw media attention away from Hegseth and Waltz, won’t it.

  122. 122.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @hitchhiker:

    She’s one of the people I loathe the most — a talented young woman who absolutely knew what that crusty old thug was, and chose to go along with him purely out of ambition.

    If she was a Republican in the 21st Century, then she was always an asshole.

  123. 123.

    trollhattan

    @Eunicecycle:

    Right?

    The minute I think these “people” have hit rock bottom, they break out the drills and descend further. Much further.

    And it’s an official White House communication.

  124. 124.

    trollhattan

    You heard it here first. A California Republican has presented what has to be the latest party assault on trans folks. Busy bees, those people.

    A Republican lawmaker is pushing a new bill that would seclude female transgender prisoners from cisgender women prisoners in California correctional facilities. State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, announced Senate Bill 311 Thursday, calling it a “proactive step” that addresses “growing concerns about current housing policies in women’s prisons.”

    “SB 311 is a direct response to the alarming reality that women are being assaulted and raped in our California women’s prisons,” she said.

    Grove’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether there is specific data or reports of violence perpetrated by trans women that inspired the bill. The bill would require the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to create separate living and bathroom quarters for transgender women “in order to protect the security needs of biological women,” according to the bill.

    The bill would also prohibit prisoners convicted of certain sexual offenses from being housed in women’s prisons.

    sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article302928104.html#storylink=cpy

    Bakersfield are not sending their best. Or maybe they are?

  127. 127.

    tam1MI

    @trollhattan: Bakersfield are not sending their best. Or maybe they are?

    Bakersfield has long been known as the pustulent anus of California. Read the book MEAN JUSTICE by Edward Humes to get an idea of how terrible that place is.

  128. 128.

    Geminid

    @piratedan: Oh man, you’re in eastern Virginia. Hope you handle the summers ok. It’s a moist heat!

    You moved into an active Governor and House of Delegates election. I’m looking forward to it. And don’t pay any attention to Glenn Youngkin. No one else does.

  129. 129.

    Belafon

    @trollhattan:

    “SB 311 is a direct response to the alarming reality that women are being assaulted and raped in our California women’s prisons,” she said.

     
    This tends to be caused by the prison workers, not inmates.

  130. 130.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: Boy, that’s really stretching FERPA.

    FERPA does give parents the right to see educational records (which would include anything that has recorded a students preferred pronouns) “unless the agency or institution has been provided with evidence that there is a court order, State statute, or legally binding document relating to such matters as divorce, separation, or custody that specifically revokes these rights.”

    There is indeed a state statute.

    FERPA is designed to protect the privacy of students and student records. It gives students and parents certain rights to access records (notably disciplinary records) but it also gives students the right to prevent their parents from seeing those records in some cases. This is where the courts will likely focus.

    For instance, when a student enrolls at a university, at every state I’m aware of, state law emancipates that student. They are now legally an adult and parents lose pretty much all rights under FERPA.  Institutions can still grant parents access to student information but only if a student signs a waiver giving the institution permission to do that. So when we had a 14 year old student enroll (as a transfer student no less) and the student refused to sign the waiver (because the parents were effectively bullying him to become a Doogie Howser) and we refused to give parents access to his academics, we got sued and won.

    States have had the ability to do this in a range of settings – access to healthcare information (typically at age 12-14 in most states) being most notable.

    I can’t imagine courts are going to go along with this, because it would equally tear down schools abilities to not disclose information to abusive or threatening parents, which is a VERY common thing.

  131. 131.

    trollhattan

    @tam1MI: I think of Bakersfield and the rest of the oil patch to be California’s own little inland Texas. Taylor Sheridan will probably do a series.

    Aerial views of the region around Taft make the moon look verdant.

  132. 132.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: Maybe that’s why the leaked it and then announced it today, rather than waiting until the 4/1 results.  That’s really such a short number of days from now, that it’s odd that they did it now.

    So i think you’re right.

  134. 134.

    jonas

    @Belafon: Since when do they give a shit about sexual abuse in prisons? It’s just like how they suddenly became all concerned with equity in girls’ sports the second it could become a cudgel to beat trans kids with.

    As they say, shamelessness is their superpower.

