Coffee Talk with Tiff

February 4, 2026 12:48 pm EST Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Coffee. Photo by Jonathan Thursfield.

It’s Wednesday…

President Shitshow’s public schedule for…

02/04/2026:

They added a note to the TV Interview; with Tom Llamas of NBC; part to air 2/4, part before Super Bowl.

In Tuesday’s Coffee Talk, we talked about “Fuck the Constitution” and his latest round of remarks to newly returned podcaster Dan Bongino, where he started tossing around the idea of “nationalizing” our elections like it was just another executive order waiting to happen.

But let’s be clear about something up front.

He isn’t talking about the “nationalization” of elections in any neutral, good-government sense.

He’s not proposing some dry, bureaucratic reform where the federal government standardizes procedures and calls it a day.

He’s talking about Republicans taking over.

His words weren’t subtle: “The Republicans should say we want to take over. We should take over the voting… in at least — many — 15 places the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

That’s not election security.
That’s partisan control.

And there’s a pretty big difference between those two things.

Propaganda Barbie was then asked a simple, unavoidable question: what exactly did “President Trump” mean when he said Republicans should take over the elections?

Reporter:
Thank you so much, Karoline. What does President Trump mean when he says Republicans ought to nationalize voting? What does that look like in practice?

Propaganda Barbie:
What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge common sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported, that President Trump is committed to signing into law during his term. And he spoke with the speaker directly about that yesterday, about the need to get that bill on the floor for a vote because it provides very common sense measures for voting in our country, such as voter ID. I don’t think any rational person who’s being honest with themselves would disagree with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot in a federal election, or frankly, in any election, and that’s something the president wants to see happen.

So that’s what he was referring to.

Reporter:
But to be clear, he does believe the state should oversee elections?

Propaganda Barbie:
The president believes in the United States Constitution. However, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And again, voter ID is a highly popular and common sense policy that the president wants to pursue and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.

Roll Call.com. 02/03/2026.

Like all aspiring authoritarians, he thanked her for the cleanup job the only way he knows how, by eventually tossing her straight under the bus.

Question:
Mr. President [Inaudible] what exactly did you mean when you said that you should nationalize elections? And which 15 states are you talking?

Fuck the Constitution:
I want to see elections be honest. And if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it, because you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is. I think the federal government, when you see crooked elections and we had plenty of them.

And by the way, we had them last time, but go to 2020 and look at the facts that are coming out, rigged, crooked elections. If we have areas, take a look at Detroit, take a look at Pennsylvania, take a look at Philadelphia, you go take a look at Atlanta, look at some of the places that, horrible corruption on elections.

And the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.

Question:
But the Constitution says it should be states that administer elections, Mr. President. That’s what the constitution says.

Fuck the Constitution:
Yeah, they can, you know what, they can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly.

Roll Call.com. 02/03/2026.

Let’s unpack this gem: “because you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections.”

No. They aren’t.

States are not “agents” of the federal government. They’re sovereign entities with their own constitutional authority. Elections are administered by the states because the Constitution explicitly says so. That’s federalism. It’s not a subcontracting gig.

Calling states “agents” is like calling your landlord your employee. That’s not how any of this works.

Then he adds: “I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”

And honestly… that might be the most revealing sentence of the whole rant.

Because that’s literally the job description.

You’re the president. You’re supposed to know why.

The answer is the Constitution. The thing you swore an oath to. The one that very clearly leaves election administration to the states.

Not knowing that isn’t a policy disagreement. It’s just not understanding how the government you run is built.

Which is a pretty wild résumé gap for a sitting president.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but it’s important that with all the crazy shit happening every single day, we don’t start tuning this stuff out.

We can’t ignore the fact that the President of the United States is a complete fucking nutjob with far too much power over our lives.


Flash News

We have an unspecified number of US troops in Nigeria.

The Reuters article is paywalled. I had to find info elsewhere.

AP News 02/03/2026:

The U.S. has dispatched a small team of military officers to Nigeria, the general in charge of U.S. Africa Command told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday.

General Dagvin R.M. Anderson said the move followed his meeting with Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, in Rome late last year.

“That has led to increased collaboration between our nations, to include a small U.S. team that brings some unique capabilities from the United States in order to augment what Nigeria has been doing for several years,” Anderson said.

It is unclear when the team arrived in Nigeria.

AP News 02/03/2026.

The Washington Post (Founded in 1877) is laying off about 30 percent of it’s staff.

The Washington Post told employees on Wednesday that it was beginning a widespread round of layoffs that are expected to decimate the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage.

The company is laying off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said.

The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first several years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.

Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas.

New York Times (gift link). 02/04/2026.

#ETTD.

Border Czar Tom Homan announced that 700 out of the 3000 federal agents in Minnesota would be leaving immediately.

That leaves about 2300 too many federal agents in Minnesota.

The Trump admin is really bad at their jobs.

The article is paywalled: I opened it in an incognito window and it worked.

A Justice Department review found that Ed Martin improperly handled grand jury materials that were part of an investigation targeting Donald Trump’s political enemies, at least two sources familiar with the review told CNN. It was at least part of the reason Martin was pushed out of DOJ headquarters early this year.

[snip]

The department found that Martin had shared the secret grand jury material in the Schiff case, one of the sources said. The person said Martin initially denied sharing the material with unauthorized people when asked by department leaders, but emails soon surfaced showing that Martin had in fact shared the grand jury material.

A second person told CNN a finding of misconduct gave the deputy attorney general a reason to further ostracize Martin. Martin was removed as the head of the so-called Weaponization Working Group on the first day of 2026 and he was relocated out of department headquarters to a building across town that houses the pardon attorney — Martin’s one remaining role.

[snip]

Martin is expected to leave the department in coming weeks.

He has not been charged with a crime, and the Justice Department hasn’t determined whether any law was broken.

CNN. 02/03/2026.

The partial government shutdown has ended for at least ten days. The data that was due from the BLS now has release dates.

Last but not least. Yesterday, the Democrats held a hearing to let the victims of ICE or their family members tell their stories to the American public.


That’s a wrap.

This is an open thread

Breaking News:

A man convicted of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh’s fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts.

Prosecutors had asked for life without parole, saying Routh is unrepentant and has never apologized. A defense attorney brought in for his sentencing asked for 27 years, noting that Routh is already turning 60.

Routh also received a consecutive seven-year sentence for one of his gun convictions.

AP News. 02/04/2026.

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About Tiff 3474 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.