Jacquie Battle

@jacquiebattle

Intention is to be better informed when leaving than upon arrival. If not that, then amusedly distracted. Pretty good at raising black swallowtail butterflies.

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Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· 19d

‘We were shovel-ready’: A Minnesota forest hit by DOGE cuts is now ablaze "Fire crews now have to thin out thousands of acres of dense, dry forest as wildfires burn." 🎁 wapo.st/3TEDQb3

In 2024, as part of a $100 million initiative to tackle the nation’s wildfires, the Biden administration awarded the Superior National Forest — where about two dozen lightning-sparked fires have been burning since early July — $10 million for projects that would have removed decades of dead trees and undergrowth, creating breaks in potential fire fuel around critical corridors and remote homes. The funding would have also paid for fire prevention efforts along a key 36-mile gravel road known as the Echo Trail — months before the ongoing Sioux Fire jumped it, threatening residences.

But at the beginning of 2025, the U.S. DOGE Service paused or canceled federal grants and spending to review whether they were connected to diversity or climate initiatives. That affected nearly all of the Forest Service’s grant projects and funds, according to two USFS officials familiar with the situation, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation. One official said DOGE’s involvement also delayed a regional support fund that moved crews across the country for fire prevention work. That was a “big part of the reason why our large-scale [prescribed burn and hazardous fuel treatment] accomplishments went down so much last year,” the official said.

Kania[*] argued that while DOGE “was supposed to save money,” the federal government and the state will be spending a lot more money to do the same work.

Fire crews are now thinning areas, specifically along the Echo Trail, to create defensible space and fire breaks, he said, but “they are doing it under emergency conditions … and that is the most expensive way to do this work imaginable.”

*A U.S. Forest Service district ranger with the Superior National Forest for six years and a law enforcement ranger with the Bureau of Land Management for two decades before retiring last December.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· 19d

Oof. I just checked and she has an account here, also, same handle, though not very active. So I've deleted my previous reply to avoid drawing her attention to this comment.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jul 13

To me, this was one of the major revelations from Will’s project.[*] I figured that partisanship was like a blinder that kept people from seeing things that they don’t want to see—things that would challenge their set opinions, upset their worldview, or insult their identity. But it seems it’s actually more like a refuge; a place people retreat to when they can’t traffic in reality. When they need to pretend that things aren’t as they are.

*Will Saletan of The Bulwark; the project:
"The Corruption of Lindsey Graham"

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jul 13

"Comments close at 11:59 PM tonight. For handy toolkit of how you can submit a comment, hit this link." www.defendpublichealth.org/campaign/cri...

Screenshot of Elizabeth Jacobs PhD's follow-on post providing additional info regarding how and when to submit comments on OMB's proposed rule that would politicize federal research grants.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jul 5

Thank you, kind of you to say so. Your nature pics are quite lovely — very imaginative and artistic. I pretty much point and shoot and hope for the best. Butterflies are not the most cooperative subjects, but I've gotten a few good shots over the years.

Black swallowtail butterfly resting on hydrangea blossoms.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jul 5

Interesting paragraph.

Two more books were quickly written. “One can’t exaggerate the significance of what Castaneda has done,” an editor at The New York Times Book Review wrote of the second. For the third, “Journey to Ixtlan,” the same editor allegedly commissioned a review from a specialist in Native religions, but killed it (too negative) and published a young anthropologist’s rave instead. It was on the nonfiction best-seller list for six months.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jun 5

Well reported by Meryl Kornfield.

Schofield decided to drill down on a sample — 25 people — to understand who they were, which he said was a typical procedure in handling new data like the list from DHS to confirm its accuracy. By looking at databases at Social Security and DHS, Schofield said, he and one of his deputies discovered many of the 25 were still living and included U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. He said he had no way of confirming if the people actually had criminal or terrorism ties as DHS alleged.

He said he went to a higher-up, Deputy Commissioner for Operations Stephen Evangelista, with his findings, and they arranged a meeting with DOGE official Koval, who was now at DHS. Evangelista did not respond to requests for comment.

Schofield said he walked through his findings and requested DHS do more analysis, and Koval said the department would do so.

Immediately, after that meeting, Schofield said, he told Evangelista that the list and plan appeared to have the goal of forcing 2.7 million living people to leave the country. Evangelista disagreed, Schofield recalled, and told Schofield and others in the eighth-floor conference room to be quiet while he called Koval back on his cellphone to ask.