  135. 135.

    trollhattan

    @Martin: Appreciate the backgrounder. This is way out of my wheelhouse but because “everybody hates California” I expect the administration has running orders to attack from every conceivable angle.

    Rob Bonta might need his own office cot.

  136. 136.

    Bill Arnold

    @cmorenc:

    Nixon, for all his egregious faults was a patriotic member of the generation who came through WW2.

    Yeah.
    Nixon was a patriot.
    Mr. D.J. Trump and MAGA are not patriots.

  137. 137.

    jonas

    @tam1MI:  Bakersfield has long been known as the pustulent anus of California.

    It was Kevin McCarthy’s district. ‘Nuff said.

  138. 138.

    JiveTurkin

    @hitchhiker: I hope she’s grinding her teeth to bits, and as always, my deepest sympathy to her little boy, who will one day have to grow up and realize that his own mother sold her integrity for nothing.

    Agree with the general sentiment, the only change I would make is that people who do this probably had little to no integrity to begin with.

  139. 139.

    Martin

    @Belafon: There is currently a DOJ investigation into sexual assault by prison workers against inmates in a few CA women’s prisons. It was brought under the Biden admin, and we’ll see if that case is dropped or not.

  142. 142.

    hitchhiker

    @JiveTurkin: Okay .. she sold the facade of her integrity.

    But hey! Pastor Mike Johnson is going to make a special chair for her, just her size, at the leadership table.

    In the meantime, has Hegseth quit? Has he been fired?

  143. 143.

    piratedan

    @Geminid: well, I grew up out here (Warrenton/Manassas), but am now in the Northern Neck area.  I got screened porches and air conditioning, so I should be good to go. :-)  If the Dems need a sacrificial candidate to run for Congress, maybe I’ll apply :-)

  144. 144.

    trollhattan

    @Bill Arnold:

    Unlike, say, Ronald Reagan.

    Republican trashing of George McGovern, war hero of impeccable credentials in one of the deadliest theaters–air war over Europe, Distinguished Flying Cross–seemed beyond the pale then and was a pretty handy predictor of future bad deeds.

  145. 145.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Martin: PPRA (or Purpa) is what protects certain student records from parental disclosure.  Closely related.  I do work in the research field and FERPA is an absolute nightmare for researchers.  1970s without an update and inflexible.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    CRUMBLING!  They are just crumbling!!  It doesn’t feel like it, because we’d like it to all happen in a day.  But they are not even 80 days into this maladministration.

    THEY’RE CRUMBLING RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES!  woot!

  148. 148.

    Quaker in a Basement

    What about you guys?

    Makes me wonder how soon Trump is going to pull us out of the UN.

  149. 149.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:BTW, does anyone know what’s up with the special elections to replace two Dem House reps who died fairly recently? No disrespect intended, but we need those fucking seats!

    LOL

    “thanks a LOT, ya nimrods!  everyone else, take your vitamins and wash your hands!!”

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    @piratedan: I hope its a happy home for you. There are a lot of good oysters coming out of that area. People have taken up farming them in cages. There’s decent fishing too if you like that sort of thing.

    A suggestion: buy a Delorme Atlas of Virginia. They give a lot of detail and would be good for learning about your new area.

  153. 153.

    Miss Bianca

    @Steve LaBonne: Am I a bad person for hoping that she stays in her House seat and then gets booted next regular election because the Trump Administration has started stinking in the nostrils of America *so* bad that even upstate New York can’t take it anymore?

    Yeah, I am. Probably.

  154. 154.

    MazeDancer

    Fortunately for Elise she is not woke, so she will not be like past Feminist Elise who might think why does the girl get the shaft?

  157. 157.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker: this is kind of weird but I hope she flexes like a MADWOMAN and extorts the holy hell out of him for this

    (and I don’t mean a discount on a bucket of range balls down at the Mar-a-Lago driving range, either)

    Go for it, Elise!  You’re in a very rare position here, one that even Stormy Daniels is envious of: the ability to crunch the Orange Airhorn’s tiny little peanuts and make him say “thank you, ma’am, may I have another?”

    LOLOLOL

  158. 158.

    Marc

    @trollhattan: Republican trashing of George McGovern, war hero of impeccable credentials in one of the deadliest theaters–air war over Europe, Distinguished Flying Cross–seemed beyond the pale then and was a pretty handy predictor of future bad deeds.

