@492 shermanj: There is also an obvious other problem with Trump finding a way out of this war. His understanding of the world is grounded in everybody thinking like he does. He has demonstrated multiple times that he has trouble understanding when people are not willing to make deals based on power, when people take positions based on morals or principles. To the point where he largely thinks criminal prosecution is about power and maintaining power.
This is going to be a real problem negotiating with a government that takes positions based on religious beliefs. He isn’t going to understand some of the fundamentals of why the government in Iran wants to do things or why they won’t give in.
JMsays
@1 JM: I was talking about this post 492: shermanj. My post got moved to a new page by a sudden blitz of posting.
“This ‘Normal Guy From Like 1880’ Hopes You Will Hear Him Out About How Women Shouldn’t Vote”
“He’s pretty sure the Supreme Court can repeal the 19th Amendment, which they cannot.”
For the last few years, the hashtag #RepealThe19th has been popping up a whole lot on X The Everything App, frequently pushed by a ragtag group of edgelords, incels, pick-me girls hoping to get in on the tradwife/anti-feminist social media grift, and Christian patriarchy dudes like everyone’s favorite Temu Matt Walsh, Joel Webbon, and his pal Dale Partridge.
If you’re not familiar with Partridge, he’s your traditional Twitter pastor of the sort who is very prone to ranting about women wearing leggings in public but also used to run some sort of “massage” business. He describes himself as being a moderate, “normal guy from the 1880s.” He has publicly described his own marriage as not being “ideal” because his wife is of Mexican descent. He has also been known to impersonate said wife online and occasionally forgets to switch accounts before doing so. [social media post]
He also cannot count. [social media post]
Recently, Webbon, Partridge, and their pal Calvin Robinson got together to discuss Partridge’s latest book, the yet-to-be-released 19 Reasons to Repeal the 19th Amendment, which he believes will make a very solid case to all of America that only men should be allowed to vote. [video]
Partridge says the book will explore “the damage that has been done through the 19th Amendment, and why it’s not just wrong against scripture — coming from a biblical patriarchal perspective — but why it’s never been done throughout history from any other nation.”
Never been done! Throughout history! In any other nation! Except, you know, for all of the nations other than Vatican City (only cardinals are permitted to vote in the Vatican, and they are all men).
Via RightWingWatch:
“Any other nation that embraces such a view where you’re putting women in charge of making decisions for a particular nation, that nation falls,” Partridge claimed. “I think there’s going to be a lot of evidence, a lot of research [that] women suffer more from women’s suffrage.”
“When the 19th Amendment first came to be, there was a massive group of women that were against it and you never hear some of these narratives,” he continued. “So [the book will provide] the history of it, the argument against it, and many reasons justifying it. I think that by the end, people are going to go, ‘Wow.’ I think women at the end are going to go, ‘We must repeal this.’”
[…] We are, of course, entirely aware that there were women who opposed suffrage and what their arguments were. It’s just that those arguments did not convince enough people to keep the 19th Amendment from passing, even at a time when only men could vote.
“My hope is that we can get thousands of people to read this book and that we can— over maybe the next 10, 15 years — have a Supreme Court case repealing the 19th,” Partridge declared. “If we can repeal Roe v. Wade, then I think we can overturn the 19th Amendment. It’s just going to take time.”
“Wow,” replied Robinson approvingly. “Some good Christian sexism.”
“Yep,” agreed Partridge.
So, just to be clear, this guy wrote an entire book about repealing the 19th Amendment because women are, I guess, too stupid to vote, and he does not actually know how an Amendment gets repealed. Didn’t bother to look that one up. […]
On the bright side, the fact that neither he nor any of his pals seem to know that any change to the Constitution has to be ratified by two-thirds of the states and therefore cannot be repealed by the Supreme Court probably works in our favor. The less they know about how to do anything, I say, the better.
do not mistake Phillips description for something like a medical episode or a black out of some form. He insisted that he was traveling from location to location without experiencing the passage of time. […] Phillips also claimed that he had once felt his car “lifted up” and teleported forty miles to a ditch near a church.
Another day, another Iran WAR SECRETARY OF WARFIGHTING presser from […] Hegseth. He began this one by yet again whining and moaning that the Fake News wasn’t sufficiently [praising Trump] for the Iran war he and his WARFIGHTER secretary of WAR, SIR, YES SIR! have blunderfucked their way into.
But in this one he did some new, particularly gross things.
Like toward the end, when he told the (allegedly true, possibly a lie) story of how he told his 13-year-old son that the troops who are dying […] died instead for him. And by him, he meant his son. That these troops who died because of shitty planning and execution of a war nobody besides war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu asked for and the world didn’t need died for Pete Hegseth’s son.
Watch. You’ll recoil if you have a functioning moral compass: [video]
HEGSETH: My 13-year-old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover. And I looked at him and I said, they died for you, son, so that your generation doesn’t have to deal with a nuclear Iran.
Yeah, that’s some sick shit. Hopefully one day his son will realize that.
[…] a real president and a real man, Barack Hussein Obama, negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran over 10 years ago that was working. Indeed, it was one of his greatest foreign policy accomplishments, aside from that time he was the guy who killed Osama bin Laden […] So spoiler alert, Barack Obama was protecting Hegseth’s son from a nuclear Iran long before Deadbeat Dad even tried and fucked it all up! And then Donald Trump, the vilest, stupidest, saddest excuse of a human ever to hold the presidency, ripped up Obama’s deal because he couldn’t stand that Obama had accomplished yet another thing he hadn’t.
[…] The world is far more dangerous because of what Trump and Hegseth have done […] How bad? Read this article from Ilan Goldenberg, a former US official who used to wargame Iran for the Obama administration. “This is the worst-case scenario,” he writes for Zeteo.
It’s that bad. (And the only winner is Putin. Surprise!)
But hey, if the troops died for Pete Hegseth’s son, did those little schoolgirls Daddy bombed die for him too?
Just asking.
At the beginning of the presser, Hegseth tried out an impersonation of human emotion, describing his experience witnessing the dignified transfer of troops’ bodies at Dover Air Force Base. And he said the people there, the families of the fallen, told him, “[F]inish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done.”
[…] an interview with family members of one of the fallen troops sure does suggest it’s a lie.
Charles Simmons is the father of 28-year-old fallen hero Tech Sgt. Tyler Simmons, who was killed in the refueling plane crash in Iraq last week. He said he and Hegseth didn’t talk about anything like that.
“I can’t speak for the other families. When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about,” he told NBC News in an interview Thursday. […]
He said he told the defense secretary, “I understand there’s a lot of peril that goes into making decisions like this, and I just certainly hope the decisions being made are necessary.”
And to be clear, did he say “finish the job”?
“No, I didn’t say anything along those lines.”
Now here’s a funny thing. Because NBC News notes that Donald Trump said almost the exact same thing about his meetings with the families of the first six troops he and Hegseth got killed in Iran for no good reason. And Trump did tell it as a “sir” story, which tells you with 100 percent accuracy that it is a fucking lie:
Trump met with those families in Dover at a ceremony on March 7. Speaking to reporters two days later, Trump said that the families were “unbelievable people” and that “every single one” told him the same thing: “Finish the job, sir. Please, finish the job.”
Bull. Fucking. Shit. NBC News even reports that an official who heard Trump talking to the families didn’t hear anything of the sort.
We are left to conclude that Pete Hegseth is so fucking pathetic he’s copying “sir” stories from Trump. […]
Seems like a good time to hop back into the presser, specifically Hegseth’s [complaining] about waaaaaaah fake news. [video]
HEGSETH: A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing, we know this at this point, to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail, but you, the American people, know better.
[…] The American media loves war. […] If this was anything other than a failure and a shitshow […]
HEGSETH: The media here, not all of it, but much of it wants you to think just 19 days into this conflict that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched previous foolish politicians like Bush, Obama, and Biden, squander American credibility. This is not those wars. President Trump knows better. Epic Fury is different. It’s laser-focused.
[…] Never before have we had a wartime Pentagon led by somebody who didn’t really get promoted beyond “hairstyles” during his military career and decided to make his resentment about that his entire personality.
HEGSETH: Our objectives, given directly from our America First president remain exactly what they were on day one.
Objectives? OK.
He babbled and he babbled and he babbled like this. Just absolute word salad about the alleged objectives “we” are accomplishing here. […]
HEGSETH: [A]s we’ve said, we’re on plan. So, we’re looking at those metrics very closely, relaying that to the president and the national security team, but feel confident that as, again, we’re — more stand in means we’re over the top even further in and we have even more of an exact sense of what we’re striking and why and even more dynamically, meaning because the intelligence improves, we’re able to more quickly identify targets when they — let’s say they come out of an underground facility where they’ve been hiding and able to strike it before it strikes or right after it shoots.
But we are very much on plan, and that’s why I want to speak to the American people here. You hear a lot of noise about widening or new missions or speculation about what we should or should not be doing. This is a clear set of objectives. The president has given us every capability we need to accomplish that.
[Well, I see that Hegseth can’t even produce word salad that sounds good.]
They’re on plan with the metrics and what they’re striking, dynamically, on plan, not widening, but they’re doing the objectives, with their capabilities, we think that you will agree that yes.
[…] He made “jokes” about how we are sharing the ocean with Iran, and they get the bottom half. (They were not his personal jokes. He is not that creative.)
He hallucinated or just made up 47 years of Iranian attacks on the United States.
He referred to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — Trump’s two real estate dipshits currently serving as the real secretary of State — as “our two best folks.” (You heard the latest on Jared’s corrupt self-dealing off Trump’s wars? Boy howdy holy fuck.)
And like the radical Christian extremist cleric he is, he finished with this: [video]
HEGSETH: May almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.
[…] it’s no wonder that according to some reporting, certain military commanders are feeling free to let their Christian nationalist terrorist flags fly.
[Full presser] [video]
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #3…
Looks like your source didn’t look up how amendments to the Constitution are ratified, either. It takes 3/4 of the states to ratify, not the 2/3 that is stated.
In the days ahead of his nomination, Mullin’s penchant for elaborate storytelling made headlines. On March 2, in an appearance on Fox News, Mullin, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, offered up an evocative description of the reality of conflict. […] he has not actually served in the armed forces.
[…]
Mullin has regularly touted his status as a former professional cage fighter. […] Multiple MMA databases identify Mullin as having an undefeated 3-0 record. […] the details of Mullin’s three documented victories. One came in 2006 against a man named Bobby “Huggie Bear” Kelley, who, at the time was 18 years old. Mullin was 29 years old. “I have a lot of questions around a man in his late 20’s who choked out a teenager, but that counts as a victory I suppose,” […] two other documented professional victories came in 2007 against a man named Clinton Bonds. According to MMA databases, Bonds’ record includes just one win and 11 losses.
[…]
a Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach […] interviewed several years ago for a staff position with Mullin’s House office. […] “In the middle of the interview, he goes, ‘Oh, I see you have jiu-jitsu on your resume. I’m a black belt world champion,'” […] Mullin went on to say he […] had fought in the finals against one of the members of the Gracie family, the clan that helped create both the sport of BJJ and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. […] The coach said he asked which of the Gracies Mullin supposedly fought. He claimed Mullin replied that he did not specifically remember.
[…]
Records show that, as a member of “Oklahoma Fight Club,” Mullin participated in a jiu-jitsu competition in Miami at a blue belt level in 2010. He won a match there. Those achievements are a far cry from holding a black belt or winning a championship in Brazil. A win of that magnitude would typically be extensively documented.
“Things looked bad ten days ago, when I noted the “Arrogance of Ignorance.” And now….
Last week I wrote that the preceding few days had been the most wantonly self-destructive period for the United States in my lifetime […] At the whim of one man […
Since then, things have gotten worse.
It is simply impossible to keep up with the torrent of deceit from the administration, damage to the world economy, destruction of lives and communities and structures, disorder everywhere. Especially if, like any “normal” person, you have interests or obligations beyond staying glued to the news.
Even as I type: Warfare is spreading through Lebanon; Israel says it has killed more leaders in Iran; ships and refineries are in flames; oil prices gyrate wildly, taking all economies except Russia’s along with them; and casualties mount everywhere, especially in Iran. […] Not once has Trump gone to Congress for advice, consent, or even discussion. Nearly everything he has said, in response to shouted questions at press gaggles, has been a delusion or a lie.
So my own small step toward finding order in chaos, for the moment, is to look again at the five questions and maxims I mentioned in the preceding post and see how they apply now. Here we go:
1) ‘How does this end?’
[…] This week, we’re even farther away from a plausible answer to the question.
That’s because official stories about why the US and Israel started this war keep shifting. Regime change? Imminent threat? Inspiring the oppressed Iranian public? Donald Trump’s “feeling” that the time was right? These are all different beginnings to the story, which imply different endings. It doesn’t help that our only partner in the war, Israel, keeps offering shifting stories of its own. These range from eliminating once and for all the “existential” threat of Iranian nuclear forces, to “severing the head of the snake” of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, as Benjamin Netanyahu recently put it, with Hegseth-like grace.
And meanwhile the damage keeps spreading, in new ways, to more places, with more victims. […]
Every current military leader has heard the Sun Tzu maxim that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Through history the most respected military leaders have planned carefully for combat, but viewed it as a last resort. That is in part because they know wars are so much easier to start than to end.
That is not the Trump-Hegseth way. “For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America,” Pete Hegseth said in the heady first days of the bombing:
We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it… We will finish this on ‘America First’ conditions of President Trump’s choosing—nobody else’s.
Even as he spoke, Iranians were closing the Strait of Hormuz—their most predictable countermeasure, with ever-expanding and still unknowable effects. And the “America First conditions” for “finishing” this job will be … what, exactly? Or even what, approximately?
The closest we have come to an authentic-sounding answer was when Donald Trump said on Fox last week, “I’ll know it’s over when I feel it. When I feel it in my bones.” That quote was chilling because we know that in those few seconds he was, atypically, speaking the truth. And revealing his blindness to the other side’s role in determining when a war is over.
1A) A very stupid statement. And a very wise one.
That Trump quote will be remembered because it was so stupid. A different comment on “how this ends” should be remembered because it was so wise. It came last week from Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, now commander of US forces in Europe, who spent most of his career as an F-16 fighter pilot and instructor.
You’ll never meet a fighter pilot or an Air Force general who doesn’t believe in air power. But—admirably, and amazingly—General Grynkewich warned a Senate committee about the limits of air power in attaining nearly any of the goals the current war was supposed to achieve.
As he put it, with emphasis added:
We must be clear-eyed about what strategic bombing can and cannot do. Historical data—from the Second World War to more recent campaigns—demonstrates thatbombing campaigns rarely, if ever, break the will of a population or force a government to surrender. In fact, they often harden domestic resolve and allow regimes to unify the public against a foreign ‘aggressor.’
While we are effectively destroying Iranian military infrastructure, we are not necessarily achieving the political goal of regime submission.
[…] Trump and Hegseth exult in seeing things blow up, as in a video game, and crowing like teenagers because they’ve “won.” That is not how this story is likely to end. […]
2) ‘In war, the moral is to the material, as three is to one.’
[…] this familiar quote from Napoleon refers both to the morale of troops, for reasons ranging from supplies to leadership, and to the moral aspect of their cause.
On the morale front, I keep noticing a small but significant tell. When presenting any briefing of the ongoing war, military figures will almost always begin by acknowledging and honoring US troops in action. Especially if some of them have just been killed. It’s a solemn duty to comrades. It shows that respect flows both up and down. […]
Donald Trump never does this. (Except when forced to read from a script, as at a State of the Union.)
Last Sunday, when asked aboard Air Force One about the six Air Force members killed in a KC-135 crash, Trump clearly heard the question. He flashed a look of annoyance, ignored it, and turned to other reporters, saying “Who else?”
Trump is visibly uncomfortable talking about or even being near people who have paid gruesome physical prices for serving the nation. Remember when he mocked John McCain for having been captured and made a prisoner of war (and then being tortured). Remember how furious he was at the Atlantic report, later confirmed, that he considered American war casualties to be “losers” or “suckers,” and that he thought it looked bad for him to be near disabled veterans. Now his administration is notably slow in releasing information about this war’s casualties.
The picture at the top of this post is of Trump at a “dignified transfer,” a ceremony at which a president’s demeanor is meant to signal the entire nation’s respect. He manages to makes it all about him. No previous president has ever behaved in a remotely similar way.
[…] it’s wrong. […]
2A) Which brings us to morals.
-No representative of the US government has yet apologized to anyone in Iran for the slaughter of some 175 school children, by a US missile. No apology could undo the damage or erase the memory. But its absence is deeply immoral. As are a president’s continued lies about the tragedy.
-While noting people who stand up and speak up for moral principles, let us recognize Ryan Clark, former defensive back with the Pittsburgh Steelers. On The Pivot podcast last week, he was asked about the White House video that used clips of him and others delivering “hard hits,” alongside film of bombs exploding in Iran.
In the three minutes below, you’ll hear more serious discussion from Clark about the morality of war, and of what 99% of Americans owe to the 1% in uniform, than you have heard from anyone in today’s administration. This video has gotten a lot of attention, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s worth spending those three minutes listening to Clark: [video]
Here are some samples of what Ryan Clark says about dignity, respect, and demeanor, again with emphasis added.
War is not a comedy. And for these people to be risking their lives … [and] for our regime to be as unserious, as unprofessional, as laughable and as illegitimate as our leadership is right now, is embarrassing
And it tells you the difference between a public servant and a reality star. Because the reality star needs everybody to know at all times. “Oh, look at me! Look at the attention I’m garnering! We’re doing this for me.”
And the public servant stands at attention for 45 minutes in a salute. Because he understands what those soldiers who gave their lives have done for our country.</blockquote.
He concludes this section:
And I think we’ve lost 100% any credibility. We’ve lost all decorum. We’ve lost all integrity. We’ve lost all character. And I believe that the latest White House post, involving myself and other NFL players, is absolutely disgusting and despicable.
[…]
3) ‘The persistence of memory.’
Two months ago, at Davos, Donald Trump was ridiculing European countries as “parasites,” whose leaders were “weak” and “stupid,” and whose countries “would not even function without the United States.” Writing off NATO as a joke. Saying that the US “had to have” Greenland, no matter how much a pipsqueak country like Denmark might whine.
Now he demands that these same countries support his Iran war effort—which none of them were consulted about. He wants NATO countries to pay a “protection fee” to the US Navy for operations in the Strait of Hormuz. [!] He wants them to send ground troops to Iraq and Syria, to relieve Iran-related strain on US forces there.
[…] They have told him, in essence: Go to hell. The way Germany’s prime minister put it was, “This is not our war.”
4) What if the war comes home?
I asked that question ten days ago. The answer has become almost too obvious, and painful, to discuss. The violent episodes of the past week will almost certainly not be the last.
Sky Captain @8, thanks for the additional information.
In other news;
[…] Some airports might have to shut down because of the five weeks and going strong DHS funding shutdown, demanding serious changes to how DHS runs ICE. I’m sorry but I can’t believe the Democrats haven’t folded yet, and I’m so fucking proud of them. (Yeah yeah, famous last words.) (Fodor’s)
California is changing the name of the official state Cesar Chavez holiday to Farmworkers Day following the New York Times investigation (Robyn’s Wonkette post) showing the labor hero molested and raped young teenagers … as well as his labor-leader partner Dolores Huertas. Farmworkers Day works for us! More on Huerta from the AP.
The DOJ is specifically covering up the Jeffrey Epstein-DEA-drugs-money-laundering investigation. Why do you suppose that might be? (Heather Cox Richardson) […]
Excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson’s substack post:
[…] Back on February 23, Daniel Ruetenik, Pat Milton, and Cara Tabachnick of CBS News reported on a newly uncovered document in the Epstein files showing that beginning in December 2010 under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering.
The document showed the investigation, called “Chain Reaction,” was still underway in 2015. But the investigation disappeared, although the document suggested that it was a significant investigation and that the government was on the verge of indictments.
As soon as the story broke, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said: “It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that [Attorney General] Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files.”
Wyden has been investigating the finances behind Epstein’s criminal sex-trafficking organization: it was his investigation that turned up the information that JPMorgan Chase neglected to report more than $1 billion in suspicious financial transactions linked to Epstein. […]
He noted that Epstein and the fourteen co-conspirators were never charged for drug trafficking or financial crimes […]
Wyden asked Cole to produce a number of documents by March 13, 2026, including an unredacted copy of the memo in the files, information about what triggered the investigation, what types of drugs Epstein and his fourteen associates were buying or selling, when Operation Chain Reaction concluded and what was its result, why no one was charged, and why the names of the fourteen co-conspirators were redacted.
Today Wyden sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche “[…] the government had ample evidence indicating Epstein was engaged in large scale drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy and that Epstein was likely pumping his victims, including underage girls, with incapacitating drugs to facilitate abuse. I am at a loss to understand why you are blocking further investigation of this matter.”
Noting that the document in the files was “clearly marked as ‘unclassified’ at the top of every single page,” Wyden noted: “There is absolutely no reason to withhold an unredacted version of this document from the U.S. Congress.” […]
The president made the comment in a post on social media Friday evening after another climb in oil prices sent the U.S. stock market sharply lower.
Trump’s statement seemed at odds with his administration’s move to send more troops and warships to the region and request another $200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
In his post, the president also left a muddled picture of whether the U.S. would police the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane. Trump had said this week that the U.S. didn’t need help, while also complaining that other countries did not help.
With Trump’s minute by minute flip flops on Iran there is no telling what will happen but Trump is thinking about declaring victory and going home. Leave and let somebody else deal with the Strait of Hormuz. Let Israel do whatever they want against Iran without direct US support. This would be a disaster for the US but it’s hard to see any strategy that ends well at this point. It might be the best strategy for Trump, as he can say the US won or just ignore questions.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth imposed a total ban on microphones at the Pentagon on Friday, complaining that press briefings were making him sound “like a giant idiot.”
“I’ve been watching so-called news coverage of me and every word out of my mouth sounds stupider than the last,” he said. “I blame microphones.”
After expelling all sound-capturing equipment from the Pentagon media room, Hegseth proceeded to conduct an hourlong briefing entirely in mime.
According to a new poll, Americans strongly support Hegseth’s new policy since it saves them the trouble of muting him.
“Europe’s longest-serving leader won the fight over Ukraine’s €90B loan. By the next summit he could be a distant memory.”
Viktor Orbán has been attending European summits for 16 years. At what may turn out to be his swan song, he faced EU leaders […] hoping to persuade him to approve a €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
He saw them all off. But his victory may be short-lived.
[Orbán is] facing an election in less than a month that he’s forecast to lose […]
“Nobody can blackmail the European Council, nobody can blackmail the European institutions,” European Council President António Costa, who chaired the meeting, told reporters, in an extraordinary broadside. “It is completely unacceptable what Hungary is doing.”
The Hungarian prime minister reneged on a promise he’d made at a summit in December to approve the loan. In doing so, he’s undermining the very fabric of EU decision-making, which relies on governments sticking to iron-clad commitments, leaders said.
[…] With Europe looking impotent as war in the Middle East escalates, leaders hoped they could at least get money flowing to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia — in a conflict where the EU feels it actually has some sway.
[…] EU leaders divided into two groups to convince Orbán to change his mind. […]
“It was very, very harsh criticism and the feeling was this simply cannot go on like this,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters. “I have never heard such hard-hitting criticism at an EU summit of anyone, ever.” […]
There were some leaders who tried the opposite approach. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and, though less effusive, Belgium’s Bart De Wever, attempted to appeal to Orbán’s ego, speaking sympathetically about understanding his position, five diplomats and an EU official granted anonymity to speak freely told POLITICO.
“You have to treat him like a 6-year-old child, you have to humor him,” said one of the diplomats. [Sounds like how people have to treat Trump.]
[…] The EU was prepared to hold back from dispensing the money until oil flowed through the Druzhba pipeline, which brings Russian oil to Hungary and was damaged by a Russian drone in January […]
Zelenskyy has said he doesn’t want to repair a pipeline that the Russians have repeatedly attacked, [a pipeline] which helps fund the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of his country. […] Russia damaged the pipeline 23 times since launching the full-scale invasion.
“What I have done today is to crush the oil blockade, which [was] imposed on us by Zelenskyy,” Orbán said after the summit. “So I defended the interest of the country.” [unbelievable spin]
[…] While Ukraine desperately needs the EU’s €90 billion, Zelenskyy now has more time after the International Monetary Fund approved an $8.1 billion loan late last month. Kyiv should have enough money to stay solvent until early May [important point]
[…] The Hungarian prime minister got up from his seat and stood behind the other leaders, looking on with contempt as Zelenskyy appeared on their screens, according to a diplomat.
After 90 minutes, with Zelenskyy digging in and the Hungarian not budging, the leaders decided to shut down the debate, issuing a statement that “the European Council will revert to this issue at its next meeting.”
The bet is that one way or another, things will be different after Hungarians go to the polls on April 12. […]
punishments may be on the table at a leaders’ gathering in Cyprus on April 23-24, including freezing more funding, suing Hungary in the EU’s top court, issuing fines, and even the so-called nuclear option, Article 7, which strips countries of their EU voting rights. […]
It means the saga of the EU’s loan to Ukraine, which at one point the bloc was hoping to have resolved as long ago as a summit in October, is delayed for at least another month. [Important point]
[…] “There was no way Orbán was going to say yes anyway,” one of the EU diplomats said.
it’s starting to mess with headlines in the traditional “10 blue links,” […]
For example, Google reduced our headline “I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything” to just five words: “‘Cheat on everything’ AI tool.” It almost sounds like we’re endorsing
[…]
The good news, for now, is that these changed headlines seem to be few and far between […] Mostly, Google’s answers tried to normalize the idea of replacing headlines in search—suggesting that this is just one of the “tens of thousands of live traffic experiments” […] But I want to be clear: This is not normal. I’ve edited tech news for 15 years, paying close attention to SEO, and I’ve never before seen Google overwrite a headline in search results with something it created itself.
Damn! Sad news. Used to love Buffy the Vampire Slayer :
Nicholas Brendon, best known for his role as Xander Harris in all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died aged 54. In a post to his Instagram page, his family posted in a slide post saying: “We are heartbroken to share the passing of our brother and son, Nicholas Brendon.” It said he died in his sleep of “natural causes”.
The Pentagon’s own publication, Stars and Stripes, was disinvited from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest Iran war press conference – as he continues to clamp down on press coverage. “Stars and Stripes was not approved by the Pentagon to attend this press conference. I will be watching it on a screen instead,” Matthew Adams, a reporter at the outlet, said in a post on social media.
I’ll just leave this here.
StevoRsays
South Oz’es state election today. I’ll be voting for the Greens and sending a message to the ALP here becoz I can – because thank fuck we have a far better political system than the “United” States of America has..
A record number of South Australians — 454,800 — have already made their decisions since early voting opened last Saturday, according to the Electoral Commission of SA (ECSA).
“To put that into comparison, four years ago at the last state election, the total number of people who voted early was 212,000, so more than double have already voted,” commissioner Mick Sherry told ABC Radio Adelaide on Saturday morning.
He described the figure as an “incredible number” that “exceeded our expectations”.
More than 1.3 million South Australians were expected to vote in the 2026 election, with polls now closed.
The eyes of the country are on this election, as One Nation threatens the Liberal Party’s status as the official opposition and Labor is expected to win a landslide victory.
…(Snip).. Follow our live blog as we bring you updates.
Seems the ALP has already won -sorry if (predicted) spoiler.
But the rise of the One Neuron mob is a bloody worry.
They hreallyarea bunch of racist scammer scum. Notably here they’ve been caufght doing some dodgy things and have take a petty revenge on the ABC for exposing the literal crime of one oftheir candidates :
The party has barred the ABC from its function at the Kent Town Hotel, the same venue where it held its campaign launch a month ago.
It (ONP- ed) cited the ABC’s reporting over its now-dumped candidate for Adelaide, Aoi Baxter, as the reason for its decision.
One Nation’s rise in the polls has been one of the major stories of the campaign, with tonight’s election count looming as a litmus test for the party at national level.
@ ^Clarity fix : hreallyarea = really are a bunch of racist scammer scum.
Plus on the dodgy AF One Neuron Party tactics, see frex :
Candidates in two separate seats in the South Australia state election have complained that One Nation volunteers are writing in preferences on how-to-vote cards, despite the party’s approved cards not including any preferences beyond 1 for One Nation.
According to the Electoral Commission of South Australia, distributing a how-to-vote card not substantially the same as the one lodged with it carries a fine of up to $5,000.
Boebert breaks with Trump on Iran, opposing $200 billion in additional war funding as fractures deepen inside the MAGA wing. Rep. Jamie Raskin joins to discuss.
“There appears to be no strategy, and the Commander-in-Chief is constantly contradicting himself—when he can bring himself to actually pay attention to the war that he started,” says Chris Hayes.
Video is 9:30 minutes
Hayes also discusses the fact that additional marines are being sent to Iran.
birgerjohanssonsays
I like to check the videos by Chris Hayes.
Dr. Becky tends to drown in the number of other Youtubers covering astronomy.
I prefer Anton Petrov who -despite some minor errors (which I attribute to English being his third language making it harder for him to translate news) – has mostly the same curiosity for varied science subjects as I do.
birgerjohanssonsays
Is it possible Hegseth is taking ‘uppers’? His way of talking (rapid, yelling, generally weird) seems off, even for a cabinet of freaks like Stephen Miller, RFK Jr. and of course Orange Makeup himself.
JM @19, one of the surprising aspects of Pete Hegseth’s banning of a number media outlets from Pentagon briefings is that he thinks that might give him some control over what is published. As the Stars and Stripes reporter noted, the briefings are still accessible.
Reporters not sitting in the room with Pete Hegseth might be desirable from the reporters’ point of view.
Hegseth also thinks he can control which photos of him are used to illustrate news from the Pentagon. Has he taken a look recently at the proliferation of unflattering photos? He made the situation a national news story by complaining. That’s a worse outcome from his perspective, better from the public’s perspective. Now we see him as he is.
CBC and some Ellison-controlled media may have trumpified their coverage, but a lot of other media outlets have not.
Pete Hegseth should stop expecting the media to treat him with kid gloves. Heaven forbid that pointed questions might be asked, that unflattering photos might be used, or that Pete’s hair might get mussed up.
Just give him $200 billion more war-fighting dollars and lots of praise? Nope.
This week’s top staff stories all had one through line: President Donald Trump’s Iran war is fracturing everything around it—his coalition, his credibility, and the GOP’s political footing.
Failing isn’t new to Trump. He’s done it time and again in life, but he’s always been bailed out—by bankruptcy, by his lawyers, by his friends, and by his cult-like MAGA base.
But with Iran, he’s finally created a problem so big, so consequential, that his usual tricks don’t work. He can’t bluff his way out of it. He can’t tweet it away. He can’t bully reality into submission. He can’t bury it in lawsuits. This is a real crisis with real consequences, and he’s stuck with it. Trump is isolated, harming the global economy, without allies, all while undermining the rules-based order […] without even the pretense of an endgame in Iran. [Yep]
That Iran-fueled fracture isn’t theoretical—it’s happening in real time.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia—once the queen bee of the MAGA movement—hasn’t just stepped off that train, she’s become one of its loudest critics. Trump’s Iran war has pushed her dissent to a place that would’ve been unthinkable just months ago. […] [video]
[From the earlier story about Greene]
Greene then engaged in some revisionist history of her own, criticizing the outcomes of Trump’s so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill—for which she voted—while blaming the GOP for “destroying our future.” [more video snippets]
“The part that is disheartening to me is that it appears to—not only myself but many others—that President Trump did not mean it,” Greene said of his campaign promises. “We are basing that on his actions and his decisions and the priorities that he has made important and first to him, which are 100% departure of what we campaigned on in 2024.” […] [See also comment 26 for the video in which Chris Hayes discusses Lauren Boebert’s break with Trump.]
Trump is trying to sell a war that doesn’t make sense even on its own terms—leaning on dubious claims, contradictory justifications, bizarre declarations of success, and outright fabrications to explain why the U.S. is suddenly all-in on Iran.
– Trump lies about chat with ‘former president’ to justify Iran war
– Trump lashes out as Iran war spirals out of control
– Trump says it’s no biggie that Putin is helping Iran
That last headline is worth sitting with. Imagine a Democratic president shrugging at a foreign power helping an enemy attack Americans. It would dominate the political landscape. No one would defend it, especially not other Democrats. Republicans, however, just shrug.
Yet, as the world burns and Americans feel the pain of higher energy costs and more economic instability, Trump is still focused on what he’s always focused on:
– Trump continues crazed quest to ruin the nation’s capital
– Pentagon promotes obscene perk to lure new employees [Excerpt from the perks news]
[…] the deal sweetener here is that the Pentagon gig gets you “unmatched access to top-level government officials and privileged information flow—whatever you need, you can get,” in the words of the headhunting firm’s slide deck, which was viewed by The New York Times. […]
“If you ever want to raise your own fund, you will gain access to fund-raising channels that include royal families and foreign sovereign contacts,” the slide deck continued.
What we’re left with is a split-screen presidency. On one side, a spiraling foreign conflict with real global consequences. On the other, the same corruption and grievance-driven distractions that defined his first term. There’s no indication those halves will ever converge into anything resembling coherent leadership.
The Republican Party has tied itself fully to Trump, but it has no clear way to defend what he’s doing. They can’t rely on him to deliver on core promises—lower prices, fewer wars—and their old message discipline has collapsed. Conservatives are left trying to explain the unexplainable, tied to him whether it helps them or not. This year, it won’t.
– House GOP’s new midterm message is a real loser
– Republicans suddenly don’t give a damn about high gas prices
– Top GOP donor warns of Antichrist—wait, what?
When your coalition includes elected officials breaking ranks and major donors drifting into conspiratorial thinking, it’s a sign the center isn’t holding. And pretending high gas prices aren’t a problem isn’t a strategy—it’s the political equivalent of sticking one’s head in the sand.
Put it all together, and the pattern is clear. This isn’t just another chaotic week in Trump’s presidency. It’s a stress test.
His war is testing the limits of his movement, the discipline of his party, and the patience of the American people. We’re seeing what happens when a governing style built on impulse, grievance, and spectacle collides with real-world consequences.
So far, the result isn’t ambiguous. […]
More embedded links are available at the main link.
Few presidents have ever faced the kind of economic nightmare President Donald Trump is inflicting on the American people—and none of them survived it politically. From a stagnant job market, rising health care costs, and soaring inflation to what experts are calling an “armageddon scenario” for gas prices, Trump’s economic malpractice has the United States teetering on the edge of a once-in-a-generation meltdown.
[…] Outgoing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell kicked the malaise into overdrive on Wednesday when he admitted that “[t]here’s zero net job creation in the private sector,” with “very, very low—nonexistent, really—growth in the labor force, which of course we’ve never had in our history.”
Powell’s comments are especially damaging because they come at a time when Trump is touting hypothetical future job growth as the way out of America’s looming economic crisis. […]
Things are about to get even worse for workers, because companies aren’t just freezing hiring: They are planning another round of brutal, AI-driven layoffs.
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter founder and current CEO of financial services firm Block, announced the company will fire half of its workforce—over 5,000 people—in order to replace them with artificial intelligence. Fiverr, a company built on the idea of real people providing low-cost services like web design and copy editing, announced similar cuts amounting to one-third of their workforce. Tech titan Meta, formerly Facebook, is considering its largest layoffs in years, with up to 16,000 workers at risk.
[I snipped more examples.]
No one is hiring, and hundreds of thousands of currently employed Americans are facing layoffs, but none of that has put a damper on skyrocketing consumer prices. February inflation blew away analyst predictions, leaping 0.7% for the month and 3.4% annually, the most in a year. Food prices alone rose nearly 2.5%, with fresh and frozen vegetables rising an eye-popping 48.9%.
Yeah, you read that right—a nearly 50% increase in the cost of your lettuce and tomatoes. The latest cost-of-living crisis is not a drill.
Meanwhile, incomes aren’t remotely keeping pace with inflation, meaning American households have less money to meet even higher price demands […]
Last year saw all forms of household debt rising, to nearly $19 trillion total. That’s nearly double the debt households carried in 2013.
The share of that debt that goes to expenses other than a mortgage is also rising rapidly […]
None of that matters to the Trump administration, of course. Their recent demand for over $200 billion to fund the war in Iran will come directly from taxpayer pockets […]
The GOP’s Iran funding request amounts to nearly twice as much money as it would cost to reinstate the popular Affordable Care Act subsidies for 22 million Americans. [!]
[…] some of Trump’s closest allies are profiting handsomely from investments in drone and AI companies that just got fat Pentagon contracts.
One company backed by presidential failsons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. last year, Powerus, just landed a huge government contract that nearly quintupled the company’s valuation. The Trump kids will pocket a hefty profit […]
Don’t expect any action from Congress to alleviate the economic pain millions of Americans are feeling. Corporate megafarms pocketed almost all of Trump’s much-hyped $12 billion “farmer bailout,” while the GOP’s plan for a $2,000 “tariff rebate check” appears likely to fail in the Senate.
[Instead, Republicans] are focused on carving the president’s face into a special golden coin. Trump’s promised Golden Age, it turns out, only applies to him.
Demands voiced by Iranian leaders in recent days as conditions for ending the war include massive reparations from the U.S. and its allies and the expulsion of American military forces from the region. They have also called for transforming the Strait of Hormuz—an international waterway where free navigation is guaranteed under international law—into an Iranian toll booth controlling one-third of the world’s shipborne crude oil.
[…]
It is hard to imagine the U.S.—or the Gulf states—accepting such an arrangement. Trump has repeatedly vowed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, by force if necessary
Trump met Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday, urging her to “step up” as he presses allies—so far unsuccessfully—to send warships to help open the strait.
Rando: “There is no reopen. It’s open now. Just not for Trump. The rest of the world is realizing they can cut out their ‘security’ middleman, and cut their own deal for passage with Iran.”
Craig Harrington (MediaMatters): “Donald Trump fucked around and made the IRGC the kingmakers for the whole god damn global economy.”
[…] Trump on Saturday threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to conduct airport security if Democrats do not agree to a funding bill to reopen the partially shuttered Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
[…] the Senate failed again on Friday to advance a measure to end the funding lapse, with Democrats insisting counteroffers from the White House, which have included some concessions, are insufficient.
Democrats are holding firm in their demands to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics — calls which grew louder following the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents carrying out the president’s deportation agenda in Minneapolis last month.
Trump referenced the immigration crackdown in Minnesota on Saturday, writing that in addition to conducting airport screening, ICE officers would arrest immigrants that enter the country illegally, “with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
[…] Democrats have pushed for votes that would split off funding for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and other agencies not responsible for immigration enforcement, but Republicans have repeatedly blocked those efforts. [True]
[…] wait times at security checkpoints become longer and travelers begin to feel the impact of staffing shortages at airports across the country.
An increasing number of TSA employees, who have already missed one paycheck, are calling out sick or quitting the force altogether because they cannot afford to work without pay […]
Billionaire Elon Musk offered early Saturday morning to cover the salaries of airport security workers while the shutdown continues, though it was not immediately clear how that would work or its legality.
Senate Democrats said they are planning to force a vote Saturday on a proposal to fully fund TSA, according to Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). [Good]
“America will see the matter crystal clear: which Senators WANT to pay TSA workers and end the chaos at our airports, and which Senators are going to BLOCK TSA funding yet again,” Schumer wrote Friday on the social platform X.
“Bike Lanes On National Mall Sharply Reduced Crashes, So Trump’s Getting Rid Of Them”
Donald Trump’s War On Nice Things is set to start removing bike lanes around the National Mall in Washington DC next week […] The protected lanes will be torn out from a roughly mile-long section of 15th Street NW that are on federal property, which is also one of the most heavily traveled areas in DC. The one bright spot in the story is that the vast majority of the bike lane system is controlled by the DC government’s District Department of Transportation (DDOT), and will be left alone.
The move comes even though the protected bike lanes were only opened a few years ago, and despite traffic studies showing that they have reduced congestion, dramatically reduced crashes, and have even improved the flow of motor vehicle traffic. […]
The bike lanes will be torn out between the Tidal Basin and Constitution Avenue on property controlled by the National Park Service, part of Doug Burgum’s Interior Department, which is all in on Trump’s efforts to prop up fossil fuels wherever possible.
[…] The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which will actually be tearing out the bollards and concrete blocks separating the bike lanes from vehicular traffic, was Trumpian in its press statement, saying the changes will “restore common sense into city planning.” The statement claimed — without offering any evidence — that the bike lanes “have dramatically reduced roadway capacity,” and insisted “Bike lane placements must complement normal road activities, not compete with them.” [WTF?]
As the Post points out, the Trump administration just plain wants more people using cars, because cars matter, and your stupid green new scam bikes don’t, okay? Previous administration documents have said that
grants that include “reducing lane capacity for vehicles” with bike lanes or pedestrian infrastructure are “hostile” to cars and “counter” to the Department of Transportation’s “priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles.”
You’re never gonna see Donald Trump riding a bicycle, that’s for sure.
As for the claim that the bike lanes have restricted traffic, the Post explains that a 2026 DDOT study found that after the bike lane was completed,
all roadway crashes along the corridor decreased by 46 percent, and bicycle injury crashes decreased by 91 percent, according to the study. […]
But that’s not all: The study also found that the bike lanes on 15th Street actually improved vehicular traffic flow, increasing speeds by 17 percent and cutting driving time. […]
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a statement Friday saying that the removal of the protected bike lanes would “likely increase conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles, especially at one of the busiest times of the year.” She noted that the section on the National Mall carries about 4,000 riders daily, and that removing the lanes “would push cyclists into traffic or onto crowded sidewalks, creating new safety risks for everyone. […] Keeping the bike lane in place helps manage high volumes safely and ensures a better experience for all who are visiting the District.”
[…] Sam Moghtaderi, co-founder of the DC group “Hill Family Biking,” which organizes monthly biking events for families in the District, said the feds’ excuse for removing the bike lanes to “improve” traffic just before heavy summer travel didn’t make any sense. […]
A group of congressional Democrats sent the National Parks Service a letter Friday calling on it to reverse the decision, for all the good that will do. Under circumstances like this, more direct action is called for. Maybe the organizers of Portland’s Emergency Naked Bike Ride could offer some support, even if it scares Mike Johnson again. […]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Commentary for Lynna @33.
James Downie (MS NOW): “Just to be clear: there are ~50,000 TSA personnel, including ~27,000 security officers. Both are far more than ICE’s 21,000 *total* personnel (not just agents). And ICE has already ended multiple deportation campaigns due to lack of manpower. So, uh, good luck with this Mr President.”
Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to multiple U.S. officials. Neither of the missiles hit the base, but the move marked Iran’s first operational use of IRBMs and a significant attempt to reach far beyond the Middle East and threaten U.S. interests.
One of the missiles failed in flight, and a U.S. warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other, according to two of the people. It couldn’t be determined if an interception was made, according to one of the officials.
[…]
Iran Watch, part of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, says Iran has operational missiles that can reach 2,500 miles. Israel’s Alma Research and Education Center put the top range for Iranian missiles at around 1,900 miles but said there are reports of their weapons being developed with longer ranges.
Located on a remote island in the British Indian Ocean Territory, Diego Garcia is a strategic base from which the U.S. hosts bombers, nuclear submarines and guided-missile destroyers. Britain was recently in talks to hand sovereignty of Diego Garcia and the wider Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while negotiating a long-term lease to keep the U.S.-U.K. military base on the island. President Trump and some Republican lawmakers have objected to the proposal.
Ankit Panda (Nuclear strategy expert):
Wow. If I’m not mistaken, this marks the longest-range use of ballistic missiles in warfare to date.
This also marks the unambiguous end of Khamenei’s (the elder’s) self-imposed 2,000 km missile range limitation—a message that’ll also be received in Europe.
Commentary
Diego Garcia is 1800-2500 miles (3-4000km) depending on the launch point in Iran.
To be clear, this means Iran can theoretically strike Rome, Berlin, Vienna and other major European cities.
If pointed at Europe, the same distance, is as far as Northern Ireland.
birgerjohanssonsays
Robert Mueller, special counsel who investigated Trump-Russia ties, dies at 81
The Guardian .https://share.google/uihLIYinSsVS6Tm8j
.
Normally, Trump would have posted a message full of schadenfreude and venom but his plate may be too full now, slowly realising he cannot bullshit his way out of the war.
Robert S. Mueller III, a career prosecutor who became a central figure in two searing national traumas, first as FBI director in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later as special counsel investigating ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, died Friday. He was 81.
[…] Mr. Mueller had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2021, according to a statement his family shared with the New York Times last year.
During more than four decades in law enforcement — as line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and FBI chief — Mr. Mueller developed a reputation as a stickler for detail who savored methodical investigation and nearly always got his man. […]
At the FBI, in an era of increasingly partisan national division, he built a reputation for nonpartisan rectitude and stone-faced reserve, frustrating speechwriters by crossing out every “I” they wrote into his prepared remarks. It wasn’t about him, he told them: “It’s about the organization.”