On speaker phone, Evangelista asked Koval to walk through the goal of the list. Schofield said Koval’s response was “pretty matter-of-factly” that people would either choose to self-deport or they would show up at a Social Security office and get arrested by law enforcement.

A number of people at the agency also shared Schofield’s concern that the plan to add people to the death file was intended to create financial pressure for immigrants to self-deport, according to a former Social Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal debates.

“If you’re on the [Death Master File] you can’t have a bank account, you can’t get credit, so no apartment, no way to save money, no way to get paid, no way to get on insurance or carry health insurance,” the person said. “It has a ton of devastating effects.”

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jun 3

NJ Congressional District 2 Democratic Primary Zack Mullock wins Screenshot NYT with 93% of votes in.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jun 3

NJ Congressional District 2 Democratic Primary is called by AP for Zack Mullock Screenshot NYT with 68% of votes in.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 28

NJ-2 Congressional Election Dem Primary, June 2, 2026 Candidate Financial Disclosures disclosures-clerk.house.gov/FinancialDis...

CLERK | UNITED STATES HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES

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NAME Mullock, Zack

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NAME Reese, Teri

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CLERK | UNITED STATES HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES

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Note: If the "Last Name" block is left blank when searching the Candidates database, search results will return links for all the candidates who have submitted financial disclosure reports for that particular election.

To see Van Drew's disclosure report, search the Members database.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 27

And then there's this…

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 26

The only thing remotely amusing about the mess 47 has put us in is that he did Obama the "favor" of completely taking him off the hook in 2018 for whatever might have happened down the line regarding the JCPOA, nukes, and Iran.

Not only is Trump incoherently staggering to defeat, he now risks signing on to an agreement that could be far worse than anything Obama negotiated with Iran a decade ago. I was a critic of the JCPOA back then because I believed that it contravened some basic diplomatic logic by front-loading concessions to the Iranians while hoping they would later abide by its terms. Obama, too, knew the risk he was taking, as he admitted at the time to The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. “Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this,” he told Goldberg in 2015. “I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.”

Yesterday, the president told Axios that the chance of reaching an agreement with the Iranians was a “solid 50/50,” and that he either would accept a “good” deal or “blow them to kingdom come.” Neither of these things is going to happen. Instead, a piece of paper will, at some point, come out of a meeting room in Pakistan. It will certify that the United States must accept a major strategic defeat in the Middle East. And Donald Trump, who brought America to this point because of his ego and his incompetence, will sign it.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 26

It's a boy! First of the overwintered black swallowtail butterflies emerged from its chrysalis yesterday. It was released into the wild this morning.

Male black swallowtail butterfly perched on a woman's fingers against a plywood background.

Photo taken a several hours after the butterfly emerged from its chrysalis, May 25, 2026.

The caterpillar had been raised from an egg found on a dill stem last fall. It was kept in the house and provided fresh dill and parsley from the garden until it formed its chrysalis inside a mesh pop-up type enclosure. The habitat containing the chrysalis was then moved to an enclosed, unheated porch for the winter.

Not a great picture. The very amateur photographer hasn't mastered one-handed picture taking (and probably never will). The subject was relaxed and cooperative; the photographer was uncertain how long that would be the case, so rushed the shot in order to return the butterfly to the protection of its habitat until it could be safely released into the wild.

Male black swallowtail butterfly perched on a dew-covered parsley stem. A young lettuce plant is seen beside and underneath the mature parsley plant.

Photo was taken an hour or so after sunrise, May 26, 2026. Butterfly had just been placed on the plant to safely rest until it was ready to fly off — which it did, a couple of hours later.

(Butterfly emerged from its chrysalis the day before, but unsettled weather delayed its release.)

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 20

Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86 "Often voted the “brainiest,” “funniest” and “most eloquent” member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office." 🕊️ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/u... 🎁

His shivs were often cloaked in wit. Referring to the Moral Majority, the conservative Christian organization that opposed abortion but also opposed child nutrition programs and day care, Mr. Frank said in 1981: “From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Of the flawed intelligence behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that led to nearly a decade of combat, he said the problem “is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.”

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· May 5

Inside the heated clash over the DHS 'master plan' for deportations A new book, “Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program," details a tense fight over how to carry out Trump’s immigration agenda. Article & book written by Julia Ainsley. www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...