    Please don’t forget the pro-war/centrist faction of the Democratic party, they were quite enthusiastic about trashing him, too.

  159. 159.

    Citizen Alan

    @trollhattan: Pretty sure that’s the best Bakersfield has to offer. The town is best known for a Buck Owens song which is basically about how hateful and unChristian the people who live there are.

  160. 160.

    Martin

    @Anonymous At Work: I focused on FERPA because the case focuses on FERPA.

    PPRAs focus is a bit different in that it protects students from using their religion or gender against them. DOJ isn’t going to invoke PPRA because they want to do all the things that PPRA protects students from. (Note, PPRA’s focus is on DOEd funded programs, so if you remove DOEd funding, that law is largely unenforceable.) They’re going to focus on wedging student and parental rights because that’s a place where they have the best shot at getting Trump judges to agree with them.

  161. 161.

    Jeffro

    @jonas:

    She’s a lot like JD Vance, imho — smart, ambitious woman who once tried to identify as a pragmatic centrist, but immediately went all-in on MAGA when it became apparent that that’s where the path to power in the GOP lay.

    Values, schmalues. Absolutely zero ethical or moral credibility.

    great comparison – spot on

  167. 167.

    cain

    @Jeffro:

    Reading /r/leopardseatingfaces has been so fun. I mean the hits keep coming:

    brownfieldagnews.com/news/farmer-funding-freeze-litigation-now-in-federal-court/

    prnewswire.com/news-releases/teamsters-union-opposes-nomination-of-crystal-carey-as-nlrb-general-cou…

    reuters.com/world/us/proposed-us-port-fees-china-built-ships-begins-choking-coal-agriculture-exports…

    “https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/19/how-federal-funding-cuts-are-affecting-one-small-school-district-in-an-oregon-community-that-voted-heavily-for-trump/”

    He’s killing them. 30k farmers losing their farms, tens of thousands losing their jobs, union-buster on union board. The shocked pikachu faces are everywhere.

    Stefanik is just the latest getting screwed. Governors of red states are going to get screwed and they got no Dems to blame on what’s going on over there.

  168. 168.

    cain

    I wonder if Stefanik heard about everything being withdrawn on twitter instead of say a personal phone call? I bet she heard it at the same time the rest of us did.

  169. 169.

    RaflW

    This coming just 36 or so hours after the two by-elections that showed a 15-18 point swing away from Trump suggests that despite all the gutter bravado (and ongoing horrors of abduction-deportations, mass firings, SocSec screwups etc), Republicans and even some Trump advisors are noticing that the public hates what is happening.

    I see no immediate changes of course other than shafting Elise, but I really, really want subservient Uni leaders, BigLaw toads, etc to read the tea leaves and understand that Trump is much weaker than he projects. That applies to the general public, too. Be aware, and cautious, but also fight harder, it’s working!

  170. 170.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Martin: Makes sense.  My wedge of the topic is different and PPRA doesn’t come up enough to remember the nuances.  However, this does set up an interesting legal question if there were good faith judges, between a federal law questionably giving questionable rights  to parents on the one hand vs. a state law giving protection for students expressly from parents in these exact situations.  Usually conservative and/or Republican judges are loathe to use federal law to overturn or invalidate state law.  But that’s so last decade.

  172. 172.

    Soapdish

    The moment I saw this this afternoon my first thought was, “Man, the internal polling must be really, really bad.”

    My prediction was that there was literally no way in that district the Republican wouldn’t win, but this administration has been such an absolute clusterfuck they’ve even put those places as risk. It’s incredible.

  180. 180.

    Geminid

    @dm: Reuters reports that SecState Marco Rubio said as many or more than 300 student visas have been revoked.

  184. 184.

    eclare

    @Geminid:

    They are building a prison to keep us citizens in and everyone else out.

    No way in fuck I would come here.  World Cup gonna get interesting, never mind the Olympics.

  185. 185.

    Jackie

    @Jeffro:

    Lisa McClain: “hell no I ain’t going anywhere”

    I wonder what FFOTUS/Johnson will have to threaten McClain with to give her a reason to have a sudden change of heart?

  188. 188.