[…] in his last major role on the national stage — as special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election that brought Trump to office — Mr. Mueller, long venerated as an impeccable public servant, suddenly became a political target.
[…] Mr. Mueller maintained a public silence through the 22 months of his Russia investigation, which yielded indictments leading to convictions of a Trump campaign chairman, a deputy campaign manager, a national security adviser and one of his personal attorneys.
In his report, released in April 2019, Mr. Mueller concluded that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome,” and that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
But the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” — a conclusion that Trump and his supporters cited as evidence that the probe had been a partisan fishing expedition.
[…] the Trump administration dismantled some of the investigation’s most prominent results. The Justice Department dropped charges against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, even though Flynn had pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI. And the department undercut prosecutors’ recommendation of a substantial prison term for Trump political adviser Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstructing Congress and witness-tampering. All four prosecutors who handled the Stone case withdrew from the matter in protest.
Trump regularly denounced the Mueller investigation as a “hoax,” “a total disgrace” that amounted to “treason.” In 2020, he issued pardons to Flynn, Stone and several others convicted in the probe.
Mr. Mueller’s team of prosecutors believed they had shown that Trump’s actions were improper, and they assumed that Congress would take up their findings in an impeachment process. But the investigators declined to pursue any criminal charge against Trump, writing that an “accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern.”
As a result, Mr. Mueller’s report said, the investigators decided to avoid any “approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes.”
[…] Mueller wrote to Barr, saying that the attorney general’s brief public characterization of the 448-page report had failed to “fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions.” But that letter was made public five weeks after Barr had summarized the report as a vindication of Trump’s behavior.
[…] His House appearance, at age 74, about two years before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, came amid rumors that he had not been his usual acute and precise self in recent months. Every hair was in place, his trademark white shirt was crisp. But under questioning, his voice grew thin, uncertain. He tripped on the president’s name and testified, after a long pause, that President George H.W. Bush had appointed him U.S. attorney in Boston, when in fact the president had been Ronald Reagan. […]
Sky Captain @35, Ha! Thanks for posting the facts. Bitter laughter.
I’ll also point out that ICE agents are not trained as airport security officers. No matter how many ICE agents are deployed to airports (and there are not enough ICE agents to fill the jobs, as Sky Captain’s post points out) they would not be able to do the job.
whheydtsays
As regards ICE agents doing TSA work… That would have them facing a largely affluent group of people who are likely to take exception to ICE screw ups in the lines.
Barak Ravid (Axios, CNN): “U.S. to allow Iran to get ~14 billion dollars (!!!) in oil revenue. […] the first time U.S. is buying Iranian oil since 1996. It’s all happening in the middle of a war against… Iran.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said. “Nothing is good here.”
Since early March, 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez had been held with his parents at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas, where children have complained of limited education, lights that never turn off and moldy food. Now he was on a video call with someone who said she wanted to help: Ms. Rachel.
Wearing her signature pink headband, the popular children’s entertainer leaned toward the screen, trying to comfort the boy.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said in a warm, high-pitched voice familiar to millions of children and parents. “A lot of people want to try to help.”
Deiver told her he missed his friends and that the food at Dilley made his stomach hurt. But that wasn’t what worried him most. Before he was detained, he had won his school spelling bee and placed third at regionals, earning a spot at New Mexico’s state competition in May.
“I want to leave and go to the spelling bee,” he said.
Ms. Rachel tried to reassure him. [video]
“You have a real gift for spelling. You’re so smart.”
Then her smile faltered.
“It was unbelievably surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on a call with somebody who’s in jail,” Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, told NBC News […]
In the first year of its expanded immigration crackdown, the Trump administration placed more than 2,300 children into detention with their parents […] Many have been held for several weeks or months.
During that time, Accurso — whose educational videos for babies and toddlers have made her one of the nation’s most recognizable kids’ entertainers — has become an increasingly prominent voice speaking out on behalf of vulnerable children. […]
After her video call last week with Deiver and another boy held at Dilley, Accurso told NBC News she is now embarking on a new mission closer to home: working with lawyers and immigration rights activists “to close Dilley and make sure that kids and their parents are back in their communities where they belong.”
Parents and immigration lawyers have described children there losing weight after finding worms in their food, growing anxious as guards patrol and standing in line for hours for single doses of medicine. Some have suffered medical emergencies while detained.
About 50 children remained at Dilley this week, down from about 500 in January, The New York Times reported Friday based on a review of government figures and advocacy group estimates. Some of the families were released in the U.S.; others were deported. It’s unclear what led to the sharp decline, but it follows months of pressure from human rights advocates, Democratic members of Congress and immigration lawyers.
[…] The more Accurso read about Dilley after Liam’s detention, she said, the more unsettled she became. Then, last week, she got a chance to hear directly from children held there.
Journalist Lidia Terrazas, who has spent months reporting on conditions inside Dilley for the Spanish-language network N+ Univision, set up the video call.
Before chatting with Deiver, Accurso spoke to Gael, a 5-year-old with significant developmental delays. […]
Mukherjee, a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of its Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, said Gael has a history of severe constipation that had been managed at home with a specialized diet, including fresh fruit and soups. In detention, she said, his condition spiraled.
In a brief video interview on Friday, Gael’s parents, Nelsy and Leonardo, told NBC News their son’s condition had continued to deteriorate in detention, both physically and emotionally. They asked to be identified only by their first names, fearing retaliation should they be deported to Colombia.
“This is not a place for him because he needs special care,” Leonardo said, as Gael wandered around the bare, gray meeting room. “No human being should ever go through this.”
On Accurso’s call with her, Gael’s mother said her son had not been able to poop in nine days and was struggling to eat, gagging when he tried. The facility had been treating him with laxatives and later an enema, but his condition hadn’t significantly improved, his mother said. His stomach was visibly distended, Accurso said, leaving her “incredibly worried.”
“Imagine if your child hadn’t pooped in nine days,” she said. “This is not normal. This is an important medical situation.”
[…] “We’re trying to get a child [9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez] out of a jail to do a spelling bee,” she [Ms. Rachel] said. “I just never thought those words would go together.”
Accurso recalled winning her own second-grade classroom spelling bee with a lucky guess on the word “chocolate” — a small, long-ago victory she still remembers in vivid detail.
Moments like that are more than milestones, said Accurso, who has master’s degrees in music education and early childhood development. They shape how children see themselves — their confidence, their sense of belonging, their sense of what comes next.
Taking those kinds of opportunities away from a child, she said, “is cruelty.”
[…] unlike in the past, when she painstakingly sought to frame her activism as apolitical, Accurso said she is ready to embrace the label.
“I am political,” she said. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love and care, and that every child is equal, and that our care shouldn’t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border.”
If being political is what it takes to bring Gael home, or to get Deiver to his spelling bee, Accurso said, then her conscience leaves her no other choice.
“U.S. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly due to visit Budapest in April in support of the Prime Minister Orbán.”
The Trump administration is doubling down on its endorsement of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán in next month’s Hungarian elections, even as Orbán’s deal-blocking in Brussels has been labeled “unacceptable” by EU peers. [See comment 13]
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his “complete and total endorsement” of Orbán in the Hungarian elections. And U.S. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly due to fly to Budapest in April in support of the prime minister.
The EU’s longest-serving leader, facing an election in less than a month that he is forecast to lose, has long been a thorn in the side of Brussels. In the latest stand-off against his European counterparts, Orbán held hostage a €90 billion loan to Ukraine this week over an oil dispute.
[…] Trump praised Hungary’s “strong borders” and said the country will continue to “work very hard on immigration,” and said Europe has to “work very hard” to solve “a lot of problems” around immigration.
The American president said that Hungary and the U.S. are “showing the way toward a revitalized West,” and would also work “hard together on energy.” […]
Trump endorses the worst people. I also expect to see Putin use his intelligence service and other nefarious actors to influence the election in Hungary.
Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to the U.S. under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran, such as the precise coordinates of U.S. military assets in the Middle East, if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia.
Two people familiar with the U.S.-Russia negotiations said that such a proposal was made by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Trump administration envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during their meeting last week in Miami.
The U.S. rejected the proposal, the people added. [I expect Trump to waffle and/or ignore that initial rejection.]
[…] Dmitriev labeled the report of the proposal as “fake” in a post on X.
Nevertheless, the sheer existence of such a proposal has sparked concern among European diplomats, who worry Moscow is trying to drive a wedge between Europe and the U.S. at a critical moment for transatlantic relations. [Duh]
U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced anger over the refusal of allies to send warships in the Strait of Hormuz. On Friday, he lambasted his NATO allies as “COWARDS“ and said: “we will REMEMBER!”
[…] One EU diplomat called the Russian proposal “outrageous.” The suggested deal is likely to fuel growing suspicions in Europe that the Witkoff-Dmitriev meetings are not delivering concrete progress toward a peace agreement in Ukraine, but are instead seen by Moscow as a chance to lure Washington into a deal between the two powers that leaves Europe on the sidelines. [Again, duh.]
On Thursday, the Kremlin said that the U.S.-mediated Ukraine peace talks were “on hold.”
[…] the U.S. also rejected a proposal to move Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia […] Russia has expanded intelligence-sharing and military cooperation with Iran since the war started, […] Moscow is providing satellite imagery and drone technology to help Tehran target U.S. forces in the region. […]
Trump hinted at a link between the intelligence-sharing with Iran and Ukraine during a recent interview with Fox News, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin “might be helping them [Iran] a little bit, yeah, I guess, and he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?” [Yep. That’s how Trump is thinking. Not good.]
The U.S. continues to share intelligence with Ukraine, even as it has reduced other support. Washington briefly paused the exchanges last year after a disastrous Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That abrupt halt to U.S. intelligence sharing triggered a chaotic scramble among allies […]
One European diplomat sought to downplay the risk of the Russian proposal, noting that French President Emmanuel Macron had said in January that “two-thirds” of military intelligence for Ukraine is now provided by France. [!]
Still, intelligence-sharing remains a last crucial pillar of American support for Ukraine after the Trump administration stopped most of its financial and military aid for Kyiv last year. Washington is still delivering weapons to Ukraine but under a NATO-led program where allies pay the U.S. for arms. Deliveries of critical air defense munitions, however, are under strain amid the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. [Important points]
Most recently, the Trump administration decided to ease sanctions on Russian oil to alleviate pressure on oil markets, causing strong concern and criticism from European leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Militant Agnosticsays
birgerjohansson @37
“Robert Mueller just died,” Trump responded quickly on his Truth Social platform. “Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
For example, DoD workers’ trust in Hegseth is in the toilet. Only 11.5% of Army employees say their dept’s political leaders “maintain high levels of integrity.” Similar numbers for Navy, Air Force. Or in the Air Force, only a quarter of respondents say they are confident they can report a suspected violation of law, rule, or regulation without experiencing retaliation.
HHS results even more horrific. Share of HHS who say their political leaders “maintain high levels of integrity: 4.2%. Share who have trust in their political leadership: 2.8%. Share who are confident they can report a suspected violation of law/rule/reg without retaliation: 8.7%.
Surveys were fielded in Nov/Dec 2025. So before many major recent events, including Iran war or changes to the childhood immunization schedule.
[…] In no agency do even 20% of respondents say their top leaders have integrity.
Commentary
In 2024, HHS effective leadership polled 77.1%[,] 67.5% for senior leadership. [Via the OP link, ‘Historical Info’ header, then ‘Dept of HHS’]
^ Not the greatest numbers, but also, not 4.2%.
NARA filled with a bunch of furious archivists and librarians going scorched earth in the survey. [1.8% on leader integrity]
That 0.0 at CFPB is at least 30 responses, BTW.
This is great. They don’t trust the fascists. They aren’t motivated to try for the fascists. We *need* this bullshit to be unsustainable.
The 2025 linked in the OP was a third party effort to replace the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey which they canceled for last year.
The 1980s SF TV series “V” was completely oblivious to water being one of the most common substances in the universe. It is only when you travel below the “snow line” of a stellar system you might suffer shortages.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lynna, OM @ 43
‘Trump endorses the worst people’
.
“showing the way toward a revitalized West” a k a New Order
.
BTW some days ago I found a diagram at Facebook showing how much the economies of former communist countries have grown, plotting graphs for Poland, Romania and Hungary. The graphs for Poland and Romania went straight up without major deviations, the one for Hungary clearly showed reduced growth once Orban took power. Massive corruption costs. This is the system Trump approves of.
birgerjohanssonsays
If you still have Facebook, this is the graph I mentioned @ 48.
This week, we’ve got a cavalcade of courts that needed to explain the most basic principles of constitutional law to the Trump administration.
You might have learned in grade school that criminal defendants are guaranteed a right to counsel, but apparently Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents did not.
You also might have learned that the First Amendment protects children from having Christianity forced on them in public schools, but Louisiana and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals must have skipped that day.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan—who, hands down, has the best name of any judge on the bench—has no interest in taking the Trump administration at its word. Really, why would anyone these days?
Sooknanan is overseeing the case of Mansi Reddy Bushiredd, an Indian student who had her immigration status arbitrarily terminated, along with thousands of others. The administration tried to argue that there was no need for a court order barring them from re-terminating Bushiredd because—cross their hearts and hope to die—they totally won’t do it again.
But Sooknanan is no fool.
She told ICE that their actions didn’t at all show that they wouldn’t, for example, try to terminate Bushiredd’s immigration status for a different reason, which would force her to leave the country immediately.
So now there’s a court order prohibiting it, period.
n its eternal quest to make things as difficult as possible for detainees, ICE has been shipping immigrants with pending criminal charges from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. Except they still have to report for hearings in New Jersey courts—which are now 300 miles away.
At the same time, ICE has prohibited the use of any remote tools, like Zoom, so detainees aren’t able to attend hearings virtually. This, of course, means that they can’t participate in their criminal cases at all, which is kind of a no-no as far as the Constitution goes. [more details at the link]
[…] Despite the fact that forcing the Ten Commandments in public schools is unconstitutional, red states keep giving it a try.
This week, Arkansas was told, yet again, that this is unconstitutional religious coercion that violates the Establishment Clause. [Details regarding cases, and the states in which they are being tried, are available at the link.]
birgerjohanssonsays
[Note: I do not encourage anyone to hurry up mortality. Nor do I say anyone deserves death. Maybe 999 years of prison, but not death]
.
Trump and mortality.
I will follow Trump’s example and not speak well of the dead.
birgerjohanssonsays
When some British comedians discussed the matter of Thatcher’s funeral in “Mock The Week” (she was still alive at the time) Frankie Boyle said
“…for that money they could give each Scotsman a shovel, and they would dig a hole so deep they could hand her [Thatcher] over to Satan in person”.
.
In Florida, there would be problems – who are the Indian deities associated with the place? I don’t want to offend them (vision of Wendigos erupting from the underworld. “He is gross!”
Quetzalqoatl curled around a beam of the launch tower of Pad 37 A. “Elon, we have a problem”)
birgerjohanssonsays
A fun video about voter approval. The good stuff starts one minute in.
The choleric Youtuber Lazerpig presents the first of three episodes explaining the emergence (and shortcomings) of the T-72 tank in his usual flamboyant way.
This episode explains the toxic political context in which Soviet technology and industry operated, and the military challenges that led to, first, the great T-55 and later the quite Meh T-62. The episode ends in the 1960s when the USSR had to deal with a new generation of western tanks.
The mistakes made at this era would plague Soviet tank development for the next decade.
“The T-72 Sucks (Part 1): The Whacky World of Soviet Tank Development”
The combination of a beaver-like body and duck-like bill of the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is only the first of a long list of strange features on this unique creature. These odd mammals also lay eggs, have venomous spurs, sense electricity, glow under UV light, and harbor five times more sex chromosomes than many other animals. Now, a study published in Biology Letters reveals that their fur also contains melanosomes that are unlike in any other animal—and scientists can’t figure out why.
The ALP will win easly with Boyer on 50% of the vote whilst the Carson-Woodhouse bigot has just 8.5% of the vote – down 23.5% from last election. One Neuron’s candidate is running second on 28%.
StevoRsays
Caspian Report yt channel How the Iran War will actually end. (18 mins long.) I guess we’ll see. Hopefully soon as long as it ends less apocalyptically..
“Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also predicted that airport security lines, which are already longer than usual, will get worse.” [Yep, seems likely. Trump makes everything worse. It’s a pattern.]
Related video at the link.
[…] Trump and top administration officials said Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will arrive at the nation’s airports on Monday to handle security at exceedingly long lines driven by TSA shortages.
“I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!” Trump said on Truth Social.
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, provided few details but confirmed the plan on CNN, saying, “A highly-trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit, that relieves TSA to go to screening.”
“It’s a work in progress, but we will be at airports tomorrow,” Homan said.
The ongoing partial government shutdown, which began after funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on Feb. 14, has forced Transportation and Security Administration workers to go unpaid —with hundreds of them quitting or not showing up for work, severely disrupting air travel. [video]
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC News Sunday morning that security lines will “get much worse” this week. He predicted more TSA agents will quit by Friday, when they’ll go without another paycheck unless lawmakers reach a deal to fund DHS.
Trump said on Saturday that ICE agents would “do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, whose city has been ground zero for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, said Sunday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” that Trump “doesn’t actually mean that he’s going to keep people secure.”
“We all know that’s not the goal. The goal is to terrorize people,” Frey said. When asked if he thought the president was racist for his targeting of Somalis, the mayor said, “I think the answer is yes.”
Congress remains gridlocked over DHS funding, with Democrats demanding reforms to ICE operations after the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — in Minneapolis. Republicans have rejected proposals to reopen much of Homeland Security, which includes TSA and ICE.
Airline executives from United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others last week called on Congress to end the shutdown, writing in a joint letter that federal employees working without pay is “simply unacceptable.”
“This problem is solvable, and there are solutions on the table,” they wrote. “Now it’s up to you, Congress, to move forward on bipartisan proposals that will get federal aviation workers—including TSA officers, U.S. Customs clearance officers at airports and air traffic controllers—paid during shutdowns.”
“Judge Richard Eaton of the relatively obscure Court of International Trade appears to be holding the administration accountable after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs.”
Related video at the link, featuring a segment of Lawrence O’Donnell’s “Last Word.”
When the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump this past February, one had to sift through seven different judicial opinions spanning 170 pages to understand that the court invalidated the sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump administration under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Still, that decision left many issues unresolved, the most important of which was how the administration was supposed to refund billions in illegal tariffs to those who paid them.
Instead of answering that important question, it returned the case to the relatively obscure Court of International Trade, a body created by Congress in 1980 to help resolve issues affecting, as its name suggests, international trade.
While one might think this was a recipe for mischief, n unlikely hero has arisen, Judge Richard Eaton of that court, who appears to be holding the administration’s feet to the fire and does not appear like he is about to tolerate many shenanigans should the administration seek to drag those feet in an effort to evade the law.
While Trump administration officials may have believed they could tie the case up in the courts for months, even years, Eaton has different thoughts about how, and when, to refund those who paid these illegal tariffs, and he has laid it all out in two opinions spanning no more than six pages of text combined. [Excellent!]
[…] What this straightforward approach has done is not only made it patently clear what the administration’s legal obligations are, he has left little wiggle room for the administration to avoid reparations.
[…] In the case of Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, the plaintiff is seeking an immediate refund of the payments it made under the illegal tariff scheme. Eaton’s first opinion in the case is a model of judicial brevity and clarity. […]
The first decision was issued on March 4, 2026. Importers across the country may have been bracing for a convoluted, multiyear slog to get their money back, but Eaton quickly eased those fears. In a simple, three-page order, he directed Customs and Border Protection to refund the illegal tariffs paid by American companies.
[…] Because he is the only judge hearing these refund cases, there is no risk of conflicting decisions from other courts.
He also extended the benefit of the Supreme Court’s ruling to all importers whose entries were subject to the illegal tariffs, declaring that finding otherwise would “thwart the efficient administration of justice.” […] clear directives that have paved the way for nationwide relief.
Naturally, the government balked. On March 6, a representative of the CBP, the entity responsible for collecting, and now refunding, the tariffs, submitted a sworn statement to Judge Eaton that the agency could not comply immediately with the court’s order to refund those American companies that paid the illegal tariffs. Instead, CBP is now saying it is going to create a mechanism for facilitating refunds of the tariffs, but that it needs 45 days to implement the system.
Rather than letting the government use this excuse to indefinitely stall, Eaton issued his second order later that same day.
If his first order was brief, his March 6 order was a paragon of judicial economy — weighing in at just two pages. Acknowledging that CBP has proposed the creation of an automated process, he temporarily suspended the demand for immediate compliance but kept the agency on an incredibly tight leash.
He bluntly laid out the stakes to justify his speed: The $165 billion in collected duties is currently accruing approximately $650 million in interest every single month. [!] If the entries are not liquidated by the end of the year, he explained, American taxpayers will be on the hook for an estimated $10 billion in interest alone.[!] […] Eaton accepted the complexity of the task at hand but also ordered the government to file a progress report by March 12, promising to keep tabs on the CBP, which he has done. That March 12 briefing has come and gone, and Eaton is expecting regular briefings from the government to ensure it is making progress, including receiving one such briefing Thursday.
[…] Eaton’s approach is a breath of fresh air. His rulings demonstrate that the most effective jurisprudence is often the most direct. He saw a problem — billions of dollars in illegally collected taxes and an administration reluctant to return them — and he used his court’s unique jurisdictional power to solve it.
[…]
The Constitution requires that tariffs be lawful, and the Supreme Court has confirmed that these were not. But rights without remedies are meaningless. Thanks to the brevity, clarity and undeniable courage of a seasoned judge in lower Manhattan, who no doubt has seen his share of litigant mischief in his court for decades, the rule of law is being enforced in as straightforward and efficient a manner as possible. […]
You’ve gotta be f’n kidding me. […] Trump has roiled the world economy, driven gas prices and inflation higher, killed over 1,000 Iranians, lost 13 Americans, and could cost taxpayers [another] $200 billion.
And his administration’s big solution to end the war? A literal cut and paste of the deal that President Barack Obama made with Iran.
“Any deal to end the war would need to include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, address Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and also establish a long-term agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles and support for proxies in the region,” reported Axios.
If only Trump hadn’t torn up the original deal, he wouldn’t have blundered into this idiotic war of choice.
And you know how Republicans claim that Obama “gave” Iran billions of dollars, because it returned some frozen assets as required by law? Check this out:
“A second official said there could be room to negotiate over returning frozen assets to Iran,” reported Axios, quoting the official as saying, “They call it reparations. Maybe we call it return of frozen money. There’s many different ways that we can wordsmith so that it solves politically what they need to solve, to develop consensus in their system.”
Ah yes, “wordsmithing” away years of right-wing attacks against the very same deal that Obama struck, one which avoided the kind of stupid war Trump is now desperate to get out of.
For context, Obama unfroze $1.7 billion.
Trump, meanwhile, is already panicking over gas prices hammering his party. So what does he do? He lifts sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil—worth roughly $14–15 billion. [!]
So Iran doesn’t just get the deal back. It gets a far bigger payday, courtesy of Trump’s war. [!]
So to recap:
– Republicans claim Obama “gave” Iran $1.7 billion, for funsies
– Trump tears up Obama deal
– Trump claims Kamala Harris will launch war against Iran, but he’s the candidate of peace
– Trump launches war against Iran
– Iran replaces Ayatollah Khamenei with younger, worse Ayatollah Khamenei
– Trump declares victory, several times
– War weirdly continues
– Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, which everyone expected except Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
– Trump lifts sanctions on Iranian oil, rewarding them with massive profit
– Trump people now are floating Obama deal, but with even more money for Iran
[…] Our stable genius of a president is floundering. He can’t declare bankruptcy to get out of this one. But apparently, he thinks throwing a lot of money at Iran will let him declare victory.
And watch, he’ll then shamelessly brag that he “ended” another war.
The historic, 1.2 million-pound Big Boy No. 4014 locomotive will soon depart for the Western leg of its first-ever coast-to-coast tour, with new details about its Eastern journey being released last week.
Earlier this year, Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena announced that the massive engine would embark on the tour in honor of America’s semiquincentennial (aka, its 250th anniversary).
The 133-foot-long locomotive, the only Big Boy to still travel the tracks, has made multiple well-attended tours since returning to service in 2019. No. 4014 is one of just a handful of remaining Big Boy engines that were built to haul heavy equipment during World War II.
[…] Union Pacific’s network stretches through only 23 states, primarily west of the Mississippi River. Big Boy’s ability to reach the eastern U.S. hinges on the merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. “The Great Connection” would establish a network that covers more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. The merger has yet to be finalized.
For now, Union Pacific has only released details for Big Boy’s western leg, which starts on Sunday, March 29.
Below are the cities that Big Boy plans to stop in, listed by state. Those marked with an asterisk (*) will not have public access, according to the locomotive’s schedule. For dates, times, and additional stop details, visit Union Pacific’s website. [List at the link]
“Major public displays” are set for April 10-11 in Roseville, California, and April 18-19 in Ogden, Utah.
Union Pacific notes that the coast-to-coast tour “will resume with the eastern leg” following “a multi-day locomotive maintenance period.”
[…] The Eastern leg will start on May 25. Big Boy is expected to be on display in:
Chicago
Omaha, Nebraska
Buffalo, New York
Scranton, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
While the dates for these stops have not yet been released, Union Pacific confirmed the tour’s Philadelphia stop will occur on Independence Day.
The Eastern leg is also anticipated to stop in St. Louis, Kansas City, Indiana, Ohio, and Altoona, Pennsylvania, before it wraps up on July 29.
For now, Big Boy remains parked in Cheyenne, Wyoming […]
If you won’t get the chance to see No. 4014 during its coast-to-coast tour this year, you can find its seven brothers on public display in St. Louis; Dallas; Omaha, Nebraska; Denver; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Green Bay; and Cheyenne. Of the 25 Big Boy locomotives that were built, only these eight remain.
“Israel Orders Military to Intensify Demolitions in Southern Lebanon”
“Israel Katz, the defense minister, said he ordered troops to destroy more bridges and buildings in southern Lebanon, stoking worries that Israel was widening a military-controlled buffer zone there.”
The Israeli defense minister said Sunday that he had ordered the military to step up its destruction of bridges and houses in southern Lebanon, bolstering fears over Israel’s efforts to expand and entrench a military-controlled buffer zone in the area.
Israel has been fighting Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, in a separate front in the wider war with Iran that began in late February. Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones at Israel, which has responded with a major military campaign in Lebanon.
More than a million people have already fled their homes in the country and over 1,000 people have been killed, according to the Lebanese government. And Israeli officials have threatened wide swathes of Lebanon’s south, telling residents there that they should leave or else their lives would be at risk amid a ground invasion they say aims to protect northern Israeli communities.
Many Lebanese fear that the Israeli assault could lead to a new occupation in parts of southern Lebanon, which Israel controlled for about two decades before withdrawing its forces in 2000.
On Sunday, Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said he had ordered Israeli forces to destroy more bridges crossing the Litani River, long seen as a key demarcation point.
Mr. Katz argued that Hezbollah was using the crossings for “terrorist purposes” to bring fighters to fight Israel in the south of the country. The same routes, however, are also used by Lebanese civilians, including those seeking to flee farther north for safety.
Hours after Mr. Katz’s statement, Israeli forces bombed a bridge near Qasmiye, close to the coastal city of Tyre. [map]
Mr. Katz also said he had instructed the military to accelerate the destruction of houses in some Lebanese towns near the border to “thwart threats” against Israeli communities. He suggested that the armed forces would follow methods deployed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s two-year war with Hamas, the militant group. Huge swathes of Gaza were depopulated and razed as part of Israeli-controlled security zones inside the Palestinian enclave during the conflict. […]
Oil companies bid on more than 1 million acres in the first lease sale in the Western Arctic since 2019. The tracts included areas where leasing appears to be prohibited.
Oil companies won the right to drill on more than 1.3 million acres across the Alaskan Arctic on Wednesday, including areas that local Alaska Native leaders consider critical to wildlife and subsistence hunting and land set aside for conservation.
It was the first lease sale in the region since 2019 and marked the next phase in a sustained push by industry and the Trump administration to expand fossil fuel extraction in the rapidly warming North Slope.
The leases are within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, which, at 23 million acres, is the largest single unit of public land in the country. While Congress set it aside as an emergency oil reserve for the Navy, most of the area is undeveloped and contains some of the nation’s largest stretches of wilderness, supporting migratory birds, caribou, polar bears, Arctic foxes and other species.
Oil companies secured leases within a million-acre tract that the Bureau of Land Management, which administers the reserve, had granted in 2024 as a conservation right of way to local Alaska Native leaders, prohibiting leasing within its boundaries. The Trump administration canceled the right of way in December, but on Monday a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction reinstating the agreement pending the conclusion of a lawsuit challenging the cancellation.
[…] The conservation right of way was tied to the 2023 approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil project, which lies within the caribou herd’s migratory route. The easement was intended to offset some of the harm caused by drilling and to ensure that calving grounds remain undisturbed. It gave control of the easement to the Nuiqsut Trilateral, a group formed of the city and tribal governments and Nuiqsut’s Native corporation.
[…] Three companies secured leases that lie within the easement’s boundaries—ExxonMobil, Epoch Oil and Gas and SE Partners, which shares an address with Narwhal Exploration, an oil company that holds leases in the area.
[…] Already, drilling for the Willow project has pushed some migrating caribou farther from Nuiqsut, Ahtuangaruak said. ConocoPhillips has also been exploring for oil in the area around the project this winter. In January, an oil rig toppled onto the tundra, spilling thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and hydraulic oil, while it was on its way to drill as part of that exploration program. […]
THE EDITORIAL BOARD: Trump Is Hiding the Truth About the War in Iran
From his first announcement of the attack on Iran on Feb. 28, President Trump has issued a stream of falsehoods about the war. He has said Iran wants to engage in negotiations, though its government shows no sign of it. He has claimed that the United States “destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability” when Tehran continues to inflict damage throughout the region. He has said the war is almost complete even as he calls in reinforcements from around the globe.
Lying is standard behavior for Mr. Trump, of course. His political career began with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, and he has lied about his business, his wealth, his inauguration crowd size, his defeat in the 2020 election and so much more. A CNN tally of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods during one part of his first term found that he averaged eight false claims per day. Many people are so accustomed to his lies that they hardly notice them anymore.
Yet lying about war is uniquely corrosive. When a president signals that the truth does not matter in wartime, he encourages his cabinet and his generals to mislead the country and one another about how the war is going. He creates a culture in which deadly mistakes and even war crimes can become more common. [true] He makes it harder to win by hiding the realities of conflict and by making allies wary of joining the fight. Ultimately, he undermines American values and interests.
[…] Mr. Trump could make a fact-based argument for confronting the regime now, especially to prevent it from menacing its neighbors and, above all, from developing a nuclear weapon. We are skeptical […]
Mr. Trump[…] has lied about the reasons for the war and about its progress, in an apparent attempt to disguise his poor planning and the war’s questionable basis.
The president was only a few minutes into his Feb. 28 announcement of the start of the conflict when he offered an obviously contradictory rationale for it. He repeated his claim that American attacks last June “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program while also citing that program as a reason to go to war. The claim of obliteration is false: Iran retains about 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, potentially enough for 10 warheads.
The lies have continued since then. Days later, Mr. Trump said the U.S. military had a “virtually unlimited supply” of high-end munitions. The Pentagon nevertheless has had to withdraw weapons from South Korea to sustain its efforts in the Middle East. He has also asserted that “nobody” believed Iran would retaliate by attacking Arab countries. On Monday, he said that “no, the greatest experts, nobody thought they were going to hit” neighboring countries. In truth, some experts had warned of precisely this scenario.
In another instance, Mr. Trump has used false information to continue his alarming penchant to portray people who contradict him as un-American. Last weekend, he posted an allegation that “Iran, working in close coordination with the Fake News Media” had spread fake videos of an American aircraft burning in the ocean. The White House has offered no examples of American media outlets having done so. Instead, several debunked fake online videos, CNN reported. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump wrote that “you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”
A shocking falsehood came on March 7, when Mr. Trump claimed in his typically offhand way that a strike on an elementary school in the town of Minab during the first hours of the war “was done by Iran.” The attack killed at least 175 people, most of them children. The U.S. military has conducted an investigation and preliminarily concluded that an American missile mistakenly hit the school. The military deserves credit for its honesty. The commander in chief, however, still has not retracted his statement.
[I snipped a comparison to lies about wars in Vietnam and Iraq.]
Lies about war also make it harder to achieve victory: The more one spreads falsehoods, the less one feels obliged to face reality. […] Before Mr. Trump began this war, he brushed aside warnings from his top military adviser that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz to traffic it does not approve. […]
Starting a war is the most serious action that a political leader can take. It ends lives and can change history. The decisions that guide war must be based in reality, and presidents owe American service members and their families the truth about why they are being asked to fight. Whatever short-term gain Mr. Trump thinks he is getting by lying about the war in Iran is far exceeded by the cost, for him, the country and the world.
BASH: Are ICE agents going to move into American airports starting tomorrow?
HOMAN: Yes. I’m currently working on the plan. We’ll execute tomorrow.
BASH: Are ICE agents even remotely trained to handle security at airports?
HOMAN: ICE agents receive high-level training. [Video clip]
Other than running traveler divestment lanes, by law without statutorily required training and certification ICE agents can’t conduct the actual screening, including ID verification at the screening checkpoint. (Not that the law has stopped this administration)
Rando: “And as a practical matter, ICE agents have demonstrated incompetence at ID verification on streets and sidewalks already.”
Eric Columbus (Obama DHS/DoJ): “The second half of this clip suggests that ICE agents probably won’t actually screen travelers/bags but rather will do collateral stuff like ensure no one enters secure areas through exit doors.”
Southpaw: “I’m currently working on the plan we’ll execute tomorrow to introduce our hastily hired and poorly trained fascist shock troops into a job they have no competency for, but don’t worry I found the time to do a couple hours of tv hits about it before I finished it.”
birgerjohanssonsays
(Hossenfelder alert)
Quantum entanglement easily explained. Also: “This is how faster than light signalling could work”
Returning to the issue of Trump saying he is glad Mueller is dead.
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By the time Trump dies, USA may have regressed to Soylent Green-level hardships. Which neatly solves the problem of how to respond to his demise.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Judah Grunstein (World Politics Review): “How it started, how it’s going.”
Ron Susskind (NYT) in 2004:
The [Bush admin] aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued.
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Friday’s press gaggle. Barely exaggerated: at 12:03 PM, President Trump told reporters he wanted a ceasefire with Iran. At 12:05 he declared victory. At 12:07 he announced he was sending Marines. At 12:08 he said no boots on the ground. At 12:11 he said he did not want a ceasefire. At 12:16 he declared victory again. At 12:17 he asked for a ceasefire. At 12:23 he told NATO they were cowards. At 12:29 he said Iran was begging for a ceasefire. At 12:31 he said everything was perfect. At 12:36 he said $500 oil was a good thing. At 12:37 he demanded Iran open Hormuz. At 12:39 he said Hormuz was never closed. At 12:41 he said the US was not at war with Iran. At 12:42 he declared victory in Iran.
By 3:43 PM he told CBS he doesn’t want a ceasefire. By 5:13 PM—13 minutes after futures markets closed for the weekend, in a coincidence that should be studied in every securities fraud textbook—he posted on Truth Social that the US is “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts”.
StevoRsays
Robert Celestial stood in radioactive water wearing nothing but shorts and rubber boots. The former United States Army truck driver was trying to drain water from a crater that would become a dump site for what he thought was debris left over from World War II. He did not know the crater he was standing in was created by a nuclear blast.
…(Snip)..
Mr Celestial made countless trips to the crater carrying nuclear debris in the back of his dump truck.
When the work was done, the crater was sealed with an 18-inch concrete cap, forming what is now called the Runit Dome or — “The Tomb”. But 50 years on, the dome is showing signs of deterioration. Cracks line its outer shell, while groundwater flows beneath the structure, allowing contaminated waste to wash into the surrounding lagoon.
Scientists fear rising seas or intensifying storms will eventually degrade the structure and place nearby communities at risk.
Yet the Marshallese government has little power to address the problem.
The six months Mr Celestial spent dumping debris into the Runit crater were among the worst of his life.
But he encountered something worse after he arrived home when boils began appearing all over his body.
“It was all over my front, my arms, my back and they would bleed,” he said.
@78. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : isn’t it long overdue that the 25th Amendment was applied given Trump’s glaringly obvious mental incompetence and thus unfitness to serve?
They could – indeed should – really have applied it back in 2017.
Of course that’d put Vance in as POTUS but still..
StevoRsays
Expletives but I guess with such a high primary vote (20% – yeesh ppl) for the far reiching racist One Neuron Party it was probly inevitable. Atleats they didn’t win any on the night and may only end up with one or two or three seats..
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has won its first-ever lower house seat at an election outside of Queensland, the ABC projects.
Adelaide Plains Council Deputy Mayor David Paton is set to become the One Nation member for Ngadjuri in South Australia’s parliament.
On the latest count, One Nation has a first preference lead of 5.6 percentage points over Labor candidate Tony Piccolo, and the Liberal Party recommended voters preference One Nation over the Labor Party.
One Nation is in contention in several other electorates as well, including the regional seats of Hammond, MacKillop and Narungga.
Ironic (?) that the vile bigot party here is winning an electorate with an Indigenous name.
StevoRsays
Happy National Eucalyptus Day everyone!
Think it’s only humans that yearn to find their dream home? Ask a Koala, Swift Parrot or Murray Cod what they need to survive and you’ll find that a gum tree fits the bill. Eucalypts support our Australian wildlife in a surprising number of irreplaceable, ingenious and often invisible ways. With little fanfare, these quiet achievers keep our unique animals, plants and fungi fed, watered, sheltered and safe. And with an abundance of threats to our eucalypts, it’s up to us to protect these iconic trees and the irreplaceable role they play in Australia. After all, home is where the gum (tree -ed.) is!
Four Corners
Monday, 23 Mar
Series 2026 | Episode 6 | Trump and the Tech Titans
8:32 PM – 9:18 PM [46 mins]
ctcCCRepeated on Tuesday 24 Mar at 11:15 PM, ABC TV
Wealthy tech titans Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sacks were instrumental in Trump’s rise to power and now hold sway far beyond Silicon Valley. How did they accumulate such unprecedented influence? Who’s really in control?
Silentbobsays
@ 86 birgerjohansson
Danger, Will Robertson! Danger!
Silentbobsays
@^
“Robinson”. I can’t believed I failed nerd.
StevoRsays
Tonight’s 7.30 Report :
Labor’s resounding win in South Australia’s election on the weekend also brought a surge in support for One Nation, putting the major parties on notice. James Wakelin reports.
“President Donald Trump says he will postpone threatened strikes on Iran’s power infrastructure for five days after ‘productive’ talks.
Trump’s move followed a threat by Iran to attack Israel’s power plants and those supplying US bases across the Gulf region if the US targets Iran’s power network.
Conversations with Iran will continue throughout the week, Trump said in a social media post. “I have instructed the department of war to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions,” he wrote.
& then :
“Iran’s Fars news agency, citing a source, said there are no direct or indirect communications with the United States. The report follows after President Donald Trump posted about “productive” talks with Tehran and said that he was postponing his threat to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure.
Fars also said Trump backed down on targeting Iranian power plants after Iran warned it would target power plants across West Asia in response.”
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Confirming the suspicions of many in the international community, on Monday Donald J. Trump revealed that intelligence played “no role” in his decision to go to war with Iran.
“People keep asking me about intelligence,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “I made this call with no intelligence whatsoever.”
“Quite frankly, every decision I’ve ever made in my life I’ve made without intelligence,” he boasted. “Intelligence is for losers.”
Trump added that “I don’t trust people who have intelligence, which is why I love Pete.”
It’s not exactly a secret that the partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security has led to exceedingly long lines at many American airports, but the White House apparently has an idea to help improve matters. MS NOW reported:
President Donald Trump and top administration officials said Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will arrive at the nation’s airports on Monday to handle security at exceedingly long lines driven by a shortage of TSA workers.
‘I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!’ Trump said on Truth Social.
On the surface, it’s likely that many air travelers would welcome the president’s “no more waiting” message, but as the policy advances, a handful of questions hang overhead.
1. Where did this idea come from? Evidently, it was a Fox News segment on Friday night that touted the idea which was followed by a presidential announcement on Saturday morning. […]
2. What will ICE agents do at airports? This is arguably the most obvious of the questions, but there’s ongoing uncertainty about the answer. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s online announcement “came as a surprise to officials inside ICE and at DHS,” who spent the weekend “trying to figure out how it could work.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union,” White House border czar Tom Homan, who will lead the effort, conceded that the plan was hatched by Trump a day earlier and was “a work in progress” — a problem that became more acute when Homan said ICE agents would not be involved with security screening operations, right around the time Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy appeared on ABC News and said the exact opposite.
3. Are ICE agents trained for this? ICE agents increasingly lack the necessary training to be ICE agents, and they definitely aren’t trained to work as TSA officials.
Everett Kelley, who leads the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement, “ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security. TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints [and according to reports and undercover tests, they fail frequently] — skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. […]”
In remarks from the Senate floor on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “ICE agents, who are untrained and have caused problems everywhere they’ve gone, lurking at our airports — that’s asking for trouble. And it will certainly make the chaos at our airports worse. […].”
4. Don’t ICE agents have day jobs? Evidently, the White House wants these agents to focus less on immigration enforcement and more on standing around in airports as part of a plan that doesn’t appear to exist in any meaningful way.
5. Is this all about petty, partisan spite? On Monday morning, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, endorsed the administration’s policy, telling Fox Business, “It’ll drive the Democrats crazy.” [video]
[…] as MS NOW contributor Philip Bump summarized, “[T]he ICE-at-airports thing is no more complicated than Trump knowing that his opponents hate ICE and thinking that they will therefore be tearing out their hair at this devious gambit.” […]
The death toll in the lawless U.S. campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats rose to at least 159 on Thursday after a strike in the eastern Pacific killed two people and left one survivor, who was turned over to the Costa Rican Coast Guard, according to the Pentagon. It was the 46th such strike on the high seas.
159 deaths … at least that many, probably more. Some survivors were never found. U.S. forces never adequately (or in a timely manner) searched for survivors.
Fearing that next month’s election won’t go Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s way, Russian intel considered a plan to boost his prospects by staging an assassination attempt, according to an internal Russian intel report obtained and authenticated by a European intelligence service and reviewed by the WaPo. Russia denied the allegation.
“More than half a million ballots seized by top GOP candidate in CA governor’s race”
Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation, which includes all the ballots cast in Riverside County in November, raises questions about how he would handle the election denialism movement if he is elected governor. [“Raises questions” is too mild a statement.]
The sheriff said his investigators are looking into allegations that the county’s tally was falsely inflated — a claim that local election officials have refuted.
The unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.
[…] As part of his quest to destroy the Department of Education, President Donald Trump is moving the student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has eagerly blessed this idea, no doubt based on her long history of managing large-scale education projects.
Oh wait. Apparently McMahon’s past experience is more along the lines of putting on Wrestlemania events and facing a lawsuit over allegations that she and her husband, Vince McMahon, looked the other way when a male WWE employee sexually abused multiple teen boys—a lawsuit that continues today.
According to McMahon, shifting the $1.7 trillion portfolio to the Treasury is necessary because her department has “failed to effectively manage and deliver these critical programs.”
By that, McMahon doesn’t mean that her department isn’t doing a good job offering or servicing student loans. She means there are too many borrowers in default, and the Treasury will be better at aggressive debt collection. [!]
So, while she says that this is about “leveraging Treasury’s world-renowned expertise in finance and economic policy,” that rings pretty hollow when the first phase of the three-phase move to Treasury is for that agency to start debt collection on defaulted loans.
You’d think that with 7.7 million borrowers in default on their student loans, along with roughly one-quarter of all borrowers behind on payments, the administration might realize that, hey, people are having trouble paying these debts and perhaps we should address this. [One would hope.]
But nope. All that is needed are forced collections—think garnishing wages and seizing tax refunds —exactly what the administration said it would do before temporarily delaying the plan back in January. No one knows when it will start up, because no one knows anything about this chaotic, stupid process.
And it isn’t just collection efforts that are a mess. The administration recently celebrated the death of President Joe Biden’s SAVE plan, because by trying to ease the burdens of borrowers, Biden was not just woke but unconstitutional somehow. Now, if you go to the relevant Education Department page, it declares that “SAVE Borrowers Must Act Now to Switch Plans.”
By voting for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans in Congress signed on to his project of making life harder for student loan borrowers by killing most of the affordable payment plans. This will force millions of borrowers to switch to a plan that likely has substantially higher monthly payments. [!]
But good luck switching. Information on that will come at some vague time in the future. […] Maybe.
“In the coming weeks, the Department will issue clear guidance on next steps for borrowers enrolled in the illegal SAVE Plan, including details regarding how borrowers can move into a legal repayment plan,” Kent said.