The “master plan” as they called it, called for creating a National Incident Command Center that would combine the powers of ICE and CBP, along with the Defense Department, to coordinate surging immigration enforcement operations in cities across the U.S.

The details come in my new book out Tuesday, "Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program."

The operations would target immigrants who were already under orders to leave the country, and federal agents would be instructed to enter their last known addresses without judicial warrants. Those captured would be fast-tracked for deportation without appeal, the DHS officials said.

At the time, Homeland Security was far behind pace to reach 1 million in a year, and proponents of the plan thought this was the fastest path to get to Trump’s promised “shock and awe” goal.

But Vitello disagreed, the officials said. He argued to Scott and his aides that the last known addresses of the 700,000 people with previous orders of removal hadn’t been verified recently. He said he worried that U.S. citizens could get wrongfully swept up in the surges if agents entered homes without warrants, which require law enforcement agencies to show evidence to judges to gain access.

The early warnings from Vitello and the rift between DHS leaders would later be on public display as Homeland Security surged federal agents to cities around the U.S., sparking protests and feeding criticism that their policies had gone too far and encroached on civil liberties. The feud over how to achieve Trump’s agenda would only grow, and the fallout eventually included Noem herself and her closest adviser.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Apr 19

A Stunning New Verdict Rewrites the Rules of Corporate Morality "For the first time in France, and possibly for the first time ever, anywhere, an entire corporation had been put on trial and found criminally liable for enabling terrorism," by M. Gessen. 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/o...

Hamilton cautioned me against implying that there is anything novel about the role of business in war and war crimes. “The intermingling of corporations and atrocities goes back to the slave trade and colonialism,” she wrote. But one thing does seem new, at least as compared with other atrocities that have occurred in living memory. It’s the absence of pretense. One war after another is unleashed without even the pretense of legitimacy. President Trump doesn’t just announce genocidal intent on social media: He advertises his plans to take over sovereign countries, he brags about kidnapping a head of state, he flaunts his disregard for human life, and, of course, he vows to take all the oil. The world’s most powerful man has made cynicism itself into a ruling ideology.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Mar 26

Great piece by Lydia Polgreen. Gift link 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/o...

Is Trump a freak of history or its fulfillment, an aberration or a culmination? The answer, surely, is both. But in the course of his presidency, Trump has revealed a much older malady: America’s unshakable faith in its ability to shape the world to its liking, indifferent to what others might want and supremely confident that its plan is the right one. Beyond Trump, it’s this disfiguring mentality we Americans must face.

In December 1952, a Scottish scholar named Denis Brogan published a remarkable essay titled “The Illusion of American Omnipotence.” Writing as the United States was emerging as the world’s pre-eminent power, Brogan diagnosed a peculiar feature of the American mind. The United States, fueled by its myths and unswervingly certain of its vision for the world, could not see difficulty, much less defeat, as a reason to question its aims. Failure was never brought about through the strength or power of rivals. It came, instead, through blunder and betrayal.

Striding onto the national stage in the aftermath of these disasters, Trump tapped into an old American story. America’s elites had betrayed the American people, he declared. Trump’s whole life was a dress rehearsal for this moment: constantly imposing his will, wriggling out of scrapes, never held accountable, born on third base and thinking he’d hit a triple. He was the American illusion of omnipotence incarnate.

Trump collapsed the distance between his personal will and American will, declaring as he accepted the Republican nomination in 2016 that “I alone can fix it.” Like America, Trump cannot fail; he can only be failed. Everything is always someone else’s fault. Handed the tools of the imperial presidency, he clearly regards America as identical with his person. He jettisons all pretense of constitutional order. He will know in his gut when wars are won, he’s said, and the only limits are his own sense of morality.

Writing at the same time as Brogan, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr published a short book called “The Irony of American History.” A favorite of Obama’s, it is a call to Christian humility in world affairs, addressed to Americans who misunderstand their virtue. “Man is an ironic creature because he forgets that he is not simply a creator but also a creature,” Niebuhr writes.

That line made me realize the folly of my own oscillation: Both views — Trump as aberration or Trump as history’s fulfillment — had America as the protagonist of its own story, with the world as a stage. I needed a wider frame, an honest engagement with history and a willingness to admit that America is, like any other nation, just one place in the world.