    Jeffro

    @cain: national snooze media: “um…guys?  Guys?!  there doesn’t seem to be anything else to report on except the COMPLETE CHAOS out there, caused by trump’s insane tariffs and stuff…

    …guys…

    …guys, what I’m saying is, we’re all out of BS and maybe we ought to report on this?”

    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  189. 189.

    Darkrose

    @trollhattan: My wife and I used to say that Bakersfield wasn’t sending their best about Kevin McCarthy. At some point we realized that no, they probably were.

  190. 190.

    Jeffro

    @Jackie: some BS honorary ‘leadership’ position and a promise that Co-President Musk will drop $20M into her re-election campaign?

    (since apparently we allow that kind of thing now)

  191. 191.

    Jeffro

    @zhena gogolia: I hear you, but you have to admit…this is not an administration that’s on a roll in any way, shape, or form

    (a ‘good’ roll, that is)

  192. 192.

    NotMax

    Not anywhere near any kind of fan of the baseball but I’ll be rooting for Toronto to win the Series.
    ;)

  193. 193.

    Jackie

    @NotMax:

    Not anywhere near any kind of fan of the baseball but I’ll be rooting for Toronto to win the Series.
    ;)

    I agree… but only after the Mariners have been eliminated. :P

  194. 194.

    Jim Appleton

    @cmorenc:

    Also in Nixon’s favor is that unlike Trump’s completely bogus, mendacious claim that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden and the Ds via fraudulent votes, it’s highly likely the 1960 election actually was stolen by Kennedy by fraudulent votes, courtesy of the Daley Machine cobbling together just enough fraudulent votes in Chicago to narrowly deliver Illinois to Kennedy.  Rather than throw the country into turmoil contesting what happened, Nixon conceded for the good of the country rather than forcing Kennedy to take office under a contested cloud of illegitimacy.

    One flip side of those long ago shenanigans in our new brave world is that today it would be highly unlikely that DOJ and Senate would subpoena the White House tapes that clinched Nixon’s exit.

  195. 195.

    Darkrose

    @Martin: When I worked at the IT help desk for my university, I spent a significant amount my day from March-May explaining to parents that state and federal laws prohibits me from give them access to their child’s account. Yes, I know you’re paying for it ma’am, but it’s the law.

  196. 196.

    brantl

    @cmorenc:  The Richard Nixon you seem to remember, there’s no resemblance whatsoever to the one I heard on his tapes.

    Richard Nixon was one of the meanest sons of bitches that ever lived. He was spiteful. He was paranoid and he was a mean son of a bitch. The right wing sleazy side of Richard Nixon was the only side there was.

  197. 197.

    tam1MI

    @Darkrose: When I worked at the IT help desk for my university, I spent a significant amount my day from March-May explaining to parents that state and federal laws prohibits me from give them access to their child’s account. Yes, I know you’re paying for it ma’am, but it’s the law.

    I don’t understand why that would even be an issue. People 18 years old and older – i.e., University students – are legal adults, which gives them control over their own records.

  198. 198.

    glory b

    @Betty Cracker: In PA, a Dem won a state senate seat that Republicans held for 46 years.

    The last Democrats they voted for were LBJ and Bob Casey Sr for governor.

  199. 199.

    jonas

    @eclare: FIFA is so goddamn corrupt, I bet they’re welcomed by Trump with open arms — particularly if they promise to host some event at Mar-A-Lardo during the tournament or something.

    The Olympics are going to be in LA, in which case I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump intentionally tries to blow the whole thing up just to fuck with CA. The only countries *not* boycotting will be Russia, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, and North Korea. Should be fun.

  200. 200.

    Martin

    @Anonymous At Work: Except the federal law delegates that to the states, explicitly. It’s plain there in the text, and it sort of has to be because there is a laundry list of situations where schools can withhold information from abusive parents as a result of a custody or divorce dispute, and those are exclusively matters of state courts. If you remove the deferral to state law, you have to remove roughly half of FERPAs protections. So there’s no potential conflict (some shitty judge can certainly invent one).

    Conservatives wanted their states rights and FERPA delivers on those state rights. The issue is that FERPA primarily protects the rights of the student, not the parents, and the current culture war is focused exclusively on parents control over their children, not the rights of the children themselves. CAs focus is more strongly on the rights of the student than the parents, but that’s the states right to do. Of course they want their cake and eat it too. I don’t think the courts will give it to them.