Gotta commend Kent for hitting the “illeeeeegal!” talking points here while still utterly refusing to provide any guidance to anxious borrowers.
A couple of tiny problems: The Education Dept hasn’t updated its systems to allow people to enroll in one of the remaining plans, and they haven’t even finished rulemaking for another. [Chaos, confusion, incompetence.]
[…] Meanwhile, people are crushed by high gas prices, there are fewer jobs, health care is more expensive, and grocery prices have jumped. What a great time to make a move that will result in millions of people paying significantly more per month for student loans. […]
Iran’s power system is large, heavily dependent on thermal generation, and widely dispersed—making it difficult to disable through limited military strikes. […] Although official figures put hydroelectric power at 13.4% of capacity, the actual share is less than 5%, largely due to reservoir conditions.
Instead, Iran relies overwhelmingly on thermal power plants, which generate more than 95% of its electricity. There are about 130 thermal plants across the country, with a combined capacity of 78,000 megawatts. Among them, around 20 plants exceed 1,000 megawatts, and three exceed 2,000 megawatts.
Large power plants are not easy targets. A facility like Damavand, with multiple cooling towers and units spread across 200 hectares […] would require a wide-scale attack to fully disable. Even then, the impact on the national grid would be limited. The complete destruction of Damavand would remove only 3.7% of Iran’s total electricity generation capacity. […] Strikes on substations could cause temporary, localized outages, but they can be replaced relatively quickly.
Sky Captain @99, Thanks for that information regarding Iran’s power grid.
Sounds like Trump was making threats without fully understanding the situation. I wonder if his team enlightened him, which in turn prompted him to lie about being in talks with Iran so that he could claim to postpone strikes on the power grid.
As the sixth week of the shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security continues, Democrats have repeatedly offered Republicans an obvious proposal that would lessen the impact of the standoff on the public: Lawmakers could immediately restore funding for agencies such as TSA, since it and other agencies have nothing to do with the fight over reforms to immigration enforcement tactics. [True!]
At that point, Democrats have said more narrowly focused negotiations could begin on funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans have repeatedly rejected the Democratic offers, but behind the scenes, there has been some movement. In fact, MS NOW confirmed that Senate Majority Leader John Thune spoke directly with Donald Trump over the weekend on an alternative plan that would likely solve the problem: Under the proposal reluctantly embraced by the South Dakota Republican, Congress would fully fund all of DHS, except ICE, which Thune said the party could try to tackle in a separate budget reconciliation bill. (Reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and would not be subject to the 60-vote rule.)
While most Senate Republicans were on board with the solution, the president balked. Indeed, as a related report from Punchbowl News noted, the president not only rejected the solution, but he also told Thune he wants GOP senators to stick around, keeping up the fight over DHS funding and the poorly named SAVE America Act, even if the posturing doesn’t amount to anything.
On Sunday night, Trump effectively confirmed the behind-the-scenes accounts. Politico reported:
When asked by NewsNation about whether Congress should just fund TSA while negotiating the rest of DHS, he [Trump] said ‘I don’t think any deal should be made on this until they approve SAVE America.’ He then said on Truth Social, ‘I don’t think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass ‘THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.’
What does it mean? Trump’s missive reflects where some Republicans already believed he was privately — in no mood to accept a DHS deal unless the elections bill is also passed.
In other words, the president sees Homeland Security funding as leverage: Either Democrats agree to impose new voting restrictions to address a problem that doesn’t exist, or problems at DHS will persist — from TSA to FEMA, the Coast Guard to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
To the extent that there was any meaningful debate over who’s to blame for the chaos, Trump isn’t making much of an effort to deny responsibility.
Reporting from the Wall Street Journal, as summarized by Steve Benen:
As part of a lingering intraparty problem, Trump has continued to condemn mail-in voting based on baseless conspiracy theories, to the chagrin of GOP officials who support the practice and want rank-and-file Republican voters to take advantage of the system.
BALTIMORE—In a stunning courtroom admission, a Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge Monday that the Trump administration has identified 91 cases where asylum seekers were deported despite a court-ordered class action settlement barring them from being removed before their asylum applications were adjudicated.
The dramatic increase in the number of known wrongful deportations in the case from about a dozen to nearly 100 was an astonishing development in a case where the government has insisted that the number of such deportations was relatively small. [!]
“Obviously this is extremely troubling,” U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher said in reaction to the update from the Justice Department that she had ordered Friday.
The existence of significantly more wrongful deportations was first revealed in surprise testimony Thursday by asylum officer Kimberly Sicard of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who said she had first become aware three to four weeks earlier of additional wrongful deportations numbering in the “low 100s.” […]
Judge Gallagher was “very concerned” about what she called the “notification issue” — the failure to divulge the discovery of the new cases to either the court or to class counsel. Instead the new information spilled out on class counsel’s cross examination of Sicard.
“At the very least they knew a week ahead of time and didn’t tell you all,” Gallagher told Mueller, before noting that a DHS attorney has been sitting in court at the government’s table throughout the three days of hearings.
“I’m very troubled that it seems to have been siloed for a week,” she said.
[…] Mueller provided an initial analysis of the 91 new cases that divided them into certain subcategories, including people who had voluntarily left the country or withdrew their pending requests for relief, but Gallagher was having none of it. Gallagher said she wanted a full investigation into all 91 cases. [Good!]
“Voluntary doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t entitled to relief under the settlement agreement,” Gallagher admonished, pointing to testimony from an ICE official in court today that one asylum seeker had supposedly completed the paperwork to voluntary deport themselves even though their case file said in two different places that as of 2018 they could neither read nor write. [!]
Class counsel Michelle Mendez of the National Immigration Project raised additional concerns beyond Gallagher’s “notification issue.” She pointed out the discrepancy between Sicard’s testimony that the USCIS general counsel’s office was first notified three to four weeks earlier, which would seem to fall sometime in late February, and the DOJ’s representation that USCIS didn’t notify DHS and ICE until March 12. […]
[The judge] wants to know who Sicard told at USCIS and an explanation for the discrepancy between Sicard’s and DOJ’s numbers. In short, Gallagher wants an investigation and full details about all 91 cases. Gallagher also ordered DOJ to give class counsel regular status reports every 48 hours starting Wednesday.
Judges in New Jersey on Monday appointed a new interim U.S. attorney, Robert Frazer, a career prosecutor who federal court veterans said could bring some stability to an office that has been in chaos for much of the past year.
According to a court filing, his appointment came after consultations between district court judges and the Justice Department’s senior leadership, and department officials welcomed his selection. That response itself represented a shift; all other U.S. attorneys appointed by judges around the country during President Trump’s second term have been fired.
This is really a last minute surrender by the DOJ. The judge responsible for dealing with Alina Habba’s appointment and the issues afterwards put up an order to have Habba and DOJ officials testify in court about what was happening. The DOJ instead folded and compromised with New Jersey prosecutors to find somebody they wanted to appoint that the DOJ would accept.
The most likely reasons for this sudden cave was that Habba continued to have a hand in running the office.
The right wing of the Supreme Court happily churned out far-fetched hypotheticals as rationale to end a voting practice so common that 30 states use it — including ruby red Mississippi, which was defending its version during Monday’s oral arguments.
Mississippi’s law, and the many like it, allows mailed ballots to be counted if they were sent by Election Day but arrived afterwards.
Voting by mail has become a contentious, political issue in the last several years, primarily fueled by President Donald Trump claiming falsely that it helped his shadowy enemies steal the election from him in 2020. Faced with the inconvenient reality that voting by mail is not actually rife with fraud, many of the conservative justices had to content themselves with increasingly hallucinatory what-ifs. An inordinate amount of time on Monday centered on the possibility of voters “retracting” their votes, a complicated and rare procedure. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas obsessed over the granularities of having a neighbor or relative drop off a voter’s ballot in their stead. […]
Justice Brett Kavanaugh fretted over the chance that late arriving ballots would prompt cries of fraud, creating a “perception” that lawful elections might appear rigged. As has become rote for the Court’s conservatives, in the absence of any actual evidence of voter fraud, they fell back on the impossible-to-substantiate risk that people might think something fishy is going on.
These rabbit holes, which tripped up Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, distracted from the meat of Monday’s attempt by the Republican National Committee and the Trump administration to make voting by mail harder to do because Democratic voters have used it more in recent history.
[…] The RNC and its allied justices cherry-picked historical data to try to prove that this long-standing, once bipartisan voting practice is alien to traditional American values.
“I am a little upset — not a little, a lot upset — by many of the statements in your brief quoting historical sources out of context,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer. […]
While the Roberts Court attacking voting rights has long been a dog bites man story, the action the Supreme Court is at least seriously contemplating is extreme: ripping up a routine, widely practiced state policy on the grounds that Congress actually meant federal law to forbid it, but it just randomly hasn’t come up until now.
And the Court is considering doing this months before the midterm elections, a seemingly clear violation of the Purcell principle: the idea that courts shouldn’t change how elections work too close to them, so as to not confuse voters. But the Court has become comfortable applying the rule sparingly, only when people likely to vote Republican are at risk.
[…] Trump was asked about his decision to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons to U.S. airports in his attempt to bully Congress amid the ongoing government funding standoff.
“We put ICE, who are a very high level—I mean they really are a high level group of people, and they love it because they’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country,” Trump bragged to a reporter on Monday. “That’s very fertile territory.”
[I think Trump accidentally revealed his true motive for sending ICE agents to airports. Trump also wants the cause more discomfort for travelers because he thinks that will increase his leverage over Democrats when it comes to funding DHS (especially ICE). Funding DHS and paying TSA workers are two separate issues. One thing we can tell for sure is that Trump doesn’t really care about long lines at airports, about travelers missing their flights, or about TSA agents having to take other jobs to pay their expenses.]
Trump quickly pivoted to the new excuse he’s giving for ICE’s confusing presence in domestic airports.
“But that’s not why they’re there,” he backtracked. “They’re there, really there to help.” [bullshit]
Following his weekend announcement that ICE agents would be invading airports—an idea he may have cribbed from a Fox News caller—Trump refused to support a government funding deal that would have restored paychecks for Transportation Security Administration workers […]
Air travel costs skyrocketing because of Trump’s war in Iran? Outrageously long lines at the airport? You can’t afford stuff and won’t be able to take a vacation? Don’t you worry—all that matters is that Trump totally owned the libs!
I’m receiving reports from airports all over the country about ICE sightings. I’ll be sharing updates here as I get them.
[…]
just walking around […] in the mezzanine just watching […] pacing and cracking jokes […] without any true purpose […] chatting with each other. Not doing anything. […] standing around unmasked. […] walking around in terminal 2. In full tactical gear. […] a brisk walk down the hall and back.
Marisa Kabas: “Many asking what’s on that one officer’s butt. I do not have that information at this time. [Photo]”
Rando: “Have there been ANY reports of ICE agents doing actual TSA-related work?”
Marisa Kabas: “Not that I’ve received so far.”
[…] Trump sent a Truth Social post on Monday morning before the stock and oil commodity markets opened, saying that the United States had productive “CONVERSATIONS” with Iran over the weekend and thus his Monday evening deadline for Iran to capitulate to his demands or else have major infrastructure in their country hit by military strikes is now postponed by a few days. [social media post]
It sure is curious how all of Trump’s comments making it seem like the war is coming to a close happen when the markets are opening, and escalations of the war on Iran tend to happen when markets are closed.
Despite having been made fools of by Trump chickening out in the past, traders ate up his comments. The post caused the price of oil to fall over 10% and led the stock market to rise 2% when it opened Monday morning.
Of course, almost immediately after, Iranian state media said there were no talks with Trump. And an Israeli security official—which is the U.S.’s primary ally in the war—told Sky News that they believed Trump’s comments were an effort to manipulate the markets.
“I’d approach this cautiously, with a grain of salt,” the unnamed Israeli security source told Sky News’ Yalda Hakim. “It’s early Monday morning in the U.S., the start of the trading week. Markets opened higher, largely as expected following the weekend reports on the negotiations and the latest statement by Donald Trump. That said, I wouldn’t view this move as a final step. We saw a similar pattern last week. Oil prices have also declined, supporting the positive sentiment in the short term. For now, it appears he has bought a few more days roughly into week four, until the Marines arrive and complete their initial deployment and organization phase.”
What’s more, both Israel and Iran are continuing to launch attacks at each other.
Doesn’t seem like things are going as perfectly as Trump made them out to be.
Meanwhile, when reporters pressed Trump on the talks, he refused to provide details and instead looked a lot like he was lying about the situation, telling reporters that the Iranian official negotiators spoke with was “a top person” whose name he wouldn’t divulge because he doesn’t “want them to be killed.” Okay, then …
Ultimately, while Wall Street traders desperately want to believe the war is nearing an end, experts say Trump’s rosy social media posts can keep the markets from crashing for only so long. [True]
At the end of the day, oil is a physical commodity, and if there is a shortage of it, prices will rise—no matter how much traders don’t want them to.
[…] even if the war does soon end, as Trump has suggested, experts say high gas prices will linger. It could take weeks, months, or even years to get oil moving at its previous speed and to repair the damage done to oil infrastructure in the Middle East.
“Even the best-case scenario for energy markets is disastrous,” The Economist wrote in an alarming headline on Monday.
“Even if the war ended tomorrow, we estimate that it would take at least four months to bring energy markets back to some semblance of normalcy,” Economist Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom wrote in a post on X.
And that will be bad for us consumers, who are expected to see the downstream inflationary effects of high gas prices.
At the end of the day, Americans will pay handsomely for Trump to try to negotiate what sure looks like the same Iran nuclear deal that he had torn up during his first term in office.
Melania Trump’s former modeling agent / presidential special envoy / father of the year Paolo Zampolli has been accused of asking Melania to ask ICE to deport his Brazilian ex-girlfriend and mother of his son to end his child custody battle. (People Magazine)
The man credited with introducing President Donald Trump to first lady Melania Trump more than 20 years ago is facing controversy after The New York Times reported that he allegedly urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have the mother of his child detained amid a custody battle.
According to the Times, former modeling agent Paolo Zampolli — who now serves as the president’s special envoy for global partnerships — allegedly called high-ranking ICE official David Venturella to ask for a favor after his ex-girlfriend, Amanda Ungaro, was arrested on fraud charges in Miami. Citing records and a source familiar with the conversation, the Times claimed Zampolli told Venturella that his Brazilian ex was in the country illegally and questioned whether she could be transferred to ICE detention to help him win custody of their teenage son.
The Times alleges that Venturella called ICE’s Miami office to ensure that Ungaro, Grenada’s former ambassador to the United Nations, was picked up by immigration agents before she was released from jail, emphasizing that the case was important to someone close to the White House.
Zampolli admitted to the Times that he reached out to Venturella after Ungaro was charged, but claimed the purpose of the call was to understand the implications of her arrest, not to have her intercepted by ICE. Venturella was a longtime private prison executive before landing his current government role. […]
“The pilot and co-pilot were killed, and 41 others were injured”
The deadly collision between the Air Canada plane and the Port Authority vehicle last night is the first fatal crash at LaGuardia Airport in over three decades, officials said today. […]
Mayor Zohran Mamdani assured New Yorkers that the investigation will be thorough.
[…] The Port Authority vehicle that collided with the Air Canada plane was carrying two people, and both are expected to be released from the hospital soon, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia told reporters.
The Port Authority later identified the men as Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez. […]
“The suit seeks a court order blocking the shuttering and demolition of parts of the center until the administration’s plans are reviewed, vetted and approved by Congress.”
Several conservation groups sued Monday to block the planned massive renovations at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, arguing the Trump administration plans to “hastily gut” the center without regard to its history or statutory guardrails.
[…] The suit contends that time is of the essence because Trump, who named himself the board’s chair last year, has acknowledged they’ve “already commenced preliminary construction work” at the site, and announced earlier this month that the center would temporarily close on July 5 so the renovations can begin in earnest.
[…] They’re asking a federal judge to declare that the administration has violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and other statutes. They’re also asking the judge to rule that the 2025 congressional appropriation of $256,657,000 “for necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures,” does not authorize the erection of new structures or discretionary aesthetic transformation of the Kennedy Center.
[…] The conservation groups are charging that the board has already made unauthorized changes to the site, including adding Trump’s name to the signage of the center, which they describe as a “living memorial” to the late President John F. Kennedy. They want a judge to stop the administration from making changes that can’t be undone. […]
“The opposition senses the prime minister can now be beaten in an election expected next year.”
Italian right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s crushing defeat in Monday’s referendum on judicial reform has shattered her aura of political invincibility, and her opponents now reckon she can be toppled in a general election expected next year.
The failed referendum is the the first major misstep of her premiership, and comes just as she seemed in complete control in Rome and Brussels, leading Italy’s most stable administration in years. Her loss is immediately energizing Italy’s fragmented opposition, making the country’s torpid politics suddenly look competitive again.
Meloni’s bid to overhaul the judiciary — which she accused of being politicized and of left-wing bias — was roundly rejected, with 54 percent voting “no” to her reforms. An unexpectedly high turnout of 59 percent is also likely to alarm Meloni, underscoring how the vote snowballed into a broader vote of confidence in her and her government.
She lost heavily in Italy’s three biggest cities: In the provinces of Rome, the “no” vote was 57 percent, Milan 54 percent and Naples 71 percent.
In Naples, about 50 prosecutors and judges gathered to open champagne and sing Bella Ciao, the World War II anti-fascist partisan anthem. Activists, students and trade unionists spontaneously marched to Rome’s Piazza del Popolo chanting “resign, resign.” […]
“The opposition senses the prime minister can now be beaten in an election expected next year.”
Italian right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s crushing defeat in Monday’s referendum on judicial reform has shattered her aura of political invincibility, and her opponents now reckon she can be toppled in a general election expected next year.
The failed referendum is the the first major misstep of her premiership, and comes just as she seemed in complete control in Rome and Brussels, leading Italy’s most stable administration in years. Her loss is immediately energizing Italy’s fragmented opposition, making the country’s torpid politics suddenly look competitive again.
Meloni’s bid to overhaul the judiciary — which she accused of being politicized and of left-wing bias — was roundly rejected, with 54 percent voting “no” to her reforms. An unexpectedly high turnout of 59 percent is also likely to alarm Meloni, underscoring how the vote snowballed into a broader vote of confidence in her and her government.
She lost heavily in Italy’s three biggest cities: In the provinces of Rome, the “no” vote was 57 percent, Milan 54 percent and Naples 71 percent.
In Naples, about 50 prosecutors and judges gathered to open champagne and sing Bella Ciao, the World War II anti-fascist partisan anthem. Activists, students and trade unionists spontaneously marched to Rome’s Piazza del Popolo chanting “resign, resign.” […]
“Moscow has increased its attacks to take advantage of the better weather, President Zelenskyy says.”
The Russian army sustained over 6,000 casualties in the last four days as it attempted a renewed offensive that was beaten back by the Ukrainian military.
“The enemy tried to break through the defensive formations of our troops in several strategic directions at once … In total, the enemy conducted 619 assault actions during these four days,” Ukrainian Army Commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement on Monday, describing the Russian operations as “a colossal pressure.”
Syrskyi said the Russian command threw tens of thousands of soldiers into the “meat assaults.”
While Ukrainian open source analysts at the Deep State live map project reported the Kremlin’s army managed to advance in several small villages, it came at a catastrophic cost.
“Over four days of intensive assault operations, the enemy lost more than 6,090 soldiers killed and wounded,” Syrskyi said, adding that Kyiv largely managed to repel the offensive.
The number of Russians killed or wounded was also reported Monday by the Ukrainian army command. The Russian ministry of defense reported targeting Ukrainian troops in more than 147 fighting districts in the Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions over the past few days, but did not reveal the number of Ukrainian or Russian losses, or any significant advances.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian troops have noticeably become more active, taking advantage of the better weather, and that there have been more attacks.
“But this also means more Russian losses. In this week alone, more than 8,000 have been killed and seriously wounded. They also had mechanized assaults. Our drones are working well, and the positions of our army are strong,” Zelenskyy said in an evening statement to the nation on Sunday. […]
Follow-up to Sky Captain @35 and @107; whheydt @40; and me @66, @94, @101, and @106.
[…] Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) laid it all out in a social media post on Monday.
“After blocking it 7 times, Senate Republicans agree that we should fund TSA, FEMA and Coast Guard, and set ICE aside while we negotiate reforms,” Slotkin said. “President Trump is holding DHS funding hostage to protect ICE.”
Kristi Noem may no longer be homeland security secretary, but the revelations of her wild, self-aggrandizing spending while she held the post are the grifts—er, gifts that keep on giving.
Remember her horsey ad? The one that ultimately proved to be her downfall when she tried to shift some blame for the $220 million contract to President Donald Trump? Noem had near-complete authority to waste your tax dollars however she liked, but the cringe horse ad is what sealed her fate.
Getting a glamour shot in front of Mount Rushmore on a horsey did not come cheap! […] why not soak the taxpayers for as much as possible to get fancy horseys and flattering makeup?
And trust us, the horseys were very fancy—to the tune of $20,000 of taxpayer money for renting, transporting, and boarding three [horses] two days. […] No, Noem rented horses from Jill Moody, a competitive barrel racer champion from South Dakota who just happens to be a longtime friend and backer of Noem.
The hair and makeup were also very fancy, costing all of us $3,800. Noem really spread the love around, hiring not one, not two, not three, but four separate stylists, three of whom were based in Washington, D.C. So presumably we got to pick up the tab for their travel to the glorious wonderland of Mount Rushmore. But the largest chunk of the makeup money—$2,070—went to Bombshell Beauty Makeup Studio in South Dakota. […]
Texas businessman Jeff Webb, described by Kirk’s Turning Point USA as a “visionary who helped shape generations of young leaders,” died Friday at the age of 76 — two weeks after suffering a serious head injury when he fell playing the popular sport, Cheer Daily reported.
The conservative author — who was also widely dubbed the father of modern cheerleading — succumbed after two weeks on life support…
@91 StevoR: I just realized another way Trump has a problem dealing with Iran. The Iranian government and news services are going to reflexively disagree with everything Trump says publicly. It’s their standard practice going back 40+ years. The best way to negotiate with Iran is to say nothing until the deal can be presented to the public by both sides at once as a mutual win. Trump probably can’t curtail his ego and his mouth long enough to do this, he is going to have to gloat about winners and losers along the way. This will cause the Iranian side to contradict him and make the negotiators bristle. This constant conflicting news and changing sea of topics will complicate negotiations, possibly make it impossible if Trump and Hegseth blather too loudly about having destroyed Iran.
Militant Agnosticsays
Reginald Selkirk @119
The linked article did not explain what cornholing was. Where I come from cornhole means anus and is usually used a verb meaning to penetrate an anus. I am not going to google it.
Militant Agnosticsays
I am sure that the ICE agents assuming the duties of TSA personnel will have received Special High Intensity Training to prepare them for their new roles.
StevoRsays
The Lindsey Graham horror joke at the 24 mins 36 secs markhere – in thelatest Palent America (30 misn total) is pretty morbidly funny and good I reckon..
StevoRsays
Repression back-firing is kinda ironic (?) I think albeit horrible too here :
The role of Israel’s hijacking of Iran’s street cameras in the killing of the country’s supreme leader underscores how surveillance systems are increasingly being targeted by adversaries in wartime.
Hundreds of millions of cameras have been installed above shops, in homes and on street corners across the world, many connected to the internet and poorly secured. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have enabled militaries and intelligence agencies to sift through vast amounts of surveillance footage and identify targets.
On Feb. 28, Israel vividly demonstrated the potential of such systems to be hacked and used against adversaries when Israel tracked down Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with the help of Tehran’s own street cameras — despite repeated warnings that Iran’s surveillance systems had been compromised, according to interviews and an Associated Press review of leaked data, public statements and news reports.
The company responsible for the highly criticised Bureau of Meteorology website overhaul has won a $16 million tender to develop another climate data website for the government.
Technology company Accenture Australia, which was also contracted for BOM’s $96 million redesign, has been tasked with building a “platform service” for the Australian Climate Service over the next three years.
..(snip)..
the move has been criticised by people with knowledge of the project, with questions raised over whether it will be value for money, and concerns it could come at the cost of the ongoing climate science work needed to inform it.
… the sperm whale is a mysterious animal, despite its massive size, and biologists have long debated the extent of any headbutting behaviour.
Now scientists have said they have captured the first recorded footage of a headbutting sperm whale, as well as witnessed the behaviour in the water.
Their study, published in Marine Mammal Science, details an aerial video from the Balearic archipelago off Spain showing a juvenile male ramming into a small female.
Enter Polish theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski of the University of New Haven. Poplawski theorizes that the reason the matter and antimatter asymmetry exists is that tiny primordial black holes created during the Big Bang gobbled up vast amounts of antimatter.
Brown dwarfs may have gained the unfortunate nickname “failed stars,” but new research suggests they can collide and merge for a second chance at success.
..(snip)..
…a team of scientists has discovered a tightly orbiting pair of brown dwarfs that are working together to combat this “failure.” One brown dwarf is actively siphoning material from its companion, meaning it could achieve the mass needed to trigger nuclear fusion in its core and become a fully-fledged star. Either that, or these brown dwarfs will collide and merge, birthing an entirely new star with enough mass to trigger nuclear fusion.
“This truck came up and started driving parallel to them,” Sandu said of the passenger’s account of what happened.
He said the people in the truck waved at Singh and his friends, and they waved back.
Sandhu said Singh continued driving and suddenly bullets hit the car.
“They were confused as to what’s going on. That’s when the truck sped away as they pulled over in their Honda onto the side of the road and it was at that point they realized Birinder had been hit,” Sandhu said.
Sandhu said he understands the matter is still under investigation and that Mounties have told his organization that hate is being considered as a motivating factor. Sandhu said everyone in the car was wearing a turban.
Went for a blood test this morning and saw a pickup truck with a “Remigration Now” bumper sticker in the parking lot at the Cochrane Urgent Care Centre. Alberta is indeed the Texas of Canada.
Militant Agnosticsays
Sky Captain – given the meaning that I was familiar with, I was not to to click on video :)
Rando: Sometimes I think about the hell Mordechai Vanunu went through to show the world that Israel had a secret, illegal nuclear-weapons programme, and that almost 40 years after he was kidnapped by Mossad & given a secret trial, he still lives as a virtual prisoner.
Israel kidnapped him by luring him from the UK to Italy, drugged him and then put him in solitary confinement for over a decade. Neither the UK nor Italy did anything, and to this day the vast majority of the media never mention Israel’s undeclared nuclear program, let alone ask about Vanunu. And this was after Israel was already occupying southern Lebanon btw.
Through constant surveillance and analysis by Mossad expert Freudian psychologists, it was agreed that Vanunu, though lonely and somewhat socially challenged, was still eager and fit for female companionship. […] a honey trap operation
The keen insight a world-class spy agency had to pay multiple expert Freudians to get.
birgerjohanssonsays
John Cleese has some sharp comments about Donald Trump mocking Robert Mueller after his death.
Rachel Maddow looks at how the “No Kings” protests have grown progressively as outrage over Donald Trump’s policies and conduct has grown, and now with the third “No Kings” day set for Saturday, March 28th, truly massive crowds are expected to make their views known. Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, joins to discuss the growing movement.
Rachel Maddow shares the good news that the offshore Revolution Wind Farm is up and running and will ultimately power hundreds of thousands of homes at a cost savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is particularly good news in light of the energy crisis Donald Trump has triggered with his war on Iran, which also makes it hard to understand why Trump has struck a deal to pay one billion dollars of taxpayer money to a French energy firm to cancel two new wind farms.
Rachel Maddow looks at the news stories we would have trouble believing if we weren’t living through them in real time, including Denmark, a U.S. ally, making preparations to defend itself and Greenland against the U.S., Donald Trump staggering around war crime-level threats against Iran, a MAGA sheriff seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots, and ICE agents being sent to airports with no real job to do.
“Last week a federal court rejected Defense Department press restrictions. This week the DOD is moving forward with new limits on journalists anyway.”
Last fall, as part of a larger offensive against journalism at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told news organizations that reporters won’t be allowed to cover the department unless they agree only to report information, including unclassified information, authorized for release by the administration.
Outlets that refused to agree to his terms, the secretary added, would lose access and have their press badges confiscated.
Practically every major news organization refused, including MS NOW (my employer) and Fox News (Hegseth’s former employer). The result was an exodus of Pentagon correspondents, each of whom refused to accept the administrative restrictions, exiting the Pentagon en masse in a display of unity.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled against the Pentagon’s restrictive press access policy, concluding that it violated the First Amendment and granted the government overly broad authority to control access to the press corps. The court decision fueled some hopes that conditions at the Defense Department might return to normal.
Those hopes were soon dashed. The New York Times, which helped take the lead in challenging the Hegseth-imposed restrictions, reported:
The Pentagon is closing the workspace used for years by journalists with credentials to cover the military, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, wrote in a memo to senior Pentagon leadership. A new area for the press will be set up in an annex outside the main Pentagon building, he said, and all journalists now seeking physical access to the Pentagon will require an escort.
In addition, the department is changing the wording of some of the rules for journalists requesting a credential, Mr. Parnell wrote.
As far as Hegseth’s team is concerned, the department can impose these restrictions, limiting access to media organizations, without running afoul of Friday’s court ruling, which the Pentagon is appealing.
The Times doesn’t quite see it that way. The new policy does not comply with the judge’s order. It continues to impose unconstitutional restrictions on the press,” a spokesperson for the newspaper said. “We will be going back to court.”
The Pentagon Press Association similarly said that the department’s latest announcement “is a clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week’s ruling.” [!]
For his part, the beleaguered secretary — himself a former media figure — has not yet explained why he feels the need to try to curtail journalism in and around the Pentagon, far beyond what modern Democratic and Republican administrations, including during Trump’s first term, considered necessary.
At Donald Trump’s latest event in Memphis, which was ostensibly focused on public safety and the deployment of federal law enforcement resources, the president took some time to focus on one his favorite subjects: his hatred of mail-in voting.
“You know, it was brought to my attention today that we’re the only country that does mail-in voting,” the Republican claimed. “Mail-in voting means mail-in cheating. I call it mail-in cheating.” [Trump has repeated this often-debunked lie over and over again.]
As is too often the case, the president had no idea what he was talking about. For one thing, many countries in continents around the globe rely on postal balloting without incident. No matter how many times Trump says the U.S. is the only country that embraces such a system, reality keeps proving him wrong.
For another, I have no idea how Trump came to believe that voting by way of the mail is inherently corrupt, but it’s not, and he’s never offered anything resembling evidence to the contrary. He just keeps asserting the falsehood, apparently hoping that nonsense will become true by way of repetition.
[…] 58% majority of Americans favor allowing voters to cast ballots by mail if they want to. Meanwhile, Republican Party officials at both the state level and national level have practically begged Trump to stop lying about this because they want the GOP base to take advantage of mail-in voting.
[…] the website for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections shows that Trump voted by mail in this week’s special election in Florida. The Washington Post similarly reported:
President Donald Trump, who is in the midst of pressuring senators to curb the use of mail-in voting, voted by mail ballot in Tuesday’s special election in Palm Beach County, Florida.
The Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections website indicates that Trump, who is registered to vote at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach, ‘voted by Mail Ballot’ in a special election between Democrat Emily Gregory and Republican Jon Maples for a seat in the state legislature. A spokesperson for the office confirmed to The Washington Post that the ‘information [on the site] is accurate.’
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. In Trump’s first term, the president also condemned mail-in balloting as “horrible” and “corrupt,” even as he continued to vote by mail.
Pressed on the conflict between his position and his record, the Republican told reporters, “Sure, I can vote by mail — because I’m allowed to.”
[…] Complicating matters further, there’s the U.S. Supreme Court, which is run by Republican-appointed justices who appear ready to inject needless chaos and uncertainty into elections by barring states from counting ballots that come in after Election Day — even if they’re postmarked by Election Day.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
birgerjohansson @133:
John Cleese has some sharp comments about Donald Trump
Trump was so awful that Cleese momentarily sounded less so. I’d be wary of the “resistance movement” account that made a meme to circulate his quote.
Eiynah Mohammed-Smith (Polite Conversations):
Gad Saad and John cleese were fighting over who could be more anti Muslim. What a stupid time to be alive. Gad was livid that Cleese did not understand his “satire” and instead accused him of portraying Islam too positively.
John Cleese: Does this silly little man [Gad Saad] not understand that Islam is a very aggressive belief system, threatening death to anyone who does not convert to Islam?
The Buddhists, the Taoists, the Scottish Presbyterians,
the Hindus and the Sikhs and the Confucians and the
Catholics don’t go around shouting about beheading
people they disagree with.
John Cleese is a perfect example of Dunning Kruger. Spends all his day tweeting incessantly about the evils of Islam, misquoting the Quran, attacking Sadiq Khan, and making points about comparative religion that are demonstrably wrong. Buddhist extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to Burma. Hindu extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to India. Catholic extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to Northern Ireland. FFS.
Breitbart – John Cleese warns Britain will cease to exist if Christian values ‘are replaced by Islamic ones’ https://archive.is/YMs01
John Cleese: “[Isn’t] the Islamic intention to kill all non-Muslims worth a dog whistle? Or has beheading of Infidels been recently dropped from the islamic agenda?”
Headline: John Cleese says he’s now avoiding B.C. because of crackdown on gender ideology criticism
If you find yourself so obsessed with insulting trans people that you can’t go to jurisdictions where doing that can have actual monetary consequences, maybe ask yourself what the hell is wrong with you.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (The Borowitz Report)—TSA officers arrested hundreds of ICE agents on Monday after the untrained individuals inadvertently set off airport metal detectors with their guns.
In airports across the nation, ICE agents walked through the detectors despite signs warning that firearms were not permitted.
“This is so unfair,” said one ICE agent as he was being handcuffed. “When I took this job I was promised it wouldn’t involve reading.”
“Markets surge after Trump claims he had sex with an angel.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
shermanj @140: I ran LineageOS Android with and w/o Google apps satisfactorily for years. Not used it recently. It continues providing OTA updates to old hardware long after Google/Samsung/etc. The hardware needs to be a little old for the devs to have had time to study it. Installation involved replacing the bootloader and flashing the new OS. There are optional bundles of minimal Google apps, but they made updates a hassle (had to sideload them every time before the updated OS’s first boot).
A similar customized android, GrapheneOS, has long been tauted for privacy, but I know nothing else about it, exclusively Pixel hardware apparently.
If you mean buying entire phones preloaded with an OS, from what little I’ve seen, those are pricey and obscure.
Wikipedia – List of open-source mobile phones
You can do a fair bit of degoogling by using the F-Droid repository (less selection than the Play Store but free and safer). And alternative browsers like Fennec Firefox, with search engine set to DuckDuckGo. For navigation, I like OsmAnd~. Organic Maps looks promising, but I haven’t spent much time with it. Replace whatever you can: the calendar, dialer, contacts, gallery, clock. VLC for media. NewPipe for YouTube (Install via GitHub apk and let the app nag for updates. F-Droid is automatic but delayed). Acode’s a good text editor. Tick all of Google’s myriad privacy settings, and if you must use their web services, don’t be logged in.
Definitely read this. Google has announced plans to restrict what apps can be installed, from anywhere. https://keepandroidopen.org/
Earlier this month, just days into the war with Iran, multiple news organizations, including MS NOW, reported that Russia provided Iran with information that could help it strike American targets. One U.S. official told MS NOW point-blank, “Russia is providing intelligence help to Iran.”
It wasn’t long before lingering doubts about the accuracy of the reporting evaporated. Iranian officials have publicly confirmed Russia’s “military cooperation”; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz acknowledged Russia’s wartime “strategic partnership” with Iran; and Democratic senator Adam Schiff of California, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said matter-of-factly that Russia “is providing intelligence to Iran to better attack and kill American troops.”
Last week, The Wall Street Journal advanced the broader story, reporting that Russia recently expanded its intelligence-sharing and military cooperation with Iran, “providing satellite imagery and improved drone technology to aid Tehran’s targeting of U.S. forces in the region.” [!]
On Monday, MS NOW reported:
Ukraine’s military intelligence has ‘irrefutable’ evidence that Russia has provided intelligence to the Iranian regime, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X today.
‘Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East,’ Zelenskyy said, citing a report from Ukrainian Chief of Defense Intelligence Oleh Ivashchenko.
[…] in theory this would ordinarily be about the time that the White House would want to take a closer look at the evidence out of Kyiv.
[…] By all appearances, Trump does not care.
The initial reaction from the American president and his team to the original allegations was to express total indifference. This was soon followed by news that the Republican administration agreed effectively to reward Vladimir Putin’s regime by temporarily easing oil sanctions on the country — twice. [!]
All the while, top members of Team Trump publicly vouched for Russia’s trustworthiness and echoed Kremlin talking points. [!]
The president recently found new ways to make the problem worse. In an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, for example, Trump conceded that he believes Russia “might be” assisting Iran, but he added that Putin’s regime deserves a pass because the United States has assisted Ukraine.
“You know, it’s like, hey, they do it and we do it, in all fairness,” Trump said. “They do it and we do it.”
Days later, he went further, telling the Financial Times, in reference to Russia, “It’s hard to say, ‘You’re targeting us, but we’ve been helping Ukraine.’”
In other words, the incumbent American president, during a war, both echoed Putin’s talking points and excused an adversary for helping a different adversary target American troops and assets.
Zelenskyy may very well have “irrefutable” military intelligence that Russia is helping Iran during the ongoing U.S. offensive, but so long as Trump is prepared to let Putin do as he pleases, Ukraine’s evidence won’t have the kind of impact it would have under a normal U.S. administration.
Former White House strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers assisting with airport operations is a “test run” for the 2026 midterms.
During a conversation with conservative lawyer Mike Davis on his ‘War Room’ program, Bannon asked, ‘We can use what’s happening with these ICE [officers] helping out at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections, sir?’
Commentary:
[…] Early last month, Bannon became the first leading figure on the right to publicly endorse deploying ICE agents to local voting precincts, which seemed ridiculous — right up until a variety of Republicans, on Capitol Hill and conservative media outlets, started endorsing the tactic.
[…] radical ideas can pop up on “War Room,” but it’s not unusual to see those same ideas spread quickly in GOP politics.
What’s more, there’s a certain political logic behind the dynamic Bannon described. The administration may very well want Americans to grow more accustomed to seeing ICE agents — on public streets, in busy airports and elsewhere — so that it seems less jarring to see them similarly patrolling local polling places, looking for fraudulent voters who don’t exist in any meaningful way.
A few months ago, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker appeared on MS NOW and told Rachel Maddow that he was concerned about the Republican administration deploying federal agents to polling locations under the pretense of “protecting the vote.” The more Bannon endorses this approach, the more alarming his rhetoric becomes.
First lady Melania Trump dropped a little teaser for her “Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit” on X Monday afternoon, so let’s get hyped. Not that you’d know what to get hyped about from the brief video—it literally contains the name of the summit, the dates, and that Melania will be putting on this charade with the help of the White House and the State Department.
Well, to be fair, the video also included Melania’s first lady seal, which is hilarious as there is no such thing as a first lady seal, nor has anyone prior to Melania tried to have one.
Okay, so back to Fostering the Future. Melania is bringing together 45 countries and 28 tech companies to “empower children through education and technology.”
Ooh, empower how? With AI, of course. “Fostering the Future Together will make available to countries of the world advanced technology, including artificial intelligence (Al), to assist children, educators, and parents, while also protecting them from online dangers.”
Despite all the fanfare, it isn’t really possible to determine who is attending.
Of the 45 countries, there is a “sampling” of member nations, one that dovetails with quite a few of the samples also being members of Trump’s Board of Peace. Membership is also limited to spouses of heads of state, not the heads of state themselves.
As far as the 28 companies? The “sampling” of attendees there includes OpenAI, Microsoft, xAI, Meta, Palantir, Adobe, Google, and Zoom Communications. [!]
Nothing says “tools to empower children and keep them safe” like having Palantir in attendance. Are the children of the world crying out for more efficient brutalization of immigrants? And Meta! The company that is the defendant in a six-week trial over whether it lied about the safety—or lack thereof, really—of its platforms, allegedly putting profits first, rather than protecting children.
[…] The Global Summit just looks like a way to build markets for favored Big Tech companies.
[…] The official White House page for this nonsense offers “a hands-on tech and education exposition for First Spouses and their advisors in attendance to engage directly with private-sector leaders and interface with a variety of innovative and educational products and services.”
Yeah, that’s a sales conference, not a global summit. [yep]
And who are the most-yet-unnamed technology partners? “Learning-tech companies, online safety firms, AI infrastructure partners, software firms, and hardware and device manufacturers.”
This isn’t about other countries, children, or safety. It’s about the American government coordinating with billionaires to get other countries to buy their stuff. [Yep!]
There’s little to no chance this was Melania’s idea, given that it mostly tracks the education ideas being pimped over at the ai.gov site, all of which are basically about forcing AI on K-12 schoolchildren so they will one day “thrive in the AI-driven workforce.”
But part of what makes Melania who she is is that she genuinely seems to believe that the no-show jobs invented for her are real, and that she is a deep thinker and an entrepreneur extraordinaire. Witness this cringe from her four-minute speech at the White House for Women’s History Month. [video]
Melania is “often alone at the top,” but that helps her listen to her instinct and “always maintain a laser focus.”
A laser focus on … what, exactly?
“Attention to detail, demanding schedules, and multitasking are everyday realities when building towards success.”
Somehow Melania thinks that multitasking is her guiding light, and that “the principle resonates across all my roles as a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist, and entrepreneur as well as with my new film where I shaped its creative direction, served as a producer, managed post production, and activated the marketing campaign.”
See? Melania believes that the $75 million bribe that Amazon gave to Trump to make the documentary about her is a real thing, and that she did real marketing. If she did, she certainly wasn’t good at it, as the film disappeared after four weeks and bombed financially, making only about $16 million. [!]
Melania is also convinced that all her other little fake companies and products are in demand,. According to Melania, it’s curiosity that gives her an “unrestricted mindset” that has led her to build across very different sectors: “fashion, digital assets, publishing, accessories, skincare, commercial television, and of course, film making.”
Lady, you went on Fox News to pimp your book, your ugly jewelry, and your even uglier ornaments. That’s not Fox News being blown away by the quality of Melania Trump, Renaissance Woman. That’s just giving the first lady airtime because it’s their business model.
And her book? Not really a successful publishing effort. Though it topped The New York Times Best Seller list its first week, it did so with 85,349 sales. In comparison, Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” sold 636,696 copies in its first week. […]
But how about those digital assets? She must be talking about her meme coin, the one that dropped 98% in value from January to August of last year. […]
It’s pretty clear that Melania is being installed as the ostensible head of the Fostering the Future effort so that it looks like she’s doing first lady stuff. But let’s be honest: she’s going to wander off from this just as she did Be Best, but likely not until those big tech companies that are sucking up to Trump land some international deals. Billionaires gotta get paid.
There’s no doubt that raising sales taxes in order to lower property taxes will shift more of South Dakota’s tax burden to lower-income residents, Republican Senate Majority Leader Jim Mehlhaff said.
“It is regressive,” he said. “There’s no denying that.”
[…] South Dakota is among several Republican-led states this year pushing higher sales taxes as a way to pay for other tax cuts. The moves will force lower- and middle-income residents, who spend a larger share of their earnings than the wealthy, to foot more of the bill for state services …]
[…] In some states, including Georgia and Missouri, the efforts come as part of a years-long push to reduce or eliminate state income taxes, which supporters say will make states more competitive for businesses and residents. In other places, including South Dakota, lawmakers see sales taxes as a way to help provide relief for climbing residential property taxes.
Under one of the new laws, South Dakota’s sales tax rate will rise from 4.2% to 4.5% next year, collecting an estimated $114 million in additional annual sales taxes. […]
Lawmakers have been facing mounting complaints over homeowner property taxes, which have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, when a wave of migration and other factors drove up home values. As home prices soared, South Dakota home property tax collections surged from about $482 million in 2016 to about $815 million last year, according to the state revenue department. Mehlhaff noted the state, which has no income tax, currently touts one of the lowest sales tax rates in the country.
While South Dakota is outright raising sales taxes, other Republican-led states are looking to broaden what categories of goods and services are taxed. But progressives worry that these moves could increase the burden on lower-income residents to fund schools, transportation and other state services. [True]
Already, 40 states have tax structures tilted in favor of the wealthiest earners [!] [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]
[…] the federal government is cutting support to states and raising state costs for safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food assistance […]
Shifting the tax burden
Last week, the Missouri House approved a ballot measure that would ask voters in November if they want to replace the income tax and give lawmakers broad authority to expand sales taxes.
While the state’s income tax provides about 65% of Missouri’s general revenue, Republicans have framed it as an unfair tax that undermines economic growth by taxing productivity and creativity.
[…] The proposed constitutional amendment, which passed the House on a nearly party-line vote, will now go to the Senate for consideration.
Lawmakers would have three years to expand the sales tax to currently untaxed services and end sales tax exemptions to raise enough revenue to replace the income tax without having to seek another statewide vote.