America does not know how to exist in a world it does not control. Since its inception, America has assured itself it was simply too big, too far away and too richly endowed to suffer any serious consequences for its actions. But there will be no escaping the cataclysm in Iran. In its wake, there is a chance to recognize our place in an interconnected world and see ourselves clearly. The way out of the cycle of failure and betrayal is to shed our illusions, once and for all.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Mar 24

"There has never been such a sharp partisan disparity in the approval of federal disaster funds since FEMA was created in 1979, according to a review of 2,500 natural disaster declarations…" www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Here are the findings:

Trump’s 23 percent approval rate of Democratic requests is unprecedented. Every president since Reagan has approved at least 67 percent of requests from Democratic-led states. Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump in his first term each approved a higher percentage of requests from Democratic states than from Republican states.

Trump has taken 80 days on average to approve or deny requests from Democratic-led states — compared to 39 days for Republican-led states.

Trump has been openly partisan on social media about using disaster funding for political purposes. He has linked his decisions to grant aid with his electoral victories in Republican-led states.

Eight out of Trump’s 10 denials for Democratic-led states came despite FEMA having documented high levels of damage after on-the-ground inspections. Previous presidents have rarely denied disaster aid for events that caused as much damage as FEMA found for the eight denials.

Trump’s denials of Democratic-led states overwhelmingly affected counties that supported him in 2024, suggesting that Trump’s rejections were directed at state leaders who oppose him politically.

Line graph

Trump has denied most disaster requests from Democratic-led states

Presidential approval rates for disaster requests from Democratic-led states and Republican-led states

Reagan: 67% Dem 76% GOP
Bush 41: 84% Dem 76% GOP
Clinton: 81% Dem 79% GOP
Bush 43: 82% Dem 78% GOP
Obama: 90% Dem 86% GOP
Trump 45: 93% Dem 89% GOP
Biden: 86% Dem 85% GOP
Trump 47: 23% Dem 89% GOP

Note: States classified by party when governor and senators at time of request all belong to the same party.

Source: Politico's E&E News analysis of FEMA records
Thomas Frank/Politico

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Mar 17

First senior official openly breaks with White House, resigns over war www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Kent and Gabbard met with Vice President JD Vance at the White House on Monday, said people familiar with the matter. During the meeting, Kent presented his resignation letter to the vice president.

“The VP encouraged him to speak to White House chief of staff and POTUS before making any final decisions,” said a White House official, using the acronym that refers to the president. “The VP encouraged him to be respectful to POTUS.” The official, like some others quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting or describe internal administration dynamics.

A spokesman for Vance said the vice president “believes that it’s imperative for the national security team to remain cohesive, trust one another, and avoid mouthing off to the media about internal deliberations.”

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Feb 17

Excellent JVL critique of Bush's essay on how George Washington set the standard for the office of the presidency.

2. Historical Illiteracy

We now understand that the office of the president is not more important than the occupant. In fact, today we see that the character of the occupant determines the very wisdom of having the office of the presidency as it is constructed.

Prior to Trump there had been good presidents and bad presidents. The office had been held by saints and sinners alike and yet, no president fundamentally threatened the liberal order itself. We now understand that there is a baseline threshold of character below which the powers of the presidency become toxic and the construction of the office becomes a danger to liberalism.

If anything, Trump has exposed a design flaw in the executive branch—a danger we had not previously noticed precisely [because] none of the occupants had been so wicked, corrupt, malicious, and ambitious in their thirst for power.

It turns out that if the occupant of the presidency admires dictators and wishes to be a king, then the presidency affords him a truly dangerous amount of latitude to attempt such a transformation.

If Bush were a serious person, he would understand that reality is the opposite of how he presents it: The character of the occupant is everything because of how the office is conceived. If we existed under a parliamentary system, we would not be so hostage to character. But here we are.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Feb 17

CBS Blocks Late Show From Interviewing James Talarico Over FCC Fears www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/s...

Screenshot of George Conway @gtconway.bsky.social post, which is a screenshot of Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25 Twitter post.

Unreal:

The Hollywood Reporter

shows.

Colbert opened his show Monday by explaining the situation. “You know who is not one of my guests tonight: That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert told the audience. “Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on, and because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Feb 12

New Jersey residents can upload videos of ICE activity to a new state portal whyy.org/articles/new...

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ramping up raids and operations in New Jersey and across the region, Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Thursday unveiled the Know Your Rights Information Hub, an online portal, where residents can upload cellphone videos of ICE activity in the Garden State. The website is available in 22 languages.