  201. 201.

    Jackie

    Watching Alicia Menendez filling in for Nichole Wallace, and nothing about Stefanik’s demotion UNTIL the last few moments, showing Minority Leader Jeffries’ statement (which I’m typing from the caption):

    ”Donald Trump won the Elise Stefanik district by 21 points in November… the extremists are afraid they will lose the special election to replace her. The Republican agenda is extremely unpopular, they are crashing the economy in real time and House Republicans are running scared. What happened to their so-called agenda?”

    Commercial

  203. 203.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Betty Cracker: Grijalva’s replacement election is July. I’m assuming that’s the earliest Hobbs could order it. That probably means they won’t get seated till August. Abbott’s ofcourse screwing around with Turner’s seat so that’s probably not going to be filled till the fall.

  204. 204.

    Martin

    @Anonymous At Work: So I should fill in on PPRA. PPRA doesn’t protect student records from people outside the academic institution.

    PPRA protects students and parents from having non-academic information used against the student as part of their education. For example, the religion of the student or their parents cannot be used in educational decision making. So you can’t put all the Christian kids in the AP classes and the non-Christian kids in the non-AP classes. That extends to health of student and parents, sexual orientation of student and parents (no discriminating against the kid with two moms, or the kid who is gay), income, criminal record, and so on.

    It shows up most commonly in development of surveys, as it puts all of those questions off limits. So if you are trying to do a longitudinal study on educational performance of kids of parents with a criminal record, you can’t do that survey from within the educational organization. You need to do that from outside of it, and try and match up the educational records from inside of it. And the latter will require a waiver for you to get. And lining all of those things up is difficult to impossible.

    You can reveal educational data that is anonymized, but it has to be *really* anonymized, meaning that someone like me, who knows what they’re doing can’t piece the data back together to use it to identify a particular student. And you could, in theory, attach that kind of demographic data to the educational record, PPRA prohibits the educational institution from collecting that demographic data, so they can’t be the party attaching it, and they must be the party doing the anonymizing. It’s a very difficult puzzle to solve.

    There are some clever ways you can do these longitudinal studies. I co-lead a team that built a national system to do this in a narrow area, and while it wasn’t as good as we wanted it to be, it was sufficient. That system is now offline as Trump pulled their funding last month. But it’s not the sort of thing you can do from outside the institutions (NGOs, etc.) – it has to originate from inside. And this is why the gutting of the DOEds data folks is so damaging. I’m not sure how you could do any kind of longitudinal education study right now. I don’t think it’s possible in any scenario.

  205. 205.

    hells littlest angel

    Stefanik must be so disappointed. She was really gonna show all those wogs and towel-heads and [redacted] and [redacted] how to do diplomacy.

  207. 207.

    Miss Bianca

    @Martin:

    the current culture war is focused exclusively on parents control over their children, not the rights of the children themselves.

    Boy, ain’t THAT the truth.

  208. 208.

    Darkrose

    @tam1MI: March-May is admissions season, so these were mostly high school students, though plenty were 18+. In most cases, it was because the parents were pushing the kids to get their shit done in time.

    I had a parent insisting that she needed access to her son’s account because he was at a hockey game and couldn’t submit his intent to register.  I also had a woman claiming to be the parent of a 25-year-old law school applicant trying to get access to her account because her daughter was overseas and wouldn’t be able to submit her acceptance response in time. I did not say, “Did you know they have the internet in other countries?” or “Perhaps if she wants to be a lawyer she should learn to deal with deadlines” but I really, really wanted to.

  210. 210.

    karen gail

    @brantl: What got to me, about Nixon, was that he beat Pat so badly that she ended up in hospital and the secret service did nothing to stop him. Nixon was a bully, any man who will beat his wife is a bully; sadly, this happened at a time when Pat would have been asked what she did to provoke him.

  211. 211.

    Origuy

    @jonas: Unless something big happens in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are still going to be banned by the IOC for the Olympics.

    However, if Mango goes ahead with his plans about Greenland, Canada, Panama, etc., the US won’t be welcome at the Olympics either. I have a trip to Spain planned for August for the World Masters Orienteering Championships, but if Trump sets foot in Greenland, the USA won’t be welcome. The Nordic countries have too much power in the International Orienteering Federation.

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