[…] Among its dozens of exemptions, the state currently does not tax prescription drugs, agricultural supplies and digital goods such as e-books.
Expanding sales taxes to services could have a mix of effects: Taxing child care, for instance, would prove regressive, hitting working parents. But taxing financial services would likely affect those earning more.
[…] Democratic lawmakers argued that eliminating the income tax would lead to massive cuts to services like public schools, while shifting the tax burden onto the working poor. […]
Framing the argument
In some states, lawmakers have been explicit about increasing sales taxes to pay for other cuts. […]
In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp proposed cutting the personal and corporate income tax rate from 5.19% to 4.99%. If enacted, the change is expected to cost about $750 million per year, funded with reserve state funds and an end to certain tax exemptions.
But tax cut proposals from other lawmakers could create billions in future state deficits […]
Georgia Republicans have framed the tax cut push as a way to address growing affordability concerns. […]
With no statewide property taxes, Tillery [Sen. Blake Tillery] said income tax cuts are the state’s best option to help families afford the rising costs of groceries, gas and other necessities.
Tillery said the tax cut wouldn’t require a sales tax hike because it would be funded by eliminating special interest tax exemptions, including the controversial sales tax exemption for the state’s booming data center industry. […]
“If you buy a laptop for your child to go to the University of Georgia, you pay sales tax,” he said. “But if you buy $15 million worth of computers because you’re building a data center, you pay no sales tax at all. That’s not helping anybody in Fulton County pay for child care.”
State Sen. Harold Jones II, the chamber’s Democratic leader, said he expects the governor’s tax plan to find bipartisan support this year. But he said the legislative proposals cut too far into state revenues.
“You have to make that up through sales tax. You’re not going to grow yourself out of that,” he said.
He said the state could provide more targeted relief to taxpayers through plans like a bipartisan legislative proposal to exempt feminine hygiene products, diapers and baby formula from sales taxes.
“We weren’t able to even get a hearing on that,” he said. “So when they start talking about actually trying to help the middle class, it’s not really a serious argument.”
[…] Hell is inside the George Bush International Airport. [video]
[…] Hell is an hours-long “security line” snaking through a never-ending, undecorated corridor, a dirty-white and dirty-black and dirty-blue liminal space with a drop ceiling. Hell is carrying your luggage along, an inch at a time, staring at the backs of hundreds of other damned souls all carrying their own luggage, all looking at the backs of hundreds of other damned souls doing the same.
Over bad speakers, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” plays. It plays forever. It never ends.
On sparsely placed monitors, former Homeland Security Kristi Noem drones on mostly unintelligibly, squeezing the words out of her reconstructed mouth. She is no longer in charge, but there is no newer video to play, and the monitors would not play it if there was. Noem, uncanny, lives inside the boxes now. Her soul, her visage, that sneer of cold command—they are trapped inside the boxes, forever. She drones on about immigrants. She reminds you that you may carry only a certain amount of toothpaste through the checkpoint, and no more than that. You will spend eternity with only that much toothpaste: use it sparingly, and wisely.
Periodically, small packs of ICE agents wander by. Their job is guns. They are there to watch, and to have guns. They do not know the rules about toothpaste, and will not answer your questions. They do not know how to interpret x-ray images. They do not know whether Puerto Rico is American or foreign soil, and do not care. They are just there to watch you, and to have guns. They look satisfied.
The real security agents—if there are security agents—are not paid. They may not exist. They may be a figment of Hell’s collective imagination, a story passed from soul to soul, like tales of witches. Because there is no end to the hallway, and there is no security checkpoint.
The hallway extends from the George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas, to eternity.
Always the same Lee Greenwood song.
Always Kristi Noem, droning on about the greatness of your nation.
Always the men with guns milling about.
There are no planes. There are no air traffic controllers; there is no runway. There is no terminal C. You will never reach the security checkpoint, because it is an illusion. It is an image painted on fog. You can only reach it if the Lee Greenwood song ends, but the Lee Greenwood song will never end.
The long hallway is the most patriotic place in the whole of the country. It is named after a president, and sings songs of raw jingoism, and a woman who disfigured herself to enchant a later president will tell you what security means, because she knows and you do not. And when the men with guns wander by, you know that you are in the most secure liminal space in the entire liminal world.
And you step forward another foot, and set your bag back down, and you think you can almost see the flags waving at the security checkpoint you will never reach—because it is only an image painted on fog. […]
And the goddamn Lee Greenwood song is still playing. It should have ended by now. It should have ended hours ago. It should have ended yesterday.
What day is it? Is it tomorrow? Where were we going? What did we pack in our bags? Was there a wedding? A funeral? A long dreamed-of trip? Is it yesterday?
We could turn back, but would the men with guns let us? Would it be suspicious? If we all turned around to face the other direction, what would happen? Could we escape?
No. The hallway only leads to more hallway. It took hours to arrive here; even with an eternity before us, we could not find our way back out. […]
There is no second video. We will never see the end of the line, or know if there is one. There are only pictures of the middle of the line. Never the front; never the end. There will be another one sent out tomorrow, via an anonymous source using anonymous means, and the song will still not be over, and Noem will still be trapped in the little boxes, uncanny and smirking and seething.
Sky Captain @139, thanks for that informative post. Also, implied, always check one’s sources.
This is memorable:
John Cleese is a perfect example of Dunning Kruger. Spends all his day tweeting incessantly about the evils of Islam, misquoting the Quran, attacking Sadiq Khan, and making points about comparative religion that are demonstrably wrong. Buddhist extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to Burma. Hindu extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to India. Catholic extremists don’t kill their religious enemies? Go to Northern Ireland. FFS.
That’s Mehdi Hasan speaking truth.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #148…
There is a company–a UK registered charity (equivalent to a US 501.c(3) educational non-profit)–that has been working to bring computer education to children for the last 14 years. It’s the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
A key way that abortions are now happening despite all of the state restrictions is through telemedicine. […] At the same time, states that support abortion access have passed shield laws, which protect health care providers from legal risks when they prescribe to patients in states with bans. What that meant last year is that more people in states with restrictions had abortions through telemedicine, and fewer people traveled across state lines for abortion
In other news, as summarized by Steve Benen from MS NOW sources:
The best thing I can say about the new Department of Homeland Security chief is that he’s not Kristi Noem: “Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday.”
A case worth watching: “Minnesota law enforcement officials sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its refusal to include them in investigations into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and a third shooting by federal immigration officers.”
Israel intends to send more soldiers into Lebanon in the coming days, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesman, said in a news briefing on Tuesday. ‘We continue to reinforce and intensify the ground operation,’ he said.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been pushing President Trump to continue the war against Iran, arguing that the U.S.-Israeli military campaign presents a ‘historic opportunity’ to remake the Middle East, according to people briefed by American officials on the conversations.
The Trump administration escalated its pressure campaign on Harvard University with two new investigations into antisemitism on campus and the school’s admissions policies, issues the federal government has repeatedly scrutinized on the Ivy League campus.
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead a new Justice Department division focused on prosecuting fraud, despite critics’ concerns over potential political pressure to target White House opponents.
Colin McDonald, a top aide to the Justice Department’s second-in-command, was confirmed in a vote of 52 to 47 to serve as the assistant attorney general in charge of the new division cast by the Trump administration as a necessary effort to crack down on rampant fraud hurting American taxpayers.
Steve Benen notes that: “The thing to remember about McDonald is that he’ll be the only prosecutor who reports to the White House, not the attorney general.”
“What happened to Liam Conejo Ramos and his father is not an isolated incident.”
Right now, the news is dramatic. You might even call it melodramatic: Everything is happening on this grand scale. But there are also stories unfolding very quietly, without melodrama. The kind of stories we can only get from people who are watching very closely.
One of those stories starts with a man in Minnesota named Nick Benson, a self-described aviation geek who studies planes and looks at flight data.
In the Minneapolis area where he lives, whenever he gets the chance, he goes to the airport and takes photographs of interesting planes coming and going.
Like most of Minneapolis, Benson has also been horrified by what Donald Trump’s federal immigration agents have done to his city.
As part of his contribution to the city’s fight against the administration’s attacks, Benson has been documenting Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights from the Minneapolis airport. Since December, Benson, along with other local activists, has watched as men and women, some in shackles, made their way from the tarmac up the steps into one of these deportation planes.
The long hours he has put in, waiting at the airport and going through flight data, meant Benson was in an almost unique position to follow up on a story that tore people up all across the country: the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
The first time the world saw Liam, he was standing on a snowy street in his neighborhood in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, wearing a blue bunny hat and a black-and-white checked coat, with a Spider-Man backpack, alongside one of Trump’s federal immigration agents.
Within one day of snatching him off the street, on Jan. 20, ICE took Liam and his dad to the notorious Dilley Immigration Processing Center, outside of San Antonio, Texas, where they lock up men, women and children in what prisoners have described as horrific conditions.
Their detention caused national uproar, and on Feb. 1, the Trump administration decided to release them.
You might have seen images of Liam on the trip back to Minnesota, getting to visit the cockpit of his Delta flight. A crew from ABC News was there as the very nice pilots gave the 5-year-old his own little pilot’s wings.
But back home in Minneapolis, Benson had a nagging question. In all of his weeks of watching ICE flights leave the airport, he said he never saw a child board one of those planes. So how exactly did ICE ship Liam and his dad from Minneapolis to Texas?
Now, thanks to Benson, we can see that part of the story.
Since he knows the Minneapolis airport like the inside of his own car, including the flight schedules and the layout of the gates, Benson estimated roughly when Liam had to have traveled. He filed an open records law request for copies of video footage from inside the terminal during that time.
Benson paid $359.04 in processing costs and received dozens of hours of footage from half a dozen different surveillance cameras, all showing the Delta Air Lines passenger terminal in the hours leading up to that morning’s nonstop flight from Minneapolis to San Antonio.
After reviewing the footage, Benson spotted Liam and his father, along with three people who seemed to be taking them through the airport. (To be clear, we do not know whether they are federal agents or contractors or something else.)
Benson shared that footage with an excellent aviation journalist named Gillian Brockell, who broke the story last week.
Brockell has tracked apparent ICE flights all around the world, to places such as Eswatini, Ireland and Egypt. But she told us this was the first time she had seen this other part of what they call “ICE Air.” Not the flights on charter or contract aircraft that load up people in shackles, but the other part happening quietly around the rest of us: passenger airlines flying people, including little kids, to Trump prison camps where they are held without trial. [!]
[…] Delta told us that government air travel is often booked via third parties, such as travel agencies, and airlines may not have advance notice or details as to who may be flying and for what reason.
The company also pointed us back to that ABC News report about Liam and his dad being flown home from Dilley on a Delta flight. It appears Delta was happy to promote its involvement in Liam’s homecoming but not so much its involvement in sending him to prison. [!]
But what happened to Liam and his father is not an isolated incident. ICE is transporting immigrant families and children on domestic commercial flights, and we know that because many of the families imprisoned at Dilley have described that process in legal declarations.
In one declaration from December, a woman described being locked up with her 9-year-old daughter for nearly two full days in a room in the Miami airport. Then, three unidentified people escorted them through two airports and two flights.
On one flight, the woman desperately handed a flight attendant a vomit bag on which she had written a plea to call her husband and tell him they were detained and headed to San Antonio, because she had not been allowed to make any calls for two days. The flight attendant, mercifully, called the woman’s husband.
Even if the airlines do not want to talk about it, the families being shipped to Dilley on these flights are talking about it, and now the new footage of Liam in the Delta terminal makes it impossible to ignore.
On “The Rachel Maddow Show,” we have extensively covered the pressure campaigns brought to bear on commercial airlines and airports that have been facilitating ICE deportations.
People were pretty upset to discover that the Avelo Airlines plane they were taking on vacation might be used on a different day to fly people in chains who Trump’s agents had snatched off the streets.
People in Wilmington, Delaware, were also upset that an aviation company called Daedalus was going to lease airplane hangar space at their local airport while flying deportation flights for ICE.
In those cases, public outcry worked. Avelo got out of the deportation business. They sold all their planes — many of them to ICE — and now they’re back to trying to be a normal passenger airline again, trying to wash off that moral stench.
Daedalus, as far as we know, still flies for ICE, but it doesn’t fly retail passengers. After the pushback, it also backed off its plans at the Wilmington Airport.
The Trump administration may no longer care what voters think of them, but commercial, public-facing companies still very much care what customers think of them. They have to.
In 2018, during the first Trump term, when commercial airlines discovered that the government was using their flights to transport migrant children separated from their families, many asked the administration to stop. Delta, at the time, said the family separation policy did “not align with Delta’s core values.”
That was then, but how about now? Does Trump’s policy of family incarceration align with Delta’s “core values?”
How about the other big airlines? Are your customers OK knowing they could be flying on one of your planes, headed to a beach or a wedding or to visit their family, and in the next row are a 5-year-old and his dad, who ICE just grabbed from outside their home, being transported to a hellish Texas prison?
In addition to Delta, we reached out to United and American Airlines as well, to ask whether ICE is moving migrant families on their planes and whether the companies have a position on it. MS NOW has not heard back.
As for Liam and his family, last week, lawyers said they are appealing the deportation order, which could take months or even years. However, one attorney for the family said the government appears to be moving with remarkable speed on this case. She told us that if the Trump administration follows the law, Liam and his family cannot be deported while their appeal is pending.
According to the family’s lawyer, Liam and his father are still coping with the trauma of their ordeal, contending with anxiety and trouble sleeping. Liam also no longer wants to wear his bunny hat in public because it is so recognizable and he does not want the attention it draws.
birgerjohanssonsays
I find Private Eye is a relatively good source of background news.
40 minute video debating the issues
“Mad King Donald – Private Eye on President Trump’s Peace Talks & Farage’s Crypto (Full Episode)”
“RFK Jr. Wants To Give Your Kids Early Start On Their Melanoma”
Oh boy, it is getting hard to keep track of the myriad ways that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is making America healthy again. As of just a few days ago, we’re just 13 measles cases away from making it an even 1500, which we imagine is a very exciting milestone for him. He’s also been working to mainstream some of the sketchier peptides, which does not seem like a thing that will end well. Oh, and last week he put out a notice announcing that the FDA’s planned ban on minors using tanning beds that has been in the works since 2015 will not go into effect after all. [embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link]
Kennedy, notably, is an avid user of tanning beds himself [!]
While 20 states and the District of Columbia have banned minors from indoor tanning on their own, it’s still legal and accessible in most of the country so long as one has a note from their “parents” […] or doctor (as is the case in Oregon and Washington) saying it’s okay.
This is not great! And that’s not just because teenagers are not yet old enough to make an informed decision about this, it’s that the younger you are, the more dangerous it is to go tanning, period. When you are young, your skin is still developing, which means it is more sensitive to UV rays and DNA damage. According to the American Cancer Society, indoor tanning before the age of 35 “increases melanoma risk by 59 percent, squamous cell carcinoma by 67 percent, and basal cell carcinoma by 29 percent.”
[…] The notice of withdrawal from the FDA, signed by Kennedy, cited “personal choice and parental decision-making” as one of the factors in its decision, echoing the poorly thought-out rationale behind much of the Right’s policies regarding children’s health and well-being.
[…] This, however, is even less understandable than allowing parents to not vaccinate their kids. We know that there are parents out there who believe, incorrectly, that their child will be less healthy from getting a vaccine. Who thinks their kid is going to be less healthy without a tan?
[…] While the dangers of tanning are well known at this point, teenagers think they are immortal, so “you’ll have a higher risk of skin cancer at some point in the future” is not a convincing argument to them. But there are a hell of a lot of people out there who wish they had listened to it.
This is not the first time in recent history that Kennedy’s FDA has walked back a planned regulation regarding health and safety in the beauty industry. This past January, they killed a rule that would have required cosmetics companies to test talc-containing makeup products for asbestos. The news shook a whole lot of people who were not aware that this was not already a thing. Because, you know, it does seem like common sense […] Especially if you are putting it on your face.
Also, in January, the FDA missed its own self-imposed deadline to ban formaldehyde in hair straightening and softening products — as it is common in many hair products aimed at Black people, as well as in the products used for keratin-infused “Brazilian Blowouts” […]
The beauty space, which thrives on novelty, tends to be especially prone to misinformation regarding the safety of practices and products — almost especially when that information is counterintuitive. After several years of people really, finally, taking care of their skin by not only not tanning, but also by religiously wearing sunscreen regardless of the weather, there’s been a backlash of TikTok influencers baselessly declaring sunscreen (chemical sunscreen in particular) unsafe and encouraging their followers to sunbathe and even go tanning — which, I guess, is one way to go if you really want to get skin cancer and end up looking like Tan Mom by the time you are 30. [video]
Personally, I think that all tanning salons should be required to put up a picture of her in a prominent space on their wall, as a warning to their patrons.
There is almost no propaganda more potent than “This thing you thought you knew is wrong and the exact opposite is actually true!” People love feeling like they have a secret knowledge, that they know something others don’t, especially when those others are “the experts.” It’s especially effective in the case of something that is simultaneously counterintuitive and intuitive. […] One of the things RFK Jr. promised upon taking his position as secretary of Health and Human Services was that he would end the federal government’s supposed “aggressive suppression” of “sunshine.” […]
It also just “feels” correct to some people (even some doctors who have written prescriptions for it) that tanning beds help the body produce vitamin D and help to treat or prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). In our current vibes-based reality, that is a whole lot more convincing than the fact that the rays that do help the body produce vitamin D are UVB rays, not the UVA rays emitted by tanning beds, that vitamin D supplements are more effective, and that there really is no scientific proof that it does anything at all for SAD.
The only “benefit” to tanning is having darker skin, which can be achieved now in a number of less ridiculously dangerous ways at this point — spray tans, self tanner […] The idea that a “base tan” prevents you from burning is a straight up myth, and burning isn’t the only way the sun damages your skin anyway.
It does matter that the FDA be clear that tanning is harmful, especially for teenagers. When people get conflicting advice on things like this, they’re likely going to err on the side of hoping that the people who say it’s fine for them to do what they want are the ones who are correct. That’s just human nature.
Hopefully, parents are smart enough to not let their kids go tanning and, frankly, not to go tanning themselves. But if they’re not, they can’t say they didn’t know it could turn out like this: [video]
[DHS] shutdown delayed investigators arriving at the scene of a deadly collision between a jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia International Airport.
[…]
An air traffic control specialist was stuck in line for three hours at an airport in Houston, according to NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who claimed officials had to “beg to see if we can get her through.” […] investigators were coming by train, plane, and car.
Dispatches from American airports I’ve received today.
SAN DIEGO: “It took 3 hours, 29 minutes to get through security. Two people collapsed in line, the first happened near me and I called 911 while a fellow passenger who is also a nurse provided aid. Seemed to be diabetes related after waiting for so long.
Later, I was right in front of the TSA agent checking IDs when the second person fell. Seemed to be a faster response. People were yelling ‘medic!’ Again and the TSA agents inside the plexiglass started calling ‘EMS! Need EMS!’ to each other. […]”
officials released a video of a massive explosion […] The military strike appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound, according to interviews with the farm’s owner, four of its workers, human rights lawyers and residents and leaders in San Martín, the remote farming village in northern Ecuador […] And though the Pentagon said at the time that it had “executed targeted action” against the site at Ecuador’s request, U.S. troops had no direct involvement in the strike shown in the video, according to four people with knowledge of the operation
[…]
Ecuadorean soldiers arrived by helicopter on March 3, doused several shelters and sheds with gasoline and ignited them after interrogating workers and beating four of them with the butts of their guns. […] the soldiers later choked and subjected them to electrical shocks before letting them go. […] Ecuadorean helicopters returned to the farm three days later, on March 6, and appeared to drop explosives on the farm’s smoldering remains.
[…]
Residents said the strike was part of a broader, multiday operation by Ecuadorean soldiers, who burned two nearby abandoned homes earlier in the week, then bombed one of them by plane.
[…]
The Ecuadorean government said in the news release that it had relied on U.S. “intelligence and support” to target the farm, which it said was a camp used to train “about 50 drug traffickers.” […] Ecuadorean officials said soldiers had recovered guns and other “evidence of illicit activity” on the property. The Ecuadorean military did not offer evidence for its claims even though it tends to publicize photos of drugs, weapons and contraband it seizes during operations.
[…]
Two U.S. officials […] said U.S. Special Forces had provided guidance to the Ecuadoreans in the raid on the two abandoned homes upriver, which the two militaries believed were tied to a trafficking group. One of the officials added that the U.S. military deployed a helicopter to assist Ecuador’s strike on the farm, but that the U.S. military had no direct involvement in the bombing.
[…]
The dairy farm’s owner […] fought back tears as he explained what was there before: two wooden shelters, an outpost to make cheese, sheds for his equipment. The horse paddock was spared, but the chicken coop was gone. […] He added, “Everywhere you look there are animals: the cows I milk, the calves, the horses.”
Evan Bernick (Law prof): “It sure seems as if our government is not only torturing and terrorizing people but helping other authoritarian governments torture and terrorize people. And then sharing the footage as if we’re directly responsible for it, as if we are proud of it.”
Chris Hayes (MSNOW): “Looks like it was a narco trafficking compound in exactly the same way Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist.”
“It is becoming increasingly clear that Donald Trump expected a fast and easy win. Another Venezuela. And he had no plan B. And now he is flailing to find some kind of fallback position,” says Chris Hayes.
Democrats tonight have flipped a GOP-held state House seat in Florida.
And not just any seat: This is the district that contains Mar-a-Lago. (It voted for Trump by 11% in 2024). That’s right: Trump will now be represented by a Democrat, Emily Gregory, in Tallahassee.
[…]
One major subplot here: Governor Ron DeSantis tried to delay this special election, and Gregory and Dems went to court to force him to call it earlier than he planned. They succeeded.
Trump voted in this election—casting a ballot BY MAIL while he and his administration are trying to eliminate mail ballots. His candidate lost the race to represent Mar-a-lago. The final margin: Emily Gregory won HD87 by 2.2%, so that’s a shift of 13 percentage points toward Dems […]
Florida Democrats flip a state Senate seat. SD14 is a Tampa-area district that voted Trump by 7%. Dem Brian Nathan won it narrowly tonight […] right outside the automatic recount margin. That, plus the GOP’s concession, means this is set.
birgerjohanssonsays
A brief pause from Orange-related horror.
“How Studio Ghibli films tackle feminism for OLDER women!!”
‘Proper’ spiders are order Araneae, but the similarities are so great this is nit-picking. Just enjoy their company.
(I wonder if there is a similar-looking group of true araneae that feeds into the misunderstanding. That would explain a lot).
(I remember as we watched Apollo 8 take off December 1968. I am not all that impressed by the current space program)
BTW compared to the cost for developing two competing launch systems it would be almost a trivial cost to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine. Great for sending payloads to the moon and the planets.
.
-Also, if it was possible to make a reusable nuclear engine module you could use it to bring heavy satellites to geosynchronous orbit.
coffeepottsays
@172 birgerjohansson
“‘Proper’ spiders are order Araneae, but the similarities are so great this is nit-picking.”
it’s not nit-picking, spiders are more closely related to scorpions and vinegaroons than they are to opiliones…
but silentbob specified he’s talking about a pholcid spider, which are sometimes called ‘daddy long legs’ even here in the US. some folks also use ‘daddy long legs’ to refer to crane flies.
common names are useless
and silentbob shoulda preemptively lashed out at the swedes, not the americans!
birgerjohanssonsays
^ ^ ^
A pholcid spider !
OK I stand corrected.
Now, on the issue of possums and opossums…
birgerjohanssonsays
American Reacts to 100 Pop Hits from Sweden (1974-2024).
The Trump administration has set aside tens of millions of dollars for police officers who help carry out its mass deportation policy, including incentive payments for processing “unaccompanied alien children,” newly leaked documents obtained by journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed Wednesday.
Right, because giving cops incentives to arrest people works so well.
“Absent from the list of bounty payments to states and localities are new payments to California, New Mexico, Illinois, Vermont, and Massachusetts as well as other ‘blue’ states,” Klippenstein wrote. “The reason? The money is being doled out to cooperative pro-Trump states and departments, affirming that these are political payoffs and hardly a pure national program.”
Follow-up to comment 166 from Sky Captain: That is indeed great news out of Florida. Three cheers for the Democratic Party win.
In bad news, as summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News report:
To the surprise of no one, Missouri’s conservative state Supreme Court upheld a newly redrawn congressional map this week, which was designed to deliver an additional U.S. House seat to Republicans.
More election news, as reported by the New York Times:
In Iowa’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, VoteVets is making an $825,000 investment in support of state Rep. Josh Turek’s Democratic candidacy, which is expected to give him a significant boost. Iowa’s primary is scheduled for June 2.
That support for Josh Turek is, potentially, good news.
Election news from the Nebraska Examiner, as summarized by Steve Benen:
[…] in Nebraska’s U.S. Senate race, Republican officials tried to keep Democratic candidate Cindy Burbank off the ballot, but the state Supreme Court rejected the effort this week and restored her candidacy.
“Phil Berger wasn’t just a legislative leader in North Carolina, he was the GOP’s most powerful figure in state politics for more than a decade. He lost anyway.”
The day after a series of closely watched elections in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas earlier this month, Donald Trump published a seemingly endless series of items to his social media platform, highlighting candidates who won primaries after receiving his endorsement.
The president ultimately concluded, “My Endorsements within the Republican Party have been virtually insurmountable! It is such an honor to realize and say that almost everyone I Endorse WINS, and wins by a lot.” [bullshit]
Strictly speaking, that wasn’t true at the time, and three weeks later, the boast appears even more misplaced — because the single most powerful GOP policymaker in North Carolina had Trump’s backing, which wasn’t enough to keep him in office. The Associated Press reported:
North Carolina government’s most influential politician, Republican state Senate leader Phil Berger, conceded the primary race for his seat to Sam Page on Tuesday, shaking the power structure in the ninth-largest state and likely soon ending Berger’s preeminence as the state’s top conservative architect.
Berger trailed Page, the Rockingham County sheriff, in their March 3 primary by only 23 votes. He has been Senate leader since 2011 when Republicans took full control over the General Assembly for the first time in 140 years.
Commenting on the outcome, Bolts magazine’s Daniel Nichanian and The Downballot’s Stephen Wolf used the same word to describe Berger’s unexpected primary defeat: “earthquake.”
Berger wasn’t just a legislative leader in North Carolina, he was the GOP’s most powerful figure in state politics for over a decade, overseeing what The New York Times described as a “far-reaching network of lobbyists, corporate executives and government allies.” What’s more, the outgoing state Senate leader was also his party’s most prolific fundraiser, which makes his pending departure that much more significant in state politics going forward. […]
As the primary season continues in the coming weeks and months, Republican officeholders hoping incumbency and financial advantages will keep them in office would be wise to take note.
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California went on CNBC to explain the Republican-driven government shutdown to host Joe Kernen. When the Trump-friendly host tried to push a GOP talking point blaming Democrats, Schiff shut him down with a dose of reality.
“I don’t want to hold up the rest of what [Department of Homeland Security] does,” Schiff said, reminding him that the GOP has refused to pass broadly supported funding. “I think we’ve had 10 votes to fund [Transportation Security Administration].”
“It’s a carve-out,” Kernen interjected. “It’s not a clean DHS funding bill—which has been the business as usual for the way it’s usually done.”
“The business as usual right now is people getting killed in the streets,” Schiff responded. “So I’m not for that ‘business as usual.’” [video]
Negotiations are at a standstill over accountability measures for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol as the result of President Donald Trump’s pigheadedness and Republicans’ withering cowardice. At the same time, funding delays have led to TSA agents quitting their jobs or not showing up for unpaid work, leading to serious delays at airports across the country.
Schiff and other Democrats have proposed a compromise to partially fund the government for weeks now—one that is being rebranded and claimed by Republicans attempting to save face ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana appeared on Fox News to do damage control over the disastrous Republican government shutdown, which has led to hours-long security lines at airports nationwide. His pitch: Take credit for a “solution” Democrats proposed weeks ago.
Kennedy outlined what he called a “two-step process.”
“Step one, we would open up everything at DHS except ICE, including TSA, which the Democrats have already agreed to,” he said. Step two is using reconciliation to pass funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement—a process that circumvents the filibuster and Democratic votes. [video]
Kennedy admitted that President Donald Trump rejected his “two-step process” all the way back yesterday. But today’s a new day—and after speaking with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, he believes that Trump “may be on board.”
Apparently, ICE goons walking around airports aimlessly, while security lines and delays grow, isn’t the winning strategy Trump thought it would be.
For Senate leaders, pursuing another budget reconciliation bill this year was once considered a no-go. But in a matter of days, it’s become a distinct possibility.
Using the often arduous budgetary maneuver would represent a shift for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, necessitated by Republican needs to reopen the Department of Homeland Security while passing some of their legislative priorities, key among them a voter ID bill.
Passing another budget bill this year would be a huge pain and there is no garuntee that it will work. The goal would be to put some of the Save act into the budget reconciliation bill. The Republicans could try and shove a lot of ugly stuff in there or it could just be to a little bit to appease Trump, until there is a bill there is no way to know how toxic it will be.
And it’s unclear which portions of the election bill could be included in a reconciliation bill and would survive a scrub by the chamber’s parliamentarian; provisions that don’t touch upon spending or revenue and are just about policy are usually expunged under the Byrd Rule, which requires reconciliation bills to focus on fiscal issues.
The rules are arcane to begin with but since the Senators are writing the bill themselves they can write it to try and make it sound like it’s a budgetary matter. So there are always arguments over procedure when there is a really contested issue.
“WHOA SIT DOWN FOR SHOCKING NEWS: Trump Tells Blue States To Go F*ck Themselves After Natural Disasters”
Donald Trump is a man of principles. His Prime Directive is to always use the presidency to take whatever he can grab for himself, his family, and his richest supporters first, while throwing culture war red meat to his MAGA supporters to keep them hyped up. His other priority, which sometimes even takes precedence, is to use political power to hurt his perceived enemies wherever possible. [True. Good summary.]
That’s been the case with providing federal disaster money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Politico reported this week. […]since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has approved only 23 percent of requests for disaster declarations from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, while approving 89 percent of requests from states with Republican governors and two GOP senators. [!]
It’s one of those stories that confirms what everyone knew already, but it’s good to have actual numbers.
[…] During Trump’s first term, he actually approved requests for disaster declarations from red and blue states at about the same rate as previous presidents. He certainly griped a lot about having to help people who didn’t vote for him, though. [I snipped caveats regarding Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.]
[…] There aren’t any any adults in any of the rooms of what’s left of the White House, so Trump is happily ignoring requests for help, and when he does approve them, it’s often only after significant delays […] Here, have a Terrifying Chart! [chart is available at the link … and it is stunning]
[…] The approvals for Democratic-led states plunges sharply down during Trump’s second term. […]
We suppose you could quibble with defining red and blue states as those with a single party holding the governorship and both US Senate seats; one advantage to using that standard is that unlike state legislatures or congressional districts, Senate elections are statewide and not subject to gerrymandering. And even for states with a mix of party control of those three seats, Trump still tended to deny assistance; he only denied aid to one state, Nebraska, that has a Republican governor and senators.
In other findings, the analysis notes that while Trump has been slow in approving disaster requests overall, requests from GOP states got a decision within 39 days on average, while Democratic states had to wait an average of 80 days for Trump to even decide not to approve the request. [!]
Trump has long resented the idea that people who didn’t vote for him are even Americans […]
The E&E News analysis suggests that level of detail isn’t making its way to Trump anymore, or he’s simply ignoring it:
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.
Not surprisingly, the administration insists nothing has changed except that Trump is now Saving American Taxpayers’ Money, hooray! White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Politico, “There is no politicization to the President’s decisions on disaster aid.” [bullshit]
In a statement that Politico notes didn’t actually address any of the study’s specific findings, Jackson went on to claim that “President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him — gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations,” […]
Also funny in a hollow mordant laughter way was a comment from Susan Collins (R-Maine), who complained that this is all Democrats’ fault because they won’t fund ICE goons and Trump’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Mind you, that’s irrelevant: The analysis covers disaster declarations, not congressional spending, and for that matter Trump hasn’t made any decisions on disaster requests either way during the partial DHS shutdown.
In conclusion, Trump broke a 47-year norm of helping all Americans during disasters, and that’s just one more way he has made America shittier, the end.
“The airport perks for Congress may be drying up, not a minute too soon”
If you really want to get mad about the chaos unfolding at the Atlanta airport, consider a bill from Texas Sen. John Cornyn that passed the Senate unanimously last week.
The bill would stop members of Congress from getting a little-known perk when they’re flying in and out of American airports, namely skipping the security lines manned by the Transportation Security Administration. […]
“DHS Contractors Say Corey Lewandowski Asked For Big Fat Bribes, Err, We Mean ‘Success Fees'”
“Oh, hold on, he denies it, so everything’s fine.”
NBC reports that Corey Lewandowski, the remora who keeps attaching himself to various larger smelly fish in Trumpworld, asked government contractors to cut him in for a paycheck if they wanted to do business with the Department of Homeland Security. In one case, say people in the know, Lewandowski even had his hand out before Trump took office.[…]
Not surprisingly, Lewandowski and his people say such a pay to play scheme is unpossible and you should stop being ridiculous […]
In fact, in an interview earlier this month, NBC News even asked Lewandowski if he’d ever gotten “any money from any of the contracts” he has approved, and he said “zero, not one penny,” […]
During the transition between the 2024 election and Trump’s inauguration, for instance, insiders say Lewandowski generously offered some help to George Zoley, founder of the private prison company GEO Group. Lewandowski simply wanted to be paid in exchange for making sure GEO Group kept getting more contracts from DHS, capiche? After all, as the administration ramped up its mass deportation program, there’d be a lot of money going to DHS, plenty for everyone.
Zoley, who may be fine with making money off prisons but apparently didn’t care for the prospect of being sent to one himself, said no thanks, according to people who said the sources, “describing the confrontation as tense.”
Once Lewandowski was ensconced as Kristi Noem’s “special government employee” in charge […] advising her on policy and shit, Zoley met again with Lewandowski in February or March last year, and offered to put him on retainer, with a recurring “consulting fee,” wink-wink, nudge-nudge. That wasn’t good enough […]:
Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts with DHS, the two sources said.
“He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting.
You will absolutely guess what happened next: Geo Group’s existing DHS contracts were revised to shorten their duration, and now “several of its facilities that could house migrants sit idle [!], even as Congress and Trump have poured money into DHS to execute the mass deportation campaign.”
No doubt that’s all just a coincidence! Also, this one DHS insider told NBC News that Lewandowski specifically told him to stop awarding contracts to GEO Group. Lewandowski denied that […]
The NBC News story also points out that Trump is fairly sure Lewandowski is getting his beak wet, but doesn’t appear bothered by it. While Democrats investigate that $220 million DHS advertising contract to promote Kristi Noem’s ability to look tough and in charge while riding a horse in the Black Hills, Trump’s reaction has been to say to his advisers, “Corey made out on that one.” But he did promotefire Noem for making him look bad when she said in congressional testimony that he’d signed off on the ads.
The article also notes, in what sounds like carefully lawyered prose, that several companies, including GEO Group, have griped to “officials in Trump’s inner circle” that
Lewandowski, as a special government employee, has directly or indirectly stood to personally profit from the DHS contracting process, according to four senior White House officials, a former White House official and a person familiar with the conversations.
[…] The complaints were even aired with Trump in an October meeting about another matter, but “the conversation was cut short by superseding business.” […]
NBC News also notes that Lewandowski has “had broad authority over the contract process,” noting the chaos resulting from Noem’s brilliant requirement that all expenditures over $100,000 be approved by her. That requirement has led to all sorts of delays, including fuckups that slowed federal resources from getting to Texas during last year’s deadly floods, including preventing FEMA’s “Urban Search And Rescue” divers from being deployed for three days, by which time it was too late to rescue anyone […]
In what we think is new news, NBC reports that
DHS officials and private industry sources say Noem had largely delegated that review to Lewandowski. His spokesperson denied that, saying Noem “has delegated no authorities to Mr. Lewandowski.”
Sounds to us like something that needs to be determined one way or another, since those delays weren’t mere inconveniences. [!]
There’s much more, including the story of a marketing firm tapped to pursue a DHS subcontracting deal worth a billion dollars — but was also told by the main contractor that the price for getting the contract would be “properly thanking the person who gave it to us.” That could be provided to Lewandowski, the potential subcontractor was told, by hiring “one of several consulting firms tied to Lewandowski.”
[…] Corey Lewandowski is saying that he hasn’t decided yet whether to leave his DHS “special employee” job, even though Noem’s out and Markwayne Mullin has the top spot.
And as long as he’s still inside the DHS and hasn’t yet been forced out, Lewandowski isn’t likely to face any consequences. […]
“Meta, YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction trial”
“A Los Angeles jury awarded $3 million in compensation to a young woman who alleged she had become addicted to the platforms as a child.”
The verdict came at the end of a month-long trial that featured testimony by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a day after a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million in penalties for endangering children. The twin verdicts are signs that legal protections which for decades made tech companies seem almost impervious are beginning to crack, as lawyers accuse the platforms of putting addictive or otherwise harmful features into their platforms.
With the armor of Silicon Valley companies fractured, they will now have to size up their appetite for future courtroom battles. There are thousands more lawsuits waiting to be heard, with young internet users, parents, school districts and state attorneys general all seeking to hold the industry accountable.
The Los Angeles case was brought by a young Instagram and YouTube user identified by the initials KGM. She alleged that she suffered anxiety and depression after using social media platforms throughout her childhood. The lawsuit focused on the design of the platforms, charging that tech companies built them to keep users hooked with features like endless scrolling. That is a key legal maneuver to get around protections the firms enjoy involving liability for content posted by users.
Meta denied the allegations and immediately vowed to appeal the verdict in New Mexico. But the juries’ findings nonetheless amount to a rebuke for a company that in the past had been able to avoid having to defend itself in front of a jury.
“The montage, which typically runs for about two minutes, has raised concerns among some of the president’s allies that he may not be receiving the complete picture of the war.”
Duh. Why doesn’t the president of the USA realize that he is not receiving adequate briefings? Is he that stupid? Is he that gullible? Yes.
Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said.
The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of “stuff blowing up.”
The highlight reel of U.S. Central Command bombing Iranian equipment and military sites isn’t the only briefing Trump gets about the war. He’s also updated through conversations with top military and intelligence advisers, foreign leaders and news reports, the officials said. [Trump probably fails to pay attention to those additional briefings.]
But the video briefing is fueling concerns among some of Trump’s allies that he may not be receiving — or absorbing — the complete picture of the war, now in its fourth week, two of the current officials and the former official said.
They said the videos are also driving Trump’s increasing frustration with news coverage of the war. Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can’t better influence the public narrative, asking aides why the news media doesn’t emphasize what he’s seeing, one of the current U.S. officials and the former U.S. official said. […] [I snipped Karoline Leavitt’s denials; and I snipped Sean Parnell’s bullshit about “unmatched precision” and so forth]
[…] Trump frequently takes calls from a broad range of outside advisers, regularly hearing how they feel and getting their perspectives on public opinion. [not good]
[I snipped polling numbers showing that hardcore MAGA doofuses still approve of Trump and his war.]
The question of how a president consumes information, particularly negative developments, and what details are shared by aides can be particularly acute during wartime. […]
During previous wars — from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan — administrations were accused of succumbing to “groupthink” when they briefed the president, with officials and military commanders downplaying or omitting inconvenient facts and refusing to recognize signs that their strategy was failing. […]
Trump may not be equipped to make critical decisions about options he’s presented with for possible next steps in the war if he’s not receiving a full scope of information about the status of the conflict, the former official and a person familiar with the concerns said. [Trump is not equipped to make critical decisions in any circumstances, but I can see how feeding him feel-good videos of stuff blowing up would make that even worse.]
[…] Trump maintains regular contact with foreign leaders, including holding near-daily conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he has frequent discussions with leaders of Persian Gulf states [not good sources of information or strategy]
[…] Gabbard [National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard] and Ratcliffe [CIA Director John Ratcliffe ] testified that the White House received intelligence assessments before the war that, if it was struck, Iran would be likely to retaliate with attacks on energy sites in the Middle East and threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, with possible fallout for oil prices and the global economy. But Trump suggested last week that Iran’s reaction came as a surprise and that “no expert” predicted such a response. [aarrggh]
[…]
“European countries have ruled out helping secure the Strait of Hormuz until the conflict is over — but also haven’t received any specific requests for assistance from the U.S.”
BRUSSELS — Donald Trump’s messaging on what he wants from American allies in his war against Iran is so confusing that any effort to help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains deadlocked, according to four European government officials.
Washington has not made any formal requests for equipment, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive talks, while allies are also reluctant to send military assets to the region over fears they would be attacked by Iran.
More than 30 nations, including a majority of NATO countries, have pledged “appropriate efforts” to restart shipping through the critical trade chokepoint after the U.S. president slammed allies as “COWARDS” for failing to volunteer their assistance.
But so far, discussions remain in their very early stages, according to government officials from seven European countries.
“One would wish for more predictability, more clarity and more strategic foresight — not only in this case,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told POLITICO on Tuesday, adding: “Let’s wait and see.”
The slow-moving talks reflect Trump’s conflicting messaging more than three weeks into his war against Iran — where he has threatened allies for failing to back his campaign, then said they weren’t needed, all while providing scant detail on how they could support the U.S.
The lack of enthusiasm about getting involved also underscores Europe’s growing self-confidence in dealing with Washington, as the continent increasingly shifts its approach from placating Trump to confronting him over a war allies were not consulted on.
“This war violates international law,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday. “There is little doubt that, in any case, the justification of an imminent attack on the U.S. does not hold water.” [!]
For some capitals, the latest demand also reveals a stark double standard: U.S. officials have repeatedly browbeaten Europeans into concentrating on defending their own continent so that Washington can focus its attention elsewhere. Now, Trump is asking them to deploy to the Middle East.
“The big picture is: the U.S. has asked us to take care of and defend our own countries, take care of supporting Ukraine … and now [the] Middle East and global supply chains,” said one senior European government official, calling it “absurdly incoherent to put it mildly.” [!!]
[…] In the absence of specific requests for help, allies have so far resorted to offering what they can: meetings, statements and encouragement.
The U.K. — which has so far led behind-the-scenes talks alongside NATO chief Mark Rutte — on Tuesday said it would host a security summit “in the near future” aimed at keeping the momentum on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
G7 foreign ministers will also discuss Iran when they meet near Paris on Friday, said a French diplomat briefed on the talks. Allies would seek to “coordinate … positions” with Washington, and debate “the reopening of the maritime routes” in the Gulf with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
[…] Allies “do not agree with being called into a war that we haven’t started, with no idea [of what the U.S.] is going to do,” said one NATO diplomat. For now, “I’m proud of our ‘no.’”
“A complete stop to gas deliveries would significantly hurt Kyiv in its war against Russia.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Wednesday he would stop gas deliveries to Ukraine if Kyiv does not resume oil flows to Hungary. [That’s an unreasonable request. And, that ultimatum puts the blame on the wrong country. Russia is to blame.]
Orbán, who has led his country since 2010, made the ultimatum ahead of Hungarian national elections in just two weeks’ time.
[…] a dispute between Budapest and Kyiv saw Orbán blocking the EU’s loan to Ukraine, while accusing the other side of stalling on the pipeline repairs. This comes at a moment when global energy prices are rising due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, though Orbán stressed his country’s gas remains among the cheapest in Europe.
“To break the oil blockade and ensure Hungary’s secure energy supply, action is now needed. We will gradually halt gas shipments from Hungary to Ukraine and store the remaining gas domestically,” Orbán explained.
But Ukraine disagrees.
“If Prime Minister Orbán still decides to stop it, we believe that the only consequence of this will be to deprive the economy of Hungary and Hungarians of more than a billion dollars,” spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Heorhii Tykhyi said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.
[…] The Hungarian prime minister is in full campaign mode ahead of the April 12 election — and he seems to be feeling the heat from the opposition.
Orbán’s rival Péter Magyar of the pro-EU Tisza party is leading by around eight percentage points in surveys conducted in late February. At the latest EU summit in Brussels, Orbán accused EU institutions of backing his rival candidate.
The prime minister has made Russia’s war on Ukraine a central issue in his campaign, accusing Kyiv of delaying repairs to the Druzhba, or Friendship pipeline, which was significantly damaged by Moscow’s shelling. […]
Russian shelling of the Friendship pipeline has been repeated over and over again. If anyone repairs the pipeline, Russia will damage it again.
birgerjohanssonsays
God Awful Movies!
“GAM549 The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins”
A live-action film produced by the Japanese Happy Science cult.
Most voters probably know that the nation’s major political parties gather every four years for a major national convention, at which they formally nominate their respective presidential tickets. The quadrennial events also offer the parties an opportunity to put their best foot forward while they have the national spotlight.
But there’s been some talk in recent months about something more unusual: a midterm convention.