The portal, which Sherill first mentioned during an appearance on “The Daily Show” last month, will warn New Jerseyans in immigrant communities about ICE agent sightings and hold federal agents accountable, she said. The information will not be shared with the public.

Sherrill said the portal will help hold ICE agents accountable.

“[It’s] to track their actions, collect information and use it to spot patterns that can inform our response as a state, including in court,” she said.

Sherrill also signed an executive order prohibiting ICE from using state property to stage civil immigration enforcement operations. She added that immigration agents are not allowed to enter places like state offices or college dormitories without a judicial warrant.

“That means no processing locations, no operating bases, no federal, civil immigration actions run from any state grounds, not our parks, not our roadways, not our buildings,” she said. “And they can’t send agents looking for people in nonpublic areas, like state offices, childcare centers, college dorms or senior homes without a warrant signed by a judge.”

Sherrill clarified that ICE agents cannot be legally barred from carrying out a raid on a New Jersey street.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Feb 11

Good explainer threads re the FBI affidavit justifying the seizure of Fulton County's 2020 election records. bsky.app/profile/tomj...

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Feb 7

Other charts: How audiences on different news platforms view ICE; audiences Trump has lost the most support with; what news audiences look like on each platform, age-wise; partisan splits of news mediums; & educational splits for news audiences per platform. www.theargumentmag.com/p/twitter-is...

Where do people get their news from?

Which of the following do you regularly use to get news? Select all that apply

Facebook 48%
Local television 48%
Newspapers or news websites 44%
Broadcast television 39%
Cable television 36%
Podcasts and YouTube 32%
Instagram 30%
TikTok 21%
X (formerly Twitter) 21%
Reddit 15%

Data taken from The Argument's aggregate survey data of national registered voters between August 2025 and January 2026. Combined N=9,177. Respondents were asked to select from a list of pre-defined options in response to the question "Which of the following do you regularly use to get news? Select all that apply."

Chart: Lakshya JainSource: The Argument

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jan 10

If Trump officials "truly" believed their policies are "overwhelmingly popular," then they'd be sending ICE into red cities in red states. How long would GOPers stand by passively as their friends, families, neighbors & employees were being whisked away? 47 & DHS's whole narrative would collapse.

@AndrewFeinberg rather ludicrously posted on Twitter:

It's a core belief among many top Trump officials that any protests against their administration must be astroturfed/somehow funded by nefarious actors because they truly believe they are overwhelmingly popular and don't see how regular people would oppose any of their policies.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jan 3

"…here is the reality. Congress has given the president a gargantuan global military force w/ few constraints & is AWOL in overseeing what [he] does w/ it. Courts won’t get involved in reviewing unilateral presidential uses of force. And no country plausibly could stop the US action in Venezuela."

Conclusion

In sum, it would not be terribly hard for the Justice Department to write an opinion in support of the Venezuela invasion even if the military action violates the U.N. Charter.

To repeat, that does not mean that the action is in fact lawful—and it pretty clearly isn’t under the U.N. Charter. It only means that the long line of unilateral executive branch actions, supported by promiscuously generous executive branch precedents, support it. As I wrote in connection with the Soleimani strike: “our country has—through presidential aggrandizement accompanied by congressional authorization, delegation, and acquiescence—given one person, the president, a sprawling military and enormous discretion to use it in ways that can easily lead to a massive war. That is our system: One person decides.”

This is not the system the framers had in mind, and it is a dangerous system for all the reasons the framers worried about. But that is where we are—and indeed, it is where we have been for a while.

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Jan 2

🤞

According to Merriam-Webster, my word for 2026 is "joyous".

I can only hope…

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Dec 16

Trump's signed more EOs in 2025 than in his entire 1st term "A WH official who spoke on the condition of anonymity…said that every EO is “fully vetted & reviewed” by the WH Counsel, [pres staff sec Will] Scharf’s office & [dep chief of staff Stephen] Miller." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Dec 15

"…an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,”…"

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, previously told 404 Media that ICE will prioritize the results of the app over birth certificates. “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,” he said. “ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”

Jacquie Battle@jacquiebattle· Dec 3

"'What we have come to see here in New Jersey must be fixed, and the people demand it,' Mr. Kim said. 'The people of New Jersey are sick and tired of this.'"