Axios reported in September that Democratic officials were exploring the possibility of a large-scale 2026 convention, and Donald Trump announced online soon after that he was “thinking of recommending” the same idea. (House Speaker Mike Johnson said the president called him to discuss the idea, and he told Trump, “That’s genius.” […])
As the process moved forward, the Democratic National Committee ultimately decided not to bother with such a gathering. But the Republican National Committee did approve a plan for a midterm convention, and as The New York Times reported, party officials are close to settling on a host city:
President Trump and the Republican National Committee are strongly considering Dallas as the site of an unusual midterm convention later this year […] Republicans are working to finalize the plan as they seek to rally their voters in the face of political headwinds.
Some details must still be finalized, including the exact dates, and officials said formal paperwork still needed to be signed. But Trump advisers who are looking to parade their candidates and rally the base are close to settling on Dallas over other options, which had included Las Vegas […]
According to the Times’ account, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, the party is targeting a date after Labor Day “to try to maximize early-voting momentum.”
[…] The DNC held midterm conventions in the 1970s and ’80s, before giving up on the practice ahead of the 1986 cycle. (That decision didn’t hurt the party: Democrats gained five U.S. House seats and eight U.S. Senate seats that year.)
Whether Republican officials appreciate it or not, there are two main problems they should probably consider sooner rather than later. The first is that holding a convention is extremely expensive. […]
It’s likely that Democrats are looking forward to the RNC hosting a 2026 convention, since it will give the minority party an opportunity to do what it wants to do anyway: connect Republican candidates and officeholders to Trump.
At an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon [today], Donald Trump took a moment to publicly praise Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. military leaders, at which point the president briefly added a five-word phrase, in apparent reference to the war in Iran. [video]
“It’s a perfect, amazing thing,” Trump said.
A variety of words come to mind when describing the latest U.S. military offensive in the Middle East, but “perfect” isn’t one of them. We are, after all, talking about a war that has included, among other things, an apparent American missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed 175 civilians, most of whom were children.
Nearly a month into the war, U.S. service members have been killed and injured, the world has struggled to respond to a predictable energy crisis, violence has spread well beyond Iranian borders and Iran’s leadership remains largely intact.
Marveling at the White House’s lack of planning and apparent inability to think strategically, The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie noted, “Neither Trump nor his aides, according to recent reporting, planned for Iran to target shipping and close the Strait of Hormuz. They also do not seem to have planned for serious and sustained retaliation against America’s Gulf state allies. They did not plan for an energy crisis and the potential disruption to the global economy, and they did not plan for America’s European allies to, by and large, reject their call for support.” [!!]
[…] hearing the president use the word “perfect” in reference to the war generated obvious questions about why he would say such a thing, but there are also some less obvious questions, including about whether Trump actually knows and understands what’s happening in the war he started […]
Two weeks into the conflict, The Times reported that some administration officials were feeling pessimism about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war, “but they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success.”
In other words, Trump was in a bubble that those around him were reluctant to pierce. A new NBC News report reinforced those concerns:
Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a video update for President Donald Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets over the previous 48 hours, three current U.S. officials and a former U.S. official said.
The daily montage typically runs for about two minutes, sometimes longer, the officials said. One described each daily video as a series of clips of ‘stuff blowing up.’
[…] the president has routinely appeared clueless in recent weeks. Maybe he sees a perfectly executed war because that’s what his team tells him to believe, and he lacks the wherewithal to comprehend the possibility that his policy isn’t working.
Correction to comment 197. That oval office event was yesterday.
Here is some news from today (Wednesday, March 25):
[…] On Wednesday, Trump wrote in a quintessentially stupid but also supremely weird Truth Social post:
I am so proud of our ICE Patriots! They were unfairly maligned by the Lunatic Democrats for years, and now, at the Airports, in addition to what they are supposed to be doing, they are helping people with bags, even picking up and cleaning areas. They are so proud to be there! The fact is, they shouldn’t have to do this, but they are rehabbing a fake image given to them by Radical Left Democrat politicians. The Public is loving ICE, so the Democrats, unwittingly, did us a favor — They are Great American Patriots, they just happen to have much larger, and harder, muscles than most — which is what they’re supposed to have. Thank you to ICE for the GREAT job you are doing. America very much appreciates it!
Trump’s claim that ICE’s “work” is helping the agency’s image comes two days after he said that airports are “fertile territory” for ICE to arrest immigrants. [video]
Of course, what the “larger and harder” ICE agents are “supposed to be doing” is … well, no one really knows. ICE agents aren’t trained to do TSA screening, so they can’t actually help as hundreds of TSA workers have either called out of work or quit due to being unpaid.
It’s why there have been countless images of ICE agents—many of whom are not beefy muscle men as Trump described—just standing around doing nothing. Meanwhile, travelers are still suffering in needlessly long lines because Republicans won’t pass TSA funding.
In fact, Trump’s use of ICE agents at airports is just more proof that the agency is overfunded and bloated.
If there was so much immigration enforcement that Trump needed tens of billions of dollars in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” to more than double the number of ICE agents, then there ostensibly wouldn’t be enough to dispatch to airports to—as Trump said—pick up and clean.
In fact, the TSA union denounced the dispatching of ICE agents as unhelpful—especially given that they’re being paid to stand around and do nothing while the unpaid TSA agents do all of the work.
“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe. They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be,” Everett Kelley, American Federation of Government Employees union president, said in a statement.
[…]. In August 2025, Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., where they literally picked up trash.
[…] no amount of cleaning could rehab ICE’s image.
The masked marauders have shot and killed multiple Americans and violently arrested people who they think look undocumented because of their race or language. The agency’s reputation is damaged beyond repair.
It’s why half of the country wants to abolish ICE altogether.
The United States has tied its offer of security guarantees for a Ukraine peace deal to Kyiv’s giving up its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday. [Not the first time Zelenskyy has reminded everyone of that fact.]
“The Americans are prepared to finalize these guarantees at a high level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas,” Zelenskyy told Reuters, warning the move would hand Russia key defensive positions and weaken Ukrainian — and European — security in the long term.
“The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump … [he] still chooses a strategy to put more pressure on the Ukrainian side,” Zelenskyy added, pointing to what he saw as a shift in Washington’s focus. [Unfortunately true.]
[So that’s even more bad fallout from Trump’s illegal war.]
[…] Zelenskyy said Russia is betting that Washington will lose interest in negotiations as the war in Ukraine grinds on, with Moscow continuing to make slow gains in the east of the country.
[…] Zelenskyy also thanked Washington for maintaining deliveries of Patriot air defense systems despite competing demand from countries in the Middle East, but warned that supplies remain insufficient as Ukraine endures sustained Russian bombardment.
Hello. I’ve been too busy to follow either this thread or the wars in Ukraine or elsewhere.
Apparently, in recent days Ukraine has conducted large and somewhat successful drone mass attacks in northwestern Russia. Some of the aerial fighting between Ukrainian drones and Russian air defense drones has been very close to the Finnish, Estonian and Latvian borders, with a few Russian drones straying into Estonia and Latvia. Also here in Finland the air defense was at high level alert last night (Tue-Wed) local time.
Both of the two major Baltic Sea oil ports near St. Petersburg were damaged: Ust-Luga and Primorsk. The latter is the former Finnish town of Koivisto, only about 50 km from the present border. The heavy smoke plume from burning oil refinery in Primorsk was visible from southeastern Finland, despite the wind (conveniently) blowing it toward east. There were also attacks on a shipyard in the town of Vyborg (Viipuri), only 20 km from the border.
Reuters reports that Russia’s oil export capacity has been severely compromised. Slava Ukraini!
lumipuna @201 and 202, thanks for the update from the Finnish point of view.
In other news, as reported by MS NOW:
The Trump administration has offered a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran, according to a person briefed on the contours of the proposal, even as the U.S. military is preparing to call up at least 1,000 more troops to supplement some 50,000 troops already in the region.
Also from MS NOW:
Iran has rejected Trump’s ceasefire proposal, according to Iranian state TV and a diplomatic source stationed in Iran who spoke to MS NOW on the condition of anonymity.
Also from MS NOW:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said today there are no talks being held with the U.S., Reuters reported. That’s in contrast to what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed at the briefing earlier, where she claimed U.S. officials have ‘been engaged over the last three days in productive conversations.’
From Politico, as summarized by Steve Benen:
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers finally says the right thing: “A top Republican denounced the Pentagon Wednesday for failing to give lawmakers enough information about U.S. military operations during a classified briefing on Iran — including plans for troops.”
One day at an Idaho hospital, half the newborns Dr. Tom Patterson saw didn’t get the vitamin K shots that have been given to babies for decades to prevent potentially deadly bleeding. On another recent day, more than a quarter didn’t get the shot. Their parents wouldn’t allow it. [Yikes! Not good news.]
“When you look at a child who’s innocent and vulnerable — and a simple intervention that’s been done since 1961 is refused — knowing that baby’s going out into the world is super worrisome to me,” said Patterson, who’s been a pediatrician for nearly three decades.
Doctors across the nation are alarmed that skepticism fueled by rising anti-science sentiment and medical mistrust is increasingly reaching beyond vaccines to other proven, routine, preventive care for babies.
A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which analyzed more than 5 million births nationwide, found that refusals of vitamin K shots nearly doubled between 2017 and 2024, from 2.9% to 5.2%.
Other research suggests that parents who decline vitamin K shots are much more likely to refuse getting their newborns the hepatitis B vaccine and an eye ointment to prevent potentially blinding infections. Rates for that vaccination at birth dropped in recent years, and doctors confirm that more parents are refusing the eye medication.
“I do think these families care deeply about their infants,” said Dr. Kelly Wade, a Philadelphia neonatologist. “But I hear from families that it’s hard to make decisions right now because they’re hearing conflicting information.” [head/desk]
Innumerable social media posts question doctors’ advice on safe and effective measures like vitamin K and eye ointment. [Unfortunately true.] And the Trump administration has repeatedly undermined established science. A federal advisory committee whose members were appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before joining the administration — voted to end the longstanding recommendation to immunize all babies against hepatitis B right after birth. On Monday a federal judge temporarily blocked all decisions made by the reconfigured committee.
One common thread that ties together anti-vaccine views and growing sentiments against other protective measures for newborns is the fallacy that natural is always better than artificial, said Dr. David Hill, a Seattle pediatrician and researcher.
[…] Babies are born with low levels of vitamin K, leaving them vulnerable because their intestines can’t produce enough until they start eating solid foods at around 6 months old.
“Vitamin K is important for helping the blood clot and preventing dangerous bleeding in babies, like bleeding into the brain,” said Dr. Kristan Scott of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, lead author of the JAMA study.
Before injections became routine, up to about 1 in 60 babies suffered vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can also affect the gastrointestinal tract. Today the condition is rare, but research shows that newborns who don’t get a vitamin K shot are 81 times more likely to develop severe bleeding than those who do. [!!]
Hill has seen what can happen.
“I cared for a toddler whose parents had chosen that risk,” the Seattle doctor said. The child essentially had a stroke as a newborn and wound up with severe developmental delays and ongoing seizures.
At a February meeting of the Idaho chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, doctors said they knew of eight deaths from vitamin K deficiency bleeding in the state over the preceding 13 months, said Patterson, who is president of the chapter.
Infections prevented by other newborn measures can also have grave consequences. Erythromycin eye ointment protects against gonorrhea that can be contracted during birth and potentially cause blindness if untreated. The hepatitis B vaccine prevents a disease that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer or cirrhosis.
Even if a pregnant woman is tested for gonorrhea and hepatitis B, no test is perfect, and she may get infected after testing, said Dr. Susan Sirota, a pediatrician in Highland Park, Illinois. Either way, she risks passing the infection to her child.
[…] Social media provides ample fuel, spreading myths and pushing unregulated vitamin K drops that doctors warn babies can’t absorb well.
[…] In Idaho, Patterson sometimes finds himself clearing up misconceptions. Some parents will agree to a vitamin K shot when they find out it’s not a vaccine [!] […]
These conversations can take time, especially since the parents doctors see in hospitals usually aren’t people they know through their practices.
But doctors are happy to invest that time if it might save babies.
“I end every discussion with parents with this: ‘Please understand at the end of the day, I’m passionate about this because I have the best interest of children in my mind and heart,’” Patterson said. “I understand this is a hot topic, and I don’t want to disrespect anybody. But at the same time, I’m desperately saddened that we’re losing babies for no reason.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Jimmy Carter’s early naval career: a reactor disassembly at Chalk River.
For those who have Facebook, here is a diagram of how China lost – and now reclaimed – the position as the nation with the highest share of manufacturing in the world.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/18XeYbnxdd/
Britain was briefly the grestest manufacturing power, only to lose the position to USA 1890. And now the position has come back to (mainland) China.
The Republic of China aka Taiwan is not represented.
birgerjohanssonsays
Diagram of the heat wave hitting USA compared to previous years.
@203 Lynna, OM: When reading press releases from either government here it must be remembered that both lie a lot. In some reports that Iranian government has admitted some conversations but no negotiations. The difference apparently being the conversations are being held second hand with some unknown country passing the information back and forth.
Amid ongoing efforts to de-escalate the Middle East conflict, US vice president JD Vance may travel to Pakistan later this week for talks aimed at finding an off-ramp to the war with Iran, according to a CNN report citing administration officials.
Of course none of this can be blindly trusted either. Pakistan would be a sensible intermediary between the US and Iran but the Trump administration officials have been talking up negotiations and the possibility of direct negotiations. Why Vance? Because Iran doesn’t want to talk with Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner and Rubio doesn’t have any real power in the Trump administration which makes sense also.
A California jury delivered a landmark verdict finding Meta and YouTube liable for designing platforms that addict children, awarding millions in damages and potentially shaping thousands of similar lawsuits. Jacob Ward and Julianna Arnold join to discuss.
Donald Trump is getting his daily briefing on the war in the form of a highlight reel of “stuff blowing up,” NBC News reports. “National intelligence in the form of Instagram Reels, basically,” says Chris Hayes.
“EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon considers diverting Ukraine military aid to the Middle East”
The Pentagon is considering whether to divert weapons intended for Ukraine to the Middle East as the war in Iran depletes some of the U.S. military’s most critical munitions, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Although a final decision to redirect the equipment has not yet been made, the shift would highlight the growing trade-offs required to sustain the U.S. war against Iran, where U.S. Central Command has hit more than 9,000 targets in just under four weeks of fighting.
The weapons that could be diverted away from Ukraine include air defense interceptor missiles, ordered through a NATO program launched last year in which partner countries buy U.S. arms for Kyiv […]
The Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative has ensured a flow of select military equipment to Kyiv even as the Trump administration has cut off most of the Pentagon’s direct security assistance.
[…] Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, said in a statement that Kyiv was keeping partners apprised of its needs, including on air defense, but understood the “period of considerable uncertainty” […]
“Any disruptions at the outset of recent operations in the Middle East have been mitigated,” Stefanishyna said.
A NATO official said in an email that countries “continue to contribute to PURL and equipment is continuously flowing into Ukraine.”
[…] Kyiv’s chief European backers have taken the lead on funding and arming Ukrainian forces since […] Trump took office. The PURL initiative, brokered last year by NATO, offered a work-around for Ukraine to keep getting U.S. weaponry, so long as the Europeans pay the bill.
[…] European nations now provide the bulk of military support to Kyiv, including some direct provisions separate from NATO. But PURL supplies Ukraine with key U.S. equipment, including high-end munitions and scarce air defense interceptors. [Important point]
[…] “They [the USA] are really burning through munitions [in Iran], so there are questions now about how much they will keep providing through the deal,” one of the diplomats said.
[I snipped details about the most in-demand munitions.]
In January, Congress passed $400 million in additional long-term weapons aid to Ukraine, funding a separate program that the Pentagon intended to cut. The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) contracts U.S. firms to build weapons that are delivered directly to Kyiv, though the orders can sometimes take years to fulfill.
[…] Separately, the Pentagon notified Congress on Monday that it intended to divert about $750 million in funding provided by NATO countries through the PURL program to restock the U.S. military’s own inventories, rather than to send additional assistance to Ukraine, according to two U.S. officials.
The first official said it was unclear whether European countries providing their funds for the initiative to bolster Ukraine understood how the money was being spent. [!]
Washington has not stopped Patriot deliveries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Reuters in an interview published Wednesday. Zelensky also said, however, that the U.S. was refusing to sign an agreement to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, unless Kyiv surrenders to a key Kremlin demand and cedes all of its eastern Donbas region to Russia.
Zelensky said that while he understood the “subtleties” of Washington’s position, “the Middle East definitely has an impact” on the U.S. president and his next steps.
Wall Street Journal: Beginning on April 26, the U.S. Postal Service will impose an 8% surcharge on packages to cover the rising cost of fuel and transportation.
“Frankly terrible for the credibility for the American government and American capital markets in general”
The FT’s Gillian Tett on insider trading speculation after massive oil bets were placed minutes before Donald Trump announced the US would delay strikes on Iran.
New York Times: Under threat from Iranian counterattacks, many of the 40,000 American troops based in the Middle East have had to disperse to hotels and office spaces because the 13 U.S. bases in the region are “all but uninhabitable.”
Former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election and was later pardoned by President Trump, will be paid $1.2 million in a corrupt bargain to settle his wrongful prosecution lawsuit.
The Trump I DOJ corruptly dropped the case against Flynn. Later, the DOJ under Biden successfully defended Flynn’s civil lawsuit. The Trump II DOJ — run out of the White House — is back to its old tricks. The president is looting the federal treasury to benefit his supporters, using DOJ to gussy it up with the language and procedural flourishes […]
So, Mike Flynn was pardoned and he was paid $1.2 million!
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte is at it again.
The Trump crony has sent two new criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James to U.S. Attorneys Jason Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida and Andrew Boutros of the Northern District of Illinois.
The new bogus allegations are adjacent to his OG mortgage fraud allegations against James, which were dismissed and which two subsequent grand juries rejected. Pulte is now accusing James of homeowners insurance fraud for allegedly misrepresenting how properties in Florida and Illinois would be used.
“So, we are closing in on $30 billion, which is really, when you consider all the things that Trump rejects or the Republicans reject as too costly, the fact that they have now spent $30 billion in effectively the span of a month without even talking to Congress about this expenditure is really somewhat staggering.”—Joe Morell, [U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY)]
Commentary:
[…] Morelle walked through some simple back-of-the-envelope math as he tracked all of these requests.
“I did a little calculation. I was asked earlier today at an event, ‘where are we with this?’ And if you’ll just permit me, the president — and it’s hard to tell whether this is overlapping or if I’m double counting, I don’t think I am — he’s talked about and they’ve talked about it openly now … they are going to request roughly $600 billion more in the appropriation process than they got in appropriations last year: $900 billion roughly to $1.5 trillion. That’s a $600 billion increase.”
Combined, Morelle noted all of this would more than double the military budget, with nearly $1 trillion in additional spending.
[…] The divergent scenarios thrown out by Trump have included confusing messaging and implausible confidence related to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway whose blockage could cause an outsized impact on oil and gas prices. Morelle noted any new spending would increase the national debt, impact social programs, and add strain on American people who will also be feeling the impact of fuel costs.
[…] Hanging in the background of any potential funding request is the reality that Congress never approved the war in the first place. That places the basic legality of military operations in question, at best.
[…] Passing war funding in some form, war powers experts say, could be used to authorize the campaign retroactively. That would offer the White House a means to continue to wage war on Iran while claiming that it’s now legal. [!]
[…] Reconciliation bills are subject to a set of rules that often requires new spending to be offset by revenue raising provisions or cuts. This could force Republicans to balance the cost of the war funding that Trump wants with other measures. That could mean steep cuts to domestic programs, even after the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. [!]
“If you don’t want to raise taxes and you don’t wanna borrow more money, you take it out of domestic programs,” Morelle said. […]
Carlos arrived at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Mexico in December, believing he was one step closer to reuniting with his children. By that point, his 14-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter had been in a federal shelter in Texas for nearly a year after crossing the border to be with him.
“I feel like I’m suffocating inside this shelter, trapped with no way out,” Carlos’ son said, according to one of the teens’ attorneys, when asked to describe how he felt after months at the Houston-area facility. “Every day, the same routine. Every day, feeling stuck. It makes me feel hopeless and terrified.”
During daily video calls, Carlos, who had temporary protected status, urged the siblings to be patient, to trust the process. Federal officials had vetted Carlos before he could be granted custody and told him his case was complete. He believed he would soon be back with his children, who, like him, had sought refuge from political violence in Venezuela.
An immigration officer called Carlos on a Friday and asked him to attend a meeting at an ICE office the following Monday to discuss reunification with his children. Once Carlos arrived, officers tried to force him to sign documents he said he didn’t understand. When he refused, they stripped off his clothes, seized his ID and belongings, and chained him by the neck, waist, and legs.
“They tricked me,” Carlos said in a phone call from an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, where he was held for several months. “They used my children to grab me,” he said.
In reporting on the family’s story, KFF Health News reviewed court documents, spoke with the family’s immigration attorneys, interviewed Carlos, and reviewed statements from his children, translated from Spanish. Carlos is a pseudonym, being used at the request of attorneys concerned that speaking out could jeopardize Carlos’ immigration case or further delay his reunion with his family.
Using Children to Arrest Parents
Since 2003, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement has cared for immigrant children under 18 who arrive in the country without their parents, often fleeing violence, abuse, or trafficking. The office, which in February had more than 2,300 children in shelters or with foster families across the country, is supposed to promptly release them to vetted caregivers, typically parents or other family members already living in the country.
Congress placed this responsibility with the health agency over 20 years ago to prioritize the well-being of unaccompanied children and separate their care from immigration enforcement priorities.
Now the second Trump administration is using migrant children held by the resettlement office to lure their parents, such as Carlos, whether or not they have a criminal record. A KFF Health News investigation found the resettlement office, headed by a former ICE official, coordinates with the Department of Homeland Security to arrest people seeking custody of migrant children. […]
As of January, the agency had detained at least 300 children already placed with vetted sponsors and asked their caregivers to reapply, according to the National Center for Youth Law and the Democracy Forward Foundation. The advocacy groups filed a Feb. 23 lawsuit calling these actions “a quieter, new form of family separation.” [!]
[…] hundreds of kids have been taken to government shelters after being swept up inside the country, often during immigration raids or traffic stops, according to the advocates’ lawsuit. Many were already living with relatives, including guardians already vetted by the resettlement agency. [“Already vetted”!]
[…] According to the resettlement office, children in its custody stayed in government shelters or foster care for an average of one month in 2024. As of February, that had jumped to more than half a year. [!]
[…] Carlos’ children could also be sent back to the country they fled. Because of his detention, Carlos will have to redo much of the process to reunite with them […]
Carlos’ daughter spent the day crying in bed when the siblings learned their father had been detained. For days, they didn’t know where he was. Now, they fear the only way out is through adoption or foster care.
“I am afraid,” she said. “I’m going to wait for my dad forever.”
Lynna and commenters, I very much appreciate your keeping us informed. But, all I can conclude from everything posted is that we are accelerating down the Death Spiral with no extant power that can reverse it. Congress is a dead dog. The rest of government is run by murderous magats and doge cockroaches. The main slime media is now owned by tRUMP’s plutocrats and spewing bs. So, I can’t stop hearing Martha and the Vandellas, ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’.
[…] Trump and the dunces in his administration are trying to gin up support for the disastrous war in Iran, which is quickly spiraling into a boondoggle as fuel shortages are beginning to hit across the globe and the threat of an inflation-fueled economic collapse grows.
During a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Trump warped reality by saying that he’s “the opposite of desperate” to stop the war, that it’s Iranians—not him—looking to make a deal to end hostilities, and that the United States isn’t impacted by the oil shortage because we produce our own.
Of course, none of that is true.
Trump is desperate for an off-ramp, as the war spikes gas prices in the United States and threatens to create another inflationary cycle that could take down the global economy and lead to the GOP’s annihilation in the midterms.
Already, the U.S. Postal Service announced an 8% surcharge on all packages due to rising fuel prices, and petrochemical companies are doubling the price of plastic—another commodity that’s impacted by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And mortgage rates are increasing as investors see risks in investing in the U.S. economy.
[…] if you thought that Trump’s comments were the dumbest things said during the painful MAGA fluff fest, you’d be wrong.
It was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who seemed to be drinking the most Kool-Aid, saying that Americans don’t care about price increases and that politicians who don’t support Trump’s war do so at their own peril.
“Many people, especially the Democrats, underestimate the will of the American people for short-term volatility for 50 years of safety that we are going to have on the other side of this,” Bessent said. [video]
Of course, it’s actually Trump and other Republicans who are underestimating the negative impacts that this war will have on their political chances.
Polls show opposition to the war is growing, with net support now more than 14 points underwater, according to an average compiled by Nate Silver. [chart]
[…] if Trump and his team of dimwits thought that their comments on Iran would help calm the financial markets, they were wrong about that too.
At the time of this writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 430 points, and the price of Brent crude—which sets the price of oil for around 80% of the global market—surged to $108 per barrel. That’s a 5% jump in less than 24 hours.
Trump’s war is a mess, the dumbest people are at the helm, and the worst fallout from skyrocketing oil prices is still on the horizon. […]
[…] Trump held one of his emperor-has-no-clothes Cabinet meetings on Thursday, opening with a fantasy State of the Union-style address in the wake of his faltering war in Iran and partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
He claimed the U.S. is “extremely, really, a lot ahead of schedule” in Iran [JFC!]—despite reports that the administration has quietly stretched the timelines and conveniently begun rewriting its stated goals as Iran retains the ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil route. [video]
“They are begging to make a deal,” Trump claimed, before castigating Iran for having mine-dropping boats while also saying we don’t know if they’ve dropped mines.
Trump then turned his attention toward NATO, calling his war in Iran “a test” that our allies failed.
“We’re gonna remember,” he warned.
Turning to the United Kingdom, Trump said its military support was worthless, dismissing their aircraft carriers as “toys compared to what we have”—probably earning guffaws from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. [video]
Finally, Trump attacked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the GOP-driven government shutdown, citing something he saw on television that blamed Democrats for the disastrous nationwide travel delays.
“We’re not gonna let the Democrats get away with this stuff,” Trump said. “They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures.” [video]
[…]
If there is any way to make things worse, Trump will find it.
Trump commemorative coin spurs Portland man to act: ‘It bugged me’
Retired lawyer James M. Rickher filed a suit in federal court in Portland to block the minting of the coin.
When retired lawyer James M. Rickher heard on the news last week that a federal arts commission had approved a 24-karat gold coin bearing President Donald Trump’s image, his legal radar went off.
“I thought that couldn’t be right,” said Rickher, 56, who now lives in Portland after a career that included more than two decades working for the federal government.
He did a quick search of federal law and found an 1866 statute that bans portraits of living people on U.S. currency. It says: “Only the portrait of a deceased individual” may appear on U.S. currency and securities.
“I was incredulous,” said Rickher, 56.
What began as his “sheer curiosity” quickly became something more urgent.
“Honestly,it bugged me,” he said. “It bugged me that this was going to happen.”
So on Tuesday, Rickher filed a civil lawsuit on his own behalf in U.S.District Court in Portland against the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Mint to block the production of a Trump commemorative coin planned to mark the nation’s 250thanniversary.
He urged immediate court action to stop the process before the coin’s scheduled distribution on July 4….
Commentary:
[…] Long-ish article, worth reading! Good on ya, James!
One puzzling piece: the Treasury says it plans to issue a $1 Trump coin — and how small would htat have to be, to be gold?? Seems like the “gold” sneakers thing all over again…
[…] Status’ Oliver Darcy got ahold of some CBS News ratings data from the first quarter of 2026, and it is brutal.
CBS Evening News has lost 7% of viewers year-over-year, placing it “on track for its lowest-rated first quarter of the 21st century in both total viewers and the advertiser-coveted 25-54 demographic,” while CBS Mornings plummeted 13% and “is pacing toward its lowest-rated quarter on record in both total audience and the key demo.”
Meanwhile, the audiences of competitor shows at ABC News and NBC News grew over the same period.
[…] Ellison and Weiss have suggested that the core problem for American media is that the public does not trust news outlets, and that the reason for this is that the public perceives those outlets as too far left and too critical of the right. They propose to win over a larger audience by deliberately course-correcting in the opposite direction.
“We are not producing a product that enough people want,” Weiss said at a CBS News staff town hall in January. Weiss attributed this to two factors. “First: Not enough people trust us. Not you. Us. As in: the mainstream media,” she said. “Second: We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are. So they are leaving us.”
Weiss is correct that trust in traditional media has fallen dramatically in recent decades, particularly among conservatives — indeed, this is a banal truth that everyone remotely connected to the media knows. But her strategy of conceding that potential viewers are correct to distrust journalists and seeking to “meet audiences where they are” by signaling that coverage will now be deliberately shifted to the right has had the obvious result of driving away the existing audience without adding a new one […]
[…] The idea that what those people “really” want is slightly right-leaning but mostly normal news is absurd. Almost more absurd than the idea that these people “lost trust” in the media due to inaccuracies or actual bias. Or that those people ever wanted “free speech” for all beyond just wanting it to be socially acceptable to use racial slurs or were upset about “cancel culture” for ethical and philosophical reasons beyond just wanting to be the ones who canceled people themselves. They are insincere, but enough of them know how to present their bullshit as “reasonable” to fool someone like Bari Weiss — who still doesn’t seem to realize that they don’t want her to even be able to vote, nevermind run a network or remain married to her wife
The fact is, MAGA doesn’t want a MAGA-lite Washington Post, they don’t want a MAGA-lite CBS. Hell, FOX is barely enough for them these days. Why would they bother with lite-anything when they have myriad full-fat options like One America News, Right Side Broadcasting Network, The Daily Wire, Breitbart, The Federalist, The Blaze, Newsmax and Real America’s Voice? Hell, when they have LindellTV? Or the approximately 87,000 streaming shows hosted by actual extremists?
These folks are practically oversaturated with the exact kind of “news” they crave, “news” that […] promises them that everything bad in the world is the fault of people they do not like. They only said they wanted “bias-free” news because they wanted news they viewed as left-leaning to go away. [true] They want very biased news that not only tells them what to think, but also literally tells them how fabulously attractive and brilliant they are on a regular basis.
All of this being said, I do not think that the Ellisons, Jeff Bezos, or Patrick Soon-Shiong give a flying shit if their outlets are not doing well. Certainly, in Bezos’s case, he is more than happy to lose money on the Washington Post if it means getting in Trump’s good graces. For the Ellisons, it’s not what they’re adding, but what they’re subtracting. It’s why they wanted CNN so badly. Soon-Shiong’s motivations are fairly obvious, given that he is a biotech billionaire who served as an HHS advisor during the first Trump administration and whose company relies on approvals from the Food and Drug Administration. […]
Unfortunately, their bids for power come at the expense of good journalism, which we all need for a functioning democracy [All too true!] — which, as the Washington Post still inexplicably and ironically maintains in its tagline, “dies in darkness.”
Jimmy Donaldson is best known for his persona “MrBeast” and his widely followed YouTube channel where he stages extreme challenges with large cash prizes. Less known is that Mr. Donaldson is also the founder of Beast Industries, a company that appears to have aspirations of expanding into financial services and crypto – having recently purchased Step, a financial technology platform aimed at children, and [he] received a $200 million investment from a crypto company.
Step is a fintech app designed “to provide the next generation with financial tools for today’s modern-day banking needs and to promote financial literacy for the future.” Step allows users under 18 to access a secured credit card, trade securities, and earn rewards, and has a history of advertising its planned expansion into risky investments in cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly to teenagers.
On Monday, Senator Warren wrote to Beast Industries with questions about the company’s potential foray into crypto and financial services aimed at children.
1. Beast Industries Has A Loyal Following That Includes Children And Teenagers
Jimmy Donaldson is arguably the most famous YouTube star – MrBeast is the most subscribed-to YouTube channel in the world, with videos that regularly receive over 100 million views. His videos feature extreme challenges and competitions and are very popular with teenagers and young adults. Outside of YouTube, Mr. Donaldson has launched a series of products popular with children, including a competitor to Lunchables, chocolate bars, and toys for kids as young as five years old. Fans of his videos are exceptionally loyal and the CEO of Beast Industries stated, “We have the opportunity to launch multiple business [sic] on the backs of that center of reach and distribution.”
2. Beast Industries Prepares to Enter Fintech Space
Beast Industries now appears to be looking to provide financial services with a focus on crypto offerings:
– In October 2025, Beast Holdings filed for the “MrBeast Financial” trademark, and it was reported that the “company plans to provide cryptocurrency trading services, crypto payment processing, and crypto trading through DEX.”
– In January 2026, Beast Industries received a $200 million investment from “the leading Ethereum treasury company in the world.”
– Upon receiving the investment, Beast Industries’ CEO stated, “We look forward to exploring ways to further collaborate and incorporate DeFi into our upcoming financial services platform.” DeFi is shorthand for decentralized finance, which broadly refers to digital asset services that facilitate automated peer-to-peer transactions, often through the use of self-executing code and without the use of intermediaries like banks.
– In February 2026, Beast Industries announced its acquisition of Step.
3. Step Allowed and Encouraged Minors to Trade Cryptocurrency
Step previously allowed teenagers, with parental permission, to buy and sell Bitcoin so they could “participate…in the rapidly evolving investing landscape.” But it appears Step was looking to expand its offerings and repeatedly advertised that teens would soon be able to buy over 50 different types of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. [Screen grabs]
Step has very active social media channels and at the time strongly targeted its content to teenagers. Teens scrolling through Step’s feed would see posts about summer jobs, free gym memberships, and summer break interspersed with posts and short form videos about cryptocurrency, including ads for Step’s rollout of trading options for alt-coins (very risky cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin) and NFTs, even though Step later stated that these investments were respectively “volatile” and “full of scams.” [lots of screen grabs]
4. Step Encouraged Minors To Pressure Their Parents Into Letting Them Invest In Crypto
Despite Step’s careful claims that crypto investing by minors was only with the permission of a parent or guardian, Step produced a video titled “How to Talk to Your Parents About Investing in Crypto,” which was targeted at kids whose parents “want nothing to do with crypto,” “think [they’ll] end up losing all [their] money,” or “simply [do] not understand crypto in general.” The video coaches children on how to convince their parents to let them make investments their parents may not want and includes specific scripts for children to use while talking to their parents.
For example, halfway through the video, the speaker directs the viewer to “tell them something like,” and then gives a direct script with text on screen. [more screen grabs]
Step has undercut its own credibility by going around kids’ parents and directly coaching minors on how to convince their parents to let them make an investment their parents do not wish them to make.
Beast Industries is primarily an entertainment and consumer product company with […] no reported prior experience offering financial services, investment services, or banking products. Now, with its acquisition of Step, Beast Industries may be entering a highly regulated market—and doing so with a product aimed at minors and young adults. Given Step’s history of hawking volatile investments to teenagers […] and Beast Industries’ interest in expanding into financial services and DeFi, Senator Warren asked a series of detailed questions about Beast Industries’ plans for Step.
To read Senator Warren’s letter to Beast Industries, you can click here.
“Court cases in Moldova are lifting the curtain on Russia’s transnational network to recruit, train and deploy spies and saboteurs.”
When Anatoli Prizenco met Maxim Roșca outside a grocery store in downtown Chișinău, he pitched an easy escape from Roșca’s job at a local auto shop: a paid, two-week trip involving travel and outdoor activities.
According to Roșca’s testimony to a Moldovan court, Prizenco offered few details, only that Roșca would earn between $300 and $500 — and that further instructions would come from a contact in Moscow.
Within weeks, Roșca found himself in training camps in Bosnia and Serbia. There, participants learned how to fly drones, handle incendiary devices and evade law enforcement during protests — part of what Moldovan investigators say was a coordinated Russia-backed effort to recruit operatives for destabilization operations as far away as France and Germany.
Moldova’s investigations into Russian-linked recruitment efforts come as European countries warn that Moscow is waging a campaign of hybrid warfare aimed at destabilizing their internal politics. [!]
French authorities, already on alert ahead of next year’s presidential election, documented low-level disinformation campaigns by Russian networks during this month’s local elections. In Germany, the government summoned the Russian ambassador in December, alleging that Moscow had orchestrated cyberattacks and interfered in a general election last year.
Having faced some of the Moscow’s most aggressive campaigns in 2024 and 2025, officials in Moldova say their country is well-positioned to help their European neighbors fend off Russian attacks.
The Kremlin ramped up its use of proxies after many European capitals expelled dozens of Russian diplomats — some of them suspected intelligence agents — following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Moldovan prosecutors allege Prizenco acted as a recruiter in a wider, foreign-based network they have now dismantled, one that trained dozens of people as proxies for Russian-linked influence and disruption campaigns. He is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday in Chișinău.
French authorities are also investigating Prizenco as the prime suspect in the hiring of a group of Moldovan citizens who drew Stars of David on Paris walls in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks in Israel — an apparent attempt to stoke political tensions.
Moldovan prosecutors are investigating more than 80 people over suspicions they fomented mass disorder. Twenty have been formally indicted. At least two other people linked to the camps are suspected of involvement in other destabilization operations in France and Germany.
“These young people, Russian speakers, were recruited, transported to specially organized camps and trained in [tactics including] how to break law enforcement cordons,” Moldova’s Minister of Internal Affairs Daniella Misail-Nichitin told POLITICO.
“Some were taught how to use unmanned devices. […] The instructors were part of an international network with ties to Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, according to Moldovan intelligence services.
[…] Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova lies on the periphery of the European Union and yet well within what Moscow has traditionally regarded as its sphere of interest. Transnistria, a strip of its territory bordering Ukraine, has been controlled by pro-Russian politicians since it broke away in the 1990s during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
More recently, Moldova has been a major front in Russia’s hybrid war on Europe. […]
In a document seen by POLITICO and circulated by Moldova to EU officials shortly after the parliamentary election, the government documented how Orthodox priests in the country had received “instructions to spread disinformation seven days a week instead of only on Sundays.” Moscow also offered people in the country “guidance on how to set up and manage Telegram channels,” a messaging platform popular in Russia.
The government has also highlighted the use of large-scale vote-buying networks, staged protests, cyberattacks, troll farms and AI-generated deepfakes — with Russian proxies paid, sometimes in cryptocurrency, according to a performance-based system of financial bonuses.
Moldova said it has been dismantling networks of foreign-trained operatives sponsored by Moscow since 2024. “We are talking here about trainings organized in Serbia, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the Russian Federation,” said Misail-Nichitin, the interior minister.
[That’s an extensive disinformation campaign.]
[…] an alleged plot to assassinate several public figures in Ukraine.
“We are talking about more than 90 targets, spanning high-profile journalists, defense officials, high-level executives linked to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, who were going to be assassinated on command,” […]
“neither the EU member states nor its neighbours are safe from hybrid threats.”
It is not clear where the tunnel would be built or what purpose it would serve. […] Also unclear is how the project would overcome the geographic limitations of New Orleans, which has a historically high water table and sits on soil deposited from the Mississippi River. […] representatives of The Boring Company have not responded to questions […] whether company officials contacted any state or local authorities about it.
[…]
“It is a challenge here, you’re not dealing with hard earth, you’re dealing with recently deposited sand silt, clay water and organic matter,” […] Historically, abandoned tunnels have left behind buckled pavement [and] a sinkhole
less than 10% of U.S. adults smoked a cigarette in 2024—the first time this rate has ever dropped to single digits.
[…]
In 1964, the same year the U.S. surgeon general issued his report outlining the now-established dangers of smoking, 42% of adults reported smoking. […] This drop has especially accelerated since the early 2000s
[…]
There are still some hurdles to keeping tobacco under control, however. For instance, the rate of cigar smoking and other tobacco or nicotine products, including electronic cigarettes, hasn’t budged lately. […] Overall, 18.8% of adults used some tobacco product in 2024 […] other recent research has shown that e-cigarettes have become less popular among younger generations, so it’s possible even vaping could be on its way out
Vance suggests Iran could have used nuclear suicide vests: “People who walk into a crowded supermarket and… blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, that’s a terrible tragedy. What happens when what’s on the vest… can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?” [Video clip]
Commentary
“They’re eating the dogs and cats!”
That is a big ass vest. The smallest nuclear weapon that was created was the [W54/B54/SADM] warhead, […] a cylinder 11″ in diameter and 16″ long, with a 1 kiloton yield. Like strapping a canister vacuum to your back that is filled with lead.
the idea that we should be worried about Iranian terrorist reprisals seems like an argument against bombing the shit out of their country.
“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Let’s have an unnecessary war in the Middle East over non-existent WMDs, but this time make it even dumber and more illegal.
What if the ayatollah had a button he could press that would make all bald eagles gay?
JD’s right about one thing: “We don’t want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon.”
Timothy McVeigh blew up a building, but we still let white male zealots run free. And now they’re blowing up the world economy.
I found an authentic photograph of a terrorist with a nuclear suicide vest.
(I appreciate that the resolution of the photo on the right lets you see exactly how tightly-clenched one’s cheeks must be while jumping out of a plane with a mini-nuke strapped between one’s legs.)
Created in 1962 during the height of the Cold War, they were responsible for infiltrating behind enemy lines to detonate atomic demolition munitions, a type of portable nuclear weapon […] The last teams were disbanded in 1986. […] Jumping the SADM was considered extremely difficult, as the 59 lb weight […] made controlling one’s orientation challenging […] As a result, approximately 90% of jumps involving the B54 SADM missed their intended dropzones. […] these missions were near suicidal. […] team members had been informed that the [mechanical] timers could go off up to eight minutes earlier than desired and even thirteen minutes after expected.
This is the first report I’ve received of ICE agents performing actual TSA duties. Not good.
O’HARE (Chicago): “There are dozens of ICE agents at TSA checkpoint, almost all of them doing the jobs of the TSA agents. They are the ones checking IDs and passports and verifying flight info, while TSA agents stand there and do nothing.”
[…] Second report of ICE agents handling passports:
PHOENIX: 1. “Some ICE agents were just standing there and directing people which security podium to go to. Others were standing behind the TSA agents or handing out plastic bins. They’re doing jobs that aren’t jobs.”
2. “ICE agents were at TSA scanning passports and loading bags onto the scanner.”
Rando: “Aren’t those union jobs??”
birgerjohanssonsays
Tibees about pseudoscience:
“Fibonacci slop is out of control”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LWJzirlCv8I
.
Also, spontaneously I suspect Tibees gets a ton of hate mail from incels, ‘men’s rights’ activists and general MAGA types for daring to be well-infomed, female and – Zod-forbid – good looking (thus being counter to cliches). Anyone who is into debunking crap is a target these days, but some more than others.
.
Btw another thing that makes me grumpy is when people claim water will whirl in opposite directions in your bathtub on different sides of the equator. The effect only manifests at large scales. I just thought I should mention that (gnashes teeth).
“We will never forget what happened here, and we’re taking action against it. And I think you’ll see it very visibly in the No Kings rallies,” says Gov. Tim Walz on the lasting impact of Trump’s ICE occupation in Minnesota. “There’s work to be done. Because we still need justice.”
“Since Day 1, the Trump administration has acted as if they had hired some crack team of consultants to study the problem and find all the ways the president of the United States could personally jack up prices for people,” says Chris Hayes.
Military women and people of color somehow keep finding themselves in the crosshairs under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
A New York Times story out this morning is ostensibly about Hegseth personally striking four Army officers from the list for promotion to one-star generals: “Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consists of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials said.”
But a rancid anecdote within the story shows how explicitly racist things are within a Pentagon run by a Christian nationalist, especially if you’re Black and a woman.
It involves an unrelated fight last summer between Hegseth chief of staff Ricky Buria and Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over the promotion of Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant as commander of the Military District of Washington, a command which includes many ceremonial functions in the nation’s capital:
Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, the officials said.
Mr. Driscoll was shocked. “The president is not a racist or sexist,” he told Mr. Buria, according to the officials. Mr. Driscoll then raised the issue with a senior White House official who agreed with his assessment of Mr. Trump.
For his part, Buria denies the NYT account as a “made up story.” […]
Bits and pieces of news as posted by TPM (same link as in comment 235):
Four People Killed in Lawless Boat Strike
In the 47th known attack on alleged drug smuggling boats, the U.S. military killed four people in the Caribbean, bring the death toll in the lawless campaign to at least 163 people. [!]
———————————— Senate Votes to End DHS Shutdown
Overnight, Senate Republicans and the Trump White House finally threw in the towel and passed a DHS funding bill that excludes ICE and some parts of CBP, acceding to the demands that Senate Democrats have been making for weeks […]
———————— Trump DOJ Drops Its Arguments in 2 Cases
It’s highly irregular for the Justice Department to make these kinds of humiliatingly walkbacks, but it’s happened twice this week, both times in cases related to immigration:
– In the J.O.P. case […], the Trump DOJ formally withdrew yesterday its now debunked argument that the number of wrongful deportations of asylum seekers in violation of a court-approved settlement agreement was relatively small.
– In a Manhattan federal case challenging the policy of arresting migrants at immigrations courts, where the DOJ abandoned its position earlier this week after admitting to a huge factual error that it attributed to unnamed ICE attorney, the judge issued a preservation order against DOJ for “all communications between and among a member of the USAO staff and/or any defendant in this action or his or her predecessor, successor, subordinates or representatives, including the ‘assigned ICE counsel.’”
————————— Trump DOJ Watch: Todd Blanche Edition
During an appearance at a CPAC event, Deputy AG Blanche:
– bragged that every DOJ or FBI employee who worked on the criminal investigations of Donald Trump has been fired, resigned, or took early retirement. “There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions,” he boasted, saying that the total number of people purged was over 200.
– opened the door wide to having ICE officers at polling places.
——————————- Quote of the Day
Climate scientist Kate Marvel, on why she resigned on from NASA:
I was naive. I thought that the benefits of doing science would be self-evident. And I anticipated that our science—as people who look at the planet and see that it’s changing—would come under scrutiny and even attack because the implications are politically inconvenient. We’ve seen that before, and that’s what I expected. What I did not expect was that [the Trump administration] would go after pediatric cancer research first. That they would go after Parkinson’s research first. And they would go after vaccines, the greatest invention of humanity. And that has shocked me, the fact that science is under attack, not because its conclusions are necessarily politically inconvenient but because it is a way of telling the truth. That has been the most disorienting and frightening aspect of all of this.
After more than 40 days of back-and-forth, Senate Republicans accepted the proposal Democrats have been offering for weeks to fund all parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The Senate passed the bill around 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning with a voice vote. Only five senators were present on the Senate floor. [!] Following the passage, the Senate recessed for its two-week Easter break.[!]
Before Friday, Democrats in both chambers have repeatedly tried to get Republicans on board with a bill that would fund all agencies under the DHS umbrella, except ICE and CBP. That would mean funding TSA, the Secret Service, FEMA and the Coast Guard, agencies not implicated in DHS’ lawless rampages through American cities in recent months, resulting in the deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis early this year.
The urgency to pass Democrats’ bill increased as TSA went unpaid, leading to hours-long lines at airport security and the dozens of TSA agents who resigned from their job across the country. Those efforts were blocked until now.
With the passed bill, Democrats did not get a deal on any of the ICE reforms and constraints they have been demanding. The Senate-passed package includes some provisions that both sides agreed to back in January, including $20 million for body cameras for immigration enforcement agents.
The negotiations could continue. Republicans have begun work on a second reconciliation bill that they could use to fund CBP and ICE. […] some Senate Republicans are indicating they will be prioritizing ICE funding even more in the second reconciliation package they are hoping to complete.[doofuses]
“What’s coming next will supercharge deportations,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said Friday morning, according to Politico. “The filibuster cannot save you.” [Hopefully, those are empty threats. Bluster.]
Meanwhile, Democrats are touting the fact that they held the line and stayed united in not giving any more money to ICE and CBP without meaningful reforms. [Good]
In the meantime, ICE and CBP can continue to operate, as they have been, with the billions of dollars they have received in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill. [Bad]
The Senate-passed bill will now head to the House. It is unclear if the House Republican caucus will be able to get together behind this deal. Not all of its members will be happy about funding DHS absent ICE and CBP money. [Important caveat!]
[…]
Maybe the Republicans just did not want to stay in Washington D.C. to work on the funding issues. They are leaving for their Easter vacation (two weeks of vacation.)
“Hundreds of emails and photos from what appears to be FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account were published Friday by an Iran-linked hacking group.”
Pro-Iran hackers published more than 300 emails and photos Friday from what appears to be a personal email account for FBI director Kash Patel.
The hacking group, called Handala, indicated on its website that the leak was retaliation after the FBI and Justice Department seized several of its websites last week, accusing the group of “psychological operations” and saying it was a front for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Iranian hackers threatening U.S. critical infrastructure.
Earlier this month, Handala took credit for the sole significant destructive cyberattack against an American company, medical tech supplier Stryker, since the war between the country, the U.S. and Israel began. […]
The group published several photos of Patel on its website that do not appear to have previously been made public […] The emails appear to have been sent from or to a personal Gmail account that is listed as belonging to Patel in at least one public government document. […]
All of the emails predate Patel’s work with the Trump administration, and mƒetadata from the files indicate they were hacked before the war began. The emails Handala posted are curated and are arranged into folders last modified on May 21, 2025. […]
U.S. officials told Patel in late 2024 that he had been the target of an Iranian cyberattack before he agreed to lead the FBI, and that the hackers had sought his communications.
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, the FBI, Microsoft and Google each said that hackers working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had tried to hack multiple political figures, including affiliates of Donald Trump and Joe Biden when he was running for re-election.
The hackers do not appear to have leaked files from Democrats. But a hacker persona calling itself “Robert” approached multiple news outlets, including NBC News, with stolen vetting documents for three of Trump’s top choices for vice president ahead of Election Day NBC News and several other news outlets declined to publish the files and did not see substantial new information in them. […]
Handala often takes credit for hacking companies and then hosting some hacked files on its site. It has at times exaggerated its claims. Earlier this month, it claimed to have hacked Verifone, an Israeli telecom company, though a Verifone spokesperson told NBC News it had not experienced any attacks on or disruptions to its systems.
[…] “Given recent controversies surrounding Patel, I expect the Iranians would’ve chosen to release significantly more contemporary — and potentially embarrassing — content if they had a recently open line of access as opposed to something they had on the shelf,” he [Alex Orleans, the head of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity company Sublime Security] said.
“The sea ice is crucial to Earth’s climate because without it reflecting sunlight, more heat energy goes into the oceans. Ice of all kinds around the poles acts as Earth’s refrigerator.”
Vital Arctic sea ice shrank to tie its lowest measured level for the winter, the season when ice grows, as a warming Earth shattered records across the continents.
Arctic sea ice levels, especially in the summer, are crucial to Earth’s climate because without the ice reflecting sunlight, more heat energy goes into the oceans. Ice of all kinds around the poles acts as Earth’s refrigerator. […]
The shrinking Arctic sea ice was announced Thursday as temperatures broke March heat records across the United States, all over Mexico, in Australia, across Northern Africa and through parts of Northern Europe. […]
Sixteen states broke March temperature records in the past week or so, said weather historian Christ Burt. Twenty-seven locations had temperatures in the past week high enough to tie or surpass the hottest April day on record, including St. Louis, meteorologists said. Mexico has had thousands of records shattered, some of them warmer than the hottest May temperatures, but that’s nothing compared with what’s happening in Asia, where “dozens of thousands of monthly records” were smashed by 30 to 35 degrees (17 to 19 degrees Celsius) margins, Herrera said.
Yet at the same time earlier this week, Antarctica set a record for the coldest March day anywhere on Earth at minus 105.5 degrees (minus 76.4 degrees Celsius), according to Herrera and Burt.
[…] Each year Arctic sea ice grows over the cold winter and shrinks in the heat of the summer. […]
This year’s sea ice area was about 525,000 square miles (1.36 million square kilometers) lower than the 1981 to 2010 winter average peak. That’s about twice the size of Texas.
[…] “It’s more of a steady decline in the winter and at the maximum. And it also gives us a head start on the summer melt season. We’re starting from a lower number.”
Summer sea ice is key
The summer melt season — which precedes a September measurement known as the Arctic sea ice minimum — is “really the critical time,” Meier said. One reason is that when there’s less white ice reflecting the strong summer sun, the oceans can absorb more heat. And when that happens, the Arctic warms closer to temperatures further south and atmospheric pressure changes. A leading theory — that is still controversial — says those Arctic changes then alter the movement and shape of the jet stream, which moves weather west to east and contributes to extreme weather bursts, he said.
Melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise.
Winter sea ice growth season is also more variable with weather changes, so just because the Arctic hits a record small amount in March, it doesn’t mean that the summer will be record low, Meier said. […]
On the other end of the planet, Antarctic sea ice is heavily affected by local weather and ocean factors. In February, Antarctica hit its annual low point and while it was smaller than the 30-year average, it was nowhere near the record low levels of the past three years, Meier said.
Everything is very terrible right now in Trump’s America, but it’s important to remember that it is also very stupid. [True]
For proof of this, look no further than the Department of Justice and zoom in on the Civil Rights Division, headed by one Harmeet Dhillon.
Surprisingly, Dhillon is not one of President Donald Trump’s innumerable former criminal defense attorneys. What Dhillon brings to the table is a deep commitment to voter suppression and an unshakeable belief that Trump won the 2020 election. If you are wondering how that qualifies her to head the Civil Rights Division, wonder no more: She is in no way qualified, and it shows.
Dhillon beclowned herself on X on Tuesday with a cheery little post.
“Launching a series of civil rights investigations. Another day in paradise!” she chirped.
Not content to communicate in a way that is wildly inappropriate for a top Justice Department official, Dhillon also included a picture of her signing a letter with an expensive fountain pen [social media post]
You can see that Dhillon turned the top page over to obscure exactly who she was offhandedly investigating, but it took Lawfare’s Anna Bower about two hours to figure out that if you flipped the image and juiced the contrast, you could see who Dhillon was ostentatiously writing to.
Hello, Ohio State University. Your medical school is in Dhillon’s crosshairs, which you may or may not have found out by accident via a post on X. […]
Ohio State joins the medical schools at Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego, which are also under investigation for “possible race discrimination in medical school admissions.”
[…] the way these investigations typically work is that you already have some well-developed evidence about specific acts of discrimination. It’s not an “investigation” to just demand a ton of data to sift through in the hopes you’ll trip and fall over some diversity, equity, and inclusion, but that is pretty much what is happening here.
In fact, the letter to Ohio State mentions nothing about any incidents of discrimination. […] the letter can’t even settle on what, exactly, the DOJ is doing. At one point, Dhillon calls it a “compliance review investigation.” It’s also a “compliance investigation” and sometimes just an “investigation.”
[…] If you were wondering what compliance monitoring looked like under a functional DOJ, you can peep this 2024 letter to Utah State University, which made a determination of substantial noncompliance with a previous settlement agreement. It’s 14 pages long instead of Dhillon’s 1.5 fact-free pages. It has lengthy factual findings and discussions of applicable law.
Dhillon’s letter has none of those things, but it does demand seven years of individual applicant data including all test scores, extracurricular activities, essays, zip codes, and demographics.
Oh also, any statistical analysis the schools ever did about admission trends by race.
Oh and also, also, all documents about medical school admission policies.
Everyone at these three schools also gets to search their internal communications to comply with the demand to provide any internal emails discussing DEI. Too bad there’s no real definition of “DEI,” so good luck.
This is an absolutely motley collection of data requests, and the schools in question have one month to produce it or, you guessed it, they could lose federal funding. [!]
[…] Columbia University was the first to fold, giving the government $221 million to get $400 million in funding restored, along with turning the school bigoted to better align with Trump policies and giving the government far, far too much oversight.
The administration also squeezed $75 million out of Northwestern University, $30 million from Cornell University, and $50 million from Brown, all of which also came with demands to conform to Trump’s personal policy feels.
So, it’s pretty clear Dhillon just sees the medical schools as the next cash cow […]
Under Dhillon, the Civil Rights Division stopped managing police reform agreements and nixed the right to bring disparate-impact complaints, which are the most common civil rights complaints. Nor is the Civil Rights Division investigating ICE’s murder of Minneapolis citizen Renee Good, because of course not.
So Dhillon will continue to hang out at Elon Musk’s online Nazi bar, which is literally where she goes to decide which civil rights cases to pursue.
Bottom line: We have the worst fucking DOJ attorneys.
The Conservative Political Action Conference—the annual gathering of right-wing creeps—kicked off on Thursday, with a number of Republican politicians and activists slated to speak […]
CPAC chair Matt Schlapp said he hopes this year’s four-day gathering will bring the MAGA back together, as it’s currently being torn apart by […] Trump’s war in Iran.
[…] a number of the biggest MAGA personalities—from Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—have condemned the conflict, saying it goes against Trump’s “America First” promise.
Right now, MAGA voters themselves appear to be sticking by Trump. But the GOP writ large shows signs of cracks as it grapples with Trump’s quagmire of a war.
So you’d think Trump would want to speak to the conference to try to bring his propagandists together to help build support for the war that even he seems to be realizing is going south fast.
But for the first time in a decade, Trump will be absent from the right-wing snooze fest, denying the crowd of lunatics one of his quintessentially rambling and lie-filled speeches that drones on for hours.
The White House told the Daily Beast that Trump can’t attend CPAC because he needs to focus on the war and “other critical issues.” But the fact that Trump—who would drop anything to be cheered on by adoring fans—chose not to go is a sign of CPAC’s waning influence in the GOP.
Even CNN pointed out that the speaker list this year isn’t exactly stacked with Republican stars like past years. In fact, I scrolled through the list of this year’s speakers and barely knew any of them.
Ultimately, this year’s CPAC seems like it will be a much less jubilant affair than the 2025 gathering, when Republicans felt invincible upon Trump’s return to the White House. Remember Elon Musk revving a chainsaw on stage for some reason? [Photo]
This year, Republicans are staring down almost certain defeat in the midterms, with the House majority likely gone and even control of the Senate at risk.
The New York Post is not one of my favorite news sources or go-to paper of record for serious in-depth reportage. Besides it is widely regarded as a conservative daily tabloid newspaper, particularly since Rupert Murdoch acquired it in 1976. It is known for its right-leaning editorial stances, sensational headlines, and strong support for conservative causes. It has strong ties to MAGA politics […]
But the emerging facts on the ground wrought by Ukraine’s smart and innovative technological approach to war fighting cannot be denied. […] if the NY Post is any indication, that lackadaisical media coverage of Ukraine may soon change.
The tide of the war is turning. The beating Ukraine unleashed on attacking Russian forces last week (and no doubt likely to continue) is just stunning in its ferocity and magnitude … for anyone who is paying attention. The NY Post has been paying attention for some time now and has been calling out Russia’s lying and failures about the war. From January 17, 2026 edition:
Nearly four years into war, Russia has gained little — and Ukraine keeps bouncing back, despite some 2 million draft dodgers
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has rejected peace.
He’s trying to convince the world that the Ukrainian lines are nearing collapse to get President Trump to force Ukraine to surrender. But Putin is lying.
Nearly four years into the conflict, which began Feb. 24, 2022, Ukrainian lines are holding. Russian advances remain very slow and costly. It’s Putin who should be pressured to recognize the futility of continuing to spend the blood of Ukrainians and Russians on his futile dreams of conquest.
Outnumbered and wounded, Ukraine is still managing to hold Russia back and impose heavy casualties on Russian forces […] Putin turns to propaganda.
The Kremlin exaggerates seizures of tiny rural settlements along the frontline and the international border as major victories supposedly leading to breakthroughs — which they never do. Russia uses misleading flag raisings in contested areas, cross-border raids and demonstrative senior military meetings to visually support these lies.
Putin aims to win the war by convincing the West that further arms sales and aid to Ukraine are futile against Russian grinding advances. […]
And then there’s the NY Post on the kinetic sanctions Ukraine, on its own, is now aggressively levying on Russia’s number one revenue source … oil and gas … thereby negating Krasnov’s recent under-handed attempts at sanctions busting to help Putin. […]
Ukraine is wounding Russia’s oil export economy, essential to Putin’s war efforts. Strikes against oil refineries ramped up throughout 2024 and 2025, causing several to partially or completely suspend operations. Ukrainian strikes have targeted more than half of refineries and cost Russia 10% of its oil refining capacity as of November 2025 — numbers that will continue to climb.
And Ukraine is now hunting the Russian “shadow fleet” involved in oil and weapons exports, after launching naval drone strikes on oil tankers in the Black Sea for the first time in late November 2025. In December, Ukraine rendered three tankers inoperable in just two weeks according to the country’s security services. Kyiv also targeted offshore infrastructure such as Russian oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea and port infrastructure.
[See also, lumipuna’s comment #201]
Then yesterday this came from the NY Post:
Ukraine has an edge against struggling Russia ahead of dreaded spring offensive […]
Despite a brutal winter and record-breaking Russian drone assaults, Ukraine now has a leg up in the war as it managed to fend off Moscow’s latest “meat assaults,” mowing down more than 6,000 Kremlin troops in just four days thanks to their military innovations.
Ukraine’s technological advancements were made clear last Thursday when a unit of 500 Russian infantrymen, equipped with dozens of armored vehicles, were blown away near the village of Shandryholove, the defending Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps said in a statement.
Without even deploying any soldiers to the frontlines, Ukraine took out the advancing unit with mines, mortars, artillery fire and unmanned aircraft, with First Person View drones deployed to hunt down the retreating survivors […]
[…] The Gulf Arab states, like the NY Post, can see that new power wagon coming in and are looking to get on board. The welcoming red carpet laid out for President Zelenskyy in Riyadh Saudi Arabia today speaks loudly to that fact. Ukrainian experts are already assisting Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan with drone defense systems. The Gulf Arabs want security from Ukrainian anti-drone technology not American.
Meanwhile back at what was once the “White House” … just more confusion and more useless vituperations about Ukraine giving up the Donbas … in exchange for worthless U.S. “security guarantees”. […]
“Once the center of conservative gravity, CPAC can’t get a single Trump family member to show up.”
[…] During the Trump decade, CPAC had been a showcase for the MAGA faithful, and Trump and his family were its biggest stars. Trump himself first appeared at the event in 2011 when he was toying with a presidential run. He hasn’t missed the event in a decade. “Nobody can deny that [CPAC] is the center of political gravity,” CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp told me in 2022.
But the center of gravity has clearly tilted if the modest crowd in the convention hall at the Gaylord Texan resort in Grapevine is any indication. “It’s shitty,” Warner Kimo Sutton told me of the turnout. “Last time this place was packed.” […] “I’ve heard the widow is coming,” he whispered, saying he had it on good authority that Erika Kirk, the widow of the murdered Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, might be making a surprise appearance.
[…] Trump’s previous appearances feature prominently on the CPAC website. But as of Thursday night, not a single Trump family member was on the 2026 lineup, and Trump has reportedly said he is not coming.
[…] CPAC attendees won’t even hear from Trump-adjacent Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former CPAC regular who was exiled to Greece as the US ambassador after Don Jr. ditched her for a younger woman. And the primacy of CPAC as a testing ground for future presidential candidates seems threatened. As of Thursday, not a single 2028 aspirant was scheduled to speak in Grapevine. No Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, no Vice President JD Vance. And Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio was way too busy plotting to overthrow Cuba. […]
[I snipped other examples of people who will not be attending CPAC’s events.]
Perhaps Americans, even the MAGA faithful, are too pinched by gas prices to shell out for a trip to the resort in Grapevine, where, as Sutton complained, parking costs $29 a day. Maybe a lame duck Trump, whose approval rating has never been lower, has hurt attendance. Or maybe even Republicans have grown weary of an event that has strayed far from its roots as a conservative policy confab and increasingly served as a platform for some of the GOP’s most morally compromised representatives. As conservative radio host Erick Erickson lamented in an X post Wednesday, “’C’ in CPAC is now best represented by the world ‘clown’ than as any semblance of a conservative institution.”
[…] CPAC is coming apart at the seams. […] As of 5:30 pm on Thursday, there was still no public schedule available for Friday or Saturday, and new speakers were still being announced on social media throughout the day. “CPAC is proud to announce that Andrew Giuliani is a confirmed speaker for CPAC USA 2026,” came the news Thursday morning. The son of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is the current White House director of the FIFA World Cup task force. Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen once famously said that the younger Giuliani “may be dumber than Eric Trump,” making the former pro-golfer’s addition to the CPAC agenda a mixed bag.
Thursday’s announcement of the last-minute addition of HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. may help offset some of the disappointment […]
Schlapp still plays an outsized role in the convention, which is reflected in his salary. He earned more than $830,000 in tax year 2023, according to the group’s most recent IRS 990 form. Listed as “the Honorable Matt Schlapp” on the CPAC schedule, apparently in reference to his service as George W. Bush’s White House political director, he is the moderator of a disproportionate number of panels, along with his wife, (the Honorable) Mercedes Schlapp, who worked in the first Trump White House.
[…] not everyone seems disappointed with the event. I found Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, hanging out and watching Matt Gaetz record his OAN show in the CPAC exhibit hall. Tarrio seemed glad to be here and not in prison. In January last year, Trump pardoned him, saving him from a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy related to his involvement in the January 6 riot. He told me he comes to every CPAC […]
There you have it. The good news is that CPAC is “coming apart at the seams.”
birgerjohanssonsays
46 years after the election of Ronald Reagan, I can finally see this evil cabal coming apart at the seams.
birgerjohanssonsays
“We’ve Been Misreading Machiavelli for 200 Years” – Ada Palmer
The “popolo” is the extended upper class – ‘the city millionaries’ – set against the Jeff Bezos of the time. Machiavelli wrote it is better to upset the very richest, as they are outnumbered (and can be replaced)
For those that want to escape being captives of the abusive corporate spyware computer world:
Lots of good info from @144 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain about avoiding phone spyware. Also, distrowatch has info on non-spyware phones.
@158 whheydt wrote about the raspberrypi foundation. FYI Raspberry pi (a not for profit public interest corporation and source of computer education) has lots of very capable computers for sale at very low prices. their 400 is a full computer in a keyboard. If you buy a full kit, even those with very little technical prowess can set them up and use them. They run linux based operating systems with almost any program you can imagine available.
@239 Lynna, OM posted about how ‘Arctic sea ice hits lowest winter level as unprecedented heat smashes records all over Earth’
I reply: Thanks, Lynna. But, the magat plutocrat owned mainslime media would choke to death trying to seriously talk about ‘climate change’. It’s just part of the ‘dumbing-down’ of this failing society.
whheydtsays
Re: shermanj @ #246…
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is the not-for-profit and is hardware and software agnostic. Raspberry Pi Trading, Ltd. is a for profit R&D and manufacturing company that was initially a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation, but which has been partially sold off and is publicly traded.
To add to the hardware list, the top of the line computer-in-a-keyboard is the Pi-500+, which comes with an internal nVME SSD, 16GB DRAM, and a mechanical switch keyboard (and a quite good one, in my opinion, as I own one) with optional controllable backlighting (the default is for backlighting to be off, with a couple of special exceptions like Caps Lock and power status). The Pi-500+ comes with the tools needed to open the case or pull keycaps. I did open the case on mine in order to install a backup battery for the built-in Real Time Clock, but one could also swap out the 256GB SSD for something larger, should you need it. (Linux is–generally speaking–much of a resource hog that your more common commercial OSes.)
Unfortunately, the higher end models of Pis have been hit hard by the dramatic rise on DRAM prices over the last several months. They’re still relatively low cost and certainly suitable for–probably–90+% of what people do with computers. (That is to say that if you’re doing either AAA games or video editing, a Pi is not likely to meet your needs. If, however, you’re doing web browsing, e-mail, or writing, a Pi will handle it all with ease.)
“House Rejects D.H.S. Funding as White House Orders Pay for T.S.A. Workers”
“House Republicans revolt over bill to reopen D.H.S.”
House Republicans on Friday angrily rejected a Senate-passed deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, threatening to extend the agency shutdown that has crippled airports in a fit of outrage over the agreement their own party struck with Senate Democrats to end the crisis.
After quickly assessing the compromise that passed the Senate early Friday, conservative House Republicans tore into it in harsh terms. They derided it for hewing too closely to the Democratic position by omitting money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, the two agencies responsible for carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown, which are operating under previously approved funds.
Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat, just hit on the logistical hurdle facing any bill that House Republicans try to pass to temporarily fund all of the Homeland Security Department, including ICE and Border Patrol: “The Senate is gone.” House members “know fully well what they’re doing” is continuing the shutdown, she added.
Even if he could pass the stopgap bill, and senators abandoned their spring break plans to hurry back to Washington, Senate Democrats would likely reject the House bill.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, said House Democrats would vote to pass the Senate-approved bill to partly fund the Department of Homeland Security if Speaker Mike Johnson were to put the measure on the floor. Jeffries added: “This should end, and could end today.”
House Republicans are gearing up to vote on a different measure that would fund the entire agency though May 22, and a majority of Democrats are expected to oppose it. It would need to be voted on by the Senate.
President Trump criticized the Senate-passed Homeland Security funding bill, saying it “wasn’t good” and “wasn’t appropriate” in a call with Fox News. Trump said it was unacceptable that the bill advanced out of the Senate and was delivered to the House without funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “In my opinion, you can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund ICE.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Transportation Security Administration officers should begin receiving paychecks as early as Monday. “Today, at the direction of President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, TSA has immediately begun the process of paying its workforce,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. [Well that’s weird.]
The Russian president is expected to continue the conflict, which began in February 2022, until Moscow has secured the remaining areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region not under its control, according to the Financial Times.
At least two businessmen have told Putin they would be willing to make contributions to the defence budget after talks on Thursday, the newspaper reported. […]
[…] According to The Bell, citing sources familiar with the conversation, Putin framed these payments as ‘voluntary contributions’ to the state budget, which is currently experiencing a record deficit due to war-related spending against Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin also told representatives of big business that he plans to continue the fighting.
Some businessmen responded to the proposal during the meeting itself. Billionaire Suleiman Kerimov promised to contribute 100 billion rubles to the budget. […]
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pledged his country will “exact HEAVY price” after he said the Israeli military violated the Trump administration’s pause on strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure.
“Israel has hit 2 of Iran’s largest steel factories, a power plant and civilian nuclear sites among other infrastructure. Israel claims it acted in coordination with the U.S.,” Araghchi wrote Friday on social platform X.
Araghchi added that the attack “contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy,” referencing President Trump’s decision Thursday to extend a pause on targeting Iranian energy infrastructure. The pause was initially set to last only five days.
“As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. […]
Did Trump “coordinate” with Israel by telling them to continue bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure, all while leaving Trump in a position of deniability for the bombing? I can’t tell who is lying. I can tell that in fact some of Iran’s energy infrastructure was bombed.
“Most of the cases are children. Three people have been hospitalized, including one with kidney damage. The company is resisting a recall.”
An E. coli outbreak linked to cheddar cheese made from raw milk at a California farm has expanded to nine people in three states, the Food and Drug Administration said. More than half of the people sickened so far are children under age 5.
Three people had to be hospitalized after they contracted a dangerous strain of E. coli, O157:H7, which produces toxins in the body that cause severe, sometimes bloody, diarrhea and abdominal cramping. One person developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a condition that can lead to kidney failure.
The FDA said that samples taken from people who became ill between September 2025 and February 2026 were all closely genetically linked to one another, meaning that they all likely got sick from the same source. Seven cases were reported in California. Florida and Texas each reported a case.
The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that Raw Farm, a Fresno, California-based company is the likely source of the outbreak. Interviews with seven of the patients revealed they’d consumed dairy products from Raw Farm. Five specifically remembered eating the farm’s raw cheddar cheese, according to alerts sent from the health agencies.
As of Friday, no Raw Farm products had been reported to test positive for E. coli. The FDA has not issued a mandatory recall of Raw Farm products, instead recommending that Raw Farm remove cheese products from store shelves on their own.
Raw Farm president Aaron McAfee is pushing back hard, telling NBC News that he won’t voluntarily recall any of his products unless there’s “direct proof” they’re making people sick. That is, a test result that shows E. coli from a Raw Farm product was found in patients.
“We’ve sampled 81 samples that we purchased off retail stores in California, where we continue to sell,” McAfee said, “and those were all negative.” […]
McAfee said that three investigators from the FDA have been at the facility testing products both at the company and at retailers for more than a week. He said that test results from federal investigators won’t be available until next week.
Raw cheese is made from dairy that hasn’t been pasteurized […] The CDC warns that drinking or eating products made with raw milk can expose people to a variety of germs, including listeria, salmonella and E. coli.
Prior to his appointment as Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a proponent of raw milk. […]
Milk from Raw Farm was tied to dozens of salmonella cases in 2024, and the company did issue a voluntary recall.
The FDA rarely orders recalls outright. Instead, when the agency identifies a potential safety issue — such as contamination or a labeling problem — it typically asks companies to voluntarily pull the products from the market.
If a company doesn’t comply, the FDA can step in more aggressively, including issuing public warnings, seizing products or going to court to force them off the market, often in coordination with state officials. […]
In a statement, an FDA spokesperson said the agency’s investigation into the outbreak is ongoing. […]
Symptoms of E. coli infections often start three to four days after eating contaminated food and can include severe stomach cramps, vomiting and bloody diarrhea […]
Most people recover on their own within a week, but some groups are more at risk for complications, including children under age 5, older adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.
Worrisome symptoms that warrant a call to a doctor include dizziness, ongoing diarrhea with a fever over 102 degrees and an inability to keep liquids down without vomiting.
The CDC is advising people to “consider not eating this cheese while the investigation continues” and to wash any items and surfaces — like box shredders, knives and countertops — that may have touched the cheese with hot, soapy water or run them through a dishwasher.
StevoRsays
Just fucking horrific WARNING – trorture, child phsyical abuse refs
Doubt Rubio’s word and prediction here very much but FWIW :
Speaking ahead of his departure from a meeting with G7 leaders in France, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the US was “on the verge” of achieving its military objectives, and that the war would conclude “in a matter of weeks not months”.
Oh &
One of the immediate challenges the world will face after US military operations end is the possibility of Iran establishing a permanent tolling system for ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, he said.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable and it’s dangerous to the world … It’s important the world has a plan to confront it,” Mr Rubio told reporters.
He said his G7 counterparts expressed “a lot of buy in” and that the UK was playing a key role in arranging a postwar coalition to open the strait.
In the current war, the pressures are accumulating on both sides, and the diplomatic signals of recent days suggest that negotiation is becoming politically viable for both Washington and Tehran. What neither the five-day postponement, nor the Hormuz concession, nor the backchannel through Islamabad yet provides is the structural foundation on which a durable agreement can be constructed.
The commitment problem that defines this conflict cannot be resolved by the parties themselves. It requires regional buy-in and a guarantor with the weight, independence, and credibility to make commitments meaningful.
That conversation, between Washington and Beijing, has not yet begun. It is, arguably, the most consequential one remaining.
Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff told the Secretary of the Army that Trump “would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events,” according to the New York Times. April Ryan and Kyle Bibby join to discuss.
In yet another loss for Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering pressure campaign ahead of the midterms, Utah’s Republican-led petition to repeal a 2018 anti-gerrymandering law will not move forward after it failed to get the requisite number of signatures needed.
The proposal, which failed despite support from President Trump himself and Turning Point Action — a 501(c)(4) group tied to the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — centered on a 2018 anti-gerrymandering law that created an independent redistricting commission and guidelines for redrawing district lines. It was passed to guard against the kind of deeply partisan redistricting that Trump has been pushing red states with Republican-controlled legislatures to do for almost a year as part of his effort to predetermine who controls Congress after the midterms.
The latest Republican redistricting failure in Utah follows a Utah judge’s rejection of a GOP-proposed map that was expected to give Republicans two additional districts.
Judge Dianna Gibson rejected the new Republican-favoring congressional map last November. She instead approved a map that will likely allow for a Democratic district around Salt Lake City.
In her ruling, Gibson wrote that the new gerrymandered map did “not comply with Utah law” and that it “fails to abide by and conform with the requirements.”
Americans will gather to protest President Trump — and all of the various horrors he has carried out thus far during his second term in office — in cities across the country today, with over 3,100 “No Kings” rallies planned in all 50 states. The demonstration in St. Paul, Minnesota will serve as the flagship event for this round of “No Kings” protests, which are being spearheaded by Indivisible. Organizers chose Minnesota because the state was the target of “some of the most horrific, sadistic behavior you can imagine” so far this year, Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin told the AP.
The St. Paul protest today will feature a performance by Bruce Springsteen. Over 100,000 people are expected to be in attendance, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“We will never forget what happened here and we’re taking action against it,” Walz said of his participation in the nationwide demonstration during an interview with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes. […]
[…] Trump zeroes in on a scapegoat for Iran war debacle
Trump is never shy about claiming credit when things go well. He’s even been bragging about his idea for marble armrests at the Kennedy Center—a terrible, if relatively innocuous, idea. For him to suddenly insist that launching a war with Iran was Hegseth’s idea and not his own? That tells you he’s sweating it. And he should be! His coalition—even men!—is splintering […]
“Beneath the neon lights of a laser-scanning microscope, newly classified species glow in vivid greens and oranges—a far cry from the pitch-black abyss of their natural ocean floor.
Researchers have identified 24 new deep-sea creatures and a whole new evolutionary branch in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a wide swath of ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. The findings surface as the Trump administration, via a January mandate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has fast-tracked permits for deep sea mining in that zone, one of the planet’s richest rare-earth metal regions.
The identification of a new branch of life underscores the stakes of an international regulatory vacuum: Mining might be allowed to occur before scientists even have the chance to name species that call the seabed home.
Tammy Horton, co-author and researcher at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, explained the significance of a new evolutionary branch this way: “If you imagine that on planet Earth, we know about carnivorous mammals, we know that bears exist and we know that the families of cats exist, it would be like finding dogs.”
That superfamily of amphipods that researchers described dwell 13,000 feet down. Compared to their shallow-water relatives—like common sand fleas tucked under seaweed on beaches—these deep-sea species have evolved in darkness for millions of years. The shrimp-like creatures with a unique conical mouth mostly measure around one centimeter. […]
Happy F You Donald Trump Day To All Who Celebrate!
No Kings Today, No Kings 4Eva.
Map at the link.
[…] The last NKD was on October 18, and this third one may well end up being the largest US protest/organized gathering of all time, potentially beating the record set by the last one. Which itself beat the record set by the first one the June before, which was even bigger than Hands Across America! That is how many millions of people are unified in their hate of little Lord Bone Spurs with a distaste so visceral they want to spend most of their Saturday leisure hours yelling about it! That is important!
Count the ways, Dr. Timothy Snyder: [video]
Hey, anything big changed around here since six months ago, when Trump last dropped imaginary AI diarrhea from an imaginary plane in rage over his digital serfs?
How to measure this man and his country over the past six months? By his plummeting polls, bombs on schoolgirls in Iran, sinking value of the dollar abroad, by the corpses at home, and then whose corpses, those dead by ICE, by air disaster, by measles, by windmill-crazed whales …
[…] Last October’s protests were at about 2,700 locations, attracting an estimated 5-7 million people, today’s will be at 3,100 official locations so far, and with most of them outside of urban centers. And they’ve gone global-er, with locations as far southeast as Nairobi and as far northwest as Kotzbue, Alaska, which is closer to Russia than Sarah Palin’s house.
[…] In Minnesota there will be about a hundred events, in Baltimore city there’ll be at least a dozen event-parties. Maybe Duly Elected Incumbent Mayor Brandon Scott will even pop up somewhere and surprise-DJ a set, you never know. We all have to stay limber on our dancing feet for the day […] [video]
[…] psychos are for sure out there. […] Do not engage with counter-demostrators at all, other than to film them for mocking purposes later, and always keep an eye on an escape route in case somebody tries to plow the crowd with a vehicle, or starts shooting, spraying gas and/or launching grenades and there’s a stampede. A concern nowadays with big crowds everywhere […]
And protestors in those red states outside of urban centers, you are the bravest. […]
If you go that route, may we suggest signs that speak MAGA language (as if imploring a king) and ones that make ‘em wonder:
No serviceMEN in Iran!
Please, Trump, meemaw need health care
Trump save the farms!
Plz jail pedo cabal!
PLZ TRUMP I GOT NO GAS MONEY FOR TRACTOR
[…] Or go join a protest in your closest blue patch, or hook up with some local Unitarians or something. Who could blame you?
Oh, and of course Wonkette will be watching for Trump losing his shit at his disloyal subjects!
[…] Have fun and stay safe out there. Raise good trouble!
“As Iran war drags on, food and medicine for millions is stuck in limbo”
The World Food Program says 10,000 tons of food meant for hundreds of thousands of children in Afghanistan has yet to arrive. The World Health Organization has been held up in sending a $6 million shipment of medicine to Gaza. And Save the Children warns that 90 primary health care facilities in Sudan could be left without essential supplies. [!!]
[…] That global aid system depends on the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, as a massive government-backed humanitarian hub — a logistical linchpin that is home to a sprawling tax-free port and, under normal circumstances, one of the world’s busiest airports.
Now, Dubai’s location on the Persian Gulf has become a vulnerability, as the UAE has borne the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory strikes. Iranian drones and missiles have hit key infrastructure, including at the port and airport, and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which most of the goods from Dubai transit, remains mostly closed.
The result has been havoc in the aid sector, which was decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year and is now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.
[…] There are currently 70,000 tons of food delayed on cargo ships, said WFP’s director of supply chain, Corinne Fleischer, who is helping devise new routes to avoid closures and backlogs. If the war continues until June, Fleischer said, WFP estimates that 45 million more people globally will face acute hunger — up from 318 million now.
Already, WFP has rerouted 10 vessels containing food intended for Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan from their regular route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and where traffic has slowed to a crawl because of fear the Houthis will strike. Instead, the boats are sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, which takes 25 percent longer and is 40 percent more expensive.
“We are very, very concerned about all of our large operations,” she said. “These are people who do not have a buffer.” […]
In Afghanistan, WFP used to bring some of its food overland from neighboring Pakistan. But as tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan began escalating, WFP in October started sending food via Iran. That, however, became impossible once U.S. and Israeli military strikes began Feb. 28.
Now, WFP’s office has thousands of tons of high-density nutritious food intended for children sitting in warehouses in Dubai and Pakistan. Those supplies, Aylieff said, “would save the lives of 600,000 children for two months if I had them.”
[…] Sudan gets about 50 percent of its fertilizer from Gulf countries. Summer planting season begins in June.
Grace Wairima, Africa communications manager at Mercy Corps, said if fertilizer doesn’t arrive, the next harvest will be threatened. That would mean escalating levels of hunger in a country where half the population is already undernourished.
“We cannot afford any other shock now, because we are already in a catastrophic situation,” she said. “It cannot get worse than this.”
“Pete Hegseth, Big Oil Jump Out Of Nowhere And Just Start Running Ships Over Endangered Whales”
In a seriously weird legal maneuver […] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is invoking “national security” as an excuse to let oil companies kill off endangered whales in the Gulf of Mexico. The administration wants to broadly exempt oil companies from complying with the Endangered Species Act (ESA) across the Gulf, and called a meeting of the Endangered Species Committee , sometimes called the “God Squad” because its officials can grant such exemptions. Just a little “power of life and death” joke there.
If the policy change holds, it would mean oil and gas companies wouldn’t have to take harm to marine life, even threatened and endangered species, into account at all. That would apply not just to new exploration or drilling operations, but all their operations in the Gulf. [!]
That meeting is set for next Tuesday, March 31, and a group of four environmental groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to force the government to abide by the terms of the ESA. The complaint asks a federal court to put that meeting on hold while the suit goes forward.
And here’s the kicker: As with so many things in the Trump era, the Defense Department’s role in trying to let oil companies run rampant only came to light because of the lawsuit. When the environmental groups sued, they only knew that a meeting of the “God Squad” had been called to wipe away endangered species protections, but not what agency was behind the request. Hegseth’s involvement and the “national security” claim only became clear when it was revealed in the Interior Department’s filing in response to the lawsuit.
In that filing, federal lawyers explain, “Secretary of War notified the Secretary of the Interior that the Secretary of War found it necessary for reasons of national security to exempt from the ESA’s requirements all Gulf of America oil and gas exploration and development activities,” although the filing doesn’t say what those “national security” reasons are. Those reasons are probably secret, for national security. [bitter laughter]
The government’s filing also helpfully notes that the Endangered Species Act has a convenient escape clause built right into it, stating that the “Committee shall grant an exemption for any agency action if the Secretary of [War] finds that such exemption is necessary for reasons of national security.” We like how the filing uses brackets to skip past the real name of Pete Hegseth’s job. Since the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, no Defense secretary has never actually invoked “national security” to create such an exemption. […]
Oh, and before we get to the whales and other details, here’s more darkly amusing trivia: The plaintiffs’ complaint refers to the body of water as the “Gulf of Mexico” (frequently shortening that to just “the Gulf”), while the Interior Department’s response petulantly calls it the “Gulf of America.”
The case is a little complicated, because it involves a bunch of different agencies, laws, and regulatory arcana, and the acronyms related to each. The larger issue is whether the government can throw away the Endangered Species Act protections to let oil companies do anything they want in the Gulf, using the ESA’s “national security” clause as a Get Out Of Behaving Legally card. And it’s likely that question will be central to the case as it moves forward.
[…] many of the particulars in the case — particularly as the environmental groups frame it in their complaint — come down to protections for one endangered species in particular, “Rice’s whales,” which live exclusively in the Gulf and are the most critically endangered whale species in America.
The whales aren’t the only sea creatures that will be harmed if the government strips away Endangered Species Act protections in the Gulf; sperm whales, Gulf sturgeon, multiple sea turtle species, and many other critters would be at higher risk, too. But the whales face the most immediate risk of extinction, in large part because they were already threatened in 2010 when BP’s Deepwater Horizon reduced the population to about 50 animals today.
[…] As the Center for Biological Diversity points out, letting ships go as fast as they can in the Gulf would also create danger for other species like sea turtles and sperm whales, but the most direct threat would be to the Rice’s whales. The Sierra Club points to previous findings by the Fisheries Service (under sane administrations of both parties) that “losing even a single breeding female could collapse the population.” Seems like a shame to kill off an entire species […] just to let ships move around the Gulf at higher speeds.
[…] It’s a very real threat, unlike Trump’s weird lie that offshore wind turbines somehow “make the whales go crazy.”
[…] We’ll close on a happier note, though: France 24 reported Friday on a new scientific paper about how a pod of sperm whales in the Caribbean were observed in 2023 helping one of the pod’s members give birth. The 19-year-old whale, named Rounder by scientists, was supported during her labor by her grandmother, and by other whales in the pod, including whales not related to her.
“This is the first evidence of birth assistance in non-primates,” Project CETI team member Shane Gero told the New Scientist. […]
Once the calf was born, the other whales surrounded and nosed it up to the surface to make sure it could breathe in the first minutes after it was born. (Baby sperm whales need a few hours to learn to swim).
[…] Video of the birth and the whales surrounding the newborn was released not long after, but the publication of the paper has the story back in the news. Keep in mind that every last one of the marine mammals in this video is kinder and more empathetic that Pete Hegseth: [video]
“Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen launch attack on Israel for first time in war”
“The missile attack by the Houthis in Yemen marks an escalation of the war in the Middle East and may pose further risks to shipping in the region.”
Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen launched an attack against Israel on Saturday for the first time since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran a month ago, an intervention that amounted to a widening of the conflict and that brings the potential for further disruption of global trade and markets.
The Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile coming from Yemen, which the Houthis confirmed to be their first operation of the war. The group claimed to have launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israeli military sites. No casualties were reported.
The absence of the Houthis in Iran’s retaliatory efforts over the first month — and uncertainty about the timing and scope of their expected intervention — had particularly unnerved oil markets. In response to Israel’s war on Gaza, the group undertook a lengthy campaign to disrupt shipping through the Red Sea — a route that has further grown in importance since Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
[I snipped details of past attacks against the Houthis (military strikes ordered by Donald Trump last year in March.]
[…] About 4,500 Marines and sailors from the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group have begun arriving in the region, U.S. military officials said in a statement Saturday. The three-ship group includes the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a 2,200-member task force that includes a battalion of infantry Marines trained for raids by both amphibious landing craft and aircraft.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon also approved the deployment of a couple thousand soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East.
[…] The Houthis said their entrance into the war Saturday came in tandem with attacks from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a parallel invasion to root out the Iran-backed militant group that has killed more than 1,000 people, displaced more than a fifth of the population, and caused widespread damage to civilian infrastructure.
The Israeli military on Saturday killed three journalists from Hezbollah-affiliated networks, in what it said was a targeted strike. Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos immediately denounced the killing of Fatima Fatouni, Mohammad Fatouni and Ali Shuaib, as part of Israel’s “repeated and deliberate targeting of journalists.”
The Israeli military elaborated only on the targeting of Shuaib, alleging that he was operating as part of a special operations unit within Hezbollah “under the guise of a journalist.” The military said he worked to “expose the locations of Israeli forces” and “disseminate Hezbollah propaganda.”
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in a statement described those killed as “civilians doing their professional duty.” Video broadcast by Al-Araby in the aftermath of the attack showed their tripods, microphones and cameras splayed out amid the wreckage of their car. Under international humanitarian law, journalists are owed protection during war.
“EXCLUSIVE: Kash Patel’s push against Democratic lawmaker raises concerns within FBI
“The FBI director seeks to post documents on Rep. Eric Swalwell despite no public evidence of wrongdoing, officials said.”
FBI Director Kash Patel is pressing to release a decade-old investigative file involving Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) and a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, recently dispatching agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office to quickly redact the files before they are released publicly despite no evidence of wrongdoing by Swalwell, according to three people familiar with the effort.
The potential release is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to investigate Swalwell, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and a leading Democratic candidate for California governor […] It is highly unusual for the FBI to release case files tied to a probe that did not result in criminal charges.
As FBI director, Patel has focused on trying to bring a criminal case against the outspoken Democrat, reassigning multiple agents in San Francisco to work on the matter, the current and former officials said. FBI leaders have even discussed sending agents to China to talk to the suspected intelligence operative, believing she could have damaging information […]
The Chinese woman at issue is Christine Fang, also known as Fang Fang […] She helped with fundraising for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and even helped place an intern in his congressional office. When federal agents conveyed their concerns about Fang to Swalwell around 2015, he reportedly cut off ties with her and said he helped investigators.
Swalwell was not accused of any wrongdoing when the FBI investigated his relationship with Fang a decade ago. In 2023, the Republican-led House Ethics Committee closed a two-year investigation into the congressman, deciding to “take no further action.”
Despite that, FBI leaders have recently suggested in internal discussions that the government could try to arrange for Fang to get a U.S. visa in exchange for speaking with FBI agents about the Democrat […] It would be highly unorthodox to grant a visa to a person suspected of being an intelligence agent for a foreign superpower.
[I snipped FBI spokesperson’s denials.]
The push to publicly release the investigative files […] suggests that the FBI has struggled to so far build a criminal case against Swalwell. Even if there is no incriminating evidence in the files, an extensive case file could contain revealing and personal details about Swalwell and his campaign operations. [Sounds like a smear campaign.]
The lengths that Patel’s circle is going to in the bid to pursue a political foe of the president has raised alarms within the bureau, where some officials fear that releasing the files — even with redactions — could compromise law enforcement sources and investigatory methods, making it harder for the FBI to gain trust with potential witnesses.
They also said they feared the repercussions of sending agents to the territory of an adversarial nation to dig up information on a sitting congressman. Such an interview, legal experts said, would be impossible without Chinese interference, and Fang would be considered an unreliable witness. [Duh]
[…] “Kash Patel should be spending every moment trying to keep us safe, not scoring political points. A lot of people have bent the knee to this administration. But I will not, and neither will the people of California.” [Swalwell said in a statement to The Washington Post]
[…] FBI agents typically need a specific investigative reason to reopen a closed investigation. The people familiar with the probe said it is unclear how or why the FBI reopened its examination of Swalwell.
[…] The department is also investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell over the cost of the Fed’s recent building renovations. A federal prosecutor acknowledged in a closed-door hearing this month that the department did not have evidence of wrongdoing […]
a proposal to release extensive files, send agents to China to interview a suspected intelligence operative and offer her a U.S. visa in exchange for revelations about a U.S. congressman would be extraordinary. […]
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine hailed his Middle East tour to promote anti-drone technologies as a success […]
The agreements under negotiation with the United Arab Emirates and finalized with Qatar extend for 10 years, Mr. Zelensky told reporters on a conference call, and could be worth “billions.” He spoke from Qatar, one of the Persian Gulf states that has been targeted by Iranian drones.
Mr. Zelensky said he had signed deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar and expected to finalize an agreement with the United Arab Emirates.
[…] Mr. Zelensky did not announce specific drone sales, but said talks touched on financial support from Gulf nations that could help Ukraine bridge a delay in European funding after Hungary blocked a 90 billion euro loan package. He said he had also discussed future Ukrainian purchases of energy from the Middle East as Ukraine’s own natural gas industry had been battered by Russian strikes.
Qatar’s defense ministry confirmed the deal in a statement, saying it would include an “exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems.”
[…] Ukraine faces grave risks from the Israeli and U.S. war against Iran that began on Feb. 28, as rising oil prices prop up Russia’s economy and the United States, Israel and several Mideast countries expend air defense missiles that are sorely needed in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s new class of drone-intercepting weapons are now in demand as a means to counter Iranian exploding drones economically. Over four years, Russia fired tens of thousands of Iranian-designed Shahed drones at Ukraine, forcing the country’s military to hone skills for shooting them down.
Mr. Zelensky’s trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar coincided with an Iranian drone and missile attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia that wounded 12 American service members and damaged at least two U.S. KC-135 refueling planes. Iranian drones have also recently hit high-rises in Dubai, Kurdish guerrilla bases in Iraq and oil facilities in Gulf nations.
The long-term agreements, Mr. Zelensky said, foresaw the possibilities for Gulf investments in Ukraine’s drone industry. […]
Russia took satellite images of a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia three times in the days before Iran attacked the site and wounded American troops, according to a summary of Ukrainian intelligence shared with NBC News by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In an interview in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he was “100%” confident Russia was sharing such intelligence with Iran to help target U.S. forces across the Middle East.
“I think that it’s in Russia’s interest to help Iranians. And I don’t believe — I know — that they share information,” he said. “Do they help Iranians? Of course. How many percent? One-hundred percent.”
During the interview, Zelenskyy shared a summary of the daily presidential briefing he receives from Ukraine’s spy agencies. The report stated that Russian satellites had taken images of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 20, March 23 and March 25. […]
“What Happens When a Whale Is Born?,” by Elizabeth Kolbert
On a bright-blue morning in July, 2023, a team of researchers took off in a catamaran from the island of Dominica in search of sperm whales. Sperm whales communicate via bursts of clicks, called codas, and the researchers—part of a project called the Cetacean Translation Initiative, or ceti—are hoping one day to decipher what the codas mean. On this particular morning, they were looking to attach an electronic tag to a whale so they could record both its clicks and its movements.
After a couple of hours, they happened upon eleven sperm whales, bunched closely together at the surface. This behavior was odd enough that the researchers dropped their plan to tag a whale. They launched a pair of camera-equipped drones to hover above the group. After another hour or so, a great cloud of blood swirled through the water. Then a new gray head appeared. Thanks to a crazily unlikely accident, the researchers had witnessed a sperm-whale birth and had managed to videotape the entire event.
Thanks to another crazy accident, I was onboard the catamaran that day. Not only did I get to witness the birth but also I got to watch the normally sober-minded researchers react to it. The scene on the deck resembled something out of the Marx Brothers. Everyone raced to the front of the boat to get a better view. “Oh, my God,” one of the scientists said, clutching his head. “Oh, my God, oh, my God.”
[…] For the next two hours, the whales remained bunched together. They seemed to be nudging the baby around, but what, exactly, was going on was hard to say from the vantage of the catamaran.
The researchers spent almost two years analyzing the drone footage, applying machine learning in combination with good, old-fashioned field biology. Today, they released a pair of papers chronicling what happened that July morning, one in the journal Science, the other in Scientific Reports. Their findings suggest that the whales offered the calf’s mother a level of assistance that puts midwifery to shame.
“I think it’s very enlightening to see another species working with such coöperation and care for their group,” Project ceti’s founder, David Gruber, who teaches biology at the City University of New York, told me. “[…] there’s something to learn from them.”
Sperm whales have the largest brains of any creature on Earth. (These can weigh up to twenty pounds.) They are also highly social animals. Females travel together in groups that may include anywhere from a few to a few dozen members, and they share child-rearing duties. Male calves remain with their group until they are about fifteen years old; after that, they lead solitary lives and approach female groups only to mate.
Though sperm whales are highly mobile—they can travel tens of thousands of miles in a single year—the ones that frequent the waters off Dominica return often enough that scientists have been able to determine which whales hang out together. (Individuals can be identified by the shapes of their flukes.)
From the drone footage, which captured the moment the baby whale’s fluke first emerged, the researchers were able to determine that a whale named Rounder was the mother. Rounder is a member of a social group called Unit A, which consists of two families that are not closely related. […] [Video at the link]
When sperm-whale calves are born, weighing about a ton, they are pretty helpless. They can’t immediately swim—their flukes are bent from being cramped in the womb—and, to use the technical term, they are “negatively buoyant.” Left to their own devices, they will sink. What the footage showed is that, for the first three hours of the newborn’s life, the members of Unit A took turns keeping it afloat. At times, they nestled so close to the baby that they formed a sort of raft beneath it. At other points, they carried the calf draped over their enormous heads.
“There were several times when the newborn whale was nearly completely out of the water,” the Scientific Reports paper notes. All the members of Unit A participated in the effort to prevent the baby from drowning, but a few—including the calf’s mother and her half sister, Aurora—took leading roles. More surprisingly, the core group also included a member of the second family, Fruit Salad’s granddaughter, Ariel.
“For a long time, there has been this underlying hypothesis that the reason that sperm-whale females live as a family is the need to communally defend and raise a calf,” Shane Gero, who is Project ceti’s lead field biologist and one of the authors of both papers, told me. “But there’s never really been good evidence, scientifically speaking, of something that would count as coöperation, where there’s a cost involved between non-kin that are living together. I think this shows that, during birth events, non-kin coöperate in a way that is both costly and that requires some kind of logging of social behavior, like, You helped me last time, I’ll help you this time.” […]
Trump thought the leather-bound covers of classified briefings were “cool,” according to sources.
Special counsel Jack Smith strongly suspected that […] Trump took some classified records after he left office in 2021 because they could help him financially, but Smith and his team later concluded they could not prove this was his motive, MS NOW has learned.
Early in his tenure, Smith was “laser-focused” on establishing whether financial gain was one of Trump’s driving motives in taking and concealing classified documents after he left the White House, according to two people familiar with the case. The special counsel tasked his team with tracking down the connection between some documents in Trump’s possession which, according to an internal memo MS NOW obtained, contained intelligence related to Trump’s businesses.
But by late spring and early summer of 2023, as Smith’s team was secretly presenting evidence to a grand jury in Florida about Trump’s mishandling of these top-secret records, Smith and his prosecutors determined their clearest conclusion was that Trump kept the records out of an egotistical belief that he should be allowed to keep them — and also that the records were “cool” to have, the people said.
[…] The law doesn’t require establishing a person’s motive in order to convict them of the crime of mishandling classified records, but like any prosecutors, Smith and his team were keen to determine it and describe it to a jury at trial […]
“[…] we tasked the FBI with two priority projects — 1) determine whether any of the classified documents were commingled with documents created post-presidency; and 2) determine whether any of the classified documents relate to Trump business/financial dealings,” the memo said.
The memo went on to relay that the FBI had already found evidence of both kinds in the classified records recovered from Mar-a-Lago: documents that related to Trump’s businesses and highly sensitive documents commingled with standard papers added after Trump left office. Smith’s team wrote that it was critical to convince U.S. intelligence agency leaders to let them use some of these documents in their prosecution; such records would help prove Trump knew he possessed classified records and reveal his motive to keep them.
“Trump also had classified documents commingled with documents created after Trump left office — we must have those documents to prove knowledge,” the memo said. “And Trump possessed classified documents pertinent to his business interests — establishing a motive for retaining them. We must have those documents.”
[…] investigators were surprised to learn Trump asked his briefers if he could keep the leather-bound covers of some of his classified briefings that carried the embossed title, “The President,” according to one person familiar with the finding. [Oh FFS]
[…] Trump ally Susie Wiles witnessed Trump showing a classified map to passengers on a private plane. Later in the investigation, prosecutors learned that Wiles, who would become Trump’s White House chief of staff, did not recall this incident.
[…] White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the memo contained false and salacious claims about Trump’s conduct. She said Trump did nothing wrong, and called Raskin’s letter a “cheap stunt.” […]
“Jack Smith is a Trump deranged lunatic and a proven liar with zero credibility,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to MS NOW. “President Trump did nothing wrong, which is why he easily defeated the Biden DOJ’s unprecedented law fare campaign against him and then won nearly 80 million votes in a landslide election victory.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Meidas Touch:
Trump gets Rude Awakening by Size Of NO KINGS PROTEST!!!
We begin today with Susan Page of USA Today and her assessmant that yesterday’s No Kings protests were larger and more varied than the previous No KIngs protests in October 2025.
The left-leaning protests with the Revolutionary-era call against President Donald Trump as a would-be monarch and authoritarian had the broadest geographic reach of any single-day protest in the United States in more than a half-century. They included not only familiar precincts in New York and Los Angeles and Austin but also communities in all 50 states and every congressional district, including rural and Republican territory. […]
The organizers’ crowd count, not yet verified by independent analysts, put the total at 8 million people, topping the 7 million estimated at the last “No Kings” day, in October 2025. This time, there were more events scheduled − 3,300 versus 2,700 − and larger crowds reported in some places, boosted in part by opposition to the war in Iran. […]
Organizers said two-thirds of the participants who signed up lived outside big cities, with a 40% increase over last time in those from suburban, small town and rural addresses.
Smith and his prosecutors determined their clearest conclusion was that Trump kept the records out of an egotistical belief that he should be allowed to keep them — and also that the records were “cool” to have, the people said.
This was widely conjectured when the issue was made public. For a small minded narsiccist like Trump the worst thing about leaving the White House was the loss of automatic status that went with being president. He may have held onto some because he could get some financial gain from them but a bunch were likely just that holding on to some symbols of being president made him feel better and important.
It’s also been rumored (but not formally investigated) that some other stuff disappeared. Some stuff gifted to Trump while president that belonged to the presidential collection also vanished. Some trivial desk fixtures from the Oval Office made it to Mar a Lago and never returned.
Two drones entered Finland’s airspace and crashed on Sunday, according to the country’s defense ministry, which said it is investigating the incidents.
“Drones have strayed into Finnish territory. We are taking the matter very seriously. Security authorities have reacted immediately,” said Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen in a note posted on the ministry’s website.
Several small slow-flying objects were observed at low altitude in Finnish airspace on Sunday morning, one over the sea and the other in the southeast of the country, the statement added.
The drones crashed near the city of Kouvola, about 200 kilometers northeast of Helsinki, the ministry said, adding that the Finnish Defense Forces are investigating the incident together with other authorities.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told Finnish state broadcaster Yle that the drones likely came from Ukraine, which has been conducting attacks on Russian territory along the border with Finland.
Earlier on Sunday, the Finnish Defence Forces deployed fighter jets to southeastern Finland as Ukraine mounted drone attacks on Russian oil ports in the Gulf of Finland.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned it may retaliate against American university campuses in the Middle East, claiming that recent U.S. and Israeli strikes have damaged two Iranian universities.
The group said U.S.-affiliated campuses in the region could become “legitimate targets” unless Washington formally condemns the attacks on Iranian schools by noon on Monday, according to a statement first reported by Fars news agency, which is closely associated with the Guard, and picked up by other media.
The statement urged staff, faculty, students and nearby residents to keep at least one kilometer away from these campuses.
Several American universities have branches in the Persian Gulf, including Texas A&M University in Qatar and New York University in the United Arab Emirates.
Tehran was hit by strikes in the night between Friday and Saturday, including the university of science and technology in the northeast of the capital, damaging buildings but not causing any casualties, according to media reports.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Daily Beast discusses how on Earth Trump managed to get this far. It is pretty interesting. (And I love the pronounciation by the lady)
[…] Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado straight-up lied about the impact ICE agents had on security wait times to praise Trump for his move.
“You can’t make this stuff up!! ICE agents show up at airports, and suddenly TSA wait times in Minneapolis drop to less than five minutes! Called it!!” she [Rep.Lauren Boebert] wrote in a post on X, along with three cry-laughing emojis. [social media post, with video]
Of course, Boebert did actually make it up [ she outright LIED], because the Minneapolis airport was not one of the places Trump sent ICE agents to. The wait time at that airport was low because not every airport has been impacted by a shortage of TSA agents.
Boebert wasn’t even the only Republican who fabricated stories about TSA and ICE agents at airports.
Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky claimed in an appearance on Fox Business that a “patriotic” TSA agent stopped him at an airport to tell him that he didn’t need to apologize for the fact that she wasn’t getting paid because, “you voted for my paycheck. You voted repeatedly, Republicans have voted repeatedly for our paycheck, it’s the Democrats who need to apologize to me.” [spare me]
This so-called very real agent—who somehow recognized a back-bencher GOP House member who looks like every other white Republican House member on Capitol Hill—also apparently told Barr, “You need to tell the Democrats something else for those of us in TSA. We support ICE. ICE is our sister agency, we have the same mission.” [social media post, with video] [bullshit]
[…] Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas also said he was getting stopped by TSA agents to thank him for his work.
“I went through TSA at my airport in Memphis I fly in and out of every week, and one of the TSA agents there just quietly, discreetly, thanked me for doing everything that you can,” adding that they told him, “I appreciate you very much, thanks for what you do.”
Yes, that conversation definitely took place. [social media post, with video]
Of course, Democrats had for weeks been trying to fund TSA, but were blocked by Republicans.
On Friday, the Senate finally passed a bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security without money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol—exactly as Democrats had been trying to do for weeks.
And of course it’s now House Republicans who are going to refuse to pass that, ensuring the vast majority of DHS—including TSA—continues to go unfunded.
Of course, TSA agents could have been paid all along, but Republicans blocked those efforts to try and use chaos in the airports to force Democrats into caving and funding ICE and CBP without any reforms.
Instead, they have allowed TSA to go unfunded and now are cheering dumb and unhelpful Trump gambits and making up conversations with TSA workers to try to absolve themselves of blame. Their continued ineptitude forced Trump to sign an executive order on Friday directing that TSA agents get paid, since House Republicans refuse to do their jobs and reach a deal to fund DHS.
What a joke.
Are these Republicans in some kind of contest to match Trump’s number of lies-per-day?
“The tanker full of crude oil could reach its expected destination by Tuesday, providing a lifeline to the island amid intense U.S. pressure.”
The United States Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration […]
The tanker, which is carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil and is owned by the Russian government, was less than 15 miles from Cuban territorial waters on Sunday afternoon, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-data provider. At its speed of 12 knots, the ship was expected to enter Cuban waters by Sunday evening. The tanker could reach its expected destination of Matanzas, Cuba, by Tuesday.
The Russian ship’s arrival would shift the trajectory of a rapidly accelerating crisis in Cuba, buying the island nation at least a few weeks before its fuel reserves run out, analysts said.
It would also reduce pressure on a Cuban government facing a looming economic collapse and escalating threats from Washington, and show that, at least for now, the island can still depend on its longtime ally, Russia.
The Trump administration had been enforcing what amounted to an oil blockade around Cuba since January, threatening nations that had been sending fuel to the country and, in one case, escorting a tanker heading toward Cuba away from the island.
[…] The U.S. oil blockade has been choking Cuba, leading to daily blackouts, severe gas shortages, soaring prices and deteriorating medical care. The policy has attracted international criticism, including from the United Nations, that the United States is causing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. At the same time, White House officials have been threatening the Cuban government publicly, while pushing it privately to remove its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.
President Trump said this month that he believed he will “be having the honor of taking Cuba” and suggested that he could target the island with military force after the Iran war. “I built this great military,” he said at an investment conference on Friday. “I said, ‘You’ll never have to use it.’ But sometimes you have to use it. And Cuba is next, by the way.” […]
“There Are Now Over 50,000 American Troops in the Mideast’
“The arrival of 2,500 Marines and another 2,500 sailors is keeping the number of American troops in the region at roughly 10,000 more than usual.”
[…] While it is still unclear just what the Marines, from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, will be charged with, U.S. officials say the president is weighing whether to try a larger attack, like venturing to seize an island or other ground as part of Mr. Trump’s effort to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The narrow waterway, through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil usually traverses, has been largely closed because of attacks by Iranian forces who are retaliating against the U.S. and Israeli war on their country.
Usually there are around 40,000 American troops scattered around at bases and on ships at any time around the region, including in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. But as Mr. Trump has escalated the war in Iran, that number has reached more than 50,000, according to a U.S. military official.
The number of troops no longer includes the 4,500 aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald Ford, however. That ship has been hobbled by constant mishaps, including a fire that broke out in the laundry. The Ford withdrew from the region on March 23 and sailed to Crete. On Friday it arrived in Croatia. It remains unclear where it is headed next.
Last week, the Pentagon also ordered about 2,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East to give Mr. Trump additional military options.
The location of the Army paratroopers is not public, the military official said. But they will be within striking distance of Iran. The paratroopers could be used to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub in the northern Persian Gulf, where U.S. warplanes bombed more than 90 military targets earlier this month. Or they could be deployed for other ground operations in conjunction with the Marines.
But military experts caution that even 50,000 troops, many of them at sea, is a small number for any kind of major land operation. Israel used more than 300,000 troops for its operations in the Gaza Strip that began in October 2023. The U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 was close to 250,000 at the beginning. […]
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @285:
Are these Republicans in some kind of contest to match Trump’s number of lies-per-day?
They are just following his lead on spouting “Sir” stories.
StevoRsays
Of all people & pollies tocriticise Trump’s needless illegal war on Iran ..
But there is one stand-out figure in the Coalition who has done more to project an Australia-first approach than any of his colleagues.
Coalition leadership aspirant and shadow industry and sovereign capability spokesperson Andrew Hastie is now one of the only people on his political side to directly blame US President Donald Trump for the dire straits we and many other countries have been left in.
Yesterday, he said that while he supported US strikes on Iran’s nuclear capabilities last year, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, he said, “I don’t know why we went in now.
“I thought last year we did the job,” he said.Hastie said he was concerned US credibility was being undermined by its current military action in the Middle East, and that Australians’ support for the alliance may be eroding.
“I’m pro America and I have been for a long time. I’m married to an American, my grandfather was saved by a US medic in WWII, I’ve served on combat operations with Americans,” he said.
“But we can be critical of bad strategic decisions … I think this was a huge miscalculation.
“Iran has managed to pretty much hold the whole world economy to ransom, and because we’re at the end of a very long supply chain we’re going to experience pain.”
This builds on his comments last week, where he lined up Pauline Hanson as pro-Trump and, therefore, inflicting financial pain on Australians.
The fact that the most vocal critic of Australia’s involvement in the conflict is a former soldier who hails from the conservative flank of the Liberal Party should worry Labor.
Yes, yes it should & the ALP should start being much more outspokena nd critical against Trump and his latest war in my view.
Plus :
Most Australians already held a negative view of Trump. Lowy’s 2025 poll found trust in the United States fell to 36 per cent, down 20 points in a year and the lowest level on record in two decades of the institute’s polling. Last year’s poll also found 68 per cent of Australians were pessimistic about the next four years under Donald Trump.
There is a real capacity here for the war to sour our attitude to the US alliance.
StevoRsays
Well, this is odd and intresting – as long as the trend doesn’t get worse with ever bigger rocks..
During the first three months of 2026, our planet waded through an unusually dense shooting gallery. The American Meteor Society (AMS) has tracked a staggering wave of large, bright meteors — known as fireballs — lighting up skies from California to Germany.
Earth sweeps up tons of space dust every day. Usually, this material is the size of a grain of sand and burns up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. But right now, we are colliding with much bigger rocks. And scientists are scrambling to figure out why.
…(Snip)..
If you look strictly at the raw numbers, the sky doesn’t look like it is falling. In the first quarter of 2026, the AMS recorded 2,046 total fireball events. That is high, but only marginally above the 2,037 events recorded in 2022 for the same three-month window.
What’s changed is the physical size of the rocks from space.
Usually, a fireball event draws a handful of witnesses. But in March 2026 alone, five different fireballs exceeded 200 eyewitness reports. That is more mass-sighting events in one month than all previous Marches combined over the last fifteen years.
Re: SteveR @ #291…
So long as the cause isn’t related to the plot of a novella my wife wrote (but which never sold). In that work is was extremely xenophobic aliens altering orbits to chuck large rocks/small asteroids at Earth.
According to a Friday Washington Post report, Sharpie parent company Newell Brands denied President Donald Trump’s retelling of a phone call with the brand, saying in a statement, “We don’t have any information about the conversation described.”
The response comes after Trump used part of Thursday’s Cabinet meeting to tell a long story about allegedly haggling over the price and appearance of the customized markers he uses to sign official documents.
Everybody is denying having conversations with Trump, not just Iran.
Shortly after starting the war with Iran, Donald Trump made little effort to hide the fact that Cuba was his next target. The American president didn’t explicitly say that he intends to use military force against the island nation, but he did suggest that he intended to bring down the government in Havana — soon.
On Sunday night, during a Q&A on Air Force One, a reporter briefly brought up Cuba, at which point Trump interjected before the question could even be asked. “Cuba’s gonna be next,” he said. “Cuba’s a mess, it’s a failing country, and they’re gonna be next. Within a short period of time, it’s gonna fail. … Cuba’s gonna be next, yeah.”
[Trump] has been making nearly identical comments for weeks, declaring two weeks ago, “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. I mean, whether I free it, take it, think I can do anything I want with it.”
What’s more, it’s not just rhetoric. The Trump administration has effectively tried to strangle the Cuban government, enforcing an oil blockade around the island — in the process, sending much of Cuba into sporadic darkness — and even threatening to punish other countries that might be inclined to provide Cuba with the resources it needs.
[…] Russia announced plans to provide Cuba with oil — and Team Trump is apparently fine with it. The New York Times reported that the U.S. administration is “allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation.” […]
[Trump] said on the record that it’s “fine” for Russia to provide Cuba with oil, adding, “If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with that.”
So, on one hand, Trump created an oil blockade intended to smother the Cuban government, but on the other hand, if his friends in Moscow want an exception to the policy, the American president appears happy to oblige.
Why would he allow a U.S. adversary to assist another U.S. adversary, while undermining his own administration’s policy? […]
Trump is no doubt aware of concerns that he has been compromised by Moscow, and he’s not exactly going out of his way to temper those fears.
“Organizers said eight million people turned out to protest the Trump administration.”
On Saturday millions of people around the country took part in more than 3,000 No Kings protests opposing the presidency of Donald Trump, whose approval ratings have plummeted to 36 percent, a record low since his return to the White House.
Saturday’s rallies were the third major No Kings protest, with organizers saying that 8 million people took part. That estimate has not been independently verified. But to put this weekend’s anti-Trump protests in perspective: about 300,000 people attended the April 2009 Tea Party protests against the Obama administration that were heralded as a seismic political event. […]
[Lots of video snippets]
Given the immense outpouring, what could these demonstrations mean for future organizing?
According to Payday Report, an outlet that covers labor and union news, Indivisible, one of the lead organizers of the No Kings protests, is backing the May Day Strong coalition, which is calling for “No Work, No School, No Shopping” on May 1.
Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of Indivisible, said, “On May 1, Indivisibles will be joining people across the country with a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”
United States District Judge Katherine Menendez has dismissed the Trump administration’s challenge to Minnesota law that allows in-state tuition for undocumented students.
The federal government sued Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and other state officials over a law that allows undocumented students in-state tuition for college if they went to a Minnesota high school for three years.
The Trump administration argued the law discriminates against U.S. citizens who live outside of Minnesota who do not get the cheaper in-state tuition rate.
Menendez rejected that argument on Friday, saying the law allows anyone who went to a Minnesota high school for three years to receive in-state tuition, not just those who live in the state.
[…] This is one of several lawsuits the Trump administration has filed against Republican and Democratic states for allowing in-state tuition to undocumented students.
In Texas and Oklahoma, the federal government came to an agreement with the states to end the program, but Menendez said that did not set any precedent for this case.
“Aside from the fact they are non-binding, neither case is persuasive because the issues were not contested and thus the courts did not need to engage in meaningful analysis,” Menendez said.
Other states, such as California, are still fighting the Trump administration on the issue.
The ruling to dismiss the Minnesota case is the latest in the immigration battle between the Trump administration and Minnesota […]
lumipunasays
Lynna at 282 – Thanks for noting the incident. Here’s some additional details I’ve gathered from Finnish news today.
The two drones both crashed in forest near the town of Kouvola on Sunday morning, after flying nearly 100 km within Finnish airspace. At least one of them was followed by the aforementioned Finnish fighter jets, but not shot down due to reasons I’ll discuss below.
One of the drones is thought (after witnesses and independent experts interviewed by the media) to have exploded upon impact. This hasn’t yet been confirmed by the police, who have closed the area off for investigation. The other drone was confirmed to be Ukrainian, and then detonated by the police on Sunday evening. Both are generally presumed to have been Ukrainian, the same model (nearly the size of the smallest manned airplanes) and carrying enough TNT to fully destroy a house if they hit one. It’s thought likely they strayed into Finland due to defensive radio jamming by Russians. Reportedly, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure near the Gulf of Finland continue day after day.
The Ukrainian embassy in Finland today posted an apology – not that anyone here really blames Ukraine for the incident. Reportedly, later forensic examination of the drones will be done jointly by Finland and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has mentioned that “some” foreign partners have asked Ukraine to spare Russian oil for now, possibly (my own guess) because the world is already facing an energy crisis for other reasons. This messaging doesn’t seem to be coming from Finland or the Baltic countries. Just last week, the Latvian PM expressed strong support for Ukraine after being asked about the drone incident in Latvia. Also meanwhile, as Russia rakes in money from sky-high oil prices, various US-aligned Middle Eastern countries are reportedly seeking Ukraine’s collaboration as they scramble to develop their defenses against Iranian drones the US can’t fend off.
Defense against drones like this is tricky. The ones in Finland were not shot down, reportedly, because it’d require expensive missiles, there would be risk of collateral damage and the drones were presumed to be friendly (as in not specifically targeted to anything in Finland, and highly unlikely to hit something valuable by sheer accident). We just have to accept some risk while living here, as long as Ukraine has to fight for its survival. Some of the current uneasiness here in Finland is because Russia could use their own anti-drone drones to test Nato air defense, and it could be framed as an accident. It wouldn’t be easy to tell immediately if the stray drones are even Ukrainian or Russian. And as noted, a mass drone attack would be very difficult to fend off, though European Nato countries are trying to develop capabilities for this.
It’s been a month and two days since the commander-in-chief and secretary of WAR! bombed Iran with no provocation. […]
Now 13 American servicemembers have died, and 303 have been wounded in action so far. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s dementia nurses have been continually pumping him up with AI war porn and videos of shit blowing up, and we all know Trump likes flashy things and shifts his opinion based on whatever somebody showed him 10 minutes before.
Saturday night he even bragged that 20 ships got through the Strait of Hormuz and will get a special hall pass for two shipments a day. Congratulations to … Pakistan! [social media post]
Good news, truckers, farmers, and such, Pakistan’s gettin’ cheaper gas!
Yuge winning: On Friday, an Iranian strike on a base in Saudi Arabia damaged one of only 17 crucial US E-3 Sentry aircraft. The Washington Post reported the Pentagon is preparing for “weeks” of war in Iran. And the Wall Street Journal reports that 17,000 more Marines are headed over there or have just arrived, on top of the 50,000 troops already in the area to begin with.
WaPo:
Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of Special Operations forces and conventional infantry troops, said […] officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive military plans that have been in development for weeks.
Raids of what? […] What is Trump’s actual objective (today) for this operation that is not a war and that he’s already won, to get rid of the nukes that Pete Hegseth said he already got rid of? One emerging framework for concepts of a plan is returning normal shipping traffic to the Strait of Hormuz. You know, like the way things were two months and three days ago, but twist, the waterway renamed as the Strait of Trump!
[video]
That’s going to happen any day or minute now, because Iran has been begging him with tears in their eyes to make a deal to end the war Trump claimed he’d already won a month ago, and six months before that. [video] [social media post]
He’s also mused that maybe he’ll go in and extract Iran’s uranium.
So, a ground invasion then […]
There’s always a tweet. [social media post in which Trump claims that “The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE …” [That’s from October 9, 2019.]
Navy boats can trawl around in between the Oman and Persian Gulfs dodging mines and missiles all day long, but Western-style insurance companies are not letting oil tankers bound for the US and Europe through any time soon. […]
the US has insufficient anti-drone technology and munitions, and was forced to start bumming from embattled Ukraine less than two weeks into the war.
The US has no support from any of the US’s NATO allies, and markets and economies are getting rattled all over as supply chain disruption and skyrocketing fuel prices extend into another month. But if the plan is to make the US a world pariah like North Korea, going great! […]
And then last week, following easing sanctions on Russia, Trump eased sanctions on … Iran?!
Republican legislators are worried. Not at Trump’s obvious signs of mental decay, or the loss of innocent human lives, don’t be silly. They’re worried about the midterms! One House Republican anonymously fussed to Politico that if boots hit the ground in Iran, “We lose 60 to 70 seats.” […] Mike Johnson, […] who’s insisting that the operation is done, and the troops there are just for a fakeout to virtue signal or something. [video]
[…] Congress, of course, could stop Trump’s nonsense by invoking the War Powers Act at any time, like it could have a thousand war crimes ago. And constituents who are already mad about the war(s), groceries and gas are really going to hate it when more dewy and fresh-faced young kids who signed up to get money for college start coming back to Norfolk in body bags as Trump chews gum at their corpses from under his trucker cap. […]
Members of the military are worried, though; calls and applications from servicepeople inquiring about filing for conscientious objection status have reportedly surged.
Even strippers are worried. [video]
[…] Hegseth is as incompetent as he is deranged […] Six of the US’s 13 fatalities were from a plane crash, not enemy fire, and that came right after that girls’ school was bombed by accident, or “accident.” Incompetent or low-effort pathological liars? Either way, bad for morale, does not bode well for achieving an objective!
And there’s Iran itself, a bowl ringed with weapon-stuffed mountains, full of 90 million people who have no interest in becoming part of some US colony. Once boots are in, there’s no easy out. But, maybe that’s the point. Some blood for oil, some blank checks to spend the $1.5 trillion Congress is trying to give the WAR! Department to make war with. […]
Oh look, late-breaking missive from Dear Leader, promising more war crimes, admitting it’s a regime change war, cool: [social media post]
[…]
lumipuna @398, thank you for that update. Lots of revealing details.
I’m troubled by the enormity of the situation. This part of your comments stuck with me:
We just have to accept some risk while living here [in Finland], as long as Ukraine has to fight for its survival. […] a mass drone attack would be very difficult to fend off, though European Nato countries are trying to develop capabilities for this.
Woohoo, everybody have fun at their NO KINGS protests? BIGGEST IN HISTORY, with an estimated 8 million people who hate Dictator Day One Donald John Trump turning out on the streets to count the ways! These protests had everything: inflatables, paper maché puppets, signs, bullhorns, Bruce Springsteen, Bernie! […]
Lots of video and photos at that link, including an image from Boston that memorialized the 165 Iranian schoolgirls that Trump and Hegseth killed on February 28, 2026.
There’s a great photo from Utqiagvik (Barrow) Alaska. More video and images from both the USA, and from international protests …
@492 shermanj: There is also an obvious other problem with Trump finding a way out of this war. His understanding of the world is grounded in everybody thinking like he does. He has demonstrated multiple times that he has trouble understanding when people are not willing to make deals based on power, when people take positions based on morals or principles. To the point where he largely thinks criminal prosecution is about power and maintaining power.
This is going to be a real problem negotiating with a government that takes positions based on religious beliefs. He isn’t going to understand some of the fundamentals of why the government in Iran wants to do things or why they won’t give in.
@1 JM: I was talking about this post 492: shermanj. My post got moved to a new page by a sudden blitz of posting.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/this-normal-guy-from-like-1880-hopes
“This ‘Normal Guy From Like 1880’ Hopes You Will Hear Him Out About How Women Shouldn’t Vote”
“He’s pretty sure the Supreme Court can repeal the 19th Amendment, which they cannot.”
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-6/#comment-2295804
ProPublica – DOGE goes nuclear: How Trump invited Silicon Valley into America’s nuclear power regulator
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-6/#comment-2295808
US speeds up deployment of thousands more Marines, sailors to Middle East
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-6/#comment-2295767
U.S. War Planes and Helicopters Kick Off Battle to Reopen Hormuz
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-6/#comment-2295760
‘Flat-out sociopath’ Trump is leading a war with no end in sight
Re: Reginald Selkirk: How, is that not The Onion!?
[Archive link] RollingStone – Top Disaster Response Official Claims He Teleported to a Waffle House
https://www.wonkette.com/p/sicko-pete-hegseth-telling-his-kids
“Sicko Pete Hegseth […]”
Re: Lynna, OM @ #3…
Looks like your source didn’t look up how amendments to the Constitution are ratified, either. It takes 3/4 of the states to ratify, not the 2/3 that is stated.
TPM – Markwayne’s World: the ‘cinematic’ and ‘fantastical’ life of Trump’s DHS pick
The Folly of War Grows Worse, by James Fallows
“Things looked bad ten days ago, when I noted the “Arrogance of Ignorance.” And now….
whheydt @7, thanks for the correction.
Sky Captain @8, thanks for the additional information.
In other news;
Embedded links are available here:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-not-great-bob-tabs-fri-march
Excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson’s substack post:
AP News: Live updates: Trump says he is considering ‘winding down’ Middle East military operation
With Trump’s minute by minute flip flops on Iran there is no telling what will happen but Trump is thinking about declaring victory and going home. Leave and let somebody else deal with the Strait of Hormuz. Let Israel do whatever they want against Iran without direct US support. This would be a disaster for the US but it’s hard to see any strategy that ends well at this point. It might be the best strategy for Trump, as he can say the US won or just ignore questions.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/hegseth-bans-microphones-at-pentagon
LOL
How ‘unacceptable’ Orbán defeated the EU again — but maybe for the final time
“Europe’s longest-serving leader won the fight over Ukraine’s €90B loan. By the next summit he could be a distant memory.”
The Verge – Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines
Climatologist Dr Gilbz latest clip here – It’s always “worse than expected” which is a good 17 mins long round up of some latest climate science news.
Dr Becky A new type of exoplanet discovered | Night Sky News March 2026 – 20 mins long with the title story starting at the 11 and a half mins mark. The update from Dimorphos and Didymus is pretty neat too I reckon..
Damn! Sad news. Used to love Buffy the Vampire Slayer :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/nicholas-brendon-xander-harris-in-buffy-dies-aged-54/106481916
Latest and pretty intresting episode of If You’re Listening here – Iran is running out of water – 22 mins long.
@12 Lynna, OM: Independent: Pentagon bans its own publication from attending Pete Hegseth’s morning press conference
I’ll just leave this here.
South Oz’es state election today. I’ll be voting for the Greens and sending a message to the ALP here becoz I can – because thank fuck we have a far better political system than the “United” States of America has..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/polls-open-for-south-australia-election-2026/106477506
StevoR @18: Interesting indeed.
Counting underway but slow here inthe SA state election live coverage on yt here via Aussie ABC news.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/sa-election-day-live-updates/106476924
Seems the ALP has already won -sorry if (predicted) spoiler.
But the rise of the One Neuron mob is a bloody worry.
They hreallyarea bunch of racist scammer scum. Notably here they’ve been caufght doing some dodgy things and have take a petty revenge on the ABC for exposing the literal crime of one oftheir candidates :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/sa-election-day-live-updates/106476924
@ ^Clarity fix : hreallyarea = really are a bunch of racist scammer scum.
Plus on the dodgy AF One Neuron Party tactics, see frex :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-21/one-nation-volunteers-accused-of-filling-out-how-to-vote-cards/106479340
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘I’m not doing that’: Lauren Boebert bucks Trump’s $200B Iran war ask
Video is 5:19 minutes.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Whiplash’: Hayes warns Trump’s Iran message is total chaos
Video is 9:30 minutes
Hayes also discusses the fact that additional marines are being sent to Iran.
I like to check the videos by Chris Hayes.
Dr. Becky tends to drown in the number of other Youtubers covering astronomy.
I prefer Anton Petrov who -despite some minor errors (which I attribute to English being his third language making it harder for him to translate news) – has mostly the same curiosity for varied science subjects as I do.
Is it possible Hegseth is taking ‘uppers’? His way of talking (rapid, yelling, generally weird) seems off, even for a cabinet of freaks like Stephen Miller, RFK Jr. and of course Orange Makeup himself.
JM @19, one of the surprising aspects of Pete Hegseth’s banning of a number media outlets from Pentagon briefings is that he thinks that might give him some control over what is published. As the Stars and Stripes reporter noted, the briefings are still accessible.
Reporters not sitting in the room with Pete Hegseth might be desirable from the reporters’ point of view.
Hegseth also thinks he can control which photos of him are used to illustrate news from the Pentagon. Has he taken a look recently at the proliferation of unflattering photos? He made the situation a national news story by complaining. That’s a worse outcome from his perspective, better from the public’s perspective. Now we see him as he is.
CBC and some Ellison-controlled media may have trumpified their coverage, but a lot of other media outlets have not.
Pete Hegseth should stop expecting the media to treat him with kid gloves. Heaven forbid that pointed questions might be asked, that unflattering photos might be used, or that Pete’s hair might get mussed up.
Just give him $200 billion more war-fighting dollars and lots of praise? Nope.
Trump’s movement is crumbling under the Iran stress test
More embedded links are available at the main link.
Good luck finding a job and affording groceries in Trump’s America
WSJ – Iran believes it’s winning—and wants a steep price to end the war
Reuters – Iran ready to let Japanese vessels transit Hormuz
Rando: “There is no reopen. It’s open now. Just not for Trump. The rest of the world is realizing they can cut out their ‘security’ middleman, and cut their own deal for passage with Iran.”
Craig Harrington (MediaMatters): “Donald Trump fucked around and made the IRGC the kingmakers for the whole god damn global economy.”
WTF?
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/bike-lanes-on-national-mall-sharply
“Bike Lanes On National Mall Sharply Reduced Crashes, So Trump’s Getting Rid Of Them”
Commentary for Lynna @33.
James Downie (MS NOW): “Just to be clear: there are ~50,000 TSA personnel, including ~27,000 security officers. Both are far more than ICE’s 21,000 *total* personnel (not just agents). And ICE has already ended multiple deportation campaigns due to lack of manpower. So, uh, good luck with this Mr President.”
Catherine Rampell (The Bulwark): “If you’re keeping track: Pentagon employees will work at ICE, while ICE will work at the airport.”
* Pentagon once again urges civilian employees to volunteer with DHS
Southpaw: “The Pentagon doesn’t have much on its plate right now so it makes sense.”
Rando: “Why don’t we just put Rubio on airport security?”
WSJ Iran targeted Diego Garcia base with ballistic missiles (paywalled)
Ankit Panda (Nuclear strategy expert):
Commentary
Robert Mueller, special counsel who investigated Trump-Russia ties, dies at 81
The Guardian .https://share.google/uihLIYinSsVS6Tm8j
.
Normally, Trump would have posted a message full of schadenfreude and venom but his plate may be too full now, slowly realising he cannot bullshit his way out of the war.
Washington Post link
More at the link.
Sky Captain @35, Ha! Thanks for posting the facts. Bitter laughter.
I’ll also point out that ICE agents are not trained as airport security officers. No matter how many ICE agents are deployed to airports (and there are not enough ICE agents to fill the jobs, as Sky Captain’s post points out) they would not be able to do the job.
As regards ICE agents doing TSA work… That would have them facing a largely affluent group of people who are likely to take exception to ICE screw ups in the lines.
Adding to Lynna in the previous 500.
Barak Ravid (Axios, CNN): “U.S. to allow Iran to get ~14 billion dollars (!!!) in oil revenue. […] the first time U.S. is buying Iranian oil since 1996. It’s all happening in the middle of a war against… Iran.”
Link
Follow-up to comment 13.
Trump affirms ‘total endorsement’ of Orbán ahead of Hungary election
“U.S. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly due to visit Budapest in April in support of the Prime Minister Orbán.”
Trump endorses the worst people. I also expect to see Putin use his intelligence service and other nefarious actors to influence the election in Hungary.
Sky Captain @41, holy shit.
In other news: Putin offers to stop sharing intel with Iran if US cuts off Ukraine
birgerjohansson @37
It didn’t take long
Trump condemned for gloating over Robert Mueller death
Catherine Rampell (The Bulwark):
Commentary
Astronomy by Paul Fellows:
“Once Around Europa”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jO9dFVLzmwQ
The 1980s SF TV series “V” was completely oblivious to water being one of the most common substances in the universe. It is only when you travel below the “snow line” of a stellar system you might suffer shortages.
Lynna, OM @ 43
‘Trump endorses the worst people’
.
“showing the way toward a revitalized West” a k a New Order
.
BTW some days ago I found a diagram at Facebook showing how much the economies of former communist countries have grown, plotting graphs for Poland, Romania and Hungary. The graphs for Poland and Romania went straight up without major deviations, the one for Hungary clearly showed reduced growth once Orban took power. Massive corruption costs.
This is the system Trump approves of.
If you still have Facebook, this is the graph I mentioned @ 48.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/189tdkLnrd/
How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine agenda risks a resurgence of deadly childhood plagues, by ProPublica
Well worth reading, even if you think you already know the tale of Kennedy’s negative influence. I highly recommend this report.
birger @48, that’s a good point about the economic consequences of putting the worst people in charge.
In other news: Judges push back on ICE abuses, and freedom from religion prevails
[Note: I do not encourage anyone to hurry up mortality. Nor do I say anyone deserves death. Maybe 999 years of prison, but not death]
.
Trump and mortality.
I will follow Trump’s example and not speak well of the dead.
When some British comedians discussed the matter of Thatcher’s funeral in “Mock The Week” (she was still alive at the time) Frankie Boyle said
“…for that money they could give each Scotsman a shovel, and they would dig a hole so deep they could hand her [Thatcher] over to Satan in person”.
.
In Florida, there would be problems – who are the Indian deities associated with the place? I don’t want to offend them (vision of Wendigos erupting from the underworld. “He is gross!”
Quetzalqoatl curled around a beam of the launch tower of Pad 37 A. “Elon, we have a problem”)
A fun video about voter approval. The good stuff starts one minute in.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=KJ6pvizJxgA
The choleric Youtuber Lazerpig presents the first of three episodes explaining the emergence (and shortcomings) of the T-72 tank in his usual flamboyant way.
This episode explains the toxic political context in which Soviet technology and industry operated, and the military challenges that led to, first, the great T-55 and later the quite Meh T-62. The episode ends in the 1960s when the USSR had to deal with a new generation of western tanks.
The mistakes made at this era would plague Soviet tank development for the next decade.
“The T-72 Sucks (Part 1): The Whacky World of Soviet Tank Development”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NxKwC7E9g78
Professor Poutine on America asking NATO for help
Kyplanet on our nearest stellar neighbour and its system – after our daytime star natch – Is Alpha Centauri a disappointment? 15 mins long.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-03-platypus-fur-strange-feature.html
Friendly Atheist on the hateful bigot who was selected by the Liberal party for the seat of Wright in last night’s South Aussie election Christian candidate REJECTED by Australian party after anti-gay, anti-feminist rants – 20 mins long.
@ ^ Incidentally the latest resulst from the seat where that vile Christanist klown is running here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa/2026/guide/wrig
The ALP will win easly with Boyer on 50% of the vote whilst the Carson-Woodhouse bigot has just 8.5% of the vote – down 23.5% from last election. One Neuron’s candidate is running second on 28%.
Caspian Report yt channel How the Iran War will actually end. (18 mins long.) I guess we’ll see. Hopefully soon as long as it ends less apocalyptically..
Also 18 mins long & on the Trump-Netanyahu-Iran war is this DW news story – Nuclear facility strikes: A new phase of the Iran war?
22 mins long by Extinct Zoo Humans Vs. Neanderthals In The Olympics informatiev and fun mini-doco.
‘Nobody else is responsible’: Trump to blame for Iran crisis, ex-CIA chief says | The Guardian .https://share.google/UfOuDQF5uAdHANgCS
Britain; A Different Bias:
“Trump Threatens Iran Power Plants | 48 Hour Ultimatum”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TeF5j9s0j0g
.
I like to have news delivered with true British sarcasm.
Trump and his border czar say ICE will arrive at airports on Monday
“Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also predicted that airport security lines, which are already longer than usual, will get worse.” [Yep, seems likely. Trump makes everything worse. It’s a pattern.]
Related video at the link.
This no-nonsense judge is working to resolve Trump’s $165 billion tariff mess
“Judge Richard Eaton of the relatively obscure Court of International Trade appears to be holding the administration accountable after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs.”
Related video at the link, featuring a segment of Lawrence O’Donnell’s “Last Word.”
All kinds of good news.
Link
Big Boy No. 4014 tour to start: Where is the massive locomotive stopping?
New York Times link
“Israel Orders Military to Intensify Demolitions in Southern Lebanon”
“Israel Katz, the defense minister, said he ordered troops to destroy more bridges and buildings in southern Lebanon, stoking worries that Israel was widening a military-controlled buffer zone there.”
More at the link.
Trump administration auctions contested Arctic lands for oil drilling
Court battles are still pending.
Map at the link.
New York Times link
THE EDITORIAL BOARD: Trump Is Hiding the Truth About the War in Iran
Comentary for Lenna @66.
Aaron Rupar:
Paul Rosenzweig (Homeland security consultant):
Rando: “And as a practical matter, ICE agents have demonstrated incompetence at ID verification on streets and sidewalks already.”
Eric Columbus (Obama DHS/DoJ): “The second half of this clip suggests that ICE agents probably won’t actually screen travelers/bags but rather will do collateral stuff like ensure no one enters secure areas through exit doors.”
Southpaw: “I’m currently working on the plan we’ll execute tomorrow to introduce our hastily hired and poorly trained fascist shock troops into a job they have no competency for, but don’t worry I found the time to do a couple hours of tv hits about it before I finished it.”
(Hossenfelder alert)
Quantum entanglement easily explained. Also: “This is how faster than light signalling could work”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=B7Pc0LQHu38
Eugenics among early feminists was a feature, not a bug. They were also quick to sell out women of color.
“Untidy Feminist Entanglements” | Los Angeles Review of Books .https://share.google/rLrwMsTExvlkvnzn5
NO KINGS!
“We Need You on March 28”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/s5j1Aevwoek
Returning to the issue of Trump saying he is glad Mueller is dead.
.
By the time Trump dies, USA may have regressed to Soylent Green-level hardships. Which neatly solves the problem of how to respond to his demise.
Judah Grunstein (World Politics Review): “How it started, how it’s going.”
Ron Susskind (NYT) in 2004:
Gold and Politics – March, 19-21: God is a comedian
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-15/cracks-appear-in-runit-dome-amid-sea-level-rise/106423684
@78. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain : isn’t it long overdue that the 25th Amendment was applied given Trump’s glaringly obvious mental incompetence and thus unfitness to serve?
They could – indeed should – really have applied it back in 2017.
Of course that’d put Vance in as POTUS but still..
Expletives but I guess with such a high primary vote (20% – yeesh ppl) for the far reiching racist One Neuron Party it was probly inevitable. Atleats they didn’t win any on the night and may only end up with one or two or three seats..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-22/one-nation-projected-to-win-lower-house-seat-abc-projects/106483382
Ironic (?) that the vile bigot party here is winning an electorate with an Indigenous name.
Happy National Eucalyptus Day everyone!
Source : https://eucalyptaustralia.org.au/national-eucalypt-day/
@ ^ Er, for March 23rd which it is here but not yet in the USoA and much of the rest of the planet that has a far slower time zone than mine.
Alien Super Show
“Trump Forces Mike Johnson to Dox Congressman’s Confidential Medical Information”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/XOtYNWYKcF
A smart republican.
“Trump is FURIOUS…here’s why”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/TEC-XiuMjY0
BTW 2200 marines are a drop in the sea, for that kind of operation he will need many arny divisions.
Is Alpha Centauri a disappointment?
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=xWWs2RBXMOQ
“Accretion safe” only out to 0.5 AU. That is not in the habitable zone.
For my fellow Aussies here altho’willhopefully be on yt later too & sorry for teh short notice.
Summary of tonights FourCorners epVia the usual TV Guide :
https://www.abc.net.au/tv/epg/#/
:
@ 86 birgerjohansson
Danger, Will Robertson! Danger!
@^
“Robinson”. I can’t believed I failed nerd.
Tonight’s 7.30 Report :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-23/one-nation-votes-surge-in-south-australia/106487674
Chrono order here :
& then :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-23/iran-israel-war-live-monday-march-23-2026/106484540
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-says-intelligence-played-no
Satire
Kyle Kulinski Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Prays For God To ‘K*LL James Talarico – a dozen mins long. Xn vs Xn interpretations and visions and ideas and one fucktonne of imnplications for politics and culture now.
Follow-up to comments33, 35, 39 66, and 73.
Link
Link
159 deaths … at least that many, probably more. Some survivors were never found. U.S. forces never adequately (or in a timely manner) searched for survivors.
Follow-up to comments 13, 43 and 48.
Same link as in comment 95
Los Angeles Times link
“More than half a million ballots seized by top GOP candidate in CA governor’s race”
Related video at the link.
Trump is making student loans a bigger, more expensive mess
Iran International – Can Iran’s power grid be knocked out?
Sky Captain @99, Thanks for that information regarding Iran’s power grid.
Sounds like Trump was making threats without fully understanding the situation. I wonder if his team enlightened him, which in turn prompted him to lie about being in talks with Iran so that he could claim to postpone strikes on the power grid.
The only person standing in the way of a compromise on TSA funding is Trump
Reporting from the Wall Street Journal, as summarized by Steve Benen:
EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Confirms 91 Wrongful Deportations of Asylum Seekers
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/nyregion/new-attorney-nj-habba.html
This is really a last minute surrender by the DOJ. The judge responsible for dealing with Alina Habba’s appointment and the issues afterwards put up an order to have Habba and DOJ officials testify in court about what was happening. The DOJ instead folded and compromised with New Jersey prosecutors to find somebody they wanted to appoint that the DOJ would accept.
The most likely reasons for this sudden cave was that Habba continued to have a hand in running the office.
Follow-up to comment 102.
Fox News-Pilled SCOTUS Invents Wild Hypotheticals to Justify Curtailing Right to Vote by Mail
Trump calls airports ‘fertile territory’ for ICE to kidnap immigrants
Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):
Marisa Kabas: “Many asking what’s on that one officer’s butt. I do not have that information at this time. [Photo]”
Rando: “Have there been ANY reports of ICE agents doing actual TSA-related work?”
Marisa Kabas: “Not that I’ve received so far.”
Follow-up to SteveoR @91.
Is Trump lying about Iran to manipulate the markets?
As summarized by Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/mullah-said-thered-be-days-like-this
People Magazine link
Flights resume after 2 dead, dozens injured in Air Canada crash at LaGuardia
“The pilot and co-pilot were killed, and 41 others were injured”
Conservation groups sue to block Trump efforts to ‘hastily gut’ the Kennedy Center
“The suit seeks a court order blocking the shuttering and demolition of parts of the center until the administration’s plans are reviewed, vetted and approved by Congress.”
Referendum defeat brings Italy’s Meloni crashing down to earth
“The opposition senses the prime minister can now be beaten in an election expected next year.”
Referendum defeat brings Italy’s Meloni crashing down to earth
“The opposition senses the prime minister can now be beaten in an election expected next year.”
Russia’s ‘meat assaults’ in Ukraine cost it over 6,000 troops in four days, Kyiv says
“Moscow has increased its attacks to take advantage of the better weather, President Zelenskyy says.”
Follow-up to Sky Captain @35 and @107; whheydt @40; and me @66, @94, @101, and @106.
Link
Wait, Kristi Noem spent how much on makeup and … horses?!
MS NOW reported on the widening conflict/war in the Middle East:
Key Charlie Kirk mentor Jeff Webb dies in freak pickleball accident: ‘A dear friend to Charlie’
Quadruple amputee cornhole champion facing murder charges in fatal shooting
@91 StevoR: I just realized another way Trump has a problem dealing with Iran. The Iranian government and news services are going to reflexively disagree with everything Trump says publicly. It’s their standard practice going back 40+ years. The best way to negotiate with Iran is to say nothing until the deal can be presented to the public by both sides at once as a mutual win. Trump probably can’t curtail his ego and his mouth long enough to do this, he is going to have to gloat about winners and losers along the way. This will cause the Iranian side to contradict him and make the negotiators bristle. This constant conflicting news and changing sea of topics will complicate negotiations, possibly make it impossible if Trump and Hegseth blather too loudly about having destroyed Iran.
Reginald Selkirk @119
The linked article did not explain what cornholing was. Where I come from cornhole means anus and is usually used a verb meaning to penetrate an anus. I am not going to google it.
I am sure that the ICE agents assuming the duties of TSA personnel will have received Special High Intensity Training to prepare them for their new roles.
The Lindsey Graham horror joke at the 24 mins 36 secs markhere – in thelatest Palent America (30 misn total) is pretty morbidly funny and good I reckon..
Repression back-firing is kinda ironic (?) I think albeit horrible too here :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/iran-built-a-vast-camera-network-to-control-dissent-israel-used-it-to-track-targets-ap-sources-say
Why the fuck? Just.. why?
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/company-in-96m-bom-site-redesign-gets-16m-contract/106478264
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-03-24/whale-species-inspired-moby-dick-heatbutting/106487198
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/could-our-universe-exist-because-black-holes-ate-up-all-the-antimatter
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/stars/scientists-find-2-failed-stars-that-may-have-a-second-chance-to-shine-bright-by-getting-together
Militant Agnostic @121: Wikipedia has its own search. Also the article linked to an ESPN video profile of him playing the game.
Wikipedia – Cornhole: “throwing fabric bean bags at an inclined board with a hole in its far end.”
His YouTube channel has video of him firing a pistol, which I’m sure the prosecutor is grateful for.
Probable white supremacist murder south of Edmonton, Alberta
Went for a blood test this morning and saw a pickup truck with a “Remigration Now” bumper sticker in the parking lot at the Cochrane Urgent Care Centre. Alberta is indeed the Texas of Canada.
Sky Captain – given the meaning that I was familiar with, I was not to to click on video :)
Elia Ayoub (Journalist, Lebanese diasporan):
Wikipedia – Mordechai Vanunu
The keen insight a world-class spy agency had to pay multiple expert Freudians to get.
John Cleese has some sharp comments about Donald Trump mocking Robert Mueller after his death.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1U3cqe6GCk/
Crossposted with the No Kings thread
Seth Meyers
“Trump Doesn’t Want ICE Agents Wearing Masks in Airports” [plus various of his most recent lies]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wT1Y3XGfDog
Fetterman’s Poll Numbers Prove His Coalition Has Completely Abandoned Him
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dpH1CMSY6vI
If you do a Kirsten Sinema you will get Kirsten Sinemaed
RACHEL MADDOW: History-making protests anticipated at Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ events to push back on Trump policies
Video is 9:53 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: Trump to pay 1 billion taxpayer dollars to stop wind farms
Video is 3:29 minutes
RACHEL MADDOW: Maddow on Trump’s unbridled chaos: ‘We are having some drama at the moment’
Video is 8:41 minutes
After losing key court case, Hegseth’s Pentagon imposes new limits on journalists
“Last week a federal court rejected Defense Department press restrictions. This week the DOD is moving forward with new limits on journalists anyway.”
Follow-up to comment 105.
After publicly condemning voting by mail as ‘cheating,’ Trump votes by mail
Video at the link.
birgerjohansson @133:
Trump was so awful that Cleese momentarily sounded less so. I’d be wary of the “resistance movement” account that made a meme to circulate his quote.
Eiynah Mohammed-Smith (Polite Conversations):
Mehdi Hasan (Zeteo):
Breitbart – John Cleese warns Britain will cease to exist if Christian values ‘are replaced by Islamic ones’
https://archive.is/YMs01John Cleese: “[Isn’t] the Islamic intention to kill all non-Muslims worth a dog whistle? Or has beheading of Infidels been recently dropped from the islamic agenda?”
And still a transphobe.
Rando:
Not improved since the last time I checked on him.
Everyone that paid (too much) for an iphone for security; you now have a target on your back
https://www.rsn.org/001/iphone-spyware-is-everyones-problem-now.html
Of course, everyone with an android phone has already had a huge dossier with all their personal data compiled on them by G00GLE.
There are good alternatives for those that don’t want to be sheople.
Hegseth claims there is a shortage of Tomahawk misdiles because Biden sent them to Ukraine.
Except…no Tomahawks were sent there under Biden.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/tsa-arrests-ice-agents-after-guns
Satire
The Onion:
“Markets surge after Trump claims he had sex with an angel.”
shermanj @140: I ran LineageOS Android with and w/o Google apps satisfactorily for years. Not used it recently. It continues providing OTA updates to old hardware long after Google/Samsung/etc. The hardware needs to be a little old for the devs to have had time to study it. Installation involved replacing the bootloader and flashing the new OS. There are optional bundles of minimal Google apps, but they made updates a hassle (had to sideload them every time before the updated OS’s first boot).
A similar customized android, GrapheneOS, has long been tauted for privacy, but I know nothing else about it, exclusively Pixel hardware apparently.
If you mean buying entire phones preloaded with an OS, from what little I’ve seen, those are pricey and obscure.
Wikipedia – List of open-source mobile phones
You can do a fair bit of degoogling by using the F-Droid repository (less selection than the Play Store but free and safer). And alternative browsers like Fennec Firefox, with search engine set to DuckDuckGo. For navigation, I like OsmAnd~. Organic Maps looks promising, but I haven’t spent much time with it. Replace whatever you can: the calendar, dialer, contacts, gallery, clock. VLC for media. NewPipe for YouTube (Install via GitHub apk and let the app nag for updates. F-Droid is automatic but delayed). Acode’s a good text editor. Tick all of Google’s myriad privacy settings, and if you must use their web services, don’t be logged in.
Definitely read this. Google has announced plans to restrict what apps can be installed, from anywhere.
https://keepandroidopen.org/
Ukraine says it has ‘irrefutable’ evidence that Russia provided intelligence to Iran
The Hill reported:
Commentary:
Link
Trump administration is going to ban importing foreign made routers. If you’re planning a router upgrade, now is probably better than later…
https://abcnews.com/Business/wireStory/trump-administration-bans-import-new-foreign-made-routers-131360194
It’s not clear if any consumer grade routers are actually manufactured in the US.
(I am fortunate that my household just–as in two days ago–switched from Comcast to Sonic and I bought a new router for that purpose.)
Melania has another pretend job!
Republican push to increase sales taxes would fall hardest on lower-income residents
Cartoon: Airports on ICE
Hell is the George Bush International Airport
Sky Captain @139, thanks for that informative post. Also, implied, always check one’s sources.
This is memorable:
That’s Mehdi Hasan speaking truth.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #148…
There is a company–a UK registered charity (equivalent to a US 501.c(3) educational non-profit)–that has been working to bring computer education to children for the last 14 years. It’s the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
See here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/
NPR – Despite state bans and restrictions, the number of abortions in the U.S. holds steady
whheydt @153, thanks.
In other news, as summarized by Steve Benen from MS NOW sources:
New York Times:
New York Times:
New York Times:
Associated Press:
Steve Benen notes that: “The thing to remember about McDonald is that he’ll be the only prosecutor who reports to the White House, not the attorney general.”
Delta transported a 5-year-old boy detained by ICE to Texas immigration facility, by Rachel Maddow
“What happened to Liam Conejo Ramos and his father is not an isolated incident.”
I find Private Eye is a relatively good source of background news.
40 minute video debating the issues
“Mad King Donald – Private Eye on President Trump’s Peace Talks & Farage’s Crypto (Full Episode)”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=goeCQ8ZM2f4
https://www.wonkette.com/p/rfk-jr-wants-to-give-your-kids-early
“RFK Jr. Wants To Give Your Kids Early Start On Their Melanoma”
The Hill
Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):
NYT – The U.S. said it helped bomb a drug camp. It was a dairy farm.
Evan Bernick (Law prof): “It sure seems as if our government is not only torturing and terrorizing people but helping other authoritarian governments torture and terrorize people. And then sharing the footage as if we’re directly responsible for it, as if we are proud of it.”
Chris Hayes (MSNOW): “Looks like it was a narco trafficking compound in exactly the same way Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist.”
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: ‘Fog of Trumpian war’: Hayes says Trump is flailing to find an off-ramp in Iran
Video is 11:11 minutes
Taniel (Bolts mag):
A brief pause from Orange-related horror.
“How Studio Ghibli films tackle feminism for OLDER women!!”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/ADBjpKZTl8w
This is better than Disney.
From Jimmy Kimmel.
Palm Beach Pete: “I am not Jeffrey Epstein!”
Jimmy Kimmel
Man Boob Of La Mancha
“Trump Declares Victory in Iran War, Votes by Mail & Jimmy Chats with Jeffrey Epstein Lookalike”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DzuA9KqTl2w
I was happy to find a daddy long legs spider living in my bathroom. Unpaid pest control. Thanks dude.
(Americans please don’t bother to lecture me that a daddy long legs is not a spider. Your country is not the world as much as you seem to think it is.
https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/daddy-long-legs-spider/ )
^ ^ ^
Hmm…. I think “Palm Beach Pete” doth protest too much…
Silentbob @ 170
Daddy Longlegs.
Opiliones – Wikipedia .https://share.google/wGcpx2p1MEOQn6P9r
‘Proper’ spiders are order Araneae, but the similarities are so great this is nit-picking. Just enjoy their company.
(I wonder if there is a similar-looking group of true araneae that feeds into the misunderstanding. That would explain a lot).
Here is a useful diagram.
Trump Hits New Levels Of Unpopularity In Public Polling | HuffPost .https://share.google/aWT5O31tgZNSbrmQh
George Monbiot
We’re letting big corporations gamble with our lives. Act now, or the food could run out | The Guardian .https://share.google/K2S7nQRV1LxtU1dzU
Palate cleanser : Mahogany Glider: The fight for survival of the rediscovered and endangered mahogany glider – 5 mins long.
Plus species profile here too :
https://wildlife.org.au/news-resources/educational-resources/species-profiles/mammals/gliders/mahogany-glider/
“It’s go time: historic Moon mission set for lift-off”
Preliminary date April 1st.
.https://phys.org/news/2026-03-historic-moon-mission.html
(I remember as we watched Apollo 8 take off December 1968. I am not all that impressed by the current space program)
BTW compared to the cost for developing two competing launch systems it would be almost a trivial cost to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine. Great for sending payloads to the moon and the planets.
.
-Also, if it was possible to make a reusable nuclear engine module you could use it to bring heavy satellites to geosynchronous orbit.
@172 birgerjohansson
“‘Proper’ spiders are order Araneae, but the similarities are so great this is nit-picking.”
it’s not nit-picking, spiders are more closely related to scorpions and vinegaroons than they are to opiliones…
but silentbob specified he’s talking about a pholcid spider, which are sometimes called ‘daddy long legs’ even here in the US. some folks also use ‘daddy long legs’ to refer to crane flies.
common names are useless
and silentbob shoulda preemptively lashed out at the swedes, not the americans!
^ ^ ^
A pholcid spider !
OK I stand corrected.
Now, on the issue of possums and opossums…
American Reacts to 100 Pop Hits from Sweden (1974-2024).
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WGtquSv29i4
(I cannot take any credit for the cornucopia of music, except possibly through the butterfly effect)
Raw Story: Leak shows ICE ‘bounty hunters’ get kickbacks for handling ‘alien children’: report
Right, because giving cops incentives to arrest people works so well.
And it’s partially political payouts also.
Follow-up to comment 166 from Sky Captain: That is indeed great news out of Florida. Three cheers for the Democratic Party win.
In bad news, as summarized by Steve Benen from an NBC News report:
More election news, as reported by the New York Times:
That support for Josh Turek is, potentially, good news.
Election news from the Nebraska Examiner, as summarized by Steve Benen:
Also potentially good news.
Follow-up to comment 182.
North Carolina’s top Republican lawmaker loses in ‘earthquake’ primary upset
“Phil Berger wasn’t just a legislative leader in North Carolina, he was the GOP’s most powerful figure in state politics for more than a decade. He lost anyway.”
Link
About that rebranding mentioned above: Shameless GOP is taking credit for Democrats’ funding plan
RollCall: In the Senate, Thune resurrects idea of reconciliation
Passing another budget bill this year would be a huge pain and there is no garuntee that it will work. The goal would be to put some of the Save act into the budget reconciliation bill. The Republicans could try and shove a lot of ugly stuff in there or it could just be to a little bit to appease Trump, until there is a bill there is no way to know how toxic it will be.
The rules are arcane to begin with but since the Senators are writing the bill themselves they can write it to try and make it sound like it’s a budgetary matter. So there are always arguments over procedure when there is a really contested issue.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/whoa-sit-down-for-shocking-news-trump
“WHOA SIT DOWN FOR SHOCKING NEWS: Trump Tells Blue States To Go F*ck Themselves After Natural Disasters”
Atlanta Journal Constitution link
“The airport perks for Congress may be drying up, not a minute too soon”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/dhs-contractors-say-corey-lewandowski
“DHS Contractors Say Corey Lewandowski Asked For Big Fat Bribes, Err, We Mean ‘Success Fees'”
“Oh, hold on, he denies it, so everything’s fine.”
Washington Post link
“Meta, YouTube found negligent in landmark social media addiction trial”
“A Los Angeles jury awarded $3 million in compensation to a young woman who alleged she had become addicted to the platforms as a child.”
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Trump’s daily video montage briefing on the Iran war
“The montage, which typically runs for about two minutes, has raised concerns among some of the president’s allies that he may not be receiving the complete picture of the war.”
Duh. Why doesn’t the president of the USA realize that he is not receiving adequate briefings? Is he that stupid? Is he that gullible? Yes.
Trump’s ‘absurdly incoherent’ Iran pleas leave allies befuddled
“European countries have ruled out helping secure the Strait of Hormuz until the conflict is over — but also haven’t received any specific requests for assistance from the U.S.”
Hungary threatens to halt gas supplies to Ukraine
“A complete stop to gas deliveries would significantly hurt Kyiv in its war against Russia.”
Russian shelling of the Friendship pipeline has been repeated over and over again. If anyone repairs the pipeline, Russia will damage it again.
God Awful Movies!
“GAM549 The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins”
A live-action film produced by the Japanese Happy Science cult.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vUDRLelYgUM
“Skepticrat 267 Quantum Foreign Entanglement Edition”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=XC3_ukCWphY
On a lighter note… The skeleton of d’Artagnan may have been found.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/skeleton-dartagnan-three-musketeers-possibly-found-dutch-church/
Link
FFS.
Link
Correction to comment 197. That oval office event was yesterday.
Here is some news from today (Wednesday, March 25):
Link
“What’s in the night sky, March 2026”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HVejK4459RY
One aspect is, the two astronomers are clearly having great fun chatting about the night sky, debunking the claim scientists are dull.
Check out ‘BBC sky at night mag’ at Youtube
Link
Hello. I’ve been too busy to follow either this thread or the wars in Ukraine or elsewhere.
Apparently, in recent days Ukraine has conducted large and somewhat successful drone mass attacks in northwestern Russia. Some of the aerial fighting between Ukrainian drones and Russian air defense drones has been very close to the Finnish, Estonian and Latvian borders, with a few Russian drones straying into Estonia and Latvia. Also here in Finland the air defense was at high level alert last night (Tue-Wed) local time.
Both of the two major Baltic Sea oil ports near St. Petersburg were damaged: Ust-Luga and Primorsk. The latter is the former Finnish town of Koivisto, only about 50 km from the present border. The heavy smoke plume from burning oil refinery in Primorsk was visible from southeastern Finland, despite the wind (conveniently) blowing it toward east. There were also attacks on a shipyard in the town of Vyborg (Viipuri), only 20 km from the border.
Reuters reports that Russia’s oil export capacity has been severely compromised. Slava Ukraini!
https://x.com/Reuters/status/2036828669511868587
Maps plus satellite images of the smoke plume here:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20217313
lumipuna @201 and 202, thanks for the update from the Finnish point of view.
In other news, as reported by MS NOW:
Also from MS NOW:
Also from MS NOW:
From Politico, as summarized by Steve Benen:
It’s not just vaccines: Parents are refusing other routine preventive care for newborns
Jimmy Carter’s early naval career: a reactor disassembly at Chalk River.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Dza3gVTxs/
Somehow, I do not see Donald Trump or J D Vance doing this!
For those who have Facebook, here is a diagram of how China lost – and now reclaimed – the position as the nation with the highest share of manufacturing in the world.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/18XeYbnxdd/
Britain was briefly the grestest manufacturing power, only to lose the position to USA 1890. And now the position has come back to (mainland) China.
The Republic of China aka Taiwan is not represented.
Diagram of the heat wave hitting USA compared to previous years.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17ng3PNpwq/
Afroman:
“BATTERAM HYMN OF THE POLICE WHISTLE BLOWER”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=HM8Ee6pcXvQ
@203 Lynna, OM: When reading press releases from either government here it must be remembered that both lie a lot. In some reports that Iranian government has admitted some conversations but no negotiations. The difference apparently being the conversations are being held second hand with some unknown country passing the information back and forth.
Times of India: US-Iran mediation: JD Vance might visit Pakistan over weekend to talk it out with Iran
Of course none of this can be blindly trusted either. Pakistan would be a sensible intermediary between the US and Iran but the Trump administration officials have been talking up negotiations and the possibility of direct negotiations. Why Vance? Because Iran doesn’t want to talk with Steve Witkoff or Jared Kushner and Rubio doesn’t have any real power in the Trump administration which makes sense also.
JM @209, thanks for that analysis. I heard a report on NBC that also said that Pakistan was the go-between for negotiations with Iran.
In other news: ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES — Addicted by design: Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark ruling
Video is 9:22 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump’s war briefing? A ‘highlight reel’ of war strikes, new report says
Video is 8:02 minutes
Wall Street Journal link
“The World’s Energy Safety Net Is Buckling”
“The Iran war has hit every node in the supply chain for liquefied natural gas.”
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon considers diverting Ukraine military aid to the Middle East”
Wall Street Journal: Beginning on April 26, the U.S. Postal Service will impose an 8% surcharge on packages to cover the rising cost of fuel and transportation.
BBC Newsnight:
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/2036770890222887397
Video at the link.
New York Times: Under threat from Iranian counterattacks, many of the 40,000 American troops based in the Middle East have had to disperse to hotels and office spaces because the 13 U.S. bases in the region are “all but uninhabitable.”
Talking Points Memo link
So, Mike Flynn was pardoned and he was paid $1.2 million!
The Retribution: Letitia James Edition
“So, we are closing in on $30 billion, which is really, when you consider all the things that Trump rejects or the Republicans reject as too costly, the fact that they have now spent $30 billion in effectively the span of a month without even talking to Congress about this expenditure is really somewhat staggering.”—Joe Morell, [U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY)]
Commentary:
Link
More at the link.
‘They tricked me’: Father chained after he went to ICE to reunite with his kids
More at the link.
I’ve said it so many times: social media is TOXIC, a danger to any functioning mind:
https://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/3246.png
That cartoon just says it better
Lynna and commenters, I very much appreciate your keeping us informed. But, all I can conclude from everything posted is that we are accelerating down the Death Spiral with no extant power that can reverse it. Congress is a dead dog. The rest of government is run by murderous magats and doge cockroaches. The main slime media is now owned by tRUMP’s plutocrats and spewing bs. So, I can’t stop hearing Martha and the Vandellas, ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’.
Link
Trump threatens ‘drastic measures’ at wild Cabinet meeting
If there is any way to make things worse, Trump will find it.
Link to Oregon Live
Commentary:
Link
There is an image of the proposed coin at the second link. Man oh man is that coin ugly.
PZ should watch his blood pressure if he reads about this repugnantcant Minn. rep. imbecile:
https://crooksandliars.com/2026/03/minnesota-legislator-climate-change-isnt
Media Matters:
Media Matters link
Commentary:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/kissing-trumps-ass-actually-not-going
MrBeast Bought A Bank App for Teens. Sen. Warren Has Questions.
$500 and a trip abroad: How recruits end up in Russian sabotage training camps
“Court cases in Moldova are lifting the curtain on Russia’s transnational network to recruit, train and deploy spies and saboteurs.”
Elon Musk’s Boring Company picks New Orleans as possible site for underground tunnel loop
Gizmodo – America’s smoking habit just hit a wild milestone that once seemed impossible
Cheryl Rofer: “We can make a better world.”
The Bulwark:
Commentary
Alex Wellerstein (Nuclear historian):
Wikipedia – Green Light teams
Marisa Kabas (The Handbasket):
Rando: “Aren’t those union jobs??”
Tibees about pseudoscience:
“Fibonacci slop is out of control”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LWJzirlCv8I
.
Also, spontaneously I suspect Tibees gets a ton of hate mail from incels, ‘men’s rights’ activists and general MAGA types for daring to be well-infomed, female and – Zod-forbid – good looking (thus being counter to cliches). Anyone who is into debunking crap is a target these days, but some more than others.
.
Btw another thing that makes me grumpy is when people claim water will whirl in opposite directions in your bathtub on different sides of the equator. The effect only manifests at large scales. I just thought I should mention that (gnashes teeth).
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Walz: ‘We will never forget’ as Twin Cities gear up for No Kings rally
Video is 6:26 minutes
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump polling ‘in the toilet’ as his campaign promises crumble, says Hayes
Video is 9:14 minutes.
The Rank Racism of Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon
Bits and pieces of news as posted by TPM (same link as in comment 235):
Senate Republicans Do What They Refused to Do for A Month: Fund TSA
Maybe the Republicans just did not want to stay in Washington D.C. to work on the funding issues. They are leaving for their Easter vacation (two weeks of vacation.)
Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish excerpts online, a report from Reuters.
The Reuters article requires a sign-in or subscription.
Iranian hackers publish emails allegedly stolen from Kash Patel, a report from NBC News.
“Hundreds of emails and photos from what appears to be FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account were published Friday by an Iran-linked hacking group.”
Arctic sea ice hits lowest winter level as unprecedented heat smashes records all over Earth
“The sea ice is crucial to Earth’s climate because without it reflecting sunlight, more heat energy goes into the oceans. Ice of all kinds around the poles acts as Earth’s refrigerator.”
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is a hot mess
CPAC update:
Link
ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE’s Got Even MAGA NY Post Believing .. UKR is Turning the Tide of the War
Follow-up to comment 241.
The Incredible Shrinking CPAC
“Once the center of conservative gravity, CPAC can’t get a single Trump family member to show up.”
There you have it. The good news is that CPAC is “coming apart at the seams.”
46 years after the election of Ronald Reagan, I can finally see this evil cabal coming apart at the seams.
“We’ve Been Misreading Machiavelli for 200 Years” – Ada Palmer
.https://youtube.com/shorts/U0CSpulfsgI
The “popolo” is the extended upper class – ‘the city millionaries’ – set against the Jeff Bezos of the time. Machiavelli wrote it is better to upset the very richest, as they are outnumbered (and can be replaced)
For those that want to escape being captives of the abusive corporate spyware computer world:
Lots of good info from @144 CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain about avoiding phone spyware. Also, distrowatch has info on non-spyware phones.
@158 whheydt wrote about the raspberrypi foundation. FYI Raspberry pi (a not for profit public interest corporation and source of computer education) has lots of very capable computers for sale at very low prices. their 400 is a full computer in a keyboard. If you buy a full kit, even those with very little technical prowess can set them up and use them. They run linux based operating systems with almost any program you can imagine available.
@239 Lynna, OM posted about how ‘Arctic sea ice hits lowest winter level as unprecedented heat smashes records all over Earth’
I reply: Thanks, Lynna. But, the magat plutocrat owned mainslime media would choke to death trying to seriously talk about ‘climate change’. It’s just part of the ‘dumbing-down’ of this failing society.
Re: shermanj @ #246…
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is the not-for-profit and is hardware and software agnostic. Raspberry Pi Trading, Ltd. is a for profit R&D and manufacturing company that was initially a wholly owned subsidiary of the Foundation, but which has been partially sold off and is publicly traded.
To add to the hardware list, the top of the line computer-in-a-keyboard is the Pi-500+, which comes with an internal nVME SSD, 16GB DRAM, and a mechanical switch keyboard (and a quite good one, in my opinion, as I own one) with optional controllable backlighting (the default is for backlighting to be off, with a couple of special exceptions like Caps Lock and power status). The Pi-500+ comes with the tools needed to open the case or pull keycaps. I did open the case on mine in order to install a backup battery for the built-in Real Time Clock, but one could also swap out the 256GB SSD for something larger, should you need it. (Linux is–generally speaking–much of a resource hog that your more common commercial OSes.)
Unfortunately, the higher end models of Pis have been hit hard by the dramatic rise on DRAM prices over the last several months. They’re still relatively low cost and certainly suitable for–probably–90+% of what people do with computers. (That is to say that if you’re doing either AAA games or video editing, a Pi is not likely to meet your needs. If, however, you’re doing web browsing, e-mail, or writing, a Pi will handle it all with ease.)
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mhxy6n2uwb2x
Video at the link.
Follow-up to comment 37.
New York Times link
“House Rejects D.H.S. Funding as White House Orders Pay for T.S.A. Workers”
“House Republicans revolt over bill to reopen D.H.S.”
Stanzipotenza:
“Zombie apocalypse as a woman”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/uF94mWR7m90
Russian stuff blowing up: Putin asks oligarchs to help fund the war
Israel and USA not on the same page when it comes to bombing Iran?
Iran says Israeli strikes violated Trump’s deadline; pledges to ‘exact heavy price’
Did Trump “coordinate” with Israel by telling them to continue bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure, all while leaving Trump in a position of deniability for the bombing? I can’t tell who is lying. I can tell that in fact some of Iran’s energy infrastructure was bombed.
FDA reports more severe E. coli illnesses linked to raw cheese from a California farm
“Most of the cases are children. Three people have been hospitalized, including one with kidney damage. The company is resisting a recall.”
Just fucking horrific WARNING – trorture, child phsyical abuse refs
Via TYT IDF Allegedly Tortured TODDLER For 10 hours
Doubt Rubio’s word and prediction here very much but FWIW :
Oh &
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-28/iran-war-us-pushes-allies-on-postwar-coalition-strait-of-hormuz/106506278
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/3/25/what-it-would-take-to-end-the-iran-war
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: Trump wouldn’t ‘want to stand next to a Black female officer,’ Army chief was told: NYT
Video is 9:43 minutes
Republicans Lose Big in Attempt to Gerrymander Utah for Trump
‘No Kings’: Sweeping Umbrella for Resistance
Link
Link
Map and an image at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/happy-f-you-donald-trump-day-to-all
Happy F You Donald Trump Day To All Who Celebrate!
No Kings Today, No Kings 4Eva.
Map at the link.
Washington Post link
“As Iran war drags on, food and medicine for millions is stuck in limbo”
More at the link, including photos and a map.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hegseth-big-oil-jump-out-of
“Pete Hegseth, Big Oil Jump Out Of Nowhere And Just Start Running Ships Over Endangered Whales”
Washington Post link
“Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen launch attack on Israel for first time in war”
“The missile attack by the Houthis in Yemen marks an escalation of the war in the Middle East and may pose further risks to shipping in the region.”
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Kash Patel’s push against Democratic lawmaker raises concerns within FBI
“The FBI director seeks to post documents on Rep. Eric Swalwell despite no public evidence of wrongdoing, officials said.”
New York Times link,/a.
Russia took satellite images of U.S. airbase in days before Iranian attack, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says
New Yorker link
“What Happens When a Whale Is Born?,” by Elizabeth Kolbert
Minnesota Star Tribune link
“Live: Watch the flagship ‘No Kings’ rally at the State Capitol”
Requires subscription to view.
—
CNN link
“‘No Kings’ protests: Large crowds attend nationwide rallies against the Trump administration”
Good source that does not require a subscription. At the main link, there are many embedded links leading to additional sources.
A video featuring Bruce Springsteen is also available.
But in fact it’s the head of the American oligarchy, Trump, who has come to Putin’s aid.
The cost of war (both in absolute numbers, and in percentage of world population)
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B2f55zpGi/
Iran Used 1960s Radar to Down a $350M Stealth Jet — The Flaw Was There From Day One.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlEzKA4_Zr4
Long-wavelength radar effectively linked to targeting systems
A musical intermission with a very underrated artist.
Agnes – EGO
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8lRxnrJBuQ4
Special counsel Jack Smith suspected Trump kept docs for financial gain — but sources point to another motive
Trump thought the leather-bound covers of classified briefings were “cool,” according to sources.
Meidas Touch:
Trump gets Rude Awakening by Size Of NO KINGS PROTEST!!!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=FzKWRLoF4yk
》8 million, possibly 9-10 million.
Link
Anticipated Fox News reply: ‘Ten million illegal aliens paid to participate in Hate America protest.’
Also ‘Biden totally caused Iran war’.
Britain discovers more racists and nazis.
“Reform UK’s Candidate Scandal Exposes a Bigger Problem”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1m5ZBT1bD4k
@276 Lynna, OM:
This was widely conjectured when the issue was made public. For a small minded narsiccist like Trump the worst thing about leaving the White House was the loss of automatic status that went with being president. He may have held onto some because he could get some financial gain from them but a bunch were likely just that holding on to some symbols of being president made him feel better and important.
It’s also been rumored (but not formally investigated) that some other stuff disappeared. Some stuff gifted to Trump while president that belonged to the presidential collection also vanished. Some trivial desk fixtures from the Oval Office made it to Mar a Lago and never returned.
Two cross-border drones crash in Finland
See also lumipuna’s comment #201.
Iran threatens US campuses in Middle East
The Daily Beast discusses how on Earth Trump managed to get this far. It is pretty interesting. (And I love the pronounciation by the lady)
“Why Even Trump Insiders Admit He’s ‘An Idiot’ | Inside Trump’s Head”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=e86jT8Wc8Rg
The ideas here would also be relevant for the rise of Boris Johnson. Unlike Trump he has decent social skills and can project charm, if he needs to.
Republicans cheer Trump’s idiotic ICE gambit at airports
Are these Republicans in some kind of contest to match Trump’s number of lies-per-day?
U.S. to Allow Russian Oil Tanker to Reach Cuba, Breaking Blockade
“The tanker full of crude oil could reach its expected destination by Tuesday, providing a lifeline to the island amid intense U.S. pressure.”
New York Times link
“There Are Now Over 50,000 American Troops in the Mideast’
“The arrival of 2,500 Marines and another 2,500 sailors is keeping the number of American troops in the region at roughly 10,000 more than usual.”
re Lynna @285:
They are just following his lead on spouting “Sir” stories.
Of all people & pollies tocriticise Trump’s needless illegal war on Iran ..
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/australian-fears-about-iran-war-and-fuel-shortages/106508802
@ ^ From same article :
Yes, yes it should & the ALP should start being much more outspokena nd critical against Trump and his latest war in my view.
Plus :
Well, this is odd and intresting – as long as the trend doesn’t get worse with ever bigger rocks..
Source : https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/something-is-happening-around-earth-inside-2026s-massive-fireball-surge/
Re: SteveR @ #291…
So long as the cause isn’t related to the plot of a novella my wife wrote (but which never sold). In that work is was extremely xenophobic aliens altering orbits to chuck large rocks/small asteroids at Earth.
A Different Bias:
“Iran Calls Shots for Investors Now, Not Trump”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=uQzlLkyDWzs
Mediaite: Sharpie Rebuts Trump’s Account of Phone Call With Company: ‘We Don’t Have Any Information About the Conversation’
Everybody is denying having conversations with Trump, not just Iran.
Trump gives Russia yet another pass, says it’s ‘fine’ for Putin to break Cuba oil blockade
This Weekend’s No Kings Rallies Were Historically Massive
“Organizers said eight million people turned out to protest the Trump administration.”
Judge dismisses DOJ lawsuit challenging in-state tuition for undocumented students in Minnesota
Lynna at 282 – Thanks for noting the incident. Here’s some additional details I’ve gathered from Finnish news today.
The two drones both crashed in forest near the town of Kouvola on Sunday morning, after flying nearly 100 km within Finnish airspace. At least one of them was followed by the aforementioned Finnish fighter jets, but not shot down due to reasons I’ll discuss below.
One of the drones is thought (after witnesses and independent experts interviewed by the media) to have exploded upon impact. This hasn’t yet been confirmed by the police, who have closed the area off for investigation. The other drone was confirmed to be Ukrainian, and then detonated by the police on Sunday evening. Both are generally presumed to have been Ukrainian, the same model (nearly the size of the smallest manned airplanes) and carrying enough TNT to fully destroy a house if they hit one. It’s thought likely they strayed into Finland due to defensive radio jamming by Russians. Reportedly, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure near the Gulf of Finland continue day after day.
The Ukrainian embassy in Finland today posted an apology – not that anyone here really blames Ukraine for the incident. Reportedly, later forensic examination of the drones will be done jointly by Finland and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has mentioned that “some” foreign partners have asked Ukraine to spare Russian oil for now, possibly (my own guess) because the world is already facing an energy crisis for other reasons. This messaging doesn’t seem to be coming from Finland or the Baltic countries. Just last week, the Latvian PM expressed strong support for Ukraine after being asked about the drone incident in Latvia. Also meanwhile, as Russia rakes in money from sky-high oil prices, various US-aligned Middle Eastern countries are reportedly seeking Ukraine’s collaboration as they scramble to develop their defenses against Iranian drones the US can’t fend off.
Defense against drones like this is tricky. The ones in Finland were not shot down, reportedly, because it’d require expensive missiles, there would be risk of collateral damage and the drones were presumed to be friendly (as in not specifically targeted to anything in Finland, and highly unlikely to hit something valuable by sheer accident). We just have to accept some risk while living here, as long as Ukraine has to fight for its survival. Some of the current uneasiness here in Finland is because Russia could use their own anti-drone drones to test Nato air defense, and it could be framed as an accident. It wouldn’t be easy to tell immediately if the stray drones are even Ukrainian or Russian. And as noted, a mass drone attack would be very difficult to fend off, though European Nato countries are trying to develop capabilities for this.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/just-67000-us-troops-in-iran-hanging
“Just 67,000 US Troops In Iran […]”
“Anybody smell boots on the ground?”
lumipuna @398, thank you for that update. Lots of revealing details.
I’m troubled by the enormity of the situation. This part of your comments stuck with me:
Correction to comment 300. I meant to refer to lumipuna’s comment 298.
In other news; https://www.wonkette.com/p/call-your-girlfriend-tabs-mon-march
Lots of video and photos at that link, including an image from Boston that memorialized the 165 Iranian schoolgirls that Trump and Hegseth killed on February 28, 2026.
There’s a great photo from Utqiagvik (Barrow) Alaska. More video and images from both the USA, and from international protests …